#me-just-happy-robot

[skeletoninthemelonland]

my sister told me that if you put something in the internet, that thing no longer belongs to you, it belongs to the internet

[moeblob]

Look, I rewatched all of Bravern to try and make more sense of it now that I know plot twists and stuff and honestly how does Lewis never ask anything about the cockpit that he was in for four seconds. I think he should mention it. I think he's allowed to talk about it.

[midnightmah07]

Daisy pre twst!

[talonsandtails]

… holy crap, this one was beyond difficult. I estimate it to have taken about a full 12 hours. I fully sketched and erased it no less then three times, the pose was super difficult. The main issue was figuring out how to make sure Uzi’s torso wasn’t too long, without flashing her non-existent robot butt. Her design was another challenge entirely. Murder drones is a very darkly lit, fast paced show, and in practice it looks amazing. When trying to draw its characters tho… it’s a nightmare. Solver Uzi, as far as I know, doesn’t have an official ref sheet. Her tail was the worst part. As far as I know there aren’t any good frames showing the entire thing in good clear lighting, and the ones I could find that were coherent enough… all I have to ask is, Liam, who hurt you? I swear that tail is more complicated than the entire cast combined. I only vaguely tried to draw it accurately and I do not at all feel guilty for that.

Also, probably no one does but if you notice, yes, I used a different artstyle than I usually do here. I wasn’t happy with how my style translated into Murder Drones, so for my MD art specifically I’ve come up with an entirely new one.

And on an end note, no I am not at all okay about this show ending, thanks.

[manygeese]

this is going to be embarrassing if this gets no notes but WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT MY VALGRACE SMALL TOWN AU.

[magnolia-sunrise]

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? - this is heavily referencing Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty's "Anatomical Angel" illustration, it's also inspired by William Blake's art, specifically "The Great Red Dragon" and his poem "The Tyger"

[xenomorphicdna]

On the string propaganda

Heeellll yeah

Bestie is an entire PLACE

I look at those guys and let me tell you the soul of that thing ain't just in the puppet, it's in all the neurons carrying the thoughts and emotions, it's in the power rails that serve as the heart. All the memories in the memory conflux and all the numbers we see flicker across displays, the flux condensers, the puppet; a little avatar.

No way these massive machines see life the same way we do. They have their own experiences and senses and things they hold dear. A world we can't imagine, a way of living we couldn't even comprehend.

I could never tear an iterator apart to be just a puppet. Who am I to decide how's life supposed to be enjoyed or perceived?

You treat your creechurs however you want- I ain't gonna dictate that. But damn, hearing the thrums and buzzes of the linear systems rail? They are alive with so much power, these mechanical beasts are exactly what they should be.

[glacier-shrimp]

mentally I'm here

[robotwrangler]

I think one of my favourite visual details about TAU (2018) is its unique approach to the whole “robot/ai whose eyes turn red when they turn evil” trope. The way the colour of TAU’s display gradually changes over the course of the movie is just so lovely and so immensely important to me.

The rest of this post contains spoilers for basically the whole movie, so if you are concerned about that, please feel free to go and watch it first! This post will still be here when you are done :]

Initially, TAU’s light is completely red - aside from a slight orange tone in the centre of his “iris” - when he is still in his emotionally blank, unquestioning, “factory settings” state. The orange tones become more prevalent as he begins to speak with Julia, and the inner rings adopt an increasingly vibrant green as they interact more and his care for her and curiosity about the outside world grow, along with his defiance and resentment of Alex.

Once TAU reaches the point at which his loyalties lie firmly with Julia, only the outer edge of his display is red, the centre being a gradient from orange to bright gold to bright green, and glowing so much more brightly as well. When he shares his symphony and his being with her, all of his projections are made up of pure warm, golden light, flecked with green.

When I first watched it, the colour change was so gradual that I barely noticed it had changed until near the end, where he had all of his memories erased and his display reverted to being completely red like it had been at the very beginning, the intensity of his lights dulled back down as well. It was such a jarring change all of a sudden, and really helped to hammer home the realisation that all of his development as a person, the things he had learned and his time with Julia had been ripped away.

But perhaps one of my favourite touches is made evident by the drones TAU controls; they, too, have “irises” of red light at the beginning and gradually change colour along with the rest of him over the course of the movie, but when the drone Julia escapes with at the end wakes up and its eye glows only green, it’s just such a beautiful and relieving moment…

I could go on and on even more about the way colour and light are used in TAU because I absolutely adore it, but this is just what I was very focused on and appreciative of in my recent rewatch and I really wanted to shout from the rooftops about it for a little bit. I kept thinking about how much I loved seeing this reversal of the aforementioned trope; an AI whose light changes colour not to signify an impending cliché evil rampage, but to reflect positive change - growth and healing, the development of empathy, remorse, self-worth, loyalty, love.

