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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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The (open) web is good, actually

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library tonight (Monday, November 13) at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

The great irony of the platformization of the internet is that platforms are intermediaries, and the original promise of the internet that got so many of us excited about it was disintermediation – getting rid of the middlemen that act as gatekeepers between community members, creators and audiences, buyers and sellers, etc.

The platformized internet is ripe for rent seeking: where the platform captures an ever-larger share of the value generated by its users, making the service worst for both, while lock-in stops people from looking elsewhere. Every sector of the modern economy is less competitive, thanks to monopolistic tactics like mergers and acquisitions and predatory pricing. But with tech, the options for making things worse are infinitely divisible, thanks to the flexibility of digital systems, which means that product managers can keep subdividing the Jenga blocks they pulling out of the services we rely on. Combine platforms with monopolies with digital flexibility and you get enshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

An enshittified, platformized internet is bad for lots of reasons – it concentrates decisions about who may speak and what may be said into just a few hands; it creates a rich-get-richer dynamic that creates a new oligarchy, with all the corruption and instability that comes with elite capture; it makes life materially worse for workers, users, and communities.

But there are many other ways in which the enshitternet is worse than the old good internet. Today, I want to talk about how the enshitternet affects openness and all that entails. An open internet is one whose workings are transparent (think of "open source"), but it's also an internet founded on access – the ability to know what has gone before, to recall what has been said, and to revisit the context in which it was said.

At last week's Museum Computer Network conference, Aaron Straup Cope gave a talk on museums and technology called "Wishful Thinking – A critical discussion of 'extended reality' technologies in the cultural heritage sector" that beautifully addressed these questions of recall and revisiting:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2023/11/11/therapy/#wishful

Cope is a museums technologist who's worked on lots of critical digital projects over the years, and in this talk, he addresses himself to the difference between the excitement of the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector over the possibilities of the web, and why he doesn't feel the same excitement over the metaverse, and its various guises – XR, VR, MR and AR.

The biggest reason to be excited about the web was – and is – the openness of disintermediation. The internet was inspired by the end-to-end principle, the idea that the network's first duty was to transmit data from willing senders to willing receivers, as efficiently and reliably as possible. That principle made it possible for whole swathes of people to connect with one another. As Cope writes, openness "was not, and has never been, a guarantee of a receptive audience or even any audience at all." But because it was "easy and cheap enough to put something on the web," you could "leave it there long enough for others to find it."

That dynamic nurtured an environment where people could have "time to warm up to ideas." This is in sharp contrast to the social media world, where "[anything] not immediately successful or viral … was a waste of time and effort… not worth doing." The social media bias towards a river of content that can't be easily reversed is one in which the only ideas that get to spread are those the algorithm boosts.

This is an important way to understand the role of algorithms in the context of the spread of ideas – that without recall or revisiting, we just don't see stuff, including stuff that might challenge our thinking and change our minds. This is a much more materialistic and grounded way to talk about algorithms and ideas than the idea that Big Data and AI make algorithms so persuasive that they can control our minds:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

As bad as this is in the social media context, it's even worse in the context of apps, which can't be linked into, bookmarked, or archived. All of this made apps an ominous sign right from the beginning:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Apps interact with law in precisely the way that web-pages don't. "An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to defend yourself against corporate predation":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/27/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse/

Apps are "closed" in every sense. You can't see what's on an app without installing the app and "agreeing" to its terms of service. You can't reverse-engineer an app (to add a privacy blocker, or to change how it presents information) without risking criminal and civil liability. You can't bookmark anything the app won't let you bookmark, and you can't preserve anything the app won't let you preserve.

Despite being built on the same underlying open frameworks – HTTP, HTML, etc – as the web, apps have the opposite technological viewpoint to the web. Apps' technopolitics are at war with the web's technopolitics. The web is built around recall – the ability to see things, go back to things, save things. The web has the technopolitics of a museum:

https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2014/09/11/brand/#dconstruct

By comparison, apps have the politics of a product, and most often, that product is a rent-seeking, lock-in-hunting product that wants to take you hostage by holding something you love hostage – your data, perhaps, or your friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

When Anil Dash described "The Web We Lost" in 2012, he was describing a web with the technopolitics of a museum:

where tagging was combined with permissive licenses to make it easy for people to find and reuse each others' stuff;

where it was easy to find out who linked to you in realtime even though most of us were posting to our own sites, which they controlled;

where a link from one site to another meant one person found another person's contribution worthy;

where privacy-invasive bids to capture the web were greeted with outright hostility;

where every service that helped you post things that mattered to you was expected to make it easy for you take that data back if you changed services;

where inlining or referencing material from someone else's site meant following a technical standard, not inking a business-development deal;

https://www.anildash.com/2012/12/13/the_web_we_lost/

Ten years later, Dash's "broken tech/content culture cycle" described the web we live on now:

https://www.anildash.com/2022/02/09/the-stupid-tech-content-culture-cycle/

found your platform by promising to facilitate your users' growth;

order your technologists and designers to prioritize growth above all other factors and fire anyone who doesn't deliver;

grow without regard to the norms of your platform's users;

plaster over the growth-driven influx of abusive and vile material by assigning it to your "most marginalized, least resourced team";

deliver a half-assed moderation scheme that drives good users off the service and leaves no one behind but griefers, edgelords and trolls;

steadfastly refuse to contemplate why the marginalized users who made your platform attractive before being chased away have all left;

flail about in a panic over illegal content, do deals with large media brands, seize control over your most popular users' output;

"surface great content" by algorithmically promoting things that look like whatever's successful, guaranteeing that nothing new will take hold;

overpay your top performers for exclusivity deals, utterly neglect any pipeline for nurturing new performers;

abuse your creators the same ways that big media companies have for decades, but insist that it's different because you're a tech company;

ignore workers who warn that your product is a danger to society, dismiss them as "millennials" (defined as "anyone born after 1970 or who has a student loan")

when your platform is (inevitably) implicated in a murder, have a "town hall" overseen by a crisis communications firm;

pay the creator who inspired the murder to go exclusive on your platform;

dismiss the murder and fascist rhetoric as "growing pains";

when truly ghastly stuff happens on your platform, give your Trust and Safety team a 5% budget increase;

chase growth based on "emotionally engaging content" without specifying whether the emotions should be positive;

respond to ex-employees' call-outs with transient feelings of guilt followed by dismissals of "cancel culture":

fund your platforms' most toxic users and call it "free speech";

whenever anyone disagrees with any of your decisions, dismiss them as being "anti-free speech";

start increasing how much your platform takes out of your creators' paychecks;

force out internal dissenters, dismiss external critics as being in conspiracy with your corporate rivals;

once regulation becomes inevitable, form a cartel with the other large firms in your sector and insist that the problem is a "bad algorithm";

"claim full victim status," and quit your job, complaining about the toll that running a big platform took on your mental wellbeing.

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/18/broken-records/#dashes

The web wasn't inevitable – indeed, it was wildly improbable. Tim Berners Lee's decision to make a new platform that was patent-free, open and transparent was a complete opposite approach to the strategy of the media companies of the day. They were building walled gardens and silos – the dialup equivalent to apps – organized as "branded communities." The way I experienced it, the web succeeded because it was so antithetical to the dominant vision for the future of the internet that the big companies couldn't even be bothered to try to kill it until it was too late.

Companies have been trying to correct that mistake ever since. After three or four attempts to replace the web with various garbage systems all called "MSN," Microsoft moved on to trying to lock the internet inside a proprietary browser. Years later, Facebook had far more success in an attempt to kill HTML with React. And of course, apps have gobbled up so much of the old, good internet.

Which brings us to Cope's views on museums and the metaverse. There's nothing intrinsically proprietary about virtual worlds and all their permutations. VRML is a quarter of a century old – just five years younger than Snow Crash:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VRML

But the current enthusiasm for virtual worlds isn't merely a function of the interesting, cool and fun experiences you can have in them. Rather, it's a bid to kill off whatever is left of the old, good web and put everything inside a walled garden. Facebook's metaverse "is more of the same but with a technical footprint so expensive and so demanding that it all but ensures it will only be within the means of a very few companies to operate."

