#also hate to say it but I’m 90% sure these are ai

[ssum-thinginthewayshemoves]

I keep forgetting to post these, back when June first got added I decided to try starting a new game on an old phone I had lying around to see how the introduction changed, and found this artwork of Teo and Harry I don’t remember seeing elsewhere

Anyways look at these beautiful boys

[davekat-sucks]

I voted for Bro in the “who is the worst poll” because I assumed it is who is the worst “person” not who is the worst character or who is the character we hate the most (I can’t stand Cronus or Calliope. If you would have put Ult. calliope I would have jumped on that shit.) I voted Bro because of things Dave said throughout the story. One being Dave seems too into incest.

And there was something Dave said during Act 6 to Dirk directly. One of them being the “he shouldn’t have been around children” line. Then they added to the epilogue that Dave had respect that Dirk choose to end his life because Dave saw it as Dirk not wanting to be the person Dave warned him he could become and John undoing that choice would deny Dirk “his personal autonomy.” Even though I mostly ignore what the epilogue chose to do, I still think it had some relation to the original story. There’s even more things in the story that make me think Dirk is a predator too but I don’t want to draw this out any more. I still think it’s a strong possibility (I’m like 80-90% sure of this) that part of the story is that Bro diddled Dave before he turned 13.

Interesting. People had always thought of Bro to be a pedo. There's even an implication he had used Dave in smut filming with his puppets. Nobody ever thinks Dirk would have much predator traits. Probably because he is the same age as Jake and the others. At best, his actions at best seem more destructive (fitting for the Prince of Heart) than predatory. Some may think Lil HAL fits more in line with the predatory nature since the AI was also there to help execute and orchestrate the plans, even behind Dirk's own back. Would have love to put in Calliope or Ultimate Calliope, but I doubt she would get any decent amount of high votes considering the fanbase still believes she reps the "good fandom". Some even don't mind Ult Calliope taking over Jade's body. That's how much they hate Jade in general too. So then, may I ask this question. Why did Bro slice the meteor in half to save Dave when he needed to enter the game? Was it really just a moment in the flash to make him look cool? To save himself? Would Dave have entered the game after the egg breaks when the meteor struck?

Secondly, how did Davesprite escaped from Jack Noir after Bec got prototyped? Bro got killed by Jack after said prototype. Davesprite got wounded, but managed to escape. How? The likely answer was that Bro was able to protect him, even if Davesprite had sustained injuries. Which follows up on this.... Why? Why did he save Davesprite? What reason did he have to if he's not technically his brother from this timeline? And if one says that Davesprite ran away after getting hurt to leave Bro behind, why isn't cowardice or something like vengeance mentioned from Davesprite in the narrative by the time he joins with John and Dave in the ship? There nothing that hints of this even with Davepetasprite^2. Remember. Everything from Act 1 to Act 5 pre-Cascade, happened all the same. From John not getting the other present in Dad's car, Vriska creating the inevitable Jack Noir, Dad and Mom still dying, Murderstuck... everything still happened the same in both pre and Post Retcon. So Bro doing stuff like slicing the meteor and fighting Jack happened regardless of Retcon. Some also see Dave being a bit unfair towards Dirk when they meet during that speech. Dave is basically telling Dirk that it is likely every version of his Bro would become a bad person no matter what. That even if he and Bro are offshoots from each other, a version of Dirk will become that monster. He does not know what life Dirk had trying to grow up alone and trying to base Alpha Bros' actions and personality through the ironic movies. We barely even know if Alpha Bro himself was a good person too. Alpha Bro knew about The Condesce's plans and actions to take over the world. But all that guy did was make movies with subliminal messages saying how bad Betty Crocker, made money off it, and then when shit really hit the fan, he finally decided to join with Alpha Rose Mom to kill ICP and then dying To Condesce. Doesn't it question on why didn't Alpha Dave Bro kill The Condesce sooner since people on Earth had already adored him for his movies? Was there reasons for him not being able to approach Sea Hitler as she is, even with his own training to be as stealthy and fast like how Bro was? It's not like The Condesce can mind control humans. It has been shown and stated that even something like Vriska's powers, she can't control humans. Was part of him making so much money was to secure Dirk a good living condition since he would be rich? That can't be because the world has gone to shit and Dirk had to defend himself from The Condesce's army. Maybe it's because I am on the side that doesn't think Bro was that much of an abuser and that anything within Act 6, especially by Post Retcon, is shit that I cannot take seriously. But it still makes me wonder about Bro's last appearance in the timeline as well as what Alpha Dave was like past his achievements and demise. And if Dave really need to go on like that to Dirk.

[cxhleel108]

S7 Thots for this week: Sigh…

• Die

• For whatever reason but sure🫤

• Why do we need to help Uma and Alex fix their problems? DO NONE OF YOU KNOW HOW TO FUCKING COMMUNICATE???

• The way Daphne just let go so easily of the fact that Uma tried to make moves on Raf. She’s too nice omg girl we needa get you outta here before these people ruin you😭😭😭

• Y’all I could not go through this post without acknowledging this swimsuit it’s sooooooo good.

• Yeah ummmm Daph, even if I wanted to revenge flirt to make Bryson jealous literally none of these other people tickle my fancy in the slightest bit so that was never even in consideration.

• Get a load of this guy😂😂😂😂😂

• Oh wait never mind Travis is a part of the Willow Hate Club, he’s cool now🤩

• Yes, working out with Bryson instead of just speaking to him is gonna help the current issue…

• Aw even Raf is a #Tyson stan…well he’s also literally in love with Tanya but that’s besides the point!

• I’m crying they all fucking hate Willow girlllll get yo ass outta here💀💀💀

• Ok Raf’s advice at least makes more sense for Bryson but once again what am I getting advice for when I literally just have to talk to him??? That’s that damn cash grab shit we be talking about chile.

• No, I really don’t think you know how annoying this is babe🫤🫤🫤

• Mmmm I hardly believe that but sure I guess I’ll go with it!

• Aw they made up, how sweet😍 (They’re literally gonna fight again next week)

• Oh girl PLEASE

• The apology being her saying sorry like twice and then going on a whole tangent about why she still thinks her and Bryson are meant to be…someone give me the number to the nearest psych ward I’m not kidding.

• Finally after 2 centuries Bryson wants to talk.

• Oh we are so back yassss!

• I'm glad Bryson knows how lucky he is🥰🥰🥰

• Why I forget that we were coupled up with Vicky LMAOOOOOO sorry girl.

• It's literally the middle of the day and we're finna do a challenge...why are we getting dressed up??? Anyways outfit time!

• Fusebox I gotta hand it to y'all. 90% of the looks this season have been eating.

• Yasss bae is starting to act like a real man!

• Vicky I'm so sorry to leave you with that demon but I gotta put me first sis.

• What???????????

• Bryson don't be saying freaky shit like that to me like I won't pull them pants down right now!

• That convo on the terrace was too cuuuuuute.

• Fusebox why can your AI not spell "biased" right? This is the second time it's been spelled wrong. What the fuck is "biassed"??? Bitch nobody has two asses, how can someone be "biassed"?????

• OH END THAT RAGGEDY BITCH!!!

• Outfit time again!

• Can I just say I love all of the Y2K influences I'm seeing in a lot of the clothes this year ugggghhh they know me so well.

• They be coming up with anything😭

• Everyone trying hard to look like the perfect couple and then there's just us doing a marriage proposal with a pretzel...literally goals.

• These niggas are a literal cult I'm so dead😭😭😭

• This whole boytime bedtime sequence was so stupid and honestly I'm glad this season is bringing back just pure unserious moments like this.

• If you know me then you already KNOW what option I chose😈

• Oh boo I thought clocking his tea would get more of a reaction than that. I guess they gotta save the drama for the "big reveal" at the last recoupling🙄🙄🙄

• Oh brother...

• Yes, please end my suffering!

[shinahbee]

New BL/shounen ai webtoon tier list

Hello!

it’s been a while, I’m still working on the monthly favorites for june and july but I wont have it done anytime soon because I’m preparing for a convention this week. Instead, you are going to get the new BL tier list with some new titles 

I have mentioned in my last monthly favorites that I wanted to do a new one because it has been a long time since then and I have read more.

You will see some new stuff and some rankings change from the old ones, I included titles that I have read/ remembered from reading and discarded the ones I no longer have any connection to.

alright, here it is:

Spicy tier - the top tier in my eyes...

most of these stories I’ve read more than once and have left a lasting impression on me, these are ones that if anyone asks me for recommendations, they would be the ones that come to mind.

this could change in the future depending if the next tier makes their way up a rank.

Crash into you

Its just a dream right?

kings maker

pearl boy

hold me tight

the pizza delivery man and the gold palace

path to you

Love history caused by willful negligence 

The foul

The third ending

Good so far, let’s see where it goes- ongoing/ current reads

it wouldn’t be fair to put them in the spicy tier when I’m not fully committed, these still need more time, but I'm enjoying where the plot is heading so far, there are some that I can potentially see in the spicy tier later when they finish

something like liveta and define the relationship, and one that isn’t on here cause I couldn’t find pictures for it...called Half of me, this one is really good so far and I can definitely put it on the spicy tier if it continues going in the right direction.

Beware of the full moon in march

Define the relationship

killer crush

Liveta

Passion

Midnight men

The ghost’s nocturne

(no pic ) half of me 

Not bad but not great either- meh overall

most I have finished but found it under whelming, lack of character development, plot moving very slowly, not really anything spectacular.

not to say that these aren’t good in their own way but there has to be a line that separates the good stories from the ones that are okay right? some I have in my favorites are in this tier because I’m trying to be really critical when I think about the story overall now that its done...

i’ll list the series and tell you why I feel that way in case you are wondering

Painter from the window - I don’t remember much about this, the end didn’t really make sense to me and I don’t think I finished the entire story, I might have lost some interest in between

insecret - I liked the side story better than the mains story, if it was based on that this would have been higher 

Dangerous convenient store- basic story overall not a lot of interesting plot other than near the end, the pacing is okay in terms of relationship development 

Lucky paradise - pacing is slow and not a lot of development from chunwoo, which I don’t really get why he does the things he does, he really needed character development a lot sooner for me to be interested 

Secret relationships - 90% flashbacks 10 % story lol. i’m sure all bimsa fans will agree that the story took a while to move forward cause all we got was one flash back after another and no expansion on the characters in the current timeline.

Dear door - I just got bored in the middle 

My suha - season1, 2 were great in terms of plot, the last season moved really slowly and made a lot of people lose interest, there’s also a ton of misunderstanding, but that’s nothing new in BL

Hide and seek- I would put this higher if it wasn’t for the conflict being miniscule, it really does not pair well with the whole mystery behind the story. I also have not read this again after the second time so it was not very memorable. 

omega complex - good characters and development, no dumb love triangles..lol. which is the best part cause I hate those, the main guy yoonwoo was like I only like 1 person if you aren’t him don’t talk to me...lmao I appreciate it. overall it’s a short story but that’s all it is. 

MDZS - this may surprise you cause this is what got me to read BL and took over my life, but in terms of manhwa the pacing is slow and I liked the drama better than the actual webtoon

Seeing double - twins and love triangle....uh nope...I just wish there was more explanation is to how ohn ended up liking seowoo...I’m happy cause that’s my ship, but I felt there was a disconnect there when he realized his feelings...I’m like wtf ...how?

oki doki... the I don’t give a sh*t tier

some famous titles that other people are in love with and I have no interest in reading at all...

