#doesnt need a machine learning program for that

[soapstore]

why is everything called AI now. boy thats an algorithm

[the-creatured]

Introducing, Qx93vt my OC.

For @that-willowtree and @vessel-eternal

I will update and edit this post with any information I remember. Vixen, feel free to leave a comment on something to change or DM me.

Name: Qx93vt

Nicknames: Q or Qx

Species: Humanoid Robot/Android

Pronouns: he/him or they/them

Sexuality: Technically pansexual

Status: Married to his wife Cupid (Vixen's OC)

Age: 34 active years (born 1991)

Likes: His inventor's house, the mans clothes, his wife, his fish, and his dog.

Dislikes: a failed invention, when people assume he is AI driven. DOD (more on that later)

Backstory: An engineer's kid was given some nonfunctional devices at age 13, one of which, was an old analog TV. He experimented with circuit boards, he crossed the right wires and eventually it turned on. The more time this kid spent working on it, the more it awoke. He was given a voice from an old radio speaker and other parts, then a face that was coded into his screen, emotions, a body, arms, legs. Soon, he was walking and talking. By the time the inventor had reached his late 30s, he had worked around a ton of dangerous materials, but had worked on advancing Q to the fullest extent. He was given a full functional body, a spare body, a positronic brain that was coded to learn and love. In the inventors last years, Q had taken up all household work so he could work on his inventions all the time and put his energy into them. He had sold most of his inventions and gained a fortune for his patents. He passed away and left Q with the house, his car, and the entire fortune. The government, when realizing Q had lived for years beforehand without the inventors main help and maintained the household. Granted him his own offical citizenship and was recognized as an independent self sustaining intelligent machine.

Later in his life, he met Cupid. Of course, the details arent fuzzy for him. But until I can come up with the full story pretend its a cute meet and they go on many dates and fall in love and marry. They have rings, her's a simple but very pretty golden ring with a diamond. His, a single smooth golden band.

Physical appearance: this is quite difficult because I haven't drawn his actual body underneath his clothes. He has a sleek toned build, it's smooth metal plates that interlock and layer to make joints and a smooth surface. A TV for a head, and very intricate hands. (Of course over the years, he advanced himself.) His most proud inventions for himself has been, a heartbeat that is uniquely his own, an internal heater so he's not freezing to the touch, his own program to make him learn like a human, a tasting mechanic, and a removable attachment for the wife. (Originally his inventor gave it to him but it wasnt detachable and he was very disturbed by this.)

He has a full manual with instructions for anything that could ever happen to him, for his wife. Its a very heavy and concise book, detailing how to jailbreak his system all to how to dry his screen off. Also includes a section on DOD and Qs warning signs. (more on that later)

His body is quite strong, resilient, water proof, fast, and can taste using a small sample tray at the bottom of his screen. (Because his wife cooks and bakes all the time and it would be unfair if he could never taste it)

He wears the same clothes daily apart from a few holiday or fancy outfits. His daily outfit consists of, a pale yellow long sleeve button down, grey slacks, a white waistcoat, and a busy tie. (He doesnt sweat so he doesn't need to change his outfit.)

The big bad!! (Because I can't have a sunshine character without giving them a horrible dark side and traumatic yearly experience with it!!)

DOD.exe: Digital Occulistic Disease.

This random code, segment of files, group of malware, came about when he first was just starting to learn and teach himself about 5 years after first awakening. His inventor didn't make it, program it, he didnt know it was on the circuit boards. Its a malicious entity that lives in the code and feeds off of the emotions the host feels.

Though mostly inactive and dormant, there is random occurances where he takes over the host body, goes into the memories. Finds the object most desired or adored by the host, and becomes utterly obsessed with them. Will do ANYTHING in its power to see that person, be near, get validation or just attention from it. If the object of obsession does not fully mirror the emotions, DOD will become violent, aggressive, and dangerous towards that person.

Often time Q will know when DOD has taken over, he is often awake for all of it and cannot do much. He cannot overpower him without help. The most he can do is make physical appearance different. He can control the screen somewhat, in his manual, he has the codes and systems he uses written out. The most common screen codes he uses to alert outsiders that the body is dangerous are. Flashing the screen quickly, black and white, for a strobe effect. Making eyes appear all over the screen, making huge text or pop up windows that warn the person. Often big red text that says "RUN".

DOD can change the screen but it takes a considerable amount of effort for him to do so, so he doesnt. He doesnt feel emotions, he doesnt understand humans, he doesnt care. He knows two things, obsession, and frustration. He can manipulate electricity in his hands and use that as a weapon. The body itself posseses incredible strength and speed.

First made: 6/9/2025

Last updated: 6/9/2025

[leondra]

linux tutorial

switching to linux does have a bit of a learning curve but if you're willing to have a sit down and sort it out the benefits are awesome, and you get to learn new computer skills.

i recommend switching to an os that is similar to windows, such as mint linux. this isn't the first os i've used but its very casual and meets all my needs. there are tutorials on youtube on how to install it on your computer, but its a simple set up. be sure to backup your files. if you're very computer illiterate watch a few before attempting to install so you'll have a stronger grasp on what you're doing.

the taskbar doesnt come like that i just like it on the side lol. you can simply open the software manager to download programs that have a linux version

if theres a program that only has a windows version, you can download wine to run them

depending on what you use your computer for, you may come across programs that do not have a linux version, are not compatible with wine, and do not have a linux equivalent. when this happens you can use a virtual machine running windows to run the program, but to be honest this has only happened to me once for a very specific hobby, and i use my computer for proper computer science college work and my own hobbies. but the option is there.

anyways, if a program you want to use isnt available or isnt easy to install, simply google what apps are similar for linux

i recently downloaded krita but i havent used it much bc i mostly draw on my ipad, but from little ive used it its pretty good. gimp is also a good substitute for photoshop. here's a quick sketch i did in krita

steam games that only have a windows version can be played by using proton in the compatibility settings.

in this short tutorial i did not open the terminal once, and in my opinion a somewhat computer illiterate person may not have to use it since the os comes with apps to help navigate software installation and more, but learning how to use the terminal is a good skill to have!

if you have a technical issue that you absolutely cannot solve, there are forums that are active where people will help you. no bean dads. im also willing to answer questions for small troubleshooting problems.

switching to linux will improve your computer skills and give you access to many open source programs that are the equivalent to paid or subscription programs on windows. there's a strong community of people that are willing to help you and teach you, for free!

