#am i late on this

[n8-shaw]

IC TASK 003 : TIME CAPSULE

when: a week or two after casino night where: nate’s dorm room

Nate looked at the newsletter the school had sent out about the time capsule, the last call for recordings before the cut-off, his hand rubbing at his jaw, scratching at the day old scruff there as he considered. It wasn’t his type of thing - what could he possibly offer up of value for the rich kids who were attending Ogden fifty years in the future? He didn’t even want to think about that many years dragging by, what misery he would’ve been put through by then. It seemed less like a feel good memento for a future anniversary than an acute form of torture for those that were still here today. 

Setting up his phone, his face showing little to no emotion as he hit record, Nate leaned back in his chair, eyes on the screen for a few moments as the seconds ticked away. “I don’t have anything to say for this shit. Even if I did, you wouldn’t want to listen to it,” he said finally, shrugging up one shoulder, half-heartedly, eyes daring around the room rather than watching and seeing himself recording this. “I’m not the type of person people should listen to,” he muttered. 

Nate knew who the type of person people would listen to at this school, anyways. It wasn’t him. It would never be him. The people who did or had (at some point) liked him - Sloane, determined to piss off her family, or Rhia, leaving him behind and not looking back as soon as she got a look at popularity. Or the people who hated him. Greer, once she found how just how far he’d go. Or Jesse, who was...more similar to him than he realized. Who was him but...likable. Rich. Charming. He got why someone would pick the other male over him. 

“You know when you really fucking hate someone, and it turns out you’re just looking into a reflection?” he said, eyes downcast, looking into the hands in his lap instead of at the camera. He lapsed into silence, the moment dragging on for a beat too long, then two, Nate still stoically staring downwards even as internally his emotions were swirling. “Never wanted to acknowledge how alike we were. But he’s...better,” he said, swallowing, his throat visibly bobbing as he did so, thinking of what Jesse said to him at the beginning of casino night, a frown settling onto his face. “And he was right.”  

“I really have nothing to offer for this shit. For this school. Even for the people I...actually like. Even my ex-girlfriend only dated me for fucking shock value. Piss off her parents. Mission accomplished. Her dad is a fucking cunt,” he said, the words nearly spit out as he shook his head, nostrils flared out slightly. “Can’t blame anyone though. For keeping me distance. I would too, if I were them. I’m damaged goods, after all,” he said, eyes finally looking back up towards the camera, a wry smile coming to his face. 

Rapidly leaning forward, the motion jerky as he jabbed at the stop button, Nate snatched his phone as he got out of the chair. He flopped back onto his bed, eyes distant as they looked up at the ceiling, spinning a lighter between his fingers, the other hand still clutching his phone, considering. A few moments passed, silence swelling in the room, before he turned his head, looking at his phone again. 

And deleted the video. 

Didn’t need to worry about anyone seeing that.

[nonebinary-leftbeef]

DEVASTATING the lyric you've been mishearing is better than the real one

[shubbabang]

Shout out to everyone who is just so tired So so exhausted So very very tired so very fatigued so sleepy and tired So

[plantpirating]

Type "I am" in the tags and whatever follows is your gender today...

[pastadoughie]

[stalebagels]

Edit: muted this monstrosity but if you're looking for the blank template it's on my blog and I'll tag this and it with "the stupid fucking shorts post" so you don't have to scroll through everything 💀😂 (I did not make the template btw, I don't know who the OP is but if you do please let me know)

[morebird]

Gale of Waterdeep

[trainwreckgenerator]

top ten polycules most likely to destroy all life on earth

[bqnnabreado]

Take Fremmy to the aquarium day !

[i-just-want-to-destroy]

holy fuck everybody shut the fuck up i just fucking figured it all out. multiverse is about the regret of not taking the choices you could have made. time travel is about the regret of taking the choices that you did make. and time loop is about realizing none of the choices you make ever actually matters.

[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.

[galaxyspeaking]

Oh my darling, we’ve been dancing since the start

[songthursh]

Alright, I will start with this one then - everything starts with the glorious revolution and everything starts with the night watch 🌸

[glimzo]

this is so on brand for her

[theaceofarrows]

Batboy memes

[teamunee]

ty for being my no. 1 dps king <3 happy bday

based on my own cat bingsu…..