#if you read to the end

[dw-flagler]

this post is literally just me complaining about an obscure spider man spinoff comic from 2006 for like a thousand words. Don't read it. I'm serious.

So i read the series amazing spider-girl because i was on a spider kick. I didn't want to go to theaters to watch across the spiderverse so i'm waiting on a dvd release or something that would allow me to watch it for no money and still get that nice and crisp 1080p.

So i read amazing spider-girl. It was a lot better than I was expecting. Not, you know, legendarily good. But better than you'd think for a comic spinoff starring a girl in 2006. and here's the kicker. It wasn't ultra hypersexualized. Amazing W for american comic books compared to japanese manga.

(Also a couple issues were about mutants as a classic comic paper-thin metaphor for being gay (one issue was quite literally titled The Closet) that was, again, surprisingly good. Again, not great, but like way better than you'd expect from a product of its time and culture)

And then I got to the spider-girl equivalent of the clone saga. It was actually pretty neat. There's just one clone, and it never actually comes out and says who the clone is. So there's two May Parkers now. One is a clone and one isn't, big identity crisis dealie (and actually there's this abandoned idea where they both end up with both sets of memories at the same time and now they don't know whos the clone or who was the one raised by the parkers and who was left in a french tube for 16 years). Neat. then peter becomes the green goblin for a minute and they fight A Battle In The Mind Palace, which is weird but fine. (Oddly, the green goblin is way more accepting of the concept of having two daughters than peter. He even calls peter out on it?)

But then we get to the fun part. Both of the Mays survive, and one of them, who we're gonna call April (even though she doesn't name herself that for a few issues after this) for simplicity's sake, has cool symbiote powers, was basically born yesterday, and doesn't quite understand the concept of empathy. In other words, a home run character. She's even fucking Blue! Fucking bang up job, lads, we got an all time classic!

And then we get to that classic angst. Like i said earlier, peter is not on board with the concept of having two daughters. But may is like "can we keep her?" and the other options are letting an emotionally unstable Blue girl out into the world unsupervised (unacceptable) or just... i dunno, killing her? So clearly he has to keep april in his house. He fuckin hates her for it though. Like shit dude, the unearned hostility. And may is trying (not quite as hard as she could be but trying nonetheless) to give april a normal-adjacent home life and a loving family (something that I believe all humans freshly spawned from french tubes deserve). MJ's sorta in the middle, doing that token mom thing of being like "yeah!" and then not actually doing anything to help. So april is stuck in this loop of a family that at best tolerates her and at worst actively despises her (and since she has memories from may she's watching the family she remembers loving her for her whole life doing this to her). In fact, she chooses her name out of spite because she feels like everyone sees her as an inferior copy of the girl they actually care about (april comes before may).

I mean, this is great. You've really what looks to be a great character. So I was utterly devastated to learn that she Goes Insane From The Stress and becomes a villain. However, she Learns The Value Of Love later on and sacrifices herself to save may in a typical comic redemption arc.

:(

So, normally, if you don't like how a thing went in a popular story (especially something modern), you could reasonably expect to see some people agree with you. Some of them might even be good writers. That's when the magic happens. So I look on Archive Of Our Own, and what do I find, dear reader--what do I find? Nothing.

Worse than nothing, actually, I find several father-daughter incest smut fics.

(To be fair, actually, I found one fic that covered some of this, but that was like 1k words long.)

In conclusion, shit is wack.

[ruporas]

dragon meat, you, and me

[nicktoonsunite]

misc NU doodles part tres

last comic is based off off my nasb 2 clip

[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.

[bethsvrse]

when I find a brilliant, jaw dropping, amazing x reader fic but suddenly I’ve been given a first name, last name, hair colour and eye colour

[caffichai]

"Alright then, Cowgirl, show me you know how to ride.”

A piece for my friend @fishing-lesbian-catgirl 's story: Coldshot's Called Shot

It's spicy! If you like it spicy, give it a read! Bonus extra spicy artwork by yours truly featured in the story too

[canisalbus]

I swapped them around in a silly doodle

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[tea-cat-arts]

More doodles (ft Xianle Trio mostly Feng Xin)

[kenjakusbraincum]

Sukuna is old. He is also weirdly cultured for the monster that he is. With so much time on his hands, he loves indulging in arts and literature, and as with everything else he tries, he's good at it. You wouldn't know this, of course, you are only his pet. The time you spend with him is limited and hardly consists of intellectual conversation. You are there to serve one purpose and you know that quite well. So when you wake up in his bed one morning, two things come as a surprise. First that you're even here. It's one of those rare occasions when Sukuna couldn't be bothered kicking or carrying you out of his chambers once your time together was up. Second, he's awake, bent over his desk and so concentrated on a little figurine in his hand that he doesn't immediately notice you've shuffled awake. Once your eyes focus, you see that he's holding a tool in his other hand. He's carving wood. You're almost hypnotized by the scene. The scene feels so private that even for a pet like you, who knows Sukuna in the most intimate way, it feels like you shouldn't be watching. But you can't look away.

"Awake?", he asks, without sparing a glance at you. You apologize for staring, and look for your clothes around the bed. You throw them on just precisely enough to cover up until you reach your chambers, just wanting to be as quick and innocuous as possible. You wait for Sukuna's approval to leave. He gives you a simple nod, once more avoiding to look at you. You leave feeling conflicted. Special, because he allowed you to stay and watch (even as little as you did), but saddened because he barely looked at you, once more solidifying in your mind that you're only interesting to him when you're naked and bent over. As long as you've been here, you could never stop wishing for his validation.

