#what the fuck. what the fuck how is this 400 year old play still so relevant

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

emilia's speech to desdemona in act 4 scene 3 is so fucking good. othello is such a good fucking play. what the fuck

[jeonsbabygirlsworld]

INDECISION

SUMMARY: You feel really insecure these days after giving birth to your second daughter but for your sake Jungkook is there to tell you on how pretty you are.

PAIRINGS: established relationship Jungkook X Reader.

WORD COUNT:1.1K

WARNINGS: reader is insecure about her body, Koo coming to rescue her, Dad kook :(. Bam is there as always! Reader is called Jagi sometimes.

SMUT WARNIGS: Kissing, lactation kink, mentions of male masturbation, she gets a bit shy because she didn't shave down there, fingering,cream pie, missionary , after care, lmk if I missed anything .

A/n : small teeny Drabble for y’all , wrote this instead of studying for my exam 😬🧍🏻‍♀️ Tumblr works on reblog system please reblog !! Also a simple “it good or it’s great”can make my entire day 💞This is 400+ followers special enjoy ! ❤️

“Daddy please” Hani pleaded with her doe eyes looking at Jungkook he sighed “No baby I’m sorry”Hani started fussing when he said no “Look baby you already have many dolls?” He said softly picking her up from the ground. His 4-year-old daughter was stubborn just like her mom and wanted the doll “One more won’t hurt Daddy” she said pouting her lips.  

Sighing he gave in and went to buy that for her. Jungkook thought of buying some groceries from the nearby mall when Hani spotted a doll shop, she promised she would only look around but instead, she started fussing when Jungkook wouldn’t let her take one.  

Loading all the groceries into the back of the car Hani was already settled in her car seat “Let’s go home soon and meet Mommy and Chae ” Jungkook said wiggling his eyebrows and starting his car, soft music playing in the car.  

You had to freshen up once again for the second time today, Chae your younger daughter puked out the milk you fed her. She was now asleep in her bed. Bam and you decided to play a bit waiting for your husband and daughter to come, Jungkook texted you he was on the way. Getting up Bam and you went to the kitchen to prepare something while Chae was still asleep.  

You heard the front door unlocking Hani came running to the kitchen “Hi Mommy see I bought a new doll, where is Chae is she asleep again?” Hani bombarded you with questions never really staying to one point “Wow baby, yeah Chae is asleep go wake her yeah sweetie?” You said kissing her cheeks “Hey baby, got something for you” Jungkook handed you some of your favourite chocolates and some fresh white tulips he picked up while on his way back home.

Bam rushed towards both of them wiggling his tail and climbing up in Jungkook's arm . Kissing him you told him to change and get ready to eat dinner.  

Chae was now awake playing with Hani and Bam while Jungkook helped you place the dishes on your dining table. “Hani come here and have your dinner baby” you said placing her favourite plate and spoons. "Yes, Mommy coming " Hani said while standing up while Chae cooed and started crying when Hani came to the dining table, grabbing her from her crib you had your little one in arms. " I'll go and feed bam, start with your dinner Jagi" Jungkook said standing up from his seat. Dinner soon ended with laughs and giggling Hani told me about her new Kindergarten and her friends. 

Both of your daughters knocked up soon while watching some animated movies. Bam was already rested in his kennel, tucking them on the bed you went to change, to sleep soon.  

While changing you stood in front of the mirror and sighed , Jungkook hummed at the site of you sighing "Kook I don't feel confident and pretty about my body anymore " you said slightly embarrassed and tears beaming in your eyes. "What are you saying baby, you look perfect," Jungkook said keeping his phone on the nightstand.

It’s been 4 months since you both had sex, the last time you had sex was when you were eight months pregnant. you've heard Jungkook jerking off in the shower once in a while. "Baby you look so fucking perfect, what makes you think you're not pretty?" he said sitting in front of you and grabbing your shoulders " I don't know kook I have stretch marks all over my stomach and thighs, I have baby fat still in my body," you said tearing up. Jungkook sighed kissing your cheeks " Baby it's serious why didn't you tell me this earlier? " Jungkook was shocked about why you didn’t let him know.

" you've given birth to our child baby, and about stretch marks you should not feel you're not pretty anymore, and some baby fat looks cute on you, you have them in the right spots," Jungkook says now lying over your breasts, laughing through tears you wave him off. Jungkook then kisses your lips slowly which soon turns into a make out session. "You're fine with having sex with me tonight baby?" he asked making sure you were comfortable with it.

Nodding at him he helps you to undress when you get a bit shy under his gaze "Kook I haven’t been shaving down there lately” you say in a slow tone we wave off saying “It’s fine baby” and move down towards your stomach slowly leaving wet kisses on your stretch marks and fat, leaning he is met with the site of your wet pussy.  

Groaning at the site “fuck so wet baby, what got you so worked up?” Jungkook whispered before leaning in to give a soft kiss to your core. Closing your eyes, you let yourself enjoy the pleasure he gave. “Ah ah baby watch me” He tutted “Tell me what you want baby, gonna give you everything you deserve” he added “Want your mouth kook” you said grabbing his hair. “Take what you want to have it your way,” he says softly sucking on your soaked clit “You taste like a fucking candy” Jungkook praises you for being a good girl and how wet you were “fuck so tight baby” curses left your mouth when he fingered you through your orgasm. 

Bawling your eyes out you finally came on his fingers “You gonna take my cock baby?” Jungkook said still unsure “Yeah kook want you in me now,” you said reassuring him “Looks so good waiting for me, glad I knocked you up with my babies” he groaned .

“My sexy baby mama, never gonna make you feel bad about your insecurities they look fucking perfect” his thrusts were getting rough but you both were careful to not make a bit of noise, Jungkook's hand pressed against your mouth to keep you from your moaning getting louder. His hands massaged your breasts and a few bits of milk oozing out of them made his lactation kink awake, sucking on them he moans at the sweet taste.  

“Fuck Jagi I’m gonna fucking come” Arrays of curses left your mouth, and slopping noises of your wet pussy made him cum faster than he even though “fuck kook so messy” you chuckle feeling the slick drip down to your ass. Laughing he settles his head on your neck whispering sweet things in your ear and occasionally biting on them. He backs away and brings in a towel to clean you up.  

You both cuddle up against each other wearing some cloths because Hani has a habit of barging in your room at early morning. Jungkook went to check up on both of them kissing their cheeks and closing the door. The baby monitor helps you when Chae cries in middle of night thankfully she was asleep.  

Whispering I love You's Sleep soon overcome you both.  

Taglist : @kimmingyuswifee , @jungk97kwife , @olimpiiaa , @ellesalazar , @hopeonysus , @diorh0seokie , @yvonnexojeon , @diamondjeon , @kookswifesblog , @talyaaas-blog , @jk-hoe97 , @jeoninknown , @dna-black-and-blue

[readychilledwine]

Discipline

✨️Kink Education with Elizabeth✨️

Discipline is a huge part of the Dom/sub dynamic in BDSM. Discipline is the actual act of setting rules and boundaries in place for a sub to follow. Discipline is not punishment, but punishment is a part of the Discipline kink.

Discipline is non-sexual in nature. It could be rules as simple as, "you only wear those heels for me," or "when we interact with this person, you do not do x, y, and z." A huge portion of discipline training is based on accountability from the sub and self reporting. Doms will do check ins when they have time, but a well trained sub will self report any rules they have broken without the dom knowing, and will own the rules they have broken in front of the dom.

Breaking rules is what leads to why you are all here, punishment. Punishment can be a variety of sexual and non sexual acts, but I know a favorite here is impact play, so that is the punishment our dear reader will endure. Punishments are decided by the dom based on which rules were broken, how many were broken, and how much they were broken. Punishments should NEVER be given by a dom in a place of anger. If you enter a BDSM dom and sub relationship and your dom tries to punish you when he is angry, LEAVE. That's not a dom. That's a red flag. Punishment should also never be administered without a conversation being had. The sub needs to know exactly why they are being punished in order to actually learn and be trained.

Now, there is a difference between a punishment and a funishment. Punishment is earned by breaking rules that cause your dom to be upset. It is not something a sub is purposely trying to earn. Funishment, like I used in my azris x reader spanking piece (For Science) is used more in brat taming. Brats like to push their doms buttons as much as possible, toying the line with their doms in hopes of getting a funishment. Doms may seem more upset in a funishment since it is an established part of the dynamic, but funishment is still given with love and care and the safety of the sub in mind.

💕Peep the Valentines Day List Here💕

As always, NSFW below the cut

Helion x Reader

Warnings - impact play as punishment, Beron, jealous LoA, dom/sub dynamics, fingering, bratty behavior towards the end, lack of Helions thighs.

Lady Autumn sent you another glare as you held your husband's, your mate's arm kissing the muscle there gently as you did the best you could to look impassive. 

You knew she and Helion were lovers, that she had risked everything to be with him despite her marriage to the cruel male beside her. That had been over 400 years ago, though. You didn't understand how she couldn't just let him go.

You shifted uncomfortably as her glare began to feel heated. No, it was heated. “Andromeda,” you interrupted Tamlin and Rhysand's lovers spat with her name. “If you attempt to set me on fire, again, I personally will declare war on Autumn. It will be the 4th time in a year. Jealously isn't a good enough reason for a 600 year old female to have less control of her powers than I do. Nor is it a good enough reason to outright attack me and blame a loss of control."

Kal whistled next to you, leaning back as he smirked. Thesan's jaw dropped as Beron's gaze shot your way. “And who the fuck are you to decide that his court is able to go to war?”

“My high lady, mate, wife, general of my armies, and the female who ran my court for 50 years,” Helion turned to Andromeda and Beron. “Leave my mate out of our issues. She wasn't even alive when that all happened. She did not ask to be bound to me. She should not be punished for my transgressions."

Beron turned toward his wife, calming her using their bond, and nodded at you. You felt the embarrassment from Helion hit you full force. It was followed by anger and disappointment. You had taken a calculated risk, putting both her and yourself in danger of your husbands’ rage. You could feel as his fingers twitched, and your thigh was squeezed roughly. You were in for an interesting night.

The punishment began by ordering you to stay in your suite for the night. It had been 3 hours, and you knew he was returning soon based on the last tug he sent through the bond. You pulled the blanket higher up, refusing to cry over defending yourself. 

You heard the door open and a heavy glass being set down, followed by footsteps. 

The bed dipped beside you. Helion's hand went to your hair, stroking it lovingly. “Sit up. We need to talk, my sunflower.” You obeyed, leaning back against the headboard. “What is rule number 5?”

Your eyes fluttered shut. “I do not use my title to pull sway over another court.”

“Rule 4?”

“My title is to be exposed at your transgression. The other courts do not need to know for my protection."

“Rule 12?”

“Breaking these rules will lead to punishment as deemed fit by daddy.”

Helion forced you to look at him. “Did you break any rules today?”

You nodded, the accountability Would lessen the punishment. “4, 5, and 6.”

Helion smiled. “What's rule 6?”

“Don't fuck with Beron.”

