#talk to me about the robot game

[debbiecolon]

Got a job for you 621

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[feroluce]

“-and that's why I ain't allowed in Pier Point no more!” Boothill throws his head back and cackles, somehow completely comfortable on the bare floor of the archives. He's the very picture of ease, his arms behind his head, his legs bent and crossed.

Dan Heng barely looks up from his notebook, not much surprises him anymore after the first few tales of lawless exploits. “So they really have that many laws and restrictions there.” 

“And prob’ly a few more now that I've been through there! Heck, ya think they named any after me? I'm hopin’ so.” There's so much smug cockiness seeping through his voice Dan Heng could bottle it.

Silence settles in, stretches out. Dan Heng doodles pensive circles in the corner of his page.

He shouldn't ask. It's a private matter. It's none of his business. He of all people should know-

Something pokes his shoe, and when he looks up, Boothill has stretched one arm up to tap metallic fingertips against his foot. “Ain't like ya to hesitate.” With his head tipped back on the tiles and gazing at him upside down, Boothill's hair is out of his face and spooling out all over the floor, offering a rare view of his right side. His right eye is sealed over with a pitch-black patch, stark against his skin. Dan Heng wonders what he looks like behind it. “C'mon, then, out with it. Spill the beans, brother, just say it.”

“What does ‘Boothill’ mean?”

The man blinks at him, the crosshair in his cybernetic left eye flickering. Dan Heng shifts, smooths out his long coat. “I tried to look it up once. It's not in any database as a name...other than your wanted posters.” There's a thread beginning to fray near the hem, he should sew it up. “I couldn't find it anywhere.” 

He nearly takes it back, but- “Heh, ya that curious about me, darlin’?”

Dan Heng quickly levels his face into the most impassive, nonplussed expression he can muster, but Boothill has already turned away, head pillowed on his arms and face once again turned to the ceiling.

“But nah, ya wouldn't. Hah, like they'd allow any record of the language, fudgeheads.” One arm sweeps around blindly until it finds the edge of Boothill's hat, sets it back where it belongs on his head. Dan Heng shuffles around, scoots a little closer, but the brim is pulled too low to see his eyes anymore.

“It's ‘cause it's not a name. It's a noun.” All that's visible of his face is a sharp grin, pulled too tight at the edges.

“It's my people's word for a grave.”

Dan Heng's pencil stops.

“It's the kinda grave fer someone who died with their boots on. If ya catch my drift there.” Boothill's foot starts to bounce. “There was a war, and it got reeeeeal intense, yup. Folks started droppin’ like flies, ‘n’ there was bodies faster'n what we could bury ‘em.” A cooling fan kicks on somewhere. Dan Heng is pretty sure it's not any of the Express equipment.

“We lost some real good people there, real good. Mighty shame.” His hidden Vidyadhara ears detect a quiet metallic click, a whir, pressurized gas. Boothill's next words waft steam from his angry circuits into the air. “When I left, I decided to leave my name there, too. Didn't feel right otherwise. The life I lead now is a whole ‘nother existence.” And then Boothill turns his head, raises his hat, and Dan Heng suddenly feels pinned dead center, caught in that crosshair.

“Ya know what I mean, don'tcha?”

Dan Heng swallows.

Does Boothill know? Who he is and who came before him? There had been that moment in the Penacony Grand Theater, after he activated the Jade Abacus… Dan Heng had tried to shoo him out, keep him from seeing anything, but Boothill has the astounding ability to turn up exactly wherever people are trying to keep him away from.

If he did see, does he actually understand it? Does he know what a High Elder is? Does he know about the sedition of Imbibitor Lunae, the transmutation arcanum, everything Dan Feng had done and Dan Heng was punished for?

He doesn't want to explain it all. Not now. Possibly not ever, truth be told.

And it's not the same as Boothill leaving behind his old identity when whatever event happened that caused him to leave home. Not really. But…

But so far, Boothill has slid so easily into Dan Heng’s routine. His presence never feels like an intrusion. He's already figured out what he can push and when to back down. And even Dan Heng finds himself able to roll with whatever punches Boothill throws with baffling ease. They share too much in their methods and ideologies, and sometimes Dan Heng knows what Boothill will do seemingly before even Boothill himself knows.

“...Tell me about Talia and the Nailscrap Town.” Boothill must know he's avoiding the topic. He must. But the man just throws his head back and cackles, melting easily back into what they had been doing before, as he speaks fondly of a planet that Dan Heng has never visited.

