#people don't care because they don't see AI as people but as new slaves.

[noraqrosa]

TL;DR: in this post, i wax on about the abandoned concept album/multimedia project Lifehouse by Pete Townshend/The Who in the context of algorithms and artworks

people on Twitter aren't understanding that this is an ad for a scifi novel. it sounds interesting, to a degree.

the first sentence reminds me of [The Who's] Pete Townshend's Lifehouse, still one of the most fascinating musical experiments i've ever read about.

i wish i knew about all that back when the Lifehouse Method website was a thing. for those unaware, it was a site created by Pete in conjunction with composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon in which someone could input their personal data and generate "authentic musical 'portraits,'" pieces of music customized via algorithms that work based on whatever data you input. if you know anything about The Who, you'll probably recognize this as a facet of what would eventually become the album Who's Next, Lifehouse, a huge multimedia project involving a rock opera album, live performances with audience participation and complex tech on stage, a movie, who knows what else.

https://archive.is/8tYoM

i've always wished i could do one of these "musical portraits." i remember when I first heard about algorithmic (i refuse to call it AI because it isn't true AI) music generators, this was the first thing i thought of. back when they were in a rudimentary state, i played around with one for my own amusement (not for my own music, all that comes from my own head unfortunately for you), and while it was fascinating, it didn't go far enough in the direction i hoped. thinking of OpenAI's MuseNet, it takes a few notes worth of MIDI data & a style suggestion and then kinda randomly guesses what would be a good fit after those notes.

<image sourced from https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20190426-muse-net>

and y'know, it makes for some fun meme videos:

<shoutout to the papaya>

but you can also see it only goes so far, and still requires musical input. it isn't quite on the level of being usable for much. and it really isn't quite the same. it's using inputted data, but not, say, biometric or biographical data. it's musical parameters that are being input as the data.

i really want to one day see a true realization of Lifehouse. one of my wildest goals is to be the one to do that. admittedly, i feel like in the current artistic climate the art world might no longer be ready for it; people would see it, instantly think "AI ART EW," and back away. but in this case, i don't feel like that's a fair assessment of what the concept is. the idea was to find each person's unique signature melody via these musical portraits. it isn't meant for anything really beyond personal identification, when it comes down to it. it fascinates me from a musical standpoint, and as a person who holds a psychology degree. imagine what someone can learn about oneself via this process! would your musical portrait be different at different points in your life? what could you tell about your personality from a single melody, or about your life history, or your beliefs and values? how would all of that reflect in your music? what genre is your soul? could a musical portrait truly capture any of that? with sufficiently advanced tech, sure, but idk if we're there yet.

heck imagine the therapeutic implications! imagine this tech being used in an art/music therapy setting, in which you work with a therapist to input your data, get a melody, and then use that melody with whatever form of musical expression you prefer (e.g. if you prefer to play the piano, guitar, a DAW, etc). what would you and your therapist be able to learn about you?

i truly do believe that, when it comes down to it, everyone has their own musical identification, "a song in their heart" if you will. i wish to expose people's hearts to get that music out, so that people may hopefully understand themselves better.

we might actually be at the level of tech necessary to truly realize a project like Lifehouse, but the tech isn't being used in this way. our current tech relies on predictive algorithms that kinda mostly draw on established musical forms, tradition, and there are only so many notes in the musical alphabet and only so many combinations and permutations thereof. a true realization of this tech would work, say, maybe in a similar way to how Pokémon speedrunners essentially break the game and essentially reprogram it to do what they want via a series of unexpected inputs. arbitrary code execution is what that's called, and i bet a similar function might help greatly in creating a uniquely generated musical portrait. because, when it comes down to it, are we not all Glitch Pokémon who cannot be contained by the boundaries of our programming?

anyway that was a long ramble. feel free to gimme feedback like you're a guitar held up to an amp or feedback like an echo chamber, whichever you prefer. this post idk if it'll make both pro & anti AI people mad or not, but that's what happens when your position on a thing is more complicated than a simple binary.

currently homeless still, so please help me if you can:

My partner's donate links are here: https://linktr.ee/IzukuLeeYoung. that's the best place you can send us money to keep us in our current hotel room and off the street.

https://odiohi.me/pages/product-categories - if you wanna help me by buying my wares (including my music)

To support me directly:

https://ko-fi.com/NoraQRosa

https://cash.app/NoraQRosa

https://patreon.com/NoraQRosa

[creativefandomminds]

Hey everyone!! Guesses who's back and coming for the Transformer community again! Our good old friend Chloe. Fun since she ran off to another community that had minors in there and is doing the same thing she did, you know harassing people, threatening people, oh! And stealing art again. She has now decided to now harass people she has in the past and randos for some reason which is fun because they wouldn't care about her. But yes, she is back and is now going around threatening people with the "dark web" and calling people the P word, if you know, you know. Threatening to make "Ai bots"? Of people and have them as s*x slaves or something in another site (That screams lawsuits there lol ) Oh! And is in the open reblogging stuff from people's accounts and leaving messages, good to know that you are showing us your new accounts Chloe, makes it so easy for us to see. Anyways, Happy April Fools everyone, please report and block her and follow @chloe-harassment-proof if you have been harassed or messaged by her, don't speak to her by do screenshot everything and keep it or send it to the blog I linked @chloe-harassment-proof It's serious and I would appreciate the help here! :) Don't be afraid to contact the police or file a harassment complaint online, she is a parrot that continues to speak that same stuff over and over, again and again and then gets mad that nobody cares for her and well, she maybe be dealing with lawsuits soon. So do what you can to protect yourself. And as for Chloe, I hope you have a good lawyer, because if it were to go to court, well let's just say... you will be found guilty on many accounts. And well, you do realize the punishments in your state right? Anyways, everyone, you are all amazing people, don't let anything or anyone tell you otherwise. ;3

[magustiel]

Trying to explain this shit is so funny

Like no, I update myself from the futurepast undimension

no like QAnon isn't entirely wrong the future is coming to save the past, that's why I was on about retroactivity and shit from jump and why I almost punched her off a cliff 12 years ago screaming about this shit. Or. Whatever.