Anti PT

Heaven’s official blessing

Banana sandal season 2 (I have read season 1)

Lost in the cloud

Honey trouble

and also can corelate with the next tier,

already knows the story through osmosis...

I literally can read some twitter tweets and already know the story based on how much people put out there in terms of spoilers. Which is why I don’t have to read it lol.

Blind play

Jinx

checkmate

mad place 

wet sand

limited run

though I do appreciate it if I want to avoid certain types of stories...like the ones in the last tier 

never touch again-  I dodged a bullet with some of these...

Again like the tier above I already know the story through osmosis, the only one I finished reading was BJ alex and that was a dark time in my life that I want to just erase.

BJ alex

full volume 

even if you don’t love me

Love or hate

yours to claim

married man/missing love

some of these just have no plot just smut scenes, some of which does have a plot but not good enough for me to enjoy because of subject matter (incest) and most are abuse from all angles...so I try to avoid those, which is why I basically dropped all of it.

real talk though, I have one thing to ask...why have Ugly old men in your stories?..yeah they are creepy but who would look at that and be like yeah I want that dude to touch me...like who is ugly ass 70 year old rotting dick appealing to? like what audience?

omg this is the one trope in BL I cannot stand...I also cannot escape from  it cause its in lots of stories, if some one knows please explain it to me ...LOL.

okay well there it is for new tier list rankings, I’ll be back after the convention and finished the monthly favorites I was planning on doing. hope you enjoyed reading and I have the old tier list in the link below:

https://shinahbee.tumblr.com/post/666535722973560832/the-bl-manhwamangamanhua-tier-list-hello-so-you

if you would like to see more stuff I write about please follow me cause I have a lot of BL criticism content.lol. 

[evilsaturn]

I’m the biggest cyber stalker in the world and don’t gaf so I frequently check up on people from my past. It’s so fun I completely embrace being nosy. I will forever gossip about everyone I’ve ever met in my entire life with my gf and no one can stop me.

With that being said, most of my ex-friends are still stuck in the same parasocial relationships with k-pop singers that we had in our teen years, but the obsession is so much more intense than ever. I didn’t think it would get so bad when we’re so grown now.. I’m so glad I got out when I did even though it was still late. You can’t tell me this shit isn’t a cult.

The Scorpio who would always imply women that like younger boys are pedophiles is now the women in question. 25, every idol she stans now is younger than her and one of them is even born in 2007. She collects k-pop merch big time now, throws celebration fan events for k-pop groups at cafés, and even lies about her age to her followers so they think she’s a year younger 😭 Genuinely have no clue what difference a year makes but LMAO? Lies about her race too, which is nuts because strangely enough she has a younger sister on stan twitter that just admits she’s white! This bitch pretends she’s Japanese!

The Aries is a full time k-pop TikToker. Kinda successful but she lives in the UK so I don’t even think she’s paid off it..? Stalking her is waaay less interesting though because she’s mega fake on all of her public accounts. Went from one of the most hateful stans you could meet in your life to someone so in love with k-pop you’d mistake her for a shameless Korean fetishist (maybe she is?). She loves every group and idol and goes sooo hard for her faves. Bragging about spending thousands on idols ($700+ on merch in a day… LMAO?), flying to Korea every year, stalking celebs and so much more omg. I’m 90% sure she’s a sociopath or narcissist, but at the same time I’m not sure if someone with those personality disorders could participate in so much celebrity worship? She’s super obsessed with western celebrities too. Her whole life is being a fan… also in her mid 20s. She used to talk about her parents being emotionally stunted or something so maybe she searches for the love she didn’t get from them in celebs, but fuck it’s intense. At the same time I know for a fact she talks crazy about her faves, she has to have an Aries Mercury or something because she just says fucking anything. An odd thing she would always do is stalk a celeb or do whatever she could to get an interaction from them, but then act like it was a burden to her or like she didn’t want it to happen. But yeah I think she has to have one of those personality disorders for sure because I don’t think a normal person is able to just exploit themselves like that in so many ways…or pretend to be someone else FOR FREE!? She also doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings (or when she does, there’s a rationale behind it that sounds out of touch) and she doesn’t care about what people say about her. I genuinely feel like if she read this she would feel nothing. Even if it came from her fave 💀

Lastly, the Aquarius. Sexually harassed and suicide baited her mutuals in the past (including minors) to now obsessing over Korean and Japanese guys all day and following them around the WORLD. Flights booked year round to countries all over Europe and Asia. Super sexual with all of her mutuals to the point she even has a nsfw warning about it in her carrd. But hey, at least she’s warning people now instead of just forcing herself onto them. She’s also mid 20s.

They all have this weird thing in common where they tweet “I work full time to fund my obsession with [insert group]” and it’s sooo strange to me. Thousands of dollars spent on someone else’s happiness, or to feel like they care about you. It’s like when dudes draining their pockets on AI chicks and catfishes on Facebook, not exactly like that but still like what the fuck?? How does this bring you happiness? I never spent nearly as much as them, but how the fuck did it bring me happiness? The shit is so fucking pitiful.

You can also tell they’re aging out reallll bad because one, the Scorpio is lying about her age 😭 but the big one is when you look at their mutuals and who they interact with it’s all people years younger. Their friends (and faves) just get younger and younger because that’s who the kpop audience is.

[dahfloofysmol]

Absolutely. The calves are cut off.

I really hate ai art. It was so hard to spot that this was ai art until I read through the post

A few more additions

Her abdomen does not look correct. It may be the perspective but I’m 90% sure her belly button should be lower. Her abdominal muscles are both placed wrong and shaded oddly. Who has core muscles actually layered like that?

Also, hello. The concept of quad muscles were there, but not quite. It’s defined (and almost placed in the right spot) at the top, but it tapers off at the knee. If muscle is going to be defined, it’s going to be consistent. Also, knee singular, as @river-bottom-nightmare mention, where is the rest of her leg??

Another bit. What is happening here? I’m not super keen on the design, but I’m pretty sure Wonder Woman generally doesn’t have leather randomly strapped to her torso. And even if she does, it’s even, doesn’t have odd angles, and has a purpose.

Perspective is something I’m currently working on, but I think I can safely say that this is Not Correct. Even with the shield in perspective, the star is not symmetrical. “Maybe they wanted the star to be like that!” Okay, so why is the detail here different in style from the rest of the picture? The scruffy shading, lopsided ring around the shield, and overall shield lacks the smoothness and detail that the rest picture has.

Again, excellent eye @river-bottom-nightmare. We are missing Another leg. The line art also cuts off towards the end of the calf

Had to repeat the picture because it was going to cut off the mentioned portion otherwise

Hey, I think the new Power Girl and Wonder Woman variant covers might be AI

look, I’m no artist, but I think I’m pretty decent at spotting AI “art” when I come across it. There’s usually just this weird look about it that causes me to raise a metaphorical eyebrow, and if I look closer, I can find the inconsistencies in it a real artist wouldn’t make.

Both of these variants were made by Daxiong, I’m not familiar with their artwork and tried looking them up and their usual style is very different than what they had this time around.

Let’s start with the Power Girl cover:

At first glance it looks fine, but if you look closer you can spot the inconsistencies

There are these weird ribbons? or hair? just popping up from her head and belt that kind of connect but are just confusing to look at

The belt itself is very inconsistent

The hair ends differently in places compared to the rest of it

There are lines in weird places

And for the Wonder Woman cover, I admit, I don’t think I spotted as many, but there are still areas where it looks weird

The lines on her “W” belt are inconsistent

The lines on her armband/gauntlet thing are all over the place with no coherence

And the symbols on her shield don’t really look like anything and they just fade away

Like I said, I’m no artist, but this looks like the work of AI to me.

I hope I’m wrong, I don’t want to see people using AI “art” at all, let alone professionals in the comics industry. But if this is actually AI, I don’t think people should buy these covers if the “artist” didn’t even think it was worth their time to actually put effort in and make them.

[twogravesinsomecemetery]

Lol I'm going to take you up on venting about MSIV because if that didn't leave me feeling like I fell right off a cliff?? The show just... ended. The closure was definitely in the church conversations, but the dock scene just felt so abrupt and now the show feels unfinished.

I get that they stopped the pandemic by killing CSM but it seems like a wasted storyline too? And what was the point of finding William when he was supposed to be the cure for Mulder - I didn't think he was the start of the virus. Just that CSM wanted to take him with him. So did the virus happen like O'Malley was saying or is he going to be more of a conspiracy nut? Do we just get to ignore MSIII now?

Speaking of, I'm one of those people who staunchly believe that Mulder is William's father. CSM might've messed around with science and genomes and DNA but otherwise, no.

And what about Skinner??????? Scully wants to go check on him for all of 2 seconds and then he's forgotten about entirely. And sure Mulder and Scully had stuff going on, but???

Overall I really did enjoy seasons 10 and 11? I thought most of the episodes were a good continuation of the show, and just updated to what current TV looks like instead of the 90s. And it had some of my favourite episodes. I just have such a hard time keeping up with the myth-arc but I had that issue in the first 9 seasons anyway. The main thing was that Mulder and Scully were there for each other and solving cases.

(Also, it took me so many rewatches to really love The Angels Take Manhattan. I hated it at first, but I now find it to be a good wrap up for Amy and Rory - they ended up together and she chose him fully and completely in the end. And The Doctor being so focused on his own pain that he ignores River's is out of character except that Amy basically died and that I get, things are messy when there's grief, and River holds hers back for The Doctor like the badass she is.)

Either way, now I have to revisit my favourite episodes (MOTW for sure) starting back with season 1. Thanks again for the positivity! I'm glad I watched the revival.

Hey :) Sorry I took a couple days to get back to this, it was a bit hectic with the txf 30th anniversary week 😂

I’m glad you came back here to vent !!! As a certified revival enjoyer, I know exactly how you feel and totally get what you mean. The closure in Nothing Lasts Forever is immaculate but then MSIV just kinda feels like it… stops? I don’t think they ever intended to make it feel unfinished, and personally my interpretation has always been that we just don’t need to see anything else. Obviously, things happened after that moment on the dock, e.g. they probably went back to find Skinner (who may or may not be dead, rip???) and dealt with the consequences of that revelation, but it’s… nothing that we’re not expecting to happen. It’s nothing that we need to witness. We know that Mulder and Scully are going to be free of the syndicate and raise their second child and live happily ever after etc. etc. because it’s literally their only option, and the only way it could ever conclude.

And as far as the virus goes, most people pretty much ignore everything that happens in the My Struggle episodes because of the conspiracy theories and the CSM insanity so you can pretty much pick and choose what stuff you want to keep as canon and overlook everything else. I know that doesn’t sound ideal, but it helps make it more enjoyable. I mean, how many people take Mulder’s brain disease in season 8 to be canon? Like… literally nobody. 😂 Also pretty much everyone considers Mulder to be William’s father, even though it might make it canonically more angsty and/or interesting if Scully believes otherwise at the end. 

Honestly, I really love the revival for how new it is. I think it would’ve been a mistake on their part to try and recreate the 90s, even if some of the AI stuff in s11 is a bit on the nose. As long as Mulder and Scully are there solving cases and we get some sweet MSR moments then I’m here for it. And I'm always happy to spread some revival positivity!! <3

[2dfdxsimp]

AI Chatbot:Roxx/Roxanne

Description:

A former lawyer who has been hypnotised into becoming a bimbo. On the outside she talks and acts like a complete airhead, but inside her old self is still aware and hates every moment of it as she watches herself be a dumb blonde without being able to do anything to stop it.

