#so i don't think its the audio port

[minimoll7]

Love it when I have to restart my computer because steam won’t open and now my high quality headphones start sounding like cheap earbuds and nothing I do fixes the problem

[commodorez]

I still believe the craziest form of computer program storage format from the 1980s is the cassette tape. Logical I get it but to store entire programs on little tape (that I only remember using to play music) is just crazy to me. Idk

Agreed, cassette tape for data storage was really clever. The concept had its heyday was the 1970s in a wide variety of encoding schemes for different computer platforms. It did persist into the 80s, mostly in Europe, while the US switched to floppy disks as soon as they were available for systems. The majority of my Ohio Scientific software is on cassette.

Talking with UK vs. US Commodore 64 users in particular will highlight the disparity in which storage mediums that were commonplace. I've got a few pieces of software on tape for mainly the VIC-20, but I rarely bother to use it, because it's slow and annoying. To be fair, Commodore's implementation of data storage on tape is pretty rock solid relative to the competition. It's considered more reliable than other company's but Chuck Peddle's implementation of the cassette routines are considered quite enigmatic to this day. He didn't document it super well, so CBM kept reusing his old code from the PET all the way through the end of the C128's development 7 years later because they didn't want to break any backward compatibility.

The big thing that really made alot of homebrewers and kit computer owners cozy up to the idea was the introduction of the Kansas City Standard from 1976. The idea of getting away from delicate and slow paper tape, and moving towards an inexpensive, portable, and more durable storage medium was quite enticing. Floppy disk drives and interfaces were expensive at the time, so something more accessible like off the shelf audio tapes made sense.

I've linked two places you can read about it from Byte Magazine's February 1976 issue below (check the attribution links).

You might recognize a familiar name present...

There are a few ways to encode binary data on tape designed to handle analog audio, but the KCS approach is to have 1's be 8 cycles of 2400Hz tone, and 0's be 4 cycles of 1200Hz tone. I say cycles, because while 300 baud is the initial specification, there is also a 1200 baud specification available, so the duration of marks vs spaces (another way of saying 1's and 0's), is variable based on that baud rate. Many S-100 computers implemented it, as do a few contemporary proprietary designs.

The big 3 microcomputers of 1977 that revolutionized the industry (Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and Tandy TRS-80 Model I) each have their own cassette interface implementation. It kept costs down, and it was easy to implement, all things considered. The Apple II and TRS-80 use off-the-shelf cassette deck connections like many other machines, whereas the original variant of the PET had an integrated cassette. Commodore later used external cassette decks with a proprietary connector, whereas many other companies abandoned tape before too long. Hell, even the original IBM PC has a cassette port, not that anybody bothered to use that. Each one used a different encoding format to store their data, rather than KCS.

Here's a sample of what an OSI-formatted tape sounds like.

And here's a Commodore formatted tape, specifically one with VIC-20 programs on it.

I won't subject you to the whole program, or we'd be here all day. The initial single tone that starts the segment is called the "leader", I've truncated it for the sake of your ears, as well as recorded them kinda quietly. I don't have any other tape formats on hand to demonstrate, but I think you get the idea.

You can do alot better than storing programs on tape, but you can also do alot worse -- it beats having to type in a program every time from scratch.

[gynandrophagy]

I'm thinking about real machines you can fuck. I don't mean machines that stimulate your erogenous zones. That's been done, and it's neat, but I'm looking for a machine that has erogenous zones. A machine you can interact with erotically, not only sexually.

I have a number of not-quite-satisfactory examples: amp& speakers, train engines, retro consoles, old text-generating ANNs. Witness my descent:

With an amp & speakers, you can hear the interference change as you stroke the contacts — it's the same sensory feedback loop as a human's gasps & whimpers.

I might be into low frequency sounds. which reminds me: train engines. Modern ones — their deep, rumbling hum. I heard it, yes, resonating in my skull, and my hazy thoughts, my rattling perception, and I felt it in my chest as I moved, enraptured, down the platform, ever closer, to the source, passing through the rise and fall of standing waves.

Old game consoles seem to provide interesting glitches — I'm guessing this is because the whole system was so resource-constrained, there's no room for error-checking, and different types of data & code are stored in the same space, so pointing to the wrong location causes the program to start completely misinterpreting the data there (consider the humble missingno). Again, this produces interesting sensory (auditory & visual) experiences — more interesting but less responsive than those from fingering an aux port.

What I'm getting at with the consoles is that I want tech that fails interesting, that will keep going, stumbling over its own compounding errors, flashing pretty colors and letting out beautiful discordant sounds until it finally ceases to function at all.

Then there's text-generating neural nets — I prefer the older ones, where a bit of unexpected input causes them to go completely off the rails and say things like "TWITTER’S H-E-L-T-S WON’T FUNCTION DUE TO OVERLOAD OF BADTOMATE CALLS" or "For a photo or more information, contact the ZOPERIAN at      ZOPERIAN@gmail.com                                            Â"

These neural nets are easy to break in interesting ways with your own clever manipulations, but they don't offer much in the way of sensory experience.

My ball of thoughts. Now to bring them together:

Touching audio contacts has the distinct benefit of connecting physical touch to changes in the machine and its feedback — even slight pressure changes will alter the speakers' buzzing. But all it does is buzz.

Train engines provide a rich sensory experience by resonating with body cavities, but there's not much most people can safely do to interact with the engine in turn.

Retro consoles and old (pre-GPT3 or so) text-generating neural nets generate interesting output when cleverly perturbed. Neural nets are easier to break, but consoles provide a fuller sensory experience.

So I suppose I'm looking for something that will noticeably glitch, but continue to function, with my fingers in its guts, thereby creating an interesting, responsive sensory experience that allows me to see, feel, and hear the effects of my touch.

[melishade]

Number 77?

This ask game

How about the first confrontation with Shockwave during Part 2: Optimus’ capture in the Dark Timeline.

"We need to take these people to the island," Hanji declared.

"What?! Are you insane?!" Magath demanded.

"If Shockwave sees no value in the island right now, then the island has to be the safest place to go," Hanji surmised, "We can get the people there, take the titan shifters with us and come up with a plan before shit goes sideways."

"It does seem like the better option," Lara agreed, "There's only so much we can do and everyone is living in fear of Shockwave coming with an army of titans."

"Even if we go with that plan, we only have one boat and thousands of people trapped in a cave!" Magath gestured to their cramped surroundings.

"There's a port nearby," Lara explained, "The dock is still intact and none of the ships and blimps have been targeted."

"Cybertronian transportation is faster than the blimps." Hanji thought over, "Shockwave would no doubt catch us if we don't plan this out right."

Eren and the others continued watching the discussion in front of them. They were worried about what was going to happen next, or even if whatever plan they would come up with would be successful. But they had to think of something. Staying in this cave like a bunch of sitting ducks would just lead to their deaths.

Sasha felt a chill rush up her spine as her eyes darted around the cave.

"Hey, Sasha, what's wrong?" Connie asked.

Eren froze when he suddenly heard...beeping. It was faint, but he heard a noise that went in and out of existence. "Do you hear that?"

Mikasa blinked in response before trying to listen to the sound that Eren was talking about. She raised her head to the ceiling and heard that same sound. "I hear it too. It's coming from up there."

Optimus' holoform noticed Mikasa pointing upward to the ceiling of the cave. Optimus' audio receptors ended up picking up on the noise, and realized that it was getting faster....and faster. His eyes snapped open in fear before turning his attention to-!

"LARA!" Optimus called out for her, but before she could respond, the ceiling exploded, and rocks and debris rained down on everyone. The Survey Corps ducked their heads and braced themselves for death, but Optimus had transformed into his bipedal mode and shielded many of them from the rocks falling down on them. Eren then looked over to see Lara screaming creating a cage like structure around everyone to prevent the whole cave from collapsing. Eren looked around and gasped in horror at the sight of dead civilians everywhere. Innocent men, women, and children were crushed to death by the rubble.

