#(stop what???) 'being think-about-able'

[inkskinned]

the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.

people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.

"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."

the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.

the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.

at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.

"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.

this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.

[mikkeneko]

Don't want to put this on the post itself for risk of derailing it, but that post the other day about Terry Pratchett's early work really stuck in my mind. OP had sent in an ask saying that they heard some of Pratchett's earlier works had problematic elements (not unusual for a male english writer in the 80s) and they weren't sure whether to go ahead with reading the work anyway.

What I really want to ask that person, or indeed all persons who are hesitating over whether or not to read problematic works or works by imperfect authors:

What are you worried about happening, if you read a work with problematic elements?

I'm worried that if I read this art, I will run across hateful images or words that will shock or upset me

I'm worried that I will spend money on a work of art that then financially supports a bad person, and that thought makes me uncomfortable or upset

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and comment or react on them, and other people will see what I am reading and will think less of me because of it, or will assume that I hold the same bad beliefs as the author

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and I will enjoy them, and the author will find out about my enjoyment and feel emboldened to do bad things because of it

I'm worried that I will read works of art written by a bad person, and their badness will contaminate my way of thinking and make me a worse person in turn

Because these are all different answers and some of them are more actionable than others

[athina-blaine]

for my money, labru is head and shoulders above other ships involving them simply due to the unmatched yap potential, i imagine them feeding off each other's energy like they're slipstreaming in mario kart until they start going fast enough to break the sound barrier

[seasicksilver]

good old times

[yuwuta]

I LOVE UR BRAIN SO BAD 😭😭😭 YOU ALWAYS POST THEBBEST HEADCANONS AND THOUGHTS LIKE. WORK HUSBAND GOJO. AND JUST HAVING A WHOLE IMAGINATION OF THE OFFICE W NANAMI AND HIGURUMA AND TOJI I?????? I WANT TO LIVE IN YOUR BRAIN

TEEHEEEE you’re so sweet <33333 the work husband to actual husband to househusband gojo pipeline is so so real to me and the office au that comes with it truly does take up space in my brain, so here’s some more loosely established points 

satoru has been your work husband since you got your first job in undergrad. you two met in your dorms, and became friends, and eventually you thought a job would help with your time management skills, so you got a very low-maintenance position at the front desk of the library. satoru applied right after you and schmoozed the two little old librarians into giving him the same shifts as you. that was probably the first moment satoru knew he was a little bit in love with you—because he had no reason to have a job while in school, but this small change in your schedule made him miss you so much that he was moved to get his very first job, probably ever, just to spend more time with you. 

he wasn’t bad at his library receptionist job, but he technically wasn’t good at it, either. if a student asked him for a laptop charger or to check out a book or something, he could do that, but anything else he’d just smile and say, “oh, you’ve gotta ask the pretty girl right there about that, she knows way more than me,” and bat his eyelashes at you. except, then, when you did need to get up to grab something for someone, satoru would just spring up instead, and tell you he’s got it. it’s like… he was incapable of helping anybody else unless he got to flirt with you, and then help you out to help them out……… strange boy 

anyways, satoru makes it a habit to assist you through your student jobs throughout undergrad, and then follows you to the same law school and repeats the process there. (also not to elle woods-ify him a bit but his father heavily questions him going to law school btw because satoru has never showed any interest in working, let alone following in his footsteps to be a lawyer, and now he’s going to law school? his mom is a bit sharper though, because when satoru tells his parents he’s going to the same law school as you, she just smiles and sips her tea and wonders if her son has already made a trip to their family jeweler). 

the firm is large, but the floor you work on is a pretty close knit group. there’s hiromi’s office at the tail end, which is the largest because he’s managing partner and he practically lives in there. on the other end, both you and nanami have decently sized offices. satoru doesn’t like hiromi at first because he thinks he’s mean. then satoru watches him play a little prank on kento, and suddenly the two of them are best friends. it would be a surprisingly wholesome friendship if their common denominator wasn’t irritating kento, and acting as guard dogs for you. 