Facebook's VR headsets have forward-facing cameras, turning every users into a walking surveillance camera. Facebook put those cameras there for "pass through" – so they can paint the screens inside the headset with the scene around you – but "who here believes that Facebook doesn't have other motives for enabling an always-on camera capturing the world around you?"

Apple's VisionPro VR headset is "a near-perfect surveillance device," and "the only thing to save this device is the trust that Apple has marketed its brand on over the last few years." Cope notes that "a brand promise is about as fleeting a guarantee as you can get." I'll go further: Apple is already a surveillance company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The technopolitics of the metaverse are the opposite of the technopolitics of the museum – even moreso than apps. Museums that shift their scarce technology budgets to virtual worlds stand a good chance of making something no one wants to use, and that's the best case scenario. The worst case is that museums make a successful project inside a walled garden, one where recall is subject to corporate whim, and help lure their patrons away from the recall-friendly internet to the captured, intermediated metaverse.

It's true that the early web benefited from a lot of hype, just as the metaverse is enjoying today. But the similarity ends there: the metaverse is designed for enclosure, the web for openness. Recall is a historical force for "the right to assembly… access to basic literacy… a public library." The web was "an unexpected gift with the ability to change the order of things; a gift that merits being protected, preserved and promoted both internally and externally." Museums were right to jump on the web bandwagon, because of its technopolitics. The metaverse, with its very different technopolitics, is hostile to the very idea of museums.

In joining forces with metaverse companies, museums strike a Faustian bargain, "because we believe that these places are where our audiences have gone."

The GLAM sector is devoted to access, to recall, and to revisiting. Unlike the self-style free speech warriors whom Dash calls out for self-serving neglect of their communities, the GLAM sector is about preservation and access, the true heart of free expression. When a handful of giant companies organize all our discourse, the ability to be heard is contingent on pleasing the ever-shifting tastes of the algorithm. This is the problem with the idea that "freedom of speech isn't freedom of reach" – if a platform won't let people who want to hear from you see what you have to say, they are indeed compromising freedom of speech:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Likewise, "censorship" is not limited to "things that governments do." As Ada Palmer so wonderfully describes it in her brilliant "Why We Censor: from the Inquisition to the Internet" speech, censorship is like arsenic, with trace elements of it all around us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMJb3AxA0s

A community's decision to ban certain offensive conduct or words on pain of expulsion or sanction is censorship – but not to the same degree that, say, a government ban on expressing certain points of view is. However, there are many kinds of private censorship that rise to the same level as state censorship in their impact on public discourse (think of Moms For Liberty and their book-bannings).

It's not a coincidence that Palmer – a historian – would have views on censorship and free speech that intersect with Cope, a museum worker. One of the most brilliant moments in Palmer's speech is where she describes how censorship under the Inquistion was not state censorship – the Inquisition was a multinational, nongovernmental body that was often in conflict with state power.

Not all intermediaries are bad for speech or access. The "disintermediation" that excited early web boosters was about escaping from otherwise inescapable middlemen – the people who figured out how to control and charge for the things we did with one another.

When I was a kid, I loved the writing of Crad Kilodney, a short story writer who sold his own self-published books on Toronto street-corners while wearing a sign that said "VERY FAMOUS CANADIAN AUTHOR, BUY MY BOOKS" (he also had a sign that read, simply, "MARGARET ATWOOD"). Kilodney was a force of nature, who wrote, edited, typeset, printed, bound, and sold his own books:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-late-street-poet-and-publishing-scourge-crad-kilodney-left-behind-a/

But there are plenty of writers out there that I want to hear from who lack the skill or the will to do all of that. Editors, publishers, distributors, booksellers – all the intermediaries who sit between a writer and their readers – are not bad. They're good, actually. The problem isn't intermediation – it's capture.

For generations, hucksters have conned would-be writers by telling them that publishing won't buy their books because "the gatekeepers" lack the discernment to publish "quality" work. Friends of mine in publishing laughed at the idea that they would deliberately sideline a book they could figure out how to sell – that's just not how it worked.

But today, monopolized film studios are literally annihilating beloved, high-priced, commercially viable works because they are worth slightly more as tax writeoffs than they are as movies:

https://deadline.com/2023/11/coyote-vs-acme-shelved-warner-bros-discovery-writeoff-david-zaslav-1235598676/

There's four giant studios and five giant publishers. Maybe "five" is the magic number and publishing isn't concentrated enough to drop whole novels down the memory hole for a tax deduction, but even so, publishing is trying like hell to shrink to four:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/07/random-penguins/#if-you-wanted-to-get-there-i-wouldnt-start-from-here

Even as the entertainment sector is working to both literally and figuratively destroy our libraries, the cultural heritage sector is grappling with preserving these libraries, with shrinking budgets and increased legal threats:

https://blog.archive.org/2023/03/25/the-fight-continues/

I keep meeting artists of all description who have been conditioned to be suspicious of anything with the word "open" in its name. One colleague has repeatedly told me that fighting for the "open internet" is a self-defeating rhetorical move that will scare off artists who hear "open" and think "Big Tech ripoff."

But "openness" is a necessary precondition for preservation and access, which are the necessary preconditions for recall and revisiting. Here on the last, melting fragment of the open internet, as tech- and entertainment-barons are seizing control over our attention and charging rent on our ability to talk and think together, openness is our best hope of a new, good internet. T

he cultural heritage sector wants to save our creative works. The entertainment and tech industry want to delete them and take a tax writeoff.

As a working artist, I know which side I'm on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/13/this-is-for-everyone/#revisiting

Image: Diego Delso (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Museo_Mimara,_Zagreb,_Croacia,_2014-04-20,_DD_01.JPG

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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celinin-archive · 3 years ago

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Celestino Vietti, I’m one with the bike

From the Piemonte Alps to Moto2. Interview to the SKY Racing Team VR46 talent

“The most beautiful memory I have of my childhood is tied to a three wheels bike. My dad had built it for my older brother, using the engine of a grass trimmer. I used to look at my brother going around on it in the backyard, then one day I asked to try it: once I got on it I irremediably fell in love with engines. Once I got down from that first trial I immediately asked my dad to buy me a two wheels motorbike. “To have a bike without training wheels you first have to know how to ride with them”, was his answer. So I started training and at eight years old I found myself riding in my first italian championship...”

Celestino Vietti is lightness, a youthly lightness, a mature lightness, a fast lightness, cheeky to the right degree. Not yet twenty, he’s approaching his first Moto2 season, wearing the SKY Racing Team VR 46 leathers on Marco Bezzecchi’s side.

Leathers that ‘Celin’ paints with the colours of his region, Piemonte. Right in Coassolo Torinese, small settlement wedged between the Valli di Lanzo, two wheels racing had started indelibly marking his life. An atypical place, Alpi Graie, to be the natal place of a world championship level rider. A place that becomes typical as soon as you open wide the doors of the Vietti’s home.

“My uncle and my dad have always been big enthusiasts. My dad even did some uphill races when he was young. I lived all my childhood in a motorsport enviroment. My relatives had and still now have an agricultural machine repair shop that rapidly became a mandatory stop of my summers. There I used to take apart chainsaws and everything else I could find. Now I realise that the time spent in the repair shop gifted me a better feeling with the engine, with mechanics. My dad also gave me a lot of tools to read and understand the bike’s problems: thanks to him my bond with the bike got to a superior level. It’s as if I feel more merged with what I have under me, I listen to every single sound, I know how to decipher and manage it...”

A management that for this young promise of two wheels racing hasn’t been and isn’t limited to the technical side, overflowing in the character, human one. Sat in the shades of the WITHU paddock, what immediately hits you of Celestino are the lucidity in the self-analysis, the ease in communicating, in summarising the different steps he took in such a short, but already so full, life.