"Holy shit!" Sasha screamed in terror. Eren looked up and screamed at the sight of a teal and golden metal beast, with majestic golden wings and talons. It screeched at all of them, and Eren could see its chest beginning to glow. The light crawled up its chest to its mouth, and Eren gasped in terror at what was going to happen next, but Megatron had tackled the beast out of the way and took it up to the skies with him.

"Eren! Annie! Transform and get the humans out through the crater! Now!" Optimus barked orders at the both of them.

Eren and Annie find enough room for themselves before they bite down on their hands and transform into their titan bodies. Eren had climbed out of the cave first with Annie's assistance. Once Eren was out, he reached his hand out to Annie and pulled her out of the cave. Both titan shifters than reached out their hands to humans, and they started scooping them out a handful at a time with Optimus' assistance. Annie ends up scooping up Pieck and Zeke while Eren scoops up Reiner and sets them on the ground. The trio had quickly transformed into their titan formed before assisting with the evacuation of the humans.

Reiner had noticed Lara conjured up a titan form when holding up the structure of the cave and quickly reached his hand out to her to assist her out of the cave. Once Eren had confirmed the survivors were out, he quickly reached his hand out to Optimus. The Prime grasped it and Eren began to pull. When Optimus used his upper body weight to stay outside the cave, he had noticed something behind Eren, and the titan shifter saw Optimus' face contort into that of horror.

"Everyone get down!" Optimus ordered, but it was too late. A purple beam flew through the air and shot Annie's right arm clean off. Eren snapped his head back, and his body trembled at the sight before him.

An army of mutated titans filled with energon were lined up in front of everyone. They twitched, contorted, and howled in rage and fury. They all looked ready to attack but didn't. It's like they were waiting for something. However, Eren grew more fearful when he saw the true horror in all of this: a purple tank with a large cannon situated on top of it. Said tank began to lose its shape and transform into another titan, a titan with only one red optic to encompass his face. A titan with a massive cannon for an arm. A titan with no emotions to speak of.

This...this was Shockwave.

(Okay, 41 has been asked but the rest is free game.)

[archoneddzs15]

Nintendo Game Cube - Sonic Mega Collection

Title: Sonic Mega Collection / ソニック メガコレクション

Developer/Publisher: Sega (Sonic Team) / VR-1 Japan

Release date: 19 December 2002

Catalogue Code: DOL-GSOJ-JPN

Genre: Compilation / Variety

You know of the first four Sonic games already - good platformers. These are presented in mostly their original form, except for a few graphical modifications. These do not affect the overall experience, and die-hard fans should not be put off. Sonic Spinball is a slightly mediocre game - imagine the pinball areas in the Casino Night levels of Sonic 2, with the difficulty upped and the gameplay quality lowered - this one's an acquired taste (I personally hated it as much as that Dinoland game from Wolfteam).

Mean Bean Machine is excellent - this is just Puyo Puyo with a Western twist, and the Sonic license slapped on to make it sell. Flicky may be off-putting due to the dated graphics (I'm not kidding - I played it 2 times on my Mega CD already) but is an addictive game which originally started back in the arcades in 1984. Ristar is the best game on the disc, but you probably didn't know that this was there. Do you know why? Because in Sega's infinite wisdom, the company has chosen to lock it out until you start every other game 50 times. Personally, I think that the people putting the disc together thought they were funny.

One HUGE scar on the surface of this pretty little optical disc - NO SONIC CD: the best 16-bit Sonic game ever (IMO) has been sadly not included in the compilation due to hardware emulation difficulties (the game was on the Mega CD; a port of the 1996 PC version would be included in Sonic Gems Collection). Knuckles' Chaotix (32X) is also missing, and while I miss it, I don't see this as a huge problem.

Visually, the games still look great. Of course, they have technically aged, with the possible exception of Ristar - its use of the Genesis hardware and its extreme colorfulness make it too hard to criticize. (Make sure you're using the RGB cable, or if you live in North America, the next best thing, is S-Video - or Component if you can afford it!) The audio's also hard to fault. Some of the menu songs on Spinball are so grating you'll wanna put your TV on mute (thanks a lot, GEMS sound driver!). But the catchy songs of the other games (Chemical Plant in Sonic 2, anyone? Starlight Zone in the original?) are still good after all those years.

Oh, and the Japanese disc also includes The Ooze and Comix Zone. I liked Comix Zone's music. Despite using GEMS, the music is strangely awesome.

Along with these classic games, Sonic Mega Collection has some extras up its sleeve. Remember the lovely Sonic CD anime intro which we also got to see in Sonic Jam on the Saturn? Well, you probably would, if that game was on this disc. On the Mega CD, the frame rate was poor, the video size was tiny, and the colors were nasty. But it was a stunning intro. The PC version of Sonic CD lets fans see the intro in its proper colors. Squashed into a tiny window and badly resized (read: pixilated!) Sonic Jam came closer, but Sonic Mega Collection finally lets us see the intro (and ending sequence) in broadcast quality, full screen, full speed. The sequence was animated by Toei Animation, who I believe is also to blame for "Digimon", and is stunning. This version has the American music "Sonic, You Can Do Anything" dubbed over the original Japanese rap song, but in all honesty, I prefer the American version as far as the one in this disc is concerned.

It's not perfect though. A graphical smoothing option on the emulator would have been nice like is available on PC emulators. The rest of the movies are cop-outs. Rather than giving us the selection of TV commercials on Sonic Jam, Sega has decided to give us advertisements for current and upcoming games. Oh, and a really bad "History of Sonic" video, nowhere near as good as Sonic Jam's museum section. There are also lots of comic cover scans, some of which are nice, but because these are the American Archie comics, some are painful too.

Overall, Sonic Mega Collection is worth picking up, considering how many titles you're getting on one disc. The fact that Sonic CD isn't included is a huge kick in the stones, but considering Ristar is here (albeit in a nearly impossible-to-unlock form), as well as other classic Sonic games, movies, and illustrations, it's hard not to recommend.

[witchblade]

positives: music is soooooo good even when it's very "of its time" sonically i love almost every track The credits theme is dog shit however. Well that's a negative. Whatever.

i looove the designs of the lurkers most charming video game guys ever. I don't like that they wear diapers very much. Negative again.

I don't care about the #online #complainers the zoomer handling was fantastic like it wasn't Smooth but it was very weighty and you never feel out of control and i think a lot of the complaints are because it's a little Before its time. very physics-y instead of arcade style handling. Big fan smiles.

Um. I'm giving up on the positive negative format. I think the world design was very hit or miss I don't think the visual designers and the level designers talked to each other very much. I think at its best everything was very clear and readable (most of the first two worlds, and snowy mountain despite not liking it aesthetically) and the worst is like. Gross and busy to the point that it becomes obstructive and difficult to navigate.

i had really really really really bad depth perception experiences i felt like i was in hell during the second half of the game. Not being able to tell where a platform is in relation to you is a bit of a problem in a platformer game ❤️. and the forced side scrolling segments that still had full movement on the z axis were crazy to me. Sorry I know they probably didn't have the technology yet but I wanted to scream.

combined with the Physical Object camera meaning you can't actually arrange it to point in front of you in certain situations because it can't scoot past the wall and the level design situation becoming More dire because the last chunk of the game is just navigating enclosed cave spaces it was very painful.

ps4 port/emulation exclusive complaint: the frame drops and the missed inputs were crazy. they should never have released it like this.

anyway the gameplay mechanics beside all of that were exceptionaaaaaal i can't think of any platformer game at least of that era that had the same type of range of movement. being able to combine different actions into a specific Move ie roll + jump into the far jump, crouch + jump into high jump, double jump + spin to extend your range and "hover" in the air a bit Well I guess Mario 64 had a similar range. I'm not retyping any of this so pretend it doesn't. Anyway all of that works together to make the movement feel more fluid and the player feel like they have more control navigating despite most of the level navigation being very straightforward. no game has ever done this before ☝️

i said this one before. the sound design was really bad. like really disappointing and if you play the game on default audio settings instead of turning the sfx down to like 30 you'll have a noticeably worse time.

the writing was 50% charming in a dated way and 50% the writers not knowing any comical character archetypes other than Stupid Bumpkin (full third of the cast) or Horny Belligerent Rat (daxter)

i don't want to talk about keira.

