#it's what made /me/ love her

[queenlucythevaliant]

'Yes, that old oak with which I saw eye to eye was here in this forest,' thought Prince Andrei. 'But whereabouts?' he wondered again, looking at the left side of the road and, without realizing, without recognizing it, admiring the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spread out a canopy of dark, sappy green, and seemed to swoon and sway in the rays of the evening sun. There was nothing to be seen now of knotted fingers and scars, of old doubts and sorrows. Through the rough, century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, leaves had sprouted, so juicy, so young that it was hard to believe that aged veteran had borne them.

'Yes, it is the same oak,' thought Prince Andrei, and all at once he was seized by an irrational, spring-like feeling of joy and renewal. All the best moments of his life of a sudden rose to his memory. Austerlitz, with that lofty sky, the reproachful look on his dead wife's face, Pierre at the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night itself and the moon and ... everything suddenly crowded back into his mind.

'No, life is not over at thirty-one,' Prince Andrei decided all at once, finally and irrevocably. 'It is not enough for me to know what I have in me- everyone else must know it too: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly away into the sky; all of them must learn to know me, in order that my life may not be lived for myself alone.

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

#there are so many gorgeous passages in W&P that i could pick #why not this one in which Andrei reflects on several of them? #I've already talked about the Natasha and the moon passage on this blog. truly one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever read in any book #but part of what's so interesting about that scene is that we actually get it from Andrei's perspective. he's listening below the window #and overhearing Natasha that night is really what makes him love her #it's what made /me/ love her #and he carries that experience with him alongside his own experience looking up at the sky on the battlefield at Austerlitz #Napoleon himself sees Andrei and commends his courage but Andrei barely notices because the sky is so so beautiful #the lofty heavens which he never really considered before #but Natasha did #and so it's those moments his friendship with Pierre this old oak that renew his lust for life #life is not over at thirty. once i heard a girl exclaim at the loveliness of the moon and wish to fly away. #once i lay on a battlefield and all i could see was the beauty of the sky #and my friend Pierre believes in the future and he's searching it out #and look. this tree is still here #first time i read W&P i was honestly so relieved that so many people got happy endings the tragedy of Andrei's death didn't fully register #i mean the chapters concerning his death are beautiful and sad. the kinship between Natasha and Maria at his bedside #the peace he finds as he dies #but it really is a story in which he had decided to live fully only to die young. and that's become increasingly tragic to me as I've grown #happy birthday tolstoy #russia where are you flying to? #pontifications and creations

[tiny--cryptid]

OK this question has been bugging me all morning so y'all please let me know

bc ours did nd I never thought much of it as a kid but know I'm thinking about it and it feels kinda gross? so pls tell me if this experience was universal or not it will haunt me forever otherwise

#i. i do not know what to tag this as. #emetophobia warning #?? #yea this came to me cuz i've been nauseous all morning bc i'm hungry but can't eat bc Food Is Gross #nd it made me think abt good ol vomit bowl. I miss that bowl i loved her like a sister

[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.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!! #my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her) #hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet. #i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!! #i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art. #i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

[petitelappin]

"For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white."

Mina and Lucy in the kirkyard at Whitby, August 11th.

#my art #dracula #mina murray #mina harker #lucy westenra #digital art #i realized as i was finishing this up that they look very much like how i draw donna and laura but yknow what? #thats not a bad thing! a lot of parallels! a lot of themes! a lot of trying to save the best friend you are incapable of saving #once again I spent too long looking at old clothing catalogues bc i love the little references mina and lucy make to idea of the new woman #and they def talk about it like an Other but also w a bit of awe and im sure theres a lot to unpack there #but it made me wanna put mina in something new-woman-adjacent #lets get her a little bit leyendecker yknow?

[ewwww-what]

You are not a coward. You have a goddamn medical condition, alright?

