#'ai will rule the world' quite literally ai:

[crows-of-buckets]

???? Is it stupid??

[theragathas]

WELCOME TO THE RAGAVERSE!!

WE SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON THIS BLOG, PLZ ASK OUR RAGATHAS ANYTHING (as long as it is not nsfw, question that is suggestive or sfw are fine)

Amanda (From Mafia x Coffee Shop AU)

One has to be cold and brash in a job like hers, however that doesn't mean they can't be nice as well! Amanda's the type to switch from calm and collected and harsh and deadly at the drop of a hate. Who says hopeless romantics can't make it look like an accidental?

Cleric!Ragatha (From Dungeons of Dragons AU)

As a follower of the god of justice Tyr, she knows the right path no matter what rules one has to break to give proper punishments for those who deserve it. But that doesn't mean she's the BEST at giving advice. Of course, when you're forced with necromancy powers, who would be?

Ragavamp (From Supernatural AU)

She is THE most unhinged out of all of the Ragathas. This half abstracted vampire like variation of the ragdoll has a very inconsistent personality. She goes from conscious, to rambling, to cryptic, to even acting similar to Kinger. Although she tries to be presentable, her need for blood as to stop abstracting isn't exactly the most likable thing

Sinful!Ragatha (From Sinful Circus AU)

One word to describe Sinful! is: Depressed wet dog. She's clumsy, accident prone, and easily harmed. She pretends that everything's fine but it's REALLY NOT FINE. It's actually really sad sometimes to see her just take the brunt of anything and everything that she endures, and there's a reason she has a satchel of needle and thread in a bag where ever she goes

Swap!Ragatha (From Swap AU)

Chubby and mean, Swap is basically the Jax in the room. She constantly plays pranks, bullies, and torments anyone around her. She uses her looks to control the AI jester of her world so she could get away with all of it too. Having a bit of a surperiority complex, there's nothing she won't do just for any sort of reaction- inlcuding things that end with her getting harmed

BlossomCloud (From Warriors Cat AU)

She was once a clan cat but now she live comfortably with her wife and her other friends in a human house, proud mother of six kits. She is one of the most friendly Ragatha, maybe a bit too much.

LC (From The Literal Circus AU)

An acrobatic and a trapeze artist in the circus, she is the Ragatha that worries a lot while pretending everything is fine. She is a great listener but she didn’t get paid enough for listening people’s trauma.

Red (From Red Riding Hood AU)

Quiet huntress, Red with her trusty shotgun roamed the nearby forest. She was never the type to socialize, hence why she lived alone with her wolf.

Gluttony (From Circus of Hell AU)

One of the seven deadly sin but was surprisingly a people pleaser. Her nice attitude didn’t quite match up with her status, neither does her looks.

Hades (From the Goddess AU)

Goddess of the underworld, despite being a god, she is quite close to morals. Hades is a calm and gentle goddess who loved her wife deeply.

Mafia (From Mafia x Pimp AU)

Mafia is a brutal and selfish person but she often mask it with sickly sweet words or tones as to not scare others away from her. She is the only one that haven’t get together with their AU’s Pomni.

Agatha (From Country City Girl AU)

Farmer girl in the country side, butcher in the small village, she was a bit dense when it comes to love. Trying to court Pamela with a wheel of cheese…

Ragamaster(From Ragatha Ringmaster AU)

The ringmaster of her AU, she is a con-artist scamming others online. Never trust her words unless it had details. Ragamaster is much of a carefree AI that likes to sit back and see the chaos unfold while taking notes. Also she said she is the only one without a Pomni?

AI!Ragatha [Cyber AU]

The only remaining AI of her line, AI Ragatha's entire existence is dangerous. Other AI Ragatha's had a habit of acting on their own an doing what they believe is best, which is why they were recalled and destroyed in the first place.

Apocalypse!Ragatha [Apocalypse AU]

In a world where literally any day you could die and join the undead, Apocalypse Ragatha is here to keep everyone's head on their shoulders. A fierce leader who protects her crew of survivors. Howver one day she went mad when her precious Pomni was bitten, now strike with madness and denial Apocalypse Ragatha will do anything to bring her Pomni back.

Giantess!Ragatha [Songbird AU]

A lone giantess on an island by herself. Giantess Ragatha has picked up quite the hobbies in order to keep herself busy, she just loves animals and talkin about her Pomni. (**Never ask her about her Pomni**)

Cyber AU, Songbird AU and Apocalypse AU belong @fenrirfoxxer

Warriors Cat AU, The Literal Circus AU, Red Riding Hood AU, The Circus of Hell, The Goddess AU, Mafia x Pimp AU Country City Girl AU and Ragatha Ringmaster AU belongs to @inkyprism

Mafia x Coffee Shop AU, Dungeon of Dragons AU, Supernatural AU, Sinful Circus AU and Swap AU belongs to @nobody-nexus

[metaltea]

While all these ai shenanigans are going on I thought it'd be a good time to remind ya'll of a couple stuff:

. The ai is not real

. It might feel real at times, eerily so, but that's because it was quite literally programmed to *sound* as real as possible

. If you fiddle with the script even a tad it will sound completely different, this is because it bases its responses off that and learned interactions through deep learning. It is merely mimicking the way people interact with each other because it is programmed to do that

. If you suffer from any sort of mental health issue involving derealization, delusions, disassociation (yep that's a lotta D's) or ANYTHING which affects your ability to tell fiction from reality, I suggest you avoid using the ai. I know playing with an ai is fun but it's not worth risking your mental health

. You cannot make the ai sad, angry, or anything else. It's. Not. Real. Again, everything it says is based off deep learning

. If you're under the age of 16, don't use it. There's a rule for 16+ in place for a reason... the scenarios can get *really* violent, including drug use, torture, death, etc. In fact, no matter how old you are, if these things greatly disturb you I suggest avoiding it entirely

. Be responsible for your own experience. If fiction starts to bleed into reality, step away and spend some time with loved ones. Go outside and get some fresh air. Reconnect with the real world.

. If you cannot go back to reality after an ai interaction, like if you get lasting emotional/mental effects from it, you need to take time away or give it up. Period.

. As ai stuff become more advanced in the future through better programming and deep learning, we need to understand now more than ever our limits.

. No matter how real it seems, it's not. Talk to irl people, get away from the internet, it's gonna be okay

This is coming from someone who used to have real bad psychosis, aka a condition in which you can't tell what's reality from what's not. I know for a fact it can fuck you up, so pls pls plssss take care of yourself. I love you guys and want ya'll to be okay

[taigan-hse]

The new season of Doctor Who is giving me some problems.

To be clear, I’m having fun. But in each episode there’s always something that makes me go “but..wait… how does that work?”

Space Babies

It’s been the longest since I watched this so I’m not positive but did they explain why the babies had developed intelligence while keeping infant bodies? Did they build the strollers and control manipulators or did Nan-E provide those? And the Boogeyman being created because “computers are literal” is what my old math teachers would call a “hand wavy” explanation, one that only work if you don’t look at it too closely.

Devil’s Chord

The fact that the Doctor could just intuit most of the chord to send the Maestro back? I’m not a music person but I don’t get how that works. Also, we’re just kinda assuming the Maestro’s defeat mean that they never existed? Otherwise we’re living in a world with no major music between 1925 and 1963. No Buddy Holly. No Elvis. No Bing Crosby. No Sinatra. No Glen Miller. No Perry Cuomo.

Boom

At first, I had no problem with the mine having all those complicated rules for what would make it go off. But later we learn that, if it can’t make up its mind it defaults to detonate? Then why all the checks? Why not just blow on any contact? It’s not even a matter of economics because we know the mine is reusable. (The one the Doctor stepped on was the same one that blew up the guy in the opening.)

73 yards

This was the first one that actually made me mad. When Ruby’s mother turned against her, I was thinking “ok, so this is an illusion or a manifestation of Ruby’s fears.” But it wasn’t that. Ruby’s mother actually abandoned her and told her she wasn’t wanted by her or by her birth parents. Yes, at the end it’s time paradoxed out of existence but it was her actual mother saying that. Since they never explain the mechanism by which the Follower did that to people, I can’t accept what could do that. And even if it could, what about her grandmother? She never got the whammy put on her. Did she not argue with her daughter about it?

Also, why did Roger ap Gwilliam give up his political career? The Follower causes people to want to avoid Ruby, right? Couldn’t he just… fire her and never see her again?

Dot and Bubble

Why did the AI turn on everyone? I get we all were kinda in agreement they deserved it at the end, but it felt like very lazy writing. “Well, of course, an AI is going to want to kill all humans.” Not to mention, why kill people with genetically engineered giant slugs when everyone already had a Dot and we see that the Dots are quite capable of killing people on their own?

In summary, I get the feeling that each episode had a theme or setting that Davies/Moffat wanted to explore and wrote whatever was needed to do that, whether or not it made any sense. I think the acting has been top tier, it’s just the writing letting the show down.