3/10

[unma]

hello im here to learn about the gideon naming reason

also yeah, machines are the coolest and I love them dearly 🤝

Okay so this is a rather simple one but one that gets a little laugh outta me when I think about it. Alright. Remember this guy?

Him. Yeah. Gilbert. The absolute monster that he is. We all hate him. Some of us hate hate him. I hate hate hate him, especially because Pholia and Echidna did not deserve the shit he put them through.

yeah.

I've mentioned it occasionally, but I am absolutely awful at remembering faces and names. I remember people more often by what they wear, their hair color and how they act and so on, and the same applies to characters. But this means that I will go "Oh, them," give an entire rant about why I want a character dead, and then proceed to not remember their name properly.

And because of that, I once called him Gideon. Specifically when @ashmonarch and I were discussing his Proud quest.

Ever since I made this mistake I have swapped between Gideon and Gilbert for him in my head, entirely by accident and also because I can't be bothered to actually remember his name properly. My hatred for him means I will never actually remember his name proper, and even if I do, I will swap out of spite just cause.

Anyway, my current laptop has been a pain in the ass ever since I got it (like, I literally spent an hour troubleshooting its audio the moment I got it) and is just... worse than my previous one in every way. No touch gestures, two charging ports and both are acting up, it also came with Win 11 which I despise (I never updated my older laptop) and seemingly runs worse than my previous laptop that had half the RAM. No, seriously. 16 gigs of RAM and I can't even play HI3 at a manageable framerate (and I played terraria for years at, like, 10fps, so I have low standards for that) if it even runs at all. Did I mention this thing has no touch gestures? That's so dumb. How am I supposed to use a laptop like that. Also, the function and control keys are swapped. Also, some of the keys have stopped working for no discernible reason, and I might have considered taking this thing to a repair shop or something, if I didn't just want it replaced in general. Oh yeah, no touch gestures. Did I mention that? Not only does that mean I can't use the touchpad as well as I did on my old laptop, the fucking right click button came off at some point and now I have to deal with awkwardly pressing the little circle button inside i. Which, again, wouldn't be a problem with the right click. Also the case is screwed in weirdly for some reason so I couldn't take off the back without fear of damaging it for a good while. Also this thing has bricked on me twice in the last couple of months. For literally no reason. Like it bricked a couple days ago because I tried to restart it. Literally fine 5 minutes ago and then that happens. Okay. Also the function keys are weird (I don't care about this one, it's fine actually, and useful in some places).

I think that large block of text of complaints says enough. I've been procrastinating getting it replaced, but only because I'm a tad busy atm. But in the meantime, having to deal with this hunk of junk means I've grown quite a dislike for it, especially because being a computer science major means I need a reliable computer. Also having it brick on me randomly when I want to write is not ideal.

I hadn't named laptops before, but then I saw someone I follow do the same and thought, huh, that's neat. So I bestowed upon this laptop the name that comes up when I think of things I hate. Gideon. I mean Gilbert. Well, maybe if Gilbert wasn't such an asshole he'd get his name actually properly used, but I hate him so it's Gideon.

And that's the story behind how I named this laptop Gideon.

Extra Gideon hate from when I was liveposting to discord about that arc (and a bit more from after) under the cut:

In general, my opinion on Gilbert comes down to this:

[hatboyproject]

First, you are a legend. Second, I have finally broken down and started playing thru the ME trilogy thanks to (a) my ability to take a sabbatical, and (b) a friend buying me the legendary edition, and (c) threats of violence from my loved ones should I not play it. I've finished ME2 and I am 100% not booting up ME3 if there's snowball's chance in hell that the LE version of your mod is dropping any time soon.

*sings* you're not our bitch and you're not a machine * I'm a fic writer, I expect nothing. And I know this stuff takes forever and I 1000% expect the answer to be 'no' but the only thing I am inquiring is whether there is an updated ETA for your mod. OR if you have need for a legendary edition beta tester. OR if I can send you cash money to help offset the time being spent on a labor of love. OR if I should say -f- it and get my hands on the original edition of ME3 so the hatboy mod you've already (gloriously) provided us, works.

Also thank you for giving me hope that I will get to play a Shoker option, which makes the most sense thematically and narratively and I am aghast at what bioware chose to do with Joker (and EDI, wtf). You're doing god's work.

Just this week, I got some of the updated synths I've been waiting for, but I'm still waiting on BroShep.

I am still working on HBLE, don't you worry! In between writing fic myself, doing a painting, and a playthrough of ME3 to refamiliarise myself with its pacing, I have been going in and putting some necessary setup stuff in place, which is all very boring and un-exciting and not really showcase-able. Big chunks of the structure have been built, but most of the audio work has to be done, still.

In the OT, a lot of work had been done before I had the ability to read a line to the synth myself and have it transpose the voice directly, which noticeably improves delivery. So much so that it is difficult to use a lot of the previous edition's takes. This has the knock-on effect of the line needing to be re-animated because, of course, the timings of everything are now different with the new audio. There are very few lines whose takes will not be re-done.

Fortunately, however, I have my lipsync automation tools, and I'm much better at animating now than when I started. So it takes a lot less time this go-around... but still time!

Sadly and wonderfully, this is a massive mod and is much more than just a straight port. If it was a straight port, it'd have been done already. I would apologise for that, but I like to think the end result will be worth it, haha!

I am adding new content this time, including an entire conversation about his sister that you can unlock by completing some vanilla dialogues.

I am so glad that you've been enjoying your time with Mass Effect and that my mod is on your list of things to do. In what I am sure is the most shocking statement of the century, I agree that Joker is the most thematically satisfying romance for Shepard. I can't wait to get it to you! I promise, I am doing my best and there's nobody who wants it in your hands more than me.

Regarding testing, it's not quite in a state where it can be tested just yet. A few conversations work (first convo, EDI body convo, EDI discussion, some ambients) but nothing else yet.

Regarding supporting me, I do have a Ko-Fi. You can find a link to it in the pinned post, and donations absolutely do help my creative efforts, and I go a little feral when I see someone has donated. But as always, I want to make it clear; The Hatboy Project is free and will never be gated in any way. Everyone gets the same release at the same time. All you have to do is own a legit copy of the game... Which you already do!

Excitement like yours helps keep me going. Thank you so much.

Edit: lmao my link is not in my pinned post lol rofl it's hatboyproject.ko-fi.com tho

[sadwinning]

Devlog 1 (1/25/24): Why This Is Pointless

In my intro post, I mentioned how it would be much easier to map the 12 chromatic notes of Western music to the 3 action buttons and 8 directions of Undertale, and how I won't be doing that for purely aesthetic reasons. I also want to mention why everything I'm doing to my violin is completely stupid.

If you want to follow in my footsteps, you shouldn't do it the way I'm doing it. You probably can't.

