Speaking of AI in fandoms, I'd love to bring AI Fanfiction to the discussion. Because that's been eye opening. (I'm also too stupid at art to really understand how much work goes into one image.) It's serious theft, it's a robot puking back up what it's seen before and you can feel it in the writing it makes. It claims in the narration that the characters are feeling things and learning when that isn't what's happening. Nothing real is going on. And you can feel it in Every. Single. Sentence. It's honestly horrible, and I've been against it since its creation. But recently I noticed something absolutely insane and disheartening.
I'm a senior in highschool (17, going on 18), and all of the new sophomores are using AI. All of them. These 15 year olds are openly talking about their use of AI fanfic and AI fanart. And listening to them rattle on and on about how cool it is to have a way to bring these things to life via AI made me realize something. These kids aren't trying to be thieves. It's not that they lack morals, or are lazy. They haven't thought about the full implications of it, sure, but there's an underlying issue here.
They're using AI because they don't think they can make anything worthwhile themselves. And that makes my blood boil.
Something about AI is making these kids think that the only way to enjoy fan content the way they picture it in their head is to have something more "qualified" to do it. AI is telling these kids that they suck at art. That they suck at writing. And that there's nothing they can do about it. And they're just young enough to accept that.
And y'know what? They probably do suck. But that's a good thing! The best thing about fandom is the way it uses people's passion for their favorite things and turns it into skill.
We all sucked at what we do when we were younger. I sucked at grammar when I started writing. My concepts were killer but my execution was just abysmal. But my love for the original content fueled me to keep going. To keep trying and I'd say that now my writing is pretty darn good. I see such talented people draw wonderful things because fandom made them practice. Fandom constantly brings out the best in people. We're really good at these things now. We don't need a dumb robot to do it worse.
But fandom has changed. Now there's an easy way to create something without becoming a creator. These insecure kids are entering fandoms with that concept in mind. And when they see that they suck, they hit that ever present roadblock of worrying you won't get better. But now they have an out. While we all had to figure out how to get over said roadblock, they just pressed the skip button, because it was there. They skipped the most important thing you could possibly learn in life, because some a-hole made a skip button.
It's like they're sequence breaking life, missed a power up, and feel like the only way to succeed is to keep using the cheat code that got them stuck in the first place.
These poor kids, man. AI isn't just the death of creativity, it's the death of ambition, and self-esteem. These kids aren't the problem, they're the victims. Victims of this toxic mindset that AI put into their heads.
I'm starting to see AI art in fanart tags and even when they are tagged as AI art, people in the reblogs tagged it as fanart.
Let me just say this once. I don't believe AI art is fanart. The way things are, it's theft. It doesn't count. The effort that fan artists put into their works cannot be equated in value with whatever an AI generates. The works with hours of applied skill and originality and love put into them are the works I want to praise on this blog.
So that being said, if I ever reblog "fanart" that is ai generated, please send me a message or an ask and let me know so I can delete it off my blog.
I was actually thinking about a slightly less angsty version of this where everyone is used to Silver coming from the future to fix things, so no one bats an eye when they see a hedgehog step through a time portal (I always picture the freaking chaos control portals from 06)
Anyway no one really looks as a figure walks through the foggy portal, and just go "oh, hey, Silver!" And then he growls and everyone stops and looks up to see Future!Shadow instead. More pissed than ever before. Everyone instantly gets a bad feeling cuz they know something went wrong. And Shadow growls and goes "Silver's missing, and his stuff is starting to vanish. Which one of you idiots stopped him from being born!" (And that's how present!Shadow finds out that Silver's his adopted son.)
And then the rest of the story is just everyone trying to fix whatever's wrong without any clues as to what happened, meanwhile Future!Shadow is no help because he's too angry with them to give them any real info. (Mans seeing Red, he's not focused on anything but "give back meh son"
And it can be mostly Eggman's fault and he's like the background external conflict or something idk
Not really espilver, sorry. I don't ship it, but I don't not ship it either, so... It would probably be extremely easy to turn it into an espilver plot. Like, just have espio lose it more than everyone else over that and putting the most effort into trying to get him back. And then when silver returns Espio is rly happy and they have a moment™
now that im thinking about espilver angst if silver died in the past who would tell shadow. how would he know. would he have to guess? worse, would he have to be well aware of the fact that one of these days his son's going to go to the past and never come back?
