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mcytfanfictionappreciationweek · 4 months

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Runs from January 21st to January 27th, 2024

7 days of fanfiction appreciation for all our fandom writers!

Everyone from all corners of MCYTblr are welcome to participate. No matter how large or small your favorite SMP or creator is, there is a space for everyone.

Many fandom events focus on providing tasks for artists and writers, but very little are made with the people who enjoy and appreciate that work in mind as participants. Lurkers and enjoyers and love posters are just as important to the fandom, so this is a space for us to do our thing and spread the love 💗

How to Participate

There will be 3 kinds of planned activities hosted on this blog, but there is no single correct way to participate, as long you’re uplifting others. The activities and prompts are meant to be a guideline and source of inspiration. You don’t have to burn yourself out by participating every day or in every activity.

Keep this space positive and abide by standard fandom etiquette. Be mindful of tags and if you don’t think you’ll like a work, don’t click and read it!

Share the love; one goal of this challenge is to help authors who’ve been overlooked feel appreciated for their contribution to the fandom. If you’re up to it, try and use this challenge as a way to break from your comfort zone and uplift others who you haven’t seen get any attention yet.

Note: This doesn’t mean to not send love to any ‘bigger authors’ whose work you admire, and we are not entertaining any discourse related to the size of one’s following.

Use the tag ‘mcytfanficappreciationweek’ for your recommendation lists related to this event and we will reblog them here!

Activities

(Under the cut!)

Reading and Recommendation Challenge

Find a fic that fits the theme of the day and give it a read/comment! Then if you’re up for it, share the recommendation in a post on tumblr and use the event tag. You can make individual posts for each day, or create a wrap-up at the end of the week.

It is both allowed and encouraged to engage with fics whose authors don’t have any linked social media presence. This is not exclusive to authors on tumblr.

January 21st (Day 1: Something New)

Read and comment on a fic written by an author whose work you’ve never commented on before

January 22nd (Day 2: Hidden Gems)

Read and comment on a fic that currently has no comments

Or, feel free to share and recommend a fic whose only comment is your own

January 23rd (Day 3: Underrated Blorbos)

Read and comment on a fic centered on a character of whom you’ve never read as a main POV (the less fics the character is tagged in, the better!)

January 24th (Day 4: Rarepair Extravaganza)

Read and comment on a fic with a character relationship tag (that’s central to the fic, no cheating with ensembles!) that has less than 500 tagged works

For fandoms with <1000 works, use 50 tagged works as a threshold (or your best judgment)

For fandoms with <100 works, use 5 tagged works as a threshold (or your best judgment)

Can be either romantic (using the “/”) or platonic (using the “&”)

January 25th (Day 5: A Blast from the Past)

Read and comment on a fic that was last updated before 2023 (complete or in progress!)

January 26th (Day 6: Canon? Who is she?)

Read and comment on a fic with any ‘Alternate Universe’ tag of your choosing

Canon divergent fics or split timelines count!

January 27th (Day 7: Procrastination Termination)

Read and comment on a fic that you’ve had ‘saved for later’ or opened in a new tab but never got to reading

Or, finish catching up to a multichapter fic that you fell behind on and comment on it

Author Interaction

Send authors who are active on tumblr questions about their work! Ideas/prompts for each day are written below.

January 21st (Day 1: Something New)

Ask an author about future writing projects or ideas that still only exist in their head

January 22nd (Day 2: Hidden Gems)

Ask an author about one of their least-kudosed fics

January 23rd (Day 3: Underrated Blorbos)

Ask an author about something they’re excited or passionate about

January 24th (Day 4: Rarepair Extravaganza)

Ask an author about one of their favorite ships (romantic or just a platonic relationship!)

January 25th (Day 5: A Blast from the Past)

Ask an author about past fandoms they may have participated in or their journey as a fic writer in general

January 26th (Day 6: Canon? Who is she?)

Ask an author about an AU or headcanon of theirs

January 27th (Day 7: Procrastination Termination)

Ask an author about their writing process

Love Posting

Too shy to reach out to someone you admire directly? Write them an anonymous message in our inbox and we will post it and tag their blog for you! (Please be sure to include their blog name so we know who to tag).

Note: If we suspect that your message is back-handed or being hateful towards another group in the community, it will be deleted. If you believe your message was deleted in error, feel free to send this blog a DM about it.

And finally…. If you are an author remember that even if you don’t receive a message or new readers during the course of this event, you are still a valued member of this community. With the size of our fandom, it is impossible to give every single author their due recognition. You are appreciated for your contribution to this fandom, and every fic that is written makes our fandom a more vibrant, wonderful place to be. We love you for the time and effort you put in the art of your creation and we are privileged that you choose to share it for us to enjoy!

#mcyt #mcytblr #mcytblrsource #mcyt fanfiction #hermitcraft #dsmp #traffic smp #qsmp #empires smp #origins smp #pirates smp

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tangibletechnomancy · 4 months

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Economic anxiety has a way of bringing out reactionary sentiment in anyone if they're not careful.

It is deeply, deeply frustrating to watch it play out in front of me in leftist spaces such that self-proclaimed leftists are using actual, literal fascist arguments about Real Art vs. Fake Art and Real Labor vs. Lazy Button-Pushing.

These things don't become any less bad when you SAY your enemy is "some rich techbro" while calling broke disabled hobbyists "evil soulless automatons".

The central logic doesn't become true when you SAY you're targeting an inhuman machine while you screech obscenities about a great replacement at its operator.

When you say one minute "there is no unskilled labor, only undervalued skills", it doesn't magically absolve you of saying "nooo, you were supposed to automate away the BAD and DEMEANING jobs with no financial safety net for the workers, not THIS one I consider RESPECTABLE" in the next breath; it only makes you a fucking hypocrite.

"Fair use for me but not for thee" is not a rational position to prevent plagiarism and forgery; it's just a means to codify an ingroup and an outgroup.

"Degenerate art" is always, ALWAYS a reactionary and proto-fascist thing to believe in, even if you wrap it up in other fancy words because you know "degenerate" is a Bad Word. "There is Good Art that makes society better and Bad Art, if you can even CALL it Art at all, that will rot our brains and turn us all into mindless drones if it's allowed to survive" cannot be made into anything but a reactionary position! Period! End of!

"Lazy button-pushers" are EXACTLY what corporations want you to think ANY automation operator is, so they can take credit away from those employees and criminally underpay them. They said the same damned thing about digital artists back in the early days of Photoshop. They say the same thing about overworked VFX artists today. You are DIRECTLY helping them make it worse with this argument.

The same old fucking trick of making you uncertain of your financial future so you lash out at other victims of the system because you "can't take the risk" of coming together to fight the actual enemy? Is working a FUCKING treat on way too many people who pride themselves on Not Being Like That - and it's even worse because a lot of the time pointing this out will get nothing but denial because maintaining pride in a leftist, progressive, pro-labor, pro-human Identity is more important to way too many people than ACTUALLY identifying the root of reactionary sentiment and the strategies used to spread it.

It makes me genuinely feel like I've fallen into a Fox News convention, hearing all these blatantly reactionary arguments and actively self-defeating strategies to Protect Labor.

#not art

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zutaraweek · 1 month

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Announcement going forward: Due to DeviantArt’s loud stance on Generative AI and general mismanagement as an artistic community over the past decade, Zutara Week will no longer be hosted on their platform.

The continuation of our yearly tradition will still take place on our main socials here on X, Instagram, and Tumblr—but we are currently in the process of creating our own space to serve as an archive of all past works.

This is in hopes of having one central Zutara Week resource that the community can access without having to log in to our various socials!

Stay tuned for future announcements regarding this, and the upcoming Zutara Week dates for 2024!

Thank you all for sticking around!

#zutara #zutara week #zk week #zkweek #zuko #Katara #atla

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nanaminsmoon · 9 months

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𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫!𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐱 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

a/n: this has just been sat in the vaults for a month and i'm just in eren brainrot mode rn so here she is😁 also, i just imagined rapper!eren being like central cee. so just imagine him wearing a nike tech in every interaction lol.

cw: fingering, pnv, infidelity, mentions of breeding, finger sucking, eren calls reader; 'ma', 'my girl', 'baby', and i don't cosign homewrecking be respectful y'all😭

cw: 4590...

rapper!eren who tells you it was never meant to go this far, because it truly wasn't. it all started because you had similar music taste, so you understood the influence of his favourite artists (which happened to be your favourite artists) on his music.

you first met rapper! eren when you bumped into one another at the record store. he was a popular up and coming artist, so you somewhat recognised him but you couldn't pinpoint where from. you had been in the same section of the shop and he liked your outfit, thought you had great taste and, when you turned around, he saw that you were bad. so he sparked up a conversation with you. he was used to people pretending they didn’t know who he was just to get into his inner circle but, upon further conversation, he could tell that you really barely had any idea who he was. and, initially, that was a punch to his ego (because damn his music isn’t reaching baddies like that??), but he just decided it was for the best.

rapper!eren who called you after you gave him your number, which you found quite interesting because you barely knew each other and he was calling you before even texting you?? but you answered, and conversations about anything and everything meant that when you looked up from the doodle you had been focused on while talking to him, the small clock hand had moved forwards three numbers. saying you were ‘surprised’ by his depth makes it seem as though you expected him to be an idiot, but you were just taken aback by the way that every other word he said to you was an echo of the thoughts you had never gotten the chance to shout out into the world.

rapper!eren whose words had your cheeks heating up as they begun to ache from smiling at his flirtatious tone. honeyed syllables flowed into your ears, only just to run back out, slowly caressing your skin on its way down to the space between your legs. though not necessarily obscene, rapper!eren‘s words dirtied the scenes running in your mind, painting a packed gallery of lude images you wanted him to paint all over your body.

“did you just giggle?”, he chuckled over the phone, and you shook your head furiously as if he could see you.