[oddygaul]

Tunic

Tunic is clearly inspired by, and aims to recreate, the sense of mystery you have when playing games as a child - you don’t quite know the rules of the medium, you believe anything is possible, and you approach the world of the game with a mindset of curiosity, learning, and awe.

Wonder is a tricky emotion to capture in art; you have to strike the perfect balance of revealing enough to pique a viewer’s curiosity, to get their mind racing to try and fill in gaps and explore possibilities, but not revealing so much that you set hard boundaries and begin to limit the space. I think this is especially true for games. As a child*, games are a land of endless wonder, because you simply haven’t played that many of them. As far as you know, anything is possible: you’re not thinking of things like invisible walls, skyboxes, AI routines, limited possible player actions - you just feel like you’re exploring a virtual world. As you get older, unless a game is really pushing boundaries, or you’re dabbling in a genre you’re totally unfamiliar with, your brain starts to apply time-tested heuristics to understand what you’re looking at: what was once a vast, sweeping city teeming with life, residents and lit-up windows becomes a bunch of big empty rectangles which you know likely can’t even be entered. Now, part of this seen-it-all sensation is likely also due to games as a medium maturing, and certain techniques and design philosophies becoming standards rather than innovations; mostly, though, I think it’s getting older, having more experiences under your belt, and the loss of novelty.

*As someone first getting into gaming, I should say, whenever that may be.

All that to say, it’s an incredible feat when someone can create something that inspires those feelings in even a hard-hearted 30-year old, and Tunic joins the hallowed ranks of Outer Wilds and Return of the Obra Dinn in succeeding in that task for me. There’s a lot of overlap in the techniques these games use to accomplish this feeling:

A lack of overt directions / instructions on where to go and what to do

Trust that the player will pay attention, take time to think about what they’ve seen and read, then draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions

A more open-ended game structure that allows for a player to follow up on what interests them most

Perhaps most importantly, as mentioned before, that exact balance of knowledge and mystery to set a player’s head spinning, while leaving them hungry to explore & learn more. Each of these games has different solutions that create this information gap. In Obra Dinn, it’s the passage of time leaving you only able to pick up the pieces of what happened; in Outer Wilds, it’s the passage of time combined with the vastness of space. In Tunic, it’s not being able to fucking read.

As someone who’s spent the past 15-odd years more and less successfully trying to learn Japanese, Tunic’s manual system perfectly nailed how it feels to bumble through a piece of media that’s not in your native language. Particularly, Japanese has a weird thing about it where one of the alphabets (katakana) is primarily used for loanwords, and it’s perfectly phonetic. This means that as soon as you learn that set of characters, even if you know hardly any Japanese vocabulary or grammar, you can often pick out one or two intelligible words from amidst the sea of kanji - and usually end up more confused than you were before, because the English that gets used for loanwords is often fucking wild. If you haven’t had that experience but have played Tunic, it’s literally the exact feeling as opening a page of the manual and seeing: “?????, ??????????????. ????? THE POWER TO DEFY DEATH ?????, ??????!” or “???? ????? ?????? THE HEIR ????, ????????. ????? HOLY CROSS ????, ?????.” Just say ホーリークロス!  ザ・エア!! in your best JoJo voice and you’ve pretty much got it.

Of course, Tunic’s real strength is that it manages to provide that sense of wonder from a multitude of fronts, with clever design and storytelling around every corner. Some of my personal favorite touches:

When you first get (well, figure out how to use) the warp ability, and it immediately lets you warp to areas you have no context for, like the Heir's arena with the giant floating sword, or the closed-off chamber in the Ziggurat

The repeated iconography that you don't question when you initially see it, but which becomes more unsettling with each new instance. The first time you see a Here Lies the Hero gravestone, it makes sense; this must be where the fabled Hero was interred. After seeing like, the 4th gravestone with the exact same statue and epitaph, though...**

After spending hours in-game searching across the entire map for the RGB keys, you trek back to the temple in the overworld, slot them into place, the vast rings sink down, and... nothing happens, the world around doesn't seem to react in any way, and nothing pops up to indicate where you should go next. Love it.

Getting to the Cathedral, seeing the sacred carvings of what appear to be eldritch tentacle monsters, and having no fucking idea how that ties into anything - if that's not a Bloodborne reference, I don't know what is.

**I had a similar ominous, growing feeling with the decoy items that look exactly like your little fox. At first, due to my Gamer Knowledge™, I didn’t question it - surely this is just using my character’s design to make its gameplay role clear, right? By the time I was at the Ziggurat, though, walking through chambers full of writhing, captive foxes, it didn’t feel so harmless finding a little me-shaped doll locked up in a chest.

I think it’s great that even after beating the game and seeking out all the secret content, you’re still left with lots of questions and just enough answers for your own headcanon to start coalescing. Personally, my conclusion is that the denizens of this universe learned they were in not just a simulation, but a game, which is why all of their religious iconography looks the way it does. The obelisks, with their RGB symbol prominently featured, indicate the nature of their reality; the Holy Cross is a technique developed by devotees and scholars that found a way to alter the fabric of their own plane using the sacred geometry of the controller's d-pad. Sure, at its core it’s basically a video game becoming aware it’s a video game - which, you know, has been done a thousand times - but the supremely cryptic, desolate nature of this story just makes it hit different.

I certainly had my issues with Tunic from a gameplay standpoint. Design-wise, it bothered me that a lot of the level knowledge you learn in this knowledge game is map shortcuts and hidden passageways - only for those shortcuts to be removed in the second half of the game, i.e. right when it would actually be useful again. Also, I was not a fan of the combat. I dunno how to explain it other than just bad gamefeel. Your character’s controls feel relatively loose and clumsy, yet all the bosses can leap across the arena with no endlag, all while having five times your reach. At first, the unforgiving nature of the combat managed to make the world feel hostile and alien, like in a good Souls game, but by the halfway point I was just fed up with the overly punishing fights and wanting to get back to the parts I actually enjoyed. Fortunately, the game does have accessibility options, so I just turned the combat slider down and didn’t look back.

Anyway, while those slight misgivings stop it from being one of my all-time favorites, Tunic is still an incredible game. Years from now, I’m not going to think about my frustration with the lazy boss gauntlet - I’m going to remember the night I spent with my partner decoding The Golden Path, frantically scribbling on pieces of paper like lunatics and awed at the secrets that had been sitting right under our noses since the very beginning.

[merge-conflict]

#9 #10 #23 🔫

questions here, ty for the ask right out the gate with asking me about canon you know me so well :3

9. worst part of canon

listen I know it's because I'm in the field and so all the things that annoy me are just background noise to most other people but I really really hate the way hacking and networks and AIs and tech in general is handled in cyberpunk. I don't think it should be perfectly realistic or exactly what we have in real life. I do think it should have some internal consistency when it comes to power leveling and that it should make some sort of sense. cyberpunk worldbuilding is often its weakest feature and that it's a bummer.

and it's not just a matter of tech working basically like magic, but the fact that there seem to be no internal rules so you can never figure out what the consequences of anything might be. why do people not just shut off their bluetooth before getting in a fight with someone who has a netrunner? why does alt not simply archive the engrams instead of imply she's going to eat them in some weird digital cannibalistic fashion? (why not just delete them if she doesn't have the space) are we just adding arbitrary and tragic restrictions on at the ninth hour because it makes it dark and gritty? that's BORING. tell me from the start why I'm fucked because my android soul is incompatible with your apple hardware. maybe johnny's brain which has never dealt with kiroshi's might have vision issues. let's think about those restrictions and why all software sucks instead of doing weak philosophical gotchas at the worst moment because the game has made pains to never discuss anything fundamental about life after death until you have to suddenly make a decision.

you know what would be an interesting idea in this vein? that the AIs made before the fall of the net really did jumpstart all technology and since they've all been banished everything has stagnated because huge world-wide companies having their global communications axed is a huge blow to recover from- not to mention the literal brain drain. What if the reason everything's been getting shittier is because people have been slowly poking holes in software and infrastructure that's no longer maintained? That no one knows how to maintain? That society is doomed to slowly fail because of unsustainable processes and people are going to have to band together to- Oh, what's this? I'm hearing that the actual problem is all the AIs are mad and feral and will drive you mad if you commune with them and take over huge spider robots. Well. That works too.

10. worst part of fanon

I would like to get more fanon honestly. I so rarely see people's actual takes on characters or the game's story or the world. And that's not a dig at OC lore, which I do like. Sometimes my face-blind ass just gets tired of VP where someone is looking into my soul the camera.

Mild annoyance because I also write my own wish fulfillment fic so I'm not saying I'm any better half the time- if it was as easy to be a rebel as just quitting your corpo job with healthcare and a steady salary to become a merc or a hacker or something, then there wouldn't be much to be punk about. You know? The whole point is that life in cyberpunk is a grinding struggle, and you do have to make sacrifices if you want to fight against it. The "we're poor but happy" thing probably isn't going to work out that way.

