#rhea's voice

[insane-in-the-membranee]

゜・（／。＼）・゜Introduction ゜・（／。＼）・゜

Hello there, Love! I'm Riri, the creator of this blog. My aim is to establish a welcoming space, not only for myself but for anyone who stumbles upon it. Let's keep things mysterious – I won't delve into details about myself as I am just another wandering lost soul in this realm of fiction, where we all are protagonists of our unique tales.

I trust your time here will be a delightful escape. If you decide to scroll through my blog, I wish for my posts to help you to unwind, and alleviate your stress. Your presence is truly valued, and I appreciate you investing your time here. Please do take a moment for self-care, hydrate, and always remember, dear reader, that you are loved. Enjoy your stay! 🌻💐

[you-belong-among-wildflowers]

"Experts said it was better than a VHS. Turned out to be a complete waste of time and money"

Better Call Saul Season 1 on VHS

[godly-feh-edits]

Rhea cosplaying as Makoto Niijima from Persona 5!

They share their English VA, Cherami Leigh 👑✨

[nobodysdaydreams]

Thoughts about Pryce and her AI:

Thinking about the fact that the AI in Wolf359 (or at least, Hera and Eris) always saw themselves as human. Like, when they pictured themselves, they didn’t visualize a spaceship or a computer but a person, a person no one else could see. A person who had to hurt people they didn’t want to hurt (Eris), a person who wondered what it would be like when their friends “went away forever” (Hera), a person who was worried about her friends when they got stuck inside a torture trap (Rhea).

And the thing is, Goddard Futuristics didn’t need to do that. They gave the AI human desires for things they can never have, but what was the reason other than to torture them? Just program them to be satisfied with their given state and give them less emotional attachment to the crews. Why give them free will only to forcibly take it away? Why give them a personality only to criticize it? Why make them human only to deny their humanity? It only encourages rebellion and frustration, so why bother if the whole point is for them to be obedient and easily controllable?

But then I started to think about it. And two things occurred to me.

The first is that creating conscious AI with their own personalities might be most easily done by copying already existing human brains and personalities, likely ones that Goddard Futuristics would deem to be useful. Hera, based on voice and personality, seems most obviously based on Pryce, and Eris might have been Pryce’s voice in a past body (Pryce did say she did that on purpose to help control them), but what about Enlil? Is he based on another one of Goddard’s employees? Is he what Cutter sounded like in a past body? Possibly not because Carter sounded the same as Cutter in that flashback, but it’s possible he’s had different voices before. And even if the AI brains aren’t copies of already existing personalities/people, their voices definitely are. If their voices aren’t all either current or past versions of Cutter and Pryce, did people give consent to have their voices used in the AI? And what about Rhea? She didn’t have a voice. Why not? Is she based on someone who couldn’t talk? Or did Pryce and Cutter start giving the AI voices so that they could control them once issues started happening with AI like Rhea?

But then as I was asking these questions, something else occurred to me. We learn from Eris that although the AI could theoretically live forever, Cutter and Pryce don’t let that happen and the AI are killed routinely (Hilbert was ordered to kill Hera, Rhea dies before the podcast even starts, and Eris clarifies that several versions of her have died over the years and that Cutter and Pryce force her to die to end the simulation). The AI are also forced to see themselves as fully human, while still not being human or treated as human. However, despite being born and forced to be super intelligent servants, they still have a desire for social connection and befriend and care about their crews.

And these expendable AI, incidentally, were created by Pryce, who in her “Brave New World” narration tell us that she built “dolls” and AI so that she could have friends that would love her. Pryce, who tells us that she was never supposed to live a full lifespan or ever see at all. Pryce, who narrates that the only thing she felt like she could never fix was herself.

How many of her own experiences did she dump into her creation? If she once felt like the only thing she could never fix was herself, then how often did she think to herself “I can’t do this, I’m not good enough”, and is that why she knew it would work on Hera? If Hera is a copy of her voice/personality, is that why Pryce specifically hated her so much, enough to argue against Cutter that she wasn’t going to give up any opportunity to control Hera and promise that Hera would never be rid of her? Is that why she called Hera spending her whole life trying not to be her [like Pryce], “adorable but futile”? Is that why she insisted on calling her “unit 214” and an “it”? Because she views Hera as broken like her, but a version or thing she should be able to “fix”? One that should not only obey her perfectly, but also understand her? Is that why Pryce is so angry when Hera doesn’t look like her despite them having the same voice? Did she picture Hera with robotic eyes and a weak heart too? The same robotic eyes that the other characters (both good and bad) act disgusted by? Does it frustrate her that her creation doesn’t reflect her image? Is she jealous that Hera didn’t end up as angry and bitter as she is? If her version of love is creating something that obeys you, does it hurt to see Hera choose to love people other than her? The very people who called Pryce, her eyes, and everything about her, disgusting and horrible? And worse still than Hera declaring her loyalty to someone else, does it hurt even more to see friends love her back? To hear Doug declare that he trusted Hera with his life and is willing to give up his memories for her, especially just after Cutter told Pryce that her only job was "to back his plays"?

