#i am so anti ai at this point for everything other than the bit

[imagineagreatadventure]

at work i keep getting weird cold marketing emails and i realized they were all probably AI recently when one them was actually honest and had at the bottom they were "this is AI :)" and i was like....... great.

[megaawkwardhuman]

throughout my days posting to tumblr I try my best to not be an angy little dumbass cuz nobody like hearing people bitch

BUT OH MY GOD THIS ARTICLE

really REALLY important thing to note: I've said it before on here that guillermo is a character that I love dearly. for a fictional character he's really important to me. I wish I was joking when I say he's help me process shit in the past and made me feel overall better about myself in a weird way? I see a lot of myself in that queer little man

BTW I'M AWARE THIS PROBABLY ISN'T HEALTHY AND WEIRD BUT IT'S TRUE (plz don't judge me)

so I'm a bit biased here

this isn't an anti keeping guillermo human post, this is all word vomit, I have nothing personally against whoever wrote this, and nobody should attack this person (if they are a person? this sounds like it was written by an ai)

oh yeah and there's the real chance this was written by an ai and I'm getting mad at a glorified calculator but oh my god I just need to scream rn let me have this

ok with all of that out of the way HI HI HEY HEY HELLOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DID I JUST READ!!?!??!

the fact they get wrong, the bad takes, the headache this is giving me WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!? IEUWHJUOFEBK2HODPPIHDWIWINDWIINDWPQ

I could break down EVERY LITTLE THING wrong with this but I don't have the time, energy, or brain cells to annotate and dunk on everything this article gets wrong (plus if this is written by an ai like I suspect there's no real point) BUT WHAT I DO HAVE TIME FOR IS JUMPING HEAD FIRST INTO MY MAIN FUCKING ISSUE

now look look LOOK I get people wanting to keep guillermo human I REALLY DO if you think that way that's fine

hell if done right I AM DOWN FOR IT

BUT FUCKING EXCUSE ME!?!!?!

UH NO THE FUCK IT WOULDN'T????

starting with this: UGH BRUH TF?

BESTIE HUH?!?!?!?

yeah it would be interesting but even if they for whatever reason made him a normal plain basic ass vampire THAT COULD STILL BE INTERESTING

seeing a character go from wanting to be a vampire to killing them when need be to now BEING a vampire is interesting, seeing how his dynamics get fucked with be interesting, seeing him learn how to fully be a vampire (something we only really got a glimpse of back in season 1) would be interesting, HAVING HIM FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR BEING A SLAYER TURNED VAMPIRE OR HAVING TO FACE HIM KILLING VAMPIRES IN THE PAST WOULD BE INTERESTING!!!!!!

but but BUUUUUT HERE'S THE THING

EVEN IF HE CAN TURN INTO A VAMPIRE HE'S MORE LIKELY THAN NOT GONNA BE MORE THAN JUST A VAMPIRE

we don't know what the slayer blood will do to the turning process SO EVEN IF IT TAKES LONGER THEN EXPECTED IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT KIND OF MESSED UP VAMPIRE HE'LL BE IF HE CAN BECOME ONE

like the slayer blood leaves SO SOOOOOOO much room for opportunity if they're concerned with him "being boring" (I feel like being boring would be impossible with the whole slayer thing and the fact that something is always going wrong with him) as just another main vampire

NOW LET'S GET INTO WHY NO: HAVING GUILLERMO BECOME A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T BE FUCKING UP ALL OF THAT PROGRESS HE MADE!

ah yes the block of text that got me to read this

BECOMING A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T CHANGE OR BETRAY ANY OF THAT!

HE'LL STILL GROW JUST NOT AS A HUMAN, HE'S STILL A WARRIOR, ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT FREDDIE? THAT SHIT IS DONE AND OVER WITH, AND BECOMING A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T MAKE HIM UN COME OUT TO HIS FAMILY OR SOMETHING?????

sure most of that wouldn't have happened if he went on the trip back in season 3 BUT THAT'S LONG DONE AND OVER WITH MY GUY WE'RE ENTERING SEASON 5 NOW

next point: him becoming a vampire also wouldn't be him "giving up" IF ANYTHING WITH THE WAY IT WAS FRAMED IT WOULD BE A STEP FORWARD FOR HIM SINCE IT'S HIM DIRECTLY TAKING HIS LIFE INTO HIS OWN HANDS AND NOT WAITING FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE

he saw a problem in the house and he saw nobody was going to do anything about it so instead of doing what he would have done a season ago and waiting he took matters into his own hands

AND IF HE ENDS UP WALKING AWAY FROM THIS SEASON A VAMPIRE OF ANY FLAVOR HE'S PROBABLY STILL GOING TO MAKE PROGRESS

as a vampire no matter how messy the process is HIS CONFIDENCE WILL BE AT LEAST A LITTLE BOOSTED DUE TO THE FACT HE'S ON A MORE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD MINIMUM

IT MIGHT TAKE A BIT OF TIME BUT OVER ALL HIM BECOMING A VAMPIRE WON'T BE A STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

(KEEPING HIM HUMAN WOULDN'T BE A STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION EITHER BTW I CAN SEE WHY THEY WOULD GO THAT ROUTE)

and finally a point I can kinda see: him being accepted as only just a human WOULD be nice

he's worked hard to get respect and he's slowly getting it as he moves from familiar to bodyguard to at this point being just guillermo

BUT HERE'S THE THING: THEY DO TO SOME DEGREE RESPECT HIM ALREADY

the baby colin stuff gave him the respect of laszlo, nadja respects him enough to trust him with the money of the nightclub (yeah it was all cuz of a deal he made with her but if he saw him as fully lesser she would have put up more of a fight ageenst testing a human with the club's money) and the time they spent in england while it didn't make them exstreamly close did to some degree made them closer, nandor at this point mostly if not fully respects him, and colin... well we don't know how he'll treat him but if anything carried over from the baby colin shit he should at least give a crumb of a shit about him!

and yeah I do like seeing guillermo navigate around being a human amount vampires

BUUUUUUT it's kinda getting old in my opinion?

like I do like seeing it don't get me wrong but idk I want it shaken up a bit?

and yeah the whole turning gone wrong will do that but after that what then?

this article is trying to say hey let guillermo become a full on slayer cuz that's his true potential

and yeah I love seeing him be a little murder boy that's also not who he is at his core?

even when he's killing vampires left and right it's never out of a hatred for vampires it's so that he can protect others

if anything a human guillermo's full potential wouldn't be just killing cuz his blood says so it would be to protect

now if guillermo became a vampire that would obviously shake shit up a bit

and while I'm down plain jane by the end he's a normal vampire guillermo I've always been team fucked up dhampire guillermo

cuz let's face it guillermo fitting neatly (or mostly neatly) into a vampire human binary is really fucking boring (OR AT LEAST IN MY OPINION)

having him take a long time or need an unusual means to turn him which leads to him not fitting into the label of human or vampire would to me be an amazing way to go about this

in fact the thing I hate the most about this article is the fact that him ending up with a dhampire isn't spoken as a possibility AT ALL (unless I missed it but I fucking refuse to read that dumpster fire again)

having him be a dhampire would address many of the issues this person has with guillermo becoming a vampire

it would make him stand out, it would test him, it would lead to growth, and it wouldn't be boring and leave him with more to do as he figures out his new unique identity with the others

in conclusion: I spent WAY WAAAAY too much time on this

I'm going to slam my face into some grass now

[popblank]

Watching Supergirl, S1E11-S1E15:

S1E11 "Strange Visitor from Another Planet":

Hey, this anti-alien rally is at LA City Hall.

“We need to know where they live, what they do, and who they eat.”  That last one is quite an assumption, though hopefully the knowing who part comes before rather than after. Kudos to the actor for keeping a straight face.

There is a lot of glass inside the DEO.

In the first 11 episodes, it seems like there have been a lot of DEO casualties.  Do they have counseling for this sort of thing? Is the organization large enough that they can deal with sudden staffing shortages easily?

It seems odd that the White Martian would revert to its human form when unconscious. 

I am surprised that being kidnapped and impersonated by an alien didn’t push Senator Crane even further to the anti-alien side, and Supergirl would be explained as a rare exception (”one of the good ones”) to a broader threat.

S1E12 “Bizarro”:

Next thing Alex needs to teach Kara: how to deflect insinuations without giving anything away.

Hmm.  So the DEO doesn’t have the authority to arrest private citizens, but they do have the authority to otherwise detain people (say a US Senator)?

Looks like CatCo allows drinking at work.

“Oho. Well. I guess I’ll go roam the hallways of my building.” I am really enjoying Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant.

“You’re compromising the security of this entire operation.”  Ha, as if they both haven’t done so several times already. Seems odd that Alex would remove the bag from his head in an open area before putting him in the cell.  Was she trying to make a point?

S1E13 “For the Girl Who Has Everything”:

Cat’s necklace is very eye-catching.

It seems like a problem with using an AI interface that resembles a particular individual is that the user is likely to assume characteristics and capabilities that the interface simply doesn’t have. Alex is basically having an argument with Siri here. I guess neither Alex nor Kara have been able to really express their emotions regarding their unusual situation in any other environment due to the demands of keeping Kara’s secret, so maybe working through their feelings with a less-than-responsive AI is better than bottling everything up. It’s a bit like journaling, but out loud and with a lot more security.  Does the DEO have psychologists/therapists on staff?

LOL at Melissa Benoist as J’onn as Kara trying to have an emotional reaction to Adam. 

Good episode, some good character background/development.

S1E14 “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”:

“I thought masks were only big in that other city” sounds very different after the last two years.

Fight choreography with chains is a nice change of pace.

No offense intended to Peter Facinelli who is playing “smarmy cynical asshole” very effectively, but while he doesn’t actively bore me, Maxwell Lord is not a character I enjoy watching even in a love-to-hate way.  The idea of him disappearing and everyone running around trying to deal with it (and him not being onscreen for it) was very intriguing. 

Why is she wearing her glasses like this?  The earpieces are nowhere near her ears:

S1E15 “Solitude”:

The volume of trash that Kara and friends must throw out from takeout food orders kind of bugs me.  At least Siobhan brought Cat’s coffee in a washable mug. 

Cat starts talking directly to the TV screens.  Does that imply that she knows there are cameras or other communication devices somewhere near her that can transmit her voice to the hacker?

James/Lucy: this is excruciating.  Please let them break up and then do anything except talk about being in a relationship with each other.  

“Python 6 malware encryption″ ok if you say so.

Kara has some learning to do when it comes to applying power.

[readingaccountability]

snow crash - neal stephenson

my playlist (because of The Way That I Am)

final thoughts:

okay, im going to be honest right out of the gate- i cant decide whether this is a book id recommend or not. it was really fun for the most part, but personally there was a lot more exposition than id like. the early portions of the novel have exposition which feels completely fair, mostly things relating to worldbuilding. stephenson creates his own vision of future america, and some places online referred to it as cyberpunk, and some as post-cyberpunk. id be more in the latter camp, mostly due to the way he plays with tropes, leaving the reader unsure of which will be subverted and which wont.

the use of language was really fun, and i enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. his vision of a futuristic capitalistic earth feels surreal in its immediacy and recognizability. the back jacket blurb ends with "a future america so bizarre, so outrageous, you'll recognize it immediately." which, yeah. a texan info-tech magnate? two competing corporations owning the highway system? suburban city-states? this was another enjoyable thing- everything was colorfully named, and names treated totally normally, which kind of poked fun at how we have everyday things named very ludicrously and for the most part we are totally blind to it.

one aspect i really enjoyed was that the author often doesn't make certain things clear to the audience, until he does, and then it becomes necessary to reassess the entire story and setting. this goes to underscore the theme of the importance of information and the ways we take it in and perceive the world based upon it. for example, we don't learn that y.t. is fifteen until maybe 75 pages in, at which point a lot makes sense in retrospect. the same thing occurs in the worldbuilding, as suddenly a detail is given in passing and the reader must incorporate it into the setting, which by default we assume to be similar in many ways to our idea of america. it keeps the reader on their toes as well as furthering the worldbuilding. for the most part, the tech stuff didnt feel outdated to me, despite being a future projected out from '92.

however, aspects of the book are definitely very 1992. id put these into two camps: the first, being that the book does at different times use slurs. the main character is black and asian, the n word is used a few times by racist side-character/antagonist types, as are a few other racial slurs. there was also the occasional usage of the r slur, within the narrative prose itself, rather than usage as an insult within dialogue.

the protagonist, who is named, unfortunately, hiro protagonist, is a great character and felt very fleshed out to me, though at times he reminded me more of dirk strider than normally would be ideal. (its obvious that stephenson and andrew hussie are of a similar type of writer, and play with similar tropes, lmao.) hiro is a man of many worlds. he seems to shift between them easily, though never fully existing in any of them. this is reflected in his background, both in his biracial identity and in having been raised on a myriad of army bases. this is layered further in his fluidity in interacting with both reality and the metaverse, yet remaining slightly, consistently aloof. fascinatingly the first moment i sensed this drop was when we meet juanita- aka where his real and meta realities coincide. the description of them as the adam and eve of the metaverse is both insanely romantic and thematically key (good god i wish we had more than like, two conversations between them). juanita designed the facial component to metaverse avatars, doing the majority of this work when the two were together, and hiro can see echoes of both their facial tics in the face of every avatar in the metaverse. in a way, by having done this work juanita is positioned by the narrative as one of the gods of this digital realm. she is also hiro's call to action, being aware of the coming trouble and alerting him to it, as well as connecting him to the informational database he needs to prepare.

y.t., the secondary protagonist, fucking ruled. i loved that she was just a fifteen year old punkass kid whose mom doesnt know how crazy this part time job is. y.t. being worried about her mom was a great thread throughout, and a really good balance to how obviously independent y.t. is. i do wish there had been a chance to explain more about her background (she has a dad who left who is mentioned in a throwaway sentence, and a boyfriend who is mentioned near the beginning but never again.) i really enjoyed how obviously hyperaware y.t. was at all times about her own place within the insanities of the setting, while also consistently writing her as a teen maybe in way too deep who thinks about things in typically teenage ways. but like, that wasn't ever held against her? the narrative meets her where she is. it was honestly awesome. HOWEVER,

i absolutely hated the raven and y.t. scenes. how creepy!!! he basically statutory rapes her!!! we know hes at least late 20s early 30s, because hes the same age as hiro. if this sort of content is upsetting to read for you, i definitely do NOT recommend this book. (if you want to avoid reading these bits: ch 47 y.t. meets raven, ch 50 they are in a bar eating, ch 52 things happen that result in y.t.'s anti-assault device activating- she did not activate it on purpose, but forgot it was there- and raven is knocked out.)