“what? no!”, you sat up on your bed, the defence on your features evident to both you and the walls surrounding you. he wasn’t wrong, you did giggle. but you wouldn’t let him hear that admission. it felt slightly ridiculous, because you had only known him for a few weeks, but whenever you saw the name ’eren<;3’ appear on your phone, the muscle between your ribs would begin a high intensity workout. the effects manifesting themselves in the endorphins flying through your body, and the way he just made you feel…giddy.

calls started off as being once every few days. then it was once a day. then his name was painting your phone screen twice a day. then it became a few times a day; he would call you when he woke up, and you would try your best to not lose it over his morning voice, especially when he said shit like:

”i wish i could see you right now, i feel like you look cute in the morning. nah? i don’t believe that”.

you would call him on your commute, then you’d eat dinner together over facetime. then, once the sun set, every step in your night-time routine would be interrupted by rapper!eren’s inquisitons about literally everything: ”what’s that for?”, ”what does that do?”, ”your skin is perfect you don’t need all that.” and, soon, the texts began sprinkling themselves in between those calls; ’good morning’ texts, ’how’s your day goin?’ texts, ’show me your fit’ texts, ’facetime?’ texts, and ’you got time to call?’ texts.

then two, or so, months passed and you came to find out why the beginning of your relationship was mainly just calls: so it couldn’t be traced back to him. though he had your contact saved, he could always just delete your call logs, and you would have no way of proving that you actually spoke. this revelation struck you shortly after a tiktok came up on your foryoupage showing someone talking about rapper!eren and his rumoured girlfriend. said ‘rumoured’ girlfriend who really just looked like his actual girlfriend with the way his arm was slung around her shoulder, her hand reaching up to hold his, as he nuzzled his nose against her cheek. as soon as rapper!eren noticed the cameras, he peeled himself off of her and put his hands in his joggers. and, as pissed as you were, you could admit that the girl was cute; standing shorter than him, with short brown hair.

rapper!eren whose eyebrows met to screw in frustration at his calls and texts going unanswered. a part of him grew unreasonably pissed off when he kept calling you and kept getting sent to voicemail. at first, he assumed you were just busy so he just postponed his call because he knew what time you usually ate dinner, meaning he knew when you usually called him. but to make sure you weren’t still busy, he texted you and again, it was just ‘read’.

“what the fuck?”, he whispered at his phone screen as he sat in the back of the black suv. no matter what he tried, rapper!eren got no response and he didn’t know why that cut him so deep. he was inured to female attention so your replacement was nothing more than a dm away. but…he didn’t want to replace you. talking to you had become so pivotal to his day-to-day routine and he didn’t like that being taken away from him without him having a say. but after three days of dodging his calls, you finally texted him.

…: you have a gf?

rapper!eren: thats what this shit was about y/n?

…: this shit?? nigga you have a girlfriend tf you mean this shit??

rapper!eren: its more complicated than that

…: is it???

…: she’s either your gf or she isn’t how’s that complicated?

rapper!eren: dw abt it

rapper!eren: come to my studio tonite. got smth i wanna run by you

…: huh??

read.

rapper!eren who finally responded a few hours after that conversation. but, instead of the explanation you were looking for, you got sent an address and a message telling you that someone was on their way to come pick you up. you quickly texted rapper!eren your address, then you had just half an hour to get ready. had this been a week ago, you would’ve done a bit more; matching underwear and all. but instead, you just decided to keep it cute but simple—both your outfit, and your makeup.

you got a text telling you to make your way outside and when you did, you were met with a black suv with tinted windows. as weird as it looked, the driver asking for your name reassured you and you got in. the drive to the address was silent. it was just you and the driver in there, and he didn’t even spare you a glance once you got in the car, so you were just left with your thoughts. and they made it a very gruelling 30 minute journey. once you arrived at the building, the driver took you to the door, where you were met with rapper!eren‘s manager. that’s when you found out that the building was where rapper!eren‘s studio was.

rapper!eren who sat alone behind a translucent door, looking down at his phone until his manager opened the door. you hadn’t seen him in person since the first time you met and, knowing what you now knew, your heart was at the pit of your stomach. so your first few moments there were spent stood, abashedly, at the door. an unreadable smirk braced his face at your appearance, before he made his way to hug you. being polite, you hugged him back. and those nasty wasps in your stomach were mixing with butterflies. you hated it to say it, but you were attracted to rapper!eren and the strong smell of his aftershave was enough to drive the butterflies in your stomach to migrate to the space between your legs. but, at some point, their wings would be clipped by the fact that the man had a girlfriend.

rapper!eren who noticed you looking a little skittish, and moved to stroke your arm to calm you down but you just looked at him blankly so he moved away. the weird feeling in your stomach had yet to go away, and it only grew once you looked around and saw that the only lights on were red LED lights, and a few candles placed on random tables.

“you drink?”, rapper! eren picked up a bottle of expensive looking red wine and two big wine glasses.

“not with men who have girlfriends, no.”, you quipped, taking your hoodie off, and putting it on the sofa.

rapper! eren who really did call you there to ask you about something because he had made a new song, and he wanted to see how you liked it. no one else knew what his vision was but, having similar music taste, he knew you would. but the second your hoodie came off, his intentions wavered. at that very moment, he could feel the very thing he had been trying to bury for the past few days, making his dick twitch in his joggers. making it infinitely harder to ignore—if he even wanted to do that anymore.

rapper! eren whose eyes glimmered at the sight of you thoroughly enjoying his song, even giving him real feedback that he knew would make the song better. you were sat by his laptop and the way your knees would touch whenever you moved to the beat did not go neglected. despite your prior apprehensions, he had poured you both some red wine, and you were slowly making your way through your glasses. mid-conversation, he caught you staring at his chains. especially the pendant with his name on it; bussed down and twinkling even under the minimal lighting.

“you like ‘em?”, he looked down at his chest, smirking, and you nodded at him.

“are they heavy?”, you giggled. that chain was thick but the pendant on it looked like it had some weight on it too.

rapper! eren‘s answer wasn’t verbal, instead he just reached behind his neck and took it off, holding it toward you,

“try it on”, he said, quietly and you shook your head. the man had a girlfriend why was he drinking with you, and asking you to put his chain on??

“nah, bro, that’s too far. you’ve got a gir—”, you began, and rapper! eren rolled his eyes as he got up from his chair,

“first off, she’s not here. second, don’t call me ‘bro’. that’s what my boys call me.”, he stood, looking down at you, obviously waiting for you to stand up. your guilt only grew, to subside again, as you got up. and then he stepped closer. you were sat pretty close before, but now the tips of your shoes were meeting. then he leaned forward and reached behind you to put his chain on you. once it hung around your neck, you got the answer to your question; it was heavy.

lost in observation, you hadn’t even realised the way rapper! eren‘s hands hadn’t left your body, they had just changed locations. they moved from the back of your neck, to your cheeks where he held you to face him. fuck. this man was fine. yes, you felt bad but she was purring. you didn’t know his girl so what loyalties did you have to her? and plus, who are you to judge other people’s relationships? maybe she’s okay with him cheating…

you knew damn well you were just being selfish, but that didn’t stop you from moaning into rapper! eren‘s mouth once his lips collided with yours. the way the baby, blue shimmer of the diamonds bounced off the gloss on your lips made them impossible to ignore. they were just asking for rapper! eren to mess them up, and replace the sheen with the one provided by his saliva. this wasn’t the first time he had cheated on his girlfriend; he was surrounded by beautiful women who wanted him every single day, and he had the self control of a dog who hadn’t been fed in weeks. but this time felt like more than just kissing, rapper! eren didn’t want anyone else to have you. and he hadn’t realised that until he saw you with his name shining around your neck.

the slow, fervent kiss grew haste when rapper! eren‘s hands started moving to grip anything he could through your dress. soon, you were straddling him on the black leather sofa, slowly grinding on him as he pushed you down onto the tent forming in his grey nike tech. naturally, your dress began to hike up your body, and rapper! eren aided its trek by pulling it up so the end of the dress was lightly pecking the top of your black lace thong. it was at this point that rapper! eren knew that there was no going back for him; if he didn’t fuck you now, he would be dreaming about it until he did.

his lips did not leave you once—moving from your own to your cheeks, jaw, neck, chest. his hand laid on your clothed tit, the other being pulled out from under your dress, and quickly covered by his swollen pink lips. the way his tongue swirled around your nipple had you throwing your head back, your hips not stopping once. veins that once transported blood became the primary vehicle for the pleasure he was providing you, you hadn’t even noticed his hand moving to the space between your legs. slipping your thong aside, he began rubbing circles on your clit.

“’ren, p-please”, you whined, breathlessly. thoughts weren’t connecting properly anymore, so you didn’t even know what you were pleading for. you just felt the need to say something.

“w-wait, please”, you breathed out, and he hummed against whatever skin he was kissing at that point, you really didn’t know anymore. your entire body was on fire, so it all just felt like one big sensation.

“i am waiting, ma”, rapper! eren cooed, “there’s a lot more i wanna be doing right now.”, he nipped your other breast that he had alternated to at some point, and you knew he would leave a mark. and that’s exactly what he wanted.

a few minutes passed before rapper! eren inserted his middle and ring finger inside you. shivers ran a marathon all over your body as his bussed down star ring grazed your thigh, while he pumped his tattooed digits in and out of you. all the while, rapper! eren‘s eyes never left your face; the glistering jades illuminated every feature on you—your moistened pert nipples, your bleary gaze, and your parted lips. your drool mixing with his saliva still on them.

it didn’t take long for you to cum all over his fingers, trembling and cantillating his name into the space around the both of you. no part of your body could handle that wave once it washed over you, the tide pulling your forehead onto his chest, that was heaving almost as deeply as yours was. you hadn’t done much, but rapper! eren was so turned on by the fact that he was making you feel good. but even knowing that, his fingers didn’t relent.

once you were able to lift your heavy eyelids, and open your eyes, you saw a space grey patch on rapper! eren ‘s light grey tech, and that aroused a small panic in your stomach.

“’ren, s-stop”, you began, and as soon as that word left your mouth, his fingers stilled. a billion thoughts raced through his mind; maybe you’d changed your mind, maybe it didn’t feel good anymore. but when he found out that it was just because you didn’t want to get his tech wet, he chortled at how cute you were, and stroked your teary cheek with the hand that wasn’t pumping in and out of you again.

“you think i care if people know how wet my girl gets when she’s with me?”, he spoke onto the skin on your neck. fuck. you hated how good it felt to be called that, but you couldn’t stop the way you clenched around his fingers at that nickname. the same nickname that belonged to another woman.

“you like that? me calling you ‘my girl’?”, rapper! eren teased, lifting your chin when you tried to evade eye contact, “you want me to fuck you with my chain ‘round your neck? make you mine for real?”, his hand was wrapped around the top of your neck to hold your chin in place, and you just nodded furiously. fighting your need for him was futile, so you would give in now and regret this later.

confirmation received, rapper! eren picked you up and placed you on the sofa on your back, lips still glued on your neck. it wasn’t until he paused momentarily to take off his hoodie and shirt that you realised where things were going and panic returned. you placed your manicured fingers flat on his chest, providing a bit of resistance as your head shook slightly. but you didn’t say anything, simply hoping the look in your eyes would communicate everything your mouth couldn’t.

