#what did i read

[benkyoutobentou]

31 Days of Productivity Reading もう一回！: Day 12

Before: I know that we’re all waiting for a novel to be chosen. And today? Today I read volume two of ポーの一族. At this point it’s getting funny. Maybe tomorrow? Tomorrow please?

After: Last night I went to bed with the strange idea that I should implement a strict routine for myself, so I wrote myself a schedule for the day and I actually liked how it worked out. I managed to hit every one of my languages today! I caught up with my German flashcards (and did some Japanese cards as well), studied Chinese grammar, and, of course, read in Japanese. I did get interrupted, which was mildly frustrating, but I just shifted things back a bit since I only planned into the late afternoon. And the reason for that was because I helped my neighbor move her horse! That photo is of him, he's super cute! His name is Kid and he's a five year old retired racehorse. He also looked super tall to me, but then I realized that the horse I usually ride is a fifteen hand quarter horse, so he's probably just a little over average sized if that. I also added an illustration of a horse from this volume of ポーの一族 because I liked it and I was already adding a horse anyways.

So I finished today's volume of ポーの一族 in just about one sitting because I didn't end up having much time today. I am... so in shock. The entire volume was 190 pages and the main story in it was 160 of those pages. The next two "chapters" were bizarre to say the least. Neither of them had anything at all to do with ポーの一族. One was a two page advertisement of sorts for dolls and the other was three stories about random girls. None of the characters from the series showed up in any of this. Of the three stories, the first was about a young girl who kisses her neighbor and then gets really upset about it. The next was about a girl who has a random boy come live with her family and annoy her at every turn until she finds out that his mother is hospitalized nearby and she suddenly becomes infatuated with him. The last one was probably the strangest of all (maybe other than the doll ... thing) and followed a girl whose boyfriend proposes after only four weeks of dating. After realizing all that she'd have to give up, she agrees to marry him. I am so miffed at what these stories are trying to say, and why they were included at all. I would assume that they're to, like, teach young girls how to behave? But wow, congratulations for doing that in the weirdest way possible, and being pretty awful at it as well. Yes, all you eighteen year old girls out there really should abandon your dreams and aspirations to become a housewife for a guy you met four weeks ago. That's such a great idea. I am absolutely miffed. Consider me thoroughly confused. I would like to read about the vampires please.

Today I read 190 pages of manga and finished my tenth volume of the month. Yippee one goal down! I still have volumes of manga on the wheel, but because of my spinner wheel's inclination towards manga, what I think I'm going to do going forward is put each novel twice on the wheel. That way, instead of having a 50/50 chance of spinning a novel, I'll have a 75/25 chance. Is my math correct? Let's just hope it is, it's past my bedtime.

[kiirous]

Reading smut in the UwU-language is the weirdest shit ever.

I don't recommend it, but I know people are curious and want to do something more, if they're told not to. I mean ist was kinda funny, but still weird.

[nthflower]

Readcomicsonline commenters I can excuse media illiteracy but please don't be that much of a bigot omg

[kiwizsstuff]

there is nothing Coquette about Lapvona ??? What the fuck ??? Read Clytemnestra or Ariadne or Circe but God what was that book

[spitblaze]

I guess Chilchuck has brought us right back to 'adults who are short are child-coded and if you like them you're a pedophile' discourse huh

[louisegluckpdf]

the irony of this year's met gala theme being based on a short story about cloistered, decadently-dressed aristocracy desperately pillaging the natural resources at their disposal to hold the advancing tide of the restless underclass at bay is honestly baffling

[lilislegacy]

this is my roman empire. and after all these years, i finally have to say something.

GRUNT-WHIMPER??? GRUNT-WHIMPER!!!!???

ANNABETH GIRL ARE YOU OKAY??

forget her just standing there gasping for air. forget her very audible sigh. forget the fact that annabeth initiates 80% of their kisses and literally has to restrain herself from kissing him in front of all of New Rome in MoA. i could go on and on about how many times percy calls her beautiful and attractive (let’s not forget how his heart races and his skin tingles at her touch) and all his boyfriend-ly thoughts about her, but lets focus on annabeth for a sec. BECAUSE ANNABETH CHASE IS GRUNT-WHIMPERING??

our girl was feeling ALL the things in this scene. she’s so weak in the knees for him that she can’t even hide it in front of piper. also percy must be a fantastic kisser? BECAUSE GRUNT-WHIMPER??

do not EVER tell me percy and annabeth don’t have romantic feelings for each other. do not EVER tell me it’s purely platonic. if you’re someone who thinks “nah i can’t see them getting married and having kids cause i don’t think they feel that way about each other” you clearly did not read about the grunt-whimper (well, you can hc whatever you want. i respect all opinions. but i do think you need to re-consider and account for the grunt-whimper)

BECAUSE GRUNT-WHIMPER?? ONE GOOD KISS FROM PERCY IS MAKING ANNABETH CHASE GRUNT-WHIMPER?? IS THAT RICK’S “CHILD-APPROPRIATE” WAY OF SAYING SHE MOANED?? HE SHOULD HAVE JUST SAID SHE MOANED. GRUNT-WHIMPER IS SO MUCH WORSE. THAT GOES SO FAR BEYOND A MOAN. A MOAN IS TAME COMPARED TO A GRUNT-WHIMPER.