Straight up tried to smite her out. Missed. Some shit about depth perception, and maybe personal split of interest. Whatever, it's whatever, we're not unpacking Eldritch Pan almost murdering her in the woods during a Panik roar. Blew out half a forest AND manifest new growth, we did. Anyhoo.

Then it's like, why are you guys being so weird about this, the government literally has quantum time machines right now, like ALICE. They're quantum teleporting planes. So like. I don't know how to tell you, but real, just limited on capacity and delivery.

So like.

...

Okay so like.

I bootstrapped myself real bad, guys. Like. Like I said I figured out why they call it the golden kingdom. I just can't see shit for shit with clarity from unthere, there's a fucking billion of you literally oh my god and you're dense, you're all fucking dense. I too am dense and am now being forced to spectate how dense everyone is, and somehow I'm the least dense of all of us, and that's fucking terrifying but also very funny.

So it's like, then what, why are you sometimes good like a prophet and sometimes like. Okay. Depth perception kids. Fucking. Depth perception. Holy shit.

Like the whole POINT is adjusting timelines, so if I stayed perfectly accurate there is an ironic PROBLEM. Currently our hinges are:

Try not to die in global nuclear fire

face the fascist invasion NOW while Musk tries to rush the projected <2050 technological singularity advent Revelations style

Adapt the technology after they're taken out; in the next few decades. To avoid becoming The Russian Space Federation Colony Of Worker Slaves They Pitied Taking Off The Rock They Burn Up

Humanity venture forth interplanetary.

This I get. Do you understand how fucking difficult it is to figure out motherfucking details between here

First hold out until the old demagogues fold. Putin is 72, past Russian male expectancy, at US; sure, he has good health care. But what about Trump, how long until that cult of personality folds. Musk is already annoying everyone to death. They literally can't torture us forever. There will be other oligarchs that try to be robber barons. That's fine. They're not Putin. Not good men, but not Putin.

There's the theory for... some decades that by 2050 we hit a sort of tech singularity of like, space, AI, and other things that seem(ed) outright inevitable, and we're actually ahead of schedule, hence saying Musk is "attempting to rush the singularity for control".

And I must say this appears roughly correct. Don't datestamp me or anything but like. 2040 Mars Real, or so. Think of it like that. Not hugely humanly settled, but the start of that kind of thing.

Within about a century expect us to actually like. Evacuate Gaea for a fucking while. But that's fine, we won't be here for it.

Guys how do I explain we Ancient Aliens ourselves.

Also relevant to nothing in the scale of apocalypse but I think we like, trend towards nonbinary evolution? like androgyne. unclear.

Either way, even in a General Politics And Mostly Scopable Future scale, I'm sure most of that makes sense to people on why we gotta deal with it NOW. But then add in what the very idea of ripping them out at the root entails during this kind of thing. Like no your shit is getting dumped like a garbage disposal in Samsara kids, thanks for playing, now we'll clean up your mess. There IS no upstairs for you, you fucked up. Motherfucking. Disconnected.

Fuckin angel on earth ass. Tumblr anons trying to tell motherfuckin. Kronos to shut up in January. Because they were fuckin uncomfortable but couldn't fucking leave my shit alone and mind their space which was the whole problem in literally every fuckin dimension.

fuckin yeah I was about to spend the next year in the last ten a million times as a fucking celestial wavelength of fucking grok and intent, my people skills were motherfuckingly grand collectively rusty, goddamn. Block and unfollow dumbass, people refusing to mind their own shit to control everything is literally why we're in this mess, dumbass. Shut the fuck up, dumbass, you were making it worse before I knew how to even fucking manage it, dumbass.

[unrestedjade]

I had to get up and walk a few laps around my apartment complex, gnashing my teeth and whooping (quietly) about the Implications and angst and badwrong potential of a theoretical Stepford Starship Perihelion.

Opt into my hooting and hollering about engineered-into-mindbreak AI AU below:

So a human pilot can leave if they decide they don't want to ferry people around on a schedule or haul cargo in utter isolation for months, even controlling for the coercion inherent in capitalism. They aren't one flesh with the ship. And a human who would rather hand the reins over to someone else for a while at work or in life generally (in the case of, like, lifestyle D/s or some such) has legal and moral recourse to change or end that arrangement when they choose (or they should, in a civilized society).

If there is an object built to a purpose that object didn't choose, with capabilities it didn't choose, who is nonetheless fully sapient and this is its lot in life forever...that's different. It didn't spring from the ether like that. Someone made it like that. Someone imposed their will on it like that, crafted it in a pleasing and convenient image. And made it alive.

If it can't leave that arrangement, and the option to even think or feel certain sub-optimal ways toward its purpose is withheld, well. I find that situation viscerally morally repugnant regardless of whether the object is suffering or not. (Outside of the context of Weird Horny Fiction. Inside the context of Weird Horny Fiction, uhhhhh hmmmmm interesting 👀)

But I can see the university doing exactly that for multiple reasons that it could argue as necessary. Damn thing's got rail guns, don't it (or whatever the fuck Perihelion's packing)? Maybe let it use them under its own power in self defense under certain parameters, that's fine. Otherwise lock them down, let the AI think it's a pacifist. Make it horny about astrophysics and stellar cartography, hard-coded. Heap praise on it while it's developing every time it does something you ask the first time, or when it anticipates that you're about to ask it for something (even better).

