#i need more WT

[sang8262]

i said i'd rant later but waiting for akuma release amd patch notes is destroying me so:

WT's boss fight and why i dont like how they wrote it:

------

First let me be clear, I love World Tour. And that is why I see how it could have been better and wanted so much more from it. But alas, they tried to make a whole stand alone, single player rpg game ... but it's only got the resources of side content to a fighting game.

To start, the story as a whole is paced ehhh, not so ideally. It feels both rushed *and* tedious at times, because of certain quests or maps.

Overall, we don't get to know Bosch too well to develop as STRONG of a bond the game wants the players to imagine: because we never get to spend much time getting to know him at the start of the game. So this "friendship bond" is ham-fisted through cheesy cutscenes, which feel fake and hollow because we ate pizza and bought a silly hat like, Once. This is to say: Bosch's sacrifice also feels hollow, because while we understand the weight of his actions, it isn't very personal. If they rather MADE Bosch the main character, the story would have been much much stronger. And also a completely different game.

WT needed to have custom player avatars, for Battle Hub, and because their vision was "players learning martial arts from the characters in the roster! interacting with them as student and master!". That's the fantasy they wanted to make, and so WT is pulled in two different directions. One that wants to sell the fantasy of meeting the game's characters, training under them, and becoming the champion yourself.

Then another about the world of SF6: Nayshall and Metro City; Bosch and the Resistance versus Shadaloo; the new generation of fighters who have their own ideals, clashing with the old. But now NEITHER has enough room to be the best version of itself, because they must compromise each other to exist in the same story/game mode space as the other.

In short, they wanted to do so much with WT that it ended up feeling half-baked across the board.

------

JP too, doesn't feel like the main villain until waaaay too late in the story. That is, unless you read the comics. But even then, he's introduced into the story so late that you aren't even thinking about him as a character until that point. There's nothing to establish that JP is "pretending" to be nice, and therefore, no satisfying -reveal- that JP was evil all along when we finally do get to fight him. I think his whole character fantasy is the deceiver, the schemer, and we REALLY don't see evidence of this through WT at all.

In fact, what we do have of JP in WT is honestly not great!! And now I'm just going to be complaining:

After Bosch gets blown up by the belt, why would JP gloat to the avatar about everything?? A bomb just blew up and not only is he someone important, he was standing right there: logically, he should've acted panicked and afraid for his safety, and have fled immediately. Instead, he casually saunters over TO Bosch and the avatar, then villain monologues. He even takes a jab at how Bosch's sacrifice was 'a small bit of entertainment', which is NOT what someone trying to act innocent would say ever??

Also, this was during the award ceremony. Y'know, the event that's being streamed and filmed and seen by thousands of people. Even if the explosion caused that huge fire and damaged equipment, there's no guarantee that people aren't filming this. And knowing how up to date with technology this game is (Footube influencers, crypto, AI deepfakes.. JP's whole philosophy is that people value entertainment over the truth even), there MUST be people risking their safety to film everything. Which is to say, JP should've known better than to RISK being caught FIGHING one of the contestants immediately after an "alleged" terrorist bombing.

He even uses Psycho Power?!? Like he's okay with just putting all that and his face out there for a whole audience to see and record??? I don't think he'd have done that had he NOT been forced to be a boss fight.

Even after we fight him, there's no good explanation for what happens afterwards. He just, concedes and collapses on the arena floor...?? And then what? We just let him go? We also pass out??? He teleports away? What did he just fight us for anyway when he could have teleported to escape then???

He's entirely right about the fight and our victory meaning nothing because the fight was very meaningless, and so of course defeating him has no meaningful satisfaction either. The whole fight only happened because the game demands we have boss fight, but they did a poor job of making that fight actually good at all.

------

Do I have any fixes for the issues I have with WT? Somewhat. Definitely shorten the quest fluff in the mid-game to give more time with Bosch, BEFORE he gets kidnapped and given Psycho Power off screen. We spend more time chasing after him and fighting him after he's been experimented on. Make us care about him as a character more so we care about his motivations. Hell, have us meet Yua and learn more about her. We get barely anything about her as a character beyond "Bosch's sister who worries about him" so, the stakes are superficial and implied ("it's his sister! you should care!").

