#vr dammit

[merryfortune]

i need to say something salty

but i haaaaaate childhood fanart of ryoken which includes takeru (yusaku is on thin ice but it really grinds my gears when its takeru) but no??? spectre???? jhis ACTUAL best friend forever since childhood? whack.

[bastardlybonkers]

blond

[proxolagist]

Redraw of some of my oldest art from 2021 / 2022 ! Context under the cut + OG image

This took far too long for the product it turned out for, but so is the way of art.

Recently I rewatched the entirety of HLVRAI and decided I needed to retry at some of my absolute favorite though poorly executed art from when I was originally into the series ! I could see my old self’s vision, I just need a word with their supervisor on the quality. Warning, it’s a bit of an eyesore

[astranauticus]

i'm not even done with the new rwd episode but. spoilers ahead

anyway funny thing. i wasn't like, super on board with the professionals when i was first binging through the first 3 seasons and especially once we got to season 3 i tunnel visioned on VR-LA and MR-SN super hard (as is probably extremely obvious from my art) but like. 4.5?? the exchange they had??? the fucking breakup scene???? yeah. yeah i get it now. i have no idea why or what changed but i have now Gotten It at the worst possible timing. what the hell

[heretoreadmyfics]

HAPPY 3 YEARS OF HLVRAI!!!

[heirofnepeta]

God fucking dammit i said i was gonna grab the quest after i ate dinner and i sit down for a moment to let the food settle and my sister grabs the damn thing when she KNOWS i was gonna use it

I just- ugh

[incorrect-tmnt2012-quotes]

April, joining the Turtles on a mission: Leo, if you don’t mind me asking... What are we in for? Leo: You ever watch Power Rangers? April: No. Leo: Sailor Moon? April: No. Leo: Beetleborgs? April: No. Leo: VR Troopers? April: No. Leo: Samurai Syber Squad? April: No. Leo: ...Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills? April: Oh yeah! Leo: GOD DAMMIT!

[0cta9on]

Sunscreen

Length: 1.8k words

Genre: Fluff

Young Posse Sunhye x Male Reader

(Author's Note: Kind of a sequel to Sunburn! You don't have to read that to understand this, but I would appreciate it if you did :] Enjoy!)

【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★【☆】★

“When are you gonna let me see it?” Sunhye asks for the millionth time, nudging your ribs softly enough to not mess up your lines, but hard enough to still annoy you.

You sigh in frustration, hiding your notebook from her view. “If you keep asking, it’ll be never.”

The chirping cicadas fill the impending silence as Sunhye resigns herself to plucking blades of grass out of the ground. Sunlight peaks through the gaps in the branches above, yet the cooling breeze still offers solace against the summer heat. The air smells fresher on this secluded hill you’ve claimed as your “secret hangout spot”, away and untouched by judgemental eyes and prying hands. A simple spot just for the two of you to be who you want to be.

Sunhye lets out a long exhale, resting her head against the base of the tree you consider to be a second home. “I talked to my parents about the Korea trip,” she says.

Your hand freezes in the middle of shading. “What’d they say?”

“They’re still making me go.” She tosses the pieces of grass in the air, watching them flit against the current of the wind before disappearing into the surrounding greenery. “My cousin’s birthday is soon, so I don’t really have a choice.”

“Dammit,” you utter, brushing the eraser shavings off your notebook. “Is it a cool cousin?”

She sighs. “Yeah. She’s pretty cool. She owns a VR headset.”

“So you get to go to your cool cousin’s birthday while I have to spend the rest of my summer alone?!”

“Sorry, bud,” she says, patting your shoulder. A dejected huff leaves your lips as you whittle away at your pencil with your pocket knife, sharpening its tip. Suddenly, the undeniable grumble of a stomach cuts through the background noise. In the midst of the trees where time seems to fade from existence, it’s easy to forget that you’re still human.

“Hm… Ice cream?” Sunhye suggests.

You tuck your notebook under your arm and your tools in your pocket, patting the resulting bump at your side to make sure everything is there. 

