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egelskop · 4 months

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i am so interested in ur hlvrai au can we get a rundown

oh boy, this is going under a readmore.

fair warning, this is a LONG read because (1.) i am not a competent writer and (2.) i can't for the life of me keep things brief. sorry and or good luck.

ACT I

The Black Mesa incident: Gordon Freeman is provided an opportunity to do an informal beta test for a combat training simulation program that's in development in the Research & Development department of the Black Mesa Research Facility. (Read: He knows a guy in R&D and said guy knows Gordon likes video games and VR stuff, so he was like "hey you should come check this out when you're on break.")

The combat sim would be a revolutionary training simulation using artificial intelligence to enhance and realize the experience for the ‘player character’.

The test goes wrong, and Gordon can’t seem to disengage from the simulation and odd, unscripted things start happening; he has to ‘play the game’ to its full completion before he is able to exit the simulation safely. He has suffered a brain injury throughout the process, eye damage due to prolonged exposure to the headset and is generally traumatized by the simulation experience he at some point could no longer physically and emotionally distinguish from the real world. The project as a whole is shut down and Gordon is put into a rehabilitation program. Black Mesa covers up the incident as best it can, but whispers of it still echo around the facility.

Below is a page for a two-page comic i never finished detailing said events.

ACT II

The rumors reach the ears of a particularly tech-savvy researcher named Clark, who steals the project documentation and anything else he can get his hands on from a storage. At home, he looks into the project, reads about it, and gets curious about the simulation’s files themselves. They’re on a drive he plugs into his computer, and suddenly his system’s performance lags, windows open and close until a txt. file opens up. He comes into contact with one of the simulation’s AI that has somehow entered his operating system. He tries to keep it busy by having it poke around as he reads up on the simulation and its ultimate shutdown. When the AI reveals it can see him through the webcam, he panics and rips the drive out of the port. The invasive AI and the other project files seems like they’re gone from his system, he does a checkup but sees nothing odd running or otherwise. The next day after work he does another checkup. Finding nothing, he surmises he’s in the clear and starts up an online game. The slumbering, corrupted data of the AI sees its out, and disappears into the game.

ACT III

The transition/journey to the game is a rocky one, and the already corrupted data of the AI known as Benrey splits and gets even more fragmented. The largest fragment embeds itself into the game’s files to keep itself running. Without the foundation of the game to support it, it’d be lost to a dead void and slowly die out. Somewhat stable, it learns about the world around it; the game seems to be an exploration sandbox game. For now (and clarity), I’ve chosen to call this bigger, embedded fragment ‘Data’. (so this is the big benny with the right eye/one big eye in my art)

Data splits off a smaller fragment of itself, intending it to be an avatar or ‘player character’ but this grows into its own awareness and becomes who we’ll call ‘Beastrey’ (the smaller benny with the left eye and tail in my art).

The fragment ‘Beastrey’ wakes to a dead void, so Data uses its knowledge to create a private server for Beastrey, an empty world. Beastrey’s existence is an extension of the bigger part, with more freedom of movement to parse through the game and move freely within it, with the caveat that it can’t go ‘too far’ away from the host. Beastrey can visit other servers and relay information. Data learns and slowly starts building up the world/private server, at some point settling for an aquatic world because it reminds it of itself (something something sea of data). It's important to note that Beastrey retains little to no memories of the events of canon VRAI.

Data makes it easier for Beastrey to move around, and they grow to have more reach with time. At some point Data can alter the basic structural elements of the game, so it plays around with making things that are reminiscent of the memories it has of Black Mesa and Xen. At one point, it gains access to parse through the player base of the game, and takes note of an email address: ‘[email protected]’, attached to a player account. The name is somewhat familiar to it.

It sends an invite to join the server to the player account.

ACT IV

Gordon tries going back to work at Black Mesa after rehabilitating, but he has trouble separating his experiences with the simulation from reality, to a breaking point where an altercation with a security guard drives him to quit. He seeks professional help for his PTSD and anxiety, but still experiences dissociative episodes, migraines and somatic flashbacks localised mostly in his right forearm. Despite this, he is determined to continue living his life as normally as possible. He applies for a part-time job teaching physics at a local high school, the one where his son Joshua goes to, and remains relatively stable from there.

Joshua is 15 years old. Regular teen. After an impressive amount of pleading he got a VR-headset for his 14th birthday from Gordon (much to the disapproval of Gordon’s ex), and he’s been captivated by an exploration sandbox game since it came out a few months ago.

He gets an invite to an unnamed private server, and he accepts.

He is struck with awe as the world he enters seems completely different from the ones he’s seen so far in the game. Different flora, different fauna. Most of it uninteractible, though, or otherwise just retextured from its base game variant. Even the new enemy types, after a scare, can’t actually hurt him, it seems. He stumbles upon Beastrey, who is just as surprised to see him and wants him out until Joshua says he was invited.

Joshua commends Beastrey (who introduces himself as 'Ben-') on ‘modding’ everything in, but admits that he was disappointed to find that everything was just surface-level stuff. Beastrey inquires about what he’d like to see. Data is always watching, unseen, and decides to alter the world in the way Joshua described when Joshua leaves.