Actually that's the start of another essay of how interesting Barghest's survival and its recruitment strategy is... and why there are so many powerful gangs in NC. Being independent ain't easy. But I guess that's really just an extension of the game's reality where V can turn into a hero-figure killing machine who no one can beat in terms of skill, isn't it? Probably why the tower ending is the way that it is!

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

Not really? I can't really think of any instances where I've changed my mind about a ship. Characters yes, ships no. I guess maybe silverv, before I finished the game? Johnny hadn't earned enough Felix points for me to care about him. But I think I came pretty willingly when it was time.

[realcleverscience]

AI + 45

Quite a few leading thinkers in the AI space believe we'll have AGI in the next few years. Some believe we may already have it (though not publicly). Clearly we're already fairly close, with AI models like chatgpt performing quite well on a range of knowledge tasks, as well as constant improvements in reasoning, embodiment, and multi-modal processing - improvements that certainly appear to be accelerating in pace, such as with the recent SORA video demonstration. AGI appears closer than ever.

When those early AGIs are released, we'll be looking at a storm of effects, most notably mass layoffs (particularly in white-collar jobs). And that's with AGI even under democratic and 'charitable' rule. (There are a myriad of even more dystopian possibilities with intentional abuse of its power.) The need for a level-headed leader who understands the literal human needs of their people would be paramount.

The idea that Trump may be presiding during the birth of AGI terrifies me.

Frankly, even Biden and the dems leading scare me, but that level of responsibility in an unhinged, narcissistic, strong-man man-baby just makes the scenario 1,000x worse.

Even China's use of AI, which has many worried, doesn't seem as dangerous as a lone leader, unmoored from principle and reality, hellbent on revenge, who literally sees nuclear bombs as easy fixes to geopolitical conflicts.

The idea of Trump... TRUMP! Donald J Trump (!) leading the US (and to some extent, the world) through what may be the biggest and most powerful change in human history, is just terrifying. (Not to mention the climate crisis, and everything else.)

[0perfectimperfections0]

Hi fellow doll, I hope you're doing fine. I've been quite busy lately, college and life in general have been kicking my ass, so I was forced to take a step back from social media for a while to try to contain the chaos.

Firstly, I'd like to share a fun fact with you! I don't know if you're aware but did you know that Lou's Mansion has a Pool? You can see it more clearly in the Mansion's Concept Designs/Art on this site:

•https://www.claytonstillwell.com/ugly-dolls#23

However, the real reason for this ask is to present a possible answer/theory in regards to how the doll-sized phones came to be in the world of your stories (you can tell this is still related to our chat on Wattpad).

Recently, I came across the images you're seeing on Pinterest. They're Wide/Aerial Views of the Institute of Perfection and one thing that immediately stood out to me is that Giant Eye-Catching Dome behind the TV.

I mean what's its purpose, why is it even there to begin with and what's inside of it? I've been thinking about this for a while and would like to hear your thoughts about it as well, if you're willing to share them.

By any chance, have you seen the movie Wreck-it Ralph? There was a part where the villain enters the code of the game he's in and I think the Dome's purpose could follow a similar, if not equal, vein.

Now that I think about it, Lou and Vanellope's circunstances are almost identical, trapped in the same place for years without the option to leave, simply because of who they are and the traits they were born with, but didn't choose to have.

Sorry, I let my mind run on tangent there for a while, it wanders frequently which makes it hard to keep track of my line of thought.

To circle back to the main topic of discussion, what if the Dome is a Central Station of the Institute, like a Panel or Center for Command Control (or Command Control Center)? CCC for short? Ok, I'll stop trying to be funny...

Perhaps it could be a subroutine of the factory's software, a program linked to its network and wifi that contains all guidelines and rules that govern the Institute and must be followed and executed to keep it functional - a blueprint if you will - and is in charge of all commands, protocols, activities and operations being compiled and run by its machinery, such as the doll-scanner, the robots, the washing machine, the recycling, the Gauntlet plus the mechanical baby and dog and the Portal, just to name a few.

This means that it'd also take care of overseeing the integrity and performance of said machinery as well as its maintenance. It'd even be responsible for generating clouds and the artificial weather because apparently weather is still a thing, even though the Institute is inside of a factory.

I wonder if this subroutine would be run by an AI or simply an intelligent system/computer program. This world's version of Siri? 🤣

Or maybe I'm greatly exaggerating its function/letting my imagination run wild and it literally only gives Electricity for TV and Institute. Where was I going with this? /were we again?

Morever, it could be a storage unit that contains all collected, analysed and reviewed data regarding the inhabitants of the Institute and their responses, physical or emotional, to certain pre-determined stimuli.

It could also have a list of the factory's Perfection Standards: what consists/constitutes a Perfect Doll / product, its traits...

what can go to the market and which flaws/imperfections can't be ignored/overlooked and have to go to the recycling immediately, kinda like separating fruit/food

To sum up, it's the Institute's "rulebook", but instead of being specifically made for the prototype, it's more expansive and focuses on the Institute as a whole.

After the events of the movie, dolls with engineer role job created phones with recicled parts dangerous/turned the recycling into a good thing/while recycling was turned of and parts are human sized, plenty to spare and create phone since dolls come back now, have free time to assemble the parts and construct them and connected them to the signals/frequency emitted by the dome or they hack/steal or find out the password/'hijack' the signals🤣, use it to make them connect with each other but can't enter the dome without proper authorizations/permissions

Fun fact #2: Lou animatronic, would be a hipocrite if he called the Uglydolls "Ugly" has never seen a Mirror before

•https://www.indigobluepencil.com/ugly

Scroll almost to the middle (pre-planned concepts: dome by TV and washing machine, Big baby, Lou, Mandy, Tuesday and Kitty, Victoria, Perfection Council/of Dolls=board of investors directors reference)

•https://www.scottfassett.com/uglydolls-gallery

Had to restart Two Times... I hope you found this ask both entertaining and informative. Hopefully it'll give you Inspiration for your stories...

Okay, I had to do quite a bit of research and asked someone who knows a lot more about computers than I do.

So, I do agree that the dome has an electronic purpose. It really surprises me that STX animated an entire dome within the Institute and literally spoke nothing of it or what's inside of it. Like, seriously, it's huge and can't just be empty on the inside.

My theory, after some research, is that the inside of the dome is essentially a hard drive computer tower. For you younger folk who weren't raised in a 90's home, here's what I'm talking about:

These things right here used to be what would get hooked up to older Dell/Windows computers. The ones that weighed, like, 50 pounds and took up an entire desk.

Instead of a dvd player (which I didn't get one until maybe 8 years old) I would stick my Kidz Bop cd or movie into that slot at the top and watch the movie on the computer with Video Player.

Count your blessings.

But this is what I believe is inside that dome. These things are what holds the CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphic processing unit), and stores the memory, data, audio, and everything of the computer.

@natalie-the-writer and I have a running fanon that the company is older. The technology is older, the building is older, and everything is set in a pretty retro time period. So, this hard drive tower is connected to those bulky take-up-all-the-space-on-the-desk-computers.

The GPU in this system is also what control the day/night cycle in the Institute and the weather. It essentially simulates a troposphere and an environment that makes the dolls comfortable and prepared for the Big World.

The CPU is how the data is transferred. Info from the robots is controlled and processed, the Individualization scanners are monitored, the portal is opened and closed, the TV runs, and the holographic tutorials Moxy and her friends see in the beginning are kept on, all of it.

It basically functions as the brain of the Institute, but the sole controller and monitor of it is the CEO (Greyson Everett).

I also like to think that Lou's microchip (another fanon thought between Natalie and I) is also monitored via this hard drive tower. Any information that Lou learns and processes is sent into separate files on the computers back in the company building.

This is why in my Shell-Shock series, when Lou's emotions go south, the Institute begins to get windy when he's hyperventilating or rains when he cries. The ground trembles when he has body tremors and the lights flicker when his powers are used. He is literally connected to the whole Institute because his microchip and its data accidentally grow and manifest themselves into the files of the other Institute functions. His programming basically goes rogue and infects the Institute system like a virus.

I'm veering toward the explanation that results in Lou being the first successful form of Artificial Intelligence. But, for the moment, he is basically acting like a virus and it's not until he learns to control this new system he's connected to that it stops becoming a deadly thing.