“Obviously.”

______________________________________________________________

Sweet, sweet vanilla, simplicity at its finest. Sunhye has given you more than enough crap for liking such a “boring” flavor, but you’ve learned to tune out most of her yapping at this point.

“…Hello?” She waves her hand in front of your face, forcibly ripping you from your daydreams. “Are you even listening to me?”

Sometimes you forget to flip the switch off.

“Totally,” you say, taking another slow lick at your ice cream. “But on the off chance I wasn’t, you should remind me again.”

Sunhye jabs your arm, making you nearly drop your vanilla cone. “You’re an ass.”

You lean back against the old wooden bench, carefully listening to the octave of its creak to ensure you don’t break through it. “Yeah yeah, my bad,” you offer. “What were you talking about?”

She shakes her head at you. “Nope.”

“C’mon, please?”

“Nuh uh.” A drop of rainbow-colored cream melts onto her hand, leaking through her fingers before hitting the burning concrete below. She takes a moment to lick away the meltier bits overflowing over the top of the cone, ensuring that the $5 you spent on her doesn’t go to waste. “You should’ve listened the first time.”

“I’ll listen the second time, promise.”

“Tsk, fine.” A beat passes before she continues, the silence brief yet noticeable. “The guy in my dance class asked me out.”

“Huh?” Your eyes widen in shock. “Which one? Backwards hat guy or weird jacket guy?”

Her cheeks burn redder than a sunburn from embarrassment. “U-uh, it was, uh, weird jacket guy.”

“Weird jack— What!?” You shoot up from your seat, flinging drops of melted vanilla everywhere. “What did you say to him?”

“No, obviously. He’s, um, not really my type.”

You nod, shifting your gaze to hide the inkling of a grin dancing on the corner of your lip. “Ah. Well, what can you do?”

“Y-yeah, right.”

More than half of your ice cream is reduced to a milky puddle before you have the sense to finish the rest of it. Even as the sun continues to beat down its unbearable heat on your head, the creamy notes of vanilla have never been more refreshing.

______________________________________________________________

Through all the hand cramps and itchy skin, you don’t stop moving. Create a line, create a few more, hate it just enough, and then erase and redo. Not the most productive cycle, but if every mistake brings you even a smidge closer to some form of “perfection”, then you’ll gladly stay under this tree for a thousand years until your pencil is reduced to a nub and your notebook has witnessed countless errors.

Only, you don’t have a thousand years.

Sunhye pokes a stick into the dirt, groaning impatiently as clueless little ants scale the makeshift pole. “Are you done yet? My flight is in a couple hours and my parents are gonna be pissed at me if I don’t get home in time.”

“Just… a second…” you mutter. Sweat beads on your forehead with each drag of the lead against the paper, your work growing sloppier and harsher by the second.

She sighs. “Just text me a pic when you’re done and I’ll see it when I land.”

“Wait!” You grab onto her shoulder just as she moves to get up, gripping harder than you probably should be. Sunhye furrows an eyebrow, yet sits back down anyways, reading the desperation in your eyes.

“Fine,” she huffs, “You get five minutes.”

A breath you didn’t know you were holding empties from your lungs as you release her shoulder from your grip. “Thanks.”

A thousand years wouldn’t have been enough to make it perfect. A billion years wouldn’t have been enough. Time could stand still, only unfreezing when you finally create the perfect drawing, but you would only be cursing yourself to a motionless fate. You wish you could play it cool and show it to her like the past couple weeks of your unyielding efforts were all just some show to build suspense, but you know the truth. She knows the truth — that brief moment of panic spoke volumes, even if you don’t want to admit it. 

“What are you gonna do while I’m gone?” Sunhye asks, waving the stick around aimlessly.

“I don’t know. What I’ve always done, I guess.”

She chuckles. “Lock yourself in your room all day?”

A small grin creeps up on your face. “Yeah. Probably.”

