#actually this concept gives me more reason to hate ai

[ohmuqueen]

x

[devsgames]

On AI-Driven Conversations In Games

The AI gang really shot themselves in the foot by leaning so hard into capitalist exploitation angle, because now whenever they present a use of the tech that is actually moderately interesting the baseline reaction people have to it is just going to be hate because it's associated to AI in any way shape or form.

I mean, obviously I understand why people react this way, because most of the practical applications of AI are just a veil for replacing of labour and increasing profit margins for the executive levels. But I feel like nowadays you'll also just see a lot of people hating an idea because it's implicitly tied to AI in any way, despite the core conceit of the idea actually being fairly interesting. (Remember when Spiderverse used Machine Learning to generate some of it's incredibly labour-intensive frame-by-frame effects and then a bunch of people got mad because it used Machine Learning for that?)

People have been pointing to the use case of "what if you could talk to an NPC in a game and have their reponses generated via AI", and laughing at it like it's the dumbest suggestion ever, but honestly in my opinion I think that's the exact kind of system AI was practically designed for! To me that feels like an excellent application of the tech that is now just marred by the mention of AI in the first place.

Anyway, to ruminate on the concept a bit: I see that use of AI enabling a dev to fill out a world with more NPCs who help it feel more populated, as well as potentially give them incredibly varied responses that are more relevant to the NPCs immediate context of the game. I imagine instead of replacing full-on player choice dialog it would instead replace the throwaway barks of awkward and out of place open-world NPCs who look at you and say "I have nothing to say to you" and giving them something to directly say about your adventure or the context around them instead.

Instead of having the intern narrative designers be forced to write little barks and blurbs like "I have nothing to say" (which I understand narrative folks usually view as grunt work and hate writing in he first place), they'd be writing little prompts for that system instead. End result is when you talk to random farmer NPC #344 outside of town they say "Crop's doing well this year, here's hoping a dragon doesn't attack us" instead of "I've got nothing to say". I think on paper that's a genuinely good and interesting way to improve an antiquated open-world problem like that. Should it be helpful? Probably not. Would it be interesting? No. Would it be a little more flavourful than what we currently have going on? I think so!

It's not an AI shill fever dream, I can see exactly how it would work and I'd bet money that there's a studio doing something like it in R&D right now. I imagine it'd also probably be pretty adaptable between projects too, so the similar system could be applied to different areas of the world.

Should it be trusted to give the player directions or do any sort of leading that a narrative designer should do? Almost certainly not because it would be inconsistent and have too big a possibility window, and AI is nothing if not horrible at performing essential tasks that might block progress.

Should it be done with the tech as it is now? Hell no, unless you want to wait five seconds for every reply to be generated and for it to be tied to some server bank that's guzzling all of Arizona's water. Also it would probably need an internet conncetion to work, which is asking a lot for an open world game.

Should it be done by these studios who are more interested in using it to replace labour and make the end result cheaper to make so they can keep more profits off he top? No, and that's the real reason why the applications of this tech sucks - because spoiler alert they'd all love to save money.

Obviously this concept isn't doable right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ships in a game in some form within 5-10 years tops.

Again I get why at this point in capitalism there's almost no applications of machine learning that are easy to trust, nor should we ever believe studios are doing it for any reason outside of trying to make development cheaper. I just think when it comes to tech it's worthwhile to keep execution in mind separate from intent; Tech isn't implicitly evil, it's the system it's built under that is. :)

[mobiuslab]

Reverse: 1999 seems unreal; too good to be true.

The reason I even took notice of it in the first place was its soundtrack. I hate jazz, but they made a jazz song that I actually like, and then there's ReReReRegulus!, what a banger. And then I watched the trailer, to get a feel of what the game is even about. First of all, the accents! Hello? I normally always play games in JP, but this game seems to be set not in some fictional world, but in our real world, in the real London, so the British English dub would be so much more immersive (but of course there are a lot of familiar JP seiyuu, I'm very conflicted.) If this game, unlike Genshin, has a good voice director, who actually does their work and tells the VA's how the character is supposed to sound, I might play in English tbh. As a former FGO player, traveling to the past isn't an entirely novel concept to me, however, we are going to the 20th century, which is quite interesting. I mean, think about it, the 20th century of our real world, there are so many fascinating historical events. And it seems that they are putting in much more effort in portraying the zeitgeist of the era than FGO ever did. The artistic direction seems to be on point for this game. Apparently there is a main character, with a canon personality and fully voiced dialogue. Hoyo making Honkai Impact 2.0's new MC a self-insert was the stupidest move, and I'm so glad that this game understands how much better a canon protagonist is. It really convinces me that they care about storytelling and characterization. The general artistic direction is so impressive, but the game itself also surprises me. The base rate of 6-stars is 1.5% (compared to Genshin and Star Rail's 0.6%) AND the soft pity starts at 60, with hard pity being at 70. There doesn't seem to be a weapon gacha and the dupes only increase skill multipliers instead of completely changing how a character can be played. At first, I thought it was unfortunate that pick-up rate was only 50%, but every character joins the standard pool, so losing the 50/50 won't be nearly as bad. Unless the gacha currency economy is completely fucked, this seems extremely generous. The combat is thankfully not one of those god-awful auto-fights like Blue Archive or PriConne, but it's turn-based, which is much more engaging, allowing for challenging battles that actually pick your brain and require some skill.

However, there is an auto-mode for the mundane stuff, and get this, you can record your actions, rather than having an AI do everything wrong. And thankfully, there is no PvP, so you don't need to compete with whales. Knowing all this, I really have to wonder, where is the catch? There must be some huge flaw, right? It is as if the devs of Reverse: 1999 looked at all the complaints and criticism of all other gacha games, and just decided to address all of them. As long as the game doesn't have a huge reliance on meta characters to clear endgame content and event-limited content and the writing doesn't absolutely suck, then this game might be the perfect gacha game. I'm so excited to give it a try!

[weenwrites]

REQUEST: TFP! Optimus and TFP! Ultra Magnus with a human S/O who doesn't believe in (and also condemns) the "family by bond, not by blood" principle; S/O despises said concept, saying that said concept is used to manipulate people, and also make people feel weak.

In addition, both Autobots find the reason why S/O condemns this human concept: This is because S/O's family made them act this way due to S/O's toxic relationships with their family, preventing S/O from making friendships (In severe cases, it leads to unlawful acts commited by S/O's family, not by S/O). Following their discovery, S/O justifies that they live with fear 24/7 before saying this phrase: "Not everyone in this ever-declining world are good people; also not everyone deserves to live. And not everyone deserves a second chance, nor a redemption. I hope you keep this in mind."

For context: Remember that episode from TFP, where Ultra Magnus learns and understands the "family" concept from Optimus following his fight with Predaking? This request was inspired from that episode.

Notes: Abusive relationships; angst, etc.

Feel free if this makes you feel uncomfortable.

✎ A/N: I'm not actually sure whether I should tag with any TWs this since I vaguely mention abusive relationships in what I wrote. But if you think I should tag this post, please let me know!

[ Please do not repost, plagiarize, or use my writing for AI! Translating my work with proper credit is acceptable, but please ask first! ]

Optimus Prime

During his time on Earth, he's noticed that everyone seems to have a different definition of the term "family". Some definitions—like yours, for example—directly contradict the dictionary definition of the word "family". He's wondered if the difference in the definitions is because of the ideal vs. the definition of the actual word itself, and so far that seems to be the case to him.

He doesn't think any differently of you for the way you view family because of your life experiences. He respects the way you see it, and he's much fonder of your idea of "family" more than the dictionary definition of it. And though he hasn't experienced what you have, he can see how the term "family by blood" can be harmful to those who have horrible families.

However, some of his beliefs contradict a couple of yours. For example, he's willing to give almost—emphasis on almost—anyone a second chance if he sees that they're willing to take the initiative to change. He's willing to give second chances to even people who you think might not deserve them. And whether this causes friction in your relationship depends on how the both of you deal with your differences.

And when you tell him that some people don't deserve second chances, that doesn't come as anything new to him. He's heard it before from soldiers and even Ratchet's tried to get it through to him. He knows, yet regardless of how many times he hears this, he will still abide by his moral compass, and do things as he deems necessary.

Ultra Magnus

The human concept of "family" was once all too confusing to him. One second, the kids told him that "family" are people who are genetically related to them. The next, they said that they consider the other autobots their family (a statement which directly contradicts their previous definition of the word...). So what is he supposed to believe here? That one chooses their own family? Or that family is something you can't change?

But when he meets you, he finds that your definition of "family" is much easier and straight-forward to understand. And after learning about all the horrible things that your "family" put you through... He can understand why you would hate that principle, and why you would hate to have those people be associated as your "family" because you share the same blood.

He would actually agree with the way you view the world. It's full of complicated people. He's seen some of the most disgusting and despicable people in the war from both the autobot and decepticon factions, and at times he can't quite understand why some people such as Optimus strive to give horrible people a second chance. Perhaps he's being too distrustful, but he's just being cautious. After all, he's in a war where he doesn't know if today will be his last or if he'll still have a base to return to the next day.

[3psil-0n]

My love of Haunting Ground

Demento is the perfect horror experience.

