#things what i wrote

[politeanarchy]

A very quick take on a different ending. Still kind of tragic, still a cliffhanger, still sets them up to be separated. But less upsettingly out of character, at least according to my own understanding and ideas.

...

"Tell me you said no!"

"Listen, Crowley! It wasn't a job offer, it was a threat. The terms they offered—demanded—were intolerable. But I haven't said no, yet. I needed to talk to you first. Because if I don't accept the job, they're going to give it to Michael."

"Michael's a wanker!"

"Michael is implacable, and ruthless. You remember what happened to Lucifer, at the end of the War."

"Yeah, I mean, we've all heard the stories."

"I had a front-row seat. I'm not going to forget that in a hurry."

"Oh."

"So you see, I may have to consider taking on the job. Because it's about Earth. Michael doesn't care about Earth, doesn't understand about the dolphins and the ducks and the gorillas. And the humans. I can make a difference."

"And the intolerable terms you mentioned?"

"Oh dear. Well, I'm afraid they want you to come with me."

"What's so bad about th—"

"To be reinstated as an angel."

The outburst that followed was noisy and incoherent.

"Your howls of outrage are extremely gratifying. I had the most awful time trying to keep a straight face, when Metatron told me. But you see the dilemma."

Crowley made a series of noises, which gradually grew less offended and more considering.

"Ehhhh, 'spose I could maybe try it? Would be a change, that's for sure."

"What! Crowley, NO!" Aziraphale in his turn was reduced to spluttering. "I don't want angel-you! I want YOU-you!"

"I'd still be me, though. Wouldn't I?"

"I don't know. And I don't want to risk it. Whatever they did to Gabriel turned him into a completely different person! Don't get me wrong, you were a very impressive angel. I was so in awe of the way you started the engine, and brought that nebula into existence. But…that's not the demon I fell in love with."

"In…wait, you lo—"

"Yes! Of course I do. Though I've never told you properly. I was going to, at the dance, and then it all went pear-shaped."

"Aziraphale." Crowley said the angel's name so gently, and everything went soft-focus, just for an instant.

They both reached out, and pulled each other close, and kissed, frantically. It didn't last long enough.

Because suddenly Crowley was pushing Aziraphale away, showing all the signs of having had a sudden idea.

"Angel!" he roared. "I do believe I have been insulted."

"Well, yes," started Aziraphale, but Crowley hastily shushed him.

"The very idea of you going back to Heaven purely for the sake of having vast amounts of power and influence is extremely upsetting! And to think that I would ever agree to join you in your schemes."

It took a fair amount of eyebrow-waggling and frantic winks, but Aziraphale was finally catching on.

"I should have known that you could never truly be redeemed. Foul fiend."

Crowley grinned. "It will be just like old times."

Abruptly, Aziraphale dropped the act again and sagged in on himself. "I'm going to have to go, aren't I. Oh, Crowley! I don't want to leave…the bookshop."

Crowley kissed him again, gently. "Be brave, angel. Nothing lasts forever."

"Keep it safe for me. I know you will."

"I will. Metatron is coming back now, I'd better storm out. Convincingly."

"Good luck, Crowley. Mind how you go."

[synnifexgaunt]

the world: a disordered space is natural and beautiful. It implies activity; change and variance and alteration being met and exalted in. It implies an engagement, a healthy vitality we all should cherish. Life becomes real in its imperfections, its compromises, its wild rush of experience. We should look on such minor chaos with joy, reminded that we are human, and growing, and here.

me: if i clean everything in my house perfectly and never touch it again, i can escape The Shame(tm).

