#You REALLY think you can cancel AI art out of existence?!

[lwoorl]

"Oh AI is so soulless oh there's no intent behind it oh it doesn't know what it's doing oh the most important part of art is the process oh the struggle oh the pain of the artist" Could you be any more pedantic.

It's fine if the process of working manually is the most important part of art for you, but stop acting as if that was an universal truth. What about modern art that just repurposes premade objects? Where's the beautiful process there? You sound like those people that disparage digital art because it lacks the sooooul~~~✨✨✨ of real paper. Fuck off

But fine, let's say what you mean by process is the intelectual exercise of coming up with a concept to portray in the piece. Who the hell do you think gives AI the instructions of what to make? Or do you think the thing really comes up with ideas by itself? There's more things you can do with AI than writing a two words prompt and see what it makes, you can give it a specific reference, you can set different things in different areas of the piece, you can be specific, add modifications to whatever it comes up with first. It's a fucking tool, and like any other tool it has the potential to be a vehicle for human expression. Why is coming up with a concept and controlling its execution less artistic than raw skill? "Soulless" you call it, as if any of us knew what qualifies as soul in art, as if "soulless" hadn't been used a thousand times in the past to disparage new mediums and techniques.

I understand you're upset by the art theft, I am too, but that's on how certain companies are scrapping data (there do exists some that only use images on the public domain, not that you care about it) NOT on the tool itself. What do you want to accomplish, really? Because it won't stop existing no matter how soulless you think it is. Saying it's not art, saying it has no soul, saying it can't be creative or whatever, you REALLY think that's a convincing argument for those that use it in inmoral ways? Say you're mad and you hate it, fine, fucking vent, I don't blame you, there's plenty of reason to vent! But stop acting so fucking self righteous about the nature of the human spirit or whatever.

This attitude of "AI art is bad because is soulless" does neat 0 to stablish laws and restrictions regarding its use, and if anything it distracts of the real problem. We could be talking about making laws so it can only take images from the public domain! We could be talking about creating incentives for companies to hire real humans for their art! How do you expect to solve a problem if you don't even know what the real problem is? Because the problem is that it uses images it has no right to, and the problem is that it'll take people's jobs, "It's so soulless :(" is literally not a part of it. Fucking luddite

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

I’m still in love with the idea that BEN/Ben can’t physically kill a person. I dunno how actually common that is in the fandom, but I remember seeing a lot about this trope for Ben years ago.

Cause imagine how terrifying it’d be to go up against some of the other freaks, the ones that can physically cancel your subscription to life. Like sure it’ll suck being decapitated or eviscerated by a redroom figurehead or strangled by a brainwashed puppet of a monstrous entity, but at least you’ll die fairly quickly.

With Ben though? It’s gonna keep you alive on purpose just to fuck with you in the worst ways possible.

This fucker has an incredible mastery over technology, so of course one of the first things BEN (the AI created by Ben) will do is ruin all your relationships technologically. I’m talking sending horrible messages to your coworkers and boss, nudes to everyone that isn’t your partner, sending shit you’d never say from your profiles, and you can’t even deny you were the one sending that shit because the receipts are all there on everyone’s devices except yours.

You try to sleep as an escape, but that’s not safe anymore either. You have countless nightmares of various scenarios of your own demise. Drowning infinitely, falling into an abyss as everyone around you watches without a care. Being sacrificed as twisted figures of children in grotesque masks chant and cheer for your end. You wake up, or at least you think you’re awake, until suddenly the environment around you starts twisting and warping like your dreams.

You can’t tell what’s real and what’s in your head anymore. Have you lost sleep, and are now operating on sleep deprivation fumes? Or have you been in a deep slumber this whole time, one that cycles you through horrible realities that all end with your name as an obituary by the end of the week?

Eventually it’s too much. The taunts from whatever is doing this to you become too much. It ruined your life after all, so what good is it still worth living for? However you choose to take yourself out of the equation, Ben will be there, watching, deriving nothing but satisfaction and enjoyment from the scene of it all. Most choose simple ways to go, easy, painless. Ben loves it when they choose more complex ways of suicide. His favorite obviously being drowning.

Not to mention the fact that in my AU, Ben created all the other digital creepypastas. I know people like to associate Smile Dog with Jeff, but the thing is literally a cursed chain mail image that haunts people in their nightmares. That has Ben written all over it. Sonic.exe, Godzilla NES, any and all Pokepastas, it’s all Ben. If it exists in technology, Ben had a hand in creating it. He can’t be everywhere at once, and he certainly can’t hone in on multiple people at once. His form of murder is an art, dammit, and he has to dedicate himself entirely to breaking someone into offing themselves. Of course, being able to only do one poor shithead at a time was really inefficient, thus the creation of the BEN AI and the other technology pastas exists.

I feel like this trope for Ben is so heavily underutilized, we need more manipulative, 5head genius mind game player Ben in the fandom.

That, and my version of Ben is physically the weakest. Out of all the undeads, his body is the most frail, and he doesn’t have as much control over his physical form as the rest do.,Besides, gamers are also the weakest among society, everyone knows that, and Ben is no exception. Don’t skip leg day next time ghost boy

[atalienart]

I think the number of likes, reblogs, and comments depend on the type of content you share. If someone hasn’t read about your OC then the chances of them liking it, reblogging it, or commenting on it decreases. When artist shares a drawing and it’s of a fandom they are part of they are more likely to like, reblog, and comment. I’ve noticed existing fandoms get more likes than OC since you’re appealing to a smaller demographic. I personally have never seen ai get as many likes, reblogs, or comments compared to the art real artist put out. I do agree fandom has changed and I think it’s just the newer generation is more of silent viewers (or would rather like than reblog or comment), and those of us who have been on tumblr for a while know the proper etiquette to show appreciation for a post to encourage the blogger is not only to like but reblog and comment too. 

Definitely, the more something's popular the more people will look for it and like it. I've never said otherwise. I also didn't say that Al gets more likes. From what I can see people who like art aren't super interested in Al shit, and even if it catches their attention initially, the enthusiasm dies instantly as soon as they find out it's generated by a machine. The problem with Al images is that they flood the internet, they're like garbage in a sea. People would like to enjoy some nice fish and coral but they are hit in the face by a drifting plastic bottle.

Fandom culture changed drastically. I don't blame young people that they aren't as active, because they are bombarded by "new shiny things" constantly. Every movie, show, game, book appears and you blink and it's gone and something else is hot and trendy, and you absolutely have to watch it or read it because otherwise you'll miss out. Sherlock was a shitty show but it was three episodes every two years and the fandom could theorise, write fanfiction and make art in the meantime so it was exciting. Now people get four episodes of Bridgerton and can't wait a month for another four. And that same month another 50 shows, books and games get aired and published, so would you even remember those previous episodes? Such consumption is tiring. Putting a lot of energy into something that would be irrelevant (or cancelled) in a week seems pointless. Hitting the like button is just less effort.

I don't know if tumblr is much different when it's about reblogging from other social media right now. People here are definitely very kind to leave a longer comment when you ask about stuff or point out something, which is really amazing, that's why I like tumblr. Messages are also great! I can't grasp twitter though, people there would rather die than leave a comment, unless it's some rage bite like "dogs are stupid" or "no one likes green". On insta I still feel awkward xD

Anyway, because it's the whole essay xD yeah, what you said is true.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Shipper Tag Game

I was tagged in this game by @twig-tea, appreciate the tag but also bestie this is so many questions.

1. What ship were you completely obsessed with when you were a teenager, but now you don't care anymore?

Is this the part where I have to confess to being a superwholockian in my past? I no longer care about JohnLock or DeanCas, the evil is defeated!

2. Which ship would you consider your first one?

Oh it was almost certainly Beast Boy and Raven from Teen Titans

3. Your first fanfic belonged to which couple?

Magnus Bane x Alec Lightwood from Shadowhunters, I wrote a bunch of fanfics for them when I was younger. I did not anticipate how many views I would get on a couple of them, so that was cool! (shameless plug to check out my AO3 account, Sent2TheBeast. Unfortunately most of my fics are now locked due to how people feed content to AI software)

4. Do you remember the first couple you saw a fanart over?

Do I actually remember? No. Was it most likely something from Harry Potter or Supernatural? Yeah.

5. Did you ever get into ship discourse?

Baby, I write BL essays on tumblr, I think the minute I posted my first analysis I was signing up to ride the discourse wave.

6. Did you used to have any no-otp or have it currently?

Honestly any incestuous plot lines I am typically very against: Wincest, Brallie, etc.

7. Who were the couple in the last fanfic you read?

I read a beautifully written VegasPete fic by the wonderful @ginnymoonbeam

8. Currently, do you have any OTPs?

How much time do you have? Kurosawa x Adachi/Karan x Achi; Togawa x Nozue; Minoru x Yutaka; PatPran; MorkTawan; Han Baram x Im Hantae; Shin Ki Tae x Lee Wan; Kenji x Shiro; etc etc etc

9. Is there any couple that, to this day, you are extremely mad about not getting together?

Not that I can think of, but I will just give a generic shout out to all the queer baiting of old. BUT I DO HAVE COUPLES I AM EXTREMELY MAD ABOUT GETTING TOGETHER. AkkTheo and SandRay I am looking at you!!!

10. Is there any ship you used to dislike but now you think they are kind of interesting?

I will give this one to @bengiyo. I was not a fan of Korn and Intouch from Until We Meet Again because of how one-sided the relationship seemed to me. But conversations with Ben gave me deeper insights in to Korn and have had me reconsidering my impression of that relationship.

11. Do you have any ship that, in the past, was considered normal but now you would be cancelled over?

Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David would almost certainly get me cancelled considering Ziva's service history in Israel. Glad I was able to free myself of the cop/military propaganda that is NCIS when I entered high school.

12. What was your favorite crack ship?

I don't really embrace the crack culture, I am not a huge fan of crack vids, crack fics, crack ships

13. Who is the couple you read more fanfics of?

Of all the couples I read fanfics for, I think Malec from Shadowhunters was probably my most frequently read.

14. What most of your ships usually have in common?

I feel like 99% of the ships that have wormed their way in to my brain to the point of obsession (aka me making fan art, writing fics, etc) lies in the complexity and opposition of character's to one another. For example:

In Shadowhunters, the tension between Magnus being a warlock and Alec being a Shadowhunter and how they navigate the fact that The Institute and his own family have caused and continue to cause active harm to Magnus and the other Downworlders.

In Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, the extremely contradictory nature of Kaz Brekker's existence and how that impacts his relationship with and to Inej. I wrote a number of Kanej fics because I could not stop thinking about the fact that Kaz and Inej want to touch each other, want to be intimate with each other, and their extensive trauma makes that damn near impossible.

In Pushing Daises, the inability to touch, the tension between loving someone so much and knowing that to touch them would be to kill them is just so fascinating.

In The Old Guard, Joe and Nicky having been together for 900 years when we meet them so you wouldn't think there is a complex tension there per say, but they were on opposite sides of The Crusades and had to work through that to cultivate a literally eternal love. And not just that (honestly less so that) but the tension between their line of work as mercenaries, their immortality, and knowing that one day, completely unannounced that immortality will stop. I could not stop thinking about how many times those two have had to watch each other die, waiting and wondering if their lover would come back to life this time around.

