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.

Not a big fan of capitalism

xiaolumi resurrected from my heart for the new year!!

Evilive (1x03) || Strangers From Hell (1x08)

“Still think it’s stupid?” Luke whispers before diving in again, fingers combing through Din’s hair, pulling a little as they get closer and closer. 

Plaguing my mind again with their amazing writing, I got back on the horse by re-reading 5 Times Luke Taught Din How to Use His Mouth & 1 Time Din Taught Luke by @ctrldao3 🙏

Grover and Percy are so close and casually touchy with each other that whenever they all hang out together people usually assume that Grover and Percy are dating, and Annabeth is just their friend that tagged along for the day.

It doesn't help that Percy calls Grover "babe" so much and that they're always holding hands and that sometimes Grover will step in front of Percy and pull his arms around him while they're looking at something.

Annabeth observes from a very close distance, half-wondering if she should be jealous or not.

That feeling when he can't stand to see you that way, no matter what you do, no matter what you say😩😭💔

skyfall x dolce

or, in other words, emotionally-repressed blond serial killers and their curly dark haired sarcastic bitch boyfriends surrounded by paintings with far too many metaphors

what if I told you johnlock was real in 2024

niccolo machiavelli & biagio buonaccorsi

Machiavelli's Service to the Republic, John M. Najemy

eventually I'll read Sasso's writing on Machiavelli, but even reading Najemy's summary of the text with regards to Biagio and Machiavelli's relationship made me feel unwell™ in some kind of way like. even love. what an absolute gut punch pair of words to put in the middle of a sentence. I feel fine about it!! (a lie)

The Life and Times of Machiavelli, Pasquale Villari

AND NOW. regarding the scene. the letter exchanging hands is referencing their correspondence in general, but to also how Biagio was a collaborator to Machiavelli's plans (and a little bit about how some of Machiavelli's works were copied in Biagio's hand)

Machiavelli, Leonardo and the Science of Power, Roger D Masters

and regarding the red panel with the figure getting measured, it's about how Biagio had clothing for Machiavelli made to his own measurements in Machiavelli's absence.

Niccolò’s Smile, Maurizio Viroli

Just need to say this: Being a fan of someone does not mean worshiping them blindly, but neither does it mean dragging and canceling them because they do not agree with your exact worldview. Being a fan means being honest about who someone is...including the parts you might not always like. It means knowing that they are as likely to make mistakes and hold imperfect views as anyone else, but that does not make them incapable of changing and evolving. And it means seeing the person as a whole, flawed human being, not just as the version of themselves that you find acceptable.

People erasing Asha's attraction to/relationships with men because she's a non-conforming woman is very weird (i.e. homophobic and misogynistic)

I have this one friend that always gets mad at me and says "WHY DONT YOU SHARE MORE ART???" So I don't draw them much but maybe I'll share some characters

Here's the most recent dnd character, Sound of Thunder, my inexplicably-Australian Tabaxi criminal lady :)

there's something so comforting about artists you admire talking about their own struggles and insecurities

I can’t draw but I needed to doodle them 😡😡😡

... why he sit like this