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[adriles]

when we’re done with our overwhelming grief we’ll eat i guess

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[a-rabbit-obsessed-queer]

Aspec men deserve much more respect and recognition in the aspec community than they receive. They often face a different form of aphobia specific to them ("men are naturally sexual they can't be ace" "all men are unromantic that's not unique") this rhetoric is spouted by many, even members of our own community and I hope for a day where that is no longer the case. As an ace and demiro woman (demigirl but that's beside the point) I want to encourage folks to take the time to give the aspec men in their lives support and to the aspec men reading, you are who you say you are no matter what people say and you deserve the world. I'm sorry for the ways in which toxic masculinity has harmed you. You are a valued member of the aspec community and the queer community as a whole. No ace or aro person is broken and neither are you. I'm sorry if anyone has ever told you otherwise.

[aslyran]

Visions

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[confessedlyfannish]

DP x DC Writing Prompt #5

Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.

After a moment, the door opens.

"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.

"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.

"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."

Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.

"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.

For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.

Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.

Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"

"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.

"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.

"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.

"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.

"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.

"He did," Jazz says.

Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.

Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.

A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.

This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.

Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.

In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.

"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.

Damian stops dead in his tracks.

"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.

Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.

"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.

Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"

Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.

"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.

"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.

Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.

"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.

"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.

Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.

Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.

Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.

They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.

"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.

"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.

Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."

"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."

"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.

"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."

Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.

"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"

"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.

"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."

"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."

"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."

Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.

"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."

Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.

Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.

Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.

Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.

A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.

His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.

"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"

"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.

He never stopped practicing, after all.

"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."

"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."

Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.

"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.

"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."

"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."

Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.

"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."

"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."

"Mr. Wayne-"

"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."

Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."

"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."

For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.

"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."

"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.

He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.

Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."

Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."

Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."

"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."

Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."

"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."

"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.

"Even then."

Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.

"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.

"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.

But for his brother, Danny will wake up.

"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."

[basslinegrave]

pin-up

b&w originals

[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.

[politeanarchy]

Final Boss

Rallying your fading strength, you approach the gates. Their twisted metal shapes seem to writhe and shimmer in the foul vapors that fill the air. This is it.

Your armor, like yourself, is scarred and battered, bearing wounds from a thousand thousand desperate fights. Even with its original strength enhanced by all the magic you could buy, beg, or steal, it has barely survived. You pull the last healing and repair spells from your depleted pack, using some of them to mitigate the damage to your armor and yourself.

After some little thought, you also swallow the enhancement potions you have so carefully hoarded all this time. Their unnatural power fills you, and you feel your strength return and grow. They have cost you dearly, and you know that the long-term effects of using them will cost you more, but if ever there was a time to use them, it is now.

You draw your weapon, a grim tool worthy of one such as yourself. Your other hand stretches out toward the gates. Before you can touch them, they swing open before you. The music changes, its tempo increasing, its wild urgency stirring your blood as a thundering beat pulls your feet forward.

⁂

As soon as you are through the gateway, the metal bars clang shut behind you. A ring of strangely-colored flames springs up around the edge of the cavernous space you find yourself in. There will be no going back.

In the center, wreathed in swirling smoke and mist, you can see a desk. It is dark, heavy, solid, impressive in its sleek minimalism. Sitting behind it is someone who looks very much at home there. His charcoal pinstripe suit is precisely tailored, his hands are well-kept, and he has not a hair out of place, although the horns sticking out of it are a little unnerving. He smiles at you, and the firelight glints off his white, white teeth.

"Ah yes," he says. "Here you are. Right on time." He pulls a folder of papers out of a drawer in the desk, and begins to leaf through them.

"Yes!" you say. "I am here. I have tracked you down. I've escaped all your traps, discovered the secret passages through the maze, dodged all your cleverly-weighted platforms and trapdoors. I have defeated the minions you thought would protect you. I have prepared myself for this fight, and I am not afraid of you."

He raises a calm, unruffled eyebrow, barely looking up from his papers. "No? Well, I suppose you haven't had much chance to get to know me yet."

The magical elixirs you swallowed are swirling in your veins, making you dizzy and overheated. You shift restlessly from one foot to the other, desperate for motion, for a fight. This is not how you expected this encounter to go.

"Get to know you?" The idea enrages you. The wild energy burning through you lends inhuman harmonics to your voice as you shout, "I'm here to destroy you!"