In Bad Buddy, Pat and Pran not only having to navigate their relationship with the incredibly antagonistic relationship between their parents but Pat having to parse through all these years of competition, hatred, fighting, to understand that all this time he's loved Pran.

gif by @barrowsteeth 15. What do you absolutely hate in a ship?

Lack of reciprocity. This is not to say the relationship has to be completely balanced. I don't think that it is a realistic possibility that every aspect of a romantic relationship exists in perfect harmony. But I've written about this before, my theory as to why so many BL boys get sick, in order to allow the person who has received more of the support throughout the show to care for their partner. I am a very outspoken Enchante anti because I hate Theo so fucking much. Theo's incompetency and Akk's incessant need to help him got Akk fired from his job, Theo lied about Enchante, and Theo moved back to France and made Akk work on his own to earn enough money for a motherfucking plane ticket to France. None of that being marketed as romantic is okay with me.

tagging: @emotionallychargedtowel, @neuroticbookworm, @telomeke, @negrowhat, and @solitaryandwandering

[lotus-tower]

yes if I were to use an ai generator I would be contributing to a machine that consumes an incredible amount of water and power. but the truth is, that may or may not be offset by, say, having cancelled my ffxiv subscription. we don’t know how much water and power is consumed for the sake of MMO servers. we simply don’t have that information. how much water would we save by shutting down league of legends, WoW, ffxiv, and other games that require massive servers? a while back, ffxiv was scrambling to obtain new servers as player numbers surged because the pandemic had created a shortage of parts required for building servers. what does that imply? potentially all sorts of things. but the thing is I doubt the vast majority of ffxiv players have thought much about it, or care to. we simply don’t know the energy costs of maintaining and playing games.

we have estimates for how much power is consumed by gaming consoles—with some estimates being astronomical. but we don’t know for sure, because the data is just not there. and we know even less for the industry side of things. what’s for sure is that gaming, like basically everything else we do in modern society, takes a huge amount of water and electricity, an amount that would be very uncomfortable to look.

is WoW, ffxiv, league of legends worth it? I think most of us would agree that gaming is a frivolous expense, a luxury. but many people also spend a lot of time arguing that games are art. in the end, it doesn’t really matter. I think most people would disagree with the idea that “games shouldn’t exist” because they consume too much water and energy, or because the majority of them are built off the exploitation of artists and workers who don’t get to own what they create, or because many, many games are kinda shit.

fundamentally, trying to delineate the moral and spiritual boundaries of art is a waste of time and usually anchored in something deeply reactionary. anti-generative ai arguments centered around its right to existence are an even more colossal waste of time, because it already exists, and things don’t have a “right” to exist, they just either exist or don’t.

but what I think is a lot more frustrating and insidious is the way that people will take something as important as environmental critiques of capitalism and carve things out to tunnel vision on a specific thing they don’t like. everything is a headline screenshot, everything is just a single spotlight illuminating The Thing. how can you segment and partition environmental impacts, of all things?

i mean ultimately generative AI is quite literally the definition of a first world problem. it’s just even more reckless energy consumption from the first world, and if they didn’t spend it on AI they’d spend it on something even more stupid. and the people who pay the price for the environmental cost won’t be us. the people who will feel the lack of water most won’t be us.

[blueberry-lemon]

[blog thoughts] artists can't catch a break lately

The past 12 months have not been a fun time for professional artists. Whether you're working as a freelancer or trying to get your portfolio out there for employers, every few months seems to bring a new infuriating obstacle for your future career.

Let's review the past year:

1. Ever-shifting tweaks to social media algorithms that are opaque and seem to punish posts that link to to external sites (stores, crowdfunding).

2. An attempt by crypto-bros to lure artists (and consumers) into commoditizing art into crypto tokens that exist solely to fluctuate in value and be flipped for profit.

3. The emergence of popular AI-powered art generators that learn by being fed hundreds of samples of stolen artwork. People found them hilarious at first (DALL-E memes) but they're quickly getting much, much better and are being used to intentionally emulate living artists.

4. Massive layoffs and cancellations for various TV animation studios as CEOs struggle to see streaming services as profitable.

5. Major social media platforms, which have become integral to making a living as a freelancer, being completely sabotaged by the decision-making of their owners. Notable with Instagram pivoting hard to short-form video, but now even more evident with the crumbling in trust at Twitter.

I think it is very easy for people who are outside of this world to shrug it off. Success on social media isn't a human right, obviously, and people "got by just fine" before these platforms existed. But let's be real, that's not gonna cut it.

The world of art, design, crafts, and independent work is much more competitive now than it ever was. Yeah, maybe a local freelancer in your town used to stand a chance selling their work for the holidays in 1998, but now every creator is competing with Amazon, Etsy, Target, and every other site and service that has online shopping and delivery. Consumers are, naturally, swayed by convenience. It's much easier to One-Click buy a print or pillow on Amazon than to even bother seeing what freelance artists have for sale.

It's also a constant competition for attention.

Yeah, your webcomic might have done pretty well in 2004 with a Paypal Donate button on its website and a few links of creator friends who share your affiliate link. Now, you're fighting in a sea of thousands of comics. Even worse, you're not just competing with fellow webcomics. You're competing with Marvel and DC's digital comic apps, you're competing against Netflix and every other streaming service, and you're competing with TikTok, Instagram, memes, video games, everything a person could be doing with their free time.

There's really only like three ways you can succeed as a freelance creator these days.

1. Get funded or supported by some sort of person or group or publisher who has wealth to spend.

2. Amass as many followers and views as possible.

3. Cultivate a small subset of your following that is passionate enough to be willing to spend money on you.

And these things are really not easy. If Twitter folds as a company (or becomes nearly unusable) it'll be even harder. Tumblr allows for virality, but doesn't allow for as much ownership over your posts or for easy networking and socializing with your peers. Cohost implicitly discourages virality for a more personal blog. Instagram has strict rules about content (must be image or video) and strict rules about linking to external sites. TikTok and Youtube, obviously, require video-producing and video-editing.

This doesn't mean hope is lost. This doesn't mean that we should give into despair.

It just means that we need to adapt. We need to post across multiple platforms, and tweak how we post to fit the culture of that platform. We need to stand against art theft and art as a speculative financial asset.

Most importantly, we need to lift each other up. When you love someone's work, let them know. Let the world know. If you've got money to spare, check out your favorite creators' Patreons or digital tip jars.

We don't know if we can depend on the virality of massive platforms anymore. We might return to the old, fragmented web, like boats pushed to distant islands. We'll need to take things into our own hands.

Make art, make rent, help others do the same.

[jenny-from-the-box]

The following passage needs to be posted.

Quick background: I went to the Brooklyn Museum summer 2023 to see the exhibit curated by Hannah Gadsby called “It’s Pablo-matic”. She selected works of Pablo Picasso’s juxtaposed with works by women who had been influenced by him for better or worse. The following was on the Brooklyn Museum’s website (additional reading) by Gadsby about a particular part of the exhibit that just showcased works by artists who are women, and I found it to be brilliant. So have fun.

“Guess what? There are no Picassos in this room. Now I'm not advocating a cancellation of PP, but I do think it's fun to fantasize about it, in the same way that it's fun and cathartic to imagine a world without cars or what life might be like if white people hadn't colonized the Earth with such destructive arrogance. But even if we could remove PP from our collective consciousness, why would we? Why would you want to remove somebody who was so clearly influential and continues to be influential? What good would it do to pretend PP never happened? Honestly, what a stupid, stupid, stupid idea. Canceling PP would be about as constructive as denying black women access to power structures. Like I said, a stupid, stupid, shortsighted idea. Why would you do that? Why would you pretend somebody does not exist? Having the white European male front, center, and wholly representative of the human condition has put the blinders on us all. To have a huge cultural blind spot is to lose the ability to truly understand ourselves and the world in which we exist. You may as well go to school in Florida. We should not be driven to course-correct out of guilt. “I feel bad that women and people of color and non-European perspectives have been diminished and erased for centuries upon centuries. Oops. Here's a little bone.” No. We should be striving to undo ourselves out of curiosity, and with more than a little bit of rage. We should all be shouting, what have we missed? What glorious enrichment have we been denied because we have been sold the thin edge of the wedge? PP is the granddaddy of the direct-from-artist's-studio-to-collector pipeline that is the hallmark of the modern art market ruse. The first we hear of many priceless PP's is after they're being sold at auction, decades after PP’s original creative ejaculation. Does a work of art such as that have any legitimate claims to having broader cultural relevance if it never exists in the world that it was created in? If we can say that it does, and we do, then surely we can go back and retroactively find important women artists. But we really struggle to do that. Why? Because PP takes up so much space. But I think it's worthwhile trying. I think it is an important quest to flood the zone with as many perspectives as we possibly can. I really do, because we are standing on the precipice of an AI revolution and AI cannot glean from what is not there. Algorithms are limited to what has been, not what could have been. The status quo always assumes that it is because it should be. But I don't agree. I believe that if we want to build a world where everybody who literally exists can also theoretically exist, we need to broaden our scope of what qualifies as worthwhile creative contributions. And if we don't make a real effort on that front now, if we don't try to unearth and champion voices and perspectives that are missing from our collective understanding of ourselves, we will be forever blind and we will be forever talking about fucking Picasso.”

Hannah Gadsby on Picasso /BK Museum

[lovecolibri]

Why do you think things will be any different for 9-1-1 with the move to ABC? It’s still being produced by the same company and it was technically already owned by Disney. On top of that, as much as everyone likes to rag on Fox (deservedly when it comes to the news) the network actually ranked higher than ABC in terms of LGBTQ representation last year according to GLAAD.

And in terms of budget… ABC/Disney faced huge budget cuts this year. Acquisitioning 9-1-1 was speculated to be the reason it took so long to announce the renewal of The Rookie… they had to figure out if they could make the budget work. And now with the writers strike and the looming strike of SAG-AFTRA, production has the potential to get way more expensive for all shows— provided that networks actually start paying creatives what they deserve. Personally, I don’t see the renewal of any show as set in stone yet. Not until production actually starts, whenever that happens to be. There certainly were enough renewal reversals over the last year that it isn’t like the precedent doesn’t exist.

Which isn’t to say that I think that 9-1-1 or the Rookie will get cancelled. I really hope that they don’t. It’s just saying that we have absolutely no idea what TV will look like next year. But I really don’t think that increased budgets for things like cool emergencies will be part of it

I actually don't know that anything will change, I'm just trying to be hopeful that they will, and I don't think there's anything wrong with people giving feedback since the show is made for the audience 🤷🏻‍♀️ As for budgets, I saw the chart going around regarding the WAG strike and the profit vs percent of that profit the writers were looking for, often points of a percent. I'm not going to pretend I have a single idea what is going on in industry, but just because a network or studio is making cuts doesn't mean they don't have the budget it means some people are greedy bastards who would rather have AI making art so they can get more money without having to pay actual artists so 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Also, I have talked a lot about them needing a better budget for better emergencies but I do also think that comes down to the writing as well because they easily could have done better things on a smaller scale, and it's about utilizing the time and budget and characters they have effectively and they have....NOT done that well since KR took over. But also lets not pretend fucking DISNEY is broke and can't put up the money if they wanted to, it's a matter of if they actually will or not in my opinion.

[clairethecutepup]

Weekly Update: 4/17/2023 - 4/22/2023

Up ahead: Comics, Writing, Game Interests, Journaling, Fan Speculations...