Joshua starts appearing more often, if only for a few hours at a time. He marvels at the ways the world shifts and grows with each time he plays, and takes to exploring it with Beastrey at his side, for whom strangely enough a lot of things are also new. Joshua teaches both Beastrey and Data about the outside world, thinking Beastrey is just a somewhat reclusive but likeable weirdo.

Joshua tells Gordon about the new friend he made, ‘Ben’, and the adventures he’s been having with the other. Gordon is happy to hear Joshua is having a good time, but is otherwise none the wiser. Joshua starts losing track of time in the game, but chalks it up to being invested.

During one play session, Beastrey confesses he isn’t the one who did all the ‘modding’, and invites Joshua to meet Data. Data, or at least its ‘physical’ in-game manifestation is deep within the world, past the aquatic twilight zone and strange, drowned ruins of an unknown facility. Data, for the first time, really sees Joshua, and the resemblance sparks something within it. Joshua is drawn closer to it, and just before he reaches it-

Joshua wakes up lying on the floor with Gordon hunched over him in his room, pleading with him to wake up. Joshua unknowingly got drawn into the game much like Gordon had been, and Gordon urges Joshua to never touch the headset again, taking it away. Gordon opens up about his experiences with the simulation a bit more. They both agree to not touch the game or the headset again.

ACT V

Gordon comes into contact with an old coworker from Black Mesa, and he inquires about the combat simulation project, if anything happened to it after it was canned. This is where he learns that an employee had taken the project files from storage and was consequently fired. He comes into contact with Clark, and Clark explains he had no idea he accidentally unleashed the AI unto the game. Gordon asks if anything can be done to prevent what happened to Joshua and himself from happening to other people. Clark confesses he doesn’t know, and that it’s up to the developers of the game to find anything out of place and make sure it gets fixed. Gordon decides to leave the matter where it lies, not wanting anything to do with AI and simulations anymore and to safeguard his son.

Some time passes.

Joshua starts getting repeated invites and messages, at one point he gets into a conversation with ‘Ben’ via a platform’s messaging system. Ben says he can explain everything, that he’s sorry. Joshua decides he would like one final goodbye. He finds the headset stashed away somewhere in the house, and, while Gordon’s gone, he turns on the game and enters the server.

Beastrey (Ben) is surprised to see him, urging him to log out and turn off the game, but it’s already too late and Joshua can no longer leave. Beastrey helps Joshua attempting to ‘exit’ the game by going as far away from Data’s reach, but Data stops Beastrey and traps Joshua, determined to wait to the point that he assimilates into the game completely.

Gordon eventually finds Joshua comatose with the headset on, and he panics. He considers calling the emergency services, but he’s afraid they’ll take the headset off or that removing Joshua too far from the game will hurt his son like what happened to him. He calls Clark, urging him to help in any way he can. This results in Gordon and Clark going back to Black Mesa to retrieve the project files and the other gear they can get their hands on to get Gordon into the game to free his son.

Gordon enters the private server with Clark’s player character, and thwarts any attempt from Data to impede his progress and trap him as well. Beastrey’s awareness is overridden by Data as a last ditch effort to deter Gordon and Gordon is forced to destroy Beastrey before he can reach Data. As Beastrey is taken over, Data gains Beastrey’s awareness, and finds his other, littler half never wanted to trap Joshua in the first place, and the way it hurt him to hurt both Joshua and Gordon to this extent.

At this point, Data wavers in its intention to keep Joshua trapped, even more so with Beastrey now gone, and recognises whatever it is that is driving Gordon forward in the game is outside of his control to manipulate, so he lets Gordon destroy it as well. In a way, it also feels as a fulfillment of its intended role as the ‘villain’. The server crashes, the world breaks apart. The ‘game’ is completed.

The final boss is defeated and both Gordon and Joshua wake up. Joshua luckily wasn’t exposed long enough to have suffered any lasting damage, except for what seems to be a minor headache and some light sensitivity (and a vow from Gordon to get him checked out by a doctor as soon as the clinics open).

The whole ordeal results in Clark, Gordon and Joshua sitting in a Denny’s at four in the morning, eating pancakes somewhat solemnly, completely exhausted but also still reeling from the virtual battle. Joshua learns that ‘Ben’ essentially died, and he can’t help but cry for his friend.

“Honestly, I don’t think he’s gone,” Gordon admits, picking at the last bites of his pancakes. "I think he- or whatever that was, has a hard time staying dead. Like a cockroach, you know? At this point I’m just wondering when he’ll turn up again.”

Clark hums in agreement. Joshua seems somewhat reassured by his words, wiping at his eyes with the scratchy napkin as he settles into the squeaking diner seat.

“But,” he starts with a sigh, pointing his syrup-covered fork upwards to the ceiling in a decree, “One thing’s for certain…”

He thinks back to a time rife with virtual gunfire, caging walls and hysterical laughter echoing through the halls of the Black Mesa research facility. Five sets of footsteps and a whisper of his name.

“…No more VR. No more headsets. Ever.”