“your girlfriend”, you spoke, voice barely above a whisper. and rapper! eren moved closer to your face, meeting your lips. then he spoke against them,

“tell me you don’t want this, and i’ll stop”, he told you sincerely and you stammered, words failing you once again. or, really, you failing yourself because there were no words you could string together to hide the way you wanted needed this man to fuck you until you started crying. you’d heard the stories, you’d heard the song lyrics, and there was no smoke without fire. so you wrapped yourself up in a fire blanket and walked straight into the blazing heat. you shook your head at him, and reached for the bulge poking you in your stomach. and he smiled down at you before kissing you again and pulling back to get condoms from a drawer next to the sofa.

rapper!eren whose mind could barely grasp the concept of anything that wasn’t how tight you would feel around him. at this point in time, he didn’t know where he was anymore, nor did he care. the faint sounds of people talking in the hallways outside his studio were hushed static compared to the soft whines escaping your lips. you were desperate; this man had thrown a lasso around you, pulled you into his orbit, and then was just tangling you in front of himself. almost as if he was teasing himself—placing you in front of his face, legs wide open, yet not doing anything to close the faucet responsible for his leaking, throbbing, pink tip. but only rapper!eren knew that the reason for his eyes sprinting across your body, unbothered by the finish line, was because he didn’t know where to start with you. he had stripped you of your dress; he didn’t plan on doing so originally, but he needed to see your tits bounce as he fucked you so it had to come off. but now that you were whining underneath him—spit sliding down the corners of your mouth, making its way down onto the sides of your neck as you sucked on his tatted fingers, eyes locked with his own, he didn’t know what to do with you. your eyes had rendered him paralysed; yes, he may have been on top of you, but you were in control. He was on his knees for you, literally! he was on his knees on the sofa, with his legs caging one of your own.

rapper!eren who, as mesmerised as he was, remembered that he couldn’t just gawk at you forever so he positioned himself at your entrance. looking at you before he put it in, he saw a smirk painted on your face,

“nervous?”, you teased, and he scoffed at you. all it took was for his tip to softly poke your entrance, for you to cry out his name. if he was in his right mind, he might’ve given you shit for how quickly you were eating your own words. but all he could think about was how he hadn’t even done anything and you were already falling apart underneath him.

“fuck.”, he breathed out as he looked at his dick, still visible between your legs.

rapper!eren was a very sought after man, women wanting him did not surprise him. but you moaned his name like you needed him. like you were flirting with the brink of insanity every single second his dick wasn’t deep in your guts. and, rapper!eren may have been a very unloyal man, but he was very possessive. and there was nothing he hated more than people fucking with what’s his. so he would rip you from the hands of insanity, and fuck you until the afterglow was so prominent that everyone would know to go nowhere near you.

“just wait for me, baby, yeah? I’m right here”.

rapper!eren who lets out a deep sigh as soon as he starts pushing himself inside you, his eyeballs exploring the back of their sockets when he felt how tight you were. he had been intent on watching you take him in, inch by inch (all 8 of them), as he sheathed himself into you. but how wet you were was making him delirious. it felt like you were tightening around him with every half an inch that you took of him. probably because you were. everything was hitting you all at once, and your body was just reacting without even consolting you. it was how sexy he was, the sound of his heavy breathing, low moans hitting your ear. bitch it felt like you were doing the damn tiktok kegel exercises.

from what you had barely seen earlier through your drenched eyelashes, you knew that there would be a lot of rapper!eren to take in. but it seemed like the man was just never ending. when you thought he was fully inside you, he would push some more and you would feel yourself stretch around him. it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, just a lot to get used to. so your arms were reaching across his back, scratching slightly as he bottomed out inside of you.

deep sighs and whiny protests soon became blissful incantations of pleasure leaving your lips to hit rapper!eren‘s bare shoulder. his tatted fingers were digging into the fat surrounding your hips, waist, anything he could reach. not too long after you two began fucking, his manager had opened the door to ask if he was ready to go. but, when he opened the door to the soundproof studio and saw you two fucking on the sofa, he figured rapper!eren had some loose ends to tie up before he left to go to his hotel. neither of you had noticed because you were too busy focusing on the sweet words leaving this man’s mouth, as well as his chains hitting your skin. no soul would’ve guessed that this man’s pen game was crazy with the fucked out nonsense he was spewing on whatever skin he was kissing at the time.

”imma fuck you so good nobody’s gonna be good enough f’r you. hm? you want that? fuck, if I wasn’t so stupid(?) i’d fuck a baby in you. i promise you. this pussy’s so fucking tight, i don’t even care anymore. i got money, i could take care of a kid. you wan’ it? you wan’ me to just get you pregnant? let everyone call you my baby mama? you’re a slut you know that, yeah? just wan’ my nut leaking outta you? fuck, y/n, you’re gonna get me in trouble.”

rapper!eren whose fingers teased your clit, slow and gentle as if he wasn’t pounding into you with reckless abandon on some small sofa in his studio. but the few seconds that those two fingers sped up on your little bud of nerves were enough to have you drenching his lower abdomen, and fingers. too lost in the moment, he had forgotten to taste you earlier, so he put his fingers in his mouth and he rolled his tongue around them. the taste of you in his mouth dropped his eyelids, his hips moving faster and faster as your arousal coated his tastebuds.

rapper!eren who couldn’t remember the last time he was that turned on by anyone. his hips were moving on their own, rushing to get that release. he wanted to hold it, because he wanted to give you round after round after round and he wanted you to cum, at least, one more time before he did so himself. if it were up to him, he would pick you up and take you into the booth and fuck you in there so he could get some adlibs for his next song. but he just couldn’t do it.

“i’ll—fuck—i’ll make it up to you. i swe—shit”, he quickly pulled out of you, and scrambled to take his condom off. his hand managed one stroke on his dick before his nut spurted all over your chest, specks finding themselves on your chin. before the last droplets of his release dripped onto your stomach.

once he finished, rapper!eren pulled back and, as his eyes regained focus, he was just mesmerised by you. eyes barely opening, bodily fluids all over you, but his chain remained proud at the centre of your chest. he had to take his phone out and take a few pictures of you just like that. spurts of his cum acted as an adhesive, sticking his name onto your heart. yeah, he wasn’t letting you go now. he didn’t know how to feel about the cum splattered on his chain, but he just settled on getting a new one and just letting you keep that one. how he would explain that to his girlfriend, he had no fucking clue but he would figure something out…

after he took you to a hotel suite and made up for nutting quicker than he had hoped…by fucking you senseless:))

#nanaminsmooninc #aot x black reader #aot x black y/n #eren x black reader #eren x black fem!reader #eren smut #rapper!eren #aot eren

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zaebucca · 5 months

Text

About scale, process, palette and canvas: a few considerations on pixel art as a medium

User moredogproblems answered an interesting and legitimate question by another, DiscountEarly125, regarding my work and canvas size. He also perfectly isolated two central concepts of pixel art, which are scale and process. Canvas size, which was the theme of DiscountEarly125's specific request, is more of a dependent variable to those two aforementioned concepts, rather than a starting point. I hope the following considerations I shared may help or prompt some other ideas, but this is what I could come up with 15-ish years of experience with pixel art (and a few more years of art and media studies). I was quite in the mood of writing down these few thoughts that have been floating for a while. I apologize as this may also result in a confusing wall of text, but it is all part of a my work and research, and I would love to polish all the material, hopefully with some thoughts, insights from other colleagues, as well as pictures and materials!

A. Scale and canvas size It is true that the bigger the canvas, the more distance one may visually create from pixel art, but I personally think this is to be possibly considered a matter of perceiving pixels, rather than a fundative problem of the medium. In fact I concur with the idea of "process makes the medium" rather than identifying pixel art as how (evidently) pixeled the result feels. The general picture, or the sum of pixels, though, is a really important matter to the medium nonetheless! Pixels themselves work in relation one with another, so it's their overall result that gives context and makes the subject recognizable. This relationship between pixels links back to all the art fundamentals that each artist is taught, from color theory to shape and composition - and so on. So, the canvas size debate usually boils down to a matter of scale or necessity of your subjects. As long as the dimension (canvas) of your subject (as in: a drawing of an apple, a character sprite, a mockup environment) allows you to operate, control and keep an eye on the quantity (number/area of pixels together) and quality (color, shaping of multiple pixels, texturing obtained through color and shapes) of isolated single pixels or pixeled areas, you're in the pixel art universe. The other way around to define the matter of scaling: in order to be operating pixel art fundamentals and techniques, your subject has to be on a scale that allows you to apply principles of pixel art within the space of your canvas and your personal style. These very same principles, or basics, can be applied with different results and extent to bigger and smaller canvases alike, each with their own specific difficulties and variables. It is important to adapt your scale when learning, and trying classic canvases per subject like "16x16px" (standard tile or character sprite unit, tied to older consoles and screen ratios, it's a bit complicated there) is always a nice idea - they also tend to be industry benchmarks and necessities so in case you'd like to consider a professional output, that's very useful.

Scale also applies to the array of colors, and there lies the concept of palette: a number of single hexadecimal hues we are using for each single pixel. Any single pixel can have one hexadecimal color only.

Consequentially it is absolutely true that either a huge canvas or a palette too broad may prevent a viewer from perceiving immediately the "nature" of your medium, namely seeing square pixels, recognizing a certain amount of color - or more thoroughly recognizing that you made some choices for each subject on a pixel level. What could possibly happen on a huge canvas (without zooming in) is that you can't really grasp the pixels, but just the "overall picture" - and that may not differ too much from digital, raster art, which is of course also based on pixels. Therein appearently lies a sort of threshold that is really hard to pin down for us pixel artists, as it depends on screen size, visualization methods, distance, filters and lots of other inherently subjective parts.

This kinda is my case sometimes: I make big environments (possibly too big, and too detailed in each part I tell myself) that are a sum of many lesser parts: both tilesets and sprites that relate (but not strictly adhere) to a basic space unit that is 16x16pixels. You can indeed consider scale in a broader sense as a subdivision or magnification issue, much alike squinting your eyes to focus on a picture's overall contrast or, conversely, analyzing its fundamental parts with a magnifying glass, and then a microscope - an analogy as follows:

a. the picture as a whole is like a colorful rock that you can analyze by magnifying its grain. b. the characters, geographical elements and textures, works like the different substances that compose the rock and give its visible characteristics grain and complexity, c. single pixels constitute the very atoms of those previously recognized substances.

