#(mostly for implications of the bottom image)

[logicpng]

unfairrrrrrrr

[staybabblingbaby]

Soulmate Garden AU (Prologue) a2 d4

[Caution: These are not full fics, or even full parts of fics for some, these are part of my writing progress archive!]

Concept: Growing up, you knew Soulmates weren't all that they cracked up to be. So when, on your 18th birthday, your skin is painted with a garden of flower buds, you resolve to hide it from everyone. Who had ever heard of someone with 8 soulmates, anyway?

Or; Reader has 8 soulmates and no issue avoiding all of them. It's up to SKZ to show her that while every soulbond might not be made of fairy tales, theirs certainly could be.

Word Count: 1,308

Notes: I don't like this. It's not. Bad. It's decent writing. I just don't like doing world building this way. But I'm flying by the seat of my pants and everybody need to know the base information before we're all lost as hell. Also! Prologue + Ch 1 are the longest single piece of writing I've ever done. SG lives in my brain rent free. These are also the most polished pieces on the archive, because I have a tendency to reread smthn to get back into writing it after I put it down, and these are long so they got put down a BUNCH. So. Enjoy?

Dividers by @saradika

Warnings: Fighting Parents, She/Her Reader

Leave me comments or questions or anything! Love hearing from folks <3

Masterlist <3 | Next Part

On your 18th birthday, you wake with a garden wrapped around your torso.

You analyze the unbroken ring of vivid greenery in the mirror, tracing the lengths of stems and branches with your eyes. They wind lovingly around your curves, looping all the way up your ribcage and sloping back down around your sides. It takes some maneuvering, a handheld mirror, and your phone’s camera to get a good look at your back, but your soulmark continues in the same manner all the way around.

Perhaps even worse on your back, you think, as you eye one tree that rises all the way up your spine, stopping just below the nape of your neck. The branches spread out in long, willowy tendrils along your shoulders, pale and droopy frond-like buds dripping down the expanse of your back.

You count eight types of flower bud in your explorations, noting that they’re the only things really in focus on your mark, despite the image being connected through all sorts of greenery. The implications of that make your jaw clench, and you turn around to hastily pull on a long t-shirt with shaking hands.

You study yourself in the mirror again after, lifting the bottom of your shirt to various degrees at different spots. You eventually make your choice and nod to yourself. You continue your morning routine as usual with the addition of a rapid heartbeat and unsteady breathing.

When you emerge from your room, mostly ready for the day, you’re met with the expectant gazes of your family.

Feeling sort of nauseous and like you’d rather refuse entirely, you shyly lift the part of your shirt you’d rehearsed earlier. You reveal a part of your mark on your right side. Just a small section of green, almost bush-like, from your hip to just above your waist. It trials off underneath your shirt, but not in a way where you’d think there was anything but more bushy green.

Your family celebrates for you. Your mom hugs you tightly, your father crows about how his baby girl deserved all that and more, and your sister shakes your shoulder with excited glee. They’re so proud of you for having such a large and vivid soulmark, your parents happily bragging about the small but colorful ouroboros on each of their thumbs and how they just knew their kids would be just like them.

You exchange a look with your sister when your parents somehow start an argument in the middle of their cheers for you. About something they had been enthusiastically agreeing upon moments prior, no less.

You push your sister out to your car with promises of breakfast fast food, the inevitable daily screaming match already beginning as she steps out the door. You follow her once you've left a note by your mom’s purse and take your usual food money allowance from her wallet. She wouldn’t notice until well after she’d stormed out of the house again, you knew.

Your soulmark celebrations are halted there, since you decline to show anyone at school your fresh mark. After all, while your family had just seen a bush with little droopy purple and fuzzy white flower buds, what you’d shown them was two very separate flowers on a backdrop of green.

The thing was, it wasn’t like you hated your soulmark. That’s not why you hid it, why it caused you so much anxiety. You adored your soulmark, in fact. As the years go by, there are many nights you spend feeling cradled by the comfort of being so ensconced in love that evidence of it literally always surrounded you.

Nights when tear tracks stained your face, and you could almost feel the tree branches on your back warm as if holding you.

Nights where everything seems pointless, interrupted by tall stems seeming to tickle just beneath your breast, a sound like twinkling laughter ringing in your ears.

Nights when the yelling in your house reaches a crescendo and you spiral into panic, wondering if tonight was the night someone went too far, brought out of the oceanic tides of fear only by counting little white buds across your tummy.

So yes. You love your mark. It’s just that you had no intention of ever sharing it with the world, and even less intention of seeking out the eight individuals behind those precious symbols of love.

See, you knew a thing or two about soulmates. You spent quite a while researching them when you were younger, trying to find a reason why soulmates like your parents could fight so viciously.

Turns out, while ‘love’ was the common interpretation of soulmates, all they really were was ‘destined’.

You can see this truth in action in your parents nearly every day. Always yelling, always fighting, always resentful. And yet, neither of them ever thinks to leave. It’s almost like they’re connected by the world’s strongest rubber band, constantly springing back together no matter how hard they pull apart from each other.

But even rubber bands can snap, and you don’t really want to be around when this one does.

Your parents had married, you know from your mom’s drunken ramblings one evening when you were twelve, because their families had expected them to. Their friends had expected them to. Even their coworkers had expected them to. After all, they were soulmates, and with such vivid marks at that! Surely they’d fall deeply in love, have a million babies, and live happily ever after.

You wish the reality had been that kind.

In your opinion, your parent’s ‘destined’ relationship with each other was one of enemies. Enemies with benefits maybe, but definitely not people who should live under one roof and raise children together.

But the public theory is that the bigger and brighter the mark, the bigger and deeper the love. And so your parents got married, and you were born. Lovely, really.

A research rabbit hole when you were fifteen had informed you that not only was this public theory not fact, but that it was entirely unprovable. Given that every normal relationship was different, it was only a given that every soulmate relationship would be different too. The most science could prove was that more vivid marks tended towards more intense feelings.

So yeah, no matter how much you loved your marks, you weren’t going to trust the relationship it promised you. You considered yourself the type to learn by example.

Besides your unwillingness to seek out your soulmates, your situation was also just plain weird. It wasn’t like clusters of soulmates were unheard of, rare as they may be. It was just that they were usually threesomes or foursomes, the largest on record being a whopping six person soul-cluster from South Africa. And you may be bad at math, but you’re fairly sure that having eight marks meant you were part of a nine person cluster.

You didn’t really want to be the latest study on the limits of soulmate bonds. So, you turned to what you knew, and started hiding.

Your closet filled with long camisoles of every color and pattern imaginable, and your sock drawer was quickly loaded with waterproof privacy wraps and rolls upon rolls of concealment tape matched to your skin tone. No one questions you, simply figuring you private with your marks.

It gets to the point where you wear your flimsy shields around the house, too. The only time you really get to see your marks is late at night when you’re drifting off to sleep, and early in the mornings when you’re getting dressed.

You live your life like this, flinching when your parents fight, barely acknowledging your soul marks, and pretending that everything is just fine to your little sister.