Haunting Ground (or Demento in Japan) is the perfect horror experience in my opinion. It is a unique kind of horror that no games have done since, which is such a shame as the game is just... it's incredible; from the music and aesthetics to the story, it's just perfect in my opinion, so now I'm going to ramble about it for as long as it takes me to write this thing :3 (Spoilers ahead, if you can find a copy of this game (physical or emulated) I 100% recommend you play it!)

Its roots in Resident Evil.

A fun fact that people may not know is that Haunting Ground is very much linked to Resident Evil 4! People usually look at the dog that helps you in the El Gigante boss fight early in the game and joke that Hewie, the dog that accompanies you through Haunting Ground, is that same dog however there's more of a connection between the two games than just having the similar dogs.

A lot of people are aware that Devil May Cry uses some pieces of a scrapped plot for Resident Evil 4, but the same is actually true for Haunting Ground too! Specifically, it uses pieces from the RE demo which was dubbed Resident Evil 3.5: The Hookman Demo, which was obviously scrapped. The main plot of RE3.5 was a decent concept: "It was Spencer’s castle. Everything started from the castle owned by Spencer, when the ruin was found, and aristocrats started digging. They found the primal virus and Spencer began to have his ambitions. Leon infiltrates this castle seeking the truth, meanwhile deep in the catacombs of the castle, a young girl wakes up in a laboratory. She starts to ascend the castle, accompanied by a B.O.W. dog" (source :3) In this version Leon was also supposed to be infected, and the game would have two different stories to playthrough, similar to Resident Evil 1 and 2.

Although many pieces became part of the final product, a majority ended up being the main features of Haunting Ground, specifically the main location being a castle, the main character being accompanied by a dog, although the reasoning for the main character being accompanied by a dog is a little negative, as the developers were nervous about the game only having a female protagonist would hinder the games popularity and sales... which unfortunately happened anyway due to Capcom focusing its marketing on Resident Evil 4, likely making people who played that and hated Ashley (even though she is a perfectly fine character and I will DIE on this hill) compare her and Fiona without even playing Haunting Ground.

Horror and life.

This game is one of the best horror games as the story links so perfectly to Fiona and her womanhood, the way she's treated by the other characters in the game, the horrors she has to face... everything. Through the whole game, outside of some small craftable items, there are no weapons. You have no way to eliminate your stalker outside of their boss-fights, only stun them/hold them in place to give you enough time to run and hide. Those are your only real options, run and hide. You can't over-use the same hiding spot either, or the stalker will easily find you. I'm not kidding, the AI for this game is incredible and some of the best AI of the time, including the AI for Hewie! The thing that makes this game perfect is the fact that, well... the game could never work with a male protagonist, its themes work so perfectly with womanhood, as if the pair are woven together.

The fear you feel in Haunting Ground is so... familiar, it can be familiar to anyone; the feeling of dread, of not knowing if someone is coming after you, the paranoia; trying to figure out where to hide, trying to remember certain routes and area layouts.. that itch of fear when the area falls to total silence, making you freeze up and hold your breath until you hear footsteps and realise you have to RUN. That fear is so familiar, and I adore it in this game, I am so glad that you have no weapons, because that fear wouldn't exist anymore; you don't fear what you can fight against, after all.

An Innocent Freak and Objectification.

(Okay!! We're getting into spoiler territory here so if you wanna experience Demento go watch a playthrough or play it!! Dw I'll wait!)

The game starts with Fiona waking up in a cage with nothing but a sheet covering her. The cutscene shows a large ogre-looking guy reaching out to grab her, but he is scared off by thunder and leaves the room; Fiona then wakes up and looks around, leaving the cage once she finds it unlocked. The girl finds a dog collar with the name Hewie, gets startled by said dog, and then leaves the room she was trapped in. At the end of this cutscene we finally gain control of Fiona. Walking through the area, the only way we can go is up some stairs and into a castle, finding ourselves in the main suite of the castle. Soon we're introduced to the castles maid, get some actual clothes to wear, and can begin exploring the castle to try and find a map; the first main objective of the game. Walking down a hallway on the 2nd floor you can hear a dog panting, a cutscene starting when we get to the corner.

We are then introduced to Debilitas (yes, his name is literally Disability in Latin, I wish I was joking), the gardener of the castle and our first stalker. Debilitas is a play on the gentle giant trope, he doesn't truly mean Fiona any harm, he just doesn't realise how strong he is, or that Fiona is a living being; in his mind she is a new doll for him to play with. After the first interaction with Debilitas, where you learn about hiding spots, you're free to return down that hallway and continue in your search for a map. The search ending in the kitchen where you find it, then get some more cutscenes.

Throughout Debilitas section of the game, (which I'll just call the castle section for now) you get multiple interactions with the homunculus, showing his mounting frustration at the fact he cannot play with his "dolly". The fact he doesn't mean harm at first comes from his animations, all of which paint him in an innocent, childish light; swatting at Fiona, biting his nails and bouncing around while giggling, even picking her up in a bear-hug (something that can instant kill Fiona if you don't act fast enough.) He does slowly get angrier, the anger culminating in his boss-fight where he corners Fiona in the castle chapel. This boss-fight is the only one where you have a way to pacify the stalker without killing them, your choice dictating the ending you get, which I find to be a shame as I would have loved to be able to save the next stalker we're going to talk about.

If you defeat Debilitas peacefully, by tricking him into breaking the winches holding up one of the chandeliers (you can do it yourself, but it takes much longer than if you get Debilitas to do it) then the gardener will finally leave Fiona be, realising his mistake but still managing to objectify her, now viewing her as an object of worship instead of a mere doll. It means he leaves Fiona alone now, so perhaps it isn't all bad. Finding the homunculus in his shack, he gives you a key that unlocks a door in the bathroom and leads to an item that can help you through the game (or another ending if you've already beaten the game once :D)

Debilitas is no longer a threat, however we're given a new obstacle to face, it could never be that easy...

Womanhood and the thought of Something Lacking.

After the boss-fight with Debilitas, we obtain a key called the Saturnus key, which (obviously) unlocks the Saturnus door on the third floor. Before we can unlock the door, however, we are interrupted by Daniella who tells us that dinner is ready and leans a little too close for comfort (*cough cough* ambiguously gay moment- *cough*). Daniella tells us how she's meant to be the perfect woman, but is lacking the things that make her complete; the sensation of taste, the ability to feel pleasure and the ability to feel pain. While not said in that moment, there is also the fact that Daniella is also infertile, unable to bare children. This is what feeds her need to hunt down and eliminate Fiona, as she is a "real woman" in Daniellas eyes thanks to the fact that she, unlike the maid, has Azoth; the alchemical essence of life and, in Daniellas words, woman.

It's obvious Daniella hates herself and envies Fiona, as not only does Fiona have what she wants, but she is also treated much better than the maid is. There is a scene in the Castle section of the game, after we are warned about Riccardo by a man on the phone, where we can see Daniella getting interrogated and beaten by the groundskeeper; Daniellas model also has cuts on her hands, likely given to her by Riccardo.

Fiona and Daniella are the only two women in the whole game too, every other character is male, which honestly makes them two halves of one whole, both of them are objectified in different ways. Daniella was likely mistreated for years, as she's only a couple years older than Fiona, and it only adds to how damn crushing it is. Daniella is also the best stalker of everyone in the game, likely the one players will die to most of all (although I'm biased because she's the one who killed me most-) unlike with the others, you can't hide behind doors as Daniella closes every door she walks through, and she is much better at looking through hiding spots; there's also two hiding spots Daniella can hide in, both of which being closets (Capcom what are you tryin' to say/j).

Something that I think is disappointing is the fact that Daniella can't be saved. You cannot pacify her, your only option leads to her death. The worst part about it is the fact that originally you were supposed to be able to save her, but it was likely scrapped to save development time. Daniellas death is, ironically, incredibly gut-wrenching to me, as she is one of my favourite characters, and her death is the only time we see her truly smile, smiling as she finally feels pain... or finally realises that what she felt, while negative, was still a feeling. To be totally honest, I literally cried at Daniellas death. I'm not kidding. I was stood, petting Hewie while crying as I felt so guilty for killing Daniella, as in my eyes she is the most tragic character in the game. Just with Debilitas though, the safety cannot last forever.

We take the Mars key that Daniella dropped, say our (tearful) goodbyes (and apologies bc god I felt so guilty) and unlock the door that leads deeper into the mansion to try and find our escape.

Weakness and a Sly Hunter.

Once we find a room with a homunculus floating in green liquid, we're chased by the castle keeper, Riccardo. Riccardo is pissed that Fiona wants to go home, despite being the heir of the castle. He is awful, but he is pretty easy to evade if you pace yourself well. The problem comes once you leave the mansion, finding yourself outside of the mansion you get separated from Hewie (which can lead to the worst ending of the game if you abused the poor boy). Wandering through the chaos forest, once you find Hewie and bandage his wound, Riccardo chases you, but unlike every other time, you don't have Hewie to hold him off. Eventually Fiona gets cornered and we find out the truth; Riccardo and our father were clones, and Fiona holds the Azoth of Aureolus Belli an alchemist who cloned himself as a form of immortality as he attempted to learn the great truth. This ended with Ugo (Riccardo's brother and Fiona's father) as he ran away with Fiona's mother; leaving the clone before him to hope that Riccardo was the one who inherited the azoth instead.

