#I don't think people read them

[tobias-hankel]

I'm taking Hotchreid drabble requests in honor of the Hotchreid Zine release.

For more information about our Hotchreid Zine, make sure to check out Tumblr - all proceeds go to SharedHope, a charity to combat sex trafficking.

[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.

[arataka-reigen]

I'm trying to start a movement here

[ID: The first 3 images are edited versions of the "Let's take ibuprofen together" meme. The captions now say "Let's read shoujo together". They each show a person holding their hand out to the viewer; a character from the series Benigyokuzui, Mob from Mob Psycho 100, and Jerma. / end ID]

ID provided by @siroofington thank you so much

[uncanny-tranny]

It's always, like, mildly annoying when people see a het trans couple and go "all that work just to be straight?" like... one, you don't know if they're straight and two, trans people don't owe you a queer sexuality to "make up" for the fact we're trans. Transhet people aren't a subtype of trans people, they're members of the trans community, and the queer one if they so desire!

[konigsblog]

crazy, how the majority of my haters are either hypocrites, or are just straight up LYING. lmfao, i've written rape before and i apply appropriate warnings, but i've never ever written PEDOPHILIA. 😬

their username on tumblr is @asgardswinter, they have continuously mentioned me on their blog. it's literally creepy and clearly obsessive, lmfao, and lying about me writing pedophilia is real fucking weird considering they don't apply any further context or include any evidence to back up this claim...

i'd appreciate it if you reported their twitter account or blog for like harassment 😮‍💨

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The girls are plottinggggg

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe the problem with Christian fiction is that it's non-denominational. People are just "Christian", with no effort put into showing what practicing that religion looks like for them specifically. No indication that there are other Christians who could have different beliefs. No wrestling with differing ideas and the struggle of how one should live out their Christian faith. And that makes it unrealistic and unrelatable.

[canisalbus]

Imagine for a moment that reincarnation is real... and now imagine senior, gray muzzle Vasco rescuing a sickly albino horse who seems very frightened and uncomfortable with the concept of being a horse. Vasco is too old and frail to ride anymore, as you've mentioned in the past if i remember correctly, but he takes this horse in.

No one at the stable can even make eye contact with this pale steed without its ears pinning back and its eyes threatening to bulge out of its head. However, Vasco visits every day he is physically able to, so he can gently comb its mane and tail and handfeed it oats and hay, since it refuses to eat otherwise.

Vasco doesn't give the horse a name, but in a voice soft enough for the two of them to hear, he calls it various old pet names only he should know. He swears the horse's eyes light up at his words despite not fully believing the possibility.

Regardless, they comfort each other.

.

[songofwizardry]

ok I'm not an expert but I'm not seeing much specific info going around here, and there's a lotta Palestine solidarity protests in the UK this weekend, so here is some (including UK-specific) protest info and resources (mostly pulled whole-cloth from Twitter)

policing is heavy at Palestine protests generally

Hamas is a proscribed org under UK law. that means "inviting support" for them or "wearing clothing or displaying articles" that implies you are a supporter is a criminal offence (if you're interested, here's the full list of criminal offences from gov.uk). Palestinian flags etc are ok*, but do not have something that could be mistaken for Hamas imagery. don't go out there looking for convictions pls.

*in spite of what Suella Braverman has implied, the London Muslim Community Forum has just confirmed that the Palestinian flag is not a proscribed flag and is not banned (apologies for quoting the "we advise the met police" group but I thought it was important to have that info explicitly)

don't talk to cops. that includes the police liasion officers in blue bibs.

particularly if you're concerned about your face ending up on social media etc, but also just good practice in general (both in terms of COVID and protest safety)—mask up. cover up tattoos etc.

have bustcards or contact details for protest legal support on you. Green and Black Cross can be contacted on 07946 541 511. write the number on your arm etc.

if you witness an arrest: check if there's a legal observer nearby and if so call them over; if not: if the arrestee doesn't have a bustcard, give them one, find out where they're being taken, and contact eg GBC or a protest support line

if you have the time and can help out, there will likely be arrestee support required after—GBC tend to post callouts on Twitter for this

other links

for particularly children and young people and their families being referred to PREVENT for pro-Palestine statements, contact PREVENTWatch and maybe also Palestine in School (newer initiative I think, I don't have an excessive amount of detail on them just FYI)

Liberty, Migrants Organise and Black Protest Legal Support have bustcards in different languages, including Arabic and Somali (also Liberty's website has lotsa useful info, including advice for disabled protesters, protesting and immigration status, and what to do if you're kettled)

GBC's thread on what to do if you see an arrest is useful, as are all their resources generally

if I've missed anything or made a mistake, lmk—as I said, I am very much not an expert. if you know people who are protesting, pass them the legal support line numbers; if you're attending, stay safe and be vigilant; and ofc carry water.

[xitsensunmoon]

Thinking about how in a lot of dca fics when we meet dca, we're nice to them because, well, why wouldn't we be?

But- consider our reality for a second. How every tech is made to somehow steal or manipulate, spy on or push propaganda... How everything ends up being used to gain profit, absolutely ignoring everything else... Just imagine our poor guys trying to prove us that they're not like that- they would never.

