#this doesn't always work

[oliveroctavius]

In Plagiarism and You(Tube), Hbomb says "If you consider something so obscure you can get away with stealing it, you do not respect it." Save that line for the next time someone tries to tell you that Roy Lichtenstein brought respect to comics as art.

It's since been pointed out that while Lichtenstein did copy one of Russ Heath's drawings of an airplane getting hit, the painting depicted above was actually copied off Irv Norvick, because Lichtenstein did this so many times to so many comic artists.

In Lichtenstein's defense, he was doing this in a time when comic artists frequently weren't even credited in the issues themselves. In his condemnation, he never even tried to check, nor has he made any move to pay or credit any of the comic artists who recognized their own work later on. Rather than elevating the "low art" of comics, he was widening the gap of financial success and respect even further.

The Hbomberguy of this story is art historian David Barsalou, who has now spent decades tracking down the original art and the names of the original artists used in Lichtenstein's most famous output. Here's the flickr gallery for the Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein project. Frequently copied were Tony Abruzzo, Ted Galindo, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Kubert, Jerry Grandenetti, and dozens more Golden Age artists who aren't very well known in comics circles, let alone art history books. Many of them died in poverty. That's something that the Hero Initiative, mentioned in Russ Heath's comic above, aims to prevent.

Also, Lichtenstein didn't even paint Ben-Day dots. That's a specific thing.

[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.

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny holds an Intervention for Brucie Wayne.

So! Danny is the head of R&D at WayneTech, and he often works closely with Bruce and Lucius when they want him to make "Proof of Concept" Gadgets and Vehicles. He doesn't question the absurdity of some of the stuff he builds, he was raised by Mad Scientists after all, all of it seems perfectly normal to him!

But he has noticed something concerning about his Boss.

He really needs to get his Partying in control. Every time he comes into work he has eyebags covered by makeup, some bruises from tripping while drunk, and he is always super cagey about what he did last night. Danny asked some of his coworkers about it, and they noticed it too.

They also bring up that he sometimes comes into work with a really foggy mind, which is probably the aftereffects of doing some kind of drugs at whatever party he was at the previous night.

Even his Hangovers seem really bad! Worse than usual, but he powers through them and keeps acting like his normal Himbo self! Danny realizes that Bruce needs to calm down. He has Kids to take care of, and Alfred needs less work on his plate

So he contacts a bunch if Bruce's Friends, his Family, and even a few coworkers who brought up their concerns to him, and he stages an Intervention.

...

Bruce didn't know what to expect when he walked into the conference room at Wayne Enterprises. He had been called in by Danny, his head of R&D, for a Meeting earlier that day, but Danny had failed to explain the purpose of the Meeting.

He had barely made it on time. He had spent the entire night chasing down Scarecrow, and a slip up had caused him to get hit by some Fear Toxin, which took forever to work its way out of his system. It didn't help that the Antidote gave him a splitting headache.

Bruce opened the door to the Conference Room, and was met with a mishmash of faces. Clark was sitting close to the head of the Table, with Lois at his right, and Diana to hers. In the crowed he could also see Dick and Steph holding in barely contained laughter, with Tim looking a little lost to the side. Damian looked as if he would rather be anywhere else, Duke was looking as list as Tim, and Cass was just smirking at him with a look of amusement.

He could also see the faces of various employees of Wayne Enterprises, among them being Lucius and Tam.

What was going on?

The door closed behind him, and he turned to see Danny standing behind him.

"Bruce, this is an Intervention."

[bacchuschucklefuck]

while teen while goblin while aroace while injured while doing your best

[uncanny-tranny]

Please intentionally attempt to see the magic in everything. Everything is magic, even if you understand the "boring" reasons why things happen. Look at the magic in growing plants, the magic of your muscles flexing and retracting, the magic of your eyes and skull, the magic of a cat's purr.

It's all magic. Understanding the "why" is just understanding what makes things magical, it doesn't change that it's all significant and magic.

