Does writing the code or feeding the AI the prerequisite information not count as the same caliber of labor as collecting the paint and putting it to canvas? What makes the AI any less of a tool than the brush or a camera?
Adding onto that, I think it’s just as valuable to consider what emotions other people experience when viewing the artwork. The art itself, personally, is very appealing, stunning even, and I’d bet that a lot of other folks would agree.
The idea that art is not art unless it is consistently purposefully, lovingly crafted is a fallacy and will keep the world from seeing the future of art and the feelings it can bring others as it’s evolving.
Honestly this is the ‘ready-made art’ movement debate again. Was “The Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp art? We definitely studied it (and others like it) in my college Art History courses.
happy pride month to lgbt people who are really boring. we deserve love too
See this is a huge reason I agree with ‘we need queer spaces that aren’t bars’ because I want to be queer, with a bunch of other queer people, but also sit my fat ass down somewhere I won’t get a headache or have to yell over music to have a conversation.
the sonic the hedgehog filmverse writers waltzing into the studio after finishing their script adaptation of sonic adventure 2 to tell the higher-ups that they just made absolutely sure that they will never get any military funding
ok but. do my non-sonic followers know that the plot of the second-most popular sonic character shadow the hedgehog’s introductory game (which shapes his entire character) is like explicitly anti-military and also that the sonic cinematic universe meticulously set up everything for his backstory to be exactly the same as it was in the games
no. tell me more please
ok so im going to tell you the plot of sonic adventure 2, one of the most beloved sonic games and, as i said, the introduction to the character of shadow the hedgehog. i want you to know that everything i say here is NOT a joke WHATSOEVER. it is not fake. you can look up playthroughs, wiki summaries, etc. to see for yourself.
so here is the plot
This begins 50 years before the main plot. There’s a Military called GUN. (It’s supposed to be multi-national but is very coded US Military; the filmverse seems to be making it exclusively USA.)
They contract Gerald Robotnik (Eggman’s grandfather) and ask him to make them an immortal lifeform, most likely to use as a living weapon. Gerald isn’t too sure but his family has some serious health issues so he agrees in order to find a way to cure his family.
They end up in a Space Colony, which we find out in other games was an actual colony. It wasn’t just scientists up there, there were families and children. Keep this in mind.
Gerald is working very hard on this Ultimate Lifeform because his granddaughter/Eggman’s cousin, Maria, was born with an incurable disease that is literally just AIDS. They call it NIDS but it’s very clearly supposed to be AIDS. She is too sick to leave the space colony and has to be under constant supervision and he wants to cure her so she doesn’t, you know, die young.
It’s not super important to the point of this post how he makes the Ultimate Lifeform but long story short there were demon aliens involved
So they make the Ultimate Lifeform– Shadow the Hedgehog. He seems to be practically immortal and has a deep connection to the all-powerful chaos emeralds.
Shadow says explicitly in later games that he was “born and raised” on the ARK, and that he was raised alongside Maria. Gerald refers to Shadow as his son in a later game and Maria is clearly his big sister figure. The two of them just really wanna go see Earth bc they’ve been stuck in space forever.
Shadow starts having depression bc everyone tells him he’s supposed to be the Ultimate Lifeform and he was created to cure Maria but… he hasn’t cured her. She’s still sick. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.
And then. well.
We’re not sure exactly what happened? But it seems pretty clear that GUN found out about Shadow, that Gerald wasn’t planning on using him as a living weapon, and they got scared he might use Shadow against them. So they. well
GUN stormed the ARK and started murdering everyone
And yes, we know that it was everyone, not just the scientists. In Shadow’s spinoff game, we meet a survivor of the massacre who says explicitly that his entire family was killed during that incident
Gerald ends up captured, probably bc the government still wants him to make them stuff
MARIA IS NOT SO LUCKY
MARIA IS LITERALLY SHOT
THEY LITERALLY MURDER MARIA
If you’re wondering how old she is: the games give her no age but she is constantly referred to as a child and her model seems vaguely teenage. The anime, Sonic X, put her at twelve years old
Maria survives just long enough to send Shadow off in an escape pod but she is LITERALLY MURDERED by the MILITARY
Gerald manages to nab Shadow’s escape pod, which put him into a cryosleep. He finds out Maria is dead, absolutely fucking cracks, and decides to fuck with Shadow’s memory so that Shadow will want to destroy the planet
He gives Shadow false memories of Maria wanting him to avenge her and then sets him on a path to blow up the planet and everyone on it
GERALD IS THEN EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD
The military can’t figure out how to wake Shadow up so they keep him on ice for fifty years.