But truly, do they have a choice? Anyone from management can access their memory chips at any second. Even their thoughts can be read by the staff.

If they had a choice they really would never do that to you.

But they don't :)

[inkskinned]

it is all chaos and entropy. the thing is that the chaos and entropy make it beautiful and lovely.

yes, it's true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is terrifying. i have lived through some of the unfairness - i got born like this, with my body caving into itself, with this ironic love of dance when i sometimes can't stand up for longer than 15 minutes. i am a poet with hands that are slowly shutting down - i can't hold a pen some days. recently i found a dead bird on our front porch. she had no visible injuries. she had just died, the way things die sometimes.

it is also true that nature and the universe are uncaring and unspecific, and that is wonderful. the sheer happenstance that makes rain turn into a rainbow. the impossible coincidence of finding your best friend. i have made so many mistakes and i have let myself down and i have harmed other people by accident. nature moves anyway. on the worst day of my life she delivers me an orange juice sunset, as if she is saying try again tomorrow.

how vast and unknowing the universe! how small we are! isn't that lovely. the universe has given us flowers and harp strings and the shape of clouds. how massive our lives are in comparison to a grasshopper. the world so bright, still undiscovered. even after 30 years of being on this earth, i learned about a new type of animal today: the dhole.

chance echoing in my life like a harmony between two people talking. do you think you and i, living in different worlds but connected through the internet - do you think we've ever seen the same butterfly? they migrate thousands of miles. it's possible, right?

how beautiful the ways we fill the vastness of space. i love that when large amounts of people are applauding in a room, they all start clapping at the same time. i love that the ocean reminds us of our mother's heartbeat. i love that out of all the colors, chlorophyll chose green. i love the coincidences. i love the places where science says i don't know, but it just happens.

"the universe doesn't care about you!" oh, i know. that's okay. i care about the universe. i will put my big stupid heart out into it and watch the universe feast on it. it is not painful. it is strange - the more love you pour into the unfeeling world, the more it feels the world loves you in return. i know it's confirmation bias. i think i'm okay if my proof of kindness is just my own body and my own spirit.

i buried the bird from our porch deep in the woods. that same day, an old friend reaches out to me and says i miss you. wherever you go, no matter how bad it gets - you try to do good.

[trillscienceofficer]

These are highly subjective interpretations but to me Jadzia and Seven are two (opposite?) flavors of gender indifference:

Jadzia: gender depends on what's funnier in the moment/what allows her to commit further to the bit. Always aware on some level that she's putting on a show and she loves it, especially if other people get confused. Not her job to explain! Figure it out yourself!

Seven (Voyager edition): wants OFF this ride, it's already a concession that Seven is using I/my/myself pronouns instead of we/us/ourselves, why is being an individual tied so closely to gender in the first place. She/her is, for the moment, just the least exhausting option when interacting with others among pronouns that all feel alien to her

[uncanny-tranny]

I jokingly thought before that reading Junie B. Jones as a kid turned me into a feminist, but unironically, it kind of did.

I honestly think it comes down to the fact that Junie B. was not only allowed to be "weird," but her character arc never concluded like other girl characters would. In other media featuring "weird girls," the girl always ended her arc tamed - by force or convince, she would be prettied up, she would smile and be polite, and she would never speak out of turn. She would be perfect then, and would shed her veneer of individuality with the freedom that is conformity. As a kid, I noticed that girls weren't permitted to be "weird" like boys were. So when I read Junie B. Jones, I loved that she was frankly just fucking weird. She said things out of turn, she was rambunctious and imaginative and she was a realistic portrayal of a little girl. I loved reading those books because the narrative taught her lessons without punishing her for being weird, if that makes sense. So often, narratives punished weird girls for the crime of being a socially unacceptable girl, not for any true wrongdoing like lying.

Anyway, I just think it's interesting, because I watched and read a ton of books and shows and movies featuring girls and women, but none of them truly empathized with (or even tried to empathize with) weird girls on their own merits and capabilities and terms, or embraced the idea of a "socially inept/unacceptable" girl without punishing her in some way for her supposed ineptitude.

[hollowwish]

Biggest pet peeve is when someone says jimmy needs to be portrayed as a pathetic wet cat and not too badass or whatever. Like do u guys know the wet cat behavior is a bit sometimes. Do you guys know he's played into before and will do so again. Do you guys know jimmy has his competent moments and really well roleplayed ones and that's he's not just stupid and bullied and little wet cat all the time. Do we even watch the same damn youtuber

He can be both wet cat and badass and competent. People just don't see the badass moments because theyre probably buried under the "jimmy is only sad bullied wet cat" belief

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Smell Check [Easy: Failure]

MDZS Disco Elysium AU part 1 (part 2 - part 3)

[svnflowermoon]

y'all go from being feminists to tearing these women down within seconds oh my god it's 2024 can we please stop viciously tearing one woman down to bring another up i don't care what side you take but saying vile shit about either woman and their music is disgusting, please grow up