kento’s office used to be just the bare necessities—law books, his degree, basic furniture, maybe a fancy paperweight, until satoru got his hands on it and decked it out. which is not something kento asked for, nor he thinks is necessary, but that doesn’t stop satoru from continually adding little trinkets and decorations and art to his office to make it livelier. when kento first meets you, he’s surprised when you tell him satoru gojo is going to be your secretary because kento interned for satoru’s father for two summers during law school, but when kento sees you and satoru together for the first time, it answers all of his questions. satoru couldn’t be more of a lovesick fool if he tried. 

listen the ex-convict to single father to janitor to lawyer toji pipeline is so real to me. while toji is working as a janitor at the firm, satoru slips once and then jokes that toji shines the floors too aggressively on purpose to make him slip, toji tells him to fuck off and he can sue for harassment. they truly don’t like each other at first, but once satoru steals toji’s masterkey to get into your office one night after you’re gone to leave flowers, and handle some paperwork to lighten your load in the morning, toji is sort of impressed. he still almost hits him with a broomstick, but even someone as gruff as him can see that satoru had pure intentions. toji is a lot of things, but he’s not immune to or devoid of love or passion. so, eventually he and satoru develop a weird sort of banter and respect for each other. one day someone actually tries to accuse toji of not putting the wet floor sign down and how it’s gonna be a lawsuit because some lowlife janitor fucked up his $3000 suit. satoru catches the argument as he’s heading upstairs and recognized the schmuck as the stuck up lawyer on the other side of kento’s case. satoru’s ready to jump in, but toji’s displaying an impressive amount of physical restraint and legal knowledge that when the dust is all settled, satoru asks him if he ever considered being a lawyer. toji laughs at it at first, but after a month of serious consideration (and megumi becoming a college freshman), he figures it can’t be all that bad. and turns out, toji’s a half-decent lawyer—once you’ve spent so much of your life skirting (or blatantly breaking) the law, you become pretty good at getting people out or around it, too. and with his life experience, he’s a pretty good judge of character; so when it comes time to lock up the bad ones, toji makes sure they get the maximum sentence.

except he has a bad habit of sending out emails with “URGENT: NEEDS ATTN” in the subject, which prompts you, kento, and hiromi to rush to his office, just to see toji with his feet up on his desk tell you that, “the emergency is i hate the opposing counsel, and now that i work on this side of the law i’d really like to not kill him, so somebody else should take this case.” 

anyways back to work husband secretary satoru. he pulls you out of boring meetings under the guise of an urgency, just for him to admit that the emergency is that he missed you, and you two were gonna be late for your lunch reservation. because he’s actually a licensed attorney, he can actually carry out duties an associate otherwise would, which saves you a lot of time and trouble; and it means that satoru gets to work even more closely with you, which is always an upside for him. sometimes you ask him to hand you documents and instead he just hands you his hand. and then pretends to blush and preen like a schoolgirl which always draws way too much attention to the two of you, but there’s no way to stop him either. he takes your coat off of your shoulders when you arrive in the morning, and helps you put it back on in the evening. when you tell him you’re looking for an apartment closer to the firm, he has eight places lined up for viewing, and one surprise at the end which happens to be the other vacant penthouse suite in his apartment building; which, conveniently, would make you satoru’s neighbor. he claims that it’ll be just like in college, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way when you finally move in and satoru can now loudly and proudly proclaim, “see you at home!” in the halls at work now. 

[moonkhao]

hi.

[kimi-no-chikara]

I'm sorry, I've been trying so hard to accept Izuku becoming a UA teacher but I just can't. I love Horikoshi for the happiness he and his story have brought me over the years, but Izuku being a teacher is just bugging me so hard. I know he'd be an incredible teacher, I'm not arguing against that. But beyond the fact that I think Izuku himself would want to at least stay in the hero industry, I don't think there's any chance Katsuki would've let him give up on being a hero.

I think that's why Horikoshi at least made it a point in canon to emphasize that Katsuki especially was behind funding Izuku's hero suit. Because he of all people could not let Deku go. He needed him to be a hero. And I appreciate that we at least see that much in canon. But honestly I think Katsuki would've stepped in sooner than 8 years later and never would have let Izuku give up on being a hero in the first place.

