from the other side of the screen april 2026

[a column for Creation Magazine's CM Editorial House]

Last month I spent two weeks with my family in California. The drive from SFO to the Bay Bridge was littered with billboards advertising Artificial Intelligence. Fifteen years or so ago, some of those billboards showed iconic images of blacked-out figures dancing against a bright background, easily identified as iTunes and Apple products. There was more variety, both in the products being advertised and the slogans shouting down to the freeway. 

Now, everything is AI all the time. Advertising looks the same for products that do similar things on the many, many billboards dotting the route out of the city. Contrasting colors, similar sans serif fonts, and short, snappy slogans that all sound the same. 

My university briefly tried to embrace AI. For the 2024-25 academic year I had to submit a cover page with each essay to declare the use of AI. As long as you declared it, it was okay. I never partook, but many students freely used AI to skate through a Master’s degree. Since the start of the new academic year, however, the university’s departments in Humanities and Social Sciences do not tolerate AI use at all. 

For creatives especially, the growing and normalized use of AI is terrifying. Logging onto LinkedIn means confronting a long list of “writing jobs” that are really just training AI. And how long is that stable for? Not a life-long career, just long enough to make oneself redundant and pushed into a soul-sucking job they never wanted and will never love. 

But, we have to ask if AI is really replacing us completely. Can a mathematical formula really replicate poetry or love?

On the plane into SFO, just before the Great Assault of AI billboards, I finally watched Materialists (2025). What does this romance movie starring nepo-baby Dakota Johnson and handsome leading men Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans have to do with this? Don’t worry, put those Hokas on and walk with me a minute here.

To give the run-down for those of you who don’t know, Dakota plays a matchmaker who sees people as numbers (age, salary, education) until she is forced to confront this in a decision between Pedro’s perfect-on-paper finance man or Chris’s perfectly-imperfect struggling actor. Online conversations seemed to miss the whole point with commentary such as—and I’m paraphrasing here—why would anyone choose a broke, failed actor over a rich Pedro Pascal? 

Well, just as it is clearly shown in the movie which apparently no one actually paid attention to, there is more to love than a formula. Humans cannot be simply quantified, reduced to a bullet-pointed list of numbers put through an algorithm. 

Humanity, life experience, and art all come from an indescribable place that no AI can unpuzzle. Matchmaking isn’t an exact science, so what makes these tech giants think that they can write enough zeroes and ones to convincingly replicate intimacy, irrationality, emotion, and creation? What is poetry if not love and its inverse pricked into the page?

The world of publishing has recently experienced a major AI-plagiarism scandal around Shy Girl by Mia Ballard. The cover and 70% of the book’s contents have apparently been generated by AI. Now, I’ve read this book. It came across my screen on NetGalley in the “most requested” list after a publisher picked it up (originally self-published). 

The premise of a woman being forced to act like a dog for so long that she finally became convinced she actually was a dog appealed to me. I expected a nuanced dive into the perpetual subjugation and dehumanization of women, particularly women of color, in western society. I expected an acknowledgment of slavery and human trafficking, uncomfortable because American history is ugly and we need to be reminded. 

What I didn’t expect was a rotation of the same 3 descriptive words that didn’t grammatically or metaphorically work. Or the complete blind eye turned towards the implications of a white man kidnapping and abusing a poor Black woman. Or the sensationalized violence and harm to the female body. I found myself uncomfortable not because of the subject matter, but from the lack of any real substance.

I find AI writing offensive in the fact that it is just plainly not good. I found this particular instance excessively offensive because AI does not have the capability to be sensitive. In lacking humanity and love, AI lacks compassion and empathy. Any poem, novel, or essay written by AI will be devoid of what has made writing an essential aspect of human culture. 

Shy Girl wasn’t able to achieve any of its goals because it cannot feel. It cannot feel the pain, or the triumph, it fails to describe. It cannot feel pride in telling a story that people will connect with; it cannot feel the generational abuses that informed the generator prompt and should have further informed the novel throughout. 

If you can’t write, don’t. If you can’t paint, don’t. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy, GenZ iteration of Fran Lebowitz (who is problematic in her own right), not everybody can have talent. AI is not a shortcut past the hard work and discipline it takes to be a creative, and it cannot inject creativity where it is not already extant. 

Just as AI cannot replicate love, it cannot imitate neurodivergence which is, in many cases, the true source of creativity. It could never see the world through a neurodivergent lens which is indescribable and indefinable. 

I’m tired of having AI shoved in my face. From the AI-summary at the top of every Google search to the hundreds of billboards on my way home from the airport, it’s inescapable. It's ugly and exhausting and cringe. Not chic at all. 

from the other side of the screen march 2026

[a column for Creation Magazine's CM Editorial House]

I view adaptation as a form of translation—rather than a translation between languages, adaptations translate art between mediums. It is never perfect but, just like translating language, adaptation can be successful in conveying the essence of a piece in every form. 

A dance based on a painting may excite the same person in similar ways through a completely different set of tools. Similarly, translating books to screen is an art form in its own right. Words on a page that stimulate the imagination will tickle different parts of the soul than a projection of imagery complete with dialogue and music. 