Ok, so I WAS going to contact artists individually and privately, but that was before I realized there would be literally hundreds of artists.
The Youtube channel Super Hedgehog Bros is reposting and monetizing art from HUNDREDS of Sonic artists. In 3 videos alone, all posted within the last week, they have used art from over 100 artists. Their channel is monetized, they are making money from views.
100 artists from 3 videos. The channel has over 400 videos posted. They have over 60k subscribers.
If you're a Sonic artist, especially if you make comics, and you don't want your work reposted for someone else's monetary gain then you should probably have a look and consider if you want to do a copyright claim. Maybe let your friends know too, if you know they care about this sort of thing.
It's literally impossible for me to contact everyone about this, I just need to hope this post finds at least some of the people it matters to!
While I know that the Sonic Boom cartoon show hype is probably super dead, the way Sonic and Eggman interact has me convinced Eggman did SOME parenting when Sonic was tiny, so here's my headcanon for that. Enjoy!
While Eggman could conquer the island he lived at, Bygone Island, the one he found nearby would be much easier, hypothetically anyway.
While Seaside Island was redundantly named, it was much more his style. The villages on it were smaller and meeker. They had no real way to fight back against his takeover! Which made it the perfect starting point for his upcoming break in his villainy career! If he took that island, surely that would've made his father proud!
Unfortunately, 'if' is the key word in that sentence.
The little blue hedgehog was no older than five years old, but despite his youth, he sucessfully stood between Eggman and complete control of the island.
And the little ragamuffin didn't even talk.
He never said a word, just showed up with his super speed and sharp quills and would put a stop to whatever genius plan he was making by breaking all his robots.
Eggman wished he knew the little nuisance's name, but seeing as he wasn't interested in talking, it left Eggman to hypothesize on appearance alone.
His back quills had ripped right through a shabby brown jacket that he wore, to the point where it wouldn't work as a jacket much longer. His gloves were constantly dirty, and no one on the forsaken island admitted who his parents were. It was like he suddenly existed one day! With no explanation!
The blue hedgehog was often running at ludicrous speeds. Speeds that, depending on the day, neared the sound barrier!
Eggman feared the day that the little blueberry would create a sonic boom.
The 'impending-sonic-boom' as he began to call the hedgehog was rather unpredictible. It all fell on a scale. Going extremely fast one day, sticking his tounge out at him and humming mocking songs, to going at what must've been like a meer jog to him, with no aknowledgement of Eggman at all the next day.
But one day, things were far more unpredictable than Eggman had bargined for.
He was racing the impending-sonic-boom in the Eggmobile. There was no hope of winning, just like there was no hope for his receeding hairline, but he needed a test. He couldn't create a robotic duplicate without anything to base it on! So it didn't matter that there was no hope of winning!
Eggman didn't need to be fancy with it, he just told the five year old koolaid stain that if he reached the end of the course before the rodent did, that he would offically own the island. And being five years old, he took it seriously.
There was no hope of winning. Not with the determination on the little guy's face.
So one can imagine the confusion that Eggman was met with when he won.
It didn't make any sense! He wasn't even- It was just the Eggmobile! It was nothing fancy! That sound-barrier-threatening-lifeform was much faster than that!
Eggman got off of his Eggmobile and stared at the folliage in front of him. Waiting to see blue quills poking out from the tall grass.
"Oh, Blueberry! I'm waaaaiting!"
It took another three seconds for the kid to show up. And when he did, he looked tired.
"Kid, you gotta be faster than that! You're not doing this on purpose are you? If this is just to spite me..."
The rodent shook his head. Eggman wouldn't have believed him if he didn't look so tired.
"Then what gives!? You can't just suddenly be slow! It's narratively inconsistent!"
The blue menace looked up at Eggman with an angry look.
"No... foo." Eggman flinched. He just spoke. He just... SPOKE.
"What? What did you say?"
"No foo...d! No food... No... fast!"