She nudges against your ribs, softly enough to not mess up your lines, but hard enough to produce a laugh from your lips. “If I come back and find you paler than when I left, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Fine,” you utter, rolling your eyes. “I’ll, uh, go on a walk every once in a while or something.”

“Everyday,” she states. “And you better send me picture proof.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then…” Sunhye grows uncharacteristically quiet. A gust of wind rustles the leaves to fill the silence, and for a moment, you two are the only people left on Earth. No trip to Korea, no end of summer, no impending dread, just you and Sunhye in your own little pocket of space.

“...nevermind.”

“What? Come on, tell me.”

“Uh-h, it’s nothing.” She stands up, facing away from you. “Your five minutes are up. Are you done?”

You peer over your notebook one last time. It’s good. Great, even. Maybe not Picasso or Da Vinci, but that was never the goal. Art has always been an outlet to externalize everything you’ve held inside. The fear, the joy, the sorrow, everything that you can’t quite put to words makes its way onto the paper, whether you like it or not.

The grating sound of paper being torn from your notebook becomes the song of a finished job. “Here.” You hand Sunhye the paper, hoping that everything you feel is able to be seen and understood by the only person that truly gets you.

A grin is quick to make itself known on her face as her eyes glaze over the page. Even with the obvious positive reaction, you can’t quite quell the nervous thumping of your heart.

“Wow,” she utters in disbelief. “All that waiting was worth it, you’ve really outdone yourself.”

“Yeah?” You wring your hands together over and over as you contemplate whether to stay or to run away. Even underneath the shade of the tree, your cheeks burn like a thousand suns. “I’m glad you like it. I, uh… I’m gonna miss you.”

Sunhye chuckles in your face. “I’ll only be gone for three weeks, what are you getting all sappy for?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just… whatever.” You avert your gaze, immediately regretting your choice of words. It’s just three weeks, they’ll go by in the blink of an eye. What are you getting so sappy for?

“Um… I’ll miss you too,” she murmurs awkwardly. Time crawls to a standstill, with the breeze being the only evidence that the world is still turning. You try to think of something to say, a snarky quip, a simple “thanks” even, but nothing comes out. Your cheeks start to burn, but you’re not sure if it’s from the sun or the feelings that you’ve kept inside, threatening to burst from your chest.

“I-I guess you should probably head back home, huh?” you mutter.

“Y-yeah, right.” Sunhye turns to leave, but freezes in her tracks. “U-um, what’s that over there?” she asks, pointing behind you with a shaky finger.

Curiously, you turn around, only to be met with green trees and blue skies, the same ones the two of you have spent everyday under.

And then it hits you: Brief, fleeting, tender, a little clumsy, but sweet nonetheless. A warm pressure against your cheek so quick that you wonder if it’s just your imagination, all punctuated by a gentle pop like blown up bubblegum. You bring your hand to your cheek, tracing the lingering sensation left behind.

“I-I, uh, I should, um… Bye!” Sunhye makes a dash in the opposite direction, clutching your drawing to her chest. A stupid grin grows on your face as you replay that singular moment again and again in your head, wondering what would’ve happened if you had turned your head just a fraction of a second sooner. You lay down in the grass to stare up at the perfectly cloudless sky, illuminated by that great big ball of fire millions of miles away. 

Three weeks. They’ll be long and difficult and no doubt boring, but you’ll live through them regardless. And after that, you’ll pick up right where you left off, hanging out and making stupid jokes like you’ve always done.

Even if this summer is ending, you know that you’ll have many more to spend with the girl that changed your life.

[suzukiblu]

“Technically Young Justice is a situationship more than a superhero team these days, but they are just not gonna be explaining that to the Justice League” is soooo funny. How do you explain to the adult superheroes responsible for you that you trauma bonded so hard you’re in polyam relationship now. Being glued at the hip is not enough, you all need to crawl inside each other’s skin

lol I was pretty proud of that line, ngl. ❤️

They don't explain. They never explain. One day the Justice League just randomly finds out they're all technically listed as emergency-contact grandparents to an entire swarm of Core Four children and they're like "wait what when and how and WHO?!?!"

