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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Once, Always
(Edmund has an abundance of birthdays)
.
“I say,” murmured Edmund sleepily as the fire burned low. “When do you suppose it is here? I mean—what time of year? Do you think it’s the beginning of September, the same as it was in England?”
“Summer,” said Lucy. “Certainly summer.”
Peter agreed. “I think it must be Highgrass, if I had to guess. Perhaps later. Greenroof?”
“If it’s Greenroof, then Edmund gets another birthday,” Lucy sighed. “Eleven or twelve, Ed?”
“Neither,” put in Susan. “A thousand, if you’re going to rationalize it that way. Now everyone hush, please, and get some sleep.”
.
Edmund’s birthday was the fifteenth day of Greenroof by the Narnian reckoning. Greenroof, late summer, when all the leaves were dark and broad. Narnian summers were long, but Greenroof was the last and best of the summer months. Greenroof was hunts through the dense foliage, blackberries heavy with juice, lazy afternoons, bonfires, wild romps, and the pleasant kind of sweat. Edmund’s birthday celebrations were always held on Dancing Lawn in the old days: the sort of long, laughter-bright nights that summer was made for.
.
The second time Edmund celebrated his eleventh birthday, it was just past three months since he and his siblings had returned home from the country. Their house was glass-strewn and battered, but still standing when they arrived home. By August it was beginning to feel really safe again, but sometimes Edmund still woke in the night to find his mother standing silent in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her two sons returned to her.
The professor sent one of Ivy’s famous spice cakes for Edmund’s birthday. It arrived tied in red string, which made Lucy reminisce fondly about dear Mr. Tumnus. Edmund’s siblings pooled their allowances to buy him the new Nero Wolfe detective novel, and his mother gave him a new cap and an electric torch.
“How do you feel?” his mother asked over dinner.
“I don’t feel any older, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “Eleven feels just the same as ten did yesterday.”
.
All four of them missed their birthdays the first year in Narnia. Too much else was going on at the time, and none of them was quite sure when their birthdays were supposed to be besides. The measurement of time was a thoroughly tangled issue.
The Narnian year had four hundred days even, divided into fourteen months of inconsistent lengths. Furthermore, the kingdom had only known winter for the last hundred years. The Narnians themselves were still remembering how the calendar worked in a world where the seasons changed. They didn’t have the words yet to explain it to their sovereigns.
.
“Eustace,” said Edmund, “your journal is wrong.”
“Give me that,” Eustace scowled at once. “I know it’s wrong, but there’s no need to rub my face in it. Aren’t I trying to make up for how I was?”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. The month is wrong. You’ve got September written here, but time works differently in Narnia than it does in the Other Place. Haven’t you noticed that it’s summer, not autumn?”
“Oh.” Eustace shrugged. “I followed Occam’s Razor and assumed that the climate here was different rather than time itself.”
“Occam’s what?” This was Lucy.
“Occam’s Razor: the simplest solution to a problem is the most likely—never mind. Well, go on, what month is it?”
“Highgrass,” said Lucy.
“July,” said Edmund at the same moment. “More or less.”
.
They worked it all out one afternoon as the second spring of their reign was ending. Peter and Susan wrote out the English calendar on one stack of parchment while Edmund and Lucy sat down with the Narnian calendar and penciled in seasonal markers as best they could manage.
“The first crocuses came up right at the end of Cleardome, yes?”
“Yes, I think so. And the snowdrops were in their full glory that month too.”
“How do you want to deal with leap year?”
“Just forget about it. Narnia doesn’t have anything similar, so I think twenty-eight days for February is fine for our purposes.”
“Magnolia in Laceveil, yes?”
“Laceveil is a good marker in general. We ought to set that as May and go from there.”
Birthdays were guesses, no matter how much counting they did. Yet as memories of England receded and Narnia’s world blossomed into everything they knew, those guesses solidified into fact. Edmund turned eleven for the first time on the fifteenth day of Greenroof. He was the first of his siblings to celebrate a proper birthday in Narnia.
.
The fourth time Edmund turned twelve, he received another electric torch to replace the one he’d lost. He laughed for half a minute, holding that gift in his hand.
“Really, you should have expected it,” said Susan primly.
"I did."
Their mother tsked and added something about keeping track of one’s belongings, but that was alright. His siblings understood.
Edmund flicked on the light and watched the beam land on the far wall across the living room. Bright at the edges and dark towards the center where the bulb was. He moved his wrist sideways and watched the spot of light follow.
.
Edmund might have forgotten about his birthday aboard the Dawn Treader if Lucy hadn’t remembered. She conspired with the cook to have a spread of Edmund’s favorite foods at supper (such as could be managed at sea) and coerced Rynelf into playing jigs on his fiddle afterwards. While they were dancing, Caspian called for a cask of his best wine, and soon the ship’s whole company was making merry like only Narnians could.
