"Deslocar? Have I Heard Of It? Yeah Of Course I've Heard Of It, It's The Planet Over For Fuck's Sake.

"Enough lounging, I need to keep moving." // vikas chander

A note by the photographer:

"In the far north west of Namibia lies possibly one of the remotest and least inhabited places on Earth. Kaokoland is home to the ethnic group known as the Himba, but I came here in search of the Lone Men of Kaokoland. They are not marked on any map and blend seamlessly into the landscape making them, difficult to spot. The Lone men have been wired together using small rocks found in the area by artist, Trevor Nott and each of them has a small tag on them with their number and a small caption. Seen here is Lone man # 5 who says – “ Enough lounging, I need to keep moving”. Rumoured to be in excess of about 40 men of stone, I could discover only 18 of them, during my adventures in Kaokoland. The rest await me and for my next trip into the area."

So it looks like NaNoWriMo are happy to have AI as part of their community. Miss me with that bullshit. Generative artificial intelligence is an active threat to creativity and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in creative fields.

Please signal boost this so writers can make an informed choice about whether to continue to take part in such a community.

oxidized copper is such a beautiful color palette. The rich reds with the cool teals. Such a vibrant combo. No one is doing it like her.

First Drop

On Deslotair, the storm cycle breaks every three years, clearing the skies for off-world ships to make a rare visit to the planet. But for every ship that can make the landing, another falls to the unfamiliar conditions and dust-laden atmosphere. Scavengers watch the ships as they crash, ready to strip them to the hulls for all their worth.

Taglist: @glacierruler

Hand embroidered, self drafted, birch tree inspired buttonup shirt.

Fun fact originally Sprocket was going to have a head and torso with 360 range of motion but I scrapped that idea because it was a pain to draw and didn't really make sense with all his external wiring. On the plus side it means sometimes he needs help with maintenance now.

Taglist: @glacierruler

YELLOW - WRITEBLR ASK GAME

HONEYCOMB - What is the worst thing you have done to a character who did not deserve it?

GOLD - What colour features most in your writing? Is there symbolism there?

SUNSHINE - What is your favourite scene to write?

BUMBLEBEE - Are you better at action, descriptions, or dialogue?

ELECTRICITY - Do you prefer to write in the modern day, far into the future, or far into the past?

BUTTER - What do you include in all your writing?

LEMON - What scene do you struggle with the most?

BLONDE - Which of your characters has the most unique appearance?

BANANA - How good are you at writing comedy? Do you include it much in your writing?

DAFFODIL - What flower's symbolism do you identify with most?

COIN - What song inspires you most?

SPARK - Do you write romance?

PINEAPPLE - What is the best writing drink or snack?

CANARY - Can you write poetry?

MUSTARD - What is the worst thing you have ever written?

OCtober Bingo: Multilingual

“Come here,” Glass signed.

Sprocket shifted forwards, sand sliding over and into his joints, tubes bending to follow the movement. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground, hands folded in his lap. Opposite him, Glass kneeled in the sands.

The mid-morning sun fell through eir body, refracting and splitting through the glass, shining brilliantly on pieces of metal and bulbs of green liquid before falling onto Sprocket. It would be warm, if either of them had the skin to feel it.

(Natural heat was lost to Sprocket in the storm of his own whirring processors and grinding motors. He just had the vague impressions offered to him by an internal thermometer ticking up or down: 42.3°C.

He’d once asked Glass if ey could feel warmth, could feel the sun beating down on them.

Ey said it felt like life, which sounded very different from 42.3°C.)

Glass pressed eir palm against Sprocket’s chest, warping the way the light fell, and hummed three notes.

They slid together like the gradient of a sunset, each higher than the last. They sat somewhere in the middle of Glass’s vast spectrum of sound, a neutral sort of tone that shook around in Sprocket’s chest but didn’t quite stay there. He raised a hand from his lap to grab onto Glass’s forearm, fingers clinking into place. Another point of connection, without the leather of Sprocket’s vest separating them.