And then, freshly graduated and twenty-two, you move clear across the country. 

Perma Tag List: @mbioooo0000

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

To follow up on my Hosanna poll, I think before things go any further, it'd be good to actually explain and define it. I was initially going to wait until the end of the poll, but it seems that google is giving people a lot of bad and/or conflicting answers and I'd rather people walk away with the correct information.

So! Hosanna is an anglicized version of the Hebrew words "hosha na" [הושע נא or as a contraction הושענא]. Hosha na is a little enigmatic and hard to translate, but the simplest translation is probably "save us, please." It's traditionally used as an exclamation to G-d to rescue us, but it also has shades of being a triumphant shout (the implication being confidence that G-d will save us.)

Jews say "hoshanot" (the plural of hosha na) as part of our traditional Sukkot liturgy, and is something we do still today.

For us, the multi-faceted meaning of the root word allows us to have multiple layers of meaning. During Sukkot, we start praying for rain in its proper season and amounts, and we shake the lulav and etrog as part of these processions and liturgy. On Hoshana Rabba [the "great hoshana"], the last day of Sukkot, we process around the bimah (front lectern) seven times as a completion of our season of repentance and our starting of the new year with abundant blessings.

My siddur (prayer book) Lev Shalem has this as an explanation and translation:

[Image ID is of the Lev Shalem siddur, pages 382 & 383 - I tried hard to find a pdf of this that would be readable using a screen reader, but the versions I'm finding cut off at pg. 376 at the latest. If anyone has bandwidth to type this up, I would greatly appreciate it]

For the curious, here is a recording of the Hoshanot liturgy and procession:

Christians mostly know the word from the gospels and hymns.

Here is what Wikipedia says about its use in Christianity:

Historical meaning

Since those welcoming Jesus were Jewish, as of course Jesus himself was, some would interpret the cry of "Hosanna" on the entry of Jesus in its proper meaning, as a cry by the people for salvation and rescue.

Christian reinterpretation

"Hosanna" many interpret as a shout of praise or adoration made in recognition of the messiahship of Jesus on his entry into Jerusalem

It is applied in numerous verses of the New Testament, including "Hosanna! blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lᴏʀᴅ!" (Matthew 21:9,15; Mark 11:9–10; John 12:13), which forms part of the Sanctus prayer; "hosanna in the highest" (Mark 11.10); and "hosanna to the Son of David" (Matt 21:9). These quotations, however, are of words in the Jewish Psalm 118. Although not used in the book of Luke, the testimony of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is recorded in Luke 19.

In church music

The "Hosanna Anthem", based on the phrase Hosanna, is a traditional Moravian Church anthem written by Bishop Christian Gregor of Herrnhut sung on Palm Sunday and the first Sunday of Advent. It is antiphonal, i.e. a call-and-response song; traditionally, it is sung between the children and adult congregation, though it is not unheard of for it to be done in other ways, such as between choir and congregation, or played between trombone choirs.

The bottom line:

Jews and Christians have different connections, associations, and meanings attached to this word as expressions of our different theologies and texts. The word is derived from a Hebrew word and was created by Jews and is still used by us today. (Like literally today - we are currently in the middle of the Sukkot festival.) Christians changed the meaning to fit within their own context, and pronunciation of the word evolved with linguistic drift over time. In the same way that there's not a reason to pitch a fit over saying Jesus rather than Yeshua, there's no compelling reason to change hosanna back to hosha na; if anything, the distinction helps make it clear that it's effectively a different word and concept from ours.

On the other hand, I do think Christians ought to know the original meaning of the word if they're going to use it. To only ever know their version when it was derived from ours is yet another small way of playing into supercessionism by erasing and replacing the Jewish context of things that were originated in Judaism that Christians have embedded in Christianity. While the Christians of today cannot unwind the supercessionism of Christian history, they *can* choose to understand their present Christianity in ways that do not play into supercessionism and that respect the Jewish community of today.

I hope this was helpful and gives folks a new perspective on an obscure Hebrew word!

[dcdreamblog]

i gotta ask, what's the deal with the Hawks. and if they reincarnate, how are the JSA Hawks and the modern Hawks alive at the same time. how does the current Hawkgirl fit in.

I'm going to direct you to looking back through the Hawk related tag on my blog because I have answered this question before, multiple times in fact.

In short, the OLD Golden Age Hawks do, indeed, reincarnate whenever they die. The Golden Age Hawkman is still alive but the Golden Age Hawkgirl has passed away and as far as we know is mostly likely reincarnated into the current, younger Hawkgirl.

The more "modern" Hawks, those who appeared around the foundation of the Justice League are aliens from the planet Thanagar who were stranded on Earth and took up superhero identities afterwards only to become more loyal to Earth than their home planet after Thanagar was a member of the alien invasion fleet lead by the Dominators. That duo's Hawkgirl changed her name to HawkWOMAN because she did not appreciate the implications of the word "Girl" in English (evidently Thanagarian doesn't have different gendered words for children).

The easiest way to tell them apart is the Golden Age Hawks wear their wings on a harness and the Silver Age Hawks have avian wings naturally growing out of their shoulder blades.

Now, I don't reject repeat asks so I'm going to find a new way to attack this.

Namely, answer the question of WHY, if the two groups of Hawks are so unrelated DO they look so confusingly similar. This is why.

(A chamber discovered beneath the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu and Queen Chayra which houses the crashed Thanagarian ship)

A ship carrying at least two Thanagarian agents crashed in the Arabian desert under the dominion of Pharaoh Khufu and Queen Chayara of the Egyptian Old Kingdom's 4th Dynasty. Brought to the Egyptian capital at Memphis the ship was poured over from top to bottom in the unstoppable spirit of human curiosity though most of the technology within was obviously FAR beyond the Egyptians.

No, they didn't use Thanagarian technology to build the pyramids at Giza, that was done with regular old manpower. The best the Egyptians were able to do was melt down and reforge some of the Nth Metal that made up the ship's hull but during that time it was a MASSIVE advantage in the equality of their spears, axes and shields allowing Khufu's empire to extend to the most sprawling heights of Egyptian history up to that point.

The "Hawks" seen on the ship's wings became a symbol of Khufu's empire as the ship became an auspicious sign from the Gods blessing his reign and state with the power of unequaled conquest and prosperity during his life.

In reality these "Hawks" are obviously not the Earth born bird but a species of raptor-like avian that is the symbol of Thanagar's "Wingmen" a highly ranked corps of Thanagarian military and law enforcement. The Wingmen are so prominent and associated with Thanagar in the wider galactic community that the black headed "Hawk" symbol has become a byword for Thanagarian culture as a whole. So when Khufu and Chayara were assassinated and cursed with mystical reincarnation the 'Hawk' that had become a symbol of their reign followed them through time while that same symbol was still carried by the Wingmen of Thanagar when two of them again crash landed on Earth in the modern day.

To take a roundabout back to my point, both sets of Hawks take their symbolism from an image associated with the lawmen of the planet Thanagar, the Golden Age Hawks because it was appropriated by their Egyptian originators and the Silver Age Hawks because it is a native symbol of their home world.