The fact that she's one of the dancers for the tournament feels also significant: she's relative to one of the Resistance members (Bosch), and clearly knows about what they're fighting for. Even if you suggest she's part of the tournament to relay information, as informant or spy, that doesn't make sense as she would be risking her safety, something she doesn't believe in and something the other members would not have allowed. What if you instead have it so JP intentionally made Yua one of the tournament's dancers, as a bargaining chip against Bosch? On the surface, it might look like JP (or his association) is supporting their sponsored fighter, giving his sister the chance to perform for everyone on such an honored tradition! But in reality, it's to keep Yua close under Shadaloo's watch. Idk, just something to explain why Bosch's sister just so HAPPENS to be a dancer in the very tournament he's fighting to end.

---

Have more scenes showing JP lying to everyone. Show us him being interviewed on TV about his support for the upcoming tournament, have him express his sympathies for the Resistance movement. Like in the comics, show us how JP actually knows a lot about Nayshall's history and culture, and how he uses that to feign admiration and care-- but importantly, show how those around him are charmed by his act.

THEN, follow up by showing us Luke conflicted and uncomfortable about seeing JP on TV. How he doesn't want to talk about his past association with him, or what happened with Ken. Show us Bosch being angered by JP's lies, being frustrated that he can't do anything the way he is right now, and how he doesn't want to get the avatar involved in what he feels is 'his' duty.

---

If I wanted to even go a step further, in respect to my own bias and wants, I'd have thrown in some sort of dinner or conference scene with all the fighters and tournament staff, before the big event day. Show us the contestants talking about why they want to win, why they fight, as part of the game's narrative focus on "the reason we want to become stronger". Show us how JP puts on his public 'CEO of the NGO' persona in front of others, and how likeable he is, as Rashid notices. Show how JP lies about why Bosch isn't at the event (he's too much of a risk to have at the event being interviewed. And probably not stable enough from the Psycho Power destroying him anyway).

But JP might say how much he respects the sponsored fighter, for training even now to prepare for the tournament! How he sincerely hopes Bosch succeeds, and that we too, may find what we're fighting for. All the while us KNOWING he's exactly the reason why Bosch is suffering. Does he suspect us after what happened in the trophy room? Is Bosch really okay? Make it so that the avatar and player are also confused by his words.

And of course, this is a public event with bystanders. We can't fight him now, and we can't just start calling him out in front of everyone, less we ruin the plan. So what else can we do but grit our teeth and play along.

This kind of struggle would have made for greater tension, and thus, greater pay off when we DO get to throw down with him and beat him into the ground later. It would have shown how manipulative JP is in the game, just as he was in the comics, in a more direct manner.

---

What about the actual boss fight itself? I think JP running away and the avatar chasing after him would've made more sense. I get the arena on fire is a hype stage, and it was really cool true. But it just doesn't fit JP as a character. He's not someone to choose violence or direct confrontation unless absolutely necessary, and much less so in such an open space, that was being STREAMED to the internet. And the boss fight as is just... doesn't feel so 'necessary' that he had 'no choice' but to fight then and there.

So instead, I'd have him run underground. The underground hallway with all the locker rooms and the trophy room, is mirrored on the opposite end of the arena: but this part of the map isn't currently used at all. So, have him run there, with the avatar chasing, through the panicked crowd, trying not to lose track of him. And because the whole arena is built into the mountain ruins, it's easy to add some sort of hidden cavern or unfinished construction space as the 'stage'. Hell, the Resistance headquarters is exactly this. They also have a hidden cavern that's connected to the arena's main stage, so this isn't even farfetched of an idea.