"Your speed depends on your diet?" Eggman tapped his chin, before grinning smugly. "What, did you miss your peanut butter sandwich for lunch?"
He was promptly glared at. "Okay! Geez!" Eggman tapped his gauntlet, and used it to scan the incoming-sonic-boom.
"Let's see, you're about five years old, according to your inteligence and fine motor skills... and you're one foot tall so you should weigh roughly..."
Eggman's stomach sank. He knew for a fact that the arriving-sonic-boom wasn't hitting that number. Not by a lot... Eggman could pick him up like he was a beach ball.
"When did you last eat..?"
Nothing. Nothing but staring.
"Yesterday? ...No? How about the day before? Th-the day before that? Five days ago? How about a week ago?!"
It wasn't until they hit a week and a half that the sonic-boom-in-progress pointed at Eggman. Signifying the correct timeframe
Eggman stared at the incoming-sonic-boom. For anyone, that would be damaging. For a five year old, that was almost a death sentence.
Eggman crouched down to the sonic-boom-creator and put a thumb under his chin. He squirmed violently and pushed Eggman's hand away as he stepped back.
But Eggman saw what he needed to see. There was almost no fat on his face. He was horribly underweight.
Eggman was a villain. Not a monster.
The hedgehog wiped his face, as if Eggman had gotten something on it by touching him.
"Hmm. Well, you're clearly malnourished. I can't declare victory under those circumstances! That would be cheating! Looks like you win this time, hedgehog! Now, come along! We have work to do."
The hedgehog looked up at him in–adorable–confusion. Eggman stood back up on his Eggmobile.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Hop on!"
The inevitable-sonic-boom inched towards it slowly. He gently tapped the base of the Eggmobile. When nothing happened, he looked back up to Eggman. Who groaned.
"Fine, I promise I won't hurt you, got it?"
The sonic-boom stared even more, before inevitably going for it and climbing onto the Eggmobile like a toddler.
It wasn't tipped in the slightest by the extra weight, which reminded Eggman why he was doing this at all.
His Eggmobile floated upwards and flew off. It quickly left Seaside island and then there was nothing but water below them.
He didn't expect the oncoming-sonic-boom to whimper at the sight of the ocean.
Eggman glanced down in time to see him curl up, hiding between his legs and the lower wall of the Eggmobile.
When the sonic-boom leaned against him for support, he winced and stepped back.
"Watch the quills, you blue nuisance!" He yelled.
It didn't stop the incoming-sonic-boom from grabbing him, but at least he was more careful.
Eggman had to remind himself, that the sonic-boom was a little malnourished kid, because he almost made too much food. Twice. The rodent's stomach would be small, too small for him to give the blue guy a full child-sized meal. Unless he wanted the sonic-boom throwing up on Eggman's floor.
Once Eggman had handed him a plate of food, his skittish attitude towards being on an island nowhere near his old one vanished completely. Eggman's place was a chunk of earth and lava broken off of the bygone island, yet it felt safer than the previous island, when it came to that Sonic-Boom of a hedgehog's wellbeing, at least.
The blue stain in his life stood on a chair, his tail wagging excitedly as he immediately started eating what was on his plate. Apple slices, a hot dog cut into little pieces, crackers, and even a juicebox. It might've still been too much.
Eggman watched as sonic-boom ate. Making sure that he was properly eating. It would be a waste if all his cooking didn't help out the blue rat at all.
When he was mostly done with his food, Eggman decided that enough was enough.
"Alright you menacing blue fiend," he said. "I'm going to watch television on my floating screen. Don't break anything."
He walked over to the TV, grabbed the remote, and sat down.
"Maybe I'll watch that new comedy show with the monkey-ape-thing, that should be interesting."
No more than a few minutes had passed before The Sonic-boom came into the room and jumped onto the couch.
"What do you want now? I already fed you!"
The Sonic-boom yawned and crawled onto his lap, before half-tucking into a ball and closing his eyes.
"Ohh, no you don't!" Eggman said, he picked Sonic-boom up by the back quills and pulled him off of his lap. He set him down on the couch next to him. He whined annoyingly. Before racing back on. Great. Looks like that speed is kicking in...
"No, off!"