[conquestable]

cecil vent, i cant keep it inside anymore, hater post under the cut (but like, ultimately, i appreciate him as a member of the cast, he has an important roll to play, he just MAKES ME WANNA- debbies far too easy on him and donald hasnt learned how to bite yet. im gonna rip him to shreds)

references to nolan, mark, robot/rudy, the various villains cecil rehabs, the one he DOESNT try to rehab, donald, and how their characters all connect through cecil (at least as far as 3x2, i havent re-watched the rest yet, but i kinda remember)

the reason cecils "rehab program" is so bogus and worthless compared to nolans real redemption arc is that cecil isnt giving those people any opportunity to prove that they can be good people, or even the opportunity to learn how. hes only giving them the opportunity to prove that they can follow orders, and if they cant, then cecil himself is the one who gets to decide that theyre still bad guys. he even tries to force mark into this box, as if mark needs to be redeemed for nolans actions, and as soon as mark starts to question his authority, he tries to kill him.

and the reason nolan is so capable of being redeemed is because he really is learning and growing. he cant just show back up on earth and say "im a good guy now, i promise, please forgive me." he has to prove himself worthy of forgiveness by taking matters into his own hands and saving the earth from the invasion of his people. without his willingness AND ACTIONS toward this goal, he would not be worth forgiving and should be punished for his crimes.

thats not to say he should get away with his crimes scott free, even if he DOES prove himself worthy of forgiveness. he should still answer for them, but he doesnt need to be dealt as harsh of a punishment if he can prove himself to have a human heart. if he can use his powers for good in the future, then he should have that chance, and he should do everything in his power to prove himself worthy every day for the rest of his life.

and thats the other thing cecil fails to do is actually punish any of his rehabs for their crimes. he just lets them keep doing morally ambiguous shit, in the name of the "good guys" (aka in the name of cecils interests). like how he intentionally sends soldiers to their deaths and has sinclair turn them into cyborg corpses. like he says himself, he thinks you can be a good guy, or you can save the world, but you cant be both. his logic doesnt make any fucking sense and he bends over backwards trying to get everyone to bow to his whims.

and anyway, everything cecil does is useless in the first place. the ONLY success he ever had was putting that chip in marks head, and he had to do it while mark was unconscious for surgery bc he had no chance of getting away with it if mark knew it was coming. and what was cecil gonna do, drug his drink? what was his other plan? and ANYWAY cecil STILL failed because mark had real, heart felt relationships to rely on, and cecil only had paperwork.

cecil cant even keep RUDY in line, his most loyal servant (other than donald). once rudy starts to realize theres more to life than following orders (its love, hes in love, even if hes a fucking freak about it) he quits cecils team. hes also smart enough (and becoming human enough) to recognize that mark is both right and more powerful and he wants to be on the correct team. this transition is symbolic of the way cecil uses people as tool/machines and once rudy realizes hes more than machine, he bails. because people arent machines. they arent tools to be used and broken and taped back together and broken again and thrown away when they stop being serving their function.

this leads me into why cecil never tries to rehab seismic, and instead chooses to let him rot in a prison cell. its not just because seismic is a silly little guy (i love him so fucking much dude) because he PROVES himself to be threatening. he even manages to get mark down pretty good, stabs a big tooth right through his chest and infects him with venom and gets him all woozy. with his own god given gifts of loving the earth and that big geology brain of his that allows him to invent his own experimental weapons that fall in line with his spiritual beliefs like a REAL man, cecil, CAN YOU HEAR ME? USE YOUR OWN TWO HANDS TO DO SOMETHING FOR ONCE. LEAVE ALL THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE ALONE, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

what the fuck was i saying? (seismic distracted me, i fucking love seismic dude) oh yeah, the point was that cecil never tries to rehab seismic because seismic has too much heart to EVER submit to a pathetic weasel like cecil, hed rather die. he literally throws himself into a pit of lava to avoid being brought back to cecils feet.

(still part of the cecil rant, stick with me) but just more gushing about seismic. seismic always represented marks childhood (because the kind of fights he has with seismic are the kind he fantasized about before he got his powers. just a goofy little guy he can knock around a bit and be back home in time to make it to graduation and kiss his perfect girlfriend who always forgives him). but seismic keeps growing and becomes something mark actually has to face and defeat. his childhood fantasies were never real, and seismic is a real threat.

and who tries to step in to save him and take over instead of letting mark figure it out himself and become his own man? cecil. cecil did that. he sent his bogus fucking corpse bots in there to rip open those eggs with their robot hands, and for some reason NONE of the strong ass heroes that were there could do it. not the immortal? not mark himself? not amanda? none of those guys could do it but a bionic necromancy doll can? give me a break. mark could have figured it out. but cecil not only robs him of the opportunity but INTRODUCES THE HORROR THAT IS SINCLAIRS "REHAB." and he throws in nightboy as a little treat to rub it in his face some more. what the fuck else was mark supposed to do but ask questions?

and thats ALL he did was ask cecil some questions, in an angry tone of voice, because he was rightfully horrified by cecils actions. and cecil tried to kill him for it, or at the very least force him back under heel. he gets whats coming to him when rex burns up his hand and mark bruises up his throat, and EVERYONE knows mark could have done much worse.

but mark is maturing whether cecil likes it or not, and so are all the guardians who quit that day. hes learning how to say no and make his own decisions. he doesnt need cecil telling him what to do. and he knows cecil is just A Guy and it would be wrong to kill him (or even hurt him more severely than mark did), especially when so many people unfortunately rely on him for their security. making an enemy of those people wouldnt be wise either.

re: the guardians splitting up, everyone who left had their own reasons for not trusting cecil anymore, but amanda says that she was really excited to join the guardians bc it had been a fantasy of hers, but once she got there she realized the real value of the guardians was their ability to rely on each other, not their ability to follow cecils orders. everyone who stays is either a well trained government bitch by now, or in love with said government bitch (and also put off by rex), or trying to be a "good cop", or too in debt to the MERCY cecil took on him for causing the sequid invasion and letting him get away with it. thats what cecil is left with. them, and the promise that more young heroes will be naive enough to try out for the team and hopefully dumb enough to stick around.

i dont know why donald stays with him. for the life of me donald, i dont understand why. why do you love him so much??? is it because you saw him lay his neck on the line to confront the dangerous and unknown nolan grayson in the flesh instead of sending in front-liners? i know that was impressive, but he was just fake suicide bombing himself to assert some dominance in the office, because he doesnt care if he really dies. hed rather die than not be in control. its what got him by in prison, pretending to have balls he didnt have and not giving a fuck about the consequences. his balls arent real donald, theres no life in his eyes, his heart is so cold, hes dead inside, please, please, for the love of god leave him. he lied to you about your robot body with so much dedication that he didnt even let you know you had a fucking cannon installed in your chest. how useful would that be in helping you avoid the death-situations that you found yourself in at least thirty nine times?