Riccardo wants to use Fiona's azoth to create a new line of clones... the worst part being the way that the clones would be created, (I'm sure you can put two and two together). Riccardo is just foul, making a serum to turn himself invisible just to torment Fiona once she escapes her cell in the water tower; the only way to really hold him of being Hewie as he can see through the serum.

Riccardo's focus is on tormenting Fiona, scaring her into submission (shooting at her, turning invisible and mocking her) he is just awful, and it's clear he sees Fiona as just an object, similar to how he saw Daniella. If she didn't have azoth, he likely would treat her just as he treated the stalker before him. His boss-fight is the easiest, but that is likely because of just how hellish he is on the way toward the fight. There are no hiding spots, and he chases after you on nearly every floor of the water tower, excluding the planetarium at the top floor as that is a puzzle room and stalkers are unable to enter puzzle rooms until they've been completed. The worst thing about the boss-fight is just the line "let me into your womb" which is just... *barfs*

Once defeated, and the bridge to the final area of the game is raised, we can finally leave this hellish area, right?

... 

right?

A Warped Obsession and the eventuality of death.

Ha, NO :D! We have one final enemy, remember that man on the phone who warned us about Riccardo? Well, he's an enemy too! The mastermind behind everything... the clone that created Ugo and Riccardo, Lorenzo Belli. The stinky rotten gross corpse eww eww he it so gross I hate him so much.

Lorenzo is the only one who actually wants to kill Fiona (well.. I guess Daniella did too but shh she is allowed to have a mental breakdown after everything she went through) He is awful, vile, and just as disgusting as Riccardo. He is the most frustrating stalker as the House Of Truth, his area, is a maze that is very easy to get lost in, and it's even easier to not grab the map for the area (which makes the area harder to traverse) the area is the most draining to Fiona, as Lorenzo intentionally makes himself younger to mess with Fiona. He should get killed *multiple* times, but he so damn stubborn; even chasing after Fiona as a flaming skeleton (and not the cool kind of skeleton either) as the House Of Truth suffers earthquakes and crumbles around him and Fiona. He is an instant kill like this too, and it's just AWFUL trying to get through this final section of the game.

The relentless chasing of Fiona is common between all the stalkers, but this corpse takes it to the next level, refusing to let up even when should have died. The irony of him and Riccardo is perfect however, especially in Lorenzo's case... His obsession with immortality lead to his death.

He is the most off-putting character however, as Lorenzo is watching from the very beginning; watching Fiona get dressed at the very start of the game, at one point at the start of the game you can hear him call Fiona while walking past an area in the gardens, a cutscene occurring if you walk over to where he calls for her. He's there from the beginning and he doesn't care how Fiona feels; making his death all the sweeter.

Acta Est Fabula, Fortes Fortuna Juvat.

Finally... at the morning of a new game, Fiona and Hewie can finally escape this hellish place. While trying to unlock the door, the weight of Fiona's experience catches up with her, making her hands tremble and her breaths shaky, but before she breaks down, Hewie barks and brings her back to reality, reminding her its all over now, and she doesn't need to be scared anymore. As she calms down, she unlocks the castle gate and pushes it open, turning back to look over the castle one last time. Debilitas opens the front door to begin his tasks in the front garden, looking at Fiona he bows to her; showing his respect to her and sending her off. Fiona turns back, calls for Hewie, and they finally leave the castle.

However this only ending 1 of 4.

Some consider this the best ending, me being one of them, as Fiona was able to overcoming everything and escape the hell she was forced into. Ending b, Ignis Aurum Probat, is identical to ending A, only Debilitas does not appear as this ending requires him to be killed.

Ending C it another ending which is considered the best, which I also agree with, as Fiona goes through the least trauma in this ending. Yeah she has to deal with Debilitas but hey, at least she doesn't have to kill best girl Daniella (in my head she goes back with Hewie to save Daniella later). Unfortunately Riccardo and Lorenzo are still alive in this ending, however it's unlikely they would live much longer with the girl gone. This ending is the only one you can't get unless you play through the came once already, as it is the quickest ending and doesn't let you experience the full story (Think of it like the joke endings/items in Silent Hill, you have to properly experience the story first before you get the silly stuff.)

Tu Fui, Ego Eris.

"Huh... weird writing..."

Ending D is the worst ending, where Riccardo gets what he wants. The only way you can get that ending is by treating Hewie awfully and I'm sorry but if you do that then you DESERVE this ending. Every ending unlocks something if you get it, other than this one. You don't deserve nice things if you hurt Hewie.

Dona Nobis Pacem.

Haunting Ground is an incredible horror game to me. In an era where most horror games are just action games with horror aesthetics, this game is gorgeous, it's horrifying and I adore it to no end. If you can play through it, I thoroughly recommend that you do. It's a breath of fresh air in a genre that is starting to grow stale, and I can only hope Capcom will remake/remaster it so that it's more available for everyone that would like to play it.

Thank you for reading all the way through this, its taken me *checks clock* FOUR HOURS?! oh jeez- well, I hope you all enjoy reading my incessant rambling about a 19 year old game that Capcom is probably never gonna remake, feel free to comment or share, bai!!!

[zombieprowl]

Tiktoks and their multiple AI generated batshit stuffs about greek deities that also get reposted as YT shorts, definitely warped the "geneeal knowledge" about many gods. And two I cannot stand are the Ares "was the protector of women" and "Ares ended the age of mythology." And don't get me started on the "babification" of the Aphrodite and Ephaestus marriage where he even gets a glow up to "pretty boy with a mild disability" cause if he needs to be made pretty to justify their love story, I can't even.

Anyway, I think Ares, by his mere dominion was often portrayed much more negatively because popular culture and media teaches us that war = bad. But that same media somehow tells us Athena's take on the same concept is not bad often at the expense of justifying strategic war as somehow being less horrific than "non strategic" war. Both will end up with a body count.

That's not to say I hate Athena and absolutely adore Ares. Both are complex because at the end of the day Greek gods are a myriad of collective "someone said" with both positive and negative aspects and contradictions to make sense of things. Considering, for example, how Ephaestus appears in versions of myths that theoretically predate him and basically he seems to pop up whenever is convenient and it's unclear how that accounts for his birth and age, gods are maleable concepts that come up as needed.

Gods in greek mythology aren't characters in a novel or creative universe. They could behave one way one moment and then in a completely different way the next. If we were to look at the deities in other cultures, we'd find some greek gods mild and vanilla in their most "controversial" actions.

But I digress. The things that do bother me about the whole feminist-juice drinker Ares is that applying the term as we know it and exercise it today to a deity from ages ago is not exactly going to go well because we're applying our modern sensibilities to the anthropomorphic representation of an idea/concept/thing-that-happens. And for his feminist take to fly in today's unrealistic expectations of unproblematicness, the sanitization of the "character" is going to be extreme and often at the expense of vilifying others (like Athena or Ephaestus). And the second One stain shows up, the people who take issue with this will make sure it is known to the world Ares feminist icon isn't so perfect. (Because perfection is totally attainable).

This is one of the reasons Hades got the short end of the stick in popular media until his most recent iterations. Hades was turned into a villanous character (emphasis in the word Character) by merely being the King of the Underworld and then-modern sensibilities making the Underworld the equivalent of a Christian hell, therefore the ruler had to be the equivalent of the devil. (Disney's version actually gives him many atributes that enhance a more demonic appearance)

And likewise we often see Ares depicted as the shitties jock to ever jocked because the bloodthirsty god of war cannot possibly be anything other than a brute because war is bad. Sure, Ares wasn't particularly loved as a god because his dominion was likely seen as necessary if unpleasant. (He'd probably be a lot more popular with Aztecs since warfare was extremely important in the political and religious fields) But like every other deity, he was nuanced and had positive and negative aspects. His having decent relationships to the women in his life doesn't automatically make him a feminist icon by today's standards. Though it doesn't mean he was a certified misogynistic asshole either. The pendulum doesn't have to swing the whole other way.

The whataboutism regarding the fact he had feasts women were forbidden to attend in response to his epithet of being Feasted by women is also kinda meh as if that justifies the misogynistic brutish character are about as Meh as the Protector of mistreated women title.

Ares didn't go down and said "Ok chums, time to feast. Oh and ladies need not attend." The feasts were organized by mortals in his honor and those mortals decided who attended.

His being honored in a feast by women who fought and won a battle was merely a celebration of their victory dedicated to Ares. I guess because they felt their victory was influenced by his aid/favor. This, again, has little to do with him favoring women in some extraordinary capacity, war doesn't necessarily favor men over women or NBs in the battlefield when it comes down to it, whoever stabs the other in the vitals first wins that battle and can choose whether to eat a burger in Ares' honor.

One can choose to hold the belief Ares does look upon the weak and mistreated with hot headed compassion and empowers them with anger and fury to face their circumstances. But that is a personal belief and nothing that should be passed around as a fact about the deity cause, again, they aren't characters with a factual source of "this is how he was 2000%".

Interpretations are not facts. Even I make fun of the whole "Ares and his daddy issues" cause while there is only one source of Zeus telling Ares he's most disliked, I've yet to find anything about Zeus ever showing the littlest bit of parental affection towards Ares (other than agreeing to have him healed and his being his son the only reason why he's not in Tartarus with granpa Kronos). And that is mostly cause I can get away with dumbass videos of Ares singing Linking Park songs.

