Untwisting your tropes by making a video game about a quiet kid with an ugly shirt and a worrying preoccupation with knives who actually has nothing wrong with them at all.
Well, next stitching attempt last night while I watched Predator for the first time. In some ways I think it's cleaner, I used a thinner thread
But you can also see some mess, trying to know the thinner thread so it wouldn't slip through the holes was tricky, if anyone has any tips on that, let me know
Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Now I'm betting several someones have already had this idea, but it just hit my brain.
Dragons eat metal, hardly the first to do that, gives them a reason to hoard gold and such if they exist as not just metaphors for greed, but what if rather than being born a metallic dragon (copper, bronze, silver, etc) that was a result of diet
And the reason why dragons prize gold above all else is that if they can eat enough of it they will literally become a gold dragon. Immune to tarnish, to age, to rot.
Of course, acquiring that much gold will inevitably make many enemies, and a gold dragon is literally worth more than its weight in gold, Alchemically Potent Gold...
Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.
But... Stochastic Parrots.
Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December 2020 for refusing to retract a research paper, and every single warning that paper made about large language models has now happened at a scale the industry spent 4 years trying to make people forget about.
Her name is Timnit Gebru.
She co-led the Ethical AI team at Google. She co-wrote a paper called "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" with Emily Bender at the University of Washington and two other researchers. The paper was 14 pages long. It was submitted to a top AI ethics conference. And it was the reason Google decided that one of the most senior Black women in AI research could no longer work there.
The story Google told publicly was that she resigned. The story she told, confirmed by 2,695 of her colleagues in an open letter, was that she was fired by email while on vacation because she refused to either retract the paper or remove her name from it.
The paper had not even been published yet.
Here is what she actually wrote, and why every prediction inside it has now come true.
The first warning was about scale itself. Bender and Gebru argued that training ever-larger models on ever-larger scrapes of the internet would produce systems that appeared fluent but had no actual understanding of language. They called these systems stochastic parrots because they would repeat patterns from training data with statistical confidence and zero comprehension. The paper predicted that this apparent intelligence would fool both users and developers into trusting outputs that were structurally incapable of being reliable.
This was 2020. GPT-3 had just come out. The paper predicted the hallucination problem before anyone had a word for it.
The second warning was about bias amplification. The paper documented in detail that internet-scale training data contains systematic overrepresentation of dominant viewpoints and underrepresentation of marginalized ones. The models would not just absorb this bias. They would amplify it, because the optimization process rewards confident outputs, and confidence in language patterns tracks frequency in the training set.
The prediction was that hiring tools built on these models would discriminate against women. That healthcare triage tools would underperform on Black patients. That loan approval systems would entrench inequality while presenting their decisions as neutral algorithmic judgment.
Every one of those things has now been documented in deployment.
Amazon's hiring algorithm penalized resumes that contained the word "women" in any context. Healthcare risk scoring algorithms used by major US hospitals were found to systematically underestimate the medical needs of Black patients. Apple Card's credit algorithm gave wives credit lines 10x lower than their husbands for the same financial profile.
The third warning was about environmental cost. The paper calculated that training a single large language model produced emissions equivalent to the lifetime output of 5 cars. The prediction was that the race to scale would create an environmental footprint that would eventually rival entire industries.
In 2024, Google's emissions were up 48% from 2019, and the company explicitly blamed AI infrastructure. Microsoft's were up 29%, same reason. Both companies have now quietly abandoned the climate commitments they were publicly celebrating the year Gebru was fired.
The fourth warning was about documentation. The paper argued that the training datasets being assembled were too large for anyone to actually audit. Nobody at Google, OpenAI, Meta, or any other lab could tell you with confidence what was in the data their models were trained on. This was not a temporary problem to be solved later. It was a permanent feature of the approach.
In 2023, researchers discovered that the LAION-5B dataset, used to train Stable Diffusion and other major image models, contained thousands of images of child sexual abuse material. The companies that had trained on the dataset had no way of knowing. The paper predicted that category of failure 3 years before it was found.