#Adaine having an adult looking out for her for the first time in her life what the fuck #made this while watching the last two episodes of fy #cried twice #I love Jawbone and Adaine. ​this guy tried to kill her in a night club but he’s her dad now so it’s chill #I made her look so sad I’m sorry Adaine #I will always have a soft spot for found family where the family is just a whole bunch of weirdos /aff #(everyone in FH. literally all of them fall into that category for me.) #there’s a shaded version of this with a bg and everything I just don’t like it as much as the flatcolor #d20 #fantasy high #d20 fantasy high #dimension 20 #d20 fanart #fantasy high freshman year #fhfy #adaine abernant #adaine o'shaughnessey #adaine fantasy high #adaine fanart #jawbone o'shaughnessey #jawbone fantasy high #fh #d20 fhfy #undescribed #my art

[criticalsyourroles]

now i've watched a fair amount of d&d i've started to pick up on the differences between dm style i think

like brennan IS all the bad guys. every game he dms is brennan vs the players. he makes npcs and battles that make his friends throw things at him and he smirks the whole time. he makes them tell him their worst fears and then he makes them do it. and it's awful and amazing and really funny

matt IS exandria. his characters and battles never feel written or constructed, they just feel like things that already existed in the world. it's all about verisimilitude with him, and he's amazing at it. he tends to fade into the background and let the players react to the story and it makes everything he does incredibly cinematic

aabria dms like she's just another player at the table reacting to the story, right up until someone gets lulled into a false sense of security and tries to fool around and THEN she throws a curveball by making them deal with the consequences of their choices. she's like oh you think that's funny?? then i'm about to be hilarious, bitch. and she keeps getting away with it bc she's just that good!

basically, brennan's an evil bastard, matt's the world, and aabria's the queen of consequences

or:

brennan - fuck

matt - around

aabria - find out

#brennan lee mulligan #matt mercer #aabria iyengar #sorry but this made me laugh agdjgsjsgs #petition for a d20 series dmed by brennan w aabria as a pc where a couple eps in her pc kills brennan's bbeg and they swap seats #revealing she was the dm all along #i also really want a round robin series. all dms at the table and they take turns controlling the narrative #whether it's in order or just like. every time one of them kills the dm's npc they become the dm or smth #it'd be really fun i'd love to see what kind of mangled mess of a story we'd get #i haven't listened to that much taz but griffin seems to be a mix of brennan and aabria where he does things for the bit #and then eventually he's like oh btw the bit is immense emotional trauma. whoops!

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

#me just watching them in the background #wondering what he said that made her laugh #cuties #love #the bear #sydney adamu #carmy berzatto #sydney x carmy #carmy x sydney #jeremy allen white #ayo edebiri #gif #gifs #gifset #emmys

[taxinealkaloids]

horrible children who are. so so mean to each other

#tlt #the locked tomb #my art #precanon griddlehark dynamic is SO funny. the way they are just no-holds-barred absolutely AWFUL to each other. #the fact that harrow made fun of gideon for saying 'i love you' over her dead mother's grave so gideon nearly choked her to death #and then when gideon recalls this story in gtn she's just like 'yeah lol we were wild kids' #also remember when gideon responded to harrow being kind of bossy with 'your parents must have been so relieved to die' like #imagine saying that knowing full well her parents killed themselves in front of her when she was ten!!!! insane!! #there's no sense of going 'too far' between them. they casually hit what would be considered by most ppl to be 'too far' and then keep going #anyway i don't usually go in for characters-being-kids-together stuff but i will admit that childhood gid+harrow #following each other around absolutely terrorizing each other because they're desperate for each other's attention but also full of #hatred and vitriol #does compel me #like...2 very lonely very traumatized children with only each other for company. what will they do? ENDLESSLY TORTURE EACH OTHER!!! #and yet they are each other's emotional support person. its so good.

[24bughours]

Mini comic i drew the first panel of literal months ago and decided to finish in one sitting

After this incident early in their friendship, Undyne would find out that

1. BOTH of the skeleton brothers can break the laws of physics, and 90% of the time its in really mundane ways

2. She IS still buffer than Papyrus, she was just shocked he had any "muscle mass" at all

#schrodinger's muscles #seriously. everyone talks about how sans has a weird invisible quantum physics tummy but what abt my boy papyrus #hes got the same thing going on with his cool dude muscles #and this was also mostly me being self indulgent with the undershirt thing but. we dont have to talk about that #undertale #papyrus #papyrus undertale #skelebros #undyne #undyne undertale #i really like drawing undyne. like a lot #i made a of her like 2 years ago and now its the only way i can draw her. i just love it too much #and i just love her okay #papyrus & undyne #my art #mini comic #undertale comic #undertale fan comic #undertale fanart #can you tell that i get lazy with my panel layouts

[gunstellations]