You grip your weapon more tightly and try to approach the desk, but your movements are clumsy and uncoordinated. Possibly the effects of potions are conflicting with one another, but something seems more fundamentally wrong. Your mind is beginning to feel blurred, foggy.

You force yourself to breathe, to focus. "You're the source. All the evil in this land comes from you. I've dedicated myself to finding you, you devil. I've thought about nothing else for I don't know how long."

He nods, a brief acknowledging gesture. "Yes, that's right. The attention has been most flattering. You set out to be a hero. And by gradual stages, you have arrived…here."

"I've stopped at nothing to get to you!"

"Very true. How many villages have you razed? How many forests have you burned, how many rivers have you poisoned? How many people have you killed, so you could loot their corpses for your own material gain?" He shuffles the papers on his desk, reading down the neat columns of numbers. "Quite an impressive number, really. You'll probably get to have your initials on the high-score board, for a while. Until somebody else breaks your record."

Your patience is worn thin now, your system flooded with adrenaline, nerves stretched to breaking point. It feels as though the strangely-colored flames that surrounded you are now devouring you from the inside.

"Damn you!" you shout. "Stop talking, and fight me!"

He laughs at that, a low, patronizing, self-indulgent chuckle. You think there might be a hint of genuine amusement underneath.

"Don't be absurd, of course we aren't going to fight." He leans back and smiles, completely at his ease, and with an air of someone explaining something extremely obvious to someone extremely dim, he says:

"You work for me, now."

[solarmorrigan]

Well, Hello, Sailor

written for @steddiemicrofic | prompt: ‘pin’ | wc: 388 | rated: T | cw: slightly racy photos?

“Oh my god,” Eddie gasps.

“Oh my god,” Steve echoes, groaning.

Eddie hadn’t meant to drop the box, but it was heavy; it had been a rescue from the back of Steve’s closet as they moved his stuff out of his old apartment (preparing to move into their new one, together), and it had been full of forgotten papers and old magazines and – photos.

The stash had spilled out in front of Eddie like it had been waiting for him, full-color and glossy and glorious.

There’s Steve posed front and center, on his knees and looking back over his shoulder at the camera. He’s wearing a little pair of navy blue shorts and a little red ascot and precious little else. The shorts are indecently high-cut, hugging his ass like they were made for it, but it’s the sailor hat settled jauntily on top of his head that really makes it for Eddie. Steve’s eyes are wide and sweet, as if he’s been caught by surprise, with his lips parted in that inviting way that haunts Eddie’s dreams, even though he can technically see it any time he likes now.

He’s the very picture of a perfect little pin-up boy.

“Oh my god,” Eddie says again, unable to get much else out.

“It was– uh, for a magazine,” Steve stutters out. “I forgot I even had copies of that shoot.”

“Uh huh.” Eddie nods, still staring, mesmerized, at the pictures in his hands.

“It was during college, after my dad cut me off. I needed another job, and this paid, like, surprisingly well, and–”

“It damn well better have,” Eddie says, finally smirking up at Steve. “I bet they made bank off of you, baby.”

Steve pauses, blinking. “You’re not– upset?”

“Why would I be upset?” Eddie asks; honestly, he’ll only be upset if Steve tries to pry the photos away from him before he’s had a chance to thoroughly inspect them.

“Just– some people have gotten… jealous, I guess?” Steve shrugs, glancing away.

“Other people can look if they want.” Eddie leans over to press a reassuring kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth. “I know I’m the only one who gets you live and in person.”

Slowly, Steve smiles. “Well. If you like the sailor shoot, I bet you’ll love some of the others.”

“Others?”

[potatobugz]

objects loving objects baby!!!!

[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.

[paingoes]

whumper pushing whumpee to the ground, ordering them to get back up, and kicking them back down each time they try. repeat as many times as you like. especially w whumper getting more snippy each time.

“i said get up” while they’re making it physically impossible

physically and mentally exhausting them in addition to hurting them. forcing whumpee to participate in their own abuse.