He counted on his hand. “So 3 rules were broken, and a 4th is on the line. My question, sunflower, is, do I punish you in your home court with your brother just a few doors away, or do I wait until we are home?” 

It was cruel of him to ask you if you wanted to wait, increasing whatever he had planned, or get it over with. “Here.” You threw a sound shield up. “Let's just do it here.” 

Helion nodded and stood. “Up, dress off, bend over the bed.” He watched like a hawk as you removed your dress, leaving the pretty lacy lingerie on and leaned over the bed. “Haven't had to spank you in a long time.” You shivered as he ran his hand up your thighs. “10,” both of his hands came to the plush skin of your ass. “10 with no sex tonight seems very fair. It was self-defense, after all.” You bit down on your bottom lip hard, preventing yourself from arguing and making it worse. “Doesn't that sound fair, y/n?”

You took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”

“And you understand I am not angry anymore? That this was a decision I made with a sound mind?”

“Yes, daddy.” 

He hummed behind you, squeezing your ass again before sighing. “Count for me, princess.” 

There was nowhere for you to go as that first hit came down right below your left butt cheek, stinging the tender flesh there and making you wiggle. “One.” 

Two hands came down, hitting both sides and leaving you without side to wiggle and escape to. He hit harder this time, groaning as your skin began to change color faintly. “Two,” you whimpered. 

“Good girl,” he praised. “Thought I'd be able to trick you on that one. You are so well trained. Who taught you?”

You smiled, turning your head to the side so he could see it. “Daddy did.”

Helion was practically glowing with male pride. “You must have a good daddy.” 

“The best.”

The third spank hit your wet folds, making you yelp at the unexpected stimulation. Skilled fingers immediately found the apex of your thighs, making soft circles there. “Four,” it came out as a moan. 

Another spank came on right, in time with him pressing that bundle of nerves. You grit the count out through your teeth as you began to realize fully what was about to happen. 

6 and 7 were the same. Powerful stinging smacks on the left side repeatedly. You were desperate for anything at this point, wiggling your hips as he continued plucking moan after moan from you as if you were a well tuned harp. 

8 hit below your left cheek, towards the inside of your spread thighs. You yelled loudly as hit landed, struggling not to climb further up the bed. 

You could hear how wet you were. You could feel it running down your thighs. “Being such a good girl,” his voice was low, the timber of it melting you further into the mattress. “Sensational.” 

9 struck you as he plunged two fingers deep into you. The moan of his name was unholy as it echoed the room. “Nine,” your tone was strained, that coil so fucking tight in your stomach you almost could not bare it any longer. 

You knew if you came without permission, it would be worse. So much worse. 

One night without sex would become a week, and if you dared touch yourself, dared to lay a single finger on what was his, that week would become you strapped to a chair watching him fuck whomever he pleased in your place before him and that person overestimulated you and edged you for hours on end.

The final spank was centered on the right side again. He landed it in time with curling his fingers to your gspot. 

You couldn't help but to release a mix of a scream and moan of pleasure and frustration. 

Tears began to fall as you whispered 10 and he continued curling his fingers inside of you. 

You felt like your body was being forced to dangle from a cliff and he was holding on. He could either let you go, let you crash and fall into the valley of pleasure below you, or he could rip it all away. 

And he chose the second. 

His fingers were out of you and he was walking away. Grabbing the lotion you had packed. He moved you across his lap instead of the bed by your hair. 

The lotion felt so cool against the tender and sore flesh, making you whimper for a whole new reason as your thighs continued trying to get any friction they could. 

“What did we learn, sunflower?” His voice was gentle and calm, but where you were laying told another story. His hard cock dug into your side causing you to shift in need.

“Do not break rules.”

“And?”

“Be good for daddy.” 

He sighed, a content happy noise leaving his throat. “Rhysand and I are going to go look at Thesan's new pleasure hall. You are going to stay here and sleep. Understood?” You wanted to protest. Wanted to attend the pleasure hall with your husband and friends. He gave you a look, eyes dancing and hoping for a challenge.

“Yes, daddy.” Two could play this game.

He hid his disappointment and kissed you. “Be good while daddy is gone. I love you.”

You smiled and said it back, watching as he left.

You'd be good in his absence. You waited an hour before your hand slipped into your still soaked panties.

You'd be so good.

General tag list:

@hnyclover @glitterypirateduck @slytherinindisguise @mischiefmanager @bloodicka @starsinyourseyes @the-sweet-psycho

@mariahoedt @rinalouu @sarawritestories @starryhiraeth @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @cumuluscranium

Valentines Day Taglist:

@sfhsgrad-blog @amara-moonlight @eternallyelvish @novaksangel @teenageeggscissorslawyer @thisblogisaboutabook @amygdtjhddzvb

@justasillylittlegoofyguy @avajustreads

@littlestw01f @azriels-shadowsinger @acourtofladydeath

[thechekhov]

Chekhov Reads Dungeon Meshi: CH46

D....dark Laios?

I mean, you DID consent!

The fact that ghosts can pass through walls and take other things with them... it kind of elicits another type of organism. Like, what can pass through cell walls? What other parts of the body can just yoink stuff from one place and bring it to another?

Congrats! It's all just been a dream!

I'm sorry what the SHIT?!?!?

Well, I-- .... yeah, I GUESS.

Though it looks more like one of those carousel horses.

I think this is probably still inside the dungeon. Very... DEEP. Inside the dungeon.

What? WHAT?! These things are like regular animals down here???

Oh, I--hm. I see.

Ordered by WHOMST?

Is this just an entire society of (humans??? ghosts?) that lives here in the dungeon deep? Is there still a king under the mountain? Are the rumors of the king dying not true at all?

........or are these people and descendants of adventurers who came in but were never able to leave? And the fact that Senshi points out that none of them are old.... are they ageing?

Laios, Senshi n--...... welp. There they go.

Bless this man and his absolutely non sexual obsession with monsters. But.

Izutsumi, who is a human-level intellect beastkin (though she's low on wisdom and patience....) is being very.... beast-ly and soft here. She's being magically compelled, presumably, to chill the fuck out.

Which means all these monsters are also under the same effect? Isn't that a little fucked up? They're basically under a permanent drugged effect.

Also. Hm. 'short lifespan' is....relative. Short lifespan compared to what? Immortality?

Orcs know this place exists....?

These people planting things for fun means they're absolutely trapped here like spirits.

Keeping up appearances for. Whom.

These poor people have no new incomers to talk to, huh.

Oh, I uh---- ................ hm. THat's not at all what I was imagining either.

Fashion is cyclical after all I guess....

Mmmmm. Mmmm-hmmmMMM.

WHEEEEZXE

Knowing I've finally hit these two absolutely iconic panels... amazing.

......I guess it can only do so much to make her docile...... she still doesn't like Laios.

Why does he look familiar...?

....so Derghal had a son. And a grandson. So then why is there a bid for the throne...?

Laios. Laios, is milking the minotaur the ONLY thing you did? Or was there more to it? Laios.

It's interesting. That bartender said he was 600 when he started his now-400 year old ale. So. That means they're 1000 years old.

That means that they're about as long lived as elves? Haven't gone mad yet. But that's still a long time.

That's kinda worse, yeah, but a loss of the self is a type of death, in a way...? So....

The most throwback of all time.

Actually, I feel like that's been there for a while, although it didn't always look EXACTLY like a lion's head. I feel like the little living armor he keeps in there made it that design? But how would it do that on purpose?

this is what it looked like some chapters back. Yeah, it's been sculpting into a lion's mane for a while now.... Ohohohoh playing the long game are we? 👀

Ah, it's not a wolf. How tragic for you, Laios. It'll never work out.

Also, damn, those wings sure be lookin like Falin's very non-dragon wings. What a wild coincidence. I'm sure that doesn't mean anything. :)

laughing hysterically. This poor guy can't get a break. He's been running from responsibility and inheritance for his entire life and it still catches up and trips him purposefully.

There is definitely a certain amount of tragedy there, yeah. These people aren't asking Laios for help because it's easier. They're legitimately stuck in a nightmare scenario. Unless you're someone who can get pleasure from other avenues, living all that time without the basic needs will drive a person mad. Elves live just as long, presumably, but they're still able to eat, I assume.

I'm honestly more surprised they're all as sane as they are.

.......King of Forgor.

[kagoutiss]

So I am having SO MANY thoughts about the twinrova and how they’re a couple centuries old and so would’ve lived through multiple rulers before “serving” ganondorf.

Like they raised him, what was their agenda? Did they have plans spanning multiple sovereigns to secure their power over the gerudo? Did they have the Omni man “what’s another century we’ll just raise the next one” kind of feelings towards him if he didn’t become their puppet or weapon?

So much thot not enough brain space this rot is taking over me

ooooooogh twinrova brainrot is strong in me too…..yeah because if they’re ~400 years old and OoT ganondorf was still just in his twenties at the time, and a male gerudo child is born every century, then presumably they could’ve been in the position of raising said children multiple times? i think i remember seeing a take somewhere that considered the idea of twinrova’s role in the gerudo being similar to that of impa serving as an attendant/mentor to zelda, and i think that’s a really cool idea. there’s probably also a lot of potential angst to be found in these little old witches who may have cared for previous gerudo princes, and would have had the incredible responsibility of keeping them safe in childhood, while also training them in witchcraft and war strategy, and advising them in their kingship as adults. because if that’s the case, they would’ve seen those princes live and die multiple times too

it kinda makes you wonder if their love for ganondorf is so obsessive in part because they know firsthand how painful it is to lose a child, to live long enough to outlive to your children multiple times. tbh, i feel like them using ganondorf as their proxy for everything, and trying to make him an all-powerful being at any cost, is more a product of their love for him, than it is a litmus test of whether they‘ll love him or not? and by this i don’t mean they’re like,,, a healthy family by any means, like you can still easily apply terms like abuse and trauma-bonding to parts of their dynamic, imo. i think kotake & koume love ganondorf genuinely, and always have, and that the sentiment is mutual. it’s just that they’re willing to go to very extreme lengths to protect/empower ganon in the ways they believe are necessary, because they are very aware of how important he is, to them and the gerudo as a whole. and ironically, a lot of the time, this desperation ends up being not at all conducive to his safety, or sanity, or happiness

like…raising him with expectations and standards that are completely unreasonable for any human being, that turn him into an ambition-driven nutjob who invents lightning magic & masters all types of weaponry & plays a pipe organ, while also having virtually no ability to form genuine relationships with people other than his mothers. or them trying to make him into an impervious, all-powerful being by trying to take divine power, which sometimes inadvertently turns the rational parts of his brain into soup and sets them on fire. or them trying to revive him after death in the downfall timeline by sacrificing themselves, inadvertently bringing him back wrong, and sentencing him to an existence he never would’ve originally wanted

idk. they’re really fun and also heartbreaking to think about. he engraves their names into his weapons, they willfully die just for the possibility of allowing him to live again. their familial relationship seems to be the most important bond in the lives of everyone involved in it, at the expense of any other kind of connections in their lives. he’s their figurative puppet in a few ways, and will break himself over and over if it means meeting their expectations, but i doubt any of them see it that way. everyone involved gets extremely hurt in one way or another, no matter what, often in an attempt to do the opposite, out of love and fear. little fucked up witch fambly……it’s so much

[electronickingdomfox]

"Bloodthirst" review

It's Resident Evil, but the zombies are vampires!!