[fernsnailz]

sorry these kinds of comments have been really pissing me off recently lol

[leisi-lilacdreams]

"...here comes the Commanders..."

details and close ups under cut

the "commanders" bit is just background lore in some of li and ame's fics and is not that important i just needed some flavor text to add to the pic

[wantonlywindswept]

okay but like space jesus baby anakin declaring 'you can't kill a jedi' and the force is like 'oh shit fr? guess that's how it is now'

so jedi just. stop dying. they're confused but maybe okay with it? like some of the older ones still die of old age but when they're out fighting somehow they always make it through

palpatine is furious. he knows what's going on and tries to convince anakin that jedi CAN die, look at all these past instances, but anakin just looks at him like he's crazy 'okay but none of the jedi I'VE met ever die'

and palps is desperately trying to prove that jedi can die by actually killing jedi but like. no. they can't die. all his attempts to kill them fail.

and anakin is a nine year old child going 'well if i've never seen it happen then obviously it's not true'

10-year plan to wipe out the jedi foiled by one (1) overpowered boy confidently deciding that jedi can't die, seeing that jedi never die growing up, and thus continuing to believe that jedi cannot die even when there's a war on and jedi should DEFINITELY be dying

palpatine has time scheduled every night just so he can scream into the void in frustration

[wandixx]

Danny, the Young Justice member snippet nr 2

these snippets aren't connected in anyway but just some little scenes I came up with, everyone is welcome to build up on them if they want to

Trigger warning: death mentioned, self-harm mentioned, idk, Danny gets flashback to portal incident

unrelated snippet nr 1, unrelated snippet nr 3 (?)

Out, out, out.

He tripped over his own legs and almost fell and it didn’t matter because he needed to get out. 

Away, away, away. 

He wasn’t sure if he ran or flew or dragged himself on the rough floor but he had to get away. His back hit a wall and he couldn’t get past it, intangibility just out of his grasp.

He logically knew that Zeta Tube wasn't the same as the portal but it was similar. So deadly similar.

He wasn’t sure when his own, corps-like, trembling with rigor mortis cold hands started rubbing his arms. He also wasn’t sure whether it was to comfort himself in this lonely self-hug or to try to rub hard enough that the hazmat and skin underneath would be torn, allowing him to see his own, red blood running in his veins. It was still red, right? It was still red, right? Of course it was still running, why wouldn’t it?

His knees gave up. He fell to the ground with quiet reverbatting thump, his eyes fixated on danger at the other side of the large room. He had to get further away but he couldn’t.

Because he was dying again.

Eyes full of tears and terror were jumping around, unable to see the room around him. Why couldn’t he see anything? Why were there only splashes of various colors, all contrasting with a light gray background. Were these people? Colors were moving, that seemed likely. Ghosts?! He had to get ready if these were ghosts he needed to fight them. People could be in danger and he couldn’t even stand without support. He started it, he had to take care of it, no matter how he felt right now.

His normally overly, unnaturally sensitive ears were filled with constant electric buzz from still active Zeta Tubes.

He was quite sure someone was yelling something but no matter what, Danny couldn’t understand what was being said. He tried looking around again but his teary eyes still failed him. There were no red stains though. Not in the right shade at least. No one was bleeding. It was okay for now.

Was it really? He hadn’t bled when he was dying had his accident though. It was all inside him, the crushing hollowness inside him and infinite outside pressure making his body implode. Ectoplasm bubbling in his mouth, throat, stomach and fingers, silencing his scream of agony and destroying his muscles. His limbs were limp and tense, twitching like a broken light bulb, out of his control but not out of his senses. It was so cold that it bit his bones and so hot that his skin was melting. There were screams so loud that it could shatter glass, as if every inhabitant of the Ghost Zone wanted to be heard and absolute suffocating silence. He was alone like nobody ever was and stuck in a stifling crowd that could stomp him to death any second. It was all contrasting, impossible but happening, existing together. He lived died it.

It was impossible, just like him.

There were others, they could help while Danny got himself together.

They couldn’t help if it was a ghost. He had to calm down and get ready to fight.

He couldn’t.

It was all happening again.

He was dying again.

It hurt to even think about.

Would it at least kill him for good?

Air he hadn’t needed before, not since his first death he always needed, like all functioning, alive human beings, got stuck in his lungs. He was gasping for it, choking on it. There was something stuck in his throat. SOme part of his brain that wasn’t screaming in agony and panic and loneliness had considered tearing his neck open just to get whatever was stuck swallowing but it didn’t help. 

