#documenting light

[transbookoftheday]

Documenting Light by E.E. Ottoman

If you look for yourself in the past and see nothing, how do you know who you are? How do you know that you are supposed to be here?

When Wyatt brings an unidentified photograph to the local historical society, he hopes staff historian Grayson will tell him more about the people in the picture. The subjects in the mysterious photograph sit side by side, their hands close but not touching. One is dark, the other fair. Both wear men’s suits.

Were they friends? Lovers? Business partners? Curiosity drives Grayson and Wyatt to dig deep for information, and the more they learn, the more they begin to wonder — about the photograph, and about themselves.

Grayson has lost his way. He misses the family and friends who anchored him before his transition and the confidence that drove him as a high-achieving graduate student. Wyatt lives in a similar limbo, caring for an ill mother, worrying about money, unsure how and when he might be able to express his nonbinary gender publicly. The growing attraction between Wyatt and Grayson is terrifying — and incredibly exciting.

As Grayson and Wyatt discover the power of love to provide them with safety and comfort in the present, they find new ways to write the unwritten history of their own lives and the lives of people like them. With sympathy and cutting insight, Ottoman offers a tour de force exploration of contemporary trans identity.

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Fiction with Trans M/NB Pairings

A Hundred Vicious Turns by Lee Paige O’Brien (YA Fantasy) The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver (YA Romance) Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee (YA Romance) Long Macchiatos and Monsters by Alison Evans (Contemporary Romance) Documenting Light by EE Ottoman (Contemporary Romance)

[rambrandt-the-painter]

jolene gets a two page ref sheet fuck it

[madamadamiu]

The Humans of the Lost Light Cat Shelter AU

Rung: Cat behavior specialist who takes in cats that nobody else would. He does his best to rehabilitate the cats for normal homes, but things don’t often go his way. Owner of the Lost Light Cat Shelter.

Ravage: A college student who needs volunteer hours to graduate. They like to be broody and edgy, but unfortunately that attitude doesnt last very long at the shelter. Emo.

Thunderclash: The shelter’s number one benefactor and Rodimus’s number one enemy. General kindhearted guy.

Prowl: head of Iacon Animal Control. Doesn’t like outdoor and feral cats and dedicates himself to making sure the biodiversity is maintained. Seems like a hardass but is just a really intense nature buff.

Orion Pax: works for animal control and manages placement of animals into homes and shelters. Holds onto hope for animals that others want to put down.

Pharma: Ratchet’s old owner who was a highly respected surgeon. Died of old age, causing Ratchet to be surrendered to the shelter.

(More to be added thru edits)

[cowboylikeyouu]

writing fanfiction on paper is so fucking therapeutic

[pirateprincessjess]

Last year I got ahold of the arcade PCB for a game called Biohazard: Gun survivor 2 Code Veronica. I’ve always wanted to play this game, so I decided to build the rest of the arcade cabinet.

It’s been a while, but I have an update!

The game runs!!! I still have to build out all the controls for the game, and a physical cabinet to house the game, but it runs!!!!!

[aster-daydream404]

I CAN’T STAND THEM!!!

[meowkunas]

Sukuna likes to make you cry.

He's got you pinned underneath him with one hand clasping both of your wrists together. But you barely feel that. All you can really feel is him, filling you relentlessly.

"You're drooling." He sneers. "This is the only way to shut you up, huh?"

You think you whine something about how mean he's being in response, but it gets lost amidst other things. What started out as gentle affection from you has turned into this. It's not that you were being overly clingy today either, and you open your mouth to tell him so.

One of his hands slides down from your bare waist to your clit, brushing against it. It's the soft touch standing out against everything else that sends you spiralling through your first orgasm of the night. You're shaking, unable to catch you breath. And he's still going. It feels like he's touching you everywhere that's sensitive all at once, and sometimes he squeezes and sometimes he caresses your skin and—

"Wait—" You pant out.

"You're not overstimulated already, are you?"

He's asking a question that he already knows the answer to. Tears prickle at the corner of your eyes as you try to decide whether it's too much or whether it's still not enough. All that talk earlier about wanting to satisfy Sukuna when it's always been you that's the insatiable one in this equation. He cups your cheek so you open your eyes to look at him. You can feel his finger wiping away a tear with his thumb, grinning down at you.