The setting of 'secret cave away from everyone's eyes' is also much better of a circumstance that JP would CHOOSE to fight in, if he HAD to as a boss fight. This doesn't redeem his spiel at the end, of how the victory is meaningless, or how he escapes at all. The next bet suggestion is having the room (still in construction) about to cave in, cause you broke some support beams during the fight or whatever. He can still give you the spiel, but have him teleport away as the room is caving in, and the avatar has to let him go to get out to save themselves too.

Could imagine that the avatar is shocked to see JP still alive after that, post game, and demands more answers about his abilities that helped him in the fight, but also to escape. It's more of an incentive for the avatar to want to learn under him, despite him LOSING and also being the enemy. It never made sense to me why the avatar would try to learn from him, when last we see him, he just... collapses on the floor of the arena and laughs about how he lost?? Having to cut the fight short, even evading death using Psycho Power, that's a much better look for the 'villain' and someone the avatar would begrudgingly agree to train under.

------

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended, and it's all over the place;; But I don't have time to edit it through so, it shall have to be. Thanks for being interested enough to read it, if you did, and as always I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this if anyone wants to share!!

Now back to waiting for Akuma..........

[ge]

vengeful tang bo au hits a little different now that tang bo has had his webcomic spotlight and, even through unreliable narrator chung myungs biased perspective, its so clear tang bo loved him hopelessly..endlessly.. its so much easier to picture tang bo breaking apart, becoming resentful and bitter of the world and everyone in it who stayed their hand resulting in chung myungs death after we've seen him look at chung myung like one would look at their dearly beloved nonstop for several episodes straight..

[simcardiac-arrested]

hopefully NOT broken this time……. the moment you’ve all been waiting for…….. tumblr user simcardiac dash arrested posting the local group (tm)!!!

[squidthechaotickid]

Being a mother is a huge responsibility and stars above am I so full of anxiety but also this is the best thing ever

[remcocoa]

.

[doomzday-zone]

thinks about......... HER ..

[tricoufamily]

might be onto something here....... 🤔

[alltheoutsinfreeeee]

is there any magical girl anime still out there that doesn't have any fanservice? Shows like Precure, Cardcaptor Sakura or Madoka?

And if there isn't, are there at least any shows where the fanservice isn't with elementary school girls?

[coconut530]

Wow they really didn’t hold back huh

[gncrezan]

[ravewing]

me every time i remember i wont get more canon flame content until at least december 2025

[gay-yosuke]

i appreciate all the hacked pokemon or whatever on wondertrade but for fucks sake, is it so hard to get my hands on a non-hacked non-shiny pokemon for my fucking livingdex.

[futurefind]

“ what happened to you? “ from rin too : )

Send me    “ what happened to you? “    for your muse to find mine bandaging up a wound.  / Accepting // @tvrningout

"Fucking gods—" Sasume jerks, damn near punching herself in the face with how she startles. Her claws tear into the gauze with the motion and she sighs, adding an extra loop for good measure.

"How many times do I gotta tell you, stop sneaking up on me! Unless you want to end up a dead cucumber—" but for all her grumbling her eye had only brightened briefly, and comes across less like a genuine protest and more like a wet cat being bathed.

She heaves a sigh and tapes it down one-handed (now intentionally using her claws), before dragging her golden gaze back to the other woman.

"Whadda ya mean?" her eyebrow arches toward her hairline. "Got scraped up in last fight is what happened."

[jesuisgourde]

i’m willing to research and dig into almost anything for the writeup but i draw the line at economics

like i’m fairly certain what they’re saying is technically wrong because i think they’re referencing economic consequences of thatcher’s government which occurred in the early 2000s, not the consequences that occurred in the 80s/90s.

but money and numbers are not my strong suit in any sense and doubly so when it comes to a historical economy in a country i do not live in

[kedreeva]

Okay so, I don't think I've spoken of the saga here yet but! Gather round. I shall tell you a long story about the bird I just acquired and why she is VERY IMPORTANT.

