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gradientdescent

@gradientdescent.net
459 followers 367 following 3.8K posts

Author Jack Stein / artist / gardening nerd between March and August 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Art tagged #embroidery Art & writing NSFW / be 18+ please

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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026
My mother, much like an avid Pokemon player, has been cataloging bumblebees. “I don’t have all the different morphs,” she apologises, “But here’s the 2 dozen species from this region, including male and female variants, labeled by rarity & in which terrain type they can be found.”
Photo of a bumblebee (species undetermined: I, unlike my mother, am not a Master Pokemon Trainer) feasting on a bright yellow cluster of goldenrod flowers
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026
That’s not a speculative claim. Nana C was out there sculpting this in the 80s.
Photograph of a clay sculpture depicting a diorama of two walls and the floor of a prison cell. A barred window is set into one of the walls. In the corner, stone steps curve up to a small dais. Atop the dais is an open box, painted to resemble wood, out of which spills nearly a dozen misshapen skulls.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026
You know what I love about modern EMR platforms (he said, uttering a phrase never before spoken in the English language)? They let you just download your own imagery any time you want. 100% ethical source of high-quality medical reference images. And you get to see your BONES.
Image of an x-ray film showing a right hand from the forearm to the fingertip. It being an x-ray, the bones are the main feature.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 29/09/2026
One of the most fun things I did last week was go to every used book store in the city (and an extensive dive through my own library) to build a cover art mood board. Could I have done this via Google search? I mean… I guess? But it would not have satisfied the needs of my soul.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 27/09/2026
Taking the eyeball art into a new medium today: glass! First time trying this, no idea at all what it’s gonna look like after it goes through the kiln. But I’m excited. You can never have too much weird eyeball art around the home.
Photo of a collection of glass shards sitting inside a kiln with various colored powders in little piles atop them. One square of glass has, drawn etch-a-sketch style in powdered black glass, the image of an eye.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 27/09/2026
My mother shared with me a book about local mushrooms from her last naturalist conference. Most of them WON’T kill you, but there are a few with that devious combination of “looks like something tasty” and “will liquify your liver”. This probably isn’t one of them. All the same, don’t eat it.
I don’t know anything about mushroom identification so I’m not even gonna guess. This is a photo of a large, roughly conical white mushroom sprouting up out of the grass. It looks a bit like a potato cut in half.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 26/09/2026
Came away from a day at a writing convention having met many cool people, added almost 2” to the knitting project, and snagged this very intriguing novel featuring a nun/noir detective who I’m gonna guess gets into a lot of trouble with dames she absolutely shouldn’t sleep with but does anyway.
Photo of a hand-knit lace scarf still on the needles. The scarf is mostly gold with a few green stripes. Nestled in the middle of the knitting is a brightly colored novel with a picture of a nun smoking a cigarette on the cover. The title of the book is “Scorched Grace” and the author is Margot Douaihy.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/09/2026
everything I read about marketing a book makes me want to die. Mailing lists? Ad campaigns? Generating ‘buzz’? Man, the only kind of buzz I care about is the 1000 bumblebees all over my goldenrod. And also this buckeye butterfly. Read my shit because I’m a nerd, not b/c the Amazon algorithm said to.
Photo of a common buckeye butterfly perched atop a goldenrod bush. In the background is a kitchy glass pineapple lawn ornament.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/09/2026
the weather’s finally cooling and we got some decent rain, and now garden-posting segues into mushroom-posting
I don’t know anything about mushrooms, I couldn’t tell you what these are. It’s a cluster of black-capped mushrooms with white stems in a tiered cluster. The caps curl upwards exposing the black gills; some younger mushrooms at the bottom still have yet to unfurl and show white caps.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 18/09/2026
tonight in my WIPs, we’re letting our nonbinary friend explore their feelings about feminine titles (positive, as it turns out)
The crushing weight of Lash's bulk vanishes. Now his mustache tickles at
the back of their neck. "But lucky for you, The Lash is not just a sex god, but a gentleman." He's working his way lower again, those giant hands dragging down their back, grasping at their ass, spreading them open again. One thumb teases at
their rim. The other plays at their cock, gently stroking.
"And a gentleman never lets a lady go home unsatisfied." Pocket's pretty sure that isn't even remotely an essential pillar of gentlemanly behavior, based on the ones they've known. But something about Lash calling them a 'lady' while his hand is wrapped around their cock makes their chest warm and their cheeks flush and a little flutter ripple through their stomach.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 17/09/2026
would you look at this little dork just straight up taking a bath with me
Photograph of a cat happily standing in 2 inches of water in a bathtub, lapping up the water
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 16/09/2026
I just witnessed this little idiot consume the huge spiderweb that had accumulated on my wicker chair because I guess she got tired of me refusing to clean it and felt she had to take matters into her own hands
Photo of a black tabby cat looking off innocently; meanwhile her whiskers are covered in spiderweb.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 13/09/2026
Did I give up on trying to figure out how to change the color of the button and just change the background color instead? MAYBE.
I'm so bad at web dev. It's the same image as above, but the author has lazily changed the colors of one element to hide the fact that they don't know how to change the color of the text instead.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 13/09/2026
Ok, so (ignoring the fact I haven't figured out how to change the color on that one tags widget) how do we feel about this color scheme? Keeps the cleanliness of the original theme, but brings it down to something more appropriate for horror/smut.
Screenshot of a wordpress blog laid out in clean geometric blocks and colored in shades of bluish grey. The text inside reads:

