probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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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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He's my clockwork appointed babysitter, not dad.
They failed, even they managed to beat all the cultist in time. The ritual was still completed. The leader was laughing like a maniac until Hood hit him hard with the butt of his gun, knocking the guy out cold finally. With held breaths, they watched how smoke rose from the ritual circle higher and higher until it started to form a black shadow with stars as eyes and too many teeth and limps. Batman was on his way with Constantine. Maybe they could at least contain whatever that was until they arrived.
"Who in the name of all good and holy dared to summon me?!" A static scratchy voice echoed in their ears.
No one dared to answer at first but of course Red I-fear-nothing Hood had to open his mouth earning him death glares from his siblings. "Aren't you like a demon? Why would you mention anything good and holy?"
That think was blinking at them and Tim did a double take when that think moved its many limps like it was rubbing the back of its neck.
"In the name of all bad and cursed then?" It sounded unsure still a booming echo like voice but unsure. They shared a look. Dick opened his mouth, ready to say something when suddenly a familiar voice shouted from behind them.
"Cut the crap kid! They are the Batsie and his birds belong to the good!"
They turned to see Constantine marching in with Batman right behind him. The man was throwing the but of his cigarette way as he went right up to that demon. Which apparently was not one because right as the Brite was up to it a puff of greenish some blocked their view for a moment before a white haired child stood where the demon had been seconds ago.
"The hell you doing out here kid. I told you to stay at home."
"You try resisting a summon when your all new to the fact that you can get summoned!"
"Your going to make my hair gray faster, you little chaos gremlin."
"Aw love you too!"
"Uh Constantine?" They had question of of them was that Constantine was apparently familiar with that child, demon, whatever.
"Right." The man lit another cigarette but before he could even take one drag of it he side eyed the child staring up at him before he flicked it to the side. "Bats my demon son, Danny the Bats."
"Demon son?"
"Actually I am-" They watched how Constantine covered the child's, Danny's, mouth with his hand shushing the boy.
"What did I tell you about interdimensional secrets? That's right, do not talk about them to just anyone. We are not repeating the Green Lantern incident."
Should they feel offended? It felt like they should. They weren't just anyone.
"Constantine." Batman gruffly warned, but the man held up one hand towards them. Batman was definitely offended that Green Lantern got to learn something he wasn't getting to know on Constantine's watch.
"One moment Batsie. I need to- did you gremlin just lick my hand?!"
The moment Constantine removed his hand the child stuck his tongue out at the JL Dark member and made a break for it to hide behind Batman.
"Get back here you little..."
"No! I am always stuck at home, and you promised me I would get to see the watchtower at last month!"
Batman blocked Constantine from getting to who was apparently the man's demon son. Staring at the man as the boy grinned in triumph.
"Mate get out of the way, this kid needs to get grounded again."
"For what?"
"Being a chaos gremlin that won't listen."
The rest of the batfam had only one burning question on their mind. "Which demon was willing enough to have a child with Constantine?"
Well, except for Tim who had caught the little tidbit of interdimensional secret and was wondering who Danny really was.
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