TL;DR: Gordon got trapped in VR and then Joshua also got trapped in VR. Benrey is there but also not.

thank you for reading. here. ( x ‿ o ) 🫴

#augmentedreality #gras talks #i need you all to understand that most of the plot was retroactively written to justify certain stylistic choices in my art #thats why beastreys design became what it is now and it wasnt 'like that' in the beginning #i didnt expect myself or others to become invested in it to such an extent /crying #with all of this i mean to say please don't grill me on the details. i simply dont know and will start crying profusely if pressed #also its very bencentric but i have played around with shoehorning the rest of the science team into it as well. so far no luck though

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reachartwork · 2 months

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[private please, if thats alright] i used to follow you for your ai stuff back in 2021/22 when things were first kicking off (actually i thought you'd quit because of all the scandal lol) and the models and output were a lot 'sloppier' and kinda illegible but as far as i can see the stuff you're working on now is clearer looking and more coherent, so i was wondering - do you have any thoughts on the 'aesthetics' of AI and what specifically brings it unique merits and strengths as an art tool? for example i personally find a lot of modern ai art to be boring and soulless looking because it has neither stylistic interest (compared to the blatant 'inhumanity' of older models) nor a human person making base-to-base decisions about what it looks like, but i also havent been really paying too much attention to the AI scene except when it comes up in images searches. also, sorry if its not a question you want to answer, but do you do any more traditional styles of art as well? i find my art sensibilities are really effected by the mediums i work with so i would love to know if you have any similar experiences wrt ai and non ai works. thank you!

this is a side account so i can't answer privately, but, that being said;

i actually agree! for general purpose arting i preferred the secret horses style of total illegibility, and my main goal in my secret projects is to be able to reorganize around that style but with sharper, crisper lines and higher resolutions. part of why the whole "secret horses" style of ai medium fell through the cracks was because a: diffusion models were significantly faster and b: diffusion models scale upwards significantly better - they can produce higher resolutions and perform upscaling, which CLIP + VQGAN (the old method that made all the jank we all used to love) can't really do.

i think people whose sole interest in ai is making shitty advertisement images, or giant anime boobs, or some other lowest common denomenator slop, like... okay. you do you, the saying is "90% of everything is shit" for a reason, but obviously i think that's incredibly boring. i think the reason we see a lot of it is because a: the Good Artists who use AI are still effectively social pariahs, particularly on twitter and tumblr, just via dint of their medium, and b: ai puts art making in the hands of EVERYONE and it turns out not everyone has good taste (see: 90% of everything is shit), so you just see a lot more shit by volume.

anyway in terms of "traditional art" i am an author (READ CHUM) and a bassist, although i haven't been in a band in many years as my arthritis prevents me from playing for very long or very well anymore. if you mean traditional art as in like... paint and easel, or pen and paper, the answer is no. i've never had the ability to comfortably grasp anything with my hands even before the arthritis happened and now i lack not only the fine motor skills for it but also the pain threshold. i do like legos though, and i'd love to start making lego dioramas.

thanks for asking :)

#not art #personal #ask

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deepdreamnights · 2 months

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Midjourney Image Prompting vs Style Prompting

Top Left - image prompt + text prompt Top Right - Style prompt + text prompt Bottom Right - image prompt + style prompt + text prompt Bottom Left - Just text prompt.

Prompt used for the above images: space and planets in astronomy, in the style of detailed fantasy art, multilayered realism, dark violet and gold, xbox 360 graphics, clockpunk, transportcore, detailed penciling:: an image of a man riding a wave, in the style of dark white and teal, flickr, close up, naturalistic ocean waves, andreas achenbach, 3840x2160, helios 44-2 58mm f/2

(still) Playing around with Midjourney's new style prompting system, to demonstrate what exactly it does and how.

Style prompting isn't the same as style transfer, which was an early deep-art process that used a single image as a style reference. It's a glorified filter by current standards, but it produced neat effects, and you can still get the done at places like deepdreamgenerator if you're so inclined, though you have to dig for it.

I did, however, use an old style transfer piece as my image input for the style and image prompting experiment here. Both style and image prompting work in essentially the same way, by using the AI's image-recognition/checker function to examine a submitted image, which gets broken down into the token-language the AI uses the same way a text prompt does. Those tokens are then used as part of the prompt.

Image prompting uses all the tokens, while style prompting filters out all the ones not associated with 'style', though the AI is pretty wacky with that.

Left, image, right its style prompt. As you can see, it's more 'vibe-y' than accurate, especially when preturbed by the text prompt. Because no pixel data gets utilized, the robot essentially has to describe the picture to itself and reproduce it from memory.

In essence, it's just like /describe or clip interrogator, only it doesn't translate the tokens back into text.

For concepts that don't have a lot of lingual distinction but do have aesthetic distinction, it really helps the process. Very useful for vintage aesthetics that MJ normally bucks against.

But the real fun has been using it to recreate the kind of generative madness earlier models that weren't as coherent could produce, only now with some additional coherency (with a lot of coaxing).

The real fun comes with mixing very, very different styles (you can use up to 3 per prompt)

That's a future post.

#ai experiments #midjourney v6 #nijijourney v6 #image prompting #style prompting #/describe #AI artwork #AI art #midjourney

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centrally-unplanned · 2 months

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Since I myself have often been a counter-critic to the AI art critics, lets flip that around. Was some of the "IP law hypocrisy" discouse floating around today, you know the stuff - oh everyone hates on Big Brother Nintendo or Disney or w/e for their machine gun copyright lawsuits, but now that generative AI is out its all about IP-senpai being a dashing prince coming in to save them. Either you like it or hate it, right? Pick a lane.