Not today. But.

Dan Heng inches just a little closer, just enough to nudge his foot against a metal leg. Boothill doesn't pull away.

Maybe someday.

[mitskiluvr]

replaying mystic messenger is so crazy because why am i gentle parenting these grown men and teaching them how to handle their feelings

[mr-bugs]

got bored today and doodled streetcleaner and mindflayer stargazing in a shitty drawing game, gabriel doodle was from yesterday when i found it

probably gonna recreate these in my usual drawing program

[galaxygermdraws]

so instead of get back into art after the basic recovery of my surgery, I instead replayed Mario and Luigi Partners in Time…and why does nobody talk about this game?? Hardly ever see it in the Super Mario tag. Like. It’s actually insane how dark it gets. People die. Like actually die. Not as dark as SPM but like we see the dead spirits of Toads get siphoned through tubes. They had their life force sucked out of them via genetically modified trees. Yoshis were eaten by a larger alien Yoshi and were gonna be turned into more alien Yoshis via a factory IN THE GIANT ALIEN YOSHI. We see a town that’s literally just “Christmas is Cancelled” the city. Their mayor probably died. We never see these places restored because there are no survivors to restore them. The citizens of Hollijolli village probably all died by the time the bros shut down the Vim factory. And also there’s the entire scene with the Star Gate. Like. Hello??

maybe I’ll stream or let’s play this game and share it here because I think. More ppl should talk about Partners in Time. I’ll say it too: I like it more than Bowser’s Inside Story. By like a LOT. That’s my ramble for the night. Ttyd day tomorrow. Yippee

[puhpandas]

I cant believe glamrock fronnie is real they burned my house down and killed my family

[dataglitch]

Watching you become rapidly absorbed by the Ultrakill fandom has been extremely funny. Love seeing increasingly silly Ultrakill posts pop up with a "liked by dataglitch" note attached to them.

LMAO YOU HAVE NO IDEA! Absolutely obsessed with it lately, it's taken over fr Have so many picture ideas with them, but got some deadlines to do still :'D Def recommend it to anyone, super fun game and the LORE, it's so good!!

[quietwingsinthesky]

not to bring up mass effect but that’s one of the most interesting things it ever posited when it came to the idea of organic vs artificial intelligence. a machine, if sentient, knows who created it and why it was created. and a person will never know that. like, even lacking spirituality, even if you ascribe all this to random cause-and-effect, that doesn’t actually get you any closer to understanding why there is a you. but a robot can look their creator in the eye, can read out the whole of its purpose, and know that no matter what it modifies, this is what it was made to be. and what if it was made limited, or flawed, or shackled. there are elements of that a person can relate to, maybe understand, but not all of it, not enough to fathom how different the experience of the world is when you have no questions about your origins.

[angelonasher]

Ask game?

Send a question in my inbox asking why I have certain details in a character's design. (This can be hairstyle, scars, markings, outfit, accessories, species, etc etc.)

If this ends up being reblogged, I imagine this can work for writers too! Send me a question in my inbox on why I write a specific character with certain habits/traits/preferences/opinions/etc that are might not be stated/shown in canon.

[gible-love-nibles-archive]

OH

In the midst of today I nearly forgot

Happy anniversary shithead (affectionate)

(Please reblog! I like reading tags :])

Taglist: @crickiss @heart-of-aspiration @halsdaisy @potionomic @homosexual-fast-dancer @jocelynships @imaginemyshipswithme @keyblade-ships @wooboomoomoo @seahydra [If you want to added or removed, tell me in a comment or tag!]

[jorvikzelda]

Stray is a fucking horror game

[leadendeath]

some people will just never be able to get into a thing because of a single bad experience. it’s not as easy as “give it a try”/“give it a chance”.

this is about m¡necraft.

picture this. 2016. the first time i tried it was only because my friend wanted me to. the lag on my Weapon of a laptop (derogatory) was not just 1fps, it was one frame per every few seconds. i could not work the controls for the life of me and just kept going up unintentionally. that was also how i found out my eyes don’t do well with all the squares and got my first migraine ever from the eyestrain effect. had to go to work later, it was an outdoors job and using my arms while migrained always makes it 150% hurt more.

so yeh i don’t like funney meme block game

[totally-not-a-fae]

all fictional robots are so sad :(

[falloutgirlboy]

i need to stop talking about five nights at freddys

[ohno-the-sun]

I have lots of thoughts on how the animatronics minds work (especially Sun and Moon) and idk where to put this since it’s not fanfic worthy but I feel the need to put it all down somewhere

Sorta just a brain dump don’t mind me

(just some preface I have very little programming experience and while some of this alludes to real psychology, this is not scientifically accurate at all, just my headcannons)

Now first to establish how the AI work it’s essentially a learning system that compiles multiple directives and inputs to make a decision.