“To follow my dream I had to move out of my home during adolescence. The first months were so fast, everything was new, new experiences, new acquaintances. Once you settle you start thinking that once you get home from training nobody is there to wait for you. Relatives, friends, everybody is distant, everything starts getting hard. I had to grow on a personal level and, consequently, as a rider. Situations like this teach you how to manage yourself on the emotional side: sometimes I tend to get angry easily, being this much on your own helps you to reflect, to remain lucid”

Vietti’s growth was mainly through the motorsport Academy for definition, that two wheels paradise build by the tarmac’s ‘Doctor’. A restricted cenacle reserved only to those who are destined to make an art form out of racing. Disciples, students, riders waiting to see their own boundless talent explode.

“Getting into the VR46 Racing Academy was a turning point. It's important to realise your luck, the privilege you have to train every day with the best riders in the World Championship. Every time you get on track it’s an enormous challenge, there’s always somebody faster than you. I try to look at everyone, we’re many, we’re ‘colourful’, everyone has a certain characteristic to learn from: I have by my side two World Champions and then Vale, my idol, I think there’s nothing else to add...”

He slightly moves his hair out of the way, Celestino, when he talks about topics he’s particularly sensible about. He smiles, a sincerely emotional smile, when he gets asked what the bike means for him, for his being. A question that strikes way higher chords than the sports one.

“When you go really fast you become one with her, you find a magic harmony. Whatever she wants to do, you do it too, you become one thing. When she wants to do one thing, and you want to do another one instead, you struggle. True struggle. You can feel the separation between the two bodies. For me the bike has some sort of life of his own: it’s something difficult to explain”

Difficult to explain, evocative to listen to. There’s dept in the words of this barely more than teenager rider of the Sky Team. On him also weight hopes and expectations of many italian fans, charmed by his results in the 2020 Moto3 season and the two first places obtained in the Styrian and France GP.

Celestino is lucid in his analysis of the big jump to Moto2, a natural jump, even though initially complex. The piemonte rider need a settling period, an adjustment phase that now appears completed, processed. To demonstrate it, an always growing confidence in placements and continuity of performances, an exponentially growing mental and sensorial presence.

“The impact with Moto2 was difficult. It’s a very particular category, unlike Moto3 it rewards constancy, precision, the bike doesn’t want to be assaulted, you can’t afford to do ‘crazy’ lap and feel satisfied. You have to curate the rhythm, you need surgical attention. Now my goal is to get as high as I can in the standings, to continue with the positive feelings of the last races and to keep building up unity with the bike. The future? Everybody’s dream is to become world champion, it’s useless beating around the bush, I’ll work hard to be able to make it”

#y: 2021 #interview #vr46 racing team

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jmtofp · 3 months ago

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In response to this post:

I think it's because it has the best story progression and build up.

Everyone appreciates a story with rising action, climax, and resolution. You need the "lows" in order for the "highs" to stand out, and vice versa. A small problem some other chapters had was the use of too much "high", tense moments, which results in feeling like the player was just thrown into the climax of a story.

One thing Xkour also does with its "low"s is set up a growing sense of unease, teasing the player with mystery.

Xkour starts with a friendly tutorial into the game, the player feels welcomed as no imminent threat is found. However, that changes as the tutorial goes slightly haywire and with the newly learnt fact that dying actually has consequences. This unease steadily grows until the third quest where it reaches its peak. So, what does the summoner do? Flee this "peace" and "fun" to find out the dangerous truth behind it all. One exposition later, and we've reached the first climax and subsequent resolution. Beautiful.

But of course, the story isn't done. After the first resolution, we get another moment of "low"s getting "higher" as the guardian trials start, but similarly with that unease that something is wrong back at main and even here. This time, instead of reaching its peak when the exposition drops, the story suddenly goes into a relative "low" with the reveal that the threat, the creator, wasn't here all along. But of course, it almost immediately shifts back into a "high" once another similar truth is revealed. So then we have the big climax of the whole two chapters, and then the story somewhat manages with its resolution.

Another thing would be the story's relatability.

What I mean is that players can easily connect with the characters that appear since everyone is a player here. (Also, who doesn't like the idea of a VR parkour game?) So this connection makes the stakes hit harder.

The ultimate threat of this chapter is the imprisonment and brainwashing of the players. And I assume it's easier to understand the dread of being trapped forever as opposed to other fantastical threats.

The story also uses Cyto as a way to personalise the danger of being potentially stuck in a game forever. Something about feeling more for one person's story rather than a general populace's. Although that may be the case, the story kind of fails to deliver on his anguish and thus people, us, are going to rewrite that sh** because it's too good to give up on.

(Luna's emotional anguish with herself as a program rather than a real being was also a treat.)

Another neat thing about Xkour is that it's the only chapter to have a clear connection to Luni that isn't about the swords of corruption.

There are a plethora of other minor things about this story that compile up to make this my favourite two chapters in Gacha World, some of which may differ from individuals.

tldr:

The Xkour storyline applies story writing 101 (the hill) well enough and is quite relatable, allowing the player to easily get invested into the story.

Cyto is an underrated character with almost as much emotional baggage as DJ X, and that's something this small community likes to see.

(I say that with a straight face as I continue typing out my currently 2600 word count analysis on Vale in canon and her despair with being trapped under C!Kilios' rule.)

Goodness, I love Xkour.

#gacha world #xkour #xkour skylines #gw cyto #{(You mention Xkour I'll come running to get to you.)}#{(That's what that smiley face was for OP.)}#{(I know it was a semi joke but duck it why not post a short analysis on main?)}

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cellarspider · 10 months ago

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3/30: Meet David

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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We return to the movie I want to bite down on with all of my teeth, Prometheus.

This time, we meet a man so bored he has invented new solo sports and started doing his hair like his blorbo, T.E. Lawrence.

Meet David (Michael Fassbender). He’s implied to be a little over two years old, and he’s been completely alone for the vast majority of his life.

Actually, I lied. The movie first wants to throw another small strain on our suspension of disbelief: David has a VR visor he can use to view the dreams of the human crew in suspended animation. This is technically a plot point, and thus it is delivered with all the grace of this deer.

youtube

I cannot emphasize enough how clunky the movie becomes when plot or deliberate character arcs are being communicated through dialog scenes.

We find out from dream-peeping that Elizabeth Shaw’s father (horror actor Patrick Wilson) was a devout christian of some variety, possibly a missionary, and her mom died when she was young. She was given a cross necklace, which we see in blurry montage-o-vision before David wanders off.

We see David’s routine: Pick up tiny specks of dust, send out first contact messages and receive no response, perfect the lonely sport of solo bicycle-riding shootout, eat android breakfast and take a Proto-Indo-European language lesson, watch Lawrence of Arabia (1962) while dying his roots, and quote the most Definitely Not Suffering line to himself over and over again as he does his hair like Peter O’Toole and wanders the halls, waiting for something to happen. “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

David is going to later profess to have no emotions, but I think that given the chance, he would at least admit his enclosure needs enrichment.

This is one of the strongest scenes in the movie. David is a novel creation of humanity, and he has been left alone, with only the memories and dreams of humans to extrapolate off of. He has been abandoned without thought for his needs, stuffed down into Plato's Cave. We don’t know yet whether the people on the ship see him as a person, but we know they’re thoughtless in how they’ve treated him. He’s bright, he’s inventive, he’s chosen a way he wants to be seen, but he’s seen by no one.

I’m sure this is going to turn out great for everybody.

And as a side note, while I didn’t know it at the time, David’s language tutor is the actual historical linguist that they employed for the movie, Anil Biltoo. His and Fassbender’s pronunciations were strong enough that even a hobbyist in linguistics could tell that they were really, really trying to get it right. They even reference Schleicher’s fable, the first piece of text anyone ever created from reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. This level of nerdy detail made me excited.

Side note to the side note, Biltoo also has an introductory textbook on Sanskrit you can buy, if you’re a maniac like I am.

