#what am i reading for

[legogradstudent]

Reading something, the grad student barely retains anything.

#LEGO #phd #phd life #grad school #grad school problems #grad student #grad student problems #grad life #graduate life #reading #book #manuscript #article #memory #remember #productivity #what am i reading #what am i reading for

[givemeureyes]

day 1 without ao3: i have gone through all 5 stages of grief multiple times and have invented a 6th. i will not disclose what the 6th stage of grief is.

#I AM GOING INSANE #what am i supposed to do?? #’you should work on your WIP’ NO I CANTTT #‘ read actual books on your real bookshelf’ NUH UH #ao3 #archive of our own #i’m tagging ships #malec #destiel #hannigram #jonmartin #tomgreg #kenstewy #imagine all the fics i could be reading rn

[elminster-big-naturals]

when its 4am and the whole squad is zooted out their gourds trying to read the overhead menu in mcdonalds

#baldur's gate 3 #i've been them all #wyll: the smell of dirty fry oil is making him green out #astarion: 100% of his energy is dedicated to keeping his face perfectly neutral. he hasn't said or heard a word since they left camp #lae'zel: wait. where do my arms go. how do i noramlly hold my arms. what. am i supposed to do with my arms??? ogh god everyone knows im hig #anthrael: has been trying to read the menu for 13 minutes now but the pictures on the screens keep changing too fast

[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.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!! #my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her) #hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet. #i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!! #i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art. #i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

[mintaikcorpse]

Enjoy Blake Roman shipping Huskerdust

#i relate to him bcuz i too want to become a voice actor just so i can voice my favorite blorbos and talk about them #and then say my headcanons about them which can now be read as semi-canon because I AM THE VA #AND WHAT I SAY SEMI-GOES #blake roman #huskerdust #hazbin hotel husk #husk hazbin hotel #angel dust #hazbin hotel angel dust #angel dust hazbin hotel #husk #hazbin hotel

[secondbeatsongs]

as a bi person, the bisexual flag brings me infinite joy and always puts a smile on my face, however as a person who has a Passion for Graphic Design, that undersaturated shade of purple infuriates me when it's used digitally

like, on an actual flag - which was its original purpose - it looks great!

those look fine! lovely, even! with the semi-transparent fabric, the way it catches the sunlight, it looks beautiful!

but now look at how it looks digitally

the pink and blue are so vibrant compared to the sad, lonely lavender!

and let's look at this statement from Michael Page, the creator of the bi flag:

(sidenote: he created this flag in 1998, so if his takes on bisexuality is different from yours, it's okay to notice that! a lot has changed since the 90s when it comes to lived experiences and the way we describe them. but, it's also important to respect his thoughts about this and the way he presented them, even if today, we'd probably not say that bi people "blend unnoticeably into both the gay/lesbian and straight communities.")

so in pantone colors, the pink is 226 C, the blue is 286 C, and the purple of the flag is 258 C.

but...here's the deal

Michael talks here about how the key to understanding the symbolism is to know that the purple blends into both the pink and blue. and on a physical flag, I think you can see that!

but digitally, it absolutely does not blend. it clashes badly, and looks oddly separate from the other two colors.

which got me wondering...what purple do you get if you actually blend 226 C and 286 C?

oh! oh, my god.

look at that! look at how nicely it fits between those colors!

look at it next to the original color scheme! look at how much more vibrant the purple is!

and friends. this is just blending through rgb! you get even more purple variations when you use other color spaces!

let's compare all of them:

(top: original, lab. middle: lrgb, lch. bottom: rgb, hsl)

look at all of the different purple options you can get just by combining these two colors!

if you want almost too-vibrant saturation, you can go hsl, if you want something more relaxed that's closer to the original, you can go lab or lrgb. and if you want to split the difference, lch is bright and violet, while rgb is there with its saturated but darker purple.

anyway, I guess I don't really have a point here? this isn't so much an informational post as it is Me Getting Weird About Colors, but I think it is a useful lesson about how colors look very different on screens compared to how they look on objects in real life.

and sometimes, I think it's okay to compensate for that.

out of all of these, this is my favorite bi flag:

it's the one where the colors were blended in lab color space. for me, the lighter, softer purple is close enough to the original bi flag purple, while also feeling like a smoother blend of the blue and pink

but that's just me! and it might not even look the same to you, since every screen is different, because technology is a nightmare!

anyway, thank you for coming with me on this colorful journey! I will now retreat back to inkscape and make pained sounds about inkstitch gradients until something tangible pulls me back into reality

#bi #bisexual #bisexuality #bi flag #bisexual flag #sbs rambles #graphic design is my passion #id in alt text #but #the ids are probably deeply unhelpful for the different variations of flags #in the alt text of the six flags all grouped together #I just put what method the purples were blended with #and then tried to describe them more in the paragraph below #but this is an inherently visual post #so if you're reading it with a screen reader I am sorry :(