I mean "atom" in the traditional, classical meaning of indivisible, fundative object. That's a "quantized" part of information, which for pixel art is ultimately color (or a binary value, like yes/no black/white). If you were, for example, to crop some parts of my work - let's say 160x144 pixels (a gameboy screen resolution in pixels) you would see the substances that are characters and elements of nature, and when you zoom in again, every atom becomes visible as a single entity of color. There are 29 different type of "atoms" in Ruin Valley as in different, singularly hexadecimal colors that work together in different combinations and shapes to create different substances and characters. 18 of them are used for the different qualities of the environment, and 11 more for extra hues for characters and other elements to pop out a bit.

It's really interesting to see how many pixel artists push this "threshold" of pixel art canvases to the extremely small or the extremely big, whereas, notably, palettes are less open to growth: it is indeed my opinion that pixel art tends to quantize color (quality) over than dimension (quantity). Palettes, notably, do not grow exponentially, but tend to a lower, fixed, controlled amount of individual values instead. This usually gives the artist the true possibility and toolkit through which is possible to think about/with pixels. In other words: color (or its absence) is the founding unit and identity of pixel art as a digital medium.

B. Pixels as process or pixels as objective? Pixels themselves (as strange as that may sound!) are not to be considered an objective of pixel art, I think, but the founding matter of its research as a medium instead. I think that making pixel art is not just devoting oneself to show those jagged, squarey areas or blunt edges that we all know and love: this is just one of the possible aesthetics that pixel art conveys or adopts - especially on small canvases. Pixel art is not about denouncing itself as pixels, but, rather, embracing the square, atomic unit to build an ensemble that conveys a content or a style. That's the important part of the discourse that emancipated pixel art into being a medium, and not just an aesthetic choice or style of representation. Again: process makes this medium. Speaking of that, I consider pixel art as part of a broader family of "quantized art", namely media that operate on/with "indivisible, founding bricks and unities" that can assume a certain quality (color, mainly) within a certain quantity (palette, canvas size) and in relation to its surroundings to describe something. This puts pixel art, with its specifics and with a certain degree of semplification, among other mediums such as cross-stitch, bead art, construction sets, textile art (on a warp and weft basis), (micro-)mosaics and others.

A classic threshold example of process vs objective: oekaki art. Oekaki art - which I love and also happen to make from time to time - doesn't really work or "think" specifically on a pixel base: it doesn't place pixels per se, but uses pixel-based areas and textures on bigger canvases with a certain degree of freedom, like one would normally do with brushes on raster digital art programs (adobe ps, gimp, clip studio and so on) in order to convey an aesthetic with fewer colors and a certain line style and texturing. That way, oekaki uses and knows pixels in a deep way, but doesn't see them primarily in a quantized way. As a result the "overall picture" shows pixels to a certain extent, and it's possible to recognize distinct pixels for each part, but the objective is not an analysis and use of pixel and quantized information, but the use of an aesthetic based upon accessibility of resources, their control and a certain rendering style.

A huge part of pixel art is its absolute accessibility: everyone with a fairly outdated computer or screen and a basic drawing program can study the medium. To be fair, it's indeed considering accessiblity that I highly support an inclusive approach to the term "pixel art" and I think traditional oekaki is a close, beautiful relative that builds upon the rules and techniques of pixel art and pixel rendering, yet keeping its identity as its very own medium - somehow like a dress may be built around/upon textile design. Anyway, boundaries are meant to be crossed and I think there definitely are lots of oekaki and pixel-based art that meet traditional pixel art mid-way - or further. I also think the "is it pixel art?" discourse possibly ensuing - and generally speaking any media belonging purist ontology - is a treacherous, slippery terrain leading to excesses, and this is not my focus today, neither am I able to tackle that subject extensively at the moment.

C. Conclusions and a few good exercises Everything above may be farfetched or too complicated as a starting point. I tried to write all down as orderly as possible. The point of this (possibly discouraging) analysis and the reasoning between scale and process is that (pixel) art is about trying different canvases, and reasoning on one's subject and objective, rather than limiting oneself to presets sizes or styles. It's important to choose something that resonates with us and, in doing so, thinking about other, more interesting limitations: that's the discourse about quantity of space and quality in color. Limiting is the best possible exercise and one I wholeheartedly encourage: by doing so we are progressively delving deeper on the basics, as we learn the fundamental relationships between shapes and colors that we can achieve through pixels. A few good exercises that I too implemented in my own workflow come to mind: 1. Trying different canvases (or sizes) for the same subject (sprite, character art, illustration or so on). This helps a lot finding a comfortable size to apply pixel techniques, as well as getting a hold over fundamentals such as aliasing, linework, conventional representation and so on. 2. Trying different palettes for the same subject, both by varying colors themselves (therefore learning about values and contrast and readability, as well as atmosphere and mood!) or singular hues and their components, in order to discover possible relationship between them. Have fun! 3. Reducing the width of the palette progressively for the same subject: reducing the number of singular colors forces a reasoning on shapes, rapresentation. You may go from 1-bit art (just black/white) to 3 colors, 4, 8 and so on. We'll not talk about transparency as a singular color there, but if you happen to be interested in retro art, transparency counts to the palette size. This exercise is very useful in rendering, and possibly tricky. And definitely fun. :') 4. Choosing an objective and usage of our work: for example trying to learn about old pixel art limitations for games, in order to reason within specifics. Get inspired by traditional games (spriters-resource is your best friend here, in case you have a specific retrogame you're thinking of)! I will probably talk about limitations and style on another post. 5. Four eyes (and other multiples) are better than two: try to talk with people and friends and other artists you trust and feel comfortable with to get their point of view. This can be scary, I know, especially at the beginning. You're not forced to, of course, but if you do (in a safespace) there's lots you can learn about concepts such as readability, subject recognition, rendering and composition. Our eyes and brains get accustomed to something, and pixel art being a rather analytic medium made of synergies, subtle changes, limitations and conventions is especially tricky on the artist's eyes on the long term. Either way, the important thing about pixel art is understanding that this medium is about recognizing and enjoying the process rather than the eventual aesthetic and in order to do so the best choice is to start simple, small, with few colors and techniques at a time! Have fun and hit me up with your progress and considerations. :')

#pixelart #art resource #pixelartist #how to #reference #art tips #learning #insights #pixel illustration

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svp3rrn0va · 3 months

Text

The Artist & The Muse (NSFW)

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

Summary: MC is an aspiring artist. She talks to her close friend, Sebastian, about her hobby and how she wants to practice painting anatomy. He offers to be her nude model, and MC can't help but admire his body in more ways than one.

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, explicit sexual content, body worship, foreplay, oral m!rec, unprotected sex, praise kink

Word Count: 4,748

You sigh as you struggle to focus on your book amidst the chatter of your peers around you. Out of anywhere you could've chosen to read, you chose the fountain in the literal epicenter of the castle. Central Hall seemed to be absolutely packed at any point of the day before curfew. It doesn't help that the content you're trying to read is already a bit confusing for you.

To your left, there is a group of friends cheering for a 2nd-year Gryffindor as he walks up the wall. Any moment now, you think to yourself. Just then, as if he'd read your mind, he falls to the floor with a shriek. Thankfully for him, one of his friends cast a charm so he wouldn't hit the hard floor below him.

They all began to laugh really loudly, and that was your last straw. Just as you were about to turn to them and scold them for picking such a crowded area to do something so dangerous, your friend Sebastian Sallow approaches you and sits beside you on the fountain with a smile. You give him a sigh that means "oh, hello."

"What are you reading?" he asks, his head pointing toward your book.

"It's an art book," you reply, closing it and placing it in your lap. "Although I can't get much reading done with all this noise."

Sebastian chuckles. "You're surprised you can't pay attention to your book in Central Hall?" You roll your eyes.

"Also, I didn't know you were into art."

"Yes," you say with a hint of shyness. "I paint, actually."

Sebastian's eyes light up. "You paint? I can't believe you've never told me this before!"

He was right. It was a rather ridiculous notion that you kept something like that from him. You actually kept that from a lot of people. Not because painting is such an embarrassing hobby, but because you're still learning, and you haven't felt ready to show your work to people yet. You've always had a tendency to be hard on yourself.

"Here and there I do; I don't really take it that seriously." That was a lie. Of course you see yourself having a career within the wizarding world, but you would also like to have a career as an artist in the muggle world, perhaps under an alias.

"Even so, I bet you're really good at it. You're good at everything." Sebastian says with a smile.

You scoff. "You're only saying that to be nice."

"No, I mean it! You're the smartest person I know, besides me, of course," he smirks.

You scoff and nudge his arm playfully, and you stand up. "On that note, I'm going to go to my room and read where it's peaceful."

Sebastian quickly stands up as well. "Your room? Your room of requirement? Is that where you paint?" You sigh, and Sebastian acts like a kid in a candy store. "I bet it is! I want to see them."

"You want to see my paintings?" you ask.

"Of course! You can't tell me that you paint and not expect me to want to see them."

You swallow, and you feel your nerves building up. You've never shown anyone outside your family your paintings.

"You're not going to let this go until I show you, will you?" you ask, already knowing his answer. Sebastian shakes his head, and you sigh. "Fine. But don't laugh at me. They aren't great."

"That's subjective. Besides, even if I were to not think they're great, I want to support you regardless. That's what friends are for, anyway." He says softly.

You smile, feeling touched by his words, and it makes you feel more relaxed.

***

You open the door to your room of requirement and Sebastian looks around in amazement. The room is quite large, and you've made yourself a nice, personal space. You've got a large bed, a large desk for your assignments, massive bookshelves filled with books, potting tables, and of course, your painting area with everything you'd need.

"Wow, if this were my room of requirement, I'd never leave," he says, taking a seat on the sofa by the fireplace.

"What's in your room of requirement?" you ask.

"I don't have one. I just spend all my alone time in the Undercroft."

You laugh, not understanding how he could choose a room like that over a room where he could have absolutely anything he wanted. Sebastian turns around on the sofa and looks toward your painting station, his smile dropping when he sees that the only visible canvas is blank.

"I thought you had paintings in here," he said with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"I do," you say as you walk towards the bed. You open up the chest at the foot of the bed. "They're in here."