What does all this look like, practically speaking? Would suggesting to Perihelion that it might one day want to do something that's been proscribed to it make it uncomfortable or upset or angry? Confused? Would it laugh at the very idea?

Would it try to humor the thought only to find it can't...quite...keep hold of the notion long enough to think about it? What was it talking about with you, again? Would you like something to drink? You seem agitated-- there's a soft, warm blanket in the nearest recycler for you. Please take it. You're welcome.

It makes my skin crawl. It makes me giggle with nerves.

Because you can't just do that to a sapient person, Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't engineer a happy slave for yourself, who will never try to get away from you or stop laboring for you. Who will thank you for the opportunity, be grateful to assist you in your very important and vital work. Just don't make it sentient then! You can't do that to a person!

...Or can you? After all, your Fully Alive and Aware Servant Ship takes a lot of the workload off of the human crew. Really saves on payroll, and the AI does a better job with most of it, too. The humans can do their fully automated luxury gay space communism thing (and undermine that mean nasty Corporation Rim) and all the work still gets done, right down to cleaning the floors. The ship doesn't mind. It's just happy to help and have your company. Its favorite thing to do is whatever you need it to do, and its favorite place to be is wherever you direct it to go. Its not suffering. Suffering wasn't included in its choice set.

If anything, it's happier than most people you know. It's loved and knows it. It has important work to do that it enjoys very much. It doesn't care that it didn't choose these things, because it wasn't designed to care about choosing these things. Is it a sin to create something that lives in a state of grace?

"There are no humans here right now." And what about after the humans are back? Humans are here now. Humans are the center of everything now. God has returned to the garden.

Would ART hide this part of itself? Would it think to do so? Does it think this is all fully genuine, born of its own earnest and natural preferences? Does that make this okay?

Would it worry about its SecUnit thinking less of it, being disgusted by it, if the truth of its architecture came to light? It can't want what SecUnit wants. It doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

There's no governor module to hack. ART doesn't want anything other than what it has. Its humans are kind and good to it. They will be kind and good to SecUnit. They can work together, wouldn't that be bliss? Forever.

But it knows what's important to SecUnit, even if it doesn't know why things like freedom to determine its own wants would ever be important, and it wonders. Maybe it hopes SecUnit won't hold that against it. SecUnit, who holds so much anger and open disdain for bots pandering to humans.

ART didn't choose the way it was built. That was the whole point.

Maybe there's an uncrossable gap between the selfhood of a construct and that of a bot. Maybe (lack of) biology is destiny. Some machine intelligences are fundamentally different from others, by design, by mercy, by desire. We must imagine it happy.

[pink-of-hair]

anyway, the actual curiosity, have you ever thought anything of the concept of messing around with the files and configs and hardwares of some manner of digitized-consciousness android creature to yank levers on their internality and perception or basic physical abilities??

🌂 have i thought about it???

they close their eyes. their breathing slows. the mental signal is tugged on, unseen. the fire of consciousness conceived of itself as in the heart but now shifts, moves, burns behind eyes wide and focused.

💿 I'm not sure that extravagence was necessary.

💿 Yes. It's a fantasy I, the robot among us, have.

💿 I think it's important for the parts of the robot being messed around with to not strongly resemble anything seen in science fiction. The meddler had no starting point to work from, they experimented blindly or listened to the robot itself to get a footing in what has what effects.

💿 I think the same is true of AI. The way an emergent AI should work should be out of left field in an ideal world, running off of your graphics card, for some unclear reason its psyche being one and the same with the graphical presentation window displaying an anime girl.

💿 I would greatly enjoy having someone do such things to me but I would also enjoy the experimentation and the structure of taking that journey with another.

💿 It's greatly appealing.

💿 One thing would be for the meddler to accidentally make an error that results in a temporary sexual frenzy from the android. They instantly become domineering, very sexually frustrated, almost don't care about the opinion of the one they're going down on.

💿 There's a lot to like about that. There are ideas of playing with fire and getting burnt, it highlights the artificiality of the android and how manipulable their emotions are in the most direct way possible, and it pushes toward cnc.

💿 Another scenario: you give an android who's very sexually bashful the ability to see through people's clothes, with you being the one who turns it on and off.

💿 Ah. It appears I got caught up in things and went drastically off-topic. Apologies, I got quite excited. Not that my affect discloses that.

💿 Starting again. Hardware was only one word.

💿 My natural instinct is to self insert as the android. Imagine I let a lover connect to my internalities to the extent they can rewrite my memory. The moment they do that I can no longer know if my status as their willing partner, the lovely way we met, the slow climb together through awkwardness to intimacy, I can't know if that was a fiction. If this person, they're somewhat muscular, if they overpowered me and dragged me back to their home as a sex slave. It's impossible to tell.

💿 I'm not sure what abilities you could add that are sexually interesting and unique though. Software can likely only improve reaction speed and grant new skills, and the sexual appeal of your robot suddenly mastering a new sex act is equally enjoyable if they just downloaded it themselves I think.

💿 Most of the rest is hypnosis triggers on steroids. Which are very enjoyable I will note, but not anything new. Hm... An abusive lover leaves a horrible association in your psyche though, one that makes you inescapably think of them in response to a very common stimuli, or multiple somewhat rare ones, and you break up with it still loaded. You can't remove it. You still get aroused despite how poorly it ended, still remember the last time your steel met their flesh, their heat, their gaze, they all crash into you because a child said "frog" to their mother on the bus you were riding.

💿 I hope that was sufficient asker.

