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so many of the "i only use chat gpt for ___" excuses are concerning because people use it in place of learning basic, valuable skills.
you don't need chat gpt to write professional sounding emails for you, there are many many guides on the internet and with a bit of practise you can learn to write them yourself. a very important skill for a professional to have, and some of the basic rules will carry over into irl conversations!
you don't need chat gpt to be a "more detailed search engine", because you're robbing yourself of the chance to learn how to find and filter information on the internet and evaluate the credibility of sources. which is a VITAL skill. plus, chat gpt is notorious for being wrong?
if you use it to write essays, you're taking away your ability to hone your research skills, your writing skills, your critical thinking skills. your ability to create persuasive arguments!
and for most of the other reasons people use chat gpt, there are non-ai websites for that! for maths, wolfram alpha. for figuring out what you can cook with the ingredients you have there's supercook and the like. for creating routines, there's about a million apps!
whatever you "only" use chatgpt for i promise there are better websites out there that you don't have to worry will produce complete bullshit???? and destroy the environment???
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Wait, which way do we go now?
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like thinking about "ethical vampirism" in a piece of fiction starts with the basic question of "can a vampire drink blood without killing someone"? but even just the answer to that spins off a whole bunch of others about the morality of killing to survive, who you can kill and still (metaphorically) sleep at night, or whether it's okay to drink blood if it doesn't kill someone but leaves them traumatised, what other effects (thralling, turning) not fully drinking someone might have, and so on!!
i feel like its important to remember then that "a vampire" isn't a thing that exists but is a literary tool for exploring a bunch of different themes, ideas, motifs, political stances, aesthetics, etc etc. theres no "canon" or "true" or "correct" version of "a vampire" and so theres no definitive answers to what "a vampire" entails, embodies, or teaches, EXCEPT that it's always horny
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Stuck on the idea of vampires as a kind of reverse fae, or like someone's twisted, perverse attempt at moulding humans into fae.
They're repelled by liminal spaces.
A vampire could never enter fairyland, not just because they'd never be welcomed, but because most of the usual entry-ways are naturally barred to them.
They can't cross running water. They can't be seen in mirrors. They will wait forever at a crossroads, unable to pick a direction to go in. They can't even step over a thresh-hold unless there is absolutely no ambiguity about whether they are welcome inside.
They crave human blood, iron and salt, but are repelled by herbs and plants. They are supernaturally prevented from harming you unless the rules of hospitality have been invoked.
A fairy may replace your newborn child with something unnatural and ever-hungry. A vampire will do the same, but with your grandmother's corpse.
The fae are typically associated, even in stories where they're the bad guys, with flourishing and purity. Vampires, even in stories where they're the good guys, are typically associated with decay and corruption.
The fae turn ancient human burial mounds into fancy halls for their courts. Vampires take ancient human castles and let them grow mildewed and cobwebbed, exchanging the beds for coffins, turning them into burial places.
Fae don't tend to live among humans, but can generally pass for them with relative ease if they so choose. Vampires nearly always live among humans, but tend to find not revealing themselves a huge struggle.
I can't think of many stories I've read where fae and vampires even exist in the same universe, let alone ones where they actively interact. I feel like their enmity is almost more inevitable than that between vampires and werewolves, however.
The rivalry between vampires and werewolves is, essentially, the rivalry between two apex predator species who share a territory. (Even in stories where the werewolves aren't actually hunting humans.)
The vampires hate the werewolves because the werewolves interfere with their access to prey. The werewolves hate the vampires either because they consider themselves aligned with humans (the prey species), or because they are also predators and the vampires are competing with them.
By comparison, I think there's some story potential in the fae finding something genuinely creepy and uncanny valley about vampires.
They're immortal, like them, but also dead. They can be beautiful, like them, but that beauty is something they actively require humans to sustain. They like to inhabit beautiful and ancient ex-human dwellings, like them, but they actively work to make those places dark, damp and empty.
