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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on a less serious side, bad and foolish having witnesses who are somewhat normal and regular to their usual strange and deranged antics is so hysterical. bad playing the role of kidnapped and felon this time around, letting himself get captured, pretending to be soooo guilty and talking like he’s actually gonna snitch. foolish doing it half for fun, half for show, because he knows cellbit is the killer already - he just needs nails for bad’s coffin because he’s gonna be the scapegoat, and he’s bored. if they were alone maybe they’d trade more intel - they’re on the same page but can’t exactly confirm nor allude to that with an audience, so it just devolves into their usual antics. meanwhile bagi is sweating and convinced bad is definitely about to spill everything she’s told him, falling for bad’s little ‘oh I’m so easily caught and convinced’ act harder than anyone else, trying to avoid bad’s arrest or worse, cellbit’s - while really what’s going on is bad and foolish’s homoerotic batshit insane cop and robber routine, where you’re not sure if someone’s getting arrested or if they’re about to make out. and aypierre is just there
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have you played undertale yellow yet…? And if you have, have you gotten the neutral ending yet?
[spoilers beware obviously] yeah i "played" backseated eta lol UTY. gotta be honest though, and i hope i don't sound too mean with this, but when i finished the pacifist route and it just did nothing with flowey i was so disappointed i lost any remaining interest i had in doing the rest of the endings. so I'm afraid that's a no on your second question
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It's really freeing when you learn that rationality isn't going to be feasible in the long run, not because rationality is this thing that only Truly Enlightened people get the privilege to experience, but because humans are just irrational.
You can know when you're being irrational, and sometimes, it is in big ways. But pretending like that irrationality doesn't exist or can only exist if you're "stupid" only sets you back from growing. Irrationality is part of the human condition - it is impossible to actually be this enlightened person people like to project themselves onto.
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btw not to make everything about My Fucking Guy but i honestly think one of the things that seperates q!phil out from the other islanders is the approach he takes to dealing with the lack of agency + control all the islanders have over whatever the fuck the federation's doing.
it shows up most prominently whenever tubbo is excitedly telling him about the 'progress' he's made with cucurucho or various investigations (ie: trapping him into a corner with the 'do you have free will' questions), and phil always shoots it down w an immediate 'that doesn't mean anything. curucuho will say anything to mess with you. you can't take anything he says as true.'
and it's not that phil is... a paticularly pessimistic character? he's just EXTREMELY practical. like, he's yet to give up on anyone EVER finding ANY answers (he was the one who initially gave the federation that one week ultimatum w the cage for a cage stream), he just doesn't trust the idea that curucuho is ever going to voluntarily give them. they're uncontrollable + senseless - you might as well argue with the weather.
and like, if that's how he sees the one (1) and only point of contact the islanders HAD with the federation for months, it explains a lot abt his characters lifestyle! ofc he sits on the wall all day, talking to his kids, and keeping his head down. he believes that the federation wants nothing more than to drag the islanders into sick games + tasks just so they can fuck with their head (ie: curucuho revealing he was the one cellbit gathered all that information for). and while he can't totally PREVENT any of that from ever impacting him, he can make sure his kids are well fed, well protected, and as happy + comfortable as he can manage. this is objectively not a perfect situation, there is a guaranteed amount of suffering + fear that he can't mitigate, but he can at least account for it.
like, he REFUSES to engage. whenever curucho shows up, he treats them with total ambivalence. he's not going to get riled up by anything they do, he's not going to get super attached to the guy, he's just gonna laugh it off and irish goodbye it when things drag on. the ONLY time he's strayed from that general guiding principle has been since he's lost his eggs, and can no longer afford to let the federation's fuckery go: those are his fucking kids.
hence the completely unprecedented levels of outward rage and sadness and terror he shows throughout the birdcage streams - almost all directed directly to cucurucho. it's all a completely fair + proportional response to the horror the islanders are being subjected to, but it feels so different bc until now, q!phil has been so dedicated to not reacting, and not giving the federation any sign that they're actually getting to him.
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early series natori is fun cause he really does have good intentions mostly (like there’s undeniably some selfishness and manipulation behind his actions cause that’s what’s been hammered into him) but he’s also so fucking oblivious and inexperienced when it comes to human interaction and has never tried to befriend a single person in his life and he assumes natsume is his mini-me/younger clone who has the exact same desires as him and of course this child will want to be my best friend once he knows We’re The Same and I’m so pretty and charming why wouldn’t some teenager want to be friends with famous actor natori shuuichi [ends up pissing this kid off immensely and pushing all his buttons]
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oooh my god why would they do that. they could have just. not posted shirtless stories. thank you for answering my question i will be thinking about this.
great question. they love riling us up. always have.
thank you and curse you anon for revealing my trash history 😔 all a girl has is her fake reputation on dnp tumblr. there is absolutely no way you could ever guess this information has been seared into my brain (<- says the girl who's reputation is spouting off specific and detailed moments from their past and waxing poetic about it in her own posts and the tags of others')
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