This scene kept part of me hopeful for the rest of the movie, because it’s so strong. The “not minding that it hurts” line is a little on the nose, but overall it has the feel of something that could be expanded into an extremely melancholy short film. Or, hell, a Tarkovsky-esque feature film. Moon (2009) could be another point of comparison. In any case, this scene gives you a little space to feel all the quiet suffering of David’s existence.

But unfortunately for the movie as a whole, this sets David up as the most sympathetic character. I personally had already been drawn in by the promotional “advert” for the David-8 model android (see part 1). Now I was invested in this particular David’s story. The rest of the film didn’t manage to yank back much sympathy for anybody else.

Because the general vibe I soon picked up from the rest of the crew was that they were absolute hooting jackasses.

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Sources alt-text facts:

1. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-ron-perlman-nearly-ruined-the-alien-resurrection-basketball-shot/

2. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0766970/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t50

#Prometheus 2012 #Lawrence of Arabia is 131 years old in this movie #For a point of comparison:#that's like someone today basing their style off of Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson #Not the worse choice but certainly not the first one someone would reach for

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paigelts05 · 24 days ago

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Jeremy B [FNAF, Renegade AU]

Published: Dec 1, 2024

https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/1128508541

Fazbear Entertainment had had a terrible impact on Jeremy B's life before he was even a twinkle in his parents eyes. It's no wonder that when presented with the opportunity to find out why from the source, he took it.

Jeremy B has an older brother named Roy, but Jeremy never got to see his brother alive, as in 1987, Roy was killed as a part of Location C's MCI. Jeremy was born nine years later, and was unaware that he'd ever had a brother until he was a teenager, when a journalist managed to contact him and inform him of said brother's existence, leaving a business card for if Jeremy wanted to find out more.

Jeremy B asked his parents about his brother, and they told him very little, but enough to verify that he did in fact have a dead 'older' brother, and that said brother did in fact die in Freddy's Location C back in 1987.

When Jeremy was in college, he and some of his friends formed a small games company called "Silver Parasol". The company consisted of himself, Cassey, Sylvia Blake, and Vanessa Diego. The four worked on several arcade style mobile games together before they were contacted by Faz Ent.

Work on their VR game; get a hefty paycheque.

Jeremy remembered the journalist and was all in on the VR game deal: he'd been considering contacting the journalist for a few years, but he'd been putting it off.

Maybe he'd see what he could find on his own first.

Jeremy volunteered as the first playtester.

As he tested the game, he looked into every little thing that he could, and he wound up happening across something strange. After scanning in a chip that correponded to a 'Spring Bonnie', something that appeared to be a yellow rabbit, green with wireframe, boasting piercing purple eyes, started to appear and seemed to be trying to communicate with him. It started to rearrange the code, but it was far from clean: it wasn't clear if this was an AI or a ghost, as both had been known to be able to bend code to their will from the inside.

Jeremy was initially wary around the rabbit, but it seemed to know things. Things about Freddy's, things about his past. It seemed to struggle to find a voice of its own - both AIs and ghosts tended to share this issue, so there was still no way of knowing who or what it was, but Jeremy B tentatively listened, trying to figure out this creatures story, and just how much of what it was telling him was the truth.

One thing was clear, however: this entity was a threat. One Jeremy wasn't sure how to deal with. It seemed as if during their conversations, this entity had been getting into Jeremy's head, not just metaphorically, but literally. It seemed to be trying to posess him.

The team had to get this thing out of the game somehow: who knows what it could do if the game was allowed to release. If it was an AI that could posess people, it could replicate. If it was a ghost, then the game could create a network that would let it posess anyone at any time. This was a bug that had to be patched out before it made it to production at all costs.

Cassey logged what was found in some audio files whilst she, Ness, and Sylvia tried their best to eliminate this entity, meanwhile Jeremy's job was to hunt it down wherever it hid and report back its newest hiding spot.

The game of cat and mouse could only last so long, as there were only so many levels for it to hide in, and Jeremy eventually cornered it at a new stage that popped up. A stage called 'Pizza Party'. He hunter down the rabbit through the maze of halls, and eventually, they hit what Jeremy thought was a dead end: a chance to catch it.

It was hiding behind a curtain, but gesturing for Jeremy to follow it.

Jeremy thought he'd caught the glitchy rabbit, but as soon as he got too close to the curtains, the headset went dark, and Jeremy found himself unable to move. Not just in game, but his actual body eas frozen. In the game, he was on a stage, overlooking a dining hall, and he saw the rabbit dancing, and he heard a man's voice singing.

Jeremy B begun to have vivid visions of events he never saw:

In a desolate CEOs office a man fought against the ghost of a man who called himself William. William smashed the man's dead into a broken broken guillotine paper cutter on the desk, but the man whose memories he was witnessing survived. The man then went on to win the fight.

In a crumbling warehouse, he saw a woman rally an army of animatronics against an animatronic rabbit that held the bones of a long dead killer, and seemed to be posessed by that killer too. The woman called the rabbit 'Afton'. One of the woman's friends called the rabbit 'William'.

The visions flicker by faster and faster, as as the in-game handunit echoed out that there was nothing more to find, the visions abruptly stopped, and Jeremy collapsed, seemingly having been let go of whatever was holding him still. But he knew a lot more now. This entity was the ghost of William Afton.

Jeremy spent a lot more time in the testing room after this, constantly trying to hunt down William again, but always being frozen by visions. He doesn't remember much of this time, but he remembers one thing: when William tried to take full control over his body, he remebered the man who fought William in the dilapidated CEOs office. He used the office's own guillotine paper cutter to slice the VR headset off of his own face.

He came to in the hospital some days later. In that time, Sylvia had been posessed, Cassey fragmented William and drove him back into the game, Cassey hired a PI who shared Jeremy's forename and the PI helped her eradicate William from the game, and Cassey had lost and eye in the process.

Jeremy B had woken up just in time for Ness to go through the game to make sure that William was no longer in the game.

Nobody had suspected that he would have hid himself in the hardware.

William was able to posess Ness easily, and nothing the team tried could get him out of her mind.

All they could do now was contain William in order to prevent Faz Ent from getting their hands on their CEO's ghost. The game was no longer an attack vector, so Jeremy helped Cassey and Sylvia polish the game up to try and share their story and cover up the fact that William had latched onto someone already.

It was a pyrrhic victory though: Jeremy had lost his face, Sylvia had lost her mind, Cassey had lost and eye, and Ness now had William stuck in her brain.

But they all had a means of coping: Jeremy started to wear a visor to cover the scar, Cassey had a glass eye, and Sylvia found a specialised therapist. Ness, however, left the team: she was worried that William would hurt them if given the chance. Jeremy and the others understood completely.

After all of that chaos, Silver Parasol disbanded, but it was on paper only. The troupe became a ska band under the same name in order to keep their team's identity whilst Faz Ent effectively tried to fight air. In the meantime, Jeremy and Cassey also joined Sylvia as paranormal responders so they could help Ness from the sidelines.

But that wasn't the only help they offered. The game developing ska band created a mobile game called Princes Quest in order to subtly share Ness's story and hopefully create a new way to get William out of Ness's head. Three games were made in total, and Cassey made a mobile port of each of them, because arcade cabinets have a history of being a favoured method for ghosts and technology to effect one another: from the 'Maiden's tale' game that was a ghost-run puppet show performed in order to help a security guard withstand Gerald Taylor's influence, to the arcades that Theren played that helped many MCI kids find their happiest day. It was clear that if Princess Quest was to help Ness, an arcade port was their best shot.

During this time, Jeremy also decided to contact the journalist and arranged to meet him. Jeremy recognised the journalist from his visions, and the two discussed what they knew about Freddy's. The journalist then offered to let Jeremy B see his 'older' brother; this was a huge act of trust, as Jeremy B already knew how dangerous Freddy's was, now having some first hand experience in the matter, and that his brother would probably kill him, but Jeremy B just wanted to see his brother at least once in his life.