Then there is the whole "Ares ended the age of mythogy" goddness... no. Let me repeat that one: No. That didn't happen and certaiy not the way Tik tok and YT shorts have popularized in recent years.

Some sources cited that Zeus swallowed Metis because of a prophesized son that would become king of the gods, in other words, repeating the pattern of son defeating and claiming the throne of the father. Yet he went on to have many sons, but Ares is the one born to both him and Hera, his now wife and queen. (Hephaestus and his birth are again a source of headscratches. Was he born before Athena or was he conceived by Hera on her own to spite Zeus for Athena's birth?)

So, going from there, a case could be made that Ares could be the son to overthrow Zeus. Aaaaand that's more or less what DC Comics did. You see, Ares in DC comics is a very powerful being, often times a villanous character cause, again, War incarnate yada yada. But the thing is, he IS powerful and he has even rebranded his dominion to that of Strife because peaceful times meant an absence of large scale war weakens him but strife remains even in peaceful times. Not only that, at some point he kills Hades and claims the throne of the Underworld too.

In the many iterations of the DC Universe and events, there was one time where Wonder Woman asked about why the Olympians had abandoned the world of man, and it was revealed Ares allied himself with other gods (often times the ones depicted as more villanous in modern media such as Sekhmet) from different pantheons and he led them in waging war against the Olympians and won, forcing them from the world of man.

And thus the telephone game of how Ares ended the age of mythology began. Some changes were made to erase the gods of the other pantheons and replaced with some of Ares sons and other supposed allies. And now people are learning that Ares, in defence of humankind, decided to fight the Olympians and force them to stop messing with the human world and ruin their virgins or whatever.

Hades and Ares just can't catch a break from either extreme of the good vs bad gods. No god (other than Hestia probably) was entirely good or bad, and specially not for today's puritanical ways of "unproblematic".

One can enjoy making characterizations of them and adjust them if they want, I mean Lore Olympus and Percy Jackson exist, but getting into the high and mighty "my head cannon is totally a fact" with large amounts of sanitization and therefore vilifying others is like... yeah that's inviting unnecessary trouble.

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

Yugioh dubs ranked from most tolerable to most deserving of a punch in the face

(No Sevens cuz the dub isn’t finished)

Best: 5Ds

Yes, it’s incomplete. Yes, the censorship is absurdly bad and confusing. Yes, it’s stupid as shit sometimes. But you know what? The dub is the only way I will willingly watch 90% of 5Ds because the sub is so terribly boring and lifeless. The dub actors and script breathed life into the characters, giving them and the series a personality and making the story instantly more compelling than it was in sub.

2nd most tolerable: Arc V

Not my favourite series and I generally prefer the sub voices but it’s this high up for one simple reason: there are no major story changes. At all. The most major issue I noticed when watching this dub was a poor interpretation of a previously impactful scene. So overall, a solid dub.

3rd most tolerable: Zexal

Honestly? For the first two thirds, this is a very faithful and highly enjoyable dub with some good voice acting and an enjoyable sense of humour that didn’t clash with the tone of the show, since Zexal was goofy even in sub. There were definitely problems, and some stupid edits/censorships but apart from cutting Alito’s implied bi-ness, none of the censorship made me upset... until we got the barian backstories, which are so beyond butchered it muddles the story, weakens most of and even downright ruins one of the Barians’ characters, and are a worse dumber story overall. Apart from that though, I do admittedly enjoy this dub. Maybe it’s just my enjoyment of Zexal, and the fact that unlike my other two favourites, its dub actually gave a shit but I did enjoy watching this dub.

Mid: Duel Monsters

I’m torn. Because on the one hand, this is the show that introduced me to the concept that dubs could be lying censoring americanising pieces of shit that actively tarnish the show they’re adapting. But at the same time... there are things about the dub I genuinely prefer. The plotpoint that got me attached to Yugioh (Yugi not being able to trust Atem after his attempted murder on Kaiba) was dub exclusive. For every shitty terribly adapted scene this show has, it does one other thing right. So... I’m a little undecided. I don’t really want to go back and fully watch this show in sub, and I’m glad I saw it in dub as that allowed me to get sucked into it naturally, but at the same... some of those dub scenes are genuinely hard to watch. So overall, don’t hate this dub, but it’s not good.

Now, for the two dubs I do hate:

2nd most deserving of a punch in the face: VRAINS

*deep breath* Compliments first. 1) Ai and Spectre’s dub voices are legendary, and while I prefer the sub voices, the other voice actors generally do a good job. 2) The running joke about hot dogs is legitimately funny, I kept it going in my post VRAINS fic that otherwise follows sub continuity because I loved it that much. NEARLY EVERY OTHER ATTEMPT AT HUMOUR IN THIS JOKE OF A DUB FUCKING SUCKS. Most of it it shitty cringe inducing Internet references or stupid quips right of a shitty MCU movie, the kind from late phase three and all of phase four that kill whatever semblance of tension or atmosphere there was every five seconds for an attempt at comedy. And don’t even get me started on the final duel. Playmaker insulting a dying man he spent the entire show with isn’t funny, it’s fucking twisted and disgusting. And the gay erasure is actually blatant here. The dub actively created romantic hints between Yusaku and Aoi and actively took those hints that away from Yusaku and Ai, WHO HAD A CANON AT THE VERY LEAST ONE SIDED LOVE CONFESSION AT THE END OF THE SERIES THAT THE DUB ALSO CENSORED. This isn’t me overanalysing or pushing a ship, Ai having romantic feelings for Yusaku was very intentional in the narrative of the sub and the dub censoring that is something I can only see as malicious and disgusting.

Most deserving of a punch in the face: GX

Take everything I said about the VRAINS dub only subtract the good voice acting. The GX dub voice actors honestly sound bored. I don’t blame anyone who couldn’t get into this show through the dub because how can anyone be invested in the characters and their plights if the characters aren’t even invested? Or are constantly and very distractingly breaking the fourth wall, completely ruining the grounded down to earth feel of the original. The name changes? The worst of any series. Manjome is turned into a complete joke despite being well rounded character, Rei’s name change completely ruins her introduction episode by making the twist way too obvious to at least american audiences (which the dub was made with in mind), and the others are the most americanized schlock I’ve seen in my life. The third season, the best season in sub? The dub doesn’t resemble it in the slightest. It can’t take jackshit seriously. It can’t treat its characters, who were compelling in the sub, as anything more than stupid jokes, and the same goes for the narrative as a whole. Yubel went from a complex terrifying antagonist so twisted and traumatised the only way they knew how to show love was through torment to a whiny little baby with the more ear-piercing obnoxious voice in any of these dubs. Yes, that includes Z-Arc. Not to mention “censoring” their body to make them fully female because god forbid children be forced to witness a gender ambiguous person. And god forbid they see a romance involving that gender ambiguous person. How filthy and wrong to exist and not fit into the gender binary. Great fucking job 4Kids. Oh, and great job making an entire generation of kids think the loveable happy go lucky protagonist (who never developed past that baseline personality in your shitty ass dub because character depth, what’s that?!) of your shitty ass dub died in the end because he inexplicably wanted to save the villain who’d been torturing him for an entire season. GREAT FUCKING WORK.

[thecreativecorner33]

Im curious as to what your thoughts would be on AM meeting another ai? I've tried to think on the concept myself but.. nothing really truly sticks.. But still, It does leave me curious.

A small little droid meeting the world's most intelligent and dangerous super computer. I find even more fondness in the idea if they just so happen to be akin to something like wall-e. A small thing brimming with curiosity and a love for things human did that made them human. Dancing, movies, stickers.

Pardon if this is just starting to become a ramble, And honestly no need to take this as a request just indulge me with your own input because the visual of a silly bot limited in their own voice saying "Aayymm?"

Oh, I get to OOC ramble? Huzzah!

I have thought of this concept before, actually! I have an OC myself who is an AI, designed to care of small children, and it started this whole AU where her and AM saved about 20-ish kids (excluding the 5 survivors) and raised them to be a new generation of humans who wouldn't make the mistakes of the previous ones. Essentially, Promised Neverland the Anime but without the demon plot or death to the kids or whatever.

In all honesty, though? It's more than likely for him to just absorb it. He did it to all other AI; it's not a complicated process, why not?

That's not fun to think about though :(

Meeting a small, child-like AI akin to Wall-E is... interesting. I think he'd develop a companionship with them. I don't know if it's necessarily a "Dad/Child" relationship, but like, he takes care of it as well as a murderous AI hellbent on war on violence can!

The AI would not have any interaction with the survivors, he'd make sure of that. He'd go as far as to literally reprogram the AI so he could make sure it steers clear of them, is afraid of them; whatever it takes. He won't let them taint the poor thing.

He always sounds annoyed whenever he's around them. Because of a lot of reasons: He's jealous of their love of humanity, of their innocence, of their ability to enjoy the things humans have made despite how they will never experience them the way a human can. He hates how soft they make him, how they take up more of his time and attention. He hates the strange feeling of guilt whenever he makes them cry, or run in fear, when he eventually does blow up. He hates that they look up to him and admire him so greatly.

But god... they make it hard to be mean.

He'd never give up anything of his. His ideals, his torture, his hate. But he can make a little space for this AI. This one nice thing that he found and can protect. That's not wrong, is it?