He raced back on.
"No, off!"
He raced back on.
"No, OFF!"
He raced back on, again. Eggman grit his teeth. "NO, OFF, SONIC!"
Eggman was so caught up in the stupid game that he forgot the rest of the blue hedgehog's title. He didn't care much however, because he had raced back on and clung to him for all he was worth. Eggman sighed and decided that he didn't care enough. He wasn't willing to do this all day, after all.
The Sonic sighed happily, and purred for a moment before he fell asleep.
And if Eggman freaked out? Well, at least it stayed on the inside.
Do y'all want more of this? Because I've been thinking about writing more of my headcanons for the boom versions and their underrated-ness. And seeing as this post did shockingly well, I figured I'd ask
While I know that the Sonic Boom cartoon show hype is probably super dead, the way Sonic and Eggman interact has me convinced Eggman did SOME parenting when Sonic was tiny, so here's my headcanon for that. Enjoy!
While Eggman could conquer the island he lived at, Bygone Island, the one he found nearby would be much easier, hypothetically anyway.
While Seaside Island was redundantly named, it was much more his style. The villages on it were smaller and meeker. They had no real way to fight back against his takeover! Which made it the perfect starting point for his upcoming break in his villainy career! If he took that island, surely that would've made his father proud!
Unfortunately, 'if' is the key word in that sentence.
The little blue hedgehog was no older than five years old, but despite his youth, he sucessfully stood between Eggman and complete control of the island.
And the little ragamuffin didn't even talk.
He never said a word, just showed up with his super speed and sharp quills and would put a stop to whatever genius plan he was making by breaking all his robots.
Eggman wished he knew the little nuisance's name, but seeing as he wasn't interested in talking, it left Eggman to hypothesize on appearance alone.
His back quills had ripped right through a shabby brown jacket that he wore, to the point where it wouldn't work as a jacket much longer. His gloves were constantly dirty, and no one on the forsaken island admitted who his parents were. It was like he suddenly existed one day! With no explanation!
The blue hedgehog was often running at ludicrous speeds. Speeds that, depending on the day, neared the sound barrier!
Eggman feared the day that the little blueberry would create a sonic boom.
The 'impending-sonic-boom' as he began to call the hedgehog was rather unpredictible. It all fell on a scale. Going extremely fast one day, sticking his tounge out at him and humming mocking songs, to going at what must've been like a meer jog to him, with no aknowledgement of Eggman at all the next day.
But one day, things were far more unpredictable than Eggman had bargined for.
He was racing the impending-sonic-boom in the Eggmobile. There was no hope of winning, just like there was no hope for his receeding hairline, but he needed a test. He couldn't create a robotic duplicate without anything to base it on! So it didn't matter that there was no hope of winning!
Eggman didn't need to be fancy with it, he just told the five year old koolaid stain that if he reached the end of the course before the rodent did, that he would offically own the island. And being five years old, he took it seriously.
There was no hope of winning. Not with the determination on the little guy's face.
So one can imagine the confusion that Eggman was met with when he won.
It didn't make any sense! He wasn't even- It was just the Eggmobile! It was nothing fancy! That sound-barrier-threatening-lifeform was much faster than that!
Eggman got off of his Eggmobile and stared at the folliage in front of him. Waiting to see blue quills poking out from the tall grass.
"Oh, Blueberry! I'm waaaaiting!"
It took another three seconds for the kid to show up. And when he did, he looked tired.
"Kid, you gotta be faster than that! You're not doing this on purpose are you? If this is just to spite me..."
The rodent shook his head. Eggman wouldn't have believed him if he didn't look so tired.
"Then what gives!? You can't just suddenly be slow! It's narratively inconsistent!"
The blue menace looked up at Eggman with an angry look.
"No... foo." Eggman flinched. He just spoke. He just... SPOKE.
"What? What did you say?"
"No foo...d! No food... No... fast!"
"Your speed depends on your diet?" Eggman tapped his chin, before grinning smugly. "What, did you miss your peanut butter sandwich for lunch?"
He was promptly glared at. "Okay! Geez!" Eggman tapped his gauntlet, and used it to scan the incoming-sonic-boom.