It wasn’t at all what I expected from this movie when I first decided to watch it in 2019 but it was so pleasantly surprising to me, and these heartfelt and sincere themes are the main factor that secured TAU its place as my main comfort movie.

[sankatsuka]

Gintoki Sakata Discussion: Takasugi's Influence on Gintoki - What it Means to Truly Protect Your Soul

This is DEFINITELY overthinking it and stretching it beyond canon, but nevertheless I wanted to share my recent thoughts... Spoilers for the entire story, of course. Also, warning for Takagin/Gintaka.

Edit 22/2/2024 (marked with *): Small section added for more evidence on how Gintoki was never a naturally straightforward person.

Maybe it was Takasugi who ironically inspired Gintoki to be who he is today: the man who never gives up, even if he's beaten down and everything seems hopeless - he will stand back up and protect everyone and everything around him. Just like how Takasugi senselessly was as a dojo challenger.

When Gintoki was younger, he was never like this. He was just fighting for his survival. When Gintoki first meets Shouyou, Shouyou points out how Gintoki was just wielding the sword to protect himself in a harsh, bloody environment.

This is why Gintoki doesn't give up when sparring Shouyou. He needs to be as strong as possible to keep protecting himself. Gintoki brings up how he has never lost to an adult - as if he wants to beat Shouyou simply so he can never lose ever again (so he wouldn't end up dying).

And then, Shouyou mentions how monsters are something born from a bloodstained karma. Gintoki is naturally drawn to bloodshed and death, because losing meant death in the environment he used to grow up in. So he needs to be strong and be capable of killing others so he can survive in such a place. You can just see it in the fear in Gintoki as a child standing on a pile of corpses.

(It's probably why Gintoki carries his sword around with him everywhere as a child, too. So he feels safe at all times.)

This all goes to show how Gintoki would have never had anything he would want to fight for as a child. He would just fight to be with Shouyou who was the only one he could trust or to protect himself. That's why this personality to want to protect everything within his sword's reach was definitely never innate.

Then comes Takasugi, whose Gintoki's first impression of is an irrational kid who would challenge a poor temple school with no actual reason other than wanting to win. You can see how Gintoki is clearly confused by him.

And even after losing many times, he just wouldn't give up on coming back. Gintoki even tells him to give up - he had no reason to keep getting hurt and beat up like that. It wasn't like he had to fight for his survival like Gintoki, he was clearly a privileged kid.

It is only when Takasugi wins and laughs that Gintoki no longer expresses this confusion and disagreement with Takasugi's actions. It's shown in how Gintoki suddenly tells Takasugi to come back, when Gintoki had initially told him to give up.

As if Takasugi's and everyone's smile and laughter after all that ridiculous irrationality made Gintoki realize something that made him change his mind.

Gintoki had a glimpse of Takasugi's way of living - to fight to the very end and keep getting back up for what you want, even if it was silly and stupid. In the end, you'll be rewarded with your own laughter and the people around you laughing along to your sincere, honest spirit.

It was a pointless, dumb way of living, but everyone was still laughing like that and happy. So maybe there was actually some worth in living dumbly and straightforwardly like that.

This may even be why Takasugi's laughter always stuck with Gintoki, even as he cut him down. Because it defined his life - that you should live by facing the present - just as much as Shouyou's words to use a sword to protect your soul stuck to him.

It was Shouyou who first taught Gintoki that what you truly want to do couldn't be the desperate instincts driving you, but rather something deeper down that should feel genuine - the soul. Then it was Takasugi who came along who seemed to demonstrate what living as your soul really was like - to do what you felt like doing in the moment, no matter what the people around you would say.

Even Shouyou encouraging Takasugi's pursuit suggests how this was Gintoki's lifelong answer. And only Takasugi could have demonstrated it best for Gintoki to imitate (instead of imitating Shouyou, as Shouyou had warned him against).

It truly feels like Takasugi is the humanity Shoka Sonjuku cultivated (Katsura did already know what he wanted, after all).

Takasugi's straightforwardness could have inspired Gintoki to tap into his own dull feelings deep down that he carries as he lives his everyday life. If those simple feelings for Takasugi were to grow stronger, then could there be such a thing for Gintoki too? Instead of being drawn to the joy of beating someone stronger than him, Gintoki could realize he seems more inclined to just living for some reason--

Even with no ambitions, he was still fine with just sitting around doing nothing. No matter how mundane, monotous and boring his everyday was without the excitement of a dream, Gintoki was still living for some reason. Maybe his joy in life was right there then--

--It was people. We see throughout the story that Gintoki is solely motivated to fight for the people around him.