“Didn’t you have a twelfth birthday the last time you were in Narnia?” Caspian asked curiously as the party was dying down.
“Yes,” Edmund replied, “and the time before that too. Confused yet?”
“Ed has all the luck,” Lucy pouted playfully. “We always seem to return to Narnia in the summer, so he gets all the extra birthdays.”
Caspian's face lit up. “How extraordinary! When’s yours then?”
“Cleardome. There’s a year and a half between Ed and me, and he never lets me forget it.”
“It’s really not as exciting as all that,” Edmund added. “We’re not living our lives backwards, or unstuck in time, or any such nonsense. It’s more like—our lives are folded in on themselves, you see? But never the same way twice.”
“I think it’s more like music than anything else,” Lucy said, a kind of fond wistfulness in her voice.
“Yes,” said Edmund. “I know what you mean.”
.
On the thirteenth of Greenroof, the Telmarines laid down their arms and surrendered to Old Narnia. The next day, messengers were sent forth across the land with news of the surrender and with terms for the Telmarines. Caspian’s coronation followed, and then Edmund woke and it was his birthday again.
Breakfast that morning was long and languid, for Peter and Susan knew that they must say farewell to Narnia, even if the younger ones did not. They lingered round the table with Caspian and Trumpkin and the rest, and presently Peter offered a toast.
“To my brother King Edmund, who is eleven and twelve and sixty-three and thirteen hundred years old today.”
Everyone raised their cups and repeated, “King Edmund.” Caspian nodded and added, “Long live the king,” with an almost ironic tilt to his head.
Naturally, Edmund nodded back. “And to you, King Caspian. Long may you reign.”
Another round of assent followed, and then Lucy cleared her throat. “But also,” she said, “To late summer and the rebirth of Our Narnia. And to the land, the sea, the hills, the trees, the sky, Cair Paravel-by-the-sea and Dancing Lawn and all the flowers that are still in bloom. And to the color green. To all of us here today, and to those who are gone. And to Aslan.”
“Here, here.”
There were tears in Susan’s eyes now. “Happy birthday,” she whispered, and squeezed Edmund’s hand tight. Edmund looked down at his plate, fiercely overcome with love for this place and these people. In a strict, chronological sense, it had been less than a month since his last birthday, but how did the saying go? Time was just a tangled string, or falling snow, or whatever else Aslan told it to be.
.
“Bother,” said Edmund, “I’ve left my new torch in Narnia.”
Everyone chuckled at this, but Susan said, “Wait a year. We’ll get you a new one for your next birthday.”
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To make up for the lack of Bowser Jr. in the To Break The Bonds Within Two Kingdoms timeline, here is a mostly wholesome Bowuigi idea that centers around the cute and chaotic little Koopa.
Okay, so imagine with me a time in the Mushroom Kingdom where Bowser and Luigi are a couple. Now whether they're married or not, I'll leave that up in the air, but the thing that really matters here is that Luigi and Bowser have been dating long enough to where they are sleeping together.
And since Luigi and Bowser are getting pretty serious in their relationship, I am almost positive that there would be at least one instance where Bowser Jr. would have a nightmare while Luigi was in Bowser's Castle.
But here is where things start to get interesting.
So after doing some random research, I've discovered that some kittens like to sleep under the covers. Now there are a few different reasons on why kittens do this, but the main reason I'll point out is because it helps them feel safe and secure.
And you might be wondering, "Well that's cool info Nickname, but what does that have to do with Bowser Jr?"
Well my fellow readers, that is where the wholesome part of the idea comes into play.
So when Bowser Jr. wakes up from a nightmare, I can definitely see him going to Luigi and Bowser's room to see if he can sleep with them for the night. However, when Bowser Jr. opens the bedroom door and realizes that Luigi and Bowser are asleep, I can see him do one of these two options:
Bowser Jr. wakes up Luigi and Bowser with tears in his eyes and asks if he can sleep with them tonight because of the nightmare he had (which Luigi and Bowser would 100% be okay with).
OR
We can go into the kitten approach I talked about earlier in the post and have Bowser Jr. go up to the side/foot of the bed, get himself under the covers, climb up the bed and crawl up beside Luigi and Bowser and slowly go back to sleep knowing that his Papa and Mama can and will protect him from any nightmares or dangers (and he does this all without waking Luigi and Bowser up).
Now from the hundreds of Bowuigi & Bowser Jr. artwork & fanfics that I've seen, Jr. would most likely do option #1, but don't you think that it would also be really adorable if Jr. had some kitten traits in him as well (especially since we're making it kind of canon that Bowser purrs whenever he's happy)?
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