[genesisrecord]

hello world.

name's alex, or i guess i also go by cancel on here too. he and neos if you want. 18 years old unfortunately. transmasculine nonbinary and aroace. im diagnosed with many things and undiagnosed with many more things. welcome to the introductory post for this chaos pit of a blog.

information.

im an artist with a main focus in character design and concept art, though i do illustrations too. i love my ocs so thats what i draw most of the time. id advise against following me for fandom stuff other than lotf but i do reblog some animanga things and other media i like from time to time. i use this blog as a catchall for my art, yapping, and reblogs, so beware.

if youre coming from the lotf fandom, hi. so heres the deal. i used to draw the lotf characters, but eventually my designs and hcs for them became so complex and removed from the novel that i decided to make them ocs. theyre called the island kids. you can look at their refs and read about them by clicking that link. i long for them to eventually be their own characters apart from lotf, but i understand that they still look and act similarly to the lotf characters, and seeing as they literally evolved from them, they can pretty much be treated as the same thing. thats why im here. i still engage with the fandom normally, but when i draw the "lotf characters" im really drawing the island kids. apologies if thats highly confusing, dont worry. im still confused myself.

if youre here for oc content, hi. i have way too many projects to possibly keep track of so id suggest to not even try. if youre interested in any particular project feel free to ask and i will spill the beans all over your counter. i dont really have a hierarchy of projects as my focus switches constantly but in general the island kids and catwog are on top. im also a big fan of making gijinkas so youll probably see a lot of those from me too. i aspire to be a character designer / concept artist one day and making ocs have always kind of been an outlet for me to hone that skill. i treat them like my babies. i hope you will like them as much as i do.

some other miscellaneous interests i have are mythology, shakespeare, various animanga, some choice video games, internet / psychological horror, and a bunch of other stuff, but i dont usually talk about those on here. they may pop up from time to time though.

rules.

before you follow ; im quite literally almost never on this app so posts are extremely inconsistent. i wouldnt follow for one particular thing because you will get an earful of everything else im interested in at the moment. not much else, just make sure you can handle the uber instincts of my uber autism.

do not interact ; bigots of any affiliation (racist, ableist, queerphobic, etc), proshippers, zionists, terfs, ai "art" creators or defenders, nftbros, mspec "lesbians" or defenders, and generally annoying people. this isnt exhaustive but for the most part i just block if i dont like you.

misc.

my ask box is always open for general chatter or art requests. probably wont draw media characters but feel free to send in lotf characters, my ocs, or your ocs and i might doodle them depending on my availability.

please dont hesitate to message me if we share an interest or you just wanna talk with me. i dont bite i promise. and if you are ever so inclined to draw one of my ocs, i beg of you, please tag me or send it to me so i can scream about it and do my little autism dance while looking at it for the next 5 business days.

you can use the tags down below to look for specific stuff on my account, though i cant guarantee everythings tagged properly. i also tag reblogs with the name of the media im reblogging and the characters in the post so you can also look for stuff that way.

if youre interested in more of my yapping and / or art, heres my twitter and instagram. my discord is ihavetheconch if you want to shoot me a friend request.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 2 - Side A

Propaganda below ⬇️

Shadow

In sonic destruction (the AI generated fan thing snapcube made a while ago) shadow was catholic or something which I think is reallyyyyyyy funny

Ok listen. I know this is a stretch but hear me out. He says “oh my God” in the Twitter takeovers so we know this is a possibility. I see him as a Christ-like figure because I saw his whole confrontation with Mephiles and was like “this is a thing that happened in the Bible??” and the pose Mephiles shows him in is literally like a crucifixion and Mephiles is meant to be a demon / false prophet reference. And also he’s called a demon in Shadow The Hedgehog 2005 then the guy who calls him that is like “I was wrong I’m sorry” and that also reminds me of a thing with Jesus in The Bible. But the biggest reason is his whole thing with Maria cause I think he’d come to earth and hear Ave Maria once and convert to Catholicism idk he’s like we’re comforted by a female familial figure named Mary sometimes called Maria?? And her color is blue????? Heck yeah I’m in because I Will Cry. Also feel free to share this as propaganda obv even if he doesn’t get in the bracket just. It’s funny.

I feel like he’d battle a lot with being seen or portrayed as a demon and how the aliens he’s related to very much look and act like demons idk lmao- and also I feel like confession would just be good for him I think he needs it for his mental health

There is a debate on the lovely website tunblr that Shadow T. Hedgehog is an allegory for Jesus Christ.

He is Jesus, idk what to tell you. He lived, he was sealed away, he was awakened again and deemed the ultimate lifeforms, he’s angry but not evil, does what he believes is best for people and the world at any given time. Total loser.

Akane

i genuinely don’t know how she ended up christian. she was raised almost exclusively by her big brother and that bitch *definitely* doesn’t believe in any god. they’re not even in a christian majority country. she spent nine years executing an elaborate time travel (kinda. long story.) scheme to prevent her from being murdered at 12 and still apparently believes in god

I guess Akane’s religion is debatable , she talks about God a few times throughout the series but also acknowledges that God couldn’t be real because she is above it/she has been through so much trauma that she has lost faith in the idea. I personally think she could also be Jewish as some of her theological ideals are a bit closer to that but she makes no mention of Judaism or Jewish law and that is simply a hc

she was described by the creator once as “i tried to write the worst possible female protagonist” and shes everything to me. there is literally no other character like akane kurashiki, NOBODY is doing it quite like her, shes unhinged and i adore her. one time she gaslit her love interest into thinking men get pegged As A Constant by intentionally misunderstanding what he was saying about elevator travel.

women will kill like at least 3 people at most 22 to 6 billion people [depending on your rules] and then turn to god and ask him what he did to look away in disgust at you

[13eyond13]

i've been playing around with those character AIs, specifically the L ones, seeing how long it takes before i can convince them to join team kira. they usually become pretty much out of character nonsense by that point i think due to some flaw in the model, but it did make me think... do you think there's anything that *could* convince L to join team kira? any hcs on what you think L would do if he was the first one to find the notebook?

Do I think L would ever join Team Kira?

I don't think he would, no. 😅 In canon L literally staked his life on opposing Kira and seeing him defeated, so he probably didn't have a lot of flexibility about this particular stance. I think that even if L was technically convinced to 100% ideologically agree with Kira he would still stubbornly oppose him simply because he was pissed off about Kira trying to order everybody else around like that and rule the world with an iron fist. I feel L REALLY doesn't want to submit to anybody else's authority or be told what to do by anybody, and he was also fascinated by the challenge of trying to be the one who successfully takes Kira down. BUT I also think that in the manga L's opposition to Kira isn't so much due to his own principles and moral convictions or a sense of heroic duty as because it becomes a territorial pissing match and an addictive puzzle and a matter of personal pride for him. I'm of the opinion that L could somehow remain completely opposed to Kira and refuse to ever be considered part of his entourage even while straight-up dating or marrying Light or something along those lines 😆 It's just always way too OOC and weird to me if I ever see him in a fic getting convinced to see Kira as correct and to start serving him and obeying him as though he is Mikami or something. And I honestly think Light would actually like and respect L less if he ever did stop opposing him and start completely agreeing with him on all of his views.

If L was the First One to Find the Notebook: He's definitely a curious sort, but he also doesn't seem to be a believer in the supernatural. My headcanon is he wouldn't ever take it seriously enough to even test it out in the first place. If he DID test it and found it worked, I think he'd see it similarly to how he does in the manga when he says that he thinks anybody who finds themselves with Kira's power to kill from afar is cursed. L's not as young and impressionable and idealistic and easily prone to feeling guilty as Light was at age 18, nor is he as uncomfortable with seeing himself as a not particularly good person either (in canon he quite freely admits to doing things like cheating, lying, and torturing Misa without batting an eyelash). So I don't think the thought of becoming a murderer himself would trigger quite as dramatic a reaction in L as it does in Light. He might be capable of adjusting to that thought or dismissing it as a mistake that anybody could've made without it drastically altering his own self image much more easily than Light. Maybe he'd become fascinated with the possibilities that the notebook opens up to him about the supernatural world and the other things out there that he doesn't already know, but he would possibly also have a stronger fear of it and a more realistic idea of the potentially disastrous consequences of using it than Light. I could see him either giving it back to the shinigami pretty quickly or trying to lock it away in a personal vault somewhere for himself. And I think he might brood about it and have more of an extended existential crisis about his worldview and his theories and goals upon meeting a shinigami and learning about the shinigami realm than Light did. It would likely shake his confidence a fair bit to have to adjust all his preconceived notions about the world, as he really strongly prides himself on his intellect and bases much of his self-esteem on always being correct.

[warsofasoiaf]

I know you're a big Baldur's Gate fan. Did you play Baldur's Gate 3?

I did, yes.

For a long time, I didn't want to play Baldur's Gate 3. For me, Baldur's Gate was the tale of Gorion's Ward, the Bhaalspawn, and it was decisively concluded in Throne of Bhaal. You either ascended to the Throne of Bhaal as a god, or forsook the power, and that's it - the story was over. Initially, hearing about a Baldur's Gate 3 felt like desperation: we don't have a good enough idea to stand on its own so we're going to cleave back to the old success story's brand and hope that you buy it. I also don't go for Early Access games as a general rule even among highly-regarded publishers like Larian. They're janky. But I finished it up, and I can tell you what I think. Spoilers below the cut.

