#TERRIBLE DAY FOR INTERNET ARCHIVISM

[danganronpa-ship-tourney]

The sexist gay Kokichi site being lost is like that DanganRonpa ship review WattPad fic getting deleted, where they saw Kaede as a manipulative th0t who manipulated Shuichi, and Kaito as homophobic & transphobic (they also ship SaiŌma which explains alot).

TAHT GOT FUCKING DELETED?!?!

[taikeero-lecoredier]

HR9495 ON ITS WAY TO SENATE

Sadly the nonprofit orgs killer bill passed the house and is now on its way to the senate,endangering orgs such as ACLU,EFF,FTF, Internet Archive, AO3 ( @transformativeworks )and any fighting for human rights. Take some time to voice your disappointment at the reps who voted yes on this terrible bill,and thanks the rep that voted against it. However the next step will be to focus on the Senate, here you can find your senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/ If your senator is a democrat, you can use this script: "I am calling to urge my representative to vote no on H.R. 9495 . This is a dangerous bill would give the Trump administration unilateral power to label any non-profit as terrorist supporting and shut it down without due process. I am calling on my representative to defend civil rights organizations and oppose this bill. Thank you.” You can also tell them you'll vote for them if they vote no on this bill. Anything goes. if your senator is republican/MAGA, use their own words against them :

"As your constituent, I urge you to vote NO on H.R. 9495. This bill poses a dangerous threat to the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment and must not pass the Senate. It grants any incoming administration unchecked authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of non-profit organizations without oversight or due process. Such government overreach is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned for our democracy. This bill undermines the principles of free speech and freedom of association, cornerstones of American liberty.

H.R. 9495 threatens to pave the way for political suppression, allowing the government to selectively target and shut down organizations based on ideological disagreements. This could affect any non-profit, including churches and conservative groups, as well as organizations that champion human rights and civil liberties. Regardless of political leanings, this bill sets a chilling precedent that no American patriot should support.

While situations relating to the hostages deserve careful attention, they can and should be addressed in a separate, narrowly tailored bill. H.R. 9495, however, is a broad, unconstitutional overreach that strikes at the heart of free speech and freedom. It is unpatriotic and incompatible with the values we hold dear as Americans.

I implore you to stand as a defender of liberty and uphold the rights of your constituents. Be a patriot, listen to the voice of the people, protect our God given right to free speech as Americans, and reject this dangerous legislation. Vote NO on H.R. 9495. Thank you, God Bless and God Bless America." (Taken from here )

You can also come join our server internet dedicated to fight against bad bills (and other bad internet bills such as KOSA) We organize call in days and gather ressources ! https://discord.gg/pwTSXZMxnH

[eunandonly]

BOYNEXTDOOR AS DIFFERENT ROMANCE TROPES

the different genres of romance between you and boynextdoor

( 対 ) boynextdoor x fem. reader 1247WC · so many different genres contains! skinship, mild swearing, cringe shit, terrible trope names / archive

은: i'm finally back after 589393 lightyears with a new boynextdoor fic ^^ i hope you guys enjoy!! since i'm here, i would like to remind you guys to not believe everything you see on the internet and that quick assumptions and accusations will cause regret in the future. let's always be kind instead of spreading hate ♡

myung jaehyun : playboy

cherry lollipops, smudged lipstick on his collar, lazy smirks, fingers tracing circles on your wrist

jaehyun is used to attention- he's practically bathing in it every single day. girls clamour for his gaze, hanging onto every teasing smirk, every lazy remark that drips with effortless charm. he plays his part well; never giving too much attention, always keeping them wanting more. one week he has a cute cheerleader clinging onto his arm and the next he has the school president walking by his side.

but with you, the game doesn't work.

you roll your eyes at every flirty thing he says, scoff at his cocky smirks, and call him out on his lazy drawl. it should annoy him, but it doesn't. and when he realises he doesn't want to play the game anymore, it hits him hard in the stomach.

the chase isn't about winning. really, it's about you.

one night, he leans in with his familiar grin, expecting you to push him away as usual. but you don't. instead, you meet his eyes, unbothered, and say, "if you're just playing, don't bother."

for the first time, jaehyun's speechless. he knows the truth, he knows that he doesn't want to play anymore, not with you.

park sungho : bodyguard romance

tension filled silence in the car, pulling you behind him without a thought, "stop doing stupid shit"

park sungho doesn't do stupid shit like romance. he's not paid to participate in whatever cliché, sappy things you see on the tv. he's paid to protect, to stay by your side no matter what and make sure you don't wind up stalked, injured or dead.

but you make the job so very difficult. always refusing to listen, constantly putting him into situations that make him heart race for all the wrong reasons.

park sungho doesn't do romance.

"stop doing stupid stuff," sungho mutters for the hundredth time, grabbing your wrist to pull you back from the crowd. you huff, yanking free, but you don't move away. the closeness between you two is suffocating, but neither of you step back.

sungho knows he shouldn't let his guard down, shouldn't let himself feeling anything beyond duty.

it's just a job.

so why is it starting to sound like he's gaslighting himself?

lee sanghyuk : unspoken love

lingering glances in crowded rooms, love letters never sent, late night walks, almost confessions

there are words left unsaid between you an riwoo, filling every silence, every stolen glance. you've been friends forever- so close yet so incredibly far. he memorises how you tuck your hair behind your ear when you're nervous, the way your voice gets softer when you're tired. but he never says anything, never lets those feelings spill past the walls. but still, he wonders if you notice the way his gaze lingers a second too long to be normal, the way his breath catches when you laugh.

maybe you do, maybe you don't.

the words are always at the tip of riwoo's tongue, threatening to spill out, but he manages to swallow them and keep quiet. even now, sitting next to you on the sofa of the dimly lit living room as you watch a movie. riwoo isn't focused on whatever that's playing on the screen. he's focused on you.

riwoo compensates lost words with silent care. his hands finds yours in busy streets, opens the doors for you, remembers your favourite snacks and buys them for you even when you don't ask.

riwoo likes to think that you're just waiting for him to speak first.

he will. one day.

han dongmin : academic rivals to lovers

scribbled insults on margins of papers, stolen glances over textbooks, clicking pens in silence, “admit it, you like me” whispered against your ear

taesan really, really, really wishes that you would just disappear.

he's always been the best- top of every leaderboard, fastest on track, the one teachers nod approvingly at when the test scores go up. he thrives on competition because, until now, he's never really had any.

then you show up.

scholarship kid, plucked straight out of your public school and into private after your all-hundreds on this year's exams. suddenly, taesan's name isn't the only one at the top of rankings. suddenly, there's someone who walks into class with the same cocky, unshakable confidence, someone who meets his gaze with a smug smirk when grades are posted. you sit in his usual spot in the library, take his record in the physics competition.

taesan hates you. really, he does.

but he hates even more that when you lean over his desk to throw a snarky remark at him, his heart races. he hates that he noticed the way your eyes light up when you solve a question before him, or the way his brain short circuits when your shoulder brushes against his in the crowded corridors. he hates how he can't deny how pretty you are.

taesan really, really hates that he might not really hate you at all.

kim donghyun : soulmates

the scent of home every time you’re near, deja vu, nostalgia, a warmth in his chest he can’t explain, blurry memories

leehan doesn't believe in fate. why would he? he believes in reality, in the tangible, in the things he can see and touch. love is just a series of chemical reactions, and the idea of soulmates- of invisible red strings tying two people together- has always seemed like something out of a children's storybook.

but then there's you. you, who appeared in his life out of nowhere. when and where and how, leehan can't really place. it feels like you've been around forever and for no time at all at the same time. you, who seem to understand him without words, who always knows when something's wrong before he even says it. leehan catches himself staring at the way your fingers brush against his when you two walk side by side, at the way your laughter sounds like a memory he can't quite place.

