#just shows how dogshit ai is

[teawithghosts]

AI generated content is fucking over the art community but it has absolutely ruined animatics.

[reachartwork]

the process

a lot of people like to ask me about my process and how ai can be "creative" because they're under the impression that it's just kind of a big slot machine. you pull a lever and art uncontrollably comes out. well, let me show you my process

this is going to be a long thread tagged with #long post, blacklist that if you want to skip it.

so how it starts like most art is that i have an idea. in this case, earlier i made a post about witch-knights "surfing" on swords, so i'm going to try and make that - a witch-knight flying through the air atop one of her swords.

it starts with this picture.

i think this picture is dogshit so i discard basically all of it to try and find something closer to my original intent. there's a couple of uninteresting regenerations so it's clear i have to go back to the drawing board and teach the machine what it is i'm trying to do

let's start with a witch-knight on a broom. it's definitely not great but it gives us a better pose that i can work with.

i start by erasing the broom and replacing it with a skateboard - the machine understands skating better for what i need it to do.

there's a ton of small, subtle errors in this image and it overall looks like dogshit but the most important part right now is blocking and the overall pose structure - i need her "surfing" a large, lengthwise object, in the sky. i start by erasing pieces of the skateboard

now we have a sword, which is good. but the sword itself looks... bad. i'll spare you the abortive attempts at selective regeneration of the sword and just show you what happened when i rolled it back a couple of times from this pose and let it regen entirely.

again, tons of small little shitty errors, but this is something i can work with. i do another regen for a less shitty sword. her boob armor gets replaced with, like, generic scale mail.

this image has a great sword and decent pose but like... everything else is kind of futzy and i dont like it. instead of trying to pick and choose i just throw it back into the oven for a second. much better! but now she's going to cut herself on the sword, oh no!

again, i'll save you the agonizing thirty minutes of trying to get it to understand where the foot should go. unlike before i didn't really have a choice except to muscle through. there! now she's surfing safely :)

so it's done, right? well, i mean, i could post this. and it would probably do okay. but *i'm* not satisfied with it. there's stiffness. dozens of minor errors. the eyes look weird when you zoom in. let's start by fixing her hat, and then maybe her hands?

but she's missing fingers on her left hand so let's go ahead and fix that too. and i don't really like the tip of her sword and the ocean looks really flat and boring. so, VERY CAREFULLY, i have to etch out the parts of the sword and her body i have to keep, and also write an entirely new prompt to tell it "i want an ocean w/ rolling waves please :)"

this is better but not great. i try again - serendipitously, it makes this really cool variant with a shadow over the water, but i know working with that will take more wrangling so i'm considering it an evolutionary dead end and discarding it for now.

i proceed to spend 30 minutes trying to make the ocean look better but it's really not working imo. i'm gonna go back to the shadow version and see how that works

i'll spare you the other 8 minutes - i'm satisfied with the following picture. the sword isn't *perfectly* straight, her eyes aren't perfectly textured, the scale mail is... weird, in texture, but anything else would be greasing the wheel and i think beyond the machine's ability to do fine detail.

i've also attached the starting picture for comparison - it has better, "higher quality" clouds and ocean but i personally cared more about the pose and the sword surfing - the background is mostly tangential. could i get back ocean and clouds of that quality with another two hours of painstakingly cutting and re-generating bits of the background without destroying any of my existing work on the pose? probably. but i don't want to.

total time spent on this piece from start to finish was one hour and twenty one minutes. and now you know!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 136 thoughts

before i get into the sad stuff i need to say that ai eating ice cream with her head empty no thoughts expression blasted ten hundred million billion tons of dopamine directly into my brain. thank you.

This chapter is interesting for a lot of reasons but I will say up front that I'm really glad the story is taking the time to humanize Nino and to flesh out the absolute mess that are her feelings towards Ai. I was really excited when she entered the story because I had always wanted to know more about the 45510 narrator (which this chapter basically unambiguously confirms even more strongly than before — we get the 45510 drop again!) but I was worried after meeting the real Nino that she would be painted as a black and white villain. Through Kana's empathy for her and the movie's portrayal of her though, we get to see her as just a normal person.

Because like… I'm gonna be honest, I feel so deeply sorry for Nino! Like, Jesus Christ, don't forget that she was anywhere between twelve and sixteen when all this was happening. She was just a kid being brainpoisoned by the entertainment industry and held to impossible standards. She had no power and the few things she felt she had any control over were being ripped out of her grasp. Is it any wonder she reached a breaking point?

Not just that but… man, B-Komachi gen 1 just seemed like it was an utterly dogshit experience for everybody but especially anyone who wasn't Ai. Both Nino and Kyun have said it explicitly: they did not feel like valued members of the group. Saitou pushed and favoured Ai to the extent that everyone else in B-Komachi felt like backup dancers who were just there to make Ai shine brighter. We see this pattern repeated in B-Komachi gen 2, as well! I've already talked about how in a very real sense, the group only exists for Ruby's sake and Kana and Memcho really are just there as her accessories but Miyako herself is favouring and pushing Ruby for work to the extent that even Ichigo points out that she needs to give the other girls more jobs. No wonder Kana empathizes with Nino so deeply.

Something else really interesting about this chapter is getting to see what dealing with Ai is like from someone else's POV. Understand that I'm saying this as the Internet's Foremost Ai Wife Guy but oh my god!!! I think this is the first time we've gotten a really good understanding for how deeply, deeply frustrating Ai really must have been to deal with as a person only allowed to see the perfect 'Ai of B-Komachi' mask. Nino is all but breaking down in front of someone she considers a friend, begging her for the slightest bit of honesty and authenticity, for Ai to just show that she cares about Nino in the least… and Ai just gives her a bunch of blithe, noncommittal answers. Even knowing Ai as well as I do, I could almost feel a ghost of Nino's desperation and frustration pass over me as I read that exchange.

With that in mind, Nino's outburst at the end of the scene here doesn't feel like pure nastiness - it feels like desperation. It feels like her lashing out with the worst possible thing she can think to say because if she hurts Ai, if Ai actually shows that Nino's words reach her at all, if Ai's human enough for Nino to hurt then…

But, well. We already know how this all turned out. Even so, like Kana said… Ai's smile is suffocating.

Speaking of Kana, this was a damn good chapter for her. A lot of people seem to have interpreted her as getting 'lost' in the role of Nino but going by this chapter's portrayal, Kana seems to have a much healthier distance from her than Ruby does to Ai right now (BUT WE'LL GET TO THAT….), being literally portrayed as viewing the scene as if from a distance. I do think her empathizing with Nino is allowing her to examine and get out some of the hurt and resentment that's been bubbling away since Black Hoshigan Ruby but things are being so infinitely more complicated by everything else going on around this split.

