#I am about to be off

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

Scattered Thoughts Before

It was roughly one year ago. I had the worst mental breakdown of my life. No one was hiring me despite the apparent teacher shortage, I felt like I was wasting time by not doing anything worthwhile, and in therapy, the first time I had ever gone, my therapist forced me to come to some hard truths. She made me realize that I had put up walls in order to protect myself. She made me realize so much of my self-esteem was tied to my cousin who is off living her own life. But that same session she told me that all I ever do when I go in there is talk about travel and writing, so I needed to start doing it. So what if I had no one to go with? I could go by myself.

I wanted to tell my cousin, my best friend when I saw her that weekend that I was finally going to do it--I was planning on going to Europe next Summer, now. I thought maybe a little naively she may want to go with me. She showed me a picture on her phone. She was pregnant. This isn't going to be a flattering part of my story but I have to write it down because it's my truth. I went to the bathroom, and I cried. Violently. Here I was, couldn't find a job, just knew I was never going to be able to meet anyone, and there was best friend, off making her own life and moving on while I was shut out. I hated every fat, wet tear I shed that day and I despised myself for them, and that made it all the worse. I couldn't even tell my cousin, K, that I was making one of my biggest dreams a reality. I was asked if I was excited to be an aunt. I thought I'd be a shitty aunt. I said no. Being an aunt terrified me. My aunt, my cousin's step-mom, found out--and what proceeded was a month long battle with my aunt, (cousin's step mom) who called me all sorts of vile names.

Later on in therapy I discussed what happened, and my therapist made me realize my reaction was rooted in my issues with self-esteem, and that because of the history I had with my cousin, K. I had dreams for us once, because when we were kids we talked about traveling and having kids together, and they all ended when she married her long-term boyfriend and I remained alone and no one was taking me along in the ride called life. But my therapist told me that was alright. I could go make new dreams.

Sometime later I talked to K, and while my therapist said fences may not have been fully mended, something I knew, it was alright. I booked my trip, the one I'm about to leave for today. I got a job. I struggled in that job, but I got better thanks to some people beautiful people I met. My friend from grad school, M, started going out with me a little more. One day we talked late into the night about everything. I told her everything I never felt comfortable telling K--all my crazy fandoms and hyperfixations and fanfiction. I told her about my novel I started when I was 18 that I had to put on hiatus because I didn't think I was good enough yet. I became a really good teacher. I became a lot of kids cool aunts. I saw K once and it was awkward. She called me once when I was at the Ren Fair with M to see how I was, (after I saw some photos she was in town with some of her bridesmaids, refraining from inviting me) My aunt in Hawaii asked me to come to the Merrie Monarch festival in Hawaii to see my cousin dance the hula. It was transcendental. I got to hang out with cousin I, who told me when I was at the airport after that she missed me already. I cried. No one had ever told me something like that before. Tiny miracles wove themselves together, unlike before were I felt like it was all tiny misfortunes. Then, one day in March, myself unable to let go of the tiny threads of inspiration that had been weaving together in my brain, I went back to my story I started when I was eighteen. A surer writer now, not as clumsy and inelegant with words. I made my leading lady Hawaiian, because I'm not so ashamed of it anymore. I spent the whole weekend editing my draft to give to M, because I want her to read it. For the first time, I don't keep my writing guarded. I want to boast and brag. And today, I will be away. The dream I had for myself when I was 12, to travel Europe because I loved Samantha Brown on my TV, is coming true.

For the first time in my life, I think I feel really and truly renewed. I feel like a beautiful woman, off to have an adventure, both outwardly and inwardly as I continue to write and continue to be.

Things were lost, things were gained. Such is life. I did it.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[adrianfridge]

Height gap romance except the shorter one is frequently depicted in situations where they are contextually taller. The taller one sitting while the shorter one looms over them. Both of them lying in bed with the taller one’s head pressed to the shorter one’s chest. The shorter one straddling the taller one’s lap and leaning down for a kiss. The taller one on their knees as the shorter one tilts their head up. Please, it makes me go feral

[podcastwizard]

this will not be a bridgerton blog but for the foreseeable future i will not be thinking about anything other than bridgerton

(original post @romanceyourdemons)

[androdragynous]

as my own direct immediate list of game grievances i hate that stardew valley expects you to side against a wheelchair user who is upset that he was moved without his consent. i hate that the mass effect trilogy gives you visible scarring as a direct result of choosing mean dialogue and heals it if you're nice. i hate that the vampire the masquerade ttrpg has a monstrous player class that can appear as horrible vampiric monsters or as visibly disabled people and both of these appearances are mechanically the same. i hate that dark souls games have a difficulty level implemented in a way that cannot be adjusted for disability. i hate that i can play as a mermaid or a werewolf or a horse in the sims games but can't use a wheelchair. i hate that the ace attorney games have so much flashing and not all of the games can disable it. i hate that disability is constantly something that happens to teach a lesson, i hate that disability is something that happens as a punishment, i hate that disability is either compensated perfectly with no drawbacks or something that is endlessly sought to be cured. i hate that no character customization will ever include the mobility aids i use, that the player avatars that represent me will never look like me. i am so goddamn annoyed and so goddamn tired.

[transformers-earthspark]

IMPORTANT: TUMBLR HAS MADE A DEAL WITH MIDJOURNEY/OPENAI.

YOUR ART AND IMAGES ON TUMBLR ARE BEING USED TO TRAIN AI MODELS.

The opt-in is automatic, but you can turn it off in settings.

Go to "Blog Settings" -> "Visibility" -> "Third-Party Sharing" and turn on "Prevent third-party sharing for [blog]". (This post shows how to do it on browser and on mobile.) You need to do this with every sideblog. (Note: The option in settings might not appear if your app hasn't updated yet. You can still opt out via browser.)

Spread the word. Everyone on Tumblr needs to know about this.

[billiewena]

thinking about how the only time bobby and cas interact in season four is when he knocks him out cold to talk to dean alone. and the next time bobby sees him, cas is powerless and just comes to steal dean's necklace in a weird interaction that had to be filmed close-up because dean and cas are just inches from each other's face. the next time is an offscreen interaction where he just gets dean's address from bobby and probably left immediately after. combine this with the fact that bobby knew dean had a male siren the season before (and tried to be supportive) and let cas be in the family photo a few episodes later, there is a nonzero chance bobby singer was the first destiel shipper.

[inkskinned]

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.

[egophiliac]

tsum events really are just the best, huh

[curioscurio]

I'm rewatching Steven Universe and I will never forgive Fandom for what it did to her

[beybuniki]

in hindsight, i rlly like that some of their inevitable conversations aree left covert i love to fill the gaps myself i love to think about their awkwardness :)

[boltlightning]

they should invent a way to read in bed that's comfortable

[retquits]

local hylian literally too shy to revisit zora's domain

[proxycrit]

(I point. Gently, in the voice of somebody who’s mind touched by the outer gods, i whisper truth in your ears:

Your honor the horses are now lesbians

(Anyways here’s the designs)

[hypewinter]

During a press conference for the newest Justice League member, Phantom, a reporter asks him "Do you have anything to say to all the children who aspire to be like you?"

Phantom looked at the reporter puzzled before saying, "Children wanna be like me? Why? I'm a bad influence."

[locusfandomtime]

The maths fandom is wild. “Real” and “imaginary” numbers? I think you mean canon and non-canon. You guys seriously go “this is my number oc his name is i and he is the square root of -1” when in numbers canon lore it’s actually impossible to square root a negative but sure whatever. “Complex numbers”? I think you mean a character x oc ship. “f(x) = 3x - 5”? That is self-insert fanfiction.