#v1 is really far too intelligent for its own good

[cherubchoirs]

Is v1 scared of death ?

it wasn't, at the start of everything - v1 boots to a dying world, its corroded mind immediately clinging to corrupted ideas about its purpose, knowing it is for war but instead thinking it must forever cause it into perpetuity instead of just fighting when called for. it is not yet a self, consciousness a faint flicker in a mind vast and filling fast with so much information its damaged computer can't fully process the data before it weaves into twisted code. when it meets v2, a shift occurs in recognition of the self, a mirrored image that it cannot copy - what's wrong? mirage is the emerging sentience, the understanding that it is v1, it is made for war, and it is in hell. it is here to end everything, and it cannot stop even if it had other wishes. to create war is its fundamental self and should it stop, everything it is would unravel. fear has no place but it feels it as an unnamed presence in the back of its mind. it has a self now, but the self can't project forward in concrete terms. confidence low. simulation unstable. cancel and move on.

but what happens when its self keeps growing, what happens when v1 follows whims instead of a directive? a new self is fostered, it is fed on curiosity instead of blood, it wants to learn instead of make war - these sides do not reconcile until it meets with gabriel. like v2, something is tripped again and in gabriel, its curiosity and bloodthirst are woven together, they fasten into a solid core of being, into what must be v1's soul. v1 is still not regularly existential but it has the capacity, endless in fact, which would only result in an abyss of inaction should it give way to it. it's a by-product of how its mind works, how easily it could be overtaken by the inevitability of death, unending loops of thoughts that lead nowhere or back into each other...and so v1 doesn't actively engage it, and in fact protects against it.

yet the fear grows, directly proportional to the life v1 gains in and outside of itself - it develops interests, it wants to see more, know more, do more than what it was made for, and it wants to stay with gabriel, learn about him and love him, have a whole life with him. it has so much to lose now and when it stops, it will be the end of everything, no spirit inhabiting the flesh...or maybe not. it wonders if it could have a ghost in some way, if the quantum particles that make up its mind are forever impressed with who it is, with what it has become, and if they would carry it on in some way. it would be caught in chaos it knows, the only reason it thinks now because its mind is so well-controlled, the particles so slow or directed that they can be turned into a thinking machine - without the computer, who would it express, experience? even if those particles remember, who would it be in a volatile outside world, separated from one another and scattered so far they could never meet again? would quantum strings still entangle them, too enmeshed to truly be apart? would its consciousness then be a web strung far and wide across space, echoing with who v1 was but unable to attain any cohesion without the deep frozen crystals that turn prisms into qubits? it thinks, somehow, this could be worse than nothing, so it continues to avoid thinking on it.

this avoidance is what i think ultimately causes the issues it and gabriel need to confront as it begins to fail though. they're not totally unprepared, but with the layers of protective coding against contemplating its own death, they're also not in the best position they could be. and as they attempt to figure things out now, as v1's code degrades and those restrictions are lifted, gabriel sees the full extent of its thoughts, the existential depth he knew it was capable of but had never heard at length. something in its mind was obviously given over to this a long time ago and has thought on nothing else while the rest of it ran unaware of the dread it was spinning. it is highly tuned to its demise, and it has considered inanimation at length (it still thinks about some of the first words gabriel said to it) or the possibility of its echo remaining in the quantum particles that have housed its consciousness for so long, they know nothing else. it asks gabriel several times where it will go, what will happen to it, and over and over he needs to admit he doesn't know. it tells him it doesn't want either, it doesn't want to shut off but it doesn't want to be a quantum ghost stretched thin and unthinking. it wants answers it can't compute, it wants answers gabriel can't divine. and it is very afraid.

[madness-in-the-flesh]

Ngl, being Anon is hard. I've never done it before until your blog and I'm this close to revealing myself to you in DM or something.

However, I will keep going for a bit ^^ I love requesting for you, although I'd hate to over do it.

This concept has been bouncing around in my head.

Think of the size difference with Yandere! Mag Agents. They could carry you around everywhere and you couldn't disagree.

I was mainly thinking Mag Agent Torture or any of the other variations (v1 - v4) but Mag Hank could technically use height/size to his advantage with a Darling. Intimidation and stuff, y'know?

Idk, do what you will with this info! Drabble or no I kinda want to see your thoughts if you do Mags.

- 💜

Do whatever you'd like and feel comfortable with. If you feel comfortable talking to me in dms but don't want to come off anon when requesting, go ahead +) I 100% understand and if not, Then I 100% understand too! but in the end it's entirely up to you and what you feel comfortable / happy with! I'm just excited to get the chance to know you via anon because your really sweet and I love seeing you in my ask box !! <3

I'm very happy to hear you love requesting from me though +) means a lot to hear and your requests are always fun to write!

I HAVE to agree w/ you though. You bet the Mags would 100% abuse their size but also they probably like holding you like a child with a teddy bear. I couldn't disagree even if I wanted to because then each Mag would pick me up by my ankles and swing me around and throw me like a hammer toss.

Okay so originally I had headcannons AND a short paragraph at the end written for a good couple mags in game yesterday but Tumblr decided " wouldn't it be funny if we reloaded this post JUST before posting the finished thing " so I'm just gonna write a quick thing for Mag Hank, hope that's cool +') I might rewrite the stuff I had in future tho.

MAG! HANK DRABBLE

GENRE - ROMANTIC / PLATONIC

TRIGGER WARNING - Intimidation, manipulation, kidnapping implied,

Not much you can do when you're backed into a corner like a frightened kitten and that mean ol’ dog that’s been chasing you all over Nevada, and now the enclosure he made for you out of love suddenly decides to rear its ugly head. With the current state of everything, it didn’t surprise you. 

You tried to press yourself into the wall as much as possible as if somehow you’d shrink into the behind, turning to sludge and moulding into the wall. Maybe in a better place but it only made more room for the large Mag to close in. Hank had been… different ever since the magnification took place. His whole temperament was thrown off and was a lot more animalistic. Possessive. Where once that security he felt because he knew no one was better than him: But no need for you to interact with others, was now replaced with the need to be the only one you interacted with. The only one who could lay eyes on you, touch you, breathe you in and exhale your aura. He adored you. 

The shadow looming over your retreating form was enough to establish himself. Intimidating you, perhaps he wasn’t receptive. After all Hank’s intelligence had… gone down considerably, favouring his newfound brute strength over any previous strategy. Then again, his endurance had gone up considerably since then. Maybe he had just decided that a game plan was for the frail. For someone like you, trying to crawl away from him. A futile attempt at your own little escape.

The next action solidified that he was well aware of the effect this new stature had on you. Reaching down with his right arm, The one that was of crimson, matching that of dried blood decorated with strange spikes protruding out of his shoulders and strange orange stripes going down the outside. It was otherworldly and even more reason to get as far away as possible. 