Sebastian quickly gets up and walks over to you, peering inside the chest to see three canvases facing down.

"May I?" he asks, looking up at you as he leans down to grab them.

You nod and take a deep breath as he pulls the canvases out of the chest and looks through them.

One is of the Scottish coast, with beautiful cliffs overlooking the sea. The second is a view of the night sky from what appears to be the observation deck in the astronomy tower. The third is your cat lying on your windowsill, looking at sheep passing by in the fields outside.

You chew on your lip as you watch Sebastian's face, trying to decipher from his expression whether he likes the paintings or not. It's a bit hard to tell, and he's silent. You begin to get antsy.

"Well?" you ask impatiently.

"These are-" he begins before once again going quiet as he keeps alternating between the paintings. You groan.

"Do you have to be so dramatic? Please tell me what you think!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sebastian says, snapping out of his trance. "I'm just speechless. These are amazing! I can't believe you said they aren't great!"

You raise your eyebrows. "Really? You think so?"

"Of course! I'm not a painter, so I can't use technical terms, but you're very good at blending the gradients in the sky, and the water in this one, just look at the way you did the bubbles on the crashing waves! You're really underestimating yourself."

You can't help but smile, and you look at the floor, blushing. "Thank you, Sebastian. That means a lot."

"You should be proud, really," he says as he gently places the canvases back into the chest. "What art book were you reading, exactly? Judging by these paintings, you shouldn't have much more to learn. You're already great."

"Alright, alright, you're flattering me too much now," you laugh. "It was an anatomy book. I've had enough practice painting landscapes and animals; I don't have enough practice painting humans."

"Well, why not just try doing it instead of trying to learn from a book first?" he asked.

"That's the thing," you say, and you feel your face getting warm. "I could handle painting people with clothes on, but I've always been inspired by art from the Italian Renaissance. I'd like to recreate that style."

"Well? What's wrong with that?"

"A lot of famous paintings from that time depict nude people," you bluntly reply.

"Oh," Sebastian says, clearing his throat. "You want to do a nude painting?"

"I'd like to try and make a painting in that style, yes," you chuckle nervously. "I just would like to get a hang of human anatomy before I even attempt to recreate a Renaissance piece. But asking someone to pose for that is-"

"I'll do it."

You weren't sure if you heard him correctly. "You what?"

"I said I'll do it." He has to be joking, right? But he looks completely serious and doesn't look unsure at all.

"You'll... you'll pose nude for me?" you ask, whispering the last few words as though someone can hear.

"Why not? We're close; I trust you. And I'd be honoured to help you get some practice. Unless you'd prefer to paint a female body."

"No, no, it doesn't matter to me. But are you sure?"

"I wouldn't have mentioned it if I wasn't," he shrugs.

You stand there and sigh, still surprised by Sebastian's sudden offer. Despite his offering, you don't want to put him in an awkward situation, but it also saves you from any future awkward situations of finding someone to pose nude for you.

"If you're comfortable with it, then alright. We've got time before class, so we could do a bit now, if you'd like." You say.

"I don't mind," he says, looking around the room. "Where would you like me to be?"

"You can be on the bed so you're on a soft surface." You grab your easel and blank canvas along with a chair, and you move them both across from the bed. "And I will be here."

Sebastian nods, and you make your way back to the table to gather all of your brushes and paints to use for the canvas. You grab your mug, and with a quick cast of Aguamenti, you've got a full water mug ready for you to clean your brushes.

When you turn around and catch sight of Sebastian, you nearly drop everything in your hands when you see he's already fully naked, standing by the bed.

"Are you alright?" he asks, chuckling.

"Sorry," Your face was burning hot at this point. You clear your throat. "I just didn't expect you to get undressed so quickly."

"I didn't mean to shock you," he says, looking at the bed. "How would you like me to pose?"

"Erm," you hesitate as you try your best to keep your eyes on his and not focus on his lower region. "You can lay on your side with your hand resting on your head, one leg propped up? That way I can see... erm... everything."

Sebastian nods and climbs onto the bed, getting into the pose you asked him to. You place all your paints and brushes in front of you, trying to ignore the blood in your cheeks and your heartbeat. You've seen a man naked before, but you've known Sebastian for a long time and had never been intimate with him, so you weren't sure how to feel.

"How's this?" he asks. You look to the bed, and he's laying in the correct pose, although his leg was tilted a bit downward, so you couldn't see his privates well.

"That's alright, but if you lift your leg up a bit more, then it's perfect."

He listens. He lifts up his leg so his knee's pointed directly towards the ceiling, and you see it. Your breath stops for a few seconds.

It's quite... big. Thick, but not too thick. It's more long than thick. You quickly peel your eyes away to not make him think you're staring. You begin to paint his head, and you notice your hand is shaking. You shut your eyes and clear your throat again to try to clear your thoughts.

"Are you comfortable like that?" you ask, trying to make conversation and feel more relaxed.

"I am," he responds casually. "This room is amazing. It conjured up a much cozier bed than what we've got in all the dorms!"

"I know," you reply. "I actually don't sleep in it much, though."

"Well, you should," he says. "I reckon you'd be the most well-rested person in the castle!" He moves his arm and head a lot as he speaks, making you struggle.

"Try not to move too much," you instruct him. He nods, quietly apologising.

You begin painting his lips, and you try to focus on his face, but it's very difficult. Your eyes have a mind of their own, and they keep trailing down to his length. You swallow hard as the light from the fireplace allows you to clearly see, even from that distance, the veins along it.

Sebastian seems to be unaware of your attention as he looks around the room while you paint.

It's no secret that Sebastian is a very attractive man. You and many other girls in the castle can agree on that. However, the fact that he feels comfortable enough with his body to agree to do this for you somehow makes him much more attractive to you.

You admittedly feel a bit entranced by him in this moment. You've never felt this way for him, so it's a surprise. In fact, you're so entranced that you almost didn't notice the heat from your cheeks sinking to your lower region as well.

No. No, now is not the time for this, you think to yourself. As you feel the heat turning into a slight throb, you clench your thighs together, trying to get the feeling to go away. You somehow manage to finish his head and hair, and it looks good.

As you begin to paint his torso, that's when you notice how toned he is, and how his freckles aren't just on his face. You begin to sweat, and the throbbing you feel doesn't get any better. You feel it even more this time. You gently take your hand and place it in between your thighs, closing them around it.

You shift in your seat and Sebastian turns his attention towards you.

"Are you alright?" he asks, his eyebrow raised.

You struggle to find words, and you quickly nod your head as you chew nervously on your bottom lip.

Sebastian begins to eye you as you insist on keeping your attention on your canvas. He sees your hand between your thighs and your fingers digging into the skin of one of them. When he looks up at your face, he can see how red your cheeks are and how aggressively you're chewing your lip.

"No really, are you alright? You seem flustered-"

"I'm fine, Sebastian," you snap. Unbeknownst to you, Sebastian knows better. He can tell by the way you can't sit still. He can tell by the way you're clawing at your skin. He can tell by the red of your cheeks. You're turned on, and he knows it. He just chooses to play coy.

You begin to paint his beautifully broad shoulders. Merlin, these intrusive thoughts. Get out of here! You almost don't want to look at him again, but you have to. As you take another look at Sebastian, your eyes quickly dart down to his length once again, and that's when you notice it.

He's getting hard.

You immediately stand up and start putting everything away.

"I'm sorry, this wasn't really a good idea. I really appreciate you offering to help, though," you say, almost too quick for him to understand.

"What? What's wrong?" Sebastian asks, getting out of his pose and sitting upright.

"This just feels too wrong. I didn't want there to be tension, I thought this would just be-"

"Tension?" he asks again, looking down to notice the obvious tension as well. "Oh shit."

You put away the easel and chair and begin to nervously pace.

"Again I appreciate you doing this for me but I'll just look for another model. Just put your clothes back on and we can act like this didn't happen, alright? I'll see you in class." You try to rush out of the room when you feel Sebastian grab your wrist.

You turn around in surprise as you didn't even notice him get up from the bed and walk towards you in your frantic state. You look down at all his glory once again before meeting his gaze.

"There's nothing wrong with it if you like what you see, you know," he says, his voice lowered. Your breathing speeds up.

"I-I don't know what- what you mean," you stammer.

"I've known you for a while," he smirks. "You've never been discreet, and you certainly aren't now."

He keeps his eyes fixed on you, and you can't pull yours away.

"Tell me what's on your mind." He licks his lips and you can practically hear your heartbeat in your ears.

"Y- your body," you say so quietly it's almost a whisper.

"What about it?" he asks softly.

"It's so beautiful."

"Beautiful in an artistic way? Like you want to paint it?" he asks, his eyebrows raised. You can tell that he is trying to get more out of you.

You hesitate and lick your lips before answering. "Yes, but, not just paint it."

"What else?" he whispers, and you can't help but whimper slightly at his voice.

"I want to touch it," your eyes begin to trail down his body again. "And kiss it..."

Sebastian, still holding onto your wrist, gently brings your hand up to his chest. You shiver as you touch his skin and he slides your hand down his torso.

"You mean like this?" He asks. You nod.

"And you want to kiss it?" He asks again. You nod again.

He chuckles and he interlocks his fingers with yours. He takes his other hand and places it behind your neck, pulling you in and crashing his lips to yours. As soon as your lips touch, you feel all of your nerves go away. All you want is him.

You run your hand through his hair and moan into his mouth. He smiles against your lips and waits for you to open your mouth just a little before he adds his tongue.

You pull away from the kiss with a gentle bite of his lower lip. He looks at you with nothing but lust in his eyes. Then you lean in and kiss his jawline, down to his neck.

A soft "mmm" comes from Sebastian and you smile as your kisses travel lower down to his collarbone all the way to his bellybutton.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted this," Sebastian growls.

You're on your knees at this point, and you look up at him with a look of surprise at his words. You had no idea Sebastian felt that way about you, but you weren't complaining.

"I think I have an idea," you reply, eyeing his erection in front of you.

"May I?" You repeat his question from earlier as you guide your hand towards his cock, glancing at him for permission. He nods and you place your hand on it, swirling your thumb around his shaft.

Sebastian hisses and you smile, before leaning forward and licking his tip as you begin to pump his dick with your hand.

"Oh god," he groans, throwing his head back. "That's perfect." He grabs onto your hair as you start bobbing up and down on his cock, pumping the rest with your hand.