The visit went better than expected. Roy seemed happy to see his 'little' brother, and Jeremy felt as if he'd finally found what had been missing. Roy did, however, bestow a small parting gift, unknown to either Jeremy or the Journalist: the ability to sense death.

A few years later, Silver Parasol caught wind that William was planning on spiriting Ness away to the megaplex, which at the time was still under construction. Cassey had a plan, and simply told Jeremy to wait and see.

The opening day of the megaplex arrived, help wanted ads flooded the papers, and Cassey came to Jeremy with some computer chips and some official looking documents: she had secured Jeremy a position as part of the megaplex's day security team - the legitimacy of which Jeremy left unquestioned - and needed him to install the Princess Quest ROM chips into any three arcade machines in order to set up the trilogy of games as a series of arcades; if William's plans hinged on the megaplex, then setting up the arcades in that place should help free Ness from William, whether Ness was at the megaplex or not.

Whrn Ness went missing later that year, Jeremy noticed that both Princess Quest 1 and Princess Quest 3 had been moved.

He searched for them, but with no leads and his clearance being so low that he was forced to take vents to so much as get to his post, he couldn't find them.

To make matters more interesting, Sylvia had taken up the position of head of security recently too. He figured that the arcades were moved just so she wouldn't find them.

Things seemed dire. But also interesting.

The first time he was actually able to talk to Sylvia was on the day of what would become known as The Riot. Jeremy was at the first meeting during the day, and had worked with Gaz to ensure that enough chaos had spread amongst staff to keep them alive. During this first incident of the day, he found Sylvia and Luis in the changing rooms, with Sylvia having just had a panic attack over the fact that she was the only guard who had not been sacked. Whilst Jeremy had saved everyone at the meeting at the staff cafeteria, he also knew that at 11 AM, prior to the meeting that Jeremy thwarted, the construction crew had been killed. He didn't tell Sylvia, lest the fact that people had already died today freak her out, as Sylvia was already in a mentally fragile state. Instead, he helped her pull herself together, and they unscrewed a bunch of doors, clearing out most of the maintenance tunnels before they went to the 11:30 PM All Staff Meeting that was also held at the staff cafeteria, which Jeremy and Sylvia already knew would be used to not just sack the rest of the staff, but would be used by management to attempt to kill any living being in the building.

Arriving slightly late was a good call, as it gave Sylvia the jump on an exec who had held the head technician at gunpoint, and from there, Jeremy incited the rest of the staff to rally and fight against the staffbots and endos, as with most staff having access to at least one or more of a FazCam, Fazerblaster, or a flash beacon, rendering the animatronics immobile in order to pick them off was a cinch. Jeremy stayed at the staff cafeteria to protect the rest of the staff, whilst Sylvia went off to the daycare, as there were some staff who had been unable to leave their posts who would now be trapped there.

When the morning arrived, Jeremy already knew that nobody had died during the buildings nightly lockdown before everyone was counted.

A few days later, Jeremy learned that during an incident known as the Breach, Sylvia and a kid had used the Princess Quest arcades in order to free Ness. Jeremy was quite proud of both Sylvia and the kid for getting the arcades to work, and of himself for setting the arcades up, and of Cassey for being the brains behind the Princess Quest operation that orchestrated getting the games into the arcade machines of the megaplex in the first place.

Jeremy B did take part in the Raid on the Megaplex, and he helped Cassey go through the information that she gathered after. Then when the Ruins incident occured and revealed that Faz Ent had plans to not just kidnap Ness, but had plans to grab Sylvia and a small girl named Cassie as well in order to create a whole unit of Vannys, Jeremy realised that Silver Parasol would need to get back together as game developers in order to throw a spanner into the works of Faz Ent's new plans.

Jeremy helped with the development of PQ4: as William was still able to posess Ness normally and had been doing so, with Ness and her dad's ghost keeping William contained for now, PQ4 would allow Ness to seal William away in her mind, preventing him from jumping from her to anything or anyone else for as long as she lived. It was a plan that would require constant maintenance, but it would be a massive advantage in regards to keeping Faz Ent's plans at bay.

On the day where the containment was due to take place, Jeremy wasn't made aware of all of the details: he knew that Cassey and Ness would tell him after the fact. His objective was to protect the two until the process had been completed. He knew that the lack of upfront knowledge was on purpose; if someone did come to attack, Faz Ent wouldn't be able to get any information out of Jeremy. Though fortunately, no such incidents occurred, and the whole process went off without a hitch.

William was contained. Cassie and her dad were now under the protection of Silver Parasol: Cassie and her father both under Sylvia's physical protection and Cassie now a part of those who were linked to Princess Quest.

Whatever plans Faz Ent had, Silver Parasol would be right there to throw a spanner in the works.

#2024 #art #artwork #fnaf #fnaf au #renegade au #fnaf renegade au #fnaf fanart #fnaf help wanted #fnaf hw #fnaf vr help wanted #fnaf vr #fnaf vr jeremy

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dcawritings · 1 year ago

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I’m going to make a masterlist for all the AUs I might write for, but in case anyone wants a taste of the kind of enabling chaos that goes on in the Superstar Daycare discord server, here’s the list of AUs I’m positively feral about:

Freddy Fazvibes (Sex Shop AU)

Digimon AU

Borderlands AU

Livestreamer / Vtuber AU

Stardew Valley AU

Color of Your Eyes AU

(Longer description of each below the readmore!)

Freddy Fazvibes (Sex Shop AU)

William accepts and admits that he has some unresolved issues between himself and Henry, and decides to open a sex shop after learning he's a furry and it makes him quite happy. The shop -- technically still under the Fazbear brand (Henry is happy for his friend but thoroughly confused) -- features character mascots and lines of toys based on the parent company alongside an up-and-coming VR system to allow people to experience the company (sexual or otherwise) of their favorite characters!

The reader is just one of many customers after discovering the niche but passionate community the store and its characters have. It's bad enough that it's a sex shop with sex toys; how are they going to handle having their favorite character offer to demonstrate using one of them?

No deaths occur in this AU, it's just some good wholesome fun (as wholesome as a sex shop can get) where we don't need to worry about why the animatronics have genitals.

Digimon AU

The reader was supposed to be a member of their generation’s digidestined, but the others were killed by a mysterious power in the digital world many years before the present day. The reader discovers this information as an adult after being pulled into the digital world by a mysterious masked puppet creature who seems to know all too much about them. Trapped, they learn that their two digimon partners (Sun and Moon) had been waiting for them all that time; waiting for their human partner that never showed up when the digital world needed them most.

The reader finds themselves battling through not only their own tentative connection with the digital world as an adult, but also with their own partner as Moon has all but rejected them due to trust and corruption issues. Can the reader heal Sun and Moon's pain, regain their trust, and manage to save the corrupted souls of the other digidestined before the digital world falls apart at the seams?

And who could this mysterious evil force even be?

Borderlands AU

Sun is a prototype of a new line of caretaker bots designed by Hyperion to serve multiple domestic roles for people rich enough to afford them. The spaceship housing him during his live beta-testing experiences an unknown error and crashes on Pandora, where the reader (an ex-Hyperion employee) rescues him from the wreckage.

Things grow even more confusing when Sun realizes that he has a second personality onboard his processors, one that the reader had inadvertently helped to create when they worked for Hyperion: Moon, a military security protocol, and the true reason that the ship had gone down over Pandora. How will Sun deal with learning that his abandonment was part of the testing -- and what will he, Moon, and the reader do when they learn about the ECLIPSE protocol?

Livestreamer / Vtuber AU

After saving them from the Pizzaplex ruins, the reader helps Sun, Moon and the newly-formed Eclipse settle into day-to-day domestic life with them. Though the reader assures that they don't need to, the three search for ways to help pay bills -- keeping them charged has tripled the electric bill alone. So, unbeknownst to the reader at first, the trio take up being a vtuber, quickly becoming quite popular for their unique avatars (which is literally just them rendered into a live2d model) and wide variety of streamed content.