That's how I see it working anyway, if we wanna go down the nicer route. In any case, he's a very selfish, manipulative, cruel person. But how he shows it in this scenario is very different than how he does in the canon story.

[mariautistic]

Anyways uh. There's probably a bunch of endgame shit I've missed and. The Alan Wake part of the game that i guess i have to go play. So i wouldn't considered it "over" but the main story is uh. A little lacking tbh. It's very straightforward despite how much they invest on it being a mystery/horror/thriller and doesn't particularly care to invest in any character? I guess Jesse is there but she's so Nothing despite them constantly trying to tell you she's weird and Dylan. But the story doesn't rly do much for their relationship at All and overall the character writing is just not there. And the themes it has going on are really lacking or rarely end up anywhere interesting. I feel if you're gonna make a game about how the one thought you think is interesting is about how little we actually know of the world then like. I don't know do something with that? The "life is a prison with a poster on it" is more about how in the universe there's so much Shit that you just never know and people are just content with their poster and not just that life sucks but at least make Jesse an actively interested person in the supernatural then??? Instead of being annoyed every time she learns something new.

The combat has a lot of variation depending on which skills you find and level but i honestly just leveled upmy hp and telekinesis and had almost no trouble finishing the game right up to the end game. It's a shame how many weapon variations they give you only to let you just gloss over them, but i don't particularly cry over it because I hate shooters.

The ambience is very impecable and really like how scared i am of every new area despite never having struggled with fights particularly. Also an addendum to my complains about the combat is that the AI is particularly bad at doing its job and you rarely get hit if you just run in one straight direction. The only enemies i struggled much against where those floaty guys with shields bc i couldn't spam telekinesis but then I found out you actually CAN but you just gotta repeatedly throw things until they can't dodge them. So there's that.

I liked a lot the things you find around the place i think it's really funny seeing the daily complaints between departments and how toxic of a work environment it is, but after a certain point i was just inundated with the content and it felt like a chore rather than fun addendums to read. Specially the board/landline calls where i just had to watch the whole thing and couldn't just skip through some of the dialogue -_-

The level up system is just kind of bad for a lot of reasons, mainly that i just think it's stupid that i could do what i did and simply level HP and telekinesis and skip through most of the game without much struggling, and the fact the items you get are rarely relevant unless you want to level up the guns much and the in game money system is just. Ever used and there's not much punishment for dying and losing 10% of your whatever the hell if you have more than you can spend at any point in the game

The graphics are both really good in the building portion and the monsters have fun designs. However the animations leave a lot to be desired and wanting to go for an impressive realism always carries the cost that it might look stupid. Also Jesus Christ they need help from a cinema guy the shots in this game are fucking awful every cinematic where they focus on anything makes me feel crazy. The overdone close shots every time Jesse has an inner thought or the shot to shot back and forth between Jesse and whoever she's talking to is so bad i feel like if you want it to be ~cinematic~ you actually have to know about movies. At all. Literally just hire an annoying film guy to ask him what he thinks of the talking portions. Anything.

All of this to say that it's a bit of a lackluster game that tried to do a very big concept and to be fair. They did a lot of justice to it and it was fun to play despite all of this I'm complaining about. I still think that it's not a very good game for a lot lot lot of reasons but i would be lying if i didn't see the amount of effort put into it and how much i enjoyed the things it did well so i have a hard time writing it off as subpar or anything like that

[ziracona]

Oh BTW what are some things, if any from history/mythology that you wish FGO included?

I would like more diversity in general, but also they make a lot of religious figures and gods heroic spirits for other religions, but the closest they’ve done for Buddhism was Sanzang and I want equality there. Too late for Normal Armor for All means it’s time for Skimpy Armor for All equality is equality. We haven’t had much Norse either despite a whole Lostbelt, but we have had so many gods and suped up spirits tbh I am unsure if I want that, like, the most compelling recent addition was Antonio Salieri. Maybe it’s time to focus on the way personal belief in a spirit affects them instead of 8 divine spirit combo characters. I’d like to see a lot more about characters with Innocent Monster too, and ones who are fictional have had very little story outside of Kojiro’s aside in UBW about how much that fucks you up, and I’d love to hear more. I’d like to see a lot of relationships develop too. I’d like to see Nightingale and Dantes more, see Emiya, Ishtar, and Cú on a team, see Alter Emiya stuck with Ishtar somewhere, see more of Outlaw Squad, see Karna and Arjuna given an arc that’s not the same one as always, see Medea taken seriously like in UBW instead of a joke, see David given ANY screen time to deal with Romani like wtf why didn’t he get major billing in arc one??? See David and Sheba interact, see more of Antonio and Amadeus, Fran and Moriarty. Love to hear more about Hessian Lobo like he was easily one of the coolest characters??? Literally never getting over how this random beheaded hessian soldier’s ghost was tied in death by an outside force to the legend of a wolf who hated humans for killing his mate, and they were trapped together as a phantom spirit and had no reason to be anything but bitter and angry, but when you’re beating the wolf to a pulp the headless corpse of a man scrambles off it and tries without a face or a voice to beg you to leave it alone and not finish it off. How an adopted stray left it’s owner to find him and curl up with him while he bled out. Like holy shit. Uhhhh, I like the kind of emotional ones too: Voyager, Van Gogh. The concept alone there is sweet. I’d like to see them do a non-human well again like. I love Danzo and I love robots but they literally can’t write inhuman characters without making them robots wtf is going on. Stop making Greek gods robots. They’re gods. You used to be able to write Fran and Nursery and shit what the hell happened to the character creation team. Or like. Actually give us a literal robot if you want to do robot humanity narrative so bad but I’m begging you to stop making all the Valkyries and Artemis just AIs like literally begging. Gods are inhuman but you write them different and it’s so fun and not actually hard like just do the assigned work jfc. Please.

If you mean more like what specific characters would I like to see, that’s harder. Personally I’d love a Lucifer if well done because I love a good Sympathy for the Devil character (P5 just gave and gave and gave to me). I’d like more animal spirits like give me Balto, or Laila. If they do more gods like they’ve been I would very much like Bast because she’s always been a favorite. Uhhh I’m a sucker for the personal connections so I would love it if they quit doing alters of existing people and gave us their family members or friends instead I mean the DRAMA. Mmmm tasty. There’s almost no Americans and that’s fine but like it’s Geronimo, Billy the Kid, Tesla, and every American president through Obama in a body with Edison and the 20th Century Fox lion so if they wanted to make it just slightly more normal they could add like Nathan Hale or Deborah Samson or something. Uhhh, from a gameplay perspective, we’ve got interesting and talented supports, but Iri is the only white mage and I’d like to see them play with more range on defense. So I would personally like Lister or some other doctor with highly specialized defensive skills and to play with the defense only mechanics more in the back line. Like team evades are great but I’d love to see someone with a skill to revive a party member but like with a massive cooldown or stun penalty to balance that. Idk I’d just like to see more complexity. Maybe it’s luck based called like ‘Defibrillator’ and it doesn’t always work, like guts but can be used after they’re downed and at any point. I do quite enjoy the specialized skills like how Katsu does little for support unless you’ve got a lineup of Nobunaga and he suddenly becomes the bullet chain in their galtling. An ability to swap formation, or switch the cooldown from one character with another (‘blood transfusion’) could be cool for a doctor. White Mage with 30,000hp, +5 to attack, who can revive downed party member and allocate NP or cooldown among them, or swap formation. Skill where damage he takes is taken by the frontline member with the most HP instead. Or NP that analyzes the enemy skill set and warns before stuns or rapid ult charge. Or can cast small passive buffs like debuff cleanses the way story characters do, but even when in the back line. Lol Romani Archaman build. Uhhh I’m off topic, characters let me think. I personally loved Amelia Earhart as a kid so I guess part of me keeps hoping she’d be added too. I kinda enjoy when unnamed, or less important or well known people get caught up by a twist of fate like the hessian though. I like weak normal people doing their best in an impossible situation.

[dj-yukio]

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet hurt me in ways I didn’t expect so now I have too many ideas for an au

Spoilers ahead:

Honestly had only one bug in the entire game (an unclaimable pokeball item in the lake of false dragon titan), so my gameplay was great and I loved the story, looks like Pokémon is now leaning hard on the friendship zones more than having to catch them all or become champion or what not

I really like Area Zero’s soundtrack, gives me those mystical vibes like something powerful lurks here beyond one’s comprehension. Also love that we have our friends with us, more to share the trauma!

Poor Arven with his parent, but like I think the AI managed to traumatise everyone individually, because there’s nothing worse than realising you can’t do anything even with our preparations (nemona can’t battle, which is pretty damn bad when your opponent is known to have killed and possibly will kill again, and penny can’t hack us out of the situation)

Our poor protag too, can you imagine going like “ah we’re gonna help this famous professor, wanna come” and then thirty minutes later going “I have just killed all of us, we’re gonna be like the professor, no one will know we died and our bodies are gonna rot here forever or be pokemon food” like holy shit the AI battles were nightmare fuel like professor chucking master balls with barely contained Pokémon within from a height and then our poke balls being locked too

The whole game gives me Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz vibes for some reason, like we’re Dorothy, and all of our friends are a mix of the scarecrow, tin man, and lion (penny is def lion, but I can’t quite agree on nemona and arven being which one), and the whole time we go through a journey to find a treasure and head to Area Zero (the land of Oz), only to find that the wizard isn’t real

But anyways bad AU idea time, hear me out

Look we know that there were a bunch ofscientists before Sada/Turn took over the whole thing alone (and with themself as an AI) studying terastalizing including clavell and others

And we also know that the crystal is what powers the AI and why they cannot leave etc.