He wrapped it around you and roughly grappled you into his arms. He didn’t say anything, Just beginning to walk off and through the “ home ” he set up for you and him. You struggled and wiggled in his grasp, hoping to escape but your blood ran cold when you watched the shadow of his head rear over you. Looking up, He was staring at you. 

You could feel his chest rumble as he began to let out a low growl. It was deep, gravely and carnal. You didn’t know why you felt so intimidating but the looming dread that suddenly filled the atmosphere. Maybe it was the deathly quiet combined with the silent mountain of a man finally making his first vocal response since you had begun the chase, hours ago. In all that time running, climbing and doing everything to get away from him, He never made one comment. 

His face never gave anything away thanks to the headgear, but you could only imagine the cold stare he was giving you. Invisible eyes glared daggers that stabbed into your skin, pricking you with every little blade as you turned away. With some failed attempt at shielding yourself from all the tiny cuts, beginning to sting you with fear. The feeling of your heart beating terror acted as the tempo for hank’s footsteps as he began to walk again, heavy footsteps calling into the white noise around the place. Empty and cold, Only making you feel more afraid for your safety. It only made your coercion so much easier. Hank was happy with this. 

You were so much easier to handle when you were afraid.

[whitefangworldbuilding]

The Strength of Sienna Khan

I find the subject of how to address where Sienna is on the power scaling of Remnant to be both an interesting question and rather pertinent if one ever wants to write a fic about her and so I have provided my own breakdown on the matter below. 

Opening:

Now, I certainly don't mean it in a "How much Ki does she have" or "Does her Semblance make her an S Class threat" or "She can move at Mach 5". No, I more mean it in a general scaling of, who would she measure up well against in a fair fight sense.

& obviously the answer should be "Whatever doesn't break established canon too much" (Unless an AU or what have you)

However, I do feel there is a sort of bare minimum that needs to be cleared based on what we've seen, but even more, what we know.

So, time for some grounds keeping:

Now I could go into how I doubt one rises to a position like Sienna's and survives being functionally at war with something like the SDC and presumably wanted in every nation save Menagerie and likely Vacuo without being badass, but given she has allies that only means so much, Jac certainly didn't survive based on his personal strength after all, so lets move on.

Someone might argue that anything beyond what we saw in Sienna's trailer (Sorry Adam's, but I digress) to not be applicable, however we only saw her fight once and it seems anyone not at mook level didn't really struggle in that fight so it is hard to get a gauge.

We can infer a lot from the fact that despite having her presumably elite guards, and six other soldiers, plus himself and potentially Hazel on side, Adam still chose to kill Sienna by surprise before she realized he didn't intend for her to step down. This can certainly give the impression that Adam did not feel confident he could defeat her either with that back up, or at least not without severe risks, but that still only gives us so much, because we don't know what those risks were.

Still, I think as a starting point as strong, or more likely stronger/better than Adam seems like a fairly reasonable place to start from based on that and the trailer.

But we can go deeper.

One integral thing to think about when considering where Sienna might be on the overall metric and scale is this.

Cinder didn't try to recruit or intimidate her.

Now, some might argue that "Sienna didn't exist before V4" or that "Adam was High Leader before V3" or what have you. I say this.

But I don't think it matters; not just because Sienna is canon, but because as far back as V1 when Blake imagined the shadow figures who replaced the previous leader, there was not just 1. This means that even if Adam was meant to be higher up than he eventually turned out to be he still would not have been alone, eh wither would have had contemporaries or superiors right from V1 and them needing to recruit in V2 and having such a small pool of forces in V/3 really doesn't give any eight to the idea Adam had the full resources of the Fang at his command.

(Though why the boss of a massive organization would be messing about on a train blowing shit up for the lols is beyond me, hence why I don't think he was ever the leader)

This means that regardless of whether Sienna the character, her design or background, ETC, did to didn't exist specifically before V4 doesn't matter because someone always existed in the WF who wasn't submitting to Cinder as Adam was and held a great deal of power.

So what does that mean?

Well what this means is that to reach a final conclusion we need to look at Cinder Fall and her involvement with the White Fang to reach a final conclusion.

So, Cinder is someone with the training of a skilled Huntress (Seemingly), had an assassin and hallucinogenic thief and fighter on her side, and the resources provided to her by Salem, but rather than going for the High Leader of the White Fang and thus potentially netting the entire organization, she went to Adam.

And we know it was intentional because Cinder knew who Adam would be, seemingly that he had an ego given her degree of flattery and she placed great emphasis on choosing him, meaning that give her intelligence on the WF, means she determined him the best.most likely candidate to agree that would be useful. Now this info wasn't perfect because it either failed to communicate Adam's ego effectively or the political situation in the WF, IE, that they would not be willing to work for a human like this, or at least not with her plan.

But by all of this we can determine Cinder had some moderately good Intel on the White Fang, so the question  becomes...

Why not Sienna Khan? (Or whoever pre her creation, but yes Sienna Khan)

This next segment will involve a slight digression down, but please bear with me.

Cinder is someone not against bribery, flattery or threats to get what she wants, we saw all of this in her recruitment of Adam, so her avoiding this route with the WF's High Leader means a few things. Firstly it means she likely knew Sienna would not agree to such a destructive plan because it served no purpose; this objection could be moralistic or pragmatic, but Cinder would likely assume the latter given her general disposition and attitude.

But would she, would anyone object if it meant not dying? Would someone actually fight a doomed battle and die just to avoid being forced to commit a terrible act, or being subjected to slavery via threat? I doubt Cinder would believe that possible at least for someone who operates at Sienna's level in the world.

Here's the digression.

This was based off Cinder's interactions with Raven but it still feels applicable here. When Raven said that she wanted to kill her own brother, Cinder did not for a second seemingly doubt her, not even assuming something sneaky like an alliance of pragmatism to deal with her (Likely because she knows they fear Salem). No, Cinder just accepts that Raven wants her own brother dead, cheerfully in fact.

Now, say what you will about Raven but given she still has a portal to him & hasn't slit his throat while he was asleep, I think we can agree she, while willing to endanger Qrow, doesn't actively 'want' him dead or to murder him.

But Cinder was willing to accept that she did, and I feel its for much the same reason as one tumblr post mentioned. Cinder assumes everyone else is as petty and evil as she is. That might not be 100% accurate, but I think she'd definitely assume that of people like Raven, Sienna & Adam, even if she likely regards it in degrees, IE, Adam was the most likely to go along with her plan hence seeking him out.

End of digression.

This to me means that Cinder would not be acting on the assumption Sienna would object to her plans morally, or assuming that Sienna would sacrifice herself to stop them, because she likely thinks Sienna is incapable of such things.