Personal Works:

In terms of comics, I'm working on the "introductory" page for Getting Your Goat. I figured it'd make it feel more like a comic and all, if there were nice little introduction pages that gave you an idea of what's to come: a synopsis in a text box and a foreshadowing "chibi-styled" image. Ironically, though, it seems to be taking me longer to draw in the more simplistic style, than my usual and more "professional" style! Yeah, there's a reason for the quotation marks, as it's definitely not the most impressive; but I feel it's got its appeal, and you can most certainly tell it isn't AI-generated when it looks like a young teenager drew it.

In terms of writing, I admit that I'm a bit hooked on these fanfiction-styled "practice writings"! Yes, I refer to them more as "practice writing" than "actual" sessions of it, for the following: I'm not as strict with them and thus can count them as less "seriously" done than "actual" products, the end goal is to improve writing skills than create a product that'll interest you in its official "series," and the mentioned fact of "official series" and "writing practices" not meant to be an actual series.

In addition to writing, I think I'll stick to a 2nd person style from now on, no matter what I'm writing in pure literature. After all, one reason for little Claire Vlcek's existence is to allow me to have adventures with characters, just as I've always wanted to when I was young. Hold on, I said having adventures and also have the addition of wanting to be with characters I like, nothing about being a goddess that everyone bows before and cannot defeat (aka a Mary-Sue). I wanna give people that same, fun adventure: let THEM join in on the action and all, as if they're really there to experience it, but with the catch that you'd be an established character. Ex: one chapter, you'll be Claire herself and be interacted with as so, then you'll be Cio in the next and experience interactions/thoughts/etc. as HE would. True, that's usually what 1st person narration is for; but 1st person is more like the character is recounting their tale to you personally, than you actually being part of the action and all that.

In further addition to writing, I'm gonna recreate comics as pure literature for those who may not care for my art-style, but are interested in the story. So, that's technically a THIRD time Getting Your Goat will be redone-- oh my gosh, what is with all this "redoing" of Claire's Companions' pilot episode?! Feeehhhhh, I just hope I've finally got my stuff together...

Life:

Well, I've taken up journaling again, so it'll hopefully lead to emptier head space that can be taken up by more useful things: creative work, planning the days ahead... Seriously, mind, shut up about the past and other stuff...

I'm also still hoping to see the Mario Bros movie soon enough, and get my hands on that Megaman Battle Network collection on Steam.

I'm still trying to get the hang of running multiple social media accounts to promote my works, and I think that saving other accounts for the weekend is, luckily, making it easier to upload and stuff. Speaking of social media, I'm on the fence about Twitter... I know it's said to be useful for artists, but Twitter is also a bit... extreme, to put it mildly: "cancel" mobs, extreme "wokeness" obsessions, and it's generally said to be dying. I may try Deviantart, but I hear that got shot in the foot by "eclipse" and the like. On the upside, it would also allow for literature AND it'd be easier to keep it grouped together there.

Misc:

Do any of you Ed Edd n' Eddy fans wonder what it'd be like if your childhood self was part of the Cul-De-Sac cast: who'd you be friends with, which type of "neighborhood kid" would YOU be? If so, does anyone else have the fear of your childhood self weirding others out or generally not getting along well with them otherwise? I know, if you actually WERE part of their world, they'd just be normal people to you and nothing to be overly concerned about, but still.

Personally, I feel like I'd probably get along best with Sarah and Jimmy, one reason being I've often seemed to earn favor with kids younger than me. Plus, I'd probably be passive enough to abide by whatever bossing around Sarah would do and I could avoid provoking her otherwise, and I can see Jimmy connecting with a "fellow artist" and an interest in stuffed animals. Heh, I can just imagine the two growing taller than my short and childlike hide, and constantly joking about poor (literally) little me never getting to "grow up" or, "going from the trio's oldest to the youngest."

[snowfianna]

Fable IV rant:

I'm so pumped up for the 23rd because everything has led me to believe that Fable 4 will be announced this year and the game's existence has been confirmed for a while anyway it's just a matter of time of when will Fable 4 show itself. It's a badly kept secret tbh.

So to those who don't mind a big rant or wish to add on to my rant- here we go!

Can you imagine how good the graphics would be for this game, we've all seen modern games, surely, and they're all bloody fantastic looking. Fable Legends is technically the most recent Fable game despite it being a free to play online game

and that it's cancelled

but it also had a gorgeous look to it all! And the character models did great justice to the concept art and honestly that has my hopes real high because I love the concept art of Fable, specifically from Mike McCarthy, so exaggerated and recognisable- yet in all the games I can confidently say they did not do justice to his character design, specifically for Reaver. Sure, he looks stunning in the third game, but not quite what he looks like in his concept art sadly.

But also, since Fable was made in Unreal Engine (I'm pretty sure at least) we've seen examples of what can be done in Unreal Engine now and it's absolutely breath taking!

If you haven't seen here are some examples and they're so life-like.

Moving on from graphics!

Since Playground Games is behind the development of Fable 4, they would be spectacular at an open spaced world, judging from the Forza games.

I always loved the open world feature added to Fable, it made things more adventurous and you could do so many things that weren't at all related to the main quest to progress the story and it was just thrilling to see there were other things going on! I'd love to just have my dog companion running through fields, fighting enemies left and right and finding buried treasure or forgotten chests.

Run into strangers who request aid in something silly or rather serious and it would be up to you with how you go about the quest or if you even accept it to get renown or gold. Cause a massacre in towns and villages, running off with low morality and plentiful loot- oh one could fantasise of this all day.

Story, characters, writing and voices.

Fable has always had a fun environment of fantasy and a rather good story (despite the curse of mundane or pathetic boss fights in which I hope Fable 4 breaks this cycle) but the one thing that's always kept me on my feet in the games is the writing and the characters. It always just tried not to take itself too seriously, throwing in absurd quests that probably requires cheese or a really weird-looking outfit. It always kept my attention rather than just pure edge and seriousness of life or death.

The characters are a given, the writing done for them all is perfect in my eyes, I love hearing the variations of how characters of NPCs interacted (enough so that I even bought two of the Fable books written by Peter David). Despite Fable 3 not being the greatest at it's time, I found myself absolutely enjoy the characters for how they were- I even cried over Walter's death because it genuinely felt like I lost somebody pretty close (RIP Walter🙏). The writing and the chosen voice actors were superb and I'd love more of it.

I hope this time we can receive a full story instead of how Fable 2 and 3 were where plenty of plot points and such were cut out due to time constraints- thanks Microsoft, very cool. I'm still in anguish when listening to the Developer's Diary 3 of Fable 3 hearing lines that were just never said in the final product and it was definitely not just additional lines that weren't required as it seemed to mention entirely different things that weren't in the game; i.e. Reaver talks about his pirates in Bloodstone and how he misses them- in the final product he never mentions it and it's even shown that he's tried to completely bury his pirate past for whatever reason.

The pacing in Fable 3 was rather strange too, it felt like the revolution should've lasted longer.

Another hope of mine is to have choices that aren't so painfully black-and-white because it's very obvious which is the good or bad option to a scenario- personally for me I'd like to be morally grey rather than pure good or pure evil.

They better have kept the mechanic of your actions affecting your appearance too to the point where you grow horns and get cracked magma-like skin or this slight glow and aura around you and this flawless skin. It kind of died down in Fable 3, only looking more tired or have completely black eyes and the good- eh yeah not much I can say for when you're good. Purity and corruption seemed to also vanish in Fable 3 (at least I think) since you couldn't really change prices of the homes you were renting out, unless I've been a big goof who didn't arrange the rent prices in the game because I didn't know how.

Combat

Combat in all the games was rather straight forward, especially in Fable 2 and 3 where everything was just easy to beat or you could get overpowered around the start of the game. I'd hope the combat improves greatly this time and even bring back real consequences to dying instead of immediate revival with some lost experience and a scar. We need more serious consequences to your actions (this can be applied to all decisions rather than just if you die in a battle) even if it's just having to reload the last checkpoint. Makes things more challenging this way.

Another thing is to make boss fights less repetitive and simple- sure I can forgive it if the boss is from around the start but if they had phases you had to keep ontop of and didn't rely on summoning a bajillion other enemies to strike you, I'd be ever so grateful.

And if there's other characters fighting along side you, I'd hope they'd genuinely be helpful and keep up to speed with the player. I'm sure the AI in the past was the problem for this as AI wasn't at its best during that time so characters fighting by you didn't do too much or just did whatever that wasn't helpful. Now though, AI has improved immensely (I mean look at The Last Of Us 2, the AI is👌) and due to this, I'm sure characters would make battles more fun and the characters be more involved with the fight and even story.

Mana should be brought back as well, in Fable 2 and 3 mana just ceased to exist so you could just endlessly and repeatedly use the same spells and it just gave you too much power and the enemies barely stood a chance.

We need challenges people- CHALLENGES!

Medieval times? Yes.

I love Medieval fantasy and as much as I like the Victorian era too, I didn't think it quite suited Fable, as fascinating as it was to see fantasy turn industrial, it kind of took away from the Fable feel that I so crave. If they have indeed brought the game back to medieval times it means more creatures and enemies are back rather than driven away or limited to the same handful of enemies.

We can all also agree the guns were overpowered, though I did like receiving the Red Dragon late in Fable 2 to absolutely mow down enemies, it was satisfying to say the least. However, guns were far too powerful for the game, so I demand the bows and crossbows back thank you very much- or even throwing knives- I'll take what I'm given.

I'd love to see more of the natural landscape rather than towns or buildings that took over once entirely natural areas (Millfields/Bowerlake). However, I won't object to ruins of old buildings taken over by nature.

Skeptical with Playground Games? Don't be.

Are you worried that Playground Games wouldn't do justice to Fable since it's not Lionhead Studios? Don't be, it's been noted that Playground Games has hired several ex-lionhead workers and plenty other skillful workers to ensure we get the best product. I have high hopes and expectations for Fable 4 even if it's developed under a different studio, I've seen great things from them and I will believe they'll deliver us only the best.

Side note to all this

I will crash and burn if I don't see a crumb of Reaver or Jack of Blades in Fable 4- I don't know how true any rumours are of Fable 4 with time travelling and Jack returning, but we'll just have to see. Reaver still remains as my absolute favourite character of all time and I'd love to see more of him, even see him before he was 'Reaver'.

Jack too, more of his lore is stated elsewhere rather than in the game itself and I'd love to see it all be brought into light and really expand on his lore and make it known- rather than have ever-loving Fable fans like me dig around for these rather delicious bits of canon information.

That's my big rant, feel free to share your thoughts and what you'd look forward to!

Have some accidental art leaks from a Playground Game concept artist- believed to be for Fable 4👀

[multifandomforthemostpart]

Ironstrange - Alone

Tony had never cried alone before, and he didn't like it.

—-

There had always been someone there for Tony, someone to pat his back, hold his hands and wipe away his tears. To whisper soft words of comfort, that his world would not be dark forever, sweet nothings and lies that slipped through his broken mind so fast he didn't notice. Who it had been had varied on the time and place. The main four on rotation were Pepper, Bruce, Rhodey and Peter

Yet here he was, slumped against a wall in his basement, sobbing his eyes out. Dum-E had respectfully turned away after he had shouted at him, and FRIDAY was hovering. Tony had come cascading down with a bottle of whiskey in his hand, almost smashing it against the glass. He wasn't drunk, just tipsy, but the consumption was enough to tip him into a bucket full of sadness.