Which, for sure btw this describes some of them. Those who pretty much want AI dead for essentially spiritual reasons, yeah. But I think those are the weakmen, because the rub is that IP law is not gonna change any time soon. Those reform efforts seem pretty dead in the water, the artistic socialist utopia isn't happening. Which means you need to live in the world you have, which means you need to play the game that everyone else is playing.

OpenAI is gonna use copyright law to its advantage! As will Disney and co when fighting/balancing/dealmaking/collaborating with OpenAI and its slate of competitors. Every AI company is going to work as hard as possible to train models as cheaply as possible and sell them as expensively as possible, and part of that is going to be to push IP law in its favor around what counts as fair use, what is ownership, etc.

And while all law is really process, forever contested & changing, that is double+ true for IP law. If you think the New York Times has no chance in its lawsuit against Open AI for its use of its article archives, I think you are insulting their extremely-qualified legal team who knows way more than you. All of this stuff is up for grabs right now, no one really knows how it will shake out.

So if you are an actual career independent artist, there is in fact a lot at stake. What is the legal line for mimicking someone's "style"? Does explicit training on your previous art to generate equivalents count as transformative work? These are quasi-open legal questions, and again since the system is absolutely not going away in any form, its extremely logical to want that system to work for you. "Free art" isn't on the table; the real question is who is gonna be at the table to write the next iteration of owned art. Being at the table is an obvious desire to have. You can still wish there wasn't a table to begin with, that isn't hypocritical at all.

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tf2fansderogatory · 1 year

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guys hear me out. if the mercs were tf2 animatronics what would their mechanics be

my guy you just gave me an entire AU idea

RED and BLU are rival entertainment companies, both build animatronics that perform at restaurant locations and can be rented, FNAF-style. their animatronics are so similar that one *has* to be ripping off the other, but nobody knows which is the original and which is the copy so people just pick which one they go to based on the color scheme and aesthetic

Scout has two main functions; waiter/server, and entertainer via sports. he has impeccable balance and sure footing, making him perfect for carrying plates and other dishes across a room filled with rambunctious, running children. when it comes to entertaining, he has an entire portion of his memory bank dedicated to just about every major sport in existence. his AI’s pretty good in that if the kids don’t understand some of the rules for a game, he can easily roll with it and come up with rule modifications on the spot to make sure the games are as fun as possible. normal racing is a popular game, especially since Scout’s fast. a lot faster than he lets on.

Solly works as one of multiple story-teller bots, specializing in exciting, action-filled stories- 9 times out of 10, war ones. when he was being built, the poor engineer/mechanic/all-around technician (Miss Pauling) was too sleep deprived to come up with many ideas beyond war stories. Soldier also promotes general physical health, and will usually run through “training exercises” (fit for kids) with everyone in the room after the story is over. a lot of the parents think that only the boys would like Soldier and some of them actively discourage their daughters from visiting him but they’re DUMB. at least half of the crowd of yelling, confidence-boosted cadets is eager young girls raring to fight and prove that they can do anything the boys can. sometimes the kids’ll form teams and play-fight/do a mock war. Solly makes sure that nobody gets injured and everyone knows how to “fight” without actually hurting someone. he knows how to do it perfectly, after all.

Pyro does arts and crafts, sometimes with Demo or Engie. they also, by nature of their mute design, encourage kids to be more understanding of people who don’t talk for whatever reason, which then carries over to being more understanding of anyone not like them. Pyro’s room is by far the most colorful; walls painted like Pyroland, cork boards absolutely littered in drawings the kids have given them, the shelves in his personal room (basically a closet where he goes to deactivate at the end of the day) filled with trinkets the kids made. their room is also connected to a small outside area with a fire pit. it’s nice for kids to relax with him and just watch the fire go. he even has a built-in lighter function in his hands, so he can start up a fire whenever.

Demo is also a story-teller, but his story genres are mystery and mythological/paranormal. he has a specialized voice box that lets him make sound effects, but so that they still sound like a human imitating the sound. his room is one of the most popular ones, though he prefers to wander around the establishment instead of sit in his room when he’s not telling stories. he helps out Pyro with arts and crafts, occasionally, but another way he likes to spend time with the kids is by showing off the medieval weapons (models) he has, and the kids always find it cool. it’s a rather large collection, and the models are quite…accurate.

Engie is, just like his normal tf2 counterpart, good at just about everything and pretty overworked. if animatronics could get stress headaches, he would, although mostly because of his desire to get all of his jobs done perfectly all at once. the jobs in question are musical entertainment, assistant cook, helping with arts and crafts, and helping with maintenance after the place is closed. he can play any strummed string instrument, and has a separate voice box just for singing. he also has extensive knowledge of the inner workings most of the electronic systems in the building; lights, sound systems, fire suppression- but not security. the company doesn’t want to risk him going haywire or getting some kind of malware and then letting thieves and such in. Engie also has an issue with his programming for talking to adults- the speech part of his ai is lacking in that department, so he tends to pull from what he knows for talking to kids, which used to make him come across as condescending at times. by now, though, he’s tweaked it and managed to perfect that polite, disarming tone of voice. he’s very good at it.