[yeah-ephi]

I've been making a little google-doc analysing the links between songs on Clancy and their music videos and one thing I've picked up on is the use of flowers, specifically yellow ones, in different music videos since Trench. As an ex film student as well as a trainee florist, I'm very interested by what different flowers can represent when used in visual media.

°❀.ೃ࿔* First: Let’s take a look at Jumpsuit.

The flowers in this video are Gerberas, known for their rich colours and distinctive shape. Like sunflowers, Gerberas are known to turn towards the sun's light. They can represent a closeness to nature, as well as innocence and stress-reduction. Yellow ones specifically can be seen to represent friendship.

In relation to the Jumpsuit video, they are seen growing on the bottom of the valley Tyler/Clancy wanders through after Nico catches up with him. Much like how gerberas turn towards the light, the bright yellow is enough to break his dazed state to gaze back at the Banditos lining the cliff's edge. Obviously, we know that lorewise yellow has a protective quality against the Bishops, so it makes sense how these flowers were able to help him break free from Nico's control.

Additionally, their connection to innocence could be linked to Clancy's wonder at encountering the Banditos for the first time, and his realisation that the group he'd only ever heard rumours of were in fact real. This can also be relevant to the specific meaning behind yellow gerberas, and their links to friendship and optimism, given how the relationship between Clancy, Torchbearer and the rest of the Banditos develops, and the hope the group represents.

We see the flowers once more in the music video for Nico and the Niners, this time wilted and hidden away in a draw. They bring colour to the otherwise grey and dull rooms of the city, as well as representing the thread of hope Clancy clings to that he might finally escape for good this time.

°❀.ೃ࿔* Now: Routines in the Night

The flowers in this video are a type of Chrysanthemum, seen both on a desk behind Tyler and on his bedside table. Chrysanths are an interesting flower, as they hold many different meanings from culture to culture. The yellow chrysanthemum is the one deemed the 'traditional' form of the flower, with the name deriving from the greek 'chrysos' meaning gold, and 'anthemon' meaning flower. A lot of eastern cultures link them to luck and royalty, whereas in the west they can carry more of a solemn association of mourning and sorrow, given their commonplace in funeral arrangements. They do, however, still carry an association with optimism in certain areas.

In this video, the choice to include yellow chrystanths is still linked to the Banditos, especially given the inclusion of the bishop cloaks in the closet in the following chorus. The flowers are there to offer Tyler protection from the thoughts and insecurities plaguing his mind as he tries to sleep. Again, they hold a strong connotation of friendship in the US, very different from the sympathetic implications throughout a lot of Europe.

It's also interesting to note that the room they are found in is lit in blue, as opposed to the mostly red lighting throughout the rest of the video. We know that within the lore, blue is a colour symbolising defeat (in reference to that one blurryface tweet about wearing blue on stage), so with the flower’s associations they could represent either sorrow at impending defeat, or a thread of hope to keep pushing on.

°❀.ೃ࿔* Finally: Navigating.

It's a little harder to make out which flowers these are, but given the image of a cup-like flower with flat petals at the base and a bent stem, I believe these to be some kind of Wild Daffodil (or as it is also known, a Narcissus). For such a beautiful and common flower, they tend to hold quite a dark symbolism. This is in part due to the link between their alternative name 'Narcissus' and the character of the same name in Greek mythology doomed to fall in love with his own reflection, but also due to their commonplace as a graveyard flower during the Victorian period. They are commonly referenced in literature, such as in William Wordsworth's 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' poem.

I think the negative connotations of hubris and death apply to its appearance in this video, which serves as a direct parallel to the gerberas in Jumpsuit. Again, Clancy is being guided by the Banditos, but unlike before, he doesn't spare a glance to the hardy yellow flowers growing from the ground. We know that he has begun to become absorbed by his power to seize ("the crown his heavy but I can carry it" "I will be their example of absolute power, I feel alive again"), and if he does indeed fall down the Bishop path (which I'm not entirely sold on being the end of the story) it would indeed be in line with what the daffodil represents symbolically.

Alternatively, they are also one of the first signs of spring, a season that represents fresh starts and hope. Their bulbs survive through cold winters ready to rise once the sun thaws the winter frosts. They are resilient flowers, much like how Clancy persists despite finding himself captured and back in Dema again and again. Despite all their negative implications, hope is still at the core meaning of this flower; and the same can be said for Clancy.

A huge thanks to anyone who read all of that, I really enjoy analysing the visual elements of these videos as a lot of thought goes into how it reinforces the message of the individual song or overall story. I know this was a long one, but there's truly so many different meanings you can pull from even just one singular flower.

If the rumours that one of the tracks on Breach being named ‘Flowers’ is true, they did that specifically with me in mind. And you bet I’ll be analysing that as well.

I'm also well aware that at least 2 of these examples are naturally growing flowers in the filming locations, but I do believe the active choice to include them as a focal point holds some type of meaning.

Thanks again for reading, I'm sure i'll find something else to ramble over soon as I keep on analysing stuff.

:)

[thempregsimmer]

As the male pregnancy "epidemic" spreads across the world, more and more gay couples decide to embrace their fertility and start families of their own.

In Poland specifically, we have seen a great success of the Warsaw's paternity clinic, attracting men from across the country, as well as neighbouring countries, to enjoy the prenatal care brought by gay men for gay men.

The three couples in the pictures decided to embark on a new, exciting journey together.

Katowice, capital of the second biggest metropolitan area in Poland, became the second one to have its own prenatal care facility created specifically for pregnant men and their needs.

The founders of this exciting project were happy to have their pictures taken (not once, but twice! - at the opening day of the project, and two months from the opening date)

Photo #1

First, let us meet the head of operations - prof. Karol Łukaszewski (43) and his husband Wiktor (24). The idea to open the Institute of Paternity came to his head soon after the news of Wiktor's pregnancy. When they went to their first doctor's appointment to confirm the pregnancy, they noticed the need for care focused on the needs of the growing population of pregnant men. The overcrowded waiting rooms in both public hospitals and private clinics, crowded with pregnant men and women fighting for a spot for an appointment, the reluctance of mostly female employees of this branch of medicine to assist pregnant men, stigma and shame towards them due to implications of homosexual activity (it's important to mention the mediane of those workers' age is around 45), as well as lack of knowledge of male-specific implications of pregnancy, and unique challenges were some of the most important factors.

Prof. Łukaszewski first started treating patients from an office in their flat, and soon after gathered resources and crew needed to start a real-life private hospital. Soon after, a contract with the Polish Social Security Fund (NFZ) followed, and the hospital became the spitting image of its Warsovian predecessor.

In the picture, prof. Łukaszewski is getting ready for his first day as the head of the newly opened, fully operational, most technologically advanced hospital focused on paternity and prenatal care for pregnant men. His husband Wiktor, 5 months along with their son at that time, is helping him with the tie he has chosen for his husband for the first day on the job. Wiktor used to be a student of the yung professor at the Silesian School of Medicine. A year after they met, they tied the knot, and soon after, Wiktor noticed some unusual changes within his body - he conceived their first son.

