Uh-
just found out my cousin (who lives in England) is in the art department of a bunch of shows??? And she worked oN DOCTOR WHO? AND HAD LUNCH WITH DAVID TENNANT???? and she just told me so casually because she's interested in the art, not the show? I mean, excuse me? She worked on SHERLOCK???? FOR A WHOLE SEASON?? She worked on Peaky Blinders and Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones??? And probably other things because she has a shitty memory and according to her everything is a blur?? AND AT ONE POINT SHE WAS LIKE: "oh and have you ever heard of Neil Gaiman?" And I was trying not to scream, because yes, of course I've heard of Neil, he's only my favorite author, I've only read like all of his books multiple times, and if you say you worked on Good Omens or the Sandman I'm going to lose it completely. So I said "yeah I've read a couple of his books," -you know, like a liar- "what about him?" and she goes "well I worked on one of his shows and he's brilliant i just can't remember which one" and i go "w-what do you mean he's brilliant? You're.. you're talking about his writing... his writing is brilliant, right?" And she cheerfully says "oh no I don't read books, I ment he was really nice and brilliant when I talked to him" and i go "WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT" and she thinks for a moment and goes "oh! BRICKS" WHAT IN THE WORLD YES NO THAT MAKES SENSE YOU GET TO WORK AND TALK WITH NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN AND YOU TALK ABOUT BRICKS? NO THAT'S TOTALLY NORMAL I'M NOT MAD ".... it was what I was designing at the time, I needed to know what vibe the bricks should have. Anyway want to see the spinning fireplace I made for doctor who" WHAT THE FUCK.
@neil-gaiman do you remember any brick conversations by any chance
26K notes
·
View notes
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.
18K notes
·
View notes
Pt III good omens but i STILL SOMEHOW haven't watched it (and i'm increasingly passive aggressive)
i'm now basically held hostage adopted as mascot by this fandom. it's fine i'm fine *SIGNALS FOR HELP DESPERATELY*
Alright fuckers I swear this time I'm going to get some shit right. Without further ado, here's my third attempt at a good omens summary:
Everything everywhere is queer all at once
Angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley on earth likey each other
The car is a bentley and it is BLACK not silver and everyone is very upset about this. my bad yall it was reflecting light therefore i guessed more silver than black but I'm not Anish Kapoor take your black.
Then it is yellow, and aziraphale likes it. crowley preferred the black because he's a flamboyant emo.
God is a deadbeat absentee parent and you are all children of divorce.
There's a naked archangel and they cause problems for the husbands somehow. By being naked? By being an archangel? By being at their doorstep? Who knows not me
They were actually married for 6000 years, they just are the last to know about it.
Crowley is on fire. Like, he's slaying for sure, but also he is literally on fire, like Aziraphale's bookstore.
The actors like I said before are Michael Sheen and David Tennant but this is the place where I finally admit that I don't actually know who is whom. I'm going to assume Michael is Aziraphale because Michael sounds angel-y and David is Crowley because uh Michaelangelo made David and was gay for him.
Terry Pratchett is not fictional.
He co-wrote the book with @neil-gaiman, who IS fictional, because he does not have social media. Several of you have assured me that he is in fact a fandom inside joke. I like to think he would be proud of me.
They adopt a preteen and Crowley gives him bad advice.
At some point a baby was delivered to someone and was exchanged for the son of Satan. Idk if the baby is the preteen, or the son of satan is the preteen, or neither. This could be a fanfic, I have no way of differentiating the fanfic from canon on tumblr, except that the canon is weirder.
Crowley does not go down a chute. He goes down a telephone cord after making himself microscopic to pole dance on a pin with shroom-induced backgrounds.
During this his stage name is Disco Tony. Get it king go slay you're making better life choices than I am tbh.
Aziraphale is a biblically accurate angel, and you have all gone to extensive lengths to prove this to me. I understood nothing, but there you go.
It's all very queer, just like the fandom.
Crowley is a retired demon but he still sins by breaking the speed limit.
They eat at fancy restaurants and bicker but like in a sexual undercurrent way.
Crowley gives Aziraphale a private dance that is not a lap dance, it is an apology dance, but not in a kinky way, until it is.
Their haircuts keep changing and range from 'this is acceptable and gay' to 'i let a drunk chimpanzee take gardening shears and a blowtorch to my hair'
It's all ineffably queer my good fellows
Everyone keeps trying to convince me Neil Gaiman is the villain yeah no guys I know it's really you. Y'all be like 'SEASON TWO BROKE ME' and then you're making headcanons to make it sadder yeah I see you mmhm.
There is a final fifteen. It is sad. What is it? No one told me.
The demon turns goats into crows and the angel turns them back and then children are turned into newts (does the angel turn them back? who cares not yall) and the demon was the snake in the Eden garden and everyone's furry game seems to be on point.
There are a rather lot of children. I have not seen them. But I am assured they are there. They are, guys. I assume they were turned into the alcohol Aziraphale and Crowley drink or something.
There was an apocalypse plotline. It was averted. It is not important. You don't talk about plotlines in this fandom, no sir.
Crowley doesn't want to go to heaven. Aziraphale is sad.
The kiss is not nice, just like this fandom. It is queer, just like this fandom. It is sad and desperate and masochistic, just like this fandom.
Aziraphale doesn't want to stay back with Crowley. Crowley is sad.
Season 2 ends. Fandom is sad.
Everyone's sanity is hinging on the promise of a happy ending in season 3. Good luck guys.
Y'all better appreciate this. I can't even boast to my mother about this legacy of mine, hey mum your son has been held hostage kidnapped inducted into a cult adopted by a fandom he's not part of look he's winning at life.
4K notes
·
View notes