But they weren't here, his four horsemen, to keep him from diving into the darkness of his mind. Pepper was on a business trip in Cali and Rhodes was in Africa doing some volunteer work with the military. Bruce was off world, hopefully with Thor somewhere, and Peter had been whisked away with Aunt May on a brief two week holiday to Australia, where they had promised each other they would have FUN and there would be no spidermanning around Sydney. Tony had packed a suit for him, though, a nanotech unit hidden in his watch, which he had been reassured by Happy that he wore consistently and was taking with him.

"Where are you?" He asked nobody. He wasn't even directing the question at anybody, because he knew where everyone was. He knew that they weren't here, and he was. He knew that he needed mending, but this time he was going to have to mend himself.

Last time he'd been trusted to mend himself, he'd ended up hurting himself more, with a particularly sharp blade in the bathroom that he could create interesting patterns with.

He let out a sob and then covered his mouth immediately.

"Sir, would you like me to contact Miss-" FRIDAY, the ever caring AI, was quick to jump onto Tony's emotions, but he wasn't up for it.

"No, no, Pepper's busy. So's Bruce, Peter and Rhodey. Don't ruin their....their time off," Tony blinked. God. When was the last time he'd had time off? Gotten away from this house, New York. For a break away. It must have been years.

Time off. It was an apt description. Pepper was working - so it wasn't 'time off' per se, but it was time off from looking after Tony and his quirks. Most people's quirks are weird habits, but Tony's are horrifying nightmares and frequent mental breakdowns due to constant panic attacks.

"Should I call 'Capsicle', then?" FRIDAY asked, and Tony's heart lurched.

"NO! No, no please. Don't call him." Tony had had trouble getting over his thing for Captain America, but him stabbing him in the chest with a shield and running off with his childhood boyfriend really drilled the nail into his head. Steve did not want him. Obviously, though, they weren't talking. It was just too awkward. Steve wasn't the kind of person to be comforting anyone with tears, yet alone Tony.

"Miss Romanoff?"

"No," Tony winced as his voice cracked. Crying to Nat, with her blatant spy face. Not a fan.

"Happy?"

"With Peter." Not that the kid knew that....

"Mr Barton?"

"No!"

FRIDAY continued to list people who she thought could be a comfort, until it was just getting ridiculous. She must be pulling random names off the Internet.

"Beyoncé?" was her latest, and Tony let out a laugh.

"Ha!" He wheezed, taking a swig of the whiskey. "Sure she'd love to help me! Anymore?"

"Of course, Sir. I think...Dumbledore."

See, the pensiveness in the AI before suggesting the name should have let him twig what was about to occur, but Tony was still obliviously tipsy and not fully aware of his AI's capabilities. She was playing an intricate game here, and it was working.

"Yes! Yes, call Dumbledore. I think he could give me some solid advice about who to kiss next. Although that childhood crush of his....messy one," Tony rambled to himself. He'd been reading a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction out of pure boredom. Peter had 'accidentally' left the movies here for him to watch, inside was a detailed list of things for him to read, titled 'Mr Stark's list of guilty pleasure reading late at night'.

"Calling Dumbledore," FRIDAY announced, and the phone noise sounded.

"Hilarious," Tony chuckled, but it kept ringing. "FRIDAY? FRIDAY Dumbledore isn't real you can't-" A flash of memory went through Tony's mind, a sudden cold, sobering effect that made him go suddenly very very panicked. "SHIT! FRIDAY! CANCEL! SHIT! CANCEL!"

But a low, sleepy voice came from over the phone. "Hello?" It seemed very unenthusiastically confused. "Stark?"

Shit. Tony had never heard Stephen's Strange's voice when it was sleepy, and he really, really liked it. This is not the time, Tony! You're getting an early onset of an attack, not fantasising over another Avenger!

"Hi," he replied sheepishly, trying desperately to mask the anxiety. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you wrong number, would you?"

"No," Stephen said smoothly, shuffling around as though he was sitting up.

"Well see, I was trying to call Dumbledore," Tony began. Okay he can't do this, he can't mask it, he's going to have to either have a panic attack over the phone or hang up really rudely. Fuck.

"How drunk are you?" Stephen asked.

"I'm not...that drunk," Tony's voice was getting slightly laboured now from breathing so oddly.

"Are you okay?" The doctor seemed genuinely concerned as to his wellbeing. "You sound like you...just did a run or something."

"No, I'm just," Tony gasped. Shit his breath was vanishing and he didn't even know WHY.

"Just?" Stephen prompted. "Stark?"

"I'll," Tony breathed, "'ave to call you back."

And he hung up the phone.

Tears spilling immediately, a bad combination, he failed to regulate his breathing. The four would often try to do it by counting with him, a technique which apparently only worked when he had others with him.

He was trying to ignore the fact that Stephen Strange was an actual Doctor and any Doctor knew basic panic attack symptoms.

Come on, Tony. Come on! One little phone call and all this harm? Can't you tell your body that this time it needs to just fix itself?!"

And then, not even a minute later, there was a warm hand on his shaking body, a comforting low tone murmuring to him. Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, Sorcerer Supreme, Former Neurosurgeon, also one of his slightly animosity-filled relationships.

But fuck this wasn't he'd wanted the evening to go down, not at all. There was another bottle of whiskey in the alcohol fridge that he had been planning on consuming, not having to explain himself to a doctor.

"Tony," he muttered gently, and Tony jumped slightly. Hearing the wizard call him by his first name was a privilege that Tony never really got. The doctor began rubbing a hand back and forth on his shoulder as Tony's sobs wracked his body. He didn't even know why he was crying at this point, but he turned to the Sorcerer and buried his head into the man's pyjamas: he hadn't even given himself time to change out of them, which allowed for a rather hot (although blurry, from tears) bed-head look. The hair was stuck up on its ends and Tony relished in the warmth that Strange offered, snuggling in.

"Let's get you to bed," Stephen commanded, picking him up bridal style and looking at him....it wasn't a hateful look, nor exasperated, it was...tender.

FRIDAY and Tony directed Stephen to the right room and he was plonked on the bed, Stephen standing awkwardly next to it. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"The panic attacks? Um...maybe. Can you...lay here with me for the night?"

"Sure," Stephen smiled softly, clambering onto the poster bed and looking at him intently.

"I don't know why I had that one. I'm not scared of you, so maybe it was the thought of upsetting someone this late at night or, or losing you as a friend or maybe just being alone...I don't really know," Tony wasn't slurring his words, but they weren't 100% clear.

"Were you drinking tonight?" Stephen queried, a slight reprimanding mask worn on that worried face.

"Whiskey. I had....about 3/4 of a bottle. It's good stuff, of course."

"And...uh, how long has it been since you've slept?"

Tony grinned, "1."

"1 what? Hour? Day?" Yes, he supposed that would be the normal assumption.

"Month," the doctor's eyes shot up suddenly and he seemed intent on getting Tony to sleep ASAP.

"Don't make me," he warned, holding up a finger very close to the other man's face. "Please," he pouted.

"Nightmares?" Stephen persisted.

"Yup. Bane of my existence, I swear to God."

Tony found himself staring into the wizard's eyes, getting more and more enticed.

If Stephen was Dumbledore....did that make him Grindelwald? If so, did that mean he was the villain, the mass murderer? Fair, he supposed, he had done some pretty bad things. But then again, leaving a child in a neglected home wasn't something he'd done.

What was most exciting was that Stephen was staring back, into those whiskey eyes as though he was reading his soul. He probably was.

They began to gravitate closer together and Tony's cheeks flushed the further he went. Biting the bullet, he decided to just bloody kiss the man.

"Anthony," Stephen whispered when they had separated, in a voice that made him want to capture those pink lips again. Fuck. Stephen.

Wait. Didn't Stephen...have a girlfriend? Was he therefore cheating on her with him?

"Shit- Strange. Christine, your girlfriend. I-I'm sorry, that was a mistake, I apologise. I won't mention it to anyone I'm sorry." Tony panicked.

"Seriously?" Stephen looked at him pointedly. "It's like you've never interacted with me enough."

Well certainly not like this, Tony reflected as Stephen aimed for another kiss. But he wasn't sure he wanted to kiss him if he was keen of the whole thing of adultery...Tony was never a cheater, just a playboy. But if the Doc wanted to settle down...

"Stephen...I-" Tony murmured, pulling away. "I don't feel comfortable doing this with you having a girlfriend."

"Anthony Stark, I'm gay, and single, and have been for several lonely years. That kiss you saw with Christine was her one attempt at her trying to see if I loved her, which I do, but platonically. Please, for the love of God, just kiss me."

And so, they did, not declaring many feelings, just declarations that the other was so hot.

Oh and Tony did whine when Stephen pulled away, taking this circumstance to pull out all the stops, including the pouty face, but all he got was cuddles as Stephen stroked his hair to get him to sleep.

He slept, but it was plagued with tantalisingly dangerous dreams, nightmares he woke up panting from and multiple tosses and turns.

But Stephen stayed.

And maybe, just maybe, Tony thought, maybe he wouldn't be alone anymore.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

athenas or the new ign videos... hmmm

im gonna go for the ign videos (moze gameplay and sanctuary-iii, no guns yet, i have a reason for that) because athenas hasn’t gotten its sweet instagram video yet. once that’s released i’ll do a full post on it. by the time i got around to finishing this post, they had released the video. oh boy... gonna do the gun post then the athenas post, i think. alright, off we go.

tl;dr: we read the entire end user agreement DAHL thrusts upon us for using the ECHO device, talk about some stuff like how (spoilers) it seems like Lilith will be getting her powers back at the end of the game, and a voice line Lily says that sounds like “Tyreen took my powers. it’s like Tannis said: [inaudible] Siren” (altho im not 100% sure on the [inaudible] part because 1) it sounds weird and 2) there’s a drum beat and also the devs are talking over her, the Siren part seems fairly accurate because of the way her mouth moves). so you know. im gonna be agonizing over that until i can hear what she says. ive already spent an hour just repeating it over and over. i nearly fell asleep lol

we’re gonna start with the moze gameplay (the first 14 minutes of bl3) because chronologically it’s first in both timeline and release date

i love the license plates on the right there

also it looks like they added in claptrap’s old welcome sign from windshear waste! time to stand in front of it for 30 minutes to see if any messages pop up like bl2

fast travel station as well, definitely going to see if/where i can teleport and going there immediately. i imagine this is more for DLC stuff and grinding tho.

also! i do believe we saw Covenant Pass previously. good to know this is actually where it is!