GUYS I-

[nedlittle]

it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

[okidraw]

i wanted to show them the stars.

[signourneybooks]

Dancing out of September 2023

September was not quite my month on a personal front. However there have been some exciting announcements blog wise for October and November. The Numbers In September I read a total of 15 books which makes the total of 2023 111 books read. Of the 15 books 14 books were fantasy, 1 book was mystery/detective . Out of the 30 days of September I read 16 days which amounted to a total of 4110 pages.…

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[heavy-duty-perfume]

When the police didn't study

The building of the police precinct, usually a building of grey persuasion and decibels on the lower end of the scales, was unusually colourful and loud. There was a celebratory party held for officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun.

Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun was an avid party-goer. Not only did he know all the party-related rituals that everybody was expected to perform, he enjoyed them. It was as though he couldn't get enough alcoholic beverages, singing, dancing, smoking, talking, and mingling.

Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, was not without struggles though. He was not very bright - he wouldn't even be able to tell you that in the last sentence of the previous paragraph, there is the Oxford comma.

What was the reason for hosting a celebratory party for officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun? Did he arrest his thousandth suspect? Did he issue his thousandth parking ticket? Did he break his thousandth baton? No, it was much simpler than that. Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, was, in fact, celebrating his thousandth grammatically correctly written sentence, a milestone reached by very few of his fellow colleagues.

The party was in a full swing, officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, was in the middle of mingling. Then, a distant sound slowly started to crawl its way into his ears. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear thousandth grammatically correctly written sentence of Bubble-Gun! Happy birthday to you!"

A cake was hauled into the room where the celebratory party held for Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, was in full swing.

Suddenly, naturally, all voices went quiet. Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, could hear the drop of a small horse.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't cake time?" officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, said. It was, indeed, cake time.

"How many of us are there?" asked lieutenant Jordan Urkmann, nicknamed Bob. "Bubble-Gun, you are the smartest, you can count!"

Officer Kevin Trousser, nicknamed Bubble-Gun, thought for a second and seven tenths of the second one, then said: "Damn straight, Bob! Well, let's see. There is over twenty-nine people in the world, I know like two or three. So if I divide all of the people I know by all of the people I think there are, that is less than one, so there is zero of us. So I will divide this cake by zero!"

He did.

The Universe became cake.

[amnestyliketaz]

in honor of the nimona movie (it’s so good i’m gonna scream and cry for the next million years) i must share my favorite nimona art ever

drawn by ND stevenson ofc and posted on twitter a few years ago i believe

do i even have to SAY anything? the shark, it’s not rocket surgery, baby nimona, the DOMESTICITY of it all im gonna explode

UPDATE!!!! GAY DADS AU THREAD https://twitter.com/gingerhazing/status/1676058949504892928?s=46

[h00f]

T4TM (Theseus4TheMinotaur)

lost wax cast bronze, patina & paste wax

2023

(process photos & info under cut <3)

my minotaur boy!! pls click on the photos for higher res! my thesis is focusing on trans men and creatures (how original ik) and this was last semester's final. i spent a lot of time looking at sculptures of the theseus/minotaur story, and yknow? a LOT of them are erotic! i'm pretty sure i saw some of them on tumblr a decade ago, and that's led to this now!

as you'll notice, the minotaur has a big t-dick! i wanted to give him breasts and an enlarged clitoris to present a very masculine trans figure. the boy on the bottom is also trans because i say so . the piece is about looking up to older, bigger, hairier trans men and seeing something awe-inspiring and beautiful. the minotaur was locked up by a cruel father for being different, and i think modern adaptations tend towards a sympathetic asterion (his name in one version)

making this piece was. so much effort. it took me about 3 months to get it all together - from clay model (plasticine) to 3D print to silicone mold to wax cast, and finally bronze pour into the shell mold. and then a TON of filing, sanding, dremel-ing, and various other metalworking techniques that probably took years off my life.

i started with sketches and made theeeeeee ugliest model ever:

then used a 3D scanner to get it digital, then spent a goooood month or two making him pretty in blender! then i spent an agonizing few weeks trying to get it print-ready, and fiiiiiinally did

^^^ an early resin printed draft of the model - you can see in the final that i added lots to theseus after some feedback, but sadly the nosering broke off every time i cast it so i just. let that be <3

then came the moldmaking, and then the wax dipping!! the yellow stuff is shell mold (ground up ceramic bits and algae soup, sticks to the wax, then silica sand in varying sizes on top) which gets the wax melted out, and bronze poured in!

then it's all metalworking, cutting stuff off, and working with hot metal. they don't tell you about all the bronze dust and how annoying it gets wearing a respirator AND goggles. but it is for me health, me boy. here's him all cleaned up before the patina:

and then i spray him down with various chemicals to make it "patina" (aka rust) in pretty colors. wait a few days, then apply paste wax to seal it and give it that shine!

then we get what you see above!!! the blue was actually unintentional, and i'm still not super sure why it looks that way.. but it's pretty so idc <3

thanks for reading!! if you ever have any bronze/casting questions, don't hesitate to message me! <3

[backstepping]

ayo edebiri: the movie reviewer we deserve

and her dad also has an account