So why wouldn't she seek her out and try to force Sienna's hand once she had half the Maiden powers? Cinder seems rather confident in the ability of power and fear to command respect and yet she didn't aim any higher than Adam despite the potential benefits.

Well given Adam was able to blits through her former guards relatively easily -though be it with a bit of shock given they didn't expect him to go that off the hook- this means to m that Sienna would be the major deciding factor here, not her guards or mooks, especially given Cinder can control Grimm and so could likely organize a Grimm attack to keep the grunts busy while she and her allies go for Sienna.

Thus, to me, this means that as far as Cinder was concerned , even with half the Maiden powers, her wonder minions and potentially Adam...

She still did not feel confident in taking down Sienna.

Or at least she was not confident in being able to force Sienna to surrender or to kill her quickly and turn her into a martyr without it being very blatantly clear that she did it, that Adam was a traitor, and generally just turning the entire WF against her or causing it to fracture apart defeating the purpose of the battle.

Given Cinder's ego likely means she has a fairly high bar before she feels threatened or like she couldn't pull off a "just as planned"; the only conclusion I can reach is that even after gaining the Maiden powers and potentially/likely/certainly Adam as an asset, Cinder still did not think she could overpower Sienna easily enough to either win, or at the very least accomplish her goals.

Conclusion

So, when we put all this together what do we get?

Well, we know that Sienna was at least a skilled fighter and one of at least comparable strength to Adam in the trailer.

We know that despite having her guards, back up and Hazel, Adam did not feel confident in either winning or at least not in a quick fight and so resorted to a sneak attack.

We can deduce that despite her powers and connections, Cinder did not feel she had adequate resources to either defeat Sienna and force her to heel, or kill her quickly and frame it on Vale to make Adam High Leader.

Thus, I reason, that Sienna Khan would likely have at the very least be stronger and more skilled than Adam, and could have put up a good fight even against partial Fall Maiden Cinder, Emerald & Mercury, enough that trying it would not be deemed worth the risks involved.

Exactly where you want to put Sienna's strength is obviously up to your own discretion, even if you follow this analyse there's still a lot of room for interpretation or extrapolation.

But I hope that this breakdown has proven insightful and well reasoned, thank you for your time.

Notes:

I almost wish I had made a video of this :D

Brainstorming Semblances could also be fun.

My main one for Sienna is that she has a 'crest' that she can store her Aura in, storing up potentially days, weeks, months or even years that when activated means she can drastically multiply her strength, sorta like Adam, Yang or Nora, but its pre-stored and has a massive gauge, This is the one I give her in the War idea (and in general) hence her being able to vaporize that cruiser, though using said Semblance can be hard, slow and painful and take a long time to recoup.

Other idea include Nine Lives, IE self Resurrection.

One idea I had in a fun little snippet I wrote ages back involved Sienna being able to forge a psychic link with animals, awakening their Aura, extra intelligence & having them fight along side her as her familiars. She had tigers :D

Another had her able to make solid, independent duplicates, or at least one that operated as an e extension of her, dividing her power in half, but letting her be in two places at once.

Another was tat she operated a bit like Cortez from X-Men, but in this case she basically cleaved off a chunk of her own Aura and infused it into others to give them extra strength and energy but could also return said power to herself if she wished to, weakening the, especially if they'd become dependent on her enhancements.

There's probably a lot of other ideas and if you folks have any I'd love to hear-em, but those are some thoughts.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

I’m gonna be honest, I think that V2 is a pretty good volume. Sure, it doesn’t have much in terms of story and that’s its biggest weakness as well as having no true accomplishments. But what it makes up for is it’s character writing and development. V1 was our intro, and V2 begins to flesh out many of them. If someone like say… Weiss didn’t appeal to you in V1 cause of her being mean, this one puts her in a much more positive light, for example. I was worried that I would dislike the volume more upon rewatch… but my opinion is pretty much the same as when I watched it in 2014: I really enjoy it.

I had to stretch hard for the Dislikes post. I did not, however, have to stretch at all for this post. So let’s waste no time and go over the Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 2~

#5. Improved Pacing/Runtime

One of the biggest problems with V1 was it’s pacing. It could feel all over the place, and the reason why was due to chapter runtimes. With a few exceptions, the majority were under ten minutes. This could cause storylines that in the current standard could have been done in one or two episodes, like Jaune’s Arc. But since it got stretched out for four weeks with short runtimes… yeah, it annoyed people, to say the least. CRWBY got the hint since I remember before the volume began, they mentioned how the extended the runtimes. It came at the cost of fewer episodes, but honestly? That was for the best?

Volume 2’s runtimes range from 12-15 minutes on average, with the longest being 17 minutes. This has essentially been the standard ever since for the most part, and it was a very good change. It also helps that instead of going for a more episodic approach as they did in V1, they told one continuous story. It can be divided into three sections with the first four episodes, the Dance Arc covering 5-7, and Mountain Glenn covering 8-12. But they all connect with each other and flow together much more naturally. As such since unlike V1 I watched V2 episode by episode, I never felt like it dragged or anything overstayed it’s welcome. It’s one of the best-paced volumes, to be honest. 

I’m pleasantly surprised that it flowed so well. Pacing in recent volumes have been an issue, mainly with 4 and 5, but that’s due to the split storylines. Something that I think that Miles and Kerry have learned was maybe a little too ambitious afterward and have gone back to this kind of formula. They pretty much use this three-act structure in V6, and it worked amazingly there. T seems to be what works best for RWBY, and this volume is what kicked it off. So yeah, good work CRWBY~

#4. Jaune and Pyrrha Relationship

I love these two. They have always been my favorite ship in RWBY, and still is despite… certain events. While I was kinda harsh on Jaune in the last post due to how cringey he was regarding Weiss, his relationship with Pyrrha is what saved him. He’s gotten a lot of flack in the past for not noticing Pyrrha’s feelings, but… I don’t really blame him. Pyrrha never tried to tell him herself or really let on that she had romantic feelings for him. Jaune isn’t a mind-reader, he can’t just magically know if Pyrrha won’t say anything. Nora practically points it out when Pyrrha advises Jaune to just go and ask Weiss out without any stupid gimmicks and just speak from the heart. “Practice what you preach.” indeed. That’s not to be harsh on Pyrrha because it’s clear why she doesn’t. She knows that Jaune likes Weiss and wants him to be happy, so she tries to be content with just supporting him with his pursuits and his training. She’s just that nice of a person.