Marcus saying “And Welcome to Pandora!” in the beginning confirms that, yes, they’re going to be on a bus!! i wonder if there will be a fight scene before that though. it’s interesting Clappy mentions that “those jerks who tried to murder you are the children of the vault!” so i mean... there’s gotta be... right?

im also convinced this intro is going to be a mirror of Borderlands 1. i stg if it starts out with the first few notes of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked and then swaps songs I’m going to lose my mind

also also, the order is totally going to mimic the bl1 one. Fl4k = Mordecai, Amara = Lilith, Moze = Roland, Zane = Brick. We even have Lilith taking Angel’s spot as the mysterious voice in our heads, and probably Marcus driving, AND being dropped off at a bus stop.

bet the reason they changed it from ‘Moze as the Bot Jock’ to ‘Moze as the Gunner’ is because it fits under ‘Roland as the Soldier’ better. Also, ‘Zane Flynt as Himselfs’ would be a play off ‘Brick as Himself’. Amara as the Siren is obvious, and ‘Mordecai as the Hunter’ vs ‘Fl4k as the Beastmaster’ is pretty similar as well, given Fl4k has all those Hunter skills.

the 4 basic emotes im guessing. im so glad we have the option to boop our friends in the face with emotes.

also moze’s little bunny skin is adorable

the ECHOnet used to be called “Riftspace”, “the Spline”, and... “MercTel: A Cyber-Dahl Joint” lmfao

specifically calls out Pandora. also, “artificial megastructures”??? THAT’S SO COOL

AND FUCKING

SENTIENT MEGASTRUCTURES???? 

gearbox. please. i have never ever wanted anything more in my life. please. it’s probably my birthday. PLEASE GEARBOX

also interesting that the user agreement specifically notes ‘Respawns’. I assume this is a joke because New-U stations have been confirmed not canon

“Core law”. Core law? Core... daddy? ... ????

core as in like a core government somewhere that’s not the border worlds? that’s interesting...

“The Legion”, okay, acknowledging TPS, that’s dope

“Project Blackrakk” ... im interested

“Thresher Company” lmao

im curious if Axton was apart of any of the mentioned ones. i don’t think it’s been stated, but i could be wrong

“Chieftain Oort”. also ‘Recently Legless Gary’, lmfao poor dude.

oh yeah im sure this is fine. also holy shit did they google the synonyms for ‘change’ and just start listing them? lmfao

“implicit subscription to the Digby Vermouth ‘Dig’s Gigs’ secret concert subscription service” 

sorry, what?

if this doesn’t come up again in the future- if we don’t get a spam letter or 3 in our mailbox about this concert subscription thing i'm gonna be so disappointed

Dahl hates you if you’re not a fan of hyper-jazz, “you snob” lmfao

my brain hurts, they’re good at writing these 

damn phones exist? i thought everything was ECHO. aight, that’s good to know. i guess there just aren’t any phone networks around the border worlds

also “shared dreamspaces” sound really cool

hm. that’s no good lmfao. also i love that the buttons are ‘Agree’ and ‘OK’. there is no escape, once you agree, you can’t even leave because you’re agreeing that you’re trapped with these rules even if you cancel.

that’s fucked up, DAHL. can’t believe you treat your user base the same way you treat your employees. i guess i shouldn’t be surprised.

anyway, shoutout to literally the only TOA I’ve ever fully read in my life.

also, clicking through this TOA too fast WILL end claptrap’s voice line early. so be careful if you want to hear what he has to say!!

oh shit lmao I gotta go edit that Fl4k post

ok im back ~time magic of being able to save things in drafts and post them at a later date~

sliding preserves momentum, so you can actually slide (nearly) the entire way down! i love this.

small, but claptrap bends his antennae when trying to be stealthy. i thought that was a pretty cool detail

“and some guns include an alternate shooting mode~! try it out!”

player: `immediately shoots claptrap in the face`

i died lol

a very nice look at this sign.

good to know that the twins really are tempting people to join with promises of food. i mean it makes sense, i imagine most of the cultists are desperate for stability and a reasonable life on pandora.

also, Shiv calls himself “holy influencer of the children of the vault” lol. i love that. gearbox really is going for the internet’s throat, isn’t it?

i do like that hovering over an NPC will give you their name only and not name/healthbar.

a better look at one of the signs referencing the Mother!!! i was waiting for this, the only real look we got at one was in that one scene with Moze and IB

“Behold the Mother strength surrender to the truth” 

yeah that’s not ominous...

i assume the mother and father are intended to be tyreen and troy? but idk how i feel about that implication...

i like the new little gear/spring effect for the magnet lol

new lilith! i know a lot of people don’t like it, but i do. she looks better than the bl2 vers. altho i think it’s weird they swapped both bl1 and bl2′s ‘AI’ effect to those dots and then didn’t bring it to BL3. the dots effect felt cleaner. curious why they’re not applying it to bl3 when they went thru all that effort in 1 and 2.

... back up please.

i like that there is a changing icon for long pressing now

“time to check out our slay of the day!” sounds like Tyreen but tbh i legit thought this was moze’s reaction to opening the chest at first lol 

you can hear someone start screaming in agony while she’s walking up the stairs, so i know it’s not moze, but im so used to the VHs talking when they see a new piece of loot my brain just assumed.

also THE MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND IS A REMIX OF BANDIT SLAUGHTER!!! IM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS I WAS FREAKING OUT THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT

also, claptrap when dropping health yells “this could save your life! then, you’ll owe me a life debt!” bullshit im pretty sure you already decided we owed you a life debt the moment we stepped off that bus

“i see it... the great vault” - a line from a cultist you kill

i know i mentioned in this post that the Great Vault may be already opened, but it could also just be a Vault they’re planning on opening and using the propaganda to convince the cultists to help them find it. 

“if you help us get this vault open, you’ll be handsomely rewarded! you’ll get superpowers! you’ll get regular meals! you’ll get money and guns and dates!” you know, the usual stuff. 

either way, elevating the Vault to a higher state (god/heaven/whatever) makes sense if you’re running a cult.

btw there is a hidden chest in the scaffolding to the left of the door, if you’re interested in grabbing some better guns before shiv. personally, i’ll be using the toy guns.

also the TVs are actually playing propaganda now!!

this one is asking questions that i cant understand due to the sound effects of the chest and claptrap talking, but it says something about “... the dust? ... join the Children of the Vault!”

“hey shiiiiiv all your dumb friends are dead!!”

shiv be like

“all my friends are dead”

some cool level-up art! I notice these are the same pictures as used on the japanese site. i wonder if they change depending on which VH you’ve picked (If you’re playing Amara/Fl4k, do you get pics of Amara and Fl4k? the player is playing moze, afterall).

also also “it’s a KIA on the knife wielding maniac. suuuper dead.” 

it’s cool that the VHs have specific lines for the deaths of bosses. i hope that continues and it’s not just a ‘15 min of intro gameplay’ thing. you know, where everything is super detailed in the beginning and then slowly gets less and less as the game progresses? anyway, moze’s little chuckle is fuckin adorable lol

ah. the door closes now so you can’t even explore Shiv’s room before Lilith shows up. gearbox plS you know me too well, i was looking for a g l i m p s e

claptrap’s voice line for getting released is SUPER off time, he hits the ground before going “you did it! i’m sa-ahhhhhhhh!” it’s weird, wondering if that’s just a glitch.

also also we get a nice listen to the revive ally sound. i could’ve sworn it wasn’t in the first look at this mission we got, because i heard it for the first time during the coop Zane/Amara gameplay on Promethea. i might be wrong, tho.

im very curious what these symbols are claptrap is beaming up

i mean you know what im gonna say

they look eridian

and they do

so wtf clappy why u beaming up eridian letters to Lilith

i assume maybe Tannis gave clappy some weird upgrade or something so he could communicate with the crimson raiders without the CoV listening in? it could be that Tannis or someone is decoding this message since Tannis does know how to translate Eridian (as shown in her bl1 ECHOs)

... or at the very least she gave Lilith a translator

the darkening makes it so that you can see the crackening. also this COULD just be a beam that lilith can see from wherever she is, but i want to believe there’s more eridian stuff. bc eridian stuff is fun.

this is so fu cking crisp im dying i love it

lilith’s tattoos spreading down her fingers

same symbol as her chest tattoo. maybe the symbol denotes new powers? like how lily has one on her chest for phasewalking, and a new one on her hand for teleportation

i love how her wings look like actual fire. i fucking love this

lilith is looking so fucking good in the new engine

im glad they got rid of her super red eyes, tbh it looked a bit weird

i think they are really pushing her fire affinity, im sure we’ll see Maya has an elemental affinity as well (im calling corrosive) and im sure Tyreen will too (slag). Amara looks to be Shock because that’s her ‘default’, but who knows until (if) bl4 comes out. but corrosive wings on maya would look SOOO fucking cool. please. please please please.

god she looks so good compared to bl2. i love how the tattoos softly glow in the dark, too. i gotta play this mission late in the day...

“you’re... the voice in my head, right?” i love this so much, i really hope my shitpost comes true.

lilith gives you a grenade mod for completing her mission! im really glad they are PUSHING through the tutorial/intro so you can get right into the game. bl2′s ‘intro’ of all these tutorials was brutal. especially waiting to unlock your action skill.

in 3 you get your action skill automatically at level 2!!! which is insane, i love it! they’re jumping right into it, it’s great. and they seem to be pushing for you to get all the stuff you need right away. 

it’s curious to note that in bl3 we get our class mods at the end of the Promethea demo (after Gigamind), since in bl2 you get your first (usually?) after the hunting the firehawk mission and both seem to take place immediately after we get to the ‘base of operations’ of the game (Sanctuary vs Sanctuary-III).

yep that quest is 100% in line with the quest marker. 

i imagine From the Ground Up may be discovering where the Vault Map/Key actually is? maybe bringing people to the Recruitment Center (notably Tannis)

for this scene. i hope this takes place after the HBC, because i seriously... can’t imagine the twins showing up, taking the Vault Map, bringing it to the HBC, and then NOT taking Lilith’s powers/trying to kill Lily and accidentally taking her powers. it just doesn’t make sense, Vault Hunters be damned, we are level 2 they could melt us easy peasy. 

If anything, it feels like we COULD find the Vault Map in the Recruitment Center, Tannis tries to activate it/fix it, we find out it’s mega broke, and then the Sun Smashers show up and take it. but i seriously can’t imagine Lilith nor the new VHs allowing that to happen while they’re still there. maybe if Tannis sends us to do something while Lilith is gathering other CR members? then it could make sense if they attack while Tannis is alone with the Key...

OR

we end up finding something in Shiv’s room that shows/helps us realize the Sun Smashers bringing the Vault Map to the Calypsos. tho this would mean the quest From the Ground Up is SUPER short and I imagine it’s not. Maybe we raid a camp of theirs like the one in front of Sanc-III with the bridge/ramp? We need to be about level 6 before we go and we start From the Ground Up at 2 so there’s obviously something DEEP we’re missing here. maybe this is a mission where we go gather the other Crimson Raiders? HMMMMMMMM...

.... oh.

nevermind lmfao

she opens her ECHO immediately after this LOL i feel kinda dumb now

raiding their camp it is! the Droughts sounds like a fun location. Very much like the dust. you guys think there’s a Shade situation going on there? i’m excited to see it. Still think we’re going to use Shiv’s room to get that lead, though. i just really wanna watch tv lmfao. i hope this means the bandits run from the camp to the HBC, or we find info that the bandit warchief sent a party to the HBC with the Vault Map. either way, i just don’t want the twins showing up until after the HBC or i will have so many questions. “why didn’t you kill lilith?” being the first. “the god queen wants her head!” ur goddamn right she does, so why doesn’t she (try to) kill lilith???