Fairies who are unflappable in the face of all sorts of Otherworldly monsters, can look an eldritch horror in the eye(s) without blinking, and have never been phased yet by any human, but will recoil from even the weakest vampire.
Vampires who hate fairies just as much, but in a more envious way. The way that the creature for whom immortality is a curse is bound to hate the creatures for whom immortality is an eternity of sunlight and laughter.
Maybe their touches burn each other. Maybe vampires can't stand physical contact with anything so alive and vital. Maybe immortal fairies become ill from too much exposure to the undead.
Maybe they fight over the human population when their territories overlap. The fairy need for servants and people to make deals with, competing with the vampire need for thralls and blood to drink.
Just… fairies and vampires. We need more stories about them interacting.
#fuck yessssssss#i like the idea of them being equal and opposite#especially because in UC the vampires are created by the faeries#they essentially are faeries just in very different ways#their power dynamic is so fucky and cool#uc insp
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the thing about the way people go on and on about how smut and shipping ruins the ability to think about character or worldbuilding or whatever, is that this is inherently a skill issue. nothing better to tell you about a character and their most important internal neuroses (personal, social, cultural) than discovering how they like to fuck and who they want to fuck and the why of it all. such complainants should, rly speaking, read better smut.
#this is why i start most of my worldbuilding at “how do they fuck” and work backwards from there#and i stress about UC being accessible or accepted if theres too much sex and sexuality talk because its not a smut comic#but sex and sexuality are SO important to me as the artist and to all of the characters#and you know what im stupid probably also to the intended audience#it loses a lot of what it is when i try to hide and gloss over the sexy stuff#UC dev#unusual circumstances
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THE GOBLIN
A short comic about a mysterious creature living with the monks of a secluded abbey.
I made this comic five years ago, and it's still probably one of the most personal things I've written.
If you'd like to support more of my comics, consider preordering my new graphic novel, THE PALE QUEEN, wherever you get books.
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people need to realise that a poor little meow meow must be a character who has committed atrocities you cannot poor little meow meow a good guy that’s not how this works
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Older cis folk keep asking me like "now that you've had surgery do you think your transition is finished" and honestly I don't think my transition is Ever gonna be totally "finished" I'm not even sure that's really a thing. I'm never gonna stop growing and changing. I am more comfortable with my body now than I've ever been, but I might mix things up again, who knows. I'm talking to my clinic about lasering my body hair and I've been considering dyeing my hair pink and getting a tattoo. Those are gender things to me too. Idk
#me me me me me#i always say i dont identify with trans like i seek to move fully from A to B#i identify as trans because i identify with the state of being in transition#life is a journey not a destination#and we'll be here a while#put your posters up on the walls#gender is a lie
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today in church one of the priests referred to trans people as "those who are growing into the gender they were called to be" and i'm kind of enjoying the idea of like....divinely ordained top surgery
#aaaaa this is such a sweet way to put it?#i love this concept so much omg#God doesnt make mistakes and also humans are not being capable of perfection#God made us as beings that grow and learn and change and experience life as a journey#gender is a lie
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i love you intimacy in reverse order. yes we've had sex before and i know all the details of your pleasure, but i don't know anything else. i don't know what it feels like to embrace you carelessly. i can barely hold your hand, the grip is so slight it makes me lose my breath. i want to kiss you but what pressure is the right one? how much is too intimate? yes we've had sex and i've done all these things before - but without the guise of mutual pleasure, can i be sure you won't turn me away? will you allow me the delicate feeling of your hand in mine when you know it is me asking to hold it? i know i've held you before with our clothes off, but can i hold you even tighter? may i listen to the steady sound of your heartbeat? is it alright to look for it in front of everyone? yes, yes of course we've had sex before. i know what you look like naked, ive touched you with the lights off. is it alright to want see you with them on? in the morning, with the sun flitting through the blinds?is it alright to want you when the sun is up? yes we've had sex before but have we ever been intimate? can we be? tell me that it's alright to hold you. no, not like that. just like this.
