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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I rarely post personal stuff on here but irl I'm a writer whose work covers tech and AI quite a bit and with the WGA strike ongoing, I really want to stress that the reason Hollywood execs and higher-ups think they can just replace writers with chatgpt or have someone come and edit AI generated text is because they already think writing is that easy.
these people look at their shows, movies, etc as marketable (re, profitable) content so all they are watching for is "okay this show performed badly" and "this movie performed well" and I can promise you in a boardroom the quality, the time and effort that went into the actual writing is NEVER discussed as a contributing factor when it comes to the difference between those two things.
That's also the reason tools like chatgpt seem like magic to these people, because they've devalued the act of creation and everything that goes into making something that resonates with its audience, so naturally something that can scrape the entire digital world and spit something out that falls in line with what you asked seems like a wizard's spell, because they ALREADY think of writing as an afterthought, something where they just go "I need a show that appeals to the 16-24 age range" and writers can just fill in the blanks and they won't have to PAY PEOPLE for that.
There's a vast difference between art and content, and if you want to see more of the former, you should be furious they're trying to replace writers with what is essentially a programmable template generator. Pay your writers.
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EVEN MORE CLARA DOLL DETAILS:
So you know how the Dolls have their own distinctive clothes?
Guess who else has their own distinctive clothes!
That’s right. The multiple Homuras are actually Clara Dolls.
And that’s why ‘Homura’ is smiling.
Here they are! The one with the striped hat is Nekura (Gloominess or Pessimism) and the one with the flower is Mie (Vanity).
Here’s their descriptions from the art book.
[The second one to come was Gloominess. Walking out with a tapping sound, she sneered at Good-for-Nothing. “This is Good-for-Nothing! How very unbecoming.” These dolls are only disciples of Freedom, and are devoted to their lust for it.]
[The tenth to come running is Vanity. She exaggeratedly avoids Good-for-Nothing's head and says a few words. “I wouldn't be able to bear dirtying my cape with that sticky blood!” These dolls make fun of the witch's self-mutilation.]
Good-for-Nothing is Homura, by the way, but the Clara Dolls seem to consider Good-for-Nothing to be good for something after all after she splits Madoka. She turns into the Devil, and the Clara Dolls are stated to be “okay” with the Devil. If the young voices in the trailer belong to the Clara Dolls, then they also call her “Akuma-sama” now. Something like Mistress Devil, implying a sense of respect.
[… if they are not summoned, they will simmer. There are orders they will comply with, and also orders they will disobey. What they are and the witch herself's own magic are not well understood.]
At the end of Rebellion, Homura gave Madoka her ribbon back. She declared that they might become enemies in the end. Honestly, I thought that Homura would try her best to avoid Madoka entirely. The trailer suggested that Homura was meeting Madoka, though. Here’s the answer: it wasn’t Homura herself, but Gloominess, who wants freedom.
Now, I’m not sure how this situation works out. Do Clara Dolls have free will? Are they obeying Homura’s orders? Acting out Homura’s true emotions? Is Homura perhaps directly puppeteering them in order to fulfill her goals, or do they act on their own?
I find it likely that it’s a mix of both: some of them obey her, and some of them will try and fulfill her (probably very conflicting) desires, as familiars usually do. Gloominess is likely part of Homura who wants the freedom to talk to Madoka, for example, but Vanity seems to me like a Clara Doll who is obeying Homura. After all, she still needs magical girls to fight wraiths, at least until she finds a way to wipe them out.
[I'm Vanity (Mie). I'm pushing myself to the limit for someone.] And she is, of course. All of the theatrics, the calls, the organization of magical girls. These are things that Vanity is shown to engage in. All of this is for Madoka.
We see with Gloominess, at least, that she seems to be fulfilling a specific desire: in the background are white spider lilies. Instead of the red spider lilies that mean death, final goodbyes, and lost love, white spider lilies mean a hope for the future and a fresh start. Maybe this really is the first meeting for these two in a while, and she wants to be friends again?
Or maybe, being Gloominess, she wants to warn her about something.
[I'm Gloominess (Nekura). Forcing smiles tires me out.]
Then there’s this Homura.
Nothing about her clothes is very different. She is wearing ribbons as Homura in the wraith universe does, but look closely: the ribbons are different. They have some wavy stripes on them, while Madoka’s ribbons are plain. She does not correspond to any known Clara Doll.
However, there’s mentioned to be a fifteenth Clara Doll that is not yet born: Ai, representing love. This could be her. Is it love for others? Or love for herself? I’m hoping it’s the latter, but very likely it’s love for Madoka and her friends. This would explain why she’s trying to fight Homucifer in the poster, as Homura believes that she’s a danger to everyone else.
How can this be? Well, here’s a few options:
- The Clara Dolls are grown-up familiars. They ate souls, and they became a copy of their witch. This is a process that was explained to us in the original series, where some magical girls are stated to farm familiars by letting them eat people so that they would grow souls/grief seeds.
- The Clara Dolls are not familiars, or wraiths, but instead a secret third thing. “What they are and the witch’s own magic are not well understood”, as said in the Rebellion art book. They could be magical constructs of a different kind, but I do think that this would get into overcomplicated explanations quickly, so I favor the familiar explanation.