Speaking of which… whoooooooof, Ruby. Her levelling up her understanding of Ai was uh, not quite as good for her as I'd previously thought. It's important to note that this is pretty clearly Ruby's feelings that she is projecting onto Ai: in 45510, Ai herself explicitly says that she never hated the B-Komachi girls and Ruby blurting this out here feels like a very pointed contrast to that. It's pretty clear to me that we're coming back around to something established during the preproduction phase: that this material is quite literally triggering for Ruby and it's damaging for her to be engaging with it.

… which is why it's so, so scummy for Gotanda to be pushing this. I'm holding back on really going into what I'm thinking of Gotanda right now because I want to see if/how the manga addresses this but I'll just say that I'm coming away from this part of the story feeling much more sour about him than I think I'm intended to. It's possible that this is just because I'm fresh off hearing Jeanette McCurdy's horrific account of how damaging this kind of acting was to her as a child but… I find it really hard to like and get behind a director who is purposely letting his actors endure intense psychological suffering for the sake of His Vision lol

After all, like… for all that he talks about wanting to film 'the true Ai', this Ruby freakout is not that! That's Ruby, snapping under the strain of the pressure put on her. Even if you want to argue Ai felt similar strain… is her restraint and her grace and patience in not giving out under it not also 'real'? Why does authenticity necessitate turning Ai's ugly feelings into a spectacle? Why does Gotanda think he has the right to make calls on what is 'authentic' here?

I'd say "who died and made him king" but that's the point, isn't it? Ai died. She's not here anymore to make calls about her identity and the people who are here and who are in a position to do so aren't actually doing it with care and consideration or proper respect for her memory. This movie has been touched by so many people who have their own agendas, who did not know anything about Ai and quite frankly have no right to be making calls about who she really was and what she really felt. 15 Year Lie is an utterly ghoulish production and nobody is coming out of it clean.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Youtube should have a “turn off algorithm” option where it just fills your sidebar with randomly selected videos uploaded in your language in the last 48 hours. I want to see the real garbage. Less game critics with perfectly smooth voices talking about high-profile games in perfectly lit rooms, more out-of-focus vacation movies random people uploaded for their out-of-state families and scriptless ‘plays’ made by six year olds who have figured out the video upload mechanism but not how to point the camera properly. Less 5 minute crafts, more absolutely dogshit clay pots being made by middle-aged women who haven’t set up their microphone correctly. I know you have SO MANY bad videos, youtube -- PROPERLY bad, not “made for the algorithm by an AI and the producers don’t care” bad. It’s free to upload videos, you’ve gotta have so much total fucking nonsense made with so much heart and absolutely zero skill in there. Show it to me.

[rocketboots564]

Here is part one of my thoughts, notes, and reactions to Red Versus Blue Season 9 as a first time watcher!

Yes, I have heard the news about Rooster Teeth. No I will not let that stop me from binging this series one way or another!

The rest of each individual season will be posted separately instead of being a reblog of the first post… mainly because I saw how egregiously long my post on season 8 was.

Season 9 Part 1:

Epsilon… what do you mean nobody’s called you “Director” in a really long time? Sir, season 8 was probably just a couple months ago… I think…

I don’t know how much time has passed from S8 to S9

FIRST OF ALL TUCKER, CHURCH IS CABOOSE’S BEST FRIEND

Wait… how can you get winded if you’re an AI. I mean I know Epsilon is in a memory unit, but does that mean he relives everything in a human body too?

It does make sense that Epsilon doesn’t really know how to use a Rifle. Sure, Church (or Alpha? Imma stick with church) didn’t know how to properly use it either, but he did know how to adjust the scope.

“Torqued in my pants” pffft…

WOAH TUCKER?! You did WHAT IN ALONE TIME? WHAT THE HELL’S “ALONE TIME”? 😦

Erm… what the Metal Gear? I unironically love this stealth mission thing. And knowing South Dakota… I wonder how long it’ll take for this to go tits up…

I’m betting five to ten minutes

also, YESS THE BIG BUCKS BUDGET OF ANIMATED CG SCENES RETURNS.

South MY GOD LISTEN UP?! HAVE YOU NEVER PLAYED ANY STEALTH GAME?! Set up the MOTION DECTETORS!!!

As someone who’s had years of experience sneaking past light sleepers in the dead of night for snacks and video games… I could do this better than you South Dakota.

SOUTH THIS IS WHY WE SET OUR SOLITON RADAR!!! I mean motion detectors… sorry I got Metal Gear Solid on the brain

MY GOD THE ANIMATION?! THE TAG TEAMING?! What happened that got South Dakota to eventually abandon North Dakota?

I too could take 50 of them South… in a fight… definitely a fight

Oop I saw that in the background! Who’s that?!

OOH THEY BAITED ME WITH THE BLACK ARMOR! They almost made me think it Tex… it’s actually well… whoever this cyan lady is

Supportive Sarge? He WANTS to hear the blue perspective? He DOESN’T want to command and yell at his subordinates?

GRIF? CLEANING? Actually I could get behind Maid Grif.

“I actually like being talked down to” woah WOAH SIMMONS?! 🤨 real, me too…

I mean… at least Donut’s still kept his accidental yet somewhat intentional innuendos. And, also his diary apparently…

Damn SHUT UP SOUTH DAKOTA! SHUT UP!! NOBODY HEAR WANTS TO HEAR YOUR SHIT!

North? WHOAH ANIMATED FACES?! NORTH DAKOTA WITH THE CLUTCH!!

Medics = bad luck. Honestly… yeah for you guys they are.

THE PHOTOSHOPPED WET FLOOR SIGN AND MOP IS KILLING ME

The ultimate OTP battle: Caboose x Sheila versus Caboose x Email

Listen… Tucker… never in a million years will I ever call you Professor Fuck

Damn the Freelancer Program only has ranked mode? No wonder they’re all assholes

CONNECTICUT? SHE’S CT? Yeah I can see why you’re so mad about your low rank… you’ll get your shit rocked by Professor Fuck of all people. Fuck it… it’s a funny name

So like… you know you’ve got absolutely dogshit rizz when Caboose has a better shot at dating someone than you.