Novel from 1987, by J. M. Dillard. Kind of a retread of her previous novel ("Demons"), but substituting demonic possesion with vampires. Of course, there's nothing supernatural going on, but a scientific explanation behind everything. I found it less scary than the previous entry, though it's in the same spirit of horror story, this time with a political background as well.

The initial setting is intriguing, even though it's fairly obvious what's going on and who are the villains, from the earliest chapters. The ending is also exciting, and reminded me of an actual TOS episode. The problem is the rest of the novel, and by that I mean like 90%. I had the impression of reading chapter after chapter of barely anything but filler. Kirk does little more than talking through the terminal with this or that. McCoy does little more than telling Kirk "they're close to find a vaccine" and fretting over Chapel's sickness. Spock does... nothing, really. The fact that the story was extended artificially to a breaking point is obvious by the fact it takes the crew SEVERAL DAYS to find an intruder in the ship (an intruder who wears a red cape, is sick and insane, and screams in pain every time light touches him). This with a crew of more than 400 persons, and with the full security team activated at all times (what the hell!?).

To add more padding to it, there are lengthy scenes focused on a group of redshirts. Now I don't have a problem with original characters having their spotlight if they're interesting and play some role. But these guys just reflect about their High School dramas, and they don't have a distinct role compared to any other redshirt: that is, being attacked and suffer a lot. The other characters are a mixed bag. The most interesting is probably Adams, the "vampire", and the passages that follow his sinister deeds are the only ones that keep the plot moving, in that stale middle section. Kirk is serviceable. In particular his friendship with Admiral Quince felt like the real thing. And he gets to do some of his cunning negotiations at the end. McCoy on the other hand... Look, this author makes him funny on occassion, but in my opinion, she has a REALLY odd idea of the character. From the "dirty old man" trait, to his clumsiness and cowardice. The guy who would offer himself for torture in "The Empath" is here scared shitless at the prospect of it (well, he's scared of dark corridors too, so...). Fortunately, there's no Mary Sue on sight this time. Unfortunately, there's still the obligatory romance "out-of-left-field" for McCoy, that this author seems so fond of. This time in the shape of... Christine Chapel??? We're suppossed to believe that she's not just the closest person to McCoy (closer even than Kirk!), but that all this time, they've been repressing romantic feelings for each other. And that Chapel isn't really attracted to Spock, but only chose him because he'd never return her feelings... Yeah, weeell, how about... NO.

Other random weird bits: Nobody knows what a vampire is in the 23rd century (only Chekov has heard about this legend, that had survived for hundreds of years so far). And a crippled Enterprise can only manage to go at warp 9! (c'mon Scotty, I'm sure you can do better than this shitty, fast-as-fuck warp 9 speed...). Spoilers under the cut:

The Enterprise receives a distress signal from a scientific station at planet Tanis, but upon beaming down, they just find a deserted lab, two dead scientists missing most of their blood, and a single survivor: Dr. Jeffrey Adams. Adams looks gaunt and is obviously suffering some kind of disease that makes light painful for him. He's brought to sickbay, and needs continous blood transfusions to survive. But when Kirk interrogates him, suspecting the scientists were doing illegal research on biowarfare, Adams says they were just working on agricultural projects and that the other two commited suicide. Nonetheless, the evidence at the station points to Adams as the murderer, and it seems he had drunk the blood of the victims too. The fact that Admiral Rodrigo Mendez, head of weapons research, is awfully interested in destroying any trace of the virus, and quickly bringing Adams to trial, makes it all the more suspicious. However, the landing party is unable to recover any sample of a virus at the station, and records had been destroyed, so the Enterprise starts travelling to the nearest starbase.

After being informed of this, Adams accuses Mendez of being the mastermind behind the virus development, and begs Kirk to not surrender him to Mendez, since the admiral wants to kill him. Kirk is unwilling to believe at first that Mendez, or any other top brass at Starfleet, would be involved in such deadly project. Besides, upon learning that one of the dead researchers was Mendez's son, he dismisses the admiral's behavior as natural resentment. Nonetheless, Kirk contacts his friend, Admiral Quince Waverleigh, at Starfleet HQ, to see if he can unearth some dirty laundry among the top brass.

Meanwhile, Adams attempts an escape from his isolation chamber at sickbay, and injures Chapel, drinking some blood from her head wound. Adams doesn't go far under the light. But Chapel has contracted the disease, which is contagious upon contact, and slowly slips into a coma. In the end, McCoy realizes that Chapel has died, and disconnects life support. And there's a lot of drama about this, but since the reader can probably guess where this is leading to, and what the solution will be, the scene doesn't have all that much impact. Apart from this, Spock has recovered some info from the fragmentary records at the station, that tell about a Vulcan researcher who had also died at an earlier point. This suggests that there was, in fact, two versions of the virus: a first one that was deadly to Vulcans (and thus, Romulans too), and the current mutation (probably accidental) which is deadly to humans. This deepens Spock's suspicions about Mendez, since he had lost his wife in a Romulan attack.

Once in the starbase, Adams is brought to a detention cell, which he promptly escapes again, this time more successfully. First, he attacks a guard and steals her red cape, to better protect himself from the light, as well as a device that blocks tricorder readings. After this, Adams kidnaps Lisa (a redshirt on shore leave), and forces her to ask for a beam up directly to her quarters in the Enterprise, where he also attacks her and drinks her blood. And then comes a loooong period where everyone is searching frantically for Adams throughout the ship. And yeah, he can block tricorders, but it's not like he's invisible or anything... He goes as far as entering sickbay and stealing transfusion equipment to draw more blood! (his next victim being Stanger, another redshirt).

For his part, Admiral Quince starts noticing strange things going around him, ever since he started investigating: sudden personnel transfers, tampering with his terminal, etc. He sends Kirk a quick anonymous message, to warn him that things are looking ugly. Yet Kirk is unable to reach him afterwards, and later is notified of Quince's sudden death in an "accident". This is the last straw that convinces Kirk of Mendez's guilt, alongside a small clique of corrupt admirals. So he decides to lure him to Tanis and catch him red-handed there, with a bluff: he tells him that Adams has been captured and has spilled the beans about the R-virus (the incriminating Romulan strain), and that they have found the evidence at Tanis.

At sickbay, Ensign Stanger wakes up from the dead after having been infected. And even though he shows some early signs of "vampirism", his good side wins in the end, and he's able to protect his friend Lisa and capture Adams (at long last!). McCoy has also developed an effective vaccine, that he administers to the whole crew and Chapel, who's also waking up from the dead (but strangely enough, much slower than Stanger?). The modus operandi of the virus is thus revealed: at first, it sends the host into apparent death (actually, hybernation) while it consumes the bloodstream's heme; once the host is depleted of heme, he wakes up and starts craving blood and infecting others. (But I don't know, as a bioweapon, it doesn't seem so effective to me...).

In the final chapters, Spock and McCoy beam down to Tanis and confront Mendez, who demands the samples of the R-virus (which they actually don't have). But just then, a transporter beam captures them and they appear in a Romulan ship. As it turns out, Adams had contacted the Romulans, promising them the samples of both virus in exchange for his freedom. Kirk forces Adams to cooperate by refusing to give him the cure, until he tells them where's the R-virus, so Adams confesses: the original R-virus had been hidden all this time inside a locket that he wore around his neck. The Romulan commander threatens Kirk, saying that he'll kill Spock and McCoy if he doesn't surrender Adams. Yet Kirk tries to negotiate with him and buy time, now that he has the only sample in his hands, though the Romulan doesn't agree to destroy the sample. However, Spock, McCoy and Mendez had managed to escape from their cells in the meantime. And after a run through the enemy ship stunning Romulans (with McCoy closing his eyes every time he has to shoot, the poor devil), they manage to lower the shields and beam themselves to the Enterprise, which promptly warps away. In the transporter room, Mendez makes a last, desperate attempt to escape with Adams and the sample. But Spock tricks him into confessing everything, and then Kirk informs him that he's been monitored, and now Starfleet knows everything about his involvement in the illegal research. In the epilogue, Kirk reflects about his lost friend Quince. And there's a moving scene where he receives a posthumous gift, with a last message from his friend, telling him to not feel guilt about his death.

Spirk Meter: 0/10*. Kirk and Spock barely exchange a couple of lines throughout the novel.

There isn't a lot either in other departments. Spock and McCoy don't seem to like each other much, though McCoy asks Spock for company while disconnecting Chapel from life support. Though it's hard to read that as Spock/McCoy, when it's evident that McCoy's full concern is for Chapel in this book. Maybe, maaaaybe, one could read some McKirk in the final scene, when McCoy drinks with Kirk in his quarters and comforts him about Quince's death. But at this point, that's like begging for crumbs.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

tagged: @bonez-artistry

[shinysamurott9]

How I nuked my 400 Hour Save of Pokemon Heartgold

So, recently I've been playing through the Pokemon Generations doing a Ribbon Master Quest, obtaining every Ribbon a single or set of Pokemon can possibly obtain by sending them up through the series. Just yesterday I was on the tail end of finishing the Gen 4 segment of the challenge.

I have a team of 5 Ribbon Masters currently; Mushi, my Shiny Heracross from Pokemon Colosseum which I hunted specifically for this Ribbon Master Quest, Velos and Seibzehn, a Latios and Metagross I raised to use in Emerald's Battle Frontier, Sparda, my Shiny Arceus I hunted using the void glitch in Pearl and Nero, my Shiny Giratina from Sinjoh Ruins. The only ribbons left for them to get was the Legend Ribbon for beating Red and most pertinent to this story, the World Ability Ribbon.

For those unaware, the World Ability Ribbon is obtained by reaching Rank 5 or higher in the Wifi Room in Gen 4's Battle Tower. Despite what you may think, this is still obtainable thanks to fan made servers which restore old wifi functionalities in Generations 4 & 5. The thing is though the Wifi room is bullshit. The opponents you fight are recorded teams from other players and unfortunately, on top of the highly optimised teams you’ll encounter, you'll also encounter many teams of blatantly hacked stuff like Machamps with OHKO Moves or Sturdy Shedinjas.

This is where I mention the fact that I just so happen to have a modded 3ds, which, among other things, let's me backup save data. So since the game was blatantly cheating anyway, I decided "Fuck it, I'm cheating too". How I did this was to fight one battle in the Wifi Room, and after winning, I'd use the rest option to save and exit the game. Then I'd backup that save file, so if I lost the next battle, I could restore that backup and try again, letting me continue my streak. A slow process but it would mean eventually, I would be able to climb the ranks high enough to get the World Ability Ribbon.

As you can imagine though, I was doing this process of reloading and backing up a lot, and at one point I restored a file incorrectly, taking out the game too early, causing the file to go blank. No problem I'll just restore the file again and if I was competent, that's wherethis would have ended. But, because of how much I was using Checkpoint, my muscle memory got a lite crosswired, so instead of restoring my file, I made a new backup over it, effectively erasing the entire thing.