- The Clara Dolls could be familiars, but instead of eating souls they’re simply powerful enough to change their shape. Their strength is equal to the strength of a magical girl…. when Homura was a witch, before Homura became something more. It could also be energy from the contracts making them stronger. Maybe it’s me being sentimental, but I don’t like the idea of Homura letting anyone’s soul be nommed on.
Now, before there’s a panic about how they’ll juggle fifteen extra characters, here’s a few thoughts:
- Just because they seem different doesn’t mean they’re actually different. It might be that the Clara Dolls are a way for Homura to present herself. As Vanity, she might show off more, or have dramatic flourishes like her throne and her dress. As Gloominess, it might be that she doesn’t believe that her plans will work, so she tries to do what makes her happy. It’s likely that the Clara Dolls are just extra ways to explore Homura’s character. They’re parts of her soul, after all, and right now she is extremely powerful. She might simply want to keep her true self away from humans.
- They could work like projections. Homura wants more bodies to work with, but she has to filter herself through the Dolls’ personalities. This could result in a lot of juicy character interactions, as the things she tries to keep hidden are closer to the surface.
- Will ‘Ai/Mystery Homura’ fight against Devil Homura? Very likely! How can this be when they’re the same person? Well, who hates Homura more than Homura? That’s right. Nobody. Anyone can fight and argue with their self, it’s just usually not on the level that a reality-warper like Homura can manage.
If this is true, there’s plenty of interesting directions they can take it.
- Because the Clara Dolls have a degree of separation from Homura, they can show other characters things that Homura herself has ignored or locked away. Bad memories, affection for her friends, the resentment she must feel - everything from concern to a cry for help can be plausibly shown through them as the actors.
- Manuke (Stupidity) is specifically more naive/sincere than the others. Maybe interacting with this Doll would show the Quintet that there’s something more going on than a Devil who wants to hurt other people.
- If Ai represents a love for other people, Ai can have a strange character arc where she learns to value Homura/herself, and become self-love.
- On the other hand, Ai can represent self-love from the start, and because Homura looks very fucking unhealthy in the trailer, she only wants to stop her because she’s hurting herself. This option plays into the themes of self-sacrifice and happiness, which I believe to be some of the major themes that they’re going for.
- The poster could be misleading and Ai ends up fighting everyone but Homura. I find this the funniest option.
- Homura can hug herself. It’s possible. In fact, every character can hug Homura 15 different times.
Smiles are a Clara Doll’s default expression. We have yet to see Homura smile for real.
Is this going to get very ambiguous and confusing? Probably. But rewatching for details was the fun part in Rebellion, so I’m looking forward to it!
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im gonna be a hater tonight but idc! its a lomg one but i rlly wanted to rant 😔😔
im just gonna go right in and say it: some house of the dragon characters are unoriginal and lazy, and it pisses me tf off. im sick and tired of seeing the same oc regurgitated in this fandom bc istg half of these hotd ocs are literally just daenerys targaryen thrown back in time under a different name.
i usually dont care abt fanfic because its fanfic. nothing i can do, its probably some child having fun, but like i said im just TIRED of looking through hotd fanfics and seeing daenerys pop up as a faceclaim, and then going on to see that half (or all) of dany’s entire character is put into an oc with little to no actual originality if this makes sense.
before i get into this, what the fuck happened to the originality in original character? like genuinely? this is mainly abt one oc i legit just saw like an hour ago off of tiktok bc but still this applies to the daenerys knockoffs i (regularly) see and cry abt like my grown ass should not care but i do!!!!
starting off, the oc’s name is daenera. cool! fine! she’s not a daughter of rhaenyra which is a slay, but is a daughter of alicent and viserys which eh, good enough. we go on to find out that for some reason vizzy t and ali hate her, and at age 16 they decide to ship her off to pentos so she can marry a dothraki warlord. im not even joking. aside from that, she’s in pentos for a year, and comes back with an army of 550k and three dragons. okay hello daenerys! anyways she apparently fights for rhaenyra, but also bangs aemond, daemon, and cregan in the two year timeframe that the dance takes place in.
no one is gonna read this but my ass is mad and idgaf! i need to complain!! but anyways, i am sick and tired of the ocs that are just cheap copies of daenerys because at what point is this an original character? if youre using a faceclaim of daenerys for your character and essentially adding her entire plotline onto your oc, is it even an oc anymore? like i get being inspired to base a character off of her because dany is literally the blueprint, but copy and pasting her entire character and then going off and ignoring grrm’s established lore (yes, its a fanfic, but ive seen too many oc’s claim both cannibal AND vermithor at the same time and i am TIRED) is just lazy and boring.
i wish people did more with their hotd ocs honestly. like theres hundreds of houses and shit and actual ORIGINAL ideas one could use instead of just taking dany’s whole character and just making it their own. i dont even want to start an argument with this but i NEED to see more original characters. like im writing my own two on wattpad rn (one’s a dragonseed whos like schizophrenic idk and the other’s a mormont who slays the day away) but even then i just need more than aemond x his sister or niece or smth idk yk??
im just reiterating points ive made but man its just ughhhh
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