Speaking of which… Caboose is now in my top 5 of the most dateable guys in this show. Like take this quote from him:

“I just really want to meet someone nice. Someone who appreciates me for who I am not so much because I’m pretty but because they really want to get to know me…”

HOW HAS THIS MAN NOT WOOED THE HEARTS OF THOUSANDS?

Tucker has NO rizz…

Oh wow Epsilon, just drop the existential dread on your teammates like that with no warning. It is a damn good thing your teammates either don’t understand it or don’t care.

Huh… seems even in a memory unit in which everyone is different fate still finds a way to make Grif lazy and sarcastic again.

Then again, that’s kinda happening with the rest of Red Team as well, minus Simmons and Lopez

Also, LOPEZ IS BACK! And this time is immediately beefing with Simmons… or rather the other way around.

“I’ll show you who’s likable and funny, and who people like” SIMMONS BABY ITS YOU! YOUR THE ONE I LOVE! YOUR THE ONE I NEED!

I just like Simmons… a perfectly normal amount…

Conclusion: this season already fucking ROCKS I LOVE IT! HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME!

[theculturedmarxist]

Our civilization is sick because all its systems ensure that human behavior is driven by profit, and health isn’t profitable. Nobody gets rich from everyone staying healthy all the time. The gears of capitalism will still keep turning if its populace is made shallow and dull by bad education and crappy art made for profit. Billionaires aren’t made by leaving forests and oceans unmolested, consuming less, mining less, drilling less, using less energy. The economy doesn’t soar when the world is at peace and nations are working together in harmony.

If you programmed an advanced AI to arrange human behavior solely around extracting the maximum amount of profit possible using existing technologies, its world wouldn’t look a whole lot different from the real one. We’re being guided by unthinking, unfeeling systems that don’t care about the good of our minds, our hearts, our health, or our biosphere, which will sacrifice all of the above to accomplish the one goal we’ve set them to accomplish.

It’s just a dogshit way to run a civilization. It doesn’t work. It’s left us with a dying world full of crazy morons hurtling toward nuclear armageddon on multiple fronts. Our systems have failed as spectacularly as anything can fail.

It’s simple really: we settled for capitalism as the status quo system because it’s an efficient way to churn out a lot of stuff and create a lot of wealth, but now we’re churning out too much stuff too quickly and society is enslaved by the wealthy. So now new systems are needed.

❖

So much of modern political life consists of the ruling class tricking the public into trading away things the ruling class values in exchange for things the ruling class does not value. Trading revolution for the feeling of being revolutionary. Trading actual freedom and democracy for the story of having freedom and democracy. Trading away the civil rights our rulers actually care about like unrestricted speech and freedom from surveillance in exchange for culture wars about racism and transphobia. Trading real labor for imaginary money. In every way possible we’re being duped into trading away real power for empty narrative fluff.

❖

One part of the problem is that in this mind-controlled dystopia people are prevented from knowing how deeply evil their government is, so the idea of their government surveilling them and regulating their speech and their access to information doesn’t scare them like it should.

This is why it annoys me when people say “Stop talking about the problems, we need to talk about solutions!” It’s like mate, we’re so far from ever being able to implement solutions — we haven’t even gotten to a point where a significant number of people know the problems exist. Step one is spreading awareness of the problems and their sources, because nobody’s going to turn and fight an enemy who they still believe is their friend. Systemic solutions are pretty far down the track from that point.

❖

It’s a pretty well-established fact by now that free will doesn’t exist nearly to the extent that most religions, philosophies and judicial systems pretend it does. Our minds are very hackable and propaganda is very effective. If you don’t get this, you don’t understand the problem.

Do a deep dive into cognitive biases and how they operate. Look into the research which shows our brains know what decisions we’re going to make several seconds before the conscious mind thinks we’re making them. You’re going to tell me these are organisms with free agency?

In order to understand what we’re up against you have to understand psychological manipulation, how effective it is, and why it works, because mass-scale psychological manipulation is the primary force preventing the public from turning against our rulers in our own interest.

❖

It seems like a lot of the inertia and self-defeating hopelessness that people have about fighting the machine comes from knowing the political awakenings of the sixties fizzled out, but I don’t think that would be the case if people understood just how much hard work the machine had to put into making them fizzle.

I mean, we all get that the death of activist movements didn’t just happen on its own, right? We all know about COINTELPRO? Known instances where one out of every six activists was actually a federal infiltrator? The roll-out of the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed?

The amount of energy the western empire has poured into killing all leftist and antiwar movement is staggering, but people just think the acid wore off and the hippies turned into yuppies and the Reagan administration happened on its own. It didn’t. They had to work hard at that.

The revolution didn’t organically fizzle out, it was actively strangled to death. And what’s left in its place is this defeatist attitude where people want a healthy society but believe it can’t be attained, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We COINTELPRO ourselves now.

People think we can’t use the power of our numbers to force the emergence of a healthy society, and we don’t deserve one because we dropped the ball. But we didn’t knowingly drop the ball, we were manipulated out of it. And the manipulators had to work very, very hard to do so. Those movements died out because the machine understood very clearly that it needed to stomp them out with extreme aggression and knew exactly what it needed to do to accomplish this, while ordinary people did not. It’s not a fair fight if only one party knows it’s a fight.

The machine won one battle and everyone’s acting like they won the war. They didn’t. We can absolutely pick up the fight again, and we can overwhelm them with our numbers. If we had any idea how hard they had to work to win that one battle, this would be clear to everybody.

[communistkenobi]

Thank you for being such a relentlessly correct opinion-haver, seeing other people talk about this episode is making me feel insane. I regret all my joking about how Andor being good means we’re due for a long stretch of dogshit.

any theories about why Favreau still gets so much leeway to fuck things up???? do people truly think he’s doing a good job?? absolutely flummoxed

Honestly I think the answer re: Favreau is just money. Baby Yoda merch sells, Mando sells, Pascal is currently one of the most popular celebrities in Hollywood. They have a good thing going on, and to the best of my knowledge, thinking this show isn’t good is a minority opinion. The Season 2 Finale is the highest rated episode of the show, despite it being the catalyst for basically every single problem in S3 and also generally just being dogshit. the only actual reason people think it’s good is because deepfake Luke Skywalker shows up. Disney wants to convert Star Wars into the next MCU and apparently the idiots who watch this show are completely on board with that and think epic references to the Star Wars brand is cool.

I don’t think Favreau is actually doing anything to hurt their bottom line by writing dogshit, because the MCU prints money despite it being irredeemably awful. Financial incentives of this magnitude prohibit (or more charitably, are completely indifferent to) good storytelling. Why bother writing anything when you can just flash an AI generated image of Luke Skywalker’s face to the audience as they empty out the contents of their wallet directly onto your desk?

