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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Serious question.
Do you think we’ll see the parents/family of each of the guys???
Like, We’ve been TEASED with Ace’s brother, that I’m starting to think it’s just a reference to that Alice in Wonderland park character in Japan and nothing else….
Jack’s family, Ruggie’s grandma, Falena, Maleficia, Ms.Rosehearts, Just now Vil’s dad is in the picture which I am really happy but now I’m wondering about his mom, and so Deuce’s mom.
I mean, some HAVE a silhouette!! It could mean they do have a design in the making/ready to show. They could’ve shown us Falena in the Tamashina (hope I said that correctly) event, but didn’t (prolly to make Leona not so σ(▼□▼メ) and it’s understandable)
Anyhow, any idea/headcannon about this? Who do you want to see first?
I'm wondering if everyone might eventually get a travel event? like they've now introduced with Vil's that it doesn't have to be specifically hometowns, so that opens things up a lot! (especially if they have to figure out how to do three separate Coral Sea visits) (how would that even work otherwise)
but yeah, I hope everyone gets a chance! there's a lot of backstory characters I would LOVE to meet. :D :D :D though I do think some of them don't really suit the more light-hearted tone of the events (pretty sure you're right about that being why Falena wasn't in Tamashina-Mina, that would've just been. too much for Leona.) so like...we're probably not ever going to meet the Rosehearts. or Maleficia (although I maintain that this would be THE funniest possible way to introduce her outside of the main story, and actually I would love this a lot, can we please Twst) (I need to see her to put Malleus in a froofy little outfit and tell him what a handsome boy he is). but they've sprung surprises like Kifaji on us, and honestly anyone who shows up and tells embarrassing stories about characters' childhoods is good in my book!
characters off the top of my head who I most want to meet: literally any of the Zigvolts, Azul's mom, Ace's brother, Che'nya's grandfather (<- I think he would be a good one for Riddle) (please just any non-terrible adult in his life), any member of Rook's family because I need to see how they managed to produce him, and...really just whoever they can come up with for Silver.
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Can we talk about The Dying Swan moment in Coda? As someone who was once a very serious ballerina, I need to talk about the Dying Swan. Here's your context --
CHAKOTAY: Harry's clarinet solo was okay. I could have done without Tuvok's reading of Vulcan poetry. But the highlight of the evening was definitely Kathryn Janeway portraying the Dying Swan.
JANEWAY: I learned that dance when I was six years old. I assure you, it was the hit of the Beginning Ballet class.
Have you seen The Dying Swan? It is dramatic.
Here, take a minute:
First of all, this dance is much too advanced for a six-year-old, even if they’re doing it in demi pointe. (Six-year-olds emphatically should not be in pointe shoes btw.) The dance is almost entirely bourees and arm movements done to very subtle musical cues, not the foundational ballet moves typically taught in Beginning Ballet.
This is a very vulnerable, dramatic dance that is effective because of its subtleties. The performer would need to embody that vulnerability in some way for a convincing performance. It's short, but it's a solo piece -- all eyes on you. I mean, it was choreographed for a prima ballerina, BUT THAT'S NOT MY POINT
Can you imagine our unflappable Captain Janeway willingly getting in front of her crew to do this ballet? I get that it’s thematically relevant to the plot of Coda, but since Janeway is only vulnerable in front of her crew when it means putting herself in harm’s way, it seems like a wild decision. She tends to hold herself apart from her crew, maintaining the professional distance of the captain. Further, when she does any creative pursuit, it is almost always in private, since her sister was the artist in the family and she was the scientist. As a captain, she commands Voyager in a much different way than she would as a dancer with this piece. I'm not saying she never shows vulnerability because she definitely does, but not necessarily in this way. Then when she talks about it with Chakotay, she just casually brushes it off with a laugh like no big deal.
There’s also the question of costume – would she have gone full tutu? Done it in her Starfleet uniform? An impeccable yet flow-y white suit? She does get into costume and command a performance in Bride of Chaotica!, but Coda is still kind of early days for our captain. Arachnia aligns more with what we know about Janeway's character.
