https://youtu.be/MxR6gYsK4eU?si=hNEmheXzpuAMkxYU

Broken Ruune did an interesting video on how the west disconnects from its' spiritual history by reclassifying anything outside of Christianity or Atheism as mere myth. From there mythology is filed away in the outlandish fiction category where it is promptly ignored until we dig it up again to make ever more shallow retreads and remakes of those general ideas. Cape shit (Super heroes and super heroines) is one of the biggest transgressors in that cycle! I used to be a huge comic book nerd but the medium has not been up to my personal standards since the late 90's! 

By contrast many Eastern countries still believe in the mystic realms, energy flows, as well as receiving guidance from their departed ancestors. This has persisted into current year. 

All this correlated into why I like fighting games so much. As in there's the aspect of the main characters drawing from ancient cultural traditions to do amazing supernatural feats in the modern era. Ryu and Ken can throw chi (Or ki) infused fireballs. Dhalsim can levitate, teleport, and stretch his limbs. Blanka mastered electricity. Chun Li and E Honda can do kicks or palm strikes at unnatural speeds. Obviously Street Fighter 2 The World Warriors was my earliest exposure to all of this. Though Mortal Kombat was made by an American gaming studio called Midway, it too had a lot of these elements whilst their lore was probably influenced by countless dark fantasy themed martial arts flicks and edgy manga with a side helping of gore, gratuitous sexuality, and body horror.

To me King Of Fighters did this approach the best. Envision three chosen families passing down sacred heirloms from one generation to the next. When combined these heirloms sealed away Orochi, a powerful nature deity that wanted to destroy all of humanity because civilization had expanded too fast. Yet the eco terrorist Orochi cult remains and has been the focal point of many King Of Fighters tournaments. There's also N.E.S.T.S, a cooler looking version of NASA and the World Economic Forum genetically and cybernetically experimenting on humans to create the next supreme ubermench. I could go on and on but my point is that a gaming genre often dismissed and laughed at for its' world building surprisingly has very competent world building.

Incidentally this is why I appreciate how Asian developers handle the horror genre as well. That mishmash of unethical mad science, psychological trauma, courageous earnest protagonists, ripped mercenaries, shifty femme fatales, and occult mysticism. When all these are used in synchronicity, they yield the best results!

We used to know how to do all that too. The Suffering, F.E.A.R., System Shock, Bio Shock, Dead Space, and Eternal Darkness were all the result of western developers pushing the envelope even further beyond. They all have roughly the same ingredients found in heavy hitters like Fatal Frame, Silent Hill, and Resident Evil. But at some juncture the freedom of creative expression we wielded as our advantage was suppressed or corrupted by thought policing idealogues and tourists from the worst fringes in our country's current political divide.

Instead of publishers and studios letting good ideas and good stories naturally rise to the top based on their reception, appeal, and profit margins, there are now HR departments and consultancy agencies that sand down all the edges until what is left over is boring monotonous 4th wall breaking preachy agenda driven safety slop. In the futile quest to offend no one, put inclusivity before objectivity, and to avoid discomfort at all costs, we have murdered our collective ability to make profound western culture themed fantasy escapism.

This is why I harbor special contempt for both bible thumpers and woke-skolds in equal measure. Until we take back our sacred spaces where the imagination and the soul can flow unshackled, we will remain stunted inside cages of our own design. 

https://youtu.be/XdLzn3njH-o?si=e3YuLQGxIWepGkdK

I don't get the cultish fervor behind glazing Silent Hill P.T. Consider it was the first Silent Hill experience that had nothing to do with Silent Hill at all. The overall gist? All you did is walk thru a time loop in a house where very bad stuff happened. "Woah there's a bloody living baby fetus in the sink and the ghost of the husband's murdered wife is following us! What a masterpiece!". I'll give P.T. this. The ambience and oppressive atmosphere were expertly done. But nothing about it strikes me as being on the cutting edge.

Look, I get it. Kojima has fans. Del Toro has fans. Ergo P.T. was destined to have a vocal minority sing its' praises even though it is an UNFINISHED PRODUCT and a walking simulator tech demo.

And you can tell Kojima didn't research Silent Hill as much as is claimed from the fact the dead wife in the demo was named Lisa which just creates confusion as Silent Hill already has an important character named Lisa Garland. Couldn't they have went with Vanessa, Rebecca, Julie, or Matilda instead? Would that have been so hard?

