#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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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..........

[02x14]

HOTD incorrect quotes (1/??)

[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)!!!

[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

[ravewing]

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

[yanban-san]

Slashermas but it’s also a zombie apocalypse because why not? CW: Mentions of blood and gore, yandere behavior 

You run into the subway tunnels, looking to escape a hoard-  Cornered in a dead end, you cry out for help- Help from anyone, anything- And in a flurry of blood and viscera two figures appear out of seemingly nowhere, mowing the zombies down around you as if they were blades of grass before a scythe. Wearing white, but stained so red you can barely see it, a smiling figure approaches you- Wearing black, but dripping with darkened fluid- His weapons and face stained with blood turned dark from age, the other frowning as he approached with the other- You are far prettier than the rats that have invaded their home. You smell wonderful, your face is pretty, your body is warm- They inspect you up and down, before one brushes your hair back with his bloody, gloved hands. The smiling one giggles a little at your fear, and they utter a single word- Before the one in black grabs you, taking you deeper into the abandoned tunnels of Nimbasa. “Ours.”

It’s certainly not like you can leave, anyway. And they’ll keep you safe- Provided you play their game, and give yourself up to them completely. :)

[blossomfestival]

If you can change anything about total drama what would you do? I think that Bridgette should have smoke a fat one during world tour so not to get charmed by alehandwalker

Probably make Leshawna be in the final three in tdi or make Eva, Trent and Justin participate in wt.

[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.

[pk-psi]

Though my last JP post was legit the most out of character thing ever, i dont really speak much on how i believe he would act/what things he would do mainly because i dont have ALL of his dialog and personality mushed into my brain like it wants

[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.