This Winter has been bursting with adaptation; from Heated Rivalry and Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Season 2) to “Wuthering Heights” (2026), there has been no shortage of book-to-screen translations. 

Heated Rivalry, being the best example, has created a beautiful sense of community at a time where it feels like there is no common ground to be had. Beneath the TikTok edits being shown in clubs worldwide, HR is successful because it allows its essence to shine through. A horrifically written book has been re-molded into a TV show that is addictive and exciting, yes, but more importantly, a cultural phenomenon ripe with meaning (that is only more impactful since the USA Men's hockey team post-Olympic Games celebrations). 

Percy Jackson 2, however, has the opposite problem. A book series that shaped a generation is pinching and squeezing itself to remain relevant. Consequently, the most important aspects of the book series are getting chopped. What was once a thrilling read has, on the screen, become a stale imitation that crumbles under a strong breeze. 

“Wuthering Heights” is perhaps the most unsuccessful adaptation I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing. This is not because it isn’t a word-for-word replica of the original. This is because the film wholly rejects its source material in favor of vacuous aestheticism that celebrates the submission of women and eroticizes a notoriously evil man.

Emerald Fennell has—in my humble opinion—bastardized a monumental piece of literary history in favor of a “romance” that isn’t even convincing. Race, class, obsession, and generational abuse, the lifeblood of the novel, have all been sacrificed for the sake of a bodice-ripper that is shockingly tame after all the hype. 

Translation is inherently political—the English and Spanish speaking countries across the Americas are an obvious example of this. Colonization often begins with language, suppressing the tongue that carries culture, tradition, and identity.

As an Oxford-educated, silver-spoon elite, Fennell has shown us all that status doesn’t hold any merit with her block-busting money pit of anti-intellectualism. Her adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” shows exactly how translation can be used for silence. 

While we’re at it, let me just say that yes, Emerald Fennell is in the wrong here, but I don’t think Jacob Elordi is getting enough criticism for saying yes to this role. I can’t help but wonder if Fennell getting almost all of the criticism is showing the deep misogyny still rampant today. 

There might be instances where either I or Mod Blue end up using specific questions and the answers the people I interviewed gave in posts in the future.

Thank you for understanding,

"An editorial column is an article written by the editor or editorial staff of a publication which shares the publication's views or opinions on a topic. Standard articles in journalism are intended to be objective and focus on facts, but editorial pieces typically carry strong opinions about the topic discussed." - Reference.com

So, for those of you who read the transcripts between H and me, that’s the last I’ll be typing up for a while. There may be one or two still scattered amongst the feed in future, but for now I just don’t have the time to type them up.

TalesofNecromancy will remain, and I’ll continue to post random gothic aesthetics, witchcraft snippets, occult paraphernalia, ghosts, and anything that reminds me of H or the Stormlands.

My ask box is still open, and necromantic / occult inquiries etc are always welcome.

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              Ilocos Sur National High School is full of busy students that even on weekends and non-school days, they have to come to school just to comply requirements. This is to be able to meet the assigned deadline of their outputs otherwise they will have a deduction in their grades.

            However, providing that students have varied natures, some are using their making of assignments and group projects as an alibi to hang-out inside the campus. Together with their barkadas, they tend to spend their Saturdays and Sundays at school to escape from their duties at home.

Schooling is often associated with crushes. Especially that we are now teenagers and have developed great social life with others, having someone to admire is not new to us. Even so, some students of opposite sex are usually caught in pairs who have been said to have a special relationship. There are many reports of this kind of scene and usually, they mingle in the corners of the school where no one could see them. The increasing case of drop-outs due to teenage pregnancies is so alarming. Why else would they make ISNHS a “dating place”?

            Yes, there are security guards, On Job Trainees (OJT), teachers, and student leaders who can locate and remind these partners to discontinue what they’re doing. Yet, they don’t always have enough time to check each spot of the campus because of tons of other responsibilities they have to fulfill. If something unpleasing happens to these students, the school is somewhat liable for they are inside the premises.

            It is a MUST for us to discipline ourselves.

            ACQUIRE ENOUGH KNWOLEDGE. Recently, a seminar was hosted by Ilocos Sur Medical Society (ISMS) about Adolescent Health and Perspectives (AHIP). The main purpose of this activity is to address students necessary information about sex education and to reduce the casualties of teenage pregnancy.  As an individual, we need to be aware of our whole being and to become a responsible grown-up man and woman.

            AVOID TOO MUCH OUTSIDE INFLUENCES. Peer pressure may be the number one cause of these cases. What your friends do, you’d be likely wanted to experience, too. Some point out that media could also influence them. One should have the courage to refuse whatever their friends is forcing them to do, especially it will just destroy his or her life. Aside from that, there are many shows that are not suitable for young people like us nowadays. Still, teenagers are tempted to watch it, thus resulting to applying it on real life.

            THINK OF YOUR FUTURE. Before proceeding, think of the possible outcomes. Will it help you? Analyze and understand what would happen if you do this and that. Visualize your future and this time, just mind your own; don’t think of the others, think plainly of yourself.

            SET YOUR LIMITS. As a teenager, you can’t avoid being in a relationship. But don’t forget that each of us has limitations. Try to talk about it with your partner. You should remember to prioritize your studies and that it will only serve as an inspiration.