The thing I keep coming back to, with all the *gestures expansively* is that real life doesn't have peaceful epilogues.
Every single win has to be defended. Forever. I'm sorry. It sucks. The Nazis lost until they stopped losing. The US had abortion rights, and then 50 years later it didn't. Empires fall, and then they invade other countries again. Oppressive regimes are overthrown and replaced with other oppressive regimes. You will never finish the work etc etc etc. Which is why it's so fucking important to be able to acknowledge and celebrate progress, when it happens. The people who came before you didn't put in all that work for nothing, and you aren't, either. You can't save it all for the Ultimate Victory because there is never going to be an Ultimate Victory. There's no such thing as a time when everything is good, and ours shall not be the commune of Heaven.
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if i think about the hunger games in peeta's perspective i WILL start sobbing
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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.
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Frodo: Sam hates Gollum, but that is what I shall become once I have lost myself to the ring... he’ll despise me...
Sam if Frodo did turn into a Gollum: That’s a very nice fish you caught with your bare hands, Mr. Frodo, and its very smart of you to eat it raw, saves us the trouble of starting a fire. I knitted you a sweater in case you get cold running around in that loincloth of yours. Is the sun hurting your eyes? I’ll kill it if it’s bothering you. I’ll kill the sun
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Learning to internalize the message above, but art is in all of our bones. If you feel afraid to create art because it won't be "good enough," it's worth it to explore why you feel that fear. Creating art is one of the basic impulses of people, and if you want to create art, then you absolutely must.
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How it started-
How it's going!! They are a family and I am!!! also draw the hug you want to see in the show but they are forgiven because them meeting in brokilon was still soooo tender my HEART-
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recently i reread a bunch of my favorite sherlock holmes stories (norw my beloved) and felt compelled to create my own diagram for 221B
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lesbian pride moment 😳🌸
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sometimes I think of all the on-the-surface warm, well-meaning but deeply ineffectual advice and attention john gives harrow through harrow the ninth (make some soup and get some sleep! get a hobby! don't be so hard on yourself! self care harrow! as long as I need take no actual responsibility in this relationship whatsoever I would have loved to be your dad!) set up against the stark truth that with his other hand he has been staging her attempted horrific murder again and again and again like a living nightmare on the logic that it will 'put her down or fix her'. and then I find that I wish there is a hell. a special hell where twitch streamers turned necromantic death emperors go
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DP x DC Prompt
…
There are no more heroes.
Well, okay. Rewind a bit.
Danny has been doing the hero thing for a while now. He’s had a big reveal; everyone has accepted him (including his parents), the GIW disbanded, the Anti-Ecto acts repealed, and generally, everything is going great. Some of the A-Listers are even training as junior ghost hunters to help give him a break from his rogues! (Being Ghost King makes things hectic sometimes, and he just needs the extra help. Sue him!)
The point is, literally nothing is wrong with Danny Phantom’s afterlife.
And then Valerie Gray, the Red Huntress, disappears in front of his eyes.
Danny is baffled! She’s just…gone! Valerie just popped out of existence, like she was never there. But no matter how hard he searches in the Ghost Zone, he can’t find her soul anywhere. His core isn't broken in grief. So she’s not dead. Which is good. So then, where is she?
Some of the others come forward with ideas on how to find her. A few ghosts volunteer to go out into the mortal realm, an area Danny had declared off-limits, to see if she was out there. Danny approves it. He rounds up some of the friendlier (i.e., discreet) ghosts and Amity Parkers and demolishes the outside travel ban.
So everyone spreads out, looking for their dear frenemy and teammate. But it becomes apparent very quickly that something is wrong with the rest of the world.
There are no more heroes.
Every single living superhero on the face of the Earth has just…vanished. Villains are running amok; the countries are in chaos! Some aliens are invading Earth, mythical deities are trying to take over, and society is crumbling to the ground. Everything is on the brink of collapse.
Well, Danny was still there. And so were his people. They were pretty spread out, so could they just…take up the mantles? He also knew where to find the souls of dead heroes in the Zone; surely they wouldn't mind coming out of retirement for a little bit, especially if they couldn't die again. Oh! And that skeleton army leftover from Pariah Dark's reign might be useful in repelling those invading forces.
Honestly, there were more than enough hands to go around! And with the heroes gone, Danny didn't mind letting everyone out for a little break, as long as they followed his rules. They wouldn't stop the search for the other heroes, but hopefully, when they found them, the heroes wouldn't mind Danny's intervention too much. :)
In other words:
Someone fucks up, and all of Earth's living heroes are either wished out of existence or are whisked away to some far-off realm where Danny hasn't checked yet. In the attempt to figure out what's going on, Danny lets the dead run amok over the Earth as they search for clues. The skeleton army repels the invading armies, the souls of dead heroes deal with the world leaders, and his rogues and other Amity Parkers set up shop in place of famous heroes, trying to get the cities under control again.
Basically, they just do their best to keep everything from imploding until the Justice League and others are back.
(And why is it that Danny hasn't disappeared? Well, whatever caused everyone to go poof! only affected living heroes. Anyone heroes that were dead in the first place, or even just half-dead, stayed behind.)