It has gotten to the point that the words "Silent Hill" have no meaning. Weird anomalies happen somewhere else and are completely unrelated to the events in the other games? Bam, it's still somehow Silent Hill, baby! Give us money! That is literally Konami's treatment of the franchise right now.

"But Ben, you reference Silent Hill in your works a lot!" Well, yeah. But nothing I do is canon and I'm not close to someone in an influential position willing to make my ideas into a product you would have to interact with when it comes to mainstream entertainment.

I do not want to be rain on someone else's parade. But I grew up when words still had meaning. You cannot convince me Silent Hill F or Town Fall could not stand on their own as original ips. They are "Silent Hill" in name only. Yeah, I said it.

By contrast Resident Evil keeps things consistent. Even Resident Evil 7's attempt to soft reboot the series referenced characters and events in the other games. It didn't treat Ethan as if he was in some odd pocket dimension cut off from Umbrella and the mainline heroes and villains. He was another piece of the greater meta narrative. I know Resident Evil is cheesy nonsense, but it is cheesy nonsense handled with some amount of sincerity and reverence.

As much shit as Silent Hill Homecoming, Silent Hill Origins, and Silent Hill Downpour receive from the SH community, their developers had the decency and respect to reference the other games. The execution of those references was not always flawless, but an attempt was made by people who obviously liked the series. Figured I would drop one last truth bomb before departing!

Been watching alot of the Lindsay Clancy drama and I become more convinced every day something is seriously wrong with the human condition. Watching thousands of women using astrology and flimsy excuses to declare her innocence is the mass psychosis event of the decade. She already admitted she strangled her three children. We just don't know if it's because her psychiatrist prescribed her the wrong pills or she's just that messed up altogether. Regardless, the trial is about whether or not she will be put in prison of institutionalized into a mental ward.

I don't know many men who swore their solidarity with Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, or Ed Gein. But a very particular kind of women seem to be on this "true crime" delusion kick. Pretty much if these ladies like either a woman or man convicted of mass murder they will invent an alternate reality where someone else is guilty or they were justified in their actions. How do they get to this point? Bunch of nutters!

Other thoughts

NDEs

Thinking more about religion and near death experiences. Been trying to find ways to be closer to God and the higher vibration that is defined as "objectively good". But social media makes that difficult. 

If your near death experience includes seeing famous people or fictional characters in heaven or in hell I'm already doubtful. Not because I do not believe celebrities or politicians can end up there. Rather it is because they are reputedly infinitely vast expanses. It is more likely you would encounter random people. Maybe you would see individuals you directly knew because in the afterlife we are potentially connected by our shared bonds with others. But when some fat grandma goes off her rocker about seeing Michael Jackson, Biggie, and super models being punished for wearing makeup and jewelry in the pit of eternal fire should I simply believe her?

My hypothesis is NDEs are so intense when we return to our bodies our brains are usually too limited in scope to give us a perfect memory imprint. Some of it is inevitably true but the rest of it might as well be accessing a partially fried, damaged, or corrupted hard drive. That's why certain folks claim they saw Mighty Mouse, Moon Man, and Captain America tag teaming Beelzebub or Elvis, Prince, and Saint Peter river-dancing together! (There will also be a lot of fake NDE stories from people trying to get their 15 seconds of fame!)

Many Christians still having a problem defining true sins when compared to bad habits, quirks, biological urges, or harmless fantasy escapism.

My problem with Christianity tends to deal with the absolutism of judging others. As in our mere thoughts are still counted as sins so me fantasizing about any random woman might as well be just as bad as me paying for a prostitute whilst committing adultery. (Even though I'm single so how the frick am I being disloyal to anyone?!)

I understand what religious leaders are trying to get across. That if we mentally consume materials that make us have bad thoughts or that keep us isolated it could potentially lead us down a dark path. In other words, you probably will not benefit from listening to melancholic music when you are already very depressed. If you are lonely it would be better to go outside then order a meal and a drink with your friends at a social venue as opposed to staying indoors talking to a girlfriend or boyfriend AI chatbot. If you are drunk and angry hand over your car keys to a sober friend because otherwise you may do something you will regret later! There's a lot of common sense to this ethical framework that I cannot deny. (And I appreciate it!)