[franckyfox2468]

Francky's top 5 games released in 2023

So with 2023 ending soon I decided to make a little list and a top 5 of the games that I enjoyed and played that came out this year

Though i will be limiting myself to games/remakes released this year so while i greatly enjoyed Sonic Frontiers and AI the Somnium files this year, they wont make the lsit sorry.

I will start with the honorable mention of games that i still enjoyed but didn’t make it to the top 5.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Like a Dragon: Ishin

Ishin is the last Yakuza game I've played that was made by its longtime director, Toshihiro Nagoshi. And after playing Like a Dragon Gaiden, it helped me realize how much of a difference a new direction can make and how much I have taken the quality of the series for granted. Ishin wasn’t the worst nor the best Yakuza game I've played imo. Which makes sense given it was made right in between one of my least favorite games in the series (yakuza 5) and one of my most favorites (yakuza 0). Its story is perhaps not something you would be used to compared to the rest of the series but it is based on a tale that is as old as time itself that is still quite enjoyable for what it is and while it has some annoying bits (like substories always getting in your way during important event or gun fights), Ishin is still a quite enjoyable game with some fun stories, fun combat and fun minigames. And honestly the funniest version of Baka Mitai somehow.

BombRush Cyberfunk

I decided to check out bombrush cyberfunk after it was absolutely snubbed over in the same award show that decided to promote a JetSetRadio game and I figured I would finally get around checking what it was about before the year ended. I haven’t finished the game yet. I haven’t played JSR so I can't exactly make a full comparison but through some of its rather painful and counterproductive input mapping/options and some frustrating platforming here and there, BRCF is still a game with a very charming, silly and engaging presentation with its story, art and music.

Robocop: Rogue City

Rogue City is not a perfect game, and a quite short one at that. But it is a really good and enjoyable game for what it is. It's not something I would recommend to someone who hasn’t seen the two first movies as they would absolutely get lost in just what the hell is going on and potentially get spoilers from both movies. While the final battle was a bit underwhelming in contrast to what the plot was potentially leading up to with it and some fights could get absolutely tedious, the game to me is in line with the telltale back to the future game or the atari ghostbusters where it can easily serve as a new chapter for the mainline film franchise but through a really good game.

TOP 5:

#5: Baldur's Gate 3

Don’t get me wrong, Baldur’s gate is an excellent game and a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone who likes RPGs of any sorts with ease. But part of the reasons it is so low on my list are, 1, i did not finish it unlike every other game on that list, 2, all of the fun and your will to plan a future character and playthrough is absolutely drained out by the time you reach act 3. I played explorer mode as I am not exactly a tactical rpg person myself and wanted to put more focus on the story, which is absolutely great. Every party member is fantastically written and voiced characters, each with their own tastes, goals and views upon the world and situation around you that makes them very likable and fun to have. Honestly some of the more fun companions i've seen in an rpg. The game really does a great job at emulating the sense of playing through a real DnD campaign with a ton of hilarious optional dialogues and where your actions and picked skills will matter in the end, as well as how you synergize them with the rest of your party (without the dogshit power hungry dm or the potential constant in-fighting of other players), the way you are introduced to most of the main party members so early into the story really helps to that feeling of your DM making a scene to make sure all of the players are quickly gathered together and introducing each others’ characters.

For most of the game creativity with your spells, tools at hand and strategy are absolutely rewarded and if you bring in some friends for co-op it can get hella chaotic for better or worse. But by the time you reach the third arc, the story and paths you can take in combat are really narrowing down and not exactly for the better as each fight and situations you start being put through really ties your ends and forces you to be quite careful and specific with what you do even on the easier modes. It's gotten to a point where I kinda haven’t played the game in a long time because doing literally anything done by that part of the game feels like a goddamn chore. But BG3 is still a fantastic game that I do intend to get around to finishing someday as I still think quite positively of it for the most part.

#4: Hi-Fi Rush

Hi-fi rush is simply a fantastic game. A game that involves platforming and combat while mixing rhythm game mechanics could have easily been a blunder but this game manages to succeed at every aspect it does on top of its fantastic artistic presentation. The art, the animation, the music, the writing… It's all fantastic. The only thing that really left to be desired is the ending kinda falling flat on its message and just going back to the situation the world was in despite the systematic issues still being there but the good guys are on top of it now so that makes it okay i guess? But with that aside, I would say the game might not be for everyone as some of the rhythmic elements can be quite tight and unforgiving in some aspects and fights but overall it was one of the more enjoyable and absolutely hilarious games i’ve played in awhile.

#3: Trepang2

On the surface, Trepang looks like a dull military shooter game with some horror elements that are inspired by FEAR. But the problem is that going into detail about why it is so much more would spoil a fantastic experience that absolutely caught me off guard with how good it was. As someone who has never played FEAR, the combat, if anything, was a lot more reminiscent of Titanfall 2. Sure you don’t have cool giant robots but trust me it makes up for simply how absolutely bonkers and high octane it can get. It just feels absolutely amazing from start to end. This is one of the best single player fps games i have played in a long while and i am absolutely looking forward to the story dlc they have announced coming in 2024. 

#2: Street Fighter 6

I have a love hate relationship with this game. I hate it because this game has caused some severe damage to my hands and at times I had to take a month long break from it because of how much it was starting to hurt. On the other hand, this is one of the most fun, enjoyable and accessible fighting games that I have ever played and definitely my favorite to this day. And i don’t simply mean because of its different control scheme. SF6 does an excellent job at giving all of the information the players need to better understand the game from within the game as well as official reading material like frame data and such provided by the devs themselves. And even if you aren't into fighting games or multiplayer games, I would absolutely still recommend SF6 for its world tour alone. While it does not have the most phenomenal story imaginable, it is a really goofy and enjoyable experience that perfectly blends rpg and fighting game mechanics for all to enjoy. And the best part is that every dlc release comes with free content and the ability to learn techniques from dlc characters you do not even own. Which honestly despite some of its issues with the monetizations is a huge W on the part of the devs regarding this game. Honestly despite some of its issues SF6 is the real first fighting game i started to feel like i was able to take seriously with how much resources and content you get, and it helped me get even closer to some friends as well as meeting some quite friendly people. I love SF6. But what could possibly beat it then?