The fifth warning was the one Google cared about most.
Bender and Gebru argued that the deployment of these systems would centralize linguistic and cultural power in the hands of the small number of companies that could afford to train them. The internet would become a place where the dominant voice was a statistical average of dominant voices, presented as a neutral assistant. Languages underrepresented in the training data would degrade over time as more web content was generated by these systems and fed back into the next training run.
This is now happening in real time. A 2024 study found that 57% of new web content in English is AI-generated or AI-assisted. Researchers studying low-resource languages have documented active degradation in translation quality, because the synthetic content fed back into training is itself worse in those languages.
The paper Google fired her for predicted the model collapse problem before model collapse had a name.
The mechanism behind why this all happened is the part of her work that nobody quotes.
Gebru's argument was not that AI is dangerous in some abstract sci-fi sense. Her argument was that AI is dangerous in a very specific structural sense. The technology was being built by a small group of researchers who shared similar backgrounds, worked at similar companies, and were rewarded for shipping products faster than competitors. The incentive structure made it impossible for safety, ethics, and bias concerns to slow anything down. Anyone inside the system who raised those concerns was either ignored, sidelined, or removed.
She was making that argument from inside Google.
Then Google proved her right by removing her.
The team Google had built to make sure their AI was safe was dismantled in 90 days because they did the job they had been hired to do. Margaret Mitchell, the other co-lead of the Ethical AI team, was fired two months after Gebru for searching through her own emails for evidence of how Gebru had been treated.
Gebru did not stop. She founded DAIR, the Distributed AI Research Institute, in 2021. The mission is to do AI research outside the control of the companies that have a financial interest in not hearing the answers.
Every prediction in the Stochastic Parrots paper has now been validated by deployment. Hallucinations are an industry-wide problem the largest labs cannot solve. Bias amplification has been documented in hiring, healthcare, lending, and criminal justice. Environmental costs are larger than entire small countries. Training data audits remain impossible. Model collapse is an active research crisis at every major lab.
The question worth sitting with is the one almost no one in the industry will say out loud.
Every researcher with the technical credibility to call out these problems watched what happened to her in December 2020 and made a calculation about their own career. The number of people willing to speak publicly about safety and ethics issues inside the major AI labs collapsed after that firing and has not recovered.
The researcher Google fired for warning about exactly what is now happening was right.
The company that fired her is now the second-largest deployer of the technology she warned about.
And the people inside that company who agree with her are not allowed to say so.
Sanguerra Acadamy - Establishment for the Aetheric Arts and Public Safety
Oh wow I made another setting again, so novel, so unexpected...
Anyway, had an idea for my own magic academy thing for a while now and, like so many things post 2021 or so, it's heavily influenced by Dungeon Meshi
Mages are not just scholars, but also specialists, something like EOD experts. Except, instead of homemade bombs, what they defuse is dungeons, ruins, gaols, etc. Now, they aren't the only ones to do this, but Sanguerra was established specifically train people to not just clear and 'defuse' dungeons, but study them as well.
And if you have a professional, they need a uniform.
Now, since I am the fashion illiterate, I relied on the clothing skills of my acquaintance Yaru to make up that deficit, which they did with aplomb. While the details are still loose, I think the silhouette has been nailed down.
To generalize, my basic thoughts were
-Layered: You generally only wear the whole thing during events or inclement weather
-Side Cape: Side capes are cool
-Restricting: A bit to warm and covering for the Academy's generally Mediterranean climate
I think Yaru's designs did that quite well. The capes are distinctive and will eventually be coloured and patterned depending on a students year and specialization.
The big hat is for outdoor wear and is also easy to spot from a distance, helping the uniforms roll as advertisement of professional services.
