#things that frustrate me

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[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.

[dreamerdagn]

my tears of the kingdom experience so far

[cuntylouis]

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw or a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[romijuli]

It’s not that I don’t LIKE the Fandom Popular Pairings, it’s that I find the assumption that everyone ships them and the general all-consuming nature of said pairings to be kinda exhausting,

[all-my-ocs-are-evil]

Jason's been pestering Danny about why he looks like a borderline walking corpse for ages and Danny has decided to put his lying skills to the test. (he has none)

rambling below cut

I've been playing w the idea that the more Danny transforms, the more his ghost form gets "lively" while his human form gets weaker and more sickly. He knows that if he keeps transforming like this then, one day, he's not going to have a livable body to go back to, but he really doesn't want to think about all that. He's more interested in the weird "totally dead but not dead" Wayne son who may or may not have a thing for his sister.

everytime i do one these im like "this time I'll keep it simple so I don't have to suffer through colouring bc I have zero foresight—it'll be greyscale at most" and then all of the sudden its 4am and i'm trying to finish a stupid comic but i decided to add "some" colour to spice it up and hide my shitty ink job and then SOME COLOUR ALWAYS BECOMES FULL COLOUR WHY CAN I NOT ESCAPE THIS STUPID CYCLE!!

(did this all stem from me not being able to decide between a super pale character design and one w a vibrant tan bc I love white hair + tan but I also love extremely pale albino so I forced myself to find a way to make both work? never! that's absurd!)

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Heh...Literally nothing personal, kid.

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[the-holy-ghosted]

god i miss when this artist posted (<- is the artist)

[a-most-beloved-fool]

There's a fic I've been (slowly) working on that features Kirk being just about the Only person on the ship who can read Spock's expressions, simply because he Likes Spock (not even romantically at first, he just sees Spock and goes, 'friend-shaped <3'.) and therefore pays attention, where he winds up being like. a Spock-interpreter for everyone else. (Captain, is he mad at me?? Captain, are my questions annoying him? Captain, did he like my joke? Captain, I feel like Spock hates me. etc.)

and the reason I bring this up is because I think there's a lot of potential in a Different version of this, where Kirk is still the only one who can read Spock's emotions, but this time, it's because they managed to spontaneously bond like. immediately. and neither of them realize this for a good while, because what are the odds that you're So Compatible with someone that your minds just Instantly glue themselves together? They're astronomical, that's what they are.

Except, a year or three into the mission, Spock discovers the bond. and panics. and blocks it. Of course he does! It's an egregious breach of telepathic etiquette! (Or, it would be, if he'd done it on purpose.) He has No Idea how long it's been there - he assumes it must be new. And, once the bond is blocked, by a Spock who is absolutely swamped with shame that he could let that happen to his own captain and dear friend, Kirk suddenly. cannot read Spock's emotions. And then he panics, because ohmigod i can't read him is he mad at me what did i do does he hate me???? (everyone else on this ship is baffled. they're like 'his face has literally not changed?? what do you mean you can't read him now??)

and eventually, they figure out what happened, and that they love each other, and then restore the bond to its original state and kiss and what not. but they angst about it for a bit first, and possibly have to get their heads slammed together by bones before that happens.

[tending-the-hearth]

me: making a silly little video about annabeth's progression from making percy a blue birthday cupcake vs. her recognizing is as something sacred between percy and sally and not making blue food

tiktok commenters: um actually that's definitely a plot inconsistency and it shows how little rick pays attention because why would that even be a thing

SHUT UP I'M EXPLODING YOU WITH MY MIND IT'S ABOUT ANNABETH FIRST THINKING IT'S A NONSENSICAL LITTLE THING AND AFTER THEY GET TOGETHER OFFICIALLY PERCY OPENING UP ABOUT THE ABUSE HE AND HIS MOTHER FACED AND HOW THIS ONE SEEMINGLY SILLY THING BECAME THEIR WAY OF REBELLION AND COMMUNICATION DURING DIFFICULT TIMES AND ANNABETH RECOGNIZING THAT AND LOVING PERCY SO MUCH THAT SHE NEVER TOUCHES THE IDEA OF MAKING BLUE FOOD AGAIN BECAUSE SHE KNOWS AS MUCH AS SHE LOVES HIM THAT'S SOMETHING SO SPECIFIC AND IMPORTANT TO PERCY AND SALLY THAT IT WOULDN'T BE RIGHT FOR HER TO BE PART OF THAT

[juney-blues]

when you're part of a group with structural power over another goup, you really do gotta just learn to say "i am not exempt from 'fuck 'em' when relevant" whenever someone expresses frustration with you or people like you.

[uncanny-tranny]

I recently had to do a project in one of my psych classes, and man, I knew that CBT was used for every little thing, but seeing over and over, "do CBT! CBT is the best for every mental illness!" was so jarring. I'm absolutely biased because of my own experiences, but I just don't think it's as universal a treatment model as it's touted.

If you didn't benefit from CBT, it's not because you're lazy or didn't try hard enough or lacked intelligence or foresight into your own needs. Frankly, it's a therapy model that (I think) shouldn't be the only readily-accessible model and among the only therapy models covered by insurance. Some of us should not be treated in a CBT model and that's okay. It's not a sign of poor character or unreasonable demands, and if you don't think it's a model that works for you, then it's your right to express that!

[notbecauseofvictories]

I think the most terrifying part of any relationship is the ongoing awareness that you are going to have to trust someone when they appear to like or love you. There is no objective way to check your status with someone, no app that will say "they like you overall but are mad at you right now, specifically for x or y or a vague z thing that you didn't even clock when it was happening. But! if you send them a nice card and small gift, they will forget about it and return to base level affection"

instead, you have to just....keep having a relationship with that person, doing big and small things with or for them, and praying that you will both be brave and evolved enough to raise x/y/z as an issue if it genuinely is problem.

Mortifying ordeal of being known, down to your very gluons, and disliked.

[a-polite-melody]

Considering that there’s another post going around that lands on this conclusion, I think it deserves its own succinct post:

When transmascs share instances of positivity to remind each other that the way we are treated isn’t all bad, it’s then used as proof of the whole of transmasc experiences being this way, and that transmascs are not oppressed as a whole.

When transmascs share instances of harm done to transmascs to raise awareness that transmascs are harmed directly within our societies, it’s used as proof that we are taking up too much room in conversations because the harm we face “isn’t bad enough”.

When transmascs share instances of outright murder of members of our community to show that no, transmasc issues are not somehow “lesser” because “we aren’t dying” because we are dying, it’s used as proof that we are trauma dumping and trying to make other people feel sorry for us—look at these AFABs being whiny and hysterical and trying to portray themselves as victims. Or that it isn’t specific enough to us so we should shut up and let other people speak for us.

Transmascs cannot speak about our experiences without being touted as an example of why transmascs as a whole should shut up.

This is erasure.

[999999999inadream]

toby fox needs to add like a bit of narration in deltarune abt kris like "they themmed they/themily down the stheirs" cus i cant go on seeing them constantly get he/himmed in yt comment sections