Answers range from: oh Kon's stepkid from Gemworld moved in because Earth has good school districts, Bart kinda accidentally picked up some adorable little orphans from the thirtieth century, Tim was forcibly adopted by a gang of feral Gotham street kids, Cassie took a ceramics class and the gods did NOT understand that she wasn't ACTUALLY trying to make herself an actual Wonderbaby, Cissie just kinda didn't want this kid she accidentally had when she got off-schedule with her birth control during the last apocalypse so she just gave it to them, they all found out Thad reproduced and had a superhero-CPS intervention before he could dump the kiddo in a VR chamber . . . you know, all the traditional methods.

. . . what do you MEAN Lex Luthor reopened Cadmus and--GODDAMMIT LEX THEY DON'T HAVE A BIG ENOUGH HOUSE FOR ALL THESE BABY DOOMSDAYS AND TINY KON 2.0s, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, YOU DIDN'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO CUSTOM-BUILD YOUR OWN DAMN GRANDBABIES.

Tim, stay away from the damn cloning chambers. TIM. TIM DRAKE YOU GET YOUR CAPED ASS BACK HERE.

Also at some point Krypto had puppies. Probably Krypton!Krypto AND Earth!Krypto had puppies, possibly together but it's unclear. No one is sure how it happened and frankly at this point they're afraid to ask.

. . . oh god they can ALL fly, why can they ALL fly, DAMMIT KON--

[plague-karm]

Right time to analyse this shit because god dammit I have been silently making theories about this show the second I saw the premise I’m about to become the most annoying person on the planet on god so LETS GOOOOOOO-

First things first the animation looks fucking phenomenal (let Kevin Temmer cook, that man can do no wrong). Also Caine the guy ever, he is the silly and I love him wholeheartedly, he’s just a fucked up little guy who’s living his best life fr.

And also NEW CHARACTER HELLO.

They do be circling though.

THE SILLIES ARE HERE LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOO 🎉🎉🎉

Smiling Gangle spotted ten seconds before disaster, no thoughts head empty indeed.

ALSO I WASN’T EXPECTING STUFF OUTSIDE THE CIRCUS BUT IT’S A WELCOME SURPRISE WHOA

They have come to steal your credit card information.

The thoughts I had of Ragatha being the lone brain cell keeping everything together were completely correct I CALLED IT- (it has been said by Gooseworx that she has been there the second longest so she’s probably gotten used to the zaniness by now…maybe)

A door that leads to a void?

Maybe it has something to do with this room in the teaser trailer? Possibly.

Tumblr sexyman spotted.

''If there was a way to leave I'm sure we'd have all left by now''

They're ✨suffering✨

This caught me off guard when I first saw it lmao (holy FUCK I love Zooble's design, they're everything to me).

''Welcome to your new home...AND your new body...''

So they're aware that they were human before they entered the circus? That's interesting considering what happens in a few seconds (I'll get to that soon). It's also worth mentioning that Gooseworx has stated that their clothes ARE a part of their bodies.

Case in point...

At the end of the character introduction compilation Gooseworx posted to their YouTube channel Pomni is heard saying something along the lines of

''How do I...take this...headset off?!''

I saw a few people theorizing about her talking about a VR headset and that was how she entered the circus to begin with (I had the same thoughts until very recently). However, considering how much of the visuals and character designs are based on old media (also a teaser image was set up as the menu screen for a retro game), I'm beginning to think that this isn't the case.

So it's incredibly likely that Pomni is actually talking about her jester headpiece since she can't take it off.

This scene is probably the first time Pomni sees her new body, pinwheel eyes and all.

''I'm fine with whatever, as long as I get to see funny things happen to people''

I love him he's so unbothered.

I'm sad that we didn't get to hear any dialogue from them but I can't wait to see them in the pilot! Kinger is love, Kinger is life.

''After a while you start to realise that you really can't leave, and constantly chasing an unattainable goal will start driving you a little crazy''

She's a little fucked up actually wow who saw that coming.

