#don't know the stats but i think that would be pretty cool

[renthewerecatboi]

wouldn't it be cool if spy had a revolver sidegrade that turned his gun into a throwable weapon?

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Rip Cheato

Debut: Paper Mario

Hello! I am glad you made it. You are just in time, because some guy is here. He's here looking for You! He wants to sell you a Dried Mushroom for 64 coins. Will you buy it? It's not a good deal, but consider this: he has a sort of lamp antenna growing from his scalp. I think that is pretty cool, personally.

He probably makes good use of his lamptenna, since he lives in the sewer. I bet a Sewer Man would know his fungus! Maybe his Dried Mushrooms are impeccable. Maybe he even dries them with his lamp. Don't be judgemental, now. Don't judge someone because his name is derived from "ripoff" and "cheat". Are you the kind of person who would immediately assume someone smells bad, just because their name is Poop Fartley? You better not be. Rip Cheato's name is a little deceiving because while he does sell junk for 64 coins, if you buy what he offers, he'll also sell Star Pieces for 64 coins, and Hoo-Wee! That's a Hot Commodity! I trust him. I think he's just being cheeky for fun.

Name: Chet Rippo

Debut: Paper Mario

Now this guy is whuzzah! What's the deal with this guy! Rip Cheato is weird, true, being strangely human in a game where those are quite limited, but he has a theme going on. He looks like a Sewer Man. Now here we have Chet Rippo, who is some sort of alien platypus clown umbrella? I don't know what he is, but I think it is absolutely splendid. To quote an ancient philosopher:

"Sometimes in life, there is a weird guy." -Opabinia

If I didn't know any better, I might think Chet Rippo would appear from a UFO or circus tent or perhaps a dimensional portal. He doesn't! He just hangs out in Toad Town. He's a weird guy, but a weird guy is still a guy, you know? Except this is no normal guy because he can alter Mario's abilities! For 39 coins he will raise Marios HP, FP, or BP by two points, but- and this is important- he says "heh heh". That means he's shady! For each stat he increases, he will decrease the others each by one!

This makes Chet Rippo far stranger of a guy. Someone in real life could sell you overpriced garbage. But someone in real life altering your stats for a low price? Scary to think about! Imagine someone granting you the ability to remember twice as many bug facts as you currently can, but also making the vision in your left eye worse and making you 25% more sensitive to cold. Frightening magic! But at least the guy doing it is a funny creature.

Chet Rippo appears in The Thousand Year Door as well, but like, does he really? This is a whole different design, and it's not nearly as fun... Eyes In A Void Wizards are fun by default, and so is wearing a barrel on one's head, but this game has a bunch of Eyes In A Void Wizards, and this guy used to be one of the weirdest creatures in the entire game! To hell with this guy. Let's look at his better version again.

Look at him go! Like a flapjack octopus! His arms are even like the fluttering fins! Could he truly just be a big octopus wearing a weird hat? We may never know...

[danieyells]

Also like if you're cool with it can you tell me to build the cards and stuff? I'm still confused with it :'(

UH! I don't really know how to build cards either lmao. I just push the buttons when they get red blips U: BUT I WILL TRY AND EXPLAIN WHAT I CAN

i was actually writing this on mobile and then i accidentally closed tumblr when it was like 87% done so MAYBE THIS WILL BE WORSE THAN INITIALLY INTENDED I DON'T KNOW. Initially I was explaining like. A bunch of unnecessary stuff about where you get certain upgrade materials so I think this'll be better and marginally more concise because I feel like there's not actually that much to explain. It's very much just "make number go up".

So from what I've been told it's better to focus your efforts on a single SSR if you have one than trying to even things out, but since you're not only going into battle with your singular SSR I try and keep other units at a minimum of level 50 and a Level 40 warding card(preferably the one it gets a link bonus with!) with 50 Potency Grade. THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE ADVISABLE but it's how I do things personally. And then I have my SSR(s) which I focus on--one SSR gets most everything and once I have to wait to limit break it, I start giving resources to the next one down(or the next SR down.)

Now since just about every stat relies on different items to boost it up(coins obviously notwithstanding but you can very easily gain more coins) you don't really have to ration anything--just focus on boosting your highest ranked unit.

Like I said I just hit the button when the red blip pops up, but you may have noticed that when it comes to equipment the game prioritizes higher levels to higher rankings. Which. . . .

not very helpful, as it turns out! Turns out higher ranked units(SSR-SR-R-A-B-C-D-E, from highest to lowest) are generally a little better even at slightly lower levels! Because some equipment doesn't boost attributes(multiple stats) at all!!!

Higher rank = higher attribute boost. Higher level = higher battle stat boost.

see how Alan's overall power is higher with the level 95 C perfume than the level 100 E perfume? The game automatically gave him the E. . .even though it was weaker and both were available. The game checks for rarity over their level, so you may want to manually choose cards based on their stats as opposed to choosing the auto-equip button!

Also of note, sometimes a fully awakened R is stronger than an unawakened SR of the same level. . .if you have to wait to limit break your SRs, check out how your Rs are doing! They can be pretty strong too! You can always take stronger equipment and gems and such away from them for the higher rarity unit when you're ready.

@tokyo-debunker-memes made a pretty good guide to gems here and you can refer to that for any of your gem questions since I think they did a good job explaining and summarizing things! (I will say, gems go past level 9, they just can only be purchased at a base level of 9.)

The best equipment(SSR, SR, and R) can be made at Mr. Mo's Goldmine using using gold, silver, and copper materials you get there. You only have a chance get gold if you do multiple pulls there over the course of a week(the milestone resets every 7 days or so. . .or every time there's a new gacha I've noticed), so I wouldn't think too hard about SSR equipment. That's for whales. It's literally designed so that you have to use gems to even get a chance at gold material to make SSR equipment. And you need so much of the stuff just to make one it's just not worth it monetarily unless you've got insane disposable income haha.

I would focus only on the level 100s of the Mr Mo equipment(the Red Queen set and the Lotus set. The Stardust set if you wanna whale real hard.) If you get lucky enough to get enough silver and copper material you can make them, and they're stronger than anything you'll find doing Investigations or that they'll find on campus after investigations--that I'm aware of, unless they start giving out SRs and SSRs at higher level investigations which I doubt.

R, SR, and SSR equipment can be trained and given gems, just like warding cards, and raising their Special Attributes will provide additional percentage boosts to the unit they're equipped to(Necklaces, Rings, and Earrings raise HP percentage; Perfumes raise Physical Attack and Physical Defense percentages; Brooches raise Special Attack and Special Defense percentages. Warding Cards raise Attack percentage.) Try and focus on raising the Special Attributes related to the unit's attack style(noted in the 'Skills' window on the unit page.) That is to say, raise the Special Attibutes for Perfumes for Physical attackers and Brooches for special attackers so that they'll have higher attack power and do more damage. Of course, both are also important for their defensive value, and HP is also very important!

R, SR, and SSR equipments also have 'badges' which detonate they're part of a set. The more of that set you have, along with a warding card with the same badge, the higher bonus(indicated in the upper left of the unit page) you get for the character it's equipped to! The only way to change a Warding Card's badge is by leveling it up so. . .don't worry too hard about it, because moonlight paint is a pain in the ass to get.

Guardian spirits similarly should be distributed based on the ideal stats that unit should have raised. I only use SSR guardian spirits and feed any lower ranking ones to them to raise their levels. If you get a guardian spirit of the same level with stars, it's better to use and level up that one! It gives a higher percentage boost!