At this point, Wiktor's belly is growing low and outwards - his womb has not yet taken up all the space from the pubic bone to the bottom of his ribs, but the weight of the baby has already pushed his stomach outwards.

Photo #2

Two months later, Wiktor's belly was not the only thing growing rapidly. The number of patients nearly doubled in a month's time. It is estimated that in 2024, in this metropolitan area alone, 10 thousand men will either give birth or get pregnant. There is a lot of work to do, but professor has one pregnancy on his mind constantly - his beloved husband Wiktor is now 7 months along. His belly has grown into a full, round one, from now on he will only be growing outwards, as the growing womb has already filled out all the space left in the whole abdominal cavity, and is reaching high up to the ribs of the pregnant man.

Wiktor and his unborn son are receiving the best possible care, with bi-weekly ultrasounds ensuring the baby is developing correctly. Every inch his belly grows needs to be thoroughly documented for scientific purposes - his pregnancy will be studied during his next semester of medical school!

[flapmemelord]

THANK you @onelastskip for that suggestion.............. might be a little late but.... here's why I think ESFP fits Elio to a T (and I can't wait to see how his shortcomings get explored especially in regards to functions...) (it delves with a few hcs, but addresses spring semester and stuff adressed in blank-house asks)

SO !!! ESFP (Se-Fi-Te-Ni) Elio right? Dominant Se makes a lot of sense for Elio. Se is all about getting sensory enjoyment out of life. He likes expressing himself through his physicality (and is good at it), sports in part but not only. He's known for participating in more than a few events thrown by the SGB (to the point of having a nickname because of his infamous way of filling out forms / to the point deja said the wall climbing event was for him). Elio is very open to new situations and quick to say yes if invited, an on-the-whim kind of guy and liking it that way. He can come off as a showoff (cue him destroying everyone in bar holding spring festival game and/or challenging high confidence mcs) superficial ("I didn't know people could argue so much about a prize" / he feels like he has to justify himself and tells Deja he has layers when confronted about his music tastes) or comes off as childish (quick to guilttrip if he likes mc enough, pouts) which are traits Se doms are likely to be labeled as. Misuse of Se might include relying too much on immediate feedback and / or external stimulation for satisfaction, being careless with decisions or relationships (which is what I'm working on for Elilo (Elio/Lorelei)) It can also mean having no focus or defined goals (lack / misuse of Ni) which lead to insecurity (which i could see being explored on the meager chance Elio is the breakup route and he goes back home)

I believe Ni (intuitive connections, reflection on meaning and implications, generating visions of the future...) grip in Elio shows up in how clingy he is, probably as a consequence of some form of paranoia (misuse of Ni) (Bottom stack functions tend to be used as defense mechanisms) (Ni grip might come off as the person acting out of character, in here, him being so suddenly hit by a lack of confidence, and needing to be reassured through that clinginess) The best guess I can do right now is he has issues around emotional permanence, but it's a shot in the dark. Well, at least Ni grip in Se doms can show up as looking for meaning and/or purpose but in the wrong places.

Elio is shown as someone that will avoid confrontation and is described as one who holds grievances. There's failure, I feel, from his part to resolve negative feelings which push him to suppress. It looks like a case of Fi failing him. Despite that he's mostly empathetic, sensitive and displays emotional intelligence (has signs of healthy Fi expression) (he's good at calming down a situation where tension arises, cue mc and percy not getting along - and immediatly vouching for him, or easing down the discussion if mc calls him and percy out for getting distracted in the study room event).

Tertiary Te (imposes order and is about efficient behavior, pushes to make effective decisions based on data) loop is what happens when there's Auxiliary Fi resistance. Because Fi is the need for moral integrity and self acceptance, immature ExFPs can use Te to distance from it. It can show up as burying negative feelings under coarse expressions of power (like Elio did in the breakup!percy comic I made), self-image problems or insecurity (which Elio display). The grievance thing makes me think Elio might show to be quite vindictive which is another sign of Te loop. I personally hc he's the possessive LI, which would align with the fact being territorial / domineering is a common unhealthy tertiary Te trait.

Funnily I think his reading of Reynah can both be read as an expression healthy Fi yet a Te loop tendency. It's both him understanding where people could not like her (getting her flaws, her shortcomings) but it's also him believing critical judgement to be objective. There's the expectation in what he says for Reynah to meet him on his ground (for her to talk) the way Deja does, when that's not necessarily how getting closer to Reynah has to go.

Next I'll make both Percy and Rhys' type analysis since they're both ISTP

[void-writing]

"Leaving so soon...?"

"Queen of the Mountain" Chapter 8

My interpretation of what it looked like for Shanzha--queen of our hearts, though not the mountain--hunted down a yellow-bellied chicken for sport :)

@centuryberry

(a few little details:

The design I made for Shanzha's fancy fit includes a pink sheer sash that's draped over her arms. Here, she's used it to tie back the long sleeves of her outfit so they didn't get in the way of her draw :) I took archery classes when I was younger, and one of the principles they drilled into us was that if you have long hair, you either tie it back or resign yourself to the likelihood of getting a chunk of your hair yanked out by the bowstring. I figured this principle would also apply to fancy clothes with elegant, flowing sleeves (Shanzha's hair is pulled back enough that she decided it was worth the risk to take the singular shot she needed without binding it further).

You can't really see it, sadly, but on the little seals at the ends of Shanzha's bow, I wrote out the (simplified) Chinese character for "ice". It's a small detail that sadly didn't render well, but it's there.

The flowers in Shanzha's hair are hellebore (the pink one on the viewer's right)--representing peace, serenity, and tranquility, though also anxiety, stress and scandal, which I think encapsulates Shanzha's otome game route AND her present life pretty well--and glory of the snow (the two blue ones on the viewer's left)--meaning hop, renewal, and resilience in the face of adversity, which I think also fits Shanzha's character pretty well, with the added bonus of it being a winter flower as a nod to the frigid climate she lived in before.

She also has archery bracers on her arms! For that detail, I also was calling upon my experience in archery class with this because these guards are meant to protect the archer's forearm from getting smacked by the bowstring. I had put one on Shanzha's left arm because it was more central and easier to see before tricking myself into thinking it wouldn't make sense for her to have an arm guard on the arm holding the bow (which was a whoops on my part because that's where you're supposed to put it. I guess I was mixing it up with the finger guard tab that you have on your draw hand) and so Shanzha has one on both.

This has the fun implication that Shanzha is an ambidextrous archer (say that five times fast), meaning she can draw on either side (another fun archery fact is that the arm you hold the bow with is determined by what your dominant hand and eye is. In my case, it was my left eye, so despite me being right handed, I used a left-handed bow. However, it's possible to use any bow, especially if it doesn't have an arrow shelf--the little hook an arrow can rest in as you line up your shot, which is frequently what determines if a bow is right or left handed (the arrow shelf being on the opposite side of what the name would imply, meaning a left-handed bow is held in your left and drawn with your right and vise-versa). Shanzha's doesn't, so it's an ambidextrous bow! It just happens that in the case of this image, she's firing left-handed because her quiver--and thus her draw hand--is on her right.