But I believe there are different levels and different severities to these things. Which is worse? A predator whom pursues underaged minors or potential victims in real life or just a random guy or random gal staying in an adults only sex roleplay chatroom texting other anonymous chatters? Neither are the peak of desirability, but I would say one is very wicked whereas the other is passe and harmless if not a little sad.

Certain men and certain women seek to make their most taboo or depraved fantasies real but many more do not. I've seen stories of rule 34 artists becoming that much more degenerate as they take on increasingly risque commissions. I'm not denying it happens. But perhaps because of my social aloofness or my self-imposed boundaries I never had a hotel room one night stand with an online fling, experimental phase with drugs and alcohol, existential crisis of considering I might be a woman trapped in a man's body, activist activities to feed my ego, or a brief stint of committing misdemeanors and felonies. I'm just a boring dude. I've been involved in some messed up shenanigans. But those shenanigans never escalated into permanent collateral damage territory.

I could be wrong but to me a true sin has to be rooted in some kind of harmful deception, hurtful betrayal, or physical act. Anything less is just a bad habit or a quirk. Killing in Manhunt or GTA is not the same as killing in real life. Taking one extra Oreo from the cookie container at home is a far cry from armed robbery. Exchanging lewd emails is not sexual intercourse. Having a sexy anime figurine in a cum jar is disgusting but is not the same as sexually assaulting a woman or cheating on a spouse. Some misdeeds should carry severe harsh repercussions. Others should result in a smirk, eye roll, finger wag, face to palm moment, or a caring conversation.

If you condemn, judge, and punish normal people as if they are so irredeemable they are already in hell you are the one whom has strayed from the path of God in my humble opinion. 

Remember when a goon was just a low-tier career criminal, naive patsy, or a disposable thug? Pepperidge farm remembers! This picture of Magik just made me shrug nonchalantly. As in I acknowledge she's pretty. I acknowledge I can see a bit of her cleavage. But she's dressed respectfully. If I saw Illyana on the street corner she would not stick out like a sore thumb. I would just assume she cares more about expressing herself through fashion than I do. (Mostly because I cannot afford to!) I didn't even notice the leash attachment right away so if I'm a gooner I'm slipping up badly!

I don't know what art schools are like now in the current year of safe spaces and walking on egg shells but one of the first things one of my professors did is make us draw a naked woman he invited in. As in you could see her. Occasionally talk to her. You could even smell her. It was not an unpleasant odor. Just a very human one. What I'm saying is she was real, warm, and occupied space. No one giggled. No one looked to the floor nervously. No one left because they were triggered. We just did the assignment.

"Well, well, well! How the mighty have fallen, gooner!" Yeah, I draw erotic art. That's easy to surmise. Not as if I go to great lengths to hide it. I'm a soul inhabiting a biological form with biological urges. If you EVER put me on a pedestal that's a YOU problem, buddy! I'm no one's "Wholesome Chungus" nor would I want to be.

This shame over gazing at human anatomy, appreciating beauty, and harboring sexual urges has to cease. Not all of us came out of the absolute nightmare of the current public educational system or consumed soy and microplastics until all our libidos were reduced to self righteous limp noodle apathy!

Appeal sells. Sex sells. When authority or society tries to suppress such things the Streisand effect makes them even more popular! This is not a declaration to live as a Godless hedonist. I applaud the pursuit of a moral and honest life. I know I'm a broken person in certain ways. But we should be at peace with the natural proclivities that make us who we are.

Trust me, you probably do not want to see the search histories or the hard drives of the sanctimonious squeakers whom try to weaponize "gooner" as a buzzword of shame. It almost always is the most degenerate people whom point at and accuse others of THEIR sins!

Scrolling youtube my first exposure to this dumb meme was an advertisement for a spaceship fleet simulator. The "fat chud engineer" has a girlfriend that leaves him for an arrogant captain super chad. This prompts him to get into an escape pod then start over from scratch. It was as uninspired and demoralizing as all the other advertisements for mobile ap games. Who the hell comes up with this dystopian dude slop?