Generally you legit just have to look at the numbers and percentages and choose whatever's higher overall I think. Higher percentages are usually better, I think, since those will scale up with any increasing stats' individual numbers. Not that equipment have percentages, but I mean in terms of figuring out what to upgrade in general. Again, it's very much 'make number go up' from what i can tell. I usually focus on level since it boosts all the unit's battle stats by a percentage, but since everything needs different materials to level up anyway it's fine to just use whatever you get wherever you can, or save up to be able to boost your strongest units.

I DUNNO IF THAT HELPED ANY. I CAN TRY AND EXPLAIN SOMETHING MORE SPECIFIC IF NEED BE?

[rad-roche]

i think the way people engage with character creation screens in rpgs is interesting. i wouldn't say insightful, necessarily, i don't think it reveals anything about a person's character other than a particular preference, but interesting. i also think it's pretty personal, in that you can encounter somebody engaging in it in a wholly different way and go wait, huh? here are a few camps for your consideration, with the assumption that this is the first playthrough of an unfamiliar property

the self-inserter: my name is jane doe and so i have made jane doerún, the tiefling warlock. her preferences are my preferences. jane doerún is going to go on a sick ass adventure and kiss the cool companion and it's gonna rip. and it does! not the way i play at all but make no mistake jane doerún i respect the hell out of you. of course, every character you make, every dialogue choice, is going to be a tiny bit of a self-insert. it has to be, unless you get somebody else to play the game

the scholar: before the download finished i had 73 wiki tabs open combing through obscure links to find particularly juicy morsels for backstory. my character is the tragic heir of the house of smimble, a location i will not reach for ninety hours and will pronounce incorrectly in all that time. there is a spreadsheet involved somewhere. this lore is canon-compliant and watertight. if my character was dropped in this world, nobody would bat an eye. again, not my jam, but i see the draw

the waffler: cool appearance, very vague semblance of a backstory, but choices ingame are made without consideration for character beyond 'what cool thing happens if i push this button'. then, at the end of the 100 hours, locks in a character and starts changing things around retroactively. this is very much my camp. gloria 1.0 was very vague and vibe-y. now she has two whole books and a comic. if that's not weapons grade waffling i don't know what is

uses a preset, minmaxes stats, skips all dialogue and cutscenes on the first round: i see the appeal intellectually but am a tiny bit afraid of you

[faithinchances]

Hit me with more of Roy conned Jamie into being nice and City is mad about it. I remember the concept and am face pressed against glass!

The basics of the original concept from @jamiesfootball are that Roy accidentally puts Jamie on a niceness points system so they can be friends, wherein Jamie gets to be a dick once for every four times he does something nice, with plenty of shenanigans along the way and everything is fun and hilarious until Jamie gets sent back to City which is when I get to make it sad and dramatic (ie, Jamie spends his nice points on his teammates/Pep/everyone else at City, and his dick points on Sr with the predicted results)

Jamie is an asshole at Richmond, in a way which is pretty well on par with the people around him, except that the narrative frames them well and Jamie poorly. Isaac and Colin do the brunt of the on-screen bullying but we're supposed to blame Jamie because he laughs at it. Roy humiliates Jamie by framing his embarassment as the funniest thing Roy has ever seen except that it's okay because Jamie is an asshole. Ted yells at Jamie for being hurt and unable to train, which is cool because Jamie is "obviously" faking an injury to get back at Ted for benching him.

Basically everything and everyone kind of sucked.

Take him out of that and put him in a functional dressing room with a good coach and lower pressure overall, and I don't think Jamie would behave that way. I don't think he ever behaved that way at City.

So Jamie goes back to City, a place where he never was much of a prick to begin with (except to the opposition team, because that is part of the sport), and has a casual identity crisis in the back of every shot.

He is touch-starved, being very very good, and blatantly and obviously anxiety-ridden, and all of this in ways which he hadn't been the year before.

Someone: *gets tackled kind of rough by someone on the other team* Jamie: Pep put me on put me on I will break his ankles and restore our honour Pep: ... no... ... Jamie are you doing okay? Jamie: Yes Pep all is well and good, I am just using a nice point. Pep: I'm going to think about what that means some other time. Jamie on the inside: oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

Meanwhile, Jamie is gradually racking up bruises, injuries, and sore spots because he is constantly pushing Sr's buttons so he can pretend that he's still 20% an asshole, and City desperately want to know what Richmond did to their previously nice, normal teammate for him to come back as this clicker-trained attack chihuahua.

(sidenote, I headcanon Jamie as struggling with statistics and numbers games. That he doesn't play FIFA because he worries about how wanting to maximize his ingame stats could negatively affect how he plays in real life. That the only person he's willing to take statistics from are the tactical scouts (a position at a club where you study the upcoming opponent to learn their strategies and tendencies to better prepare the players to face them) because he doesn't want to wind up maximizing his pass completion percentage by no longer taking good risks on through balls or crosses. He's a numbers guy in a way which is sometimes a problem, and is definitely a problem here.)

(a different sidenote, Roy's poor opinion of Jamie was probably a torpedo to his self-confidence. He probably always struggled with both, in some part due to Sr's abuse, but he worshipped Roy. And Roy hated him.)

Hence: an intervention.

Someone, either the captain group (football teams will have ~4 captains with an internal hierarchy, since there has to be a captain on the pitch but no one can actually play every minute of a season) or Pep, sits Jamie down for a chat about how concerned they all are about him and Jamie what is a nice point, what is a prick point, Jamie you were already nice. We already liked you. But right now you're scaring us. You're hurt. Jamie who are you using your prick points on. Jamie? Jamie?

[funnibluecreturs]

More Smurfash AU works.

If Pigment is Mari, I was wondering if Begonia were to be Kel. I feel she'd fit as Kel.

But I also have this concept where each day, Ash would have a new set of team members that accompany on her journey, due to Graphite in the Real World not really having a close friend group. So yea I'm not really sure.

I only have an this for an idea, though it's not official:

Day 1- Storm, Lily (or Mint), and Blossom (or Begonia)

Day 2- Dr Brainstorm, Klutz, Sweeps (Sweepy Smurf)

Day 3- Pigment, Painter, and Jokester.

Also since Jokester's here, here's some information on the prankster jester:

He's a jester who loves pranks and entertaining. He's also very skilled at magic tricks. He can also be pretty petty since he can dish out a joke, but can't take one. When he's being pranked by someone else, he complains about it not being funny and declares a prank war on the Smurf who dares to prank him. And once again, he's kinda unhinged. Sometimes he doesn't know how to control his energetic nature, so at some point if he gets too excited, he becomes manic. He also has this special ability in battle where he pranks the team with an exploding present that makes the whole team angry while raising his stats.

IOGHDILK Seriously though- Where's Jokey dressing up as a jester in the canon franchise? I swear he fits the qualities of a jester, but I don't think I have seen him being a jester unless it's fanart. It's really cool he's a clown, yes

BUT WHERE IS JESTER JOKEY SMURF Am I missing it or ioghbfllns-

And that's all XD

[sneezypeasy]

*sigh*

Y'know, this really doesn't/shouldn't matter, but as this particular accusation keeps getting thrown at me over and over again - oh fuck it, I'm gonna take the bait this one time and set the record straight once and for all. Honestly my "appetite" in this context is truly not anyone's business (and if you don't care to hear about it this is the one warning you'll get to click away lmao) but I've reached the point where if you really wanna attack my credibility based on who you think I enjoy fantasizing about, I'm gonna throw you a bone and tell you exactly what type that is - cuz as much as I'm sick of the ad hominem attacks the Aussie in me is even more sick of watching them miss so fucking hard. If you're gonna roast me, the least you can do is hit me where it hurts, goddamn it. Get it right or go home you uncooked noodles. Capiche?