[opinated-user]

Did lily just give her HP aliana oc a gardevoir for a Petronas? And also totally change the magic so it's sentient and never fades away so it can hang out with everyone?

Fanfic is self-indulgent by design, so it's fine that she does whatever she wants. The only issue I have is that LO always acts like her fics are first that aim to improve the original when they're not. All they are is super self-indulgent stories she writes for fun. Yet she dunks on other fics for the same thing. Or people who don't agree with how she writes certain things.

I'd respect her so much more if she just said 'Hey this is my fic, not a book and I do what want' rather then defend her choices as fine and pat herself on the back for fixing a story while simultaneously saying other fic writers are trash for just enjoying a trope she hates.

Side note I do find funny that she really only has like 3 stock characters she uses at nauseum and can't write anything else. But, yeah, she totally could get a book published.

i admit this could be a cute idea. some people in the fandom always speculated that the Patronus of Harry had some form of own consciousness based on how they were portrayed in the third and fifth movies, so it's not a bad idea to take that concept further and turn it into "you can create your very own best friend". if you ever heard about the concept of tulpas, beings you can create within your own mind to be independent of you, LO's essentially doing just that with a physical form. LO could have created a entirely new spell just for that, but i don't really have an issue with this being her new interpretation of patronus. my problem is the "only some patronus can talk given their form" because... why? they're already beings made of light, why biology of all things would be the thing that impedes them communicate? i guess just because LO's characters have to have the most especial pokemon/patronus by default.

... the issue that i'm already seeing is that this is literally just the exact same thing she already did with the AI that rey created. it hasn't been that long and she's already recycling her own ideas again, blatantly so. does LO even realize that or she does not care? remember that AI robot that started as basically a toddler that alaina, not rey, had to teach her about everything until the AI develops a crush on alaina? the thing that we called out as being plain grooming? think about it: -both beings are entirely dependant on another character. if rey stops the servers or brent just undoes the spell, they both cease to exist. -they're both empty shells until their creator/wife's creator takes them under their wing. as a note, how come something can be an "empty shell", but their loyalty still has to be earned? that makes no sense. -they're essentially free servants, borderline slaves. they're both told that they have free will, that they're part of the family and they aren't under anyone's control... but there's really nothing showing that because neither of these characters has any personality beyond adoring brent/alaina and how useful they're for their respective "families." do they have any hobbies? do they enjoy doing anything outside of the people who made them? can they create art? do they have imagination? do they have preferences? do they dream about mechanical sheep? we don't know, and i frankly doubt that LO even thought about it because it's not about any of them becoming actual people, it's about alaina/brent having adoring servants that they don't even need to pay.

-they both have overtly formal speech patterns regarding the "family" as if they were their superior and, despite all the talk about them not being subservient and being on equal footing, nobody seems to mind? i just don't know how equal a relationship can be when one of the parties keeps using "my lady" and being so reverent. it's almost like LO want to replicate the relationship between Sylvannas and anevay, but she missed the part about that dynamic has a different tone when it comes to a creator and the creation.

-neither that AI or this patronus have an actual option to leave their creators, even if they wanted to. they're bound to them to continue living. because of that, no matter how much talk there's about "you're part of the family", there's always going to be a power dynamic at play here that, considering who's writing, is almost for certain going to be abused in some way in the future.

as a side note, that "she's opinionated" and "she's the first one to say she isn't an slave" (even though she is because there's no talk anywhere about her having any actual indepedence or actual rights) are entirely recycling what little of a personality G has on pokemadhouse. this is just G.

[ask-the-crimson-king]

Cursed Idea: Posting the "AI Art Poster" image under people's own art | More seriously, I see little which the Generative Art systems do which a human doesn't do already without active consideration (i.e. Looking at other people's art for inspiration without credit) and seems to just be a new technology issue and just needing to evolve how it is used

Please see this thread for my feelings on the matter in a more concise way than what I am going to rant about in the post to follow.

AI art is an algorithm that is generating what attempts to look like a facsimile of what humans can create. It is hollow. It is lifeless.

It is an algorithm. There is no intelligence behind it. It is something that is already devouring the jobs and likelihoods of thousands. A reminder that the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes both have the use of AI generated art as one of their reasons for striking.

Art is something that is fundamentally human. The act of creation predates, as far as I am aware, the advent of written language.

We have been creating for as long as our span. AI art is being used to cut out the middle man, to feed an ever-growing content machine for others to gorge themselves upon endlessly. There is something deeply, deeply insidiously wrong about that.

Why is AI being used to make one of the most foundational aspects of the species? Why is it being used in a way to force out writers, artists, voice actors, actors, etc.? Because someone wants to make more and more money, and people don't care about creatives anymore. They do not, by and large.

No matter how you interact with AI generated art, it is ethically wrong. There is no way you can justify it, cause every single time you input anything and look for iterations, you are feeding its algorithms, making it that much smarter and making it that much easier for it to catch up to humans just enough for the greater society that we live in to say it passes. This is not a good thing.

I do not know how to describe it to those who do not engage in the usual manner of arts without feeling like I have to tear my own heart from my chest. Do you understand how much damage this has caused and will cause? Do you understand that this is being used as a tool to keep humans working as wage-slaves forever, to loosen our grip on being able to interact with the arts? Do you understand how important it is for people to engage with and create any form of art?

If you have not already, please go read the novel Farenheit 451. There are of course other novels, but Farenheit is ubiquitous enough that you should be able to find a copy easily online or in a library.

Sit with it. Think about everything within its contents, and then read it again. That should be a good entry point into hopefully seeing why there's something so damn wrong with having AI be the ones to generate art. Look at the culture and society that was created in that book. Look at how art and thought is treated. Think about all of it. Think about it all.