"it feels like we've met before," you say once, absentmindedly.

leehan freezes. because he's felt that too, that strange pull in his chest, the whisper of something inevitable. and suddenly, fate doesn't seem so impossible anymore.

"yeah, maybe we have."

kim woonhak : love at first sight

stammered compliments, heart racing, pink cheeks, “can i—uh—i mean, do you wanna—never mind.”

it's over for woonhak from the first time he sees you. from the second he lays his eyes on you, his brain short circuits, he talks faster than he can think, and he's grinning like an idiot without even realising.

he's hopelessly, embarrassingly obvious about his big, fat crush on you.

everyone sees it. you see it, which is new, since you're pretty oblivious about stuff like this. the way woonhak stumbles over his words when you're around, the way his ears turn red when you tease him.

you think woonhak's cute. woonhak thinks he's done for.

"you're staring again," you point out one day, laughing. woonhak panics, eyes darting everywhere but you.

“wha-what? no, no, i was just, uh, thinking! yeah, thinking,” 

you raise and eyebrow at him, and woonhak buries his face in his hands with a groan, face pink. he’s messed up. again.

“you’re so obvious,” you say, shaking your head at him. 

woonhak just grins, ears burning. yeah, he is obvious. hopelessly, shamelessly so. 

[c0smiclatt3]

DAN HENG: "WOULD YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I WERE A WORM...?"

☾₊ ⊹ TAGS: x reader, established relationship, fluff, no warnings, dan heng is very clueless, march is here to save the day!

wc: 806

Dan Heng's answer is simple.

"That's a ridiculous question."

Maybe you didn't actually care at first, but hearing him say it like that just now did upset you, even if just a little. He said it so matter-of-factly, without even so much as lifting his head from the screen as he tinkered with the Express data bank, his expression impassive as he brushed your question off like dusting off his jacket.

You sit up from the couch you were lounging on and set your phone down. A frown crosses your face as you watch him hunched over his desk and you realized he assumed the conversation was already over.

It was a stupid conversation, yes. Some dumb question March said was an 'essential question' for couples as a 'test of love'. As with many internet buzzings March reported, you weren't terribly interested, but you decided to ask it anyway as an aside, maybe out of curiosity. You shouldn't be upset. But...

"... That's it?" You frown glumly. Judging from his relaxed expression, your disappointed tone does not register.

He speaks cooly. "The premise of the question is absurd. Worms do not communicate. Humans do not form love relationships with worms."

"But it would be me."

"No, it would not. It would be a worm."

Your frown pulls down further on your face, heat rushing to your cheeks. "Well that's not what you're supposed to say. You're supposed to say you would love me."

"So I'm supposed to lie?"

You are unable to contain your incredulous expression, reeling back just a little bit from the shock. His words felt like a slap to the face. You knew it was stupid, but you were a little offended. You shove your phone into your pocket and march toward the door, crossing his desk as you do. Your frustration only grows as he still does not lift his head, gloved fingers glued to his touchscreen. You let out an audible exasperated sigh to try to get the point across that you were leaving.

"Where are you going?" he says, looking up, but a blank expression on his face.

"Out."

"... Have I upset you?"

You decide not to answer his question and turn around, punching the button to open the door. You step out and shut it with a huff. Once in the hallway, you storm back to your room, bumping into March along the way, her phone keychains clinking against her candy shell-toned phone case as she lifts her head and notices the annoyance visible on your face. She stops and curiously watches you throw your room door open, flopping face first onto your bed with a groan, draping your arm over your eyes and squeezing them shut. You hear the rustle of her clothes as she pops her head in the door.

"March," you say gloomily, "what does the internet say about couples fighting?"

You hear her click her phone shut. "... It says they tend to fight about stupid stuff."

You nod. "... Sounds about right."

<<< 24 SYSTEM HOURS LATER >>>

Shortly after your conversation with March 24 system hours before, you heard her barge into the archives (much to the displeasure of Dan Heng), and give him an earful. You, on the other hand, jammed your headphones in and tried to cool off, counting the passing star systems to pass the time until you fell into a deep slumber.

Waking for breakfast you passed the archives room, the door uncharacteristically left wide open. Before you could pass through it you heard Dan Heng clear his throat, his way of getting your attention without having to outright say it. You slowly walk into the archives room, some residual frustration left over from previously, defensively crossing your arms. "You seem busy," you remark.

"... Entering new data. On - um - novel lifeforms." He nods to himself, as if affirming what he had just said, eyes focused on his screen.

"Really," though you sound rather unimpressed. It seemed his same old routine. Maybe he really never was going to acknowledge it.

"... Creatures from Melusthania. They are legless and armless creatures that burrow in the soil and feed off of decomposing fruit." You see his eyes flick over to yours for a moment, before they turn back down to his screen, feigning deep concentration and interest. He clears his throat. "I am... Um. Fond of them."

A beat as you process his words. Armless and legless... Burrowing in the ground... Feeds on decomposed green matter... A flicker of amusement crosses your face and you try not to laugh. "So worms. You are... Fond of... Worms."

He pauses, as if checking first in his head to see if he was saying the right thing. He turns to you, his expression looking as if he had never been more serious about anything else in his entire life.

"... Yes. Worms."

writing masterlist | bot masterlist

☾₊ ⊹ AN: thinking of writing an epilogue to this hehe

[rjalker]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot Abbot, published in 1884, is public domain. That means it has no copyright, and belongs to everyone.

This post will have links to as many versions and adaptations of it as I can find, and will be updated whenver I find new links to add.

Feel free to copy and paste this whole entire post and make it a new post for your own blog too!

None of these links are piracy, because you literally cannot pirate what has no copyright. Anyone who tells you you must pay to read the original Flatland is scamming you.

The only time you should be spending money on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is if you find a cool physical copy that you want specifically.

Check the original post before reblogging to look for updates if you are seeing this post days, weeks, or months after I originally post it.