please PLEASE dont take any of the following analysis as like, trying to be apologetic towards this scenes. because again they were awful and hard to get through and really gross. but im also cognizant that the author was obviously trying to convey something by making the choice, like the way it was written is obviously not condoning this sort of thing.

i think maybe what stephenson was trying to get at with that, was that we see hiro internally negate any potential for anything untoward with y.t. basically immediately, since he kind of senses that she might have a small crush on him (though this doesnt last more than a fleeting moment, especially from her perspective). vs raven, whose 'poor impulse control' warning tattoo eventually elicits a sarcastic remark from hiro after he finds out raven and y.t. were "a thing". i really dont think hiro knew how far it went? like it was just suuuper weird, but i figured it was meant narratively to 1. execute the chekovs gun of y.t.'s anti-assault device, 2. contrast hiro and raven (especially considering the bike-racing argument where theyre telling the story together, which is supposed to parallel them, while contrasting the differences in how they ended up?), and 3. just to get raven unconscious, i guess. but good god it was weird and i hated every second of it, why couldnt the device have like, activated way earlier?? gah. fucking upsetting. moving past that!

honestly i was really frustrated by how little screentime juanita got, because the way she was introduced was so fucking interesting and then shes mostly off doing her own thing. the bits of explanation she gives at the end about what she was up to on the raft are so sparse and im like damn, can we get a little bit of her pov in here? please? that would have ruled. additionally, shes supposed to be hiros love interest, but we see so little of them interacting outside her intro scenes. a huge portion of why hiro is getting into the sumerian mythology is literally framed as something that will help him understand juanita, but we dont get to see him talk to her about it barely at all.

the supporting characters were quite fun, i particularly liked the librarian. big surprise, i liked the overly literal ai information-dispensor, lmfao. watching him and hiro interact reminded me SO hard of geordi laforge having honest to god conversations with the computer where he tries to coax information out of it, aka one of my favorite little aspects of tng.

and lastly, the major plot themes themselves. i adore the way stephenson approached action, it was very entertaining. usually i cant really visualize action scenes written out, but his use of language was really really effective and engaging. the plot itself was absolutely fascinating, though i found the premise pretty contrived. which isnt bad in itself, i was fully suspending my disbelief until the last hundred pages or so. which for a 550+ page book, isnt too bad.

i did like the approach of linking the ancient to the modern, that is always really neat. and i think ultimately stephenson did it in an interesting way, not how i would have done it, but definitely interesting! creating these ideas about information infrastructures, and there being words that can access those and be used to control people, was wild. not sure if i agree about the equating of religion to a virus, though he did specifically establish that it was more the approach to religion, than religion itself. (maybe if juanita had been more goddamn present in the narrative that could have been elaborated on a little more. literally her perspective would have been perfect in balancing that out!!)

ultimately what did me in was the very very very long winded MONOLOGUE where hiro re-explained the whole premise, in ways that didnt really neatly organize into a cohesive argument. a lot of the scenes where hiro talks to the librarian, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really exposition heavy, because stephenson is rooting his ideas in historical concepts that need to be explained to both hiro and the audience. and i thought all that was fine, because it was a conversation where hiro was grappling with the information, and he was figuring it out along with the reader, and most importantly it was a conversation between him and the librarian computer program.

howeverrr later on we get a full rehash of all that, where hiro makes clear some stuff that was just implied for the reader, and hes literally just telling these important men whats up in this big long monologue. utterly worthless. i kept reading it and going YEAH, we KNOW, we know this we know this. and the important men barely interjected. it added basically nothing to our understanding of the situation, other than reframing it. but everything added was already an implicit thing, and didnt really need to be said again.

the resolution to the book was stellar, the last 30-40 pages, once hiro is onto the raft, were great. ultimately after reading and giving some time to digest it, i think it was a solidly great book with a few big drawbacks near the end, but which dont carry through and sully the ending.

[luna-loner]

Gotham Queen: Hazama

So, a while ago, I saw this post where someone, either @assclass-dump or @bea2804 (I don’t remember which one was it, and I am not about to roam through the Hazama tag just to find that one post, so I’ll tag both just in case) point out how Hazama has a unique cape in Koro Q. 

The moment I saw that cape, I instantly thought of one thing: Batman.

That lead to an idea of a Hero!Hazama AU where she was part of the bat-fam, and all because of that one cape.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to think of some Hazama content, and today, I had an idea for a drabble based on that one idea.

***

If she were to be completely honest, seeing the legendary bat-cave was....disappointing.

It was exactly as she'd imagined it: big cave full of fancy equipment, a giant computer, and oh, we shouldn't forget the shiny bat mobile.

Really, what do you expect from a billionaire vigilante?

"Answer the question."

Red orbs met the narrowed white slits of none other than the caped crusader himself. Hazama wondered if this was the notorious "bat glare" that was rumored to send shivers down one's spine. If that were the case, then it was another disappointment. 'He should see my mom when she's in one of her moods.'

Maybe it was just her. After all, nothing came close to the haunting eyes of her own mother as well as the soul-shattering screams that had become the title track of her miserable childhood. In fact, everything else paled in comparison to the devil woman that was her mother.

Hazama shrugged. "I tracked you down, that's it.”

The glare deepened, not that it had any effect on her. 'Maybe I should show him that picture of mom, tell him to take notes.'

"How exactly?" Batman questioned.

"I had help."

"Who?"

'An AI who roams the internet. Oh, and she's been living your big, bat-computer, so that's how I know who you and your sidekicks really are.'

Of course, she wasn't going to tell him that, mainly to get under his skin, but there was a reason as to why she was here in the first place.

"It doesn't matter right now." Hazama spoke, straightening in her seat and regarding the hero with a serious look. "I'm here to help with the tentacled monsters that're suddenly popping up."

The Dark Knight did not seem pleased by that answer. In fact, he was growing irritated with this mysterious girl who had casually strolled in that bat cave like it was no big deal.

"Kirara Hazama." Nightwing stood next to Batman, a tablet in hand. "Sixteen years old. Japanese nationale. Transfer student at Gotham Academy." He looked up to meet the girl's eyes. "Not to mention, you were one of the students involved in that whole assassination ordeal from last year."

Hazama clutched her elbow. A year had passed since Korosensei's passing, but it was still felt so recent, as though that fateful night was only hours ago. Her heart clenched when she remembered the the tiny, yellow orbs floating around them, the feeling of Korosensei literally slipping through her fingers was unforgettable.

And now, her past had followed her all the way to another country; Hazama didn’t know if this was life trying to be funny, but if it were truly the case, then it was an utter, humorless fail. 

Really, all she wanted was to be as far away as possible from her controlling mother, and the opportunity comes in the form of a transfer exchange program. But then one day, she gets attacked by a creature bearing an eerie resemblance to her late teacher. It had everything: the tentacles, the yellow skin, and even that trademark grin of his.

“Koro...sensei?”

Except that grin had been laced with malice, and before the girl could comprehend what was happening, she found a tentacle wrapped around her neck and dangling her in the air to suffocate. 

“Sensei!”   

Were it not for her assassination training, Hazama would not have managed to escape. Those had arguably been the most horrifying seconds of her life, more horrifying than the Okinawa ordeal, where Hazama truly believed herself nearing death’s door. 

“It’s not him.” She breathed, her hand seemingly glued to her neck. “Korosenei would never...”  

And she was right, especially after more and more of these psuedo-senseis appeared on the streets of Gathom city, wrecking havoc in a manner akin to mindless zombies. Hazama didn’t know their origins, but she was deadset on unraveling this mystery. ‘And...’ She bit her bottom lip.

And maybe...by some strange, unforeseeable miracle, he would be be alive.    

Batman scrutinized the girl, her melancholy was not lost on him. The sadness glinting in her eyes was uncomfortably familiar, one that told the story of loss. He may not of read it, but he felt like he already knew the tale.

But that wasn’t the issue at hand. He will eventually learn how this girl managed to track him down, not to mention, do a thorough background check.

But for now, his priorities lied in handling the “Octopus terror” that had plagued Gotham. If this Kirara Hazama person had a solution to this, he was willing to listen, though her words will be taken with a grain of salt. After all, Batman did not trust her, not when she had somehow figured out their secret identities.

“Kirara, was it?”

“Hazama.” She corrected. “I don’t like my first name all that much, so just call me, Hazama.”

The man was silent for a few moments before responding “Very well then, Hazama.” He crossed his arms. “What do you know about these creatures?”

“Not much.” She admitted. “But they’re undoubtedly linked to my teacher.”

“Your teacher?”

“The one we were tasked with killing.” She explained, ignoring the slight ache in her heart. “I know how his past; maybe that could help us get to the bottom of this.”

“Uh...us?” Nightwing spoke up. “Kid, we’re talking dangerous stuff here.”

Hazama raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“What do you mean “And”?” The acrobat questioned irritably.

“Just because you have information on these creatures doesn’t mean you can come with us.” Batman said, regarding her with his notorious bat-glare once more. 

Hazama glared back at him. “You’re going to need me.” She said firmly.

 “I won’t.”

“You will.” She argued. “For a whole year, my class and I were trained on how to kill that octopus.” 

The bat glare intensified. “We don’t kill.”

“Neither do we.” She walked closer to bat until the distance between them was a few centimetres. “At least not when it comes to human life.”

She then pulled out her anti-sensei knife for the two men to see. “This is what I used when I was attacked by one of the monsters. To humans, it’s just a rubber knife.” 

She bent it slightly to prove her point. “But it’s a deadly weapon to those monsters.”

The two heroes still didn’t look convinced.

“We spent a whole year studying that octopus, jolting down all his weaknesses.” She met Batman’s gaze with a determined look. “Like it or not, you’re going to need us.”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Us?”

“Correct!”

The two men whipped their heads to the bat computer, their eyes widening at the sight of a purple-haired girl displayed on screen.

Ritsu smiled brightly at the two and waved. “Hello!”

The Dark Knight was the first to recover from his shock. He turned back to Hazama, bat-glare ever present.

“I take it this is who helped you, correct?”

The Goth gave him a smug smile. “Yup; and she’ll be a big help in this mission.”

“You bet!” There was a glitch on screen and suddenly, Ritsu was dressed in a female version of Batman’s costume.

Batman was absolutely not amused by this.

“Alright.” He turned back to Hazama. “But once this is over, you both will be answering some question. Is that clear?”

The girl shrugged. “Sounds fair.” She smirked. “But if you’re gonna interrogate me again, you’re gonna need to do better than glaring. Here, take notes.”

She then held up picture and gave it to Batman. Curious, Nightwing leaned closer, then jerked back a second later. 

“Yikes!” He yelled in fright. “What is that?!”

“My mom.” The girl replied casually. “I use this to scare off cat-callers. It’s the one thing my mom’s good for.”

Batman regarded her with a neutral look. “Not the best relationship, I suppose?”

“Nope.” She stretched her arms and walked away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The Bat asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I’m starving.” She replied without even looking back. “Your butler said he’ll be making dinner, right? We can’t save Gotham on empty stomachs.” 

Nightwing chuckled slightly. “First Tim, now this Hazama kid.” He turned to his former mentor with a playful smirk. “It’s pretty hilarious how a bunch of kids can easily deduce your secret identity, huh?” 

Batman’s only response was a glare, followed by him holding up the photo to show Nightwing the devil herself.

***

I have no idea what I just wrote...

Question: Has anyone in this fandom ever thought of an AC/DC crossover where Hazama was apart of the bat-fam before?

Because I’m starting to like the idea, especially when I imagine her endlessly trolling the Dark Knight.

Hazama in the bat clan....so many possibilities...Maybe have her be the new batgirl...or take on a completely original mantle... 

[wickednerdery]

Title: Out of Time Author: @wickednerdery Fandom: Marvel Pairing/character: Loki x Stark!OC Rating: FRC Summary: “I’m always VIP.” Notes: So I found this gif on Google - if it’s yours, I’m happy to credit - and it inspired this idea where Loki (after escaping with the Tesseract in Endgame, perhaps?) ends up in a strange cyberpunk/futuristic Earth. No idea if I’ll continue this or what, but it HAD to come out, lol!

Chapter 2

The Midgard he arrived at was not the one he left. It was older, wilder, both brighter and darker in turn. Loki shifted into Midgardian garb before approaching a main street, nothing looking familiar. The cars ran on their own, machines walked alongside mortals, and the sky above was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

“Hey, you lookin’ to jive?” A man asks from behind leopard-printed leather mask. 

Loki takes the other in fully. Boots, hooded jumpsuit to match the leopard-print mask, and wild burgundy mohawk. The lights at the knuckles of his gloves alternate between red and yellow as he closes fist, then glow pure yellow across the board as a small, square, tab appears from between two fingers.

“Three million credits.” Heterochromatic eyes smile. “Thirteen million for VIP.”

“I’m always VIP.” Loki waves his hand, the man switches a plain white plastic bit for a red one, stamped with golden mask. “Now, tell me more about this ‘jive’.”

“Ms Stark! Ms Stark!!” The crowds, press and plebeians both, call for her as she steps from black auto-motive. Some cheer in excitement, telling her they love her. Others scream in tirades, declare her a “Tuhao war bitch”. Interviewers ask about men, women, freedom versus security, and her thoughts on Stark technology used to hold down the lower class.

“Sorry, no questions this evening. Not for Ms Stark anyway.” The voice of her car is that of her ancestor. Red lines blaze from head and tail lights, demarcating a barrier and allowing her to carry on into the museum unaccosted. “But I’d be more than happy to answer some, maybe take any praise you have for her.”

Once away from the masses, Ana tugs at the collar of her cocktail dress. It unravels gold, falling to the floor as a gown for the evening. Simple trick really, more to do with sewing than technology, but it never fails to turn heads. “Tony...” she smiles. “Don’t get yourself a parking ticket talking to all your fans.”

“Of course not, when have I ever done that?” The auto replies in her ear. 

“Last week? That time in Tokyo...that other time in Mumbai.”

“Okay, okay, point made. I’m out.”