85% already?! hot damn

also

that’s one badass description there, Moze

also also

while having gun slots locked is pretty normal, im surprised they’re locking class mods and relics, too! i wonder when we’ll be able to equip relics. maybe when we first go to eden-6 or smth. or maybe after we meet up with Rhys. shit maybe he’s just handing us an artifact (im gonna interchange these a lot, sorry!) in that Promethea video lmfao

“ready to chuck some boom and frag some maniacs” lol moze i love you

if you’re playing Zane... `equips grenade mod for checkmark` `immediately equips second action skill and never actually uses grenade mod`

“it’s the firehawk! the god queen wants her head!” 

like i alluded to before, i would not be surprised if Tyreen doesn’t know she can absorb Siren powers... when she goes to succ lilith in front of Sanctuary-III, it’s totally possible she actually was trying to kill her. That could explain why she looks so intrigued at her hand like “oh shit okay lets see what this can do”

might be why she was okay with sending her cultists after her instead of showing up herself.

“alright, we got a foothold. maybe things are turning our way. come on killer, you’re with me” we are going to explore the SHIT out of shiv’s room.

alright alright alright

let’s move on to the Sanctuary-III stuff

yessss

i love the quest objective thing, it looks like we will be able to swap through our quests with the push of a button! also im curious why exactly we’re going to promethea right away. i wonder if the twins say something about moving there after getting the vault map/lilith’s powers, or if we hear from rhys. im expecting something about the vault map, since our vh will admit they don’t know rhys at all when talking to lorelei. but for some reason we need to be within the city limits? since lily says ellie got us within the city limits. 

hmmmmmm. okay, okay, maybe the map was trying to lead us to promethea for vault reasons during that short amount of time that we had it and it was working. maybe promethea is what we see when tannis is activating the key during that one cutscene? ohhh shit how dope would it be if we got that fucking easter egg message? omg “Children of the Vault. Come to Promethea. We are not on Pandora anymore. Tannis is not what she seems. Do not open the Vaults.” and everyone is like ‘uh did that thing just mention Tannis by name??’ and now it’s REALLY important to get the map back just so we can figure out wtf it’s trying to tell us. 

i will question how ‘Tannis is not what she seems’ would affect character relationships, especially if it’s said so early in the game. so perhaps we only hear the first part of the message. maybe it’s corrupted because it was recently broken. iunno. just playing around with ideas. the canon of this game is like flarp putty until sept. 13th

anyway moving on because this is literally the first f r a m e of the video

i like that you can see pandora’s eridian scar. if the destroyer is speaking through eridium to people, it’s gonna bust outta the side of this planet like you wouldn’t fucking believe lmao. eridium is a window to the soul and if you stare long enough into its glossy, shining sides, the destroyer stares back

that or it’s just like a beacon, slowly spreading its influence across the universe. but i like the idea that the destroyer can waltz out of a big enough hunk of eridium. so it will bust out of pandora’s eridium scar. F in chat for pandora but also lmfao the amount of tentacles and rage would be unparalleled.

reality is that the twins are probably farming this scar for eridium to turn into slag for multiple purposes. like brainwashing their cultists, giving them powers, and ensuring their guns have their manufacturer’s quirk (im getting to this in my next post bc im just gonna compile all the ign gun videos into one big post)

the floor art is different from the actual sanc-iii demo. i mention this first in my behind closed doors panel analysis, but im gonna mention it again because this is ~official~. the floor list on the first walkthru of sanc-iii we got had the names of all the crimson raiders and lines leading to their shops. so we had the infirmary/tannis, marcus, moxxi, etc listed on the floor. i imagine this new sanc-iii will change as we get more people on board or if we do a sort of re-decoration of the ship.

also also, it’s cool to see that we have 4 rooms on the minimap, likely one for each of the VHs (and your coop buddies). ive seen speculation that the other, non-played VHs will hang out in their rooms when you’re not playing them, and tbh i really hope this is the case.

we also know this version of sanctuary-iii is after pandora, so there are no promethea citizens aboard yet. which makes me double certain the first sanc-iii video we got takes place either after endgame (explaining why Lily has her tattoos back) or right after Athenas (explaining why Maya is there). which... i mean... spoilers, guys. 

that’s one good lookin fast travel station, holy shit

im in tears over here because “Caution: no steppy”. this is so fucking funny to me

no steppy on me

okay moving on because i will cry laugh over this for forever im allowed

moze’s room is so much different than amara’s

also i notice she’s on the left of the two on the top, which makes me hope the other 4 are reserved for the other VHs (or your coop buddy).

compared to the official sanc-iii demo video

and amara’s room

moze’s is so barren oh my god

someone get this girl like... a colorful throw pillow or something

baaank. also doubles as the secret stash. kinda upsetting, because that is infinitely less loot i can store when i make a lot of characters. also if i upgrade the bank once, is it upgraded across all my other characters too? or are the guns i put in storage slot 11 locked up until i buy the upgrade?

either way, i am saddened because no more mule characters. and way less space the more characters you make and more gear you find, because all gear you put in here is there across all characters. i hope this means our backpacks will be a lot bigger this time around!

supamax mfg shows up again

ppm/04-02 matches up with the number behind the fast travel station. i wonder if this will come into play. if the number changes later in-game im going to freak the fuck out bc that means wherever we are isn’t actually sanctuary-iii

ppm/04-02. remember that 👀

also, the wall behind the golden chest changed from red to steel/greenish. can’t tell the actual color. same as the floor

you know. that color.

“golden keys are popular. you can get some in-game and also get them online”

in-game you say??? im interested! i wonder if there will be some sort of arena (like moxxi’s) where if you complete it you get a key as a reward. i saw people speculating about some sort of randomized boss rush, that could definitely be a way to get gold keys, as well.

oooo engine room! im excited to explore here.

original size is 16. so, we have 40 backpack slots! still... you know... only 1 above the max of bl2, but hey. at least that’s an upgrade. as small as it may be

on the bright side: bank upgrades increase capacity by 5. with a base of 10, and 8 upgrades, we have 50 slots to fill. which is a big leap from the original 24. it is still a shame we have to share these across characters, tho

offline cultist stream? makes me think the CoV really was trying to steal/take over sanc-iii from the crimson raiders and we went to go take it (back?) in Taking Flight. either the CoV found/ordered Sanc-III, or the crimson raiders were building it/fixing it up, their stronghold got taken over, and the CoV were prepping it for takeover.

the shooting range. and if you notice that little CoV symbol in the bottom left there? yeah pretty much backs up my previous theory

all those red bits are tied to ellie’s crew challenge. so we’ll be collecting things for her!

an altar for scooter 😢

“we’re gonna get those cultism sumbitches, believe you me”

where you get yeeted out of Sanc-III. im definitely going to try jumping in it to see if it kills me. doesn’t look like the drop pods are available yet

that’s not clappy, pretty sure he’s hanging out on the bridge right now

schematics for veronica

the thing i was most excited about in this video!

loooots of customizations! which excites me because i know eridium used to get useless late game when you’ve grinded all the raid bosses. it looks like eridum is going to be in ultra high demand. but u can bet ur ass im gonna be unlocking all those fucking customizations asap.

veteran rewards is also super super interesting

hgggggg i wanna know what the shields do!!! 

i like the vault symbol at the top of the item card as well, shows you its a special type of weapon/item. im honestly surprised we’re able to buy ‘veteran rewards’ so early in the game? i mean obvi we won’t have enough eridium (look at the costs!) but it’s wild it’s even accessible. im personally a fan of the first bonus ‘anointed: gain life steal on action skill end’

looks like these guns have been chosen

to give them those special bonuses

i do see that just anointed is not class specific, but the ones that say anointed gunner or maybe anointed siren will be (confirmed by the devs in video).

you pay with eridium, so maybe the vending machine has some way to confer the power of eridium to the guns. or some shit. iunno. it’s possible this won’t be available until the end of the game, hence veteran rewards, and is only being shown to us right now since this is a showcasing video.

pandoran civilian. no promethea civilians today folks! i am CONVINCED that the old sanc-iii demo takes place after the end of the game. at least after athenas.

it’s weird seeing moxxi hanging outside her bar.

is also cool to know that the 4 slot machines are actually available. seems like npcs can play them, but we can use all 4 if we want to. which is really nice

the one on the far left is called the ‘loot boxxer’ and it gives mostly guns lol. i see they are taking jabs. good for them

better pic of the leftmost machines

Zer0 seems to have a bounty board? not sure if this is like a physical bounty board or if they will contact you when they want something dead, but it is cool to note. this isn’t shown in video, just the devs speaking about it.

similarly hammerlock has ‘big game hunts’ where you find “rare, challenging creatures” and kill them for him

apparently we’ll be killing something known as a manvark

this book

i fucking recognize this book

HAMMERLOCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

in all seriousness tho

hammerlock probably isn’t in his room because we haven’t rescued him from eden-6 yet.

a cool thing about the crew challenges: as you progress through the game and do these challenges, sanc-iii will ‘grow and change to reflect the things you’ve accomplished’. altho another dev says “sometimes these are optional things, like challenges” 

so now im like oh shit we’re gonna change sanc-iii as we play the game. i wonder if that means we’ll be changing the hull, too. because you know. the blue paint job. we gotta go STEALTH. sneaky beaky into the calypsos fleety

tannis doesn’t have the saurian on her table. also, interesting note, she DOES have the eridian log in the corner. meaning she must have had that before eden-6. interesting... maybe we’ll find more on Pandora.

she is still covered in blood tho. idk i don’t have an explanation for that. don’t think i want to think of one, to be quite honest.

oh no. (those are skulls next to all the gurneys)

“tannis plays a much bigger role in bl3 than she has in past games”. bigger than borderlands 1? that is... impressive. she’ll be running the health vending machines (which is weird bc i could’ve sworn in the promethea demo, zed was still running them... hm.)

another angle of sanc-iii

clappy? you good there?

the devs said they’re using him to plug a hole. i assume the calypsos shot at the ship as we’re leaving or smth.

lily with no tattoos, who also looks significantly more pissed than her other sanc-iii demo counterpart

you know. because she got her tattoos.

also

fucking

lilith says something right here. all i can make out is “Tyreen took my powers. it’s like tannis said. ..... [inaudible] Siren.” maybe some weird word i haven’t heard before? i swear she’s saying ‘like tannis said: a ‘m...’ Siren” but i am not 100% sure. if someone could help me out, that’d be rad.

so its sounding like lilith rushed in with explicit warning from tannis about tyreen stealing her powers, and tannis knew tyreen was some sort of Siren and warned lily, but lily didn’t listen. it could also be that lily is saying something like “im not a siren” but i can’t really hear it if she is. it sounds like she saying a word that starts with m to me. if someone could help me with this i’d owe you my life

whew. i am. fucking TIRED.

im gonna sleep for like 3 hours and then wake up and make food before the fl4k streams start.

[terfslying]

All longanon answers:

also why does nobody care that gc men/radfems talk positively about intersex issues FOR THEIR OWN SAKE not just to confuse people about sex. Some of us have CAH or AIS, PAIS. 2nd, a GC opinion: men want uteri & to go by she? Go for it. I think it's reactionary, & I'll be open about that, but it's not my choice. But pushing lines like "lesbians like dick, afab-exclusive=fetish" is WRONG. My family has already brought up transdick as a gotcha. Too few of yall care about fallout for gnc/gay people.

Not sure if this is out of order however: “afab-exclusive = fetish” is wrong, it’s not a view I support, and I agree there’s fallout for gay people, so why are you telling me off for pushing it when I don’t?

where do I see lesbians like dick? everywhere. Not explicitly here, though implied with referencing that some lesbians might like no-op transwomen. You are carving out a niche balanced view, and I appreciate that. Don't pretend like it's the majority of the trans/nb community, or the liberal or leftist take on things.

