#it's late and I should be going

[royalarchivist]

Tubbo: Why have they changed it? These colors are awful. I– ew! I actually hate it! Where– what happened to the orange? Why’s it purple?

Tubbo: [Realizes] OH—

Tubbo: Oh, I'm actually– I'm actually a bigot, it’s Ace Race, I get it. Ohhh, ohhh that’s awkward. Ohhh, that's awkward. I’m a bigot. Oh, I'm a bigot. Oh, I'm a bigot. Ohhh. It’s crazy that they let bigots into MCC these days! Well actually, they’ve always done that.

[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.

[lotus-pear]

"i haven't worked you like a dog yet, as promised"

[berenshand]

one of my favourite little things about the murderbot diaries is how present all secunit's friends are even if they're not actually physically present. it doesn't do the annoying thing where it jumps through hoops to bring back characters that aren't really relevant to the narrative but it also doesn't do the other annoying thing where it pretends they never existed either. like secunit talks about art and mensah all the time even when art or mensah aren't in the book. it's clear how bharadwaj has impacted its personal growth even when she's literally on another planet. it complains about gurathin and pin-lee when they're not there. it's still sad about miki and don abene and it mentions tapan and maro and rami even though it only knew them for a few days (because when you're new at being a person every interaction with other people is important even if it's short). iris reminds it of mensah. iris also reminds it of ratthi. its hair is fluffy bc it let amena play hairdresser off-screen and it messages her so she knows it's okay. it doesn't have to worry about protecting volescu anymore because volescu retired thank goodness. it's still using thiago's language module. etc etc etc

it's such good writing because it's such a little thing that gives the characterization and relationships greater depth and also reinforces the running theme of friendship in the series and then also subtly gives this sense of 'the people you love are a part of you/your story' and also reinforces secunit's role as a storyteller because it's constantly telling little stories about all its friends.

[skillbattle]

umm hi happy juneteenth 👋🏽 im a freelancer who’s just trying to get by and pay my bills, if you’d like to support me in anyway today it would be highly appreciated!! 🫶🏽 kofi ☕️

[aterfish]

Another "Guess that Artist" game in Haunting Heroes discord server. This time drawing fanarts for fics with less than 10k hits on ao3.

I chose amazing IRIS Log #1548 by @deadchannelradio!

Love this fic. "As buddies" got me. Hilarious and absolutely worth reading and then rereading twice. Or trice.

@arzuera thanks or hosting the game! @serxeri thanks for tormenting me! i won tho.

[wishfulsketching]

More

[blitheringbongus]

Oh to pull a man by his tie

[halflifebutawesome]

hi!! if you’re still taking drawing requests I would adore some frenrey cooking/domestic moments 👉👈

they’re making joshies birthday cake and they’re getting it everywhere and Benny REALLY wants to lick the spoon cmon bro lemme just a little bit

[themintman]

giggling I love them so much

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Slow down, Sunshine. You're not falling behind and you are loved for more than what you do for others."

[fantasykiri5]

Day 8 of @hermitadaymay (definitely not a day late) and it’s a swimming xB! (And a bonus tiny Keralis because I missed his day)

[gotchibam]

Raboot ko-fi doodle for @lakefoundtheirexit!

I’m accepting pokemon ko-fi doodle requests here! ✨

[torchstelechos]

Do yall think sometimes Siffrin does normal human things that make sense but are deeply unsettling when you remember they dont remember their childhood. Like do you think Siffrin once woke up startled and shouted "Oh SHIT MY HOMEWORK" and scared Mirabelle who went to wake him up? Or they complained about not wanting to eat certain things cause it made them sick and their parents were upset about it when they were a child? Or they see a stuffed animal and buy it for Bonnie cause they wished they still had their stuffed animals when they were Bonnie's age? Or he sings a lullaby to himself when trying to fall asleep and Isa asks for its name and Siffrin just kind of shrugs and says it was what his mom used to sing for him? Just so normal and deeply ingrained but forgotten? Like I think that would be fucked up, yall think its fucked up? Also it would be mainly childish things cause ya fella ran away when they were a kid </3

[inumbrapugnabimus-maybe]

A Hyrule Warriors Zelda!

Also Link! Though I probably won’t be finishing this particular sketch of him

[greywoe]

"The she-wolf laid into the squires with a tourney sword, scattering them all. The crannogman was bruised and bloodied, so she took him back to her lair to clean his cuts and bind them up with linen."