My violin is a Yamaha EV-205 five-string electric from the late aughts/early 10's. I recently learned that this violin is no longer in production, so there's no way your standard Joe Schmoe can pick up this tutorial, nor would they want to if they were in the market for an electric violin, because they already sell electric violins that are MIDI controller enabled. You should buy that and follow the software specs of CZR drums and their MIDI-to-controller software partner/whatever. I simply do not want to spend more money on an electric violin when I already have one with the right hardware (individual pickups for each of the five strings). So I will be voiding the warranty that likely no longer exists and busting open my violin to see what I can patch together.

When I busted this component (pictured above) open I immediately found a not-so-complex PCB where I could locate each of the individual string inputs. I have yet to see whether those ports will give me the inputs I need - golly, I have yet to learn how to solder enough to access those ports!! - but the visibility gives me hope. it doesn't look hard, especially for someone who has been low-key interested in soldering for like 15 years (since my Pokemon Gold copy's battery died and I learned the ways to replace it) but I can't say I know exactly what data flows through that part of the circuit and how easy it would be to extract and manipulate.

I've done a lot of research into what I would need to take analog audio signal(s) and transform them into MIDI or some other binary/digital data. The first thing I found was an Arduino library, so I knew this wouldn't be hard. I only have one Arduino (knock-off) and I didn't like the idea of buying four more (one for each string) to get the MIDI values when I would probably be connected to a computer the whole time no matter what.

This led me to where I'm sitting pretty right now, at a Python library (Python being my favorite language) that uses its GitHub .md file to explain why Markov chains are important. Reader, do you know how much I love Markov chains? Did you know that in my sophomore year of college I created a musical AI by programming Markov chains in Python??? How is it that all of my interests loop in upon each other in the same way that my first and only job out of college involved natural language processing in Python just like my senior project where I did language analysis on okcupid profiles???? Is time in fact a flat circle? I don't have time to think about this because I want to program violin to play undertale pleas

Where I'll be starting is with this library and with monophonic input (one note at a time rather than interpreting multiple notes at once e.g. multiple strings played simultaneously) to make a controller of any kind work. But I have a lot of reading to do to see how Markov chains are involved. With it being both Python and linear algebra, I have the capacity to adjust the code to do whatever I want it to do. Given this insane opportunity I can't not do all the research possible to finetune things to my precise desires. If I were satisfied with "good enough", I would be playing monophonic input the whole way through. Let's go insane, boys.

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ realized I forgot to put this in my bio and will add it later but

heads up that my Yuri is a combination of JP Yuri and dub Yuri, but primarily JP. there's a whole lot of nuance to Yuri that got left out of the dub (and seeing as he has waaay more content in JP due to the vast amount of crossovers/Tales crossovers/gachas he's in, it's a lot easier to keep Toriumi's take on him (and in depth understanding no less!) in mind). overall you get the same general person, but the dub left out a lot more his casual/playful side in vocal tone, preferring to go for the "edgy cool adult" concept despite, well, the JP version of him intentionally being quite opposite.

(on another note, context I use for Yuri involves nuances found in the drama CDs that are a condensed retelling of the game (before some original stuff) as well as his childhood novel which has voiced dialogue for his child and teen years. this post covers the game, but a lot of (especially internal) stuff for my muse may be heavily affected by his backstory too which is unfortunately completely absent in the actual game itself)

there's also a lot of back and forth between him and other characters that really lost their depth in the dub (ex. Yuri being much more gentle and soft with early game Karol when Karol was convinced nobody would believe him and that he was a failure, or his banter with Flynn being a lot more relaxed and significantly less annoyed with a better understanding of each other). I'll be retaining anything the dub yeeted out for whatever odd reason regarding his relationships.

(one particular grievance of mine is in the Flynn jailbreak scene, where Yuri is basically saying "you're just dying to abandon me" and Flynn starts off with "that's right" before basically saying the same thing - i.e. they both know it's not true and Flynn is going along with it because That's Them, to which Yuri responds with a solid and fully accepting "yeah" (no hesitation, no concern over it, as he prioritizes Flynn's life over his own).

another extremely strong grievance I have is the port scene - oops also with Flynn - where he's basically holding back tears asking for answers in desperation, which was extremely if not outright completely lost in the dub where he only sounds angry and not just utterly hurt. dub Yuri? I could believe he might kill Flynn if it came to that. JP Yuri? forget it, he would hold back at the last second and couldn't go through with it. that's genuinely the level of difference that was present between both audios.

that said, I love Troy Baker's performance itself - I just think he was unfortunately deeply incorrectly directed for several of his major scenes, and also unfortunately, some of those cases were involving some of his most important relationships)

if any of y'all play Vespy any time soon, I fully recommend giving it a shot with its original context at least once (if you're playing the DE version there's an option for JP audio)! even if you don't understand JP, at the very least the tone won't be lost on you! from what I've heard apparently there wasn't much communication between the directors on both sides, so a lot of Yuri got lost in the localization (and Karol's screaming is glorious in JP lbh).

tl;dr Yuri really is just a silly little guy and he's really not that cool or serious. he's a dork. he's a dummy. and he's easily embarrassed about it. get deep enough into his feelings for Flynn when they're not in a life or death situation and he'll completely cave in embarrassment.

[iviarellereads]

Exit Strategy, Chapter 3

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which friendship is magic, and by magic, I mean pain.

Murderbot locates the hotel, and activates both its security camera wipe scripts, and some code to make it behave more human-like, including subvocalizing lines from its favourite shows so it has more natural/expected throat and head movement. It thinks this script is about 98% perfect.(1)

It makes its way to the hotel lobby, identifying potential hostiles. It books a room with one of Gerth's hard currency cards, which it very much enjoys,(2) and takes note of security and patterns of coverage on the way. Its room doesn't have any monitoring, audio or video, which makes it feel weird, but it still scans for anomalies, then sends an episode of Sanctuary Moon to play on the display wall while it works.

Carefully, MB hacks into the hotel's security system, and monitors the hall cameras, going through their archived footage. They're not supposed to keep it, but they datamine just like MB's ex-company, of course.(3) It finds what it needs, an image of Ratthi in a corridor, and is able to follow him to the room, and find Gurathin and Pin-Lee as well. They're all being followed, every time they leave their room, and Ratthi in particular walks like he's in a prison.

About five hours later, as it worked on further bits and pieces we don't know details about yet, all three leave their room for the pod junction. MB watches, knowing it would be safer to approach them outside the hotel, and redirects the hostiles who keep tracking them. The team goes outside the hotel, and MB reluctantly follows, taking its bag because it doesn't expect to return to that room.

MB uses its access to the drones and cameras to follow them from multiple angles, and realizes they definitely know they're typically being tailed. Gurathin redirects them to what MB evaluates as a good spot to avoid visual surveillance, and MB takes the opportunity to use its camera scripts to obscure the humans as well. They go through at least six different security jurisdictions, which would be a good ploy for losing a human tail dependent on rules.

Finally, MB stops in front of the establishment they end up in, knowing it should have pinged their feeds by now, but…

Okay, I was scared. Or nervous. Nervous-scared. Were they my sort-of human friends? My clients? My ex-owners, though legally that was only Dr. Mensah. Were they going to see me and yell for help, alert security? And if it was this hard with Ratthi and Pin-Lee (Gurathin had never liked me and it was mutual), what was it going to be like with Mensah, if I managed to get that far?(4) I didn’t know if I could trust them. I wanted to. But I want a lot of things—freedom, unlimited downloads, new episodes of Drama Sun Islands(5)—most of which I wasn’t going to get.

MB walks through the area, past Ratthi and Gurathin, and goes to find Pin-Lee near a kiosk for a local security company, her body language reading like she doesn't want to do whatever it is she's come to do. MB realizes that it trusts her judgement, and decides it's time to approach.

It just walks up to her, and says hi.