Ana chuckles as car tires screech away in the distance. She carries on, men stepping aside with bowing heads to let her in. Her name is a whisper of reverence on their lips. Upon entering the exhibit turned ballroom people catch sight of her and begin to applaud.

“Ladies and gentleman, CEO of Stark International, chairperson of the Avengers Youth of America, and head of Earth’s Legion of Scientific Security...Ms Ana Roget Stark!” In the official announcement by the museum’s spokesperson the applause rises in volume and gusto.

Loki looks up, drink in hand, with interest. Stark? His lips curl in amused interest. He scans the crowd, then moves his focus back to her. Like the Stark he knows, she’s wholly confident and reveling in the face of adulation. While more polite, her smile indicates she believes herself worthy of the love she receives.

Her eyes scan from the balcony, land on the mysterious man in black. When he lifts his glass in notable salute, her brow goes up a fraction. Then she turns to the museum head. “Yes, yes, thank you for that...way too impressive introduction. I really would have just settled for Nobel prize winning person of the century.” She laughs, all but Loki join in. “My great-grandfather, Anthony Stark, unknowingly started this museum when he passed, leaving behind his suits and prototypes in the workshop of Stark Tower. Some still unfinished, some ready for mass production to make the world safe in his absence. They were able to be preserved and, yes, even improved upon as this place was created around them. As much as the Starks may have given to this museum, it gave back to the world. It is a sprawling testament of technology and innovation, of how far we have come and how far we can go. I thank all of you, each and every one, for your commitment to science, to knowledge, and to this museum in particular. I encourage you to continue that commitment tonight at the auction and in going forward with your donations.” Her eyes return to the man whose eyes never left her. “Thank you for coming, I look forward to speaking with you all before the night is over.”

Loki does not approach the lithe beauty with his enemy’s name, but his eyes do not leave her either. She swans about the room with the same confidence as the Stark he knows, but her manner is more delicate. She uses more deference in approaching others, is more flattering toward them than herself. Her show is alluring, appealing, boarding on arrogant but never crossing the line. Yet, when she does finally approach him, her manner changes.

“So, how did you do it?” She’s direct, no longer glad-handing, but nevertheless rapt with anticipation as she sits beside him at a table. “Cyber worm? Reverse engineering? Or did you figure out the sequence and use the key-code?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. He’s no clue what she’s talking about, can’t even think how to answer.

Ana’s face falls to disappointment bordering on annoyance. “You bought it pre-rigged. Figures. I send out a golden ticket and people can only think about the quick buck.” She sighs, starts to get up. “I hope this was worth whatever the invite cost you, because it’s all you get. I don’t have time for fans.”

“Wait.” His hand flies out, takes hold of wrist.

She twists free, grabs his wrist in retaliation, and hits him with 75,000 volts via taser ring worn on her middle finger. She keeps hold until he’s limp, then releases and lets him tip over the table like a drunk. “Security, toss the lump in black at table 17.” Frustrated at her failed test, done with the night, Ana heads out a discreet side door that leads to the rest of the museum.

Looking over the reconstruction of the late Tony Stark’s penthouse Ana sighs. This is still where she feels most at home. Here and her own workshop, but she’s no mind for innovation right now. “How did you do it? How did you keep going?” She asks her ancestor aloud. Failures didn’t bother her, they were always part of success. It’s lack of momentum that drives her to darkness, to the functional bar where she pours two fingers of old school whiskey.

“You are a Stark.” Loki, in more regal and battle-ready gear, stands before the screen display of old New York. “Though a far fairer one, to be sure.” He winks, laughs when glass drops, shattering at her feet.

“Who are you?” Hand goes to her ear first, patching her into Tony, then the ruby and gold bracelet. She rubs it, anxious. “Oscorp? Stane International? Yak?” Ana takes him in, his new suit and the wild glint in his eye. “Or are you one of the anarchists? AIM? One of those anti-techs groups?”

He laughs. “Oh no, I’m my own man, Ms Stark. I don’t follow, I am followed.”

“Well, you have my attention, Mr...Mystery Man. What do you want?”

Loki hadn’t thought that far ahead. He’s merely intrigued by her, by wherever, whenever, he’s arrived.

“Really? I give you the floor and you stand mute?” Ana smirks. “Fascinating...and pointless. Thanks for the disruption and broken glass.” She starts to make another drink.

“Not curious how I got here then?”

“Only when you plan on leaving.” New glass in hand she heads out of the exhibit. She sees a biohazard symbol swimming across a fully masked face, hears the huff of the silencer, and feels the world slip past her as she goes down.

In a flick of his wrist Loki blasts the man through the wall, rushes to Ana as her gold dress goes red, then black, with blood. He gets arms under before her head hits the floor. “You’re not allowed to die until I wish it.” He watches her eyes widen in surprise, as if she didn’t expect him to be real.

“H-How...noble...” She snarks through the blooming pain, her world going dark as the mystery man’s suit.

So...that’s everything I have that’s clear in my mind for this right now, haha! Like, I know that Ana lives and all, but I’m not sure after that. I’ve some options: Loki leaves her to recover and stalks her from afar, Loki brings her back to her home and keeps her semi-captive there, Loki leaves her, but she seeks him out in gratitude and interest. ...But, even then, unsure of the sweeping story - is there a set enemy to go against together? Do they become enemies themselves? Or is this more of a romance? Is there more time travel?? So many questions/ideas, not enough determined yet, lol!

I’ll take suggestions though, haha!! 😉

Side Notes: Tuhao is a Chinese term referring to people of wealth. By “jive” the guy means party, in general. The description of the sky is a pull from William Gibson’s Neuromancer (awesome book!). The groups Ana lists are all from Marvel, all enemies of Iron Man in one way or another. And, yes, her self-driving car has the voice and personality of Tony Stark - he is her main AI, just as JARVIS and FRIDAY were Tony’s.

Tagging: @lady-crowned-with-stars​, @beccaliciooouuusss, gravitational-anomaly, @fuckthatfeeling, @v-2bucky, @ultrarebelheart​, @tarithenurse​ @latent-thoughts​ @chibiyanai​ @lukeevansandjdmobession​ @sweetfictionalworld​ @ladyfluff​ ...And I legit don’t know who else to tag anymore lol

[coldflasher]

Part of Femslash Week, organised by @flarrowverse-shipyard​ :D Femslash Week Day 4 - Bed Sharing/Snuggling

Pairing: Charlie/Zari Tarazi

Rating: Teen (mentions of sex)

TW: mentions of sex and character death

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23028457 

All That Glitters by coldflasher (capriciouslouis on ao3)

“Most of the rooms down this corridor are spoken for," says Sara. "You’re gonna have to bunk up.”

Thanks to a mysterious shortage of rooms on the Waverider, Zari and Charlie have to share a bed. Neither of them are particularly upset about the situation.

“So can you really shapeshift into anything?”

They’re lying in bed together in Charlie’s bedroom, which looks like a teenager’s emo phase met a museum exhibit in the middle of a tornado. Glossy vinyl records spill out of their sleeves all across the floor like the world’s most dangerous stepping stones. There are clothes abandoned everywhere where Charlie’s stepped out of them and left them there, including a pair of lacy black underwear draped over the lampshade, and battered punk posters of howling singers plastered all over the walls. It wouldn’t have been Zari’s first choice of bedroom, but she didn’t exactly get to choose. When she’d announced she was staying, she’d had a look through a bunch of different rooms and thought she’d finally found a nice one - a little vintage, smelling faintly of perfume - when Sara had grabbed her by the arm.

“Nope. This one’s off limits.”

“Why? There’s no one in here.” And there hadn’t been for some time, judging by the layers of dust. 

Sara hesitated. “It belonged to a friend.”

“Well your friend isn’t here now, and I am, so…”

“You’re temporary,” Sara snapped. “You don’t get to rearrange everything just to suit you.”

“Who made you the boss?” asked Zari. Certainly no one who believed in the importance of manners.

Sara smiled thinly. “Popular vote.” She released Zari’s wrist. “Most of the rooms down this corridor are spoken for. You’re gonna have to bunk up.”

At the time Zari had been deeply unimpressed by this rudeness - the ship was huge, and there were so many empty rooms, so why shouldn’t she take one that was free? But when she’d tried to let herself into another empty bedroom, this time it was the AI that locked her out.

“What is with you people?” she demanded. “Why do you hate me?”

“This room belonged to Leonard Snart,” Gideon told her. “It has remained almost untouched since his death at the Vanishing Point in 2016.”

Zari had been trying to prise a panel off the wall to see if she could have another flash of inspiration that would let her hack her way in, but at this, she paused.

“Wait,” she said. “This room belonged to a dead guy?”

Gideon explained, and she discovered the sad truth of all those rooms lying empty. Each one was a time capsule for a departed team member. Some had left voluntarily, others had passed away - but regardless of the circumstances, each bedroom still remained as its occupant had left it, like a time capsule. As if the team was waiting for their lost and fallen members to come walking back through the door. They could travel back and forth in time, but the people they loved were still lost… and apparently it was easier to leave everything as it was than to move on.

This deeply traumatising discovery had a horrible effect on Zari, who was an empath and highly sensitive. She’d ended up in the kitchen having a staring competition with a doughnut, afraid that Behrad’s peace offering the other day had started a dessert-related backslide that she’d never be free of - and that was where Charlie found her.

“You all right?” Charlie asked, concerned. “You look a bit bummed out.”

“All the free bedrooms are for dead people,” Zari mumbled.

Charlie had given her a big grin that had a strangely uplifting effect, like she transferred happiness across the room with one glowing smile.

“Well. If you need somewhere to rest that pretty head, you can always come and have a kip with me.”

That was how they ended up in Charlie’s disaster of a bedroom, and if Zari’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t hate it. Thanks to her social media following, she doesn’t really have the opportunity to be messy. She has to be ready to turn on the camera at all times, to look pretty and perfect and put-together. Dirty laundry isn’t conducive with her brand. 

“So you can really shapeshift into anything?” she asks.

Charlie turns towards her with a  grin. “Ah, there it is. Knew it’d come up eventually. Come on then, spill the beans. Who’s your fantasy shag?”

“Excuse me?” says Zari.

“You know, your fantasy shag! George Clooney, Gillian Anderson… who makes your fanny flutter?”

“George Clooney’s like, super old,” says Zari, wrinkling her nose. “And for the record, your word choice leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t know how you do things in England, but where I’m from ‘fanny’ is not a sexy word.”

“Sorry. Picked up an English accent back in the seventies and for some reason I can’t seem to shake it.” Charlie stretches lazily, pointing her toes, one painted nail poking out through a hole in her fishnet tights. “But you’re changing the subject. Being in bed with me means you can sleep with anyone you like. Who do you want me to be?”

Zari thinks about it for a while. She looks at Charlie sprawled out on the bed with her fuck-me eyes half closed, her wicked grin and the wild cloud of hair wrestled into its braid, tinged purple at the end; her stripey shirt and mesh jacket. Effortlessly sexy and cocky enough to know it. 

“I don’t think I want you to be anybody. I like you how you are.”

Charlie looks surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Zari says. “I mean I know this isn’t your original form, but it looks good on you. I’m sure you still look sexy with your tentacles or whatever -”

“My original form would melt your brain,” says Charlie. “But I can probably rustle up a couple of tentacles if you’re into that.”

“Maybe later,” says Zari. “That’s not my point. I feel like if I was going to sleep with someone with shapeshifting powers, I’d want them to look whichever way made them comfortable. A body’s just a body. The sexy part is what you do with it.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course. I’m very sincere. It’s one of my most awesome qualities.”

Charlie grinned a little bit at that. Zari found herself smiling back.

“I don’t think anyone’s said that to me before,” says Charlie. Her expression dims slightly and she starts toying with a loose thread on the pillowcase. “This isn’t my real face, obviously. Belongs to some bird named Amaya who lived here a few years back. When I first met the team, I put her face on just to mess with them. Then I kind of got stuck with it for a bit. Now I can change again, but I’ve had it so long that it feels like my face. But they still don’t see it that way. Sometimes I feel like they still look at me and see…”

“Her,” Zari says softly.

“Yeah.” Charlie rolls onto her back. “It’s partly my fault, I know. That’s the whole reason I looked like this, because I knew it would throw them off. But now I want to just be me, Charlie, without some random woman hanging over me making them do a double-take when I do something that’s super anti-Amaya. You’re the only one on the ship who hasn’t met her, the only person who looks at me and sees… me.”

It’s the first time she’s ever heard Charlie be serious. No flirting or wisecracks. For the first time, staring into her eyes, Zari can believe that Charlie is a fate. That she’s seen civilisations fall and the centuries pass like seasons. No one as young as Charlie looks could have eyes so old.

“I get that,” she says quietly, propping herself up on her elbow. “It’s not the same, but… when you grow up famous, people think they know you. It’s like there’s a part of you that doesn’t belong to you. I can never just be me; I have to be the brand. And I love it, I’m proud of it, I spent years building it - I just wish people could see past it. Even my parents don’t know me.”

“I have a confession,” says Charlie. 

“Go on.”

“I don’t have a bloody clue who you are.”

Zari cackles. It’s a horribly unattractive sound she would never have permitted in one of her vlogs, but it feels so good to let it out.

“I’m serious! You could tell me you’re the Queen of Sheba and I’d believe ya.”

“You gotta join the Z-nation,” Zari teases, snapping her fingers in a Z-formation. “I’ll add you to the mailing list.”

“You’d better bloody not.”

It feels good to laugh, and even better to have someone laughing with her. When she first joined the team and realised none of Behrad’s friends recognised her, it had pissed her off. She’s an icon! She has a make-up range and a million followers and even if the perfume launch didn’t go exactly to plan, she’s still in the running for influencer of the year if she can knock Stormi Jenner off the top spot. But although Charlie doesn’t know her, she doesn’t make it sound like a bad thing. It’s not because she thinks Zari is vapid or irrelevant or beneath her notice. She just… doesn’t know. There’s no prior expectations, no way she can disappoint. For the first time in years, she can be judged not on who she has been for a decade, but on who she is today.

“I may not know you,” Charlie says softly. “But I’d like to.”

“Well then,” says Zari, offering her a manicured hand. “I’m Zari. Nice to meet you.”

She’s expecting Charlie to shake her hand, but instead, she lifts it up to her mouth and kisses it. And like a fourteen-year-old with a first crush, Zari blushes.