For reference this included:

400 hrs of Gameplay, A Pokedex roughly 2/3rds complete, A fully developed Safari Zone, Several Pokemon from my various Gen 4 Playthroughs over the years, Every Arceus Plate, (Which are actually pretty difficult to get in HGSS), All 5 of my Ribbon Masters

And perhaps worst of all, my entire collection of Gen 4 shinies. This included:

My near back to back Shiny Luxio and Luxray from Platinum,

A shiny Darkrai and Shaymin I hunted with the Void Glitch

Several Radar and Safari Week Shinies

And a shiny of each Sinjoh Dragon.

Needless to say I was both pissed and devestated. There was some consolation, since I had backups of Gen 3 and Platinum, my Ribbon Masters and Battle Tower mons were safe. Everything else though, initially I was resigned to either losing them forever or trying very likely in vain to recreate as much as I could in PKHex which has it's own issues both logistically and ensuring they were legal, not helped at all by how bad the legality checker in PKHex actually is.

BUT

There was, one, just one saving grace. Fucking POKEMON BATTLE REVOLUTION

The way that Battle Revolution works is that you connect a Gen 4 Save File and it will make an exact copy of your boxes so you can use them in BR's various Colosseums. And of course I just so happened to have copied my boxes from HG a few months ago just after Safari Week meaning every pokemon I had nuked still existed! I had to hack my Wii U to dump the save file but because of that I was able to completely restore almost every single pokemon by copy pasting them back onto Heartgold.

Obviously still lost a lot in other areas but I really can't complain considering what I managed to restore.

As a sidenote, there was a similar incident way back where I accidentally erased my friend's Ruby Master File no shinieswere lost just a lot of progress. I think his reaction speaks for itself.

[bnha-more-like-bnh-gay]

Could I trouble you for some thoughts/headcanons on KiriDeku? KiriDeku is my #1 fave Izuku rarepair, and there is just not enough content out there for them!

Like, those two sunshine boys together would be EVERYTHING! The way they both love to build others up...they would be such a power couple! Plus, Kirishima is very physically affectionate, so he would just SMOTHER Izuku in loving touches. Meanwhile Izuku has an entire doctoral thesis on all the ways Kirishima is an amazing person and an incredible hero on standby, ready to present and defend at any time.

😊🥰

JDICNWKDNISJF BRO, YOU’RE SO RIGHT😭 KIRIDEKU HAS MY SOUL! NO TROUBLE AT ALL, I LOVE THE WAY YOU THINK💙😭💙😭💙😭

Okay, I personally think that before AU, izuku was majorly touch starved. When kiri realizes this, he make it his mission to smother his adorable, incredible, manly boyfriend in all his affections

Kiri is having some insecurities about his quirk? Izuku completely and wholly understands that! He also has a 400 paged PowerPoint presentation on how incredible kirishima is and why he deserves the world

As you said, they are the TOTAL power couple. They can and will bench press each other. Kiri gets so hyped up, he’s just so proud! Izuku is also proud, but he’s also blushing so hard. Izuku, please breathe. No. No, izuku, deep breath in. Izuku, please, your boyfriend is worried-

Dude, they’re both just so supportive I’m going to cry

Like,,, they’ve both been bullied before and they’re just so. Nejcnwjcnwicjwif. They’re so strong, and they lift each other up

But one day, they run into some of kiri’s old bullies :( he tries to play it cool and izuku gets that, but he will also not let people talk shit about anyone he cares about

They’re both full time simps, but kiri is more blatant about it. Izuku just has such low self esteem :(((( so excuse him if he wants to remind his boyfriend that, holy shit, he’s so strong and cute and smart and kind and heroic and manly as hell

He’s so loud about it. He will profess his love for izuku to anyone who will listen. And most people who won’t listen too, honestly. A villain was being an asshole one time? Now he knows how izuku organizes his research and likes his katsudon.

The villain retired

Izuku’s simping is more quiet but no less chaotic. Again, 400 page PowerPoint that he has on a flash drive carried on him at all times “just in case”

In case of what, izuku? Uraraka wants to know. She’s seen it three times and she’s so tired

Kiri finds izuku’s ao3 account and follows so fast. Izuku is shook because 1. He’s embarrassed. And 2. He doesn’t think he’s that good

Kiri knows that he is indeed, “that good” he’s really good. No, he’s not just saying that because he loves the green demon, but because it’s absolutely 10000% true!

The pining before the two got together was. Horrible. Everyone can attest to this

There were betting pools. So many.

Uraraka, Nezu, Sato, momo, and mic were the only ones who won anything (aside from izuku and kiri, who won a boyfriend)

Trans kiri/nonbinary izuku

Thoughts????

Izuku helps kiri dye his roots every couple of weeks! Mina used to do it, but one day she fell asleep before and kiri felt bad waking her up. Izuku found him kind of panicking, so he offered to help! Now, mina and izuku both help!

Literally though. Mic dubbed them the sunshine boys two days into classes and said that they’d be together by the end of the year.

He was correct.

Kiri let’s izuku ramble on as long as he wants to! He doesn’t always understand some of what izuku is talking about, but his passion and drive are just so manly and his excitement is contagious!

Izuku loves listening to kiri talk about crimson riot too! He shows kiri his crimson riot analysis and dude. If kiri wasn’t smitten before, be sure as hell is now

He was smitten before. But still

Kiri helps patch izuku up whenever he gets injured, which we all know is too fucking often, kiri is a concerned boyfriend to the max. He know izuku is strong and that he can handle himself, but he needs to learn how to actually take care of himself too. I.e. not fucking off on his own to become a vigilante and try to take down the worlds most notorious super villain with little to no help and almost never stop for food, water, or rest when you’re 16 and have had your incredibly powerful and still evolving quirk for just around a year

But Kirishima digresses

No, he doesn’t. He’s going to cuddle izuku for hours after that. Izuku will not move. Izuku, let your boyfriend and all your friends and parents smother you in the affection you deserve

Kiri and izuku are both loyal to a fault. And that often comes back to bite people, but it never does between these two. They are both just so caring. They see each other hurt or upset and immediately go into mom mode

They made playlists for each other 🥺

It happened before they got together actually. Jirou overheard izuku muttering in his room about it for hours one night before she texted him a few song recommendations and that he should go to bed. He was mortified but very grateful

Honestly, I feel like Shouto would pick up on the fact that the two liked each other really quickly. It’d just make sense to him. Like. He’s blunt as shit and also is a little shit, and he makes it his business to be all up in their business.

He becomes great friends with Mina, because he just assumes that they’re together. And once told that they aren’t yet, he’s just confused.

“Why not? You like each other.”

“It’s not that simple, Shouto-kun!”

“…”

“Why not? Does all might not approve? I assumed he would. But yes, having your father’s approval might matter yo kirishima-“

“It’s not that! All might isn’t my dad-“

“Aizawa then? Or yamada?”

Mina says that Kirishima should be scared of all the shovel talks he’s going to get, but honestly? He’s not scared in any way! He would never hurt izuku and he’s really happy that izuku has so many people who care about him like he should be cared about!

Kiri 1000% watches Say Yes To The Dress, and izuku watches it with him sometimes. It’s great, because neither of them know anything about fashion. Kiri started watching it with Mina and now he loves it

Speaking of their fashion? Worst dressed couple on campus /affectionate

Aoyama and Mina insist on helping them get ready for their first several dates

Honestly, everyone knows that it doesn’t matter what they wear because if kiri fell for izuku and his “t-shirt” shirt (which I loved, by the way) and izuku fell for kiri in his crocs (which I don’t love, by the way), the pair could wear almost anything and the other would still swoon. It’s sickening. But also really sweet, you cannot deny no matter how many times Aoyama has tried to spruce up their wardrobes

Izuku one day gives kirishima a jar that’s half full with little scraps of paper and tells him to pick one out when he’s sad. On the pieces of paper, are all different reasons why izuku thinks kiri is amazing and why/how much he loves him. He adds to it every day

Kirishima is #EMOTIONALEHCIJSIXNSKC GUYS, HIS BOYFRIEND IS LITERALLY THE SWEETEST WHAT THE HELL

Aizawa genuinely doesn’t know if it’s cute or absolutely disgusting. He tries not to think about it too hard really

Kiri finds out that izuku is really good at art and helps him get confident enough to offer commissioned works! He also commissions him all the time without telling izuku. One day, izuku finds all the pieces kiri commissioned from him and cries because, guys, HIS BOYFRIEND IS SO SWEET, HE DIDN’T HAVE TO PAY FOR THOSE, HE’D MAKE KIRI ART FOR FREE ANY DAY

BUT IZU, THAT’S WHY HE DID IT SECRETLY, BECAUSE YOUR ART IS SO MANLY AND WORTH MILLIONS OF YEN

They’re absolute menaces and I love them with my entire soul, thank you so much for this 💙😭💙😭💙😭💙😭 but I hope you liked itttt!!!! Kirideku is genuinely such a compatible pairing dude, they deserve more. Just. More. Better.

[dearweirdme]

Full disclaimer but this is gonna be a whole ass rant because I'm tired of the fact that even in the year 2024, people are still trying to shut us up when we call out HYBE and/or 0T7 fandom fuckery towards Taehyung.

Geffen, whose main fuckin usefulness is promotion, didn't even post for TWO whole fuckin days after Layover's release. HYBE had two months notice of estimated pre-order numbers from VBar and still managed to 'run out of stock' and couldn't fulfil the order that would legitimise him breaking and exceeding the record---then they tried to shift the blame to VBar, Taehyung's biggest fanbase and main solo support 😏, to the point where she had to show her receipts proving they had advanced notice of sale numbers with plenty of time to fulfil them.

Did we not all see those petty ass moments, even in the past, where staff bought ice creams for every member besides Taehyung so Namjoon had to share his own with him so he wouldn't be left out?

Or how about the fact that when a member's name is missed out in listings and promotional ads, most of the time it's Tae's? (With Jin also being treated in a similar fashion because I know some MF gonna pull the same old whataboutism on that)

Or how about the fact that the biggest group fanbases feel so comfortable with his mistreatment that they do it themselves openly, like posting BTS GROUP photos where he isn't even there, or posting BTS solo album photos where Layover isn't even there or even openly gloating about the fact that they screwed with his merch counts?

They make their derision so blatant and despise hin so clearly but 0t7 'fans' still wanna roll out in droves to defend their asses when they stay making 'mistakes' and those 'mistakes' coincidentally stay fucking Tae over

Who do y'all think these losers are taking their lead from?

Maybe it's the same company that in one of the festas gave all of the members fortune slips and only Taehyung's was used to shit on him; warning him that if that if didn't beat to HYBE's drum terrible things would happen to his career and his future would be dire?

Yes, all members have moments of shitty treatment from fans and the company but there is a CLEAR double standard on the fandom when it comes to Taehyung. The big '0T7' accounts do not move for Tae the same way they do for others and way too many are actively working against him and they get away with it because that's the line that has been normalised by HYBE.

