This morning of September 11 marks the 22 year anniversary of one of the greatest tragedies within living memory for the American people. In 2001, Islamic terrorists hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the Twin Towers in New York, leading to collapse of both and the loss of many lives. People around the world came out in solidarity with the US as fitting. Queen Elizabeth broke centuries-long tradition by playing the Star Spangled Banner at Buckingham palace not just on September 13, 2001, but again on the 20 year anniversary of the attacks.
I pitched the idea of a Stable Diffusion image and a short post, and my sister, Tzarina8472, suggested a firefighter saluting a US flag at half mast.
Producing this image required an update and a reboot (something I’ve put off for weeks). There were around a couple dozen “solid nope!” attempts before it as I was fighting with Automatic1111, the Stable Diffusion WebUI I am learning. The flag came out backwards and the firefighter has some metal socket where his backbone should be – not to mention his shoulders are all wrong, but I’m happy enough with how it turned out that I’m not upset my graphics card refused to customize it further without optimizations I don’t have time for because this piece invokes the emotional response I set out to invoke.
Thank you to firefighters and other first responders everywhere for your public service.
We never know what tomorrow may bring. We may wake up and it will be a whole new world.
Leo_8472 on the night of Sept. 10, 2001.