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.
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I love how on Tumblr, "media literacy" has become "Um, just because someone writes about this doesn't mean they're endorsing this. I hate all these media puritans ruining everything."
I'm sad to inform you that knowing when and whether an author is endorsing something, implying something, saying something, is also part of media literacy. Knowing when they are doing this and when they're not is part of media literacy. Assuming that no author has ever endorsed a bad thing is how you fall for proper gander. It's not media literacy to always assume that nobody ever has agreed with the morally reprehensible ideas in their work.
Sometimes, authors are endorsing something, and you need to be aware when that happens, and you also need to be aware when you're doing it as an author. All media isn't horny dubcon fanfic where you and the author know it's problematic IRL but you get off to it in the privacy of your brain. Sometimes very smart people can convince you of something that'll hurt others in the real world. Sometimes very dumb people will romanticize something without realizing they're doing it and you'll be caught up in it without realizing that you are.
Being aware of this is also media literacy. Being aware of the narrative tools used to affect your thinking is media literacy. Deciding on your own whether you agree with an author or not is media literacy. Enjoying characters doing bad things and allowing authors to create flawed or cruel characters for the sake of a story is perfectly fine, but it is not the same as being media literate. Being smug about how you never think an author has bad intentions tells me you're edgy, not that you're media literate. You can't use one rule to apply to all media. That's not how media literacy works. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Aheem heem. Anyway.
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One thing for those who have watched The Boy and The Heron or will watch it. The Japanese title for it is How Do You Live? And Miyazaki stated he was leaving it for his grandson, saying, "Grandpa is moving onto the next world soon but he is leaving behind this film".
The deaths of contemporaries and friends such as Satoshi Kon and Isao Takahata and also the expected successor of Yoshifumi Kondo were things that have always weighed heavily on the back of Miyazaki's mind.
He recognizes the industry and the occupation for how soul crushing it was, grinding up either the spirit or the physical body of those who work in it. He loves and hates the industry he stands on the peak of and fully recognizes how it will probably be the death of him. And he knows it'll leave him unable to say a lot of things to his Grandson.
So How Do You Live? is a lesson. For his grandson. For himself. For his two sons. And probably for anyone else willing to pay attention.
Hayao Miyazaki is a flawed man that makes things so important to so many people. And I think more than any other film of his, in this you get to pull back the curtain a bit and see him at work. And what should be this giant unblemished titan can be seen for what he is, a sad old man who had higher hopes for himself and has even higher hopes for the people he makes his work for.
It's a beautiful thing to see another's humanity in their work. To look past the artifice and glam of commercialized art and find humans behind it. And humans willing to show their humanity and mortality is even rarer. And something to be celebrated. So when you watch it. Or if you've watched it already. Understand that this film is Miyazaki kneeling down, weary after years of weaving dreams and making mistakes, reaching out and saying to you that he hopes you can do better. It's an old man who's made all the mistakes of the world passing it on to you, hoping you do better, and making sure you know it's okay if you don't.
How do you Live? By making mistakes. By messing up. But still moving forward. And still reaching out.
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In playing a game, we bring its artificial borders weight. In creating something, we inhabit that world to bring it life.
I started Handplates during a really difficult time in my life... no matter what happened, no matter how much things felt like they were falling apart around me or I was going to lose my mind or it all was just too much to bear, there’d always be another Handplates comic to do. Like clockwork that alarm in my head would go off and I’d get to work on the next one, no matter what was happening. It was always, always there. It’s hard to believe it’s been over seven years... a few more months to eight.
By my estimates, the next comic will be the last one. It doesn’t seem real, and when it does, it just makes me sad to think about... but I guess Undertale itself was about that too. How hard it is to let go, and when it’s time to say goodbye...
(I made some long long phone calls to my friends at home
And I told them where I’ve been and the places I’m going
And they said, “Wow, that’s incredible, but we already know,
Because of that long long song you wrote.” - [x] )
[index] [patreon] [comicfury]
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"fuck," came katsuki's voice from the confines of your little kitchen.