Basically there are multiple learning modules that each receive the same sensory input, but each module has a different directive that it codes for. For example pretty much every animatronic has a “safety” directive that prioritizes human safety and the Glamrocks have a “showtime” directive that helps them perform on stage. Each animatronic can have hundreds to thousands of directives running at any given point. Each directive essentially works by taking the sensory input given to it and spitting out a suggested “action” that should take place given its directive. These actions are then sent to the core processor where there the taken action is chosen. For example, if an animatronic sees a fallen child, an action suggested by the “showtime” directive would be to sing to the child, but a directive from the “safety” directive would be scanning for wounds. Both actions would be sent to the core processor, and based upon probability algorithms (where each action is assigned a probability of 0-100% of being chosen, based on a variety of factors), it would likely choose the safety protocol action. So like the singing option would be assigned a probability of 2% and the scan for wounds suggestion would be assigned a probability of 98%. (Staff consider the “choosing” of a particular action to be completely random, but to the animatronics it’s sorta their free will) This process happens multiple times every second, allowing for adaptability and additions to the behavior. Very basic robots, like the staff bots, only work on one or two directives, making them much less adaptable and sentient compared to the others. It should be noted that not all suggested actions are actual “physical” actions, some could be replaying a memory, changing the probability of another directive being chosen, or simply stating a fact/opinion that a particular directive emphasizes. For an example for the last one, the safety directive could point out “there is snow outside, it will be cold” which could lead to a change in probability for another directive, like the “proper attire” directive.

Now one thing about these directives is that each animatronic has differing levels of awareness of them. Awareness of directives manifests as sorta being able to hear one’s thoughts, like being aware of your own decision making process or hearing thoughts that you otherwise would not act on. Ranking the more complex animatronics in order of least to most aware of their directives we have, Monty, DJ, Chica, Freddy, Roxy, and the DCA (my beloved).

Starting with Monty, even though he’s the least aware of his directives, this doesn’t mean he’s the least sentient. Simply put, he’s a action man first think later kinda guy. He doesn’t like dwelling too long on thoughts or feelings that aren’t important to the present situation. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have them though. This ends up messing with his core processor probability mechanism, making him far more impulsive than any other animatronic. When he starts getting errant inputs from a virulent directive (cough cough the peepaw virus) this causes him to act out more violently. He also has a bit of an issue straight up ignoring thoughts that are “bad” to him, like anything to do with a certain rabbit animatronic. 

DJ simply vibes man. He has fewer directives compared to the other complex animatronics, mainly because he rarely directly interacts with humans and tends to stay in one place. This however makes him unstable when a new set of directives are put in place that entail security (the bouncer mode). But he’s overall less impulsive than Monty and is self aware of what directives are running at any given point. He rarely has any conflicts with any of the thoughts he receives, so he doesn’t dwell on them. He is the second most stable animatronic emotionally.

Chica is sorta similar to Monty in that she tends to avoid her thoughts and feelings. She’s a far more self aware of them, and purposely takes actions to avoid hearing them (ie overeating) but other than thoughts that depress her, she’s relatively in tune with them. She ends up being very extroverted as she becomes less aware of her directives when shes with others. This makes her seem kinda airheaded, but when she is alone she does tends to get more contemplative. However when a virus starts to isolate her and increase the number of directives/thoughts that upset her, she goes fully into her bad habits.

Freddy is probably the most stable out of all the animatronics (other than maybe DJ). Even before the virus started to effect everyone, Freddy was always the most dependable and strong. In terms of his headspace, this is mainly because he has a good balance of aware and unaware directives. As seen with those previous, having too little awareness of one’s directives can cause impulsiveness, and we will see later what over awareness can do. Even when Freddy has unwanted thoughts/directives, he is able to reason and process them in a healthy way. Some directives relating to Bonnie do mess with his processor though, but other than those, he is relatively stable.