The Beast of Beta Shaula
Written on September 12, 2026 by gradientdescent

Categories: fiction, science fiction, smut

Tags: size difference, teratophilia, transmasc

Edit This

Drake Jensen, Psychic Grade 5, graduate Summa Cum Laude of the Proxima Centauri Institute of Transcendent Studies, voted “Best Dressed” by his classmates for three consecutive years, and all-around bright young lad, is struggling just a bit with his first real job. 

Over years of study, he’s honed his unique skills. He’s learned the foundations of interplanetary commerce, politics, and economics. He’s practiced the delicate art of diplomatic negotiation, the subtle talents of persuasion. At last, all his hard work has culminated in this assignment… to the Beta Shaula mining collective, maintenance division.

He’s having a rough go of it.

On day one he’s attached to a repair crew for a high-priority job in a collapsed mining site. It’s a hell of a work order. Assess the damage, clear the main shaft, extract the survivors–preferably before they suffocate to death.

There is a lot of grumbling among the miners about a psychic taking up a valuable slot on the crew. It doesn’t help that he is neither particularly tall nor especially broad. “Skinny” isn’t exactly the word for him, but “soft around the edges” does a good job of summing his body up. 

But at the end of the day it isn’t about his youth or his height or the fact that his beard hadn’t quite grown out of the wispy teenage phase yet. Their disdain is on a purely utilitarian basis: they make it abundantly clear that if he can’t haul 100 lbs of gear up a hill solo, then they considered him less than worthless.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 12/09/2026
I suppose this theme looks much more dignified or whatever but still the primary colors call to my heart
A wordpress blog theme displaying the same content as the previous post, but on a much more sedate grey background.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 12/09/2026
would you feel weird reading smut from a website that looks like this
A screenshot of a wordpress blog template that is composed of bright primary color rectangles over a cream background. It looks very retro. The text inside reads:

The Beast of Beta Shaula
Written on September 12, 2026 by gradientdescent

Categories: fiction, science fiction, smut

Tags: size difference, teratophilia, transmasc

Edit This

Drake Jensen, Psychic Grade 5, graduate Summa Cum Laude of the Proxima Centauri Institute of Transcendent Studies, voted “Best Dressed” by his classmates for three consecutive years, and all-around bright young lad, is struggling just a bit with his first real job. 

Over years of study, he’s honed his unique skills. He’s learned the foundations of interplanetary commerce, politics, and economics. He’s practiced the delicate art of diplomatic negotiation, the subtle talents of persuasion. At last, all his hard work has culminated in this assignment… to the Beta Shaula mining collective, maintenance division.