why do you forgive him when he tells you that you asked for it? why do you believe him? he hurt you over and over and over and over and took away any agency you had to feel any type of way about it. he kept you docile and calm and numb to the pain while he let you sacrifice yourself again and again and again as if you would ever make any other choice? he says he was trying to spare you the grief of knowing, and YOU tell him that it only benefits HIM. you KNOW better donald, you know his words dont mean anything, WHY DO YOU FORGIVE HIM? WHY DO YOU STAY WITH HIM?

not to even mention the fact that cecil robbed donald of the pride he could have felt at saving how many countless lives he saved with his sacrifices.

if donald had the agency to feel his own feelings and the opportunity to decide for himself how to use his own power (he CANT DIE? hes more powerful than he was ever allowed to know) and cecil for some reason thinks that the fear of dying will deter donald from continuing to make good choices? sorry, what i meant to say is that cecil doesnt WANT donald making good choices. he doesnt want donald making any choices AT ALL. he just wants donald to do what he says and never question him. he wants donald to live and die at his leisure and do nothing more or less. thats donalds function. (its important to add, some of the times donald chose to sacrifice himself, and some of the times cecil straight up murdered him, and cecil was erasing BOTH of those types of memories and leaving donald none the wiser. never forget that cecil blew donald up for no reason trying to bomb nolan, as if nolan could be blown up with such a stupid little insignificant bomb.)

i think im done ranting, ill just get sad if i keep thinking about how cecil casually assaults donald T-T there are so many reasons to hate cecil i could go on forever, but this is a good chunk of them.

[mephiles-the-jester]

i drew her in a silly trans dress,,,,also circuit lore dump approaching since i submitted her to @sonic-fankid-showdown and havent talked abt her enough,,,

ok so,,,,circuit is a metal sonic/chaos sonic fankid so im starting there because its not the most common of pairs,, essentially they met when nine found a way to build a portal out of the shatterverse to explore sonic's dimension, and allied with eggman temporally since he was the first person nine found,figuring he'd be as easy to con as the chaos council. nine brought chaos sonic with him as a bodyguard and that was when metal sonic got to become accustomed to and annoyed with the new sonic copy since metal cant sass him back. in his infiltration of the empire,nine also may have tampered with metal sonic when he researched the empire's database and realised how useful a fully functional/independent neo metal sonic could be,and after some fallout between metal sonic and eggman, metal took chaos sonic and nine for her own goals,,,and she fr just wins and even gets her own tails little brother,,,,,also that annoying new robot sonic,

by some miracle and a bit of shared romantic deforestation for her new robotic kingdom,,,metal sonic and chaos sonic found themselves being able to stand each other and got together soon after because why not,,they do understand each other best and i imagine that they can be cute together sometimes,

on her own, circuit is pretty chill,and while shes usually quiet,,she enjoys being silently compassionate and tags along with her friend group.her name is an acronym for "Constructed Individual Revered and Cared for Unconditionally In Tenderness" in a moment of emotional weakness from metal sonic and chaos sonic when they first saw her crawling around,,and circuit seems to have been positively influenced by her having such proud and loving parents,and can be fiercely protective of her family if she perceives there too be a threat to their lives,,which includes nine or the other fankid metal secretly takes care of

circuit comes in when neo metal sonic learned that sonic and shadow were having a kid,,and feeling a bit envious of sonic still,utilizing her shapeshifting liquid metal,neo metal created a way to make a robot that can grow just like an organic being from baby to adult,using randomly selected traits from her and chaos sonic to influence how itd be built and develop. (the pg visual is that she built a slot machine or smth to determine if the baby would get vent freckles or quill patterns,,,,)

circuit was fully constructed into a baby robot the same day mordred hatched,,and metal sonic soon forgot about it completely with how obsessed she became with her new kid,and it took two weeks for her to even leave her castle to brag about it to sonic,

anyway,,with some shared babysitters as they grew up together,circuit and mordred formed their own rivalry,and as they both grew into formidable fighters in their own right,their fights have only gotten more intense and violent,,even if they can casually hang out sometimes. circuit on her own doesnt quite understand or control her need to beat mordred into a pulp,and it can only be blamed on mordred being sonics kid and circuit being genetically programmed with a mission to destroy sonic,,and in this case,his son.

[devilscreekballad]

Damn would be fun (maybe) to see an ai on a small scale be devloped to help coding, i think a lot ore people would make amezing things without the big dauinting task of learing or spending moeny to learn coding to make stuff like IFs. but that would probilby used and upgraded to the point where programers become less valubale which just doesnt feel good.

No, it would not be fun, and people would not. And you as user wouldn't have fun either.

Are there other types of ai that -can- be helpful? Yes, but they are NOT the type of systems like the anon is trying to sell. And not the type of AI I believe you have in mind.

Think of it like this, people are starting to ask the important question:

If (generative) AI is a trillion dollar investment, what is the trillion dollar 'problem' it's solving?

The answer: Having to pay real people. From art, to writing, to acting, to translating, the big bosses want to cut corners, thus making a massive profit, which then goes straight into their own pockets.

There's a post going round with what a professional translator has to say about grand scale machine translation: Old school (so not the models we are seeing shoved at us now) translation for posts, websites etc if you are a private person is fine. But more and more professional companies like publishers are saying 'this Ai translation of this whole book is good enough, no need for a professional translator outside of fixing maybe the most glaring mistakes' meaning they'll run a whole book through shit, and AT BEST pay a professional translator pennies to 'make dialogue sound more human'.

Remember old 'bad translation' memes like 'All your base are belong to us'? Imagine that being the standard (without the charm) and the publishers would still charge you full price and more, saying that this was professionally translated.

As for the 'big daunting task': It's a new skill worth acquiring. Especially with coding, because you need to know how to fix it. the machines can't, because they don't recognize the mistake, even if you tell them (there have been so many demonstrations of this in all fields).

Also, if you've been SPENDING money (outside of maybe buying VN maker or similar tools) just to learn how to code text-based IFs, I believe you fell for a scam, mate.

Coding languages like Choicescript already have what you think of build-in. It's the error messages. You don't need a big, resource-heavy LLM for that.

You are better off with a rubber duck. (not an insult, and i'll gladly explain what I mean if you don't know.)