Eggman then breaks in and releases Shadow. Once Shadow is out and starts committing crimes, GUN doesn’t want people to figure out their fucked up secrets so they frame it all on Sonic, the only other nearby hedgehog, and try to imprison him
If you follow the theory that Eggman does what he does bc he has Orphan Issues, this implies that everything shitty that happened in Sonic Universe happened because the military decided to murder civilians
So that’s all canon, and think about this in the filmverse:
They set up GUN
They set up that Robotnik/Eggman is an orphan with government connections
They set up that the government can make people disappear if they’re a bad look
They set up that the military is incompetent, violent, and totally down to maim/injure/capture non-hostile aliens because they don’t understand them and/or want their power
In the post-credits scene, they established Shadow is 50 years old, that he was in Project Shadow, and that the government is covering him up while keeping him in cryo
You remember a few bullet points ago I mentioned a survivor of the ARK massacre in Shadow’s spinoff? You know the Olive Garden Military guy? They are very clearly supposed to be the same guy. Aside from the game!character having heterochromia, they look exactly the same, and he recognizes “Project Shadow” when he’s told about it
And most importantly:
The director of the SCU, Jeff Fowler, got one of his first jobs working on the cutscenes for Shadow’s spinoff game, where this backstory is restated and focused on HEAVILY
we are ABSOLUTELY going into the sonic the hedgehog “fuck the military” arc of cinema
the sonic movie 3 team making the most anti-military movie of the decade
……. Okay I am suddenly invested in the Sonic Cinematic Universe.
So I’ve yet to see a post going around for this. With both Dracula and Frankenstein being serialized, it seemed a shame to me to leave out Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 lesbian vampire classic, Carmilla. So I’ve made a substack mailing list for it.
It starts on Saturday 28 August in honor of Le Fanu’s birthday and runs through 18 December, with an email in your inbox every Saturday. I know it’s going to be running concurrent to the end of Dracula Daily, but I wanted things to wrap up before major holidays in December. (Chanukah, Christmas, Solstice, etc)
A thought that arises from the idea of tiefling babies often ending up being abandoned: A rich tiefling adventurer retiring and starting up a tiefling orphanage that takes care of rejected tiefling babies and children.
A thought that arises from the idea of a tiefling orphanage: the rich tiefling adventurer regretting his initiative of filling a mansion with dozens of little devils that all can cast Thaumaturgy. At will.
Oh Boy. :’D
Personally I headcanon that tiefling magic starts to manifest around puberty, but if that wasn’t the case, they’d just have to suck it up and tiefling baby-proof the hell out of the place. B) Have no vases and stuff that might fall over and break during tremors. Have sturdy furniture. Lock doors and windows. Avoid having open flames around. Shove cotton or something into your ears.
Oh yeah, and some of the babies might in that case be able to cast friends, minor illusion, ray of frost, or mage hand. Could result in chaos…
My next one shot is definitely going to be “A party of tiefling babies escape from the orphanage (to go to the candy shop)”
sorry to hijack this post but i’ve been drinking coffee and had ideas for how to actually bring this to life so:
BABY TIEF HEIST ONESHOT
PLAYER RULES
You are all tiefling toddlers, each pick a different subrace
All your stats are 10, then apply your racial boosts.
you have 4 hp (5 if you have the con boost) if you reach zero, you are unconscious.
Your only abilities are your racial traits.
You have broken out of the orphanage with no money, and seek a treasure trove of candy from the store.
How you retrieve this candy, without being apprehended, is up to you.
DM RULES
Any environmental or effect that could potentially hurt a toddler will only deal 1 hp of damage.
The candy store functions as a dungeon:
the shopkeep is a final boss (objectively has 5 hp if they go the combat route, however, this would only cause him to fall unconcious— there will be no toddler murder.)
other patrons are to be befriended or avoided.
Any creature that is not considered Charmed by the toddlers, whether by magic or exceptional persuasion checks and baby tief cuteness, will report any thievery they see.
Environmental hazards can include
gumballs on the floor
getting distracted by a cute kitty or dog
the candy is on the top shelf!!! just out of reach!
To reach your goal:
you must steal a pound of candy for each player character. you may also steal excess to aid you in your heist just be careful how much you use.
Candy
Lollipops: if you consume a lollipop you can regain 2 hp. (5 lollipops = pound, you may grab 3 at once)
Gumballs: gumballs can be spilled on the floor, functioning like a bag of ball bearings. (20 gumballs = a pound, using gumballs wastes half a pound, you may grab 5 gumballs at once)
Chocolate: Invokes Sugar Rush. (2 chocolate = a pound, you may grab 1 at once, 1 chocolate = one sugar rush)
Sugar Rush gives you advantage on all strength and dexterity checks for five minutes (since initiative hopefully will not be a factor, if it is invoked in a combat situation, the duration is 1 minute), however after, you must make a DC: 15 con save to avoid falling asleep for a post-sugar nap.
You may design your candy store as you will for maximum chaos
roll a d10 + 1 for the number of potential patrons within.
those are just a few small things i thought of for how to run this oneshot for maximum cuteness, creativity and chaos!
October.1.22
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