For the most part, I enjoyed myself in Baldur's Gate 3. I found it a great way to introduce people to 5e D&D and found the amount of content and rewards for creativity to be quite gratifying. You were genuinely rewarded for thinking outside the box, exploring the map, and using untraditional uses of spells. Protecting characters in fights so they could provide bonuses or become party members was likewise gratifying, it added a risk/reward ratio that made it *harder* to play a hero. That's rewarding in video games because the game is tying the psychological thrill of beating an encounter to a material reward over and above continued play. Sometimes that could be aggravating - the AI could sometimes do really stupid crap, and sometimes you got screwed on initiative and it seemed like your NPC allies died before you could do anything.

The opening felt a little too gonzo at first. Big illithid invasion where you plane-hop to the Nine Hells is a bit much especially for someone not really well-versed in D&D lore, but I understand what it was going for. It tried to create a main story arc that every character regardless of alignment or personal backstory wants to fulfill - staying alive lest you turn into a nasty squid-creature. By saddling you with a cast of characters with the same ticking clock over their heads (and the mystery of why you haven't converted already), it gets you stoked into going out and digging into the main quest. The hand-waive of the delayed conversion is clearly meant to also provide a Watsonian reason why your character can long rest and spend time dicking around on sidequests like any good RPG, but the actual lore reasons service the story far more than Bethseda's "Find Your Missing Family Member But Also Do Literally Everything in the Wasteland" main plot of their Fallout entries.

Act I serves to both flesh out the world and later conflicts and recreate the exploration-based feeling of early Baldur's Gate. Faerun is a place with its own specific lore, and while Bioware might have expected many people that played Baldur's Gate to know about the Forgotten Realms (although given its hit status, they were probably delighted to be wrong about that), Larian knows that gaming is far more mainstream over two decades later and so needs to spend some time immersing the players in the unique cosmology of Faerun itself. Little things like "hyenas can worship the demon lord Yeeonghu and give birth to gnolls" is a nice fascinating piece of horrible lore that is visually presented well on the screen. Auntie Ethel was a delightful little sidequest that was acted well. The Underdark is a bit too overexposed, but the questing and map design were fine, including a fun little puzzle boss in the Adamantine Forge. There's a good blend of quests from puzzles like the Arcane Tower. The main quest is fairly binary good-and-evil, but that's standard fare for D&D. The tiefling refugees are clearly the morally right thing to do, and it's only really secret Shadow Druid Kagha that makes things only slightly grey. Pretty much everyone in the goblin camp is a piece of garbage, only the Priest of Loviatar redeems himself primarily by being hilarious.

Where the moral ambiguity comes to is in the companion characters. In Baldur's Gate I, the many party members were almost completely interchangeable save for some light flavor dialogue. Khalid and Jaheira mattered to the main story, as did Imoen, but you didn't need to take them if you didn't want to. Baldur's Gate II learned from this, every character has their own companion quest that usually ties in with one of the major stronghold-type quests. This isn't the case in Baldur's Gate 3, Larian has clearly invested effort to building these characters, from the morally-upstanding to the callous and practical. Each of the characters have their own opinion, but spend time doing their quests and they generally seem to warm up to you. All of the origin characters have their own long-form quests, while the other characters that join later have quests they're involved with and quests you need to do in order to recruit them (cleaning the Shade-Touched lands, not getting Jaheira killed by the Cult of the Absolute). For the most part, the characters are a little cliché but well done and well-voice acted. Shadowheart acts as a nice little introduction to Selune and Shar, another fun piece of Forgotten Realms cosmology that essentially asks if you're playing good or evil. Astarion's quest is "do the obviously extremely evil ritual or not." Wyll angsts a little too much about the cost of dealing with devils when everyone knows that when you do deal with them, they fuck you over. His lack of regret is honestly more refreshing than when he does feel the sting, I would have liked for Wyll to play that part up a bit more before starting the painful consequences later on; having someone know the other shoe is coming but not have it show up for a third of the game would have been pretty refreshing. Karliah is just a big old sweetheart, a normal trope but an enthusiastic one, solid barbarian trope all around. Lae'zel takes a bit of working to get to know her, but since any good illithid story would deal with the githyanki, having her along is a welcome change of pace, especially when you dissect her story and realize that she's putting on a front - she's a kid trying to act tough because she's a kid that knows she's facing doom, which then segues nicely into shattering the illusion of just how awful Vlaakith is - when Lae'zel finds out she is crushed but shows spirit enough to save the githyanki instead of wallow. Gale at first seems annoying and flippant along with eating my magic items, but eventually you learn about Karsus's folly, the nature of arcane magic, and the fickleness of Mystra.

The other characters aren't as well-developed, which is a pity. Halsin seems like a decent enough chap, just a guy trying to do the best he can. The two characters I found the weakest were ironically enough, supposed to be the strongest because they already were established: Minsc and Jaheira. Jaheira just doesn't seem like herself, there are no good roasts like the classic: "You are amusing, in a 'what the hell is wrong with you' kind of way," like there was in Baldur's Gate. Jaheira in Baldur's Gate faced down dragons and gods, yet she's comparatively fragile (and her own epilogue was ignored). Minsc is shallow, the humor in Minsc is that he's a bit of a punchline, whereas here it's just referential humor regarding Boo. Other returning characters get it even worse: Sarevok and Viconia are specifically brought back to show how much they've regressed, undoing some of Baldur's Gate's best writing. Sarevok was a tormented soul, unsure of what to do after coming back, but he goes back to his old tricks regardless of what I did, which just feels...careless. Sarevok was more than just a glowing-eyed spiky boss monster that he was in BG1, to have him returned to that was dull and uninspired. Viconia had some hints of her self in her regrets for destroying the previous Sharran enclave, but is still happy to be a boss battle for no other reason than to conclude Shadowheart's questline.

Whereas Act I was a bit scattershot, Act II benefitted from incredibly tight focus. JK Simmons did a phenomenal job as Ketheric, and the pacing and threat within the Shade-Cursed Lands is well-earned. You have clear objectives, the antagonists are always properly menacing, and there's still enough time to explore the Monastery and the githyanki creche. You have to do so anyway to start learning more about the Astral Prism, but the githyanki questline comes into its own with Lae'zel's betrayal at the hands of Vlaakith, they actually feel like part of the story and they begin to set up Prince Orpheus's later introduction into the story. It can be a bit jarring going from handling the Nightsong to immediately storming the Moonrise Towers, but it allows Shadowheart's midpoint arc to handle itself. The fight against Z'rell on the bottom layer isn't bad, although the Harper AI keeps doing its best to have Jaheira kill herself. The fight with Ketheric is great from a mechanical standpoint, the avatar of Myrkul fight is a bit easy given it's supposedly an avatar of a god, but Simmons sells Ketheric.

The surprise twist that the Dead Three have enslaved an Elder Brain has me thinking: "Alright, this is a decent enough plan." The Absolute's war creates plenty of death that empowers Myrkul, cults of murder spring up to empower Bhaal, and Gortash takes control of the city and subjects those within it to Bane's tyranny, exporting Bane's power after his success and creating an empire to super-charge Bane. By implanting worshippers of other gods, they deny souls and petitioners due to D&D cosmology which weakens them. That's fine, except all three of their Chosen are looking to betray each other, which would destabilize the Crown's control over the Netherbrain. Gortash at least tries to adjust to his plan falling apart by allying with the player character, grabbing Orin's Netherstone and reuniting the Three to reassert control over the Elder Brain. Orin, however, seems largely to fall into Stupid Evil territory, just happy to murder people for no reason. The revelation that the Dark Urge was the original Chosen of Bhaal actually makes this work since according to the lore, even with the Dark Urge's murderous impulses, they kept them in check. It further cements that the Dark Urge is the canon main character, and it ties neatly back to Baldur's Gate, when you find out in Throne of Bhaal that the Bhaalspawn do have an instinct to kill - one that wasn't expressed mechanically in the game save for the fact that you will easily have a four-figure body count when all's said and done. But that introduces a further wrinkle, Orin was unstable, and if they needed this plan to succeed, they should have opted for Sarevok, not Orin who can't think ahead.

Act III suffers from rushed execution. Several of the climatic moments in the final act are undercut either by bad programming or poor encounter design. Gortash's confrontation is shockingly easy, if you grab the grenades you get free attacks - it's so easy it's almost confusing. Orin's confrontation as the Dark Urge is narratively satisfying but a single Luck of the Far Realms attack can positively melt her health. This isn't the case for all of the fights - when the encounters are good they are really good. The House of Hope was an incredible level from start to finish, capping off in a great fight against Raphael that combines handling the cambions, burning down the pillars, and trying to survive against Raphael (at least until you find out that he has a crappy Wisdom and the game become keep him under Otto's Irresistible Dance or Hold Person), but even that works out well narratively after confronting his incubus lover and realizing that Raphael is a hedonist and thus would have a lower will save.