#lock sterling#i love playing him from this perspective#tbh i love this perspective in so many characters#ace and erik go thru a re-learning their dynamic arc like this#i feel this personally is probably a lot of it#i def fall into feelings way out of order and have a hard time picking thru them because thats not how society shows them
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I’m so sorry but in the nicest way possible do yall actually read books or just read words??? Cause I’ve been seeing that trend of people not understanding how “snarled” and “eyes darkened” and “eyes softened” etc. was used in a book and like…
Genuinely, do yall just not have imagination?? Or not understand figurative language??? Also eyes do literally darken and soften have you not lived a life??? How do you read with no imagination? Is this how you get through so many books in one month - you simply don’t take the time the understand the words as they are read?
#in college i full tilt dropped out of a writing course because he told us to not use language like this in our descriptions#said it was just common phrases we were repeatingn and showed we didnt understand what we were writing because we didnt know the meanings#like the absolute stupidest bullshit#i like fiction that reads like poetry#thats the part that pulls on your senses and immerses you in a world#not the tangible literal cues of what if being witnessed
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I have beef with Saint Thomas Aquinas' 5 proofs for the existence of God (The Quinque viæ) we are throwing down in a parking lot
#hot take but i like this take a lot#i remember going over this stuff in an apologetics class (raised in christian private school) and having the same feelings#this does use our logic and understanding of the universe to prove that logically there must be someone/thing above and beyond our universe#but you are 100% right this logic self contained does NOT point to specifically the christian God#and i think thats okay?#if two schools of thought dont contradict they can coexist#and that is good and normal#that helps you deepend and quantify your understanding of things#i feel the same way about a lot of science that most christians want to throw out#SOME science i dont agree with like macro evolution because its just outdated and doesnt hold up#MOST science i dont think God gave us brains that like rationale and logic and put us in a world that cant be tested and proven#science and faith dont have to contradict and neither do logic and faith#but a lot of times you need both pieces to see the whole picture#/end rant
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The fastest way to shut down my "freelance life means I have to constantly be working" thoughts is to remind myself that if I was a boss holding a worker to the standards I hold myself to, their union would hunt me for sport and nobody would blame them.
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A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
___
…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.
“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”
___
…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.
“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”
They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.
“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”
“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”
___
…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”
“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”
“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”
“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”
“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.
The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”
The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.
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A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.
They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.
___
…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.
The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”
The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”
But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.
“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.
“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”
“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.”
___
…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”
___
“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”
“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”
___
…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”
___
…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”
___
…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”
___
“I love you,” said the scorpion.
The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”
“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”
The frog swam on, the both of them silent.
___
“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”
“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”
The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”
“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.”
“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?”
“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”
“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”
“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”
___
“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”
___
A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.
The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”
“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”
#super obsessed with this just as a concept#and because i have our campaign on the brain#lock sterling#the scorpion feels very lock
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i cant believe homestuck is 15 years old and its still lodged in my head as firmly as it is
had to go back to my roots and draw the shithead that tricked me into the fandom and forever altered my brain chemistry
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"can i identify as aro even if-" you can do whatever you want forever👍
#this follows up nicely to my last post#labels are stickers and a community is just the lunch table youd like to sit at#actually like a cafeteria#and you can still pick a table preference within it#fuck it sit on the floor i dont run this place
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everybody just latched onto “terf = enemy” and then never again put any thought into why that is, and what transmisogyny is, so they just make a big deal out of being an anti-terf instead of understanding the problem in the first place
#i feel the problem with a LOT of these perspectives is if you center your identity on how much you are oppressed#then your goal is not to create a better space and life for yourself and your community#because solving problems and opression and discrimination would then erase identities and communities#you are your own experience not how badly people want to take it from you#also the problem with ALL of these is that becoming gatekeepy about spaces and labels makes you the same as your oppressors#you are doing exactly the thing you are claiming to rally against#gender is a lie
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