#fuck off. genuinely fuck off

[apollo-cackling]

you would've thought it would be easy to avoid using/propagating high school bully type mockery even if the words "NFT" or "AI" or "tiktok" are attached. on the queer disabled neurodivergent site. and yet and goddamn yet

it's so transparent that whenever some new Bad Thing comes out and it's tumblr's topic of discussion for the week most people don't know/care/care to learn about its actual harmful effects and just want to use it as a way to find socially acceptable people to bully (for low hanging fruit i.e. reactionary reasons)

[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.

[cindersart]

is there ANYTHING more pure than a friend sharing their wip novel or their comic idea or literally any creative project of theirs with you......NO. you made that with your own two hands and if i could eat it i would (out of love respect and admiration obviously)

[wild0moon]

little man's lucky he's gay because he's never having kids after this

[ejsuperstar]

Imagine you live in pelican town. The new farmer has been here a couple weeks now and seems to be settling in, except... He's picking the weirdest friend choices. Like sure it's not weird to befriend the local fisherman, especially when he has an interest in fishing himself, but you're pretty sure you've seen him rooting through the Saloon's garbage with the local homeless man. As well, he keeps harassing the poor guy who works at Joja even though you KNOW he doesn't want to be friends with him.

And since you're on the topic of weirdness, isn't it odd he seemingly runs everywhere at a full sprint? Or just... Eats entire raw fish while fishing for "energy reasons"...

...

Despite all that, it's too early to call him off putting or anything... He has been engaging in town traditions, and he's started helping out with the old community centre. He's probably like the rest of you. Someone with a few quirks, that will fit in with the valley great!

Surely he can't get any weirder... Right?

[arunneronthird]

i am (the rhythm of) the night

[lotus-pear]

old dazai lighting practice i found in my drafts that i have no intention of finishing so u guys can have it

[sunderberry]

and angel was so proud of himself for being able to carry mr-hollow-bones husk over here

based on the hc where husk died from falling, and that's why his demon form is an ironic mix between two animals that should not be taking fall damage

so yeah he's afraid of heights and that's why he doesn't fly

aftermath:

they'll be okay

[latenightsundayblues]

Just remembered that one picture of Leigh standing next to Cary lmfao

Adam wants to get down for the sake of his dignity, and totally not because being hoisted up kinda freaks him out a little

[balleater]

despite being more often than not a "rules as written" fan over "rule of cool", i really do love me a good "rules be damned, i'll give you this awesome moment" call. like matt giving fcg the otohan kill despite what her hp was at or brennan giving cerrit an extra mage slayer reaction attack at the end of calamity. honestly, if anything, i think the fact they mostly play by the book makes these moments even better because it really has that extra weight towards those decisions to put the rules aside.

[andoutofharm]

mania monday really is the only thing keeping me together at this point

[nyancrimew]

you should put " i bought checkmarks " in your bio, we still remember.

wow what a great memory you have of something that never happened, all the checkmarks i had were gifted to me (as is the case with many big blog) i too wish i had like a hundred dollars to just throw away on this website rather than being horribly in debt

[haunted-xander]

That's a roundabout way of asking "is it okay to be trans" Xion

[access-point]

Is anybody else still crying over Inkpot Gods in 2023 or are you normal

[solisevart]

a moment from a cruel summer with you @campbyler that I’ve been meaning to draw for a while! I’ll be real their heads are more visible and hair less messy than what I actually picture when I read the scene but I really wanted the snoozing faces so 🥺 if you haven’t read it (you should!) this is a photo of mike and will that el sends to the party group chat lmao

also on instagram :)

Alt + close up under the cut!

every time I post about @campbyler I’ve gotta give my love to @wiseatom @astrobei @andiwriteordie the busy bees for such a fun fic with characterisation I’m obsessed with, I’d wait a day or a decade for more so 💘💘 me personally I’ve got plenty of scenes I can draw in between chapter drops it’s so chill you guys

[inkskinned]

here's the good news: you don't know what else you still have to learn about this world.

i've been here for almost three decades. i know a lot of things. i know a lot about nature. it can tell you lots of facts about flowers and trees and creatures. i am lucky to say i have spent a large portion of my life wandering around outside.

i didn't know the fog lifts until today. i thought it was just a saying; like how we say rain "peters out", or that "dawn breaks".

goblin and i were walking in a place called pine alley. these red pines all are old wood; they stretch high up. the path is wide and beautiful. the fog was snuggled against the ground in a warm fur. i was on a call with my brother, talking about a funeral.

i've been jaded recently. certain personal things have been going very badly. i'm stressed beyond the breaking point, because i hit the breaking point about 2 months ago and had to keep going. i recently ran out of room on my to-do list for a single day - and i wasn't even breaking down my tasks neatly.

but the fog lifted.

i'd never seen it do that. i didn't know it could happen so quickly. the curtain, slipping upwards, returning to the sky. my brother kept talking on the other end of the line. i had to interrupt him. holy shit, i said. fog actually lifts.

i've been living in foggy locations my whole life. i love fog. i love the gentle quiet peace that comes with it.

and here, in the trees beside a meadow, i felt the universe wink at me. see, it said, there's things even you keep learning.