Go look at any comment praising Taehyung specifically and damn near guaranteed that you'll find @0T7Becky underneath it talking about how we gotta praise all the guys all at once---at a rate that doesn't happen when it's the other guys getting singular praise.

Maybe we can even take a look at official content like Run eps where editors run a consistent 'joke' of Taehyung being dumb or selfish or how about the way they tooks shots at him through Tata or in one of their shitty games?

This shit is there to see and it speaks for itself but people still want to play dumb make their false equivalence and use whataboutism to shut down any discussion of it.

Anyone who says they're active on Twitter or in these fandoms, especially those who have been fans for a while, and doesn't see or remember the difference in how Tae is treated by the company and the fans is straight up lying. 400+ antis were exposed forming a group chat to hate on Taehyung and the 0T7 fandom was 🙈🙉🙊 Its not just a couple of haters talking shit; it's actual campaigns against him; ignored, enabled and even helped by the accounts that are supposed to be representing the fandom and sharing info.

One of the other members wear a hat with braids and the fandom wants to close ranks and protect them. Taehyung wears a durag and all of a sudden we're taking a 'let's spotlight that shit and correct his behavior' stance?

Like, yeah, maybe we should be letting the guys know what's up but there's no damn consistency and the collective only want a call to action if it means shitting on Taehyung.

How many times does Taehyung have to make his 'fuck you' policy towards the company clear before we actually listen to him? Not long ago, he pretty much told us that the only reason he re-signed was for the guys. It was outta his own mouth that he implied that HYBE was an 'aint shit' company.

Something in the water is obviously not clean when it comes to Taehyung's relationship with HYBE and it hasn't been for a while.

There's a reason he has so many solo stans and it's because these people have been pointing out the weird behavior towards him for a while and they've been shut down and shut up with any mention of HYBEs passive aggressive behavior towards him for years and the fact that the 0T7 fandom suddenly take a collective leave of absence when it comes to defending him, promoting him or hyping him.

So I'm not here for any motherfuckin complaints or comparisons when this fandom has operated for YEARS on a policy that Taehyung needs to be punished, held back and deserves to eat shit because at one point he was, according to them, getting too much attention, making too many famous friends (yeah, this shit really took off after Hwarang. They didn't like that Tae was being 'singled out' for acting roles) and they 'had to make it fair'

I'm sure there'll be some wanting to play delusional in response to thise but if you look for it you can find whole ass complications of how shitty HYBE has been towards Taehyung in particular and Jin. Their mistreatment towards Jin has been dismissive and disregarding. With Tae its headed towards pettiness and spite (coincidently the two members known for being the most stubborn and assertive with the company seem to be treated worse. Funny, right? but people still wanna say there's no smoke or no fire 😏)

The difference being that it's not only HYBE who treat Taehyung like shit.

You can find screenshot after screenshot of '0t7' accounts repeatedly 'apologising' and getting passes for making the same 'mistake' 20 fuckin times over and it's always about Taehyung.

Hi anon!

You put quite some time and effort and heart into this, so that’s why I’m posting this.. and also because I do agree with parts of your ask. I’m gonna cut the conversation short after this though, because from experience I know my asks are gonna be vile and messy 😑.

[seriously-mike]

So You Want To: Make A RPG Character Portrait

And, Unfortunately, Lack Art Skills

Introduction

Like I said, I'm against commercial use of diffusion-based image generation, so please take notice and don't use the advice below in the process of creating commercial role-playing game supplements.

Let's start with the necessary tools: like I said, LAION's datasets are beyond useless - with the exception of the new SDXL, which is pretty much the only one first-party dataset for Stable Diffusion that works. So, in order to save time, you want a serviceable dataset: Dreamshaper, ICBINP, RPG, SDXL as a last resort. Most sites that host them tend to shake you down for money, so here are some recommendations:

Leonardo.AI: their free account grants you 150 points daily (non-cumulative) and allows you to use a lot of third-party datasets (including Dreamshaper, RPG and SDXL). The generator has some special sauce plugins running under the hood, meaning that your results will be noticeably better than if run on any other site or a local setup.

Playground AI: their free account allows you to use some interesting third-party datasets, but there's a lot of fine print of the shifty-as-fuck kind when it comes to quality of generated images.

Nightcafe: unfortunately, it only supports SDXL when it comes to worthwhile datasets, but a free account gives you 5 points every day if you log in and you start with 150, so it should be enough.

Of course, it's best to run a local setup, so if you have a gaming PC built in the last four or five years, and with a Nvidia video card, do so.

Writing Prompts

Two things you need to know about prompts in StableDiffusion: try not to go over 75 words and put the most important things you want first. I don't want to go into the technicalities, even if that's your kink, but that's how the thing works.

Of course monkeys on the internet tend to suffer from bouts of logorrhea while trying to describe what they want, and I warned about that before, so get to the point and don't be too specific. Stable Diffusion has problems with small details anyway.

For my artist imitation tests, I started by setting the style, like:

((fantasy art by Frank Frazetta)) of ((illustration by JC Leyendecker)) of ((portrait by Rembrandt)) of ((anime art by Akira Toriyama)) of

Double parentheses mean that Stable Diffusion has to pay extra attention to the phrase: every set of parentheses increases the weight of phrase by 1.1, so double parentheses means that the phrase is weighed at 1.1×1.1, and that's 1.21 if you don't have a calculator handy. Don't go above that because otherwise the results get spectacularly fucky (I canned the image with a hellishly distorted Maine Coon that showed up due to unfortunate wording, so I'll spare you that story - it's easy to guess what I asked for, though).

You can also try more generic descriptions of the style, like:

((woodcut portrait)) of ((renaissance portrait)) of ((vintage prison mugshot)) of ((kodachrome 400 photo)) of ((promotional movie still)) of

They still work and go off the rails less often than invoking a particular artist's style (for example, asking for Vermeer drives the generator bonkers).

Then, you follow with the base description of the character. Please keep in mind that some datasets are overly literal and if you ask for a "girl" you will most probably get a child as a result - try a "young woman" instead.

overweight 50 year old man with brown hair and large mustache teen girl with long ((red hair)) asian woman with bob cut hair muscular (bald) African man with goatee man with shoulder length dark hair

Notice that in two cases, I put more emphasis on the hair style and color - just in case, but as I learned lately, this is often necessary. For example, when asking for "bald" without emphasis along with "portrait by leonardo da vinci" for the portrait of Sir Baldy Bald, I got eight different stages of receding hairline, two portraits of Matthew Mercer and two portraits of definitely bald guys. Not that I haven't repeatedly warned that diffusion-based image generation is a trainwreck most of the time.

Asking for a celebrity likeness at this stage is hella iffy, particularly when it comes to recently famous people. Like, you might not get a likeness of Jenna Ortega. Even asking for "young" version of old actors might get problematic when the generator starts to artificially de-age a more recent photo or doesn't find any reference at all.

For example: on the left, we have a genuine photo of Madonna from the 1980s. In the middle, I asked Leonardo.AI for "young Madonna" and it went off the rails. On the right, I changed the prompt to "1980s Madonna" and got something more realistic but still not entirely on the mark. It's typical - unless you're running an embedding or a LORA of a celebrity likeness on a local setup, it's gonna turn out genericized and/or distorted. Another example I can refer you to is Henry Cavill getting mashed together with Michał Żebrowski for a barely comprehensible reason.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, Stable Diffusion doesn't do little details well. Eye color usually parses, particularly if the face has a high enough resolution (meaning, it's more sure to work on close-ups in default 512px images and in high-res fixes). Scars, facial piercings and the like usually don't work, when they do it's a small miracle requiring very specific conditions (usually a resolution high enough to consider them a distinct object), and you might be better off omitting them entirely. Larger things like tattoos work, but in a very general way. Meaning, a general location and theme of tattoos should parse, but anything more specific will often send the entire thing off the rails and put stuff from the description as items elsewhere in the photo. Meaning, you'll ask for a "flames tattoo" and everything will be on fire. Oops.

Now, we should get the character dressed. My go-to syntax for that relies on the word "wearing":

wearing a red qipao dress wearing black and silver scifi combat armor wearing medieval noble's clothes wearing round sunglasses and (black suit) with red shirt wearing white tanktop and beige prison trousers

However, asking for two different clothing items in different colors often goes off the rails. Like I said in an earlier post, the generators often confuse the description, switching and omitting colors even if you put emphasis on the specific phrase. If you asked for a specific artist's style, you'll often have to put emphasis on the color anyway, because the default tends to go right over it. An example can be seen in the example of Vermeer's style going off the rails - despite the dress being very emphatically described as red, "painting by vermeer" overwrote it as blue anyway.

There's also the matter of the generator having weird concepts of things. For example, "armor" by itself defaults to a typical simple plate armor, and not even "leather armor" is going to convince it otherwise. Even "scifi armor" is not going to parse correctly 100% of the time, but a "combat armor" or, better "tactical combat armor" will usually swerve it into a modern plate carrier. Curiously, though, asking for a "space marine armor" will go for a Starcraft/Warhammer 40000 armored spacesuit, and a "mech suit" will most often go for a weird, angular robot suit (add "armor" to that if it doesn't but you want it to).

A generator is not supposed to draw anything it doesn't have info on. This means two things: omitting a part of clothing, like trousers or boots, will limit the framing to only what's described. In case of dresses, robes and similar long outfits, it will often frame the character tightly enough to draw only a part of it - particularly if you defined the style as "portrait", as that keyword tends to focus on the character's face. Another thing, if you haven't described the background yet, and you don't need to, the background will be left as some kind of blank - usually a nondescript splash of color. If you asked for a historical-styled portrait, the generator will infer a muted, neutral color from that, based on actual examples. Asking for "illustration" or "concept art" should default to white. With "photography" and similar keywords, all bets are off. For example, "prison mugshot" left to its own devices either went with a nondescript dark background or prison-related things like bars and wire mesh fences. Asking for a "cook" filled the background with a generic kitchen. "Bottle of beer" gravitated towards tables, pubs and dining rooms. "Anime art" with a "medieval" subject either left the background blank or went for stone walls, castles and the like.

If you want a specific background, though, keep it simple. Even one word can be enough, particularly if the generator infers the rest from the character description. For example "garden" background for an "asian woman wearing a qipao" will add stone lanterns, torii gates and pagoda-roofed pavilions as needed. "City ruins" background for a "scifi soldier" will be full of damaged skyscrapers. What you can specify is weather and time of day - for example, the young Madonna example above specifies "alleyway at night" as a background.

And finally, lighting and stuff. With everything I mentioned already, this just adds an extra polish, but has to be applied with caution. "For example, "Dramatic" or "cinematic" lighting is good if you're going for chiaroscuro in paintings or a cinematic look in photos (it tends to infer a bit of movie-like haze) - for example, it works fine if you're asking for Rembrandt or Caravaggio, but it's gonna ruin the prompt if you're going for da Vinci, for whom "soft lighting" is more appropriate. You can also describe the lighting more directly, like "bright sunlight", "sunset", "torchlight", "candlelight" and the like (as long as it doesn't logically contradict the soft/dramatic/cinematic description). You can also add general quality keywords here, like "worn" (to get a bit of distressing on vintage photos, for example), "detailed" (it's a bit of magical thinking, but it might influence the look of armor and interiors), "black and white", "desaturated", "faded" or "vivid colors" etc. "bokeh" will also work for photographic styles, as a shorthand for low depth of field with background light sources.