He’s having a rough go of it.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/09/2026
What would you call a “headset” if you didn’t wear it on your head because you’re a spider from outer space and your auditory organs are in your legs
peppering them with shrapnel and ricocheting indiscriminately off machinery. mething clipped their auditory organ and then they were as good as deaf too: their [some sci fi bullshit equipment] burst with a shriek of white noise that left behind a high pitched whine even after they frantically ripped out the
damaged device and flung it aside.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/09/2026
you don’t scare me, you son of a bitch
Screenshot of a scrivener draft progress chart showing over 39k words which the author REFUSES to be intimidated by. They WILL submit to editing.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 04/09/2026
let’s see if this time it takes
photo of five yellow bell peppers freshly harvested from the garden sitting atop a turquoise chair
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 04/09/2026
boy I wish bsky was actually a functioning web site
photo of peppers, take 2, maybe bsky will actually display it this time
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 04/09/2026
recipe for success: 1. plant peppers 2. forget about peppers 3. weeds grow so high you figure peppers are gone forever 4. wait 2 months 5. part weeds to discover SO MANY PEPPERS
Photo of five yellow bell peppers freshly harvested from the garden sitting on a bright turquoise blue chair
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026
I get up for 2 seconds and she has STOLEN my SEAT
Photo of a long haired grey cat sitting quite smugly in the center of a sofa.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026
Hey wanna see something cool? I stepped out into the humidity, and the condensation made an image of my eyeball on my glasses.
Photo of a pair of red-framed eyeglasses. The right lens is covered in a light mist of fog. In the fog is the image of a human eyeball with a surprising level of detail.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/09/2026
the light fog on my camera lens gives today’s garden pic a very romantic vibe
Photo of a bright orange pepper fruit on the plant, dripping with morning dew, in soft focus
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 02/09/2026
big accomplishments today
Photo of a very pale pink echinachea flower in bloom
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026
would you look at these lazy little peanuts
Two cats snoozing on a blue-and-white striped couch, staring lazily at the camera
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026
“Oh it’s just a short story, 3k max” “Whoops, maybe I’ll just submit it as a novelette, no problem” “Ok, ok, we’re into ‘novella’ territory, that’s fine, 30-35k max, seems reasonable” “…well at this point it’s so close to ‘novel’ I might as well just keep going…”
Photo of a scrivener project highlighting the mysteriously ever-increasing word count (currently over 38k and rising)
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026
I just can’t get enough of this high-summer color, cannot believe how much that goldenrod is thriving
Photo of a small backyard garden featuring a giant mound of goldenrod, orange coreopsis, and pink zinneas
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/08/2026
there’s a mad genius somewhere back in the kitchen here
Photo of four pastries. The are vertical croissant cylinders, filled to the brim with creme brulee, burned sugar skin and all.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 28/08/2026
mmmm tasty snack
photo of a small ripe orange pepper, freshly harvested from the garden, held by a pale skinned hand
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/08/2026
The core propositions of this novella are 1) what if the Alien fell in love with a space miner instead of trying to kill him, and 2) also the Alien is a bit of a dumbass
Davis had yet to acclimate to anything resembling the 14-16 hour diurnal period their reference library informed them was typical for humans. It was a pattern of disruption most likely due to his taxing recovery. He tired out very quickly when he was awake; a few hours of activity and he'd be back in the
med bay for even more hours in bed. He'd still fall sound asleep again when the lights dimmed at 'night. Then anywhere from 3-6 hours later he'd wake up, take a random walk about the ship, and almost without fail end up standing in a hallway somewhere between
the host and where they needed to go. How he managed this, the host was unsure. They didn't have reason to believe he was literally a psychic, but they couldn't rule out some kind of latent extrasensory intuition for knowing precisely where to stand to block their route
to the bathroom.
The host had grown very adept at sneaking around through the maintenance ducts.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/08/2026
we have a repeat customer
Photo of a swallowtail perched atop an orange coreopsis flower, just absolutely pigging out
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 25/08/2026
today I had a visitor
Photo of a swallowtail (?) butterfly perched atop a pink zinnea. The butterfly is yellow and black with blue markings along the edge of its wings. In the background of the photo, many more orange and yellow flowers can be seen.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 23/08/2026
Back yard is really shaping up into a PRIMO late-summer garden
Photo of a small back yard garden overflowing with pink zinneas, yellow coreopsis, and a low-growing but very bushy goldenrod in bloom
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 19/08/2026
good morning ma’am
Photo of a small light-brown spider perched among a cottony web attached to a piece of wicker deck furniture. Out of focus in the background is a green vine with coral flowers.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 18/08/2026