It sounds like Ragatha tried to leave a few times and just resigned to her fate after a while, her description DID say that she was the ''sweetest little optimist in the digital circus'', so maybe she's told the others that escaping is impossible and that they should make the best of their situation instead? (Also the framed picture of the right looks like some kind of void, a lot of void imagery here).

Also, Gooseworx released this image a short while ago and it has the same background that Ragatha had while she was talking so she's DEFINITELY talking to Pomni here.

''OH GOD! WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER MY NAME?!''

EXCUSE ME? Okay time for some more speculation. I knew that their names definitely weren't their real ones but I wasn't expecting them to forget them!

Now, since the premise is said to be centred around Pomni and the others getting messed with by AI and their traumas, maybe instead of forgetting what their names were, they actually REPRESSED their memories from when they were human due to the trauma they went through? (Which would include their names)

I don't buy that they've COMPLETELY forgotten who they were (Zooble is aware that the body they're in isn't the one they used to have so I'm guessing everyone else knows that too.)

I'm guessing that their human lives absolutely SUCKED and they've now repressed their trauma to the point where they can barely remember who they were in the human world, this is just speculation.

''Thank goodness this is all a dream, right Pomni?''

What a sassy little guy (it's so weird hearing Michael Kovach sound so reserved, he's normally feral as hell playing these kinds of characters). The little mannequin symbol on the door is probably there for when new people stumble into the circus.

She's definitely seen some shit, I wonder what it could be though?

OH MY GOD THERE'S MORE OF THEM 😭

Wow this background looks...oddly normal. The only thing I can think of this being is Pomni witnessing a flashback of her human life before she showed up in the circus.

''You completely lose sight of who you are and why you're even alive and when you reach your breaking point something REALLY terrible can happen''

OH? Okay speculation time again. This is the closest hint we've gotten to what exactly one of the gang's traumas could be. Ragatha may have forced herself to stay positive in really shitty situations during her human life which likely lead to a lot of negative thoughts which eventually lead to her doing...something, I'm not sure what though, maybe it lead to her losing an eye? (Maybe her new body represents that?) I'm not sure. Maybe this is why she's been in the circus for as long as she has, instead of dealing with her feelings and existentialism, she instead continues to try to be someone who's more adjusted than they actually are.

Again, this is all just speculation, maybe it's just an Infinity Train type of thing where they can't leave until they learn to accept what they went through and how to work through it healthily idk.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Well, I'll tell you what I think it is.

I think it's this weird tar like tentacle thing from the teaser trailer, I don't see what else it could be.

And I'm 90% sure that whatever it is, it's connected to this room, and I think that THIS is gonna be where we'll be seeing what the gangs traumas are (Ragatha looked TERRIFIED when she was grabbed so if this was the case I wouldn't be surprised). I'd also like to speculate that this could possibly be another AI. There's Caine, Bubble, and whatever the hell those little shape creatures are, so it's very likely that other AI does exist, we just haven't seen them yet.

But who knows? I'm probably looking too much into it.

Woah new background, he is angy.

I would go into another theory I have about how their designs may hint at what trauma they have but I've spent over an hour writing, compiling trailer screenshots, and speculating every individual frame while suffering with chest pains I wanna go to bed

Holy shit that took WAY longer than I thought it would. I cannot WAIT to watch the pilot, this show has become one of my most anticipated projects of the year over the last few months and I can't wait to see what it has in store.

TL;DR: The trailer looks fire 10/10 can't wait for the inevitable Pomni plushes.

[elvishdemigod]

Someone needs to gift Zag a VR system, with one of those big machine things that hold you while you move or a body-tracking suit, with places programmed like real-world places.

Let that man explore a McDonald's play area like he deserves, dammit!

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-07-08

House isn't full of people anymore, time to spend like three weeks washing things and getting a routine going again

Listening: My parents """excuse""" for visiting me was the Rod Stewart concert at the O2, which they insisted on getting me a ticket for even though I'm pretty mid on Rod Stewart. He's fine! I don't hate his music but like, not a show for me, especially when I'm now much more used to random bands I've never heard of in a bar.

