just finished death note

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.

Text Posts, Part 5 + Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story [x]

The Untamed | Episode 36 [Drunk Lan Wangji And His Chickens]

⤳WangXian’s Favorite Scenes [19/∞]⬿

MECHANICAL MIND // MECHANICAL BODY — a star wars story

There he’ll awake, with a clear mind and clear direction. Black cloak drifting over his empire. This is what he wants. There he’ll stand, atop manmade planets surrounded by explosions of stardust. Breathing in power, exhaling out fear...

Read my new short story MECHANICAL MIND // MECHANICAL BODY on ao3.

I wanted to get a little sappy below the cut for a bit. First of all, thank you if you decided to read this note and Mechanical Mind // Mechanical Body. This story means a lot to me. The idea for this story came to me in a dream. At first, I didn't intend to make anything out of it. But the images of that dream stayed with me in my mind for a long time until I simply had to put them down to paper. I started writing it in November 2023 and it's been a labor of love for the past six months. Dear reader, I sincerely hope you enjoy this story.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my best friend @itsladyliv who took the time to beta read Mechanical Mind for me. Your feedback and sweet comments mean the world to me. Couldn't do this without your support 💜

Reposting a connverse I made in 2021. Well, specifically posting this again after editing a few stuff.

I had been so bothered with how I kept editing Steven until I made his silhouette floppy-looking. So I fixed it a bit.

And that this was suppose to be flipped in the first place (which was why Connie's nose piercing was on the right side on the original.)

🍀 Guess I'm the fool // with her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof 🍀

[Bend It Like Beckham // Good Luck, Babe! - Chappell Roan]

ms paint doodles for @post-it-notes7 's fic series, heart and soul. i highly recommend it to anyone that either likes the kirby anime or meta knight bc it's a delight to read :]

it is very fun to me that the legend of vox machina is finally daring to ask the question what if you COULD edit a dnd campaign. what if you COULD look at it as a whole story, beginning to end, and decide what needs to be kept and what can be cut, what was inconsequential to the overall plot but integral to a particular character arc, what works better done in a different order or merged together, what characters can be introduced earlier or in a different place or together. it's really really fun to think of the campaign itself as sort of a "rough draft" and watch how it shifts

KinnPorsche + Text Posts: Vegas Edition

[Character Editions: Pete Part I & II | Tay | Tankhun Part I & II | Porsche Part I & II | Big | Kinn Part I & II | Kim | Porchay | Chan | Vegas - Part II & III | Macau | Pol]

[Episode Editions]

[Themed Editions 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ?]

"what do we say to people again? 'witch-loving-witcher'? hmm, catchy"

template || more edits

tag list (ask to be added or removed): @carrionsflower @statichvm @risingsh0t @simonxriley @tommyarashikage @bbrocklesnar @confidentandgood @unholymilf @florbelles @thedeadthree @shellibisshe @roofgeese @aezyrraeshh @faerune @tekehu @jackiesarch @jacobseed @minaharkers @sergeiravenov @carlosoliveiraa @rosenfey @queennymeria @shadowglens @nokstella @imogenkol @heroofpenamstan @fenharel @alexxmason @pensdragon @rolangf @a-treides @solasan @bigbywlf @delzinrowe

So, uh...

Mine lived(?)

How Are We Doing.

“Narcissists will butter you up and shower you with compliments in order to lure you in so they can abuse you!!!” No, we heavily compliment people because that’s the kind of stuff we wish people would do to us. I gush over people and try to be specific with my compliments because it's how I want people to treat me. I desperately want to be seen and to feel loved and appreciated the way I try to make others feel. Why is this so hard to understand

Some (late) holiday photos of the boye~!

after the music video ended, there's gonna be a short scene, which shows Häärijä just waddling along, minding his business. before he then randomly stumbles upon the green bolero, picks it up and, after contemplating it for a moment, decides to put it on and continues to be on his way

...because any moment may be our last. everything is more beautiful because we're doomed.