Bond Level: Enkidu(Gil's Bestie)

“If you poured some mana into me, I could be a wish-granting device”

ever notice how saucy Enkidu’s MyRoom lines sound?

To Live!

Fate/Grand Order From Lostbelt Chapter 30: Give My Regards to Olga Marie

Index: Tumblr | MangaDex

Any conspiracy theory about people going missing in National Parks is automatically silly to me. Like "Why are National Parks such a hotbed of disappearances???" because they're full of idiots. You've got thousands of people who've never pissed outdoors in their life wandering around the woods/desert/mountain with zero experience and zero gear and zero understanding that this place can kill them. You don't see as many disappearances in wild areas because people don't go to them unless they have some background knowledge. Whereas you get tour buses full of old folks and suburban families shuttling people into National Parks 365 days a year. If you took the same amount of buffoons and dropped them in the actual wilderness the disappearances would be significantly higher than at the parks. Use your brain.

Something I don't think we talk enough about in discussions surrounding AI is the loss of perseverance.

I have a friend who works in education and he told me about how he was working with a small group of HS students to develop a new school sports chant. This was a very daunting task for the group, in large part because many had learning disabilities related to reading and writing, so coming up with a catchy, hard-hitting, probably rhyming, poetry-esque piece of collaborative writing felt like something outside of their skill range. But it wasn't! I knew that, he knew that, and he worked damn hard to convince the kids of that too. Even if the end result was terrible (by someone else's standards), we knew they had it in them to complete the piece and feel super proud of their creation.

Fast-forward a few days and he reports back that yes they have a chant now... but it's 99% AI. It was made by Chat-GPT. Once the kids realized they could just ask the bot to do the hard thing for them - and do it "better" than they (supposedly) ever could - that's the only route they were willing to take. It was either use Chat-GPT or don't do it at all. And I was just so devastated to hear this because Jesus Christ, struggling is important. Of course most 14-18 year olds aren't going to see the merit of that, let alone understand why that process (attempting something new and challenging) is more valuable than the end result (a "good" chant), but as adults we all have a responsibility to coach them through that messy process. Except that's become damn near impossible with an Instantly Do The Thing app in everyone's pocket. Yes, AI is fucking awful because of plagiarism and misinformation and the environmental impact, but it's also keeping people - particularly young people - from developing perseverance. It's not just important that you learn to write your own stuff because of intellectual agency, but because writing is hard and it's crucial that you learn how to persevere through doing hard things.

Write a shitty poem. Write an essay where half the textual 'evidence' doesn't track. Write an awkward as fuck email with an equally embarrassing typo. Every time you do you're not just developing that particular skill, you're also learning that you did something badly and the world didn't end. You can get through things! You can get through challenging things! Not everything in life has to be perfect but you know what? You'll only improve at the challenging stuff if you do a whole lot of it badly first. The ability to say, "I didn't think I could do that but I did it anyway. It's not great, but I did it," is SO IMPORTANT for developing confidence across the board, not just in these specific tasks.

Idk I'm just really worried about kids having to grow up in a world where (for a variety of reasons beyond just AI) they're not given the chance to struggle through new and challenging things like we used to.

Since your blog name mentions them I am legally obligated to ask you to share your Enkidu headcanons. Tell me about the cute clay enby. *Tell me.*

I am an enkidufanboy after all so here's some thoughts;

As a servant, Enkidu's base form is that of a clay monster and they are using their transformative abilities to keep up their humanoid form; if hit with a spell that would disable/limit their transform ability, they'd revert to their monstrous form.

Even if Gilgamesh refuses to meet them at some point, they have unwavering faith in him, so they have no worries about their friendship.

They love to be pushed to their limits during a fight and they rarely back down from a challenge; not because they're prideful but because they're curious to see what it would lead. Under the right circumstances, they'd probably even dismiss their Master to keep on fighting.

Enkidu likes humans, but doesn't see them as their kin, they will protect humanity and walk alongside it, but they see themselves outside of them (not too dissimilar from Qin Shi Huang). Thus they feel a bit more relieved to be around other non-humans and non-gods.

Enkidu is neutral towards Ishtar only during pride when she's being an ally. Outside of that, it's goddess hunting season.

messy scribble because i slept through most of white day 

feeling called out today

credit: _ADWills

hope is a skill