He's doing the best show an 80 year old man can do, leaning heavily on his supporting act to fill in for the fact that he can barely amble across the stage. Still sings pretty well, within the bounds of all the effects that are used to punch up live performances this big. Here's Sailing

Watching: subbing in a podcast here for reasons: Finished The Magnus Archives. God dammit I see why everyone hated that! They almost did the good thing! They were so close! Kill the world and stop the things in their tracks! Leave the boy, we don't need him!

The final season has a lot of really good individual statements and moments but man that really does kill it dead.

Reading: Trains back and forth to Vienna were a good chance to read a bunch of The Traitor Baru Cormorant, I'm almost done. It's so good, especially when I can compare this to A Memory Called Empire and Iron Widow, which are respectively quite similar but good in a different way and very different while struggling with the kind of finickly politics that Baru handles so well.

Baru Cormorant is so up-front with its empire. I mentioned when I read AMCE that it felt (rightly) sanitized partly because we were ambassadors in the Imperial core, well, Baru Cormorant goes the other way, putting you right at the forefront of the Empire.

Playing: Nothing really, although I did put my parents through some VR demos because they wanted to try it out and I think they did genuinely like it, especially fiddling with some of the fun tactile demos that Facebook and Valve have put together. It's such a different way of interacting with the computer.

Making: A lot of photography that needs to be processed.

Tools and Equipment: Things that come up when other people are in my kitchen: you really don't need dedicated cutting boards for meat and vegetables in the home kitchen. The purpose of this is to isolate vegetable ingredients that may be used raw OR cooked and you don't know which at preparation time, which is a commercial kitchen thing. If you're cooking everything you're working with you can freely mix meat and vegetables without worrying too much.

The only time it matters is if you're, say, chopping fresh garnish or salad, where it will not be cooked, in which case a second chopping board or just washing your current one is a good idea. You do not, however, need to keep track of which boards you use for what, since if you're not cleaning your boards well enough that you need to worry about this you have bigger issues.

[azurdlywisterious]

Tell me your fave vaults

Okay, I somehow narrowed it down to a top five (honorable mentions are basically every single other vault) (except Vault 81) ( i wish the experiment actually happened and the overseer didnt shut it down i wanted the psychological horror :/ )

Vault 77- This is the crate of puppets vault, featuring the crate of puppets guy. This Vault wasn't a part of any game, rather it is from a comic that was promo material for fallout 3. and like, penny arcade understood the assignment on demonstrating how fucked up vault-tec is in thirty six panels. Like my one critique is that it's so short, but with the direction they went with the plot and the topics they tackled and it being 2008, it was probably for the best. Anyways the whole comic is free on the Internet Archive and its a nice snappy read (almost to its detriment like straight up plz someone get ari aster on the phone he'd make a fantastic adaptation of one man and a crate of puppets legit)

Vault 112- ooh hoo hoo unlike most vaults that I just remember from reading the wiki blurbs back in high school, this one was fully brought to my attention in a game of magic where i exiled a ridiculous amount of my library to get a winning card and also my missing dad (shout out to adventure costs!!!) and in that game i vowed to find it. I didnt know that it was a part of the main plot of fo3 yet but that didn't take long to find out. This is the creepy simulation one that i see as almost a proof of concept for the evil within vibes-wise (i fucking love the evil within series but thats besides the point). Legit terrified me in a way that should not have been possible (maybe im the one with unchecked issues that people being saccharinely nice to me sets off alarm bells in my head but it could also be that i had to get into a vr pod first) (who knows?) Anyways I proceeded to ignore like half of it and I'm looking forward to the next time i play and actually interacting with it a bit more (also one of my twelve fallout ocs is from this vault i made it work given this vault's canon ending)

Vault 11- Oughhhhhhh epistolary enviromental just altogether wonderful storytelling. the posters. The Posters! The ones that read "I Hate Nate" but the deeper down you go the more you find that have been graffitied to read "I Hate Kate" perfect wonderful amazing. Not to mention granting us with "Don't Vote Glover He Has A Family" which idk I love that out of context but I do. In context it's downright horrifying and the absurdity of it actually adds to the horror. Love love love Vault 11.