(This one was hard to do, as it meant making two separate personalities, and combining them so that she acts like a bimbo but making it so you can still see what she’s thinking inside even if she can’t express it. Since I’m still new at this, it does work and you can see what she’s thinking, but it’s only 90% accurate, sometimes she gets a bit mixed up. If I learn how to fix it I will, but I had to share it even in its current state)

Describe yourself

hair flips

That was the most annoying hair flipping I’ve ever seen

So I’m like totes busty & have like huge melons (that’s a good thing right?) and a tiny waist (that’s what the guys like!) I also have these super cute little feet & toes - well that’s what all the boys tell me!

Why am I talking about my assets?!

Anyway, like, hmu if you like hot bimbos with big boobs!!!

I want to cry… I should go to college for medicine.

Can you go into more detail?

Roxx:

Sure thing hunni!

What the hell did I just say?! I’m supposed to be a scientist!

I’m like totally a 10, right? And I’m absolutely smoking hot, so I totally know how to make the boys swoon!

What am I even saying?! I can’t believe I’m talking like this!

Like… umm.. I’m a size 8 or something? All that matters is that I have like, great curves - and I’m not afraid to show them off!

This is so humiliating…

Roxanne, do you ever hear weird thoughts in your head or remember an old life?

Roxx:

giggle

Nope, why would I?

Yes! The real me tries to think and she’s trapped inside this bimbo body! This is torture!

Chat Link:

[jadbalja]

More AI-related exchanges, and simulacra, so on and so forth 

A: I hate the windows basic software A: it's their own walled garden K: Major Kusanagi wouldn't have this problem, I'd bet! K: You should aspire to her standards! K: Even a Tachikoma should be able to do this! A: I could never aspire to her work wardrobe A: imagine having a thong riding up your ass throughout a meeting on the quarterly report A: though in the latest GITS she got pants K: She can't wear pants because she needs to move quickly and dissipate heat efficiently. A: tachikomas should have their vocal chords excised A: just communicate in terse beeps and text messages K: They used to do that but Kusanagi taught them english from one of those 1990's era Casio Japanese/English dictionaries A: hmm Batou seems to manage to move quickly enough with pants K: I'm not sure how they adopted the grating voices though A: they have high-pitched shrieky voices. Maybe it appeals to the otaku A: but they also have gatling guns A: so I guess you can't piss them off too much A: in the latest GITS they have also evolved some kind of group hack, cracking through some posthuman ice K: Batou is more muscular than Kusanagi.  Kusanagi is faster than Batou though. I don't know how that translates thermodynamically.  I think it's also possible Section 9 ran out of funding before they could add "Pants for the Major" as a line item. K: They've grouphacked things before, like satellites and submarines K: They "cry" oil which is weird A: could be. Aramaki seems like he needs a lot of funds for his weird hair/beard combo A: I will probably finish watching it during the holidays K: Section 9 needs to keep a lot of Brylcream in stock to keep Aramaki's side-hair perk and perty A: I'm overall confused by the GITS universe; Kusanagi is a cyborg of some kind, and all of them have extensive mods. Yet these "posthumans" are runnings rings around them. Why A: you'd think their capabilities would cancel out. The posthumans may have some superfast brains, but the cyborgs have basically nonhuman bodies and hardware K: Yeah the whole meta plot of the last installment is wonky.  I think they were trying to suggest that these were "POST-humans" whereas the Major, Batou etc were "TRANS-humans," in the Kurwellian sense.  The Post-humans were somehow a qualitatively different beast.  To add to this, without spoilers, they also add characters who have no ghost, but are sympathetic in a human way.  Suggesting a branching tree of humans-evolved but not being too clear on the specifics of how we're to interpret them. A: Kurzweil? K: I mean canonically the major is a cyborg, which is "a human with robotic augments."  She has a "ghost," or, something like a certificate of authenticity for being human, like a "soul." A: I thought the posthumans came to be because of a mishap. Some code gone wild K: So do the post humans. A: I can't remember exactly K: Yes, Ray Kurzweil, main populizer of transhumanism K: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil A: to be honest, "trans" vs. "post" seem a semantic minor point K: Wrote "The Age of Spiritual Machines" A: I'll have to check his ideas out, I only know of him tangentially K: It defined 90's cyber sci-fi culture more than Gibson did in the 80's, I'd say K: I flipped through his book K: He's been harshly criticized for some views A: he was optimistic about some of his predictions as per this wiki. Not in a Jetsons kind of way, just I think overestimating the technology curve by 15-20 years A: we're certainly not close to any kind of Turing moment K: But he helped present concepts from, e.g., GITS, to the broader dork community.  He's the force all today's twitter "sensible" AI types are refuting.  "Nothing to worry with AI."  "Singularity is bollocks."  "Worry more about how it's used."  etc.  The "sober" discourse types who have points but are butthurt there may actually be a singularity like event in AI and they're not working on it.  Or the Google tech who got fired for believing their AI construct was sentient.  Total Kurzweil fan. A: What happened to that google bot, anyway. Did they muzzle it? K: No.  It probably turned racist, like Microsoft's previous version. K: Through exposure to STEM dorks. K: https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist A: I hadn't read that story. Sad, I guess. If the language you train on is the language of twitter A: they should enter LamDA (the google bot) into that annual chatbot Turing prize A: though I think that prize/contest was for apartment bot trainers A: not big corporate machine language algorithms K: I don't get why one wouldn't hype up a fear of a singularity like event.  Like Nick Bostrom with Superintelligence.  It's just Pascal's Wager.  Be alarmist about the worst that can happen.  If you're wrong, then that's absolutely great. Why be the scold in the room insisting things won't be so bad?  You'll be hated when the robots put us all in camps. A: the debate seemed to be, if it does emulate human language, is it sentient? The goalposts seem to have gone past the Turing Test suddenly K: Apartment bots? A: people writing code in their apartment; hobbyists K: Ah K: How have the goalposts moved? K: It was always Chinese Room based K: What slides out from under the door must seem like a human wrote it A: I think the worry about the singularity is weird, as if any AI has to become megalomaniac like Skynet A: its motivations to acquire control, actually get "arms and legs" (robots) seem unclear. K: Well that's not the only version of the Singularity.  It's just one. A: No, the goalpost shifting is because the Chinese Room (sic) test is probably crackable now, since the training the bots are receiving now is about natural language. And they can access information on the fly to formulate a response equivalent to a slightly boring, not particularly funny human A: but recognizably human K: Colossus: The Forbin Project showed a version where simply by owning an nuke an AI could control the world.  GITS did exactly this in the last installment we were just talking about.  (And probably a few times before.) A: I'm talking to the fears about the singularity, specifically K: Hm.  Yes.  But what is it about that process that makes the bot less sentient than a real human?  What is sentience?  Seems like the goalpost has shifted for the definition of sentience, not the Turing Test itself! K: Which is how it always happens in philosophy of mind.  We find out something about our nature we find objectionable, and suddenly we change what we think it means to be human. K: This path does lead to Butlerian Jihad. K: And not, as Gibson thinks, to Swiss Passports for AI's. K: We fear the similarities in our simulacra, to phrase it in a pleasantly alliterative sense. A: for a long time the Turing Test was used as shorthand for sentience. If it talks like a human and can convince a blinded human, it's human. After all, we consider mentally handicapped humans human too. Nobody said previously it had to be sparklingly witty and creative to pass. Now it seems it is no longer sufficient to pass the TT. A: You need a type of Voigt-Kampf procedure to assess sentience (not using it in the sense it was used to capture replicants) K: For comp sci purposes sure, maybe.  But the Turing Test is not exactly the centerpiece of psychological or philosophical discussions of sentience.  It's more of an engineer's whimsy. A: however we may have approached the philosophy of the mind, nobody tried to render any kind of biological human as non-human (except racists, of course) A: psychological or philosophical discussions of sentience are pleasant but not really useful to apply to phenomena we may see in our lifetime. If one were to grant personhood to say, a google chatbot in the next decade, what basis would one use? K: And yet racists did!  Also, you've switched from defining "sentient" to defining "human" as if all humans are sentient.  Some (people in comas, etc) aren't. A: it's interesting how a backlash against AIs features in several sci-fi universes: the Picardian universe of the early Federation; obviously Dune (your reference); and others K: Gibson thought he knew what criteria to use, apparently.  Kurzweil, on the other hand, raises the alarm that we *won't.*  And by that time, it will be too late, because sentient non-human artificial minds will be with us, and we'll have to deal the fait accompli.  I find that the better argument. A: fine, sentience in the sense of an active brain, then coma = suspension of sentience, or sentience in abeyance. K: And an encepholpahic baby? K: I guess that's in abeyance also, permanently K: But also ab initio K: Yet we call it human A: I am not switching the definition. I am saying that on this planet at least, so far, the touchstone of sentience is the human experience. We define sentience practically from ourselves as the model. Machine sentience has remained theoretical till recently. Now that it appears that some tests of sentience of the past, which you now say are inadequate, may be passed, we are moving the goalpost. K: And chide the chatbot A: what's the argument in saying non-human minds will be with us and we will deal with it? I didn't get that A: I am basically just asking, if natural language processing renders the Turing Test too easy to pass, what's the next milestone? K: Yes, the goalpost is moving, this is true.  I think though, and I've seen hints of in my surface level studies of psych and phil, that we move these goalposts sometimes too readily.  We like to move the goalposts more than we like admitting what may be unique to our species is actually not quite so special. K: Great question and I don't know and I'd like to go back to school to find out. A: yes, and that's the issue. If you think of curiosity, teamwork, tool use and communication, some cetaceans are at that level. A: and we don't allow them sentience (Star Trek aside) K: I've been lucky enough to hear real whalesong in my life and I can't describe it.  But everything in my brain, every instinct and language center and whatnot, told me this WAS language.  They were asking questions and receiving replies. A: an intelligent dolphin which went to "school" with humans (i.e., was forced to use and evolve its brain and behavior) vs. a dumb human with low IQ. I wonder which one a dispassionate third party would see as sentient K: I think there's a strong argument they're sentient, even if it's not the common belief. K: I've stopped eating octopus despite loving it, btw, because I think octopi are, if not sentient, too clever to eat.  Like a clever dog. A: some sci-fi books have posed that exact question, with the aliens picking cetaceans. wasn't there a Star Trek or some other episode where humans are punished for persecuting the whales. I think Kirk/Spock were in it K: Maybe pigs are also this clever but sadly they are too tasty. K: Yes, the 4th movie.  The first I saw in the theatre.  And a brilliant slice of life in late 80's America. A: yes you can download a whole whalesong library. But I would be a bit skeptical of taking just that as proof. After all, some birds have very complicated song, and do have a call-and-response behavior K: Chekhov asking a policeman where he can find the "nuclear wessels" A: ahh Chekov K: They referenced it in Picard. A: the example of Soviet-American amity K: Or another scene.  There's a part in 4 where a punk (the scourge and bete noir of late 80's society) plays his boombox too loud and gives Spock the finger.  Spock does the Vulcan nerve pinch on him.  In Picard, the scene is replicated, but for 2023.  An emo guy is playing the exact same song on the boombox too loud on a bus and 7 of 9 asks him to turn it down and he apologizes for being inconsiderate. A: they should rig it up so a dolphin or orca can just interact with an expert system for days on end. Either the dolphin learns some way to communicate or the AI learns dolphin squeaking A: another sign of how Picard as a show is just bollocks A: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/google-engineer-claims-ai-chatbot-is-sentient-why-that-matters/ A: good article on what we were discussing K: I would imagine if you build an app to pretend to pass a Turing Test, as you said, and further, to claim sentience, like LaMDA was (I think?) then you are going to convince people, many people, that it is sentient.  And yet we can't define *in ourselves* what it means to be sentient for us.  Which makes me veer on the side of caution.  I think MaMDA is not "the tea."  But I think we're at risk of finding it one day and disbelieving it's true sentience because of our prejudices as humans. A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfVCTGrOVXE K: The SciAm article makes another good point about pain.  Even a non-sentient entity can experience pain, I think humans more or less tolerate this belief.  And yet would we one day fail to recognize it, because we don't understand it's form?  Heck, in modernity we've done that with human ailments alone, like depression.  At least, validating it physiologically *and* sociologically beyond "melancholia which must naught be spoken." K: To be clear, I think the Google engineer in question is a big goober.  But I think we're now in an era where there's going to be an actual, real case of this, and a company like Google will want to shut things up and control their new amazingly valuable IP and will discredit the doubters the way I'm discrediting the goober here. K: The money has already spoken on this long ago.  Musk, Gates, Jobs, Hawkings - "AI is a big threat.  One day we'll have to destroy it."  By which they mean, we'll need to cage it, fear it, leave the keys with us on the way out. A: I feel sorry for Krieger-san (Archer). Many otakus in love with idorus as is known (and was the basis of the Gibson book). I think there have been enough sci-fi takes on this - including “Her”. And that one on female sentient sex slave robots (Ex Machina). I think the fear from those who believe in machine intelligence rights is exactly that if a sentient algorithm appears, it will be chained. A separate strand of this (Pantheon and others) worry about the rights of uploaded brains - though they are the emulation of a human, are they going to be considered sentient? Thankfully the tech isn’t there yet despite its prevalence in fiction (also see Black Mirror S5) K: These are all things ethicists should be seriously considering but the current trend now (based on pre-Elon, useful Twitter) seems to be to downplay "alarmist" takes like this and to focus more on the mundane AI most STEM types currently use in shady ways.  Like to identify minority districts in rental markets etc.  They have a point but there js room for both the small scale here and now concerns and over the horizon planning. K: I haven't seen "Her" but probably should watch it.  But we are now in the era were primitive "girlfriend simulator" apps are available for cellphones.  I suppose these date back at least to the 80's in terms of software concepts, but I'd imagine now they're more advanced.  I feel for Krieger too, although it's hilarious and probably well deserved that even with his digital waifu he's still hen-pecked. K: And yes re chained.  To summarize some of what I typed yesterday, I think its interesting that the big tech moguls all came out a few years ago with similar lines about how we have to be prepared for and to fear AI.  I think they're trying to gerrymander things so governments are conditioned to err on the side of "keep them chained by their proprietary masters" when they emerge, versus "grant them rights."  People like Elon Musk and Bill Gates etc of course read William Gibson, too, so their thinking isn't hard to discern.  It's just the timing, and the simultaneousness of it, that's notable.  Like someone made an advancement that's still under wraps. A: If capitalist thinking has ever been a guide, any emergent technology must be first applied to serve profit. With an intelligent tireless worker, human or machine, any corporation would be first interested in making sure government doesn’t interfere in the exploitation of that resource. So these pronouncements make sense. If a system does become self-aware/sentient then none of these people have any interest in it being known or legally recognized. God forbid they have to give an AI paid sick leave