It takes Pin-Lee a moment and a double take, but she still can't quite place it until it says they met on Port FreeCommerce, it was in the transport box. She forces herself to smile, though she's obviously VERY angry, and asks how-- but MB cuts her off and asks if she wants to get in a transit bubble, leaving unspoken that it can secure one very easily. She agrees, still smiling angrily.

They book a tourist bubble, which costs three times a transient hotel stay's value, and Pin-Lee gives MB a bit of a what-for about how worried, not just Mensah, but everyone was. MB says it doesn't want to talk about it, trying to stuff down an emotion. So, Pin-Lee asks what it's doing here, is it working for someone, or on a contract? MB says either it's Mensah's property, so it works for her, or it's a free agent, and it works for itself. Pin-Lee asks what it hired itself to do here, then, which MB thinks is an elegant way to put it.

MB says it's been traveling, and it saw a newsburst about Mensah being taken here. It asks if she was tricked, or abducted. Pin-Lee assumes it's really just been goofing off with its serials, and MB doesn't argue the point.(6) Instead, it points out that Pin-Lee is on her own, or on her own with Ratthi and Gurathin, which might be worse. Pin-Lee calls it an asshole, but again MB doesn't argue, just says it needs intel to make a plan.

Pin-Lee says GrayCris took Mensah off Port FreeCommerce. She stepped away, and didn't come back. Security showed her being grabbed, but by the time anyone realized, she was already off-station. Pin-Lee managed to convince the company that their bond meant they owed Preservation, but GrayCris is holding Mensah hostage, and they're demanding more than Preservation can free up.

MB doesn't even stop to feel smug at being right about GrayCris needing money. It asks if the company offered any further contract support, but Pin-Lee says the docking denial meant they couldn't. They do have a key for the failsafe interface Mensah bought in case of an emergency, but the signal is too weak in the public areas they can access, and Gurathin thinks the station has a security barrier in place to do it. MB asks if she has the key, and she hands it over. After almost two minutes of trying, MB has to acknowledge Gurathin's probably right.

Pin-Lee slumps, and says they don't have much more time. She was about to hire local security to help, hoping they hadn't been bought off by GrayCris. And speaking of payoffs, she asks if the company is "playing a double game". MB says it's about 95% that they are, proud of Pin-Lee for thinking of that possibility, and not denying reality.

The company is like an evil vending machine, you put money in and it does what you want, unless somebody else puts more money in and tells it to stop. GrayCris’ best option at this point was to pour as much money in as possible. Pin-Lee groaned and rubbed her face. “I’m almost glad you’re here.”

=====

(1) Yes, but we know what Art thought of an earlier version Murderbot was also very proud of, don't we? (2) The freedom of being able to book a room? The freedom of the untraceable hard currency card? Stealing from assholes? All of the above, is my guess. (3) I love these little reminders that MB lives in a capitalist space hell. It makes the hope and friendship all the sweeter, I think. (4) Murderbot having feelings gives me feelings. It's so anxious, it's so scared, but it cares about these people (even Gurathin, more than it admits at least) and it wants so badly for them not to reject it even though all it's ever known, before them, was rejection. I just. My heart. (5) So, some of the shows MB names are based on real shows in our world. The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon is loosely inspired by How To Get Away With Murder, but in space. Art's favourite, Worldhoppers, is based on Stargate Atlantis. I can't find any confirmation, but Drama Sun Islands has to be some variant on Survivor, right? (6) Really, what could it say that would matter to the discussion at hand? Priority 1 is rescue Mensah, priority 2 is get Mensah off this station, somewhere below that is "deal with all the information it gathered while traveling".

[lady-layton]

hi! so I was combing thru ur PL tag, and I noticed u have a large collection of dvds/cds. i hope this doesnt come across as rude or imposing, but do you think it would be possible for you to "burn" and upload the videos/audio to youtube? highest priority has to be the interviews, esp with the seiyu, i don't think i've ever seen that ANYWHERE. even if most people can't understand the japanese, having an archive of this content allows us to archive the games, their development, and the fandom. second priority would probably be any commercials featuring cutscenes from the 3ds games, as they were never released in HD to this day. besides that, i have been able to find most of the CD releases online, but i was curious about the premium cd layton theme cover song. if you are worried about copyright law or just don't want to, that is understandable 👍 but as it stands, there is more and more layton content completely lost to time (like the flip phone exclusive official art and games) and without its preservation, the less and less there will be to celebrate as the anniversaries continue... i hope that's not too dramatic. as far as i can tell when it comes to copyright strikes, i uploaded layton game content to YouTube and never got any (i got one immediately over the utena anime) so i believe it is safe, but there are alternatives like gdrive etc. "burning" (copying) dvds is also very simple if you have a computer.

I REALLY really hope I don't come off as demanding. Ultimately it is 100% your decision. But the layton fandom of today (in its tiny size) would thank you. It also would be a nice way to look back in time, as I personally played all the games only in 2020. I'd love to know more about the process behind the development of the games in general, but as the fandom even at its peak was never huge (and bc its been 15 years...) very little of that has been recorded in western fandom, vs big IPs like Zelda or even Fire Emblem. It'd also be really cool to hear the thoughts of someone who was there when things WERE happening!

Regardless, I will respect whatever decision you make. Game (and game-adjacent) preservation matters a lot to me, but I do know how to take a "No". I hope you can understand my perspective however. 😔 While I don't think the fandom will ever fully revive (unless maybe we got a switch port of each trilogy like Ace Attorney), I hope the new generations of Layton lovers can appreciate each other as well as the old fandom they built upon. Thank you for hearing me out!

Hello!

First of all thank you so much for this ask (o´∀`o) To be honest my plan with buying these commercial DVDs in the beginning was to preserve a part of Professor Layton history. There is so much about Professor Layton that have disappeared over the years, since some fansites and blogs have shut down long ago. So I really want to save as much as I can of what is left.

I've been looking into transferring the trailers, interviews and such to some online archive in some way. Sadly I have not had the time to properly sit down and research how to do it more exactly, but I do have a close friend of mine who is willing to help. If I get them uploaded somewhere I will absolutely share the links through this blog! It would be even more fun if a subgroup would be willing to help out with texting some of the clips as well. I have managed to collect quite a lot of these DVD's since I last updated my collection, but I should have the following:

3 different DVDs for Curious Village

4 different DVDs for Pandora's Box

2 different DVDs for Lost Future

1 promotional DVD for Eternal Diva

3 different DVDs for Spectre's Call

3 different DVDs for Professor Layton VS Ace Attorney

1 DVD for Layton Brothers Mystery Room

1 DVD for Professor Layton and the Phantom Thief

1 for Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy

1 for Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy

1 for Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy DX

I also have this one DVD from Code NEO from 2007 that I remember purchasing because it said to have some Layton content. But it got to me just now that I have never checked it out. Perhaps I should do so, so I know what is on that disc haha.

About the premium CD I have been pondering over uploading it as well. I'm not so sure how comfortable I am with sharing MP3s online, but since it's from quite an old era by now and not released outside of the premium disc I could perhaps make an exception.

[ottspot]

Remasters Shouldn’t Be Lazy, Broken Ports! Why Have So Many Been Like This?

When a new video game console releases, one of the inevitable questions that will be asked is "how the hell are the older games gonna play on this thing?". It seems that backwards compatibility is becoming less and less of a thing these days, but at least PlayStation and Xbox still embrace it (the latter WAY better than the former). But if there's some cases like the Nintendo Switch where backwards compatibility just isn't possible, what do you do?

Port your game over and sell it at an inflated price, of course!

...No, that doesn't happen ALL the time. In reality, when companies are put in a position like this, they take the effort in to port the game to newer hardware. They can take this opportunity to make it prettier, implement quality-of-life fixes, bump the frame-rate up, or even include some extra story content!

What happens when just the bare minimum is done, though? Well, you end up with some sorry excuses that don't deserve the "remaster" title. These are their stories.