____

Visual books:

Public domain:

The Original Novel:

Read online or ownload the original book in multiple formats from Project Gutenberg

Read or download from Standard Ebooks

Read and download from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-generated audiobook.

_

The 2024 translation:

Read online or download the 2024 translation in multiple formats from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-voiced audiobook.

Read the 2024 translation here on tumblr @flatland-a-2024-translation

-

The 2024 Summary:

You can read and download this from the Internet Archive in multiple formats, including editable documents. Or read here on tumblr.

You can also buy a physical copy here, or purchase the files from Itch.io.

___

Audiobooks:

The original novel:

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive, read by Ruth Golding

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive read by David "Grizzly" Smith

The 2024 translation:

Listen and read-along with the lazy audiobook of the 2024 translation on Youtube

(no audiobook available for the summary....yet)

___

Free visual media with full stories:

Here’s an animation from 1965. Contains some flashing lights.

Here’s a stop motion film from 1982 in Italian with English subtitles

Here’s an animation from 2006

The 2007 Flatland film by Ladd Ehlinger is free on youtube. Unfortunately Ladd Ehlinger is a virulently racist and misogynistic conservative who thinks feeding school kids is the same thing as slavery. His film is filled with almost constant flashing lights and spinning cameras that cause headaches, motion sickness, migraines, and seizures.

Here is a link to timestamps for these if you still choose to watch it.

The film ignores all of the politics from the original novel because the creator of the film agrees with the bigotry the novel condemned. You are much better off watching another visual adaption or reading the original or translated book.

Especially if you suffer from photosensitivity or motion-sickness, this film will make you want to throw up.

___

Shorter visual media:

In-universe

Part 4 of a Korean animation. from 2010. Haven't found parts 1-3 yet.

A short animation from 2020 showing an Equilateral being taken away from his Isosceles parents

Flatland Heist from 2013, A short animation from 2013 where the Narrator and Sphere team up to rob a bank :)

Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions Alternate Timeline (without audio yet) 2024 Here's the version with audio

No Nonbinary Door 2024

A Visit to Lineland 2024

Up, Up, and Away 2024

Meta:

A short TED-Ed summarizing the math parts of Flatland from 2014

Another short animation explaining the math of Flatland from 2012

A long presentation (38 mins) about the math in Flatland. from 2017

Youtube Shorts:

A very short animation about the narrator meeting the Sphere

___

Related books by other authors, in publishing order:

Public domain:

An Episode of Flatland: or How a Plane Folk Discovered the Third Dimension. With Which is Bound Up an Outline of the History of Unæa by Charles Howard Hinton. (1907) Public domain, unlimited reading and downloading. It's terrible. But you can rewrite it to make it not terrible.

The 4D Doodler, by Graph Waldeyer. Also on Youtube as an audiobook.

Other copyright:

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster (1963) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. A short....poem? Nothing to actually do with Flatland.

The Incredible Umbrella by Marvin Kaye (1980) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe, by Dionys Burger. (1983) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. It's racist. Was intended to be a sequel to Flatland, but the author's racist and failed every lesson Flatland tried to teach.

“Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” by Rudy Rucker (1983) free to read online from the author.

The Fourth Dimension, by Rudy Rucker (1984). Can be read for free online from the author. I have not read it yet.

The Planiverse: Computer Contact With a Two-dimensional World by Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (1984) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. Good 2D worldbuilding, nonexistant plot and boring abrupt ending.

Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So by Ian Stewart (2001) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. it's useless crap that unironically defends the bigotry against Irregulars from the original novel by pretending it's just natural selection that's totally natural and not at all artificialy and violently upheld to uphold the supremacy of the Circles.

Spaceland by Rudy Rucker (2002) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

VAS: An Opera in Flatland (2002) by Steve Tomasula. no copies donated to the internet archive yet. I have not read it yet.

A 2024 Summary of Flatland. Buy a physical copy here. Buy a digital copy here.

__

Neopronoun short stories:

The Breaking Point, a short story of a Line and Isosceles in another country of Flatland, attempting to deal with an abusive officer of the military who's invited himself into their home. Almost 4k words.

First Day of School, a young equilateral has zov first day at school, and discovers that the "specimen" they're supposed to be studying is someone zo knows.

Gaining a New Perspective, a short story of the Sphere contemplating everything that's happened after throwing the narrator of Flatland back down to his plane. Almost exactly 5k words.

Other short fiction:

[link me your stories and a short summary to go here!!]

__

Please feel free to add more links and I'll add them to this original post.

Here's the first masterpost I made which has fewer links.

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Keep thinking of Jonelias and turning up the gothic elements to x1000 than they already are in canon, and somehow it always ends up in my mind with Jonah still having his Scottish family house/manor, and getting Jon there, and then Shenanigans.

In my head, it's mid-season 2, Jon's off rails, in a beautiful way, for sure, but Elias has also had a lot of thoughts on his side ever since he hesitated, watching Jon getting eaten by worms, pulling the trigger early. So it's almost a test for himself and for his Archivist when as "punishment" for Jon's behaviour, he tells him he's sending him on a very specific mission in Scotland, to Jonah Magnus's old house, to gather and archive the documents there as the Institute is thinking of turning it into a museum or an extended branch or something.

Jon, of course, is furious (and secretly relieved, for a brief moment, because the paranoia DOES tend to lessen whenever he's away for a bit of the Institute and his coworkers, coughnot!sashacough) but it's not like he's got much choice, beyond quitting or being fired, and when he asks if his assistants are coming with Elias is like "don't be ridiculous, Jon, they need to take care of things here and you'll agree with me you all need some time apart. You'll do a reconnaissance of the house and its content, as it is, and I'll join you myself in a week or two. You should have all amenities available there, excepted perhaps the Internet - but phone service should be fine, so we'll be able to keep in touch if you need anything."

And then he gets into the house, so quiet, so old, but kept in order, clearly; the phone service is actually terrible; the bed he sleeps in ("Jonah's bedroom," Elias tells him when he does manage to call him) is comfortable, but the room is often cold; and here, as well, just like in the Archives, he keeps being WATCHED. And it's not the only odd thing that happens - that one he's almost used to, now. But it's the letters; the weird objects; the noises at night; the old fashioned clothes filling the wardrobe one morning instead of his own clothes; the way his car won't start after four days; etc. etc.

(Something something something, breathing life into another of Jonah's attempt of living beyond death, getting a nostalgic shade of the monster who already loves him and sent him here for judgement, and who decides that Jon would, in fact, make for a proper spouse,,)

[haru-dipthong]

Fansub release + translation notes for Utena ep 20

Girl 1: 何言ってんのよ！あんた西園寺先輩の生写真買ってたじゃない！ Girl 2: そういうあんただって、先輩の縦���舐めてたでしょ？！

This exchange was a perfect example of why I’m so glad to be doing translation non-professionally under my own terms — I don’t have to worry about censorship! Let’s look at some of the existing translations first (which are, in my opinion not only poor but incorrect!)

