#always an excuse

[llsunflowerll]

It's a hard thing to come to terms with when you realise your best friend only seems to want to hang out when it's convenient for them. If you don't wanna do these things with just tell me instead of leaving me waiting and hoping that one day you'll finally say yes to the things I've wanted to do with you for years.

If you wonder why I don't message you as much anymore, it's because I've put 110% while it only feels like you've put in 50%

[800db-cloud]

you’ve almost convinced me i’m real!

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanessa TOTALLY got those Tapes for the FNAF lore..

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

[inkskinned]

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

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

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

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

and i'd still keep writing.

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

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

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

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

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

you create because you're greedy.

[smoosnoom]

do u ever get a comment on a fic thats just so sweet that ur like Maybe slaving over 24k of fanfiction was worth it for user SprinkleTrashcan2012 to leave a three paragraph comment

[thatmooncake]

xD

Freedom is just out of reach (but not if he wiggles fast enough)!

[emthimofnight]

They are both super proud of their little girl for making it to the final round of the @sonic-fankid-showdown!!

[pigeonleap]

"Someday, I'll be the greatest leader that ThunderClan's ever seen!" "Yeah, and I'll be your medicine cat!"

If only you had held on a little longer.

[repost because I forgot the whiskers on the 2nd slide and it was going to haunt me]

[soosoosoup]

Chord Striker Au by @thatbennybee

[beif0ngs]

Number 4, 5, 6 & 7 in The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Teaser Trailer

[egophiliac]

this is basically what happened, right?

(these guys are very lucky that everyone at NRC 1) has the combined intelligence of a sack of bricks, and 2) is easily distracted by shiny things.)

[chloesimaginationthings]

Five nights at Chiitan’s is the scariest game ever..

[2manypdfs]

opening paragraphs of all time

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

[skunkes]

meow

[gdn019283]

We deserved more of just Merlin

The little head tilt, the sweet voice and the tiny smile, the moment he asked Arthur:

“Don’t you?”

To Merlin, magic had always been there for everyone to see, to feel.

He is magic, after all.

For all those years, Merlin had believed what he felt was obvious, and that everyone else felt the same way. It was strange to Merlin that Arthur couldn’t understand that the forest, the animals, even the smallest, living in it, were sacred. Because life is sacred. He couldn’t grasp the reason why the knights couldn’t feel that the old Druids’ camp was haunted, and therefore didn’t believe him. He had literally heard death, and cried because of it.

“As if everything is much more than itself.”

The phrase could refer to him too. Merlin is much more than… Him.

That’s what brought his doom. He had never had the chance to truly know himself. He was either a servant, or the sorcerer of a prophecy, or a Dragonlord.

Never just him.

And in this moment we see he had missed being one with nature, breathing in the animals’ lives. He was himself again.

He was vibrating, much like anything else there living with him.

They never went deep into Merlin’s powers, they were just there for Arthur. Merlin had lost sight of what he wanted to do with them, he even forgot he was so powerful he could have overthrown Arthur himself, if he really wished to.

Merlin was the only man alive able to see Avalon.

During the knights and the king’s quest to save Gwen, Merlin met the Queen of a Queendom no one had ever even seen.

He could have killed Morgana (and did try) multiple times, although she was an High Priestess, and simply decided not to, but he had more than just the power to do so.

The Catha, the Druids bowed to him, met him in the woods, called to him.

Merlin created a telepathic connection with Arthur the first days he was in Camelot.

He survived death multiple times.

His immortality forbid him to die.

Merlin hated hunting because he could feel the animals being scared, followed; he had recognised Gwen when Morgana transformed her into a deer; he could hear the magic around him, inside objects and inside people, like a whisper, as if it was nothing; he could call lightning from the sky.

He could stop the time, or at least slow it down.

Every magical being knew him by name only. But he was not a leader, he was just different.

“Is she like me?” “No one is like you, Merlin.”

After everything he had witnessed, even Gaius knew Merlin was special and did nothing to help him understand why he was.

Merlin was the reason Aithusa was born, why Kilgharrah was free, and we were robbed of him getting to really know his powers, both as a Dragonlord and as the most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the earth.

He literally deleted himself just to be at Arthur’ side, and it hurt him. We saw it constantly. He was sad not only because everyone and everything was against him, or because he couldn’t use magic for simple tricks, but because he couldn’t really know what he could do, both as a magical being and as just Merlin.

To study his powers meant treason and death, and Merlin forbid himself to go beyond what he already knew.

His incapacity to understand, his lack of will to know, and his indecision about who he was, literally helped the fall of the great destiny he was a part of.

Merlin’s decisions, whatever he wanted them to happen or not, helped Arthur die.

Merlin’s real enemy was himself.