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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something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.
it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.
and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.
on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.
edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.
Perseus, Daniel Ogden
Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet
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Dpx Dc AU: Ectoplasm is required for Ghosts to be visible to the human eye- And Danny creates his own ectoplasm.
Danny is visiting Jazz in Gotham and its weird how friendly everyone is. Like, the city gets a really bad rapport, everywhere he goes there is someone trying to strike up a conversation or answer his questions about getting around to the tourist spots. A few people even pointed out restaurants and ways to find off the beaten path gems! Jazz seems to role her eyes at him, but when he brings up her 'roommate' being kind of cute she flat out laughs.
Danny then comes to understand the Jazz doesn't have a roommate and that Ghosts in Gotham don't move far from their haunts- He's just been inadvertently turning these undead folks visible by accident of generating abnormal amounts of ectoplasm.
Which, is comforting in a way, he's never walking this dangerous city alone and really, most of the ghosts have been really friendly! They disappear once he's a few blocks away from them anyway.
---
Tim Drake is having a horrible day.
He'd been given intel that one of Black Mask's guys was going to snitch but that he'd died before given the opportunity to reach out to the GCPD. He tracks down the guy's last know whereabouts and yikes. Its next to the Theater. Tim was often grateful for his childhood obsessions, this time it backfired.
Tim and Bruce get into an argument about trust and respect and, worst of all, mental health. And even though Tim was vehemently against Batman accompanying Red Robin to the alleyway - that's exactly what happens.
They arrive and Bruce is closing up faster than a clam in the contaminated Gotham Bay- Clearly being in the Alley bothers him. No fucking shit. RR gets started on collecting evidence, there are a few extra blood splatters and a single left shoe... When a kid walks into the Alley.
"Uh, sorry to intrude-" The kid looks scared shitless, and runs away. And then, all of a sudden, Batman and Robin aren't alone in the Alley.
Tim can hardly believe his eyes as the dead man appears and quickly blabs Black Mask's bank passwords and what the plan had been- and While he's over joyed to have that closure, he turns around to Batman weeping in the arms of his parents.
The ghosts fade, and the emotions are certainly charged as this was never something Bruce or Tim would have ever dreamed of happening. Ghosts in Gotham. Talking, floating, granting closure.
"RR, Bats, come in." Oracle calls into their ears.
"Reporting in, but, uh, we need a minute."
"A minute? We have a case on 4th and-"
"O, we just saw the ghosts of the Waynes. It's going to be a minute."
"...Lots of Ghost reports lately then. Any chance you saw a kid looking like he could be adopted?"
"Yeah, actually, black hair and blue eyes. He was super polite before he ran away."
"We have work to do. Oracle, lets prioritize finding our person of interest and divert Nightwing and Robin to the case on 4th." Batman cut between them on the comms and he sounded... calmer than either of them anticipated.
---
Jazz is no longer laughing when Batman appears at her door explaining that he's looking for Danny (Who already flew away from town to get a good night's sleep before class on Monday). Turns out Danny reunited the man with his dead parents just briefly- and then the second guy appears and mentions how Danny had also given a guy who'd been murdered by a Mob enough time to explain the ongoing threats the city faced.
Jazz just rolls her eyes and says that it's not like the ghosts are going anywhere anytime soon and Danny will visit in another month. When pressed, she just explains that her brother is a weirdo. No of course he doesn't have powers. Gaslight and Girlbosses her way out.
And Jazz thinks that the game is up for at least another month, obviously when Danny visits more shit will stir up, but then this new guy appears.
Unlike the other Bats who are keen on watching her from a distance, the Red Hood knocks on her door. Are her eyebrows all the way into her hairline when Red Hood asks her to send his thanks along to Danny because somehow this whole situation led to his Dad expressing remorse for his actions and apologizing? Yes, yes they are.
But Jazz can smell Dissertation Data off of these vigilantes- Who is she to send them away? Jazz welcomes Red Hood into her place for a cup of tea and a small chat.
The story then devolves into Jazz getting shit done, Danny being cute by proximity and also bringing ghosts to the party, and the Bats having trauma resolve between them.
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My favorite thing about every single Belmont in Netflix's Castlevania and Nocturne?
Every single initial appearance radiates sad, pathetic energy.
Trevor's bar fight scene was equal parts hilarious and disheartening. This is the Last Belmont? A legendary clan of Vampire Hunters, reduced to a drunken brawler who gets his nuts kicked in so many times?
Julia Belmont? Bodied by hot, gay Dragon Daddy Olrox while her son watches. He brings the direct Belmont line down to two, and traumatizes the kid so hard he has ED—Enchantment Dysfunction until he becomes an adult.
Richter? Yeah! Literally has to have his first true core memory be his mom be fucking owned by the sexiest god damn bloodsucker in history. Little bro's canon event was to watch his mama be crushed.
Juste? Sure his entrance is cool, but then we realize he's also suffering from ED, he sucks at this whole grandfather thing, his wife and bestie killed, and he could never even confront his own blood over the death of his fucking daughter.
I love the fact that every single Belmont makes the worst first impressions. Regardless of sex or gender or age. They just fucking suck when introduced.
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