#1: Pizza Tower

S rank is for Street fighter, which is pretty good. P rank is for Pizza Tower, which is perfection to me. I’ll admit I nearly gave up on this game because of some initial frustrations but pizza tower is a game you can ALWAYS get better at, even if you managed to finish the whole game. The best way to describe it is… it's the best Nintendo game not made by nintendo. Not because it tries to do something fans always wanted or replicated an aesthetic. But it's through just how polished and tightly designed the game is but it does so in a way that doesn’t punish experimentation with all of its crazy movement mechanics and it doesn't try to streamline anything for you except perhaps how player damage is handled, which feels like quite the opposite of what Nintendo does with a lot of its game nowadays. Everything feels so samey, streamlined, slowed down but the dated tired shit like extra lives and such are here to stay and you have to deal with it, while the new fancy stuff rarely brings benefits and usually are more so gimmicky annoyances (at least this is my feeling towards a lot of more recent Kirby games). While the game definitely has some of its downside and it's a quite hard game, it is honestly one of the best 2d platformers I've played and I'd easily put it aside to a game I would deem legendary like DKC2 or Super Mario World. Every level is well defined, well designed, you always get something new and fun at each of them. And that is not even mentioning its absolutely wonderful and hysterical art, animation and this absolute banger of a soundtrack.

I am ultra excited for the upcoming character dlc as it will give me a reason to replay the whole game with some new mechanics to add some spice to it all. Pizza tower is excellent.

[musteladraconis]

alright thats it this is my rant about palworld because i need to just speak about it. if you disagree with anything i say or have an alternative perspective then ill be happy to read them but anyways.

this game makes me so incredibly upset and just. enraged. pure unbridled anger.

just want to clarify some things before i start:

1. im aware of just how dogshit nintendo treats pokemon fans like myself, giving us the worst framerates imaginable, pushing out shitty low quality games so that people stay interested or whatever their motive is and so on and so forth, you've heard it all before i dont need to go over all of it again.

2. im not against using ai for some things. it can even be really beneficial. however when you use ai to steal from other artists and use it to make creative work then its inexcusable and should never be used. no im not talking about animation programs that use ai for tweening or any ai that's used to help make an artists job a tiny bit easier or faster, im talking about generative ai that takes artists work without their knowledge and uses it to make money. so when i say ai in this post i am specifically talking about generative ai.

alright with that said lets get into why i absolutely hate this game.

feel free to correct me if im wrong throughout this post.

ive been looking into the company's background and as many people already know the founder promotes the use of ai and greatly enjoys it. but yknow what i also found out? its that he also hates new and creative ideas! and he promotes using ideas that already exist to make games.

(citing SomeOrdinaryGamers video on palworld)

oh yeah. yeah that's right. pocket pair is the company that made palworld! lemme show you what else they made

notice anything? no? alright let's try again.

how about now.

yeah. yeah this is breath of the wild and hollow knight!

and also. it's one thing to steal from nintendo, it's another to steal from indie game developers and FAKEMON ARTISTS.

YEAH. YEP! EVEN THE FAKEMON ARTISTS ARENT FREE!!

WEIRD 'COINCIDENCE' RIGHT???? THAT THEIR DESIGNS ARE 99% THE SAME???

SURELY THIS GUY MUST ENJOY HAVING SOME KIND OF ORIGINALITY RIGHT? RIGHT???

WRONG!

"IF THERE ARE GOOD IDEAS IN THE WORLD I PICK THEM UP AND I DONT NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE PARTICULAR ABOUT ORIGINALITY"

nintendo hasn't sued him yet. i dont know if its because they cant find a 1 to 1 rip off or some other reason like them not needing to worry about him but i hope some of you understand just how bad this is for artists jobs. while yes there would have had to be artists that modeled the models in game there is basically no creativity or originality here. 'but what about the idea of giving pokemon guns' you might say. sure, thats a cool idea i will say. i like the concepts but i despise the methods used to achieve this goal.

many other games that are similar in using monsters like pokemon have successfully made their own unique creatures and people have enjoyed those games.

shin megami tensei has its demons for example! including... including... sigh. the green dick on wheels. yeah you heard me. the green dick on wheels.

BUT wouldn't you rather that than a 1 to 1 ripoff of wooloo?

you could say that oh wooloos just a regular sheep which yeah i can accept that argument but there are so many more that you can look at where the similarities are just... Bad. the cobalion one for example (just look up cobalion palworld youll see what i mean).

and not just the megami tensei franchise either. mutahar also mentioned other games, like cassette beasts which looks really fun

and those are good designs! the game itself looks cool and fun to play. digimon also exists!

if nintendo ever does anything to the pokemon franchise that just absolutely ruins it more than anything else they've ever done then ill rethink my opinion about this game, but for now im mostly just upset about artists jobs being taken from them and artists original designs too. while nintendo can be so shitty to pokemon at times, there are artists behind pokemon designs that had their work and original ideas blatantly stolen.

i highly recommend checking this link out to support your favourite pokemons artists directly if theyre on the list.

to finish this rant off, i just want to say that originality is one of the most difficult things to achieve in video games. i get that, im an artist too and being original is extremely difficult because everythings been done at least once. but it doesn't excuse how closely these games are 'borrowing' incredible, iconic and ORIGINAL ideas from others and not just once but repeatedly.

[moonndust]

chapter 20, 21 and 22 were something… (part 1)

(includes fire emblem engage spoilers)

only alear, kagetsu, alcryst and merrin survived the griss hide n seek level

and i vividly recall alcryst always dealing the final blow.

atp if alcryst dies in-battle then it’s fuckin over for all of us

alcryst died once at some point and i immediately went to the time crystal

he’s like my only maxed out character and i am not risking the chances of losing a wet towel of a menace

one crit and its all over for the enemy

kagetsu had like 8% crit chance and landed on like more than 10 crits in a row.

i like but also dislike the lack of characters in each cutscene. like wtf was everyone else doing when griss was talking to alear? they were clearly right there??? right???

then get his ass. sneak up on that bitch and STAB HIM IN THE GUT OR SMTH.

it’s that easy.

this game has so many plot holes. way too many that i can’t even think of one.

like half of the casualties in the plot could’ve been avoided if we used that damn time stone. framme was so fuckin right about using the time stone to stop florra port from getting destroyed. use your brains y’all!!! USE IT!!!

ik it would make the game like longer but still‼️

i didn’t understand a single thing in veyle’s backstory (i wasn’t paying attention to all the “tell don’t show” shit)

my opinion on marni drastically changed when she immediately switched up. it really felt rushed but i really like how her va portrayed marni’s feelings.