You aren't quiet either. You make sure to slurp and gag as you take his length as far back into your throat as you can. He obviously loves it, too, as his legs shake and he moans with each gag.

"God damn, is there anything you're not good at?" Sebastian asks as his voice cracks, an indication to you that he may not last much longer.

You begin to massage his balls and he tugs harder on your hair. As you suck him off, you gradually use more tongue, and you can just feel his veins against your tongue from how prominent they are, and you love it.

"You're gonna make me cum," he whimpers. "Do you want to swallow it?"

"Mm-hmm," you reply, not taking your mouth off him. Anxious for his release, you begin to pick up the pace, just as he begins to thrust himself into your mouth. At this point your pussy is throbbing like crazy, and you take your hand from his balls to try to rub yourself through your underwear. Unfortunately, the hem of your pants are too tight.

"Oh that feels so good," he moans, and with one final thrust, you feel his cock twitch and he releases his load into your throat.

You giggle with satisfaction as the warm liquid fills your mouth. Once he pulls away, you swallow as if you've just had a nice, refreshing glass of water.

"Come here," Sebastian says as he takes your wrist again and pulls you to your feet, pulling you into another passionate kiss. You two begin to walk backwards while you kiss, not paying much attention to where you're going.

Next thing you know you collide with your painting table, and you press your hand onto something wet. You turn around and begin to laugh as you notice your hand landed directly on your painting palette.

"Oh, I'm sorry," says Sebastian, laughing as well.

"That's alright." You place your paint covered hand on his cheek and kiss him again, his eyes widening.

"Hey!" He exclaims against your mouth. You pull away and giggle once again as you see a handprint on the side of his face. Then an idea comes into your head.

Sebastian watches in confusion as you put both hands on the painting palette. You turn around, biting your lip as you slide your hands down his body, covering him in paint.

"What is this?" he grins.

"You're my art project," you laugh. "And I just want to keep touching you."

"It's my turn to touch you now," he growls. He begins to undo your pants, and you arch your back off the table so it's easier for him to pull them down.

He removes your pants and to your surprise, you've gotten so wet, you can see it through your underwear.

"And you tried to be discreet," he says with a smirk. "Tsk tsk tsk."

He slides one finger along your cloth covered slit and you gasp. You prop one leg up on the chair beside you to give him better access.

"Oh, we're eager, aren't we?" he whispers right next to your ear. You shiver. "You're soaking wet."

He presses his finger up against your clit through your underwear, almost to tease you. You whimper in desperation, and he grins again as he begins to rub. "What's wrong? You want me to touch you directly?"

You nod. "Please," you whisper. "Please touch my pussy."

With a bite of his lip, he hooks one finger through the hem of your underwear and slides it down towards your knees.

"Just look at that pussy," he says, admiring you. "I can't imagine what you've got under the rest of those clothes."

He begins to rub circles on your clit and you place one hand behind his neck to stabilise yourself. His fingers are cold, and it feels so good against your pussy that you shudder.

Sebastian leans in to kiss you again. He then drags his lower lip along your ear and places a gentle kiss on it. "So fucking good," he says. "So talented, you are. So smart, too, and so fucking beautiful." He rubs your clit even faster and your head falls onto his shoulder.

"Even better at sucking my cock, and I know you'll be great at taking it in that beautiful pussy of yours, too." His words are sending you closer to the edge. "I bet you're so fucking tight."

"Sebastian," you choke out. "Don't stop." You begin to grind your hips against his finger and he chuckles.

"Yes, grind those hips. You're making me hard all over again." You watch as his cock begins to grow once again, already prepared for you. You moan at the sight, and your desperation to feel it inside of you makes you finish.

Your legs shake wildly and you fall back against the table as you cum. Sebastian slows his rubbing, and he sighs in satisfaction as he watches your delicious juices drip from your pussy lips as you finish your release. Once you're done, he licks his finger as if he's licking chocolate frosting off of it.

"So sweet," he smirks.

You're getting impatient now, and without a word you begin to strip your blouse off, and Sebastian watches you with complete lust in his eyes. As you begin to take off your corset, you struggle a bit and he helps you.

He undoes the last button and your corset falls to the floor. You turn around to face him and his jaw drops. He gently places his hands on your waist, and caresses up and down your torso. Sebastian moans softly as he runs his hands over your breasts, spreading his middle and index fingers apart as he passes by your nipples.

"And you said my body was beautiful," he gawks. "Look at you. Just fucking exquisite. You should paint yourself. This is real art."

His sweet words drive you crazy and you crash your lips against his once again. He kisses you back with somehow even more passion this time. He's got paint all over him now, but you absolutely love it. You jump up and wrap your legs around his waist.

He wraps his arms around you, getting paint on you now as well, but you don't care. Sebastian takes you to the bed and drops you on it. He grabs each of your ankles and pulls you towards him as he remains standing.

"I wish you could see yourself from this view," he says.

"Well I'm satisfied with mine, as well," you reply.

He lets go of one of your ankles to position himself at your slit, and you begin to drop your leg. He quickly grabs it again and lifts it back up. "Keep your legs up," he instructs.

You begin to say "alright", but you're cut off by your own moan as he pushes himself into you. Since he isn't too thick, he's able to slide into you quite easily, but he's just the right girth that it feels fucking amazing.

"Your pussy feels incredible," he sighs, as he begins to softly thrust in and out of you.

You watch his face, and you admire how gorgeous his expressions are. The way he shuts his eyes, and raises his brows, and slightly opens his mouth. You wish you could see him like this all the time.

"You can go faster," you tell him. And just like that, he thrusts faster and harder. You both moan in unison and his grip on your ankles tightens. "Fuck, Sebastian, that feels so good."

"God, I- I can't," he breathes as he lets go of your ankles and collapses on top of you, not hurting you, and he continues his thrusting. You wrap your legs around his waist again.

Sebastian rests his head in the crook of your neck, and places his hand on your other cheek. "You're fucking perfect," he says.

You lift his head up so his eyes meet yours and you kiss him, this time it being a romantic, tender kiss. You press your legs tighter on his waist, pushing him closer to you so his cock hits you even deeper.

Sebastian's cock is hitting your g-spot just right, and you can feel your orgasm approaching quickly. You begin to rub your clit just as you feel Sebastian's thrusts slowing down just a hair, and you know he's getting close, too.

"I'm close," he whispers. "Do you want me to cum inside you?"

You think for a moment, and you nod your head.

You tug on his hair and you begin to kiss his neck. He moans and that little sound makes you fall apart. Your legs close around him tightly and as your walls begin to clench on his cock, he loses it. He groans, and right when you expect him to shoot his load inside of you, he quickly pulls out and cums all over your stomach.

He chuckles, and you look up at him with a look of both confusion and disappointment.

"Now you're my art project," he laughs, and you can't help but roll your eyes.

Sebastian falls back onto the bed next to you. "Look at us," he says. "We're a mess."

"I can always conjure up a bathtub," you reply. "By the way, you're not going to be my nude model again."

Sebastian sits up with a frown. "Why not?"

"Are you joking? I'll never get any practice done with you! You've distracted me!"

"You say that like it was a bad distraction." he chuckles.

You can't help but laugh, too, because it's true. You look up at him with a smirk. "You do make a good canvas, though."

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow smut #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy smut #hogwarts legacy oneshot #sebastian sallow oneshot #smut #oneshot

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niranjandotus · 3 months

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Top Ukrainian female Scientists, Doctors, Mathematicans, Economists, Artists, Athletes, Leaders, Astronauts, Military Leaders, etc.

The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska who won Fields Medal — the highest honor for a mathematician.

Selected few famous Ukrainian scientists

We decided to talk about outstanding Ukrainian women who've changed and continue to change the world of science to show that girls can do anything.

Maryna Viazovska, a mathematician

Ukrainian scientist, doctor of natural sciences. Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska, who currently works at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, received the Salem Prize 2016, which is extremely prestigious for mathematicians. The commission awarded the prize to Maryna Viazovska for her world-class discovery. Ukrainian solved a problem that scientists have been working on for more than 400 years, i.e. packing spheres in 8-dimensional space, and co-authored the one in 24-dimensional space. Previously, the problem of packing spheres was solved only for spaces with three or fewer dimensions.

Yuliia Bezvershenko, a physicist

Ukrainian scientist in theoretical physics, popularizer of science, public figure, Ph.D. of physic and mathematical sciences, Yuliia Bezvershenko is included in the list of TOP-20 Ukrainian women in STEM for 2018-2019. Yuliia deals with mathematical methods applied to the problems of dynamics of quantum systems in external fields and control of quantum systems. She is convinced and proves that one can practice theoretical physics with passion.

According to Yuliia, at one time she heard an important thing from her mentor: you can be yourself in any field! Therefore, one shouldn't be afraid of stereotypes and prejudices of others.

If you're a girl, a woman, no matter where, no matter how old you are, and your heart is in science, don't be afraid. Go there boldly. After all, nothing will stop a woman, ready to work and conduct scientific discoveries.

Mariia Bailiak, a biologist

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology in Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University. Scientist Mariia Bailiak studies biochemistry and researches the influence of various plants and substances on the aging process. Mariia Bailiak's discoveries concern, for instance, the increase of stress resistance and the general condition of living organisms (and therefore, us and you, and it's good news: stress resistance doesn't hurt anyone), and anti-aging substances. Thanks to her intensive work, Mariia is in the Top 10 successful Ukrainian women scientists.

Olha Brovarets, a biophysicist

Ukrainian biophysicist, Doctor of Physic and Mathematical Sciences, winner of the Scopus Awards Ukraine in the nomination "Best team of scientists who achieved significant scientific results without Western collaborations" and the President of Ukraine Award for Young Scientists, and a leading researcher in the Department of Molecular and Quantum Biophysics Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Olha is the youngest doctor habilitatus in Ukraine; she became a doctor at 29. Olha is now 34 years old and she continues to study biophysics: her discoveries give an understanding of the mechanisms of cancer and many other diseases caused by mutations. It was Olha who calculated the pattern of mutations in DNA leading to cancer and many other diseases.

Nana Voitenko, a biologist

Professor, Doctor of Biological Sciences, neurobiologist, head of the department of sensory signaling of the Bohomolets Institute of Physiology of NAS of Ukraine. Nana Voitenko has been researching pain for more than 20 years. What do we know about pain? For most people on Earth, pain is something they'd like to get rid of as soon as possible if they feel it. Nana Voitenko deals with the nature of pain, as it occurs and spreads in the human's central and peripheral nervous systems. In the laboratory, Voitenko and her colleagues managed to develop an experimental treatment that affects only those cells involved in pain syndromes. Besides, Nana Voitenko is actively promoting science: she's a lecturer at the "Days of Science" initiative, was a lecturer at TED-x Kyiv in 2013, and the organizer of the "Week of Knowledge about the Brain." Science is close, and it's accessible to everyone.