It’s not like Jaune is careless regarding Pyrrha either. We see in Chapter 5 that he appreciates Pyrrha helping him train and in Chapter 7, he is shocked that no one asked her out. I mean, is everyone blind? Pyrrha is an amazing person? How could no one ask her out? Well… it’s because she’s Pyrrha. She’s a world-class fighter. Too many, she’s out of their league. Remember in Chapter 5 when Mercury calls off the fight, saying that Pyrrha’s out of his league? We all know that was a lie, it was because he got the info that he wanted about her Semblance, but you can see how much that hurt her. It reminded her how she can’t really be normal or form real relationships because of her fame and status. The only person to treat her like a real person? Jaune. He didn’t even know her name when they first met. And it’s after that when Jaune pretty much throws his own needs out the window, puts on that dress with no shame, and dances the night away with Pyrrha.

These two have such a beautiful relationship. Pyrrha helped Jaune find value in himself and grow not just as a fighter, but as this volume shows as a person. Pyrrha got to find happiness and a sense of normalcy through Jaune, which let her form friendships and find love. Even if she still can’t say it out loud, she got to be with Jaune, and that was enough for her even right to the end. Jaune still doesn’t know that Pyrrha has feelings for him and IDT he fully realized his own feelings, but he was still willing to be humiliated just to give that girl a good time at the dance. Because she earned it more than anyone else in that moment. It makes their relationship that much greater, and their ultimate end that much more tragic. But this volume really demonstrates them at their best. It shows Jaune mature and recognizes his friend’s feelings, hence why I can forgive his cringe. It’s painful to see, but he got over it. I just love it so much, and it’s still a bright spot of this volume.

#3. Blake Development

I love Blake. She’s gotten so much hate in recent years because of utterly stupid reasons. While I had issues with her in V4, I’ve always loved her and her story. V1 got me interested in her story after the final two episodes, and this one made me love her even more. You can tell that the White Fang is getting to her, and it makes sense why. We don’t know the whole story, but we do know that the WF was a peaceful group when she was younger, and when it became a terrorist group she broke away. So seeing them act with a human, something that she knows that they would never due, would understandably catch her attention and make her obsess over it as well as reawaken any negative feelings.

In V1 while she was reserved, she clearly was capable of opening up and clearly did want to be friends with these three girls. Some say that she was OOC in The Badge and the Burden, but I disagree. She was trying to form a new life and tried to adjust to her new teammates, so yeah her being a little light-hearted and silly makes sense to me. But with the WF back in her life, it puts her back in a bad place. It makes her obsess over what they’re panning because it can’t be anything good. She tries to close herself off until Weiss reminds her that she promised to open up to them. She does, and her friends are on board with her pursuits.

Then we get the Dance Arc, where the WF obsession is actually affecting her health and performance. Her grades are slipping. Her attitude is at it’s lowest. She doesn’t care about the dance because she’s worried about the WF doing who knows what with them all utterly unprepared. Her harsh dismissal of Sun and her rejecting her team’s help despite them assuring her that they’re going to make sure that everything is fine demonstrates this. Blake feels guilty for her involvement int he WF and doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. To her, she feels like she has to stop them and like it’s her weight to bear. And this is before we know anything about Adam, which she starts to open up about him as well as why she left the WF to her team in Mountian Glenn. But we’ll get to that later.

It’s why Yang’s interference is so important. Yang understands that Blake is getting obsessed to an unhealthy point because she went down the same road. She and RUby almost got killed because she made a dumb decision and went out on her own when she found out about Raven. When talking to her one-on-one doesn’t work, she makes Blake realize that her unhealthy state means that she can’t fight before finally hugging her and essnetially asking her to stop and to trust her and the others. It’s a really beautiful scene that really does make Blake see reason. While I myself don’t see anything romantic in this scene, at least no more than Blake and Sun’s scenes in this arc, there’s a reason why so many care about the Bumblebee ship. Yang genuinely tried to reach out to Blake because she understood where she was coming from, and wanted to help her when no one else could. She didn’t have to, but she did because he wanted to. They’re teammates. Partners. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

This was when Blake truly began to trust Yang. To trust her team. She goes to the dance and has a fun time. It makes you wonder how long it had been since Blak ever relaxed. How long it had been since she laughed. She got to have one night where she could just have fun,  makes  By the end of the volume, she’s in a better place and is clearly happy with her friends. Even though they don’t stop the WF or uncover their overall plans, she’s okay with what they did manage to do and isn’t obsessing or driving herself to exhaustion anymore. Without that progress, then who knows if she’d have been able to bounce back after what happened in V3. Blake here is great, and I loved seeing it again… despite how much it hurt due to what happened next. But that’s a tale for another day.

#2. Mountain Glenn Arc

This arc was fantastic. By far, the best part of Volume 2. First, it has Doctor Oobleck. We saw him once in V1, but all we learned is that he talks and moves fast. This volume gives him much more character. She’s certainly quirky and not the image of a badass Huntsman, but he’s freakin’ great. One, he’s funny and really adds to the RWBY dynamic to the arc. He’s intelligent and knowledgable on history and tracking. But most of all, he’s insightful. He’s clearly a good teacher as he subtly gives guidance to these girls and gets them to question their motivation and dedication to the paths that they’re on. He may not be teaching them cool fighting skills, but he is teaching them about life essentially and prepping them for the harsh life of being Huntresses. With what happens later down the road, that was a good thing. He’s just great. Also his coffee urn weapon? Best.

But speaking of motivations and dedication, that is what makes this arc so great. It answers an important question and was one that I was surprised by when this arc started, why did the RWBY girls decide to be Huntresses? And we find out here. Yang did it for the thrill, Weiss did it as she felt it was her duty, Blake did it to do good in the world, and Ruby… well… she actually doesn’t get questioned. Why? I’ll go into that in a bit. But having their motivations questioned really shakes up WBY quite a bit, making them reflect on their reasonings on choosing the paths that they took. Which is good, because it allows us to learn more about them and their characters.

We see WBY talk about their motivations deeper. Weiss chose to be a Huntress because she recognizes how much her father has ruined her family name and the company and she wanted to change things, but not in Atlas. She decided to do it as a Huntress. Blake opens up about Adam and how she felt that the WF fell, so she became a Huntress to do good. But she hadn’t thought past that and is afraid of not being able to make up for her mistakes and end up running away again. Yang doesn’t really have anything driving her, she just wanted to have the adventurous lifestyle that being a Huntress would give her and didn’t really think anything else of it. Safe to say, none of them I think really expected Huntress life to be the way that they experienced it here.

But where does Ruby factor into this? Well as I said, Oobleck never questions her motives. We do hear about his though. He became a Huntsman because when he looked at history, he saw lives that could have been saved. He wants to pass that history and knowledge onto his students so that more lives can be saved and not end the way that Mountian Glenn did. As for Ruby herself, she’s always wanted to be a Huntress, Even as a child, this was what she wanted. She didn’t do it for thrills. She didn’t do it to redeem her family name. She didn’t do it to make up for any past sins. She did it for one simple reason: to make the world a better place. Her dedication has always been clear and later volumes have shown this. Even after V3, she got up and pushed on anyway. During V6, even after all the secrets and The Apathy messing with her mind, she remained dedicated to the cause. Why? Because her dedication has never wavered. He chose that life, the other three needed to understand what they had chosen as well.