Also, do not copy negative prompts from the internet. Stable Diffusion can't parse the concept of correct or incorrect anatomy or any other common fuckups it makes. Instead, one overly-specific keyword can wreck an entire concept of anime-style drawing or heavy makeup. Start with a blank negative prompt and correct from there. Your perp in the mugshot has a hat you don't want? Add "hat" to the negative prompt. Explorer in the savannah is sitting on a gimpy pony? Add "horse" to the negative prompt. You can also rule out a specific eye color, hair color and general use of color that popped up ass outta nowhere (if you can't trace where the use of color blue comes from despite being absent from the positive prompt, you can add "blue" to negative prompt and the problem should go away).

The Numbers Game

I explained this one before: diffusion-based generators can have drastically different results depending on the number of steps in a generation process and the guidance factor that defines how closely the generator follows the prompt. Web-based generators, if they allow tinkering with that, often obscure the exact values with wording like "short", "medium" and "long" rendering time. No matter what, don't go below "medium" with anything.

Then, there's the matter of image proportions and resolution. Proportions, if you can tweak them, are usually typical: 3:2, 4:3, 16:9 and their vertical equivalents. If not, you get a square by default. From my experience, going for 2:3 or 3:4 proportions for portraits with the shorter size as close to default 512px as possible yields the best results, as a lot of input images that were portraits before being pounded into mathemagical fairy dust also had those proportions. Also, some web-based generators tend to obscure resolution as well, maybe with a tooltip specifying the rough dimensions (like Nightcafe's "medium" size being about 400px on the shorter side).

Practical Magic

Okay, so now you know what the knobs and levers do. You got the dictionary, the grammar, etcetera. Time to talk the talk.

Google searches for "fantasy art" and "sci fi art" are going to give you listicles naming some hotshots like Anato Finnstark, Simon Stalenhag and Bayard Wu, and my tests contain a who's who of the classics I first learned of in the Upper Triassic of mid-1990s.

If you're going for something a bit more down to Earth and classy, like creating a who's who of your dark fantasy local nobility, classical portraits are a good idea. Be advised, however, that if you go for a specific artist's look, you'll be wrestling with peculiarities too numerous to list. For example, Sir Baldy Bald as painted by da Vinci refused to lose his hair in most attempts, and women in armor as painted by Rembrandt tended to look much older and more masculine than intended - meaning all that had to be included in the negative prompt. Rembrandt, however, is good if you intend to create portraits of commoners, burghers and nobles in the same style.

Early 20th century or its analogue can swing two ways: either vintage photos or pulp artwork. For the latter, I need to run more extensive tests, but if you know who Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker or Earl Norem are, you know where to start.

[nizar-dreams]

If Only You Believe in Miracles So Would I Summary

"The Department of Magical Education has twisted Albus Dumbledore's arm and have required the Headmaster to get a second teacher for each core subjects at Hogwarts. Severus Snape almost weeps with relief at the news. But the school year is not without other far interesting events. With young Harry Potter starting his first year at Hogwarts, new (surprisingly competent) teachers, a suspicious Albus, and a rare and powerful artifact hidden inside the school, Severus wonders if he ends up trading less homework for even more stresses in his life."

Okay listen, this story was birthed for many reasons. My continued obsession with Severus Snape, my anger at Albus fucking Dumbledore, and the incompetency of (Wizarding) Government. But the biggest one, which bamboozles me the most, is the lack of teachers for Hogwarts.

Think. About. It.

If you have gone to a school of around 400 students, you and I are aware that at this many students, you still have at least two to three teachers per core subject. Why? Because it is a foolish notion to believe that 1 (one) teacher can even handle teaching all 400 students in one week without seriously sacrificing student education and how much you actually teach them and what they have to self study. Which, as someone who's already graduated high school nearly two years ago, self study was not my strongest suits at all unless I liked the class and teacher.

As someone who observed my own teachers and how they handled various class sizes (choir was the easiest to see as Jazz was the smallest, but we'd easily have 25+ students for regular choir and that was... ridiculous for my teacher to handle somedays.) I can confidently say, that teaching two Hogwart Houses that are easily 20-30 students per house, which means a classroom of 40-60 students, is absolutely bat shit insane.

And then you have to be a Head of House as well? Or if you're McGonagall, you're also Deputy Headmistress and having to cover for Albus bloody Dumbledore because the Headmaster has a second job as a politician and the current Minister Of Magic is an idiot? I would be sobbing and burnt out by the end of the first month. I would need a Time-Turner just to have some sleep and me time.

Or if you're Snape, you're trying to save a child from getting himself killed, while playing spy, while playing evil teacher who favours his snakes, while also having to deal with children trying to blow themselves or their classmates up in his classroom. Because potions is a dangerous art, and children, especially the first and second years, are idiots. And especially whoever decided that Gryffindors and Slytherins get to spend potions in the same classroom. Together.

Whoever makes that schedule is an idiot, or horribly optimisitc.

But as you can see that is such a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a single teacher that teaches the core subjects at Hogwarts for virtually all 7 years. So. This story was created. The Department of Magical Education finally got the memo and were like "wow are kids are kinda... fucking stupid compared to Ilvermorny, Beauxbaton, and Durmstrang... that's mad embarassing" and told Albus that he had to get more teachers and that was not negotiable. Except for history. They don't exactly care about history it seems. (I also lowkey forgot about it, but I think it makes sense that they already have a 'nonpayed' teacher so why bother with an actual one? Don't worry some parent will make a fuss about it or something, and a good portion of the teachers are good with history anyway so its all finnneee)

Well. Here we are. I have thus 'hired' 6 additional teachers besides Quirrel. 6 competent adults who take their jobs pretty seriously. I actually love all of them, they have their quirks, and I tried diversifying the staff as much as I could without it being forced.

For instance, our new transfiguration teacher is an older gentleman, 61 years old, who studied at Beauxbaton, and from Denmark. Our Herbology teacher is a young Scottish woman, barely 28 with a boyish charm, and is subtley bisexual. Our charms teacher is 35, and they use neutral pronouns and have an otherworldly appearance with big eyes and bronzed skin. My main character, our additional potions teacher, is 41, Salvadoran-American, and gay. Our astronomy teacher is a striking Irish woman who learned at Ireland's school, Erehnoll. And lastly our other DADA teacher is a woman born in El Salvador, 37, and has lived a very interesting life since.

We're branching out, alright. Like yeah I could branch further, but already some of the canon characters who could be considered as simply 'British White' will probs not be just that. And this is just the first year with new teachers. Maybe another year if results are good, I could introduce more. (It's so many characters to jugle but I think I am doing admirably. But I think for now, the current cast is already better then years prior. If I do add more teachers, it'll be for history for sure.)

For now, this is why I made this story. That it was absurd to leave the 6 out of 7 of the core subjects to a singular teacher. I would be in tears, really. I do go more in details on the ridiculousness of this all in the story, but here I am giving you a sneak preview at a lot of my thoughts on the subject that get dramatic and also distorted through character POVs. I think it'll be fun to read it from one of the characters, it makes me smile. They seem the type to be sarcastic and dramatic in their thoughts while exasperated to the 10th power.

I can't wait for Janurary 1st. I'm so excited for you all to see the chaos.

[arabellaflynn]

I've found a new podcast to binge. It's called "Computer Game Evolution", written, edited, produced and distributed as a one-man show by someone who's opted to go by "Tim". It's a very witty, very thorough exploration of how video games got to be what they are, starting in the pre-history of computers when all your tedious calculations were done by hand, and sometimes by post. His intro trailer mentions that he defended a doctoral thesis having something to do with video games, so my guess is that this is the director's cut audiobook of his dissertation, now with 400% of the snark his advisor made him edit out.

Tim declines to say where he's from. His accent is distinctly East Slavic, although I admit I don't know enough about the languages in that family to distinguish between them from just their traces in his English. He also mentions that as much as he'd love to take donations for the podcast, he can't, as they don't work where he is. All of the donation sites that I know of pay out via electronic escrow services like PayPal, all of which are headquartered in the US. When last I checked, they still go through fine in Ukraine and Belarus, but have been cut off in Russia since sometime last year.

So. Russian, or at least native Russian speaker, currently in Russia. According to the media, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to shun him on principal now. Eyeing just the Middle Easterners with deep suspicion is so last season.

Listening to the podcast gives nothing to the nation of Russia. He runs no ads, and gets no money for it. A fan is apparently paying the $15 or so for his monthly hosting now -- with a company that's so American that half the testimonials on their About page are from medium to large churches who use them to broadcast services on the internet, I swear I am not making this up.

If he does indeed have a PhD in something related to the game industry then it's almost certain that he got it, if not in the US, then at least somewhere in North America. Virtually all of the formal scholarship on the topic is here, with a minority in Canada. This is bolstered by his fluent English; his pronunciation slants very British, consistent with having learned initially in Europe, but his slang and pop culture references are all American, including a lot of things so old the Zoomers who have picked them up have probably never seen/read/played the thing they came from. He has clearly spent a lot of time reading/writing in both formal and informal English, and living in a place where he needed to use it in daily life.

For the first season that went out in 2021, Tim made no comment of any kind on world events. Since spring 2022, he's signed off with a strangely non-specific exhortation to "support good causes", which I suppose is suggestive in its timing, but might apply just as plausibly to donating to your local animal shelter. He once added that you should help people who have had to leave their homes, and have maybe lost them completely, which could cover a lot of current refugee crises. Signing off for the holidays he suggested you "help people not to freeze to death this winter", which applied to a sadly large swath of Europe at the time. 

Oh, and once he completely ran out of fucks to give and signed off with, "Friends don't let friends do imperialism." Which is both a painfully American reference and a pretty clear indication of his opinion, unless King Charles III has started trying to retake India when I wasn't looking.

A lot of Russian creators, especially those working primarily in English, have fielded criticism for not stating their views more overtly. I expect most of that's from Americans. The reason they dance around things without using the words "Russia", "Ukraine", or "war" is that many of their opinions are now illegal in Russia. They're not afraid of getting canceled, they're afraid of getting arrested. As rubbish as things are getting in America right now, you still don't go to jail for having unpopular views. The worst thing that will happen to you, officially, is that you will be socially ruined and sued into oblivion. Which is definitely not fun, but also not prison. Nobody was arrested for being a shouty Trump-supporting bigot until they tried to break in and murder the Vice President.