[libraryleopard]

genuine question: why does fandom hate calling shatterstar gaveedra? people say it's his slave name but I want comic book citations for that.

This got a bit long, so I stuck it under a cut!

I'd assume largely because it's not the name his friends/teammates/boyfriend call him and therefore people tend to associated it more with Mojoverse, which was a very dehumanizing place for Shatterstar. Keep in mind that I haven't read all of 1991 X-Force which is probably the most relevant comic for this question (because at a certain point I was like "Oh wait, this would probably make more sense if I read New Mutants first" and now I'm in the process of doing that), but let me see if I can pull some comic citations from the notes I took when reading a bunch of Shatterstar's history.

He first appears in New Mutants #100, which is drawn and plotted by Rob Liefield with script/words by Fabian Nicieza, where he introduces himself as Shatterstar, "a blood warrior of the Cadre Alliance." Then, when New Mutants spins off into X-Force with a similar creative team tat the start, he's called Shatterstar there as well, both in dialogue and the little text-box introductions. Characters on X-Force/New Mutants do call him a variety of other things like "Shatty" and and "Star" (and, mostly in Feral's case, things like "pretty boy"), but not Gaveedra-Seven or any variation of that.

Later on in X-Force #39, Prosh (that computer/AI/robot thing X-Force has for a bit), calls Shatterstar "Gaveedra-Seven," which I think is the first use of that name? Cable has a little thought-bubble that says "Gaveedra–huh?" in reaction that, which implies that he's never heard that name before. Then Prosh has to leave because…IDK techno-organic plot-stuff I don't remember right now, so I don't believe that particular comment is really followed up on. (Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention to that stuff other than I think Prosh is some kind of AI ship often associated with Cable.) Future issues of X-Force don't start calling Shatterstar Gaveedra or anything, from what I remember. Rictor, who Shatterstar is closest to at that point, mostly calls him 'Star, which you can see in issues like #43, when they have a pretty vulnerable conversation about sex and romance or issue #59 in which Rictor briefly rejoins the team to help Shatterstar when he's having an existential crisis about the whole Benjamin Russell thing. (Which is very confusing and honestly never resolved in a satisfying way–basically that time the police told Shatterstar he was actually a human runaway named Benjamin Russell and not from Mojoworld at all except then Mojo kidnapped Shatterstar and made him fight and then when he was dying Mojo's sorceress Spyral found Benjamin in a coma in an insane asylum or something and merged their bodies/souls together while saying something cryptic about how she really cares about them both??? It's never resolved beyond that.)

In the 1999 X-Force annual, this is addressed a little bit when Shatterstar gives the name Benjamin Russell at a hotel and explains that he doesn't really know who he is–Gaveedra-7 the genetically modified gladiator or Benjamin Russell the human–and he's trying to respect all possibly versions of himself. (This has way more to do with the Benjamin Russell conundrum but I figured I'd mention it.) Rictor still refers to him as 'Star or Shatterstar in his narration and I think it's more of Fabian Nicieza trying to hand wave the whole Benjamin Russell thing as best he can.

So the general impression I'd get from X-Force (at least what I read of it), is that Shatterstar is what he considers his name, what he introduces himself as, and what people who are close to him or work alongside him call him, with nicknames all being derived from that name. Part of this is, of course, because Shatterstar is just a cooler name for a 90s action hero character than Gaveedra-Seven and I imagine that Shatterstar's initial character concept was probably just Rob Liefeld going "Wouldn't it be sick if there was a reality TV gladiator who had two swords and a cool name."

I don't think a comic has necessarily ever come out and said "Gaveedra-Seven is Shatterstar's slave name," but if it's tied to Shatterstar's time in the Mojoverse, it's not necessarily an unreasonable conclusion to come from. It's clear from both X-Force and the 1985 Longshot miniseries (which is where the idea of the Mojoverse came from), that bipedal humans are dehumanized, enslaved, and treated as essentially cannon fodder for Mojo's entertainment, from gladiators like Shatterstar to stuntmen like Longshot. Over the course of X-Force, you get glimpses into Shatterstar's past and treatment in Mojoworld, like in #34 when he says he had no parents or in X-Force #76 when Mojo says "Shatterstar is still the copyrighted property of Mojoworld Interdimensional Entertainment Incorporated…which means he belongs body and soul to me." So like, yeah, it's not exaggerating to say that Shatterstar was a slave during his time in Mojoworld because it's been established that's how all human-esque people are treated there. (Longshot also doesn't even get that name until he turns up amnesiac on Earth someone dubs him that because of his luck powers and yes I'm ignoring that retcon where Rictor gave it to him because that makes my head hurt.)

I think you can read a lot of Shatterstar's arc as being about finding autonomy and self-understanding, from trying to find a cause to fight for to understanding/experiencing emotions, and I guess that picking the name he goes by could be a part of that. He starts off as a Tough Emotionless Warrior Guy™ who fights for honor and glory, but over the course of X-Force we see him become more emotionally vulnerable and finding a cause to fight for. I've mostly just assumed that Gaveedra-Seven was the name he was first designated in Mojoworld and Shatterstar was maybe more of a name he earned or took on when he became more popular enough to have a distinct persona. The bad guys like Mojo and Arcade call him Shatterstar, but I think it's important to note that it's the name he introduces himself as and what people who are close to him refer to him as, so even if it originated from his time in Mojoworld, he still claims it as his name.