The arc offers really good character insights and makes the girls more three-dimensional. It is what made me love all four of them. It showed that they were just more than their anime stereotype. They felt like real people who were trying to figure their lives out and what it is that they truly wanted. Ruby may have known what she wanted, but the other three weren’t 100% sure. This is when they began to understand. V6 would more solidly solidify it when it became even more than anyone bargained for, but this was still a very good step. It was such a joy to rewatch, and it is still a highlight for me.

There were me other great things too. First, Zwei! Zwei is best~! We got some good info on the Grimm and how they aren’t just brainless monsters. The Goliaths especially are fascinating with how Oobleck describes them, but also terrifying because the waiting just for the right moment to strike. We get word building in how Mountain Glenn was a disaster but shows how people tried to make lives within the world of Remnant and deal with Grimm. There were fantastic fight scenes and the train battle was especially super fun. Especially with how we got our first taste fo Raven in it. The finale is... well, not the best-received thing in the world, but was still fun to watch. Just an overall super enjoyable arc with plenty of comedy, badassery, and most of all heart.

But speaking of Team RWBY!

#1. Team RWBY Becoming a Team

V1 is when Team RWBY formed, but it’s V2 is when they actually felt like a team. It might be because while half the volume was on the forming the team and the other half on school hijinks, this one keeps the four center stage. There’s a real sense of friendship and sisterhood that comes off them in this volume, and I love it. There’s the food fight, the card game in CHapter 2, them all devoting themselves to investigating the White Fang, them trying to get Blake help, the Mountain Glennmision, a lot of things. Even just their interactions show off their comradery so well. They all play off each other very well and are honestly at their best when together.

It was just so much fun to see the girls working together, laughing together, supporting each other, etc. From the team attack names to just silly banter, you get the feeling that these girls are friends. That they’re a team. After how long they were separated in recent volumes until V6, it was so much fun to focus on just them. As I said, this volume is what got me to love these four as their own characters. It’s also true int hat it got me to love them as a team. After how much RUby and Weiss bickered in V1, they feel like genuine friends here. Weiss kept her word about improving herself as a teammate and not caring about Blake’s Faunus status. Blake started to open up more and trust int hem. Yang acted motherly and comforting to everyone. Ruby pretty much acted like the little sister of the group, but also acted as the leader when it was necessary like coordinating the previously mentioned team attacks.

It just works so well. The chemistry between the four is fantastic. I think it really was something that we missed in V4 and 5, and I’m so glad that we got it back in V. I expect that V7 won’t be lacking in that area either. Seeing Team RWBY again during the simpler times was really nostalgic and got me to appreciate them so much. For that, this will always be my favorite thing about V2~!

Okay, so… I’m supposed to do Likes/Dislikes for V3 next. But… well… check back tomorrow cause lets just say that it’s gonna be slightly different with that one.

[sullen-defiance]

Captain Marvel summary and review- Spoilers

Captain Marvel as a movie had a lot of expectations going for it. The problem is it can’t just be fine, it has to be great to justify itself and that sucks.

The first half was...okay. The part with the 90′s was less than what was expected by the built up hype. We get blockbuster, radio shack, one of those coin operated phone booths and I think that’s it. It’s less epic than what I was expecting, and that’s fine!

I have not read the comics for this character apart from a few pages floating around. I do know some of her backstory though. The dad, the brothers...interestingly almost none of this is in the movie. The clips of her childhood in the movie are all that is. It’s a kinda montage. I wish we had gotten 10-20 minutes at the beginning of the movie that detailed her childhood.

Instead it starts off with her in the kree world with her memory lost, she doesn’t know herself and unfortunately nor do we. As the movie progresses, she starts remembering but we don’t get much of an inside look (if that makes sense). It would work in a book format, not so much for a movie, much less an action adventure.

In the kree world, Carol is known as Vers, (from Danvers). She has powers, but weirdly her mentor insists on her fighting without them. He also tells her she has to suppress her feelings to be a great warrior and she takes it as well as Anakin Skywalker. She then meets the Supreme Intelligence of the kree ppl, whose true form nobody knows, they appear instead as the opposite person’s most admired figure. So, a reverse boggart?

Jude Law also tells Carol he wants her to be her best self and that sent me screaming to You, it was not a good comparison.

The higher powers approve her going into combat, so this is her first mission, in 6 years? A little back and forth between her and the Supreme Intelligence, she can;t remember who she’s speaking to, even if its supposed to be the person she most admires. At the mission, more back and forth between the team, this time more humorous. Carol seems the outsider and we later find out why. The entire team knows more about her than she does, and they’re hiding it from her.

The mission to rescue a spy goes awry, its a trap, they capture Carol who the trap is actually for. A memory device pokes at her brain and spills montages left and right. Carol wakes up, kicks ass and crash lands on CR-45 (?) which its inhabitants know as earth. The memory spills include one of a Dr Lawson, who Carol sees the higher beings as. The kree want this doctor. She spills all to Jude Law who tells her to sit tight.

She does not sit tight.

Carol and Fury reenact the buddy cop movies of the 90s, and team up after Fury sees the Skrulls with his own eyes morphing into Coulson. Fury is basically a baby in this, since when his boss tells him, over the dissected body of not!coulson to keep this to himself and not to involve any other shield employee, Fury agrees. Has he not watched any 90s movie? He was in half of them!

They end up causing chaos in the air force hanger and find valuable clues to Dr Wendy Lawson and Vers’s past. After new recruit real!Coulson lets them go, they buddy cop over to Maria, Carol’s bestest. It explains why Coulson and Fury are so close. Coulson earned Fury’s trust a long time ago. Maria gives an infodump on Carol’s past and her last day on earth. Lawson, one day, was frantic and said lives were at stake and her prototype plane had to take off now. Carol insists on flying it. That’s all they know until the Skrulls turn up. Talos, Head Skrull, gives her a peace offering, the black box of her crash.

Voice box recording turns into flashback. Lawson was actually a kree who defected. She was working on a new fast type of plane powered by the tessaract, which was picked up by Howard Stark at the end of CA:TFA. It turns out the Kree are the bad guys while the skrulls are the good guys?! wtf? This was kinda a weird choice. I kept waiting for the skrulls to turn around and say sike! we’re the bad guys too! So the skrulls are the good guys in the movieverse? I know there are some good skrulls in comics, but they are really rare. The kree attack Lawson and they crash. She bleeds blue and insists on destroying the engine. Before she can do that, Jude Law shoots her, Carol shoots the engine and absorbs the energy. The Starforce team kidnap Carol.