Girl 1: What are you saying? Weren't you the one buying pics of Saionji-sempai? Girl 2: Weren't you the one looking to steal a kiss off of him? (from ohtori.nu)

Girl 1: You’re one to talk! You used to buy pictures of him! Girl 2: And you wanted a kiss from him, right? (from internet archive video subs)

These translations have been extremely censored and softened. This is what the girls are really saying:

Girl 1: Look who's talking! Didn't you buy creepshots of him? Girl 2: Oh yeah? I know you tried to lick his recorder after music class! (my translation)

The key word in the first line is 生写真 (namajashin). This is a combination of two words, 生 (nama: raw) and 写真 (shashin: photo). 生写真 as a popular term originated in the 60s, when fans would take photos of boy/girl bands at events and then sell them. They were 生 (nama: raw) because they were unprocessed, unedited, and not distributed by magazines or other popular media. These days, the term 生写真 is often used to describe unsolicited film photographs of j-pop idols and other similar figures.

To talk of 生写真 of a school student implies several things. One, that the subject is extremely popular, like a teen idol. Two, the photos are unsolicited and likely polaroids. Three, that the photos are then purchased for “private use”, which is always some level of creepy, even if it’s just pinning them up on your bedroom wall.

What does the above act describe? It sounds very similar to taking and selling creepshots. So despite 生写真 not meaning “creepshots” in every context, in this context it certainly does.

The other censored phrase here is 縦笛舐めてた — literally “you were licking his flute/recorder”. This censorship is egregious! The girls are doing some serious non-consentual indirect sexual acts here (which are a lot more normalised in Japan but I digress), and the other translations are content to pretend the girl was just “trying to get a kiss”! Reading those translations actually made me angry. Whenever I see something like that, I find so much more motivation for this project — I just can’t abide a brilliant show like Utena being tainted by such terrible translations!

This is the first instance of a translator note in the entire project! I felt it was okay to put here since it's just on the title card so it's not too distracting. The main purpose of this is to provide some context for the leaf shaped hair clip that Saionji makes. The fact it was personalised to her and then given away to Anthy makes the gut punch moment hit so much harder in Japanese that I felt like I had to provide the English audience with this as well.

Utena: Well, you’ve really been thriving recently. And uh… Wakaba: And? Utena: And you’re… glowing. (my translation)

I’m really proud of this translation! The problem here is the Japanese phrasing. In Japanese, the verb なる is a lot more common, less verbose, and less formal/academic sounding than the English equivalent, “become”. So when Utena says:

その…とても綺麗になった。(lit. Uh, you’ve become very pretty.)

It sounds weird no matter how you say it in English. The other translations try their best, changing “become” to “gotten” for example, but they still sound a bit funny. They certainly don’t sound like a natural compliment one school student might give another.

Utena: Uh, you've gotten really pretty. (ohtori.nu)

Utena: Well… You seem even prettier, too. (from archive.org subs)

So when I came up with “you’re… glowing”, I was so happy. It sounds natural, but it also perfectly conveys all of the nuance behind the original Japanese statement!

あれ？狐の嫁入りだ。

Word by word translation: "Oh, a kitsune wedding."

Translating only the meaning intended as spoken: "Oh, a sunshower."

Final translation: "A sunshower. A kitsune must be getting married."

One word for sunshower in japanese is "kitsune no yomeiri" (fox wedding) which I think comes from some myth or other, it's not super clear. Here, Utena is actually just saying "oh, a sunshower", but in the translation I was tempted to add this extra sentence to give context that the following shadow play is elaborating on a japanese cultural connection between "kitsune marriage" and sunshower. If the shadow play didn't make any references to the myth, I probably would have just translated this as "Oh, a sunshower"

Hopefully the punchline comes across in this shadow play! I feel like I did my best at providing exposition on Japanese culture while still feeling natural.

I don’t really have much to say about this last line but I was just really proud of it:

Mikage: 君の持っている物の中で一つ欲しい物があるんです。何、大した物じゃありませんよ。

Mikage: You have something that we want. In fact, you wouldn’t even miss it.

With Wakaba in frame, it almost suggests that he won't miss her once he's back at the academy. By giving the hairclip away, he's throwing Wakaba away too. He may not know the extent to which he is doing this, but he certainly is doing it.

In fact, I was very happy with the entire Saionji-Mikage exchange. I’m just proud of this episode in general! Go watch it!

Thanks as always to @dontbe-lasanya for their fantastic editing! There was a bit more discussion around certain sticky spots that they really helped with in this epsiode.

Follow the blog to see new episodes as they're released! For all episodes released so far, go here:

Rose divider taken from this post.

[paperstorm]

Is it Wednesday already 🥴 3x17 missing moment is nearing completion. Proposal here we come. I am in a dusty archive with terrible internet this today so I have this scheduled, excited to read all your snippets when I get home!

-

��Hey, baby,” TK pants, smiling at Carlos as he steps into their apartment.

He watches, feeling a bead of sweat rolling down his temple, as Carlos stops in his tracks and for a moment just stares across the room at him. TK cocks his head to one side, confused, and slows his speed. He sits back down onto the padded seat as Carlos turns to close and lock the door behind him.

“How was your day?” TK asks, reaching for the towel he’d slung over the handlebars so he can wipe at his damp face. His legs peddle slowly, letting himself come down from the zenith of his workout. He’s already a little light-headed, endorphins kicking in and leaving him buzzing.

“Fine,” Carlos says evenly, dropping his bag down and making his way across the room. His shoes click on the poured concrete, measured and metronomic as he approaches.

“Hey,” TK says again, laughing a little in confusion, as within seconds Carlos goes from yards away from him by the door to right in front of him.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Carlos murmurs, reaching for him and running his hands up TK’s arm, his shoulder, down his bare chest.

Caught off guard, TK giggles and stumbles a little, having to grab for the handlebar to keep himself from falling off the bike.

“Look at you,” Carlos rasps. TK gets a brief glimpse of the black that’s taken over his irises and finally his brain catches up with what’s happening. It shouldn’t have taken so long, they’ve both been so into each other lately that TK seems to spend more time with his legs in the air than he spends doing almost anything else, but his stomach flips once he realizes.

“Oh.”

Carlos steps in closer, chest against his arm so TK lifts it and wraps it around Carlos’s shoulders half a second before Carlos surges forward and kisses him hard enough to bruise. TK mmph’s into it, another surprised and breathless laugh tickling the back of his throat as Carlos’s tongue is in his mouth of all of a sudden.

“Babe, I’m sweaty,” TK protests half-heartedly, aware that his wet armpit is pressing against the shoulder of Carlos’s nice shirt.

“Yeah,” Carlos agrees shortly, in a way that communicates it’s the very opposite of a problem for him. He attaches his lips to TK’s neck, inhaling deeply like his damp skin is the best thing Carlos has ever smelled; big hands enclosing TK’s waist and squeezing him while TK struggles to balance on the small bicycle seat.

