I like to think that Vulcans who come to understand that Humans just can’t try to process emotions the same way as them, it’s just healthiest to let it out in harmless ways, decide that venting and stuff should be taken just as seriously as Vulcan’s meditation time, and will encourage the Humans around them to complain about what’s upsetting them
People who are used to aloof Vulcans who avoid Humans at all cost running into one comforting a Human
“-and then they said my cheesecake was subpar, and they didn’t even bring a dish!!!”
“The purpose of this event was that every participant brings a food item of sorts, correct?”
“Yeah!!”
“And they did not follow this rule while insulting dishes that were brought?”
“Mostly just my dish but yeah >:(“
“How illogical”
“That’s what I’m saying!!!”
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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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the thing about "callout/cancel culture" that convinced me it's rotten to the core is the dehumanisation you face once you become the subject of a campaign like that. a lot of criticisms of callout/cancellation attempts appeal to the humanity of the subject, pointing out that it's unfair and unproductive to treat a person, a fellow human being, regardless of how much harm they've caused and how genuinely unlikable they are, like that. but unfortunately the reality of being the target of a mob mentality often means facing the very isolating and traumatising experience of realising that you've ceased to exist as a person in their eyes. you're a representation of your transgressions, an embodiment of harm that needs to be erased like a blemish, a spectacle for entertainment, a means of earning social approval by publicly condemning and humiliating you in what quickly becomes a competition to see who can strike the blow that knocks you down so you never get up again. nobody cares about who you are outside of what you did. people make mistakes and hurt one another, but there is always the capacity for change, for regret and reparations. you are an irredeemable monster. you can't change. the only way to make sure you can't cause harm ever again is to neutralise you entirely. to drive you off and hurt you so badly that you never consider coming back. and it often succeeds. but it doesn't make the world a better or safer place. it just tells everyone that certain behaviours will be punished, so you should conceal them, and harshly condemn them in others so that everyone knows where you stand; nobody will stand up for you if you're accused and brought out for judgement, so you shouldn't trust anyone, and always be on the lookout to take them down before they can do the same to you. you're not creating a safe, welcoming community. you're creating a panopticon built on fear and punishment.
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So much of Garak as a person starts to make sense once you know his childhood was a fucking gothic novel. His main playground was a graveyard and he'd play pretend by perfoming improv eulogies to an imagined audience. For a long time his main touchstone for most important figures from recent history is 'oh yeah I know about that guy my dad buried him. great flower arrangements for that one'. He finds out later his 'parents' are actually a brother and sister who had to get married to avoid the utter shame and social devastation of having a child born out of wedlock, and they live in the basement of his biological father's house. (the madwoman in the attic vs. the tiny elim in the basement.) His biological father calls himself his uncle and locks him in a closet whenever he fails to live up to his insane and unpredictable expectations and everyone just has to act like that's normal and expected, and his will hangs over everything at all times, unseen but always felt keener than anything else. The father who actually raised him grows the world's most beautiful (and as it turns out, most poisonous) orchids and keeps the mask of a god hidden in a box in his work shed. Everyone in the house is choking down secrets like it's the only air they know how to breathe anymore.
What I'm saying is that right from the get-go this guy never had the faintest shot at turning out normal, so I'm glad that by middle age he's found a way to get a bit silly with it as he continues to be deeply deeply not normal about anything ever <3
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Prompt 249
Danny tilts his head. The masked figure across the roof tilts their head back, a gold similar to Tucker’s eyes shimmering, though he knew it wasn’t him. He lets out a curious chirp, inaudible to the living, and the masked figure stills, as silent as a corpse for several moments before letting out two clicks.
A greeting in turn.
Danny smiles, letting green bleed into his eyes and scurrying over with a croon from his core. I’m here, I’m here, their own core clatters like metal against bone as his responds with the drone of a blackhole. I see you, I see you. I’m HereHereHere.
Yet another twitters in turn, clicking echoing across the city from shadow to shadow until it’s as though the city itself has a heartbeat. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. I’m here, I’m here, not alone, I’m Here.
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Today, my 15 day hunger strike is officially over. The solidarity and strength I feel is incredibly powerful and overwhelming. I can’t even properly put into words how fulfilling these past 2 weeks have been. I appreciate everyone who donated to Anera in honour of my hunger strike, and my friends who participated in solidarity.
My time off tumblr was freeing, though learning of all the hate campaigns for me and my friends and now receiving conspiracy theories about the people in my life has left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m grateful to have this platform so I can do everything in my power to help Palestine, but it’s hard for me to not become angry every time I log in to this site and there is less focus on Palestine and more focus on hate. It has become obvious there are some people who follow me because they want to learn about and help Palestine, but even more people who are only here to speculate on my personal life and view me as a fictional character.
I love and appreciate the Palestinian community I have found on tumblr, but it feels like now the site has turned into all of us having to always do everything we possibly can to get people to focus on Palestine while everyone else can use our efforts for performative reasons. It is not something I want to be a part of, and it does not make me feel good. The past 15 days have given me the clarity to see all of this for what it is, and so for the time being, I am going to continue to focus on the activism I can do in person, and more selectively use this blog to bring attention to gofundmes and resources. I hope this comes across as genuine as I feel right now, and helps some of you see how exploitative this website has become for Palestinians.
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