#just friends? my ass

[inklore]

THEY'RE ACTUALLY IN-FUCKING-SANE FOR THIS

[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.

[adaki]

GIRLS NITE OUT >_< ((clockwork could not make it)) (wip)

[baihujun]

I drew a guest art for finch's artbook

[skateboardtotheheart]

there is just something about the difference between edwin's love interests and having the cat king's reaction to edwin in hell being "i'll be waiting when he gets back" vs charles "no version of this where i don't come get you" rowland convincing a powerful trans-dimensional being to open a door to hell just so he could get him back

i am insane

[civetside]

TLT game night

[starkspi]

"You okay?"

Another one from "Managerial Liberties" by the talented @miribalis (in which Adam is accidentally the best wingman ever - what a pun!).

[tomatoart]

coffee cheetos chicken

[until-i-set-him-free]

#SMITTEN4SMITTEN ❤️

[lets-all-calm-down-a-bit]

first drawing on metibang.... im not a fan

[crystallizsch]

okay hi so listen hear me out

sea snake is a bit too obvious (and too boring)

so i made him based on some kind of lionfish??? (bc something something venomous marine animal) also with a LOT of creative liberties i made with how the fish looks like

let’s also give his fins some rips and tears here and there bc what are the implications of that??? that’s for you 🫵 to decide

anyways chat i lowkey dont know what i was doing

i had no other thoughts but haha funny snake man i turn into fish

[time-woods]

I WAS TRYING TO ASK HOW WOULD HIS EXOSKELETON UNDER HIS 'EXOSKELETON' LOOK BUT I PHRASED IT TERRIBLY AND MY PFP ISNT MAKING IT ANY BETTER

[nebuladreamz]

A little different than last year's, but here we are again. To say that this past year hasn't been absolutely wild would be a lie, cause HOLY SHIT MAN

This year's birthday is. A little different for me, but you already have the silly comic to show that so I won't make like a broken record oops

But, despite the changes and hills that life's decided I should climb or throw at, it hasn't changed the fact that I'm so genuinely fucking thankful to the people that I've known since joining this fandom. I'm not even kidding when I say that being here has actually changed my life for the better. I know I said something similar last year, but this time, hoo boy it sure turned up the AMP and test how far I could go.

So, to everyone, both new and old; thank you for being here :D

@garbagechocolate @darkxsoulzyx @smoljeanius @bunmuffin @skizabaa

@tuzesdays @sleepykas @fernzwing @kandidandi @starsketchez

@just-a-drawing-bean @notdysfunk @ilsole @amberluvsbugs @cloudyvoid

@nomsthecat @alfinefalf @nosleepygay @theblog-with-thestuff

@cacaocheri

(Edit: ty kibbits for informing me of the. Fuck ass tagging system)

AND TAGGING OTHERS BECAUSE. POINTS. BONKS WITH HEAD. GETTING TO EITHER INTERACT OR TALK OR WHATEVER IS ALWAYS A DELIGHT

@ohno-the-sun @kibbits @ink-yy @saltyfryz @kaprisvn

@hierba-picante @sunny-sophies-garden @cookiiemancer @sneeblbop @justaduckarts

@pepethehumanz @crystalmagpie447 @woolysstuff @mocha-illustrates @duhsty1

@sanchensky @pillowspace @victarin @witherfide

[I DEFINITELY GOT SONAS WRONG AND THESE AREN'T ALL THE SILLY PEOPLE I KNOW BUT IM SITTING HERE AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING JUST KNOW YOU'RE THERE IN SPIRIT HANDING YOU ALL POPTARTS WAUGH]

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i think that in small tightknit communities, all residents should receive a coupon book on their bday that allows them to commit [x] number of nonviolent crimes per year

[panakoui]

post canon laishuro prelude :>

[musubiki]

danmarch 🐉💎