In the world I love

_

In a different world

#vanitas no carte #vanoé #doomed yaoi save me...save me doomed yaoi #play on the opening song + visual sequence + the fact that vanitas could only ever be happy in an alternate universe also #+ the other fun little fact we learn about him from episode one #i have complex feelings about this anime #its pretty damn fucking good #but im a leeeeetle iffy about the way it developed the female characters.....they had potential and i was actually excited to #to see some good solid female characters even the respective romances with their l/i's felt good at the start #not jeanne obv. they fucked up a perfectly good woman and her whole dynamic with v could have gone sooo well without the reall #really forced flirting behaviour.... i liked the more serious relationship they had it made me actually not hate what they had at the start #but yknow. whatever. sorry about going off about another ship on this but im just....i love jeanne a lot. i wish they didnt do her so dirty #my girl deserves better than this asshole #you want white/black dynamics??? let her get married to domi and then we can talk #i enjoy this show and i enjoy vanoe a lot #very yuriyaoi if you ask me #my art

[booasaur]

Special Ops: Lioness

#specialopslionessedit #special ops lioness #special ops: lioness #aaliyah amrohi #cruz manuelos #stephanie nur #laysla de oliveira #special ops lioness 1x06 #special ops lioness spoilers #aaliyah x cruz #femslash related stuff #muslim lgbt #lol putting this together made me realize three things #they keep being vague and wrong about the date and time of the wedding #there are so many things that seem to be pointing to aaliyah not making it out of this :< #and that aaliyah is actually just so very lovely and kind and stephanie nur really is doing so well with all her different layers #but man this is one of those ships that has what people love about popular subtext f/f pairings but is also canon #a central transformative dynamic the whole show hinges on #a connection unlike any either has with anybody else #let's see now that they've set it up where they take it #lol I mean we'e all absolutely expecting a bad end but can at least they both survive...

[lemongogo]

sry i dont know what 2 draw anymore T_T . elendira portrait #999

#trigun #trigun maximum #elendira #elendira the crimsonnail #my art #im sure u can see it but ive been so uninspired w art lately T_T #ive tried to remedy it by just looking and observing. breaking down other works that i want 2 take direction from #but i tjknk its like . just jamming ME UPPP #and now im tjinking Too much ab it and psyching myself out #help me sorry i blow up the tags on every drawing i post ab my art struggles😭😭 #its like im whispering in here thouggh. just talking 2 myself and no one has 2 know except the ppl dealing w the same feelings #HAJAHA #anyways. i drew this just to say i finally drew smth agajn and im just going to be ok w it #like sure its not exciting but i like the colors and that shld be enough . OK !!!! #smth smth saw a post that talked ab how u get too in ur Head about this and then u dont share stuff and it becomes cyclical #and youll never get anywhere unless u just throw ur hands in the air and let it Be . #creating 4 the sake of creating . love and joy in sharing what we made and what we like #YAAAY #and bc i love elendira so much.. my go to girlie 4 art block #i need to draw her in fight scenes . i need 2 make art of her like sweaty and bloody yah . clenching my fist #maybe a livio fight scene bc i love it so much T_T

[astrobei]

in my heart of hearts mike wheeler is absolutely an athena kid but i also have to offer up a concept that i think has extreme comedic and dramatic potential aka: repressed gay teenager mike showing up at camp half blood unsure of who his godly parent is and feeling insecure about not having powers and one day when he’s making not-so-secret heart eyes at his best friend and son of apollo will byers is when a bunch of glowing floating hearts show up above his head. and that’s how mike gets claimed by none other than aphrodite, the goddess of love and sexuality, and is in full denial about it for three days because he thinks it’s some kind of sick and twisted JOKE

(on aphrodite’s end, she’s upset mike is throwing away the gift of true love and keeps trying to trick him out of repression by making more and more improbable and hilarious gifts appear when he and will are hanging out. mike hands will a book and it turns into a box of chocolates and he has to fling it away like a frisbee before will sees it. they’re having lunch and romantic music starts playing. she gives mike the same blessing she used to claim piper and will can’t even look in his direction for a full day because he starts blushing so hard. fifty bouquets of flowers show up at the apollo cabin’s doorstep with a note that says love, mike and by the end of it, mike isn’t even repressed and unsure about his sexuality anymore — he’s just trying to not throw himself into the bonfire out of sheer embarrassment)