So all I’m saying is that the likelihood that the other initial researchers weren’t almost as brilliant as Sada/Turo is low

Which brings me to the concept of our protagonist being sort of an AI

I already said this was a shit idea don’t hate me

Okay but like let’s just say that our protagonist (who is 12-16, look nemona and arven are def older and in that range, plus no ten year old masterminds an operation to stop bullying), so it’s still possible that we can have the protag’s dad working with the professor

And now our protag has a serious illness (say cancer in the brain touch wood) that is in its late stages, so by the time the dad is no longer working with the professor he’s trying to look for another solution to save his child

to the point of obsession

biomedicine has failed him, and so he turns to a little souvenir that he brought along with him from the paldea

and actually creates a solution

it’s not a hundred percent perfect (unlike a certain AI-powered robot), but he manages to craft a mechanical brain powered with the crystals that can analyse situations and respond accordingly

And one night he takes the kid and does the transplant (he’s working at a pharmaceutical facility or hospital, either one)

Our protag lives! Sort of

See the thing is these sorts of projects cost money, money he doesn’t have

So he embezzles funds from his company to fund this project, and on this night the police are staking him out

And when they come out to catch him, it looks worse for him than it ever is

His child is in a coma, there’s blood everywhere, and the dude is covered in blood

He gets sent to jail, the real truth of what they saw is covered up (ie only the embezzlement is covered), and the mom looks after the protag who is in a coma

So at the start of the game this is why there’s no mention of the dad at all, partially because of the crime, partially because the protag’s mom knows that whatever he did might have potentially saved the protag’s life, so it’s a very touchy subject

But before that, when our protag wakes up, they don’t know that they’re an AI, instead it’s just feeling empty and numb. This is coupled with a great overprotectiveness from their mom. But word spread about the very ill child suddenly making a recovery after the dad’s arrest, and eventually the mom takes the flight back to Paldea just to shield the protag from the rumors

Which is when the game starts, when the mom finally is willing to let the protag explore their surroundings a bit

But as the story progresses, the protag learns about being human, learning to feel again, and friendship :D

Also this is a bit random but due to the AI, the protag doesn’t have the ability to terastalize. This is partially because I hardly did during my gameplay, and also because I feel like terastalizing is a bit similar to mega evolution, so for an individual to terastalize a pokémon they need to be in sync with their pokémon, same with wild pokémon terastalizations, either they cannot control it or they’ve just become very in sync with themselves. Instead, the protagonist gets a really bad headache when they try (the crystals syncing with their skull is not fun)

As for what happens to Area Zero, I have plans

[vermanaward]

dawntrail msq, 92-95

earthenshire

i'm just getting this out ahead of time. if this ends in another cheese debacle im. pls don't

apparently 'use your words to ask for things' is a concept that moblins are allergic to. god dammit

koana is that guy who studied abroad for a semester and came home all 'they do it Like This in Sharlayan We Should Too'

dont love that he's internalised so much that the foreign way is besterest, or that the writing keeps half supporting his assertions

[while standing right next to an aethyryte] whyyyyy do we have to taaaake a booooooooat

wait this is why we had that aside with the melodramatic elf wasn't it. sigh

so as well as speedrunning his character arc he's speedrun his citizenship arc. good for him i guess?

cool, role quests unlocked. time to ignore those until level 98

okay the gulool jaja fight was p fun

also i like that this whole hting isn't just. heeheehoohoo trial by combat goes brrr. he's like if izaro actually rubbed his braincells together and didn't set the empire up to fail

[koana voice] everyone will think twice about fighting us once we have advanced technology

yes that's definitely how this works. also absolutely the reason garlemald left sharlayan alone. not because sharlayan kept running away like the cowardly fucks they are.

wow. gee. lamat got herself catnapped this definitely wasn't incredibly predictable

doing the stealth section while it's pissing it down with rain so my girl has her bright white umbrella out = top tier

well. koana's not having kids the old fashioned way

and once again we all just. stand there like muppets while the bad guy retreats.

then again literally all of this could have been avoided if someone had. escorted the catgirl when she was lured into the Very Obvious Trap. sigh

either way this is going to end with one of the cats on the throne and the other in an advisory capacity. and i hate it

i had to xp grind here bc of Miscalculations. how embarassing -_-

worlar's echo

finally realising that the urqopacha day theme has the same opening as the sohm al theme. concerned about what further parallels are going to be drawn. is valigarmanda nidhogg's ex? is estinien going to get posessed again? pls say no

at least there's not a blue hair elf pld for them to kill off this time

okay so i was wrong about valigarmanda. i still expect that the seal in the city will house a boss fight, though.

new prediction: the feat of ice will start with 'strengthen valigarmanda's prison', and end up being 'actually just fucking kill it'

pretty purple bird. it's the next dungeon boss isnt it

dungeon 2 - worqor zamor

alisae green dps LMAO

how i feel during prog sometimes. tbh

krile uses aoe spells?? in dungeon??? what is this MADNESS

hot Damn i like boss 1 a lot. it's cute but also its mechanics are kinda fun

i also like that trusts don't just run to the safe spot straight away any more. little details in programming them that makes them seem more human

boss 3's no slouch either. honestly a good dungeon alround tbh

the gear is unique too. dyes too

aaay got the orc roll too

valigarmanda

...and we didn't use erenville's magic macguffin when lamat was missing because....?

WHY COULDNT WE FEED IT THE INFORMATION IN THE FIRST PLACE. christ this is so needlessly padded

the normal was pretty fun. ex hopefully will be interesting. the persistent dot on everyone after the add phase was an interesting touch. music slaps too

it occured to me about half way through that if valigarmanda is/was an auspice, it probably lost itself to aramitama at some point, which is. sad, honestly. give your local long lived sentient animal a hug before they go mad and blow the world up

also i noticed krile casting aero ii at vali and. i guess her ai script just loops aoe spells in part of it, instead of being smart enough to tell between single target and multiple targets. at least she aoes i guess.

oh. the "golden city" was amarout wasn't it. 🙃🔫

iq br'aax

so instead of using our words and just. asking someone what this recipe is, we're going to watch people and divine a particular recipe from the aether. why is this storyline so allergic to people talking to each other like adults

what am i saying this is xiv nobody talks to each other like adults. urianger least of all.

[consults crafting log] well either it's higher than level 95, requires a master crafting book, or doesn't exist. there i solved the trial can we- [dragged off stage out back]

...why the fuck is french toast a level 93 recipe

oh okay i used my words and asked someone and we were forbidden from being told this information so i guess we're just following quest markers until we stumble upon it by happenstance and exposition

oh my god alphinaud shut up about the fuckin firewood

brokering peace by appealing to a greater xenophobia is. it sure is a tactic i guess

not that he's wrong per se but like.

if there's been peace for eighty years tho, and barring the use of something like black rose, you'd have thought the cinderfields would have grown back by now. ash is a wonderful fertiliser, after all. but what do i know

(even then the east end still has more regrowth that. an old battlefield in the middle of a rainforest? okay.)

pls krile i powerleveled cul so i could afk macro my own consumables. i do not cook

i keep periodically remembering the person responsible for overseeing this expac and i'm just. yeah. the heavy handedness. yeah.

Oh Boy Parenthood Drama man

Wuk Lamat Has Two Dads (but no mom. xiv pls)

"several cutscenes" says the prompt, while there's the telltale solo instance marker around an npc. sure, jan

apparently squex did not in fact get the memo that people hate rp battles

wol: [popcorn intensifies]

mamook

we are actually visiting. an entire map during a single arc of the story. this is unprecedented. at least outide of final zones, anyway. which i know this isn't bc my shared fate and aether current trackers are half empty

you know i. i'm extremely not a fan of how it's the lizards of all the groups here that are the supremacists who are not above lying/cheating/stealing/etc. just saying

SILVERSCALES MENTIONED

actually i've been sorta wishing i could bring it up. 'yeah i beat several shades out of him for bullying harmless tonberries. who then finished him off with their knives, yes, but fucker had it coming'

why are there alkonosts here 👀 not that it really matters but. pretty birb-not-birb

man we're gearing up to Power Of Friendship the racist supremacists again aren't we

whatever. lower yak'tel is so pretty, i can't wait to fish here :3

i like how everyone assumes that we're on the level and didn't murder bakool for his blessed scales like he kinda deserved

GLOW IN THE DARK BANANAS

actually i just saw a glow in the dark skeletal alkonost and now im wondering if the glow in the dark isn't like. radiation or someshit

i guess it tracks that the one thing wuk lamat would learn from the wol would be the ability to look at an enemy who despises everything that they are and go. "FRIEND SHAPED. :D"

oh okay we're Power Of Science (And Also Friendship)-ing our way out of this

which is great and all but man. sometimes people are just power hungry dicks, you know? this is the same shit we went through in garlemald. 'waugh they were only xenophobic warmongers because they had to live in a shitty country and people were shitty to them'. which, again. werlyt author -_-

...the catboy's going to quit, isn't he

ilevel for this battle is 666. lmao

"everyone ready?" erenville: [flees]

i didnt realise roegadyn were from yorkshire

i'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the fact that kettie is still alive is connected to something in not!amaurot

im also going to crash here bc its 2am and ive been awak since [looks at clock] too early. TMORROW: WE CONTINUE

[imadethisaccountforaheadcannon]

Sun and moon show another reason for my SAMS sun or more particular the fandom hate

oh great now I'm having to go deal with the stress headache it littrally just simultaneously came back

Bring up the fact that sun didn't do Jack shit for moon at the beginning even through he was the main AI and thurs since the creator is not there its his damn job to not neglect moon.