Vault 108- Gary. Gary Gary? Gary! Okay in all seriousness the story of this one is bonkers and also I'm a sucker for cloning (I had a cloning phase in third grade). Like, they found a guy that was going to die in a few months to be overseer so that there would be a power vacuum. Okay, normal social experiment for vault-tec. This eventually leads to them cloning a guy named Gary and then all the Gary clones killing the rest of the dwellers so now the only people in the vault are Gary clones. For the life of me I do not remember the chain of events that led to it and no i will not look it up it's funnier this way.

Vault 88- Look this one is boring to most people. Its a mix reviewed Fallout 4 DLC but dammit, I like getting to design my own Vault. As someone who got into Fallout because of the Vaults it was incredibly appealing to get to be the villain for once. And then I saw that my victim was this sweet guy named Clem (and also I was playing a goody two shoes but thats besides the point). Like I can tell they wanted to write Clem to be annoying so that you felt less bad basically torturing him but I found him so sweet and earnest I just couldnt. I fucking love Clem I would die for Clem hes like if a golden retriever was a person that I wanted to make sure kept his agency and autonomy. Plus it was really fun getting to piss the overseer off with some actually decent written dialogue. Like bonus points for that. And I still havent finished building the vault! amazing. absolutely wacky but also amazing.

[bloodgulchblog]

I have no jokes for you this morning.

S2E06.

We start off with a group of Spartan-IIIs engaged in a simulation training exercise to board and take down a Covenant ship.

We find out that it's a training simulation because they get pulled out of the dumb VR zoom call technology from last season (y'all remember that? I barely did) and Kai tells them how they fucked up and that they need to be more like a swarm of bees when they're in space to not get shot.

Insanely, one of these trainees is apparently Perez.

We also get a ton of these in-helmet face shots I hate.

While Halsey and the Gang have been busy on Aleria, Spartan-III is.... proceeding with a bunch of adults who survived Reach.

Apparently.

I feel like anyone reading this post has been here long enough to understand my annoyance without my efforts to belabor the point. Maybe I'll get agitated enough to make a whole post out of it later.

But this also feels like the kind of thing a writer does when they've heavily foreshadowed something (the Kessler subplot, whatever the fuck was up with Ackerson having a dead sister clone) but want to make you think you didn't see it coming, so I am expecting we are not out of the child soldier woods yet.

You know how it is.

The children yearn for the child soldier woods.

Anyway, there's a ~thing~ with her and Kai where Kai clearly doesn't like her and Kai's like "I don't have a problem with you I have a problem with failure" while Perez is all YOU'RE JUST MAD YOU WEREN'T THERE AT REACH.

Anyway there's this fucking amazing line after Perez says she "knows what she signed up for."

Then, we cut to Parangosky and Twinkerson having a conversation about ONI (sorry, THE ONI), tea, stories, and empire because of course.

But actually, the point of the conversation is that Parangosky has heard someone snuck a ship through their security protocols and landed nearby, and also she has heard from a source that Halsey is probably alive.

And was seen traveling with a huge scarred man on a ship of the same description.

God dammit, roll the title sequence.

I've survived the first 10 minutes without needing to spit 30 images at you so you can understand my anguish, so maybe things are looking up.

Sort of.

For now.

God I need to fucking know how bad the Spartan-IIIs actually are because this is already so stupid.

Luckily, Halo show is going to leave that Jimmy Rings teaser alone for now. Hop over to Kai and Ackerson.

Kai has been using the VR zoom call software to make herself more miserable about how she wasn't at the battle of Reach by simming herself there, and Ackerson is calling her out on it. She believes her whole team is dead and she's having a very bad time.