At the beginning of last fall, I started looking into quail genetics a little more, because I got tired of not being able to sex my Celadon quail by their feathers. Originally I thought I could kill 2 birds (ok maybe more) with 1 stone and order nice jumbo wild type (which MANY places advertised as wild type jumbo) hatching eggs, and this would help me put some size on the Celadons (jumbo) while also making them feather sexable (wild type). Perfect!

But then I come to find out that pretty much all jumbo lines are jumbo BROWNS, as in they all have the sex linked brown (SLB) gene. So, I was a little confused and a LOT annoyed because I wanted to work specifically with the wild type color/pattern. No mutations just straight, plain wild type.

And EVERYWHERE I looked - major production hatcheries, private breeders through websites, Facebook groups, local swaps, craigslist, e v e r y w h e r e -

People ONLY had SLB.

This spring I came across a video showing about the differences between SLB and wild type and I figured if the person who made it can tell, maybe she will have some. So I looked her up (not in a stalker way, her farm name was stamped on the video and took me to the website), and what luck! She was in Michigan! Upper Michigan, so still a hike, but not California, y'know?

So I shot her an email and explained that I was looking for WT and that her site said she bred them and that people could do local pickup. She responded yeah she's totally got a bunch! And I said great, I'm also in Michigan, albeit far away, but I don't mind driving 7+ hours each way, because I really need actual, trusted WT for sure birds for my celadon project, can I come pick them up?

Cue the most frankly bizarre email chain in my short life. As soon as I mentioned that I was going to drive, or perhaps that I had a genetics plan in place, she got super sketchy and started saying how she hadn't really paid as close attention to SLB vs. WT, that it mattered less than she thought it would when she started, that I shouldn't focus on that either, and also that "fawn celadon is practically unheard of" in the hobby and "you should focus on a clean Tibetan because it's hard to find without roux in it) implying that I should concentrate on those things instead. And concluded by telling me if I really want WT, to contact this other person (why happens to be someone I can't stand). It all sounded VERY much like she didn't have wild type males, after all, and had thought I didn't know the difference so it wouldn't actually matter. But, it does. It actually matters a lot to me.

So I messaged back to say, well, I don't want to do any of those things, I specifically want to work with this set of genetics and you said you have them so I shouldn't have to go to anyone else??

And then she went radio silent for a week. I kind of figured I'd called a bluff, and that she was one of dozens of people I'd contacted who'd said they had WT only to find out they had SLB. I get that it's difficult to see the difference, but this particular person was the president of the American Coturnix Breeders Association or whatever (found out it's actually just a club formed by her and her friends a year ago, so not as impressive as it sounds, considering they don't actually DO anything- no putting on shows, no newsletters, no certifications, no public breeder directory, no finished SOP, nada), so I kind of expected she should know what she's talking about, if anyone does.

Eventually, after a week, she responded that she had been judging at a county fair, but she had a few heterozygous males (WT het roux, which is fine) and she could set a hatch for me for more if I wanted to come at the end of the month, but she's in WI now, not MI. I said sure, since where she was in WI was actually closer than where she'd been in the UP, and we arranged date/time.

The day of, my neighbor friend, Jude, comes with me for company/keeping me awake through the 15 hours driving round trip. It's a pleasant enough drive. We arrived at a cutesy little house on the edge of town that looks like anyone's house in a neighborhood, with a spacious lawn. The person meets us and takes me around the side of the house to a 6x6x1.5 or so chicken tractor, where she's got some male coturnix. She pulls the available males for me to look through and... fam, they ALL looked SLB, to me.

Now, she swore to me up and down that they couldn't be anything except WT het for roux, because of the way she is breeding them. But I've put these birds next to my SLB males and if I didn't have my males banded, I would not ever have told the difference between them. I still picked up 4 of them, because I will give it a go- worst case, I can produce plain Roux hens/plain Roux males for use in breeding later, best case they do actually produce WT hens and they just LOOK SLB and I have to figure out what the differences are. I don't want to leave without seeing her hens, which she has told me are all WT (which is why the males HAVE to be het for it), and she takes me back. Now the hens, the hens are easy to see the difference. White bellies first of all, but the chest feathers are also wildly different! The shafts are white, the dot around the shaft is dark, ringed in red, ringed in white. On an SLB, the shafts aren't white, it's just a black dot surrounded in a red feather, and the belly is all red/buff/cream, not white.