He rubbed his arms harder. His eyes were locked on a blurred, still active portal. One of the color blobs moved, growing larger but he couldn’t think about what it meant. His arms hurt. It was good. Pain was grounding. In a gray room with few portals. Not the basement. Ghosts still could be there but it wasn't a basement. He still needed to get ready to fight

If he could feel pain, it meant he was alive, right? Ghosts never showed that they felt pain right? His parents always said they couldn’t.

He knew it was a lie but he felt like it was his last hope.

He realized that growing group of colors actually looked like a person but he had no way to tell whether they were alive or not. His ghost sense was quiet but he didn’t trust himself to not miss it. His throat was still shut tightly. His body kept twitching like a glitching character. No matter what, he couldn’t fight right then. He had to get himself together.

He scratched his arms almost violently.

Warm, soft, gentle hands pried his palms away from his arms. It wasn't a ghost. Ghosts weren't this gentle, this calmingly warm. Someone, someone who was alive, was crouching in front of him, face at the same level as his, hiding portals from his sight. Danny nearly sunk into their gentle touch.

“-om." their voice also was so gentle, filled with concern but firm enough to get to him over the buzz of portals. He tried to concentrate on this voice. He didn't want to hear portals.

"-ntom." It sounded like they were calling someone. He had to focus more to understand. Gentle grip on his wrists got more firm. There he was. He wouldn't feel it if he was dying again.

"Phantom." They called quietly, like little windbells Sam gave him as a birthday present. It was his name, they were asking him something he couldn't understand, something he couldn't do.

"I'm sorry."

He wasn't sure if any sound came out of his mouth.

Grip on his hands loosened a little, not enough for him to do anything about it, but enough to return to the pure feeling of safety and reassurance it gave him before.

“It's okay Phantom." they murmured. Danny nearly cried at their kindness and calmness. Air slowly started to fill his lungs again. It truly was okay, he wasn't dying again."Can you focus on five things you can see for me?"

He could do it. It wasn't much to repay the gentle person kneeling in front of him.

He blinked tears away and started the list in his head.

Black Canary in front of him.

Superboy in the middle of the room. He looked like he didn't know what to do.

Kid Flash next to him, ready to come to where Danny was shaking on the floor.

Robin and Artemis both made sure that Kid stayed where he was.

Miss Martian for sure feeling his panic and having trouble coping with this. He should calm down as soon as he can, he didn't want to cause any of his teammates too much stress.

Danny nodded, looking once again at the only adult hero in the room.

Molecules in his body were rearranging again. It all hurt.

"Thank you Phantom. Can you focus on four things you can hear?"

Five racing heartbeats.

One heartbeat that sounded more like buzz because of its speed. KF's heart was always weird.

Tapping of someone's feet.

Zeta Tubes.

He had been in the portal again, it had turned on with him inside again. He was dying again.

Next cautious nod.

"Alright. Now three things you can touch." Black Canary still sounded so calm, so sure she had it all under control. So contrary to her panicked heart. Danny wanted to believe her voice.

Canary's hands still on his wrists. In fact she was touching him more than he was her, but it still counted. There was some physics rule about it.

Cold stone he was sitting on. Weird, he was sure this cave was heated.

Hard wall pressing on his spine.

"Excellent. Two things you can smell?"

Jazz had done same exercise with him before.

Cookies made by Megan before she went on a mission.

Ectoplasm. Somewhere there was ectoplasm that wasn't inside him. He couldn't smell his own ecto. But there was no ghost in the cave. His sense was silent. It was there somehow else. It was concerning but not enough to make him panic again. They could handle it.

His lungs were still aching but air started filling them nearly as much as it did normally. His limbs stopped shaking so much too. He knew he wasn't dying this time. He was calming down.

"You're doing great Phantom. Now think, what's one thing you can taste?"

Aftertaste of ectoplasm he spat between the rough fight and the moment when Kid Flash rushed him to the nearest Zeta Tube, talking about medical attention. Danny tried to tell him, he didn't need that but he was inside before his explanation left his mouth.

"Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah," It was all he was able to say at the moment. He truly felt better but that didn't mean good. It was only a little less bad than shitty, one step from fully dead.