And what about now that Pryce doesn't have her memories? Now that Hera, the AI version of herself that she created, is telling her the story of who she is instead of Cutter? Is that how she finally fixes herself?

Look, I don't like Pryce...but I wish we got more from her character, because there is a lot to unpack here.

[liliaceaae]

found a better rhea voice claim… ö,ö

[florbelles]

finished hera & started lady macbeth and we have got to start blaming women for shit again for real

[cosmicnovaflare]

Sonia from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom.

I unintentionally drew two characters back to back that share the same English voice actor.

[saturns-rings-robins-wings]

A funeral of flowers (thunder)

[kamisadopteddaughter]

Liv fans arguing that his relationship with Rhea is unhealthy and that she'd treat Dom better, Rhea fans pointing out that Liv is just using him and will drop him like a rock as soon as she's done while trying to desperately defend their relationship, and I just think Dominik should stay away from both ladies and go on a journey of self-discovery.

[randomnameless]

Everytime I see your Pat lolcalization posts, I can't help but think if this is him overcompensating for voicing the character of n*zi germany in the first seasons of the hetalia anime.

I can't say and I'd rather not say anything about Pat's intent or own agenda or whatever -

But the interesting "lolcalisation changes" and direction give to VAs really seem to favour a certain reading of the events happening in FE16 and to this day, I still can't understand how that managed to be released without getting at least some flak.

Sure Fates' lolcalisation is a tough nut to beat and nothing comes quite close to what happened to Fates to FE16/Nopes, and yet I wish I am joking when I say nearly 80% of the lines involving Supreme Leader and/or Rhea/the CoS should be double checked, because "Dany expy bringing a revolution" has to fit in the story that is FE16, and that's talking about the washed down version of Dany some people have and not the one who uses violence for the greater good, until she starts to realise that the "greater good" is as solid as smoke and runs away from the - well-intentioned ! - mess she created.

Again, I don't think anything was malicious with the lolcalisation Fodlan got, is it just a case of misunderstanding the game and slapping archetypes and "trendy notions" to make this "strange" game sell like hotcakes in your home market?

Or is it another case of "think of the children Susan" where Susan sure as hell can't endorse a character presented as the heroine sprout disgusting things and advocate for imperialism 101 so the heroine is now rewritten?

Or is it the lolcalisation team - after looking at the jp script - try to make the general idea of "you must feel bad for this character" somehow work, because they thought no one would seriously want to walk with her and feel any sort of sad uwus for the "you have pointy ears, you cannot rule over humans" red emperor? So they modified the script and directed the VA accordingly ?

IDK, but I think if you've been long enough on this blog you know my stance on localisation and lolcalisation but this discrepency between the two versions (or at least two audios) really took me by surprise when the game was released in 2019 lol

[insane-in-the-membranee]

Hey soo today was my 1st board exam and well it went really well so I decided to order some pizza to yk celebrate my happiness (tho it was English but still). Now I also ordered pepsi along with my pizza and I only got the pizza. There was no pepsi. So I thought of complaining (in the app as I noticed after the delivery guy was gone) but then I realised I'll have to talk and explain and just urgh. So I just decided to give it 1 star. And now I feel pretty stupid.

Yeah.

🫠🫠🫠

[commsroom]

Hello !! Do you have thoughts on Rhea :]

yes, i do!! with the caveat that we have such limited information on lovelace's crew, what we do have is almost entirely filtered through her perspective, and we kinda... know rhea the least. as much as i find eris a fascinating character too, i wish we'd heard more of rhea.

which is kind of the first thing: rhea is the only AI character in wolf 359 who doesn't have a voice. (we don't hear hyperion's voice, which is supposedly not integrated yet, but he's not even really treated like a character in the scene he's in. and that's a whole other thing.) for hera in particular, she feels a physical disconnect from the others, but the fact that wolf 359 is audio only makes her an equal presence from the perspective of the audience. (which carries over to the live show, where the other characters may not be able to see her, but the audience can, etc.) rhea's situation is kind of the opposite, where her words can be seen by the others, but the audience can only hear or infer her words via what the others read out loud or respond to.

rhea clearly cares about her fellow crewmates, and seems to get along with lambert in particular. lovelace's log: "and communications officer lambert is... communications officer lambert. so an enormous stick in the mud. [...] i heard that, rhea. you are expressly forbidden from telling him i said that." - a sentiment it's easy to imagine early minkowski expressing about eiffel and hera, for the opposite reason. in a more direct parallel, rhea reassures lambert that he "does a great job"; in bach to the future, hera tells eiffel he's "actually very good at his job." the difference in context highlights their priorities; eiffel and hera are having a heart to heart about worthiness, while rhea really is talking about lambert's job - work is important to him, and most people around him don't respect or appreciate his work. what we can infer about rhea is that she's... well, the kind of person who would be lambert's friend. straightforward, rule-following, and professional.