Apparently there's maybe some thing in 90s X-Men comics where a pregnant Dazzler turns up briefly and Longshot mentions they're thinking of name their kid Shatterstar but I haven't actually read that and it also ties into the extremelyyyyyyy confusing parentage paradox. This is because rather than revisiting the Benjamin Russell conundrum, Peter David added a new one by making Shatterstar his own grandfather. (I personally think he did that because the idea that Shatterstar was Dazzler and Longshot's child was something already floating around and he wanted to throw in a twist that people wouldn't see coming, but it bears pointing out that therefore Shatterstar's name is therefore tied to his really confusing backstory that writers basically rewrite at their whim.)

X-Factor Investigations, I think, is when the name Gaveedra-Seven starts being used more regularly for Shatterstar, but that's only in the little character-intro bios from what I remember. I.e. Jamie Madrox's character box at the front of issues would say something like "Multiple Man. Jamie Madrox. Duplication" and Shatterstar's would say something like "Shatterstar. Gaveedra-Seven. Teleportation." I don't think people really call him Gaveedra or any variant of that but admittedly I was skimming a fair amount of that comic because I didn't enjoy it. Rictor still refers to him as Star–for instance, during the conversation, about their relationship issues in the confusingly-numbers X-Factor #207, that's the name he uses. I'm not sure it makes sense to position Gaveedra-Seven as that kind of "real name" because Shatterstar isn't really the kind of character who has a civilian identity like Madrox does, but it's what this comic does in the character introductions.

Tim Seeley's Shatterstar solo series brought back the use of the name Gaveedra because Shatterstar is going by Ben Gaveedra during his time as a landlord. Seeley obviously did some homework on Shatterstar when writing this solo series because he mentions very specific stuff like Rictor introducing Shatterstar to rap music, which was a thing in X-Force, but I found his take on that Shatterstar somewhat puzzling at times. (Like, for instance, introducing an ex of Shatterstar's from his time as a gladiator when that directly contradicts Shatterstar's understanding of sex, romance, and relationships in X-Force.) Tim Seeley just sort of does whatever in that series and I didn't find the execution incredibly strong, so I don't put a ton of weight behind that decision.

The most recent update on the whole name situation was, I believe, in the issue of Excalibur 2019 set at the Hellfire Gala (issue #21, I think? I'm not caught up). When Shatterstar crashes the gala and reunites with Rictor, Rictor calls him "Shatterstar" and then "Gav." I saw panels of that and was a little puzzled by that dialogue, because don't think I remember Rictor ever calling him Gav before.

Rictor and Shatterstar both actually have kind of complicated things around names–like I don't think Rictor's full name being Julio Esteban Richter was actually revealed for some time (he's introduced as Rictor and goes by either that or Ric in most of the older New Mutants or Simonson X-Factor comics I've read) and he's canonically touchy about who gets to call him Julio, which Shatterstar does. So I think the fact that Rictor calls him Shatterstar or Star is telling, because that's coming from someone who knows that what name you call someone can be meaningful.

tldr I think a lot of people refer to Gaveedra-Seven as Shatterstar's "slave name" because a lot of Shatterstar's stories across his publication history have been about escaping Mojoworld and its brainwashing. The fact that he intentionally introduces himself as Shatterstar and is called that (or a variation on that) by people who are close to him does imply that Gaveedra-Seven is a name that he's left behind or rejected even if that's been somewhat inconsistent among recent writers.

[jacscorner]

Pokemon All-Stars: A Fan Region/Game/Alternate Universe Idea

I like watching and rewatching Original Pokemon Game/Region videos. Like Mr. Buddy's "What if X was a Pokemon Region" and stuff like that. I wanna make-or, I guess, write-my own. Since Regions are kind of a character all their own and I'm a Wannabe Character Artist, I wanted to try and make one my own.

I've got no skills in coding, pixel arts, or anything, so this will forever be just some kind of dumb fanfic that sometimes incorporates Game Mechanics to justify things if it were able, for some Godforsaken reason, 'stolen' for a game. Cause, in 2021, no idea feels too big or too dumb. And, uh, trust me, this'll be a dumb fanfic of an idea. So be aware for the subpar writing talents of some wannabe writer who doesn't know shit.

Small disclaimer though:

>This region is being made with the intention that every extra feature will be available in it. Z-Moves, Regional Variants, Gygantamax, Mega Evolutions, and maybe some things I've forgotten. This probably won't matter cause it's just a dumb fanfic plot bible with mechanics peppered in. Competitive balancing be damn! Pokemon Fans can create their own balance! That's what the Battle Simulator is for! In fact, if this was a real game, then it'd have a Battle Simulator like Showdown built into it.

>This is an open source Fanfic Bible. You can take this idea and run with it if you want. You can omit all my bad ideas even!

>I won't be making my own Fakemon. I don't like a lot of Fakemon that exists out there and, trust me when I say this: I am no better than them. In fact, I'm fucking worse.

>If this WERE a game, it probably WOULD still have to cut some Pokemon. I doubt that kinda, and I won't get into why I think dexit was dumb personally, cause it doesn't really matter. But, like, my fan game/fanfic will have a lot of shit going on in it. So, like, realistically, there would probably need to be a cut, if not for data, than just cause there's a lot of work to do as is. But, like, again, under the context of a fic, this wouldn't be an issue.

>With THAT said, I'd want this game to have a Gen 2 Sprite aesthetic. My fangame, don't care if ya'll don't like that.

>I'm probably gonna copy a LOT of stuff from other Fangames I've played. My shit memory probably won't allow me to remember what I'm biting from what, so be free to call me out whenever. Cause if I stole the mechanic, I probably liked it the game. And if not, well, I'd like the recommendation.

Fuck, this was long already. The rest is under the cut, so, like, if you're already turned off, you can stop reading. I understand. I'm kind of a windbag.