I don't know at what point Izuku gave up on being a pro hero and started looking at other career options, but whenever it happened, I just know he must have spoken to Katsuki about it. Izuku, unreliable narrator that he is, probably fooled even himself into thinking that he's okay with it. That he's blessed to have lived his dream as long as he did. That his time is over. But Katsuki would've shut that shit right down.

Kacchan Bakugou did not watch Izuku spend 10+ years wanting nothing more than to be a hero, while quirkless, just to then watch him give up on being a hero because he lost his quirk. He would've called bullshit on that immediately.

Katsuki knows Izuku intimately. He knows how badly Izuku needs to be a hero. Being quirkless never stopped Izuku from wanting to be a hero before. There's no reason it should stop him now. And he'd say as much. Ain't no way he'd let Izuku give up on being a hero just because he lost OFA.

[mamawasatesttube]

i do genuinely think an adult, fully-realized kon would be able to defeat superman in a fight. not just saying that bc he's my fav or whatever but because like. ttk is so op. telekinetic power with the range and raw strength to destroy every single gun in LA, and the finesse of control to not destroy anything else? that alone is a huge force to be reckoned with. add kryptonian abilities on top of that and you've got a fucking powerhouse. like um devs? op tbh pls nerf (except don't, because i find that sooooo tasty.)

because to clark, i think this is a good thing! it isn't quite so lonely when he's got a little brother/son/they really can't label it but they're family, who understands the alienation. the burden of having so much power. the fear of what your own hands can do. he sees in kon a kindred spirit, although it also saddens him that kon has to feel this burden too.

but kon?

oh, kon is terrified of himself.

[eastgaysian]

like truly what did he mean by this. let's dig into it

[dreamingthroughwords]

i love thinking about hualian just being so disgusting with each other like intertwining their fingers through each others hair and snuggling with each other and constantly wanting the other to be in the vicinity of their touch like they just love each other so much and always think about the other first they are so domestic and married and in love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! being able to share their love through so many forms of intimacy whether it be hand holding or digging nails in each others backs as they share that love through their bodies intertwining during loving sex and after just laying next to each other out of breath and messy and still gazing at the other as if they hung the moon!!! and being at peace and so in love after so many years of struggle!!! they deserve so much to be disgustingly in love with each other!!!!

[shinesurge]

sorry i am Strugglin over here i think i blew all my positive brain chemicals beating myself against the bars of Normal Human Communication this week lmao

[skitskatdacat63]

Catie i need to know in the famous interview w ron dennis DID FERNANDO EAT AN APPLE OR A PEACH??????? This is important information and im getting conflicting data. It looks like an apple but in my head its always been a peach

Okay so I don't know how to find that interview itself but I did remember that they showed it in Nando's doc, so here:

The peach thing is a seperate thing. I understand why you'd be inclined to think it's a peach in this interview, bcs the peach thing is so iconic but this is def an apple. I like to think that this is just an extension of the peach thing. Because wasn't it that Ron Dennis hated any messy fruit eating? An apple is also messy honestly, so I like to think Fernando is particularly trying to be a bastard here as well, but a peach is perhaps too obscene to eat in a public interview SJFKVLV

[lord-squiggletits]

Part of why I hate this fandom's take on Autobots vs Decepticons is ppl (mainly 'con fans honestly) who can't have any nuance of the situation whatsoever and love to write plots like "oh the humans are racist and abusive towards Cybertronians so this is how Megatron is right" no actually I don't think colonialism/imperialism and racism are justified so long as you can point the finger and say "they were the aggressors first" or "their hands are no cleaner than ours bc their society sucks too" sorry. Please come up with better sociopolitical narratives in your war story.