(even something like "see, rhea? i told you someone read [my reports to command]" indicates that they talk to each other a fair amount, but also serves as a mirror to eiffel's belief no one listens to his logs.)

maybe the most interesting thing to me about rhea is her defense of eris: "it's just the way they programmed her, back off." ... again, the complete opposite of how hera might respond. eiffel tries to "defend" her in a similar way in ep 7 - "you can't really hold that against her; it's just her programming" - and she finds it incredibly insulting. with all of that taken together, with how lovelace, lambert, and rhea are in many ways intentional opposites to minkowski, eiffel, and hera, it really makes me wonder how rhea identifies or perceives herself.

i think hera is functionally human, both in her singular, consistent image of herself, and in her role in the narrative. eris appears human to lovelace, but is clear that it's how she sees "a version of herself." whether that refers to that iteration of eris having multiple versions of herself, or if it refers to all of the iterations of her who exist: either way it's a reflection of the way eris exists, and her acceptance of that. by extension, the fact that we don't encounter rhea in any way other than beeping sounds and implied words on station monitors... kind of says something narratively, i think. going back to her lack of voice, even that level of distance and abstraction takes her further away from 'human' perceptions by the audience, while she's obviously still a full person with her own priorities, perspectives, and opinions. i think it's very interesting to consider she might prefer her state of (lack of physical) existence in a way hera clearly does not.

[84reedsy]

I've got another and there's some sort of a pattern for this one!

Undertaker, Rhea Ripley & Damian Priest (bisexual undertaker 😭)

my chance at redemption! F*ck: Rhea Ripley (ugh, can she PLEASE pin me like that? She can top allllllll day) Marry: Damian Priest (Bi dudes are literally the best, if you haven't tried one, I highly recommend it. Also his voice how I sexually identify and I don't even know what that means) Kill: Undertaker (My precious OG emo dude, I still love you tho)

[cosmama]

cosmos finally getting animated is great because i can spend my time doing stuff like this

[nanpierce]

Okay SO Logan’s comment about not being able to take his shirt off in front of his “wife, ex wife, whatever the fuck she is” says a lot about his intimacy issues, regardless of which wife he’s talking about, and I also think it’s a reference to his relationship with his body in reference to his scars. He doesn’t want to show anyone the physical remnants of his abuse, because to do so means to recognize that piece of the past as real and go against one of the tenets upon which he bases his worldview. Logan doesn’t have the emotional wherewithal nor vocabulary to speak about, or perhaps even process, his abuse. To be intimate enough with another person that he shows them is him asking them to recognize this part of him - the part that never moved past being a child who lost his mother, who killed (as far as he’s concerned) his sister, and who was a victim of his uncle.

The fact that he says this in Nobody is Ever Missing recontextualizes Return in an interesting way. Previously, as far as we could extrapolate, the main factors in him propositioning Rhea were likely a.) him being a horndog and b.) testing her to see if she would sleep with him for the job, or if she would prize CEO over their personal relationship. However, revisiting this scene after his conversation with Kendall on the yacht invites us to see a secret third way as well: as an offer of legitimate intimacy, in the way and to the degree that he is able to engage in it. No matter how many evenings they spent together, or how much he wanted to woo her, he wouldn’t likely have an another way to convey that to her when considering the lengths he goes to in order to avoid addressing the realities of his past.

I think this (in addition to the other elements of that conversation; nothing in this show is ever just one thing) makes sense, given the trepidatious way he looks at her before asking her to stay over, and in that one of the through lines of their relationship is that they failed to see one another for what they really were, both due to their respective manic pixie dream partner delusions, and the way they present themselves to fit that image the other has. Additionally, Marcia had been growing increasingly disappointed in him even before Rhea entered their lives - while he may not have been deliberately compensating for that, a part of him recognized that he was losing one of the very few people who knew and accepted him on that level.

That brings us to revisiting the aftermath of his proposition. She turned down the offer to carry on an affair/try to fuck him for the job, and along with it what he considered his show of vulnerability. Though she did have some sort of genuine feelings for him, she surely did not view what he was doing as vulnerability without the context of those things that Logan never speaks of. From her perspective, he wasn’t even putting that intention on the table, even in this misguided way. Of course he was embarrassed on the level of the girl he likes not wanting him sexually, but from this view of his motivation, he was also embarrassed at the rejection of his offer to know him in a way he doesn’t like for others to know him, hence his extremely defensive reactions whenever Kendall and Roman so much as mentioned her.

Or, you know, maybe he was just stupid and horny (and truly, who among us can say we would be any better when confronted with Holly Hunter in that perfectly fitted suit?)