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.
ok so 2/3 days ago i found this youtube video where op turned Springtrap (or well, William Afton) into a fully build DnD character, and if i say so myself: things got out of hand fast
so here is my take on DnD Springtrap and specifically on that build (adding more infos under the cut for who is interested, i suggest to watch the video first)
starting with saying that unless you're playing in a scifi setting, this build is either not for you or to be modified, since in later levels spells are heavily centered around technomagic and electronic devices; personally when i will play him i will probably tinker around with the chosen spells and cantrips to make him less violently niche and/or more versatile
which kinda saddens me because it takes away not little of the characterization but, given most dnd stories take place in a medieval fantasy or high fantasy setting, a cantrip like On/Off or a spell like Remote Access are NOT particularly useful; so i will go for more psychic damage or necromancy oriented abilities, maybe i might take more than just 4 levels in artificier as well (especially given that again, all of those warlock spells at later levels are all technology oriented) but i need to see what those offer
however it is a kinda tank-y build given that with a shield on you can get up to a 27 of Ac, so even with low damage and not much hp you would not struggle too much to stay alive, and i like that!
as for the character himself, i put too much effort into my interpretation not to share it, so if anyone wants to play this guy as well, i fabricated a possible backstory that might come useful:
The character goes by the name "Dave Miller" (or whatever variant you want to use), and was originally a human artificier who created constructs for a living, mainly with the goal of offering aid to who needed it for whatever reason.
After losing part of his family to some kind of accident he became terrified of death, so with age he started replacing his own body parts with machinery to delay his last days (which made him a cyborg), until the point where he was very very close to become just a robot.
There however he ran into an issue, that being that a robot need a power source, and his own heart and lungs could not sustain a whole robot by themselves.
Through particular and very much not illegal experiments tied to necromancy he discovered that the life force of a living being could be shared, and used as a form of fuel. (possibly: age lived of the creature used= amount of extra months you get)
Here comes the second problem: this only worked with intelligent creatures, and more specifically, it worked best with creatures of your own race, which meant that he either went around murdering people or he found another solution. Non same-race creatures worked as well but not as good and there were not easy to find in the middle of a city and with a shop tied to your name.
And here is where and WHY he'd join a party of adventurers: after some time, his reserves or fuel were running VERY thin, and running into a group of adventurers was a god sent because by joining their party he essentially got a free pass to kill whoever he wanted, and reduce them to a dried raisin after sucking some life force out of them. Doing so you learn that the mowe powerful the creature is, the more energy it produces as well.
Your goal, that you as the player are following, when role-ing your character? essentially slay whatever powerful BBEG your Dm throws at you and suck all of that juicy fuel out of them, so that you can return to your little shop in the middle of the capital and return to create and sell whatever weird construct, doll, or robot comes to your mind for another few decades undisturbed.
And this is it. I think this might be a good backstory that could fit pretty much any setting you want to play this guy into, be it classic dnd or some scifi futuristic thing.
of course you don't NEED to use this one line per line, make up your own without looking back if you don't like it lol, dnd is the "make up shit and have fun" game after all!
Edit: also no his outfit makes no sense, i just went with vibes and decided a tanktop dress shirt, a twin tailed gilet and suspenders OVER said gilet was a good choice.
Amity Park absolutely adores her little ghostling, her little Gatekeeper who was of her own ectoplasm, reborn from her own blood in the center of her new heart. She absolutely adores her baby, practically a newborn, being only a year dead!
So of course she had to gush and boast about her little phantom to the other city spirits! They all got together to gossip sometimes after all. And both Smallville and Fawcett started to gush about their own little ones back!
Gosh they should set up a playdate at some point, her little phantom could use some friends in the mortal realm. Well some more friends, three is obviously not enough. Oh, Gotham and Bludhaven have come over as well! It’s a playdate then!
Now if only each of their world’s timelines were synced up, but at least everyone is around the same age!
In light of the cover reveal for @bsdcafezine I thought I’d share my struggle for it xD
When I first jumped into this piece I kept reassuring myself that I had a cheat brush to help me with the light effects… but as seen in the vid that brush did not give the effect I wanted so I manually did the shadowing and worked on the light from there on orz hhhhhh
The rendering took a while idk why procreate sped it up so much 😂
My lineart process was all over the place,, I kept jumping between different characters orz
and yes I replaced Tecchou with Sigma because one of the contributors said their favorite was Sigma so I added them in instead,,, sorry for the lack of Hunting Dogs here TT
I struggled with choosing a font for the text too… only to resort to writing it o n my own lol
women selfshippers who aren't stereotypically feminine, whether in physical features or personality or anything, your f/o loves you just the way you are 💚 you are their ideal woman ! :)
if i am being completely honest these will probably not get to you in time for XMAS but hey, you know what, it's punk time and you get that. anyway there's a whole bunch o' shirts for you to snag including some red ones, stuff printed with coppery ink, and a restock of the DECADENCE NOW rat shirts, which i have not printed in a minute. etc!!!!!!!