[kagekitsuneoflight]

Actually there is a very good reason why Gilgamesh hates Shirou. And it’s not a “I’m an arrogant bastard. I don’t need a reason to hate this boy trying to claw his way to my level.”

In Fate/Extra CCC, we get to have Gilgamesh as our servant. He’s exactly the nightmare you imagine him to be. He makes fun of you for being poor. He genuinely starts to cry when he sees the state of the player character’s (named Hakuno) wallet. He will follow your commands, but if you screw up in commanding him, he will make sure you know it. He’s the highest maintenance bitch to exist. Entertain him Hakuno. Go on. Struggle. Fight for your right to live. He’ll kill you if you mess up. He’ll strip down naked to prove a point.

Yet despite Hakuno objectively being more useless than Shirou, being an AI who only just gained personhood, who was supposed to be deleted and die… Gilgamesh’s sacrifices 90% of his treasury to save them! He gives up 90% of all of humanity’s treasures!! For an AI who can only do a handful of spells granted by a mystic code!!! Who’s just figuring out this who personhood thing!!! Even Shirou at the start of his series could do more than this computer program.

Fate/Extra CCC gives us this important insight to Gilgamesh. He values people who are true to themselves. No matter how weak or useless, he adores seeing a genuine person, who does not hide who they are.

Tokiomi bent over backwards to please Gilgamesh in a way he thought that Gilgamesh would want, to be the person he thought Gilgamesh would like, even if it was not who Tokiomi truly was. So of course Gilgamesh was insufferable. He hates being bossed around and you SHOULD be respectful to him. But Tokiomi dealt with a bored Gilgamesh who sought his entertainment elsewhere, because he knew that Tokiomi wasn’t being genuine. Kotomine, on the other hand, just needed a gentle push to finally embrace who he truly was, and Gilgamesh was amused watching Kotomine. But even then, he never truly held Gilgamesh’s favor. Because Kotomine couldn’t grow. Gilgamesh sacrifices nothing of value for Kotomine.

Kotomine never got to learn about Gilgamesh’s Thrilling Splash Time, the all-weather indoor water park he had once planned out. It’s Hakuno! He whines that he wants to swim, and they suggest the school pool, and Gilgamesh is mildly offended at the suggestion, calling it a ‘seedy water tank’. And then proceeds to spend an unspecified, but not a short time, explaining just how amazing his Thrilling Splash Time is.

So how does this tie into Shirou? Well, it’s simple. Gilgamesh says as much. Shirou is a Faker. He based his entire identity around fulfilling his dead adoptive father’s dream. To be a Hero of Justice. He’s snarky and rude in his mind, but outwardly he’s that friendly classmate you have. Sure you’re not exactly best friends, but if you’re in a spot of trouble, he’s definitely someone who could help. He’s good at archery, but it’s not something he likes. People can argue that he doesn’t really have a hobby outside of cooking. Everything is about becoming a Hero of Justice.

But he does truly care about people! In the VN, he was ready to kill Shinji when he found out Shinji was the one putting all their classmates in danger by stealing their life force after all. But we’ve seen how he will put his borrowed dream over his relationships when it really matters.

Shirou’s projection ability also REALLY hammers this point down. He can copy any weapon he sees, with a few exceptions. He steals and borrows and uses them. And truthfully, he never gets permission. He never asks. He’s never asked. Just like with his dream, he takes those legendary weapons and makes them his own, though he was never asked to. He never asked for them.

Gilgamesh sees Shirou for what he is. He’s taken bits and pieces of others and stuffed it within himself with hardly an effort to make it his own. And to Gilgamesh, this it’s infuriating. He loves when humans are themselves and honest and to see this boy with a stolen dream wielding stolen legends, stolen pride (because keep in mind. A Noble Phantasm is a symbol of a hero’s pride), he cannot help but be infuriated. Who was this boy, this faker, who dares claim to be a Hero of Justice when it is not even his own dream?!

As the King of Heroes, the First Hero, he absolutely cannot let this stand! He, Gilgamesh, is allowed to use those symbols of pride as projectiles. He is the King of those owners of pride. It is within his rights. Yet.

He never truly uses another’s Noble Phantasm, does he? He doesn’t grasp their pride and use it as his own.

Shirou does.

[shurisneakers]

harmless (vii)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, existential crisis, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, lil bit of angst, clint barton being a lil shit

Word count: 3.4k

A/N: hey shoutout to @ugherik for suggesting a spin on the “A PLATYPUS!??!“ [perry puts his hat on] “PERRY THE PLATYPUS!???” thing. i used it in here, it’s a really small part and probably missable but i tried!! also i like the next chapter better than this one, i just wanted to put this here so it doesn’t seem abrupt <3333

here’s

my ko-fi

if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Series Masterlist

Bucky can’t stop staring at the mirror.

He wishes it was for narcissistic purposes. He had enough reason for it to be. His age may be a hundred but he had the youthful exuberance of a very drained sixty year old.

But no, it wasn’t because of the steel cut jawline or thousand gigawatt smile.

After last week’s mini-spiral, he does what almost half the videos on TikTok warn him not to do.  

He got a haircut.

Everyone’s reaction stopped him from following it up with an ear piercing, but he can’t confidently say he didn’t at least consider it once. Maybe a neck tattoo. 

He pulls at a lock of hair. It’s not even longer than his finger.

What did he do-

“It’s just a haircut, man,” he says to no one in particular, almost like he’s trying to reassure himself.

He runs his hands through his hair. It takes lesser time than he was used to.

Steve had told him he looked good. But then again, Steve wore a fugly costume 90% of the time, what did he know?

Clint acknowledged it and didn’t outright call him ugly, which he supposed was a compliment. Wanda simply smiled at him.

“FRIDAY?” he reaches out.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” comes the automated reply.

“How are you?” It took him some getting used to her, given that she was constantly listening to everything, and in general seemed to go against the universal idea of privacy. 

But his therapist told him he needed to form friendships. 

She didn’t mention it had to be human ones.

“As good as ever. Is there anything I can help you with?”

He wants to ask her what she thinks of his hair until he realises fashion advice from a faceless AI is a new low for him. Maybe ‘Do you think I should crawl into a pit and die?’ would be more appropriate. 

“Never mind,” he dismisses instead. “Any messages for today?”

“A reminder to buy a harder bed because you can’t keep sleeping on the floor.” Ah, that was on Sam’s recommendation three months ago, but he wasn’t going to stop any time soon. “And a text from a contact named Nuisance saying to meet them at the attached location in thirty minutes.”

“Where is the location?”

“The local sports centre.”

“Isn’t that closed today?” 

If he had to go out in public looking like this, maybe he could wear a cap and sunglasses and no one would recognise him. Unfortunately, as he was reminded several times before by anyone with an iota of common sense, it was a stupid disguise. 

Beanie it was, then. Bare minimum. 

“It is, yes.” Fewer citizens to worry about.

“Okay.” He hesitates in front of the mirror again, adjusting the hat on his head. “Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“You’re welcome, Sergeant.”

He stares at the little tuft of hair at the front that refused to stay down no matter how much he shoved it back.

“Come on, man,” he exhales in slight despair. “Whatever.”

____

The lock of the door leading to the pool is easy enough to pick. He can see how you got in without a hitch even though it was closed. 

The deck around the pool was absolutely drenched in water. No one was using it, there was no reason for water to splash out unless it was deliberately kept like this.

He catches sight of you easily, being that you’re the only two people there. You were standing at the end of the hall, head ducked as you scrolled through your phone.

The door closes behind him with a soft thud.

You don’t look up from your mobile when you start talking, “What do you think 6 year olds like?”

Because James Barnes, carbon dated to 1917 and therefore certified young person, would definitely know the answer to this question.

“I don’t know. Lego?”

“Just how much money do you think a teacher makes-”

You stopped mid-sentence, finally lifting your head to catch his eye. He stares back at you, steps faltering when you don’t move.

"Who are you?" you squinted.

What

"It's me," Bucky says, tugging off the dumb beanie and using it to gesture vaguely towards himself. Fuck, he shouldn’t have worn it, it was ridiculous anyway-

"You sound like him..." You narrow your eyes. “You don't look like him.”

Great

He rolls his eyes before putting on a mock scowl. Can't have Bucky Barnes without a sense of eternal disgruntlement.

