Justin 💀

The Cherry Magic dub is so unhinged I have genuinely cackled out loud so many times, what a delight.

Omg I have too many favorite birds, maybe like a top 30??? But then I feel like I discover a new bird every day and a new fav!

Of my local birds probably great blue herons, egrets, cormorants, wood ducks, cardinals, ravens, and cedar waxwings (still haven't seen one though T_T).

Welcome back!

Ah thank you friend ;0; 💕

Bluesky seems like a chill space, I'm relieved that there's at least one space that's not totally hostile :')

Enjoying the nature around you feels essential tbh! And I get it, I love birds too! We have many bird feeders to try and collect all of the locals heh

My re-read and watch list, in case anyone is curious:

Big Bad Wolf series, Charlie Adhara
Champion of the Scarlet Wolf, Ginn Hale
Things Unseen and Deadly, Ginn Hale
Think of England, KJ Charles
Roaring Twenties Magic series, Allie Therin
Mignon (webseries), Bboung Bbang Kkyu

I’m somewhat of a hermit at my core, but I want to do better. And show up, and be present. I want to make games, and write stories, and sculpt, and draw for myself, and to celebrate the stories I love. And I want to do that where I can share in that essential and core joy with others.

It’s been more than just a little sobering to open up old projects and seeing “Last Modified: November 2023”. That feels like an awfully long time to not have Hard not to dwell on the regret of all of that lost time.

I've been, entirely by my own fault, isolated from community, and compatriots, and deprived myself of the essential joy of getting to experience the work of other artists.

I hadn’t really understood that by isolating myself and hiding away, and being barraged day-to-day by a world that’s gleefully embracing the exploitation of artists, I’ve also isolated myself from the other side of things.

I felt like I could breathe for the first time in years. And only then did I realize how much I’ve been suffocating.

I got to spend a few days just living in the world around me, sitting in the sun, breathing in fresh air. Not having to hear about the monster that’s been chipping away at my soul. And I read. Specifically I re-read some of my favourite stories. Work that’s genuinely touched me.

Recently, I took a few days off to stave off the burnout that had climbed to a fever pitch. It was only a few days, and not the only bit of time off that I’ve taken in the past couple of years. But something was different this time.

I could almost hear the higher ups licking their lips ready to replace my job with AI. Much to their disappointment, writers have proven to be irreplaceable, so here I still am, years later.

It’s been especially bizarre to be working professionally as a technical writer, a job that I genuinely enjoy, in a deeply toxic environment; a tech company that gleefully embraces all of the worst stereotypes of exploitative tech bros.

It’s been soul-crushing, to put it lightly. I’ve lost count of the number of tears shed, panic attacks, dark moods, futile rages, and wasted listless time over the past couple of years because of this.

Still, I can’t get through a meeting or a conversation without it involving genAI. Recently they made it a mandate to use AI, and if you don’t, then you don’t have a job.

But I’ve been surviving so far by numbing myself to it as much as I can. Keeping my head down, doing my work, which I do extremely well, in the same way that I have been. Trying to ignore it when I can, let it wash over me when I can’t. Just trying not to engage.

I didn’t stop, because trying to stop making art would be like trying to stop breathing.

I have a full time job; I didn’t need art to survive. I thought the best way that I could help my fellow creatives working professionally was to not feed the beast. So about two years ago. I pulled down all of my art, purge my accounts, and since then I’ve kept my creative work offline.

Well, hello, here I am. I didn’t really mean to be gone for so long. Like other creatives, I’ve been reckoning with the pervasive and insidious creep of generative AI in creative spaces.

It's so good; I just heard about it and I've re-watched it like 4 times already.

(and thank youuu, I'm attempting to come out of hibernation TwT ❤️)

Extremely late to the party but I just watched Mignon and I think that it's permanently altered my brain chemistry.