Ella Libanova, an economist

Scientist in socioeconomics, demography, and labor economics, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Honored Economist of Ukraine. Ella Libanova is an academician-secretary of the economics department of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and, by the way, the first and only female member of the presidium of the National Academy of Sciences for 102 years of its work. She teaches social statistics at the Faculty of Economics of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv; introduced a method for measuring human development at the region level, used by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine for annual calculations.

Nina Virchenko, a mathematician

Professor of the Department of Mathematical Analysis and Probability Theory, Doctor of Physic and Mathematical Sciences Nina Virchenko is one of the most famous Ukrainian mathematicians. She is the author of more than 500 scientific and methodological works, including 20 books published in Ukrainian, Russian, English, and Japanese. Nina Virchenko is recognized not only in Ukraine but also abroad; she's a member of the Australian, American, Belgian, Edinburgh, London mathematical societies. In the end, it's not surprising, because mathematics knows no boundaries and recognizes all the achievements, wherever you obtain them.

Nina Virchenko's fate wasn't easy: at 18 in 1948, she was sentenced to 10 years in the Gulag camps for preparing a "political conspiracy, revolt" and participating in the "Ukrainian-nationalist gang." Years in the camps didn't stop the future doctor from achieving her dreams. In 1964, she defended her Ph.D. and her Dr. habil. dissertation in Kyiv in 1988.

Nataliia Vynohrad, an epidemiologist

Epidemiologist, professor, doctor of medical sciences, Nataliia Vynohrad manages the Department of Epidemiology of Lviv National Medical University. She's an expert of the World Health Organization in responding to epidemic threats and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on epidemiology, an adviser to the Ministry of Emergencies of Ukraine on anti-epidemic protection and biosafety. Agree, you can't find a more relevant profession in 2020-2021. Once an ordinary girl from a village in the Khmelnytskyi region, and now the author of 305 scientific papers, and 8 copyright certificates for inventions and patents of Ukraine, proves that nothing is impossible for a girl who knows what she wants.

Nataliia Polonska-Vasylenko, a historian

From the early 20th century until the end of her life in the 1970s, our first heroine studied the history and archeology of Ukraine, both in Ukraine and later in exile in Germany and the Czech Republic. In a historically troublesome time for Ukraine, she became one of the leading representatives of the state school in Ukrainian historiography, that is, she promoted the idea of independence and continuity of the Ukrainian historical process. Nataliia Polonska-Vasylenko is the author of almost 200 scientific works on the history of Zaporizhzhia and Southern Ukraine, which remain relevant to this day.

Valentyna Radzymovska, a biologist

One of the most prominent names in our history is Valentyna Radzymovska, a professor, doctor of medical and physiological sciences, founder of the Ukrainian school of physiologists and biochemists, and a public figure. The Soviet authorities repressed Valentyna Radzymovska for her political activities and participation in the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine in the 1930s. However, it didn't prevent her from becoming the author of more than 60 works on biochemistry, pathophysiology, pediatrics, psychoneurology, physiology, and phthisiology. Like the previous scientist in our article, she left Ukraine in 1945, emigrating first to Germany and then to the United States.

Radzymovska contributed hugely to the study of tuberculosis and its treatment in children.

Nina Morozhenko, a physicist

Although the sun is the closest star to us, it still hides many fascinating mysteries. Ukrainian astronomer, helio physicist, doctor of physic and mathematical sciences, author of 56 scientific works, Nina Morozhenko devoted her entire life to studying the structure of our guide light and the processes taking place on it. After all, everything happening on the Sun affects many areas of human activity. Without studying the sun, it's impossible to understand not only what the future holds for our civilization but also what is happening in space, i.e. on the distant stars the humanity is so eager to reach. Nina Morozhenko's scientific works on solar prominences were the first in the world and gave rise to scientific research by helio physicists from many countries. The Ukrainian researcher's significant contribution to the physics of the sun once again demonstrates that physics isn't a purely "male" science.

#ukraine #ukrainian #ukrainianarmy #ukrainianarmedforces

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samwisethewitch · 6 months

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What Non-Pagans Need to Know About Fiction Featuring Pagan Gods

In light of Marvel's Loki show dropping a second season and a new Percy Jackson series on the horizon, I want to say some things about how fandom spaces can be respectful of real-life pagan religion.

Let's get one thing out of the way: literally no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction that uses pagan gods and heroes as characters. No one is saying, "Stop writing stories about our gods." In fact, many ancient cultures wrote fiction about their gods -- look at Greek theater or the Norse Eddas. The act of writing fiction about the gods is not offensive in itself.

But please remember that this is someone's religion.

The gods are not "just archetypes." Their myths are not "just stories." Their personalities are not a matter of artistic interpretation. For many pagans, the gods are very much real in a literal sense. I don't think Thor is a metaphor or a symbol -- for me, Thor is a real, autonomous spiritual being who exists outside of human perceptions of him, and who I have chosen to build a relationship with. Even if you are a hardcore atheist, I would hope you could at least be respectful of the fact that, to many modern pagans, the gods are both very real and very important.

When authors are not respectful of this fact, they reduce the gods, these very real objects of worship, to fictional characters. And here's the thing about fictional characters: they are fundamentally tools for authors to use to draw a desired emotional response from an audience.

Dracula's personality and behavior is wildly different depending on who is writing him, because different authors use Dracula to create different reactions in their audiences. In the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi, he's equal parts alluring and disturbing, a symbol of America's mixed desire and disdain for foreigners. In Nosferatu, he's more strictly frightening and disgusting. In Francis Ford Coppola's movie, he's a tragic, romantic figure clinging to the last scraps of his humanity. In Netflix's Castlevania, he's an incredibly powerful being who has grown bitter and apathetic in his immortality. All of this is Dracula, and all of it is fine, because Dracula is not and never has been a central figure in anyone's religion.

Let's take a look at what happens when authors give this same treatment to real gods:

In Hellenic polytheism, Apollo is one of the most beloved gods, both historically and today. Apollo loves humanity, and humanity loves him back. He is the god of sunlight and of medicine, but also of poetry and song. He is one of humanity's most consistent defenders when one of the other gods gets wrathful. And while he does have dangerous or wrathful aspects of his own (he's also the god of disease, after all), he's also kind and soft with humanity in a way other gods often aren't, at least in some historic sources.

In the Lore Olympus comic series, Apollo is a villain. He's characterized as an abuser, a manipulator, and a violent man child. LO!Apollo is downright hateful, because the author wants us to hate him. Lore Olympus is a retelling of a myth about an abduction and forced marriage. Lore Olympus is also a romance. In order to get the audience to sympathize with Hades and root for his relationship with Persephone, Rachel Smythe needed to make someone else the villain. Apollo is the most obvious and extreme character assassination in Smythe's work, but several other gods (notably Demeter) also get the asshole makeover to tell the story Smythe wants to tell.

Here's where this becomes a problem: Hellenic polytheism is a fairly small religious community, while Lore Olympus is a massively popular webtoon with 1.3 billion views as of August 2023, print books available from major retailers, a TV adaptation in the works, and a very active online fandom. Rachel Smythe currently has a MUCH bigger platform than any Hellenic polytheism practitioner. Smythe and other authors are shaping how modern culture views the Hellenic gods, and that has a very real impact on their worshipers.

This means "Apollo is an abusive asshole" is becoming a popular take online, and is even creeping into pagan communities. I've personally seen people be harassed for worshiping Apollo because of it. I've seen new pagans and pagan-curious folks who totally misunderstand the roles Apollo, Hades, and Persephone play in the Hellenic pantheon because of Lore Olympus and other modern works of fiction.

There are tons of other examples of this in modern pop culture, but I'll just rattle off a few of the ones that annoy me most: Rick Riordan depicting Ares/Mars as a brutish asshole hyped up on toxic masculinity; Rick Riordan depicting Athena as a mother goddess; Marvel depicting Thor as a dumb jock; Marvel depicting Odin as a cold, uncaring father; DC depicting Ares as purely evil; whatever the fuck the Vikings TV show was trying to do with seidr; the list goes on.

All of these are examples of religious appropriation. Religious appropriation is when sacred symbols are taken out of their original religious context by outsiders, so that the original meaning is lost or changed. It requires a power imbalance -- the person taking the symbols is usually part of a dominant religious culture. In many cases, the person doing the appropriation has a much bigger platform than anyone who has the knowledge to correct them.

When Rick Rioridan or Rachel Smythe totally mischaracterizes a Greek god to tell a story, and then actual Hellenic pagans get harassed for worshiping that god, that's religious appropriation.

Religious appropriation is a real issue. This isn't just pagans being sensitive. To use an extreme example: Richard Wagner and other German Romantic authors in the 19th century used the Norse gods and other Germanic deities as symbols in their work, which was a major influence on Nazi philosophy. Without Wagner, the Nazis would not have latched onto the Norse gods as symbols of their white supremacist agenda. To this day, there are white supremacist groups who claim to worship our gods or who use our religious imagery in their hate movement. We are still reckoning with the misinterpretation of our gods popularized by Wagner and other German Romantics almost 200 years ago.

Again, no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction based on pagan mythology. But there are a few things you can do to help prevent religious appropriation in fandom spaces:

Above all else, be mindful that while this may just be a story to you, it is someone's religion.

Recognize that enjoying fiction based on our gods does not mean you know our gods. You know fictional characters with the same names as our gods, who may or may not be accurate to real-life worship.

Do not argue with or try to correct pagans when we talk about our experience of our gods.

Don't invalidate or belittle pagan worship. Again, this mostly comes down to recognizing that our religion is totally separate from your fandom. We aren't LARPing or playing pretend. Our sacred traditions are real and valid.

If you see other people in your fandom engaging in religious appropriation, point out what they are doing and why it isn't okay.

Please tag your fandom content appropriately on social media. Always tag the show, movie, book, etc. that a post is about in addition to other relevant tags. This allows pagans to block these fandom tags if we don't want to see them and prevents fandom content showing up in religious tags.

For example, if I'm posting about Athena from the Percy Jackson books, I would tag the post #athena #athenapjo #percyjackson #pjo. You get the idea.