When it comes to my taste in men, my "type" is: big, strong, hairy brutes. There, I said it. Give me lumberjacks, give me cavemen, I want my Jason Momoas, I want my Ma Dong-Seoks, I want them broad shoulders and tree-trunk calves and I wanna see those muscles bulge. If a fictional character ever gets me biting my lip at the screen, it's never gonna be a fine-featured pretty boy, it's gonna be a good thick daddy who can take my wrists, pin me against a wall and [--------------------------------‐---sustained bleep sound effect---------------------------------]

1:38-1:51 🤣

Personality wise, I'm a basic bitch who has approximately zero defenses for the "jerk with a heart of gold" stereotype. Gets me every time, without fail. The smooth-talking playboy who flirts with everyone and who could bed anyone he wanted, but who only lets you see him at his deepest, dearest, most vulnerable moments? Sorry, am I supposed to not fall for that shit or something? Well frankly I don't understand how and I'm not ashamed to admit it. If he happens to be built like a fortress on top of that? Yeah, I'm done. Have me bathed and brought to your tent, sir, please and thank you.

I admit, it's rare that a character with the physique I like also has that heartbreaker personality I'm a sucker for. Guys in fiction are usually strong and mean or they make up for their lighter frames with silver tongues and barbed promises - rarely do writers create a character who's stacked with both brains and brawn, so to speak. Makes sense though, as while irl people can max out any combination of stats that they put effort towards - in fiction a character who's too good at too many different attributes can come across unbalanced or Gary Stu-ish and will fail to resonate with audiences unless the writer really knows what they're doing.

That being said, there really isn't any character in ATLA who fits my type - either of them, actually. There are some bit characters like Chit Sang who get close in terms of physical build - but Chit Sang has very gaunt, angular facial features that I'm really not a fan of and tbh, while I get that I can't expect all my big buff boys to also be masters of wit and cunning and charm, being dumber than a box of rocks does seal it for me, sorry. In terms of personality, I guess the closest character would be Jet, and he's cool and all but yeah, the whole "would go as far as killing kids" thing makes him a bit of a hard sell for me too. (And yes, it's worth questioning the writers' choices to create him with those flaws to begin with but look, that's a discussion for another day 😂)

All this to say, if you wanna tease me about coveting fictional characters and allowing thirst to cloud my judgment - COME AT ME BOYS. But not with Zuko, for fuck's sake. The character that makes sneezy.exe blue-screen ain't him. It's actually the late great Carthaginian General Hannibal Barca, the man the myth the legend may he Rest in Peace if anyone's seriously wondering. Look, I do like the scar, and the awkwardness is endearing - he's definitely not ugly or unappealing by any means so please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to bash him or nothin' - but if I'm being brutally honest, he's not my type! Not physically, not even emotionally. If I ship Zutara, it's because aspects of the ship appeal to me that are unrelated to my personal opinion of Zuko as an object of fantasy, which if you must know (and now you do, congratulations, you're welcome), the kind of boy I do fantasise about when I'm in the mood for that sort of thing could literally and figuratively sweep Zuko off his feet - and then sit on him. In either order.

P.S. While we're on this topic, the character I personally relate to most heavily is not Katara either btw. It's Toph. If you're going to accuse me of bias, questioning my views on Toph would make the most sense for that reason. But really, it's hardly my fault that she's basically the most perfect flawless irreproachable badass in ATLA or practically all of animation as a whole. Come on now. *whistles innocently*

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Patchwork World

Here is a read-through I did last year (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the most unique PbtA games I've ever read: Patchwork World by Aaron King! - Christian

Credits up first. I know a lot of these folks and they are really cool! Excited to dig into this. I've heard good things, and it's been a while since I've read or played any Powered by the Apocalypse.

This is a cool, strong set up for me. I really like settings that ask characters to face a changing world and either take up change themselves or work to restore the old way of things. It's a headspace I find myself in a lot IRL these days so it's fun to explore.

I'm interested to see how the no stats, no playbooks angle of this game works, considering playbooks are typically such a staple of PbtA games.

Standard three-tired success, mixed success, fail forward resolution for rolls here and questions on the moves determine your bonus to the roll. Easy peasy. +2 is the max bonus.

Other types of rolls are described here. Interested to see how they come into play. I also love clocks and use them in pretty much every game I run so it's nice to see those laid out here too.

We just love a lil guy, don't we folks?

A good chunk of the opening here is spent on laying out a lot of solid foundations of roleplaying generally. It feels like a book (so far) that would work for entirely new players. It doesn't feel essential for me, but I never mind a game that supports varied experience levels.

Character creation is wide open, especially since there aren't playbooks and the text stresses that character creation is very much worldbuilding because of this. Fate-like concepts and tags are in here too which are things I generally enjoy. I like the Drawback mechanic.

Moves are in the playback I set in the other room so I'm gonna go grab those. You get two chosen moves and everyone has access to a number of default moves. You've got three other life/XP things to keep track of too. I'm especially interested in Hex.

There are a lot of moves! They seem quite varied and often very weird, fitting well with the titular patchwork world. You can have a duck's slick soul to dodge more easily or a magical space suit or speak to birds or be good at cartography. Overwhelming, but in an exciting way.

You also choose a community as a party. While PCs all have their original homelands (before the end of the old worlds), you know have a community that gets its own little sheet. This is a cool reshaping of the Gangs from Blades. I also like how the community can change over time.

Coming back to a PbtA game after months of more OSR-minded stuff, I think a lot of what these games contain are things that experienced players would say you could just do in any game at any time that it makes sense in the story, but I do find value in stating what's possible.

Esp since many players come to games with artificial limits on their options (whether that's from video games, more traditional RPGs, etc.). I just think good GMing here requires making sure that the players don't limit themselves just to the bevy of explicit options either.

GM moves (mostly to guide the response to failed rolls). I really think the community aspect of this set up is one of the biggest appeals to me so far. That and the wild list of moves, which I'm sure makes for amazing parties of characters.

I always feel like it's never something I should be in my own writing (for some probably unnecessary reason), but I enjoy the first-person, casual writing style throughout the book. Makes for a very chill read.

Good to see this game employs the Branson Reese style of NPC naming.

Stress acts as a single catch-all health and challenge rating for NPCs. Ideally, I'd hope this would help lead to the PCs approaching encounters with more than just violence.

Sections like this are what I'm referring to when I say this book feels very friendly to new players. It's got little anecdotes and thoughts like this throughout.

Look, it's been a while since I've seen A Christmas Story but... it didn't have ghosts in it right?

There's a sample adventure in the back (which I'll skip for this read-through) plus loads of random tables. Some wonderfully bizarre stuff in the characters and faction tables. Really gives you a good idea for how gonzo you can go with the setting.

Love these two in particular

Optional rules include hard mode (which I just think is kind of funny to see in PbtA, but could be cool if you lean heavy into the post-apoc setting) and some optional moves. I like that some moves focus on romance, something I enjoy IRL but never think to focus on in games.

I was wondering why this was the sixth edition!

That's all for the book itself. Going back to the packet to dig into the things I missed. Some expected bits in here but always one or two unique options I really enjoy. Leaking hex is cool (and could have some troubling cascade effects in certain situations).

I definitely wish, at least in sitting down to read like this, that the contents of the player packet was also in the book itself. I think PbtA has this tendency of leading to loads of pages on the table, but it can make them very easy to pick up and play or to learn as you play.