Tim has a generally hackish disdain for large, top-heavy organizations that are in the habit of rolling over the little people in their way. He doesn't have a lot of love for the US military but he's not exactly overflowing with praise for the Soviets either. (Apparently it's still okay to criticize the USSR, because Russia is totally not that corrupt and dysfunctional anymore.) Speaking briefly of a programmer from the '80s who has since transitioned, he used only her current name, stating -- and I quote -- "I do not deadname people on this podcast." He's interjected some pretty overtly feminist snark about the proportion of women who were(n't) in the programming industry at the time. He's using his thesis for a podcast instead of a teaching career because the whole process made him willing to gnaw his own foot off to escape the petty bureaucracy of academia. Very little else has intersected with video games enough to come up, but I am inclined to think his viewpoint on the world is closer to what I'd expect from someone who went through a Western grad school than what you would be led to believe from the "official" poll results that are reported for the Russian population.

There are probably a lot more of "them" who are a lot more like "us" than the news would suggest. The news has a vested interest in scaring you. And in making things simple-minded. 

So now I'm left wondering if some guy I've never met, in a country I've never been to, whose government is doing a lot of things I don't like, is okay enough to release the next episode of his podcast. I hope so. You can find the podcast on pretty much every aggregation service (here's the page on Listennotes) and see some photos of the old stuff he covers on his Ko-Fi. Give it a listen. It's good. And it'll remind you that "Russia" -- or whatever batch of foreigners whose government we dislike today -- isn't a hive mind.

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[clockworkrobotic]

I posted 796 times in 2022

155 posts created (19%)

641 posts reblogged (81%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spindaonateaspoon

@clockworkrobotic

@paranoidgemsbok

@dingdongyouarewrong

@girlwiththegreenhat

I tagged 543 of my posts in 2022

Only 32% of my posts had no tags

#shadow - 84 posts

#shadow the hedgehog - 13 posts

#morbin time - 8 posts

#sonic the hedgehog - 8 posts

#breaking bad - 8 posts

#shirts - 7 posts

#sawposting - 6 posts

#ice hell - 6 posts

#thank you - 6 posts

#robot wife - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#like?? who the fuck are these people who enjoy having strangers casually make uncomfortable comments about abuse and mental health to them?

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Happy pride!!! Remember that crime is legal for all gay people for the next 30 days. Throw a brick at a cop

128 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

#4

In light of Recent Events, hey fellow Brits and especially student renters and people paying bills inclusive rent— I'm a tenants' rights activist based in England. We have a £400 tax rebate coming up starting in October (£66-67pm October to March). It's a direct offset of your energy bills. The .gov website specifically mentions you.

The wording is a bit vague on the site so I really need to stress that if you are paying bills inclusive rent you are still paying your bills. There is NO acceptable reason for your landlord to claim ANY percentage of that monthly rebate. Please look into your local tenants' union, see what they are doing, alert them to the situation.

The rebate money is YOURS. It should NOT go to someone affluent enough that they can afford an extra house, in most cases houses. We're about to watch the government spend millions of £s on some 96 year old woman's funeral while millions of us freeze and starve. That's fucking unacceptable. Claim your fucking money from your landlord and become a huge fucking problem if they don't hand it over immediately.

136 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

#3

I LOVE tom scott's youtube channel w all my heart like where else am I gonna find a british youtuber with an unapologetically northern accent who says shit like "I've travelled to this tiny hawaiian island with a population of 12 to look at a very special wall" and then his next video will be "im in melbourne talking to gerald, the man who invented shoes" followed by "I've come out to dover to stand in front of some cliffs and talk about fractals" and all the videos are posted like 4 days apart fucking how. How is he going to all of these places. Why does he sound like his mouth is full of cotton balls. I love him so much

375 notes - Posted January 12, 2022

#2

1,037 notes - Posted September 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

What was your favorite part of morbuis? Mine was when he got into the morbmobile and yelled HERE COMES THE MORB and an imagine dragons song played

my favourite part of morbius is when he gets backed into a corbner by the bad guy so he yells MORB MODE, ENGAGE and shifts his morbometers into overdrive and morbles on the bad guy so hard he disintegrates

1,712 notes - Posted May 30, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[greenjokwe-blog]

Monthly Greejily Media (January 2024) - The First of Who Knows

God I hate Twitter. I mean I still use it way more than any other social media, but I'm so tired of it man. From all the recent mistakes, to how posts get popular, to how it and TikTok's business decisions have infected the entire tech industry at large. All that and more is good enough reason to move my media threads away from that platform, but truth be told I'm only so moved by these things in that regard. Nah, more than anything, the format for media threads on that site just got tiring for me. Feeling the need to fit in everything into a single tweet, the want to put every single media I've consumed in one place even if I'm not particularly moved or interested in the updating process. So, I thought this'd be much nicer. Having a little section on my Tumblr dedicated to the stuff that's interested me the most, on a monthly basis. A lot more appealing! And that way I can talk about whatever I want for as long as I want. Fantastic. This probably won't stop my full reviews (there are still a few I want to write, but writer's block is getting to me right now), but this is definitely a more flexible format for me at least for now. Let's start shall we?

I might as well start with video games, as it's the thing I tend to talk about most on this blog, but truth be told I haven't actually beaten a single game this year yet. There's one game I'm currently working on beating, but because I'll be taking a more casual approach to that one (as well as gaming in general this year I imagine), I'm not comfortable talking about that one yet. Two games I'll talk about for now though, and will definitely probably come up again I will discuss though, one of those being Picross 3D.

I've never been invested in Picross but I've always found it a good time. I love all kinds of old puzzle solvers and Picross/nonograms in general have been a great, shockingly modern version of that that fit amazingly for video games. Picross 3D has felt like the perfect culmination of what Picross has achieved for years, and seeing the praise for it I knew this would be a great step for me getting into more of Picross in general, and I was right.

There's not much I can really add here, I feel no need to explain what Picross is and not much to add to it's actual gameflow other than its so addicting and there's so much of it here. I'm approaching halfway through right now and this game has nearly 400 puzzles. Each puzzle is like a trance, they all have logical and sensical solutions, and the satisfaction of finding a discrepancy, deleting/saving blocks as needed, and realizing you've just opened a whole new set of options for yourself feels amazing.

I only have two issues with it as of right now, one of them being because this game was made with a DS in mind, and because there are no zoom-in options for the game, trying to get the correct block to delete can often feel very finicky. The other issue being, well I can't play too much of it! I start seeing Picross when I close my eyes and it comes up with unsolvable puzzles! I'll talk about my future adventures with Picross no doubt in the future though, so get ready.

Another game I've been into, and you should expect to see again in these posts, is Burnout 3: Takedown. Again, probably not gonna say much on this for now, but I already have over one hundred gold medals for the courses in this game. This game has such good variety, despite having a fairly limited number of tracks it makes real good use of it, and it's technical ability for a PS2 game can only been the work of gods. Also it feels amazing to play holy shit. I get why there's never been a new one of these, but the worlds been worse without it.

One thing I will say though, don't be surprised if I write a full review on this game where I inevitably tear the latter Gran Prix to shreds, cuz holy shit the last one I did was so fucking hard. The game has great feel, design and good tells for a PS2 game, but it's still a PS2 game. You can be a god at this game and still get fucked over. But the fact that the game is so tantilizing and the amount of fuckups that can happen with you having a smile on your face... yeah I'll have to make a full review on this game when I 100% it, watch this space.

All right, next up films and television!!!

This is the section I was really excited for. I haven't talked about film at all on this blog, and I wanna make up for it. There's still a TON of films I watched last year that I want to talk about, so don't be surprised if I start making tangent posts about those at some point. More than anything, I want this year to be my film and book year, so expect it to take over all these upcoming posts from now on.

To start with, the show I finally finished, Gundam 00! This was the Gundam series I always wanted to watch even before I knew what the UC was, and now being a huge Gundam fan it's made watching the full series an... interesting reflection. I did post my opinions on the first season after finishing it last year, and I'll stick by those. Despite its problem with plotlines and characters, this show is a great response and reflection of what led to the Iraq war, as well as the war on terrorism in general. Season 1 also ended extremely strong, so Season 2 had a lot to live up to. A lot that I knew, based on a general sense and public opinion that it wouldn't. It ended up with me dropping the show for a few months until I eventually picked it back up after watching Wing rightfully thinking "it can't be any worse".

Thankfully it wasn't! The show picked up a fair bit after the second half, and included a lot of interesting arcs and stories (mainly, the stuff regarding the ALAWS) to consistently keep the show fairly solid. However, there was still a ton of problems. Plots were even messier here than they were during the first season, a huge portion of motivations just got cut in half, the characters are even less likeable here (aside from the worst ones, which are nicer now by comparison), and the main issue of the villains being a LOT less compelling here than they were in season 1, to the point of both detriment of the show and making it feel a lot more standard-Gundam faire, compared to S1's striking originality. However, there's still a lot to like! Again, a lot of the plotlines I liked such as the ALAWS and everything with Marina, the Gundam designs and effects are still solid, animation is nice (even if at points I'd prefer more clearer and concise boarding and battles), and it still carries over a lot of the themes that made Gundam 00 so solid to begin with. So despite it's weakness I'd still say that season 2 is worth the watch, if anything else for more of Setsuna and Graham.

Oh yeah and I uh, watched the movie as well.

OK, slight spoilers ahead, but I'm just gonna get through this very quickly here. This film is dumb. All of the political intrigue of the show is basically gone to make a James Cameron-inspired dumb anime blockbuster. The main villains are a cross between Xenomorphs and Terminators. It's got quip dialogue. There is a scene where they somehow make the comical approach to Allelujah's mental illnesses even more comical by giving him this Hulk-style action switch sequence. The film largely focuses on characters that get no payoff, with Setsuna being the only strong focus throughout. It's dumb. It's shallow. It's a mess. It's also kind of fun??? I can't say it looks visually much better than the show, but what it does have is a fairly simple but strong premise that fits the world fairly well. And whenever something cool happens it manages to make it REALLY cool. So that's always nice. Somehow, still a very satisfying conclusion to the series despite everything that it is, and probably up there somewhere in the middle of the Gundam films I've seen so far.

That was the first of the three films I saw this month, with the other two being not quite as schlocky. In fact, on the complete opposite of the "war is bad" scale, we have the 1957 Soviet film "The Cranes are Flying".

While a much-beloved classic by prestigious classic by many, I knew essentially nothing about this film an hour before I decided to start watching it. When I started watching the film, I was fairly disappointed in how, premise-wise, this film doesn't really have much different from what I wasn't already used to from a variety of war history, poetry, and sad mid-2000s webcomics. As stunning as this film could be with its technical prowess for the 50s, I was worried that this film wouldn't really do much for me. That was until I reached about the halfway point.

The small little trick this film plays with you (that's not really much of a trick, mind you), is extremely potent and gives this film relevancy to this day. Not being just a film about war-torn lovers, this film focuses well and truly on it's main character, Veronika, and all of her strifes and problems that arise either as caused by the war, or by her family. This film goes in to a lot of issues of women's suffrage and plight that you would not expect a film from this era to discuss, and does it with great decorum and respect (although, this came out the same year as Nights of Cabiria, which, wow, what a year for feminist film). There are some scenes in this film that are filled with harrowing emotion that I can definitely see why it's considered such an underground classic, at least as far as the west is concerned.