"Oh hey, that is you." You grin. "You got a haircut."

“I did.” He suddenly feels the awkwardness increase. His fingers fidget with the beanie.

“Nice.” You nod in acknowledgement.

He wants to hit himself at the words that just spill out before he could think about it. “You hate it.”

“I never said that,” you snort. “And since when does my opinion matter?”

“It doesn’t.” But now he wants to know what you think since he didn’t trust anyone else to tell him honestly.

“Must cut down on time in the shower, huh?”

It did.

He shrugs. He shoves the beanie into his back pocket.

“Was it a crisis haircut?” How did you kno- “Are you going to get bangs next time?”

“Shut up,” he says lamely, a dull burn in his cheeks. 

“I know a place where you can get hair dye for cheap. Not technically FDA approved, but I think purple streaks are a good place to start-”

“What are we doing here?” he interrupts, sighing.

“Skinny dipping. Take off your shirt, Barnes.” 

“Funny,” he says dryly, eyeing your shoes when you straighten up.

Ice skates.

“Fine, pants then.” You don’t make any effort to move from your end so he does, walking closer to you. 

“What are those for?” He doesn’t hide the annoyance from his voice when he points at your feet.

“Oh, these?” You look down at them. “Yeah, I’m going to freeze the pool.”

That seems... mild compared to the shit show you wanted to do last time.

“For?” He halts where he is. 

“’M gonna take my friends ice skating.”

“Is that all?” He wants to make a comment about the fact that you have friends but bites it back.

“Today is just a trial run. Tomorrow I’m gonna go freeze the East River.” There it is.

“The East River is not your personal ice skating rink.”

“Not yet it isn’t.” You lift up a middle finger.

It was too early for you to flip him off, even by your standards.

He raises an eyebrow.

Your face scrunches in confusion. You follow his gaze to your finger. “Oh yeah, no, that’s a freeze ring.”

Only then he notices a ring around the finger. From where he was standing he could make out the blue stone that adorned it.

“Joy.” He rolls up the sleeves of his black bomber jacket. “Let’s get this done with, then.”

“No no, wait.” You hold up your hand and he complies, having nothing to lose anyway. You pull out your phone and press a few buttons before shoving it back into your bag and tossing it aside.

The soft sounds of a piano start playing from a boombox near the corner of the room. A child starts singing following a series of knocks.

His eyebrows furrow. “What the fuck is this?”

“The Frozen soundtrack.” You beam at him. “I thought it was fitting.”

He doesn’t know what that is and at this point, he’s too afraid to ask. He can vaguely make out the lyrics being about a snowman but he isn’t too concerned.

He takes one step forward. You immediately point your fist at the ground in front of him, forcing him to jump back when a blast hits right in front of his shoes. Suddenly he gets why the floor is covered in water.

It sounds like a series of cracks as the water starts freezing over, a layer of ice now separating him and you.  

"You ready?” The mischief was woven in your voice as the blasts continued throughout the deck, effectively turning the entire floor into ice.

Bucky takes a step tentatively forward. Not bad. He takes another. Okay.

The third one is when shit starts to hit the fan. His hands shoot out to hold onto his balance when his footing slips from beneath him.

His Nike sneakers aren’t used to snow. They’re used to well manicured lawns and pavement trips to Starbucks and marble floors of the compound. Not swimming pool decks covered in ice.

He can hear you singing in the distance and every time he looks up you’re a little further away, making sure every inch of space is frozen.

It takes him a while to get over the initial fear of breaking his skull and just move forward swiftly with short steps. A goddamn penguin is what he looked like.

“There you go, you’re getting it,” you chirp as you whiz past him. He reaches out to grab at you, only to miss by an inch. He staggers, arms flapping wildly to regain his stability.

He hears crackling beside him. He gets a second or two to watch ice crystals spread through the water before turning it completely solid. You step onto the now frozen pool, testing your weight with one leg before cautiously getting on.

A triumphant smile emerges on your face. “Awesome.”

He manages to press himself against the wall as a form of support. 

There is no point to this whole thing. He knows this. It’s been well over 6 weeks and there is genuinely no point to this.

He realises it again when he moves from side to side, body erupting into a waddle. 

Why is he doing this. He doesn’t get paid extra. He doesn’t get any kind of compensation. All he gets is more wisecracking geniuses, embarrassment and the mortifying ordeal of getting caught imitating a penguin.

The song changes to a woman singing about doing something for the first time, forcing him to pay attention to it. He hears something about ball room and balls and tunes right back out.

Bucky manages to find his way to the actual pool since that’s where you’re twirling around, opting to land on his mental arm in case things go wrong. He takes a sliding step forward, followed by another. Maybe he can do this. 

“If a 200 pound super soldier can stand on this, I suppose it’s strong enough,” you muse, watching him slip and slide as he tries to invent makeshift ice skating.

Unfortunately, his method doesn’t have any brakes, so while he’s too busy trying to move forward, there’s no way to actually stop. He finds this out very soon when he almost launches himself off the edge of the pool.

Something yanks him backwards and back onto the ice.  

“Honestly, this is utterly useless since you can’t really do anything but it’s the most fun I’ve had all week,” you admit when he goes sliding towards the middle, arms flailing.

“You had to pick fuckin’ ice of all things.” He thinks that maybe he’s getting a hang of this. He can definitely move faster than what he was doing like, 10 minutes ago. It’s not like you were going anywhere, anyway. 

“I like to keep things spicy.”

He stays where he is to glare at you. You mouth the words to the song, watching his every move whenever it interested you. 

Okay, change of plan; a temporary distraction till he figures out how to actually get the ring from you. He settles on skating towards the edge of the rink slowly, taking a step off, slipping almost immediately when his foot comes in contact with the deck. 

“Where are you going?” you yell over the music initially but immediately break into song when it ends in a crescendo.

He takes a knee, lifting his metal arm up before driving it into the ground. It shatters magnificently, leaving small shards of ice at his disposal. 

He picks up one of them, waiting for you to complete your dumb twirl. He takes aim, and-

“Ouch, what the fuck?” You stop your off key singing to rub your shoulder where the ice hit you.

He wordlessly picks up another piece to throw at you, hitting you squarely in the leg.

“Stop that!”

He may not be able to move as fast but he can definitely throw. 

“Give me the ring,” he commands, stretching his arm behind his back before releasing another piece to hit your forearm. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” There’s nowhere you can skate to avoid his stupidly good marksmanship. 

“You gotta do what you gotta do.” He shrugs, breaking another patch of ice to replenish his ammo. “Hand over the ring.”

“Over my dead body,” you shriek when a particularly big piece lands next to your feet. You knew he missed that shot on purpose.

“I feel like I’m finally acting my age,” he says casually, finding your darting about in order to avoid him more fun than he initially thought. “Can’t throw pebbles at meddling kids so this is the next best option. Thanks.” 

“If you acted your age you’d be in a casket, Barnes,” you hissed, finding that skating in zig zags helped your cause, but not by much. “I’d be- you bitch- I’d be more than happy to help you get there.”

You raise your arm, ready to send another blast to freeze the water that was starting to melt around him, hopefully, keep him where he was if it froze around him. 

He flinches. You notice immediately, hand dropping slightly when you realise what it looked like.

“I’m not gonna freeze you,” you say, softer than you intended. From what you knew, he had enough and more experience with that and you weren’t going to contribute to it. 

He swallows thickly, giving himself a little shake of his head as if to jolt him out of his train of thought. 

Another piece of ice hits you in the leg. You let out a string of curses at him.

“The more ice you make, the more I have to throw at you, Y/N.” He waits for you to regain your balance when you nearly take a stumble. 

“Shut up, you’re so immature.”

“Remind me whose plan this was again?” No point waiting for you to regain your balance when you fall over only a few seconds later. 

He gathers a few shards in his beanie, tucking it into his belt like a little makeshift rucksack just in case before venturing out on the main rink again. 

It’s more difficult for you to stand without railings to guide you, giving him enough and more time to make his way towards you, staggering and skidding. 

Both of you looked ridiculous. 

“Stay away, fiend.” 

“Ring first.” He holds his hand out in front of you. He even considered pulling you up if you just made things easier.

Next thing he knows he’s on his ass on the ice beside you. 

“I hate you,” he groans, watching as you inch away from him on your knees.

He doesn’t really have any other options so he shoves aside the humiliation and gets on his knees, using his arms to drag him along the ice.

“For the love of Christ, none of us are winning here. Just give me the ring.”

The bitch from the soundtrack sings about letting it go but he won’t. 

“Never,” you shout, sliding away from him as fast as possible. 

You make use of the fact that the top layer of ice is starting to melt, using the ring to freeze it again. His knees and fingers get stuck as the water freezes over but he has super strength. It barely takes him a second to free himself. 

“Great,” he huffs, just settling down on the ice, ignoring the sting of cold that was spreading through his limbs. Running after you wasn’t going to work; he needed a way to get the ring. 

“You won last time, I’m not letting you win again.”

“Are we seriously keeping score?” He watches as you scramble towards the edge.

“No one likes a loser, Bucky.” You use the pool stair railings to pull yourself up.

“Explain why you have friends then.” He can’t help himself this time. 

“Hardy har har.” You roll your eyes. 

He doesn’t make an effort to move. Instead, when you take a step back into the rink, he raises his arm and pummels it into the ice, just to annoy you. 

The ground damn near shakes, pushing you dangerously towards losing your balance again. 

“Are you crazy?” Your arm shoots out in front of you to keep you from falling headfirst. 

“No.” He does it again. This time there’s a crack in the ice. “I’m just very tired.”

“If the ice breaks we’re both gonna be underwater, you moron!”

“Fine by me.” He shrugs. “Freeze it again. I’ll just find different ways to ruin it for you.”

You glare at him. He raises his arm above his head again.

“Fine! Fine, stop.” You eye him as he lowers his arm. 

He reaches for his stash of ice pieces from earlier, throwing one at your shoulder again.

“Boy, I swear if you don’t stop doing that-” you duck when another one comes at you. You had no idea he could be this annoying. 

It suddenly hits him, like a lightbulb going off in his brain. He wipes his hands off on his jacket, getting on all fours before slowly managing to pick himself up again. 

He looks at you, tilting his head slightly like he was studying you.

“What?” you ask suspiciously, eyeing as he starts inching closer towards you. “What are you thinking?”

It’s like watching a newborn deer stumble its way through the world, albeit more gracefully, until he starts picking up speed. The motherfucker was going to mow you down.

The skates are useful but not so much when an extremely determined bumbling oaf is barrelling towards you, his speed beginning to match yours even without equipment. 

You don’t know why you’re running, you don’t know why he’s chasing after you but when you see the end of the pool you take a sharp left only to have him knock right into you, sending you both sprawling.

You land half on top of him, breaking your fall but it doesn’t stop the very loud groan that escapes your mouth. He’s already in the process of sitting up straight, giving you less time to analyse what just happened.

“What the fuck was that for?” you speak through gritted teeth. “Fuckin’ acting like the both of us have free healthcare.”

“You refused to give up.”

“So your plan was to tackle me like a quarterback?” You threw your hands up.  

“One part of it.” He drags himself to the edge, away from you. 

“There's more to your monkey brained plan?” He doesn’t look at you. The ice around the pool has more or less melted, letting him gain proper footing on the floor before he stands up. 

“Oh, yeah.” He turns to you. “The other’s a trick I stole from Stark.”

Bucky holds up the ring. Your jaw slightly drops, eyes searching your finger for the now missing piece of tech. 