Art process notes:

I ended up only using like...2/3 of the canvas lol and didn't realize until I had already done up my line art. So that's why there's a big empty blue space in the bottom 1/3.

Rim lighting, my beloved.

I used two of the color palettes from @fantasy-angelo 's Yue reference in coloring Shanzha (Dreamscape and Heather House). I mostly tried to stick with a cooler color palette which I think helped make those gold accents pop.

I did a little concept sketch on a sticky note before actually buckling down to do it, but when I started with the line art, I decided to push the perspective and line of action more, which led to the wonderful little detail of Shanzha having her foot planted on Peng's back and her resting her right hand on her quiver.

(The sketch in question)

I kind of phoned it in a little with the ice and the metal armor highlights and used an airbrush to give it the glow effect, but I'm actually really happy with how it turned out regardless! Work smarter not harder lmao.

The waterfall behind Shanzha (aka, the entrance to Water Curtain Cave) was done with a watercolor brush. This was actually my first time painting a waterfall and I'm very pleased with how it looks! The foam at the base of the waterfall was, once again, an air brush (specifically a droplet one, which gave it that nice splattery particle effect). I liked how the waterfall looked spilling over the boarders, so I didn't erase it :3

And now, I leave you with a meme:

(I was originally going to have her hold her bow, but I didn't like how it looked so I changed it to the big ass knife Shanzha cut the lion's head meatball with)

[soupofturtle]

TMNT 2012 Random LARP costume details

Leo

Helmet-A toy says the base was made from a pizza sauce can. The pattern painted on it is mostly blue with white lining, the back looks roughly like a cross, this patterns becomes more circular on the sides. The front decoration is three pieces of cardboard, with the corrugating medium facing the front. The decor on the sides seem to be square rulers.

Shoulder plates-Have one small silver smooth top bolt in each one. Some of the places where the blue and white paint doesn't fully cover appear to be red, and the toy gives off the implication that they are actually made from a stop sign. The back of them also appear to have bolts in them.

Wrists-Likely also made from pizza sauce cans like the helmet is. Have a blue and white striped pattern with one silver stripe on the ends closest to his hands.

Cape-Is a blanket with a cartoonish duck on it. The duck has a blue and white plaid pattern hat that seems to have a light blue F on it. The duck has small black crescent shaped eyebrows.

Sword-Is just one of his katana with a cardboard decoration on its handle, this decoration is mostly painted blue but seems to have some white lines too but it is hard to see.

Raph

Helmet-The base is a spaghetti strainer and most of the decor appears to be metallic aside from the horns. Has what looks to be a piece of cardboard on his nose ridge. The part that covers the sides and back of his head has a white and red checkerboard pattern.

Rest of the outfit-A toy claims the fur part was made from a white shaggy rug. The main belt around his waist is studded and the one going over his shoulder has spikes on it. His left wrist has black chains binding the fur, while the right wrist is bound with one spiked and another one that had circular studs on it. His left foot has what appears to be a square stud pattern belt, and the right foot has a circular stud pattern.

The axe seems to be real, likely got taken from the weapons in the dojo.

Donnie

Hat-A toy says it was made from a bedsheet, and it has a yellow crescent moon taped onto it.

Beard-Has a small notable tuft under his chin that stands out against the rest of the beard, has a two-part moustache, has notable curls on the sides. It looks like the cord of the bolo is used to tie the beard near the bottom, the ends of this cord are gold colored, the main part is dark brown with a gold lining with a pattern that makes it resemble a rope, it also has a golden bull's head.

Robe-Is a bath robe with a pattern of white circles with 5-point stars in the middle of these circles. Has a couple small bags attached to his main belt and any more neutral coloring references I've seen indicates they are meant to be maroon colored.

Staff-Is his bo staff with a snow globe duct taped to the top. The scene inside the snow globe appears to be a reference to the skyscraper King Kong scene with a red heart with NYC in it.

Mikey

Hat-Looks like some sort of ad for 'the royal weenie', most of it is yellow with green lining and words on it, the top seems to be painted in camo colors. Has a red feather. The string for his 'elf ears' is also visibly tied around his head vertically, it appears to be either white or beige.

Main body-Has a orange button-up shirt with the collar being bent in a Barrymore style. He's wearing some kind green outerwear with white lining and the bottom has a square-cut pattern to it, one of the toys claims he has a 'table cloth cape', but given he doesn't seem to have any kind of cape on him I can only assume it was talking about this. He has a new black belt going over his shoulder and it the circular silver buckle he has seems to have the design of a face on it, but it is very difficult for me to see any particular detail for it.

+1 ring of awesome-Appears to have a adjustable gray belt for the part that actually goes on the finger. The 'gem' is octagon shaped, the lower part is pink and slightly translucent, the top is blue and depicts the image of a white unicorn head with a rainbow mane.

[jihyocentric]

toxic sahyo fics are so rare T-T let’s change that!!

like sana is specifically feral about jihyo in such a different way than her usually flirtiness, like there’s a desperation when she’s around hyo like she wants her carnally… (jihyo trying to kiss all the members in ttt pocha and sana blurting out that she’ll kiss jihyo if the other members don’t want it + ujb actually kissing lives in my head rent free)

every single time jihyo is having a ujb moment with jeong during a concert encore, sana is guaranteed to be there to interrupt (nayeon mostly just watches lol)

sana being that type of scarily possessive presented in a cute packaging (yandere-ish but less violent and moreso cutely manipulative). like she’ll give you a sweet smile while plotting all the ways to make you suffer for even looking at jihyo lol. sana using her cute gentle voice while absolutely ruining hyo for anybody else, because jihyo belongs to her, she’s her partner 😚

sana’s genuinely a lot smarter than people give her credit for and not enough writers play around with that 😮‍💨 aside from dahyun, she’s the member that the others never use hidden camera pranks on… she’s intelligent about her idol image so making people believe she’s unassuming and harmless would be so easy for her

this is kinda funny because i can't remember the last sahyo fluff i wrote... they're subtly toxic to each other in a lot of my works. i really don't do it on purpose though!

but now that you mentioned the jeonghyo kiss (yes i went to watch it again for the 9999th time) i'm so curious as to how sana would react if jihyo ever let her kiss her irl, because the accidental kiss with nayeon made sana literally fall to her knees, but i think that if she kissed jihyo, she would be SO smug.

sana always looks so proud when she gets to hold jihyo's waist, hug her, give her kisses or just be close to her. remember how she bragged about being the only one jihyo kissed that one time at an award show (i think), all while nayeon had to steal a (quite violent) kiss from jihyo... that's really sana's jihyo. hopefully one day they'll just kiss so my theory will be proven! it's all for science, definitely not because we all want to see it.

sana using her cute gentle voice while absolutely ruining hyo for anybody else

YES? the implication of a corruption kink!!! we love to see it 😵‍💫 but you know what's funny, when i got your ask, i was listening to diet pepsi. the lyrics are SO sahyo-coded. it's hard to pretend as if jeongyeon and momo wouldn't shake jihyo a little (a lot if we're being realistic about jeongyeon), but it probably happens more because messing around with them makes sana switch up from adorable sana to the jealous sana, and isn't she so attractive when she's angry?!