marni’s death was like witnessing a child getting disowned and killed right after

mauvier’s character is great‼️ he’s just bland‼️that’s all‼️

the battle was pretty easy ngl. alcryst (as always) landed the final blow on veyle.

the cutscenes were awkwardly put together ngl. like the cutscene where veyle is crying over alear’s dead body, vander and alfred are just 🧍

i mean ig it could work as a parallel cutscene to lumera’s death but still.

why tf were they just standing there. they were most likely standing in shock but at least make them closer to alear’s body or smth omg.

anyways

the writing is dogshit but i somehow nearly cried in some cutscenes. don’t ask why bc i don’t know either.

i’m blaming the god tier va work for that. they put so much effort for such a shitty script that it works.

zephia, ik you’re hot n all, but i am this close to throw hands at your ass

“we’re all family here.” THIS IS NOT THE FOUND FAMILY TROPE THAT I REMEMBER

mauvier was just there. ngl he did a lot of work in the battle but he also didn’t do much at the same time??

i’m not done w/ the chapter 22 battle yet but goddamn that’s a lot of cutscenes.

ngl it would’ve been fun to fight the corrupted + corrupted veyle as the units w/o alear. that was such a missed opportunity for a good challenge.

i like corrupted veyle’s voice better than her normal voice…

oh no they took away marth’s blue hair and pronouns 😨

they took away everyone’s colored hair and pronouns 😱

now they’re all red and pronounless 😢

i started the battle in chapter 22 w/o knowing that alear was the only one who could get the rings…

so my dumbass made alcryst waltz to lyn’s ring and i realized that i fucked up

had to use the time crystal and go back 2 turns to the very beginning

and replay the battle from scratch.

pandreo (once again) was a fuckin trooper and carried everyone

the emblem rings i assigned the everyone was lowkey random but i let the ai do it for me since i am a lazy fuck

so there was uhhhh alear/roy, alcryst/lyn, kagetsu/lucina, pandreo/corrin (later changed to micaiah), seadall/byleth, rosado/eirika (changed to corrin), clanne/celica, zelkov/eirika, alfred/sigurd, merrin/leif (originally ike) and timerra/ike

i sorta did change timerra’s class to picket pretty late so she kinda died in almost everything but its ok i still love her

i wanted to play around w/ the change class mechanic on the benched units i had (i wanted to give diamant exposure therapy through sage class)

i actually have a good strategy that i didn’t even get to use and i’m pissed.

this is just a one shot alcryst centered strategy. 1) make alcryst engage w/ lyn and dispel doubles, 2) pandreo uses rescue and teleports alcryst close to him n seadall, 3) seadall uses dance on alcryst, 4) astra storm that bitch w/ those sweet chain attacks‼️

this could also help w/ lucina’s all for one skill.

seadall’s dance was a life saver in every battle.

alcryst, kagetsu pandreo and merrin are the biggest carries in my team atm

alear is just… there

in conclusion? always take out the villain when they least expect it.

griss in post-battle chapter 20 telling alear the big fell dragon thing? get his ass from behind.

hyacinth just standing there at chapter 10? pop his old bones

when sombron appeared before alear died? just yank the helmet off of veyle’s head. marni cracked it ffs.

oh yeah and use the time crystal like your life depended on it plot wise.

[scoliosiswizard]

I've just come to a conclusion I really like about AI generated images and art in general.

I think art involving any sort if automation is art in exact proportion to how much human effort was put in before or after the robot got it's hands on it. No- I think anything we call art is just evidence of human effort, and something is more art the more effort went into it. Something being more art does not mean it is good or better art. Someone's magnum opus could be dogshit while still being very incredibly much so art.

The only effort that goes into MOST AI generated images is the prompt. Those images are art exactly as much as the prompt is art.

I feel like with most writing, the effort comes from either: the creative effort taken to come up with the idea and work through it, or the scholastic/life effort to obtain the knowledge being imparted.

I don't think ai images impart knowledge. In fact I think if anything they'd have an effect of removing any wisdom percievable in the prompt in the result through the generative process. But the ideas can still be really interesting and show creative effort!

I do not think "unreal engine best lighting 3:4 landscape wide angle painterly lake background deviantart wallpaper small artist's name" alikes show very much effort. However. I do find the sentence "James Corden trail cam footage eating teeth" quite evocative! Nowadays we've seen every celebrity on a trail cam eating teeth but someone came up with that first, and I think that effort was admirable, and it is art. I think the early days of AI where it was just people typing in the weirdest thing they could think of and laughing at the funny images, before it was commercially viable for anyone to start running scams, were a very fun, genuine burst of creativity on the internet.

I think it's slightly more art when someone then takes the AI image and edits it further in photoshop or something. I do think that all AI art should make it clear that generative AI was involved though, and a lot of people do this just to fix mistakes and pass the robots work off as their own for money, so I do not respect them. Make the image interesting enough people marvel at the creativity of the prompt and editing even when they know what's AI.

I think it's even more art when it's something like BABBDI, a game where all the textures are AI generated, with the weirdest, bleakest, like nightmare vibe to it. I genuinely think the inhumanity of the art adds to it. Also the dev had to develop a whole game around it, so that's still a lot of effort and it's still a fascinating piece of art, even if the textures themselves aren't really art in my view.

When we look at a painting, we don't often think of the canvas or the glass as part of the art, it's just what the rest of the art sits upon, or what you look through to see it. AI generated images are the glass to their own prompts, and the canvas to BABBDI.

I do still think there should be regulations on AI art though, at least under capitalism. For the same reasons I think it's necessary to have some amount of copyright protection, say, for music, despite the fact that I think people should, morally, be able to make a living making mashups and shit because I know how much effort they take. The benefit of people being able to make money off of AI or copyrighted material pales in comparison to the suffering of the artists that would lose all of their revenue if larger companies could just steal all of their work, literally or through AI. They will still do this, and their lawyers are strong, but there still needs to be some form of legal recourse. I guess. Fuck the stock market.

[skelegun]

Since I got time to kill, I’ll do a little write up thingy:

I’m not sure if the sale is still going on but if you like X-Com but wish the story had depth and choices, or you like the classic Fallout games but wish the combat wasn’t dogshit, I highly recommend Wasteland 3. I picked it up and the DLC because of Steam’s winter sale, never having played any of the other games in the series, and I’ve been having a blast.

The thing that is really surprised me the most is just how much choices seem to matter and they do try to provide some moral ambiguity to most of the choices. Now keep in mind that sometimes the game can be really wacky, and that the tonal inconsistency can be somewhat jarring but overall I think it leans more towards serious side.