Heavy and Sniper’s rooms are connected and are the two designated “quiet rooms”. Heavy also reads to/with the kids and Sniper also tells nature stories, but for the most part they just keep a calm environment. kids with sensory issues, kids who get overstimulated, and even just kids who want to take a nap come to their rooms. there’s plenty of differently textured stuff available if someone needs to ground themselves or just wants to feel a certain texture. as for Heavy and Sniper themselves, they’re very calm and keep their voices low. Sniper makes sure everyone’s doing alright and doesn’t need anything, and Heavy deals with kids that are getting too loud or rambunctious (he’ll guide them out of the room and give them a gentle scolding, then let them back in if they promise to behave). if, for whatever reason, a parent is the one causing the issue, it’s still rather easy to get the parent out of the room(s), especially considering the strength of the two

Medic is the first aid bot, of course. the are a handful of different first aid stations around the building, with buttons to call Medic to them if he’s not there already. something went a little wrong with his personality coding, making him that unhinged man we all know and love, but he’s surprisingly good with kids and filtering what he says to not disturb them. the kids adore him. like Engie, though, he has issues interacting with adults- but instead of pulling from kid interaction info and coming off as condescending, Medic goes off of default, bland, robot interaction and ends up being just…creepy. short, curt speech, a lot of staring (with eyes that are far too observant and watching to be comfortable), and over time it goes from creepy and emotionless to creepy and somewhat hostile. it’s clear he’d rather be anywhere but around the adult. if one is being very insistent on talking to him, he’ll take to tidying up the nearest first aid station, giving a few…specific tools a rather thorough cleaning.

Spy, on the other hand, deals entirely with adults. he greets people at the door, and ensures the adults are at the very least comfortable while their kids have fun. most people question why his face was designed the way it was (with a mask), but…he’s calm, sophisticated, charming, the perfect animatronic for the job and honestly a good conversationalist. so nobody ever bothers to ask. it’s just a design choice, after all. Spy’s second function is assistant security, which has two parts of its own. the first is if a kid gets lost in the admittedly very large building. he’s the one who tracks them down and guides them back to their guardian. the second is helping the night shift guards when the place is closed. on most nights, he just patrols with them and takes care of any issues by following normal protocol. sometimes, though, he can convince the guards to go home and get some rest, and he and some (or all) of the other bots patrol. if someone tries to break in on one of those nights, well…you weren’t expecting to break into the home of nine sentient, semi-malfunctioning robots and get out, were you ?

#this was fun thank you anon #posted by ikea #anon #tf2 #scout #soldier #pyro #demoman #engineer #heavy #medic #sniper #spy #tf2 bot au

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0046incognito · 6 months

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also, do you think at some point you could make a CMY2K oc checklist, as in some do's and do not's when making an oc for it? I'd just think that'd be cool!! ^^*

i've been meaning to do something like this for a long time and y'know what i need a fun new way to procrastinate on these storyboards tonight

THE OFFICIAL CMY2K OC CHECKLIST

first off to get it out of the way: human OCs can be basically any kinda normal human person you could meet in jersey city acid city NJ circa 1999-2000, and for cyborgs it's pretty much the exact same, just humans with cybernetics; the only thing to note in that regard is that bio-cybernetics are still fairly New in the CMY2K universe and they function on windows 98-era technology, so they're big and bulky and clunky and not very graceful. cybernetics are also Not simply cosmetic, they're usually meant to be disability aids, but some super-rich get experimental cybernetics because it's fashionable

NOW onto the fun thing that i'm certain you were actually interested in: HALOSOFT LIVING COMPUTER ANDROIDS!!!!

A) PRIMARY FUNCTION

i'm starting with this because it's the most important defining part of a livicom's character, i think, since it determines what kinda features they'd be built with

basically, livicoms can be built for LITERALLY ANY JOB A HUMAN CAN DO; it's easier to list the things livicoms CAN'T be built primarily to do, which are:

1: making original art. sure, plenty of livicoms are built to perform music or copy prints, but the thought of a robot having original creative ideas is just silly and would be a waste of halosoft's resources, so they aren't produced. similarly, there aren't any android authors or journalists, but plenty of magazines and newspapers do have android employees for things like spellcheck/editing or photography, photography/"camera guy" is probably the most creative type job an android can get, but they're less like a photographer or cinematographer and more just a camera with legs

2: driving. their AI would just be far too dangerously easy to trick with fake road signs or painted lines, not to mention the whole trolley problem thing would risk a HUGE violation of the first law and put halosoft in SERIOUS ethical and legal trouble, so they're playing it safe and just avoiding the risk altogether. that said, there are still bots that do delivery-type jobs, just on foot, so it's just the jobs that Absolutely require driving a car that livicoms are Legally Forbidden From

3: any kind of executive leadership type position in any field. humans don't want to be bossed around by robots and a robot that bosses humans around won't sell [unless it's a more specific niche kinda bossing around, those ones sell like hotcakes] not to mention humans don't trust computers to make all the big decisions for them. the highest up the executive ladder a livicom ever gets is personal assistant to the big man

besides those exceptions, livicoms can do literally anything you can think of! cooking, cleaning, general housekeeping, sanitation, delivery, entertainment, sexwork, acting, retail, construction, security, pest control, maintenance, newscaster, fuckin IDK paparazzi you name it a livicom can do it

B) SERIAL NUMBER/NAME

all livicoms are auto-assigned a serial number following a very simple pattern: the first four letters indicate their primary function, and the following three numbers indicate the order in which they came off the factory line. for example, SING-072 is a singing entertainer bot, VOLT-808 is a voltage control electrician bot, HELP-444 is a search and rescue bot, so on and so forth.

