#how could we know

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

obligatory beach divorce doodling

bonus rough cover redraw of x-men #41 (1995) But Beach Divorce below cut

[shaykai]

Still thinking about Gortash’s coronation and how smoothly he cuts a Durge off from their companions (and wishing we had a follow up with that)

The first words out of his mouth are that he cares about them- anybody else who remembers Durge has only distain for them, but not him- he’s happy to see them, he missed them, they’re his favorite assassin and he’s only glad to see them alive

And then he takes it a step further by providing insight into their past, something Ketheric refused to do for them- and Gortash isn’t dumb. He knows exactly how Durge’s companions will react, knows that he’s effectively outing Durge when he so easily could have pulled them to the side instead

And when their companions snap at them and refuse to look at them, Gortash is still smiling. Suddenly, he’s the nicest person in the room. Suddenly, everything is unstable and dangerous- but he likes you. He’s sitting there with open arms while the companions are rightfully so mad with Durge, but Gortash is more than happy to resume their alliance

He’s more than happy to be their sole source of comfort again, and isn’t he just so sweet for that?

[meowmeowriley]

Soap comes back to base after having teeth pulled and is not expecting Ghost to pounce the second he gets through the gate.

Ghost: "So where are they? I wanna see."

Soap: "What?"

Ghost: "The teeth. Gimme"

Soap: "I didn't... keep them?"

Ghost, upset: "They didn't let you?"

Soap, growing more confused by the second: "I didn't ask?"

Ghost: "You didn't- Johnny what the fuck?" 😟

Soap: "I was in a lot of pain, Lt., and still am, mind you-"

Ghost: "But... I woulda took 'em if you didn't want them."

Soap: "Ghost, my teeth were far from perfect, there's a reason they had to come out, not exactly great specime-"

Ghost: "THAT'S WHAT MAKES THEM SPECIAL!"

Soap: 😶

Ghost: "ONE OF A KIND!"

Gaz, who walked up in the middle of the conversation: "Think I've still got my baby teeth somewhere, you want 'em?"

Ghost, still distraught: "At least GAZ loves me."

Soap: "... my mouth hurts..."

[sarcastic-clapping]

LET YOUR DAD DIE: IT'S FINE IT'S FINE IT'S WHAT HE DID TO HIS DAD.

Lestat + Claudia: Patricide & The Cycles of Violence - INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022) - Catherine Lacy, "Cut" (2019) / Anne Rice, "The Vampire Lestat" (1985) / Anne Rice, "Interview with the Vampire" (1976)

[captainjonnitkessler]

I truly, TRULY do not know how to say this, because the fact that I have to say it makes me feel like I am losing my grip on reality. But no, in the post-capitalistic anarchist utopia, I will not be relying on “autistic minecraft girlies” to be building inspectors because - and this may shock you - one of those occupations takes years of education in how to read and interpret hundreds of thousands of lines of regulations based on complicated math and physics that were the result of decades of tragedy and death, and the other one involves playing a children’s video game.

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Eric Clapton feat. Judith Hill, Simon Climie & Daniel Santiago - “How Could We Know”

“How Could We Know” is soft-rock at its most flaccid with Eric Clapton delivering a simple acoustic guitar solo and Judith Hill, Simon Climie and Daniel Santiago oversinging overwrought lyrics:

How could we know where this love would go/faith is a word that means love will grow/now we’ve found out/that it isn’t always so

The track is out as the B-side to Clapton and Jeff Beck’s “Moon River.” As saccharine as that track was, “How Could We Know” makes it sound savory by comparison

Grade card: Eric Clapton feat. Judith Hill, Simon Climie & Daniel Santiago - “How Could We Know - D-

7/20/23

[keferon]

“Mistakes on mistakes until” ch 69 spoilers below!

Ahahahahahahah here I go again

Mistakes on mistakes until until I can draw Jazz with my eyes closed

I woke up, checked my phone, woke up for real and decided that whatever plans I had for this day yeah no they can wait a little bit kfkgnfk

Also. Consider listening this while reading. Or don't who am I to tell you what to do~

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Conceal, don't feel, don't let it show.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[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.

[letsplaythermalnuclearwar]

Homer!Odysseus and Epic!Odysseus would try to kill each other if they ever met

[wigglebox]

Destiel Pride - Day 11; Truth

[tapakah0]

@somerandomdudelmao *cough-cough* *COUGH* Sorry I'm still not over this arc... *disappears*

Imagine Dragons - I Bet My Life

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love