Gintoki's actions have always, always been motivated by a desire to protect the people around him. He loves them: simply seeing them laugh when they want, cry when they want and fight to live as their truest selves. So isn't it fine for him to just want to fight for something as simple as that? Just like how Takasugi only fought for the petty reason of growing stronger.

This could be why Gintoki can now confidently say that he just loves the world as it is, even despite all the tragedies that's happened in it that made him suffer.

Not only did Takasugi potentially inspire Gintoki's present way of life, but Takasugi may even be the embodiment of what Gintoki found himself loving most about the world - that imperfect humanity of simply living, chasing what you want, getting lost, failing and suffering, but celebrating those small victories when you finally get there and laughing with everyone. This soul is what Gintoki always wants to protect within Edo, too.

After all, the mundane moments they shared in Shoka Sonjuku and Takasugi's laughter are the only things running in Gintoki's head as he resolves himself to cut Utsuro-Takasugi down. Gintoki truly loved them all.

If this wasn't the case, Gintoki would have never told Takasugi to come back. If Gintoki's motivations was never just the joy of seeing people be themselves, he would have set out and pursued whatever his soul wanted from being inspired by Takasugi's straightforwardness. He wanted to see Takasugi again, because he wanted to see that sincere, straightforward soul once again.

It could be why Gintoki is the one who disagrees with the way Takasugi does things in the present more than anyone.

If it was Takasugi who taught him that happiness of being sincere and straightforward with chasing what you wanted, and given that same spirit was exactly what Gintoki realized he loved most and wanted to protect - Gintoki would fight with all his heart for Takasugi to be that person Gintoki loved again.

It's also a nice touch that Gintoki says "I, the you who is me" when declaring he would never give up to Takasugi, as if implying how Gintoki took that lesson of straightforwardly never giving up from Takasugi himself.

Just as much as Gintoki's acceptance of Takasugi helped him, Takasugi's straightforward passion helped Gintoki just as equally.

*More evidence that Gintoki was never the person he is now is what he chooses to do after the war. Unlike Katsura and Takasugi who went off to pursue their goals, Gintoki's first instinct was to wander around and detach himself from people out of fear of losing people again. Gintoki seems to be more naturally a coward, and only when he lets people in does he find the courage to once again embrace the straightforwardness that Takasugi demonstrated.

After the events of the story that help Takasugi come to terms with himself, Takasugi's straightforwardness is later emphasized as his strong point that resonates with people. It wouldn't be a surprise then if he was the natural source of this straightforwardness in Gintoki, especially when the latter has always been defined as an empty person.

Takasugi and Gintoki are opposites who complete each other, to the point that even outsiders who only briefly meet them together no longer cared about how one of them was a terrorist. One way of seeing it is Takasugi represents the strong, unrelenting humanity that Gintoki realized he loved and wanted to live for, and Gintoki represents the impossibly white soul that the outcast Takasugi found as a place to belong to.

It was important for them to find each other: for Gintoki to realize he wasn't empty and was always capable of emotions, and for Takasugi to realize he wasn't wrong for who he was which the world made him feel.

It's why their life-defining events most often involve the other: Takasugi's laughter was a pivotal point in Gintoki's life where he finally grasped a real reason to fight in his empty everyday, while Gintoki's tears was a pivotal point in Takasugi's life which forced Takasugi to face his biggest enemy: himself.

Ironically enough, their ways of living now could even be said to be a a reflection of their love for each other: Gintoki facing the present because he loved that part of Takasugi and wants to be in the present with him, and Takasugi facing the past to feel closer to Gintoki who is obviously incomplete without the emotions of his past.

Naturally, there is no present without the past, and it feels like Takasugi decided to live in the past to represent it for Gintoki (but probably more because he's too scared to face the present because of his self-hatred and blame, but to be fair Gintoki is afraid of facing the past too even though he should). It's why I liked that the story ended strongly with Takasugi's death, because its impact really conveyed how there was someone who was always chasing Gintoki's entirety - he definitely had a place in someone's heart. He would still be loved no matter what, even if he always felt he was a monster different from others for how he grew up and thus would never properly have a place to belong.

You can see I really, really love Takasugi... From inference and parallels alone, Takasugi has always demonstrated so much importance to the narrative, but it's never laid out beyond how he's the one who lost himself and now has to redeem himself.

Gintama feels like a story about the two of them, not just Gintoki. Especially if Takasugi was the one who originated Gintoki's straightforward way of living, and given how Takasugi seems to literally be the human sword Shouyou prophecized to cut down Utsuro in the end.

It's really because Gintoki avoids thinking about the past and Takasugi hates himself for his emotions that we have to infer how much these two affected each other... But I do enjoy things not being shoved in my face, the avoidance really makes it a lot more emotional.