Granted, it is Chakotay laying down these complements about her dancing ability and he is clearly biased. To be fair, Neelix does too before they leave in the shuttle. If she did this dance and performed it poorly or amazingly, I feel like the crew would look at her a bit differently afterwards.
Canonically she did The Dying Swan, but I certainly have trouble picturing it happening.
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blood of the covenant/water of the womb
The Black sisters are so tragic.
I mean, imagine:
As kids, Narcissa is the baby sister that the elder two dote on, while both Narcissa and Andromeda look up to Bellatrix, the proud, beautiful, powerful, accomplished, perfect eldest sister, who has always known who she is and where she's going, but especially Andromeda, since they look so alike she's always been encouraged to act like her too but since Narcissa doesn't have the stereotypical Black looks and her parents didn't follow the Black naming scheme she's encouraged to be her own person a little bit more.
At Hogwarts they're all Sorted into the same House, Slytherin, which only increases their bond. Bella does really well at school, probably the top of her class, which makes Andy, who's only a year or two behind hyperaware of where the bar is. She walks, talks, and dresses like Bella.
Until
Andy follows in Bella's footsteps (who's probably Head Girl by now) and becomes a prefect, but she gets assigned to do rounds with a Muggle-born Hufflepuff. And despite everything she'd been taught, everything she knows to be true, she finds herself falling for him and the worst part is she can't tell anyone, even Bella, the one she has always been able to confide in, always reassured her and set her on the right path.
Meanwhile Druella and Cygnus are arranging Bellatrix's marriage to Roldophus, someone she doesn't even like never mind attracted to but because she's the perfect Black and the perfect daughter she has to do it. And Andromeda sees and fears how she could get trapped, too, how there's another Lestrange boy in her year.
Meanwhile a strange foreign Dark Lord comes to dinner and he's so different to Roldophus and all those other men who think because she's a woman she must be weak and she's just a vessel for their pureblood children. And despite the way she shouldn't feel this way, Bella doesn't care. He listens to Bella's opinions and he takes her seriously and he sees her magical talent and her thirst to prove herself and he's not scared of her in the way others say that she's 'too intense.' And when he offers to train her, and adds that he never does this, she says, one better, I'll follow you.
Andromeda and Narcissa watch this strange man burn the Dark Mark into their sister's arm and they don't know what to think. Narcissa's scared Bella will put herself in danger, that she'll do too much, give too much of herself because she doesn't know when to pull back. And Andy's scared Bella's going down a path she cannot follow, because deep down she can't say she believes in blood supremacy, can't say she hates Ted and she can't figure out a way through so she leaves.
It's like part of Bella's heart has been ripped out. They were all close, the Blacks, but Andy and Bella had a certain je ne sais quoi, they were thick as thieves and inseparable. Bellatrix is the one who burns Andromeda off the tapestry, crying while she does it, the scorned love for her sister, the anger and shame that Andy chose that Mudblood over her turning that love to bottomless hate.
Meanwhile Narcissa, the lucky one, watches it all. Narcissa is the one that gets it all, she's the only one who's able to marry for love and stay with her family but there's also this Andromeda-shaped hole in her and there's a Slytherin resentfulness of being Bellatrix's supporting act.
Every night that Bella is on a mission, Narcissa stays up, even while pregnant with Draco, until she knows her sister is safe.
That fateful Halloween she waits and waits and waits but Bellatrix never comes home. When she finds out her last remaining sister is serving life she completely breaks down. Won't sleep, won't eat. The thought of leaving Draco without a mother is the only thing that helps her hold on. Regulus, Andromeda and Sirius are dead/burned off the tapestry/imprisoned; she and Draco are the last Blacks, that makes their bond even stronger, makes her scared of losing him like she did her sisters. She curses Voldemort for putting her in danger, aware of her feelings for him and that Bella would do anything for them, swears she'll never let that happen to her son.
