Edwin Payne is a dweeb who gives terrible weak comebacks, who can be unnecessarily petty, or overly smug, who is inordinately pleased with himself when wearing detective gear and using scientific gear, the thought never crossing his mind that he might not look as cool as he thinks he does, who carries a continual and utter absolute delight at acting like the characters he loved to read about, who was enthralled by his magazine detective and adventure stories and who wears a similar smile when he sits on the bed watching Scooby Doo with Niko, 'these detectives are terribly clever,' whose board game collection is mostly variations of Clue, who requires payment (because any good detective is worth some kind of payment) but whose idea of payment is whatever interesting object the client offers to add to his collection, who has encyclopedic intelligence he clearly dedicated hours to learning, who has a particular way of acting and speaking like everything is of vital importance, because to him, it is.
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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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Pre-dating, Tim or Bernard not knowing the other isn’t straight
Tim, leaning over to look at Bernard’s phone as they chill in Tim’s bedroom: whatcha doing?
Bernard: imma send Red Robin subtle messages until I trick him into admitting he’s into guys so I can sleep with him
Tim, bi panic, blushing: you’re what?
Bernard, typing out a message on his phone: here how does this sound Tim, ‘gay af to be a detective, what are you inspecting, other men??’, sound subtle enough?
Tim, too dumbfounded to speak:
Bernard: yeah you’re right, it’s perfect, imma send it
*Tims phone goes off, and then both watch it light up, Bernard seeing the message he just sent*
Tim, picking up his phone, typing, and sending a message without saying anything, face nearly bright red as he glances over at Bernard, who is staring at him wide eyed not saying anything
Bernard, looking down at the text Tim sent him back as Red Robin that says, ‘I like you, let’s fuck’:
Bernard: hey Tim I have a couple of questions
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Periodic reminder from your friendly neighbourhood gymbro: The work you put in will come back. If you modify your workouts, the reward will still come to you.
So do knee pushups (no, we're not calling them "girl pushups"). Do weight machines. Put the resistance or weight low on machines.
The reward of fitness still benefits you because fitness is not a punishment. It should never be used or seen as a punishment for existing. Fitness is just... part of existence for many of us. However your fitness looks is fine. Don't let the broader fitness culture tell you that you need to do things their way. You'll be fine with what you're doing. If you stop needing modifications as you start doing more intense workouts, great! But if you never stop using modifications, then that's fine because fitness isn't a punishment or admittance of failure.
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