To all these "Gurl boss influencers" on youtube? You got your wish awhile ago. In current year what overweight chungus bungus is going to chase you down without fearing he will be thrown in jail or get the hell beaten out of him? From my perspective men are currently much more wary, cautious, aloof, and introspective. Once in awhile a guy will shoot his shot. But the days of instant flowers or spontaneously handing off a poem are over. Even good looking well off men now make sure they remember every exit for the exact moment when condescending sass is detected!

Perhaps sometimes ugly men get an inflated sense of confidence when loaded with money but even then they know they can be sued or have to pay a fine if they get too obnoxious.

It's sad because good women still exist. Like, a lot of them. But social media obfuscates that silver lining with the most cynical, nihilistic, man-hating trash on the planet. I imagine the population reduction globalist eugenicists are so very "happy" they have put this culturally engineered wedge between us!

To this woman

-You are Asian yet I still don't care.

-You are not a "10". I've done better. (And that is saying something.)

-A kind heart and good personality can supersede and cancel out many physical imperfections. But when you are ugly to the bone I rather spend time alone.

-I doubt you've been chased by a Big Boy Boogie Man wearing a "I love Japan" T-shirt so this narrative is already built on either exaggerated half truths or outright lies.

-If I went to Japan I would go for the manga, games, and beautiful countryside scenery. I would politely pay for my stash then make a homeward bound super dash!

-Glad I have known some very nice and pretty Japanese women too. Helps me to remember this particular woman is not a monolith for all of them collectively.

I would like to apologize for no new content. My mouse is slowly dying so I had to order a new one off Amazon. Should arrive on the 3rd. I'm sure that is going to have a devastating effect on all of you! How will my zillions of fans cope? (I hope if you are reading this you recognize the blatant sarcasm!)

Also been playing alot of DragonSword. Very similar development cycle as Wayfinder. Was going to be an online gacha mmorpg but webzen didn't pay Hound 13 their dues. An injunction was then thrown at Hound 13 to cut them off at their knees but they came out on top then re-marketed their game as a mostly single player action rpg.

For me it's perfect. Combat is fast, responsive, and switch up oriented. Reminds me of playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance where super heroes could combine their powers to clear a room. Come to think of it, there's Marvel Versus Capcom DNA in there too. Aka, if you want a high fantasy setting in an open world where the heroes and heroines are larger than life heralds of the apocalypse tag teaming villages of unfortunate goblins , slimes, fish men, and giant spiders it's a must buy at just $29.99!

However, there are some potential low points depending on who you are.

1. There's a lot of grind, a lot of materials that do different things, and a lot of crafting.
2. Exp. level maxes are gate kept behind certain story events.
3. There are some cosmetic dlcs and familiar (mount) dlcs.
4. There is no english dub so hopefully you are alright with reading text boxes.
5. You do not start off with all 19 playable characters. Some are gotten by playing thru plot arcs and others are gotten via their own special in game currency.
6. If you are unprepared bosses will stomp you into the floor!
7. Requires an SSD drive for the smoothest experience.
8. If you are at odds with a very manhwa and anime influenced aesthetic this will come off as "lame and ghey".
9. Main campaign ends on a cliff hanger. (Though fortunately there's a huge amount of content between here and there!)

https://youtu.be/731tXqFP0Mc?si=7raIPY_NFZhHut8B

I watched Void Burger slaughter Christophe Gans over the Silent Hill 2 movie. I'll be transparent. I somewhat enjoyed the Silent Hill 1 movie. Visually it had a lot going for it but the movie went off the rails the moment Christophe gave us an idiotic spew on how Harry acted more like a woman so that's why they replaced him with a mother named Rose. Gans justified this with the "Mother is the name for God on the lips of all children" quote. (He ripped that off from the original The Crow movie with Brandon Lee which I highly recommend!)

We shouldn't be surprised. He also missed the whole point of Alessa. As in she was not a little girl whom made a pact with a demon to get revenge. Rather the town cult wanted to use her psychic manifestation abilities to birth their God into existence thus bringing about paradise. Alessa herself no longer wanted to exist at all. In a last ditch effort for happiness she split off a part of her soul that could be happy by growing up as a normal little girl with loving parents. 

The obvious points

1. The Order labeled itself as good. They didn't acknowledge they were evil. Believable villains usually don't have the self reflection necessary to see themselves as the bad guys. They perceive their drastic atrocious actions as being unfortunate yet necessary sacrifices for a greater cause. They were not blatantly worshiping demons. They were worshiping a twisted interpretation of Christianity. Even Valtiel is suppose to be an angel. (Despite his dark fey or demonic like appearance.)