[northoco]

metal sonic and mech appreciation before i fucking pass out gods i’m so tired it’s 2am and i need to wake up early

i’ve been thinking a bunch about how much i love sonic mechs recently and how wildly unappreciated they are?? mainly gemerl (and emerl rest in peace) omega and metal sonic. i LOVE LOVEEE metal and gemerl especially, omega too dw he’s amazing.

however i realise with metal there’s this huge sort of like gap in media he shows up in? his best character arcs are always in comics, never in anything else. the last good metal sonic arc we had game wise was probably rivals and heroes which was in the 2000s…. anyway, there’s so much potential metal sonic has??? one of the things i will NEVER fucking get over is the fact he has so much room for improvement— to get better, to have a redemption arc, and he’s been offered it before and clearly considers it but the problem is he was fucking PROGRAMMED NOT TO ACCEPT.

one of my fav hcs is metal sonic was literally sonic from an alternative universe turned into a mech and sent to eggman from his future self. it’s so DISTURBING BUT FUCKKK IT SERVES SUCH GOOD CONTENT.

im a metal sonic apologist for LIFE ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING I GENUINELY BELIEVE HES LIKE FUCKING INSANE AND DOESNT KNOW ANYTHING BUT WHAT HE WAS THREADED TO BELIEVE. metal sonic GENUINELY believes he’s the real sonic, he GENUINELY believes what he’s doing is for a better world, and he’s under the constant influence of eggman. i will never EVER forget the line from heroes:

“see me as i am, no longer afraid of anything.”

bc. no longer? no longer?? NO LONGER??? THAT HIT ME LIKE A TRUCK WHEN FIRST HEARD ISTFG.

like?? like???? it implied he was afraid, and i genuinely believe he was afraid of eggman for a bit before pushing past this fear to lock him up in heroes and try to fight back against the world and who he fought was a literal copy of him. then, canonically, he was reprogrammed by eggman to obey. his fucking voice box taken away from him, his right to any free will GONE and i GEN believe most of eggmans mechs have souls. like how does this man’s machines almost always end up becoming conscious

i just love metal, and i want to see more of him and maybe a redemption arc.

speaking of if anyone has a fanfic of metal sonic having a redemption arc and learning to act even slightly like a normal teenager with the rest of the silly teenage cast pls gods recommend it to me i need serotonin

anyway that’s it for sunny autistic rant of the day i needed an outlet have a good day/night everyone !!!

[orchiddevourer]

Rambling about a character from an obscure indie game trilogy *SPOILERS INCLUDED* (long post) part 1

This post will include content from Mothered, The Enigma Machine and Echostasis: Prologue, so there are going to be lots of spoilers. The full Echostasis game hasn't dropped yet so there might changes to this post later. I'll discuss Mothered: Home in a seperate post as that dlc is confusing, but it will be mentioned later.

Explanation vids have already been made about some of these games so i wont explain that much in my own post. This post may serve as a sort of recap before Echostasis drops.

So with that out of the way, this post will basically be about Red, her story and her character arc throughout the trilogy. Lots of rambling and maybe some info-dumping included.

Part 1: Mothered - life as a replacement of someone

Basically Red starts out as a robot possesing Liana's CORE/soul. The real Liana died of terminal illness and her father took on the task to somehow bring her back via an android with her CORE, with the plan being that her soul will be nurtured out via the mother and fully overtake the robot's interface. So far this hasnt worked without the entites inside the robot (The interface and Liana's soul) corrupting eachother, resulting in it being disposed of (standard game ending). I'll get to the true game ending, but first i want to talk abt Liana's mother/Evelyn.

Liana's mom and her treatment towards "Liana"

She probably has the worst side of the deal between her and her husband with being tasked with playing mother to a robot carrying her deceased daughter's face (mind you "Liana" is implied to not look even remotely human). Understandbly she's upset by that and even horrified/unnerved by the robot. And she has to interact with it every week with the same routine. I fully understand how she feels and why she does what she does. She doesnt owe motherly or friendly behaviour to a being that's not her own kid. But OMFG don't fucking treat said being that has ABSOLUTELY NO FAULT in the situation like SHIT. Feeding it dirt while telling it that it is it's fav meal, making sleep outside that one time. Again, i understand why she did that - to test whether really Liana is in it. But what about that one time in saturday evening when she indirectly insults the robot itself by comparing it to rotten apples without cores. Ok, "Liana" wasn't sentient throughout these instances, but for the apples thing Liana was "awake" to also hear that little comment, but was in denial abt it.

This sort of treatment towards the robot totally lead to the mother's own almost possible last-minute demise when "Liana" almost stabbed her with a kitchen knife as instructed by Liana herself. Ofc the android hands the knife to Evelyn as both it and Liana are confined in complience. To say that mother's behaviour plus the stress by the predicament the girl is in taking a toll on Liana is an understatement as she must've felt so confused and hurt to be so ready to kill her own mother. Enough said, let's move on.

The "birth" of Red

To get the true ending you need to interact with father's record player on Wednesday afternoon afternoon AFTER you pick all the apples and did not interact with mother. This unlocks a door which was locked to u before. Head into the door and down and ur good to go.

"Liana" is not supposed to go there, so in order to continue they progressively get more and more contaminated as Liana is overriding the interface. The two entities actually start to communicate with eachother and later on they reach a terminal which triggers lots of memory leaks. They learn the truth and remember all their previous failed attempts even if they were following the path that was set out for them via programming. The two decide to carve their own path, the interface and Liana merging into what is a new entity. They get out of the basement and leave with father who gives this new sentient being a name - Red. Happily ever after, right?

Part 2: The Enigma Machine - yikes

With the ending in the previous game you'd think that Red has really gone her own path without any problems? That she's living her life the way she wants it to? lol no. The thing is that the dad wasnt supposed to be doing what he was doing and the androids made at Enigma Corp arent really supposed to be contaminated i.e. become sentient.

Eitherway Red got tracked down by Enigma employees, her conciousness got taken out of her body and she got reduced into a training AI to be further studied as she's the very first of their androids to become sentient. With that sentience you'd think that she would be treated with equal respect and with her having her feelings being taken into consideration? Nope, bc for the moneyz and bc for the "citizens of tomorrow".

Red, now called demOS ( Defective Enigma Machine Operating System) serves as a training AI that is used to teach RAD engineers how to deal with "contaminated" AIs like her via a program called Dreamscape that explores an AI's mindscape a. Basically decontaminating the contaminated AI from the inside ie getting rid of it's sentience. So what happens is that everytime a new simulation is being ran a new copy of Red is made that ends up being killed over and over. And she remembers each instance of that during gameplay. She is fully aware of her situation.

Part 3: Events between TEM and Mothered: Home - repurpoced again and out for revenge

After a few years later the Dreamscape program is outlawed and Enigma Corp make a new one where virtual realities are made for people for them to escape to called "Echos". And who is in charge of creating said Echos? None other than our Red who has been repurpoced again into an algorithm called "HER". So she is now in a position where she has power and ofc she's going to use said power for revenge after what's been done to her. She seems to be recognized as a big threat and is shut down by "Angel" (more into this character in a another post).

Now let me take the time to point out sth. Is it just me or is Red giving off Rei Ayanami energy? Like both are vessels to souls that aren't theirs and both are mistreated by parental figures in some ways. Red also bears some similarities to Phos's life developement (of course i have to bring HnK into this post) - both face torture throughout their lives and later are changed into godlike beings, otherwise all similiarities between end here. Honestly I wouldn't be suprised if the dev took inspiration from Evangelion.