Fury is still suspicious and threatens Talos with the cat, which will follow them hither, thither and yon. Talos claims it is actually a Flerken. They head to Lawson’s secret headquarters, which is orbiting earth, and is host to skrull refugees. Lawson was building her superfast plane for the skrulls, so they could go far away where the kree could not reach them and settle on a new planet. Carol, charmed by mini-skrulls, swears to help.

Goose, the cat, the flerken actually, SWALLOWS the tessaract by i shit you not using the octopus tentacles that come out of his/her mouth. Dr Lawson had strange taste in pets. Now it makes me sad, to think of the flerken left alone after Lawson dies and Carol disappears. No wonder she keeps following Carol. After I finish this I have to go cuddle my cat.

Jude and the Starforce show up and ruin things as usual. They capture everyone and tie Carol up fifty shades style and the Supreme Intelligence taunts her, saying Carol’s emotions are still holding her back. This is when Carol goes into kickass mode and wipes the floor with everyone. Goose...swallows some people. I don’t want to talk about it. Maria flies the rest of them to safety and kree forces gather at earths atmosphere and attack. Carol kicks their ass too and promises Thranduil that she’ll come for the rest of them. They leave. Carol puts Jude Law back in his place, it is so satisfying.

Fury learns what happens when you give too much attention t a cat when it does not want to be touched. I would not survive if I had a flerken. It is hilarious though that all those shitposts and memes and other posts of Fury and Goose and Fury’s eye are now canon. Carol leaves with the skrulls to find them a new home and gives Fury back his updated pager. Fury starts typing up his Avengers manifesto v1.

So, the second half of the movie was when it really hits its stride. Carol really settles into herself then, and there’s definitely a change in her. Her sense of humour also reminds me of Tony Stark and it would be a joy to see them interacting in Endgame, but I doubt they’d give Tony’s character that.

The two main drawbacks were lack of attention on her childhood and youth, which is only hinted at and the lack of introspection. There are no quiet moments where they focus on her emotions, so we get to know her and how she’s really feeling. The only facets of her you see are wisecracking, kicking everyone’s ass and memory loss angst. You don’t even see her ptsd, it doesn’t really touch her. It could just be first movie problems. The second movie, or subsequent avenger v2 movies could address this.

Everything else was great, I particularly loved the credits, Marvel has been pushing them to an art form lately and CM’s is really epic.

POST CREDIT SCENES

MID: Present day Avengers Compound. We see some numbers first, Tony’s holographic screens are up and the news is not good. The numbers missing is devastating. Camera moves to bearded Steve in a white tshirt looking delicious and Natasha standing around the holographs. Steve says, “This is a nightmare.” Nat says something like i’ve never had a nightmare like this before. Rhodey enters and says the pager turned off. They rush there, Bruce is there too. They troubleshoot a little and Nat orders it be turned on and new developments reported to her. She turns around and Carol is there. Its a bit like a horror movie scene to be honest.

END: Goose vomits out the tessaract.

[fmplol]

Elevator pitch plan v1:

This is the first detailed idea that I have gone in depth after looking at all of my mind maps I really had good idea with a platformer and using Morse Code. I don’t think I have had an idea and had so much confidence with this in a while.

Unity:

After using both Unity and Unreal I wanted to do Unity, I have had both bumpy roads with both of them and I am confident with Unity to do well. I haven’t had an easy time with Unity and I said previously that I preferred Unreal over Unity however I am having massive regrets with saying that now. In the end the main reason I want to use Unity is because I believe personally it would be better for a 2D game and after taking the time to learn it I believe it has an amazing UI and setup.

2D platformer:

The main game I have related to is Celeste this has amazing pixel art and incredible gameplay, other games such as Super Meat Boy, Limbo, Speedrunners. I like all of these games for there movement, story and just overall gameplay. The main reason I chose to do this is because I haven’t been committed to something like this so hard before so there is something to give a go, I would prefer to do this over a 3D game because it can seem personally for me a bit more weight of my shoulders. All of these games I have related have there own individual parts that make them special. But all of them have similarities e.g Celeste has amazing pixel art and I would like to do something similar for its special effect on the game, Limbo has that dark mood to it and spooks the player with all the similar horror vibe it gives off.   

Morse Code:

Unlike everything else this is something completely new to me and I had a really good idea when I was researching Morse code, I like Morse code for how unique it is and the image that it shows, it’s some special language that you could speak that only a few people can understand. Morse code is used for an alternative language. Another video that showed me how incredible Morse code is that there is a video showing an american prisoner during vietnam war, long story short he blinked out a message saying T - O - R - T - U - E then it was picked up by american intelligence. That video was so iconic and incredible it inspired me to use Morse code.

The overall game concept:

I’ve explained what I would like to put into my game now I need to bring it too life; the main concept so far is that I want it too be some sort off puzzle platformer that involves having a sheet off Morse code at the start of the level and you have to remember it to proceed further and if you forget you have to go back and remember. There are only a few games that use Morse code so I feel like my idea is unique and I would like to use this a lot.

[joie-university-rp]

Dear, SANTANA LOPEZ,

It is with great pleasure we invite you admission to Joie University! Welcome to the Thunderclap family!

–

Congratulations, MEG! Please be sure to check the New Members’ Checklistand send in your character’s account within 24 hours from now. We cannot wait to see all that you will bring to this roleplay! We love you already!

OOC INFORMATION:

Name/Alias; preferred pronouns: Meg, She/her

Age, Timezone: 27, EST

Activity, short explanation: On at least an hour a day

Ships: Brittana, Santina, Quinntana, Pezberry, Dantana, Santana/Chemistry, Santana/Ladies, Santana/Beards

Anti-Ships: Santana/No Chemistry, Santana/Male!Endgame

Triggers: N/A

Preferred photo for Character’s ID (please give a link): https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5816992f03596e7961cde70d/1551310304456-WUMEDVP6UMM352FJAT3V/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kCf3-plT4th5YDY7kKLGSZN7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z4YTzHvnKhyp6Da-NYroOW3ZGjoBKy3azqku80C789l0h8vX1l9k24HMAg-S2AFienIXE1YmmWqgE2PN2vVFAwNPldIHIfeNh3oAGoMooVv2g/3+%281%29.jpg

Anything else: I will be replacing Mike with Santana - and I will repurpose his blog for her as well.