How Ev Er, one of humanity's most charming traits is its propensity for bonding with literally anything, and this includes robots. more people like robots than don't--granted, androids specifically are seen as a little less charming than less humanoid robots, people often think they're creepy or uncomfortable to be around or just fall too close to the uncanny valley, but in general, most humans like robots enough to at the very least nickname them, so they don't have to keep referring to them with a clunky serial number. some robots prefer their serial number or just don't like the name they were given by humans, but like that's the same with humans y'know

like the jobs, robot names can be basically anything, but it's very common for them to just be nicknamed based on their serial number. for example, BDSI-371, a bedside nurse, is named betsy, because BDSI kinda looks like it'd be pronounced similar to "betsy" when read phonetically.

there's also EXEC-013, an executive secretary bot, nicknamed teeny after the number thirteen in her serial, and her successor, EXEC-014, nicknamed forzie for the same reason.

RUSH-066, a traffic guard bot, nicknamed russe. VOLT-808, a voltage control electrician bot, nicknamed voltaire. all of these are canon examples, i could keep going, but you get the gist

C) LED COLOR

i used to be stricter about this, but for the sake of having more interesting character designs, i've started to loosen up

basically, every livicom has LEDs on their ears and shoes, and their eyes are the same color. this color, generally, is related to their primary function, and there are four Main colors that most primary functions can be sorted into:

PINK: any domestic job or one that focuses primarily on working closely with people as clients. this is usually things like housekeeping or teaching etc, and most personal bots that live with you in your home are probably gonna be pink unless they're a medical bot

BLUE: medical bots OR any kind of repair or maintenance. nurses are the same color as mechanics and electricians. if it fixes something or someone, it's probably blue. also, to avoid any "is there a doctor in here" "i'm a psychiatrist" type confusion, ALL blue bots regardless of job are pre-programmed to be skilled in first aid

GREEN: anything that works primarily with or for money, like retail or customer service or finance or business.

ORANGE: anything that needs to be seen from a distance. this includes entertainment and safety/security and anything else that'd be wearing a hi-vis vest like construction

of course, these aren't the Only colors an android's LEDs can be, but the vast vast VAST majority of livicoms Are these colors. exceptions are few and far between, but even then, the color still has something to do with their job.

for example, carmine was originally built for phlebotomy, IE taking blood samples, so xyr LEDs are red like blood.

mantid is pest control at a botanical garden, so his LEDs are pink while the rest of him is green so he matches the plants.

whiskey is a bartender, so instead of being green like other food service androids, he's orange to match both the color of liquor and the dim lighting in the bar he works at.

also, here's a special case: since blue LEDs are reserved for medical and repair bots, blue is the only color LED you Won't just find on any random non-medical android. saph is a paparazzi photography bot, which is a job Without a standard assigned LED color, and most of her is blue [like her name sapphire get it] But her LEDs are red. it's case by case!

D) AGE

robot age is weird. computers age and grow obsolete MUCH faster than humans do, so livicoms have significantly shorter lifespans. that said, they don't really age like, At All? the only thing that really decays with time is the health of their hardware and technology standards over time.

but as a general rule, all livicoms are adults EXCEPT hibiki, he is the only child because kid-bots are not mass produced, there'd be huge ethical concerns, and the only reason hibiki exists as he is is because he's a Custom model.

but besides him, all livicoms are born as adults with the standard base programming knowledge approximating the maturity, intelligence, and sense of an adult. livicoms are designed to learn and develop individual personalities over time based on experience, which i'll get to in a moment, but the standard base programming For said personality includes simple data determining how mature they should be based on their intended age.

it's basically like sims ages, you got young adults and older adults and the exact number in between is generally a guesstimate based on a sliding scale of "this robot acts like they have the same amount of life experience as a human of this age"

E) PERSONALITY

as i said, livicoms are shipped out with standard base personalities depending on not just their age, but also their primary function.

for example, a retail android on their first day on the job would already have a perfect customer service smile and helpful attitude, but not much else. the unique traits that make each livicom feel less like a mass-produced robot and more like a Person are developed over time based on experience, just like with humans. that customer service bot might grow to hate their job, but they can't stop working it because it's their Sole Purpose In Life, so that friendly smile turns into a sarcastic smirk as they pretend to give a shit about each and every customer.

let's look at some other specific examples: tex is a pretty clear one. he was originally a construction foreman bot, bossing other construction bots around, so he's stern and commanding, yet amicable and social, since he needs to be a good boss.