“Go again,” he said.

The same three notes played. Sprocket could feel the vibrations humming against his sensors, sound washing through him. It brushed over those parts of him designed only to detect pain, to alert to problems, gently passing by without alarm.

The sweeping rise in pitch felt whole in some way, complete. Someone with more musical knowledge than him, with more knowledge of the language Glass was trying to speak to him, could have had the right words to describe it. Sprocket had neither of those things, so all he had to offer was-

“It sounds nice. What does it mean?”

Glass nodded. Ey pulled eir hand away from his chest, and Sprocket followed suit, disengaging.

“It’s supposed to sound nice,” ey signed. “It means ‘to give comfort.’ We have many words like this, that represent concepts, that can be used in many different ways as long as the emotion is there.”

Those bulbs of liquid rolled around in Glass’s chest, occasionally colliding with each other to become one, other times clinging to the clear walls surrounding them. A pool of it splashed in eir head, right behind the pair of white, glowing eyes that watched Sprocket intently, making sure he understood. Glass continued.

“It means ‘it’s okay.’ It means ‘it’s alright.’ It means ‘it’s over.’ It means ‘I’m here.’ It means whatever it needs to mean.”

“And does it… work? Do you feel comforted by it?”

“Of course. That association has been well-established for me. The same will be true for you, eventually.”

Glass hummed the notes again. Ey nodded at him to do the same.

Sprocket took a moment to find the first pitch, letting it hum in his speaker before he climbed to the next, and then the next.

Glass tilted eir head at him. “You’re climbing stairs.”

“What?”

“When you move from one syllable to the next, you find in betweens and jump to them, instead of sliding up the scale. Here, try it with me.”

Ey reached out, pressing a hand against his chest, the globs of liquid in eir fingers twisting and reforming. Sprocket reached back, grabbing onto eir arm. The tubing that coiled loosely around him flexed and shifted, filled with that same blood.

Glass held the first note, leading the way for him to follow. Sprocket could hear the vibrations, could feel them thrumming in his veins of tubes, buzzing where cheers of metal met each other. The sound rattled discontentedly while he tried to find the right note, warping and grating until it fell into place.

Glass raised eir pitch, and Sprocket clumsily followed em up the scale, resting together at the three notes along their journey. When Glss nodded, Sprocket already knew what ey meant, and they starting over, and he led the charge.

They traded off like that several times, taking turns to find the right notes to play, each time getting closer to each other’s rhythm. Until the need ceased for a lead at all, and Sprocket and Glass spoke as one.

Liquid danced in Glass’s body, bulbs of it twisting in eir chest, all surrounded by singing glass.

Sprocket’s metal sang, carrying waves of sound. Gentle hands, not ones that poked or prodded, cupped his sensors, pressed against his vest.

They reached what Sprocket knew would be their final iteration and grew silent together, the last of the sound fading out of reach. Only when every last bit of it was gone, when Sprocket couldn’t possibly feel it, did Glass pull away. Sprocket’s hands fell into his lap.

“Like that,” ey signed.

“Thank you,” Sprocket responded. “I understand.”

@glacierruler

Another square down! I actually wrote this story a while back, it was one of the first things that went into my Deslotair notebook. Just some thoughts on the glass bot language and how we can communicate even when we're so different. Languages are very important to Glass (ey used to be a translator) so this was a really good prompt for em!

Saloon

Glass and Sprocket's first meeting, way back when. Added a couple of ports for Sprocket's tubing to flow through, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than them just kind of sticking out at his joints or junctures in the plating. Better for consistency's sake too.

Tags: @glacierruler

I was scrolling through your blog and saw a yellow themed ask game. Are you still taking questions for that?

Yeah go for it! I don't really consider ask games to have an expiration date, as long as I remember what you're talking about lol