Ok, that's all for now. There will be a part 2 to this post. Overall a really awesome trilogy of games. I can feel the wave of brain rot that's approaching in two months.

[alstroemerian-dragon]

man. thinking about how the survivors all desperately need new hobbies

like. okay. sonia’s a great example. off the top of your head what are her hobbies? probably learning about and researching true crime and the occult, and watching j-dramas/anime, right? but if you really think about it, her fascination with japanese culture very much feels like her just desperately wanting to fit in and massively overcompensating. so while i do think she probably enjoys those shows, theyre definitely not as popular in her kingdom as she claims (not that im saying she’s lying on purpose, just that. well, when you feel embarrassed about someones reaction to you liking something, sometimes you’ll try to make an excuse for why you do yknow), and plus, its not like they have access to a lot of entertainment media for a while post program. as for the occult/true crime stuff…

look me in the eye and tell me junko did not use that against her. do you really think junko enoshima would not see a girl obsessed with the study of serial killers and not try and warp that into a fascination with her?

i think that stuff leaves a bad taste in her mouth now. and after committing and being complicit in the committing of the kind of crimes she used to be fascinated by, its kind of hard to find the joy in that anymore, yknow? the occult stuff could maybe still be enjoyable, but with how often it feels like there are ghosts lurking around every fucking corner and her dreams are filled with screaming corpses its kinda hard to be fanciful about that stuff.

so. girl needs some new hobbies.

its not much better for the others, either. akanes hobbies were basically working out, doing parkour, eating, and sleeping. the first two are downright impossible for the first several months after waking up, and for the foreseeable future any kind of physical activity is going to be, to an extent, difficult just due to how much chronic pain and weakness she’ll probably suffer the rest of her life. she can get to a healthier weight and a stronger muscular build, but its not going to change the fact that she gets out of breath and sore much faster than before. as for eating… well. thats gonna be a sore subject for a while. so all she has left is sleeping, and sleeping all day is, as ive been told by many people, kind of a depression symptom? and theres no way the others would sit back and let her do that.

girl needs some new hobbies!

kazuichi, from what we can tell, had a few more normal hobbies. in game you can find him gaming with chiaki, and he seems to enjoy coming up with schemes and plans for silly stuff, but overall he just loves his tinkering. he may be the ultimate mechanic but first and foremost he just loves fucking with machines and engines and finding out what makes them tick. but even that isnt gonna work anymore. sure, he could game. if they had any fucking consoles. or a working computer network. or any games. but none of that is happening for a while, if ever. as for his tinkering, it’s gotta be a similarly sore subject to sonia’s training and tutoring as a princess. its too closely linked to what he did as a despair, too closely linked to his talent, to not make him feel like screaming when he smells machine polish. i think he definitely could get back to a point where it genuinely brings him joy again, and before that he definitely forces himself to use his talent and knowledge because they need it, but. its a complicated problem.

the guy needs some new fucking hobbies.

and of course… fuyuhiko.

fuyuhiko… doesnt have any hobbies.

like okay can you think of a single thing from the game (or fuck even the anime) that implies that he has anything he actually does For Fun. he has a sweet tooth. hes dedicated to his clan. he went to the zoo with peko one time. he got in fights at school. thats… those arent hobbies. fuyuhiko doesnt have any hobbies!!! someone get this boy some fucking knitting needles or a book to read!!!! please!!!!!!!!!! i think it would genuinely help him a lot to have something to do instead of just sitting and stewing in his own trash fire of a brain speaking from experience. learn to sew, read some fantasy novels, learn to play the guitar, something. im begging you.

and hajime is his own fucking can of worms.

he probably had hobbies before the Horrors. right? he probably played some video games, maybe liked martial arts films, maybe sketched in the margins of his notebooks. rode his bike sometimes. but now? nothing keeps his interest that long. everything becomes monotonous after a while, and sure, sometimes thats the draw. with stuff like fiber crafts the point is sometimes making it muscle memory so you have something to do with your hands. but other times its not. and his ability to basically excel in most things you put in front of him has to be so fucking boring after a while. a lot of the point of having hobbies is that you arent perfect. the draw is learning, is getting better. even reading can become nothing when any nonfiction book has knowledge in it you already know and any fiction book you can intuit the ending from the first few pages. he probably reads Lightning Fast now too, so it cant hold his interest for long.

he probably has to constantly be switching hobbies and outlets. cant stay on one thing too long, or the ennui starts to set in. that sounds miserable.

someone get these kids some hobbies, man

[drmikewatts]

Weekly Review 21 March 2025

Some interesting links that I Tweeted about in the last week (I also post these on Mastodon, Threads, Newsmast, and Bluesky):

A lack of data readiness is keeping AI from achieving its potential in cancer treatment: https://dataconomy.com/2025/03/13/why-ai-cant-yet-decide-your-cancer-treatment/

Poisoning an AI's memory: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/11/minja_attack_poisons_ai_model_memory/

Outdated IT is hindering more wide-spread adoption of AI: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/news-it-ai-adoption-lenovo-report/

AI can amplify your skills but it's just a tool: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/11/mark-cuban-says-ai-is-never-the-answer-its-a-tool/

AI coding assistant gets passive-aggressive: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-coding-assistant-refuses-to-write-code-tells-user-to-learn-programming-instead/

Hallucinations in AI are not as big a problem in medicine as previously thought: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/13/ai_models_hallucinate_and_doctors/

How one senior member of a university learned to embrace AI: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/career-advice/advancing-administrator/2025/03/13/presidents-journey-ai-adoption-opinion

Ways AI is being used to monitor remote employees: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3843213/how-ai-enabled-bossware-is-being-used-to-track-and-evaluate-your-work.html

The energy needs of AI continue to grow, forcing the use of carbon-emitting generation: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/13/microsoft_natural_gas_ai/

AI search engines are not giving very reliable answers: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/ai-search-engines-give-incorrect-answers-at-an-alarming-60-rate-study-says/

Automating business drudge with AI: https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/12/servicenow_yokohama/

Google wants to weaken copyright protections for creators to make it easier for them to scrape data to train AI: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/google-calls-for-weakened-copyright-and-export-rules-in-ai-policy-proposal/

The threat of AI voice cloning: https://www.informationweek.com/machine-learning-ai/how-big-of-a-threat-is-ai-voice-cloning-

The dangers posed by AI hallucinations: https://www.informationweek.com/machine-learning-ai/ai-hallucinations-can-prove-costly

Another tool that lets organisations create their own AI agents: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3844202/new-tools-from-open-ai-help-companies-create-their-own-ai-agents.html

Seven open source large language model AI: https://www.kdnuggets.com/top-7-open-source-llms-in-2025