444 is a search and rescue bot who has come across more dead human bodies than he'd like, so he's become distant, unempathetic, and numb to the suffering of others.

mantid works in a place that gets a lot of human tourists visiting, but he's just pest control, not a tour guide, so he wasn't programmed with any social skills and instead of developing them, he's just become jumpy and always dreading the next person to speak to him mistakenly assuming he;s a tour guide and can tell them about all the flowers in the room.

all this to say: livicom androids are like people, they can have basically any personality, but it makes more sense to have one that lines up with their experiences. and also, the more recently an android came off the assembly line, the Less personality they'll have; they're brand-new, so they're still a blank slate!

F) OVERALL APPEARANCE

halosoft livicom androids are NOT human-passing and they never will be; they MUST look robotic at a glance, so no human skin tones. they didn't even start getting soft artificial hair strands instead of just hard plastic helmets until like 1994. however, they are still Androids, so they must be bipedal and a close enough approximation of a person, so no tank-bots. they Are supposed to be marketable to the general public!

a lot of how your livicom will look will depend on When it was built, so here are some general guidelines for that first

older livicoms [especially circa about 1992 and earlier] tend to be bigger and bulkier to compensate for bigger bulkier hardware on the inside, and their colorschemes tend to run closer to beige box computers, so mostly y'know. shades of beige and grey, mostly. it's good to look at historical computers to get an idea for colorschemes. shapes are mostly sharp and square or triangle. earphones especially tend to be just cubed bulky headphones.

newer livicoms [circa 1998 and on] tend to more closely resemble an imac G3, so they're rounder blobject-type shapes, and colorschemes tend to shift out to the extreme ends of the spectrum, IE instead of greys and beige, now it's closer to black and white, especially white because Y2K futurism is a very Chrome kinda future. they're also generally a little lighter and more compact as technology improves, but it's still windows98 type tech, so it remains pretty bulky. by the year 2000, it starts becoming a trend for humans to like androids with emotive cat ears, so that replaces earphones for a lot of them

android Hair wasn't invented until 1994, and standard colors until 1999 tend to be either "metallic tinted a similar shade to the LEDs" or "black that tints a certain way when the light hits it" or "just dark grey". come 1999, white hair like hibiki's starts becoming the new trendy look, but it'll take until at Least late 2000 for it to become actually Standard

also, for the most part, androids tend not to wear clothes, mostly due to overheating risk [these Are 90s PCs after all]. some androids do wear clothes, but that's usually either for personal reasons or they work somewhere that requires a uniform for human And android employees, or they just work closely with humans and it's to make the humans more comfortable. usually, they just have a built-in bodysuit and light armor

G) EYES

unless your livicom is Brand Brand Brand new, like "built literally this year" new, their eyes will probably be a monochrome LCD display, and there are two types: either a negative display, so the scleras are darker and the irises are lighter, or a positive display, so the opposite. but if your android Was built in 2000, then they'll more likely have 8-bit color display screens, so they can display Lots of colors actually [but still not as many colors as a modern computer screen]. also, android irises/pupils [especially on screen-type eyes] are rectangular/square instead of round

now the thing about android eyesight is, in more cases than not, they don't actually See through their eyes, they're purely cosmetic. for androids with screens for eyes, they're technically blind and see more like silent echolocation! IE with proximity sensors to scan 180 degrees around them. it takes a little extra longer to scan for color data, too. this isn't the Most efficient way androids can see, but for most bots, this is the best way to do it since it provides them with both depth perception And 180 degree vision

the Other type of android eyes is: cameras! these are Not screens, they're camera lenses, and they are FAR less common because they're reserved for bots who Need to see either very very small things or in clear detail. for example: mantid has camera eyes, because he needs to be able to see teeny tiny insects from across the room nestled in among different plants. saph also has camera eyes, but that's because she IS a camera

camera-type eyes, unlike screen eyes, Are actually round, but they still don't pass for human eyes because the sclera and iris are almost indistinguishable from each other from a distance since they're both so dark.

H) FUNCTION-BASED APPEARANCE TRAITS??

OK so obviously a nursebot and a constructionbot are not going to look indistinguishable from each other, they're built to do totally different things, so they should not only look different from each other, but look like what they're supposed to. even within the same primary function, unless they're literally from the exact same model line for the Exact Same Job, no two androids look exactly identical, even though they're mass produced! humans love one-of-a-kind personalized products. plus, it'd be confusing and creepy if All the employees at your local walmart were identical twins

basically: GO NUTS HAVE FUN with incorporating how your livicom's job affects how they look. some livicoms just look human with robotic paneling or earphones, especially if they work closely with humans. it's mostly the armor styles that change; a construction bot might have big gauntlets for better heavy lifting, or even excavator claws for arms. an audio engineer bot might have cables resembling braids for hair to connect to different audio inputs. 444 has big wings that cast a searchlight so he can fly and better find missing people down below. herbie is a delivery bot with built-in heelys and exhaust pipes. hijinx is a clown with big extendo arms???? voltaire is basically a walking male/male plug adapter because he's designed to transfer excess electricity to different sources more in need of it. betsy is a bedside nurse bot, so she's intentionally squishy so that she doesn't accidentally hurt patients or so they can squeeze her arm for comfort while getting an injection

I) COMBAT

this is my favorite part of CMY2K bot conceptualizing and usually like the first or second thing i come up with for them, usually in tandem with their primary function Because their dedicated weapon and/or fighting style is going to Incorporate the unique features from their primary function!

