"she is fierce and first to defend me in my moment of trouble or need. her wit and laughter sustain me and never come at my expense. and when we part, there is no sadness because our bond is always there. she is not just my friend, she is a gift, both precious and rare." maura's poem about jane (yeah you read that correctly) (and their faces while it's being read) in 6x16
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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.
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People call Heaven Official’s Blessing / TGCF a slow burn but Hua Cheng is literally courting Xie Lian like they are DATING. Slow burn who??? They’re sleeping next to each other on straw mats and Xie Lian’s offering to cook him dinner and they’re bantering across THE HOME THEY SHARE like a bunch of desperate hussys
San Lang LEAVES XL WITH A KEEPSAKE OF THEIR TIME TOGETHER SLOW BURN WHOMST
They have A DATE in HC’s armoury where they HOLD HANDS and XL pets San Lang’s quivering sword I-
Hua Cheng basically throws himself at this man he’s like you want a sword?? All of them ?? You want ALL THE SWORDS?? Fuck it take the whole room THE WHOLE ROOM JUST COME VISIT I WILL CLEAN THEM FOR YOU
Like he isn’t the king of a whole realm with shit to do
And this is just the first half of the first book—again I ask the world SLOW BURN WHOMST
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Actual Phone Conversation I Had With A Girl Absolutely Going Through It This Morning:
me very quickly: hi this is dylan from x. how are you today? is now a good time to talk?
girl on the phone: what? oh you know! it's just work, work, work.
me: haha yeah! Just another busy Monday :)
girl on the phone i have known for exactly 11 seconds: sometimes i wish it would just stop. it's relentless. and it's every week! how many mondays can someone go through?
me trying to do my job: ha ha i know right? so I'm calling--
girl on the phone i have known for exactly 16 seconds: i'm so tired. i'm soooooo tired. shelby kept me up all night again. she will not get over keegan. they keep calling each other just to yell i swear to god.
me: only 4 days till the weekend and some sleep! :D
girl: yeah. but she's sleeping with me. at my house. didn't he tell you? who is going to get the dog? or the fucking 300 dollar blender I got them?
me: unfortunately no! so i would love to know more but the reason i'm calling is to get you scheduled for x job interview are you still interested?
girl whispering: what?
me awkwardly: it's...i'm dylan. from x. the x job you applied for. we would like to interview you for it.
girl: oh my god. no. oh my - I am so sorry. I thought you were my friend--I cannot believe--I told you work was relentless. I don't really mean that! I talked about blenders!
me: no, no I totally get it. It can be. But that's why you're interviewing for somewhere better! Tell Shelby to apply too! Do you have any availability on Thursday?
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