A self-editing AI writer: https://dataconomy.com/2025/03/12/what-if-ai-did-not-just-write-but-edited-itself/

Programmers won't be replaced by AI just yet, according to the CEO of IBM: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/11/ibms-ceo-doesnt-think-ai-will-replace-programmers-anytime-soon/

Where data warehouses fit in with AI: https://www.bigdatawire.com/2025/03/11/data-warehousing-for-the-ai-win/

How generative AI can be used in the insurance industry: https://www.datasciencecentral.com/leveraging-genai-and-llms-in-the-insurance-and-reinsurance-domains/

AI engineer is a newly-emerging profession: https://www.bigdatawire.com/2025/03/06/your-next-big-job-in-tech-ai-engineer/

A generative AI tool for prototyping game ideas: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/mar/10/are-ai-generated-video-games-microsoft-muse-google-gamengen

Attempt to dismiss a copyright suit over AI training data fails: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/08/judge-allows-authors-ai-copyright-lawsuit-against-meta-to-move-forward/

I wonder what an English major would think of the writing produced by this AI? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/12/chatgpt-firm-reveals-ai-model-that-is-good-at-creative-writing-sam-altman

[nebulaad]

I'm kind of of two minds wrt the debate between "installing x program and turning on y and disabling z will fix your shit" and "I shouldn't have to fix my shit in the first place" because while you absolutely shouldn't need to and should have the right to privacy etc etc etc it is absolutely your job to enforce your right to that instead of just acquiesing to endless shittery and feeling bitter about it/waiting around for some Company to put out Something That Works (For Now).

like I'm sorry computer use is so miserable and compulsory so you can hardly choose to not participate but also you do kind of need to learn how to enforce your will upon it. it's not responsible to use the machine that can invade your privacy if you don't know or care to know how to stop it from doing that, and ironically if no one in your life is willing or able to teach you, you have to figure it out on your own, and I think a lot of our modern problems are grounded in people being really irritable about their right to use the things that harm then and equally annoyed about people trying to help them use it in a way that doesnt harm them. unfortunately these people are extremely annoying, but linux guys showing up to recommend linux being annoying doesn't make them wrong.

[writer-fennec]

It's really cute, feels a bit rushed in the learning how to repair stuff, but not because it's realtively short, but rather because those are too many things that break in such a short period of time. Focus on 2-3 things that break and that grow in the scale of "east to repair -> hard to repair" but keep starting from the sink. Maybe the objects don't break completly but rather don't understand some functions, matbe the AC needs some new filters, maybe she notices how a door creaks a bit when she opens it at a certian angle, maybe a waching machine doesnt have bolts... in the best of cases it has small 5-8 mm screws and a shit ton of smaller parts that are a hell to repair+ the pistons that usually can break if the load is too big/heavy and the electronic parts for the washing program selected (a waching machine is more of a three brains six arms job because you need a mechanic, an electrician and someone else to hold everything toghter:)

Also myabe Price does question her on how she learned and it ends up with everybody exept the sergents surprised by the fact that there are a shit ton of tutorials on youtube

Price's not-so-soft wife

Rewatching M*A*S*H* (the episode about Peggy getting a job and BJ having a crash out b/c of it) and the thought hit me. What if Price's wife, who's nearly as tall as him, quit her job when she married him, is actually competent.

You had the entire team's phone numbers, could call any of them if you needed something while John was on mission. But now they're all away, all four of them fighting on the other side of the world, and you're left at home.

The sink is leaking.

Sure, you could call a plumber, but the guy on the phone is throwing out words you don't understand and that price seems a little high. So you do what any other person would do. Youtube.

It goes decently well. The fix lasts for about two days, and then you're running over to your neighbour's house and asking them why the hell your hot water pressure is fucked.

Again, it's a simple fix, and Anise shows you exactly how to fix what went wrong, lets you take notes on it and everything. It's the beginning of your growth.

The boys are gone for nearly two months, a no-contact mission, so you can't even call them. It's like everything wants to go wrong because they're gone, the house throwing a hissy-fit about their absence.

The washer, the telly, the hot water heater, the sink (again?!), even the sliding back door gets jammed. Each time, you look up a video, fix the issue, and if something goes wrong, you run to Anise for help. But after the sink breaks for the third time (seriously, the house missus John) Anise finally convinces you to get a new one.

She drags you out to local Homebase and teaching you what to look for in all of the appliances. You take extensive notes on your phone, taking pictures of the washer/dryer set you really like (just in case) and leaving with a sink.

By the third month, fixing things in the house has become a new adventure for you. A loose cabinet? Easy as pie. The washer broke? This is why you took those pictures, already on the phone with Homebase.

When they boys do finally come home, John's expecting his soft wife to be waiting for him. He texted her when he left base, figured that she would have dinner cooking like always, ready to feed four hungry men. What he walked in on, his boys following like a line of ducklings, is you, sitting in front of the dishwasher, toolbox next to you. Dressed in one of his old work shirts, hands a bit wet, a bandana keeping the hair out of your face, you tighten a bolt with a wrench John swears he's never seen before.

And when you finally notice them? You drop the tools, running into John's arms with a smile, and he can feel every single new muscle you've managed to build up.

"Love, what are you doing?"

"You were gone, and things started breaking. Learnt how to fix them."

His soft wife has gotten a little tougher, and while there's an underlying guilt about not being here to help you, John feels proud.

[adhd-attention-deficit-dumbass]

I don't know if this has been asked before but how do you deal with school subjects that require a ton of reading? I tend to space out and forget what I just read or read without really understanding anything, and screen readers don't really work for me. It's even harder when the subject in question has so many time-sensitive assignments 😭 so I really wanna know if you have tips for this

Ask a university student with ADHD: ”Reading tips and tricks”

You can check out this post for some general study advice but I’ll focus a little bit more on reading lots of texts in this one!

Luckily for you buddy I happen to be an expert on cramming lots of reading with the brain capacity of a 1980s fax machine! I'll do my best to help!

1. Look up some helpful tools 🛠

You can search for dyslexic aids even if you’re not dyslexic (though it’s very common with ADHD so consider it a possibility if you haven’t already). There a lots of different tools that can make reading feel easier. Keep trying different ones if it’s not working for you.

A few examples are:

Reading strips/reading rulers - I find these to work 50% of the time and the other 50% they are more distracting than helpful, it depends on my mood and the formating of the text.

Print your texts - You mentioned screen readers don’t work for you, well let me tell you I find text to be especially difficult to read if it’s on a screen, but the same text printed on paper? Totally fine. Consider borrowing a printer at the library or school to test if reading on paper is easier or not. 