[yuwuta]

If megumi asked uzhsjdhshd omg I totally see it tbh him wanting you, but I don't think megumi would ever ask yuuji to share you, in any type of way at all. (not trying to push my own hc here!!) I feel like yuuji himself would be the one asking megumi. Yuuji knows that he's yours just as much as he knows you're his. And he loves you too much, a lot, it's purest type of love he has ever felt for anyone. And megumi is his best friend, he loves him just as much, right? Yes, not the same love between you and him ofc but yes. And I have no idea what they were doing but yuuji's just says, kind of out of the blue, that he'd let megumi fuck you. The reason being exactly cause he knows you're his, and you're just so so good that he needs to have someone to talk to (about you and always so respectfully) and who better that his best friend?

you’re opening the pandora’s box that is itfs + reader…. god….. 

okok i agree. if you’re dating yuuji, megumi would never ask, yuuji would be the one to bring all three of you together. definitely because he loves you and you’re his, and he loves megumi too, so it just makes sense that his two favorite people also get to have each other—but also, yuuji can tell megumi likes you, and he can tell you think megumi is attractive and since yuuji’s so nice, what kinder thing to do than to set you two up so he can watch (: he definitely enjoys being the mediator, also enjoys the somewhat awkward air between you and megumi, how yeah, maybe it’s a little taboo that the two of you are about to make out while you’re boyfriend watches, but yuuji likes that too… also he likes knowing that you both like him. like how lucky is he that his best friend and his girlfriend adore him so much :(( you two together makes so much sense in his head, because he talks to megumi about you, and he talks to you about megumi, and now, he can just pour all his love for both of you out at the same time

but also…. i’d like to think that yuuji’s maybe not so nice when it’s the other way around—when he and megumi get together first, and you’re megumi’s best friend. he’s not mean, but he does like to tease... how naughty of megumi to ask out yuuji knowing he’s still got a crush on you, and god does yuuji like to tease him about it :/ jerks him off and taunts about how he knows megumi’s dirty little secret—that he’s in love with his best friend and fantasizes not just about having you, but about watching his own boyfriend fuck you too… 

yuuji knows megumi would take his feelings for you to the grave if he could (he’d have done the same with his feelings for yuuji if yuuji wasn’t the one to ask him out), but where’s the fun in that! you and megumi are sooo cute together after all, so yuuji doesn’t mind trying to get you two to confess to each other too. uses his proximity to megumi to get closer to you, takes advantage of his bubbly disposition to be physically affectionate with you, uses megumi’s feelings to his advantage to tease, to wink, to smirk whenever you and yuuji hug a little longer, when he texts megumi that he’s meeting up with you for lunch, when he gives you his jacket and doesn’t ask for it back… there’s so much fun in watching megumi blush and whine and get off at the thought of his best friend and his boyfriend together. and the thing is, yuuji genuinely does like you, too, he sees what megumi sees in you, and he thinks megumi is crazy to have not asked you out before, but he supposes everything happens for a reason, because now, this way, yuuji gets to be there and watch it all happen under his guidance. there’s something about the power, about being the bridge between you two even though you and megumi have known each other for much longer, about being in control of a dynamic that could have, but wouldn’t exist without him…

[ozonecologne]

having a hannigram moment

[cerise-on-top]

This is a vent piece. My psychosis got far worse again today, and my anxiety has been peaking each day for the past two weeks now. Pretty sure no one's going to read this, but I don't care. I wrote this with Price in mind, but this could be about anyone.

TW: graphic metaphors of violence, reader is psychotic and going through an episode, I think

What a beautiful day it was. The sun, at its zenith, brought a pleasant temperature with it. Any creature, capable of feeling both pleasure and warmth, would yearn for a nap underneath its rays. The sky, such a radiant blue, glorious in its pulchritude, made for the ideal day to go outside. Wherever one were to look, a human and its companions were close by, smiling at each other, cracking jokes. Some were enjoying lovely meals, others were indulging in sports. But many agreed, such a day had to be lived. Stormy clouds would come soon enough as they were, bringing an end to this reign of cheer. However, such thoughts couldn’t have been further away from the masses.