"something wrong?" you called as you looked up from your position seated at the kitchen island. an edition of pros+ was open on the marble countertop before you, its gleaming pages showing pictures of various heroes posing for various collabs. you'd been lingering on the sections about dynamight, teasing katsuki with certain lines that amused you.
katsuki grumbled under his breath, lifting one of his hands to ruffle at his spiky hair. from your seat, you could see the outlines of his back through his black tank top. grey sweats hung lowly on his hips. he made a tch sound, his head bent forwards as he looked down at the stovetop before him.
"yolk fuckin' broke," he muttered. there was a scraping sound as he moved the spatula in his hand around the pan.
you shrugged and looked back down at the picture of katsuki you were admiring. pinched brows were pulled down as he frowned at the camera. "scramble them or something."
"'m not gonna fuckin' scramble 'em," katsuki said, offended. "that's not how y'make proper scrambled eggs."
"it is if the yolk broke," you replied, shooting him a grin when he casted a glare at you over his shoulder. he grumbled something indecipherable under his breath and turned back to the stove.
"yer the one who wanted sunny-side up eggs." he switched the spatula to his other hand so he could reach out and grab a fresh egg from the carton next to him. in a single motion, he cracked it on the edge of the counter and dropped it neatly into the pan. it sizzled and popped upon contact. you flipped to another page in the magazine as katsuki tossed the shell into the trash.
the toaster let out a ding! that made you jump slightly and look up. you slid off of the stool you were perched on, rounded the island to grab the two pieces of finished toast, and placed them neatly on the plate you'd set out. there were already six pieces of buttered toast on it—most of them for katsuki. you buttered the two pieces of crunchy brown bread and moved to set the plate in the middle of the island. you then walked over to grab two small bowls from the cupboard so you could spoon out some jasmine rice from the rice cooker.
the smell of eggs, rice, and bread mixed pleasantly together in the air, making your stomach rumble quietly. lazy morning light spilled gently through the open windows of the living room. you set the two filled bowls on the island just as katsuki turned off the stove with a click. you then grabbed two plates and pairs of chopsticks and positioned them across from each other. katsuki approached the island with the pan and spatula in his hands just as you sat back down.
"still readin' that shit?" katsuki frowned as his eyes flicked over at the pros+ edition on the island. you grabbed it so you could set it off to the side, a small grin on your face.
"what?" you asked amusedly. "i can't admire pictures of my boyfriend? you look so good in them."
his ears tinged a red that matched his eyes. he looked down at the pan so he could scoop out the eggs on it and set them neatly on the plates you'd set out. "'m right here," he mumbled—quietly. your gaze softened at his words.
"mmhm," you hummed, "i know." his lips twisted into a pout that disappeared as he turned to head back to the stove. you watched him for a moment, then looked down at your plate so you could grab a piece of toast.
"oh!" you blinked down at the full yolk that sat on your plate—lightly seasoned and round like the sun. a quick glance at his plate showed you the sunny-side up egg that'd broke, the yolk a sad mix that intertwined with its white companion. "you didn't have to give me the unbroken one—i don't mind."
katsuki gave you a look as he walked back to the island with a plate of filleted fish he'd cooked before the eggs. he placed it between the two of you and sat down heavily across from you. "ya wanted sunny-side up. why would i give you the broken one?" he said it like it was obvious.
you blinked at him, lost for words, and shrugged. "i dunno. why would you take the broken one?"
he frowned at your words and looked down so he could grab his chopsticks. "quit askin' questions 'nd eat your food."
you took a moment to quietly watch him—the flush that crawled up the bare skin of his neck, the adamance with which he refused to look at you. then you picked up your own chopsticks, a faint smile on your face.
"well," you said gently as he glanced quickly up at you then away so he could place a piece of fish on your plate, "thank you for the food."
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