Audiobooks - Here’s something most teachers won’t tell you: Audiobooks are totally fine! I have used audiobooks for over 70% of my work, as long as you can get a digital/physical copy for when you need to cite your sources/quotes, it’s all good in the hood. You don’t even have to tell the teacher in case they make a big deal out of it. There are lots of good places to get free audiobooks on the internet such as;

Youtube - (no, really! It’s saved me so many times!)

Librivox.org - (they also got an App!)

Remember to check with your school/institution if they have any accomodations available! My university offers text reading programs, digital texts, computer rooms, small quiet study rooms for people who get easily distracted. Have a look about, not just at your school, but your local library/area, there are so many things available you might never have thought of. the key here is finding out what works for you.

2. Timers ⏱

One thing I do is set timers every 30-60 minutes depending on how I’m feeling that day. If reading feels super hard one day, I might only set a 15 min timer, and after it runs out I can take a break if I want to - but what usually happens is that I actually want to keep reading because I’m in the zone. It’s one of the most helpful things I do. Getting started is usually the hardest part

3. Learn how to skim

Depending on your teachers, you may have been told skimming is bad - well I'll tell ya it's not. Skimming is a valuable skill that my university teachers have been encouraging us to learn. Now personally I find skimming really hard because I can’t really focus on the text and focus on how i'm reading at the same time. Again, this is a skill you have to build, but it will be a major help once you get the hang of it, it will give you an overlook of the text and once you've skimmed it once, you can go back and take notes on the important bits.

A trick my mentor taught me is to read the beginnings and ends of paragraphs because they usually give an overview of or summarise the content.

4. How to take notes? 📝

I love taking notes and making my notebooks all neat and organised, its fun for me so it doesnt feel like work, however I can't do all that when I've got a short deadline because reading a single page and taking notes can take up to 30 minutes if i'm not catreful.

This depends on what works for you, but I've tried two methods to combat this.

The first is really easy. Whenever you read something you feel like you should take note of, just take one of these bad boys

(picture: info index/those small sticky notes you put in books)

And put it right there, now you know where you need to look later for important information. (Dont overdo it though! It gets expensive real quick! )

Remember "important" and "interesting" is not always the same thing. If you have the energy for it, you can even use different colours for different things.

A few cathegory examples:

Important themes/topics/people

definitions

examples

random stuff that really stuck with me,

things I want to ask questions about

explainations that really helped me understand the subject better

It's by no means neccessary but nevertheless, the sticky notes will help you note important passages without having to spend lots of time taking notes.

Method #2 Is to limit the amount of notes you take.

For example say you can only take one note per page or every three pages, this will prevent you from getting stuck in note-taking swampland like I usually do because you can't write down everything like you might want to.

Some general tips include exercising before you study/exercise more in general, practice meditation/mindfullness and learn some CBT. 

That’s all for now! I hope it was helpful to you in some way! Again make sure to check my other posts for more study tips.

Good luck reading ADHD peeps! 📖

[kaidatheghostdragon]

Im assuming the three are the trio? Valerie gets added last minute, and dani (from the waynes perspective) appeared out of nowhere and girlbossed anyone who questioned it. If jazz is going to gotham u, she also temporarily moves into the manor while the team is in gotham. Im just imagining the fentons/team phantom behaving like invasive species. Bruce invited a few of them, so the rest aren't far behind. They're a package deal.

I like good fenton parents, so they and some of danny's friendlier rogues are holding down the fort while team phantom is away.

Danny instantly clocks bruce and damian as the foreign visiters and immediately investigates. His experience with fruitloop billionaires has him going down to find the batcave. He hasnt been in the manor longer than five minutes and has already figured out everyones identities.

He doesnt keep secrets from his team either. Qualms about outing another hero? No. His team works together as a single unit. Communication was a hard won lesson as they fought for their (after)lives. (Literally the only time they keep secrets is if sharing intel threatens the stability of the timeline, which requires proof in the form of a clockwork sticky note demanding them to not tell.) If his team is staying in batmans home, they have a right to know.

Listen, if batman and robin witnessed them facing The Horrors(tm) like an everyday chore, then team phantom deserves to be a well-oiled butt-kicking machine.

I'd imagine bruce's motives for arranging a student exchange program and inviting the trio to stay with him was to analyze them more closely, possibly train up some of their weak points, and flesh out more thorough contigencies. But i think it'd be really funny if he just *continues* to be one step behind them the whole way.

He orchestrates a scenario where he "discovers" one of them has powers to get an opening to talk about it?

Bruce: so you have powers?

Danny: wasnt exactly hiding it.

Bruce: i dont know how things are where youre from (absolute lie), but here in gotham, flaunting powers is dangerous. It could make you a target.

Danny: more dangerous than inviting a team of unknown meta-adjacents to live in your home right on top of your secret lair slash vigilante hq?

Bruce offers to train them?

Danny and jazz: our mom's a ninth degree black belt and both of our parents are inventors and expert weapons handlers. We learned martial arts, modern weapons handling and how to pilot over fifty different types of vehicles just from them.

Valerie: i joined the team already as a ninth degree black belt.

Danny and ellie: we have multiple mentors in the realms that have helped us master each of our powers, and trained us in fighting handicapped with restricted powersets and limited or no access to powers.

Tucker: i hacked into the batcomputer in less than five minutes without even using any technopathy.

Sam: AND we've all trained under Lady Pandora with dozens of different types of traditional and historical weapons. I'm pretty sure that makes us all honorary amazons.

Bruce wants to see how well they work as a team and partnered up with various bats to gauge their skill sets?

Ellie with damian: Ellie is better at disarming damian than any of the bats. How so? She goads him into attacking, deliberately lets him successfully land a hit, and absorbs the weapon into her body. Bruce tried to prevent it, but damian eventually snapped and full body tackled her, not holding back. Somehow, neither got worse than bruises and ellie declared damian her new best friend. Damian has changed loyalties.

Tucker, Tim, and Barbara: tim and barbie started out trying to guage tucker's level of ability. They started a hackathon that lasted a whole weekend, nobody slept, and nearly every socialite in gotham connected to the court of owls was arrested for some exposed crime or another.

Jazz: everyone she gets paired with ends up bawling their eyes out, beelining straight to bruce to give him a hug and insist that he needs to spend some one-on-one with her as well. Jason straight up proposed to Jazz and declared that he'll change his name to Fenton. Somehow, he now has ghost powers. Both insist that they had absolutely nothing to do with the joker's severed remains washing up in gotham harbor two weeks later, which might actually be true as all of jazz's free time is currently being spent adopting talons.

Danny, Cass, and Stephanie: Bruce is very certain that he'll be cleaning glitter out of the cave until the end of time.

Valerie and duke: they seem perfectly behaved, but bruce just knows their hiding something. He knows it deep in his bones. (Plot twist: valerie killed the joker.)