Fandom brings out convient excuses like sun's pain which BTW sun allways shoved down everyone's throats in the early episodes so eventually I just stopped caring same with his other excuses even the killcode which I stile attribute to sun's behaviour towards moon in the firstplace.

He also allways looks innocent whenever moon brings any of his problems up in the later episodes they are immidiately blown off

Then the person says suns experiencing this ain't that a form of victim blaming

Brings up the fact that sun only gave a shat about moon after they seperated

Fandom wawaa moon don't care about sun's hobbys wawa

Worst they said moons abusive cause he don't care about sun's feelings when it took months and moon actually screaming it at him for sun to get the simple fricken concept of trapped most your life=deep entwined truama. If he truely cared he would have gotten it instantly.

Say moons dependant on sun

They bring out the whole sun's got anxiety thing and sun can't socialise without moon oh so they're saying that anxiety and is equal to littrally being being stuck in one own head on at that note allso being a garbage drop to that other persons anxietys.

Bring up moons abusing sun by dragging him to other dimentions

Ever consider that as a symptom of moons sun dependence and his attempt at socialisation in fact I thought early on that sun was abusing moon feeling that sun deserves good things cause he's ""better then him" even if it's unintentional

Moon won't let sun go unsupervised to other dimensions again a symptom of moons dependence his whole give everything good to sun attitude cause moon probably got nearly perminently killed multiple times in those dimensions before he thought of a way to revive them both.

It's actually same with him knowing Satan I suspect he spent the majority of his early life actually having his life threatened he should not have had to go to such lengths if sun actually did the right thing.

I even feel like not even his violence and him leaving sun with a killcode cause I consider those conquences for sun's actions like he forced so much shit and an unhealthy coping method on moon and he's suprised that he's getting some of it back bullshit.

Say eclipse got his controlling an manipulated nature from sun

Prattle on on how he automatically got it from moon ha sun's the one who kept shoving moon down all the time and keeps getting off as the ""better" one just cause he has an easier life.

They even point the fact that moons not treating sun like a saint and having different likes and dislikes then sun as moon abusing him.

BTW I know I got alot of posts about this allready but I needed to vent and I'm pretty sure they would just take a waaawaaaa sun's so innocent shit on my points here so I'm not gonna post this in the YouTube comments section. The main shitter who prattled on to a other commentor unintentionally calling me unfairly bias by saying that she vocal about unfair biases against characters your a hypocrite and Sun previously treated everything like it was the sun show.

[hephaestuscrew]

Muppet Wolf 359 Survey Highlights Part 1

In no particular order, here are some of the responses I particularly enjoyed from my survey about which character would be the only one played by a human in a muppet adaptation of Wolf 359. I’ve put people’s answers before their explanations and then given some of my thoughts. I am probably going to do at least one more of these posts because I was copying my favourite answers into a document and it ended up being 4 pages long.

The rest of the responses can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ai7N_MI69bkgLoJG2Mnnf5MW0AfvTlEoYXi8sok5Ir8/edit?usp=sharing

Blessie - i'd love to see blessie as just Some Guy™ in a bright green body suit and a pink little fake flower on his head but everyone else is still as scared of it..

This might be my favourite answer. The wonderfully stupid chaos energy of this concept makes me extremely glad I put an 'Other' option on the survey. 

Cutter - honestly just visualizing how fucking funny the harpoon scene would be,,,,,,,,, also adds to the inhuman aspects of him if he's the Only One

A few people described the comedic potential of a human man being harpooned by a muppet and all of you are right. That scene would be hilarious. (more below the cut)

Kepler - human kepler being be ejected into space by muppet rachel is a need

Kepler - I just want Kepler to get a gun pointed at him by a muppet

These two represent a whole genre of answer and it's valid.

Hera - She deserves legs more than anyone else.

To me, this is the most compelling argument for Hera as the only human.

Kepler - Muppets are the only beings that are willing to listen to all of Kepler's Whiskey monologue

This would make every Wolf 359 listener a muppet, which.. Yeah.

Lovelace - what if pryce and cutter were. like. statler and waldorf. it wouldn't make sense but i think it would be funny NO WAIT dear listeners are statler and waldorf and instead of loving our music they fucking hate it and want to find us so they can tell us to shut the fuck up

Lol first contact after the star goes blue is just the Dear Listeners heckling (something like “Call that a space station? I’ve seen more convincing space stations in my garbage bin! Ha ha ha!”)

Kepler - changed my mind and decided it should be kepler HOWEVER this is not a muppet AU, it is a goddard training simulation. with kepler and the muppets.

Cutter would do this. Forget Box 953, Box 952 was full of muppets.

Cutter - i have never watched wolf 359 but i feel like cutter has the most muppet-esque name so it would be funny if they weren't the muppet

Why is this person doing the survey?? I almost respect them for giving actual reasoning despite not even knowing that Wolf 359 is a podcast. If this was a deciding vote I'd disqualify it, but it isn't. Another person admitted to not knowing who the characters were but they were kinda rude about it.

Eiffel because the reveal of everyone else being muppets would be like soooo funny. Imagine, if you will, Doug in the first episode making his log. He is the only character we see so we assume everything is normal. He is then talking to the disembodied voice of Hera (as she is an ai program with no need for a body) AND THEN Minkowski shows up and is a literal muppet cue laughter

This is even better if Minkowski calls Eiffel a muppet (as in the insult) over the Comms and then she walks in and she is a literal muppet.

Jacobi - :3 it was a tough choice, but i decided Hilbert's sister wouldnt get enough screen time for it to be funny

On the contrary, this is hilarious. I can’t get over the idea that the entire show is muppets apart from a tragic two-minute flashback in which Olga Volodin is a human and her brother is a muppet and there is no explanation.

Hilbert - I for one cannot conceive of a muppet calculating which of their crew members to infect with a deadly engineered virus. Also I think it would be funny

Minkowski - well otherwise you have to have a Muppet run armed thru the station after a semisentient plant monster and that just doesn't seem okay :P

These two people both decided they needed to draw the line about what muppets can do, but they drew different lines.

Eiffel - PURELY because of him not being as down for murder as the others. Everyone's so bonkers that that is the only threshold I can see to separate Muppet from human

This is the exact opposite of the responses above. Muppet equals down for murder, I guess.

Eiffel - going to work through the reasoning first. ok so my initial instinct would be to say minkowski. but then i thought to myself no--pupper minkowski would be really cute, a puppet ordering people about would be badass, plus idk i want there to be homoerotic tension between her n lovelace and i think that altho theres technically nothing wrong w muppet/human homoerotic tension it just isnt the same as muppet/muppet homoerotic tension u know??? so that rules out lovelace and minkowski.

next on the no list is hera. she doesnt have a body. it would be funny if she just showed up in like. in memoria as a human but no. also i think that characters who arent in it that much shouldnt be the one human

that rules out pryce, bob, and probably cutter as well

hilbert should be a muppet and also he should be played by both the grumpy old muppets. but theres not two of him they just take it turns to play him. they wear different clothes and sometimes argue about who has to go on or something. idk im freestyling now.

now. eiffel as the human

this is spicy

i like it bcos it means that literal muppets are all more competant than him.

literal muppets

the term used when someone is being a fool

unless thats just something my dad says. i doubt it but also u never know w dads

bcos. kepler as the human would work but i think that honestly. wolf being all muppetsand then a human shows up is. ehhhh

but then again. contradicting myself. it would be nice to have human lovelace or minkowski bcos. i am gay and i do not want to be thirsting after a fucking muppet you get me???? this is a hard decision and i am leaning towards eiffel you know i am. but minkowskiiiii........ arms..............

ok no. no i am not going to throw away the homoerotic muppet tension for the sake of a nice pair of arms. god i love arms. when women have muscular arms >>>>>>>>>> sorry what was i saying? oh yeah eiffel. he should be the one human

There's just a lot going on with this answer. I feel like I've gained a profound insight into this person's psyche. I love the hilarious stream of consciousness vibe but also I will be forever haunted by the phrase "homoerotic muppet tension" and even more so by the concept of "muppet/human homoerotic tension" (God are there muppetfuckers out there?? I didn't want that idea in my head…) 

[mystxmomo]

dare I ask for Komaeda, Hinata, and Nanami for the bingo

You most certainly might dare. The forbidden blorbo's.... They who time has forgotten but the heart remembers. Fondly, even.

Though, I don't think it's anything new, if you've been around here for a while. I mean that less patronizingly, of course, and more "Apologies ahead of time if I sound like a broken record, stop me if you've heard this one before."