Why are you talking to me as if I am speaking for the entire liberal or leftist ‘take’? You’re talking to me, you get my viewpoint.

there's a lot more going on with ‘erase women’s anatomy and oppression’ than I even have knowledge of. But for me some big ones: it's no longer women's reproductive justice. It's pregnant people, despite us all knowing damn well the intersection between our potential reproductive system and how woman has meant (still means) property too often. Femininity isn't social control, it's fun! It's expression, medically necessary, a part of womanhood. Rapes/assault being covered up.

“Pregnant people” vs “pregnant women” is important in medical contexts to prevent female people being denied medical care on account of not being ‘women’. It also makes self-help resources more inclusive for gnc female people.

“Femininity isn’t social control, it’s fun!” - femininity is social control for female people. Non-female people practicing femininity are literally breaking their prescribed gender roles and undermining the patriarchy.

“Rapes/assault being covered up” - specific examples?

And I'm sorry but I've seen some of the same trans-activist people in threads you're on, who you interact with positively, say shit like "anyway terfs die". Now, maybe someone they perceive as a terf has threatened them. Someone I know to be trans has threatened me. Is it ok for me to go online and say "TRAs, die"? Ofc not. So you tell me you call hateful TRAs out equal to calling out terfs, and I have doubts. Perhaps you could title your blog Terfs and Misogynist TRAs lying, and work on that.

I like how manipulatively you have phrased, “someone they perceive as a terf” vs. “someone I know to be trans”. I’ve also seen hundreds of TERFs online post shit like “Trannies die”, and had death threats personally from people I KNOW to be TERFs. Both sides behave like shit in that sense, and both sides feel like they are on the defensive. The only way to end that nonsense is to STOP participating in “well they do _____ so it’s okay for me to do _______”. But guess what? I’m also not the Tumblr police. Do you personally check the blog history of every person you interact with on Tumblr to ensure they’ve never said anything Problematique? Because I don’t, sorry.

re: erasing women's oppression, there's also a deliberate attempt to chuck out all the shit from the 70s you apparently hate. God forbid we misgender a rapist, or "cancel" any man for misogyny, but reading even excerpts from old radical feminists? Heresy, evil, invaders. Quite fucking honestly, I'll look into the history, but this calling some women political lesbian and thus dead to us thing has all sorts of potential as antifeminist slander. Especially if men think they can talk on it.

I’m talking about actual events in the 70’s that set up the trans-discourse-in-lesbian-spaces-non-stop situation, not whatever shit you’re talking about here.

Also, I have literally done readings and annotations of many radical feminist texts on this site. Stop using me as a puppet to argue with every person you’ve ever thought was a TRA.

I’m also curious if when you became "ex-" radfem, does this mean you also became against being critical of porn and critical of the sex industry? Note - critical of the INDUSTRY and culture, as in the corporations and bosses, pimps, traffickers, johns, and the academics, "art", and media who cover it as queer or fun or sexy or a good way to pay off student loans... not the workers or the prostituted (i'm differentiating here based on a spectrum of how much autonomy and liberty is retained)

No, it doesn’t mean that. I’ve said before - I am pro sex-worker and believe in evidence based rules for helping women in that situation, which means no Nordic system, but I don’t believe that you can ‘manage’ any sex workers in a brothel-type situation without it being dangerous.

I also am passionately opposed to all kinds of trafficking and slavery for personal reasons, and that obviously includes people trafficked for sex work.

at the end of the day I'm still just like... why can't women who love cis and trans women (or men who love cis and trans men) just say you're bi and that's your preference? Why does gay and lesbian have to always theoretically be flexible? It's obviously used against us, in a biased manner (again, does anyone really expect and go after straight people to be flexible?) ... and is it really worth it? Is temporary relief of a social construct borne pain worth it?

It’s not for ‘relief of a social construct borne pain’ - it’s just to accurately describe myself.

Because I’m not bi. I’m a lesbian. I exist in my city’s lesbian society, as a lesbian who dates lesbians. Then later, I became trans-inclusive. ‘Lesbian’ has to be flexible because human beings are flexible.

[overcastgames]

Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition: A Review 10 Years Late.

Big Note: This is written from the viewpoint of someone who has never played the base version of Tales of Vesperia. I can’t comment on how the game performed before the additions from the previously Japan-only PS3 version. What I can say is that I have a hard time imagining what the base game must be like, because there are a lot of glaring cuts that would have to be made in order to remove those features. 

The Tales series is one that I have only become a fan of relatively recently. The first one I played was Xillia, and I have jumped around the series a lot since then. As an RPG series, Tales is definitely in my top 3, and because Tales games come out more frequently than in other series, I find myself revisiting the fantasy style worlds of the games more often as well. 

Tales of Vesperia is considered by many to be one of the cornerstones of the tales series. Sitting right up there with the likes of Symphonia, and Abyss. While I have a hard time following that line of thinking, I certainly won’t fault other people for citing this as their personal favorites. Vesperia has a lot going for it, a likeable cast of characters, some really good world building, and nice soundtrack, and the definitive version looks really good on current gen hardware. 

Tales games are generally considered action RPG’s with roots dating back to the origins of action RPG’s. Most of the Tales games are very character driven, with large emphasis being placed on the world, and how the main cast interacts with it. Generally, the build up is to some world altering event, that happens to center around the main group, which is just something you come to expect from JRPG’s. Most, but not all Tales games allow you to choose what you fight, as monsters are seen in the overworld, and not left to random encounters. 

In these aspects, Vesperia is very much what I have come to expect from the Tales franchise. Honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with sticking to a proven formula, especially given that Vesperia was one of the first games in the series to use it, being the first HD game in the series. Unfortunately, Vesperia has some glaring drawbacks that I can’t ignore. 

The combat in Vesperia is some of the weakest I have seen from the franchise. initially the character you play as, in my case Yuri, only gets a 2-3 hit combo, and the effects of this are that it makes combat feel sluggish, you get base artes to work with as well, but there is a pause in between each use, making it hard to feel like you are making any headway in combat. There are ways around this, which come in the form of skills, which you obtain by using weapons with skills attached to them. Every weapon in game has some skill attached to it which can be used for free at first, but with enough experience you can obtain the skill separate from the weapon it is attached to. This may seem like problem solved, but the reality isn’t quite so simple. There are skills that add attacks to your base combo, but each skill requires points to be used outside of their initial weapons, and these combo additions are expensive, in a skill tree with very limited points. This is the same with most of the more useful skills in the game. It can be endlessly frustrating when you find a skill that you really want to use, but can’t because you can’t find enough space for it in you current set.

Combat also gives rise to one of the other big complaints I have with this game, the AI. For the majority of the game, it felt like I was stopping at every shop to refill on items, because the AI only ever used artes, which used up there tp, the equivalent of any mana system. you are very limited in the amount of items you can hold, (15 each) and it seemed like the AI would just use it whenever it felt like it. It’s worth noting that you CAN cancel this with a button press, but you would be doing this every 10 seconds, because AI really want your items. The AI is also kinda dumb. they never used basic attacks, they wouldn’t ever use their overlimit, and as a result, never used any of the higher powered attacks in the game. Another weird quirk is that while some of the party members would use TP restore items when they had almost full TP, characters that had almost none would never use them. Also on the topic of items, being able to use an item on another person is one of those skills so that was fun. Also, my healer (Estelle) would rather use healing items on herself than do her job, so there’s that. 

There are a few difficulty spikes in the game which I think are mostly just up to “git gud” but it can be annoying when you run into a boss 10 levels higher than you, when the base enemies were around your level. 

Another gripe that I have is with the voice acting. I won’t spend too much time harping on this, because I know the general response is that I should have played with the Japanese voices, and this probably isn’t a problem for most people, but the line delivery for the English actors is kinda garbage sometimes. Also, because much of what was in the definitive version was completely new to western audiences, Bamco had to dub new lines of dialogue that didn’t exist in the original dub. The problem with this is that they didn’t even bother to contact some of the original voice actors from the game, and instead used new people. For the main cast this is mostly fine. There is at least one new VA that I am aware of in the group, and he did his job well enough. For some of the plot relevant NPC’s though the changes are definitely noticeable, and sometimes happen within the same scene which can be jarring. Bamco was wrong in this approach, and should feel bad.

I won’t talk about the New Additions too much, because there isn’t much to say. Patty brings an extra story thread to the table, and a wide array of crazy attacks to the party, and Flynn just kind of exists. The DLC costumes were nice, and I did my best to make everyone look as ridiculous as possible by the endgame. 

Vesperia is a good game, and my gripes may not be yours. I had fun, and it really refueled my love for the series. If you are interested, Vesperia is on PS4, Switch, and Xboxone, as well as Steam, with the base version being on Xbox 360.

[pumpkinofthedale]

themxerte replied to your post “With the introduction of Moira, and the discussions and scandal a lot...”

Universes. And yeah those are maybe weak spots but I simply don't believe that a company that has the whole game dedicated to the grey moralities of how you see good and evil differently from a different point of view (World of Warcraft) would make such a damn boring, not complexed evil character.

Heya friend, I was wondering if you had actually taken the time to read my entire 1.5k word post detailing how I think Moira fits into the reaper story line.

However if you have read it and still feel that I feel that way about his characterization, allow me to elaborate and include and cite actual evidence. I love Gabriel Reyes and I firmly believe that he will be the epitome of grey morality within the story.

That being said there is nothing, nothing within the story saying that Reyes didnt get some of his powers before the fall of overwatch. In fact given the track it seemed the devs would go down earlier, I’d argue it was canon that he had at least some of them since SEP at the very least. I still think it’s canon that he had some of them before the explosion.

I also never said that he got his smokey wraith powers before the introduction of Moira. I said that I believe something was wrong DNA wise because he was an earlier test subject within the SEP program than Jack, and that his DNA, the fabric of his existence, was deteriorating causing a boatload of problems that no one was willing to risk getting caught up in major legal trouble to fix. I believe his body smoking is part of that. It’s probably something completely out of his control until Moira enters the picture.

 The way the devs worded their unveiling of Moira at blizzcon and her relationship to Gabriel Reyes, they implied that it’s plausible that Reyes didn’t necessarily get his powers from Moira, but instead Moira got her powers from studying Reyes’ DNA and it’s degeneration. A theory heavily backed up by in-game lore:

“Repairing Degenerative Genetic Structures” with a large post-it note that says “Draft”

Not to mention the blizzcon panel

Geoff Goodman: “It [Her Fade ability] has some similarities to Reaper’s wraith form…uh which is…it’s funny how that works out.” Michael Chu: “You know, we obviously - there’s a…there’s a close relationship between Moira and Reyes-slash-Reaper, and I think one of the fun things we were able to do is to sort of hint at some of those things in her, uh, abilities.” Geoff Goodman: “She’s helping Reaper out and is like, ‘You know, I think I could make this better, I have an idea.’”

Blizzcon 2017

On to my other points:

“We sort of saw Overwatch really open up to the world, and listening to players and the stories they were telling and what they imagined the Omnic crisis to be really made us second guess what we were doing in First Strike,” said Kaplan. “We thought, ‘Hey, if we go down this path, it really closes all these doors.’”

Fan theories about the Overwatch cast’s pasts abound, and players produce fiction, art and other original content in droves. Although animated shorts and digital comics have had success in filling out the game’s universe — particularly the most recent comics, “Uprising” and “Reflections” — the Overwatch team found that a 100-page graphic novel no longer made sense as supplemental reading material, six months into the game’s life.