The uniform has several layers (overcoat, vest, shirt, undershirt, etc) that can be added and removed as needed (but sends to be just a bit to warm many students say)
Things like gaters and gloves can be added for fieldwork
Next step is designing the colour and patterns common to the school but till then here's some other ideas that came up during the process
Well, first time sewing multiple signatures. Don't think I did it quite right (worried it's a bit loose) and could have really used a curved needle) but an ok first attempt I think
Been thinking lately that, while I have tons of OCs, in terms of drawn ones I have a lot of ladies, and then NB/NA ones, essentially no masc ones
Was time to fix that, especially with Artfight coming up, and I've had a sword and sandals setting rolling around in my head for a few years now
This is Amosis, a wandering bard... among other things. He plays a instrument that is not a Hurdy Gurdy, but not unlike a Hurdy Gurdy (not pictured here because they are hard to draw) made of a strange, greenish metal.
He's slowly travelling north for reasons that are... not totally clear to him. With only the clothes on his back, a dagger in his cloak, and a strange mask with large eyes.
It fits him perfectly, and he knows it's important, vital, but he can never remember putting it on, only taking it off...
Then you have Iah.
Iah is Amosis, Amosis is Iah, but the two are not the same. Iah only exists within the helmet, only when it is worn. Iah knows the secret tunes that his instrument can play, that create the things man and beast call sorcery.
Iah knows why they are travelling north even if not how the trip will go and how they will resolve it, Iah knows that the Void Lost are watching and what they did to the world, Iah knows what hunts them
Hopefully I can punch myself into actually writing some stuff for this setting soonish. Very inspired by both Conan the Barbarian and Dungeon Meshi
I'm thinking short stories over full novels, as Amosis travels north
When Zuko apologized to uncle Iroh in the tent cause he was so ashamed of his actions and what he’d done to the only person who unconditionally believed in his ability to do good >>>>>
So okay, I’ve given this rant before but this is another good time for it.
Structurally speaking, ATLA did something important with Zuko that, in a purely mechanistic sense of narrative development, I think a lot of people don’t notice immediately, and that even fewer people who want to emulate what was done with him get.
Which is Zuko is made a protagonist VERY early, and the show goes out of its way to continually place Zuko into situations where the audience empathizes and roots for him.
This happens in literally the second episode of the series, if we count the two-part premiere as a single episode, which I think we should. The A-plot of that episode, “The Southern Air Temple,” is Aang reckoning with the genocide of his people… but the B-plot?
The B-plot is the introduction of Zhao, and more specifically, his introduction in a way that is calculate to shift the audience, whose introduction to Zuko did NOT engender a ton of sympathy to him, directly and forcefully onto his side. They want Zuko to kick Zhao’s ass.
This continues all through book one and book two. Remember, Zuko is never, ever the main villain of this series. That’s initially Zhao, followed by Azula and Ozai. (Plus various temporary players like Long Feng.) Whenever Zuko isn’t placed into direct conflict with the other protagonists, he’s always written and presented in a way that is careful, VERY VERY careful, not to make him too monstrous, and to make us root for him. He’s placed right next to Iroh, who is designed for people to like, and that reflects back onto Zuko; we want Zuko to be better than he is because we want Iroh to have good things.
Put aside for the moment whether any specific character, including Zuko, deserves their redemption. If you’ve decided you’re going to do that, you have to erect the proper narrative scaffolding around them, and it extends to far more things than “did this person not do things that were too horrible” and “is this person genuinely sorry and is working really hard to atone.” There’s a difference between protagonist and white hat, but if you want someone to eventually wear that white hat, you REALLY need to establish them as a plausible protagonist early on.
Yeah, it was made obvious from the get go that Zuko is definitely nowhere near Zhao’s level of nasty, which in turn means he’s nowhere near Azula’s and nowhere in the scope of Ozai’s.
1.)
He made a deal with Aang to leave the Southern Water Tribe alone if Aang went with him. When Aang escaped with help from two of those tribe members, Zuko didn’t demand they go back and destroy what was left of the tribe as revenge. He didn’t even think of it as an option. There was no split second where he went, should I/shouldn’t I?
