Thinking Machine Output

[returned_dragon 135]

Been trying to coax the Big Brain (Stablediffusion web client) into making some ponies. 

I had in mind a kind of Greco-Roman Neronian figure associated with flames and got this masculine Not Rainbow Dash

Image on the bottom displays the client's tendency to randomly add unicorn horns to things despite my negative prompts specifying their exclusion. Due to this, I was going to call him Little Horn after the figure from the Book of Daniel which would fit the theme as well "Out of one of them (Antiochus IV Epiphanes) came forth a rather small horn [but one of irreverent presumption and profane pride." MLP already has a number of visual references to Classical Antiquity (Flash Magnus and others), so making characters in that vein really isn't too far-fetched. 

 

Edited August 12 by returned_dragon
mmm

[returned_dragon 135]

Magic cup concepts for a story idea I had.

The main character would be a silver-tongued pegasi named something appropriately cheesy like Goldlips. Basically a narcissistic flying sophist who could charm the birds down from the trees-perhaps literally-with his erudition and wit. The fact is that in spite of all of his clever thoughts and fine talk, he never really had anything to offer anybody aside from a kind of corruption. 

On his journeys across Equestria to show everyone how intelligent and impressive he was, Goldlips would have flown by a forlorn, barren island far out to sea many times without giving it a second thought. Becoming famous the world round and with no one new left to impress, he would sulk for a while before eventually deciding to fly to the nameless island and cause the last ponies on earth who had never heard of him to sing his praises. 

The islanders would appear to be a crude and taciturn folk: fisherponies and keepers of squalid, weed-grown gardens. How could such a people be happy? Goldlips was there to save the day and bring them to the light. Descending from the clouds and barging his way into the presence of the island chief, Goldlips would be surprised to see an ancient chalice sitting upon a pedestal before him. How such a beautiful and obviously rare artifact came into the possession of those primitive folk was a question that would have to wait until later.

Without allowing the old unicorn chieftain to say a word, Goldlips would have launched into one of his amazing monologues filled with all of the rhetoric, logic, and persuasive argumentation that he had spent a lifetime perfecting. The magic spell of his voice was working: all the Islanders were coming to listen! As he passed through philosophy to law and constitutions as easily as a hummingbird flits through a garden, he would scarcely notice the chalice in front of him slowly beginning to fill with a milky-white liquid. At last, as he was bringing his long speech to a conclusion, it finally dawned on him that the cup was now almost overflowing with the unknown concoction, 

"How pleasant!" He would think "How very clever! Obviously a refreshment for a visiting scholar: perhaps these ponies know something of hospitality after all."

 His voice and spirit soaring, Goldlips put everything he had into a final, irrefutable point of logic. All of his learning and natural wit shown forth in his conclusion - now they would praise him as the others had always done before.

To his surprise, the only reaction at the end of his oratory was a cold silence. Goldlips had been so ensorcelled by the sound of his own voice that he had failed to notice the villagers blocking the door and closing in around him. The hardened hooves and bodies of those crude rock-dwellers held him fast in place.

As the old unicorn used his magic to lift the goblet from its place, he explained to Goldlips that the ponies of the island knew nothing of constitutions or rhetoric or any of the other fine things of distant lands. They were a simple people, rude and unlettered, and among them was to be found only one law.

"What one serves to others, he must drink for himself."

[returned_dragon 135]

This one came out resembling The Ghost of Christmas Past. Not sure what the metal bit on the face is supposed to be. 

Displays a common pony mouth/face issue that is right up there with cloven hooves for ruining otherwise decent attempts. 

Edited August 13 by returned_dragon

[returned_dragon 135]

Another try for a Roman pony.

I called her Solar Crown which is a reference to the diadem you see pictured on the coin. 

Not used until later in the history of the Empire, it was mostly a cultural import from the Province of Syria which was the home of a couple of emperors.