They all play all sorts of videogames, but Eclipse has become very popular for drawing furry art while Moon's realized that people really like his voice in ASMR content. Before they know it, they're able to help pay the reader's bills and beyond, leaving their amused and surprised caretaker to support both their newfound hobby and try desperately to ignore how the twitch chat is always asking if they're dating.

Stardew Valley AU

After the reader's grandfather passes away, they learn that he had left them an entire farm to care for as they liked. An entire plot of land beside a whole new town of people to meet, including the enigmatic trio of automatons powered by forest magic, and are apparently as old if not older than the town itself.

Sun is sweet as can be and helps tutor Jaz and Vincent alongside Penny, while Eclipse is a very soft-spoken personality who you're certain has been heavily damaged at some point (but he's often too busy tending to the community gardens to care). There is a third automaton, but he's only active after sunset -- some townfolk call him a demon and a menace, while others seem to find his pranks quite endearing. Moon is... an enigmatic figure, and it will take some time to get to know him properly.

Color of Your Eyes AU

The reader is just another employee of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, far from friends and family that they barely remember after moving away several years ago. They work a normal job in the daycare with a normal apartment and go to a normal doctor about normal symptoms of a chronic illness they've been dealing with since they were little -- or so they're told.

Is it all actually normal? Are they human, or are they... something else? Surely not, else it would mean their entire life is nothing more than a lie, a fabrication.

This is an AU about the reader learning they are actually a humanoid animatronic and that everything in their life -- their background, their parents, their memories -- are just that. A lie. They have been the property and research subject of Fazco's R&D division the entire time.

But at least they have Sun and Moon to help them understand not how to be human, but how to be a person again.

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realistically-shifting · 11 months ago

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My Luxury Apartment- General Script

I script this apartment complex in most of my DRs and my Waiting Room. Features like the room style change based on what reality the script is for, but the rest generally stays the same. This is the complex I shifted to the first time, all the things I would’ve enjoyed if I stayed longer.

Exterior: At the back of the complex, there’s a playground with equipment for adults too. The playground equipment can handle adult bodies using it.

Basement level: At the basement level, there are storage lockers for the tenants of the apartment, a parking garage, a shop, and a convenience store. The convenience store carries a brand of microwave dinners that has a wide variety of options, and it includes many cultural dishes from various cultures. For example, one of the frozen dinner sets includes collard greens cooked with smoked ham hocks and black eyes peas, fried catfish, baked mac and cheese, and a little cup of banana pudding or candied yams. The store sells other easy to make food items, such as roux cubes for curry and egusi stew. There is also a laundromat down there, for residents that don’t have personal machines.

First floor: The first floor has the lobby of the apartment building, an indoor pool and hot tub for the residents and their guests, and a hot pot restaurant. Residents get a discount at the restaurant, but it’s open to the public. It also has a gym that holds exercise, dance, and yoga classes.

Second floor: There’s a small doctor’s clinic on this floor, staffed by several nurses, two pediatricians, a mental health counselor, and a few physicians. Here, residents (and our guests) can receive regular checkups, emergency aid, help with medical treatments such as dialysis, etc. Attached to the clinic is a small pharmacy where you can get cold medicines, common emergency medicines like epipens and inhalers, etc. There’s also a daycare on the other side of the building, and between them is the complex spa. The spa has masseurs trained in neuromuscular massage therapy.

Third floor: A work space with computers for public use, recreational room that doubles as a movie theater with a larger screen, and an additional rec room with video game consoles, VR gaming space, and a small cafe. The first rec room is popular with older residents, while the second is more popular with the teenage residents.

Penthouse: My penthouse apartment also has a balcony with seating, two guest bedrooms each with its own 3/4 bathroom, and a walk-in storage closet.

Rooftop: On top of the apartment complex is a community garden and an observatory. There are gardeners that maintain most of the plots, but private plots must be privately managed.

Safety features: Along with normal safety features, all the windows and doors on the first and second floor, plus parking garage, have metal shutters that can be lowered during emergencies. The entire building also has an advanced fire suppression system, air purifiers, and an extensive bunker below the parking garage. Each apartment, or at least the penthouses, have security doors (thick wooden doors with metal plates in the middle and higher quality locks). All the safety features have their own failsafes.

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mecchantheotaku · 1 year ago

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Time for a more silly Voices headcanons post. This one is all about... gaming. Yes, really.

Hero likes mainly adventure games, action/adventure games and RPGs. In particular I feel he'd be a big Zelda fan. In games with a morality system, he never takes the "evil" paths, only the "good" ones.

Broken surprisingly likes games designed to be unfairly difficult. It feels comforting knowing he's not alone in his pain there and many others struggle in the same ways as he does.

Cheated plays all sorts of games, but is frustrated that he can never be more than second best at any game. This even applies to board games, where he somehow always manages to come in second. The other Voices wonder if he's cursed somehow.

Cold dislikes games with story focus and mostly likes playing competitive games or arcade-style games. Even then, he doesn't play them all too seriously, he just hops on when he has nothing better to do. He's usually the teammate that doesn't talk during a match.

Contrarian loves going into games with a competitive community and trolling their games by spamming moves and goofing off. Aside from that, he's fond of games with a focus on freedom in any way, like open-world games and the Sonic series.

Hunted doesn't play a lot of games, but started picking up rhythm games after he blew everyone's minds playing DDR at an arcade. He's a natural at rhythm games and he finds them oddly calming. Good luck trying to get him to play anything else though.

Opportunist loves to hop on trends with gaming, but is so bafflingly terrible at games that he quickly ends up becoming the laughing stock when he posts gameplay footage online. But hey, it's... some sort of popularity?

Paranoid, as I mentioned before, has a surprising fondness for horror games (except VR). He feels a sense of comfort from the barriers of the screen as he plays them, and finds it oddly therapeutic.

Skeptic likes story-focused games, puzzle games and mystery-based visual novels like Ace Attorney. He also likes to play games with strategy elements, but others have to make sure to keep an eye on him while he's gaming because when he gets into a game, BOY does he get into it.

Smitten naturally likes games with a focus on romance or games with romance as a big mechanic. He's a natural at dating sims and likes to carefully craft the perfect marriages in Fire Emblem based on the units' chemistry with each other.

Stubborn unsurprisingly loves ultra-violent games, fighting games and shooters. Even more unsurprisingly his favourite game is Mortal Kombat. He also likes to listen to game soundtracks when he works out.

#slay the princess

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thatsatricky1 · 9 months ago

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𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 || 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Eight of the top ten most popular players in Korea are invited to be the first people to test out the newest device and gameplay by NEO a video game company known as of recent to be the best of the best. An opportunity of a life time handed to them to be able to trial and get a contract to promote it later on. The eight couldn’t resist as they gladly accepted the invitation. Not being able to predict what was to come. A trail test that wouldn’t just be focused on graphics and playablity, no this would test relationships, strength, resolve and many more unpredictable things.

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Nct Dream ot7 x Reader

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Angst, Fantasy, Fluff, Gaming, Humour, Romance, Smut (in future chapters), Thriller.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1,7k+

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: None in prologue.

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫: This does not depict an accurate picture of Nct Dream and this is strictly fantasy/fiction for entertainment purposes.

“Good morning, welcome to KBS! Today’s first story will interest our younger audience and may just worry all our parents out there.” A well put together broadcast reporter spoke all the while giving the audience watching her through the screen a bright pearly white smile.

“The youth these days seems to be focusing widely on entertainment in the video game area. Well, everyday there seems to be new things coming out but what we have today is something quite extraordinary.” She recited off the teleprompter hidden from sight pointing behind her at the big green screen that showed images and videos to the audience.

“The biggest competitors in gaming in Korea with well known usernames most teens know have all recently been invited to a new project.”

As she spoke on screen were several very well known professional gamers, some showed streaming while others were seen celebrating recently won titles at gaming competitions.

“The project in question is Project Impact. We have all heard of VR, virtual reality but the people at NEO have taken a large step for the gaming community. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of information on the current project but we will explain what we have.”