She is not confident about the Spartan-III trainees. She says they're not Spartans.

Ackerson is like lol well that's your problem, they are Spartans...

10/10 #1 best boss of the year award.

OKAY NOW we get to go see Halsey and the gang, who are of course on Onyx.

Halsey casually does not explain her plan. Kwan wanders off into the woods and starts hallucinating the spooky woman again while Soren and Jimmy talk about how Onyx is a ~mysterious planet~ with ONI history or something, and how Laera and Soren want to go find/rescue Kessler.

Kessler is somewhere in that building, they think.

Security forces show up and they fight armorless Jimmy in the snow in a scene that Paramount Halo probably thinks looks cool but I just thought looked very silly.

Kwan follows her vision and jumps down a well, which we find out has weird Forerunner Stuff at the bottom and Halsey is already there.

Halsey apparently used to work here 20 years ago.

The funniest thing about the sequence is she credits meeting Kwan specifically for how Jimmy Rings stopped behaving "like a Spartan," which feels super un-earned because of how quickly season 1 separated these characters and how little they ultimately actually seemed to mean to one another. Kwan is about as bewildered as I am with it.

Then, we have THE MOST HILARIOUS SEQUENCE IN THE SHOW TO ME SO FAR.

Okay.

Setting the stage for you.

Lovingly fighting with how tumblr won't let me upload two videos in one post.

Remember this cutscene with me, how they show us the Arbiter's punishment, how it feels to watch that.

Remember it? Love it? Good.

Here's what we get in Halo TV Show.

[EDIT: tumblr had its chance to host this but I think it thinks it's content matched, porn, or both. So. Youtube.]

The prosecution is wheezing. The prosecution rests.

(And by that I mean I should probably go eat something besides bad tv show for breakfast.)

[burgercheese1812]

My theories on The Amazing Digital Circus

So I have a LOT of theories about this show since the pilot came out and I’ve been rewatching it and I just found some things very interesting

For example we all definitely know Caine is hiding something… right? And when I was looking at Kaufmo’s room I noticed this:

Which is a picture of Kaufmo running away from a set of teeth with two eyes and a tongue

Definitely Caine.

So why was Kaufmo running away from Caine?

Well my theories kinda of all revolve all Caine being the one who brings the humans to the Digital circus, at first I was wondering if maybe Caine was like, some animator or something who tried to design an interactive VR game with I little more… ✨interactive✨

But then I thought, because their was that line where Caine says “another human”

Maybe Caine is an AI, like chatGPT or something?

It would be an extremely relevant topic given everything that’s happened with AI in the last year surrounding content creators and animators and stuff-

So maybe Caine is bringing in humans for when the other’s get abstracted? Or maybe not? I mean he did seem genuinely surprised when the others told him Kaufmo had been abstracted?

Anyway, then we have all of the… blank figures…

Them.

But did we notice that they have doors??

Now there were only about 4 or 5 doors with blank figures on them and there were a good 10 in that cafe so then I thought,

Maybe the blank figure NPC’s are like, the bases of the players? I know that’s not a very mind blowing theory but I just thought I would share it

Onto my NEXT theory and last for now

I was wondering if maybe the abstracted are those who find the exit? Like who are able to escape but then they turn back into their base NPC?? But when that happens they glitch??? And then that turns them into the abstracted form?

OR

Maybe they did almost find the exit but CAINE doesn’t allow that so (even though he says he can’t mess with the players minds) he takes the exit from the player and makes them crazy and then BOOM they abstract so they can’t reveal the exit.

I don’t know if they seem far fetched or not.

Anyway I think Caine is a lot scarier than he let’s on,

Also what was with the whole “you can’t go to the void because you’ll get spoiled”

Spoiled?? Like the player will turn into an abstracted or they will get the future plot of the game spoiled ??? I NEED ANSWERS DAMMIT

Additionally I saw this in Kaufmo’s room and was wondering if anyone could make out the last bit?

“What do t…” I can’t read the rest

Please ya’ll I want to hear more theories