Finch’s 1968

Cnr of Elgin crescent and Portobello rd

Tabernacle 1981

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.

I sincerely hope every artist gets to have the experience of falling in love with their art someday. even if you have to fight for it. i think we all deserve to look at the result of our creativity all giddy and go holy shit, I loved making this! I love the lines I put down and the colors I used and the indulgences I’ve taken. I love seeing things I liked and taking it for my own, pushing and molding and playing. I can’t wait to do it again

Trainwreck in double speed

has anyone gotten the idea that odysseus' storyline in hades 2 is a depiction/exploration of trauma over his SA and how he's blaming himself for things that were out of his control? because that's the impression i'm getting from what i've seen. he talks about "goddesses" as his "greatest weakness" and that "he's not one to say no to them"...

when mel invites him to the bath, he brings up mortals having different standards for intimacy than gods and how it usually has a more romantic/sexual connotation. she then asks if he's uncomfortable and he has a startled reaction and brings up circe and calypso again (but never actually by name)

(this isn't ship/romance bait btw. odysseus knew mel as a kid and they're stated in-game to have a sibling/uncle-niece relationship)

also he grew apart from penelope after his return, but the game makes a point of showing that his love for penelope and telemachus is what drove him on at all so that element of his character isn't brought into question

Do people not realise that using Vecna tormenting Will about his complicated feelings towards El to make Will out to be a bad person who just hates her is literally exactly what Vecna does lmfao. That’s his whole MO—he digs into the character’s pain and twists things, convinces them their worst thoughts and fears are who they truly are, tries to make them succumb to the black hole of their trauma. He doesn’t reveal some secret dark evil truth in the person, he exploits their internalised suffering and tells them they are an awful person for it. I fear the point of the show went straight over some heads…….

I didn't expect this movie to hit me this hard AT ALL 😭😭😭😭😭 Literally changed my brain chemistry for good 🙏🏻 thank you Pixar

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

If you’ve already answered this then no worries, but what would the typical clan cat lifespan be then (assuming they don’t die prematurely from injury/illness). Just curious as to how many generations have passed since the clan’s founding in the 80 or so years.

Clan cat lifespans can be pretty variable! They're considered senior warriors at 5, but if all works out their lifespan is often 16 years. Kittens usually enter the picture for a parent who is 2 to 8 years old, but they COULD have them anywhere between 1 to 15.

Clan cats play less attention to raw age than to EXPERIENCE, though. It is socially discouraged for a fresh warrior to become a parent, and you are NOT an adult until you're out of apprenticeship. They see age like this;

Child: Less than 6 full moons SEEN. If a kitten's eyes were not opened when the first moon of their life passed over them, that is not a month they were alive.

Adolescent: The amount of time you are an apprentice. Flamepaw was considered a child while his sister was an adult.

Young Adult: The first full year out of apprenticeship, when you've handled a full year on your own. A warrior is only eligible for an apprentice after this length of time, so by extension a cat COULD be a mentor around age 2 (BUT that's considered young. 3 is a better bet.)

Adulthood is even more variable, because you're usually not considered "aged" until you've had an apprentice or a litter and you're around 5 years old. Without either of those things, you often won't be considered a "senior warrior" until you're as old as 8.

So to answer your question directly, you can comfortably estimate a new crop of warriors about every 5 years, and full population turnover every 15. Between the numbers, 8 is a good estimation of how long it takes for a generation to pass

(Though I'm more partial to historic events and time periods than crunching numbers like that)

Elders can hang on for a LOOONG time though-- One-eye over in ThunderClan was a personal friend of Pinestar and witnessed the Crusades before passing away at the tender age of 20-something.

obsessed w the fact that the shows solution to not having/using phones or other electronics is just to not mention them or include them at all. like to the point where when ares shows them gabes interview on his phone i was whiplashed into remembering that those things existed in that universe

Holger Czukay recording in Ladbroke Grove

1974

Cain and abel sealed the fate of all siblings in history

I am going to cry, thanks very much!

Baby rivals and their Spider-Man helmets!

Max Verstappen: “Charles. I remember this! I remember this helmet. We grew up racing against each other.”