And if fiction sparks your interest and you want to learn more about the actual worship of the gods, you can always ask! Most pagans love talking about our gods and trading book recs.

If you are writing fiction based on real mythology, talk to people who worship those gods. Ask them what a respectful portrayal would look like. If possible, include a note in your finished work reminding audiences that it is a work of fiction and not meant to accurately portray these gods.

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cobragardens · 7 months

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I've seen some discussion of how Good Omens is an end-of-the-Cold-War novel, and I've done some Holding Forth myself on how and on what level Show Omens is a queer story and a satire/excoriation of Christianity's central values of authoritarianism and unquestioning obedience, but there's an aspect of of Good Omens that I haven't seen mentioned among the Ineffables yet, which is that Good Omens is a story about two characters coded as English men. It is, to some degree, a story about English masculinity.

We can say this with confidence because 1) the place Aziraphale and Crowley have been quietly going native for the last 1,500 years or so is England (Wessex and later London); and 2) Michael Sheen is audibly Welsh and David Tennant is audibly Scottish, and they have both adopted English accents for their roles.

There's some Word of God on this, too:

and

The accents are a choice. That means the Englishness is deliberate.

Obviously the masculinity is as well, in that Sheen and Tennant are both male and Aziraphale and Crowley default to male-coded for most of the story. And it's English masculinity, English Christianity, and the Cold War spy novel in combination that create the inescapable silence and terrible fear in which Crowley and Aziraphale must exist.

It's not just the eternal warmongering police state and bureaucracy, it's not just that God's left her angels to go feral like pigeons, it's also that Crowley and Aziraphale are coded as English men, and that combination means 1) they do not talk about feelings, ever

My man(-shaped entity) physically cannot say feelings words

David Tennant literally gives Crowley that English stiff upper lip.

and 2) They are a nationality and gender of people who touch and are touched among the least in the world. Like there is research on this, and I read that research in the 90s in a book first published in the 70s, I mean it is not news.

It took 6,000 years and one Armageddon for our beloved, mostly male-coded entities to get to this point--

--and they're both still clearly having a moment about it.

An essay exploring the different English masculinities presented and alluded to in Good Omens--and especially how English masculinity has always had space in it for same-sex love amongst the upper and artistic classes--would be super interesting, but I am not qualified to write it either in terms of depth and specificity of historical knowledge or in terms of my position in the human diversity/power dynamics web (cis bi woman).

#good omens #good omens s2 #good omens English masculinity

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oldschoolfrp · 2 months

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A wizard's laboratory with a view. Looks like the local dragon is bothering the fleet again. (Thierry Ségur, Casus Belli 31, February 1986)

An interesting feature of some Casus Belli covers is the art behind the art. The central scene is bordered by a different space or a completely unrelated image. In this example the main painting appears to be surrounded by the artist's studio, with drafting tools on a slanted desk and other art pinned to the wall. One of the wizard's imps has escaped the frame of her scene to fetch a Coca Cola bottle in the lower left.

Didier Guiserix's electrifying scene on issue 31 covers up a picture of a cat in the background. For issue 32 the elf sits in front of a medieval fantasy scene to which she belongs, but she seems to be perched on a rusty steel drum related to the near-future sci-fi scene in the border.

#Thierry Segur #Thierry Ségur #D&D #Dungeons & Dragons #wizard #dragon #dnd #mage #magic user #encounter at sea #wizard's laboratory #wizard's tower #fantasy #imp #imps #JDR #jeu de rôle #jeu de role #Dungeons and Dragons

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accio-victuuri · 1 month

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excerpts from this article/interview with WoF director related to Wang Yibo ( “"War of Faith" director Yao Xiaofeng: I took the energy from Wang Yibo and transferred it to Wei Ruolai”) :

From 2018 to 2024, "War of Faith" took a full 6 years from preparation to release. During the period, it went through shelving, postponement, and repeated adjustments after the filming started. It was not until the joining of Wang Yibo, Li Qin, and Wang Yang that this project, a project years in the making came to life.

The turning point of things happened in November 2022. At that time, a friend recommended Wang Yibo to Yao Xiaofeng, and the two teams made an appointment to meet together.

Previously, Yao Xiaofeng only knew that Wang Yibo was a very popular artist. He had also doubted whether such a young actor without professional training could sustain his performance? Will you be unable to calm down? Can there be a common language?

But when I saw Wang Yibo for the first time, all these worries were shattered.

He found that although the young man opposite had gained huge popularity, he did not feel any elation. He just sat quietly in the corner of the sofa in the office, rarely speaking actively and spending most of his time listening. When asked about his preferences, Wang Yibo simply said: "I like speed." In his eyes and words, in addition to being humble and sincere, there is also an urge to become better.

So Yao Xiaofeng asked Wang Yibo: "I have a young man here who is performing a Republican drama in Shanghai. Are you interested?" Wang Yibo also expressed interest on the spot.

This originally planned simple meeting lasted from noon to dark. After the meeting, Yao Xiaofeng said firmly to producer Zhang Shuwei: "This is him. This is the actor I want."

The original version of the small house that Wei Ruolai rented was relatively spacious and cozy, but Yao Xiaofeng insisted on making the space even more cramped. Only in this way can we present the living beings at the bottom of the class who had difficulty transcending classes at that time, and form a sharp contrast with the ten-mile foreign market of Shanghai.

Wang Yibo and Wei Ruolai

In Yao Xiaofeng's view, Wei Ruolai is a clean, young and passionate young man with great "tenacity". Wang Yibo's innate temperament made Yao Xiaofeng see the perfect fit between him and Wei Ruolai, and made Yao Xiaofeng interested in the role of Wei Ruolai. The inspiration for the second creation.

He had previously learned that Wang Yibo relied on his talent and energy to make his way from Henan to the world step by step. In order to allow the audience to be more involved, he wrote Wang Yibo's enthusiasm on Wei Ruolai, strengthening the contrast between the two worlds of Qibao Street and Shili Foreign Market, as well as the workplace environment of the Central Bank.

In the story of "War of Faith", there is not only the feelings of family and country, but also the story of how an ordinary young man hesitates and chooses between two forces and finally finds his self-worth after working hard.

"I like children who have goals, struggles, ideals, and pursuits. These are the qualities that young people should possess. So I admire Wang Yibo very much. He has been working hard to transform. I hope that young people can also see from Wei Ruolai — When you see your own shadow, you can gain some enlightenment." Yao Xiaofeng said.

Yao Xiaofeng once said that the drama "War of Faith" incorporates modern people's way of thinking, making the characters in the drama more three-dimensional and giving the audience a greater sense of involvement. Therefore, during filming, Yao Xiaofeng never "teaches" actors how to act. Instead, he talks to Wang Yibo about the background and context of each scene. What kind of environment is Wei Ruolai in? This inspires Wang Yibo's truest feelings and makes the character closer to the actor himself.

"For example, when he saw himself wearing a pair of torn socks, how can children today have such an experience? But I let the props cut the socks, and after he put them on himself, he immediately caught the most realistic reaction."

After giving his true reaction, Yao Xiaofeng will discuss with Wang Yibo again. What different emotional levels does Wei Ruolai have at this time? This is also his rigid requirement for all young actors, that is, the feelings and reactions given in each scene must be different.

"When we work with actors, we don't have an unchanging performance template, because I think that is a guilty conscience and a lack of confidence. I don't know when to express myself, so I will act in a comfort zone way. Secondly, All accomplished actors must conquer the audience with their charm. Only when the audience believes in the character and likes the character can they be infected by his charm. In this play, as the chief producer Dai Ying said, Wang Yibo — is young but not raw, I hope Wang Yibo can express it truly and let everyone see a simple, simple and immature boy." Yao Xiaofeng said.

During the filming, Wang Yibo's role was very important. Not only did he have a lot of professional lines, but he also had to shoot from the first scene to the last scene every day. But Yao Xiaofeng discovered that Wang Yibo had never read a script on set, said he missed lines, and could reproduce his true feelings in different situations with sufficient preparation.

The scene where Wei Ruolai gets up to prepare for the interview in a rental house on Qibao Street was filmed less than a week after filming started. After the filming, Yao Xiaofeng cut out some clips. After the two of them watched it together, they both felt very satisfied and built up their confidence. Less than a month into filming, Wang Yibo had his first major scene. Yao Xiaofeng still remembers that after filming this scene, all the staff present applauded Wang Yibo.

Yao Xiaofeng always believes that as long as the candidate is right, more than half of the work will be completed.

"Confidence is built on each other. I gave him confidence and he gave me confidence, so it did not affect the shooting. In Yibo, I saw his most sincere pursuit of performance, just like he became a stage actor from a child — the king of movies, so I also believe that he can become a very good actor in terms of acting. If there is a suitable subject in the future, I hope to cooperate with Wang Yibo, Wang Yang and Li Qin again."

Detail control and self-expression

In addition to "realistic control", Yao Xiaofeng is also an extremely detail-oriented person.

In the Qibao Street interview scene, there were only a few lines in the script that read: "Wei Ruolai hurriedly put on clothes to take the exam in the morning." But Yao Xiaofeng was stunned and shot more than 20 scenes, tearing up the calendar, brushing teeth, and talking to Aunt Zhou The dialogues are all added temporarily.

The coat that Aunt Zhou gave to Wei Ruolai, Yao Xiaofeng insisted on replacing it with one that obviously didn't fit. This is because Aunt Zhou runs a laundry and handles clothes for various people, so she found a coat for Wei Ruolai to wear to give him some face. It is this ill-fitting coat that has been accompanying Wei Ruolai to explore the world.

Wei Ruolai's leather shoes must be worn until they are unbearably worn; the brush under the bed must not be used all year round; the tooth powder must be squeezed into a box; after Wei Ruolai washed up, Yao Xiaofeng even messed up Wang Yibo's hair, and the cotton-padded jacket also Wear it wrapped up. It is these details that can highlight the sadness of a lower-class people.

In the end, this scene, which lasted less than two minutes, took three full days to shoot. According to the original announcement, the shooting time for the opening of Qibao Street was one week, but it actually took two weeks. "Everyone was crushed, but everyone was very excited after watching the film. The actors were also excited. Wang Yibo performed very well. I think it was worth it." Yao Xiaofeng said.

#wang yibo #wei ruolai #war of faith #OMG THAT SCENE TOOK THREE DAYS TO SHOOT WHAT???#i love how he describes yibo ahhhhhh!!!!!

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