[weaselmcdiesel]

i was being so so so real when i said id make more katnep comics

#but this one isnt funny. >:) #it's SWEET #my art #fan art #homestuck #karkat #karkat vantas #nepeta #nepeta leijon #katnep #karnep #nepkat #i am not used to limiting my palette im still experimenting! #i hope the colors i chose arent stupid i think theyre nice #if no one can tell what's in the poster it's the miniature tigers album poster #idk i thought maybe shed like it idk #also if it's hard to read kk's apron it says #cull the gastrotechnician #ummm this is an au where they live together uhhhh and also trolls have beds ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #idk

[fluffyblue-multifandommess]

"Yagami Light as a youtuber would probably plagiarise" WRONG Yagami Light is insanely intelligent and looks down on literally every single other human person, he would rather stab himself in the eye than using the works of someone else - someone who can't be anything but beneath him. Pre-Death Note youtuber!Light would make long-ass videos about Everything Wrong With Society with completely unhinged takes about how xyz small innocuous thing is responsible for gang violence with numbers* to back it up.

"Light would plagiarise" get the fuck out of here.

*numbers which he completely twists to his own bias - without even knowing it because he thinks way too highly of himself

#imagine thinkinig yagami light - self-proclaimed god and arbiter of justice - would ever stoop! #to passing someone else's work as his own!!! #to him it would be like if he picked up trash off the side of the road and said 'look what i made'. girl please #blue fandom ramblings #death note #i am going to Entertain op's premise and read the rest of the post now but #i had to get this out of the way first

[obsob]

bedtime story with my love !!

#mine #cats #oooooooooogh im so cold....bath time bath time :3 ! #i hope everyone is hvaing a good week i am now DONE with work !!!!! hehe !!!!!!!!!! #i might not do any drawing for a little while . maybe just felt tips #also. cannnot for the life of me decide what 2 read...am like 30% way thro assassins fate but Um its . a little intense so im taking a brea #idk what im in the mood for....something....fun... but isnt bad #i feel like all 'light' books r bad. maybe i will just reread the goblin emperor. as i always do when all else fails #also. am going ice skating tomorrow i am SO excited . i hvent been in so so long its so exciting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #mwah. hve good evening :3

[theophagie]

I thought I was losing it but no, kh1 Sora's fast swimming animation really does change after you've been to Atlantica. It's a small detail, but also a cute and smart one 🥺

#edit nobody say anything i didn't realise that the dolphin kick ability extended to beyond atlantica ok i am dumb #and i didn't even think to read over its description twice. ok #but still!!! by lore he Did learn to swim better there so (*copium*) #kingdom hearts #video games #mytext #what i learned since making this post is that people don't read tags

[madscientistenthusiast]

Personally I think that Azula should have been redeemed simply so that she can become Zuko's horrible little advisor who whispers evil little plans to him so that he can do the exact opposite

#the only reason she gets this job is bc he doesnt trust her anywhere else in the palace #its like enrichment for manipulative girls #also so that he can set her on asshole deligates like a rabid little lapdog #she just has mean fuckin pomeranian energy that thing bites then lights you on fire w flames so hot theyre cold #i think their sibling dynamic could be sooo fucking funny its insane #azula #azula atla #atla #avatar the last airbender #zuko #atla zuko #firelord zuko #DISCLAIMER I AM YET TO READ THE COMICS SO IDK WHAT HAPPENS TO HER IN THEM #also long overdue for a rewatch of the show its insane

[tenowls]

teacher getou au...... wauh

#jujutsu kaisen #geto suguru #gojo satoru #itadori yuuji #kugisaki nobara #fushiguro megumi #teacher getou au #satosugu #fanart #very funny how gojo leaves both yuuji and yuuta on their first mission hssdjshjdd #i know hes technically watching but. these kids do not know anything abt jujutsu at that point and theyre also KIDS. worst teacher HKSDKSD #anyway. been trying to look for fics but haven’t been able to find one i wanna read so i was like ok I’ll do it myself #however i am not a good writer so. DRAWINGS OF RANDOM LITTLE SCENES WILL HAVE TO DO #i want a plot focused fic w a side of shipping…. blease if anyone out there has any recs #as in like. the shipping written in a way that’s relevant to the plot #i want to see the rammies explored. yknowyknow #what happened differently in the aftermath of rikos death to make getou want to be a teacher instead #how is jjk0 different without him as the main antagonist and who does kenjaku take as a host #how does shibuya play out #how are both he and gojo different as characters #having grown up into adulthood together #getou as gojo’s moral compass etc #YKNOWYKNOW #i am aware that to explore all of that would be a monster of a fic which is probably why it does not exist (to my knowledge) but #IF THERES ANY FICS OUT THERE THAT EXPLORE EVEN SOME OF IT. PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY #EVEN A FUN LITTLE CASEFIC WHERE THEY GO ON A QUICK MISSION OR SMTH #AS LONG AS THERES PLOT #another theoretical fic i would like to read is canonverse post-shibuya but like with a plot that makes sense #jjk my favourite mediocre shounen battle manga. could be so much better. has anyone attempted this #that one post thats like im not a hater im a dismayer. thats me