I considered writing continuation with Danny explaining a bit what happened and how he even ended up in Zeta Tube but a) lost spark to rewrite it b) hated what already had But if you want, I can probably rub my remaining two braincels together and continue. Or someone else can. Do it if you want to. Do it. Do it

[transsophiedevereaux]

hardison is such a homemaker... always getting them fully furnished new bases, always getting them ID's and plane tickets. is it any wonder that parker is so attracted to someone who always makes others just that bit more comfortable, who cares so obviously, who will make you a home that you can go to and leave from unconditionally, even if you never had a home like that before.

[lilyimmsim]

the crows would have absolutely loved monopoly

[originalartblog]

concept: ADA!Chuuya, but All Men Are Equal gave him total control of his ability by stabilizing it and getting rid of his permanent singularity, so he reverted to his original power: enhancing others' abilities.

Bonus:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Assisting Acquaintance Acquired.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[crotchapple]

Ya know, I think the biggest twist in the last episode of Mentopolis was when Brennan threw A Tension and Dan Fucks into an Ace Attorney farce style courthouse only for Danielle Radford to absolutely fucking crush it, then reveal she used to be a paralegal before her comedy career took off

[uncanny-tranny]

The whole "breasts shouldn't be politicized because the primary purpose of breasts is to feed babies!" can be a fine jumping-off point, but I really wish people thought deeper than that when we talk about the ways in which bodies are politicized and restricted.

Like, why's it that when we talk about breasts, they must have some Higher Purpose? It's true that breasts aren't inherently sexual, but they aren't valuable solely because they can potentially feed a baby. A human body doesn't have to serve a Higher Purpose in order for it to not be legislated against or policed, and I just wish people would remember it isn't always about babies, about other people, about anything else other than the people who have that body.

[naamahdarling]

You know what? You know what I think?

I think that if we lived as we were meant to, in larger intimate ("extended family") groups and with more shared labor and time to do it (UBI NOW) people like me would not feel so useless and burdensome because there would be people around to help and to do what neurodivergent people can't while making valuable space for the neurodivergent to do what they ARE good at.

The way we live right now, all right, the way we live right now forces units of two adults to be able to do EVERYTHING or PAY to have someone come do it for them. I have to do the housework. I have to do it! But I am having to do a million different things and most of them I am not good at. I suck at them.

I wouldn't feel like shit, okay, if I had more than one other person around who was not a child and who could do the things I can't, like do the yard and cook and do repairs and basic maintenance; and someone else to split everything else that I like but is too much for me. It would free me to do what I am good at and enjoy. Cleaning, as in the sink and toilet, the windows, the blinds. Taking out trash. Folding, hanging, and sorting laundry.

But because all the shit I can do often relies on other shit being done first, and I can't do or have trouble doing those things, the shit I can do often can't be done. And even the shit I can do, I can't do ALL of it. So I can't keep up, and things get very bad.

We aren't meant to live like this. We are not meant to live like this.

That thought hurts so much because being able to flee the birth family is integral to survival for so many people. I'm so afraid that living in larger family groups would create more opportunities for, say, queer kids to be isolated, rejected, bullied, and abused. But if we gave people enough money to survive, and stopped considering children the property of their parents with no system in place to help them escape bad situations except a system that is often just as bad, just different.

I'm aware that communes and collectives aren't all that successful and are kind of a joke. I don't mean that. I mean a fundamental shift to multigenerational families where taking in "strays" (which my family did) is also normalized so people escaping abuse into existing households was accepted, with these families centered in maybe a couple of different larger residences so not everyone has to buy and maintain their own fucking washing machine and vacuum cleaner, and so people can benefit from large group meals that yield leftovers, and so child and elder care can also be centralized.

Then disabled people and the neurodivergent and sick and injured people, and pregnant people, and grieving people, would not have to either labor through all those stressors or consign themselves to living off an unlivable pittance or being put under legal guardianship.

I'm not saying anything new. People live like this in other parts of the world and maybe it sucks and I am wrong. But I'm just really mad right now because I can either do laundry or clean the sink but not both, and I really think we could improve society somewhat by making it so I did not have to choose one without sacrificing the other.