“They have worked on a way to make virtual reality more real and as the CEO has promised an experience unlike any other, they have created a way for the player to be able to be in the game with their conscience attached all the while the player is in a sleep-like state.”

As the woman spoke images appeared of people wearing a certain tech wear headgear, seemingly ‘in game’ while their bodies were either laying down or in a sit up position on comfortable chairs.

“The game attached to this new device has also been developed by Neo and is seen to be an in world game with all sorts of challenges and filled with interesting plots. They have confirmed the game is finished.”

“Neo has requested from top players in Korea to test out the tech wear headsets and gameplay, getting many replies and contracts from said players and is due to start testing tonight around 8pm. Though for those interested to see how it plays out, unfortunately it will be under wraps to test out any bugs and glitches at first, but if deemed playable will be streamed and shortly available to the public in only a few months.”

“We have yet to see the whole list of top players that will be testing Neo’s new device and game but those we do have we can list off for you video game enthusiasts, you may just see some of your favourites.”

The reporter, now gesturing at the backdrop once again.

“Mark Lee, also known as Lee Minhyung with the tag name Mork is a Canadian, Korean competitive player known for playing Elden ring, Fortnite and Wow, keeping his place in the top 10 popular Korean players for the sixth year in a row now.”

A video of Mark during his usual streaming was shown with fellow friend Donghyuck, another popular gamer seen in the background screaming his head off at Mark managing to pull his team through for a win.

“Huang Renjun, with the tag name Injeolmi, formally from Jilin ROC now residing in Seoul, SK known very well as a player in Overwatch, King of legend and Fortnite. Placed on the top ten most popular Korean players ranking for the fourth year straight.”

A video of Renjun accepting his award at the most recent gaming event for Overwatch was played also showing a good friend of his, Jeno clapping him on the back for winning.

“Lee Jeno, with the tag name SamoyedJ. Based in Seoul, Sk, another top ten popular Korean player well known for playing Overwatch, King of legend and Valorant.”

A video of Jeno was played from his social media account of his new set up showing off the new branded items he’d received that would help him along. A discord chat with fellow players and friends popped up while he did so.

“Lee Donghyuck, more known by his streaming name Haechan with a gaming tag by the name of Fullsun, holding his top ten most popular Korean gaming title for the fifth year. Known for Valorant, WOW and various odd games.”

A video of Donhyuck appeared of him lounging in his gaming chair animatedly talking with his chat about whatever he had set up for the stream ahead.

“Na Jaemin, with his tag name Nana, another top ten most popular Korean player in his fourth year on the list is well known for Indie games, League of legends and Fortnite.”

Jaemin appeared on screen screaming in terror at another horror indie game playthrough he was doing, camera shaking with him in the dimly lit room.

“Zhong Chenle, also known as Jong Jinrak who goes by the tag name Dolphinlele, formally resided in Shanghai ROC, now currently in Seoul, SK. Having a two year streak being in the top ten most popular Korean players. Known for playing Valorant, Fortnite and Elden ring.”

Chenle was shown on screen one hand moving his mouse clicking around screen with the other arm full with his dog, Daegal sleeping there contently during the stream.

“Park Jisung, with the tag name Jwijwi is based in Seoul, SK a newly added gamer on the top ten most popular Korean players since last year. Mainly known for League of legends, mobile games and Valorant.”

A stream was shown of Jisung sharing food with a friend Y/n on screen as the two spoke to chat while getting ready and picking what two player game to do together.

“The last on the known trail list is L/n F/n, known with the tag T/n, formally based in C/n now residing currently in Seoul, SK, a fresh face this year on the top ten most popular Korean players. Known for Indie games, Cod and Overwatch.”

Y/n was shown on screen playing a game only to be interrupted with a fellow friend and gamer, Donghyuck bursting through the door on screen chasing her cat who went straight towards her desk underneath and between her legs. Y/n scrambling to pause the indie game while Donghyuck whined about her cat not liking him.

Once finished listing off the currently known players entering the trails the reporter pushed aside the small stack of papers on her desk giving the viewers another smile getting ready to say her next rehearsed lines.

“Now I’m sure it’s not needed for me to repeat the list for everyone to have gotten the clue that eight of the top ten most popular Korean players have decided to go through this test trials. Exciting times for their fans I’m sure. These are the current players we know of, the other two most popular gamers could very well have accepted an invitation too but for now we’ll just have to keep our eyes and ears open for any news on that.”

The last photos on screen behind the news anchor was a promotion of the eight players shown wearing similar outfits that were little Easter eggs on previous video games made and produced by NEO to show their official sponsorship with the company.

“We will have more to come on this story later on so stay tuned for that, now onto the weather with my co host who has some exciting news for those who enjoy the warm weather that will surely be quite a good experience for anyone looking to go hiking.”

“Not really sure why we’re wearing outfits for a different old game that has nothing to do with the current game.” Renjun pointed out as he zipped the hood around his face upwards to cover the bottom half of his face.

“Look, we’re matching Junnie, plus who cares this is fun.” Donghyuck nudged his shoulder playfully against Renjun’s, having not zipped his face hood up yet.

“Unfortunately we are.” Renjun grumbled in return harshly zipping up Donghyuck’s zip for him, causing the younger to let out a few muffled complaints.

“Why does Y/n get the grey one?” Chenle whined out his own voice muffled by his knitted mask, hands grabbing and tugging on Y/n’s mask's ears. Her hands flew up to hold onto the mask so it didn’t slip off and ruin anything.

“Let go, it’s not my fault they gave me this character.” Her reply also muffled as she grunted pushing her back into Chenle to make him let go.

“Don’t break it.” Jisung fretted over the duo’s squabble, his hands hanging in the air ready to jump in if needed.

“You look hilarious. Your white hair looks like it’s a part of the mask.” Jaemin teased Jeno pointing at him, holding back a laugh.

“It doesn’t. I’ll smother you right here.” Jeno bit back grabbing onto Jaemin’s mask, tugging it to cover his whole face instead of only half. Jaemin’s muffled screams still loud and clear as his hands flew out blindly slapping at Jeno.

“This is what eight of the top ten most popular Korean players look like, if only people could see us like this our places would be lower.” Mark muttered to himself, his own mask still in hand as he observed his friends' antics.

“Mark! Chenle’s going to rip one of Y/n ear’s off, uh not her real ones the fake ones!” Jisung’s nervous voice cut off Mark’s self monologue as he rushed over to break up the play fight.

“We’ll be taking group photos first before going into individual headshots in two minutes, please be prepared.” The director's voice boomed over to the area the gamers were currently getting their last minute touch ups.

“Two minutes?” A makeup artist asked out in dismay as she and the hairstylist looked over at the eight players who were rough housing.

“Two will be enough to fix up their hair.” The hairstylist spoke reassuring himself since he’d only have to fix the fringes peeking out of their masks.

“How nice for you.” The makeup artist replied to him in dismay, eyeing where Jaemin’s face was currently being messed around underneath his mask.

“You’re right, I’ll ask the director to give us an extra five… ten minutes.” The hairstylist sympathised with his work colleague as he moved away. While the makeup artist rushed over to the eight gamers to do damage control on her previous work hoping she wouldn’t see too many smudges.

𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

(If you want to be tagged in my Nct Dream writing comment, inbox or message me)

Thank you for reading I hope you enjoyed. Don’t forget likes, reblogs and comments are always encouraged and help keep writers like myself motivated to continue our stories.

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

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𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭:

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solarlunedev · 1 year ago

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So, I'm making a PS1-style first-person adventure game. You walk around and talk to people. If they ask a yes or no question, you have to manually shake your head to answer.

Right-clicking brings your hand up and allows you to interact with objects in the game world.

My idea for it is that it takes place in the far future, in a somewhat dystopian, neglectfully-managed world that still has some humanity left. Like, you might have high technology like full-body VR or semi-sentient robots and stuff, but people still hope for a better tomorrow and make efforts to live happy lives. They would still have fun, go to the movies, talk about current events, go to school, and interact with their community.

