#so thank you for telling me that

[seekerquest]

Decided to reread the comic recently, and I'm pleased to report that while reading it in one sitting as opposed to update-by-update over the course of years certainly feels different, it's just as good as it was the first time! Now my brain's busy obsessing over how well you wrote Seeker and Fen's friendship and how realistic and natural it feels, and I won't be able to stop thinking about them for probably a week or so.

God, it has been so long since I've read Seeker myself. I'll have to take your word for it. In which case I say thank you so much for the kind words!

Seeker and Fen interacting really was my favorite part of writing Seeker, looking back. I am a huge fan of banter and characters just bouncing off of each other, and those two were PERFECT for it. Of all the things about Seeker I think of, their bond is by far the most recurring. They are dear to my heart, man. So very dear.

[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.

[somnimagus]

My page for @sheikahzine; about Impaz's duty to her village, empty of people and full of memories.

[id in alt text]

[bubblesbinxs]

it’s currently 2am where i am so technically 4th of april.. Happy 2 Years ISWM !!!!!!!

[glitchedcosmos]

Sonic and Shadow never really wanted to admit that they liked each other, especially to their crush's face, but that went flying out the window when Sonic took one of Shadow's threats during their sparring sessions as flirting, and he went for it.

Sonic got gut punched immediately after.

[beaft]

every time i see that post chiding trans men for using women's restrooms i want to chew on somebody's head. you think i LIKE using the women's restroom? you think i LIKE having to make a grim hobson's choice of "which bathroom is least likely to get me yelled at" every time i need to pee? i'm fucking flabbergasted that this is seen as "men invading female spaces" or "AFABs flexing their privilege" as opposed to, oh idk, a vulnerable group of people doing their level best to avoid being harassed and assaulted. like we are not the ones in the wrong here

[hypewinter]

Danny is reading peacefully in his new room at Wayne Manor when there's suddenly a commotion outside his door. Next thing he knows Bruce comes storming through the door.

"Danny did you lie to me about your past!?" he asked calmly.

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

Fazbear Entertainment did not program him to deal with that

[norue67]

Do not worry! I can’t do anything but I will cry with you

[canisalbus]

✦ 2023 summary of art ✦

[ef-1]

yeah F1 is cool but imagine a driver gets shunted and he bodily rips off his rear wing (Which fucking says "Race Against CRIME") as he's being swarmed by officials

And he just yeets it at the guy who shunted him

[lotus-pear]

NEW MAYOI CARDDDDS MADE ME SILLY THEY CANONICALLY HAVE GIRLS NIGHT SLEEPOVERS IM SOBBING UEUEUUEUEUE

[lowpolyanimals]

K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing: Wild World

[wilimia]

It just doesn't get any more self indulgent than this I swear

The height difference is very important

[useful-boy]

So a friend told me about Maushold today and I knew immediately what I had to do

[gunsatthaphan]

🏳️‍🌈!!!