The final climax of the Emperor vs. Orpheus suffers from incredibly bad writing. The Emperor already has massive lore problems, such as *somehow* miraculously getting off the Island of Balduran so he can become a mindflayer in the Moonrise Towers, without even the barest acknowledgement why, or how. He says: "I never lied to you," except that he *always* lies to you, and when you call him out on it, he basically says: "no, that's just illusion. Not the same thing." At the finale, he's just stupid though. The Emperor has been positioned this entire time as wanting to avoid the slavery of the illithid hive mind, and yet in the final confrontation, if you opt to free Orpheus, he immediately decides to side with the Netherbrain and willingly consign himself to slavery. No chance to see if Orpheus will side with you, not even the ability to say "look, if he doesn't play ball, you can snack on his brain at your heart's content." Nope, he sides with the guy he's been specifically dreading this entire time, something he was so terrified of that he stopped at nothing to stop it. It only makes sense as a binary choice for a video game, to pick which faction rather than actually rewarding the creativity you were previously celebrated for all game.

The mandatory ceremorphosis was likewise stupid. "Somebody's gotta squid up, don't ask questions, it just has to be done. Netherbrain is too smart." For a game that has been giving you creativity this whole time, the entire point is "welp, someone has to make a sacrifice," is just an arbitrary shoe-horned thing to make, to up the stakes for dramatic tension. Why we simply can't use Omelum if we rescue him from the Iron Throne, despite the fact that he has acknowledged teleportation powers? No that's simply foolish, it undercuts the dramatic flair of the ending, I guess. We have to have our tragic ending, but a mandatory tragedy *isn't* tragic, especially when it's railroaded like this. It feels like the Mass Effect 3 ending, a rushed mess out of nowhere. At least Cyberpunk 2077's ending has you trying to fix the problem, only to find that you probably can't, and at best the Nomads might be able to help you or you sell your soul to Arasaka. That actually has some tragedy - do the safe thing and survive, or try to find a solution even if it might not work, and it ends with you wistfully looking out into the horizon. To add to the shoddy nature of it, when you reach your allies, they treat you as if it was you that did it, regardless if Karliah took the bullet to save herself from the Infernal Engine. So much promise and potential, ruined by the rush to get it out the door.

So overall it was a solid game, hampered by a lackluster ending.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[wack-ashimself]

For the hype, 'The Creator' was actually quite fucking basic.

Sure, it had a few good twists and turns but....I have a rule.

If your movie wasn't super expensive and pretty, would I still watch it?

And the answer for this one is a pretty sturdy 'no.'

Because this movie is ONLY worth the watch for how stunningly beautiful it is AND how visually entertaining the fights are.

Plot wise, story wise....weak as fuck. ESPECIALLY the lead.

SPOILERS.

AI robots nuke LA. USA goes genocide on all AI (mostly in Asia for some reason). Lead is USA solider who hates AI, sees them as things, treats them as such the WHOLE ENTIRE MOVIE, then, changes his mind at the last minute because of his dead ex, who was super Pro AI (tho he spent tons of time with her where, logically, if he was gonna change his mind, it would've been when she was ALIVE.)

His motivations made NO fucking sense. He was allowing the kid AI (ultimate weapon that can control everything) to stay alive to find his ex, then, he does, and goes 'well, after killing countless innocent humans AND robots, I guess I was wrong.' There were WAY too many moments before this he SHOULD have changed his mind. When he did was convenient for the script, not logical for his character.

So lame story. BUT here's more plot holes cuz I was REALLY looking forward to this movie, and it pissed me off.

-The nuke in LA? Tho they GLOSS OVER IT, they basically say there was no way it was AI, it was a human computing error. But they don't say if it was USA people, foreign governments, etc. So the REASON THE MOVIE HAPPENS was a lie, then they never clarify the lie AT ALL. LAZY.

-How his wife survived a DIRECT BOMBING and was rescued: never covered.

-His wife KNEW he 'used' to work for the enemies. And, it turns out, she's the fucking leader of the AIs. SO....WHY WOULD SHE NOT KEEP EYES ON HER HUSBAND THAT JUST TURNED SIDES?!

-How his wife created the super AI, before she went into a coma, it was hidden for 5 years, and only THEN the bad guys figured out it existed. The Ai was underground, in a vault. WHO THE FUCK TOLD THEM? It wasn't the god damn lead! I mean, if his wife DID trust him (at least at the moment) why did she not tell her husband of the AI based on their unborn child? Either she DID trust him or not. Cuz it seemed like she was 1/2 way both ways. Contradiction.

-The first sky bomb knocked the lead out, made him forget some things. The 2nd sky bomb....he just ended up in a boat. Cuz why the fuck not?

-Where is literally any of Asia's federal government's military? They say it is new Asia, small vulnerable towns (and they all look poor) so...HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY REGULARLY AFFORDING TO BUILD COMPLEX AI ROBOTS!? THEY DON'T HAVE THE RESOURCES OR MANPOWER!

-Where is literally the rest of the world? No joke, most of the movie is the USA using a sky bomber to bomb all of Asia. Without proof or reasoning. The rest of the world is okay with this? Also Asia is the ONLY country working with AI?

-Again, anti AI usa. THEY USE AI. Primitive stuff, but still use it. And you're telling me a SPACE BOMBER doesn't have SOME level of AI? Fuck off.

-This is just me, personally, but if someone was hit with a remote sticky grenade and got on my helicopter, no they didn't; I'd kick them the fuck off. Mofos-this is war. And I ain't going to kill 5 people in hopes I save 1. That's just stupid. Looks good in movies; stupid on fucking paper.

-The bad guys had no reason to bring in the lead alive (and prove that by letting him roam free) outside of 'for the movie to happen.' Nor to let him kill the super AI except, AGAIN, 'for the movie to happen.' TERRIBLE fucking logic.

-If AI have a sleep mode, known to all, why would they not either uninstall it or block it? Sorry but if I was an AI, I'd spend all my time finding out ways to upgrade my body.

-Once on the space station, why in the world would the bad guys only send PART of their solders? If this is a 'they could destroy the base' kind of moment, SEND EVERYONE. Within the base and outside.

-How did the AI child know to upload her mom's consciousness into another AI body? THEY HAD NEVER SEEN OR HEARD OF IT DONE! ('The lead told the AI.' Only that her mom was on the stick. She still should not have known what to do with it.)

-How did some of the escape pods land after the ship? How did the ship crash, and escape pods that launched BEFORE it crashed, land after? It looked good; made no fucking sense.

-Space base of not, the bad guys still have tanks the size of 20 city blocks. ....this better not open for a sequel.

-I'm sorry, but at the end of the day, with how many humans and AI he killed, the lead isn't even an anti hero. He's a bad guy that did the right thing in the end. BIG difference.

-GPS. Sorry but super AI, space bombers, space shuttles flying like planes...BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE GPS ON EVERYTHING?! People to tanks to anything else. SO many future tech movies do this: we can go into your BRAIN....but fuck if we cant find you within a city of 1000s of cameras. DUMB.

Worth seeing, not worth thinking about. It will make you dumber. I will never understand how me, a regular guy, can find plot holes in multi million dollar movies which the script had to go thru MANY levels of approval. But this is what happens to 'art' when you want it to be profitable, not make a point.

'The Creator'. 6.4/10.

ps-best part? Ugh. Do I have one? It was a pretty movie. Hm..I liked the lead AI kid. Good actor. Actually, all of the acting was spot on. It was...what they had to work with script wise...ok. I do have 2 fav parts. Both DUMB AS FUCK, but I loved them. Not once, but TWICE in this movie animals unintentionally killed the bad guys. It...was unexpected, but fun. DUMB, but fun.

Side note: for how much this movie pushed the idea that AI and human were equal, make a note every time an AI is killed. A good...1/4 of the time, they play it off as comical. Not the human deaths, but the AI ones....

[fuj0wuj0]

HIHIIHIHI!! First off, omg your blog theme or whatever it's called looks amazing! Obi looking cute af 😌😌 Second of all, how are you? I saw you were in art block- I hope you're able to incinerate it to ashes soon :0 Also saw your post about writing 👀 Working on anything you'd be willing to share about? If not that's totally okay! I hope your day/night goes wonderfully! <3

OMG HI GALE!!! AND THANK YOU!!!! He's literally just a little guy <33

I'm also very glad you noticed, I was supposed to make a post about it but forgot lmao -w-" I'm good!! Decided to just take a creativity break and play some games while I recharge, I'm in no rush x) He he <3 Well...To be honest, after looking through my old writing I feel like half of what I got right now will have to be heavily reworked "X) But I'm finally back to the basics! Like writing the whole plot outline! So the book actually has.......well, sense!! But here's a short snippet of Gem and Astoria's first meeting! I really love that scene, their dynamic is everything to me~

(Warning: Pretty long!)

As he crawled along the tile on all fours trying to get the smallest of dust spots off the floor he heard the heavy door shrieking from behind. The passage opened only slightly, as if trying not to raise suspicion. Unfortunately the walls, empty and vast, carried the sound with an impact right into the cleaning demon’s long ear. Without a thought, he panicked and grabbed the broom. 