2.)
This is repeated. He corners the Avatar somewhere, causes some damage to the area in the ensuing fight, but does not stick around to raze the village/monastery to the ground and kill the people when he doesn’t get what he wants. Doesn’t consider this a necessary action even once.
3.)
The Iroh&Zuko relationship is juxtaposed with the Zhao&Zuko relationship. Both older men have more power over him. Iroh is a retired War General and Prince who is not banished. Zhao is a Commander in favor of the Firelord, who is also not banished. We could tell early on that Iroh is wise and despite being on the bad side, seems to be pretty chill. We took a liking to him immediately. Zhao is the opposite. He is very much like early!Zuko. Impulsive, rude, loud, cocky, etc… But why is he more annoying? Why do we root for Zuko as opposed to him?
Because we see what Zuko is like with his Uncle Iroh. Iroh does not rub in the fact that he’s banished. He doesn’t use that when reprimanding him for his attitude or his failings. That is a hot iron and he knows it. It’s to the point where Iroh can bend fire in Zuko’s face and Zuko is perfectly relaxed over it and doesn’t once believe his uncle will hurt him. There is a lot of faith in Iroh, from this angsty teenager, and it’s very obvious with their interactions.
Zhao is not trustworthy from the start. We’re shown this by how both Zuko and Iroh are hesitant to interact with him and don’t want to linger in areas he has control over, for too long. They even lie to him despite him obviously having more favor in the Firelord’s eyes than either of them do. Zhao’s personality opposes both Zuko and Iroh. And as we like Iroh, we want him to win and have nice things, as stated above. But Zuko&Iroh is a package deal. And as Zhao reveals himself more and more to be nasty even if it’s subtle, we want Zuko to win even harder.
And even when Zuko wins and he’s in the prime position to do to Zhao what Ozai did to Zuko for also ‘speaking out of turn’… he doesn’t do it. He walks away. He is the bigger man in that scenario. And Iroh further puts shame onto Zhao when he goes against the sacred rules of the Agni Kai because he can’t handle a loss to a banished teen. We are shown that Zuko follows rules and has honor, which is reinforced by Iroh’s, ‘even in exile, my nephew is more honorable than you’. Iroh’s Word is basically Law at this point. Sf he says it is so, then he must be right and the audience accepts that. He knows Zuko better than us and hopefully we’ll get to understand more as the story progresses.
Already by the 3rd episode, we’re shown that Zuko is in no way the worst person from the Fire Nation. In fact, we’re given a sort of scale now from the four major Fire Nation people we know of. Iroh–Zuko——-Zhao–Firelord.
We’re also hoping that Iroh rubs off on Zuko enough for him to also become wise and learn to chill out.
4.)
When “The Storm” finally rolls around, we’re pretty invested by then in the Iroh&Zuko relationship and that episode gives us so much more info into Zuko’s character and we are shown that Iroh is right. He has honor and he cares for others. And yet it’s obvious the Firelord doesn’t because we see Zuko do the right thing(protesting the plan to treat new recruits as cannon fodder) in the wrong place, and then his face gets burned off by his father because of it. And further, he’s banished for refusing to fight his own father. What sane parent wants to do battle with their own child? What sane parent banishes their child for speaking out of turn at the defense of their own peoples’ lives? What the fuck is wrong with the Firelord?
Zuko was punished severely for showing compassion and having a kind heart. And Iroh(and the ship crew even) is properly mortified by the punishments his nephew received for it, which in turn affects the audience’s perception of this situation. Iroh doesn’t like it, it’s especially bad then.
Now we start wondering why does Zuko wants to go back to the guy who burned his face off?! Iroh, talk some sense into him! PLEASE!
Halfway through S1, they got us to the point of wanting Zuko to have a redemption arc.
Making the audience want a character to be redeemed is also very important in this. We were shown he has redeemable qualities. We want that pay off! Do it justice!
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