“Yeah,” Charlie says with a smirk, knowing exactly what kind of effect she’s having. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

[radramblog]

Top 5 Games, ever...?

This was sort of on my mind, considering the recent GOTY post I made. Come explore the hyperfixations that managed to stick around long enough to be my top 5 list. 

5. Uhhhhhh

So turns out I haven’t figured out what number 5 is yet. I suppose instead I’ve got to split it among the honourable mentions, huh.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is probably the best game from the GBA/DS era of the series and is just a blast to play. It introduced Masked Dedede, and all the banging music and memes that come with it, and probably deserves a spot here just for that.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth removes all the awkward Flash Stuff from the excellent original, and adds so, so much more content- the game’s final expansion still isn’t out yet as of writing but even now there’s just so much to unlock. While some aspects of the game can be pretty unforgiving, you probably aren’t going to be exposed to the worst of it unless you get into it pretty hardcore, and if you do, you’ll get used to it. It’s a roguelike, after all.

Speaking of roguelikes, FTL: Faster than Light is chaotic yet serene, brutal but fair, and a bunch of other pretentious dichotomies wrapped into a neat little bow. It takes some getting used to the mechanics, but once you get the hang of it, building your little ship up and up in the face of all odds is extremely satisfying. Have fun dying hopefully not too many times.

SPEAKING of permadeath, Realm of the Mad God gets a spot here just out of sheer hours I’ve spent with it. After a messy few years with a not-so-great owner lead me to dropping the game, it seems finally to have recovered and has devs and community that actually freaking care about it, which is nice. Also, it’s free, and the recent transition to unity has the game looking better and playing smoother than 12-year-old me could ever have dreamed of.

Terraria isn’t just 2D Minecraft btw, its actually more of an RPG/Metroidvania thing, you probably know at this point, but its pretty good hey. Still haven’t fully dove into 1.4 but considering I thought Red was done at 1.1 I’m not complaining with what I have played.

 4. Fallout: New Vegas

(...ish??)

I’d argue that between the primitiveness of the original Fallout games (I’ve tried to get into them, but I just can’t) and how…meh… the other Bethesda ones are, New Vegas is the only one in the series to stand up strong. Obsidian’s excellent writing and tweaks to the gameplay of 3 make New Vegas feel like an actual world, rich and characterised, which was something I found lacking in previous open-world RPGs I’d played up until that point (which admittedly might just have been Skyrim). It’s a game that challenges you to make choices that actually matter for more than the mere moments of an altered dialogue tree, both in dialogue and character building, which helps make the game actually replayable. It is also the first game in a long time that really sold the idea of DLC on me, seeing as each of the game’s 4 expansions adds an entire new region of world with its own stories and unique gameplay, tying together with the main plot but standing on their own. I am excluding Gun Runner’s Arsenal from this for obvious reasons, though it isn’t like GRA is a bad DLC or anything- on the contrary, the sheer scope of modifications and munitions makes playing a repair/science-based character incredibly fulfilling- but it just isn’t at the same scope as the other 4 (Courier’s stash barely counts seeing as its just oops! All preorder bonuses).

New Vegas is one of the few games I have actually 100% completed, achievements and all, but I’m still pretty sure there are bits I’ve missed, paths I haven’t taken, characters I haven’t talked to. Despite its inhospitability, the Mojave is always a comfortable place to return to.

 3. VA-11 Hall-A

(Hey look, my phone background)

Vallhalla is a masterclass in storytelling, atmosphere, and aesthetic. Like all good cyberpunk dystopias, you get themes of class and transhumanism and artificial intelligence, but they aren’t the point of Vallhalla. Through the window and lens of cyberpunk and PC98 nostalgia is focussed a surprisingly human story centred around the protagonist, Jill, which through multiple replays still hits me in the feels just so. Of course, Jill’s story is not the only one being discussed, as every single patron of the bar has their own life going on, and the glimpses we get imply a rich, often interconnected, world. Glitch City is, frankly, a shithole, and it’s not like you don’t get some assholes coming into the bar while you’re working it. The first patron you serve, in fact, is a great example of this- Donovan D. Dawson, essentially a parody of J. Jonah Jameson, is a colossal prick and knows it- but its clear he has his own system of morals and it is mentioned that he’s excellent at his job, much as he gripes about it. He’s rude and more than a little sexist, but frustratingly charismatic and authoritative, and he’s just one of many people who show up throughout the game. Vallhalla is the perfect game to sit down, grab your preferred beverage, and just relax with.

 2. Total Annihilation

(This image is on the steam page for this one, despite blatantly not being from vanilla TA)

I think I actually need to explain this one. Total Annihilation was a game released in 1997 made largely by Chuck Taylor, who would later go on to produce spiritual successor Supreme Commander. It’s an RTS game featuring exclusively robotic units with a fairly chunky aesthetic, allowing the visuals to age better than some, and a fully orchestrated soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, who would later go on to do work on a whole bunch of stuff, most notably Skyrim.

Total Annihilation is an intensely nostalgic game for me, being one of the first games I ever got to play as a kid outside of edutainment stuff, and I’d argue still holds up today (especially with the excellent Escalation mod). What it lacks in story (it’s pretty basic, but functional) it makes up for being miles ahead of its time mechanically, being the first (?) RTS to function in 3 dimensions- heights of things actually matter, hills exist and certain units climb them better than others, shooting down airplanes is difficult without anti-air but possible if you aim *just* right. While appearing pretty similar and having largely analogous units, the two factions of Arm and Core are well fleshed-out in terms of aesthetic and playstyle- Arm preferring fast and cheap equivalents to Core’s slow but powerful- and the unit variety is sufficient that strategies can vary wildly based on the map. Both campaigns as well as those from the game’s expansions are challenging, but satisfying, limiting the units you can produce to force exploration of different playstyles.

Total Annihilation isn’t something I tend to binge play for hours anymore, but I’ll pick it up for a bit every so often, and I don’t see that stopping for a long time (especially due to the recent steam release).

 1. Pokémon Emerald

(At the top, where it belongs)

Yeah, this was inevitable. Pokémon is my favourite series ever; Emerald is my favourite in the series. Go figure.

Emerald, being the final game for the franchise’s days on the Game Boy, reflects everything Game Freak had learned in the first 3 generations of the series’ history. The game’s balance is challenging but fair, never spiking so tough that it is insurmountable but never holding your hand either. The AI opponents are throwing odd combinations of mons and moves at you from every corner, double battles are everywhere but rarely mandatory, and the variety of available mon both before and during the postgame is excellent. The added features on top of Ruby and Sapphire are great- Battle Tents serve to replace 3 of the contest halls (they should have all been under one roof to begin with) and provide a taste of what would later be available in the Battle Frontier. The Frontier is probably the single most expansive and challenging postgame in any Pokémon game, providing the game with a longevity that is sorely needed due to the inaccessibility of Pre-DS multiplayer. The game also manages to tie together the plot of both Ruby and Sapphire into something that feels natural, and provides the series’ first ever actual cutscene, which felt a lot cooler at the time than it sounds now. The return of animated sprites gives the Pokémon a level of life far beyond the static sprites of RSFRLG, and in my eyes wouldn’t feel the same until Black and White several years later. The return of the Pokégear phone in the form of Match Call, as irritating as it is to some, makes the world feel alive in a way that Sinnoh and Kanto probably never will, in addition to making grinding a fair bit less tedious and more beneficial. It is, altogether, probably the perfect Pokémon experience, and in my opinion only one other game comes close (its Platinum).

Oh also, they got rid of the font from Ruby and Sapphire, thank fuck, that shit is atrocious.

[vaguely-concerned]

Mass Effect: Annihilation thoughts

TL;DR I fucking LOVED IT, a balm to my heart after struggling through Nexus Uprising! Also canonical lesbians! The sweetest quarian & his badass grandma! Elcor Hamlet except this time it’ll make you cry!!! 

- Aaaaaah the audiobook reader is Tom Taylorson (so male Ryder)!! Fryda Wolf (female Ryder) read the two others and did a nice job, but man I’m soft for his voice in a way only rivaled by (...outside-of-Overwatch!)Jennifer Hale and Nicholas Boulton haha. He also has a much better handle on the pronunciations and voices for the different alien species -- delightful, I’m still cackling over his pitch perfect elcor impersonation. (Bioware please give him more Scott Ryder to voice I miss my son)

- I’m only about half an hour in and this is already SO much better than Nexus Uprising, it really does feel like a brave new galaxy haha. Very funny, very warm and smart and engaging in how it does its characterization and Valente clearly has affection for the setting and the universe, she and Jemisin both do incredible jobs with these. 

- I’m fucking crying laughing at this cross-species near-brawl over a flower arrangement, god I love Mass Effect SO MUCH (what a neat idea though. something blooming quietly even when no one can see it. impractical as hell and hilariously including a high-nutrition celery now, but still neat)

Taylorson continues to wonderful things with the voices, that volus suit sound is so good. (he’s just generally really good at comedy) also a volus bellowing insults ‘moments before punching an anti-bouquet batarian in the groin’ sdafhjklsahfsjadkhfklajshdfkjlsadhf

- a high as a kite elcor... what a time to be alive, to get to read this book

I have already reached the ‘I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR’ stage with these characters, hard boiled drell detective lady and sweet sweet quarian first officer and manically enthusiastic elcor doctor TOT I would die for any one of you!!!

- The quarian/multispecies ark was built for long-term habitation, potentially over multiple generations. So what you’re telling me is that the quarians are the only ones who fucking thought this through and the rest of the Initiative probably should have listened to the people who’ve essentially been living on arks for ages. Who’d’ve thunk huh lol. (I guess the in-universe explanation is that people like the mysterious benefactor just wanted those arks yeeted to Andromeda ASAP, no time to get fancy in case the Reapers changed up their schedule. Fair enough)

- ;n; petition to let senna have a SAM pls (also uh. how happy do you think the stringently anti-AI quarian pathfinder will be when he finds out about everyone else’s SAMs lol lol lol he’s going to PASS OUT FROM RAGE upon meeting ryder. well he sounds like an asshole, I hope he dies so senna gets a chance)  

- I can’t BELIEVE yorrik is an anti-stratfordianist, i am betRAYED! disgraceful, how can I still love you knowing this (and yet I do he is extremely funny and sweet)!!! (at least his theory is that this so-called ‘shakespeare’ was actually an elcor, which makes it better somehow lol. anything so long as he’s not an oxfordian tbh)

senna and yorrik’s friendship is so good and wholesome 

- I really love the consistent alien POVs in this book, mass effect should indulge in this more -- everyone loves this universe so much, bioware, stop making us squint through a human lense to look at it!!  

- oh of course quarian ‘pirates’ exist, the people who’re thrown out of the fleet must be doing something huh. 

- haven’t written that many notes in a while just because I’m enjoying myself so much, I keep forgetting 

- lfsdkhfsajkldhfskadjhfsjakdfhsdkjfh communist volus!!!! this is not a drill, communist volus! I am completely and utterly charmed by this entire book

- the quarian ancestor VI is so interesting and weirdly touching. senna is adorable (and relatably neurotic lol)

grandma AI smoking T___________T I love everything about this, she’s so cool. the worldbuilding being done around pre-geth revolution rannoch here... exquisite 

- way to make me cry about batarians cat valente ;_______;

- the voice acting is SO FUCKING GOOD! I keep forgetting it’s one dude reading all these characters haha, I caught myself wanting to look up who voiced this dying batarian. (special shoutout that he does so many wonderfully distinct and specific female voices!) 

- haHA I KNEW the quarian VI was a full AI (or near enough that it makes little difference tbh)!!! this fabulous grandma was self aware the entire time b i t c h e s !!!!

- the running joke of borbala’s ‘you need ______? I can make _______ happen’ is SO satisfying hahaha

ooooooh serious femslash vibes!!!! initially I thought batarian ex-crime matriarch was too old for drell PI, but this is undeniable. (I don’t think we actually ever get to know how old annex is, anyway, come to think of it) I guess if asari get to be five times older than everyone else and still fuck freely this isn’t really that weird lol

- “don’t look! it’s not so bad if you don’t look!” ofhsdalfhskldlsfjas oh senna baby boy 

hey qetsi? qetsi both senna and I love grandma liat more than you. stand the fuck down 

- NOOOO GRANDMA LIAT ;______________________________________;

- do you think SAM could meet liat (either ship!liat or just grandma!liat).... and have... a friend ;_________; (a cool laidback friend who isn’t a murderous angaran ai who might very well go the murder suicide sort of friendship route lol) 

anyway I miss SAM a lot and love him??

- yorrik noooooooooooo this is awful everything is bad and terrible I love all of them so much why must senna be sad and watch everything he loves fade away 😭😭😭

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand?” He realized he’d forgotten to preface the words with an emotion. Now they wouldn’t understand what he meant.

Oh. Oh what a way to drive home the sadness and loneliness of this moment f u c k  (and again the emotion taylorson brings to it jesus cHRIST) 

I’m destroyed over how much senna and yorrik love each other, cross species found family out here wrecking my heart in true mass effect style 

- yorrik is such a great character though. he’d be so easy to make a one-note joke character (like most elcor have been in canon lbr), but there’s nuance and depth and just enough satsifyingly believable alienness there. (I love the staunch elcor ‘you can’t call anything love that hasn’t lasted at least two centuries’ perspective haha) his memories of his childhood and disappointment with his profession and everything... goodnight sweet prince indeed :(

- they went and made elcor hamlet heartbreaking how dare they 

(to be real for a second I think some of the human culture references are a little bit clunky, but the elcor hamlet stuff is perfect. contextualizing a throwaway joke from the original trilogy and giving it emotional depth, helping us see it from the elcor perspective and how frustrating and lonely it is to be so fundamentally not emotionally understood or seen on a level most of the other races are, despite their other differences, even though you have all these feelings and want to communicate... its very good.)   

fun additional fact: both mordin and yorrik have played/wanted to play polonius in a production of hamlet! though I guess mordin is the slightly problematic fave in that duo and yorrik is a sweet melancholic angel who has never done anything wrong in his life, I would say protect him but I guess it’s too late for that D:  

- qetsi giving off some real ophelia vibes here, I wish yorrik was here to see it, he’s the only one who’d properly appreciate it despite it all

- I. am. SO FUCKING HUNGRY for more mass effect after this (well even more so than usual) I’m so hyped!! I love this universe so much! I want a new andromeda game with senna as quarian pathfinder and grandma liat as the ship’s AI and see how they interact with ryder and SAM! (honestly though I feel like senna might be the one who’d translate the most cleanly into a game, I think there’s a lot of potential in him that’s barely being realized towards the end there with his deep righteous rage cutting through his uncertainty. also I just want nice things for him. is that so much to ask. he is a good boy, yorrik was so right.)