Sukuna knows when you get insecure too. He notices the way your eyes droop, the way you close in on yourself and seem absent in his presence. He justifies this excessive worry about you by telling himself he likes to be the only thing that bothers his pets. All the way until he realized he already is the only thing that can make you sad. This realization falls upon him one time he lashes out on you and sees the immediate change of heart on your face. Now, he isn't one to apologize, especially not to someone who is as low under him as his pet. But why does he feel guilty when he sees this one act of his ruin your day? When he catches a glimpse of you sitting in the garden with your head hung low, or leaving more food on your plate than you usually do. If only you knew the way you really made him feel.

He beckons you to his chambers, and you follow three steps behind him like a good pet does. You didn't expect this time to be any different than others. You've become used to serving Sukuna on days you loved him and on days you hated him. But when he tells you to close your eyes, you know something is different. You obey, of course, and listen to his footsteps as he fetches something from the room. His hand takes yours and opens it, placing a piece of wood onto your palm. You already know, but you wait for him to allow you to open your eyes. He lightly presses his thumb on your cheek under your eye, and when you look, you find a small wooden fawn, curled up and asleep in your hands.

"Master!!..", you start, but nothing else can leave your mouth. You turn the figure around in your hand, inspecting and admiring the details. He's given you gifts before, but not ones carved by his own hand. Not ones made with love.

"You don't have to squint anymore.", Sukuna says, almost jokingly. But his face is as serious as ever as he looks at you, his muse. He thinks of the first time he's exhausted you to the point of passing out right after your nightly meetings. You were relatively new and very unsure of your safety. He thinks of your small body curled up in sleep on the edge of his bed, knees pressed to your chest in a primal, subconscious attempt to protect yourself. His little pet, his fawn.

You slur on and on about how beautiful it is, how you don't know how to thank him, the usual when you receive a gift. And as usual, Sukuna shuts you up with a kiss. You welcome it and wrap your arms around his neck, giving yourself in to him and letting him take you to the bed.

And he takes things slow tonight. He's gentle and so, so giving. Every sensation is delicate, prolonged and heightened to exhaustion. You cling to him, pull him impossibly close, and come apart under the comforting weight of him. Afterwards, you hold his hand to your face and kiss it softly. His hands, so large and strong, capable of such violence, yet for you they craft gifts, cradle, caress, love... in a very subtle and distant way, of course. With these thoughts your hands slip away from his, you turn around and quickly drift off.

He looks at you now, sleeping so close to him. Trusting him with your back, and turning your curled up form to the outside world. As if he is no longer a perceived danger. He smiles to himself in victory, and plants a chaste kiss to your shoulder to wish you one final goodnight.

[frownyalfred]

hello. this is a PSA. ao3 is NOT releasing your browsing history, despite what you may have heard on tiktok.

if you’re signed into ao3, your history is viewable in the dashboard tab. it always has been, nothing is changing. please don’t believe everything you hear on tiktok.

no one is able to view your browsing history unless they are signed into your account.

[janedoe297-art]

HELLO???? I'm OBSESSED with their reunion scene 😭💘

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((this is also availabe as a print!!))

[mimimar]

finally completed my comic based on the song ivy by taylor swift!✿ please zoom in to read the text and see the details~

✿.✿.✿

you can get the digital zine pdf here! it includes extras like character profiles, costume design, more art of willow and ivy, zine-exclusive sketches and an illustrated guide to the symbolism of all the flowers in this comic.

you can also get prints of individual pages here!

✿.✿.✿

[peakvincent]

new game is to type one through ten in your tags and see what comes up. i think my favorite of mine is ‘my uncle told us he spent seven and a half hours in a sensory deprivation tank once’ but ‘gideon the ninth motherfucker’ is a close second

[crescentfool]

reunion 🌸

[dead-girl-tells-stories]

DP x DC Prompt: The Watchlist

Batman has a watchlist. A list that contains every individual who could become a rouge and a contingency plan for if they did.  

And while they, his children, often make fun of his paranoia and him for having it, they totally understand why he did. They lived in Gotham, for Christ's sake. Where everyone’s just a pin drop away from being the city’s next big villain, forcing the bats to scratch their heads while playing cat and mouse with a sicko for a good few weeks. And while they won’t admit it, the list has helped them a few times. 

But that won’t stop them from making fun of any of the list’s new developments. Because you see, there was a new list. And it wasn’t just a watchlist. No, no, no. It was The Watchlist.

It was a new development after he and Robin went on an out-of-state mission to investigate some town in bum fuck nowhere Illinois. And it was under some pretty tight security as well, so they were expecting something good, like mad scientists or evil mayors. Not profiles of the kids who lived in the town. And while there were a few metas and vigilantes that made the list interesting, by the end of it all they just seemed to be teenagers. 

Until they saw Damian. They hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission with B. He looked tired. Like ‘Tim hasn’t slept in a week and is surviving on just coffee beans’ tired.

“Ah, I see you all have found it. Good. A few of them will be arriving next week as they’re a part of Gotham Academy’s student exchange program. At least three of them will be staying in the manor with us. Father will need you all to be on standby and to be ready for any possible scenario. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not encourage them in any way, shape, or form. And please do not dismiss them either. The outcome of doing that will be much worse. Is there more that I should add? Yes. Will I? No, because you won’t understand. Not until you've seen what I have.” 

The demon child sighed, then looked them dead in the eyes. “Godspeed to us all.” Then walked away.

Okay, they were scared now.

[iztea]

always obsessed about the end