2. Alessa didn't want revenge on the town. She wanted an end to her pain and suffering. The manifestations in the town are the after effect of her psychic powers spilling out and mixing with Silent Hill's latent supernatural energies that the Native Americans recognized hundreds of years ago.

3. Harry was the positive trope of the good father willing to do anything to save his child. Contrary to Gans's moronic point of view, many such men still exist. Dads are just as important to a child's development as moms are.

4. Upon my first viewing of the movie I was fine with Dahlia being a caring yet ideologically captured mother. To me it added more depth to a character whom was otherwise more cartoonishly evil than Cruella Deville from 101 Dalmations or Queen Bavmorda from Willow! I'll give Gans a pass on this. Classic Dahlia was a shallow version of the "evil old hag" trope in the original source material. The most interesting things about her were the gyromancy rituals and her Irish heritage. (Spin darling, spin! Fall down and do it all over again!)  

I've drawn and written Silent Hill fan fic slop before. An unusual twist for me as I'm not big on doing fan related works. But I respect the original canon enough I wouldn't tarnish it by placing my own crude blasphemies onto a pedestal. If Konami contacted me to come up with my own Silent Hill I would either outright refuse the offer or try to convince them I wanted to do an original survival horror ip only loosely inspired by Silent Hill. Too many fake fans with big money want to control and change the things they claim to love. Not me. I recognize my own limitations, flaws, kinks, and weird quirks would taint the stew if I threw them into the cooking pot of what is already there.

"Silent Hill" also isn't the only horror series with these themes. Anybody played the F.E.A.R trilogy? Alone In The Dark The New Nightmare? Eternal Darkness? The Suffering 1 and 2? There are a lot of stories with corrupt authoritarians, cults, tormented kids with super powers, psychological symbolism, tragedy fueled curses, drug abuse, and supernatural mambo jumbo. This is why simply slapping the "Silent Hill" moniker onto any story with slight similarities is grifting hackery. I don't care what the retards at Konami said. Silent Hill is not a phenomenon that can happen anywhere. It's a place that has its' own distinct identity. You can make your "haunted town game" but it should strive to be its' own thing. Yes, a Silent Hill related incident can happen in another place. But if it does it needs to somehow tie into the preestabalished lore and some of the preestabalished characters. Otherwise it is "Silent Hill" only in name.

Pssst, Gans fucked up the premise behind Silent Hill 2 as well! Wow, what a shocker! Ironically I don't feel bad about this because at least the Silent Hill 2 game remake was not complete trash. It kind of balances out! Now I will attempt to discuss Void Burger's astute observations.

1. In the film adaptation James drives a mustang, smokes cigarettes, and is a wealthy artist. I wish I was cheekily taking you for a ride!

2. This Mary is not even James's terminally ill wife. She's just his side piece. Worse, she's apart of "The Cult" that does this icky ceremony where everyone does psychedelic drugs, licks her, and symbolically devours her. My hypothesis is Gans took some of Claudia's backstory, mixed it into Mary's, and threw in his own barely disguised sexual fetish!

3. Angela is now just another manifestation of Mary. What in the ever loving fuck? Angela was her own person with her own autonomy. She's traumatized because her father sexually abused her. She didn't know Mary nor is connected to Mary in any way.

4. Laura no longer looks or acts like an innocent child oblivious to what's going on in James's other world. She was remolded into the creepy exposition dumping ghost girl caricature whom has a grotesque living baby doll for the SHOCK FACTOR! (Guess Gans played RE 8 Village then copy pasted the dollhouse section!)

5. They did my boy Eddie so dirty I don't even want to talk about it. We don't get to see him slowly unravel. He's just there then gone. Or rather the violent hobo that stole Eddie's ID card is!

If you enjoyed this film you are a brain dead sheep. I can usually forgive someone for liking something that is cringe. I thought Resident Evil 6 was a total banger! (LOL!) But this film desecrates everything Silent Hill ever stood for. If Gans wanted to tell his own deviant sex cult horror story with a suave rich painter protagonist he should have made it an original film. But I guess that would have required integrity and actual balls!  