With spoiling you much and not really knowing anything about the other games the basic premise is this; you play as a squad of Desert Rangers in a post apocalyptic America. At the end of Wasteland 2, the Rangers stopped a rogue AI from wiping out biological life, but at great cost. So now the Rangers have been promised assistance in rebuilding from a man known The Patriarch, the current ruler of Colorado. The Patriarch’s walled city is a jewel of civility compared to the rest of the ruins of America, but he needs your help in arresting his 3 wayward children who plot to usurp his throne. Of course, all that glitters is not gold, and the Patriarch has more than a few skeletons in his closet, and it’s up to you how you deal with him, his children, and the various other factions vying for power or just survival. Maybe you should depose the Patriarch, but many people view him as a hero so a peaceful transition of power is unlikely, and more troubling is the question is who would fill that vacuum? I’ve gotten probably like 30 hours in the game and I’m still not sure yet what I will do when it comes time because the most viable alternative at the moment isn’t much better.

One thing I really like compared to say Fallout is seeing as how you rebuilding an organization, the Patriarch gives you a home base of sorts and a fair degree of autonomy, it opens up lots of unique NPC interactions. For just one example, there was an early quest where a young man was going to be executed for a minor crime, and his mother wanted me to do whatever I could to free him. The solution I picked was to tell the judge i would pay for the damage he caused and have him join the Rangers, so now he is a guard at my base. This isn’t just for show, as in several missions enemies try to assault your base, so having additional guards who actually help out in those battles is a big plus.

It’s a really fun game and i strongly recommend it.

[toddcity]

2020 in review how do I format things on tumblr

Thanks for tagging me, Gemma. Your support means the world to me

Top 5 movies this year:

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)

The Muppet Movie (1979)

HyperNormalisation (2016)

Jackie Brown (1997)

Special shoutout to CATS (2019) which I saw twice and then got kicked out of university

oh god do I have to tab back to see what the other categories are jesus

I'm not doing tv bc I saw one good show (Seasons 1 through 4 of hit Korean competition game show The Genius) so here's my top five video games instead

Anodyne 2: Return to Dust (2019) (it's fifteen bucks on steam and just fantastic. Doesn't matter if you're not a gamer or if you didn't play Anodyne 1)

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (2003)

Hades (2020)

Cities: Skylines (2015)

AI: The Somnium Files (2019)

Top 5 Songs:

Julia Holter— So Humble the Afternoon

Cornelius— In a Dream

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith— First Flight

Yumi Murata— Face to Face

Kermit the Frog— Rainbow Connection

(also the new Avalanches is fantastic)

Top 5 books this year:

Madeline Miller— The Song of Achilles

Sarah Waters— Fingersmith

God, I dunno. The Liar Game manga was great but not really a book

I can't recommend anything else I read for the first time lol

I read a fanfic of [media property of absolutely no artistic value] translated from French that stalled out halfway through and then I had to read the rest through google translate. Please wish for a better 2021 for me

Top 5 experiences— look I had an extremely miserable year where I caused a lot of pain to myself via my own failings as a person. Let's dredge it up!

Started a TtRPG group again. It's nice and I like it

I built a roof! It sucked and it was hot but occasionally I feel the urge to create like a normal person and it paid off my last semester

Annual family trip up island that I hadn't been on in half a decade. I got beach nostalgia

Went from 5k to 10k running! Although I can only go when my legs don't feel like dogshit (never)

Christ, I dunno. Hopefully I can hit the learning and growing part of the downward spiral soon

I have two followers and no desire for more so Olivia you can do this if you want. Rest in shit 2020

[aihoshiino]

It's actually so insane how misunderstood Ai is even in the fandom 😭 I saw a YouTube comment about her last scene with Ryosuke: "We do not know for sure but I think there is a good chance that she offered him hand not for his sake but to manipulate him so he would not harm her kids. She's a lie incarnate after all." 81 likes........ AND AS IF IT COULDN'T GET ANY WORSE. The reply under it: "she legit guilt-tripped her own murderer into committing suicide Aqua don't need to do shit she already got her revenge😂" 79 likes 💀

SORRY FOR SHOWING YOU THAT BUT I NEEDED SOMEONE TO AGREE WITH ME ON HOW THAT IS SUCH A HORRENDOUSLY BAD TAKE 😭😭

immediately after opening this ask i became so angry that i blacked out for a full 24 hours and when i woke up i was in prison. Having to think about it long enough to reply is making me animorph into a wild chimpanzee. REEKING TO HIGH HEAVEN DOGSHIT TAKE, BRO.

i really just do not fucking understand people who engage with the very clearly communicated text of Ai's arc and character and come away just going "oh she was a liar ig" and turn their entire brains off there. It's especially insane to see people doing this over the Ryosuke scene when not 5 minutes before we had Ai all but looking into the camera and directly explaining how deeply and desperately she wants to love other people. LIKE. WAS THAT A LIE TOO, SHITNIPS?? WHO DO YOU THINK SHE WAS LYING TO IN HER OWN NARRATION

I can't even cohere a remotely composed rebuttal to this. I need to go smash some breakable dishware. Media literacy in this fandom has been rotting in a ditch in Miami for the past 20 years.

thank you for sharing your agony with me anon. we're in this together. the wifeposting will continue so long as shit takes like this are still getting trotted out.

[coolgreatwebsite]

Breviews for June 2019 - November 2019

Every time I beat a game, I immediately mark it off on my Backloggery and write down my thoughts in the provided review field. Now I’m putting those thoughts on my website, too. Sometimes they’re stupid, sometimes they’re serious, but they’re always 500 characters or less. They’re Breviews!

Secret of Mana (SNES, 1993)

I can understand why Secret of Mana made an impression on people. From an audiovisual standpoint, it's an incredible leap forward from Square's previous output. The plot, while paper thin, can be weird and charming at times. But oh my GOD the gameplay is 100% rotten. Attacking feels like unresponsive dogshit, hitboxes are nonsense, ally AI is braindead, the only reliable way to do anything is to abuse magic, you constantly get stunlocked, leveling up is a colossal grind... it's just miserable.

Super Mario Maker 2 (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Mario Maker 2 rules in a lot of ways, but it's a regression in some others. All the new creation elements they added are awesome, but there's a lot of things around the edges that are just plain worse than the first game. Like, it has zero integration with your Switch friends list for some reason? The touchscreen controls are more clunky too. It's nothing game murdering but it's baffling. Also the online multiplayer is the least fun I've had with a video game this year, even when it's not laggy.