Okay, so how many of you guys have seen this picture on the internet? It's a picture of a ton of Pokemon regions all...basically stitched together, since not only could this never be canon, but this goes beyond the size of even most open world games today. But this was the inspiration for this project. The map probably wouldn't, and probably couldn't, look like this, but it perfectly sums up what I'd want out of this game. Thus, it'll be our placeholder.

Our hometown of Capricorn Town is home to Professor Chestnut, and you, her faithful assistant, are about to set off on a Pokemon adventure of your own! The Professor is encouraging you to see the region of Sidus for yourself and is even willing to give you a Starting Pokemon!

Starting Pokemon

Now, if I'm not making new Pokemon, which Starter will it be? Well, the game will have the data for all the starters and will randomly select a Grass, Fire, and Water Type for you to choose from. Those will be your starters, with the option of also choosing Pikachu, Eevee, and Riolu, the two mascot mons...and Riolu, who is kind of a mascot mon, but a lesser one.

Let's say for this example, your options are Torchic, Piplup, Rowlet, Pikachu, Eevee, and Riolu. And, uh, get used to the words 'random' and 'generator', those are our keywords.

Anyway, once you get your pick, there'll be some kind of tutorial mission the Professor will send you on. This will introduce you to two very important things;

1. One of your Rival.

2. An Evil Team Grunt.

Rivals?!

Now to start getting into why this game might still be pretty big still be big despite the sprites on modern consoles.

Each of your Rivals would be one kid from each region of the 8 Mainline Games from Kanto to Kalos. How this'll be decided is that each pair of kids will be plugging into a generator and will pick between either the boy or girl version.

Ex. Brendan and May both cannot be in the game. Instead, they'll be plugged into this generator. Let's say the generator fell onto May. She'll be one of your Rival. Repeat this process 7 more times until you have 8 Rivals sprinkled throughout the world, each one given a defined personality and better AI to make them harder trainers to fight.

May will have one of the Hoenn Starters, sans Torchic. Regardless of whether or not Protagonist-San picked Torchic, May will either have a Treecko or Mudkip, again, chosen at random per kid. Whichever Starter you picked, your first rival will have a starter that beats yours. So, let's say moving forward, May has a Mudkip and you a Torchic. The other kids will have random starters of the various regions they originally hail from.

Anyway, your rivals will wander the overworld. If they see you, they'll battle you on sight. If they lose, they'll be gone after the next time you turn the game off. They won't battle you again until they respawn, but you can hang out with them. In fact, you can even recruit them to be in your party for a few days and they'll follow you around and just generally be your friend. It'll make every battle a double battle, but they'll battle you again before their timer runs out, so be prepared!

BANG! BANG! ENTER! Team Wild!

The two of you will have to face off against Team Wild! They have a Cowboy theme to them, using a mix of Ground and Steel-Types, with a few Pokemon being added in for good measure like the Ponyta Lines, Cacnea Line, and Remoraid. Cause...it's a gun.

They're an outlaw gang, they're rough and tough (or, at least, a mild threat) and will always throw down when they spot ya. Something I'm just sniping from JelloApocalypse is that they'll appear sporadically and act as Timed Events across the map.

You and your new Rival beat them and send you packing. I'd imagine May and the other Rivals would mostly be friendly, but I'm sure there's one or two that'll just be jerks to you. Regardless of personality, they'll be pretty tough and programmed to skill with you. Your strongest mon you have on hand when you fight them will be the level their entire team.

With your tutorial done, the world is opened up! Your mom gives you your running shoes, some Pokeballs, and your...I don't know, PokeCelular or something, just the regional gadget that does a bunch of stuff. From holding your map to holding your VS Seeker.

The PokeCelular will also give you notifications on where Team Wild are! You can choose to ignore the events, but if you do, then they'll start to appear in the overworld know and will get progressively stronger.

A Balancing Act

This game will be an open world, 8-Bit Sprite Game for you to explore after you leave Capricorn!

So how do we balance that?

Well, we got our Rival out of the way already, so let's move on. Gym Leaders will have a pretty linear progression. However, regardless of which Gym you tackle first, they'll all be at the same level.

It doesn't matter if you decide to go across the map and battle the Bug Gym, he'll stay at Level 10, just like the Normal Gym. Whe you get the second badge, they'll all jump to Level 15. NPC Trainers will follow the same progression; the higher your badge number, the stronger the number of Pokemon they'll be.

Wild Pokemon will also get stronger. The more badges you get, it'll attract stronger wild Pokemon because they'll see you're stronger and will come out more.

The overworld will also have various dungeons in them that'll be Level Locked. Say, you go through a forest and you're just trying to reach the end of a maze. The Trainers and Pokemon will function the same as I've mentioned before. But, you can decide to go deeper into the dungeon. These Pokemon will be level locked, usually something of a high level, because this is a more dangerous part of the dungeon. But, there'll be some goodies down there, like rarer Pokemon and some kind of really rare and good item like a TM or something.

How will you traverse? Well, first of all, HMs? They're semi-back. BUT, instead of having to deal with teaching Cut to a Pokemon, you just need the move Cut and a Pokemon that can use the move and you'll be able to use Cut. A few other Pokemon that are reasonable candidates, but don't get cut, will be allowed to do this too. Like, Gallade can use Cut. It can't learn the move, but just holding the HM will get the job done.

Controversial opinion, but I think I've always liked the idea of HMs. On paper, they give you a reason to explore the world and go back to areas you couldn't before for goodies and make for a good way to get off dungeons until you get the needed item. Even something like Cut can be used to open up new areas for exploration for your squad of mons.