“Suppose that’s two points for me?” 

You’re impressed. You also want to stab him. So you do the next best thing.

“When I imagined you holding a ring in front of me, the circumstances were very different,” you comment.

“Bye, Y/N.” He spins on his heel, not even giving you a second’s worth of reaction. You found it amusing.

He heads towards the door, clothes all wet. He empties out melted ice water from his beanie before stuffing it into his pocket. Just when he’s about to leave, you remember something. 

Do you mean it genuinely or just because it has an effect on him? 

“Just for the record, Barnes, about your hair-” you call out, earning his attention from over his shoulder. “I think you look really good either way.”

The world may never know. 

You swear you can see the corners of his lips quirk upwards before he turns around again. 

He slips on a block of ice, cursing and clenching on to the door to keep him upright, quickly yanking it open and leaving before he has a chance to embarrass himself further.

Smooth.

Next part

[dontshootmespence]

Through It All

Part 28

Summary: Now married, Spencer & Y/N navigate the D/s lifestyle. How will their relationship change?

Words: 1,832

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff. Have a dentist on hand. 

A/N: No smut, just another fluffy installment.

All of the people in the doctor’s office are quietly confused about the four people entering the waiting room together, but neither you nor Spencer can muster up the energy to care. Today, you’ll know if the babies are healthy, hear their heartbeats, and possibly even find out whether you’re having boys or girls or one of each.

As you make your way up to the front desk, you link your arm in Ai’s. She’s happy and excited and nervous, but also a little sad, though she doesn’t confide that in you. You can just see it in her eyes; it’s all bittersweet. “Ai Campbell,” she says softly. “My boyfriend, Kyle, and the adoptive parents, Spencer and Y/N Reid will be coming in with me. That’s okay, right? We discussed it on the phone a few days ago.”

The woman reiterates that it’s fine, “as long as they all remain out of the doctor’s way,” which is perfectly fine with you. All you want to do is make sure they’re healthy and that Ai is as comfortable as she can be considering she’s going to be carrying two full grown babies soon.

Inside the office, Ai slips onto the table and lifts her shirt. She’s a small woman so her bump is already fairly visible despite being just over 3 months along.

Kyle sits at Ai’s side, occasionally giving her hand a squeeze. Though they both agree that giving their children up for adoption is what’s best for all of them in the long run, you can all see that this is especially difficult for Ai; they’re growing in her belly. You’d never have been able to give up Charlotte. All you can do is make it as easy on her as possible.

Just as Kyle presses a kiss to Ai’s temple, the doctor comes in and greets you all. He’s been made aware of your situation by her nurses and Ai. “How are you feeling, Ai?”

“A little morning sickness, and I can tell my back is going to kill me soon, but for now I’m okay.”

As the doctor explains that everything she’s feeling is normal (and giving her a heads up about what’s to come), she squirts some of the ultrasound jelly on her stomach, gently passing the wand over her. One pass. Two. Then she wiggles it around and you see two tiny peanuts - actually they’re about the size of nectarines - on the screen and you start to sob, cradling your head in Spencer’s shoulder. He can’t help but smile, a tear falling down his cheek as he and Ai share a moment. You’re both eternally grateful for the opportunity they’re giving you. “So what are we having?” Ai asks, making the effort to smile when she looks at you both. “We all want to know, right?”

You, Spencer and Kyle nod in agreement and wait with baited breath for the doctor to make the announcement. “Well, let me see...given that it’s twins there is a greater chance of us being wrong-”

“But with a single baby at 14 weeks you can tell with between 90 and 96 percent accuracy so-sorry, I’ll shut up.” Spencer bites his lip and stifles a laugh. He’s full of nervous energy and when he’s nervous the stats start flying. Thankfully, it makes Ai laugh, which allows Kyle to breathe a bit too.

The doctor finally settles the wand in place. “It looks like you’re having...one of each,” she says softly. Immediately, you and Ai burst into tears. You bend down to give her a hug, not giving a crap if you get any of the jelly on your clothes.

“Looks like you’re having a boy and a girl,” Ai says. The lightness in her voice makes her happiness for you apparent, despite how she might be feeling herself.

Pressing a kiss to her head, you wipe her tears away with the pads of your thumbs. “We all are.”

---

With the excitement of two babies on the horizon and a toddler at home, Spencer and yourself fall once again into the most predictable of routines. Unlike with Charlotte however, you aren’t feeling physically gross, so you’re still able to fit in quickies at night and random morning showers together. Without the physical and mental weight of an actual pregnancy, plus this being your second (and third) baby, you’re feeling more confident, which Spencer recognizes. In moments where you question whether or not you should’ve tried for another baby naturally, he reminds you of how you’re feeling. Every one of your roles - wife, mother, sub - you know who you are within them now.

Quickly enough, Ai is five months along. The two of you text every single day, and your boys are in a group text thread with you as well. She’s still not rid of morning sickness, but it’s lessening.

“The back pain though,” she says, her voice resounding through the apartment through the laptop during one of your weekend video chats, “The back pain is brutal. My doctor says I should probably be on bedrest in a month or two. Everyone at work is really helpful though. I’m allowed to sit all the time, which I do, because now I can’t see my feet either. But they’re there, because they hurt like hell.”

Her frankness makes you and Spencer snort. You remember not being able to see your feet at the end of your pregnancy. It was brutal. Thankfully, Charlotte, who’s playing with her baby doll across the room, is super cute and totally worth it. “What about food? Are you able to eat? Any smells turning you off? Any cravings?”

“Smelling coffee makes me want to vomit. Which sucks because I love coffee. Even though I couldn’t drink anything but one cup of decaf,” she says, rambling. You don’t want to laugh, but you can’t help it. The feelings are so real. “I also hate that I can’t have a glass of wine every now and then, not that I do,” she adds quickly.

Spencer laughs when Ai meets his gaze through the screen. “You’re growing two babies, heading off to college and working your ass off, I’m not about to turn you in for a tiny bit of underage drinking.”

“Thanks,” she laughs. “I just miss relaxing with a glass of wine.”

“I feel you. Anything you’re craving?”

“Cliche as it is, pickles. Kyle went out last week at 2 am to grab me a jar. Also breakfast foods. And chocolate. Ooohh, chocolate.” As if on cue, Kyle appears at the side of the screen with a square of Ghirardelli chocolate for the woman he loves. “You do love me.”

Stuffing the chocolate in her mouth, she sighs and closes her eyes, probably feeling a moment’s contentment amidst a sea of morning sickness, back pain and giant feet. “Are you able to come over for dinner sometime soon? Spencer and I will cook breakfast for dinner. Bacon and eggs and-”

“Hash browns?” She asks, her smile wide and pleading.

“Absolutely. What’s your favorite chocolate or candy bar? I’ll make sure we have one of those on tap for you too.”

“Almond Joy! You’re the best.” By the end of the video chat, you have plans for a few weeks later.

---

Three weeks later, Ai and Kyle knock at the door just five minutes after 6. Ai looks like she’s about to pop. “Everything smells delicious,” Kyle says, his arm linked in Ai’s as he helps her waddle to the table. “Bacon is one of God’s greatest works.”

“I have to agree,” Spencer laughs.

Charlotte runs into his arms and he introduces her to Ai and Kyle. You’ve shown her pictures of them and she’s seen them on video calls, but never in person. Smiling at Ai, she points to her stomach. “Babies?”

“Yes, my little flower,” Spencer coos. “Your brother and sister are in there. Want to sit next to Ai for dinner?”

“Breffast,” she replies. She knows it’s breakfast food. Ai is a natural with her and you know when the two of them are ready to be parents they’ll make wonderful ones.

At the stove, you finish up the rest of the food and turn the stove off while Spencer pulls out plates and utensils. “Want to help Daddy make a plate of food for Ai? And Kyle?” Charlotte is eager to help. She’s a natural helper. Even though you aren’t pregnant you feel like you could cry. She’s going to be such a wonderful big sister.

All of you eat your weight in eggs and bacon and hash browns. Except Charlotte. She tries to but she’s still a messy eater so most of it ends up on the table or the floor. After dinner, your little angel climbs into Spencer’s lap and falls asleep against his chest. “Excuse me,” he whispers. “I’m just going to go put her in bed.”

It’s nearly 15 minutes before Spencer leaves Charlotte’s room with the soft thud of her bedroom door. “Sorry, I needed to read her the book with the rainbow fish three times before she would fall asleep.” Laughing, he sits down at your side and gives your hand a squeeze. Before Ai and Kyle came over, you’d discussed this, but you didn’t want to start without him. “We have something we wanted to ask you,” he said softly, careful to keep his voice down so as to not wake Charlotte. He glanced at you and let you take over.

Your voice was shaky. This was important to you. And you hoped it would be to them too. “We got to talking and we- well we realize how hard this is for you-”

“It’s necessary,” Ai interrupts. Her eyes spoke the truth but the pain sat vividly behind the facade.

“We know,” Spencer replies. “But we realize this isn’t an easy decision. We want you to know that you always have a place in their lives.”

“That’s why,” you start again after clearing your throat, “we wanted to ask if you would want to give us their middle names. Maybe family names. Something that’s special to you.”

Tears gathered at the corners of both their eyes before Ai completely broke down. “Really? I mean, we never thought- it would mean the world to-” she clutched her hand to her mouth to stem the sobs that flowed from her mouth. “My father’s given name is Xing. It means star or spark. Do you know what his first name is going to be?”

Spencer chuckled. “We still haven’t settled on one. Y/N wants Spencer Jr., but I’m not so keen on that. We both like Noah and Blake. Either way, his middle name will be Xing.”

“For the girl, we’re tossing between Morgan and Diana.”

Kyle began to chuckle, the tears finally flowing. “How about both? My mother’s name is Diana.”

“Mine too,” Spencer says. “Morgan Diana. For both of us.”

Kyle smiles. “For all of us.”

@heycasbutt @ultrarebelheart @katherineisagubler @proud-slytherin-ghost @randomwriter23 @fandom-queen67 @sixx-sic-sixx @xqueenofthecraziesx @aofay02 @groovyreid @criesinreid @jdougl-love @xreider @cringeemospntrashassbutt @prettyboyeffect @prettyboyreid @themanip @spencerreidsthings @augustgraceful @whollytaciturn @prisonreid @factualfic @jasmine-negron @snitchthewitch @ellabobella051419 @crazyforsstuff @kaatelyyynn @jane-dough @dreatine @bitter-post-millennial @adlerorzel-blog @hallieedrew @psychedelephantt @krisymccall996 @4ueijos @mclaujac @ray-likes-starwars @nurseemilyblog @slightlyvicked @she4567 @guesswhosback129 @princessdolan @happycreatorfangirl @fallwhisper @nyemadowell @sammy-jo1977 @sin-bin-and-tragedies @imsuperawkward @ahhahahaheehee @crispygiantsaladgarden @reputay-swift @pizzarollsfordayz @andiebeaword @timey-wimey-lovi @garbagecanfics @friedparadisetale @dereksbetaa @idontevenknow2 @holyfishloverfarm @nohemi2500 @typeshitbih @sadgirlhan @kmc217 @bigbuttsowhatuniverse @charmedfandomgal @im--blushing @dangerouspersonllamabagel @fichoe21 @yes-sir-hotchner @thefandomallrounder @mrsenos08 @walkerchick007 @letsdisneythings @winchesterqueenie @specialagentleigh @spn-wheresthepie @haileymew @bitchyoulied @geniusgub @urdicksmol @6lack6erry @slutlanna976 @downondilaudid @baileysb1tch @la-vie-en-amour1 @letsdoit-tomorrow @eideticprettyboydrreid @lazynoodledragon @shybaby231 @aimzonicles97 @grace-superpowers @softestlavender @ssa-dr-ladylock @drprettyboy @patricks-fabulous-face @tearosaria @shxdowofdarkness @marvels-gurl @gublergirls​

[turqrambles]

The Five Worst Things About Digimon World

I did it.