"Let's see, you're about five years old, according to your inteligence and fine motor skills... and you're one foot tall so you should weigh roughly..."
Eggman's stomach sank. He knew for a fact that the arriving-sonic-boom wasn't hitting that number. Not by a lot... Eggman could pick him up like he was a beach ball.
"When did you last eat..?"
Nothing. Nothing but staring.
"Yesterday? ...No? How about the day before? Th-the day before that? Five days ago? How about a week ago?!"
It wasn't until they hit a week and a half that the sonic-boom-in-progress pointed at Eggman. Signifying the correct timeframe
Eggman stared at the incoming-sonic-boom. For anyone, that would be damaging. For a five year old, that was almost a death sentence.
Eggman crouched down to the sonic-boom-creator and put a thumb under his chin. He squirmed violently and pushed Eggman's hand away as he stepped back.
But Eggman saw what he needed to see. There was almost no fat on his face. He was horribly underweight.
Eggman was a villain. Not a monster.
The hedgehog wiped his face, as if Eggman had gotten something on it by touching him.
"Hmm. Well, you're clearly malnourished. I can't declare victory under those circumstances! That would be cheating! Looks like you win this time, hedgehog! Now, come along! We have work to do."
The hedgehog looked up at him in–adorable–confusion. Eggman stood back up on his Eggmobile.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Hop on!"
The inevitable-sonic-boom inched towards it slowly. He gently tapped the base of the Eggmobile. When nothing happened, he looked back up to Eggman. Who groaned.
"Fine, I promise I won't hurt you, got it?"
The sonic-boom stared even more, before inevitably going for it and climbing onto the Eggmobile like a toddler.
It wasn't tipped in the slightest by the extra weight, which reminded Eggman why he was doing this at all.
His Eggmobile floated upwards and flew off. It quickly left Seaside island and then there was nothing but water below them.
He didn't expect the oncoming-sonic-boom to whimper at the sight of the ocean.
Eggman glanced down in time to see him curl up, hiding between his legs and the lower wall of the Eggmobile.
When the sonic-boom leaned against him for support, he winced and stepped back.
"Watch the quills, you blue nuisance!" He yelled.
It didn't stop the incoming-sonic-boom from grabbing him, but at least he was more careful.
Eggman had to remind himself, that the sonic-boom was a little malnourished kid, because he almost made too much food. Twice. The rodent's stomach would be small, too small for him to give the blue guy a full child-sized meal. Unless he wanted the sonic-boom throwing up on Eggman's floor.
Once Eggman had handed him a plate of food, his skittish attitude towards being on an island nowhere near his old one vanished completely. Eggman's place was a chunk of earth and lava broken off of the bygone island, yet it felt safer than the previous island, when it came to that Sonic-Boom of a hedgehog's wellbeing, at least.
The blue stain in his life stood on a chair, his tail wagging excitedly as he immediately started eating what was on his plate. Apple slices, a hot dog cut into little pieces, crackers, and even a juicebox. It might've still been too much.
Eggman watched as sonic-boom ate. Making sure that he was properly eating. It would be a waste if all his cooking didn't help out the blue rat at all.
When he was mostly done with his food, Eggman decided that enough was enough.
"Alright you menacing blue fiend," he said. "I'm going to watch television on my floating screen. Don't break anything."
He walked over to the TV, grabbed the remote, and sat down.
"Maybe I'll watch that new comedy show with the monkey-ape-thing, that should be interesting."
No more than a few minutes had passed before The Sonic-boom came into the room and jumped onto the couch.
"What do you want now? I already fed you!"
The Sonic-boom yawned and crawled onto his lap, before half-tucking into a ball and closing his eyes.
"Ohh, no you don't!" Eggman said, he picked Sonic-boom up by the back quills and pulled him off of his lap. He set him down on the couch next to him. He whined annoyingly. Before racing back on. Great. Looks like that speed is kicking in...
"No, off!"
He raced back on.
"No, off!"
He raced back on.
"No, OFF!"
He raced back on, again. Eggman grit his teeth. "NO, OFF, SONIC!"