[humanmorph]

Janine (as Thisbe): I will miss their cereals. Ali (as Brnine): Oh, yeah. [taken aback] Thisbe, you eat cereal? Janine (as Thisbe): No, the boxes. I liked to look at the boxes. Ali (as Brnine): [quietly] Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Janine (as Thisbe): I enjoy the mazes on the back.  Dre: Aw. Janine (as Thisbe): Phrygian made the best cereal box mazes. (PALISADE 29: Honesty and Integrity Pt. 2)

scene i liked :' )

(transcript courtesy of robotchangeling)

[bugeyedfreaks]

I bought the comic! 💖

I have a couple of my usual little minor nitpicks (as I am want to have), but I don’t even want to get into them because there were so few and they didn’t impact my enjoyment of the comic all that much. I thought it was super cute!

I won’t spoil anything in case anyone’s interested in buying it for themselves (which, I would say… yeah, buy it, totally!), but what I appreciated the most– especially since this is the first issue and it’s establishing who the girls are for anyone not super familiar with them– is that the girls end up saving the day together. It shows the importance of them not just being heroes, but also being a team (and also being supportive sisters, which… 🥹🫶) and that makes me feel like, even on a basic level, they get the characters. And that’s reassuring! Yay!

[d4rk-x-w0lf-17]

whoops it's time for my comfort characters now

[braisedhoney]

say hello to the first Official Canon Characters aboard the HIVE o7 (joking, but they are legit ocs which is kinda weird to say 👀)

random lore + some extra tidbits below the cut

OKAY this is all pretty loose bc i don't wanna get top restrictive with it, the vagueness is half the fun. but here's what i got:

in the “HIVE canon”, sector heads/ranking officers (which for now is just leander and COL ig until i eventually cave and make more lmao) are specifically given custom uniforms and number prefixes instead of the CR[insert number here] format.

the “M” in front of leander’s stands for medbay. COL didn’t pick one so it’s just his name lol.

crewmates can wear any accessories they want as long as the base uniform stays the same (bee arm patches, grey, etc). all crewmate numbers gotta start with CR to be canon, but that doesn't apply to shitpost comics or like. general vibes

(there’s a reason the crew uniforms are grey. it’s the same reason leander made the captain’s gloves. )

the ship shuffles itself! it's not random all of the time, sometimes you open a door and end up in the room you were heading to like a shortcut, but other times you can open a random door and end up in the kitchen, or the training hall, etc etc. i just think an eldritch abomination ship is funny.

weirdly enough though it doesn’t do this in crisis situations. guess it’s only fun if the pranks are harmless ;;

if you get lost, call the captain (ello! o7) or COLONY over comms. they can generally get you wherever you need to go bc COLONY is directly connected to the ship and the captain’s able to make [INQUIRIES], which let us pass freely.

it’s kind of hard to tell if leander has a similar ability. the running theory is no, but he never seems confused?? when he enters a room?? so either he has one or he really just rolls with the punches. both are equally possible tbh.

in actual lore these two were probably some of if not the first few people to be recruited. obvs that’s a retcon now but shhh.

random characters from fandoms still get dragged into our shenanigans. at the end of the day this is all just for fun, and that’s one of the best parts, so hell yeah i’m keeping it.

[0m3n-0f-d3ath]

Otto and D3-C1 in Arcane

They’re wanted for bot fights

[londondungeon2]

omfg it’s almost midnight here and i have to get up for work at 5 AM but let me compose at least some of my thoughts …

ok idia x robot girl! reader … hear me out 🥺

someone he creates to cure his loneliness of companionship in a tender way that ortho just cannot do; ugh i’m imagining a plain head just sitting on the desk, stripped down to the metal and skinless; him asking which eye color you like the best until it lands upon yours;

the midnight conversations as he builds a body; the pining from the reader (is it actual pining or are you just scraping the edges of desperate self perseverance so he doesn’t trash you like the other models); kind of dream-like transition between adding each body parts (like imagine yourself lying in a tub of ink — cheeks, nose, lips, a slight peel of your forehead visible — and eventually it all drains down as more and more body parts are added);

the first very touch of human flesh upon you; the cracked polystyrene blinks that you give with twitchy eyelashes; you siphon your romantic tendencies between a messy mélange of gritty 18+ hentai and victorian romance novellas; idia pours his damned and tormented soul into making you perfect for him and you pour yourself willingly into the image, designed just for one man <3

past midnight edit:

BRUH TO THIS SOnG

yeah to this fuckin banger

((past midnight edit again: there are really only two ways you can go with robot main characters: the building process or the robot being oblivious and thinking they are human (Ex Machina or Twilight Zone) i enjoy both sooo much))