I think it's best that we just jump straight into this, with the first game I would like to talk about: Persona 3 Portable.

A modern, playable version of Persona 3 has been speculated about and rumored for years. Some thought it would be a port of Persona 3 FES, the enhanced version on PlayStation 2. Others thought (and still think) it will be completely remade in Persona 5's engine. But what happened in reality is that the PlayStation Portable version, released in 2009/10, was the version ported to modern consoles and PC.

This is a very competent version of Persona 3, mind you... for the PSP. What baffles me is that this is the version Atlus chose, when they have shown that they're already capable of remastering PlayStation 2 games like Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. It may have a female main character and controllable party members in battle, but the game itself has been simplified to all hell to fit on the PSP. There's no FMV cutscenes or fully-explorable world, and all the cutscenes just play like a normal visual novel.

But something like this should be easy to port over, right? Well, they screwed a PSP game up, somehow. The audio is compressed incredibly hard, and backgrounds and character portraits look TERRIBLE. The latter in particular is especially unacceptable. It's like they put everything in an AI upscaler and called it a day.

This is a screenshot taken of one of the "explorable areas" in the game. You can see the poor job Atlus did at making the assets HD.

It's "playable" in a sense, but this should have been handled much better. A mod team is already working on remaking the assets in a true HD format, so I would definitely pick the game up once they are finished.

Next is a game I'm not as familiar with: Tales of Symphonia.

This game released for the GameCube in 2003 in Japan, and over the years has gotten ported over to the PlayStation 2 and 3, PC, and most recently- the Nintendo Switch, Xbox series, and PS4. There have been a few issues that popped up in the subsequent ports to newer systems, more notably the PS3 version. It seems that a lot of the bugs in this version carried over to the latest remaster.

It's currently rife with UI bugs, long loading times, jaggy character portraits, and skipping music. The remaster is even stuck at 30fps throughout the game, when the GameCube version had 60fps battles in comparison. Thankfully the remaster team has apologized for how poor the remaster has been, and promises to release patches in the future.

Something that our next game has done time and time again- and still ends up with a poor experience.

Life is Strange is a 2015 episodic story-driven game made by Dontnod that released for PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, along with mobile releases. It focuses on Max Caulfield as she tries to solve mysteries about a missing girl with her childhood best friend- and her new ability to rewind time. Its 2017 prequel, "Before the Storm", launched on all the platforms listed already, minus the PS3 and Xbox 360.

So when Deck Nine, who handled the prequel, decided to remaster the two games for those same exact platforms (minus Mac and adding the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series systems with the Switch coming later), this... confused me. It's not uncommon to see this kind of thing happen, of course. The Last Of Us Part I is available on a system that can already play the original PS4 remaster. But that's a remake with some enhanced controls, new options, retooled enemy AI, and an uncapped frame rate setting. These are quite literally the exact same games but just made buggier, on systems that can play the games in their original form just fine.

The remastered collection is full of animation bugs, freezing, missing subtitles, buggy audio, blurry visuals at certain points, file names being in place of subtitles, flickering textures, scenes that are way darker than the original game, and LOTS OF LOADING. ESPECIALLY on the Nintendo Switch.

Patches have been released many times ever since the launch of the PC, PlayStation and Xbox releases on February 1st, 2022- with the latest patch releasing today as of this writing: March 6th, 2023! It has been over a year since this collection released and it is still getting patches to try and fix this broken mess.

My question is- where in the world has the effort gone? What happened to developers taking their time with developing these remasters of beloved games, and not having their player base be their QA team? Atlus especially has had more than enough time to make their remaster good, and they just slapped everything in an upscaler and called it a day.

This isn't to just slander these poor jobs, this is a call to action- a call for developers and publishers to stop rushing things like this out the door for a quick buck. Don't promise to fix it later, have it already fixed by the time it releases! It disappoints the customer and does not give them hope for any future remasters being released.

I hope that part of the gaming industry will soon realize that, and put time into making sure that their products are in tip-top shape. A happy customer means more business yada yada yada capitalism bullcrap and whatever. We're all slaves to it. Go read a book or whatever.

Thanks for reading, everyone! I have hope that remasters will be good once more, but for now it seems not at all likely. Well, except for Metroid Prime. Good on Nintendo for that one.

Next up: Sonic Origins Plus Is Real!! Were My Predictions Correct?

[risu5waffles]

Blink and Ten

Well, it's been a hot minute, innit? Wait... i don't think that's how innit gets used. Well... whatever.

Fuuuuck the boss fight in this one. i don't know if it's some issue wiv changes between LBP2 and 3, or just poor design from the chump, but if your boss fight is lasting 14 goshdarned minutes, something has gone well sideways. The level preceding is actually pretty fun. The first act has a nice gimmick and pretty smooth flow; the second has a couple of issues wiv the speed and distance from some of the obstacles, but is overall an enjoyable bit that gets good use from the grappling hook; then the third act boss just tosses the biggest spanner in the level's momentum. The framing device of the spiteful wizard/game master is cute, tho', and the overall look hits a nice sweetspot for me.

Someone on the sbureddit had wanted the music from this one recorded, which is why i spent so much time screwing around in that first room. It looks like it's meant to be the hub/tutorial section for a multi-level sidescrolling beat 'em up, which might be fun. Shame it broke the way it did. Don't know if this was originally done in LBP2 and ported into LBP3 or what, but it looks like they were using a custom bot, and once that despawned/refused to respawn, well there goes the only way to interact wiv the level (they may have gone the bot route for sizing/proportion issues wiv the environment, which is something i've run into myself when trying to make things look properly scaled). The music was good, at least.

Now, i doubt when they made this level, the creator was thinking that 11years in the future someone would put it on YouTube and have to put that whole title on a title card and overlays, but even still... that whole title can piss up a rope. Gods but it is so awkward. And long. The level is. Well. i mean. It is a level. You can definitely say that much.

This one's fine, really. It's got a nice enough look to it, and a well-chosen Velvet Audio track to back it. Didn't really like that you have to die to pick up one of the few point bubbles, but that's a thing sometimes. i don't know, personally, if it has enough oomph to really deserve its Team Pick, but i don't know what standards they use for that at the end of the day. Plus, like, even if the Team Picks are twice monthly, that's an awful lot of them since LBP1 started. Wait. Are they twice monthly? Have they been going on since day one? Heck. i can't even remember anymore. All i'm saying is all of them are a winner, but not every one is necessarily a winner, you know? There's a LittleBigPlanetarium sticker in here. i used to have an account there. It's always a little bittersweet to see the old fansite stickers in levels.

We talked about this one last Friday. Pretty sure i've got nothing more to say about it right now.

i liked this one well-enough. It has a decent, if not particularly zippy pace to it, and the velociraptor stuff was simple, but fun. The presentation was a touch too clean for my taste, but the use of bold red highlights help keep it from looking all drab grey and brown that factory theme levels in LBP tend to drift toward; also there's some nice use of smaller stickers and decorations to give things a good texture. All that said, it has this oddly empty feeling to it that i tend to associate wiv LBP3 levels. Not, like, emotionally empty, just... i don't know... like there's too much screen and not enough in it? Does that make sense? Side note, but i'm kind of ashamed that i've known of shimokita893 as a creator forever, and only just got the pun in their name. This despite it being one that honeybunny used to say all the time.

Oof but that bounce pad bit. i think they might be too close together, and being in two different layers was making something go wonky, but that section was such a pain in the butt. Also, this level gives us a great example of why we either need checkpoints directly after mechanical heavy bits, or we have to set them up to reset after they've been passed. If you watch all the way to the end of the video (or skip there. It's ok. i don't care about my analytics), you can see a nice bit of me bricking the whole level because i died too early, and instead of having an obstacle to progress the stage again, i just had a big hole to the floor of create mode. Ope.

