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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catch me losing my mind trying to explain to people in my life that AI isn't one of those "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism so don't have a panic attack in the grocery store bcs you have to buy something in a plastic container" situations and is instead one of those "hogwarts legacy/eating at chick-fil-a/not wearing a mask in public" type situations where you are actively helping normalize and/or contributing to the financial viability of things that are doing copious amounts of real, tangible harm and you kinda have an obligation to like not fucking do that actually
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The reason why causes like the fight against KOSA don't go anywhere is because you fuckers give up too quickly.
You see one advancement from that damned bill and drop your sword and say that it's over.
Wake the fuck up.
If we don't keep fighting, even if it's gone silent for a while, that shit's gonna go through without us even knowing. Fight tooth and nail. Show them that we can and will beat their asses if they don't straighten up. And don't just say we will. Actually do something if it does pass. They think we'll take this sitting down and will just lay there. We need to prove them wrong.
But if we don't get on their asses and lay down like cowards, they'll think they have power. You bitches who say "it was a good run" or "I can't do anything so we're fucked" are part of the problem.
KOSA and KOSA adjacent bills blatantly violate several amendments in the US constitution. People need to realize that.
And if you don't think you have a voice or can't stop it in any way, yes you can. Do research on your rights, don't just get your info from Tumblr or wherever else. Go on and search on your own. Especially if it's something you've seen and you're unsure if it's true.
Misinformation can murder a cause.
You can do things, you just need to find a group.
And don't just keep KOSA online. Tell people you know. Make them care. If they think it's a good idea, change their minds. Don't "agree to disagree."
And don't just not care because you've lost faith. You can still try. And if peace doesn't work, get physical. Get dirty. We've done it for causes like Palestine, we can do it for this.* (read the tags for my elaboration on that- i don't want people getting the wrong idea.)
Organize. Attack. Scream. Make them hear you. Because if we don't, they're gonna take full control.
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um blah blah blah something about knight!katsuki tearing through panicked crowds to find you slumped behind a knocked-over table, paling when he sees the growing red patch under the hand on your side.
"shit," is all he manages to force out, and it's all he can say for the next thirty seconds while he tries to figure out how to get you out of here. "no, no, no. you're not fine, dumbass," he snaps when you insist that you're fine. he registers a figure sprinting towards him with an axe and throws a dagger from his belt without even thinking, the assailant falling onto the dirt. "this is all your fault," he mutters as he pulls you from under the table and into a nearby alley.
"i can't believe you're blaming me for my own assassination attempt," you exhale shakily, your breathing too uneven for his liking. "all i wanted was to pick some flowers."
"we could have had the flowers brought to the palace," he argues, raking a nervous hand through his hair. "but you wanted to see them straight from the farmer's market."
"there's not much we can do now that i am bleeding out," you groan, fighting down the bile in your throat when you see how red your hand has become. katsuki's hand gently but firmly grips your wrist, forcing it out of your field of vision.
"don't look at it. just look at me," he commands, scarlet eyes revealing his panic. for the first time in your history together, katsuki looked scared. "just keep looking at me, okay? i'm gonna move you to a safehouse a few blocks away."
"no, please," you plead with him, grabbing his wrist before he can loop his arms under your legs. "it hurts when i move."
"the other option is for you to die, princess, and i'm not letting that happen," he swears. "i shouldn't have ever let this happen to you in the first place."
"it's not your fault," you whisper, your thumb smearing red across his cheekbone.
"isn't it, though?" the expression of pure grief on your knight's face disappears in an instant and, before you can protest, katsuki lifts you from the ground like you weighed nothing at all. you muffle a broken cry into your hand and squeeze your eyes tight against his chest, shaking from the white-hot arc of pain cutting your side. "just stay with me, princess. you're gonna be okay."
"it hurts, kats," you sob quietly and a part of him dies. "it hurts so much."
"i know it does, baby. just stay with me and the pain will go away soon."
katsuki isn't there when you wake up in the palace infirmary, but the news of the pub bloodbath where several members of the criminal underworld were being investigated reached you eventually. your knight was supposed to be leading the investigation, but dragon keeper kirishima revealed that, after the attack in the market, he had taken matters into his own hands.
he had a single thought as he inserted his dripping sword back into its sheath. long live the princess as long as he lived.
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he says i hate everyone except you and that is addictive and that is kind of romantic and beautiful because you're young and you're kind of a sarcastic asshole too and you don't like bad boys, per say, but you don't really like good ones either. and you like that you were the exception, it felt like winning.
except life is not a romance book, and he was kind of being honest. he doesn't learn to be nice to your friends. he only tolerates your family. you have to beg him to come with you to birthday parties, he complains the whole time. you want to go on a date but - people are often there, wherever you're going. he's just so angry. about everything, is the thing. in the romance book, doesn't he eventually soften? can't you teach him, through your own sense of whimsy and comfort?
at first - you know introverts often need smaller friend groups, and honestly, you're fine staying at home too. you like the small, tidy life you occupy. you're not going to punish him for his personality type.
except: he really does hate everyone but you. which means he doesn't get along with his therapist. which means he has no one to talk to except for you. which means you take care of him constantly, since he otherwise has no one. which means you sometimes have to apologize for him. which means he keeps you home from seeing your friends because he hates them. you're the single exception.
about a decade from this experience, you'll type into google: how to know if a relationship is codependent.
he wraps an arm around you. i hate everyone except you. these days, you're learning what he's actually confessing is i have very little practice being kind.
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