and i know my entire blog and my time as a writer overall has been dedicated to subby bottom jihyo, but i see irl jihyo as more of a dommy bottom/power bottom, and that could be sana's fault... like the way she touches jihyo when jihyo is in her usual submissive position (she's only a sub with her) is just not comparable to the others (and i'm not talking about twice. other lovers in general) and jihyo can never have the same dynamic with them.

not that jihyo is with anybody other than sana in the current time of this thought, though! but she's been with other people and sana will never know how they touched her. this 100% makes her more aggressive in their little sessions, but jihyo talks back, and she never gives sana what she wants, which is to know what jihyo had been doing with her past lovers. if they are as good as she is, if they made her come like she does, if they were able to tame her like she does.

i'm rambling a LOT atp (sleepy + as i write this i'm trying to get 4 stars at a genshin event...) but i'll finish this thought here real quick. what i think makes sahyo so prone to being in a toxic scenario is the fact that jihyo is sana's jihyo, but sana also treats her other girls almost the same way she treats jihyo.

jihyo being constantly annoyed about the fact that when she's with sana she feels special, but then the next day sana is taking dahyun to her lap, all over anyone who's next to her really. sana seems to do everything in her power to make jihyo become bratty. and jihyo is only bratty because sana shows she feels threatened when she's touchy with jeongyeon or when she seems to enjoy momo's praising a little too much...

last paragraph, i promise. yes, sana is so underrated! in ttt she could literally be one of the best ones in physical activities (and she's only not because she ends up laughing and it makes her lose concentration... ijboler number 2). i think that this, her being a cuter kind of feminine than the rest of twice and the fact that she's not muscly makes people see her as this weak, silly pup (which she can be. we love pup sana here btw and she'll be coming back soon), but sana is so smart. and she's hot when she's angry. she's not miss giggles 24/7, and after mina i think she's the dommiest in twice for a reason..!

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Signs of Life in Thawing Lake Erie

With its bitter cold snaps and blasts of lake-effect snow, winter 2024-2025 made its presence known in the Great Lakes region. Ice cover on the lakes spiked above average in February. And while levels mostly hovered below average for the rest of the season, they were much closer to normal than the meager freezes of the previous two winters.

On Lake Erie, ice coverage reached its seasonal peak of 95 percent in February 2025, a typical number for the shallowest of the Great Lakes. As spring neared, Erie’s icy lid gradually dissipated to reveal signs of life in its surface waters.

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 acquired this image of the central part of the lake on March 10. Ice cover stood at about 33 percent that day, and the ice-free water displayed swirling bands containing a mix of sediment and phytoplankton.

Resuspended sediment often produces colorful patterns in Lake Erie’s surface waters, especially in spring. Strong winds and the currents they generate can stir up material from the shallow lakebed. The lake bottom is rich in quartz sand and silt, as well as calcium carbonate from limestone. A lot of resuspension was occurring at the time of this image, said Michael McKay, director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Windsor, accounting for some of the color.

At the same time, McKay added, elevated levels of a type of phytoplankton called diatoms were present. Communities of these microscopic organisms, which have silica shells and plenty of chlorophyll, may have contributed to the color of surface waters. Although Lake Erie, specifically its western basin, is a hotspot for harmful algal blooms in the summer, different phytoplankton groups can thrive in the lake other times of year.

Samples collected by a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker on March 10 contained elevated chlorophyll concentrations indicative of a spring bloom and showed that diatoms made up 80 to 90 percent of the phytoplankton present, said McKay. The samples came from locations near the ice edge and extending west approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles), and the measurements corroborated those from samples collected by a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker in Lake Erie’s central basin three days earlier.

Scientists discovered in the early 2000s that diatoms could live within and just below Lake Erie’s ice. As the main components of winter-spring blooms, these microbes play important roles in the lake ecosystem, including cleaning pollutants from water and forming the base of the aquatic food web.

Subsequent work has revealed their clever strategy for surviving harsh winter conditions. The diatoms have a symbiotic relationship with a type of bacteria that can form ice crystals. That relationship enables diatoms to attach to the underside of lake ice and access the light needed to perform photosynthesis. Sparser ice cover during some winters has resulted in lower abundance of some diatom species, researchers found, with implications for the lake ecosystem that are not yet fully understood.

“We spent decades ignoring this time of year,” said Steven Wilhelm, director of the Aquatic Microbial Ecology Research Group at the University of Tennessee. “[McKay and I] were lucky to be part of a team that had a chance to start reinvestigating Lake Erie in the winter about 18 years ago.” Many questions around relationships between the seasons—how diatom blooms might shape the onset and severity of summertime blooms, for example—remain ripe for more investigation, he said. “Clearly the lake is active and alive year-round.”

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[butchladymaria]

1, 2 and 17 for the 🔥violence🔥 ask game?

also revisiting this SUPER late but -

OG POST HERE!!!

the character everyone gets wrong

would it be cliche of the guy who wrote a whole long thing about how the doll is misunderstood to say the doll is misunderstood? probably. i'm going to anyway though.

i feel like a lot of folks sometimes miss or overlook the horrifying implications of the doll? i wonder if a partial reason the horror innate to her character slips through the cracks is because she falls into the "level-up maiden" trope of the soulsborne series; which seems to be comprised of generally soft-spoken and/or somewhat submissive feminine women who help the player progress (even if they have goals of their own). i'm not here to argue that my interpretation of her is objectively correct here - but i do think the takes that posit her as a willingly subservient idealized fantasy of a woman are... shallow at best? it feels like some folks piece together that doll is made in the image of a dead woman by gerhman, and then... simply do not wrestle with the Implications of that.

for another example of this, just see adella. she seems to be reduced to "yandere psycho" at her most complex in a lot of fan interpretations, despite so much evidence indicating that it's much deeper than that.

all these examples make me wonder if the sentiment, subconscious or otherwise, that women are "meant" to be submissive and gentle is what leads these portrayals to go unquestioned or seen as more "normal" than if it were a man in that position. even maria, a canonically gender nonconforming character, has people bending over backwards to explain how she is actually totally a good little gender conformer because she... wears a hair ribbon…? (i wish i was exaggerating that claim but that has Been in my inbox lmao)

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

i've given this a lot of thought, anon, and come to the conclusion that the best (and maybe funniest...?) interpretation of this question is to answer it as follows:

miss doll would indeed never top OR bottom, mostly because i see her as asexual. i feel like the way she unless you want to consider the implications of gerhman pulling a victor frankenstein and giving his creation working sex organs. but i like to think we live in a nice world instead of a world where that is canon. eugh.

then again, i guess doll body probably isn't stopping ranni from bisexually topping the tarnished...? hmm.

in all seriousness i don't tend to have strong opinions on top/bottomhood for bloodborne characters, because i think they're mostly too catholic to fuck!

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

MORE BLOODBORNE YURI!!!!!!!!!!! vampires were literally and unironically MADE for lesbian barely-concealed-subtext babey!!!!