For anyone not familiar with my Lol-Cow Silent Hill streak? I had a para-social crush on Alessa and Heather. I dug how Silent Hill 3 connected to Silent Hill 1. The past life resurrection shtick resonates with me and tickles my funny bone!

I concocted a love story between Walter Sullivan and Alessa Gillespie wherein two traumatized people saved each other from their own dark fates. (While potentially saving Claudia as well.) It was never meant to be in the same reality as canonical Silent Hill. In my adaptation The Order was an HOA run communist regime using thinly veiled religious propaganda to keep people complacent.

My idea for the alternate Silent Hill was an isolated Potemkin village social experiment built atop an underground laboratory with a particle collider contributing to all the paranormal anomalies. The people up top grew the food and manufactured the working parts for the machines that the scientists needed to continue their work below. There was a deliberate disparity of awareness wherein the staff working on the particle collider knew what was going on yet never divulged that info to the unknowing citizens apart of their research. The Home Owners Association cronies were the thugs and social manipulators compensated to protect the technocrats as they obfuscated the truth from the local population.

The Alessa in my universe was older and never digi-volved into Heather. The torn ill fitting private university garb of her younger years was meant to represent how much of a neglected outsider she was. The college itself was more of an indoctrination center than a place for learning so it insisted on a conformity based dress code. I will level with you. Maybe busty adult women wearing smaller sized puritan frock themed school uniforms is one of MY barely disguised sexual fetishes! Touche!

Anyway, she likewise had psychic powers that were the harbinger for a similar catastrophe when the particle collider began manifesting her overactive repressed imagination into reality. The Order have a boardroom meeting and decide to get their contract killer Walter to deal with the problem. In predictable fashion he begins doubting his superiors and after developing feelings for Alessa he can no longer go thru with the assassination contract.

Had Alessa been allowed to freely express herself and speak her mind without punishment, confinement, smug ridicule, and being forced to take questionable psychiatric medications her psychic abilities would not have raged out of control and reacted with the particle collider. Authoritarian regimes always create their own apocalypses regardless if their core beliefs sprouted forth from religion, fascism, or communism. I really wanted to drive that home. Hell is paved with good intentions hand in hand with evil actions. Speeches about progress always include rhetoric such as "You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs!" or "We must surrender our privileges to serve the higher nobler goal!." You would think we would all learn pattern recognition from history's lessons but alas, there are always useful idiots just waiting to be tapped!

The distinction between me and Gans is I would be staunchly against my fan fiction becoming a published work for mass consumption and media literacy. (Unless I retitled it "Quiet Mountain" and further refined it into something completely original.)

For clarification, Warren and Wren really are my best friend's tabletop rpg characters. As I was drawing them I realized they had similar traits to Alessa and Walter so I indulged in those overtures. (I mixed in other inspirations as well because as an old fart I have a wealth of material in my memory vault!)

I leave it all up to interpretation. If you want to believe Alessa and Walter were past lives of Wren and Warren from a divergent time line split off from the original Silent Hill continuity be my guest. You can also chuck those particular details into the dumpster! (Hopefully along with Gans's Silent Hill adaptations!)

Before I go further, I'm not writing this to challenge Newgrounds verdict on AI. I don't like what data centers do to the environment or how they suck up a lot of water and electricity. I also realize why publicly Tom wouldn't want to deal with AI spam-bloat that comes off the digital assembly line faster than any artist can whip up a single image. (Though admittedly cartoon strip illustrators and web comic illustrators are quick as frick!)

This is just my personal point of view on the matter.

1. I don't think my stance for or against AI will put me on some sort of moral high ground. Who wouldn't be tempted to type in a bunch of words into the online wonder machine just to see what it makes of them? Admit it, even if you are against AI you probably made a few AI generated pictures for the shits and giggles. You won't be able to convince me otherwise!

2. While I understand AI is not the same thing as photo shop, paint shop, open canvas, or Krita, I do get deja vu seeing similar arguments going back and forth. I was tutored by a very traditional artist surrounded by other traditional artists. They would use real ink, real paint, real chalk, real coal, and a real canvas. They were very hands on. 

I wanted to be just like my mentors but decades later I realized how expensive it was to buy high quality art supplies. I settled on drawing with a normal pencil onto printing paper, scanning the image, and then finishing the jpeg or png copy with whatever digital art program I had at my disposal.