You don't even feel that he's flipped you over so that you're on top at first, too busy grinding your hips down to chase that feeling of pleasure again.

"There you are." He mumbles, gripping onto your thighs so hard that you know you'll still feel all of this tomorrow. "Come on, try harder."

[lattedusks-mochadawns]

It’s been ages since I’ve drawn them digitally. Also first time using lasso fill technique on IbisPaint, very good for WK artstyle.

I used those new adult characters from the Activate Kid Power Special

Sketch + Traditional + Original versions under cut

[alien-gatsby]

Dasia ub Nexil!!

[Daisy and Nick!]

[babybison]

tongrak's outfits I ep. 10

[ink-the-artist]

I love your artwork so much! Your colors are so vibrant and none of the white speckles in the paper ever shows, its so impressive and I really dig it! I was wondering if you use any sort of blending medium? Like baby oil or anything? Either way, I really enjoy looking at your artwork and I'm always excited to see whatever you'll make next

I use a colorless blender (prismacolor, which is wax-based so baby oil probably wouldnt work) but my scanner is also rly bad about picking up white specks in a way photographing the art with my phone isnt, so I usually have to do some digital editing to get rid of them as well.

I do this by duplicating the layer, setting the one on top to "darken," and using the mixer brush to blend out the white spots + just use the eyedropper tool to select the color of that area (needs to be a slightly lighter shade of it) and color over the white spots with the brush tool

i edited a small bit of the original scan to show what i mean

original:

with the edited layer:

heres how it looks set to normal instead of darken, I used both the mixing brush and regular brush just to demo it

[rileys-battlecats]

girl help I started writing down oc thoughts and have started contemplating the logistics of how a city carved into the walls of a ravine would have access to fresh water

[maximura]

[chronurgy]

Tbh I think it's in everyone's best interests to maintain strong walls between fandoms and creators. I don't think anything good comes of those worlds mixing beyond the minimum, and I also think both sides of that arrangement need to put in the work to keep those spheres separate. Fans need to not send shit to creators, not go running to creators with every question and headcanon, and in return creators need to stay the fuck out of fandom spaces. Period. I also think we should consider it massive asshole behavior for a creator to screenshot or re-tweet posts from fans to complain about them. That sort of behavior puts the fan at a high risk of dogpiling and harassment due to the large and dedicated followings creators tend to accrue and it's absolutely not acceptable

[pathological-runaway]

A voice calls to them from inside, and the Elder turns around. The bright room bathed in warm yellowish candlelight is somewhat painful to look at after the time spent gazing at the darkening skies, and the Elder feels uncomfortable with the table and the armchairs and the bookshelves filled with paper and paper and paper. It all seems pointless now, the goals and dreams of the past, and the priceless books stored in the room are suddenly superficial and vain. What does any of it matter, with a storm approaching? “I can see something terrible coming.”

you can read the fic here or below the cut

The wind rises, and the grass with a few scattered flowers in it bends to the ground, as if hoping the soil will protect it from the rage of the gusts. The sky is dark grey, overcast by clouds, and there is a chill in the air smelling like ozone and fresh leaves. For a split second, a bolt of lightning appears on the horizon only to fade away immediately. It is not raining here yet, but the storm must be close.

There is a pause during which only the blowing wind and the rustle of grass can be heard. Then, a low rumble of thunder roars in the distance, and the first drops of rain start to fall.

The Elder remains stood on the porch, brows furrowed and eyes fixed on the ominous black clouds. Their figure is small in the face of the oncoming storm, and the modest ornaments on their robes appear even bleaker now that no candles are there to illuminate them.

The Elder does not move, quietly observing the tempest while they still can. While it is still safe to do so. Nature has been toyed with a lot in the past decades — stars know when it will decide to strike back.

It is better not to tempt it.

A voice calls to them from inside, and the Elder turns around. The bright room bathed in warm yellowish candlelight is somewhat painful to look at after the time spent gazing at the darkening skies, and the Elder feels uncomfortable with the table and the armchairs and the bookshelves filled with paper and paper and paper. It all seems pointless now, the goals and dreams of the past, and the priceless books stored in the room are suddenly superficial and vain.