Eggman was so caught up in the stupid game that he forgot the rest of the blue hedgehog's title. He didn't care much however, because he had raced back on and clung to him for all he was worth. Eggman sighed and decided that he didn't care enough. He wasn't willing to do this all day, after all.
The Sonic sighed happily, and purred for a moment before he fell asleep.
And if Eggman freaked out? Well, at least it stayed on the inside.
Fandom: God there’s like NO content anymore. I wish we could get more art and fanfics :(((
Someone: Hey, I can’t draw anything digitally, because I can’t afford a tablet, but here’s a pen on paper drawing that I spent a lot of time and hard work on. Also, I took a shot at my first fanfic and I’d really like some feedback or at least some kudos if you enjoyed it :)
Fandom: Oh... yeah sorry no... not you. We actually meant writers that are already well known and popular to produce MORE content... I mean, if a popular blog shares your work then maybe. And we don’t really like pen to paper art. We just don’t think it’s professional or even looks good :/
So, I wrote a dadow fic. I'm a sucker for found family, and dadow is underrated.
ENJOY.
Sometimes I feel like I'm bad at video games.
Then I remember that I beat Crisis City without light-dashing on a single ring during my playthrough of Sonic '06 360, which usually fixes it
I've run into a problem...
06 sucks!
Like we knew that, but writing wise, 06 is such a mess, and I don't- I don't know what to do about it, I have fanfic ideas that take place in 06! And it's such a mess that I feel like it'll tank the quality of my fanfic just from its garbage-ness!
And you might be thinking, oh, but 06 isn't that bad, you said yourself, it's one of your favorite games of all time, and other people deal with it just fine so–
No, you don't get it, it is that bad. And you can tell because almost nothing from that game made it out alive. Like, conceptually, there's some really cool stuff in 06. Crisis City's unique environment, Mephiles as a villain, double chaos control time powers (well...), Iblis, Soleanna. All that stuff is good, but because it was in 06. 06's garbage kinda rubbed off on it, and when everyone realized the game was horrible (including SEGA) all that stuff was never attempted again. No one decided to try and make Mephiles work in new games, no mention of Crisis City, or Solanna, or anything. It all just died with the game. Which makes it all the more impressive that Silver made it out alive.
But that's not the point. We all know it's bad.
The point is that idk where to go from here? Do I keep it the way it is? Do I change it? I'm leaning towards change but what should I change? Would people like those changes?
For example, Blaze is a mess. She's "got amnesia" or whatever, and she's here, but she doesn't talk to anyone but Silver (she almost does when she says "blue hedgehog" but that barely makes any sense and it wouldn't surprise me if it was secretly a pun lost in translation), she always seems to know what Silver was up to even if she wasn't there, she doesn't affect the plot other than making Silver doubt his judgement and then leaving, it's-, it's just a mess.
So, what if we cut Blaze out, altogether? Like, she left before Silver runs into Memphis so Silver's on his own. And since silver can't rely on her to tell him whether or not to trust Mephiles, it makes it so Silver believing him shows it off as a character trait of Silver's desperate naivety instead of it feeling like Blaze sitting there watching him get tricked cuz "it'd be funny". That whole scene really feels like Silver and Blaze get tricked by Mephiles because the plot demanded it of them more than anything else.
Plus, if you don't have Blaze here, Silver's heroes journey can be, in part, trying to figure out what to do when no one's around. Lean on other people less, make his own choices. You wouldn't even really need to cut Blaze's dialogue because Silver would be thinking "what would Blaze do/say?"
And I think it'd add to their friendship, the idea that when he comes back to the future and says he knows how to defeat Iblis, she just goes along with it, and is willing to do anything for Silver because they have such a strong relationship, because she trusts him.
But would people like that retcon? What if people hate it cuz there's less Blaze content?
Idk. It's just something I've been thinking about, there's more things I'd like to change, but luckily, a lot of 06 can be improved by adding extra context, or slightly different introductions that barely change the story.
I'd love to hear what other ppl have to say about dealing with 06's writing, tho
The dadow continues! I'm in too deep now. Chapter 2 is out and chapter 3 is on the way!
I have nothing else to say other than pls read it I need validation
The social-anxiety-ridden-author's little pocket dimension
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