serene
Photo of a grey cat looking very calm and snoozy
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 14/08/2026
A poor little hand-drawn spider doesn’t understand why nobody loves her
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 13/08/2026
We’re looking very lush this morning
Photo of a wildflower yard overflowing with yellow coreopsis, pink zinneas, and goldenrod all in bloom
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 09/08/2026
First year trying corn yielded a couple of decorative ears that I am very proud of
Photo of a small bundle of dried decorative corn in colors including red, blue, and white
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 07/08/2026
Screenshot of a scrivener project cropped to show just the draft word count tracker widget, indicating 36,908 words. The screenshot has the Dark Souls meme text overlay reading “DRAFT COMPLETED”.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 07/08/2026
SO CLOSE
Updated version of the previously shown Scrivener screenshot indicating a total of 35,982 words in the draft, and 1,353 words written today against of a target of 1,000.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 06/08/2026
Entire parsley plant devastated overnight by two little gluttons
Photo of a caterpillar (swallowtail, maybe?) sitting atop a parsley plant which has had nearly all the leaves nibbled offPhoto of a caterpillar, maybe of a swallowtail, getting ready to chomp down on the last remaining leaves of the parsley plant
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 06/08/2026
I’m genuinely within spitting distance of finishing this first draft and I’m kinda scared
Cropped screenshot of Scrivener showing the word count statistics for the draft; notably, 34,629 words in the document and 0 for the session, suggesting this is the beginning of the writer’s day
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/08/2026
image of winnie the pooh, a man (bear) known for his love of eating honey straight out the jar and sleeping late in his comfortable bed; pictured here wearing a party hat
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/08/2026
Spent the afternoon researching family cemeteries and local ghost stories and stalking my in-laws’ ancestors’ graves, as you do
Photograph of a poorly-photocopied black and white map. It’s a contour map showing a valley and the abutting mountain, and labeled with the location of a number of small family graveyards including:
MITCHELL
BLEVINS
BUCHANAN
BLEVINS (again)
DORTON
J H SKEEN
AMERICAN LEGION
SLEMP
ROBINETT
SKEEN
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 05/08/2026
“I’ll just pop in to the book store for a minute,” I said to myself. “I don’t need to buy anything, I’ll just look around.”
Photograph of two brand new lovely novels sitting on a wood table. One is “Spread Me” by Sarah Gailey. The other is “Manhunt” by Gretchen Felker-Martin.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 03/08/2026
Bad news: I did NOT wash the dishes. I did the very opposite in fact. But good news: I have banana bread.
photo of two lightly browned loafs of banana bread still in the pan, fresh out of the oven
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026
I go outside for a little break and suddenly it’s all “hello there, is it tickle time? rhetorical question, of course it’s tickle time.”
Photo from the perspective of a person sitting in a lawn chair while a long haired grey cat aggressively rubs her dumb little face up on the person’s handPhoto from the perspective of a person sitting in a lawn chair of a long haired cat about to jump up on their lap
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026
The other thing I spend way too much time on for a work that’s ostensibly a monsterfucking romance is the cruelty of extractive industries and the commoditization & abuse of workers in pursuit of profit, but you’ll have to rip this theme out of my cold dead hands before I agree to edit it out
"I reckon you'll be happy to have your privacy back, huh." Davis tried to
keep his tone light. Might as well not make this harder than it had to be.
They neither agreed nor disagreed. "Will you go back to mining?"
"Probably. Bills gotta be paid."
"I wish you would find a safer way to do so." He was about to explain that this was as safe as it got. That if you ever wanted a chance to pay off your debt and live free, you had to take risks. That even the safe, low-paying jobs would kill you all the same. They'd just take longer. You'd die in 40 years of heart disease or emphysema or thyroid cancer instead of in a half second from a gas explosion, and that was fine, he'd made the decision and the fact that he wasn't dead now was honestly a bigger
unexpected complication than the accident itself.
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gradientdescent @gradientdescent.net · 30/07/2026
I probably overthink a lot of stuff more than necessary for writing smut (starship propulsion, orbital mechanics, petroleum engineering in low-g environments) but “what is the spaceman’s cultural relationship to gender identity and the phallus” is at least topically relevant.
“I am truly sorry for the loss of your penis."
Davis burst out laughing. When he finally stopped giggling, he explained: "No, no. Don't worry about that. I mean, I didn't have one to begin with."
Now THEY sounded confused. "Ah. My condolences? I understand it is...
an important cultural signifier." Davis guffawed, finding it impossible to brood in the face of this kind of absurdity. "Naw, it's really ok. I like it just fine. Coulda had one installed years ago if I wanted, but they can be kind of a nuisance getting hard all the time and what-not. Plus the trouser cave's got a lot of utility when you like to bottom and woah, you know what, you didn't ask for all that. Thanks though. Really
appreciate the, um, attention to detail."
"As long as you're satisfied?"
"I most certainly am."
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