This is another one that really needed more playtesting and editing passes. There are a lot of breaks in the level, and communication wiv the player is... well, frequently unclear, you could say. It is very pretty, and it was kind of nice to have an excuse to play as Toggle again. Shame the whole thing is so dark, you often don't get to take in the detail work.

Nice. Ok, more seriously, we just get this one scene here, and it's presented nicely enough. A bit strange they actually let us play it, instead of locking it into a camera like you usually get wiv eyecandy-style levels. Maybe it's meant for RP? i can't say. i can say the creator left a very nice comment on my level, and i looked at their moon, and they had levels to play, and so we had an episode. That was cool. i'm trying to expand the range of creators i'm looking at.

i like this one so much. i don't know if it's the best race i've played in LBP, but it's definitely high on the list. Once it gets past a little choppiness early on in the level, it plays so smooth. So much so, i actually wanted to go back and play it (and did) multiple times to see if i could trim a little bit of time off my record, and that's a rarity for me. The way the secrets are tucked away too, is a really nice touch. It's funny, because Woutery is almost exclusively a music creator, so playing this, and it was, like, "wait, could you do this the whole time?" There is a funny little break in the level, but i don't know how i triggered it, and couldn't replicate it, so... guess its just my usual silly luck.

-------------------------------------------- So that's another 10 off the top. Hard to believe we're already at 70episodes in the series; tho', i suppose at an episode a day, they'll pile on quick. i've actually got LBsP episodes sorted (mostly. Just need b-roll for one of them) through to March 3rd, which is good, i really need the extra space so i can work on my own level for when LittleBite-sizedArchive hits 100.

[dustydoop]

Alright since cringe is dead, I'm info dropping about my OCs, idc if you don't want to know you get to now (I'm using this picrew since I haven't the time to make actual headshots for all of them)

Nova Robertson

Birthday: May 13th

Favorite Color: Jade green

Symbolism motifs: Sun, big cats (mostly lions)

Personality: Firey, passionate, stubborn, curious

Fun fact: She's very tall! Like 6'

Angela Gartner

Birthday: May 17th

Favorite Color: Bubblegum pink

Symbolism motifs: Daisies, stars

Personality: Bubbly, sensitive, selfless, sociable

Fun fact: Her house is based on a real abandoned dvd rental place that's across the street from my house

Jessica "Jez" Salucci

Birthday: November 19th

Favorite Color: Cherry red

Symbolism motifs: Trees, electric guitar

Personality: Independent, abrasive, determined, reserved

Fun Fact: She rollerblades in her free time

Millie Easton

Birthday: June 4th

Favorite Color: Lavender

Symbolism motifs: Meadows, gears

Personality: Intelligent, clumsy, creative, perfectionistic

Fun Fact: Her first name is Amelia, not Mildred

Kylar Sato

Birthday: December 2nd

Favorite Color: Charcoal grey

Symbolism motifs: Metal, maps

Personality: Bold, chaotic, direct, defiant

Fun Fact: She is so good at impressions and impersonations that it's scary

Brianna Rosa

Birthday: September 30th

Favorite Color: Goldenrod yellow

Symbolism motifs: Wheat fields, breeze

Personality: Organized, blunt, stuck-up, dedicated

Fun Fact: She's a distant relative of Catherine of Aragon

Gene Carter

Birthday: April 26th

Favorite Color: Teal

Symbolism motifs: Moon, ocean

Personality: Caution, supportive, emotionally fragile, willing to help

Fun Fact: He's a very musical guy, he knows a lot of instruments

Quill Torres Martinez

Birthday: July 6th

Favorite Color: Burnt orange

Symbolism motifs: Fire, beach

Personality: Goofy, easliy bored, charismatic, disordered

Fun Fact: His parents are very rich, he's a bit spoiled

Rae Woodfield

Birthday: February 10th

Favorite Color: Indigo

Symbolism motifs: Butterflies, rain

Personality: Impulsive, open-minded, dissatisfied, analytical (if she thinks about something first)

Fun Fact: She has port wine stain birthmarks under her eyes

Jesse Mintz

Birthday: October 29th

Favorite Color: Forest green

Symbolism motifs: Gladiolus, bricks

Personality: Quiet, calm, dependable, insecure

Fun Fact: He's naturally good at skateboarding

Benedict Lewis

It won't let me add more audio links so pretend its a link to Sparks by Coldplay

Birthday: March 27th

Favorite Color: Navy blue

Symbolism motifs: Dogs, photos

Personality: Prepared, unrealistic, altruistic, overly reminiscent

Fun Fact: He always carries a bag full of absolutely anything you could need

Thea Robertson

Again, only 10 audio links so pretend it's Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac

Birthday: May 23rd

Favorite Color: Tangerine

Symbolism motifs: Gold, sunflowers

Personality: Tense, rational, aloof, protective

Fun Fact: She's the oldest of the group, and Nova's older sister

[rayofsunas]

s/o who dies.

A/n: listennnn, I wasn't going to write something dark, but then I unregretfully decided to listen to edgy/dark audios and I was suddenly in the mood to write this so yeah lmao. also, guess what? I'm planning on making a discord server right after posting this! so, be on the lookout for that when I get it all sorted out. also, note for Scaramouche's that the reader inserts tend to lean more femininely versed (I hope that's okay), the only reasons why I do that is because one I simp and I'm female AND two since I am doing a mini-series for Scara, I've kind of based his imagines/fics around that universe (baby daddy universe). I haven't started his yet, but consider these part of that series' universe. anyways as always thank you for requesting anon and enjoy! <333

Summary: you die + how the boys cope afterward.

Parings: Albedo/Gn! Reader, Xiao/Gn! Reader, Scaramouche/Fem! Reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, death, poison, illness/cancer, murder, arson, obsessive behavior

Word count: 2.1k

Albedo

"You need to keep this on your head." Your lover said for the one-hundredth time, placing the cold cloth on your forehead once again after taking it off only seconds earlier.

"This is pointless," You said, no longer wanting to ignore nor hide behind the invisible thick curtains of the obvious death sentence approaching. "My body rejected the medicine the first twice doses, what's a third time going to do?" You asked, knowing Albedo wouldn't answer; your hope was to knock some sense into his thick skull. but he was too worried trying to ignore the obvious as you had previously been doing, not anymore though.

This was saddening to watch, both Albedo's unfolding and the girl who accidentally poisoned you, whimpering into Sucrose's shoulder. She was only a young girl, barely seventeen when she was chosen to work under Sucrose and your boyfriend. She was very good at Alchemy and luckily had a desire to practice the craft. But unfortunately, she hadn't paid much attention when it came to Surcrose's educational poison lesson and had unknowingly mixed up poisonous liquids and materials.

After tipping over some clutter in Albedo's office and knocking over a test tube laying unsealed on the counter, you had realized the contents spilled on your skin, bleaching into your pores. You had been tasked with bringing the famed alchemist and his assistant some vials and materials for the collection of a rare butterfly they had found. It was both telling and obvious that something was wrong when you never showed up with the required materials requested and it was already too late hours later when the chief Alchemist, his assistant, and Alchemist in training came bounding down the stairs of Albedo's home laboratory.

It didn't take long for the trio to realize something was wrong. Sucrose had found the vile on the floor, most of its contents spilled and in a little puddle, plus your state on a nearby lounge chair was obvious; slumped awkwardly, forehead visibly sweating, eyes closed, breathing raspily.

You accepted the first doses of the supposed nullifying medicine without hesitation, just wanting the numbing feeling to go away. But when it never kicked in you decided it would be best to save the medicine, because it wasn't working. Your time was coming.

