i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.
as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."
NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING
41K notes
·
View notes
One of my favourite mundane weirdnesses about Edinburgh is that we set the big clock visible approaching the station to be 3 minutes fast to make sure people are on time for their trains. My Favourite mundane weirdness of Edinburgh is that we check this by firing a cannon.
21K notes
·
View notes
OK this question has been bugging me all morning so y'all please let me know
bc ours did nd I never thought much of it as a kid but know I'm thinking about it and it feels kinda gross? so pls tell me if this experience was universal or not it will haunt me forever otherwise
27K notes
·
View notes
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.
18K notes
·
View notes
This is how I'm looking totally empty these days. Anyone wanna help fill me to bursting?
1K notes
·
View notes
How Sweet! :0)
I was going to post this a bit Later when I had a few more drawings, but I was very Happy with the colouring!!! I think I will do this more Often!! It was so so fun! I know I say this with every style I develop, but I truly mean it this time!! (I think.. haha!)
The colours were so yummy to do! I also figured out how to crop the videos I'm watching, so I can watch things whilst I draw! Yay! (I feel like one of those people who have Subway Surfers playing above a Reddit Read out video though...)
I hope you like this!! :0)
1K notes
·
View notes
anyway, Elden Ring is about love and hope
Marika burns everything she has build out of sorrow
Ranni banishes the Outer Gods and also fucks off the Lands, giving agency back to the normal beings of the Lands
Fortissax endlessly fights Death for his friend/lover
Melina burns herself and Erdtree in hopes of a better world in the hands of the Tarnished
Blaidd fights against the very reason he was created out of love for his sister
Ranni and Rykard always keep an eye on their mother, protecting her
Radahn evokes so much love from his troops that they organise a whole festival to give him a honorable death even in his madness
Radahn learns an entire new school of magic in order to still ride his favourite horse
Boc's love for his mother, his mother's love for him
How all but two endings are build on the hope that this new era (whatever it might be) will be good
Miquella attempting to create an whole new world-tree to host the forsaken and the damned
Miquella turning on the faith he was raised and even believed in to an extent, when it was unable to cure his sister's curse
The Cleanrot's loyalty to Malenia and their endurance of the Rot, only to stay in her service
Malenia marching through the entire continent in search of her brother
Finlay traveling all the way back on her own, carrying the incapacitated demigod on her back
Tanith's love for Rya
Dialos' entire questline
Edgar being driven mad after his daughter dies
Vyke embracing, to a point, the Frenzied Flame in order to save his finger maiden
or you know, that's just how I see it
1K notes
·
View notes