In the game, you play a guy going to pick his daughter up from school, and that's it. That's the point of the game - it's not about standing up to the capitalist machine, or becoming an assassin for hire, or something like that, but rather just about living your life, pretty much like everybody else. Through this trip, you get to examine the lives of people who live in this city, and who they are.

#ps1 aesthetic #gamedev #tetra3d #indiegamedev #playstation #first-person #fps #low-poly #low poly #ps1 #ps1 graphics #cyberpunk #game development

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wolffyluna · 21 days ago

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✅🧮💕🔚🤔🦉🔥 for fic asks >:3

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

Have I ever written a sentence in my life. Hmm.

Looking through my ao3 comments, I was reminded of this:

“’Wall of Flowers?’ Is that what you wish to be for him?”

For context, this is White No Face commenting on Hua Cheng's name (and the fact he has one at all now). I am always a sucker for meaningful names, and that moment when I realised that was a valid alternate reading for his name, and the implications of Hua Cheng choosing that-- yeah, I had to put it in a fic, and I am inordinately proud of it.

I'm also particularly proud of

“Kai, you are my beloved friend and not my sword, and I would appreciate you not treating yourself like one.”

Most of the time, characters should subtext. But sometimes they can a little a snarky not-subtext, as a treat.

🧮 what are you working on? describe it in 20 words or less

snarky embroidery mage in an arranged marriage to a scrupulous cavalry general

sci-fi VR streamers, if you die in the game you... don't die in real life, why would they do that?

Mu Qing learns what happened when he was gone

💕 whats your favorite part of your writing process?

My favourite bit of the writing process is those little flashes of revelation, of what would be the worst thing that could happen to a character, or what would be the funniest thing they could say, or how a particular scene would just flow better if you changed that line of dialogue to this...

It's so fun and I love it when it happens.

🔚 have you ever completely changed the direction a piece was going?

I feel like I must have done it multiple times? But the only time I remember, it was for a prompt fic. I'd left a comment on the prompt saying I was interested in writing it, and did the prompter have anything they did not want? Then I started writing, and the next day when the prompter came back and said they were happy with anything except angst, and I looked at the angst fest I had written... yeah. that one got completely changed.

🤔 why do you write fic?

I enjoy it! Straightfowardly, I find writing really fun, and so I end up doing it a lot. There's an alternate version of me who makes more visual art for the same reason, but I ended up in communities of mostly writers who ended up encouraging me in a writerly direction.

🦉 give yourself a piece of writing advice

You need to get your POVs closer. No, I do not entirely know what that means, but I-you-we have gotta figure it out because we've got several beta readers on our case about it!

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

I have, in my hot little hands, a finished original novel. (A little undersized, but it's over 50k, so that has to count.) This is the first time I have really managed that, and I am taking a moment to bask in my achievement.

(fic writing ask game!)

#thank you!#asks #corviiids #wolffy writes fic

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mindcraaft · 2 months ago

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Virtual Desktop VR: The Future of the Virtual World

In an era dominated by technological advancements, the concept of virtual reality (VR) has transformed the way we work, learn, and interact. Among these innovations, Virtual Desktop VR is emerging as a game-changer, allowing users to experience a virtual desktop environment that enhances productivity, creativity, and even leisure. But what exactly is Virtual Desktop VR, and how will it shape the future of the virtual world? Let’s explore.

What is Virtual Desktop VR?

Virtual Desktop VR is an immersive experience that simulates a desktop computer environment within a virtual reality headset. Rather than using a traditional monitor or screen, users can access their computer’s desktop, applications, and files in a fully 3D environment. This allows for the creation of a virtual workspace that can be customized to meet individual needs, providing a sense of presence and control unlike any other.

Key Features of Virtual Desktop VR

Immersive Workspaces Virtual Desktop VR allows users to create customized virtual workspaces. Whether it’s a scenic mountain cabin, a futuristic cityscape, or an open office, the choice is yours. Users can arrange multiple virtual monitors, access documents, and use applications in 3D space, all while remaining within the virtual environment.

Multi-Tasking in a Virtual Environment Virtual Desktop VR supports multi-monitor functionality, giving users the flexibility to work across several virtual screens. This is particularly useful for professionals, designers, or programmers who often need to manage several windows or applications at once. The virtual desktop environment provides a distraction-free, limitless workspace.

Enhanced Collaboration and Interaction The ability to collaborate within a virtual world is a significant feature of Virtual Desktop VR. Whether in business meetings, design reviews, or educational settings, users can connect in a shared virtual space. Imagine brainstorming ideas on a digital whiteboard, sharing presentations, or even walking through architectural designs—all in real time.

Access to Powerful Applications From video editing to 3D modeling, Virtual Desktop VR integrates with a range of high-performance applications. This makes it ideal not only for casual users but also for professionals who require advanced software tools. VR's powerful graphics capabilities bring these applications to life, enhancing productivity and creativity.

Why is Virtual Desktop VR the Future?

Breaking the Boundaries of Physical Space Traditional desktop setups are limited by physical space, clutter, and the need for multiple monitors. With Virtual Desktop VR, users can extend their workspace infinitely and access all their tools without being constrained by their physical environment. This offers a new level of flexibility, especially for remote workers and digital nomads.

Elevating Remote Work As remote work continues to rise, Virtual Desktop VR becomes a vital tool for improving productivity. It creates the feeling of being in a real office, where you can virtually “walk” between your desk and your coworker's, participate in meetings, and even share documents instantly. This level of interaction can bring a much-needed human touch to remote communication.

Transforming Learning and Education Virtual Desktop VR isn’t just for professionals; it’s revolutionizing education as well. Students and educators can meet in virtual classrooms, access interactive learning tools, and collaborate in ways that traditional methods simply can’t match. Virtual campuses could soon become the norm, offering an immersive learning environment from anywhere in the world.

The Rise of Virtual Workspaces As VR hardware continues to improve, the dream of a fully integrated virtual office is closer than ever. With advancements in VR headsets, such as lighter designs, better resolution, and enhanced haptics, Virtual Desktop VR will become more accessible, affordable, and powerful, further embedding itself into daily life.

Benefits of Virtual Desktop VR

Enhanced Focus and Productivity: With fewer distractions and the ability to customize the environment, users often find themselves more focused and productive.

Cost Efficiency: In a virtual workspace, there’s no need for physical office space, multiple monitors, or even the heavy cost of travel for business meetings.

Sustainability: The shift to virtual environments reduces the need for travel and physical resources, making it an eco-friendly choice.

Accessibility: For individuals with disabilities or limitations that prevent them from working in traditional office settings, Virtual Desktop VR opens up new possibilities for inclusion and accessibility.

Challenges to Consider

While Virtual Desktop VR offers incredible potential, there are still challenges to overcome:

Hardware Requirements: Although VR hardware is becoming more affordable, it still requires specialized equipment that may not be available to everyone.

Learning Curve: For those unfamiliar with VR environments, there may be a learning curve as users adapt to navigating their virtual desktops.

Comfort and Motion Sickness: Some users may experience discomfort or motion sickness when using VR for extended periods, although advancements in VR hardware are constantly improving these issues.

The Future of Virtual Desktop VR

As VR technology advances, Virtual Desktop VR is poised to play a significant role in how we interact with digital worlds. Its ability to transform work, education, and social collaboration will continue to evolve, offering users new levels of immersion, flexibility, and creativity. With more businesses and educational institutions adopting VR solutions, the integration of Virtual Desktop VR into everyday life seems inevitable.

In conclusion, Virtual Desktop VR is not just a trend but a glimpse into the future of how we will experience and interact with virtual spaces. Whether for work, leisure, or education, it promises to revolutionize our relationship with technology, making the virtual world more accessible, interactive, and immersive than ever before.

#Virtual Desktop VR #mindcraaft #1950s #100 days of productivity #3d printing #35mm #60s #secret vaccation spots #70s #80s

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