Roxy tries to seem like she doesn’t care, or hear her own thoughts, but that is a fat lie. She has a lot of errant directives that greatly affect the probability calculations of her core processor. This mainly stems from a lot of her directives being related to her appearance, giving her a lot of input she can’t do anything directly about unless she calls staff. This has given her a lot of self image issues. She makes up for this by continually choosing the most “cool” options, even if it’s not the best action for the situation. This leads to her being pretty mean to the other animatronics, staff, and kids. She’s closest to Chica, as she’s the only one who also has a lot of appearance directives (ayo sexism?), but as mentioned before she has more methods to quiet those thoughts.

Last but not least the daycare attendant. The daycare attendant is unique in that it has two main “modes” Sun and Moon. Each mode has the same directives and core processor, but the probabilities of suggested actions being chosen are changed greatly between the two. For example, the probability of naptime and security directive actions being chosen are reduced greatly in Sun mode, and playtime and crafting directives are reduced in Moon mode. Meaning if the situation calls for it, the other mode can still access its counterparts directives, but in daily use the likelihood of those options being taken are so low they basically never happen. This was meant to be the only difference between the two modes, as with only one processor, there would essentially be only one animatronic in the body. But there was a bug that lead to the memories of the daycare attendant to be split. Now one thing to clarify, memories are considered sensory input, so they go directly to directive modules to aid in learning, but don’t necessarily need to pass through the main processor. However, the only way animatronics are able to consciously recall a memory is if a directive  suggests playing it to the main processor, and that can change its probability calculations. Now the bug Sun and Moon have prevents directives from replaying memories from their counterparts database, essentially preventing recall from an event that happens to them in the other mode. But, the individual directives still processed the memories as they happened regardless of mode (for psychology nerds Sun and Moon basically share implicit memories but don’t share explicit). Now if the daycare attendant were any other animatronic, they would probably be okay. Maybe have some memory issues but their directives are in sync so they would still be one animatronic, except both Sun and Moon are hyper aware of their individual thoughts/directives. Moon sometimes gets thoughts to yell and wake all the children he spent an hour trying to get to bed. Sun wakes up to suddenly have multiple thoughts about certain children needing punishment, except for Sun that child was fine for him. For both, the others memories and directives creates intrusive thoughts for the other, making it difficult to discern which thoughts and feelings belong to them, and which belong to the other. This made both start to develop distinct identities, to the point they consider the other a completely different AI (even though again, they only have one processor). Moon’s directives are far more dangerous compared to Sun’s so for him this has created massive anxiety and frustration. He is not only receiving thoughts and input that are not safe for when children are around, but he is also constantly second guessing himself, not knowing whether or not an action will cause unwanted harm. This makes Sun the incredibly nervous person we see. Moon in general is less scared of his counterpart’s interference, but the constant barrage of both his own and Sun’s thoughts is a lot to deal with. This leads to him being kind of a recluse and really quiet, earning the reputation as the plex cryptid from the other animatronics. He also has a major complex when it comes to comparing himself to Sun, being overly self deprecating and having a skewed viewpoint as to how Sun is like (since they don’t really ‘know’ each other very well). His overthinking is somewhat lessened when he becomes friends with Monty and forms a line of communication with Sun (essentially writing notes to each other constantly), but once Monty joins the main band and the virus starts affecting Moon, everything starts to go south. The virus is a directive, so technically it affects both Sun and Moon, however, the probability of “virus” directives being chosen is far higher for Moon than Sun (since it’s categorized as a security directive). Therefore we have both Sun constantly receiving these extremely distressing thoughts and Moon acting on these thoughts. Tldr, both Sun and Moon are extreme overthinkers who have intrusive thoughts, for Sun this causes anxiety, for Moon this causes depression.

Extra stuff:

Sun and Moon tend to get overwhelmed when they are in situations that activate their counterparts directives. For example darkness and conflict for Sun and bright lights and loud noises for Moon. This leads to them both avoiding these situations as often as possible (Sun being conflict avoidant and Moon preferring a nice dark quiet space to hide away in).

Staff are not sure what determines how aware an animatronic is of their own directives and write it off as a bug.

The virus very specifically targets instabilities in the animatronics programming, taking directives from the base processor and twisting them to be more violent and bad. Basically taking their worst personality traits and turning them against the animatronic. For example, for Moon it amplifies his negative thoughts about Sun, the other animatronics and himself, and suggests violent ways to deal with it. This is how they are able to amplify the probability of these violent actions from being chosen.