#i have made it to the desert

[lovetheorem]

...

[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.

[goodold-fashioned-killerqueen]

thinking about them

edit: why this post is popping off

[canarydarity]

Here, have some of the life series memes I make when bored and half asleep at work at 7 am

part two

[yut-art]

i offer mostly Scar sketches (all for the low, low price of your enchanter?)

[applestruda]

I've had O Sol e a Lua stuck in my head for a bit and idk, figured it could maybe work for desert duo

[mochiwrites]

They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

Scar never believed in it, not after dying twice, both times having been caught off guard. He didn't have time to reflect on the life he'd been leaving behind, not when everything happened so fast, not when to Scar it was like blinking before he was surrounded by total black.

But as he lay in the sand, letting the wind sweep over his weakening body, he starts to look back. He starts from the beginning, from setting Etho's tree on fire to pulling Grian into the desert on Pizza. He thinks of his second death to the ravine, how Grian's scream had been the thing to accompany him on his brief journey to blackness. He thinks of holding Grian in his arms as they celebrate a successful trap, or their hours spent digging a bunker.

Scar thinks of their ruined home, the place he'd always return to.

It's funny, how different this death feels to the other two times. Maybe that's because there's no coming back from this one. This is it. This is the end for Scar. His final breath.

He stares up at the big beautiful blue sky, and there is no longer any red to cloud his vision. If he had any energy left, he'd probably smile. All he can muster is the smallest twitch of his lips, blood drying on his chin.

A shadow fills his vision, and Scar has just a few seconds to see Grian's bruised face enter from the corner. He sees tears welling in those red eyes, one or two rolling down his cheeks as he picks up Scar's fading, cold body, pulling it tight to his chest.

Scar wishes he could reach out, he wishes he could press his palm into Grian's cheek and tell him not to cry. He much prefers it when Grian is laughing, when he's smiling. It suits him much better than this guilt ridden expression. Why are you crying? He wants to ask. You won! Scar is happy he won.

"I'm sorry Scar," Grian shakily whispers into his hair, his wings wrapping around the two of them like a shield. Scar isn't sure what he needs to shield them from, not anymore. The ghosts? Surely they aren't interested in this. In them. "I'm so sorry."

It's to Grian's warmth that Scar fades away, eyes fully shutting as he finds he's lost the energy, the will, to keep himself alive. Scar's purpose is complete, Grian is alive and well, and that's all that matters to him. He's okay with saying goodbye.

He joins the living dead, nothing more than a spirit.

He returns to the image of Grian hugging Scar close, yet as a ghost. His body is see through, he is no longer a corporeal being. Even as a ghost, he's returned right to where his heart and his soul rests, he's returned to his home, to his Grian. Scar doesn't question it. Of course he's ended up back here, back to the other half of his heart.

Grian had said once that everything in their story was dead.

Maybe it was just Scar being an optimist, but he liked to think that their story didn't have to end in death. Maybe it had just been Scar looking to a life after this, where there will be more laughter, more pranks and joy, more warmth shared. Scar liked to think that they were in control of their narrative, that not everything was dead, because they were alive.

But looking as Grian grieves over Scar, he wonders if Grian had always thought they were dead from the start.

As a ghost, Scar is forced to stand there as Grian rises on shaking legs. "Just one life left," he says, and Scar's nonexistent heart leaps to his throat.

"Grian, stop," he pleads, but his voice is nothing more than the breeze of the wind. He's helpless, unable to reach his partner as he takes slow, agonizing steps toward the edge Monopoly Mountain, right beside Pizza's grave. "Grian," Scar begs. It wasn't supposed to go this way.

Drops of blood fall from Grian's bloodied knuckles, staining the sand below. He walks toward the edge, and Scar follows, trying to reach out to him. Yet his hand phases right through Grian's back, never making contact.

Scar's heart breaks.

What else can the king of death do but watch his ever faithful knight follow him to where he should not?

[kindledrose]

silliest goofiest guy in existence <33 (so was no one going to tell me that mr goodtimes is the most fun character to draw ever or was i just supposed to figure that out on my own)

[angeart]

Even sitting apart from him, Grian can feel Scar’s hold on him—arms wrapped around Grian’s abdomen, holding tightly from behind, as Scar drags them both deeper into the pit of thorns. Grian recognises that wild, wishful thinking whispering against their ears that the sharp edges they’re so willingly submerging themselves in could mean safety. He recognises the yearning to give in, to let something bladed and explosive shield them.

Stumbling and hopeless, Grian lets Scar dictate the direction of their steps, exhaustedly slumping into the hold Scar has on him, unable to relinquish the warmth of Scar’s protective intentions.

———————

closeup:

alt:

[crabrat]

Bc desert duo won the poll in the end have this :)

[corallapis]

No, never. Missy! I will never stand with Doctor!

[manglechanbluh]

Come on, he is wearing gaiters I couldn't resist + End of the Line speeding bullet

[synesthete-sylke]

they never left the desert...

gift for my desertduo-obsessed friend @kindledrose, love you trr hope you like it <3

[clickityweasel]

i have no original thoughts. i’ve only played it twice and am still very busy going insane over this

[afrophunk]

Local 16 yr old bandit protects baby sibling from bullies (more at 8)

[fatuismooches]

EVEN MORE CUTE DOTTORE MOMENTS TO MAKE YOU SMILE 🙏 (because I am too tired to post anything of quality)