#and i dont think i can either

[basketghost]

Feeling so stressed and tired and discouraged.

People fucking suck.

This is about a lot of things, but also specifically about my job.

And people just not giving a shit. Giving all of the lip service to the store, while actively watching its death throes.

Describing the store, which has been in business for fifty years now as a small, family-owned book store, as a "pillar of the community," "the main hub of town," saying things like "I love this place so much, I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here," while sales are so bad, my bosses are pretty convinced we may close by the end of the year.

Like I'm inclined to say that nobody ACTUALLY gives a shit. Two years ago, just before covid started, things already weren't great, and my bosses (husband and wife) put out a letter to the community to say "hey, this isn't the end, but if things don't get better, we won't be here forever." And for a few months, that helped, though plenty of people misinterpreted it as "WE ARE CLOSING" and only came in to badger us about closing sales. Now, though, things are just worse than ever. We're all just stuck on the inside, watching the slow death of the store we all love so much, while people on the outside essentially give us a thumbs-up and walk right past.

We try so hard to pull the public in, and literally nothing works. We've had authors, we've had sales, we've had a TRAVELING STORYTELLER WHO'S TRAVELING THE US ON FOOT COME AND DO A PERFORMANCE. We had a local guy who wrote some books and all of his profits for the time being are going to Ukraine. He was in a local paper, and we did a whole big event promotion for his signing.

He sold a single book.

Several staple shops on our main street have closed in the last couple of years. This may just be the big one that brings down the rest of main street behind it. I hope all the assholes in this quaint, Victorian canal village like more pizza shops and tattoo parlors, because those just keep filling the empty storefronts of the more diverse, interesting places that close.

The town has lost so much already because the people who actually live here don't shop here. Maybe they deserve this. This is what happens when you don't support your own community.

I just wish there was a way to pick up the whole store and plop it in a different place.

This is an immature way to end this, but I don't give a shit, everything fucking sucks, and nothing's fair, and I'm so tired of everything.

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[beybuniki]

fishing trip day 2 & 3 🎣🍀

[lucabyte]

Taking pride in One's own appearance.

[kagoutiss]

junimo sight

[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.

[toytulini]

okay

[redysetdare]

I think queer stories would be better if people stopped assuming that queer representation hinges on if two characters are romantically involved at all. Like the moment you accept characters as being queer without needing romance to prove said queerness then i think we'd find ourselves with a lot more unique, nuanced, and interesting queer stories. but by limiting queerness to only romance you are stifling queer stories.

[cozylittleartblog]

had a(nother) nightmare

[phoenix-art-official]

act 2 bloodweave has a certain Flavor

[u3pxx]

[bad omens] you know how it is with me and body swaps and roleswaps orz

[puppyeared]

doodles of my fav sillies

anton belongs to @poicyss

[gunstellations]

confessions

[fairycosmos]

i don't know how to pull myself out of feeling depressed and i feel like im losing my whole life to it. i could've built a great life if i wasn't mentally ill

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

wait, no. i think my ACTUAL hottest aa take is that i don't think klavier is all that nice

[ganondoodle]

suddendly had the thought of what if i dialed up hylias and demises design up as much as i can and well, i know its extremely rough bc i just wanted to see what it would look like but it also has a very strong ..design style to it i like alot

now wondering if i can make use of it at some point nfjldvnlgfdlv