To this day I feel as if the art community in my city is very unwelcoming of digitally enhanced art. In any gallery window I see a lot of paintings of landscapes or portraits but very little in the way of stuff that resonates with me on a personal level. Only occasionally is the safe inoffensive stuff replaced by more abstract works, surreal works, or works dedicated to Tolkien-esque fantasy, psychedelic sexuality, or religious symbolism. If you grew up loving edge kino 90's cartoons, edge kino 90's horror movies, edge kino 90's comic books, as well as edge kino 90's anime it might as well be a wasteland with no oasis in sight. Everything around me feels as if it is trapped inside a single moment that has already passed on by outside the circumference where stubborn tie-dyed hippy art-wizards cast their chrono distortion bubble!

My point? AI is yet another tool and yet another philosophical battleground. People will use it. The genie is out of the bottle and I resign myself to not being able to do much about it. There will be places of resistance where feudal fiefdom microcosms are able to keep AI out. But like it or not, it is woven into the greater tapestry of our daily lives. 

3. I've also seen some pretty amazing and beneficial things created with AI. Music that doesn't punish my ears. Animated stories that do not punish my eyes or my intelligence. New applications that can help you create an animated 2D avatar easier than ever before. If you are dyslexic yet still want to be a writer certain AIs can serve you as much cheaper editors. Not everything made with AI is complete trash or has a hidden ulterior motive.

The kicker? Artists are not a completely innocent block of victims being replaced by cold unfeeling machines. Many artists charged outrageous fees for their works. Many artists made promises they did not keep while still taking the money from their clients. Many artists will utterly refuse to do commissions for someone else just because that person is not in lockstep with their own moronic world views 100%. 

Hell, I will come out and admit it outright. I always got nervous when doing requests for others. As much as I tried, those pieces didn't come out "as good" as the ones I did for myself. This is why these days if I make something for a friend or an individual whom left a positive impact on me it will be a "surprise" that I whip up myself. It will be based on something they like but I will still be the director. Also, it will be "free of charge" unless the receiver absolutely insists on paying me or getting me a gift. Doesn't help my profit margins yet I sleep soundly at night! 

Yeah, there are ethically scrupulous and punctual artists too. But if someone can save money and future drama by using an AI application they are gonna do it and I do not blame them. 

4. One of the only points of contention I have with AI beyond the data centers is in the olden days these programs learnt from art they were not given permission to study. (Deviant art let the AI tech daddies use their art database as an all you can eat smorgasbord without immediately mentioning it to their users. Keep it classy DA. Sheesh! What a bunch of bozos!)

Yet now that we cannot put HAL, Cortana, Red Queen, Neuro, GLADOS, SHODAN, Mother Sphere, or IAM back in Pandora's box, let us once again face a painfully objective truth. As artists we too learned from other artists. We would use their works as references and use their styles as inspiration. If you look very closely at our techniques you can sometimes figure out who we were studying. We too start at the crude stage of copying before we compile enough data to create something more unique.  

I guess we were the organic AI art computers before the synthetic algorithmic ones came along. So if we decide to dismantle all things AI will we then turn our instruments of destruction upon ourselves? What exactly is "cheating" when it comes to art? Starting a drawing with a reference? Tracing? Using a digital art application? Using 3D rendering? Painting wondrous images with carefully arranged descriptive prose? It's a more complex query than we may assume it is. 

I call this "Pass the ball" culture and I'm ready to use the steel chair over this dumb crap. Other variations include "Pass the controller if you are not gonna play the game!" or "Shoot your shot or let me come in hot!" On the surface these repetitive euphemisms are harmless. It's just a bunch of young guys in a comment section yucking it up. Who am I to get in the way of male bonding?

Had we continued to enjoy skits of the funny and horny goth girl doing nutty things I would not have given a rat's tail over it. She gets to do her comedy stand up routines with her boyfriend and we get to laugh or goon over her assets. Win/win. Queen Nephie is like a younger Elvira to me. That's why I never really hated her for using the goth aesthetic to advertise herself. She's not the first and won't be the last!

