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 i think is really interesting about dungeon meshi is the cast's respective views on food as the story progresses. the way many adventurers get through the dungeon is to eat when they Must, but mostly rely on healing magic to keep going when they're tired or beaten down. death is something you can buy your way out of, here.
having these lower stakes when it comes to running yourself too hard has made a lot of people in this setting kind of devalue food and what it does for you.
im not all the way through the manga yet, but so far i really like how it goes about debunking that mindset.
long post under the cut, cw explicit discussion of disordered eating. textual depiction of unhealthy methods of dealing with it. please be cautious!
it seems like to most folks, food is either a decadent luxury, like when the governor offers mr tance a feast as a show of power and wealth, (although he is the only one who actually eats in that scene as he talks about his ambitions);
[id: the governor and mr. tance talk politics and hierarchies, while the governor eats from a bowl. mr. tance's meal is not visible behind a speech bubble.
"so you believe the sorceror is an elf?" he asks.
"i can't say with absolute certainty," mr. tance replies, "but the spells are not ones dwarves and humans typically use." /end id]
like the painted-royal feasts laios tries to partake in that never actually nourish him...
[id: laios, fresh out of the living painting feast, surprisedly holding his grumbling stomach /end id]
or, to the working class, it's pretty much exclusively fuel. i'm thinking about the scene where kabru's party, ostensibly intended to be our view into how adventuring Typically goes for most people, is shown preparing to go to the dungeon by like. walking up to someone and ordering 'a weeks' worth of rations.' purely functional.
[id: kabru enters a store, and the merchant says "welcome!"
kabru says "i need a week's worth of rations for six, and two days' worth of water."
"sure thing." the merchant then reaches behind him and grabs a large cube-shaped package, wrapped in nondescript cloth and tied in place. it thumps onto the counter in front of them both. /end id]
when kabru hands mickbell his food for the trip, he complains about how heavy it is on his back. it's a necessary liability.
we also see chilchuck, in an early chapter where there isn't much food to go around, grumbling about how he used to be better at not noticing when he was hungry. he's frustrated that he's more attuned to his bodily needs, now that he's starting to fill them with regularity.
[id: chilchuck, the only one awake, sits in his bedroll and glares at the timekeeping-candle burning down in front of him while he listens to his stomach growl. moving to find his canteen and fill himself with water instead, he thinks to himself, "my stomach has gotten weaker. i used to be able to go two days without food." /end id]
(like im not even gonna lie this is a big mood. the healing process is really really annoying)
even laios, early on, working out the logistics of going back for falin, considers his expenses and ultimately the thing he decides to save money on is their food supply. like, even the guy most invested in eating as an experience kind of just assumes he will Figure It Out. its what hes eating, not how hes eating it that matters to him at that point.
[id: marcille looks down at the ingredients they've gathered, the walking mushroom and the scorpion in an unappetizing heap on the ground, and asks laios "so how exactly do we eat them?"
he responds "let's just cook them, like normal." /end id]
but its here that senshi introduces the idea of food as art and as healing. its exciting and its fascinating for laios, getting to taste the creatures hes been reading about and fighting, but i dont think it would ever really help him feel full if not for this.
[id: three panels of laios tasting the scorpion hotpot, looking stunned, and then excitedly telling senshi "delicious!"
senshi matches his energy, asking "isn't it? isn't it?" /end id]
pictured: guy who had resigned himself to kind of just doing his best rediscovers the joy in something tasting really fucking good
what they did last time isnt going to work. falin is gone, and constantly anesthetizing their pain and healing through their weakness is no longer a realistic option for the party. in order to make it through they must all relearn how to eat well, one by one and as a group over and over again, because its either that or nothing.
one of my favorite depictions of this idea thus far is when marcille is seriously low on health and mana, and both of these problems are mitigated by taking care of herself, and trying to get iron and protein
[id: marcille, looking sickly, wakes to laios saying, "marcille, marcille, can you sit up? we've got something nice for you."
she watches senshi grill pieces of kelpie liver on a low fire, while laios ties a bib around her neck. /end id]
and drinking a bunch of dead water spirits. she gets the idea, she's supposed to get in nutrients and it'll help her feel better, but in aiming for the quick, inefficient fix, namely chugging that shit down like she heard it was good to Stay Hydrated and decided that would be the thing that fixes her,
[id: marcille throws back a cup of boiled undine-water, her face red. laios asks, "do you really need to drink it that fast?"
she gasps out "...the magical energy stored in nature spirits is actually quite hard to absorb. even if you drink a lot, the majority of it is excreted without being absorbed," and takes another drink. "that's why i need to drink as much as i can."
laios says weakly "you'll get water poisoning," but marcille only stops when senshi puts a hand on her shoulder and says,
"it's easier to absorb nutrients if ye digest them with food. that's a fundamental rule of nutrition."
marcille says, "senshi..." contemplative
and he holds out a bowl of tentuclus and a thumbs up. "let's get cooking!" /end id]
she doesn't immediately realize the answer is that she needs more than that. she's been working hard. she needs care, and she needs nourishment.
once she gets that, though, she makes her boiled water into a stew, and she works to make that stew as good as she can, and everyone can have some.
because in dungeon meshi, to feed yourself or allow yourself to be fed is treated as performing a kindness for yourself. food is what propels you, but there is also an art and a joy inherent to the process of making it; in the way you feel when you've had enough to eat.
[id: senshi watches as chilchuck and marcille eat and excitedly hash out plans.
"i've got a good feeling about this! maybe it'll work out!" chilchuck says
marcille responds, "well it's easier to feel optimistic on a full stomach!"
senshi smiles, proud. /end id]
^^^ i want to put this image on my wall
when you're working through disordered eating habits, you really do have to keep learning this shit. (in my experience, learning about cooking is one of the best ways to do so.)
i'll have to see if my thesis holds up as i continue, but i think one of the reasons the portrayal here resonates with me so hard is that ryoko kui puts most of her characters at eye level with me on this. they're all working at it, too. the text and i are both commiserating, and encouraging each other, 'have some more, you'll feel better.'
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