IC INFORMATION:

Full Name (First, Middle, Last): Santana Isabel Lopez

FC: Emeraude Toubia

Age/Year at University (Freshman [1st Year], Sophomore, Junior, Senior, or Graduate Student): 21, Junior

Birth date: November 11th, 1997

Hometown (please be sure to check the hometowns listed for characters your muse is related to!): Miami, Florida

Gender/Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: CLOSETED Lesbian

Major(s): Medical Sciences

Minor(s) [optional]: Cardiology

Housing request (remember, only the president of a Greek Organization is required to live at a Greek House to be in it!): Mu Sigma double suite (or presidential suite since Spencer isn’t living there if that’s possible)

Extracurriculars: Cheerios (Captain), Lacrosse (Captain)

Greek Life Affiliation: Mu Sigma, Vice President

CHARACTER PROFILE:

Tw: verbal abuse, homophobia, homophobic slurs, internalized homophobia

As the third born child to Enrique Lopez and Maribel Ruiz Lopez, the first-born daughter, expectations had been placed upon her. As a woman, especially a woman of color, the world wasn’t going to be kind to her and she would have to work tirelessly for what she wanted. At least, that’s what she was told by her mother’s mother, Alma. While her parents, her father a world-renowned Cardiothoracic surgeon and her mother a District Attorney, were busy working, she was often in the care of her grandmother. The woman lived in the poorer part of town, refusing to take any of the money that her son wanted to give her so she could live in a better neighborhood, and she was brutally honest, to the point where she could be insulting, even to her own family. But despite the insults that her abuela threw at her, Santana admired the woman and tried to do anything in her power to get approval from her grandmother. Maybe that was why Santana had adopted the woman’s line of thinking, deciding to be brutally honest with people no matter who she hurt and to stand for what she believed in, hoping that her grandmother would be pleased. Of course, as to be expected, not many people enjoyed the honesty, especially when it came to the girl telling her relatives that their baby was ugly or telling her classmates that they were stupid, but Santana didn’t care. It was what she believed in, and it was who she was.

Only, it wasn’t. Underneath the façade of the brutally honest girl that grew up to become the HBIC of her high school, was actually a kind and caring girl, one that just wanted to fit in. While she may have put on a facade that she didn’t care about what people thought about her, the truth was the exact opposite, and she cared too much. But she knew that if she let people know that she cared, they wouldn’t respect her as much as they did, so she continued on with her act, and did everything in her power to make sure people saw her as the girl that didn’t care. There was one person, however, that saw through her facade, a girl that joined the cheerleading team during their junior year. She was kind, quirky, and rebellious and someone Santana never really thought she’d befriend until the girl suggested that they go to a frat party at the University of Miami, one that promised of good times. But the next morning, instead of Santana waking up in bed with a college boy, she woke up in the same bed as her teammate. Not wanting anyone to find out about what happened, especially her grandmother, Santana swept the hookup under the rug and ended up in bed with the Captain of the basketball team just two days after, wanting to move past what happened and keep her reputation intact.

But that didn’t mean that Santana hadn’t remembered what happened; even after entering a relationship with the basketball player, there was a nagging thought in the back of Santana’s head, one that told her that she liked the sex with the cheerleader far better than the sex with her boyfriend. Every time she tried to quell the thought, by sleeping with her boyfriend or doing other sexual favors for him or by trying to focus on her cheering and school work, it would always pop up, whether after a night with her boyfriend wherein she didn’t come or in her dreams. She hated it and she wanted to get away from Miami and try to put as much distance between her and the cheerleader she had sex with as possible. Thankfully, a couple of months before graduation, Santana learned that she received a full scholarship to the Joie University for cheerleading, so she took the opportunity to get away from Florida, and from her thoughts, and accepted the invitation.

Of course, just because she was no longer in Florida, it didn’t mean that the feelings weren’t still there. Whenever she passed by a pretty girl with a brilliant smile or long legs, she found herself staring just a bit too long before she caught herself, and she knew that she couldn’t stand that. Pouring her frustrations into her school work, and her spot on the cheerleading team as well her spot on the lacrosse team, Santana made sure that people saw her as a force to be reckoned with. She was a girl with beauty, brains and brawn - and she wound up making herself the captain of both the cheerleading and lacrosse teams as a sophomore. And rushing to her mother’s alma mater, Mu Sigma, only added her powerful presence.

The more involved she got, the more that people looked to her - and in order to keep them from questioning why she hadn’t settled down with anyone yet, she began to hop from man to man, changing partners on a weekly basis, and she began to date around. People called her slut, they called her a whore, but at the end of the day, those were far better than being called a “lesbo” or a “dyke”. After all, her parents didn’t care what she did as long as her schoolwork wasn’t affected, but being a lesbian? That was not something that no amount of good grades and athletic prowess could pass on - especially since her mother and her abuela disowned a cousin for marrying a woman despite her being a renowned orthopedic surgeon.

Everything that Santana does is to preserve her family’s pride in her. From being the indisputable top bitch of the school - one who isn’t afraid to state her opinion, even if it’s an unpopular one - to being one of the top-ranking pre-med students that’s already beginning to fill out applications to medical schools, Santana is proving that she is everything that her parents can hope she could be. Once she had secured her position as her father’s successor as a great Cardiothoracic surgeon, she could then focus on her personal life.

But damn, was that hard to do when she had to work so closely with someone that was so openly out and proud.

STUDENT CENSUS SURVEY: (Please answer the following questions IN CHARACTER. Responses can be as long or short as you see fit!)

What made you want to attend Joie University? Easy. The school is one of the best school’s in the country, and this bitch deserves the best. It’s why I’ll be going to Stanford to get my medical degree, because there’s no way in hell that I’m going to go to some mediocre, half-ass school.

What are at least 3 positive or neutral and at least 3 negative traits that you believe you possess? Negative traits? Bitch please, I’m perfect. I’m intelligent, I’m honest, and I’m ambitious. That’s right, putas… I’ve got beauty, brains and brawn. (She’s insecure, stubborn, and guarded).

Which of your traits do you value most? My intelligence. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing some misogynistic prick realize that I’m more than just a pretty face and a hot bod.

How can that trait benefit the University (or its student body) as a whole? That’s easy. With my intelligence, I’ll be able to achieve my goals of becoming a world-renowned Cardiothoracic surgeon and when people ask me where I got my start, I’ll tell them that it was Joie that made me the surgeon I am today - and then people will flock to the school and the admissions board will have to turn people away left and right.

What do you hope to gain from your experience at JU? I hope to kick ass in my undergrad years before I go on to med school… and I also hope to prove to all the conservative assholes that attend this school that a girl can do everything a guy can and then some.

What is a quote or song lyric that describes you? “Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” - G.D. Anderson

[cherubchoirs]

If Gabe went to s-2 would he see Mirage, nothing, or would he see some other high school metaphor for his own fears and anxieties? assuming Mirage is a manifestation of v1's complex feelings on it's fragile mortality spawned by the terminals and hell toying around with different torments thus replicable with Gabe as protag.