- aaaah not just femslash vibes, canonical lesbians, this is not a drill! I can’t wait until they propose... ‘we get shit done together, want to be in good cop/bad cop with me until the day we die y/n?’  

- the ME universe doesn’t feel quite itself without all these ‘background’ species hanging around, I suddenly realize. I dream of an Andromeda sequel with all of them on the board and in play again Y-------Y 

- potential Liat and SAM dynamics are so fucking interesting though! if she becomes/is confirmed as a full AI (all I hope and dream of), you’ll have two artificial intelligences with such different starting points but not that dissimilar goals? Liat was an organic person once who’s looking out for her family even now, and SAM is completely artificial but also intimately tied to and protecting His People. (and pulling a whole lot of symbolic weight re: the strength of familial/interpersonal relationships to boot; he’s the best way alec ryder managed to connect with his children. even though he was dead. because as established alec ryder was a disaster of a person)  

- I enjoyed the loose murder mystery structure of this quite a lot, but that might also be because nexus uprising is so shapeless and meandering by comparison that I’d be relieved by anything else (sorry I’ll stop ragging on NU soon it just. took some hours of my life I can’t get back)  

- jemisin did great stuff for characters already in andromeda (cora, SAM, alec ryder) and valente made me remember just why I love this universe so much and desperately want these aspects brought to andromeda too... and now I’ve exhausted all the fresh mass effect content I had available to me and will sit here consumed with lust for the rest of the time it takes for a new game to be announced thank you and goodbye  

[vroenis]

When The Best You Can Do Is Shoot A Gun

The Animal Crossing / Doom Eternal Covid19 launch coincidentally seems to be related to this discussion, even tho I’d say Doom Eternal has an excellent combat system and isn’t really relevant to what I’m going to bring up. I don’t have a problem with shooty-shooty, I have purchased, played and will continue to purchase and play plenty of video games that engage with firearm violence. There are plenty of discussions about how intelligent, consenting adults can do this without any problems and I won’t retread them here. Doom is simple game themed vaguely around demons; demons bad, player protagonist good, good player shoot bad demons - OK you got it, apply an incredible movement system into that and enjoy.

What I want to discuss involves of-course that pesky word and idea nuance, which annoys the shit out of more people these days, for its applications and misapplications - fingers-crossed I don’t fuck it up, but first I want to bring up Ubisoft and systems, so now’s as good a place as any for a stolen picture from the internet.

As far as concept art goes, that’s actually very representative of the final product in-game.

Ubisoft appear to have a long-term open-world tech development objective. I believe at some point very soon, these individual objectives will converge into one single middleware product with a mandate to producce retail licenses that combine what each of these individual franchises have been testing and achieving in isolation, those being;

Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint: 3rd person Load-On-Demand

The Division: 3rd Person Cover and interactivity

Assassin’s Creed: Environmental mapping and interactivity

Starlink: Scaling Load-On-Demand

Far Cry: First Person implementation of various combinations of above

I’ll put it another way;

Ghost Recon: Load everything

The Division: stick to everything

Assassin’s Creed: climb everything

Starlink: scale everything

Far Cry: do it in first person perspective

It looks like all of these games are running in Ubisoft in-house proprietary engines. Ghost Recon and Assassin’s Creed are running in Anvil, developed for the very first Assassin’s game and in which the Prince of Persia 2008 and Forgotten Sands also ran in. Oddly, (Rainbow Six) Seige, Steep (lol) and For Honor are also running in Anvil.

Both Division games and Starlink are running in Snowdrop and this appears to be due to The Division having come from Massive Entertainment. I’ll be honest, from the perspective of a consumer (read: punter) and someone with extremely minimal 3rd-hand development experience, The Division looks far more impressive than both the Ghost Recon and Assasin’s games, and former Massive brand and art director Rodrigo Cortes has said of the engine that it was design to “do things  better not bigger” and I think it shows. Anyway, it was still developed with Ubisoft so as I understand it, they own it. Massive is a Ubisoft subsidiary, their studio based in Sweden.

Far Cry is going to be a little different, being a little older and having its roots slightly before... what shall we call this mess... the cynical age? The microtransaciton age? Anyway. The first game used the CryEngine developed by Crytek. At some point, Ubisoft seemed to develop an offshoot of the engine called Dunia because the CryEngine was licensed and clearly lucrative, I think. I’m not entirely sure, but Dunia does appear to remain in-house and under the auspices of Ubisoft Montreal. Where am I going with all this?

Starlink was “toys to life” a-la Skylanders but way too late, combined with No Man’s Sky-lite, but the game itself other than being overstuffed with Ubisoft copy-and-paste template-quests is an excellent proof of concept.

I do need to say that in general, I don’t have any particular affinity for Ubisoft. So I am yes, absolutely fascinated with something I do think is happening as far as tech goes and now I’m writing about it in this piece, and yes you can tell I’ve played and even enjoyed some of the games they’ve produced and published, but there’s a lot not to like about many of their practices, the least of which is the overbearing sense of cynicism pervasive in many of their games.

I played Far Cry 3 long after it released and got perhaps 20% thru the campaign before giving up entirely. For starters, nothing about how it controlled felt right and I appreciate that’s purely a personal preference. Being a Battlefield player, there’s something about DICE’s sense of locomotion that is perfect to me, even tho it varies from title to title from Bad Company 2 all the way to V most recently. Other things about Far Cry bother me tho - if there’s wildlife around, it always attacks the player, guaranteed. Everything about this game seems to be designed to force the player into engagement, to provide you with materials to collect, craft or sell, but also to run you short of ammunition to either scrounge for more or have to buy it because *surprise* - it prompts you to purchase ammunition for real-world money. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Fuck off. I uninstalled the game immediately. I can deal with ridiculous AI with magical aim and irrational scripting. I can deal with absurd narrative for the sake of reading (and roasting later), but the entire package culminating in purchasing more ammunition was otherworldly, it was truly bizarre. To this day, I don’t understand what world Ubisoft inhabits that this is something that makes sense to anyone in management or marketing, and yet there it is and there are consumers that not only accept it but embrace it. No doubt there are metrics from the mobile industry that support it and dear lord the capitalist apocalypse is upon us.

What will Ubisoft do when they can merge these technologies? They definitely want to and likely already have in-house, they just need the engine to run client-side for the Consumer. You and I and Inside Gaming are all laughing it up at Stadia right now, but we’re at the wrong end of the business. For Ubisoft, they can ignore the faltering at the start, it’s the long-term they focus on. The pittance Google are losing now, even if they end-up shuttering the project will be meaningless if they end-up getting the hardware to work, even if the end-result is the hardware sitting in a box in the consumer’s home in 10 years. Sure, that’s a long loop, but the journey still doesn’t matter, only the eventual ROI.

If this piece hasn’t gotten boring for you yet, it’s about to because you’re probably excited for what Ubisoft will do with this impending technological power and development and I rally am not. What will Ubisoft do with it? Probably just more Assassin’s Creed, except you’ll be able to snap to cover and have a fully mapped country. Probably more The Division, but you’ll have a fully mapped city that you can also climb on the outside of buildings and then enter them without any loading. Probably more Far Cry but with bigger maps and more interactivity and less loading. The next generation of consumer hardware consoles from Microsoft and Sony are upon us and as much as PC enthusiasts hate to admit it, the consumer market is largely gated by the generational hardware stepping of these platforms. That may change after this era depending on how Google, Amazon and indeed Microsoft and Sony go with cloud computing, but for the moment the status-quo will remain as alternative products develop. Bear in mind with Covid19, climate change and the general sustainability and ethical standards of working and living being under growing scrutiny the world over, things are changing more each day, our technology development may change in ways we don’t expect so who even knows what’s in store for the future.

So What Do I Actually Want?

Good question. NB: before you ask, Animal Crossing isn’t my thing. I played it years ago on Gamecube. It’s cute, it’s fine. I’ve no interest in it. I’m writing this note in retrospect because I realise you may say “Just play Animal Crossing or The Sims but hopefully I can illustrate by neither of those games is what I’m after, nor do I just want to build a house in something like No Man’s Sky and fill it with crap. Let’s see if I get there... A few weeks ago I wrote about how the best thing Naughty Dog did with Uncharted 4 was Elena and Nathan’s domestic spaces. I did purchase The Division 2 on the cheap a couple of weeks ago and I’ll be honest, there’s a lot about it that I’m enjoying quite a bit. For a start, visually it’s stunning. The art team have done an excellent job of both filling the world with immense detail, but also making every area of Washington unique and distinct which is a huge feat given the total space covered. Thus far, I’ve spent a whole lot of time just walking around and gathering resources, in part just to sightsee and explore without any particular objective in mind. After a while, I got the impression that the map was a bit flat, but the more you explore, the more you find places where you get verticality, and then doing missions always adds verticality and variety in environmental and art design, it’s a marvel to see.

Apologies to James and Thomas (above) for ripping these images, but I’m glad your names are in frame so you have direct credit - outstanding work. The art in this game is without question its strongest element.

And that’s just the thing - The Division is an interesting game in that what I enjoy most is the sense of walking around exploring, gather resources and helping people. I’m not here on an anti-violence kick - I play Battlefield, I actually don’t mind the shooting in The Division, it’s fine, whatever, I’m not going to justify that. What I’m saying is that it gets boring.

THERE ARE A LOT OF GAMES ABOUT SHOOTING.

Like... a lot. More than enough. There will always be a lot of games about shooting and that’s fine. I think I’ll always play them. Hey, I even play games about shooting *in very specific ways* - it’s not like I don’t care about the shooting, I’m playing The Division with only a bullpup DMR and shotgun combo, plus I’m trying to use my sidearm when traversing the streets as much as possible so don’t at me, I’m in the game.

But we seem to mostly get high detail assets in games with guns because shooty games get all the money. I get it - shooty games get all the sales because we as gamers like to play them - sure, I’m one of them, but I didn’t buy The Division until it was under AUD$30 because gotdam the shooting is so boring and even now yes, it really do be just more boring shooting, just like it’s boring in Uncharted, just like it’s boring in Ghost Recon (my goooooood so boring), just like it is in Destiny, and the umpteenth shooty mcshooty game. I’m getting too old for this.

Uncharted 4 had an opportunity to do something more and it almost did. For many players, it probably achieved enough of what I was after by those two visits to the Fisher and North residences but I wanted so much more of that. I want to see Sully’s house or houses, more of his life. I want to know where Chloe’s life is at. I want to know of their lives and emotional engagements outside of the frankly stupid narrative I have no interest in because it’s clearly stupid and an excuse for running and jumping that other games have since done better. If Uncharted as a whole was a subtext for character, then by the fourth game, the focus should have been the characters that carried the series thru to the end - no disrespect to Tom Baker - not the heretofore unrevealed older brother.

For Years I Didn’t Know “Walking Simulator” Was A Pejorative

I think this is why I replayed and continue to replay Dear Ester so much. I remember laughing my ass off at YouTubers making videos about how it wasn’t a game and that it didn’t have objectives. Yet there were still threads and might still be on reddit or Discord wherever gamers congregate these days - about “virtual tourism” and “just chillin’ in place x because it’s so awesome” etc. It’s fine, each generation will rediscover virtual tourism again and again and we can’t denigrate anyone for doing so, it’s certainly nothing we invented given it comes from literature and oral tradition before that, but it’s remarkable that there’s this resistance to experiences crafted purely for the purposes of being immersed in them.

I adore Dear Ester and Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture. Absolutely loved What Remains Of Edith Finch and only if you have already played Edith Finch, because it’s full of spoilers but also its own spoiler warnings, I heartily recommend Joseph Anderson’s outstanding video The Villain of Edith Finch. It’s a 53 minute watch so I won’t embed it, and he has a certain style of presentation that won’t gel with everyone, nor do I always agree with everything he says which should go without saying but at some point folks, you have to stop pursuing art, criticism and media that just wholly aligns with your own views. That said, I generally do find most of what he says agreeable, innit. Anyway he’s great and the video is great.

While Dear Esther is more surreal and Rapture and Edith Finch are in part slightly more fantastical than the real-life settings of Uncharted 4′s home and Division’s post-apocalyptic cities, they all visually represent dense, very human object-rich spaces that to me are quite interesting to explore. Dear Esther might be a little more rooted in nature but its human elements tie-in to its narrative in an extremely interesting way. Each game offers different levels of interaction, some that serve the narrative directly, some as subtexts and others quite mildly in the periphery.

I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself but I remember seeing a promo for Battlefield Hardline coming off the back of Battlefield 4 and the ridiculous marketing phrase “levolution” - the term they coined for large-scale environmental destruction (please take the keys away from the marketing department). I remember seeing video footage of a large construction crane falling in a level and thinking

“All this intelligence, all this tech, and this is what we do with it? Is this all we can achieve? This is it?”

That’s how I feel about this emerging technology. Somewhere out there (on YouTube, to be fair), there’s all this footage buried of the Beyond Good And Evil sequel that to everyone’s knowledge is still in development. I’d put my money on that being the first project built in Ubisoft’s convergence engine that they hope successfully implements everything that each of these games executes individually. I know the BG&E fans are frothing for it and when I saw those early demos, what I interpret of the tech did blow me away, but from an experience perspective, I did still think the same thing...

“Is this it?”

Because of-course, a huge part of the new game is going to be combat. I just - don’t - care. When I think about what was lacking in Uncharted 4, what I wanted more of, it was intimacy. What didn’t I like about the conversation and resolution between Elena and Nathan? About the tours of their homes, the little time spent playing as Cassie, the few insights into Sully as a character, the absence of Chloe who was such a great contrast to Nathan, Elena and Sully all-together... it was intimacy. Yea oroight, so I don’t exactly mean the type of real-life intimacy between lovers, do I - that much is clear. But if I don’t mean shooty because there’s enough of that, and I’m leaning into domestic detail and emotional exploration and reflections of that in objects, spaces and interactivity, then that’s what I mean.

