I think something that's important to bear in mind when analysing AI discourse is that "my discipline is the only component of this field that constitutes Real Art, and everyone else involved is a mere technician" is an exceedingly common attitude among artists in multidisciplinary fields, and always has been; when you see dumbfuck takes like a comic artist insisting that it's okay to use generative AI to produce a comic's script but not to produce its art, that's not a new brand of dumbfuckery – it's a time-honoured dumbfuckery adapting to the times.
Today's aesthetic: fic that spends several thousand words establishing Kink World, the world structured entirely around the author's excruciatingly specific kink, does one sex scene in like chapter two, then spends the next thirty chapters interrogating the sociopolitical implications of Kink World.
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It's both a blessing and a curse that spiders go with every elemental typing. It means you never have to justify anything, but it also means you can never really play against type. A lightning tortoise is making a statement, but you can stick literally any prefix on a spider and it's just, okay, this might as well exist.
I dunno, I think some typings are more subversive than others.
Spiders go fairly well with two of the four classical elements: Earth, because they're creepy-crawly, and Wind, because spider webs have that wispy ephemeral aesthetic (and also because of ballooning). Water is a fresh approach, but still intuitive if you remember that some spiders do swim.
In terms of less orthodox elements, I think spiders go well with Nature/Plants/"Green" but can't articulate why. A Lightning Spider may as well happen - though you can make it more meaningful in a modern setting if you compare a power grid to a spider's web.
Spiders don't pair well with fire. If the memes are to be believed, it's their natural elemental nemesis. That said, I guess there's nothing fundamentally wrong with a Fire Spider. Same with Ice - I guess I can see it, but it's not their natural element.
That raises the question of which element is most natural to a spider, and the answer is simple. In the public view spiders are creepy, so they would most naturally belong to a creepy element - Darkness or Poison or Death, depending on what's available.
Therefore, I posit that for a spider to play against type, is has to be associated with a good, wholesome element. Light and Spirit are excellent choices, especially when they're the overarching "good" elements, because that frames spiders as pure and/or holy. In terms of popular narratives, a lightning tortoise is an oxymoron, whereas a Light Spider is a statement.
Light Spider
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It's both a blessing and a curse that spiders go with every elemental typing. It means you never have to justify anything, but it also means you can never really play against type. A lightning tortoise is making a statement, but you can stick literally any prefix on a spider and it's just, okay, this might as well exist.
The two genders.
It's both a blessing and a curse that spiders go with every elemental typing. It means you never have to justify anything, but it also means you can never really play against type. A lightning tortoise is making a statement, but you can stick literally any prefix on a spider and it's just, okay, this might as well exist.
Circa 2010 is a weird transitional period for webcomics because you're past the first wave where nobody knew how to draw, but the popular notion of How To Write Webcomics hasn't yet been sanded down into its present mass-marketable form, so you can pick up something that looks like a modern webcomic, then you actually start reading it and it's like "what in the goddamn...?"
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In terms of practical outcomes, there's basically no difference between porn worldbuilding and non-porn worldbuilding. I know a person who developed a lifelong interest in civic engineering after going down a mathematical rabbit hole trying to calculate how much semen would be required to exceed the capacity of their home town's storm drain system. Their expertise isn't less real for how it was acquired. I can only assume they have a fake answer lined up when job interviews ask what inspired them to get into the field, because can you imagine.
trying to calculate how much semen would be required to exceed the capacity of their home town's storm drain system
How... how much?
You know, I never did ask.
If there's one broad critique I have of horny creature design, it's that novice worldbuilders often give their creatures too many fluids. Like, if the alien has magic piss, then focus on the magic piss – it probably doesn't also need magic spit and magic sweat and magic goo with no mammalian analogue. Practice economy of fluids.
@notcuddles replied:
I feel like this is one of those posts that is more revelatory about the poster's viewing habits than it is about any broad trend in horny creature design
You'd think so, but I keep running into creatures sporting Swiss Army knives of different fluids with seemingly unrelated magical effects even in stuff that isn't porn. It comes up in fucking Dungeons & Dragons.
Beholder-like tentacle monster that pisses a different magic fluid from each of its ten dicks. All rolling on a big stupid table to find out what kind of magic piss you got tagged with. One of them pisses lasers – make a DC16 Dexterity save or take 4d10 (22) fire and 4d10 (22) radiant damage.
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If there's one broad critique I have of horny creature design, it's that novice worldbuilders often give their creatures too many fluids. Like, if the alien has magic piss, then focus on the magic piss – it probably doesn't also need magic spit and magic sweat and magic goo with no mammalian analogue. Practice economy of fluids.
@notcuddles replied:
I feel like this is one of those posts that is more revelatory about the poster's viewing habits than it is about any broad trend in horny creature design
You'd think so, but I keep running into creatures sporting Swiss Army knives of different fluids with seemingly unrelated magical effects even in stuff that isn't porn. It comes up in fucking Dungeons & Dragons.
If there's one broad critique I have of horny creature design, it's that novice worldbuilders often give their creatures too many fluids. Like, if the alien has magic piss, then focus on the magic piss – it probably doesn't also need magic spit and magic sweat and magic goo with no mammalian analogue. Practice economy of fluids.
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In terms of practical outcomes, there's basically no difference between porn worldbuilding and non-porn worldbuilding. I know a person who developed a lifelong interest in civic engineering after going down a mathematical rabbit hole trying to calculate how much semen would be required to exceed the capacity of their home town's storm drain system. Their expertise isn't less real for how it was acquired. I can only assume they have a fake answer lined up when job interviews ask what inspired them to get into the field, because can you imagine.
In terms of practical outcomes, there's basically no difference between porn worldbuilding and non-porn worldbuilding. I know a person who developed a lifelong interest in civic engineering after going down a mathematical rabbit hole trying to calculate how much semen would be required to exceed the capacity of their home town's storm drain system. Their expertise isn't less real for how it was acquired. I can only assume they have a fake answer lined up when job interviews ask what inspired them to get into the field, because can you imagine.
One of the great strengths of the picaresque as a format is the freedom to wander off on long-winded worldbuilding tangents purely to explore a character, or make a point, or even just set up a shitty pun, then when you're done, set it all aside and never think about it again, because both the protagonist and the world have moved on.
What's extra fun, however, is when a webcomic or a weekly series or whatever adopts the same approach to worldbuilding without that essential element of moving on after each episode, so you just end up with this impossibly complex edifice of Things We Don't Talk About lurking in the background of this random school or small town.
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Level 1: My OC has a huge cock
Level 2: My OC has an average cock because I'm normal about these things
Level 3: My OC has a huge cock because fuck normal actually
Level 4: My OC's cock varies depending on how horny I am
Level 5: My OC's cock is however big it needs to be to make the joke land
[Raises hand] what if I find joy in making them below-average or micro
Big cock enlightenment and small cock enlightenment are distinct and only partly intersecting paths. The ability not to be weird about the one must be cultivated separately from the ability not to be weird about the other; the one who masters both would possess an unfathomable power.