“Part of the magic is that everything is not tied off and explained to players,” Kaplan said of keeping Overwatch’s canon less defined. “There’s a lot going on in Overwatch right now where I think that the story in players’ heads is often even cooler than what we can deliver to them.”

Jeff Kaplan May 2017 during a polygon interview

One very important thing to remember is that early previews of that 100 page graphic novel showed Gabriel Reyes as an ominous figure with heavily shadowed lighting. I believe that fan input especially on how Reyes is characterized, and the theories involving him had a lot to do with the cancellation.

 Yes, Gabriel Reyes manipulated Overwatch into helping innocent lives in Kings Row during the uprising comic. Even as Reaper he’s shown to kill very very few people. Like 2 people on screen max, and neither of those people were innocent. They worked for Vialli one of the top talon “bosses”. 

I’m not saying that Reyes is going to just let innocent people get caught in the crossfires of his plans. Kings Row can’t boil over into a full out omnic uprising because that will absolutely be a catastrophe that could trigger another full-out omnic crisis. He’s shown to be more pro-active in making sure people are safe than Jack is.

And Talon doesnt know about his involvement with the capture of doomfist or Overwatch’s intervention. This is extremely important information to remember. Gabriel Reyes is a man who works in the shadows, and I firmly believe that he has no firm allegiance to anyone, but rather to the ideal of making sure that nothing like the Omnic crisis ever happens again while he still lives/functions.

Every single one of his talon missions that would have brought the world closer to an omnic crisis (Katya’s assassination, retrieving information about the whereabouts of former overwatch agents, stealing doomfist’s gauntlet, killing Jack or Ana) has completely and utterly failed. The man is a tactical genius and so far every mission save picking up doomfist and infiltrating talon and killing vialli’s men, has failed. Against people he’s worked along side before. 

There is absolutely no way he doesn’t know what they’re capable of. The dude outsmarted god ai programs, you really think he wouldn’t have been able to calculate his former friends’ actions and adjust his missions accordingly? Hell, he even knows it was sombra that fucked up the assassination, and he did nothing about it.

Gabriel Reyes is an incredibly intelligent and calculating man. He was probably the president of the chess club in high school, and as every chess player knows, you have to be at least 2-3 steps ahead of your opponent. On any normal type higher level you should know the next ten moves and each possible outcome. Someone on Reyes’ level has hundreds of different moves calculated at any given time.

So now imagine for a moment, that Gabriel Reyes is not some soft goober of a man some people make him but instead a calculating morally grey person who understands exactly what is at stake if talon wins. He’s lived through one crisis, but the world is only just beginning to truly bounce back. It was essentially Armageddon. It cannot happen again.

Talon has infiltrated overwatch.

Talon has infiltrated blackwatch.

Talon has has most likely infiltrated the UN.

Conventional methods of tracking and dealing with spies hasn’t been working. The head of the Overwatch anti-talon task force is dead and his wife is missing. He is doing what he can to help, ie sending mccree to kings row to deal with the uprising situation as well as manipulating overwatch to help. Sending Genji to help apprehend doomfist. Things that talon doesn’t know about because it isn’t strictly blackwatch shit going on. It’s a man on vacation, a commander checking in with his friends and updating them on a situation. It isn’t direct involvement at kings row. It’s manipulation.

But overwatch is strangled in even more red tape and controversies and it’s failing. It cannot properly do its job anymore and Gabriel Reyes is running out of options. Mccree and genji have left; who can he trust but himself.

I believe he did plant the bomb to blow up the zurich base. But I also happened to notice that only Jack was caught in the blast besides him. None of the main overwatch agents were caught in the explosion. He has cool smokey wraith form so he can probably survive, that’s probably one of the ways he was able to survive, though there were obviously some serious complications. I’m sure other overwatch members died in the blast, but he seems to have waited until the base was relatively empty. 

Talon can trust him now. Something went wrong of course he has a vendetta. 

Except, he is ineffectual. His direct actions with winston to secure the names and locations of former overwatch agents in order to fulfill that vendetta prompts winston to recall the old agents. His actions with Hakim and talon reunite Jack and Ana when he has a chance to kill both of them. Overwatch is being reformed except this time, it’s not under the UN’s control. 

Meanwhile reaper, seeming terrorist with a vendetta against overwatch who “inadvertently” cause overwatch to reform a few years after the fall as an independent organization away from the control of the UN and likely away from the clutches of talon’s shadow puppets there.

But he also has their trust which means that innocent people have also likely died by his hand in his quest to infiltrate and take out talon. I also have no doubt in my mind that he probably would kill Jack or Ana or any of his friends if they do actually interfere with his plans just as i do believe that if he felt that it was necessary, he would let innocents die.

“What’s important to us is that their motivations are not purely rooted in being evil, despite how they might seem on the surface.  As we reveal more about these characters, we want people to be able to empathize and understand their beliefs.  Because sometimes what makes a villain a villain is the extent to which they’re willing to go to reach their goals.  And one thing that we find most important when we’re talking about our villain characters is that there is nothing to say that a villain cannot be as charismatic or more charismatic or as likeable as a hero character - because, like the old saying goes, ‘every villain is the hero of their own story.’”

Michael Chu early March 2017

Reyes has a lot of potential to be an almost antihero. Someone who does some shady under the table shit, but only because he thinks it will help the world. I think Blizzard has realized this and why it hasn’t cemented a lot of things in canon. They want to wait and see what it is that fans could seriously enjoy. They love fan feedback. That’s why they created Moira! That’s why they cancelled the 100 page graphic novel about the omnic crisis! Because they want to be able to see their story evolve just as much as the fans do.

anyways. I’m not putting this one under a cut so people don’t have to take the time to click the button to see ALL of what i have to say about the subject (even though I have tons more to say, but I’ve spent so much time on this that I kind of want to be done rn)

[noromannet-blog]

How artificial intelligence might end up deciding which movies arrive at movie theaters

The artificial intelligence is increasingly more important in our lives, and different industries are investing in this technology to predict what products will get greater benefits. Perhaps one might expect that these practices would not have as much weight in industries whose success depends on more abstract factors, such as creativity and imagination, but not even art creation gets rid of the influence of algorithms. In an exclusive, The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Warner Bros has signed a contract with Cinelytic, the creator of an AI specialized in the management of film projects, and whose main job is to calculate which films will be successful at the box office.

Some may think, somewhat innocently, that the only elements that are taken into account when deciding which films are produced are the enjoyment of the audience, cultural value, and other material aspects. But at the moment of truth, for companies, the economic benefit is one of the most relevant factors, and the film industry is no exception. Every time a study arises if the film they have been proposed is viable, they consider how much money they can raise at the box office, and some projects do not go ahead because they do not anticipate sufficient profits. For this, the people in charge of deciding which films are given the green light must take into account very diverse factors, such as the fame of the director and the protagonists, the interest of the audience for such plots, or the popularity of the content existing related to that movie (something very relevant in book adaptations and in the film sagas). The number of variables to be taken into account for decisions of this type is large and implies hours of work screening figures and statistics. What Cinelytic proposes with its AI is to perform this tedious task in an automated way, making it an algorithm that collects and values ​​all these factors, accelerating the process. This implies that, in practice, an AI would be part of the decision-making regarding the films that Warner Bros brings to the cinemas. And as expected, controversy has aroused. When media like Discussing Film shared the news, panic spread among Internet users. In response to the tweet of that medium, some users declared that this decision marks the death of creativity in the cinema, and others said that this confirms that the only art whose existence is allowed is the art that generates benefits. Warner Bros has signed a deal for a AI-driven film management system which will help decision-making for greenlighting certain films. The AI system can assess an actor’s value in any territory and how much a film is expected to earn in theaters. (Source: https://t.co/4wWwyh66fT) pic.twitter.com/sJZbWkivJI — DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 8, 2020 But is it really such a terrible decision? Again, it is perhaps somewhat innocent to assume that economic benefit is not one of the main reasons why films are accepted or rejected today (ergo an AI will not change anything in this regard ). And something that is probably not being taken into account is that the task that this AI would perform is a task that is already being carried out, even if it is done by people instead of algorithms. The Cinelytic AI is first and foremost a data processing tool. It allows us to simulate different scenarios and assess which guarantees better results: does the audience prefer Anne Hathaway as the protagonist, or would Natalie Portman have more success in this film? How popular is the material on which the film would be based? Will there be more interest if directed by Taika Waititi? At what time of the year are there more possibilities for people to go to the cinema?

Taking into account factors such as these, a study can assess which projects will work best and what alterations they can make so that the success of a film they want to develop is greater. And this does not imply that the AI ​​makes any decision. Simply, the algorithm would provide the data that so far the study has to compile and study manually. Positive data have already been obtained in the use of algorithms of this type. Other similar AIs such as ScriptBook predicted which films would benefit with 86% success, compared to 44% industry success. Tobias Queisser, the founder of Cinelytic, has pointed out in his statements to The Hollywood Reporter that AI is designed to help with the process, not to make creative decisions of any kind, something that has also been confirmed by Candice McDonough, head of communications at Warner Bros. And some professionals in the film industry such as Zack Stentz, co-writer of Thor and X-Men: First Generation, have also pointed out that the panic that has emerged as a result of the news is meaningless. As Stentz points out, the use of statistical data in decision-making is nothing new in Hollywood, and despite this, projects are carried out that analytics do not value positively based on the intuition and personal opinion of the people in charge of deciding Yes, what the article describes is a refinement of analytics that studios already use. My point is that these analytics that purport to tell you which actor is worth how much in these territories are useless compared to the casting intuitions that end up creating magic onscreen. — Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) January 8, 2020 Internet panic aside, it is true that the use of AI presents certain issues that film studios will have to face. Artificial intelligence makes assessments based on existing information and tends to make fairly conservative decisions based on it. In cinema, this translates into considering which actors, directors, and films have been successful in the past, which does not have to reflect the current preferences of the audience. It can also lead to major problems. Because AI values ​​new data based on what it has learned to consider positive, the data and proposals of the algorithms can be discriminatory. In fact, it is something that has already happened in various fields: in 2015 Amazon had to cancel a project in which an AI was used to screen resumes because it continuously discriminated against women, and a study conducted by the Government The US had detected racist trends in numerous facial recognition algorithms that use artificial intelligence. In the cinema, this could have very varied effects. For example, if an AI has learned that most successful films of a decade have been directed by white men, it is possible that it values ​​directors with these characteristics better than people belonging to various minorities, regardless of the predominance of Directors of the first type may be due to discriminatory reasons. However, as we have said, the final decision will not depend on the AI but on people who will make assessments beyond the statistical data offered by specialists or algorithms, so if they act with the head the algorithm will simply be another tool to accelerate the job. In fact, Warner is not the first company to use artificial intelligence to perform tasks of this type: Sony Pictures and other companies had been collaborating with Cinelytic for a while, and 20th Century Fox has its own AI-focused on the study of trailers and reception of them by the audience. In summary, it should be clear that Cinelytic has designed its AI to help, not to decide, and that the main assessment and final decision in each project will continue to depend on people. The film industry must make sensible use of these algorithms, and take into account their limitations, but if other studies have been using them so far and there has been no problem, there is no reason to think that there will be a different result in the case of Warner. Read the full article