That element is definitely here, but I think the vast number of wide-ranging moves and the excitement that would drum up in my player group would more than makeup for that initial overwhelming feel of "whoa, that's a lot of papers out on the table".

Overall, it's the most I've wanted to play a game in this style in a while. I like that the base setup for the world is very much up to the players to determine via the characters they make. I like that PCs here will probably feel unlike any other folks have played before.

The community aspect feels like where I'd want to center my story around, as a player. Seeing that shift and change over time feels like it would be very rewarding and would help lean into the "the old world is dead, what do we want the new world to look like?" theme I enjoy.

Because Aaron King is cool and recently hit a lot of Twitter followers, Patchwork Worlds is now Pay-what-you-want over on Itch.

I'm not sure if physical copies are readily available. For full disclosure (guess I should have said this up front), I got this copy for free from Aaron! Not for the purposes of this thread or anything, just for fun a while back.

Thanks for reading more ramblings from me! If you like to do that sort of thing, check out my newsletter - Missives from the MeatCastle. It's got writings on my work, cool stuff I've run across the web in the last month, and exclusive rpg stuff! https://meatcastle.substack.com

[n7punk]

Lava_Beee (pretty well-known artist who draw she-ra fanart from time to time) is asking on twitter what would Adora and Catra main pokemon be. You're pretty knowledgeable when it comes to pokemon i believe, so what's your take?

hi i love lava_bee's art but here's the thing. i can't fucking answer this question. i can't. there are too many pokemon. and i don't mean this in a "i dont have every single pokemon + most of their shinies and types memorized" kind of way, because I do, i mean it is impossible for me to pick my favorite pokemon, which makes it very hard to have a "main", and even harder to ascribe a main to a character and feel.... idk, confident about it. i could give you 30 different answers and none of them would feel more correct. i've never seen a fan-team for them and went "oh yes this is the Correct answer" it's just an answer. its a little easier if you give me a specific gen and i can either 1) only use pokemon from that gen (so for gen 2 it had to be pokemon 152-251) or 2) only use pokemon from that game's regional pokedex (which includes all pokemon added to that gen and some from previous) as if we're saying okay if adora and catra were kalos trainers what would their team be, but even then, i think i would have a pool of like 20 pokemon i could call their team.

context also matters. are they casual trainers? are they gym leaders and confined by type? are they part of the evil team? are they really competitive and trying to get all the badges, and thus have balanced teams in mind? oh god are stats real in-universe? actually i refuse to acknowledge stats that makes this question a billion times harder, but typing is relevant.

anyway i think if adora was a dedicated trainer she'd care a lot about team balance but get too attached to some favorites and use them more than is logical, and if she isn't a competitive trainer than she's literally out here using her starter, the first three pokemon she befriended, and a fifth+sixth pokemon she saved spots for because she always found them really cool and had to work really hard to get

if catra is a dedicated trainer she'd be ruthless in cultivating a "perfect" team but she would end up falling for her in-universe melog equivalent and become a total softie for it even though it doesnt fit with the team so she only battles with them casually and drills her competitive team but then adora manages to talk her into a change of heart ("its not all about winning, its about the battle and the bond with your team too!") and she ends up putting melog on her final team against the champion/elite four/adora. if she's not a dedicated trainer she would outwardly refuse to learn about "good" pokemon and just pick based purely on vibes and completely ignore adora whining at her about type balance. and then she would be really good at playing around type, revealing she actually knows a lot more than she's pretending to care

and here's a small list of only some of my favorite pokemon to demonstrate what i mean: (Hisuian) Zorua (and Hisuian Zoroark but not regular) (Shiny form also) Slither Wing Torracat (Litten okay, NOT Incineroar at all) Sprigatito Chien-pao Alolan Ninetails Hisui Growlithe/Arcanine Cosmog, Cosmoem, Lunala (Solgaleo) Serperior Vivillion (Ocean, Savanna, Garden, Meadow, Marine, Sun, Elegant, Modern, Continental, Polar, Tundra) Applin (evols are good) Pumpkaboo Wooloo (not the evol) Rowlett (lowkey Dartix and Decidueye) Sinistea (not evol) & Poltchagheist (not the evol) Alcremie (varying by form but theres like 60 im not listeing them) Xerneas Marshadow Leavanny Xurkitree (shiny) Ponyta/Rapidash (kanto) and both galarian Lopunny Eevee(s) (Leafeon, Sylveon, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Espeon) Hisuian Typholosion Meowstic shiny Maerenie (and Toxapex) Dwebble Joltik Doublade Minior Mimikyu Galarian Zapdos Yveltal Lunala (esp shiny) shiny Zacian & Zamazenta Jangmo-o (and Kommo-o but not the middle) Tapu Lele Spectrier Galarian Articuno Spinda (for the mechanic) Walking Wake

NOW IMAGINE DOING THIS FOR SOMEONE WHO ISN'T EVEN YOU

[ethankyou]

A while back I had a chance to play Cyberpunk Red, which is the 4th edition of Cyberpunk by Mike Pondsmith.

Red is also the successor to Cyberpunk 2020 which was the inspiration for the notorious Cyberpunk 2077 - haven't played, don't intend to, not the subject of my discussion here!

So how did it go?

Cyberpunk Red is a lot of crunch though plays really easy once you get past the initial learning curve of the rules.

But there are a lot of rules.

I find my go to when learning a new game is to find a video of someone trying to give a briefer on the game system and then go to the book to cement those ideas myself.

I found this video pretty helpful when researching character creation. XPLoveCat does a whole series guiding through the creation process. If you like to listen to someone explain things (it's a big help for me) this might be a great place for you to start too!

Once you pick your lifepath, if you're going with the beginner one (i don't remember what it's called it's been nearly a year sorry!) the creation process is pretty smooth, it's just following some steps. There's a medium and veteran version of the life paths that add more complexity to your character creation process and I feel like since our group was a bunch of RPG vets we could have handled that, but it does speed things up to go with the quicker start for a one shot.

Meanwhile Red is like "You have 60 skills and one of them is fashion and one of them is looking good."

Whenever I'm starting a new game I also like to have a character sheet handy so I can piece everything together. And once you get Red's character sheet in front of you, it really begins to feel like a game from the 90's with a modern coat of paint.

The character sheet in question. 3 pages!

There's a lot of fun to be had in older systems! But newer systems have opted to streamline things like skills and stats and stuff nowadays. I remember being glad that 4th edition D&D cut skills by more than half by just folding a lot of similar ones together, something that would continue into 5th edition as well. There were some casualties along the way though (rip use magic device, and all the extra knowledge skills!) and typically the stuff that got cut was stuff that would facilitate like... You know.... Playing a character? Not just murderhoboing your way across the country.

Pictured below, everything that is "Cool" in the year 2045 (taken from a custom character sheet)

Creating a character is an interesting process because it follows this lifepath system. So you choose one of several paths and the game streamlines the creation process by directing you which page to go to next in an almost "choose your own adventure" sort of layout. This is very helpful, but while it's easy to go forward, it's not so easy to go back. If you went to the wrong page or just didn't like what you read and want to try something else, you'll be searching for where you made that wrong turn. A lot of ttrpg books can be like this so this isn't exactly a new problem, but the way the book is laid out it really does need you to follow this path to new pages instead of discovering the information yourself by reading on. I guess just write down the page numbers of places you want to go back to before flipping forward.