All the while Andy raises her daughter, who hates the name she gave her in the same way Andy know she would hate the Blacks. Narcissa and Andy watch each other from across crowds; Tonks and Draco are never at school together, never know more than scattered off-hand mentions of a cousin on their mother's side. But both Narcissa and Andy fantasize of a reconcilation, of Tonks babysitting Draco while they rekindle their bond. Neither bridges the gap. That burn, that rift cannot be healed. But they still ache for each other.
When Voldemort returns that fear for Draco grows, but it's tempered with the joy of having Bella back after mourning her for 14 years -- Bella, traumatized, starved, jagged and torn up at the edges, different, but alive.
And just like knowing he was innocent kept Sirius sane, Bella's love and trust of Voldemort is what made her able to hang on. Yes, they're both drastically different physically (the snake face and the emaciation) and mentally (both shaken, less confident), but everything else can be the same. Maybe better.
But everyone is scared. It's not the same world, where the Death Eaters have control and are undefeated. Voldemort is scared of that boy, Narcissa is scared for Draco. It's clear things are not the same, things are not normal. Far from it. Fear makes Voldemort angry, and cold, and distant and nothing she does feels good enough.
And that boy -- lying hateful filthy boy -- he dares suggest that her Voldemort's filthy-blooded like him. No, he must just be taunting her, scaring her. But there are things Voldemort's said, things he's done -- she would notice, the way she hangs on every word he speaks and plays their conversations in her head over and over again in Azkaban -- Bellatrix just does her best to silence it and block it out, all these confusing things, she's a great Occlumens after all.
She'll make things certain, make things right, trim off the weakness, cut out the sickness. Like Sirius. Like that young woman with Andromeda's face and Andromeda's laugh, that filthy half-blood Andy left her to create.
Narcissa can't keep Draco safe like she, the baby sister, couldn't keep Bellatrix safe. When Voldemort burns the Dark Mark into his skin she sees her son emaciated and dead-eyed.
To assuage Narcissa's fears Bellatrix trains Draco like Voldemort trained her; but he's not the same, he's weak, he's moralistic, he looks at her with wide scared eyes and he's a failure. The glory of the Blacks is gone.
All the while, Narcissa's fear grows, when Lucius is imprisoned, when Voldemort's ire turns on her family, on her son, sets him an impossible task. The despair she feels, she hasn't felt for nearly sixteen years -- Bellatrix more interested in eking out morsels of approval from Voldemort and turning her frustration on Draco, and Narcissa by extension.
All the while, Andromeda's fear for her daughter grows, of the danger she puts herself in as an Auror and a member of the Order, and she's reminded of Bellatrix, of how she gives everything of herself and how Nymphadora does too, begging, begging her to hold back.
She's not good enough for him, not with the sickness, the weakness still clinging to her. Bellatrix very much wants to kill the woman with Andy's face. She's always been perfect. It's everyone else around her that's wrong, everyone else who has to go. She'll do better. Try harder.
And when the Snatchers catch that filthy boy, and he slides out of her grasp like a buttered eel, Bellatrix hits the bottom rung of the ladder of despair. She doesn't know who she is, anymore.
Voldemort's retaliation and rejection breaks Bellatrix's heart, but it hardens Narcissa's.
Bellatrix will do anything to make him happy. She finally kills the witch with Andy's face -- do you see -- do you love me now -- but he's still cold, still frightened, still different, and she despairs, but it will be all over when Harry Potter is dead and he can breathe again. They've won. It will be alright. It will go back to normal. She can have it all again -- Voldemort and Narcissa and her perfect, pruned family.
Narcissa will do anything to keep him safe. And so she chooses Draco's life, she lies, her heart in her throat, in front of her beloved sister, to the Dark Lord, with unshed tears in her eyes and Harry Potter's 'corpse' before her.
Bellatrix's death is something Narcissa knew was coming, deep down She mourned her sister sixteen years ago and she mourns her now, but it will all be worth it if Draco survives this ordeal; Potter must win, he must live, Voldemort must die. And Bellatrix will never allow this.
She wishes she could tell Andy that she understands.
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