MORE BLOODBORNE TRANSGENDER!!!!!!!!!! i love trans people's takes on bloodborne! body horror is transition goals if you're not a coward!!!

i also just love cainhurst - artfight was a dream bc i saw SO many cute little knights :)

[gender-buddies]

Artist commentary for Phase Six down below!

Phase Six Artist Commentary:

Epicene: This needed to be a creature inspired by two creatures, so I made it a hippocampus because those are basically horse-fish. The top half is masculine-leaning with a tuxedo-like design and the bottom half is a flowy dress (and a goldfish tail.) I made it look like it has eyeliner so it didn't look entirely masculine on the top half. I almost reversed the colors to be a pink tux and blue dress but I think turned out okay.

Genderfluid: I wanted this one to break expectations by not being a literal Water creature even though that would be the obvious direction for a fluid identity. I thought about how leaves will turn from one color to another throughout the fall into winter, but I wanted to make that happen in the genderfluid flag colors. I added extra colors to make them flow better from one color to the next, giving it flowing colors all over its body. Flowing. Fluid. Get it?

Pangender: I was so determined to make this a firefly because the pangender flag is based on the light spectrum, but I ended up changing it to a robotic creature at the very last minute. My earlier sketch of this Buddy was a robot bug thing but it ended up less bug-like once I refined the design. I wanted something cute and robotic and as likeable as Neutrois (which I don't think is possible but I tried!) It still uses light in its design, mostly LEDs. For some reason its bio doesn't include that those are solar panels along the tail, but yeah. That plays into the light motif as well.

Aporagender: I just so happened to make an Apodiform aporagender critter! Apodiforms are birds that include hummingbirds and swifts, two animals incorporated into this design. It's also a very buggy design to make it more of a pollinator, evident by its antennae, stinger, and two pairs of wings.

Nixvir and Nixera: These ended up being counterparts based on storm clouds because of the dark colors of the flags. Nixvir is a storm cloud dragon that stays in the sky, while Nixera is a storm cloud unicorn that stays on the ground. One can create a lot of rain while the other can shield itself or others from rain. Also, if you were to place the two of them in the same image together, you’ll notice they they’re looking at each other! Nixvir is one of my favorite designs so far, because I love storm clouds and dragons, and I love the colors of the nixvir flag.

Kingender: I definitely wanted this one to be reminiscent of a (fiction)kintype, so I made it a kind of sergal/dragon hybrid. I almost didn't add the wings but I thought it would be fun to have them. It was originally going to be a wolf but I already have wolf- and dog-like designs. I wish I'd done more with it, but I think it turned out okay.

Quadgender: I knew at some point I'd like to make a Buddy into a kitsune, and the only thing that has to do with the number 4 that could be made into an iconic design is a suit of playing cards, so I combined the two ideas. I never even had a sketch in my sketchbook to use as a reference, but instead made it on the spot. Also, it's based on my Jupiter quadgender flag! I thought the warm red and brown tones would work perfectly here.

Stargender: This is, yes, based on Laika the Space Dog. But I didn't want it to seem like I was romanticizing her and instead, turned her into something a little more sad. Stargender has a sadness about it, being a cold and lonely spirit that guides people through space. It has an angel theme to it and the implication is that it sees the planets around it as dog toys, which is why the one big planet has the stargender star on it to make it look like a ball. The Light element represents its guiding instinct and the Ice element represents the coldness of space. It originally was going have the Fire element and be based on a comet, but I wanted to go in a less whimsical direction with it.

Solarset: This is based on a peacock mite, which loves citrus. The orange of the flag reminded me of oranges, so I looked at animals that like oranges to see what there was. Peacock mites are also orange, so it fit really well. I forgot to incorporate the Stellar element into the design or use the symbol of the flag, though the eyes were supposed to look like the symbol. It was also supposed to be much smaller so it made the citrus slices look enormous. I was so focus on all the colors that I forgot to stick with my original plan for it.

Lunarset: As something related to the moon, I decided it should also be related to water. A “water bear”, also called a tardigrade, worked really well for this. While they don’t necessarily go for citrus, I thought making it a unique counterpart to Solarset would be really cool. I think any gender labels that have counterpart labels should be made into Buddies that are counterparts as well. This pair was definitely a stretch, but I made it work. I even remembered to use Lunar aesthetics for this one!

Dracosmic: This would have been a dragon but I feel like I overdo that theme, so I turned it into a dragonFLY! I knew I wanted it to have a flower that was powered by the night sky, but it would have originally been on the head. I thought the tail flower was much better. The flower is an aster. You know, like stars. Astral. The spots were added last-minute because I needed to incorporate the star symbol of the dracosmic flag, and the spots were cute alongside the star spots.

[the-firebird69]

These two images are important these guys know each other and the kind of friends and they fight each other a lot they know the Mac proper doing it and they can't stop they need things to survive to the next day lots of times they have to scrap over it and it turned into animals it's very awful the treatment that people receive on this planet from them can't stand it when they do it to each other but they do it to others it's not nice it's very hard to get by and it's getting harder we have to be in tune to it and we have to start doing things to help but my God this this movie is huge now it's been huge with our son for a long time and my grand niece in law and zigzag says she's my niece and he needs to eat and things and he says now there's two of you it is funny but he's really smelling cookies now but he thinks those things his mother and father-in-law he calls them but really it's Uncle in law and Aunt in law but they're great on and great uncle great aunt but it's really a nice day these are huge things and big concepts they're going around the world one of the biggest is and that's what our son and daughter were thinking was wow it's Truman and they're thinking it because he's there and he's there to try and get the money and it's probably not for the Mac plan exactly because they want to use it it's like what is the point of the money if you're going to sit there and just hold on to it and that would be weird but there's some weirdos who need power and stuff and how are you planning on getting it and they start fighting with them but the guys got it for me and then and these guys wanted and we do too we want to make sure we're seeing and hearing what we're seeing and hearing. These are things in our son's life that are very very big and his wife of course is massively important to him and she's there the whole time too he says and she agrees it's a very big deal what's happening now it's a very huge day today because it's coming out today it's a significant day in history and it might be the day he goes to the bank and he says I don't think so and it's true he was up there a few times he says I think maybe once he drove near it but not that close and he was in that area once and it was nice out a little bit and then there was a huge snow storm and it was impossible cold but when it was nice out he went to the bank you can see when Andy goes it's not that bad and it's warm it's a different time it's around the day the house was sold so they're trying to implicate him on screwing around with the clan and it did but not that much then you're going to see him with ships so a lot of people will think he took all the ships and they're going to say it about our son and this is proof

