before the edible: they have passed like rain in the mountains, like wind in the meadow. the days have gone down in the west behind the hills into shadow
after the edible and most of a Slough Feg album: SHIELDS SHALL BE SPINTERED! SPEARS SHALL BE SHAKEN! HAMMER OF THE GODS WILL DRIVE OUR SHIPS TO NEW LANDS! A NEW MOON, A BLUE HAWAII, A WET WILLY TILL THE WORLD LIES RUINED!
Tonight’s #drawings, I’m real mixed about the dwarf mecha pic; maybe I should stay away from anything that looks vaguely modern military, it leaves sort of a bad taste. But then there’s only one way to find out if you like drawing something right?
so earlier today I said Dark Sun and Ravenloft are great settings but not really D&D - Dark Sun might be Fate since it's all about shifting conditions and weird talents more than your gear, I wasn't sure about Ravenloft.
Then I realized Spelljammer is not just D&D but 4e. Weird talents and powerful monsters are streamlined to everyone's special action each round and it's vital to know where you are aboard a ship.
I didn't know about this track, and *now* I want to jump across the void of space to board a Githyanki astral skiff, runesword howling in my grasp
Rant: this is going to sound crazy but I think AI generated images hit an uncanny valley in an existential sense, far more than a literal one.
I want things to be clearly real or clearly fiction, I think, as part of touching the world. I desperately want f'rex a mother wolf carrying her pup away from sleeping next to a human to be a very real miracle out there, but if it's obviously something else someone made, that connects me to THEM, to whatever humans also want this miracle to be real enough to paint or animate it. There's no FACT, but there's TRUTH.
Photorealistic AI makes not fiction but LIES. Someone wants me to believe in their video, in turn built using plagarism we're told isn't, and the benefit of a cute animal vid is nothing compared to the ecological and health costs. If you can get me to believe a lie about wolves, maybe you can get me to believe lies about let's say AIDS, Jews, or American history. Given that I grew up being lied to about AIDS, Jews and American history that's a sore nerve. I'm 8 or 10 or 15 again, and the adult world has found another convenient lie for me to believe in.
Does any of this make sense?
Lots of random gunk, but some drawings and cooking talk too. Obsesses about DnD and related topics. Left-leaning/profoundly frustrated politics. Black lives matter; trans rights are human rights.
Occasionally NSFW art and discussion, please do follow if you're 18+.