“What got into you, today?”

“Nothing. I had the most boring day of all time, spent like two hours on my phone playing Angry Birds and half listening to Lexi tell me why Lemonade is the best album of all time.” Carlos licks a stripe up his throat.

TK swallows as desire stirs in his groin and sends blood southward.

“And then you,” he continues, in a voice that’s low and rough and sending rocket fire right to TK’s quickly hardening cock, “who insisted on putting an exercise bike in the middle of my dining room not once, but twice – ”

“I didn’t insist shit,” TK interrupts, a cramp starting to ache in his hip from the awkward way he’s twisted and hissing softly when Carlos lightly grazes teeth over the junction of his neck and shoulder, “you put it there twice, I asked both times if you wanted it somewhere else.”

Carlos continues as if he hadn’t spoken, “ – and then barely ever fucking use the damn thing, thought you could just be here, shirtless and sweaty, when I got home, and thought I wasn’t gonna lose my whole mind about it?”

Tagging @theghostofashton @birdclowns @reyesstrand @strandnreyes @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut

@carlos-in-glasses @actual-sleeping-beauty @thisbuildinghasfeelings @herefortarlos @heartstringduet

@goodways @alrightbuckaroo @lightningboltreader @freneticfloetry

@liminalmemories21 @nancys-braids @lemonlyman-dotcom @whatsintheboxmh

@bonheur-cafe @reasonandfaithinharmony @thebumblecee @never-blooms

@sanjuwrites @orchidscript @jesuisici33 @kiwichaeng @honeybee-taskforce

@fifthrideroftheapocalypse @fitzherbertssmolder @butchreyes @just-inside-her @firstprince-history-huh

@captain-gillian @tellmegoodbye @anactualcaseofthetruth @ironheartwriter @eclectic-sassycoweyes

@ditheringmind @emsprovisions @irispurpurea @nisbanisba @corsage

Want to be added or removed from the list? Lmk

[theblueeyedfirebender]

She listens to him pull in a breath, his voice taking on the sharp edge of alarm. “Lieutenant?” Warmth runs over the back of her hand. Down her forearm. “Lieutenant, is everything alright?”

She can hear the downward turn of his mouth, the ridge that forms as his dark brows draw together. She knows the way his spine pulls straight, his hand gripping the phone receiver with knuckles blanched.

Shadows are beginning to fray the edges of her vision. A terrible weakness is sinking into her, heavy and bone-deep. She needs to hold pressure. She needs to sit down. “Colonel,” she says again, weariness and panic threading through the syllables.

Something drips from the bend of her elbow.

For @shuboxx! Happy FMA Gift Exchange! 💖

Posting a day early due to some travel plans and limited internet access. Special thanks to @rene-of-the-blackouts for organizing this event!

Rating: T

Word count: 2.8K

[maverick-werewolf]

Daily Werewolf Thoughts - Days 1-9

I've been writing some daily werewolf thoughts in various places, and now, at last, here's a collection of them for Werewolf Wednesday! I'll be posting collections on my Patreon and Tumblr, since I don't want to spam those every day for such short posts. Here's the first set from days one through nine.

The formatting on these isn't the prettiest, but it'll do! They're not big blog posts, just thoughts for fun and stuff.

Day 1- I'm obligated to open with the undeniable importance of The Wolf Man (1941). Werewolves never had a definitive book that shaped the popular perception of werewolves. The Wolf Man, although a film, is to werewolves what Bram Stoker's Dracula is to vampires. When you think of "a werewolf," it was influenced at least in some way by The Wolf Man.

Influenced by folklore but taking elements from various sources (not just werewolf legends), Curt Siodmak created the werewolf that currently lives in our perceptions as THE werewolf. The Halloween werewolf, the classic horror werewolf... and still the coolest kind of werewolf.

Great film, by the way. You should watch it. It's free on the Internet Archive, so you have no excuse. It's still one of the best werewolf stories ever told. Classic. There's a reason everyone ripped off the formula.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-fact-68-the-importance-of-the-wolf-man-1941/

Day 2- There's great variety in werewolf designs out there, but I've noticed the most classic werewolf look has a body hair pattern and lacks fur on the face. Everything from Halloween masks to films to cutesy plush use this as the most immediately recognizable werewolf look, no doubt inspired by classic wolf-men like Werewolf of London (1935), The Wolf Man (1941), and Curse of the Werewolf (1961).

I went through a phase of being adamant about preferring werewolf completely covered in fur, but I realized that, even when I was a contrarian child and then teenager, my favorites never actually looked like that. Then again, I like an insane variety, to be honest, so I'm not that picky... as long as it looks like both a human and a wolf instead of neither of those things or something completely different.

Day 3- Something many modern werewolves lack, or did for a while (I think the phase is ending, puns intended), was the howl. A wolf howl is a unique and chilling sound that has haunted the psyche of man for time immemorial. It's an obvious element of werewolf horror and werewolves in general.

But sometime in the early 2010s or so, a lot of people decided that howls were "corny" and too expected because that was around the time anything classic/traditional became just terrible and everyone wanted to disassociate werewolves from... wolves. So werewolves started exclusively roaring or, at best, weirdly bellowing instead. This can be found in everything from Underworld (undoubtedly a huge influence on this) to Skyrim* to the MTV Teen Wolf series and many others. I'll never forget a pivotal scene in a late Teen Wolf season where Scott was told to howl and he just... roars. Wtf? Everything did this at the time.

Sidebar: The MTV Teen Wolf series absolutely shocked me when it first released. I watched it fully expecting it to be teen werewolf tripe, but Season 1 really is fantastic werewolf horror. Just do NOT watch any season beyond the first one. Everything past Season 1 is total garbage with only a few cool moments in like one of the season 4's (I forget all the numbers) and is much more what I expected from the series. Note that the linked clip is not from season 1.

*: just another reason why Morrowind: Bloodmoon is superior

Underworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v-JtvyLvSlo&abchannel=Movieclips

Skyrim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXwkSA2_02o&ab_channel=Servilius

Teen Wolf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWjJME4Vl3A&ab_channel=coolghighi

Day 4- Silver. The idea of a "silver bullet" has become all but ubiquitous for something's only weakness, like saying "Achilles' heel." Obviously, this originated with werewolves... and again it actually originated only with The Wolf Man (1941). Silver was never a werewolf weakness in legend.

Curt Siodmak, when dictating to the world what werewolf concepts would be like forever after, created the idea that only silver can slay a werewolf. In legend, werewolves had no particular weaknesses, unlike vampires. They could walk holy ground, holy artifacts had no effect on them, wolfsbane and belladonna did nothing in particular, some were immune to all forms of injury (except in human form) and had to be cured, silver certainly was never mentioned, and some were slain through ordinary means.