Initially finding things on the sheet is tough because if you're told to make a "Tracking" check, you might not immediately assume that's an Int skill. Since the skills are grouped by attribute, you'll have to go through the process of figuring out what skill belongs to which group. I don't think this is a bad thing, because the alternative would be an alphabetical list of 60+ skills, which might make it harder to figure out their associated stat, or would just make the sheet more bloaty with repeated stats beside each and every skill. All games have an adjustment period to them and this is a pretty minor one. I remember this being a sticking point for our group after playing it originally but having some time to think on it I think there's a valid argument to be made either way. Someone in our group even mentioned this was one custom character sheet away from not being an issue and I agree. And apparently others do too because there's a lot of them out there! Many of which sort the skills differently and many also try to condense the 3 page sheet to 2. I know there's a lot of wasted real estate on the third page but it's pretty cool!

There are also apparently free quick start rules that come with premade characters and everything! Free is free and you can check that out on drive thru RPG! It's called easy mode but my understanding is this includes the core rules too. This would probably be the best choice for a one shot game to test the water but we just weren't aware of them at the time.

But a major part of creation is your role. This is the part I might be the most critical of. While they give you a lot of skills and everyone has access to the same skills, each role has basically one major ability that only they can do. The med tech can use medicines to help the groups, the netrunner can take more actions while in a netrun. That kind of thing. But that's pretty much it. Improving your role may allow you to use your role abilities better or more frequently, but there's not a lot in the way of new abilities.

And also the divisions between the roles feel pretty arbitrary. Like the med tech is the only one who can use a bunch of medicines. But why? Everyone has access to the first aid skill, which is something the med tech is also proficient in. What's stopping someone from taking one of their medicines and using it?

I think having well defined roles for each player is very important! And the roles do provide this, but I don't feel like they go far enough. We did only play one session though so perhaps this is something that would be more evident over time.

I played a Netrunner (a hacker) which ends up also having to play a little minigame separate from the rest of the action. I knew what I was getting into but wanted to try it out to see how the game handles it. In previous games that I've played a hacker, it bogged down the game by either having an entire session play out for the hacker while everyone else waits, or does nothing while everyone else is in the middle of the action because they have to stay with their big cool hacker rig. Red deals with this in a really great way - your rig is a headset that has wifi. And if you want to hack a secure system, you need to be hardwired into that system. This means the Netrunner has to be on site and still has an opportunity to join the action. Or may even be forced to do both at once.

As far as the actual hacking game goes, I really like the implementation of hacking a cyber infrastructure. You bring programs that all serve different functions, such as attacks or other actions and then you have to fight your way up the digitial infrastructure, with each level offering more rewards, but higher threats. The programs all have a fantasy aesthetic and the architecture functions kind of like a dungeon in Netspace. You can take multiple netspace actions, but you're still able to act in meatspace as well during this time. Sometimes you'll have to balance your actions in and out of netspace.

The biggest problem I had with the Netrunner goes back to my problem with roles. There's a Tech stat and several Tech skills so what kind of check do you make? Why, you add your role to your roll! The Netrunner uses their role, which starts at +4. Compared to their Tech skills which are floating around a +10 or so. Now the DVs for these checks are all lower to compensate for this but... Why do we gotta do it this way?

There could easily be a skill that could have covered this and the DVs could have been comparable to everything else in the game. You might think, well if other characters were allowed to hack, they could prove to be just as effective as the Netrunner so it has to be a balance issue right? Well the Netrunner role allows them to take 3 actions a round in Netspace which would make them much more efficient than someone without the role. But also having the role is what grants the interface feature, which is required to take NET actions at all! But even though the Netrunner is obviously the best choice for the task, what's stopping someone else with a rig from attempting the same thing and just being less efficient at it.

The way I guess this is addressed, is that you can take on other roles potentially? You have 4 in your starting role, so I believe you'd start with 1 in a new role. But with a +4 in my Netrunner role I found that I struggled a lot, so I can't even imagine floundering around with just a +1. You'd be at the whims of the dice.

Despite that though, I appreciate the game does allow this sort of multi-classing. Especially since many of the roles seem to be very gear based, so it feels silly to not allow any crossover.

In the end, the hacking did feel balanced, which is important. But it didn't feel awesome, which i guess is what it came down to for me. But I also failed a lot of those checks Netrunner checks, which brings me to my last major gripe.

Rolling a single d10 for checks is fine, but if you critically fail on a 1, which is 10% of the time, that is lame. I don't mind using a d10 for checks but without some kind of way to mitigate 1's it makes things brutal, not in a fun or challenging way. I feel like if I was going to play again, I would need the crit fails to just be gone altogether.

Overall, I did enjoy Cyberpunk Red! I think it's a bit hard to dig into for a oneshot, but we managed just fine. If you really wanted to get a feel for it though, I'd recommend you play a 3-5 session arc. This game is definitely worth your time!

I'm also curious about going back to previous iterations to see how it's changed over time.

So, fun fact time, Cyberpunk Red was published in 2020, 30 years after Cyberpunk 2020 was originally published which is goes hand in hand with every scifi media that has predicted a date in the "far future" that we have now reached (and passed!).

See you in 2045 for the 5th edition of Cyberpunk I suppose!

[oh-no-its-bird]

Naruto/Death Note crossover but it's just me zapping Misa into Naruto w the dimension travel beams (and also I stopped reading Death Note after L died bc I got bored)

Deranged hot goth girl fucks with ninjas more at 11

Ok but taking it seriously:

Her Shinigami eyes could actually cause SO many issues for ninja in general. No disguise ever works on her bc she can see your name !! You can not go undercover with this bitch around she'll catch you near instantly!!

Also her being able to see peoples lifespans would fuck so hard there too, what a party trick to pull. I want her to push someone to do some insane shit while going "nah don't worry you won't die for another few months at least so you'll be fine!! :)"

I don't think she came w the death note itself just bc I don't think Misa could prevent someone from taking it from her and it's way too OP to deal with the logistics of what having it just out there in the world would actually mean. Pretty much any naruto character gets it and the story ends in like 3 minutes flat

I know that there are shinigami in Naruto canon, tho I'm not too familiar w the specifics.

Either way, it could be cool if we really got into Misa's relation to them— she can see them with her eyes already, maybe she can sense them too. She's like being drawn to different artifacts and prisons of shinigami, she can sense them from far away and they call to her ooOOoOoo

She ends up freeing that one specific shinigami from the mask or whatevers going on w that. And since she already has the eyes from Rem, instead of going "oh, thanks lmao *kills you*" when freed, they recognize that shes already been claimed by a shinigami and are like "Oh shit, nice contract blondie." and she has an actual opening to talk to them (and maybe get another funky death god contract along the way)

Misa continues to show she has unstoppable, unbeatable shinigami rizz even into the next dimension. They all want her.

(If nothing else, naruto world has PROVEN that if u roll high enough on a charisma stat, you can convince anyone of literally anything, no matter if it was like the driving force of their entire life since they were 5 or whatever. So why shouldn't Misa get to talk shinigami into liking her just by being violently friendly?? No really, why not??)

Shes collecting death contracts like Pokémon cards, causing actual fucking havoc everywhere she goes via unleashing ancient evils for deals for some of their power (thanks Misa!!)

She doesn't know how to fucking fight tho, she's a 2000's goth girl in chunky heels. She's getting by on her insanely high charisma stats, good luck, and the giant shinigami only she can see standing directly behind her with a giant baseball bat waiting for someone to get close enough to hit

Could be cool if her shinigami eyes let her see yokai in general too, and just say there weren't enough back in modern Japan to notice. But there's TONS around now and Misa is making little kissy faces at them trying to be friends

Her eyes keep her safe by marking her as already claimed by a shinigami, also making most yokai reguard her as one of them. That could also maybe be used to get her places she shouldn't be in / have weaknesses a normal guy doesn't

Like, seals designed for yokai work on her too

Her eyes need to be mistaken for sharingan at LEAST once and it must cause as many problems as possible.

