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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A cute thing I like to imagine with sashamilla is just them holding each other. There’s the obvious “moments after a traumatic mission experience and all you can do is silently grasp the closest to you.” But I was more thinking of lovey-dovey random excuses to pick up my significant other bridal style.
Their coworkers have of course seen Sasha and Milla lift each other up after an emergency where one of them got hurt, but they’ve noticed it’s different between the two of them. Sasha’s brought in a lot of suspects, criminals, terrorists, test subjects, and even other agents who’ve been incapacitated or injured back to the Motherlobe. And whenever he does that, they’re always floating near him being held up by his telekinesis. But agents at headquarters have taken careful note that whenever Agent Vodello specifically gets injured or incapacitated, he’s always holding her in his arms. And with very visible physical strain mind you.
Milla bringing people back to headquarters by carrying them or holding their hand is not strange by any means. She’s one of the best people to deploy for a rescue mission or just to bring in new psychics because she has the ability to easily put others at ease. Agents will just chuckle amongst themselves that Agent Vodello has another kid now everytime it happens. What did turn heads, however, is that one time she burst in off the landing pad with an unconscious Agent Nein in her arms like he was weightless. She yelled that they needed help, and everyone for five seconds just looked at this display before she impatiently just started sprinting, yes, sprinting towards the infirmary with him still in her arms.
These observations have left the employees at the Motherlobe with four possibilities about Nein’s and Vodello’s strength levels.
Milla is actually pretty heavy, and that’s why Sasha struggles to lift her up.
Sasha is actually pretty physically weak, and that’s why he struggles to lift Milla.
Milla is ridiculously physically strong and thus can easily lift Sasha and sprint with that extra weight like it’s no big deal.
Sasha is ridiculously light, so Milla doesn’t struggle with lifting his weight.
None of these theories are totally right nor totally wrong.
The reality of the situation is that since Sasha relies on telekinesis so much, he doesn’t have a lot of upper body strength so he’s just not used to physically lifting weight in general. Also he’s committed to the idea of lifting Milla up with physical strength. Something about absentmindedly lifting everything/everyone, but Milla is different and so he actually wants to put more effort in. Though every time he does Milla has to ask if he’s alright, and is constantly reminding him that she is not going to like him any less if he can’t lift her. Over time he gets better at lifting her. But he’s probably accidentally dropped her at least once or twice and they’re both glad she’s a master levitator.
And for Milla, she’s not ridiculously physically strong nor is Sasha really light, Milla’s just smart. She can achieve the goal of having her boyfriend in her arms without any physical strain by just… using her telekinesis to support his weight and still have him in her arms. That’s all. The reason he seems weightless in her arms is because she’s making her brain literally do all the heavy lifting. This also means if she were to let go of him and step away he'd just float, suspended in the air. But surprisingly, not many people have figured out her little trick yet. She does have great joy though with being able to lift her 7’2 boyfriend and have people gawk at her strength though.
Back to the “random excuses” from the beginning… Sasha constantly has at least one reason why he’s holding Milla. Whether it be that she fell asleep and he’s just moving her, or it’s technically an emergency, or she felt tired “to the point of collapse,” or that she’s just frozen in fear from a flashback and needs to be in a place where she feels less threatened… he always has a “totally reasonable” explanation. Which is kinda redundant when he mostly just lifts her up when they’re alone, because he doesn’t have to justify it to anyone. Though oftentimes Milla will just request to be carried, which he honors most of the time after some banter about the “World’s Foremost Levitator needing mobility assistance.”
Meanwhile Milla doesn’t need one at all. She’ll just randomly sneak behind a corner, run up and pick him up with a twirl. She’d laugh as Sasha just looks up at her with a bewildered expression and asks “yes?” And she’d just smile and say “hi.” And he’d just break into a dumb grin responding back with “hello to you too, Milla.” He does get a warning whenever she’s about to do it, a telepathic message along the lines of “prepare yourself” and three seconds later he’d suddenly be swept off his feet. He’s never really concerned about her dropping him, but does get a brief moment of panic when he realizes he’s not securely on the ground.
I had a little drawing idea(that I don’t think I’m doing anytime soon, so here you go) of Sasha catching Milla after she faints mid-levitating while on a mission, which is supposed to be romantic and smooth and is actually successful, he does catch her. She has this flustered moment that they share a nice moment together before they’re back into battle. The less romantic thing about the exchange though was the impact and height of Milla’s fall actually broke Sasha’s leg. Everyone on the mission found out when he was hesitant to stand up and apply any amount of pressure to his leg to walk back to the jet. It’s okay though because Milla got her turn to carry him back. Meanwhile she’s laughing telepathically that she wouldn’t mind getting used to him in her arms while his leg recovers.
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