It's possible that Siodmak got the idea of silver harming werewolves from "witch-creatures," shapeshifted witches. In some tales, witches were harmed specifically by silver. This had no relation to werewolves whatsoever. Other speculate Siodmak did this because silver is related to the moon in ancient alchemy. Regardless of why he did it, werewolves being slain by silver specifically begins with The Wolf Man in 1941.

I should note that some dispute this, citing the Beast of Gevaudan legend (which in itself I don't even really consider a werewolf legend) and claiming that silver was used to slay it, as told in Henri Pourrat’s Historie fidèle de la bête en Gévaudan. But this book is not from the time period of the Beast of Gevaudan - it's a novel published in 1946, well after The Wolf Man was released and established.

Curt Siodmak is the reason we associate werewolves with "silver bullets" (although it was a silver-headed cane that slew the werewolf in the movie), so you can thank him again for his massive influence on our culture abroad and certainly our now classic conception of the werewolf.

There's also a werewolf fact for this: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/silver/

Day 5- I love etymology. My favorite word is "werewolf." Today, it's common to see people shunning the word "werewolf," thinking it corny, or else they do so in favor of shorthand or other general word butchery or kreatyvity. Before I get into that, I'm going to go over what "werewolf" actually means.

“Werewolf” comes from late Old English, a combination of “were,” meaning “man,” and of course “wolf.” Werewolves have had countless names over the centuries, but this is the one that stuck, after its first use (that we know of, at least) by the English King Cnut, who reigned 1016-1035; he used it in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances XXVI. By the way, please ignore any modern scholars who like to claim now that "werewolf" means "wolfwolf," because that is so preposterous it makes me want to cast myself into the sea with stones on my feet.

Unfortunately, a lot of people like to avoid even using the word "werewolf" as if their success depends on it. They have what is obviously a werewolf in a story, but it's very carefully never referred to as such, because then - in their minds - audiences wouldn't take it seriously. Thus, we end up with things like "lycan," a butchery of "lycanthrope" that takes the "lykos" (meaning wolf) and only the beginning of the "anthropos" (meaning man). You end up with a nothing word that sounds like something green growing on a log. Many people also use only the "were" prefix, which means "man," and thus you have things like "weretouched" (Mantouched? How does it even imply shapeshifting?) to mean a variety of beast-people*. Still others use a word they made up just so they never have to say "werewolf," like "worgen" or "blutbad/blutbaden" or even just "wolfblood/wolfbloods," among others. These may or may not be used in a world that otherwise uses normal terms; if it does use other ordinary monster names, it makes the kreatyv werewolf name all the sillier-sounding.

Anyway, "werewolf" is a great word. More people should use it. A rose by any other name...

*: I won't get into how I feel about "werecreatures" being a bunch of werewolf spinoffs, although I may end up ranting about that sometime this month.

Day 6- Werewolves and the full moon always go together. A werewolf without a full moon just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. This is, you guessed it, yet another thing you can thank Curt Siodmak for - but it actually didn't originate with The Wolf Man (1941), and it also has some basis in legend. Or, at least, I would argue it does.

Firstly, The Wolf Man (1941) actually didn't start the idea of a werewolf transforming at the full moon. In the original film, we have this werewolf rhyme (written by Siodmak)...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright"

Hence, the werewolf turns in autumn when the wolfsbane blooms.

However, in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Siodmak changed the rhyme and the timing of the werewolf's transformation...

"Even a man who is pure at heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms

And the moon is full and bright"

So, now it's every full moon.

I've seen some scholars argue there is no basis in folklore for the full moon werewolf myth, but I dispute that. Sabine Baring-Gould specifically mentions in The Book of Werewolves (you can buy a fully edited, translated, formatted, and footnoted copy of that by yours truly, btw) that many southern regions of France believed werewolf turned on the full moon even well into the 1800s. He mentions that "men transformed into wolves at the full moon. The desire to run comes upon them at night."

Likewise, there's a potential moon connection as far back as Niceros's tale, as retold by Petronius in The Satyricon, though it exists in other and older forms told by other writers. It's an oft-cited werewolf story that mentions "the Moon shone brought as day" when a man turns into a wolf, though there's no obvious description of the moonlight itself being some kind of trigger or necessity for the magic. It did, however, let Niceros witness the transformation and become mentally scarred by it.

That was lengthy. Anyway, I love the full moon and werewolves. I also love werewolves and silver, even if that wasn't in folklore, but Baring-Gould alone does tell me that I think there was indeed basis in folklore for the connection between werewolves and the full moon.

Also, there's a Werewolf Fact for this, if old and not the best written: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/full-moon/

Day 7- What do you think of as the "typical werewolf color?" It might not necessarily be your favorite, but it's the one that stands out in your mind as the werewolf color - although I love them all, so obviously this doesn't apply to me.

I think brown. Sometimes grey.

Throughout my childhood, wolf-man style werewolves were usually brown and the wolf-headed ones were more likely to be grey. There were and are exceptions, of course. But even today, you're still most likely to see brown or grey, including in Halloween decorations, even if there's more variance in designs today (and you're more likely to find wolf-headed ones than you were in the past).

Day 8- One of the weirdest misconceptions I’ve run across in my life of werewolf obsession is this idea that “we need woman werewolves in media, we’ve never had many and they weren’t in the legends.” That couldn’t be less true. There have always been female werewolves in both. It's much safer today to assume the werewolf of a murder mystery will be the woman, as that's the new "twist." I'm much more shocked if it's ever the man anymore (it isn't). Werewolf women have been common even in early film, though the most popular examples begin around the 2000's. In fact, you could easily argue the first werewolf film (though it was about a witch turning into a werewolf) ever recorded in 1913 was about a female werewolf. It's lost to time now, though.

There were plenty of werewolf women in legend, too. I have a werewolf fact for that: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/werewolf-women/ (my personal favorite has always been the 1615 treatise by Jean de Nynauld, for some reason)

There's a lot more to say, but short post today since I have a lot of work to do. See you again tomorrow!

(in the original version of this post, I had 4 images, all of female werewolves from film, including Cursed, Ginger Snaps, The Howling, and Skinwalkers, though I could pull plenty more examples)

Day 9- Something I discuss a lot in The Werewolf: Past and Future is the point when werewolves "went mad," essentially. In pop culture, all the best werewolves are mad/uncontrollable at least for the most part, as inspired by The Wolf Man. It's a much better story and what makes a werewolf a werewolf in modern perceptions (including mine; those are the best werewolves). But it wasn't always the case in the legends.

Sure, there are several legends in previous time periods of mad werewolves (such as Sigmund and Sinfjotli, among others), but you'll remarkably find the majority had full control of the bestial form. This was especially common in older Christian works, such as about werewolf knights, in which being a werewolf was a test of the judgment of others or a test of one's own will. This also wasn't uncommon in ancient Greece and even Rome, such as the Arcadians taking the form of a wolf and returning to human form as long as they didn't devour any human flesh.