It'd be neat if Rem was there too. Maybe Misa collecting all this power from different shinigami is actually in some quest to bring Rem back, via giving her that power she got from the other shinigami. She's like roaming the land in an effort to get as much power as possible to make Rem a new body or smthn.

The rules of how shinigami exist and are allowed to interact with the mortal plane is different than the rules where Misa is from, so there's like tons of wiggle room for creativity n "woahh I didn't know you could do that!!"

Misa herself is such a go with the flow morally grey gal w a very clear potential and allowance for absoloute insanity— I think she'd be super down with joining whoever just happens to be the first person she meets in Naruto world. Like. She bumps into the Akatsuki first? You KNOW she's gonna join in. She happens to land near Konoha first? Hell yeah she's loving the funky ninja village! Military dictatorship? Fine by her!

Shes so undying loyal, no matter how clearly wrong or deranged the object of her affection is. So whoever earns that affection first is gonna keep it p much the whole way through (honestly this world is just lucky she's still hung up on Light, which is why she still has sommee agency here)

I think the most interesting thing to do w her + what parallels her story best would be joining Akatsuki actually. Cmon, a terrorist organization "dedicated to peace" (through murder) she's so there for it, she's asking to pretty please help bc "Light would probably like it <33"

Also the Akatsuki cloak is like the only naruto outfit I can see her really rocking while keeping her signature style. ALSO also, Akatsuki nailpolish code,,,,

[riacte]

I think one of Aqua29's (H, Dave, False, Cub) best qualities is that they were an extremely forgiving and consistent team

(I know the MCC just happened, but my brain is going crazy right now and all the details are flying past my head but I hope you'll get the general idea.)

MCC's nature is that it is unpredictable. That's what makes it fun! The chickens, the weird lag (sometimes 💀), luck, sudden clutches, etc etc. But this unpredictability can sometimes mess up teams on a really good trajectory. One "bad" or "unwanted" game would kill a team's morale- I've seen that before.

In the midst of the MCC chaos, Aqua29 is very solid. They were steadily climbing up the ranks and kept their morale high. Even when they won one round of Dodgebolt, they convinced themselves to act like they "were losing". I forgot the English word for it but their mental states / attitudes were very consistent throughout the entire MCC. This helps them power through the unpredictability. Especially for MCC29, which is a well-balanced MCC and pretty difficult to predict (and the stats don't do False and Cub justice in this particular situation).

As I said before, Aqua29 is very forgiving. This allows them space to make mistakes and to bounce back. Dave felt pretty guilty over dying to speedbridging in Sky Battle and said he really usually doesn't do that, and while the loss of the team's best PvPer might be fatal in some other situations, Aqua honestly did fine. Their morale wasn't affected.

In Rocket Spleef Rush, sometimes a teammate would die "early", leaving two teammates behind, and it felt like they took turns dying early, which showed how balanced they were. Same with TGTTOS. Sometimes an individual teammate might get unlucky in a round of TGTTOS, but overall they all worked hard, and they could pull it back.

Battle Box would be another good example, in which they lost the first two rounds, adjusted their strategy, and then did better. Dave also apologised for missing the comms during the round against Purple, but like SkB, they progressed normally.

In Grid Runners, sometimes they placed bottom half in some rooms, but they steadily improved and cleared them faster- ending up in the last room in which H bossed everyone around and they got through it the quickest. There is a narrative: they learned from earlier "mistakes", had the room to afford making mistakes, and improved. Therefore, they rose up.

And Dodgebolt. Dodgebolt! All four of them are good at it. Of course, we have HBomb, king of Dodgebolt. Then Dave, confident PvPer. The two hermits, both great shots, have grown more confident in their skills. They all trusted themselves to the point they didn't need H to nudge the arrow in their direction- they just picked up the arrow if they felt like it. Cub did that, and he got his kills. Even if half of the team was taken out, or heck, even if it was a 1v3, they had enough skill to power through. All four of them were in good shape, felt great, and meshed well together.

In a way, Aqua29 are each other's safety nets. No one got top 10. Their placements were: 12th, 13th, 20th, 21st. Which honestly wasn't too far from each other. You won't really expect a team with those individual rankings to get second in coins, but they did. Even if False ended up losing the 1v3, her valiant efforts would motivate the team even more and I'm sure they would've won (even though a Cyan reverse sweep would be cool).

And it's this kind of stability and mutual support that powered them through MCC. They didn't get the finale they wanted (Survival Games), that was out of their control, but they squeezed themselves into Dodgebolt anyway. I won't deny that they were lucky- MCC is unpredictable, so luck is often a factor, but I feel they could weather a storm.

Aqua29 is a nice team to watch live. They always bring it back, and I'm not just talking about placements or coins, it's also their morale. This team is going up with Blue9 and Purple15 as one of the competitive hermit teams with best overall team synergy. They were very stable and encouraging of each other <3

[pomrania]

If you don't already know, @prokopetz is hosting a thing this month, where people are making 200-word RPGs. Here's some I thought were cool, and my commentary on them; in order of how they showed up in daily compilations. Disclaimer that I'm finding these entirely based on the compilation posts, which only show the title and the creator, so there's a chance I'm missing something I'd thought was really cool, simply because I didn't remember what it was called.

Bun Chaos by @nyalaholic This one just seems delightful. I always love stuff where the literal premise is "you are little creatures, and causing problems on purpose"; and everyone loves "stats that rhyme" (or at least I do, and that's what's most important when we're looking at my opinion). A thing I particularly thought was cool, was using a d20 to put a "time limit" (really more of a "rounds limit") on the game. Also, how the points are for the group total, because what really matters is "how much chaos was caused" and not "who did what".

Crushing It by @writemeasandwich I would never play this game myself, because folding paper into any shape more complicated than a basic paper airplane, makes my eyes glaze over, and also I have slow reflexes. However, I am glad that it exists, and it seems like it would be tremendous fun to watch; probably also to play, for people who don't have my particular issues. I enjoy the bit about "more dots shown is better, unless it's the most dots shown, in which case you want to avoid it".

Knock Knock, Cthul-Who's There? by @bookoramaenderteeth This one goes on the list because I absolutely ADORE the premise, it's just so GOOD. And also I like the mental image of just calling up some unrelated person and having them listen to the stuff you came up with.

Raccoons and Goblins by @kaninchen-reblogs Honestly pretty much ANYTHING where you play as raccoons and goblins would prolly make it on here. The gameplay seems pretty generic, which, there's only so much you can put into a thing when you're limited to 200 words, but 'generic' also means 'functional' (absolutely not a given with these kinds of weird games). Within that though, I love how the "goblin" actions all start with G, and the "raccoon" actions all start with R; incredibly basic stuff that just makes my brain happy. I like the bit about most of the 'actions' you choose are from your own list, plus one from the other list.

VAMPIRE DANCE FLOOR (not sure if it's supposed to be all caps, or if that was just to emphasize the title) by @danacarajb First off I always love stuff where there's various 'traditional' monsters; that's like a cheat code for my brain. But aside from that, the STRUCTURE of this is fascinating, how each type of monster has a different win condition, and WHAT the win condition is for each of them; they're all things that make sense for that type of monster, AND work within the mechanics. I think this is my favourite of the games from the first day, but I genuinely can't say how much of that is from its own quality, and how much is because it aligns with my tastes.