I think because of the general content of the film there's only so much I can enjoy though, if that makes sense? But that's just an issue for me and old movies in general, nothing against the film itself. I would still absolutely recommend this film to anyone who is interested, as relevant and ever-present now as it ever was. Man, I hate war. And warlord fascists.

Any way, final film that I watched this month, and this one's one for the BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uh, spoilers for this one too, by the way.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is a weird one for me to talk about, because if it wasn't for the (admittedly few) caveats that I have with this film I could easily see it being one of my all-time favourites. Had I watched it a few years back it probably would be! The acting is fantastic, portraying each character and their differences wonderfully. The characters themselves are all extremely likeable and each has their own interesting quirks and interests that keep them apart despite the amount that there are onscreen. The technical ability in this film's phenomenal, loads of wonderful shots here, and the way the more compact scenes here move in-and-out of focus is absolutely wonderful. Pace, soundtrack, general story and motivations, all solid stuff.

But... at the same time... I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but like... I was only half-kidding when I called this film a "boys movie" earlier. Not that it's an innate issue! But let's say, I wanted to make a really dumb and unfavourable view on the film, you could definitely theoretically make a Letterboxd review complaining how this film is a contrived story about an evil matriarch trying to destroy "the boys" fun at all opportunities, the evil bitch! This, in and of itself I don't think would be a real issue for me with this films plot alone, but the film constructs itself with this plausible deniability aspect to it, the possibility that these men are just here to chill or self-improve! It puts some of the films accolades and themes and misunderstandings (mostly from guys) into a different context.

This, along with some other issues I have including a couple of character arcs like the Chief, and general ambivalence to certain topics as a whole, apparently don't exist in the book (from what I've been told). It's definitely something I want to read at some point! HOWEVER, all that being said, I don't hold much of this too much against the film, mostly because one, the story is still pretty damn good, and two, god there aren't many other movies out there that treat those with problems and mental illnesses with the humanity and respect quite like this film does. The way the film manages to make sure that each character deserves their own urgency and respect, and makes sure to put blame and point at the terrible ablest structures that demonise and trap them...

I think the best example of this in the film is during the beginning of the film, where the first group therapy meeting is held. The scene manages to perfectly represent the circle the main cast surrounds themselves in, where the previous good mood and vibes of the previous 10 minutes starts dimming. When Mrs. Fletcher asks Mr. Harding about his wife, with the set implication that she was being unfaithful. Harding tries to avoid the question, particularly when the topic of abuse comes up, leading to deflection, however, as the conversation goes on, the emotion from great late actor William Redfield becomes more and more potent. It starts to become more clear that even if he is deflecting, he is truly looking for redemption and self-improvement, and, truth be told, the fact of him being abusive, or even her cheating both start becoming irrelevant (the film never states if they were or not). This is lost on the other patients though, who see this session as just another time of him yapping about his wife, strictly against Harding's wishes. This turns into a shouting match, all the while Mrs. Fletcher and the other doctors do nothing but watch. Despite how this has clearly happened before, despite the fact that it's strictly not working, they let it continue not necessarily because they personally believe it helps, but because they believe it's best to follow the systems and rules set in place by the hospital, even if it only hurts and victimizes the patients who are there just to get help.

So yeah I like this film a lot, I think it's fantastic. I know I kinda went on about it for a bit for a film that's been talked about to death, but whatever. Definitely would recommend, good film good film.

And laaaastt uppp uuhhhh albums I guess? Truth is, I'm gonna have a similar issue with this section that I did last time where I'm not gonna know what to write that much, so I came up with a solution. Most of the reason I did what I did last year on Twitter with my relistens was to make up for lastfm mostly being irrelevant for me now. So, I decided instead I'd make my own lastfm 5x5 charts based on what I listened to that month, either being new albums or relistens. So, here it is:

There'll be times where I probably go on tangents here. For example I FINALLY got around to hearing Quaranta and I of course ended up really liking it. Same with Genesis' Trespass, Far East Suite, and that Funkadelic album. And there's still issues with this format like I might have to differentiate what was new for me and what was a relisten. But I imagine the format will end up changing a lot as the months go on and it might not even be the same next month so, we'll what I do next I suppose, if I scrap this idea don't be surprised, it's probably cuz I didn't listen to that month or something I dunno.

Anyway, that's the update done! God knows if when I do this next month it'll be even remotely as close to as long as this one was. There might be months when I decide to dedicate an entire section to one single piece of art I enjoyed. Maybe there won't be one some months and I just try to put out a review or something instead, or I just choose to shitpost a whole month cuz I REALLY have nothing to say. We'll see. I imagine this'll be a fun format to experiment with, either way. Thanks for reading!

[michaelmilligan]

Okay, so I'll probably never finish this old WIP because it's baby Jack and idiots to idiots with a baby to lovers Destiel, and y'all know I mostly write Midam now. But I do like this scene, so here you go. (Sam & Dean, 400 words)

“Dean.” That was Sam's voice. Dean sighed and leaned back in his chair, stretching. “Yeah, come in.” When the door opened, Dean got up to face his brother, immediately clocking the nervous look on his face. “Uh. So. What you doing?” Sam asked, clearly a stalling tactic, and Dean narrowed his eyes at him. “Did mom leave?” he asked, knowing the answer when Sam looked panicked. “You-” Sam sighed, collecting himself. “How did you know?” Dean shrugged. “She seemed restless. Figured it was only a matter of time.” If he was honest, Dean had kinda been hoping for a hunt himself, but he also felt guilty at the thought of leaving Cas alone. Maybe if he had gone with his mom, Sam could have stayed behind to help with the kid. But that also wasn't fair to Sam. “And you're alright with that?” Sam was clearly suspicious about him staying so calm, and he couldn't even blame him for that. “Look.” Dean sighed. “When mom came back... I was stupid. Guess I always figured that if we got her back somehow, it would be like back then, before she died. But she's right, we're not kids anymore, and she's not just a mom.” He snorted. “If anyone knows what coming back from the dead is like, it's us. And we weren't dead thirty fucking years.” “Dean, we came back from Hell. She was in Heaven.” Sam shook his head. “But you're right, it's not like she was gonna stick around and make us PB&J every morning for school. I mean. That's your job, anyway.” Dean snorted again, but he couldn't hold back a smile. “Shut up. Just because you were too fucking lazy to do it...” “Yeah well. It was nice, you know.” Sam frowned. “Kinda weird once I realized that other big brothers don't make food for their siblings. But, uh, still nice.” He shifted on his feet, clearly embarrassed. Dean knew he had had to play mother and father for Sam – God knew no one else had – but the fact that Sam seemed to realize that was a little too close to a chick-flick moment for him. “Yeah, whatever, slacker.” Sam rolled his eyes. “You're an ass.” “And you're a bitch.” “Jerk.” Dean was grinning by the time Sam left the room.

[mcrcki]

Was that [MADELAINE PETSCH]? Oh no no, that was just [VICTORIA SUTHERLAND], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [TWILIGHT]. They are [EIGHTEEN/FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY+] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here -

since july 2022 , so over a year now !!

where in your fandom has your character been pulled from -

she is pulled from post eclipse !! so !! she’s pulled right after her death, and she’s pissed friends, and ready to go at the cullens. the rules don’t apply in washington (at least not to her), so she’s ready to create a brand new game with all she’s learned from james, and not make the same mistakes as last time all to get the revenge that she believes she’s owed. 

has the magic affected your character -

originally it had clouded her memories that she did not remember anything from after the events of twilight, the last thing she had originally remembered was james taking off to phoenix. but now it has finally faded, and her memories are fully returned so she knows ! everything ! 

what is your character’s job -

revenge is a full time job babey.

other notes -

this is long, but also like cliffnotes?? her full bio is here so check it out?? honestly, i’m just gonna copy and paste my rant from last time i brought my murder child here because it’s still accurate okay. i love vic with all my heart she is a disaster and absolutely lost it, but she has reasons for why and yes, she’s a villain but also ?? she just believes in vampires in a different way than the cullens. they are the highest on the food chair and how dare someone try and give them a bad name ?? and when someone touches someone’s mate, they have to pay. it’s all about balance. so watch out cullens. but here is a long winded rant if you wanna know about her ; listen, she’s not ALL bad. sure, she had a poor moral compass, but 400+ years on earth as one of the most powerful predators out there will do that to you. she doesn’t give two flying fucks about humans or their problems. they’re food, through and through. but that being said, despite all of the shit she does, the messed up games she plays, she is actually just an 18 year old girl that lost her sister one too many times and is just trying to figure out how to live this life. she had an older sister anne, they only had each other, and worked through hell to try and stay that way. anne ended up leaving her, having gone out with a “client” (you can see where this one is going) and never returned. victoria lived without her for two years, first with a pimp (back in the 1500s) and then as a maid where she was beaten daily just so she wouldn’t live on the streets and could save money to go find her sister. but then one day, anne returned, a newly created vampire and turned victoria, bringing her to a coven of more vampires, lead by heidi (a volturi guard in present time), where they lived happily for two more years together. until the volturi, where they came and killed her coven, including anne, to bring heidi into their ranks. victoria’s sense of self preservation had saved her that day, leaving behind all that she knew of the happiness she had created with her sister. and from then on, she would avoid all vampires. but while she was in london, she met james. they played a game of cat and mouse for years, tracking each other, running away.. until he decided he would no longer hunt her, at least, not to kill her. they have been together ever since. he is the person she confides in, her solace after years of isolation. he’s her everything, and when that was taken from her, she had no way to respond, no emotions other than blinding rage. that rage is what has carried her through to this day. it burns brighter than anything else in her. literally james is her only weakness in life and she will do anything and everything to protect him, to keep him safe this time. she was too weak last time, she didn’t get to him in time and she’s not going to lose him again. they’re smarter now, the cullens are divided and she’s ready to play.  she also is here to have a good time, so if you ever want some chaotic replies, or want a chaotic friend come hit her up, she’s down to clown 24/7. since being in washington, she has made really great friends with drusilla, and in turn with spike as well. she has always been under the impression that the only person in her life would be james, after everything that happened with her sister, but she’s gotten out of her comfort zone there and guess what ! is capable of making friends !!! come be her friend too if you’re not a lame veggie vamp apologist xoxo !!!!!!!!!! ** biggest note of updates : she finally got to kill bella swan!!!! everyone cheer!!!!

CONNECTIONS : 

✩ “tinder hookups”

victoria canonically uses tinder to hunt. very much, modern problems require modern solutions. so she 100% could have like already met up with your muse and have attacked them, or maybe they’re going to meet up, maybe it falls through, the world is your oyster

✩ supernatural friends

if there’s one thing victoria hates, it’s being alone and vulnerable. if nothing else, she will be trying to make meaningful connections with people she thinks will give her protection, so if you’ve got a character that would vibe with a murder vampire bitch!!! hmu !!!!

✩ accidental siring

i just think it’d be funny if she accidentally turned someone into a vampire

mind you this would be a permeant change to your character so keep that in mind, they would be a vampire forever

✩ bring riley

this is a canon connection but pls bring the manipulated boy i swear we will have sm fun