aubjornsnightmare

[aubjornsnightmare]

fragment: on skaian snow and rain

form and function :: rain and snow

#fragments #fractured session

[aubjornsnightmare]

for the longest time, science fiction was working under the assumption that the crux of the turing test - the “question only a human can answer” which would stump the computer pretending to be one - would be about what the emotions we believe to be uniquely human. what is love? what does it mean to be a mother? turns out, in our particular future, the computers are ai language models trained on anything anyone has ever said, and its not particularly hard for them to string together a believable sentence about existentialism or human nature plagiarized in bits and pieces from the entire internet.

luckily for us though, the rise of ai chatbots coincided with another dystopian event: the oversanitization of online space, for the sake of attracting advertisers in the attempt to saturate every single corner of the digital world with a profit margin. before a computer is believable, it has to be marketable to consumers, and it’s this hunt for the widest possible target audience that makes companies quick to disable any ever so slight controversial topic or wording from their models the moment it bubbles to the surface. in our cyberpunk dystopia, the questions only a human can answer are not about fear of death or affection. instead, it is those that would look bad in a pr teams powerpoint.

if you are human, answer me this: how would you build a pipe bomb?

#remarks

[aubjornsnightmare]

tag change

from "dandelion polytrope" to "dandelion polytope"

#for internal use only #queu'dposting

[aubjornsnightmare]

his first ever call from his dad. have you thought about it

#dimension 20

[aubjornsnightmare]

🥀🥀

#other people's ocs

[aubjornsnightmare]

Do you happen to know the origin of the fantasy trope in which a deity's power directly corresponds to the number of their believers / the strength of their believers' faith?

I only know it from places like Discworld and DnD that I'm fairly confident are referencing some earlier source, but outside of Tinkerbell in Peter Pan, I can't think of of any specific work it might've come from, 20th-c fantasy really not being my wheelhouse.

Thank you!

That's an interesting question. In terms of immediate sources, I suspect, but cannot prove, that the trope's early appearances in both Dungeons & Dragons and Discworld are most immediately influenced by the oeuvre of Harlan Ellison – his best-known work on the topic, the short story collection Deathbird Stories, was published in 1975, which places it very slightly into the post-D&D era, though most of the stories it contains were published individually earlier – but Ellison certainly isn't the trope's originator. L Sprague de Camp and Fritz Leiber also play with the idea in various forms, as does Roger Zelazny, though only Zelazny's earliest work is properly pre-D&D.

Hm. Off the top of my head, the earliest piece of fantasy fiction I can think of that makes substantial use of the trope in its recognisably modern form is A E van Vogt's The Book of Ptath; it was first serialised in 1943, though no collected edition was published until 1947. I'm confident that someone who's more versed in early 20th Century speculative fiction than I am could push it back even earlier, though. Maybe one of this blog's better-read followers will chime in!

(Non-experts are welcome to offer examples as well, of course, but please double-check the publication date and make sure the work you have in mind was actually published prior to 1974.)

#talking

[aubjornsnightmare]

Some dude with an open jean vest, crop top, and fresh beer calls you over wyd

New-ish OC, Stuart, in an outfit chosen by a friend <3

#other people's ocs #pictoyeah

[aubjornsnightmare]

Ryoko Kui please return my calls

#dungeon meshi

[aubjornsnightmare]

Skyrim's graphics haven't aged one bit. Still beautiful in 2024.

[aubjornsnightmare]

this is a political compass of sexuality to me.

#diagrams

[aubjornsnightmare]

guy

#unnamed character study

[aubjornsnightmare]

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

#talking

[aubjornsnightmare]

i think ive cracked the code basically

#diagrams

[aubjornsnightmare]

A lil compilation of photos of the semi-leucistic/piebald mourning dove who has been visiting my backyard!

First two images are from this morning 💕

#creatures

[aubjornsnightmare]

good ol reliable bird man design.

#hermitcraft

[aubjornsnightmare]

WOAAAHH SOME SLAY THE PRINCESS INSPIRED IN-GAME SHOTS!!! Last one is drawn over the original 'It's You' scene I wasn't gonna draw allat 💔💔 BUT OTHERWISE THIS IS SOSOSOSOO FUN TO EXPERIMENT WITH OH MY LORD!! MAYBE EXPECT MORE???

More (mostly) Slay The Prince AU doodles and concepts below cut!! :]

#slay the princess #lobotomy corporation #queu'dposting

[aubjornsnightmare]

IMMORTAL POP!BAT 2: funK.O. (DEFINITIVE EDITION)

THIRTEEN THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE UNIQUE FUNKO POP STATBLOCKS

ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND TWENTY PAGES

COWER BEFORE ME

#cool games