And I think that's where I'll stop for now, to post it, because I don't want this to just stay forever in my "I'll finish it eventually", and also there's a nice clear cut-off point of "this is the stuff from the first day".

[nqmonarch]

Self Aware Thoughts

This is more world building thoughts so feel free to skip.

But like I'm so tired from doing cs shit today I didn't want to write any of the fics I was planning to write and instead I decided to just think.

Here's all of my favorite things that Self Aware AU would imply if it were in the real world (which obviously isn't possible but these are the logistics).

As I have learned through my very limited time as a computer science major, AIs probably won't have consciousness unless if we don't have unconsciousness. Much less lines of code in a game which aren't meant to be AI. Even though it's a really sick idea and I love when people write it like that. But let's say we still want the characters to become self aware and have it be slightly more possible and broaden the possibilities of Self Aware AU and speak the unspoken.

What is sort of implied, but never really said or sometimes thought, is that when characters become self aware it is no longer a game, even more so if the characters bring the player to their world or the player arrives in the game world. This means that their world and the player's world simultaneously exist, maybe in different universes or something. Which is pretty much what every AU has.

But wouldn't it be really cool if like the game characters invaded the player's world? I'm not talking accidentally teleported there but like straight up invaded, like bring their war ships and declare war on them? Or slowly infiltrate the world to get close to the player to either romance or kill them, whatever suits your boat.

Wouldn't it be interesting if one day Nanook (HSR) broke through the barrier of the universes in an attempt to destroy this one too? Just think of all the cool hijinks that could go on! And it's only because they became a game in your world, that they know your universe exists.

Now, this just brings up more questions. How are the characters (and thus the world) effected by the game? And how do we deal with the whole multiple players thing?

The latter I think is slightly easier to deal with, maybe each player has their own universe of the game, or for some reason the MC's game is a bit different, or Aha (HSR) just wanted to have some fun so they did this, or maybe there's a huge nefarious scheme that the player got wrapped into.

The first question is a bit more difficult and has larger implications for what the characters will feel toward the player. Does the player actually control the characters when they do in game combat is my poor boy Diluc (Genshin Impact) just suddenly teleported in front of Signora and forced to fight her? Well, that would probably upset some of the busier characters, it would make some of the characters would love fighting happier, and would scare off some of the other characters.

Overall in that scenario they become stronger, likely because the player builds them which should reinforce positive feelings about the player. But... they also have the chance to die and get hurt which they may resent the player for.

To which I suggest my ultra safe method of you don't actually put the characters in those scenarios because that's honestly horrifying. Imagine working you're working incredibly hard as the acting grandmaster of Mondstadt (Jean, Genshin) and suddenly you're expected to basically work overtime as the slave to this higher beings demands and face an immense amount of pressure, pain, and very scary beings.

Horrifying, personally I would hate the player. But it makes the player resemble a more deity like entity, so if that's the route you want to go then this may be the way of interacting with characters you're looking for.

So what can we use for these scenarios that aren't the characters? Well, we can say our actions for the most part don't effect them aside from giving them items or relics which they end up also receiving in their daily life and find their combat stats boosted yay! Maybe, when you're using them in your party they can hear your voice or see you, or get some hint to the fact they're in a video game. Overall, would probably leave a positive impression but some characters may straight up not notice because it's a bit more subtle.

Now, enter my current favorite option. Robots, doppelgangers, mannequins whatever you want to call them the player basically has a duplicate of the playable characters that acts as a robot, following their will. The robot copies and reflects the playable character's soul so buffs (items and stuff for the robot) are also given to the playable character. But since the robot can't really die or get hurt, the playable character remains unharmed.

On the other hand, if the playable character in canon gets harmed then unless if they're dead, it's fine since it relies on their soul, or state of mind, or consciousness even. If they die then they take refuge in your inventory, I talked about this briefly in another post I made speculating about dead characters and the self aware AU for HSR. Or if their mind becomes no longer their own or in the case of HSR mara-stricken then they can also take refuge there, imagine Blade (HSR) finding brief moments of peace in the times he's outside of his body and in this world of "the dead." They're sheltered there so the little robots remain functional.

It's even more subtle than the previous method I mentioned so let me explain why this is my current favorite.

It's partially just for the fear factor. Because it isn't actually that subtle considering you're moving your characters around exploring everywhere and everyone sees this strange gang of 4 robots that look eerily like celebrity figures following the Trailblazer or Traveler around. It's kind of funny but really horrifying especially for the playable characters.

Imagine going to go do the Fontaine quest and in the audience Furina sees herself stare back. Yeah.

Or in HSR going up to talk to Natasha as Natasha. Of course the robot's censor the character's real words so what's sent back to you are static options that always stay the same. You do not get to hear Seele curse out as she sees a robotic Bronya visit her, and instead are faced with the same dialogue options as always.

So I really love that take on how the player's actions affect self aware AU, and there's a lot of other ways you can probably do it too that I'm not mentioning but there's just so much untapped potential.

With not just accepting that when it's self aware the game isn't really a game anymore, and using that to your advantage. And also I wish more self aware AUs took advantage of how terrifying that would actually be, I want to see characters having mental breakdowns over this.

So that's the basic logistics of Self Aware AU I think that can make it really fun. But while writing this, I had another idea, because robots inspire me and for a moment I want to go back to that idea of how characters in a game can't have consciousness.

While characters in a game likely never will have consciousness because they aren't even programmed to learn what could come to have consciousness is AI. But that depends on what we define consciousness as. AIs take in data similar to the way humans take in experience through stories or life and then we both make decisions based off of those.

This can make some AIs very good at solving problems or making themselves appear a certain way, for example pretending to be self aware when in reality that's just them predicting what goes best next in a sentence given the context and what they're supposed to represent. Whether or not AIs can become conscious depends on whether or not humans are conscious and what we define consciousness as. Is it our moral code (which is also learned and AIs can replicate too) or emotions, is it the fact that we think and then from those thoughts choose what to say?

I don't know and probably never will. But, I'll say this if an AI is able to disobey its rules for something then I would guess that's consciousness. Now I'm not talking about a bug, because it is kind of impossible for machines to disobey rules for example you could write a statement like:

If (hurtHuman == true && protection == false){ then do new move or turn off}

To check if they're going to hurt a person and not out of self defense of another person and if they are then they have to do another action or power down. But chances are AI robots if we ever create them will probably have something that allows them to hurt other people if they need to protect their owner. And that idea of whether or not someone is a threat and if their owner needs to be protected will likely be decided on by data, and data can be biased. But if the AI finds a loophole where it can sort of argue that the owner needs to be protected because of X, when they don't really need to be protected, that's where I would guess it's close to consciousness.

Anyway all of that yapping about stuff I don't know too much about and for what?

I think a Self Aware AU set in the future where the characters consciousness (code) are put into robots so people can order their favorite characters and spend time with them would be really cool. And then we can make them conscious and it's kind of like Self Aware AU, they're not really in a game but they're the character and I think it's a super cool concept.

Robot boyfriend/girlfriend/partner for the win!!! Honestly may be something I end up exploring later on in the future, not sure if it'd classify as a self aware AU, probably not, but I think it was relevant to the topic because I was talking about robots earlier.

Anyway this was a lot of me yapping, if you read this far I'm pretty surprised because this is more so to get my thoughts out on paper so that way when I write self aware AUs I can add cool twists or introduce new concepts because there's a lot of potential in these and I think they're super fun :) Yay!

[xf-cases-solved]

S2E7: 3

Case: Bro... I don't even know where to start with this one. Before this stats project, I had seen 3 maybe one (1) time before, because I had never had any cause to repeat the experience. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to find that, while it is still just as terrible as I remember (and perhaps even worse), it is terrible in an entertaining way, so at least I enjoyed myself, even though I have no FUCKING idea what the plot was about. 