But then there was that horrendous goth hook up show. Aka, they get dudes already marginally well off and marginally good looking to act weird, perverse, and awkward around a bunch of attractive goth women for "teh content". Nephie is on there too and acts like a pixie manic dream girl whom is all of ten years old. Not sure if that's her fault or her boyfriend for managing her that way. Regardless, it stinks compared to her solo content. Just saying.

They could have made it kinda sweet. Two eccentric weirdos of different backgrounds find each other and discover they have more in common than they originally thought. It would have the appeal of a romantic fish out of water story.

Instead....

1. Guitar guy sings a tone-deaf song about wanting to be fucked and cucked. Perhaps he saw it all as the absurdity it was so he trolled the trolls before he got roflmao-coptered. (Trollception!) But he still ended his audition by saying "In Fortnight!" that made me want to put my forearm straight thru my monitor!

2. Other guy said he would split the check on a first date but would not pay for the whole thing. What ensued was the most entitled bullshit I had ever seen. "You are not willing to pay for your goth QUEEN?!" My response would have been "A queen is still a stranger. I'm willing to pay my half just to be in your company. As I do not know whether you will stay or leave I'm not obligated to show you loyalty when you have not earned it." To some of you that might come off as harsh. But I would hold guys I was meeting to that same standard. Once camaraderie is established and I'm not being used or manipulated "then" I'll pay the whole tab. (But not every single time!) Genuine friendships and romances should be equal give and equal take from both sides.

3. The sexual innuendos and lewd jokes reached a crescendo of cringe. One girl sold her whole personality on the prospect of having a bouncy ass. Another girl was playing up the "Goth Dommy Mommy" stereotype in the most repulsive, domineering, and abusive way imaginable.

It was an immature power struggle using surface level enticement as the leverage. Nothing pealed back to reveal a deeper layer. Nothing shown was of substance. I'm surprised I didn't stroke out from brain damage!  

It's as if these influncers binge watched fan art of the most popular goth girls in games, cartoons, movies, anime, and books then became shallow caricatures of those already incorporeal fictional beings. 

For the sake of crystal clear clarity, I don't believe all these individuals are terrible or evil. Merely they are not doing themselves any favors by exploiting themselves in this matter. It's the quick easy path to money and attention circling back to the wider road of life long regrets! 

This is probably why heart throb celebrity chicks are always about sex, drugs, and partying when they are younger. Then as they get older they almost always project their self hatred and inner shame onto the men and the society at large for their own stupid choices. It's the groupie loopie repeating poopy! 

Want me to pass the ball? Want me to pass the controller? Sure thing little bro. Enjoy the herpes, crabs, sex abuse allegations, cuck chair, your gf's pegging harness, and the eventual divorce!  

https://youtu.be/t5ebAvks9ig?si=VCGBC_ZwRz0hP3mI

The Killer Instinct CD is memories on a disk for me. Envision being really excited about the hot new fighting game, appreciating the characters, and not giving a single frick about identity politics or whether or not B Orchid's skintight outfit was an indicator on how women were being collectively objectified by the evil chud patriarchy.

Yeah, there was a time we just enjoyed things. We didn't try to "deconstruct" "inject our own world views" or "subvert expectations". We were too busy trying get higher combo counts with a ninja, cybered up werewolf, felon made of fire, tomahawk wielding Native American warrior, or a bad ass pirate skeleton to the sound of "Combo breaker!" and "Ultra!!!!!".

I'm glad more zoomers and alphas are appreciating the 90's again. Not because the 90's were a perfect idyllic era. But because they should experience entertainment and art thru a lens that encourages them to appreciate what is on offer without making up problems where they do not exist or reading too deeply into every design decision.

The truth is we are "taught" to be political and to be cynical. Before the later 2,000s whenever I created a piece of art the main concerns were making characters that were interesting or pleasant to look at. Obviously I did not always succeed but those were my goals.

So many people claim art is consistently political when often enough if you asked the artist about their work they would tell you "I wrote that song when I was sad after a break up." or "I just really love wizards and dragons,man.". The art community forgot that "the personal" is not in fact always political.

It's true "these days" I write poems and draw illustrations relating in some way to the culture war. But that's only because pushy provocateurs, tourists, sophist squeakers, pearl clutchers, and self aggrandizing activists herded me into a corner where I had nowhere else to retreat to. I finally shoved back because it was a better alternative compared to being metaphorically executed while lined up against the wall......