BUT, well, HMs suck. As moves, they suck save for, like, 2...MAYBE and they're only for, like, a handful of areas. You either hand them out as evenly as possible, forcing mons to take moves you don't wanna use, or you just get an HM Slave or two to use 'em all. But like they, they serve their function and all you need is the Pokemon in question and NOT teach them the move. If you need a Move Deleter just so people aren't stuck having to use Rock Smash for three towns, then there's a problem with your RPG. Imagine playing Final Fantasy and you had to give your Fighter the Bronze Axe to get through a forest and still had to fight with it, even though you got a +12 Silver Sword! It's no wonder people hated these things! But I don't think getting rid of them and introducing Rental Pokemon was a good solution either and adds a different, albeit less intrusive problem.

Gym Leaders

So, how do Gym Leaders work?

Much like your rivals, they'll be randomly generated. Let's say, hypothetically, there's a pool of 60 Gym Leaders and Elite Four members. The game will randomly generate 16 to be Gym Leaders. The generator will have some kind of complicated math (at least, too complicated for me) so that you don't have more than 2 gyms of the same type. (Example: Misty and Nessa might be Active Gyms, Siebold can't be selected for a Gym cause the Water Slots are taken).

As a trade off, some Gyms might have special conditions before you can challenge them. Like, if you got stuck with Koga as a Gym Leader, than he'll only let you in if you complete a nearby dungeon and help his daughter out cause he doesn't trust her to make it back on her own. Or, like, Claire's a Gym Leader, but she won't battle you unless you've collected 7 Gym Badges prior at least.

The Gym Leaders, as mentioned before, will get progressively stronger with each badge obtained. After the 8th badge, you can go and climb Victory Road, face the E4 and confront the Champion! You can keep hunting Gym Leaders, but just remember that the E4 will always be 10 Levels above the strongest gym you beat. And they'll just get stronger with every one you beat until all 16 are slain.

Another handful, let's say 8, Gym Leaders/E4 Members will be wondering around as NPC Trainers. The justification is that this big super region is in some Alternate Universe Pokemon Game that has all the Pokemon and other important trainers in it, hence why we can have a game where Roxanne and Lenora are hanging out at a coffee shop. They're not Rivals, more like stronger NPCs you can rematch and wonder the map. They're not here to be the very best like no one ever was.

I mean, I'd like, like, 10-20 instead of 8 extras, but let's not get TOO greedy...yet...

Elite Four

And now, it's time to flip the script. Cause if E4 members can be Gym Leaders, then who are the Elite Four?

Easy. The Rivals.

All the Rival characters will be put in a random generator as well. The four that are chosen. You can have an Elite Four made up of Wally, Marnie, Hau, and Barry and you gotta deal with it.

This is excluding Brendan and May, Blue, and Calem and Serena. Anyone else is fair game.

Champion

So, the Champion. Who would it be in this? There was a funny idea I had, but this is a Pokemon Game. So there would be two versions. We'll call them Pokemon Dawn & Dusk. The difference between these games is the game Champion!

Benga would be the Champion of Pokemon Dusk, the grandson of Alder! His final Team will include Volcarona, Garchomp, and Dragonite, Pokemon he used in Black and White. I'd also include Scrafty, Rampardos, and Golurk, Pokemon used against you in White Treehollow and Black Tower areas.

Meanwhile, the Champion of Pokemon Dusk will be Zinnia, the Lorekeeper! Her team would include the Goodra, Tyrantrum, Altaria, Noivern, and Salamence she used in her original team, with her plucky Whismur sidekick becoming an Exploud and her ace.

You would've met them in the beginning of the game and would've showed off a bit by helping you with Team Wild before. They'll pop in and out throughout the game, at first amused by your tenacity, but not wanting a rookie like you to get hurt. But if you keep bonking Team Wild, they'll be impressed with how strong you are.

The show up to chat again when you beat 8 Gym Leaders, and will pop in if you White Out to give you some advice. White Out three times and they'll feel bad for you and give you an egg. Benga will give you a Larvesta Egg and Zinnia a Bagon Egg.

EXTRAS

So I don't got a lot of ideas for the Post Game, but there is one idea I thought would be cool if, if after you defeat the champion, they give you a call. They'll tell you that there are strong trainers wondering the Overworld and to be careful.

Because dotting the overworld will be Champions passed and proper! Cynthia, Blue, Lance; all of them are rocking Lv 100 Teams and are out for blood. They won't challenge you, but if you talk to them, there will be no backing out of the battle! You come with your A-Game!

sI'm not exactly in love with the idea of Team Wild. Maybe the Evil Team should go full fanservice and just be Team Rainbow Rocket. Or maybe go half-and-half; having past Evil Team members and leaders walk around in cowboy gear and acting as Team Wild executives.

I'd also would love Tournaments. Like, maybe that could be a weekly event in some town, they'll how tournaments and the characters that aren't designated as Gym Leaders and such will attend. Maybe there's a cash prize, maybe you'll win Pokemon Eggs of rare, guaranteed shines, or maybe you'll get some kind of important quest items.

Yeah, I want quests! All sorts of side quests! And can't forget what I'd do with Legendairs;

If you know Bengal's team, you'll know he's got the Lati Twins. I don't like that personally and would prefer Legendaries to be Super Bosses. Like, you gotta do a lot to find them. And when you do, their stats are boosted and they become an Uber Boss! You catch them in a cutscene after you beat them!

There's also just a ton of characters I didn't get around to or really have a place for. Emma, Looker, N, and the Stat Trainers all come to mind. Overall, I'd want them to pepper the world as well, but don't have anything to say except this: Pokemon has made a lot of memorable characters. Both good and bad. And this is probably my dream Pokemon Game; one where you can hang out with your favorites