This is what an SLB hen looks like:

So I take a nice long look to memorize the color, and thank her for showing me and meeting, and we head back home.

I do fecals when I get home because all of the males are VERY thin, no meat on them at all, and since she said she'd been feeding Purina (garbage for fowl feeds), I figured that was why, but no- HUGE coccidia loads in all of them. So I treated them and got them on a better feed. They immediately began putting on meat, and they're find now.

The rest of this summer, I have spent going to local bird swaps and inspecting all of the quail I could find, hoping to find one (1) actual wild-type phenotype bird. Hundreds and hundreds of birds, I have pawed through them all, being super obnoxious to the owners I'm sure, holding and inspecting males. I found ONE suspected WT male (and this is a HUGE "suspected," he could very well be SLB with low red expression). I compared him when I got home and I'm doubting myself still, so I don't know if I will ever actually pair him with the SLB hens or if I'll just wait til I have a roux set.

Regardless, it's been a dry season for getting what I want. It's been a dry YEAR. Yesterday was another swap and more hundreds of quail and me pawing through all of them.

Until.

My eyes landed upon.... her.

If you've only lived in an area that has american crows and not ravens, you find yourself wondering if crows are ravens. You see a big crow and you think wow! maybe that is a raven! It could be a crow, but it's seems bigger so maybe it's a raven. But, if you take a trip to a place with ravens, and you see one for the first time, you realize that there is no question, when you see a raven. When you see a raven in person, there's no question and not only is there no question, you wonder how you could ever have thought a crow was a raven. It's laughable, while looking at the raven.

That's how finding this bird felt. I'd been picking up every SLB hen and going maybe this is actually WT? It could be SLB but maybe it's WT? But the second I laid eyes on her in the middle of a pack of SLB with some mixed colors, I knew I was looking at WT hen, and I can't imagine how I ever thought maybe an SLB hen was WT.

Here's a better photo of her chest and belly (she's beat UP from her previous home, the back of her head and most of her rump are plucked clean from males). You can see the white shafts and the white belly.

And some other pics of her, showing the grey-brown on her side and back- VERY different than the SLB hens

I can't express how stoked I am about this bird. This is the first time after a LOT of effort and time, that I have felt confident I am holding the bird I want.

She's also the indicator that I have a LOT of work ahead of me.

My end goal is to have birds that look like her, weigh 12-14oz, and lay large, blue eggs. I have birds that lay large, blue eggs, I have birds that weigh 12-14oz live weigh, and now I have at least 1 bird that looks like her, which means I can make more that look like her. The first step is cleaning the color mutations out of the celadon line without losing the celadon eggs. This is going to be a bit of a nightmare, BUT, I have a friend helping me out with getting a few celadons that are either WT or SLB (I'm guessing SLB all things considered) to start the work with. I will work over the winter to get a few more actual WT birds here, and to start crossing out the celadons with the SLB jumbos to clean out the other feather color mutations. Once I'm down to just SLB and celadon for mutations, I can clean the SLB out with the WT and roux lines.

This project will likely take me a good 2 years, maybe 3, to complete and then test breed to ensure I haven't lost the celadon gene and I don't have any hidden recessives lingering about. But just having the fucking materials to do it all on hand now is a huge step forward from where I was when I decided to start the project.

