#i have 5 things to say

[superwingscentral]

im back from the movieeeee :333

[spitblaze]

I guess Chilchuck has brought us right back to 'adults who are short are child-coded and if you like them you're a pedophile' discourse huh

[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.

[egophiliac]

since Eng is getting 7.5 soon(?), I felt motivated to go back to my Meleanor rig and make her a couple of lesson animations! ...except for alchemy, because the cauldron bubbles proved too hard to photoshop around, whoops.

maybe she just got lost on her way to the classroom...?

(credit: backgrounds are from the game, I just put her on top of 'em)

[puppyeared]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[umblrspectrum]

you'll never guess which movie i finally watched after 2 years of being lazy

[lazycranberrydoodles]

everybody go home. this is my magnum opus

[saragrosie]

As promised, incredibly stupid s4-5 drawings

[darkeneddawning]

Escaped clone au

You know all those fics where Danny and Damian are twins but everyone first assumes Danny must be a clone? How about an au where Danny is Damian's clone who escaped the League after he was assumed dead. Damian could even have been the one to have "killed" him, back when Danny was a newly created, fully brainwashed clone minion and trying to kill Damian himself.

Danny gets adopted by the Fentons and canon goes on as normal, until Dan. Witnessing what would happen to the world should he turn evil really drove home to Danny how dangerous he is.

Even if he was confident he could be trusted with his absurd amount of power (which he isn't), what if the League of Assassins found out about him? Does he still have programming triggers from his evil assassin clone conditioning?

So, Danny does the responsible thing: he goes to Batman to turn himself in.

Cue Danny showing up on Bruce's doorstep with ghost hunting equipment, intel on the afterlife, and an almost unbelievable backstory. Somehow he still managed to be more well-adjusted than Damian.

More thoughts under the read more

Here's how I'm thinking Danny leaving the League went down:

After surviving his wounds but failing his mission, Danny (then an unnamed potential Damian replacement) knew there was no point in returning to the League. As a failure, he was meant to be disposed of. He even thought of simply allowing himself to perish, since that was what the League would do.

But he couldn't help but feel as though that would be a waste of a resource. Surely he could be of more use to the League alive than dead?

That tiny bit of rebellious logic is what caused Danny to go into hiding, only living on based on the off chance he would find opportunities to further the League's goals. Obviously, that mentality didn't last long after being exposed to the real world and meeting one Jazz Fenton.

Being adopted by the Fentons was the best cover Danny could have asked for, since any odd behavior he couldn't hide while he was learning how to be "normal" was totally overshadowed by the sheer bizarre eccentricity of his new parents. He was still the neighborhood weird kid, but even that was a major upgrade from disposable tool, so Danny considered it a win.

Anyway, if anyone likes this idea, please feel free to have at it! Interpret it as you please :)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[kitamars]

im not immune to mermay it seems

[couch-house]

yippee knuckles comic done! wanted to try several things: tell a story in 4-7 pages, attempt to style layouts and writing a bit more like stc comics, and lump my "knuckles raised unknowingly by the m.e." headcanons together. mixed results I think but I still think it turned out nice :)

[tblsomedoodles]

The Preferable Alternative - end of prologue- part 3

Start - previous - next

i don't have time for a lot of comments b/c i have to leave for work in 6 minutes so

: )

[newspecies]

trying to think of a reason [ERROR] is so possessive of the OIAR crew and my current theory is that since the Archives are gone, this thing that might be a remnant of the other universe's Beholding is searching for something else to be the seat of the Beholding's power and took notice of the OIAR because Sam and Alice are the ones that released it (however unknowingly). The OIAR is not only doing something very similar to the Archives, but also clearly has SOMETHING akin to the Beholding attached to it with all the recordings we're hearing and the use of Jon, Martin and (possibly) Jonah's voices. So TLDR I think [ERROR] looked at the OIAR, said "close enough", and claimed everyone there. Anyway I think the tape recorders should bite more people

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a digital redraw of the scene where chuuya shoots dazai in the shoulder. on the top of the drawing is chuuya holding a guy to dazai's head in the red and grey hallways of the prison. on the bottom of the drawing is dazai's pained face. the gunshot is shown stylistically as hectic lines behind his bloody shoulder. over the image is half a quote from goncharov that reads 'if we really were in love you wouldn't have missed.' the signature says dandelion-roots. end ID]

This quote from Goncharov (1973) in relation to soukoku has been haunting me from before I even got to that scene in the anime (the full thing is: Katya- Of course we're in love, that's why I tried to shoot you/ Goncharov- If we really were in love you wouldn't have missed). Violence as a tool for communicating emotions, especially love and hatred, especially love and hatred makes me go feral- how could I not think of the iconic quote that says that katya's miss was a sign of a lack of love/a fake love when chuuya didn't miss? Just... losing it over here.

[puppyeared]

updated Sleight ref!!