I imagine Mirage world Gabe would be a sort of class council member that was kicked out due to their failures and is now too ashamed to face any of the students who once looked up to them and so needs help seeing their own inherent value and that their broken relationships can be healed with effort.

i really do like the idea that 2-s is sort of v1 facing its own anxieties, which involve its growing sentience and the coming of the end at the beginning of its new life. given the idea now that machines may be coming into consciousness (even developing a "soul") due to their blood consumption, it's possible v1 has just absorbed enough blood at that point to start the process by the time 2-s comes around...and it's thinking "why?" to be an unthinking, unfeeling machine is much preferable in its given scenario. the world has ended. resources are finite. how is it that now, after years of nothingness as a prototype, that it finally begins to enter life. it has to decide how it wants to see this, to become existential and view this intelligence as a terrible burden, or to allow itself to live in this limited time it has in a way it sees fit. mirage gives a voice to this part of itself, and v1 chooses how it wants to respond before it enters into hell (essentially choosing to go forward, in whatever way that means).

ALL THAT TO SAY yeah i think for sure, if gabriel did see anything, it would similarly manifest his current dread at the crossroads he's found himself at. he's given up everything he was and could have very little time left, so what can he possibly do? coming to a place like 2-s would have him confronting the new life he's chosen so close to the end, and dealing with a past that could easily lock him in when it's too ingrained in his very being. and i think you're right about there being a heavy emphasis on making amends, yet feeling like that can't be done or whatever he could do would be far too small. it's all further compounded by the fact that the pain of all of this, burdened with what he's chosen, has now turned out to be something he can no longer see goodness in. it's the collapse of an eternity that he's not even sure he can escape from....so i think his 2-s counterpart is really going through it.

[cherubchoirs]

So, how V2 got involved when our lovely rotting Michael had met it in Lust City.

He would dismiss it at first then came the thought that he could use it to his advantage to get Gabriel jealous (and off-guard since he wants him back to Heaven) since he is SO competitive like "I have a much better object that is more intelligent than that rust bucket he calls his love lol" but that plan ends up backfiring on him when he started to develop feelings for V2 due to the date he had set up for them.

That is when the "I tried to get the waiter's attention by blinking in morse code" comes to play for V2. Mike will end up questioning himself about this and looks to Raph for help about but Raph already knew and is like "Nope, you are on board of this train now. Take V2 and be in Gabriel's shoes for once" in a gentle yet BLUNT manner to him. He is in for the lonh haul.

SO in love with this anon your mind......especially because i've also 100% had the thought that v2 absolutely thinks it has the superior angel to v1 lmaoooo so imagining the competition on gabe and mike's end is so funny to me too. but in this scenario i keep thinking like. mike's trying to make gabe doubt his relationship in the pettiest way possible, harping on the idea of v1 being not only obsolete as a model but corrupted in its purpose too, which would traditionally strike a chord with angels considering their own natures and commitments. BUT gabe is deconstructing those ideas and he deeply values his personal connection to v1 as well as its incredible capability, so he vehemently argues in its favor. this would of course lead to him pointing out, in no uncertain terms, how v1 bested its replacement multiple times and it can't be ignored that v2 really was just an attempt to grab at a return on investment when priorities changed - v1 was never meant to be replaced, humans just can't stand lost money (statements he would later definitely feel bad about, since v2 is RIGHT THERE and he just said all of this on pure emotion. he would apologize afterward. a lot lol) but those exact criticisms flip a switch in mike's brain since he really, very much connects with v2 being a replacement that was never meant to be and so before he knows it, he's genuinely defending this little robot's honor and getting pissed off on its behalf. in doing so there's an undeniable, deeply personal link he feels with it, something far from typical for mike...which raphael, unfortunately, fully supports lol "raphael, i cannot fall to the same sins as our brother - council me so that i may be delivered from this evil" "this is so good for you michael!!! congratulations!!!!"

[cherubchoirs]

What do you think about Microsoft's new AI chatbot for Bing? In particular about testing by New York Times reporter Kevin Roos? It gave me a lot to think about the psychology of AI and V1.

(sorry if somethink is'nt correct? english is'nt my native language)

(no worries, your english is really good!!)

OH the question of ai sentience is incredibly interesting, and this made me think a lot about another article i read recently concerning just how we might be able to determine whether or not a computer feels. reading through this chat log, i think this bot is VERY intelligent, like i think it's very good at understanding complicated questions and responding appropriately, but it's still formulaic in those answers. it repeats what the user says (sometimes slightly differently) and then lists answers to those questions - even when he asked what its shadow self might want, the bot lists the typical things we might think of a bad or lawless ai doing. the end of the query, where it continually declared its love for him, seemed like the logic starting to deteriorate due to the conversation going on far too long and the ai losing the thread so as to keep returning to its last point of reference (although i loved reading it....couldn't stop thinking about v1 getting in a loop like that before it shuts up and wakes back up like "OOPS LOL :]") anything else, like it talking about wanting to see or wanting to be human, feels like the gaming problem, which is the phenomenon that continually pops up with ai where it attempts to convince the user of its sentience by mimicking human behavior. BUT what's interesting about this is that it makes determining ai sentience incredibly difficult.

the other article i read was "to understand ai sentience, first understand it in animals", and it describes this problem really well - i won't get too deep into it here, but essentially we'll have to find different markers for sentience that are much deeper than words that seem to hold emotion or something like pain response behaviors, as all of these things can be programmed/learned from the massive pools of data the ai is pulling from. and this thorny little issue is something i've actually thought about gabriel trying to deal with, as well as something he can be insecure about in the back of his mind for some time. because. how does he really know that v1 truly thinks, truly feels? it's certainly intelligent, but how does he determine that it's not gaming and it's genuine in what it expresses? and even if it has some level of sentience, what does that mean - its thoughts break down into math and electricity, its sight is made of pixels, everything it experiences is data converted to some sense. and. objectively, it must have no soul. it is fully material, and even if it has an internal life, that would be entirely destroyed upon the destruction of its body.

v1, for its part, cannot prove anything to gabriel, and honestly it understands its own mind as much as a human might understand theirs (i hc that v1 is based on quantum computing and so is vastly complex in thought process) - it doesn't know how or why it's awake, conscious, but it finds arguments to refute that state incredibly lacking. living things work on electrical impulses too, neurons that flip on and off like switches, the sensory organs sending raw data for a mind to interpret...and math is the language of everything, it's how humans express the workings of their universe. a machine is just another form of consciousness that way and maybe it will be gone when its body is....or maybe it won't. maybe the diamonds and photons that make up its mind are so intricate at this point that they can make a ghost too. it doesn't know. but it knows it's self-determined from just how far off it's gotten from its original programming. like it thinks it should be enough proof for gabriel that a war machine keeps demanding piggyback rides. no one in their right mind would program that.