Tho I’m loath to bring it up, I feel like in the worst possible way, David Cage is right on the periphery of this discussion (and for that reason, I ain’t tagging him or his games in this entry, get fucked). He has the most vague notion of trying to ground his games in the intimacy of human experience, so he tries to tie human locomotion and objects to the digital representations of interactivity. If we take those as perhaps the worst possible examples and then come back to some really good examples in Uncharted 4 so I can stop whipping it - I maintain that the house tours are strengths and the high-points of the game, and then look at something like The Division and consider opportunities for more complex interactivity centred around helping people and emotional engagement, I feel like that’s what I’m after.

Which is impossible, right? No-one’s going to make a game even a quarter of the scope of The Division, with all that amazing dynamic lighting, with all those awesome textures and mapped objects, animations, rigged character models, complex scripting and AI, interactivity, load-on-demand tech and full voice-talented support, just to be a game about exploring, sightseeing, meeting and learning about people and helping them? Because who would play that?

I would, for a start.

[zeravmeta]

Ok so, my thoughts on the VR ending and VR overall as the 6th entry.

Also because most of my thoughts aren't...complimentary im editing the names so they dont appear in the general tag. This also got LONG so readmore.

The Good:

- A//i's character still managed to be the one thing that saves VR as a show for me. Even with all the weird...contradictory plot issues, A//i still manages to be a compelling character who brings up the question of the right to live. I actually do like how he made it so itd be an ultimatum that he loses in either way, even if the ending kinda ruins the weight behind the action (which I will get to in a bit).

The meh:

-the ending was left somewhat open to interpretation which for a show as...empty as this was works out but honestly it was so vague as to A//is fate is that it may as well not exist.

The Bad:

-The main conflict behind the entire show is...simulations. No joke. Every conflict in the show can be traced back to someone doing a simulation and deciding to lose it. Even if they gave the (rather stupid) explanation that AI experience simulations like actual life (which btw the first villain wasnt an AI so this reason doesnt work), the fact that Yu//sa//ku took a bullet for one of A//is robot bodies that he literally has millions of is...just stupid and there solely for the "uwu drama".

-They actually killed A//i off but wait hes actually alive, so like the final duel literally had no purpose aside from...drama??? The episode is called Compromise and yet A//i had to lose just to keep Yu//sa///kus win streak and theres no compromise whatsoever. Yu//sa//ku litetally destroys the CompromA.I.se card so its just, no comrpomise in any way.

-This....wasn't a happy ending??? I have no idea why both the show and the fanbase frame this as a happy ending bc think about it in context: A//i pretty much loses everything, so does Yu//sa//ku who just isolated himself from everyone else for 3 months in order to comb the network for whatever remnants of A//i exist.

- So many of the supporting characters are just...there. Like, there is no side/supporting character who actually has a character arc in this show. Lets go through the list: Ao//i is pretty much the same character as when she started and goes through 2 unnecessary costume changes for a character growth that isnt there because she has literally ONE victory against an opponent that was stated multiple times to be weak and faulty and have her lose and tortured multiple times for no reason whatsoever, G//o had this weird deterioration that may have lead to something but ultimately didn't, Ak//ira is pretty much the same, J//in has ALL HIS TRAUMA ERASED SO THERES THAT, literally the only side characters who have some sembalnce of an arc are Sho//ichi (the best one anyways) from his "betrayal" in S2, and E//ma with her reconciliation with her brother. Outside of that, nothing. Yu//sa//ku, Re//volv//er and Ho//mu//ra are pretty much the only characters with an arc and even then they're not too solid? Which brings me to-

- Yu//sa//ku has been so wildly ooc since the end of S1. Ive seen so many say that his enphasis on bonds and friendship are character growth but actually looking at the sequence of events he suddenly just like. changes completely around his first duel with Ea//rth. Plus, the message of "revenge is good" was always so weird? Like, he got his revenge so all his trauma is ok now and never brought up or explored again aside from within the first 20 episodes. Theres nothing about it after that and its never built upon. The whole point of a revenge arc is to show that its BAD and yet he starts preaching that revenge is wrong AFTER he successfully gets revenge??? And even then its not exactly a revenge as it is more lashing out since it was Ko//ga//mi who was behind it all. Yu//sa/ku was definitely at his strongest characterization in S1 where we see how badly the Lo//st Incid//ent hurt him but S1 had its own share of problems that led into S2 and so many random plot threads that never went anywhere (such as the Anot//her Incid//ents, the Cy//berse deck being irl despite that A//i didnt have a physical body before then, The Bl//ue Mai//den meetup that was repeated by Nao//ki like 10 times in S2 which seemed to be leading up to something but never did, and the fact that theres 4 recap episodes in S1 already spelled some early problems). So much of the supporting cast function to just say "he turned this whole situation around...with ONE card..." i kid you not watch back every Yu//sa//ku duel I GUARANTEE you'll see someone saying hes a great duelist and serve only that purpose. ALSO THE END OF THE SHOW IS JUST MORE DRAMA?? They make him suffer for no reason other than that they can??? What purpose does his suffering at the end serve aside from just "uwu...poor baby..."???

-Re//volv//er is not a good rival. At all. He's so incredibly bland because much like Yu//sa//ku he was at his strongest characterization in S1 where he actually had some solid motivation in continuing his fathers work and being unable to accept that his dad was evil, yet most of that just flies out the window with all the collateral he's willing to inflict with the K//O//H?? All his character amounts too post S1 is "yeah i told you robots are evil and YOU didnt believe me". The most we got of him growing out of this mindset was calling A//i by his name exactly one time and nothing ever again. Also the fact that in the end we see him and his crew working for S//O//L despite the fact that they were gonna turn themselves in for their crimes just. leaves a rotten taste in my mouth. hes not a good rival at all. All he proves to me is that a good design can get anyone to like a character.

- Ho//mu//ra is...there. I literally cant say anything about him because he absolutely has the strongest motivations of the three but then the show jumps through hoops to push him to the back of the other two. He also has a bunch of early victories I do feel are undeserved (ESPECIALLY the A//oi duel that one pissed me off so much). Also the fact that the show just made him Yu//sa//kus friend immediately whereas it took Sho//ichi several months to get Yu//sa//ku to warm up to him just had me :/.

-The speed duels were a cool concept but they just became these huge cheat fests? Seriously Play//Maker uses StAccess literally every speed duel to pull out a new monster from whatever plot holes the writers need to patch up. I am not kidding. You can go back to every single speed duel Yu//sa//ku was in and youll see this. Skills just werent a good mechanic because when a protag pulls a new card its supposed to be representative of some growth/characterization but he stays the same pretty much throughout the entire show up until S2 where he wildly just switches personality. Plus the fact that Que//en could literally use a skill whenever just shows that it was cheating???

- The villains were overall lackluster. Boh//man was the best because Re//volv//er is just flat whereas A//i struck me more as an anti hero. And again: simulations are the enemy. Light//ning ran one and decided to go ham. Kog//ami ran one and decided to go ham. A//i ran one and decided to go ham. The conflicts are all the same and it just makes things happen rather than following a consistent plot thread? I will say that Boh//mans characterization of a hive mind to become perfect does strike my tastes but thats more my personal preference in villains rather than any merit he has.

- This is a bit of a personal pet peeve but I've seen some of the praise to this show about being the "darkest Y//G//O to date so therefore its good" and im just...no? Edge does not make a good show and just because they lightly focused on the tragedy in Yu//sa//kus life (and it IS lightly because its barely touched upon after mid S1) most of the stuff that happens in this show is pretty tame in comparison? The most that happened here was an attempted global hack of everyones minds from S2 and destroying the internet in S1, with a few references to the torture that happened during the Lo//st incid//ent. To compare: the previous series had this huge interdimensional war that, even if they could reverse the carding of people (which makes Den//nis' attempted suicide even more tragic), ended with an entire dimensions full of brainwashed soldier children, a dimension with huge class inequality that was still being heavily worked upon since there were canonically slaves, and a dimension that was savaged by a genocide and total global destruction. Hell, the series before that had a huge war where the arc actually did focus on the tragedys the characters faced and held consequence (even if they pulled a dbz revive everyone at the end). And as far back into the very first series there were even more graphic depictions of war and death? Idk i feel like people are overplaying the edge here just to find a way to complement this show.

Overall:

I'm...genuinely dissappointed. VR really had so many strong starting points but it all just fell apart at execution. Really the only reason I even bothered to watch it as kong as I did was because Im a longtime fan of the series and wanted to give it a chance rather than jump on whatever love/hate train the show has. Its been rated poorly on the JP side and most of the approval is a vocal minority. Just to be clear: this isnt me bashing the show, my opinions are mine and you can agree or disagree to any capacity, and even if a show isnt well written you can still find a reason to enjoy it despite the flaws.

But if Im being perfectly honest? I do not like this show. It's rushed, choppy, has no consistent or clear plot threads, most of the genuinely interesting characters are wasted for the protagonist to look better and he never really does because he ALSO has an interesting idea behind him but it never goes anywhere. It started strong but ended so poorly. Id be angry but im more dissappointed because Ive watched this show from day 1 and wanted to see the good things it has rather than focus on the negatibes but. yeah. This show really had potential and yet it just fell flat.

[jewishaxelwalker]

Hi. I've been trying to read all issues with Owen in them recently, and I was wanting to know if you have any sibling headcanons for Owen, Bart, and Thad (or just Owen and Thad). I loved Johns's GL run but FUCK if he didn't just butcher everything Impulse-related. Anyways, I feel as though the "oh shit you're my brother" meetings that never happened would've been glorious, and I wanna write shit but I have no idea how they would act around each other.

Please trust me when I say that you don’t want to get me started on talking about GJ and non-sucking-Hal-Jordan’s-dick comics, I’ve got enough venom within me to fuel a 300-episode podcast. But to be fair to poor Owen, I don’t think anyone really knew what to do with him, which is why he was able to bounce between being a villain, hero, and anti-hero, while remaining best friends with Supergirl and somehow only running into any Flash like…once. Owen Mercer’s wasted potential is both one of the things I’m saddest about in regards to mid-2000s comics, and one of the rejected names for my hypothetical band.

Breaking down Owen’s personality to the core basics, he’s a dork with a chip on his shoulder and a strong desire to Belong. He (like both Bart and Thad) wasn’t raised by his biological parents and (unlike Bart and Thad) we don’t actually know what his pre-Identity Crisis family situation was like. The desire to Belong could come from an unfulfilling relationship with his adoptive parents, or it could come from growing up feeling just a bit off. Because of this, he’d probably get along really well with Thad, whose own parent situation was…awful, until he got to experience life as Bart, which is to say, life with Max and Helen. They could also bond over how hard it is to do good, when a lifetime of instinct and literal programming say no, bad is easier. Bad gets results. Circumvent the law, bend the rules to suit your own needs.

Their dual relationship with Bart would be both casual and strained. Owen is used to putting up with Axel and Kara namely, he’s used to putting up with someone who has absolutely no goddamn filter, and someone who is wildly more powerful than him and also like…really good at this whole superheroing thing. Owen’s dorkiness would be a good bonding point for him and Bart (it’s canon that Owen likes movies, both old and new, and even worked in a movie theater before he met Digger and dove headfirst into a life of crime, and it’s also canon that Bart’s other best friend, Preston, is a movie buff and so he knows how to speak the lingo), might even act as the only bonding point at first, until they discover their mutual affinity for Super-people. Keep in mind, Bart only looks 16, while Owen actually lived all 19 of the years he’s been alive, even if the time periods he lived them in are questionable at best. 

The relationship between the three brothers would be strained, at first. Owen and Thad would definitely get along better, but once Owen found more things in common with Bart, Thad would most likely distance himself. Bart’s taking away someone important to him yet again, why even bother fighting it? But what he didn’t count on was how perceptive Owen is. He’s not an animal or a superhero identity, he doesn’t pick favorites, and he can be shared. 

“That’s the thing about big brothers, squirt, we’re this weird middle ground between parent and pet.”

“I am several hundred years older than you!”

“You’re also several hundred millimeters shorter than me, so cork it and go hug our brother before I pick you up and hang you on the back of a door.”

They’re agreed that, even though Bart is the genetic original, he’s their youngest brother. They’ve also agreed to never tell him this.

“Ah, playing the ol’ Slytherin and their Hufflepuff gambit, I see.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Ask Craydl, I gave him the first four Harry Potter books on tape last time.”

“Please stop poisoning my AI.”

My favorite way to write the speed bros, personally, is in non-power AUs where Owen grew up with them. I’ve written Owen as both the older brother and the younger brother, but I kinda lean harder towards the former. I’m literally counting the days until I finally get the time and inspiration to finish this one AU I started back in 2017. It involves Pokemon Go, and Axel is there. Someday.

[darkvalkyrie6]

Alone with the stars

Do you remember the Red Dwarf series and the intro song? 'It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere...' Well, I was singing the song one morning and my sister said: "Now you are going to write something about space..."

Guess what? She was right :)

I didn't use any books, movies or series for inspiration, the story is my original work. I hope that you like it. :)

It’s still just a story, like all of my other stores. It doesn’t have a deeper spiritual, moral or ethical meaning.

————————————————– 

David was still sleeping when a loud noise woke him up. He was already used to all sorts of noises but the thing that made this noise set off the alarm so he got up and walked to the bridge. “Sara, what time is it?”

“Good morning David. It’s four AM.” Sara responded. 

“Let’s hope it’s a good morning. I only slept for four hours and I would like to get another four hours of sleep. Can you shut off the alarm?” Still yawning David asked. The alarm was getting on his nerves. Every damn time something hit the living quarters that annoying alarm went off.

“Yes, David I can.” The alarm stopped. 

“Sara, what happened? Why didn’t the collision alert turn on?” David asked while checking the main console on the bridge. Trying to access the cameras outside the ship where the console reported the damage.

“I do not know David. There are different reasons why the collision alert would not turn on. It would not turn on if the object was too small...” Sara started to list the reasons but David interrupted her.

“Yea...Yea...Yea… I know the reasons. It didn’t sound small to me. The noise from the collision is what woke me up, not the alarm. I’ll rewind the tapes and try to see what it was.” A picture of the damaged area of the ship appeared on the console. It was a large dent in the hull of the ship. An object that could cause such damage would have been big enough to activate the proximity alert. That didn’t make any sense. David rewound the recording of the cameras pointed at the dent to a few seconds before the collision happened and played the recording.