It was only in the Renaissance and/or Early Modern Period, with the rise of science and the popularity of slaughtering wolves (real ones), that werewolves became seen as these uncontrollable, evil, insane killers who were "diseased." In the past, being a werewolf was a magic curse. Then, it became a madness and an illness - called "lycanthropy." Some say Christianity caused this, when in actuality, it was secular divisions and the rise of scientific thought, as proven by older Christian werewolf works.

I have several werewolf facts on this subject, and I discuss it a lot in my book, too.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949227022

Post 1: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/curse-not-disease/

Post 2: https://maverickwerewolf.com/werewolf-facts/when-werewolves-went-mad/

[gentlebilady]

A Taste of Gold and Iron

Have you read it? You should.

I saw it recommended in an on-line book club I'm part of. Now, I'm leery of recs from people I don't know and who don't know me, but, I'm being honest, the cover art drew me in (a beautiful cover is like a friendly receptionist - it's the first impression). So, I checked the libby app to see if my two libraries had available eBook or audiobook copies - all were on a many week wait. Luckily I found it on the internet archive.

I read ONE PAGE and knew I would like it. I'm on the road right now and traveling with very little space, so while I could have stopped at a bookstore and bought a physical copy, I ended up getting it on nook. (I still fully intend to buy a physical copy.)

The way I loved this book? Is a little unlikely, if I'm being honest. Why did I fall so hard for these characters? Cause at it's core, it's character-driven. Why should I fall so hard for a book that's main plot is about political intrigue? (Something I usually do NOT go for).

The relationships. Alexandra Rowland knows these characters. They know how people interact with each other. They delved deep into the minds of Kadou and Evemer and let the audience see how these two characters see themselves and others, and, most importantly, how they see each other.

I blew through this book in two or three days (which is impressive for me, especially right now). And I immediately wanted more. Hell, I've already written a fic! Me! Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa.

I highly recommend this book. As I am terrible at summaries, I'll say this - it has a little fantasy, a slow-burn romance, diverse characters, lots of politics, and absolutely lovable characters (which is actually the most important part to me. If I don't like any of the characters, I can't finish the book).

(here's the cover that seduced me)

[stalkedbytrains]

Eldritch Tech Support 2: Digital Ghosts and Dead Religions

[this is a direct sequel to Eldritch Tech Support: The Algorithm of Chaos so thar be spoilers ahead]

"Aeth, hello again! I'm glad you could meet with me again."

"Why am I here?"

"You know we met a few days ago, and we had a lot to talk about."

"You're with the Catalog and Archive Bureau, is this about Lance Corporal?"

"Haha! No! Oh, definitely not. This is about precedence," the person sitting across from Aeth laughed heartily as they put their feet up on the table. "And I was never with the CAB. They just work with me, or for me, depending on how you look at it."

Aeth shifted uncomfortably in their seat. "Then who are you? Should I have representation present?"

The person across them smiled widely, almost predatory. "If you want. You can call in whoever you want. But I am here and I am going to get my answers."

"You said your name was Zerinnell. What do you want?"

"I work for... with... no... Let me start again. I represent the Dead Lands. I am Reckonfall. And we have one irrevocable rule. One thing that cannot be broken," they said as they adjusted their position, pulling their feet back. They shifted their weight so that they were looking Aeth directly in the eye, unblinking and unmoving. "We do not allow gods in the Dead Lands."

"Then what are we here for."

"Like I said. Precedence. I like the word 'precedence' more than I like 'the law of unintended consequences' or 'you fucked up and now you find out'."

"What do you mean?"

"The Deep Ones allowed you to keep your God of Tech Support so long as he said within the realm of digital information. That layer of reality that lays on top of our own, not direct influencing but ever-present. So long as he never set foot in our realm ever again."

"The first time was to protect us-"

"I know what you did. And off the record I thank you for it. I would hate to see what great-granddad would do to fight an entity of the Abyss, but I'm sure it would have been scarring for all of us."

"Then what do you want?"

"You're going to help me."

Aeth was starting to get frustrated with Zerinnell. They said so much but didn't really say anything.

"With what?" they yelled the question.

"Precedent. Like I said. We allowed your god to live in the digital. And now there is a second. A cult or a church. Something that is either a scam or a danger. Something that could upend the entire fabric of the Dead Lands or force the Deep Ones to change the terms of their agreement with your new god. You're going to help me figure out what this new thing is, if it is a threat or not, and how we are all going to collectively deal with this new plane that you call the internet."

"You can't be serious."

Zerinnell smiled widely, too widely. Almost as if they didn't constrain to fit within the normal human confines of muscle, skin, and bone. "I'm always serious."

"This isn't my area. This isn't my job."

"But you are the priest. You know the god and you know the tech better than I do."

"What if I say no?"

"Do you really want me to act independently? Because I will just declare the whole thing unworthy and place a ban upon it within the Dead Lands. And I don't think we want that. No internet? No tech over all of the Dead Lands? Reckonfall without the internet sounds terrible! How will I be able to watch old episodes of Real Monsters of Reckonfall Bay? But if you don't work with me, I'll have no choice but to declare a scorched earth, a new dead lands."

Aeth frowned. "Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

Zerinnell smiled their apex predator smile. "All the time actually."

[taikeero-lecoredier]

3 BAD BILLS TO KEEP IN MIND FOR 2025

KOSA : Kosa is a terrible internet bill that would make it mandatory for platforms online to enforce age verification via ID, and deeming any content “inappropriate” for kids to be banned. This could range from not safe for work content, to health ressources,LGBT ressources, to climate change. It’ll be up to politicians to dictate what is and isn’t proper for kids,and, of course, killing encryption. Here are some ressources to get ready to fight KOSA : https://taikeero-lecoredier.tumblr.com/post/738573191699660800/we-have-a-server-to-help-fight-against-this-we Scripts to use : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IyBUe6frFGF44rJQU3TahZ5zyG3tC7jai_hPneAKlnM/edit?tab=t.0 JOIN OUR SERVER AGAINST IT ! We organize call in days and other ressources. https://discord.gg/FPDJYkUujM

HR9495 would allow to stripe an organization of it's "non profits" status, and force them to pay taxes if the govt can "prove" that they are affiliated with terrorists with barely any concrete proof. This will impact non profit organizations such as ACLU, AO3, Fight For The Future, Electronic Frontier Foundation, AO3, The Internet Archive and many more that fight for human rights. Here is more infos and scripts you can use here : (THE POST IS OUTDATED DATE WISE BUT THE SCRIPTS IN THIS POST CAN STILL BE USED) : https://taikeero-lecoredier.tumblr.com/post/767859383226056704/hr9495-on-its-way-to-senate#notes Keep an eye for when ACLU makes a new call tool you can use,or contact your reps directly when the time needs it,they should look like this (The "Stop The Internet Censorship" discord server link above also help fight against it !) CHAT CONTROL If you are in Europe, I urge you to keep your eyes on this horrid EU proposal, as it will make it mandatory for private messages to be scanned by artificial intelligence, and users have to agree to be scanned or else they cant send images, videos or links anymore. More infos here : https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ Email English script: https://taikeero-lecoredier.tumblr.com/post/769688923967537152/chat-control-email-script-english#notes Contact your meps : https://op.europa.eu/en/web/who-is-who/organization/-/organization/COREPER/ Join our server against it, we gather ressources and scripts against it ! Non EU people are more than welcome to join us ! https://discord.com/invite/e7FYdYnMkS