Thor Freya

You said most of the bottom part of the above statement

Zig Zag

Olympus

This is great I'm having a great time and he's bothering me and I'm here and he says it's not why I get that it's supposed to be cryptic and stuff yeah I was bothering him a little but here I am and this is intense and he says it's my life too and it's my money too and it is for reference and mostly his money in this case now we are going into something very big this is huge and with me it's massive what he's done is sacrifice to try and get the stuff to work and he's sacrificed having money and he chose to and not to pursue it with huge amounts of effort for personal gain and it works very well we're going into another phase it's very big and don't laugh at me while you're losing your breath because I am a lot of people will this stuff's intense he went to the bank himself they were somewhere and he snuck away and went to the bank no he told his dad what he was doing and why and they did it too and it helped break the money up and he said they're planning on the same number at the house sale so is that and it was like 251,000 and you got a little more like 255 and they took a fee out and did he pushed it and it made a difference because the number came out right after the fee and they're starting to see that and they were mad about it and he says good and they're going to try and make up stuff about the fee but that's not what it is it's a gross sale and it means that and he got mad again and said what can we do I said you're buying back or have someone representing by back and so he went ahead and tried to have that happen and he did and it was Trump and they said it a lot it's not really what it's supposed to be no they said it's supposed to be but they're going to be playing for taking the ships and he got mad again said every time I try and do something like he says it turns out to be the empire he says you'd be surprised how bad that is and he went oh no and he said this is how it is and I grew my son up to be army and he hears him going in a little bit big when you're saying any last of those he's just 250 lb she's not much bigger than he is now muscular wise his frame is bigger and he weighs a lot but he's got a big tummy that's muscle from being a baby and he started to laugh and he says it's for us Dad's too I said yeah but I can hear the interrogator and it started to laugh and he says that's good Dee and she said you won't tell me to be quiet that sounds familiar and no I'm not your sister you can poop I guess that's to get away with it and then laughing and laughing I said but it's a great example that I grew up with I don't think that I've ever seen any couple like it and but that's the way I think it is and they said we know it's hard but you'll be okay he says I hope so scary and huge I have a huge job to do but that's pretty huge and he's like what do you saying it says it's made of iron if it wasn't it would burn up and he says oh so usually with those things there there's a bunch of uranium inside and he says well so that's what's going on too but we got to print

Thor Freya

Olympus

Zues Hera

[sarahphotogrpahyblog]

WEEK THREE_ARTIST RESEARCH

Cho Gi Seok is a Korean photographer that I've been following for a couple of years and fell in love with his high-concept images. there's a sense of surrealism. some photo collections he's posted can be more artistic, commercial or conceptual. most of his work focuses on people and portraits

I'll be focusing more on his conceptual work since these photo collections include more drastic manipulation. both in the physical photoshoot with makeup and props but also digitally.

This is from a collection called Memory

the colour grading is really warm but more towards a reddish brown almost, with a lowered saturation but maybe a higher vibrance. it looks like the contrast is lower but the depth of the shadows is more definition and looks almost air-brushed. this is most likely just the lighting setup for the photoshoot.

the obvious manipulation method in this image is the puzzle cutouts, although the closer i look i think it's a physical puzzle that was taken a photo of. this is a possibility or maybe it was done digitally. I'm unsure of the exact method but i think this puzzle cut for the concept of memories showcases really well what he trying to convey.

i get the idea of forgetting memories or missing pieces. like your forgetting who you are.

this was a shoot done in 2023 for Numero Magazine. the concept is an attraction fatale focusing on ‘Love Is Stronger Than Anything!’

this is a more fantasy approach. i immediately noticed the bending-like look to the skin and clothes and even the hair. it looks sculpted or painted with the texture and colour grading. it looks washed out in a painting term, which is when you paint on a thin layer of one colour to create cohesiveness.

the chest area is cut out into the shape of a heart with a moon on fire placed in the middle of the heart. the lighting from the fire is reflected on the bodies carving. the motif of the heart shape carved into the chest appears again in this collection which is a clearly made connection between love and the heart. i could interpret it as carving one's heart out to give to their lover or self-sacrifice.

at the bottom of the photo, you can see it's made to look like it's on paper and it is painted on possibly. this just adds to the effect of the photo's feeling of fantasy almost illustrative style and composition.

I'll be mainly focusing on the photo on the bottom.

the hand's perspective and the extreme blurriness of the arms create a trippy-like effect. the thorns and red colouring is mostly physical changes but the colour grading is this greenish blue with an orange-like red. it's high in contrast, building a lot of distance and perspective within the images.

the girl placed in the hand seems to be masked and blended in. Since the concept and the use of colours are so otherworldly the lighting difference between the hand and the girl fits into the narrative of the photos. i think it could even at the surrealism of it all.

this photo collection focuses on students and classrooms as the setting. some photos have social media implications with phones and emojis. other i think reflect on bullying with scissors and other girls cutting hair. for this image, i get the feeling trapped and caged and with the horned hands and bloody fingertips it feels almost devilish. connecting the two photos it could be about being trapped by your own self.

[photography-in-london-27]

Week Eight Blog - Recreation & Original Paradiso, 2001-2002: Lorenzo Castore. 

Paradiso, 2001-2002: Lorenzo Castore. 

The composition of the image

Framing: Subject building is centered, but feels Off-kilter or tilted left. Bus is mostly out of frame and towards bottom of the photograph

Color: Subtle colors, mostly warm

Angle: Photo is angled upwards

Contrast: presumably lower, as the lighter building features are not washed out by the black sky

Light: Low Light 

The use of light

The use of warm, artificial light evokes an old streetlamp with faded glass. Urban environment. The moon is the only natural light and seems to be blocked by the building

What is the mood of the photograph?

The warm light combines with the framing and blurriness of the bus to evoke a sense of angst one might find in an urban city. 

What is the photograph of? (Concrete subject: this is what you see in the image)

Bus, building, moonlight, street life, an advertisement of a shirtless man. Man in advertisement is not commercially attractive compared to American advertisements

What is the photograph about? (Abstract subject: this is how you interpret what you see in the image) 

I think this image is trying to characterize life in Mexico city. As the photographer notes in the caption, the location affords ambiguity. The blurriness implies that the bus might be moving, which implies that the city is lively even at night. Warm street lamps might be lighting up the street, making me think that the infrastructure is old. The advertisement being of an everyday man as opposed to the American standard of ‘conventionally attractive’ man makes me think that the community does not strive to be a muscle-bound, health freak. Maybe it’s too expensive to join a gym, maybe there isn’t a whole foods for miles. Whatever the advertisement is selling, the man in the image directly reflects the people.

Process of Recreating the Photos:

In the recreation (not the image with the sky garden), I tried to create a similar framing. There are vehicles in the foreground, and buildings in the background. While the buildings are behind the foreground, they still appear to be framed as the center subject. My recreation is also angled upwards, maybe slightly less than the original. Colorwise, my recreation is slightly colder than Lorenzo's. Recreating the low light in London was difficult, especially with one of the lights beaming towards the camera. Similar to the original, my recreation captures urban lighting through the lack of natural lighting anywhere in the photograph. While warm light contributes to the angst mood in the original, I think that my colder light actually delivers this mood more effectively. I also tried to blur the cars going by, to create a comparable lively energy. One thing my recreation is missing is an advertisement, which had implications for the location and societal norms in the original. I chose to omit this, as the bright lights, advanced architecture, and and fast moving cars deliver a sense of commercialization that could not have been captured in the original.