#it worked in my favor that time))

[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.

[queenlucythevaliant]

Honesty hours: I've been working a summer job at a bookstore for almost two months now. Here are the books I will discreetly shake my head at customers for buying. My literary red flags, if you will.

Anything tarot

Particular romance and romantasy novels that I've been told are basically just soft erotica (ACOTAR being the most popular)

Harlequins, which apparently still exist

Colleen Hoover

The Colleen Hoover merch we sell for some godforsaken reason

Heaven is For Real, When God Winks at You, and other theologically sketchy but inexplicably popular books. I'm always internally thinking, "oh honey, no!"

Giant stack of self help books combined with books from the business section. This suggests a very particular type of person. This type of person scares me.

Especially that one book we have about how to become a "superior man" (??)

More than one book by James Patterson. One book is forgivable; multiple suggests you follow him as an author

More than one book by Danielle Steel (same reason)

Parents buying their kids books that are just "Adult Thing: For Kids!" Like we have a picture book that's called "A Day at Dunder Mifflin" or the one adapted from the Dumb and Dumber movies and I'm like. Don't you think your kid would prefer something that's actually for them??

That guy who bought the collected writings of Lenin, the poetic writings of Mao, and a giant, thousand-page biography of Che Guevara all in one go. You okay there buddy?

[fishystew]

they were in little league together

[ca-d]

hunter’s moon 🌕

[mortispoxi]

Seeing Twitter users recommending the People Make Games documentary as a good way to get insight on the issue is so….

I know, I’m always extremely disappointed whenever I come across someone who thinks it’s the end all be all explanations regarding the Studio ZA/UM situation.

Recommending that video always comes with a heavy caveat from me that the person needs to stop around the 40 minute mark since the interviewer shows a very clear bias that’s unbecoming of a journalist.

Regardless, now that more people are finding out about these layoffs, which might take out members of the studio that have been there since the beginning, it could finally help smack some sense into those Twitter users that actually thought, FOR SOME REASON, Rostov, Kurvitz, and Hindpere were lying for shits and giggles rather than seeing what's ACTUALLY going on which is that the investors have a very obvious agenda against the real wronged party. Hopefully this'll also open their eyes to how the People Make Games video fed into this twisted narrative that Kurvitz was somehow at fault/responsible for the theft of his own IP, but that might be asking too much from their concrete brains. Here's hoping though!

[mylovelookup]

Modern au

[canonkiller]

do you consider your self made?

[gracemarkss]

this exchange goes crazy...dana "i worship the sea he sailed on" "i did it because i knew if he found out he would kill me" "part of me likes it, needs it, wants the approval" " along the way there are other fathers" "i thought you'd be pleased" "he was my instructor at the academy" "he must have been a wonderful teacher...yes, he's remarkable man" "your fear of failing him?" scully would know a thing or two about THAT...

[theultimatekamehamehavoc]

[naamahdarling]

I cannot BELIEVE I am making progress on training Fancy to "sneeze" on command!

It looks sort of like shaking her head no, so I'm not sure what verbal cue to use. Do I use "sneeze" or "achoo!" or do I train it in as potentially part of a funny "dialogue" during a performance? "Ya think?" "*sneezes NO*"

I really like them both!

Here she is looking regal and not like a shop towel, btw:

[fferthe]

YOU

[cryscendo]

we love them! we love them!

kurt hummel + boys boys boys by lady gaga [insp]

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

Hey so I’ve mentioned this a lot of times on my main blog, but I wanted to put this out over here since it is Hallow’s Eve. I always give out little tchotchkes on Halloween along with candy. This year, I’ve completely switched over to 100% doohickeys and doodads— think mechanical pencils, shaped erasers, little notebooks, squishes, vampire teeth and spiders rings and all. It started years ago in college when I signed up for a dorm Halloween event where kids from an area that was too dangerous to really trick or treat through got bussed in to trick or treat at our dorm. I bought some candy and dollar store Halloween themed stuff with what i had. And you know what the kids went ape shit over?

Motherfucking. Mechanical. PENCILS!!

These kids could not get enough of them. They literally went “PENCILS??!” I had never seen kids get so hyped up for pencils lmao. They were the first things to go. Candy is fleeting; the little pencils you can bring to school to flex are eternal, until you inevitably lose one of the refill parts and then they aren’t but listen, in that one moment they are infinite. And its nice thinking that maybe some kids who don’t always have access to school supplies not only get them, but get them in fun shapes and designs.

Anyway. I recommend people to give out fun stuff like this not just because kids seem to genuinely enjoy them, but also because there’s this thing called the Teal Pumpkin Project here in America. You can put out a teal pumpkin to show that you are giving away non-candy items and sign your address up so parents of children with allergies know that there are houses their kids can safely and happily trick or treat at! It’s a win-win! Plus, if you accidentally bought too much, it’s not like candy— just pack it away, pencils and fidget spinners will be good next year, too! :)

[essektheylyss]

I know I joked about DVDs but in all seriousness, I'm really glad that there's an option for watching VODs that isn't on Twitch and YouTube. It's been mentioned a few times today, but both of the interfaces of these platforms have been increasingly enshittified. I simply do not use YouTube anymore because of how horrid the interface is. I caught up on campaign 2 entirely on YouTube (and sometimes via podcast) in 2019 with no issues, but it is straight up maddening trying to use it now, and I don't know that I would have made it through the campaign if I was trying to catch up today.

I absolutely understand being tired of additional streaming services and I am absolutely in the same boat, but I also don't know how many people really recognize how gutted media distribution has become in the last ten years in the name of convenience. We all kind of realize it, but it's hard to grasp just how extensive it is. We can talk about independent business choices separately, and we should, but when the only platforms on which you have the option to distribute your work are at best frustrating to use and at worst hostile to human life, when monetization services can censor anyone they please with little explanation and have been cracking down on any content they arbitrarily deem inappropriate, when it is not clear that centralized conglomerate social media sites will continue to exist in the next year let alone decade, it is genuinely crucial for independent creators to start building alternative avenues of distribution that they control now.

[selfshipcorner]

Imagine seeing your f/o working late at night. You're ready to go to bed and decide to check in on them before going to sleep. They've been sitting in front of their desk all day working. Their tired eyes struggle to remain awake. You approach and hug them from behind, planting a kiss on their neck. Your f/o is a bit surprised and let's out a sigh as they lay their hands on top of yours, gently caressing them.

"C'mon. It's time to rest, love. The bed feels empty without you."

The reminder makes your f/o start to realize just how late it is. Even if they planned on staying up for longer, how could they say no to you?

Taking a hold of your hands, they press them to their lips and agree to go get some rest. After a shower and a change of clothes, they climb onto your bed and hold you close to them, leaving small kisses on your neck.

"Thank you for always watching out for me, love. You know you can always count on me to take care of you as well." They whisper in their tired voice. "Goodnight, darling. Sweet dreams"

Prosh!ppers dni

[cl4ssyjazzy]

I used to always leave a comment on a fic if I saw anything about my interests not being accurately described, but thanks to SVSSS, now whenever I get the urge to correct someone the face of Shen Yuan pops into my head like a ghost of Christmas Past and I avoid being the insufferable "Uuuum.... actually!!" Guy.