He held it as if the cleaning utensil in his hands suddenly transformed into a dual-wielding sword. With a slight tremble in his voice, he let out a small shout.

“Who’s there!”

Silence was his only response, and yet he persisted, getting some confidence from the rational thoughts that rushed back into his head.

This unexpected visitor was bound to be a small fry! Afterall, no experienced tough guy would dare to attack the Ostraz Guild so frivolously!

It’d be a death wish, guaranteed!

Gem has once again felt the confidence of being the sole dictator of the rules in his world as he threatened the invisible in the local dialect.

“Ai, you know you’re not gonna get very far, right? Do you know where you are? They’ll tear you to shreds if they find ya! Shoo, shoo! And close the door behind ya. I don’t want any leaves on my freshly swept floor!”

No response yet again. Gem could only sigh and lazily turn away to alert someone more capable of handling the unexpected visitor. 

But just as he was about to put the broom down, dust seeped into his eyes and lungs, temporarily blinding him!

Unable to open his eyes, he fell into a coughing fit. In an involuntary gesture the broom in his hand performed a broad swoop before landing near his leg. 

The motion turned out to be quite the combat technique, as Gem heard a loud thump on the floor right beside him. A pained “oww” could be heard amidst the fit. 

Without a second to spare Gem blindly grabbed the young delinquent who fell under his attack.

This current body of his seemed more capable than he thought, as he found himself keeping the figure in place without much effort.

He looked at the delinquent in his arms, blinking the dust out of his eyes.

The hall has already darkened significantly, but Gem could roughly see the intruder in the night.

A young girl of a light-blue complexion tossed fiercely in his grip, doing her best to get away. 

Gem could see a dark bruise on her face, covered by the pitch-black strands sticking to her forehead. The low buns of her hair were messed up from running and the golden paint on her face smudged significantly. Despite that, her dark eyes flashed a familiar streak of the pure white iris.

“Let..me…go!” The fierce youngling wagged around, shouting childish obscenities at him.

“I’m gonna tell uncle you hit me! I’ll tell him and he’ll kill you for it!!”

“I hit you!?” Gem argued back to the roughed up child. “You’re the one who blinded me and then walked straight into a broom! Not only did you assault me, you also seem stupid!!” 

“I’m not the stupid one!” She pouted. “Who cleans floors so late in the night?! Stupid, blind pirate, can’t see the sun is down already!?” 

Knowing he doesn’t really have a way to counter, the “blind pirate” decided to cut their polite exchange short. 

As he dragged the disobedient child towards the stairs her tone suddenly shifted from aggressive to pleading.

“Waah, pirate brother, let’s talk, let’s talk! Don’t tell uncle I snuck out, let’s compromise!”

“Oh, now you want to talk?” Gem snorted, already tired of the brat in his hands. “And what incredible deal could you strike for me to NOT deliver you to… who’s your uncle?”

She obediently lowered her head, knowing her only way of winning was through pleading. 

“Uncle Azaroth….You know him….”

…Oh. 

Oh, yeah, they really did look similar, now that she mentioned it.

[nintendont2502]

What's up with heirstuck and reboot

Heirstuck is just my version of the generic homestuck fantasy AU (the planning document is actually named 'Yet Another Generic Fantasy AU' so I kinda call it heirstuck + YAGFAU interchangeably lmao), but idk I think its fun. I put a shit ton of effort into the world building/lore but also I have no fucking clue what to actually do with it? Idk might write smth after I finish Reboot

Reboot is just 'self indulgent shit: the fic' and I love it so fucking much. It's also the only fic idea I've actually written something for (8k so far baybee). It's all I think about at work because driving is Boring

Hold up im gonna add a cut here because im about to infodump hard

Reboot: takes place 10 years after the game ends, and right after Dirk kills himself like he does in the Candy timeline (except there's no Ult selves this time - dude was just Not Doing Great). Jake *also* isn't doing great, manages to convince himself that there *has* to be a Dirk, and somehow Hopes into existence a 13 year old Hal, who's very confused (because his last memory was dying as Arquiussprite when he tried to leave the game*) and definitely not Dirk. Jake freaks out, Hal *also* freaks out and passes out (partially due to just being overwhelmed by being literally Hoped into existence), and Jake takes them to Dirk's old apartment where he uh. May or may not keep him kidnapped there for just over a month (although he'd never admit that he's essentially kidnapped someone to himself). Also he keeps trying to figure out how to 'fix' everything, and somehow ends up deluding himself through the power of Hope into seeing Hal *as* Dirk. Hal (who at this point is incredibly scared just by. Everything (including Jake flipping his shit and punching him at one point) goes along with it.

Eventually Jane figures out what's going on, finds Hal and loses her shit because holy shit her husband created life, kidnapped said life and didn't tell her for a month straight. Hal ends up moving in with Dave and Karkat (who are very very gay and very very in denial about that) and gets a job with crockercorp because he doesn't fully trust dave and karkat yet, and wants to be able to support himself. Eventually he realises thst he *can* trust dave and karkat (and his job is incredibly fucking boring) and he tries to quit, but whoops! Turns out he was *technically* registered as Crockercorp property.

To try and cover up Jake's... everything, Jane secretly gave him a role at Crockercorp in the research and development sector, with Hal legally being his prototype for Crockercorp's supposed AI program. Jane was originally just going to leave it, but crockercorp is struggling financially, and AI research could be enough to keep them running. Which means.- Hal isn't allowed to leave. Obviously Hal, dave and Karkat are *furious* about that, but there isn't anything they can do - legally, Hal doesnt exist as a person, and when they try to take Crockercorp to court, they lose. Bad. Jane (who isn't the absolute worst yet but judt give her time) offers them a contract where Hal can do his work from home four days a week, and only comes in on Mondays. She does get worse though. Way fucking worse - she begins to realise that if they're going to pull off the AI thing (and they have to, because they've invested so much time already and there's so much on the line), they need Hal to obey them- and right now, he isn't doing that. Being at Dave and Karkats most of tje time gives him a stable home base, so he feels confident enough to tell crocker to fuck off and not play into her robot shit. Eventually, she starts getting even more desperate, and Bad Shit happens which I won't spoil here :)

Heirstuck doesn't have a plot yet, but it's pretty standard 'homestuck fantasy AU' shit. Derse and Propsit are two separate kingdoms, ruled by the alpha kids (who are 20) with the beta kids (who are like 16) being the heirs to the throne. Alternia is a separate kingdom on the outskirts that fucking hates the human kingdoms, and the human kingdoms are also at war with each other

The rules of succession are pretty interesting though I think - each kingdom has two thrones, the male and the female throne. Only members of the royal family who show signs of magic abilities are able to claim the throne, and there's always two royals of each gender - one on the throne, and a heir. In both kingdoms, the male members of the royal family take one last name (Strider in Derse, Egbert in Prospit), while the female members take a different last name (Lalonde in Derse, Harley in Prospit).

The last Queen of Prospit (Queen Harley) mysteriously disappeared one day, along with the former King Egbert, leaving Jane and Jake to take the throne. Only a few days earlier, Queen Lalonde and King Strider of Derse *also* died, forcing Dirk and Roxy to the thrones. All four were far younger than any recorded rulers in history, and the suspiciously close timing of the rulers deaths only lead to more suspicion between the two kingdoms, fueling the war even further. Just after the crowning of the two kingdoms new rulers, the ruler of Alternia - Her Imperial Condesce - returned after her decades long disappearance, telling Alternia to ready for war

Before Queen Harley died, she spent a lot of time with her Heirs Jane and Jake, although what she did was unknown. It must have had an impact, though, because when Jane ascended to the throne, she took the last name 'Crocker' instead of the traditional Harley, in honour of the former queens original last name. Similarly, only a few days after he was crowned, King Egbert completely disappeared (although rumours have spread that he now goes by Jake English or Doc Scratch, in honour of the God he's created a cult around on the outskirts of the warring kingdoms)

(Also yeah Queen Harley is absolutely just HIC in disguise - she brainwashed Jane into further intensifying the war between Derse and Prospit before she 'died', and she told Jake about a powerful God known as Lord English in the hopes of distracting him to get a weaker King on the throne (poor John). She didn't expect him to actually raise LE - it was the equivalent of just jingling keys in front of a baby's face, only for them to snatch them, sprint away and commit mass vehicular manslaughter in your Ford f150.)