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gay trans men: isn’t it fucked up that so many cis gay men proudly talk about how disgusting they think our bodies are, get violent when they realize they were attracted to one of us, push us out of community spaces because they don’t think we belong there, invalidate the orientation of the cis gay men who enter into relationships with us, accuse us of raping the cis gay men we’ve had sex with, aggressively misgender us and make assumptions about our bodies, act like their personal lack of desire to be with us means we must be fundamentally unattractive and morally reprehensible, and generally treat our existence like a personal attack worthy of a violent response when all we’re trying to do is exist?
those cis gay men & their friends: oh my god, you’re literally trying to force your disgusting female pussy onto gay men! this is conversion therapy! you’re a predator and a rapist and you deserve to die!
gay trans men: …we literally do not care if you have sex with us. nobody said anything about that. a lot of us are t4t, asexual, and/or already in a relationship, and the rest of also don’t want to have sex with you that badly because we would much rather be fucking someone who actually likes us; this has never been about who we personally want to sleep with. we’d just really appreciate it if you could treat us like human beings and not actively try to make the gay community hostile toward our existence. you don’t have to be attracted to us, just don’t be awful to us? and maybe, once you have that part down, ask yourself why you were so quick to assume a subset of queer people are all violent predators?
those people: HOMOPHOBES! EVIL GROSS FETISHIZING RAPIST HOMOPHOBES!
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Ghost blobs lead someone to Danny (Part 2)
When Tim entered the Batcave in the morning he didn't know what to expect. Alfred had mentioned that Bruce barely left the cave after coming home later than everyone else. But weirdly he didn't sound upset about it.
He wasn't expecting a loud chirp. Was this a weird new security measure? A prank? A flash of green above him flew away toward the batcomputer. He quickly ran over calling out. "Bruce?"
Tim stared at the bat computer. Bruce was working on... something but what the heck were the green blobs floating around him. Were they humming? "Hey Bruce? Are you aware of the blobs?" "Yes, they came with a victim I found last night." "Last night? They're here?" "Due to their appearance and the nature of their injuries. I assumed it would be safest to treat him here."
Tim looked at the monitor containing a report on the victim. Found in an abandoned warehouse with severe injuries along with 'blob ghosts' and the victim claiming to be a ghost. The victim or Danny didn't have any vital signs but was still conscious.
Danny's claim of being bad at being a ghost was explained when the boy transformed into a living breathing human with vital signs. Sewing the wounds were difficult because not five minutes later the stitches were dissolved. Not even the sutures meant for Superman lasted. That's when the blob ghosts did something to the sutures. They gave off a faint green glow, but they didn't dissolve like the rest of the stitches so they had to resolve to using them for the rest of the injuries.
Last part of the report was far more clinical then the rest. Which was cataloging the injuries. At first it was thought to be from an autoposy, but... There are clear signs of struggle, Danny was obviously strapped down with something that had burned his skin. He was vivisected.
Tim stopped reading it and looked away, some of the blobs turned their attention to him. The humming was louder now, it was rather soothing to hear. One floated closer to Him. He cautiously reached out to it and brushed it gently on its head.
The blob liked it apparently and leaned into his hand. The others seemed to take this as an invitation and swarmed Tim. "Uh Bruce!" "Oh that's normal. They'll calm down... eventually." The man spoke matter of factly and he could just barely see a smile creeping on to the man's face.
Traitor
A few of the blobs were grabbing his sleeve and tugging. They barely had any strength. If this was how much they bite, Tim could see why Bruce allowed the creatures into the cave. And it seemed they were leading him somewhere. Just like in Bruce's report, Tim glanced at the man once before following the ghost blobs.
They arrived in the medbay, where Danny was left in one of the more private rooms meant for long term recovery. Tim heard the same chirp from before. But this time there was a responding one. So it was a sort of alarm then, one to warn of an intruder and the responding one must be to say he wasn't a threat.
The new blobs greeted him like the ones before. But they did get out of his face to let him see Danny. The boy was incredibly pale and still. Tim thought he could be dead if it wasn't for the slow rise and fall of his chest.
His heart rate did not improve much and his body temp was still worryingly low. Tim hoped that it was normal for Danny. Tim was hoping to get some case work done before going to his office, but the blobs seemed content to have Tim there. Tim does have a laptop, so he could call Tam saying he's taking slow day. It would probably be for the best if someone was with Danny when he wakes up.
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i know people are good because of this: the universe often assigns me side quests. in a circular strangeness; despite my inability to locate my-own-anything, i am almost-always finding someone else's lost things. dogs, coats, phones, cash, laptops. it happens so often it's almost tiring; suddenly being looped into a tiny amount of detective work.
but when i'm with other people who are not used to this: the response is almost invariably delight. yes, maybe they are simply thrilled by the mystery. it's just... they light up so much. i think maybe more... i think they like the opportunity to do something kind.
a few weeks ago, i was at a bar and i found a wallet as soon as we stepped outside. i felt nervous to ask for help, worried i would be holding up the night. i picked it up and said go on without me, i should help this get back to its home.
instead, three people pulled out their phones - to find him on facebook, to help cancel his credit cards. two people went back into the bar to tell the bartender, two others went calling down the street. group texts, facebook posts, instagram stories. people, without even seeing what happened, start offering help to me. fifteen minutes and: someone knows someone who knows the guy. the cheer that went up - just for finding him, just for this small thing. someone gets him on the phone. strangers dance around me, hopping on their feet - are you the girl that found that wallet? good for you, that's a good thing you're doing/same thing happened to me and somebody did what you're doing and i thank god everyday for people like you/i can't believe you found him so fast this is so exciting
i gave it back to him in a parking lot. i watched his shoulders sag with relief. there was cash in it still - he checked the pocket, and then sheepishly held the money out to me. i didn't take it. i held up my hands. "it's no problem, man. i know you'd do the same for me."
i don't know him, to be honest. i don't know if he is the same kind of person i am. but he nodded at me.
and i know people are good. i know people are good, because the way this story ends isn't surprising. we wave goodbye awkwardly. my friend loops their arm around me.
"i can't believe we got it back to him," they said. "i'm going to be riding that high for weeks."
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