#im still catching up

[citrus-c0la]

on my first date... kinda nervous...

[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.

[hinamie]

a tribute to celebrate the finale of the manga that has meant so much to me these past few years

[iojun]

GUESS THE BUILD CRAZE

Grian losing it over the giraffe had me

[britlevi]

just read sign of the moon and now I gotta change my title

[solardrake]

Delivering mail to the furthest corners of the server ✉✈

[hi-intrepid-heroes]

bill seacaster is gonna be so fucking mad when he hears the bad kids fought a hoard of dragons in the sky on his house and he wasn’t there

[note-a-bear]

Vexed by the realization that I am a Max Wolfe looking for my Aki + Audrey

[acmelab]

questionable priorities 😑

[starbiology]

the girls having a wraith killing competition

Close up!

[tekitothemagpie]

[solargeist]

Does scar give xelqua a season pass for scarland? Bc he should, kid xelqua should be able to go whenever he wants!

absolutely, xelqua loves going and its good when grian needs a babysitter, but its also bad bc xelqua doesn't want to Leave

[just-null]

which of the clones would we soften up to first? because it's gonna happen eventually, right? I imagine it's Urogi > Karaku > Aizetsu > Sekido

Aizetsu then Karaku, i think.... Urogi and Sekido are spot on yeah!

Who you choose to pursue first is up to you. This is who gets all mushy for you in what order. once you have Urogi pining, youre hard locked into their route, sorries.

[rambling about losers softening up]

Urogi, he's just a needy guy who gets pretty hungry.. It's easy to set him off at first because while he's reckless, he's not about to trust a stranger! His problem is when optimism and overconfidence accidentally mix making him receptive to you. You can't do anything to him, he's upper four! but once he's in the palm of your hand, he'll refuse to leave. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and any kindness and tending make him really happy. Being with you brings a different kind of joy he never expected. It's warmer, kind of nerve wracking but exciting at the same time. Like he found his place with you. His heart flutters in a way that gets him so giddy, he can't help but want to reach out to you forever! The addictive tightness in his chest pushes him to crave you, since you're the only one who makes him feel this way!

Urogi softens up to you first because you're not a real threat to them. You're just a squishy weakling! A cute one! A reaaaally really cute one, like very cute.. too cute to eat...... DEFINITELY too cute to let anyone else eat!

The rest have their guard up to some degree and won't just throw their heart around at anybody. The world is against them after all!

Aizetsu is a tough nut because of his demotivation and overall apathetic sorrow. He makes no moves to progress or distance himself in the beginning, you're just someone, and he's stagnant. he's quicker to warm up to you than Karaku if you pamper and spoil him a little. like cleaning his spear, providing a place for him to rest, to wash up, or rescuing him from the others into a quieter room. Hell, if you get him food somehow, he stares at you with wide eyes and accepts the gift. It's not difficult to notice how Aizetsu melted after a while when he quietly follows you around like an cat that's constantly seeking affection. What shocks his clone counter parts is how he willingly volunteers to actually DO things for you. You make things so bright, he can't help that he's like a moth to a flame.

That's if you're doting to some degree, but Aizetsu comes around eventually either way, just because you provide shelter (that they technically forced their way into, but never mind that.) He does things with impressive efficiency the others were not expecting he was capable of. So what if he wants to show off a little..?

Karaku isn't easy because he really feels nothing for you aside for entertainment at first. the fact you're able to juggle all four of them amused him is all. He'd enjoy picking and teasing you, the others as well. Calling out when their faces would get red around you and cackling at them. It's difficult for him to tell the difference between pleasure and actual affection, but he never thinks on it too hard. Karaku probably even flirted with you or fought for your attention cause the others wanted it. When asked about you, like your name or interests, he deflected the question. What do you mean? how was he supposed to remember that?! He realized he fell when he's on his own and finds his mind wandering to you, thinking about the little things you do. How you eat, look when something mildly upsets you, when you're genuinely happy. then cusses under his breath cause now he fell for the same trick the others did. Oh, well, no use fighting off these feelings.

Karaku is like the play boy who falls for the first time, except he just needs time around you to actually fall. he accepts it cause this just makes things ten times more interesting. Now he's emotionally invested!! The others clown on him when he slips up and calls you by your name instead of a nickname.

Now for the toughest nut to crack since he's actively rejecting these feelings, Sekido! They rejected their humanity even as a human, why the hell is he going to allow himself to get attached to their food? Because he's as foolish as the idiots he's around, including you! He finds himself sputtering for words if you agree with him after venting, actively listening to him and trying to make his life easier. he's so... conflicted. Similar to the others, he doesn't deny his feelings once they've taken root. he might as well fight air if he were to try. And it's internally comforting to have someone capable of rangling his clones to some extent..

You'd need to have the favor of the others before Sekido fully allows himself to warm up to you. Like the ultra secret tough route of a dating sim..... but its so worth it when you get to see how he sends everyone away except for you so he can "think" on his own and insists that your presence is absolutely necessary.

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.

[leafatlaw]

Im in love with how the hearts are represented by nether stars,, its just one really cool to think of, instead of it being some modded in thing.

Like do you think the lifesteal members ever look at the night sky and think its alive? The night sky so full of lives, shining and shimmering just out of reach. Do they stare at the nightsky with greed, those with less hearts, do they stare with envy?

Do they ever kill the wither and think how remarkably similar they are to hearts? Holding the nether star close, like it might give them a life back. Do they identify witht he wither, they also drop those same stars when they die after all?

And then, how does it feel to hold a star/life. Does it burn like a real star? Is it freezing cold? Does it thump in rhythms or pulse with light? We are all made of star dust after all, the lifesteal members are just more star than most.

[arcanewebs]

amazing episode EASILY one of my most favorite battle episodes of all time. How Ever is it insane of me to wish it went Just a little bit worse than it did. for the plot