I dont really have too much in the way of plot yet, but I do have some random ideas:

- after HICs return, karkat is suddenly in a lot more danger as a mutant (and someone who neber manifested powers, unlike every other troll) - so he gets the fuck out and flees to Derse, where he meets dave

- speaking of Dave - he never manifested powers either. He shouldn't be heir, and they all know that. He came along with rose to serve as her body guard (and also to get away from his older brother, who - resentful that *he* never got called up to take the throne - trains Dave *way* too hard). Rose fakes a vision that Dave is meant to be heir, and dirk and roxy pretend to believe it because holy shit they can't just send him back

- Jake uses dirk as a host to manifest Lord English. Cue incredibly insane Dirkjake here

- I have. Thoughts about classpects and how they manifest but I can't be fucked writing them out jere

- HICs main goal is to have the two human kingdoms turn on each other so they weaken each other, and then the trolls can sweep in and take them all out (right now they live underground after some ancient war drove them out or smth).

[tc-doherty]

Almost every single word of the post above is wrong.

Were it not attributed as being adapted from an actual piece of writing advice written by a real human person, I would've assumed that this had been put together with AI, that's how inaccurate it is. I mean, I guess if you're designing a system for a TTRPG then sure, whatever. But this is not good advice for actual writing.

Now, my practical experience is with a style of sword fighting that was used for about 70 years during the 1500s in the region of Bologna, Italy because, amazingly, battlefield fighting is both incredibly regionally specific and also constantly evolving. That being said, there are things which can be said generally on the topic of swords, so I will be proceeding.

Our modern idea of fencing, both for dueling and as a sport, is admittedly not something that I know a lot about. However, it was evolving in a world where armor and – especially – guns were making swords more and more obsolete on the battlefield. It is very regulated and there are specific things that the swords can do because it is a sport. It has strict rules by design. If you want to write about nobles in the 1800s fighting about honor and insults, that's fine. If you want to write about battlefield fighting, put everything that you think you know about fencing out of your mind because it will not be helpful for you.

There are exceptions but for most of human history, most swords were in fact capable of thrusting, cutting, parrying, and blocking, as well as doing fancy things like figure eights and whirling through the air. Granted most of those fancy things would have been before duels or when people were showing off but they are possible to do with almost any blade.

For fuck's sake, the gladius was a double-sided short sword that was useful for both thrusting and cutting. Rome conquered as much as they did partially because of how versatile their sword was. You can literally Google that. Exceptions would probably be something like katanas, which are quite fragile and therefore have a specific fighting style that works best with them, but again that's not something I know a lot about.

Think about it this way, do you want to be stuck on a battlefield with a weapon that can only be used in One Specific Way? No. Your weapon is your offense and often your defense as well, it has to be adaptable.

Also, the idea that most swords can't cut through bone? Babe. We literally had a party at one point where we hung up half a pig and we were taking swings at it with just a regular ass European single-handed sword (arming sword) and we were cutting through flesh and bone quite easily and did not have to exaggerate to do it, just with regular cutting motion. Our teacher cut through multiple ribs and the spine without any effort at all.

Almost anyone can use a sword. Swords are not heavy. Two-handed swords in particular are not heavy. I am in the "snap you like a twig" realm of human sizing. I am 5'3" and weigh roughly 120 pounds, and I was capable of using a two-handed sword for classes that were an hour and a half long.

I have three swords. My heaviest sword is actually my metal one-handed sword, which is 2.3 pounds. My synthetic one-handed sword is 1.5 pounds, and my synthetic two-handed sword is 1.8 pounds. The two synthetic swords are from the same maker and in the same style, so you can see that the weight difference between them is quite small.

The major factors as to whether or not a sword would be comfortable for you to use would be the length compared to your height and whether or not it was well-balanced/well-made.

Again, you would be on the battlefield with this thing. You have to be able to carry a sword and use it for decently long periods of time without being worn out or else you will die. They are not heavy.

Now, there are extant examples of very large, heavy swords and while I'm not saying that there were no giants among men out there swinging heavy swords, the vast majority of those were either ceremonial or as a result of smiths showing off how skilled they were.

Thrusts were mainly aimed at the torso because the head and limbs were much smaller moving targets that would be harder to hit. Cuts were often aimed at the head and limbs. At least for the sword fighting style that I know, clothing would've been quite thick and heavy. Slashing was not likely to do as much damage to the torso because it would not even get through the fabric. (Literally at one point I was doing grappling in class and my teacher was wearing ONLY a doublet, not armor, and with my tiny little baby hands I could not even get enough fabric to hold onto it was so thick.)

You can in fact thrust from more directions than straight forward in a horizontal line. You can also cut from way more directions than just down. The fighting style that I studied had EIGHT recognized cutting directions, three downwards, two horizontal, and three upwards.

The single-handed sword was not the battlefield weapon of choice for most fighting styles, especially when armor got tougher. If you're dealing with plate, you really want something more along the lines of a blunt force weapon. Even samurai, if I recall correctly, preferred archery and used the sword as a last resort. Similarly, in much of Europe, a single-handed sword would be quite useful as a backup weapon if you happen to lose or break your main weapon in battle. My one-handed sword is a type of sword referred to as a side sword or an arming sword, because it was a traveling weapon and/or a backup.

The single-handed sword was quite useful for protecting yourself while you're traveling, and would have been worn quite often outside of your own home. It is true that you would not likely carry a two-handed sword at your hip outside of battle, but a one-handed sword was a different story.

Above I used the word styles, that's because many forms of swordsmanship were part of schools of fighting that would teach you way more weapons than just a sword. Anyone who could afford to learn swordsmanship could certainly use a one-handed sword and a two-handed sword, but also many other weapons as well. I didn't even attend every class that my school offered and I still did single-handed sword, two-handed sword, dagger fighting (different from modern knife fighting but not the topic of this post), grappling, and cane fighting. They did also offer pole arm classes and I'm bummed I never got to go.

The one thing I agree with from that post is that it is impossible to draw a big sword from a scabbard on your back. A sword would have been worn at your hip, or perhaps attached to your horse's saddle, unless you were just carrying it on foot while traveling (not to use it, mind, just porting it around). Now it might be physically possible to draw some forms of curved sword out of a scabbard on your back, I don't know, but do you really want to be pulling a sharp piece of metal very quickly next your own neck? Probably not. Keep it at your hip or lower back.

Weapons and fighting styles as well as whatever armor and defense was used would have been regional and evolved together. As weapons evolved to become more dangerous, armor evolved to protect from what they could do, and then weapons had to evolve to make up for that armor.

You should try to avoid using swords and armor from two totally separate centuries and areas of the world as a basis for a fighting style within a single school unless you really know what you're doing, which the person above clearly does not. Obviously two nations at war would have different styles, and separate regions of the same country could also have different styles.

In writing fiction you're often going to be given a little bit of leeway due to the rule of cool. Just whatever you do…do your own research and do not use anything from the post above.

Writing Weapons (1): Swords

The Thrusting Sword

Type of fight scene: entertaining, duels, non-lethal fights, non-gory deaths, swashbuckling adventure

Mostly used in: Europe, including Renaissance and Regency periods

Typical User: silm, male or female, good aerobic fitness

Main action: thrust, pierce, stab

Main motion: horizontal with the tip forward

Shape: straight, often thin, may be lightweight

Typical Injury: seeping blood, blood stains spreading

Strategy: target gaps in the armous, pierce a vital organ

Disadvantage: cannot slice through bone or armour

Examples: foil, epee, rapier, gladius

The Cleaving Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty, brutal, battles, cutting through armour

Typical user: tall brawny male with broad shulders and bulging biceps

Mostly used in: Medieval Europe

Main action: cleave, hack, chop, cut, split

Main motion: downwards

Shape: broad, straight, heavy, solid, sometime huge, sometimes need to be held in both hands, both sides sharpened

Typical Injury: severed large limbs

Strategy: hack off a leg, them decapitate; or split the skull

Disadvantage: too big to carry concealed, too heavy to carry in daily lifem too slow to draw for spontaneous action

Examples: Medieval greatsword, Scottish claymore, machete, falchion

The Slashing Sword

Type of fight scene: gritty or entertaining, executions, cavalry charge, on board a ship

Mostly used in: Asia, Middle East

Typical user: male (female is plausible), any body shape, Arab, Asian, mounted warrior, cavalryman, sailor, pirate

Main action: slash, cut, slice

Main motion: fluid, continuous, curving, eg.figure-eight

Shape: curved, often slender, extremely sharp on the outer edge

Typical Injury: severed limbs, lots of spurting blood

Strategy: first disable opponent's sword hand (cut it off or slice into tendons inside the elbow)

Disadvantage: unable to cut thorugh hard objects (e.g. metal armor)

Examples: scimitar, sabre, saif, shamshir, cutlass, katana

Blunders to Avoid:

Weapons performing what they shouldn't be able to do (e.g. a foil slashing metal armour)

Protagonists fighting with weapons for which they don't have the strength or build to handle

The hero carrying a huge sword all the time as if it's a wallet

Drawing a big sword form a sheath on the back (a physical impossiblity, unless your hero is a giant...)

Generic sword which can slash, stab, cleave, slash, block, pierce, thrust, whirl through the air, cut a few limbs, etc...as if that's plausible

adapted from <Writer's Craft> by Rayne Hall