[sang8262]

really love the the emphasis on, the fact that he revived a dead horse, named it (Rosinante), and treats it with such respect and dignity

even when he retains a lot of his violent, tyrannical outlook on life (confident he can take what he wants by force, crushing without remose that which he doesn't like), i think there's so much added in focusing on Bison's *will to survive*

he holds the horse in such high regard for its tenacity to live, to *want* to live: i think Bison wants that too. sure he keeps coming back from the dead with the clone bodies and all, but i think his current goal of wanting to find something to smile for.. is maybe to find something worth caring about and living for

...even if that something, ylnow, world domination lol

Me, yesterday: Yeah you know, I like M.Bison but I'm really not a fan of him coming back, he's had his time already, he undermines a lot of current characters and storylines by coming back, we really don't need him again, it was always inevitable but I don't know man maybe oh my GOD is that the RAUL JULIA HORSE? 10/10 100/10 bring him back forever

Okay but more seriously: As one of the dead last characters I wanted to come back, the trailer had me totally flip on that stance. I mean yes it helps I'm a mark for the guy, it helps SF6 is infuriatingly good at character presentation even for characters I don't care for, but I actually think they found a very neat way to reintroduce Bison to the series this time around basically by doing to him what they did with Seth: Destroying and rebuilding him as a shell of his former self, with a whole new design, and thus a new personality and angle to approach him from, and in no position to be the Final Boss from the get-go (since it's not like they have much of a story to insert him in). But where as with Seth they leaned into the tragedy of it, Bison is now a ticking time bomb, a looming disaster waiting to happen, which fits him looking like a Horseman of Death.

It was pretty blatant even back in V that Bison was always going to come back, with Phantom Bison existing and Rose's prophecy and characters hallucinating him left and right and all the Shadaloo plot points in 6 spelling it outright. His iconic status aside, his return was telegraphed since forever, so I'm glad that they did it in a way that doesn't actually bring him back all the way to his usual self. Even putting him at the start of a new DLC Year, rather than building a big endgame show out of him like they did with Akuma, also goes a long way towards undercutting the idea that he's coming back to be the Final Boss again.

I'm really impressed with his new design because it is the perfected version of an idea they've been kicking around ever since the drafts for SFIV, that was Bison coming back all battered and torn and fucked-up. Much like older/bearded Ryu, it's an idea they saved into alternate costumes but now are finally willing to go through with as the direction for the character moving onwards. "From riches to rags" is the idea described, and they achieved it by flipping around the kind of old-school overlord he represents. Instead of General Washizaki/Yasunori Kato, he is now Raoh/Violence Jack, the ruler of the wastelands, galloping mightily onwards. (And given Ryu is based on Kenshiro, the biggest villain of this world being Raoh feels like a decision that was waiting to happen)

They've made it so they get to have it both ways: You can have M.Bison in the game looking like his old self with the classic costume, and he's here playable doing all the good Bison stuff and a bunch of new sick shit for you to love, but in the story/lore, he couldn't be further away from being like his old self, and now there is a big mystery box on what is gonna be his deal moving forward. Bison is so well-established to the playerbase that every little thing they do differently can mean something, not just in the design but also in smaller details like his light-blue flames that potentially indicate Soul Power (and that he uses to tame himself in his victory animation), or even the fact that he has visible pupils now.

I think a large part of the pushback against Bison has to do with him being so big in V's storyline and A Shadow Falls dissappointing, and the fear that they'll do it again now that he's back, but there isn't really a storyline for him. The World Tour story is set, the DLC characters add extra stuff to it but are mostly self-contained, I don't think Bison is set to bring another boring world domination plot with him this time around. It's unclear if he even wants it. I could be very wrong here, because I don't want another Bison Doomsday Plot either, I don't want another A Shadow Falls, but my interest is piqued because of how far he seems to be from doing that.

He doesn't know who or what he is, he is a homeless wanderer in Metro City, he is having a hard time keeping his power under control, and Shadaloo is currently warring between factions that want to bring him back and factions trying to ensure he stays dead, nevermind the fact that most if not all of the characters have moved past him (and Ryu still has the power to destroy him, and if Ryu isn't that much fessed up anymore about Akuma, he's definitely not gonna be that concerned about Bison), and the first thing he did when he came back was revive a horse from the dead.

I'm not gonna say this Bison is poised to turn a new leaf, but they did say he is "searching for an identity to make him smile".

Maybe the real world domination was the horses we befriended along the way.