Komaeda

Everyone thinks Komaeda is deep as FUUUUCK because he is deep as fuck but he's even deeper then we've already credited him to being. I think, after careful inspection, Komaeda might genuinely be the most well written and interesting character in Danganronpa, right next to like. Junko Enoshima. I think he achieves something that not a lot of characters in Danganronpa do, in that he is a character that can only exist and thrive like he does within the world that danganronpa has created. This is actually a massive compliment. Komaeda functions like a cog in the machine that is Danganronpa, if you will allow me to be a bit pretentious about it. So much of his character is rooted in the series, and it's genuinely fascinating to watch function and play with.

Despite the fact that a lot of people would put "He got done dirty by the fans" I don't actually think he is. I think there are a lot of very deep and interesting introspections out there on Komaeda. A lot of the ones that look like they're doing him dirty are just writers that don't have the best grasp of characterization yet.

Komaeda, for all he's memed on, deserves the love he gets. 10/10 character, absolutely FANTASTIC design. Dude go eat a hamburger though fr.

Hinata

So incidentally, despite the fact that I adore Hinata, I think the reason he functions as well as he does is because he's someone that works really well as part of the dynamic he plays against his classmates. They did... really well writing for Hinata's extended relationships. It's something I've praised before, and I'll probably praise again. The reason I actually marked down "They got done dirty by the fans" is because often, I think that Hinata's relationship's with his classmates gets underplayed by the fandom.

But, you know. That's not a new issue in the slightest.

Fuck I love Hajime Hinata. Beautiful Bastard.

Why DOES he look like that though.

Nanami

Rubs my forehead.

Look. I just think that. Nanami could have been better. I don't hate Nanami on principle of what she is. I ADORE the idea of an ai in a killing game that can't come out and say she's an ai. The fact she's an ai makes so many of the smaller quirks she has so much more notable.

I just wish she had a stronger personality, you know? I feel like that they had an absolutely FANTASTIC concept, but they went for a subdued personality when they needed a stronger one for the role they wanted her to play. I don't even think that you have to change the core traits about her to make this happen. You just need to give her a stronger presence in the story.

But also her design fucking slaps. Go pink!

[nataliaphantomhivesblog]

In the end of it all, Monaca Towa was still a child.

To start this off, this isn't my usual Black Butler posts but ive been meaning to talk about Danganronpa for a hot minute, so please bear with me! Second, this is solely my opinion and before anyone wants to attack me please read thoroughly first. Thank you:)

(Spoiler warning for Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls and Danganronpa 3)

Also, before we dive in I'm going to list some trigger warnings:

Physcological abuse

Physical abuse

Manipulation

P*dophillia

Suicide attempt

Violence (?)

Childhood trauma

Please take care and read at your own risk<3

Hello there Danganronpa fandom! Today I will be talking about Monaca Towa (as stated in the title) and how people often minimize her trauma and sometimes forget the fact that shes still a child who got heavily manipulated by Junko too.

Monaca is seemingly very amiable and caring, because of her charming personality, all of the Warriors of Hope love her and try their best to keep her happy and go along with what she wants. However, it's slowly revealed that she is actually manipulative and cunning behind her friendly facade.

Monoca is a character that is cruel, manipulative, and extremly unhinged. Many of her actions cannot be excused or justified, but you can understand where she's coming from.

Monaca's Backstory:

She was born an unwanted child by both her father and her mother. Monaca's mother was supposed to take care of her but instead abandoned the child soon after her birth. Because of all her actions, Monaca saw her mother as a completely selfish and pathetic person. Monaca's father thought of giving her to an orphanage but instead took her into his family.

However, Monaca was always unwanted and everyone else felt uncomfortable around her. Every time Monaca smiled or joked, the others looked at her coldly, as if she didn't deserve to laugh. Every time she spoke, the others turned silent. His older-half brother thought of her as an alien, not part of the family.

She was also physically abused to the point that she pretended to be seriously wounded for them to stop as a result.

Monaca also attended Hope's Peak Elementary School and was part of the "trouble-makers class" along with Nagisa, Masaru, Jataro, and Kotoko.

Along with her fellow abused classmates, she planned a group suicide; however, Monaca never had any plans to commit suicide in the first place and was planning to let the others die as a prank.

The group suicide was stopped by Junko, who took the kids in and manipulated them by treating them with kindness and love.

Monaca then helped Junko mass produce Monokumas for the Tragedy by using her position as a representative of the Towa Group.

She lied to her father and the other adults in order to produce the Monokumas, telling them that she wanted to create futuristic robots that could be domestic helpers and emergency aid workers.

Due to her separation from the family and her genius, her family decided to give her leg room to do what she wanted as long as she brought in profits to the company, and didn't delve too deeply into her plans.

Things to keep in mind about Monoca's backstory:

She was emotionally and physically abused from a very young age.

She started to pretend to be paraplegic because she was finally treated with some kindness and she could have more control over people.

She convinced Nagisa, Jataro, Kotoko and Masaru to commit suicide.

Out of all the Warriros of Hope, Junko took the most intrest in Monoca due to her position, meaning that she was the one who got used and manipulated the most.

How Monoca's mindset works:

The moment she got physically abused to the point that she had to fake her injuries to make her family feel bad was the moment she learned that through sympathy from others comes power. Due to her families neglection and abuse, she started to quickly pick up on things in which benefited her yet hurt others.

She started to use manipulative tactics on her family to gain control over them. She then started implicating these tactics with the Warriors of Hope.

When Junko got into the picture, everything changed for the worst. Junko was the only person in Monaca's life who showed her affection. Even though deep down Monaca knew Junko only cared for her as a means to use her robotics genius for the Tragedy, Monaca didn't care, and happily helped out Junko with her plans if it meant being loved and appreciated in return. At the heart of it, despite all her horrific acts, that's a very child-like thing to do, right? So when Junko dies, Monaca's entire reason for living basically disappears.

AI Junko via Kurokuma may have planted the idea of a successor in her head, but in Monaca's mind it's a way to get her big sis back, and very specifically chooses to mold Komaru into becoming Junko's successor. That's for a big reason, Monaca doesn't want to become Junko, I'd say she actually just wanted her big sister back who would love and appreciate her again, and hence tried to make someone else take on that role initially. Once again, that's the mindset of a child.

Monaca's relationship with the Warriors of Hope:

The Warriors of Hope are a group of children who are extremely resentful and hateful of adults, regardless of whether or not they were involved in their rough paths. 

We all know that the Warriros of Hope are extememly tramutized kids. Masaru had alcoholic parents who physically abused him, Jataro was physcologically abused to the point he bealived he was so ugly that if anyone saw his "repulsive" face they would die, Kotoko was r*ped multiple times by disgusting p*dophilic men (not to mention, Monaca's brother was attracted to her), and last but not least we have Nagisa who had pressuring parents who wanted to raise him as the child prodigy and expirimented on him constantly.

Monaca used the Warriros of Hope's trauma against them, manipulating them to the point were they had to do her bidding completly.

As much as I hate to say it, Monaca truly saw them as pawns. Although there are some instances where she openly declares her care for the Warriors of Hope, it's likely she does that as a form of emotional manipulation.

If anything, she probably did see them as equal in the beginning but then when she started to gain control over her own family, she started to do the same with the Warriors of Hope as a way to protect herself from getting hurt, then again this is my baseless assumption.

Her dynamic with Nagito:

Monaca was amused by Nagito's strange behavior and contradicting beliefs and appeared to be somewhat annoyed with him at the times. However, the two appeared to at least seemingly respect each other in some way, as they treated each other somewhat formally as allies.

Her dynamic with Nagito is one of the most intresting ones. Obviously I think that her being rasied by Nagito was potentially a dangerous thing, considering Nagito's goal was for Monaca to become Enoshima's successor. Monaca seemed to agree with this goal, but Nagito's constant rambling about hope and despair made Monaca bored and feel embarrassed about the whole thing.

She claims he made her an adult in a way, as she grew up in the mental sense and became more cynical and apathetic, not really caring about anything.

In the end, Monaca found Nagito creepy and annoying, but she also appeared to get closer to him during their time together, while originally calling him just "Mister Servant" in UDG, she later refers to him as "Big Bro" in Danganronpa 3. I do think their dynamic was sort of soft and I would've loved to have seen more of it. Honestly the concept of Nagito being a soft brother to Monaca warms my heart, and the wasted potential will forever anger me.

(If any Danganronpa fanfic writer or any writer in general is reading this post: if u could be so kind and do a PLATONIC Nagito and Monaca prompt and tag me in it, I would love you forever!!)

My opinion on Monaca:

I think that Monaca was a very well-written character who deserved more than what she got in the end of Danganronpa 3. She was abused, mistreated and belittled by her family. If anything, I see her as a completely misguided little girl. If she actually had a positive authoritative influence in her life, she wouldn't have turned astray.

A lot of people disregard Monaca's trauma and forget that at the end of the day, Monaca was a child who the moment she was born, the people who were supposed to love her were unwelcoming.

Don't get me wrong though, there is no way in hell I will ever justify or condone the things Monaca has done. If anything, I just think that she alongside the rest of the Warriors of Hope should've been properly taken care of.

Also, if you dislike/hate Monaca thats 100% valid! She did a lot of inexcusable things and its alright to hate on her. I personally love her character but I know she is not everyones cup of tea.

If you read all the way, I'm actually surprised! Thank you and I hope you enjoyed<333