#I know what she means.

[hautecouturegirlfriend]

?????

[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.

[arcanegifs]

they're really going for the "everyone going to be a little bit opposite of who they were in s1" theme in season 2 fr

[potatoes-tomatoes]

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

Begging swifties to understand that Taylor didn’t write reputation and Lover with the knowledge of how the relationship was going to end and that trying to “excavate” those albums for evidence to prove a specific theory as to why it ended is not how they should be viewed. Taylor wrote those songs feeling a very specific way because that’s what she was experiencing and she is now reflecting on them with hindsight and relates to them differently than when she first created them. These conflicting emotions can exist; how she views it now doesn’t diminish how she felt about it when she first released it.

[imagine-too-many-books]

Imagine Annabeth and Percy have a kid early, unplanned and it kinda fucks with their finances so Percy drops out of school to get a job so he can care for the kid and support Annabeth in school. At first he gets a job teaching kids sword fighting but then he hears about underwater welding which pays well because it’s dangerous but Percy is a child of the sea so it’s much less so for him. His boss is even willing to give him flexible hours which means Annabeth doesn’t have to take their kid to class anymore and they can actually afford daycare (why does is it the price of a mortgage nowadays???). A huge financial burden is lifted and Percy doesn’t mind the work so it’s good all the way around.

Fast forward to when Annabeth is done her masters in architecture and lands a job at a top firm. They’ve got savings and have Annabeth’s income to rely on. Percy heads back to school and finishes a degree in marine biology, going on to research some really niche topics like how underwater welding impacts the environment and shifting from there until he’s a well known expert in the field.

Just them finding their way. Supporting each other and landing on their feet no matter what

[littler3d]

“Mean Girls (2024) isn’t even that good of a movie—” I DONT CARE. I went to stare at Reneé Rapp being hot and hear a couple of bops and ya know what, goal achieved!

[poetrylesbian]

sorry i just think taylor swift is the kind of privileged white girl who would get freaked out if she walked past someone like talking to themself or something

[jay-wasstuff]

[obsessedwithstarwars]

Bruce: How was your class trip Damian?

Damian: It was quiet and productive Father.

Bruce: I’m glad to hear it. What was your favorite part?

Damian: I learned how to escape an Iron Maiden.

Bruce: …

Damian: …

Bruce: Explain please.

Damian: A boy Drake’s age taught me how to escape an Iron Maiden.

Bruce: How did he have that knowledge?

Damian: He claims his family has a dungeon full of medieval torture devices. I believe he may require further investigation.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

prayer of the day:

[passionpeachy]

wearing this around my house like "no one here knows I'm gay"

[moderndaypandora]

i recognize that simon and edwin meeting and parting in hell is narratively very good and provides closure for all. but imagine if simon had agreed to try and escape with edwin. and charles doesn't have time to really question it, because anybody who likes edwin is aces in his book and it's hell, they need to leave. (edwin, out of courtesy to their third companion, puts his plan to confess on hold until they've escaped.)

suddenly the edwin harem of "supernatural boys who all hate each other but are attracted to that negative rizz" gains another member, and at some point edwin is going to have to mention that simon was the boy who sacrificed him to hell.

the chaos. crystal's bitchy commentary. charles going from friendly smiling to clutching his cricket bat. niko's whispering "200k slow burn schoolboy rivals to lovers" with heart eyes. it'd be chef's kiss good. edwin fleeing to his books and praying that nobody, but especially not the cat king, finds him because there has been SO MUCH emotion already. hysterical.

[bootdork]

If I could kill a writer with my mind...

[starry-bi-sky]

Broke: danny runs away from bruce wayne because he reminds him of Vlad (bad, overused, fundamentally misunderstands Bruce’s character as a whole for a shit joke)

Woke: bruce wayne doesnt remind danny of vlad masters, but of his best friend sam manson

black hair? check ✅

jewish? check ✅

richer than god? check ✅

gothic? well, mister wayne isnt himself but he lives in the most gothic city on earth so quasi-check ✅

loudly and proudly an activist for various rights including environmental and womens' rights? check ✅

im tired of the "oh danny runs away from bruce because he's rich and reminds him of vlad" give me a danny who actually likes bruce because he reminds him of his awesome kickass best friend who is also stupidly rich

like i’ve been told about the whole “oh fruit loop joke” before and i still think its a cheap, shallow joke if i’ve ever heard one that flanderizes Bruce’s character to an impressive degree. Vlad and Bruce are only comparable in the same sense that they’re both rich and Bruce adopts kids — but he isn’t doing it because of the “adoption addiction” joke, he’s doing it because he sees himself in the kids he adopts and he wants to give them better than he did. Vlad wants Danny as his son to spite Jack, they are not remotely comparable beyond that.

Like, beyond that too i highly doubt vlad masters gives his employees benefits like bruce wayne does. who canonically hires reformed villains and has various branches of medical, industrial, technology, etc in his company in order to help the people of gotham. does Vlad Masters run charities, soup kitchens, etc?? is Vlad contributing to the community? No, no he isnt.

[anakirui]

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.