#also shoutout to piper mclean bc i think her arc of not believing she is an aphrodite kid bc she doesn’t fit the model for it and having #been teased and made an outcast of sorts kind of jaded her and made her actively rebel against being an aphrodite kid #i just think that is very mike wheeler of her #n then she spends five books learning what love means and what being an aphrodite kid means #again. very mike. to Me #credits to abby bc i said ‘what if mike shows up at chb and he is repressed and gay and immediately gets claimed by iris the rainbow goddess #and she said i see this and raise you aphrodite #and i said oh my fucking god. #anyways might write this. (is opening a google doc) #but we will see. #again like in all actuality i think he is super an athena kid to Me anyway. although i think a pjo/st au is one that is very open to inter #*interpretation #i just think this hc has a little kick to it #before anyone gets MAD and says no that’s STUPID and he would totally be Blah Blah Blah. i don’t want to hear it #byler #mike wheeler #/astro posts #pjo

[turtleblogatlast]

Man “Battle Nexus: New York” was a great episode but I do have one major gripe with it.

Like. Raph being paired up with Ghostbear? Makes sense. Works great. Works amazing, even.

Mikey being paired up with Meatsweats? Yeah that checks out!!

Donnie getting…Hypno…? I mean. I guess Donnie doesn’t like magic so it kindaaa works but Kendra would have been a much better choice to me personally. Maybe Big Mama didn’t wanna include a human or something…

And Leo getting…uh…one of the Sando Brothers???? Of all villains? Nah let’s be real, his main villain is more Big Mama herself (or Leo could be considered his own worst enemy lmao-). Hell Hypno would have probably worked better here considering their shared love for magic tricks and stuff, but Carl Sando????

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #battle nexus: new york #nah this will always be baffling to me #like no joke big mama really is Leo’s main villain so it makes sense that she’s not paired with him #given that she’s running this all #but giving him ONE of the Sando brothers?? not even both??? #outrageous #hypno or even warren would have been better here tbh #at least there’s some basis there for both and either option would have been so fun #not that what we got WASNT fun it def was but the sando bro was the weak link because no one cares about him #and I would have killed for a Donnie Kendra forced team up 😭 #Donnie also could have worked with Stockboy ig or hell even Repo tbh? #but Kendra is the much more interesting and fitting choice here for him imo #honestly though this post was made because I do NOT understand the choice of CARL SANDO #both of them together are forgettable enough #separating them gets rid of the one thing they even had #I remember watching and being like who tf is that #he’s got some funny moments but man anyone would have been better 😭 #going back to Kendra and Donnie because I LOVE their dynamic #the result of their team up could have ended exactly the same as canon #only instead of Kendra not knowing chess it’s instead her and Donnie arguing about what the right move would be #and they never actually make a move because of it

[fizpup]

easily one of my favorite character designs ever

#steven universe #su #lapis lazuli #su is what made me fall in love with animation and really start drawing more #I owe the show a lot #I still like her design after they changed her palette but mirror lapis is PEAK‼️

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

Hello may 31th anon! Look at that, another year behind us and a new one to come. Have a nice day! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡

#may 31th anon #hello friends!! (｡’▽’｡)♡ how are you!! I missed you so much! #I'm sorry that once again i have not been posting but I did that thing again where I got scared of posting #I do not know why but it is the same with physical paper diarys #I have 3 diarys and they all have 1 entry #I think one just says 'I am ten' #what have you been up to!! did you do something fun? is it summer too where you live? c: #my tumblr messages seem to be broken! I'm sorry if you wrote something :C it just says 'no new messages' despite also saying new messages #not a lot has happened here! I got a tomato plant and then I got very invested into the tomato plant and I have eaten three tomatos so far ( #my roses are also doing well!! I just got a new yellow rose and since she got here she only made orange flowers #I do not know the meaning of that #but I am very thankful! ( ˊᵕˋ )♡ I love it when things are orange!! #I've been trying to buy an orange shirt for the past 2 weeks but they always sell out before I get to them #I'm also thinking about buying a jean jacket #I have not worn a jean jacket for at least 15 years because one time in 7th grade tthe girl behind me said #that I was wearing a cool jean jacket and I just assumed that this was bullying for no actual reason #but maybe she just thought that it was an acutal cool jean jacket #we'll soon have out 10 year school reunion #maybe I should ask her #is anyone else going to a secret Sherlock phase again #I just want to see that silly little hat again #would sherlock holmes wear a jean jacket #have a nice day everyone!! #see you soon hopefully!! #♡＾▽＾♡