So, why were you stuck at home, bearing the curse of a headache no one had ever understood? This echo of a pain, it had only ever brought you suffering. Gripping your hair in your hands, you fought a war with yourself to not bash your head against the wall. The urge, ever so strong, was taking a hold of you, but you dared not let it win, for the consequences were dire enough to scare you into dominance over your mental illness. It was an unbearable pain, unlike anything you could ever have experienced normally. And yet, you’ve been living like this for the past few years now. It brought you to your knees as your breathing was uneven. Sharp breaths, deep breaths, were you even breathing at all? Even the voice in your head was concerned, trying to soothe you. Why wouldn’t the pain go away? Why couldn’t you have been normal?

Promises of aid in your darkest times came to mind, but the fear of burdening your loved ones broke each and every one of them. You wanted to swing your head violently around, making sure to break your skull, the splinters in your brain drowning out the pain that currently was. You couldn’t make it through this alone, but you had to. You were scared, alone, but you were a warrior, fighting for survival. If anyone ever knew how much agony you were in, they’d point and laugh at you. Your breathing sped up as you lowered your head to the floor. The cold wood did nothing to alleviate the torture you went through. You wanted to bite away at your own skin, gnawing at your bones so the physical pain would overshadow the mental one. You clutched your head, horrid images of flesh and bone crossing your mind. What did you do? And why did you deserve this? Picking at your skin, cutting away the flesh to reveal what’s inside, tearing open your body. You didn’t want this.

But somehow, a hand was placed on your back. As warm as the sun, as meaningful as the first nice day after a storm. You didn’t dare to look up. You’ve messed up. Someone saw you in your vulnerable state, here to take no mercy on you, who suffered through the layers of hell in this ordinary world. The hand burned through your skin, ridiculing you, but you craved it.

“Love, what’s wrong? Please look at me.”

You were shaking, your stomach churning as you tasted iron in your mouth. You were not long for this world, but you had to endure.

“It hurts so bad. I’m sorry.”

The hand on your back started to move, frantically so as it attempted to soothe you. The warmth spread, but your pain has been noted by someone else. You couldn’t move. But still, as humiliating as being perceived was, you focused on the hand.

“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

The voice in your head made it all up. It was so loud, almost drowning out any other sound. You needed him to speak. He needed to continue, he needed to distract you.

“I’m sorry.”

Two arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer to another source of warmth. His heart was beating, he was breathing, he was a beacon of comfort.

A body you loved, so close to you. His scent was almost overwhelming, but it was proof he was alive. You were alive, you believed, taking it in.

“Please, continue talking. I don’t care about what.”

And so, he betrayed your one request, staying silent. Perhaps it was your fault, perhaps it showed a weakness within him that only you could bring forth. And yet, his mere presence brought to light a strength you forgot about within yourself. As you no longer held onto your head as though it was torn at the seams, you instead sought him out. Finding solace within a gentle embrace, you took a deep breath as you buried your face in his shoulder. He was a soldier, one much better fitted for the cruelty this world brought about. He only knew how to kill, his only home was within the damned souls he sent to hell. But within his gentle grasp, you focused solely on him. Begging for comfort, like a child starved of its parent’s attention.

The knife of unreality twisted in your guts, slitting your throat, leaving you unable to speak. You were dependent on him in that moment. It was him, who needed to stitch you back together, make sure you could regard yourself as anything but a human failure. If you could even consider yourself a human in the first place.

But he was oh so meticulous in taking each bloody piece, infusing it with new life before merging it into an empty hull of a body. And as he’d build his own poisoned paradise, he inhaled the fumes and saw a glimpse of a future he still desired. What you had always seen as his certain demise, he saw a dream more pleasant than the heavens themself. Exhaling into your seemingly lifeless body, he shared his very essence with you. Even when you unwillingly knock on death’s door, he would still protect you from the grief of losing yourself, tearing you away from the pain of the unknown.

The sun, at its zenith, had nothing to say to you. It gave you an environment to live in, but no reason to stay in it. Only this one man, broken from war, found it within himself to show you the joy of being. His pieces had been scattered, but he still shared what little was left of him with you, building a secure fort around your being.

And from within the view of a safe home, you could even gaze at the stars, relishing in the cold. You had a different kind of warmth to return to.