What does any of it matter, with a storm approaching?

“We should be quite safe here,” the voice from inside the room assures. It is soft but steady, even if lacking that pompous self-confident note that most would have when discussing nature. The Elder themself used to adopt it sometimes in the past. But things have changed since then, and so have they.

They enter the room reluctantly and close the door behind them. It becomes unexpectedly quiet, the crackling of candles and the muffled spatter of rain on the roof the only sounds here.

The Elder thinks they miss nature. The wildness of it. The danger inherent in it. The destruction that it brings, which does not scare them anymore, oh no. It used to. But now that they have seen human-made weapons end lives in a blink of an eye, the rainstorms seem almost harmless. They seem right.

Death by Nature’s wrath is much more welcome than the alternative. Perhaps, the downpour could wash away all the blood that has been spilled by the mankind.

It would almost seem more merciful now.

“I can see something terrible coming,” the Elder replies to a question that was never asked, shaking their head to make the thoughts go away. They have these ideas, sometimes, that are not really theirs, ideas the origin of which they cannot quite explain. Ones that inexplicably come true.

Some would call them visions. A gift from the god. Some would call the Elder a prophet, even. But the Elder themself would rather stay quiet, more times than not.

It is for the best.

Their interlocutor frowns, eyes not leaving the other’s even for a second. They understand. Of course they do. They have always understood — even when others did not. Even when people claimed they were being unreasonable. Mad. Old.

Because the Isle Elder is not old. They are ancient. The oldest being alive in the whole world. They have seen it all: all those diseases, all those disasters. All those deaths. All those lives. The beauty of the world. Its ugliness. They have seen where birds come from and where they fly, season after season, year after year. They have seen generations of people be born and grow old and die, and they themself have never wavered. They have stood there, on the top of the flower-peppered hill, and watched over everything and everyone.

They were every Elder’s mentor. Every commoner’s guide. Every child’s parent. They have always been there, have always assisted anyone in need. Have always known more than they let people see they knew. They have hidden things, waiting for the right moment to reveal them. They have done more for these lands — these people — than anyone has.

But people have forgotten. They always do, do they not?

People have forgotten, and now the Isle Elder is no longer an Elder. They are nobody’s teacher now. Nobody’s family. Nobody’s friend. Bereft of both their title and their role, they are bereft of love now, too. Have been for a while.

The Vault Elder is guilty of turning their back on them, once. When everyone else did. Not that this little detail excuses them in any way. But long enough has passed — enough blood has been spilled — for them to start thinking. Rethinking. For them to stop following the ones who made Daleth and what they stand for go forgotten. And they are sorry for not having done so earlier. For not having seen what was right. But then again, no one did. No one but Daleth.

And the fact that the Isle Elder (they are still an Elder in Lamed’s heart) is here now, despite their apprentice’s betrayal, only shows how much better Daleth is than all of them put together.

The Vault Elder knows there is not much time left. And they regret deeply that they have wasted so much of it drifting away when they could have tried to get closer. That they chose the path of cold when they knew there was one bathed in sunlight.

There is no turning back now.

“I am not a saint, you know,” the Isle Elder said to them sometime many long years ago. “I make mistakes, too.”

“You cannot blame yourself forever,” is what they say to Lamed now.

The latter takes a seat, slowly, quietly. It is so strange in here, in this deadly silence. A disaster may be approaching — is approaching — and they have no means of knowing when it comes. They are blinding themself, burying themself and their guest in this building as if it were a tomb.

It could turn out to be.

“I am not.”

Daleth’s grey eyes have a sad look in them, one that says do not lie to me. One that whispers I know you. One that murmurs barely audibly I hope I still do.

Thunder roars outside, the wind that rises making the candles flicker and go out. The room is illuminated by lightning for a split second before plunging into complete darkness. The Vault Elder can barely distinguish their mentor’s eyes, can barely subdue the fear rising in their chest and the images flooding their eyes.

The two sit there in silence as the storm rages on, neither of them bothering to move and light the candles.

“I can see something terrible coming,” Lamed’s lips quiver.

The Isle Elder gets ready to stand up when the roof collapses.