Pokémon Shield (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Pokémon Shield is not a disaster. It is very half-baked, however. The new monsters are probably the best new batch they've ever done, but the region is just so boring. The Wild Area is small and feels very haphazard, the routes are the most short and straightforward they've ever been, and there are zero dungeons. The story and characters are all very throwaway too, but at least they aren't super intrusive. There's other issues as well, but ultimately it's still fun in the way Pokémon always is.

Final Fantasy Adventure (Game Boy, 1991)

Final Fantasy Adventure is the first game in the Mana series and it's simply okay. The gameplay is kinda like a simpler Zelda but with RPG mechanics. It's an early-ish Game Boy game and that fact really shows in how straightforward and janky it is. The game also suffers from the Link's Awakening problem of the Game Boy's limited buttons forcing you into menus constantly, but it's worse here because of how sluggish and unintuitive the menus are. It's still enjoyable, but by no means a must-play.

Space Invaders Extreme (Nintendo DS, 2008)

Man this game still whips ass. I played a ton of it back in college but I don't think I actually beat it back then? Which is dumb because it's very short, but I had a flash cart and just jumped between games all the time. Anyway! Space Invaders Extreme is a super smart evolution of the classic Space Invaders gameplay with a lot of fun interlocking mechanics. It's super stylish too. Very reminiscent of Rez. My only complaint is that the bonus rounds maybe break up the flow a bit too much.

Judgment (PlayStation 4, 2019)

I really liked the main plot of Judgment, but not so much the part where you actually play it. While the combat's better than in Yakuza 6, RGG Studio still wasn't able to make Dragon Engine combat feel engaging or rewarding here. The detective elements range from barely-there search sections to excruciatingly interminable tailing missions. The new sidegames, such as drone racing, are mostly lame too. I did overall enjoy my time with Judgment, but it mostly made me excited for Yakuza 7's changes.

Puyo Puyo Tetris (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a mashup that mostly works except for where it doesn't. Where it works is in the regular Versus and Swap modes, which make you pick a side and switch modes mid-game respectively. Where it doesn't work is... kinda every other mode? Fusion mode is a boring, confusing slog. Party mode is a lame score competition. Big Bang is fine I guess? It's just a fever battle. Basically every mode outside of the core two is no good. The story mode has a ton of filler too. Still decent!

Super Kirby Clash (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

This is an expanded version of an expanded version of a sub-game from Kirby Planet Robobot and it's as okay here as it was in its origin game. It's basically Kirby's take on Monster Hunter. You have four weapon classes and go out on boss fight missions with people online. The boss fights all sort of have the same rhythm to them so they aren't super exciting, but it's fun enough. The game's free-to-play, but it doesn't feel obtrusive until after the first credits roll so I guess it's fine? Maybe?

SEGA AGES: Sonic The Hedgehog (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

This is an accurately emulated release of Sonic 1 (finally, a truly perfect version on a portable system!) with some added gameplay features like the spin dash and, for the first time, Sonic Mania's drop dash. That's all good but weirdly enough, the online leaderboards were the real standout for me with this. Attempting to get as many rings as I could without getting hit and trying to get a high score in the Mega Play version were refreshingly unique ways to revisit a game I've played to death.

[godd-howard-did-it-again]

I swear to god why fucking shounen-ai never ever changes

I gave it the benefit of doubt cause it’s been 8 years since I last watched one, and I had my fair share of yaoi/shounen-ai when I was a teenager, binge-watched so much stuff, hoping idk what- that things got better?

but I restarted recently watching some titles and DEAR FUCKING GOD

I can’t even begin to say how fucked up it is that young people watch this pile of dogshit and think that this is how a relationship is supposed to work or that it’s GOOD and HEALTHY or TRUE LOVE.

every gay man is depicted as a predator.

YES.

Every fucking one of them. The seme is a predator, the uke is the prey, and every man that gravitates around the uke is a predator as well. And whose fault is that? The uke’s. Obviously /s

reminds me of that fucking pile of shit of om**averse.

How many times do I have to give a chance to shit that pretends to depict homosexual relationships and just ends up pushing, after 22 fucking years or more, the same narrative, different graphics, different settings, same fucking story?

How many times do I have to give a chance to shit that pretends to depict homosexual relationships and just ends up pushing, after 22 fucking years or more, the same narrative, different graphics, different settings, same fucking story?

Junjou Romantica, Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi, Koisuru Boukun, Hitorijime my Hero, Dakaichi, (I’m not even including Super Lovers in here, cause god save me from that pedo pile of shit, even tho hitorijime has some of that shit too since the teacher literally falls in love with a 14yo kid), Togainu no Chi, Antique Bakery, Close the Last Door, Boku no Sexual Harrassment (yeah, okay, that one is pretty explicatory, it’s the one with the corn), Dramatical Murder—

and it’s just the beginning.

Every one of them has that. Oh, and let’s not forget about the whole “guy gets raped and has to apologize about it and feel guilty about it because it’s his fault, him being pretty is the reason why he got raped and instead of getting a supporting partner that will help him deal with it, he’ll get victim-blamed by him as well!”.

Bottom line: if you get raped, that’s on you. And I dunno if that is that this is how Japan works. I don’t know, don’t wanna make assumptions /srs

But jfc this is such a recurring theme and it’s just SO FUCKED UP.

And when I was 14 I didn’t know any better so I just assumed it was how this was supposed to work. But then you grow up, and you’re no longer falling for this romanticization of rape and sexual violence, especially cause if you got groomed, abused, and/or molested, YOU KNOW NONE OF THAT SHIT IS RIGHT. THEY’RE JUST BLARING FUCKING RED SCREAMING FLAGS FFS.

It’s fucked up. Period.

And idk, but passing this message that sexual harassment is okay, codependence is okay, victim-blaming is okay, goes far beyond the “it’s just fiction”.

I think there’s a point where if you become uncomfortable with watching a show, to the point where you think “hey, maybe this shit shouldn’t be produced”, “hey, call the police cause this is fucked up”, maybe, and just maybe, there’s a fucking problem with the content.

And I know that the problem is with society, and how everyone just keeps wanting this content, and the industry follows the money and the audience, but FUCK, how about maybe we start giving an alternative, a shounen-ai that is BETTER than this rapey-bullshit. So that if someone wants to watch a goddamn anime where two men love each other, they don’t have to watch their own GET FUCKING RAPED AND ABUSED AND PREYED UPON ALL THE TIME.