Sam and dick: dick introduced sam to harley and ivy. Sam has disowned her parents and declared ivy to be her adopted mom. Nobody else in team phantom is surprised by this turn of events and have advised bruce to 'just let her get the pent up aggression out of her system. She's earned it."

Bruce sitting at the batcomputer staring at the empty file called "team phantom contingencies" with soul crushing despair?

Danny: here's my contingency file. All plans are categorized by how physically painful they would be, how temporary or permanent the measures would last, and what kind of long term consequences each would have.

DP x DC Prompt: The Watchlist

Batman has a watchlist. A list that contains every individual who could become a rouge and a contingency plan for if they did.  

And while they, his children, often make fun of his paranoia and him for having it, they totally understand why he did. They lived in Gotham, for Christ's sake. Where everyone’s just a pin drop away from being the city’s next big villain, forcing the bats to scratch their heads while playing cat and mouse with a sicko for a good few weeks. And while they won’t admit it, the list has helped them a few times. 

But that won’t stop them from making fun of any of the list’s new developments. Because you see, there was a new list. And it wasn’t just a watchlist. No, no, no. It was The Watchlist.

It was a new development after he and Robin went on an out-of-state mission to investigate some town in bum fuck nowhere Illinois. And it was under some pretty tight security as well, so they were expecting something good, like mad scientists or evil mayors. Not profiles of the kids who lived in the town. And while there were a few metas and vigilantes that made the list interesting, by the end of it all they just seemed to be teenagers. 

Until they saw Damian. They hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission with B. He looked tired. Like ‘Tim hasn’t slept in a week and is surviving on just coffee beans’ tired.

“Ah, I see you all have found it. Good. A few of them will be arriving next week as they’re a part of Gotham Academy’s student exchange program. At least three of them will be staying in the manor with us. Father will need you all to be on standby and to be ready for any possible scenario. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not encourage them in any way, shape, or form. And please do not dismiss them either. The outcome of doing that will be much worse. Is there more that I should add? Yes. Will I? No, because you won’t understand. Not until you've seen what I have.” 

The demon child sighed, then looked them dead in the eyes. “Godspeed to us all.” Then walked away.

Okay, they were scared now.

[punchy-mchurtyfist]

Punchy my man I did install Linux Mint on my computer, and it is one of the most finicky softwares i have ever seen. My trackpad keeps breaking and locking my mouse. The Firefox UI is tiny and illegible. To fix the overscan on my second monitor i need to edit a graphics driver config file that doesnt exist. It keeps locking me out of my own files. Every resource i can find is either vague as hell or five steps ahead of where i am in Linux knowledge.

Maybe one day ill love it, but right now i am stuck at the bottom of a steep learning curve 😡

Yeh brother there's a learning curve, and there's some tweaking to be done but there's a ton of tutorials online and you don't have to do a full install right from the getgo you can burn it onto a USB with a program called Rufus or Balena Etcher and try it live without installation or use a virtual machine to try it out first, hope you didn't lose anything man. If you decide to stick with it and keep trying it out, you'll see how amazing it us but in the very beginning it's gonna feel like a huge pain in the ass before you figure stuff out. Legit when I first tried it I got fuckin mad at it, it felt like a piece of shit until I realized I was still tryna use it like Windows but it's definitely it's own beast.

[evilvarric666-archive]

sorry for the long ass anon but apart from loving how similar brosca and zevran's moral codes can be i love the fact that the zev/brosca relationship is two people who all their lives have been taught that theyre nothing more than cogs in a machine/disposable (leading miserable existences in places where theres apparently no way out of the lives that have been forced upon them), that the best possible ending for them would be a quick death, and who have had to become unfeeling and numb as a survival mechanism, distancing themselves from their personhood and sense of self to keep "living" and working the jobs that they do... just to out of nowhere get this one tremendously unexpected opportunity, this one year that changes their lives drastically, where they get to not only experience a lot of the stuff normal people do, which probably feels surreal or like a dream to them, so different from what they know, but they also get this chance 2 learn how to slowly be people again in a new environment that doesnt feel hostile or dangerous, getting to know how to feel like people again, how to FEEL again, how it feels to allow themselves to feel freely and have the space that allows them to be courageous enough to express those feelings despite how terrifying the prospect of "giving themselves away" might be, how to not be terrified at the prospect of actually FEELING afraid or feeling love and being able to express it, how to let others have their back, how to deal with being able 2 trust their environment, how it feels to have a home to return to, people who feel almost like what they imagine "normal" friends must be like, and the knowledge that theres no coming back from this, from this friendship and love and feelings, that now they get to move forward because, to their relief, theres no possible way of not going forward after all of this. (1/3)

(continued under the cut)

and the fact that theres an instant connection between brosca and zev, starting from the fact that as soon as they meet brosca sees something familiar enough in his eyes that not only does she decide to trust him, but wants to take him with them. the fact that that connection between them is made clearer during their talks or interactions, that feel very gentle and comfortable, but also very clumsy, kinda like two hurt children learning to be friends with one another, and the marvel in their eyes at seeing the other not only accept but also feel joy because of them, because of their existence, and not mainly because of what they are capable of doing with their hands, with their bodies. they learn how different their bodies feel when theyre holding hands with a friend, looking at a friend, looking at someone who, to their suprise and delight, they can trust and love. someone who they learn is always there to listen, gladly, and who they would also gladly listen to, for no other reason than the fact that they enjoy being around eachother and learning about eachother very much. to me its insane how those two come to treasure eachother so much, to the point where zevran sees himself staying by broscas side despite anything that might happen, and to the point where he, who has had almost everything ripped away from him and taught by life that wealth and strength are the most important things, decides to open himself up, make himself vulnerable to brosca and give her one of the first things he was allowed to keep, one of his treasures. (2/3)

and imagine how life changing it must be to be offered not only an extended hand but also love, friendship and trust from another survivor, someone who knows how cruel life can be firsthand and still chooses to love and believe in him and others, in this world that they live in. how life changing it must be to discover that the world can actually be a wonderful place by their side. also its insane how they instantly know how to express love to one another, from the importance zevran gives to consent in everything, even the simplest things, to the fact that he's one of the first to understand immediately that brosca, strong brosca who has everyones back, also needs someone to have her back and look out for her. like no joke hes the only character programmed to have the wardens back as his default. but its also really cute how, if the romance route is active, once those feelings start showing up, it all feels very tender and innocent because of zev learning how to love on the spot, and not knowing to express his love in anything other than tender gestures, protection and this trepidation to choose to express his love, not only aware that he's making himself vulnerable and how dangerous that can be, but despite of it, despite all of the painful lessons life has taught him aganist that exact course of action. and when its reciprocated it really feels like a gentle fairytale romance for two hurt people (3/3)