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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Another world.
Part two,yay!
Slight gore warning!
Gone. His entire livelihood is gone. His home is gone. His family,friends,everyone. Everyone but her. Her safety came above his,she had to stay alive at all costs.
Walking through the familiar forest,weaving through the thick foliage. You travel through this quiet world. Not a sound in the air,not even a gust of wind. Darkness lurks in every corner,under every bush and leaf. Finally,you make it to the place where leaves turn to rock,where grass yields to stone.
Turning around one last time,you look at the slowly closing Sumeru. What happened here? Who wrote that warning?
The dark greens and greys and blues and blacks of the forest transfix you,and you can’t look away,even as your feet move backwards. Your stupor is broken by something soft under your shoe.
It’s another notebook. You pick it up,flipping through it. It’s longer this time.
“We’re out now. We are mostly unscathed,but she’s scared now. I admit I was a bit snippy,trying to get her out,but this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Everyone is gone,nothing is familiar. The akedemyia was no help,as expected. But even they’re gone now.
We’re heading to liyue. It’ll be safe as we try to navigate this new problem. At least,that’s what I can hope. I need help,I can hardly do this on my own. “
There’s another page after that,this time it’s messy and scrawled in handwriting worse than in the first note.
“It’s not safe here either. I don’t know how it spread here but it did and we need to run.
Liyue is not safe.
One of them got me,but she’s safe. As long as she’s safe,I can do this. As long as she’s ok,I’m willing to die.
I’ll be ok,there’s no point in panicking.
[There’s a note at the bottom,in big, hastily scribbled letters.]
This is a warning to any and all sumeru survivors.
Liyue is not safe.
I don’t think anywhere is.”
You drop the unsigned book to the floor, hearing wailing coming from below. Carefully,in fear of what you may find,you climb down the broken,rickety wooden figure. What it had once been,you weren’t sure. The underneath of it was the interest anyway.
There’s a man there. Propped up on some rocks,with his eyes glased over. The wailing comes from his wide open mouth. His jaw was hanging from his face by a bone. His eyes are wide,and they look at you. It feels like he’s looking past you,through your clothes and through your skin. He couldn’t see you. Or at the very least,he didn’t know he was seeing you.
The wailing grows louder.
The body of this man,covered in moss and twirling vines,was worn and red. His arms were covered in scratch marks. Blood pooled from them like a waterfall,falling down the arm and onto the floor below.
What was this?
The wailing grows louder.
Who was this? What was their story,why were they sitting like this? What had happened to them..?
The wailing grows louder.
The wailing grows louder.
The wailing grows louder.
Run.
You need to run.
The wailing grows louder.
Your feet take you far. Far away from the man,away from Sumeru. You didn’t know this place,didn’t know where you were going,but your feet take you there anyway.
When you finally make it out of that stone graveyard,when your feet finally land on soft ground,you look up.
Liyue is not safe.
The wailing grows louder.
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This idea is eating my brain. Sukuna being a shameless insatiable freak towards Gojo and an in-denial thirsty freak towards Itadori.
He wants Gojo. He pursues him without relent. Sukuna wants to wreck the man and paint him red all over. He wants to taste his heart and know if he is as sweet as the desserts he gorges himself full with.
Sukuna wants to pry Gojo open and eat him out clean. He wants to climb over him and crawl inside of him. Their bodies becoming one and no one can ever tell where Sukuna start and Gojo ends anymore.
Sukuna desires that more than anything.
But he cannot understand why he sees himself doing it in the body of the brat that once caged him.
Instead of imagining his own four arms bringing Gojo towards his end begging and moaning for mercy he would never receive, Sukuna fancies it to be that of the annoying mouthy fool.
Clumsy hands and eager fingers. Unable to control the strength they possess that they break Gojo in. Cracking bones. Shattering spirits.
Gojo will be quivering. The brat will whimpering. Sukuna will be feasting.
The sweetness of their despair and richness of their blood sit heavy on his tongue. Salty tears spilling from confusion and frustration just makes his mouth water for more.
But what Sukuna craves more from their joining in his fantasy, was the forbidden taste of desire for the impossible and unthinkable - desecration of something sacred and twisting of kindness so profound.
Sukuna wants Gojo through the Brat. It is driving him insane.
SCREAAAAAAAMINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
SHIT THAT'S SOOOOO GOOD OH MY GOD. AND SO SO SO CORRECT
it's a mix of his desire to break yuuji (derogatorily) and break satoru (affectionately) and it mixes up into this absolute mess of feelings for all of them involved and fuuuuuccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
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