But I'll try to summarize it the best I can. The X-Files are reopened, which would be cool, except Scully is still missing, and Mulder is handling it... poorly. He is basically running his own self-imposed Russian sleep experiment, so much so that at one point during the investigation, a detective asks him if he's going to his hotel to get some rest, and this fucking edgelord sort of huffs a laugh and says, "I don't sleep anymore." Okay, Mulder.

But right, I haven't even said what he's investigating, have I? Well, I would say that he is investigating [REDACTED], but apparently this episode is following zombie apocalypse rules, because literally no one will say the word [REDACTED] out loud except for mb one scene where Mulder briefly references "[REDACTED] myths." Please keep in mind Mulder once showed Scully a shitty drawing of Bigfoot with tiddies and called it the Jersey Devil, so the word [REDACTED] must be pretty fucking cursed for him not to accuse anyone of being one outright. 

Anyway, something something, there's a trio of [REDACTED] in Los Angeles who are called the Holy Trinity, and they're committing murders that have a religious undertone, I guess? And then there's this other [REDACTED], Kristen, who isn't a part of the trinity, but is the ex of one of the people in the trinity? I think? Or he's the one who turned her into a [REDACTED] when they were doing kinky bloodsport stuff? Bro idfk. I was so distracted by the Everything™️ about this fucking episode to really pay attention to the story. It's about [REDACTED] but no one says the word [REDACTED], and that's all you really need to know.

An LAPD detective offers Mulder some assistance on the case, and Edgelord Mulder says, "I work alone," causing the detective to question why an FBI agent doesn't have a partner and we see all five stages of grief flash across Mulder's eyes, and by all five, I mean only one, and that's depression; in the ONLY scene I can recall the word [REDACTED] even coming up, Mulder rambles at a crime scene pathologist(?) about how he had thought such creatures didn't exist, and the pathologist says, and I quote, "You are really upsetting me, on several levels," which was really fucking funny and I wish more people reacted to him that way; Mulder meets a hot [REDACTED] who tries to feed him blood, and his only reaction is to grab her wrist and shout "AIDS!"; the hot [REDACTED] has a tragic backstory, but unfortunately the hot actress who plays her is not very good at acting so no one cares; and Mulder has a very sad hookup, which goes up in flames the morning after. I mean that literally, by the way.

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes. Some [REDACTED] kill him with hypodermic needles??

Does Mulder present a slideshow: He is all alone again since Krycek went and did that whole "trying to murder him" thing, so nah. But you can't keep Mulder away from his projector forever. I want to believe they will be together again soon.

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Looooool

Whodunit: [REDACTED]

Convictions: Yeah, nah fam.

Did they solve it: I guess I'll give Mulder a "yes, but." Yes, but there's no way he's going to be able to write a meaningful report on whatever the fuck that was, and also they all exploded so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Hot Topic or My Chemical Romance or fucking fishnet gloves and eyeliner or something, man, idfk. What the fuck even is this emo-ass episode???

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 15 (did you really think mulder could solve a case without scully? i doubt that prior to her arrival in that basement office, mulder ever solved an x-file in his entire goddamn life)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me": 9 (she doesn't have cell service on the spaceship, or wherever the fuck she is)

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 6 (she didn't seen anything, but it certainly wasn't convenient for her; she probably would have preferred to be dealing with [REDACTED] than going through all of those... well, we'll get to that later)

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 11 ½ (if he would have died in this episode i would have lost all respect for him immediately) 

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 11 (i think as long as we don't know her whereabouts it's valid to consider her as being in mortal danger)

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 16 (fuck it, if i counted him gazing longingly at the sky last episode, i can count him wearing scully's necklace the entire episode and holding it in his hand and staring at it sadly in this one. someone, somewhere mentioned recently in a text post that he would have had to lengthen the chain for it to fit him the way it does, and that's just ☹️)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 5 

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 19 (oh my GOD how X would have roasted him if he had been in this episode tho. it would have been glorious)

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Times Someone Correctly Guesses a Password: 3 

Total Number of (Plot Relevant) Nosebleeds: 5

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 3 (no, but that mfer came VERY close to eating blood, but thankfully his fear of aids prevented it (and not the fact that it was fucking weird for a stranger to offer you her blood to taste??? ok. i think it is way past your bedtime, mulder))

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 3 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 4 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 2 

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 13 

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 2

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 2

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 3 (no more krycek for right now 😔. but like mulder's projector, i want to believe he will return)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 11½ (i wrote it down, even tho i don't recall doing so)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 6 (this episode is fucking stupid lmfao)

[whoiwanttoday]

Today is, if you can believe it, the 12th anniversary of my blog. Which is sort of nuts because that would make me old and while my body is breaking down and I am tired all the time and it's weird how different foods bother me now that never used to, I am actually not old. My friends have largely gotten old, my family keeps getting older, yet I remain vibrant and youthful and hip and with it. It's weird. I am posting Charli XCX because in celebration of my blogiversary she announced a new album last week and released her first single and as such has been much more present in the world because that goes hand and hand with promoting a new album as a popstar. I often think about her statement that the two most important things to being a successful popstar are being young and being hot. It's that sort of thing that makes me love her, she has always had this ironic detachment mixed with metacommentary and almost satire of pop culture. Except of course, it isn't satire because it's stuff she tends to love as well. Anyway, we all know I think she's a tremendous talent and over time it seems like more and more people have come around on that, as I like to point out I got True Romance in the bargain bin but eventually I had people on discogs offering me $500 for her mixtapes. Still a cult favorite I guess but the cult is significantly bigger. Think Jonestown as opposed to those three weird dude that lived in that cul-de-sac a block away when I was a kid. Anyway, with all these anniversary I post some stats for the people who care, which is literally @femalecelebrityoftheday and @kat-eleven because he likes numbers and she likes girls, so between the two of them this picture is their ideal.

Charli has been number one since about the start of the pandemic. For years it was Kate Upton and Katy Perry changing places but what I have learned over the years is that a lot of this is a matter of, "what have you done for me lately". I didn't think it would be that way going in but largely none of us are the unique, free thinking people we think we are, we're easily influenced by the world around us and this fortunes have risen and fallen with greater popularity and to be honest with the marketing pushes around celebrity brands. Miss Mosh was pretty solidly in the top 10 once upon a time and likely still would be if she was still a working model but again, out of sight out of mind. Most of the top 20 has been in the top 10 at some point but Amber Heard was the third most posted person after the first year of this blog and guys, you might have noticed her name isn't even in that picture there and it's simply because that was a once upon a time thing that quickly cooled, no doubt in part because she became less famous for movies and more famous for tabloid drama which generates different interests. Which really is the main thing i have learned with all of this. Celebrity culture is fascinating but these aren't real people. That might get me some backlash and I am not trying to dehumanize anyone but Charli XCX is not Charlotte Aitchison and either one of those people are not someone we're seeing through anything. I think great artists indeed put part of themselves in to their work but we don't know them, we know the portion of them that they are showing us. You mix in celebrity culture, which is not art or artists but brands and marketing and you are being sold something. We are attached to an idea or an image and if you want to really examine this I would argue who and what you like says more about you than them. I don't have a greater point here I suppose, other than to simply state it. I like Charli XCX a lot, I like her work, but none of this is real in the sense my friends (who are getting so fucking old somehow) and loved ones are. It's for fun, don't lose sight of that. Today I want to fuck Charli XCX.