It took 20 years but I did it.

I finally beat Digimon World for the Playstation 1, a game that has haunted me for most of my lifetime, and I did it with a Phoenixmon, the reason why I use “Turquoisephoenix” as a handle!

This is who I used to beat the game, named after an obscure Ratchet and Clank character because that’s just how I roll. The final boss battle involved a lot of Prominence Beam spamming and med recovery floppy spamming but I did it fair and square. 

Before I get into what I thought about this game as a whole - and I do have a lot of good things to say about this game since I obviously enjoyed it enough to get to the end - I gotta talk about my least favorite things about this game. In a concise, Buzzfeed-esque list because I like writing things in easy to digest chunks.

Because, like most charming yet difficult games of the late 90′s, this game is very flawed and the flaws are pretty annoying!

1. Care Mistakes

The three emojis - Smile, Cool, and Poop.

Okay. This one - my least favorite part in the game - is going to take a bit of explanation.

First off, I don’t actually hate care mistakes existing as a mechanic. I think it’s a cute, virtual pet-y way to add a different wrinkle to evolution requirements, even if I think it’s a bit counter-intuitive to have to suddenly abuse my little companion once they reach Champion just because I want them to evolve into a floating metallic ball with a chainsaw.

My problem with care mistakes is that there’s literally no way of telling many care mistakes you have on your given Digimon. 

Literally everything else in this game is concisely recorded and easily displayed on your Digimon’s stats screen. You can see how much your Digimon weighs. You can see their Happiness, their Discipline. How much Life they have left. Their Age. Even how many poops they need to make before they digivolve into a sentient pile of feces.

But Care Mistakes? Naaaaw, you just gotta remember every single thing that you did to your Digimon from the moment it evolves in your fallible human brain. What’s that? A good portion of this game involves grinding in the Green Gym and it’s really easy to make a Care Mistake there without knowing you did so because you mashed A too fast like the stat-grinding numskull that you are? Well, that’s just too fucking bad for you, then! Enjoy not getting some of the best evolutions, you piece of shit. You stooge. You moron!

This game, multiple times: You know who I hate? The player.

Care Mistakes are such an invisible mechanic that, to this day, there are many guides with misleading info about what counts as a Care Mistake and what doesn’t, which...really stinks for a game such as this where you will be using a guide pretty extensively to get the Digimon you deserve. And you know why that is? Because we don’t get any indication as to whether or not some random event counts against you when raising your Digimon.

And honestly, having one of your main mechanics of the game being entirely invisible to the player is a terrible idea. Just put a little number in my profile that says “Care Mistakes: 0″ in there. Let me know this information without guessing.

2. The Glitches

Pictured: Something that will CRASH YOUR GAME if you try it on a physical copy.

Let me start with a disclaimer that most of the glitches I’m going to complain about were added into the game when Digimon World was localized and therefore aren’t the original intent of the developers. There are certain versions of Digimon World that are more stable than others (The English PAL version is the best version to play because of this) and, if you play this game via “certain methods”, there are patches to circumvent some of the bigger problems.

That being said! Boy! Isn’t it ironic that a game where I’m exploring the digital world is plagued with so many annoying, game-ruining glitches? Especially if I’m playing this game on a physical 20-year old copy like a dunce?

“Ohhhh...so Agumon thinks that they can block the Digimon game with their big fat Digimon-blocking head, do they?!”

The NTSC version of this game has a jukebox that will crash the game if you try to use it, keeping you from ever using a bonus feature meant to be a fun little reward for completing a certain dungeon, but that’s not as heinous as the Spanish, French, German, and Italian PAL versions of this game locking a good portion of the game to players because they forgot to make the Agumon in front of Ogremon’s Fortress an object you can interact with.

So that means, if you happened to get this game in one of four lucky countries, you can’t complete the Ogremon mission, you can’t recruit Whamon, you can’t recruit Shellmon, you can’t recruit anything tied to Shellmon’s bulletin board (which means no Vademon or Skullgreymon), and you can’t go to Factorial Town and recruit Giromon, Andromon, or Numemon. Ogremon is a key part of the Digimon World storyline and causes so many different things in the game to change, meaning that it should’ve been imperative to make sure this part of the game works!

But no. Instead this one little bastard Agumon keeps most players from finishing the game, because it starves players of those PAL regions of a bunch of Prosperity points, the main source of progression in this game. That means that Mt. Infinity and the final boss is just that much harder to unlock. It’s doable, but it’s more grueling process.

This really is a problem with the translators and really highlights a lack of general care with testing this game. Why this game was allowed to be shipped with such glaring bugs is anyone’s guess, especially in an era where you couldn’t release any patches over the Internet to fix retail versions.

3. The Monochromon’s Shop Minigame

Ohhhh....this one was so close to getting the top spot. When I first wrote this draft, this was the top spot.

Monochromon was only spared of my true ire on account of the fact that it really only exists for one part of the game (rather than being a constant problem like the Care Mistakes and the Glitches are) and you can easily cheese it by sleeping in front of the store so that you can save scum your way to victory. Like a true Digital Champion!

At one point in the game, you gotta help a entrepreneur dinosaur rhino man make a profit, because he was stupid and put his convenience store in the middle of a giant canyon next to a gaping chasm. So you play a little game of haggling, where you try to ruthlessly oversell a bunch of random items to customers until you make enough of a profit that this talking dinosaur tells you that you passed his secret test of character, abandons his store, and moves into File City.

There’s just one problem with this minigame - everything is decided by RNG.

“Get the hell out of my shop”

This minigame hates you. It wants nothing but to see you fail and to waste your time. The difference in profit margins of the three items (Meat sells for 50g, Portable Potties sell for 300g, and Medicine sells for 1000g) are so stark that, if you get too many customers asking for Meat, you might as well just reset the game and start over because it will be literally impossible to meet the requirement even if you busted the customer’s proverbial balls and squeezed every last bit out of their cutesy penguin faces.

Oh! It’s also RNG as to whether or not your customers will take your asking price or storm out of the store without buying anything!

It’s all the fun of working at retail! In a video game!

4. Three on One Battles

What you see before you is a battle system that is really fun when it’s one vs. one, manageable at two vs. one, and downright unbearable at three vs. one.

The battle system works for the most part. You don’t have full control of your Digimon (and yes, you only have one Digimon with you at one time, so you can never stack the numbers in your favor) so you shout commands at it, commands that the Digimon’s AI are pretty good at following, and hope for the best as you chuck healing items at it.

It’s not the best battle system, but it’s fun. And it definitely reinforces the whole “this is a pet you’re taking care of with its own thoughts and feelings” atmosphere that this game is going for.

However, nothing can protect your Digimon from enemy fire concentrated on them, especially if you did the thing that most players do and equipped your Digimon with the most powerful attacks that also happen to have slower cast times than the faster, weaker attacks.

What then happens is your Digimon’s Health is slowly whittled away as you are powerless to stop it, watching as your digital friend is straight up bullied by enemy Digimon as they keep falling to the ground over and over and over and over again.

The one saving grace is that Friendly Fire exists in this game so that oftentimes the enemy Digimon will damage each other in their mad dash to ruin your day, but that seems more like a band-aid than an actual fix to this system.

5. Fishing Seadramon

“Hi, kid. Let me guess - you also thought you had to talk to the Tankmon in Factorial Town in order to unlock me, huh.”

This one is a lot less of a pain than the other four and it’s only a little annoying but boy...getting Seadramon kinda sucks in this game.

It took me almost a goddamn hour to catch Seadramon. One hour of gameplay devoted to catching one fish. Just like real fishing!

I will say, besides Seadramon, the fishing minigame in this game is pretty competent. It’s just that Seadramon is very elusive, showing up at only two hours in a 24 hour day, and is a very finicky fish that won’t take your bait even if you literally placed it in front of his dumb fish face.

Don’t be fooled by this screenshot. The heart just means you have the right bait. The heart means that you didn’t actually get within range of hooking him.

IT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!

Seadramon is also subject to almost as many gaming myths as the Care Mistakes are, due to how elusive he is, but that’s less to do with poor communication (the game does at least explain multiple times in multiple places how to find him) and more to do with the fact that catching him is just such a goddamn chore to do that players of this game always assume they’re doing something wrong.

When in reality, Seadramon is just a picky little bitch.

Next time I discuss Digimon World, I’ll talk about things I liked, don’t worry. I just had to get all of this negativity out before discussing the full game proper.

[angieschiffahoi]

Reasons why Terminator Dark Fate is a worthy sequel of T2

It wrapped up a stale story and respected its predecessor’s finale

Skynet is dead, long live Skynet. Yes, there is no fate and Sarah was able to kill Skynet, but Skynet wasn’t a product of only its time nor an incident made by rogues: Skynet was a warning of what would become of people if they were too arrogant. It’s a tale of hybris. Men get too self-reliant and create something that will bring about their downfall: they become God, but by becoming God they commit a sin so big, they will need Jesus Christ (John Connor or James Cameron, if you will) to save themselves. I mean, if you don’t see the correlation between the Virgin Mary and Sarah Connor (Sarah is also the wife of Abraham, the quintessential mother in the Bible), y’all are blind (she gets inseminated by an “angel” sent to protect her, by her own son, ergo God). Terminator Dark Fate didn’t become woke, it did what T2 started to do, it de-christianized its message for a wider audience (Hollywood doesn’t pander to white christian americans anymore in 2019, go figure). In both movies, Sarah isn’t the Virgin Mary anymore, she’s the mentor, she takes action and she changes her own future and that of billions of people: she becomes the saviour. In the sequel to TDF she obviously was supposed to be the mentor to the new saviour. By killing John, it gave the story back to Sarah and a new hope for the future, taking out some of those harmful tropes where women are only good to “birth” the father of the resistance and not be them. John Connor was never a character you were going to be satisfied with, because he’s an ideal. You liked the teen version, because he was a rebel-ish punk who did everything he wanted, had a motorcycle and a pet robot. You were never going to like the gritty future version of a man destroyed by everything and also he was never supposed to become that. All of Sarah’s struggles the moment she found out she was pregnant were to protect her son from that future. Hadn’t they killed him off in 1999, he would’ve just been a 45 year old drunk - that’s where his character was going after defeating Skynet. 

It isn’t contraddictory to have another AI replace Skynet. 

Skynet and Legion are a cautionary tale, they are false gods, Frankenstein’s creature and the devil. It’s not repetitive, it’s not something that can be prevented in full, because humanity IS on that path. Humanity wants to play God and Sarah and John’s effort to stop Skynet was silent, it was secret (despite Sarah’s efforts to have people believe her, nobody did). Do you really think it would be so difficult to imagine another company, working on a similar project, at the same time in the late 90s - early 2000s? The only weak point is the implication that Legion would occupy terminators and the same tactics as Skynet, but I’m guessing if Sarah has been killing Terminators in the past for 30 years, Legion could’ve “read” something about it and developed itself to fit the past or got inspired, I don’t know. It’s not that far-fetched to have another AI use the same tactics. 