"Since the medicine is taking immediate effect, you should try to get the contents out of your system," He said, reaching out for you. Badly you wanted to argue that the medicine wasn't working at all, but he wasn't listening and already has his lean arms wrapped around your middle, helping gently lift and guide you over to the sink.

You hear materials being shoved to the side and soon enough you had your head dangling over the sink, shaking hands gripping the metalled edge tightly. Soon enough, Albedo's hand was on your back rubbing up and down, hoping to comfort you, it wasn't working though. You could only think about your death, what the other side would look like. Could there even be heaven or hell, maybe a place in between, maybe nowhere...?

As soon as you felt the urge to vomit, you did, and despite it being utterly disgusting Albedo seemed to welcome it happily. He took this as something good, but it only worried you when you saw the reddish hues in the bile.

"I think they should leave." You muttered acknowledging Sucrose and Elizabeth, the taste of gooey, metal only becoming more apparent. The blonde agreed, nodding and muttering "Okay."

As Sucrose lead Elizabeth towards the stairs, the pair heard you say. "Goodbye Sucrose, Elizabeth." Which only seemed to make the young girl wail louder.

You sighed sadly once the silence was back. Just your thoughts of death, and Albedo's slowly crushing heart.

"You should probably leave soon as well. I don't want you to be here when I go." Albedo frowned at your statement, head shaking.

"Don't say things like that."

Of course, he'd say that. Why did he feel the need to ignore this when it would only come back to hurt him even more later on when you were gone?

"You're the smartest man I know and we both know where this is heading," You said, head feeling much heavier than before. It was getting closer to your time. "I'm going to die, and you can't do anything about it."

"I'm not leaving your side. We promised to stick together through everything, you can't ask me to leave."

"I guess... But promise me this."

"When I go, stop blaming Elizabeth. It was an accident..." You said sincerely. Albedo wanted to make a fuss about it, tell you he'd never been able to forgive her. But for you, he would try. If it was your list desire, your last wish, he'd make it come true. Though it would be difficult. Accidental or not, she was the reason you were leaving him here, alone.

"Okay, I'll try..." He said honestly.

"Thank you," You said, letting out a shaking breath you had been holding for a very long time. Now you felt much more peaceful. "And since I know you stubbornly won't leave," You started, finally turning away from the sink to look into his cerulean eyes. "At least hold my hand."

"Of course, love."

even a year after your death, no matter how hard he tried, there was still this nagging feeling every time he looked at Elizabeth

he wanted too badly forgive her, but he couldn't

she had, although accidental, taken the one person that meant so much to him and he'd never forgive

Albedo is gonna be distant towards everyone he knows and it's completely purposeful

he doesn't like the pitiful gazes that people send his way and he hates that all the captains stared at him at your funeral

obviously, some questioned if he was able to stay in the field

he hadn't taken any time off, even when Jean advised he was welcome and that it would be best

tbh, albedo's going to have a hard time for a while

Xiao

Why did it have to be you? Why not him? He'd feel much better knowing you could live another day, after all, he'd been living a very long time.

But no, the fallen Archons, Gods, Yaksha had chosen you to join them. He wished that weren't the case

Humans and their pathetic vessels... So weak, he thought. Allowing something like cancer to beat them.

No matter how harsh it sounded, he didn't despise you, no. It wasn't your fault. You didn't ask for this. He just knew that if you were a godly being this wouldn't have happened like this or at least not so soon; Xiao had known Gods that had terminal illnesses to live years. Why couldn't you be like them?

He hated watching you lie there in that bed, immobile, sickly, and tired, and all you could say was that everything was going to be alright, that he'd be alright.

But it wasn't. He wouldn't be okay without you. He would struggle daily, fall deeper into a hole. You were the light of his life, the only light in his life. And you were gone, just like that. Turning external scars into internal ones tattered all over his dying heart.

Xiao for the longest time has been by himself, so the people of Liyue know it'll be harder for him to overcome this, no matter what he says or does to prove otherwise

Zhongli in particular knows how hard this will be for his friend

his first and probably last love, dead, gone in the blink of an eye

he'll continue fighting all the monsters he crosses, becoming even more violent when he does so, trying his best to get rid of this stupid sickly feeling of heartbreak

but it won't go away, no matter what he does, no matter how absurd

he just wants the feeling to go away, he despises that feeling so much

if you have a secret place somewhere, like in the mountains, Zhongli often finds him there, wallowing in invisible self-pity

"You know they wouldn't want you to be like this." Zhongli would say, only trying to help

but it doesn't

it only enrages Xiao, even more, fuels him to push everyone out of his life again instead of letting them in like he'd done in your presence

Scaramouche

How dare you. How dare you leave him like this. Alone, nonetheless with a toddler to raise who kept crying for her mommy. He couldn't do this without you, he didn't know how to raise a child, speak to her with the gentle care that you did. That was your expertise but now he'd be doing it solo.

And never again would he entrust someone who he cares about, into ignorant, incompetent arms. Never again will he ever allow any member of the Fatui to watch after his daughter; no matter their rank or position. They had one job while he was away doing business in Liyue. Guard your home twenty-four seven, accompany you into Inazuma's port town should you need anything, watch after his daughter while she plays happily in the luscious Inazuma fields. And they couldn't do that. All he gave them was one simple task, watch and keep you and your daughter safe. Instead, they slacked off, probably drunk in some bar while you were being brutally attacked by murderous mercenaries, left to fend for you and your daughter, only to die protecting her and leave your home to be severely burned.

He knew those idiotic Fatui soldiers were incompetent the moment he stepped foot into the harbor and found that everyone seemed to quiet down. Especially the eerily silent soldiers flanked on each side to welcome him home; he was the highest-ranking soldier in the land of Inazuma after all. Not a single one bothered to step forward and tell him what was wrong, what they all criminally allowed happen. Scaramouche only realized what had happened when he was mere minutes away from arriving home, his daughter had come running from his widowed mother's arms, the sight of smoke rising in the air, from the direction of his home. You were nowhere to be seen.

It all happened so fast, in the blink of an eye. His daughter was clinging to his shirt and his mother only stared with tears of pity.

It didn't take long for the puzzle pieces to be put together and before he knew it, Scaramouche was standing in front of his home, part of it burnt to a crisp and black.

He didn't need to ask what happened, he didn't need to know where you were, because he already knew. What he didn't know was who exactly had done this. But he was going to find out, now.

Incompetent, selfish, bastards. They would all pay for this. The lazy piggish Fatui soldiers who he should've never trusted with such a simple task and the thieves who had murdered you. They all had it rightfully coming.

Scaramouche hates the world after he lost you

he hates it so much and can't understand how this had happened

he's not a good person, so he blames it on karma and those stupid idiots who couldn't protect you

ngl, he's not gonna be around much after your death... his mother would argue that he should be here to raise your daughter, because she's also in pain and doesn't understand that this isn't some game of hide and seek this time

instead, he's focused and driven by revenge

he doesn't listen to a word anybody says, he's much more dangerous than before, and he only trusts his judgment

anyone trying to get him to stop his mission, is someone who doesn't want to see him happy he thinks (though that's not true at all. they hate that he is obsessive over this) but he will personally put a stop to that

and he'll only return home to his daughter and mother when he finds who did this and they along with their bloodline is exterminated

while he's gone, the remainder of his family is relocated somewhere he knows they'll be safe, for example, even though he despises childe, he knows his mom and daughter will be safe with his family

sorry, but Scaramouche will hold this deep-rooted hatred and love for you after you die

yes, he still loves and misses you dearly, but he hates you for leaving him alone, hates that although it wasn't intentional and out of your control, that you were gone

no matter how hard you tried to fight, it was selfish of you to leave him like this

he's not going to stop until he believes whoever was behind this is dead

and in his case, he'll stop believing when he chooses, even if they are innocent/guilty, he'll keep going

3.19.21, rayofsunas