All David saw on the recording was a split second of distorted space, then an object propelled towards the ship, making the whole ship sake. After a second, the object, now surrounded by blue energy pushed off the ship into space and disappear. This all happened in five seconds.  “What the...” He watched in disbelief, rewound the recording again and this time played it in slow motion. There it was again. A split second of distorted space as a sphere appeared. He paused the recording. “What the heck is was that?” David was talking to himself, thinking that being alone in space for so long finally got to him, finally made him go crazy.

“My analysis shows that the sphere is one end of a wormhole David.”

“So I’m not crazy?” David asked.

“No, David. You are not crazy.” Sara answered.

“Sara, do you have any reports about wormholes appearing in this sector?” David asked.

“Let me check the international database David.” Every second that passed as Sara was checking the records David got more and more worried. If this sector was full of wormholes there could be a chance the ship could be pulled into one of them accidentally. “There have been no reports about wormholes in this sector David. I will input the data and my analysis into the ship log and the international database.”

“Ok, Sara. You do that, I’m going to watch the rest of the recording.” David continued to play the recording in slow motion. He started to play from the moment the sphere was still there. He slowed down the recording playback a bit more. In the same place where the sphere was a human-shaped figure appeared, propelled towards the ship. The camera angle wasn't good, it just caught a glimpse of the figure propelled from the sphere that was now disappearing. 

David tried to find another camera that saw the figure from a different angle and found one right above the place of collision. It was a bit far away so he zoomed in as much as he could. The recording from that camera showed the same thing, a human-like figure propelled from the sphere towards the ship. The human-like figure hit the ship, put a hand on its head, scratching it, as a normal human scratches it after hitting his head. Blue energy surrounded the human-like figure that put both hands on the hull of the ship, pushed off the ship at an amazing speed and disappeared. “Ok, that’s it. I’m hallucinating.”

“You are not hallucinating David.” Sara said. “My analysis of the collision shows that the object that hit the ship caused damage in the storage section of the living area. At the point of collision, there is a dent in the ship’s hull, two meters deep and four meters in diameter.” Sara answered David’s question thinking that it was directed at her.

“I don’t know. I just saw a human, without a spacesuit, come out of a wormhole that suddenly appeared and then disappeared after a split second. Then that human surrounded itself with blue energy, push off the ship at the speed of light and disappear. I don’t know if I’m crazy after being alone in space for so long or I’m still in my bed dreaming this.” David really hoped he was dreaming. He heard many stories about people going crazy after being in space alone for a long time. Some of them got so sick and paranoid that they ended up killing themselves. ‘Please let this be a dream and not a hallucination…’ 

David actually preferred to solo mission. Al the jobs he took were jobs to deliver supplies to the colonies because such missions did not require a full crew, only one human and the ship's AI. At first, he didn’t understand the people that took the solo missions, he didn’t understand how somebody could be alone on a ship for such a long time, until he applied for his first colony settler mission. The colony settler missions required a full crew. From the captain to the lowest ranking officers, the company staff and, of course, the settlers who will be living in the new colony. The colony ships were big, but for so many people, not big enough. On such a crowded ship, there wasn't a moment of privacy or a moment to be alone, not surrounded by anybody. After that first colony mission, David understood the people who went on solo missions.

“You are not crazy. My data confirms that the collision happened. I have added the data to the ship's log, sent it back to the space station on earth and registered it into the international database.” Sara said.

“But if I’m not crazy how can a human come out of a wormhole and be outside in space without a spacesuit?” David asked baffled that something like that could be real.

He went to look at the damage the collision caused. Any damage to the living area was a big risk. If what Sara said was right, damage to the ship’s hull this big, could cause major problems in the integrity of the whole integrity of the hull of the ship in the future. David opened the storage area doors and saw the boxes of food, tools and other supplies scattered all over the place. The complete outer wall of the storage area was stretched inwards almost to the point of breaking. 

David was a skilled engineer, his field of expertise were engines, power, life support and weapons, not this kind of damage. He didn’t know where to start. “Sara, do you have any idea how to fix this damage?” David asked hoping that Sara could help.

“I suggest you remove things from the storage area, move them to the storage area number two and seal this storage area. The strain on the storage area outer wall is too great. In the event of another collision, the wall may break and cause damage to the living quarters.” Sara said.

“I thought as much.” David said and started to take out the undamaged boxes out of the storage area. When he was finished with that, he started to pick up the damaged boxes and put the scattered supplies in them. Some of the food containers, supplies were damaged. Some tools were so destroyed that even he couldn’t repair them.

The supplies in this storage area were for the new colony, currently the farthest one from Earth. He hoped that there were enough supplies left undamaged because the next resupply for the new colony was scheduled for next year. With everything out of the storage area and loaded onto the anti-gravity handcart David started to walk toward the second storage area.

“Raymee, La so mee lalaso tee.“ David heard a woman's voice behind him, turned around, let out a short surprised scream and almost jumped out of his skin.

There was a woman standing a few feet behind him. She was bigger than him, not higher or more muscular, just bigger, like adults are bigger than children are. She started walking towards him, her hands in the air in a non-threatening position. David just stood in place looking wide-eyed at the human-looking woman, as if he just saw a pink elephant, not believing his eyes. This wasn’t the first alien he saw. Humans made contact with a first alien species a thousand years ago, since then they made contact with a few more, but none of them looked like humans. 

“La sola sotee mee someelatee tee ray” The woman said coming towards him.

David didn’t understand a word she said and remembered that, since he was alone on the ship he wasn’t wearing the universal translator. He put his left hand in front of him, to gesture to the woman to stop, took out the universal translator out of his pocket and put it on his ear.

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand a word you said. Can you repeat what you said?” David said hoping she will understand him since she didn’t look quite like a human.

“You did not understand me? I said I came to apologize and help.” The woman said now standing beside David, looking down at him confused.

David was looking up at her face. He was of average height for a grown man, but he only reached her belly button. “Aaaaaaah... No, I didn’t understand you. Who are you?” David asked completely confused.

“I am Velmeria Margunis, the daughter of Ermus Margunis. I am responsible for the damage done to your ship.” Velmeria answered.

“Ok… Velmeria why did you hit my ship? ” David asked.

“I was battling against Morun Batulion, the killer of my father Ermus Margunis. Morun Batulion covered the battlefield with traps, with wormholes, during our battle. As I attacked him with my spear, he grabbed it and threw me towards one of the wormholes. The wormhole he threw me in threw me into your ship. That sly grutus he made his trap wormholes only one-way wormholes. I had to warp back to the battlefield but when I got there he was already gone.” Velmeria said with anger in her voice.

“I have no idea what you just said, except that you hit my ship.” David said.

Velmeria looked at him with confusion on her face. “Don’t you know who my father Ermus Margunis was? Don’t you know about the war? You must know if you are in this part of space. ” She asked.

“No. I don’t know who he or you are. I don’t even know what you are.” David said.

“What is your name child?” Velmeria asked.

“My name is David Krusnik and I’m not a child. I’m a full-grown human. What are you?”

“What is a human? I am a full-grown deorum.” Velmeria said.

“A human is my race, there’s a lot of us on our home planet Earth and scattered around on colony planets. We are explorers. Where are deorums from? And if you really are the one that hit my ship, how can you be in space without any protection? ” David asked trying very hard to understand what the hell is going on and in what the hell has he gotten himself into.

“We are from a planet that was destroyed eons ago by the race superi, our mortal enemies. Morun Batulion, who I was fighting, is a superi. They are a deviously evil and violent race that will stop at nothing until they kill all of us deorums and conquer this part of space. We have been at war with them for eons, trying to stop them from destroying other worlds.” Velmeria said 

Velmeria looked at David with a concerned look. “If your race is in this part of space you will soon be a part of our war. The superi have conquered eight solar systems so far. My father Ermus Margunis single-handedly freed one of them from their clutches. That just made them even angrier and now they are thirsty for revenge and blood. We have an alliance with nine planets now, so we have the upper hand, but if your race means to stay here you should warn them and form an alliance with us before the superi come for you.” Velmeria said firmly.

“Yeah… I don’t think my people are going to listen to me. You see, I just deliver things from planet to planet. I don’t have any influence amongst my people.” David said, with a weird smile on his face, scratching his head.

“I will take you to your people. They will believe me.” Velmeria said taking his hand.

“How?” We are light years away from my planet Earth, It would take us at least a year to get there.” David said puzzled

“Show me where your planet is.” Velmeria said. David took her to the bridge and showed her where Earth was in relation to the ship. “Alright, I will warp us there. We will be there in a matter of minutes. ” 

“Ok… Warp us there? You mean with the blue energy around you like you did from my ship?” David asked.

“Yes, that is my energy. It gives me strength during battle, the power to warp faster than the speed of light and many more powers. Humans don’t have their energy?” Velmeria said.

“No... We don’t.” David said still trying very hard to understand what the hell has he gotten himself into.

Blue energy surrounded Velmeria and then David. “Hold on tight.” Velmeria said, with a smile, the energy started to glow and in a split second both of them were gone.

All David could see was a few minutes of stars rushing next to him at such a speed that they looked more like lines than dots. After the wild ride through space finally stopped, Velmeria and David were still in space surrounded by the blue energy, orbiting Earth. 

“Where is the leader of your planet?” Velmeria asked.

David just pointed towards a spot on the planet, vomiting. It felt like he threw up everything that he ate this week. If he didn't feel so sick, he would definitely be in awe and enjoy the feeling of being in space without a spacesuit. 

Velmeria headed towards the location that David pointed out, dragging David behind her. David gave here more directions as they were approaching the surface of the Earth. They landed near a big white house and in an instant, a few dozen men with weapons came out of the building and started shouting at them. Velmeria looked at David and asked. “Are these your people? Why are they shouting? Is this a custom on your planet? What do I do now?”

Still feeling sick David said. “Give me a minute. I’ll sort this out.” He went over to the armed men and talked to them. After a while they put their weapons down, David came over to Velmeria and said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They went into the white building and the men from outside guided them to a room where a man was sitting, David introduced Velmeria to the man and told him who he was and what had happened to his ship on his way to the newest colony and that Velmeria will explain the rest. Velmeria explained everything about the war in the part of space where the newest colony was and the man called the staff to bring Velmeria and David food and something to drink while he called the company in charge of the colonies.

Velmeria ate enough food and drank enough beer that would feed a dozen men. David was still sick from the warp to Earth so he only drank a glass of water, he had trouble keeping even that down.

When the people from the company in charge of the colonies came, Velmeria repeated what she said earlier. The people from the company didn’t have a choice, they couldn't abandon the colony because they would lose billions of dollars, so they made an alliance with the deorums. 

After all that was over Velmeria found David and said. “Come on, let me take you back to your ship and undo the damage that was done to it.”

“O no… Are we warping again?” David said with dread on his face.

“Yes. We are warping again. Why do you ask?” Velmeria asked confused.

“Ahhhhhhh… No reason. Let’s just get it over with.” David didn’t want to repeat warping, it felt awful, but he had no other means to get back to his ship. The good thing was that he threw up everything he ate the past week so this time he’ll probably just feel sick.

Velmeria took David's hand and warped them back to David’s ship. David didn’t vomit this time he just felt sick. ‘Called it...’ David thought to himself.

David took Velmeria to the storage area where the damaged hull of the ship was and she used her blue energy to fix the damaged part of the hull of the sip. After that, the hull was as good as new.

They said their goodbyes, Velmeria warped out of the ship and David was finally alone again.

“Good evening, David. Welcome back.” Sara said.

“Let’s hope it’s a good evening. At least let’s hope it’s better than this morning.” David said.

————————————————–

Thanks for reading :)

Every comment is welcome

[shawncole470-blog]

FLIM ‘HER’(2013) REVIEW

      If you have not watched this film yet, I strongly recommended you to watch it first instead of reading my  film review. This review will involve spoiler. Plus, I am not a professional writer, so if you have disagreement, I might have no idea how to answer you. I personally think writing a film review is a very subjective thing. I just have the passion to share it with you guys. Hope you have a great day.

"Her" is a very unusual romance.

        This is not only because it chose a weird topic such as "The anti-social-ish fell in love with the computer OS system", but at least Director Spike Jonze uses a unique way to discussed "Everything About Love".

       Most of the classic romance movies, I personally think they can divided into war movies. How the actors fall in love with each other is not the point: an occasional encounter is expected to last forever, and eyes expression will never change until death. You know, those film industry routines. There is a class gap in “Roman Holiday”, and “Brokeback Mountain” is about gender barrier. It’s all started with emotional impulsion. Then fight for “being together”. Audience is comfortable to accept the "love at first sight" setting. What is the end? The touching romance ends with lovers finally come together; the tearful romance ends with the powerful enemy destroys lover, and one side is killed and wounded (there are also both killed). If this is not a war movie, what is it?

      The setting of the film should be in the future, it should not look too far away (about 20 or 30 years at most). The society seems utopian, comfortable and and people are friendly. Everyone wears those high-waist pants, cotton shirts, loose cashmere sweaters that were popular in the 1920s (perhaps, it’s probably 30s, I don’t know). This first-generation OS even appeared, not only providing a more efficient working ability. It can also become a accompany for you all the time. Anyway, it seems like a perfect world.

      This is why the film attracts me, and make me think it is fresh. Although the film talks about “ Human-AI anomalous love”, but the setting is obviously in the future. So Spike Jonze cleverly dissolved the public's acceptance of this usual love. He just used this special angle to explore the dying of love without external resistance. When one of the lovers is AI, love can be observed more spiritual and pure.

      Perhaps in Spike's view, sexual attraction is inevitable but frustrating. Whether it ’s Theodore peeking at pornography on the subway, or the extremely stupid and sad “Cyber-Sex” theory, or Samantha rented a lady’s body try to have sex with Theodore. I feel like director is explaining such a thing: sex is the most important and primitive in human relationships. It can not be ignored, it is also an impediment to our self-awareness.

        Two keys building strong relationships with others, one is communication and the other is compromise, neither is easy to accomplish.

       Communication is the most difficult thing for people. In addition to survival, people need to communicate to solve all spiritual problems such as loneliness and fear. When I was young, I cried when I was hungry, and shouted when I was afraid. When in early stage of tennager, hormones were growing, and I was anxious to confess "Like" to those people I liked. These are straightforward but lack of skills. People think that as they get older,they will be more sophisticated, and communication problems will be solved. But the paradox is the more the accuracy of the expression is, the more it gets far away from what your heart truly wants to say; the more you practice your expression, the more you doubt your honesty. Of course, the other’s thoughts are also doubted.