[temperamentalaquarius]

Ugh the way fanon Jason calling Tim replacement v.s. canon Jason calling Tim pretender flattens Jason's motivations and the whole Jason and Tim relationship. 'Replacement' directs all of Jason's anger to Bruce. It makes Tim and Jason allies in victimhood. 'Here is this callous man that views us as interchangeable, can't you see that we're nothing to him?' 'Pretender' though... that holds Tim accountable for his role in making Jason's death meaningless. 'You saw everything I was, all that I gave, and you used it as a springboard to become what I should have been' is a lot more complex, and a lot more thematically accurate to Jason's whole deal. It's a larger gap for the characters to bridge, especially when Tim is coming from the perspective that his becoming Robin was not only right, it was necessary.

#jason todd #red hood #tim drake #Robin #Red Robin #(?) #idk what hero tag we're using for Tim these days #bitch i might wing #disclaimer cuz I'm tired of reading this comment #I AM VERY AWARE THAT HE IS ANGRY AT BRUCE I AM TALKING ABOUT TIM THO

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

#this was much longer i had to cut it down for legibility #but i do want to say i am aware this post doesnt touch on human rights violations as a result of fast fashion #that is because it deserves its own post with a completely different tone #i am an environmental educator #so that's what i know the most about. it wouldn't be appropriate of me to mention off-hand the real and legitimate suffering #that people are going through #without doing my research and providing real ways to help #this is a vent post about a thing i'm watching happen; not a call to action. it would be INCREDIBLY demeaning #to all those affected by the fast fashion industry to pretend that a post like this could speak to their suffering #unfortunately one of the horrible things about latestage capitalism as an activist is that SO many things are linked to this #and i WANT to talk about all of them but it would be a book in its own right. in fact there ARE books about each level of this #and i encourage you to seek them out and read them!!! i am not an expert on that i am just a person on tumblr doing my favorite activity #(complaining) #and it's like - this is the individual versus the industry problem again right because im blaming myself #for being an expert on environmental disaster (which is fucking important) but not knowing EVERYTHING about fast fashion #i'm blaming myself for not covering the many layers of this incredibly complicated problem im pointing out #rather than being like. yeah so actually the fault here lies with the billion dollar industries actually. #my failure to be able to condense an incredibly immense problem that is BOOK-LENGTH into a single text post that i post for free #is not in ANY fucking way the same amount of harm as. you know. the ACTUAL COMPANIES doing this ACTUAL THING for ACTUAL MONEY. #anyway im gonna go donate money while i'm thinking about it. maybe you can too. we can both just agree - well i fuckin tried didn't i #which is more than their CEOs can say

[laviejaguardia]

personally victimized by this show's soundtrack choices

#mmine #the bear #the bear fx #sydcarmy #syd x carmy #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto #syd adamu #sydney x carmy #just..... syd asking for help for what's like the first ? time #and then that song kicks in ?? i am UNWELL #also realized a ship name could be bermu like the drink which just makes me laugh #i'm like 3ys late to the party ik i'm just a late bloomer #it's more like i got the invite and it sounded cool but i was busy with another stuff #and just now read it completely and realized it's something i love

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Horse Meshi. Delicious, in Horse.

#dungeon meshi #laois touden #marcille donato #senshi #chilchuk tims #Anne II #I am over a week late to make this relevant but dear god I love the kelpie chapter. #if not for the several layers of foreshadowing then the reveal that nearly everyone in the party is a passionate horse lover. #Truly the best part of dungeon meshi is the sheer love of horses each character has. Fantastic equines by Ryoko Kui. #Chilchuck gets to be a little wary given what goes down in the bicorn chapter. #Rest in peace Anne I and Anne II. You were beautiful horses. #The pain I felt upon re-reading dungeon meshi and realizing that Senshi called the kelpie Anne...Hurts bad! #By the way I have strong feeling about MLP AU with these characters - but I would like to assert that Senshi is earth pony coded #and chilchuck is pegasus coded. I was struggling to draw my vision and went with whatever my pen chose. #Laios is a griffin because...come on if he made a MLP AU of his friends he would be nothing else.