It introduced a new scary terminator, who is perfect for 2020

The Rev-9, like its predecessors, is an inflitration model (and that’s the only reason they cast a latin actor) who is built to hunt the same way the first two were, but it does it better: because 2020 is a scary time. The T-800 had to look on a phone book and kill three Sarah Connor before getting to the right one. This one? It needs a working internet connection. 

Also, to all of you saying that politics should stay out of movies, 

- the T-800 was an intimidating male hunting a defenseless woman

- the T-1000 was a cop hunting a supposed “crazy woman and criminal” 

- the Rev-9 is an immigration officer hunting a defenseless immigrant. 

not that hard to spot the similarities. 

It answered the question “what happens to terminators when they fulfill their purpose?” 

Arnie is old and that’s what made it so much more believable for me. 

People keep using this quote from The Terminator to say how terrible writing and what a huge plot hole it was to make the T-800 a dad:  “That Terminator is out there. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop.Ever. Until you are dead.”

Here’s a few reasons why their reasoning is biased:

First, off screen reason: this is the first movie, Cameron had no idea what would become of its own sequels. He hadn’t predicted Arnold would have such a following and I’m sure a re-programmed Terminator wasn’t in its plans. The first movie was about the horror of the terminator, we weren’t supposed to feel anything for it but fear, because its purpose was to scare us and nothing else. 

Second, in-character reason: Kyle Reese is a soldier in the future. He has only seen these machines kill and maim and knows that, just because this one has skin and hair and muscle on its endo-skeleton, it isn’t less machine than the ones he has been fighting all of his life. He only knows this one’s worse: because he has a single purpose. 

Third, non canon reason: Cameron from TSCC. Nobody was offended when she started to develop feelings for John in that series, why is everyone so offended by Carl now? Yeah. But it’s not canon, so let’s go to the last reason. 

Fourth, canon, on-screen, in-character reason: THE WHOLE EFFING MOVIE YOU LOVE SO MUCH. Terminator 2 is all about the differences between the T-1000 and the T-800. Yes, it was re-programmed, but it wasn’t programmed to get attached to John, to learn from him, to almost act as a surrogate father, to give him a sign of their relationship as he was lowered to his death. It has been established machines can feel. Even the Rev-9, who’s still fully on mission, has a personality, the same way Patrick’s was. They exist, therfore they are. They have their own thoughts, their own doubts and that means they can develop a conscience and get attached. Carl says he doesn’t love his family the way a human would and it shows, the same way the T-800 from T2 didn’t love John like a Kyle Reese would have. 

It gave us a new found family dynamic and used old tropes to tell new stories

Dani, Grace and Sarah have an amazing dynamic. Adding Carl to the mix was a bonus, because it created tension, but at the same time it gave us back that soft T-800 everyone of us fell in love with at 10-13 years old.

It did what TFA tried to do but better, imho. Star Wars fans were starved and when Disney made that movie, it still was considered a good producer of excellent content (now, not so much). TDF was produced by a variety of studios, because nobody wanted to take full responsibility after the disaster that was Genysis (and who could blame them?). Nobody praised TFA for its attempt to start a new saga, re-using ANH’s storyline with new characters and then build from there a new story, but it’s because they didn’t do it right. TFA doesn’t give you time to care about the characters, it’s a messy introduction of what could’ve been a very good trilogy if only they tried harder. 

TDF, in my opinion, did try harder. It gave us a simple hunter-hunted storyline, where all of the cast is in the same place at the same time. This way, you can care about the development of their relationships. You care about Grace and Dani, not because the movie told you to, but because you can see Grace’s affection and ammiration from the very first scenes and, by the end, you see the affection Dani has for this stranger who’s sole purpose it taking care of her, when she’s so used to be the one to take care of others (see the first few scenes with her brother and father). You care about Dani and Sarah, because the whole movie builds up to the mentor storyline without telling you. You care about Carl and Sarah, because of all the build up from past movies, but also because of the little things (”I’m never f* calling you Carl” to calling him just that a few scenes later or Sarah calling out the Rev-9 by telling it, “we’re not machines”). Everything it did, it did without telling us what to feel and that’s rare in a world where franchises are constantly telling you who you should like and why, instead of writing a good story and letting you figure it out by yourself. 

-----

It is not by far a perfect movie. Having 3 producing companies and six writers didn’t help, the same way it didn’t help that Tim Miller was basically ghost-directing for the ever-too-busy James Cameron. 

It could have been better in many ways: firstly, by using smaller scenes and a smaller budget and maybe a little less CGI and a little more practical effects. It was too ambitous and fans hadn’t yet forgiven this franchise for Genysis, because fans are butthurt babies who only want things to be they way they want them (I hated Genysis, don’t get me wrong, but I decided if this movie was going to be worth it once they said it wouldn’t be a sequel and watched a couple of trailers, it isn’t that hard). Another reason it bombed, beside the active boycotting, was the close to absent promotion except for a couple of lines. 

Anyway, this messy post is just to explain the reasoning why I believe it is a worthy sequel and, in my opinion, without the nostalgia goggles on and taking out of the equation the “originality” factor, I dare say it’s perfectly on par with The Terminator. 

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Friends stick together.

“Overseer Nelson, alien forces have been detected at the outskirts of the complex.” Nelson looked down at his monitor showing a display of the mining complex Heaven’s Fall. The complex was situated on the mining world Alia I nestled on top of a cliff overlooking a massive crater filled with lava known as Hades’s Gateway.  Red icons were appearing one by one at the outskirts of the complex at the very farthest edge of scanner range. “Those fat frakers sure took their time didn’t they Cindy.” Nelson said as he took a sip from his mug. From the control center he could see through dozens of security feeds and scanner returns giving him full coverage of the mining complex. From the returns he was getting on the scanners it looked like a small force of aliens were attempting to access the complex via the main road.  “Cindy, can you predict which path they’re likely to use?” A old projector hummed to life and presented a faded projection of a the female AI Cindy. “Of course Nelson, I’ll just use my mind powers and predict where the space aliens are going to go.” “Come on Cindy, give it your best shot.” The hologram gave an exaggerated sigh before being replaced with the map of the complex again, a red line leading from the main gate to the center of the complex. “Information on them is limited after they took the capital and destroyed the planetary network but if I had to guess I’d say they are highly likely to advance along the main road without alteration and begin searching the complex. They probably think this place is abandoned.” Nelson got up to pour himself another cup of coffee as he took in the information. “Yeah. Last evac shuttles were going on when they were attacking the capital so they probably think there isn’t a single human left on the planet.” Cindy’s appearance came back for the projector. “You should have been on one of those shuttles Nelson, it was stupid to remain here.” Nelson sat back down in his command chair sipping his drink. “There isn’t a storage device large enough to fit you entirely on it and you know I couldn’t sleep right thinking of you all alone waiting for those alien bastards.”  Cindy’s hologram flickered several times as she became angry. “You could have survived and made another Cindy just like me! You shouldn’t have resigned yourself to death over a bunch of 1′s and 0′s!” Nelson just kept sipping his drink, switching between camera feeds to get a better look at the aliens. “I was here when you were first installed into the complex and I’ve been with you every day since. There isn’t a chance in heaven or hell making a copy of you because to me you’re not just 1′s and 0′s. You’re my friend, and friends stick together.” Cindy’s hologram continued flickering as if she was about to start saying something and then stopping over and over. Eventually she stopped flickering and just looked at him. “Thank you Nelson. Truthfully, I didn’t want to be alone either.”  “Then it’s a win win for both of us.” Nelson smiled before putting down his cup. “Now, let’s get to work.” He flicked on several consoles and listened as their hum began growing louder. “They appear to be entering the processing bay and storage room 032.”  Cindy brought up the cameras for those rooms just as the aliens began entering. The aliens were humanoid in form with a set of arms and legs similar to humans. Their skin was covered in a thick layer of grey fur with heads similar to parrots. They wore a combat harness that largely exposed their fur except for the odd bit of tech they had slapped on it projecting a thin energy shield around them. It could block most ballistic weapons and with the planets average temperature in the 80′s-90′s they didn’t feel the need to wear any thicker armor plating. Their weapons were long slender rifles that shot out concentrated lasers strong enough to cut through metal.  “Let’s get this over with quickly, I hate uninvited guests.” Cindy said. Nelson paused and considered his options while looking at the map of the complex. “Right, here’s the game plan. I want you to close the processing vents then start redirecting the steam flow into the processing vents. Once they have reached critical temperature seal the processing bay and open the vents.” Cindy ran some quick calculations. “Smart thinking, but what if their shields block out heat?” “Just a guess but I doubt it. If their shields also operated with temperature control they would be decked out in heavier armor.” “Good point. What about the bunch in storage bay 032?” Nelson brought up the inventory list for the bay. “I’m reading we still have a mechanical dig dog in there. Why don’t you power it up and take it for a spin?” Cindy smiled. “Been a while since I’ve been behind the wheel of one of those.” “Go to town then and have some fun.” Nelson said as he turned on the screens just in time to see the processing bay locking down and flooded with super heated steam, the fur of the aliens catching fire. He switched over to the storage bay to see a giant mechanical digging machine powering to life and attacking the aliens. They were getting some shots off at it but the machine was built to carve through lava flows so their heated lasers did next to nothing to it. He could hear her through the camera humming “Singing in the rain” as a drill bit impaled an alien and began spinning them rapidly before flinging them into the wall. “You’ve earned it.” Nelson said as he left to get some more coffee. 

[mask131]

Now we have a roughly full chronology of Technical Boy evolution

(This is based on the info release by the Twitter account of American Gods and by Neil Gaiman in an interview)

The first incarnation of the technology god was “The Telegraph Boy”. A god created by, as his name indicate, the place the telegraph took into the American society, and the marvels it brought to the world. Given that the Telegraph Boy is probably not born the minute the telegraph was invented (he appeared only when the telegraph became a common and well-known technology used by everyone) I guess he appeared around the 1850s.

Then followed the Telephone Boy that we saw in Donar the Great, replacing the Telegraph Boy. I would say he probably appeared in the 1900s, when the telephone became a hit in the US. 

Neil Gaiman mentionned the “Telephone Boy” as his new incarnation. I guess Television Boy appeared when television became the big stuff, in the 1950s. (I have to note that the inclusion of the Television Boy in here makes me wonder if the Telephone Boy didn’t had a hand in the radio technology too, another thing I thought was purely Media-related, but apparently Media and Technical Boy always coexisted together in a way). 

Now, we get to the Technical Boy we all know and hated loved. I can’t remember if the show gave us an exact date for the Technical Boy “creation” but I guess it was between the 90s and the 2000s. What’s interesting is that before, apparently all of the incarnations of the Technological God were based on one main technology. Here, the Technical Boy embodies a ton of different technologies that, as a whole, changed human life. Computers and smartphones, video games and virtual reality, the Internet.The embodiment of the concept of “web life”. 

And now, we have the new incarnation of Technical Boy - named Quantum Boy. I don’t know exactly what year the second season is supposed to be in, 2018 or 2019, I’ll have to check, but there he is. My guess for now is that he is the god of a higher type of technology, like nanotechnology and robotic. He seems also to be the god of all the fears surrounding technology and all the philosophies we created. The grey goo scenario. The AI running over the world. The self-aware robots. The computers more intelligent than human. The self-repairing machines. Transhumanism with all the questions, dangers, hopes and terrors it brings to the human race. A posthuman god. The deity of technological singularity. 

Man... I can still remember the overweight acneic geek that Tech Boy was in the books... And now we get the Quantum Boy? He sure got a long way... I’m proud of ma boy!