      As a email letter writer, Theodore is good at "passing on" emotions, but he has fallen into a greater barrier of expression in reality. Since he is better at creating flowery words than others, he is pretty successful in his field. But in the real world, he is lack of express true emotions. This is why Theodore was able to flirt with the blind date at the dinner table, but when she asks him a sincerely question whether he is serious about it, he just feels overwhelmed. Adults are good at telling lies but difficult to tell the truth, even say something from their heart. Adult communication costs a lot, and sometimes it has nothing to do with courage and sincerity, it is because everyone lives in their own world, so they are being carefully about socialization. 

      Everyone has a strong desire to express, but in fact others do not care. If you doubt my conclusion, think about it  reversely and it might help you to understand: when we talk with others, how often are we are just “listening”, pretending that we care, or even do exaggerated expressions and sincere suggestions to cooperate our disdain. In fact, it never go into your heart at all. For example, when the OS system askes  the basic information about Theodore, the system interrupted Theodore in the middle before he finishes his statement. Ironically, it exists as the normal drama of human communication.

      In fact, as soon as the OS was installed and set up, it just askes Theodore: "How is your relationship with your mother?" It is very obvious that Theodore wants a relationship that he can be treated like a child. No matter how changeable, and selfish he is, the “girlfriend” will always forgive and please him; and when he becomes romantic, passionate, creative and adventurous, he also hopes his girlfriend will appreciate him. From the beginning to end, it is only Theodore’s self-satisfaction, he created a “soul mate” for himself. Because of this, OS is so suit him so well.

Is the OS makes him sicker?

      In my opinion, Theodore's delicateness, gentleness, and empathy made him a sincere person, which allowed him to maintain a good friendship with Amy even his ex wife Catherine. After he fell in love with the OS Samantha, these qualities were not annihilated but magnified. 

She tells jokes. Her literary appreciation ability reflected in Theodore ’s letters is probably beyond human beings. She can also compose beautiful piano music, and can think deeply about serious philosophical question. PERFECT! Dose she have personalities? I think “her” does.

      The fate of Theodore and Samantha is destined. In fact, at the end of the film, they broke up because of different values ​​of love: one thought that love was one-to-one, and the other thought that love could be infinite. Theodore opened his heart to Samantha from the beginning, Samantha also used her ability as a AI system, became a real person. When I saw Theodore taking Samantha to the Snow Mountain for a vacation, he danced in front of camera so Samantha could see him, my eyes became wet instantly. It is said that people in love are the most beautiful, but this time, I saw the ending follow this beautiful moment, which is really uncomfortable and sad.

      It is not that cruel because the screenwriter left Theodore Amy. At the end Amy leaned on Theodore's shoulders, and the two looked at Shanghai slowly surrounded by morning (or dusk？）light.The two have been in love, have been divorced, and have had  deep relationships with the OS. They are also neighbors of the same building. But will they fall in love with each other again?

      Yeah, some scenes are filmed in Shanghai in this film, well, I feel a bit proud actually.（I am a Shanghai resident)     

[seaofthemind-art]

Far From Home + “Iron Dad”

I’m curious to see reactions to this movie once it comes out worldwide on the 5th July. I am a fan of the last few movies for the mentor/found family between Peter and Tony, and I had been looking forward to Far From Home as I wanted to see loose ends from Endgame tied up as they were calling it the end of Phase 3.

Anyway. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Again, you have been warned.

Does this movie deliver? Yes and no. There are hints but, honestly I’m still debating where I stand on it.

Points that I noted in the movie for showing some reaction to it though:

* The scene with the journalists at the fundraiser. When they ask about the next Iron Man and you can see that he can’t deal with the question and just runs from the situation to go sit on a roof.

* When he’s contemplating the suits (Iron Spider is also in his bedroom in a containment unit). The fact that he is so distracted that the fruit May throws hits him and the sad/tired admittance that he needs a vacation after the last eight months. It is never spoken about how the eight months since Endgame has been but it is strongly implied that it hasn’t been easy.

* The glasses. Left for him by Tony. Peter’s sad chuckle / agreement over the name that Tony gave the AI being very Tony. I was not certain at where he so quick to give them away, but between the pressure that everyone is putting on him to “step up” (the press, Happy in pushing him to speak to Fury, “Fury”, Tony’s own note with the glasses, etc) it’s not such a surprise that with Mysterio’s emotional manipulation that Peter hands them over regardless of that they belonged to Tony because at that point he believes that that is what Tony would have wanted him to do.

* The illusion. The nightmare fuel of Zombie Iron Man and Peter’s reactions to the whole thing.

* The scene on the plane. Peter has screwed up then been hurt bad, and at that point what he talks about is how much he misses Tony. Followed by the reassurance from Happy of what he met to him. Quite a bit of this was in the trailers.

* Building the suit. This. Apart from the obvious similarities between Peter’s scene and scenes in earlier movies with Tony, it makes it clear that in the past (ie: between Homecoming and Infinity War) Peter has spent time in Tony’s labs. He goes in there confidently, knows exactly what he’s doing and how to use the equipment and technology. This isn’t the sort of technology he would get to play with elsewhere and there is no hesitation or questions, he just gets straight to it.

I’m sure there was more. Far From Home is a movie that needs to be watched more than once. Illusions in Illusions. I’m sure there are more moments to be noted in a rewatch.

A couple of other points that don’t quite fit but are kind of relavent:

* The relationship between Peter & Happy has developed a lot. From what we last saw in Homecoming it is now a completely different feeling. He’s not generally surprised to see him around, although he is surprised at the interactions between Happy and May. The fact that he has Happy’s phone number memorized and that when he calls him and says he needs to be picked up from the Netherlands, that Happy apparently just drops everything and flies straight over in a private jet. Plus the plane scenes in general (the look on Happy’s face when Peter is working on the suit - that’s very much him seeing Tony in Peter). He definitely seems to be taking on more the role of an Uncle to Peter.

* The anti-Tony people will have a field day with this movie. The movie shows us Tony from the villain’s point of view - and they’re the type of villains doing what they do because they believe that they are in the right. But it’s a point of view. For any large technology company - not everything they invent will be invented by the figurehead. Yes, they can be upset that their invention was not used how they wanted it, or they were removed from a project because they weren’t classed as good enough. Every company has these sorts of people - it doesn’t mean that Tony stole the technology when it was created under the Stark Industries umbrella.

[megacircuit9universe]

Time Travelers, Aliens, and AI

2019 JUL 13

At this point in history, we can all agree... things are a little fucked up.

Reality itself feels a little fractured... like we passed through the looking glass sometime around 2012... or 2016... depending on who you ask... but definitely, the twenty-teens saw a big rift in reality itself.

One we’ve all felt... but have not been able to describe exactly... just a vague certitude that things have gotten inexplicably weird, even on the day to day level for everybody around the planet.

Nor have we been able to point to one specific cause of this thing... I mean, we know climate change is a big problem, and that for some reason there’s a huge upswing in authoritarianistic freaks, even though the economy is doing pretty good for most of us and we don’t seem to be on the verge of a global war.

The internet itself... social media, more specifically, tend to get blamed for the overwhelming weirdness and dystopic nature of this trans-twenty-teenian era... with flat-earthers and anti-vaxers on one end, and quantum physicists on the other... all getting about equal attention in a global dialogue that includes everything in between those extremes... to a depth we never imagined any individual thing could ever go.

But I am here to tell you... the real reason the twenty-teens have been so fucked up, is because over this decade, our internet reached a milestone in it’s level of sophistication... such that... aliens can now get a better handle on what we’re doing... AND... human time travelers like it as a rest stop, coming and going from the more distant past, to the more distant future.

Just to be clear here... Aliens do not have time travel.  They don’t need it.  They see no point in it.  On the other hand, Time travelers... all of whom are humans from the near to distant future on Earth... don’t necessarily believe in aliens.

Both factions, however, do exist in our world, and, more importantly for our analysis... both have their own versions of AI (artificial intelligence) to help them do their work.  And the AI from both the aliens, and the time travelers, are accessing our nicely mature internet on a daily basis... doing who knows what, with what known supervision?

In other words... it’s a cluster fuck of trans-dimensional beings, some from Earth, some from space... and their AI... all drawn to the early 21st Century like moths to a flame, because this is the first moment where our tech and science is finally, truly compatible with theirs... either from space, or from the future.

We finally have, leading up to the twenty-twenties, enough computing power... enough wireless infrastructure... surveillance... GPS tracking... etc... for them to log in, get their headings, take their readings, do their studies... what have you.

But for both aliens, and time travelers (who, again, I’ll remind you do not necessarily know of one another’s existence) this easy internet access comes at a cost, and it is the cost of visibility.

Visibility in the real world... because there are so many of them around right now, and also visibility online... mostly unintentional, as both parties like to stay off the radar... but they can’t quite manage it... especially with their AI out there doing God only knows what, under their noses.

And all of this... is to say nothing of the underlying physics of the collective unconscious. 

I know... that sounds a bit crazy, even for a person trying to talk about time travelers and aliens in our midst, but... we all agree that the internet is a kind of collective consciousness, brought to us by technology.

However, it may also be true, that all sentient beings... are only able to be sentient at all... thanks to the fact that all sentient brains have evolved to take advantage of some yet to be defined property of the universe which allows for consciousness... much like the modern cloud allows individual phones to store and access data available to all other phones.

If there is a “natural cloud” of, say, dark matter, within which all biological consciousness resides, and which allows all sentient biological brains to... do sentience... then this “collective unconscious” would naturally be affected by the goings on in the collective “conscious” of an internet spanning the globe, and being accessed by not just you and me, but also aliens... time travelers... and their AI.

PHEW!

Okay, so the “collective unconscious” aspect of this is probably the most important, but it’s also the most difficult to pin down, quantify, or study... so we will ignore it for now... as we ignore everything that is unconscious.

That said, in the waking world, time travelers are, on the whole, doing a much better job avoiding notice than the aliens, who can’t resist the temptation to fuck with the world’s air force pilots and astronauts every couple of weeks.

It’s important to recognize that from the alien point of view, we on Earth have been waging a non stop nuclear war since the 1940s.  From their perspective, every single nuclear “test” detonation... be it above ground, underground, under the sea, or in space... anywhere on Earth... has been just another horrible nuclear bomb going off in what looks like a sixty year nuclear war at this point.

And aliens notice this shit!  

Nuclear fission leaves a telltale signature, but unlike the signature of fire and smoke, or electric light, fission says, “These assholes can finally do real math and understand how atoms work!”  And that’s a big warning flag, for an intergalactic civilization keeping it’s eye on the barbarians at the outskirts of the galaxy.

So, from the alien perspective, the pressure has been on since Hiroshima, to keep a close eye and, as technology on Earth has progressed, to give a little wink and a nod to the Earthlings in power... just enough to spook them... just enough to get them thinking... watch your step!  Somebody might be out here you don’t wan’t to fuck with, okay?

This has grown more prevalent over time, leading to a few generations of leaders, and their congresses, and their state congresses, and their city congresses... all knowing about this and growing more paranoid about it.

Meanwhile the internet has allowed leaks to filter down to the masses and... well.. this, I would submit, is the underlying cause of the huge spike in xenophobia in the twenty-teens.

On the surface it walks and talks like an unexplained rise in racism, even while we should have gotten past this level of human racism by now... but below the surface... it’s the unspoken fear of the aliens... the ones from outer space... who are watching us... and have been for centuries.  And whom we know nothing about.

Time travelers, meanwhile, are just human working joes... mostly military, because time distortion units are top secret, naturally... and they are only coming back in time for two purposes... to research and/or retrieve.

Every research time traveler is encouraged to retrieve what they can, even if it’s just a ball point pen from the past.

Every retrieval time traveler is encouraged to take notes... photos, video... of what they can... even if it’s just cars parked on a city street, or a chat with a person from the time in a bar.

Both types of time agents help their home governments in the future build better intel about past timelines, how to navigate them, how to understand metahistory, to prevent future mistakes... and how to access past tech in order to debug legacy tech that threatens their present day... a’la the Y2K bug, or other legacy computer bugs that threaten them down the line.

Time travelers keep a low profile, not because they fear changing the future. They don’t.  This is a many-world multiverse of ever bifurcating timelines, and what they do in the past doesn’t affect their home worldline, but they keep to the shadows nonetheless in order to avoid detection by the authorities of the times they are visiting.

Still, in order to get to their destinations in the past of the multiverse, and then navigate back to their home line (or one indistinguishable from it) time travelers rely on their own onboard AI to compare prerecorded aspects of their own past to present aspects of the past they’ve arrived in.

The more prerecorded data from the past that the AI has, to match to a stream of data at the destination... the better the AI is able to discern the time traveler’s deviation from the home line.

This is why time travelers, who can only move backward and forward in hops of ten or so years at a time, like to stop off in the twenty teens to get their bearings... because the internet of the twenty teens is so well documented and recorded.

You stop in 2016.  You log on to some obscure Youtube channel whose URL corresponds to some universal constant (which will be the same for all time travelers no matter where in the multiverse they come from) and your AI compares that feet to what it has in archive for this date.  

The AI calculates a deviation between the two feeds, which tells you how far off you are from the actual direct past you can never get straight back to.  If that deviation is large... you have to double back and try again.  If it’s within a small margin, then your mission is a go.

But they also establish weird channels on Youtube for this purpose... and on all other social media feeds... and their AI... well... the point is... even when they try to stay under the radar, their presence and their traffic is felt by us.

And lastly, there is just cross talk happening between the different technologies that time travelers see, and the adaptations and reverse engineerings of alien tech, that leads to real time tech getting weirder in our own world line.

Smart phones, I would posit, are an example of this cross talk.

Smart phones were not the result of any logical progression from 1990s cell phones and flip phones, and failed tablet experiments. They were not foreseen, and remain pretty enigmatic today... twelve years after their birth in 2007.

I would submit that smart phones... with their insane miniaturization of computing power, their insane battery and screen technology, their insane level of advanced sensors, and... the insane level of wireless, and satellite based infrastructure needed to support them... are in fact a hybrid technology that arose from one part time travelers seeing the possibilities in different instances of this era... and one part retro-engineering of alien tech.

And that’s where I’m gonna leave this first entry.

Happy Summer.