[literallybyronic]

>be me >finish DAI and need a break >remember i wanted to refresh/analyze my fav author's dialogue style since i had been having trouble formatting my own >pick a random novella i remember liking but haven't read for many years and almost entirely forget the story of >it's the most solavellan coded literature i've ever read in my fucking life right down to the antagonist/deuteragonist/love interest being a guy who wears a wolf cloak and turns into a wolf who made a terrible mistake in his past and the heroine losing part of her hand

thanks brain. thanks a lot.

it's available to borrow on internet archive if you would like to torture yourself enjoy a good little read from an amazing author. (it's the 2nd story, starts on p. 125)

[reanimatedmagpie]

Hey!! I absolutely love your work, your art, comic, designs, etcetc are just.. so SO good. ALSO, I was wondering if you possibly had any art resources? More specifically art resources for someone that’s just starting out. I would love to get into drawing but there are a million videos and books and articles out there and I have no idea where or how to start.

Art school would be amazing but gosh dang it I’m broke </3

first of all ive never gone to art school proper, or any real amount of college at all for that matter either, its not terribly hard to get ahead of your peers who do with proper work ethic and knowing where to look for, the 'self-taught' label is becoming increasingly arbitrary because the internet's made it all easier than ever to access if you know where to look

admittedly i was starting out at a very different time in the internet and speaking a different language, so i cannot quite recommend what i was using when i started between language availability and modern expectations of say video quality, however! i do have some pointers

at a glance channels like proko [though more so the older videos] are pretty handy but also

i can tell you what to look for and general principles

if youve not already, look up and commit to practice the way youre supposed to hold the pen for art. genuinely good for your artwork, but, more importantly, helps you strain your wrist less. considering especially in the beginning artwork can take a long time, you need to get into those habits early. look up wrist exercises while you're at it and try to warm up your hands before starting. it is genuinely exactly like sports you cant skip the stretch. /

look for specific things. 'get good at art in 10 days' is the same as 'get fit in 10 days' even if its not impossible to learn some very useful fundamentals in that time, you know thats not what they have for you. you need to be looking for things like 'color contrast' 'muscles of the leg' 'how to do cleaner linework' when searching on the internet /

I would avoid short form content or even just shorter videos altogether or anything with a super flashy presentation for anything but like, simple software tricks, that stuff is not really usually interested in teaching things as much as its here to get algorithm points. it used to be a lot less of a thing and i feel sorry for people that are learning with this so saturated in the space ngl definitely steer clear off pinterest too. they wouldnt need to cocomelon you if they had something useful. did you know straight up art lecture recordings are out there btw? /

if you want an overview of a broad variety of things you want a book. yes i know. they are all fairly useful i would personally say and if you do not have a library in your immediate area, did you know the internet archive lets you borrow books digitally if you have an account? for human anatomy i really recommend the morpho series, for animals my go to was Gottfried Bammes, and i cannot recommend the Understanding Comics and Making Comics for sequential art, but generally speaking, books often want to appeal to people that are just starting out, so most of them that have a technical drawing aspect at all will help a beginner in some capacity. if you dont yet know which ones are 'good' i generally recommend looking into ones that mention the author is an art professor in the back /

important note: sometimes people consider the text on the page in those books as filler and Only look at the diagrams. that's not the case, you do in fact learn things if you read it /

also when reading those books take care to not just copy down the process but try your best to understand why. its not so much what it looks like so much as the thought process behind it /

use gesture drawing exercise tools like sketchdaily.com [if you do not wish to see nude models make sure it's filtered to clothed] if you do not yet know what gesture drawing is, that's a keyword to look up /

The secret sauce to drawing any creature is its bones and muscle. Trouble with faces? draw some studies off of photos of replica skulls. struggling to get what the hell is happening with the neck? look up a diagram of the neck muscles. a lot of 'anatomy for artists' resources are ultimately just translations of the scientific fact, so if youre not finding anything good there, go to the source! ive been doing that a lot lately. /

watch speedpaint videos! i know they dont come up as often on youtube naturally anymore but you get a Lot of insight into things from watching people whose art you like [and even don't like!] draw /

Draw real life things from real life. your pet or perhaps family member or friend, strangers on public transport, buildings outside it doesnt actually matter what just that you do it. photographs lack real life depth information most people's eyes can capture irl /

i know it can be kind of difficult these days but you shouldnt discount or ignore traditional even if you are not planning to focus on it. understanding of irl art mediums is really valuable even if you plan on being primarily digital because the less predictable nature of them builds confidence and helps you be more present among other benefits. its one of the many reasons youre not gonna find life drawing classes that allow students to just whip out a tablet /

hang out with your artist peers! ideally in spaces where people are actively making something like OCTs[Original Character Tournaments], game jams, even fandom spaces can work though i do not recommend that last one so much because they tend to be less interested in you as a person and more just seeing free art of their favorite guy and arent very friendly to beginners ngl. best find spaces specifically for original work, people tend to be more supportive there.

there really isnt a strict order in which you have to learn things. you can in fact go all in on turtle anatomy for a while if thats what interests you, why not, etc. but some good places to start are, in no particular order

anatomy of the face

anatomy of the torso

rotating cubes in 3d space [volume and perspective. generally not that scary i just find people overthink it a lot and get anxious]

how motion works[even if youre not at all animation inclined]

composition, color, contrast

various linework techniques, various panting techniques

mammal anatomy, bird anatomy, reptile anatomy, bug anatomy's nice too

basic plants, basic buildings, basic machinery

Anything deeper than that will be dictated by your own interests, this is just what would make you a very adaptable generalist. look up references whenever you struggle, study things you find visually cool, let your interests guide your research for the most part

but also, if i were to call Anything my big cool piece of advice, it's don't just sit around and aimlessly wait for your art to get 'good enough' to do something cool. start some little projects [and i do mean little. like under 5 pages of comic, a silly animation to a Short sound byte etc] and look up what you Directly need for them try your best. like a one day project, then a three day project then maybe a week long one, etc dont go right into anything long term right away, get practice finishing things first!

[youd be surprised what comics make you draw too, my last thing just had a random model t car in it for fun]

Because nothing, and i do mean nothing will teach you to make art in practice quite the same as making even a tiny project featuring the thing you want to learn

[doodlemancy]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.