let's use hibiki as the first example, because he's kind of a weird one, especially since he's a custom model. hibiki is basically an astroboy expy, IE he has the jetboots and arm cannons, but there's a FUnctional Reason for that besides just that it's cool. he's a housekeeping bot, so the arm cannons are modified vacuum cleaners, and the jetboots are just so he can reach high shelves. simple!

tex is also pretty straightforward, because he's just a big strong construction bot who punches hard with his big strong hands. voltaire uses that male/male plug adapter i mentioned as whips to wrap around and electrocute.

mantid is literally an Exterminator, but he's a fun one: he doesn't just kill bugs with pesticides or what have you, because that's boring in a combat scenario, instead he snipes with lasers.

sawyer resells used electronics, so he's built-in with a localized EMP generator that disables and shuts down other electronics [including androids] as long as he can close a circuit around it with his hands.

444's big searchlight wings are like a flashbang so he can run, because he really isn't all that interested in fighting, and he sure is good at evading.

072 is a less obvious example because they're just a singer in a pop group, what built-in weapon could they possibly have? well. it's the 90s, wallet chains are a hugely iconic fashion accessory. 072 wears and dances with a big long chain they can also use as a whip, i mean that's the exact reason wallet chains were banned in so many schools LOL

due to the first law of robotics, livicoms aren't designed Intentionally to have weapons, but it's fairly easy to reverse-engineer their unique functions Into weapons, and even for androids who Don't necessarily have anything on them that could be weaponized, they always have the option of Body Modification!

KK is the most obvious example. it won't divulge its original primary function, but let's just say it wasn't something that allowed it to just go and hide things in its pockets. so, once KK jailbroke, the VERY first thing it did was modify itself to turn its entire body into a swiss army knife.

doctor heckle Also modified himself, but for him it was necessary because he had to rebuild his whole body from junk with just an arm and a head. he gave himself like, sickass spider legs on his back that also shoot lasers, and not only that, but he built himself a frankenstein's monster he can pilot like a mech

J) ETC

uh i can't think of anything else. if i missed something obvious feel free to point it out cuz if i Do think of something i'll definitely be editing this later

here's a few pinterest boards i use as design insp, go nuts

#not art #cmy2k #oc

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onemillionfurries · 3 months

Note

not for nothing, but around 2021 the CEO of the studio behind palworld was tweeting about ai generated pokemon designs, and how he “can almost not tell the difference,” referencing that exact article, actually. I do not think every single design was ai generated or that any ai references were used from start to finish with no human touch, but the CEO is very openly interested in ai technology and its applications in game development! I don’t think its a stretch to guess it may have been used somewhere in the pipeline. and as someone who also messed around with fakemon generators when the tech was still a bit novel, some of the designs do have that ai stink to them, even from around that time.

yeah i chose that article specifically bc i knew that the CEO had referenced it in a tweet. I WANTED to get into it in the post, but it was also 9am and I hadn't gotten a wink of sheep that night (... bc i was up all night playing palworld WHOOPS--) (im writing this off a 2 hour nap so pls forgive me if it's incomprehensible)

I remember the whole "palworld used ai to gen its monsters" narrative literally started because someone qrt'd someone pointing out that CEO's tweet and extrapolated that because the CEO spoke positively on AI generated pokemon, then the game MUST have AI generated monster designs which... wasn't what the original tweet was saying at all. but unfortunately nuance and reason is like poison to twitter so the speculation spiraled from there. (not like tumblr is much better. but I at least have the space to explain myself here, however poorly that may be :P)

And like, the unfortunate thing is that nearly /every/ CEO is interested in AI. their whole job is to make money, not art. some are just louder about it than others. with the insane crunch that the pokemon developers go through, I wouldn't be surprised if AI is also used in those games somewhere in the pipeline, whether that's in the past or a future release.

Let's also not forget when the pokemon company international was interested in hiring simeone with knowledge in NFT/web3 technology. if we're automatically assuming that open interest in something means that it's implemented, or that it will be at some point, then we better get to boycotting pokemon now!

I wanna be clear that I'm not defending the use of AI art in game development. it may very well be that AI /was/ used somewhere in the Palworld pipeline. I just don't want people to be asserting something as true with little to no actual evidence. ever since I got "called out" by an ex-friend of mine for some heinous shit that i quite literally never did, I've been a lot more diligent in figuring out if something people are freaking out about on social media IS actually true, or if it was a mountain made out of a molehill, as it tends to be 99% of the time.

(btw I'm curious as to what pals you think have that AI stink to them? im generally trying to avoid spoilers for later game pals bc i wanna discover them on my own, but if you wanna send a list or something that I can look up when im further in the game I'd be interested.)

#lab notes #answered #anon ask #palworld #palworld discourse

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little-red-fool · 2 months

Note

OMG YOU'RE SEVENTEEN?? (I've been following you for months and I didn't once read the pinned message beyond the line about no AI and NFTs lmao) YOUR ART IS SO CRISPY I THOUGHT YOU WERE A PRO ARTIST AROUND 30 WTF

(sorry for the yelling via text)

HOW DID YOU GET SO GOOD!! (Tips on lineart please?) WE'RE THE SAME AGE, BUT HALF OF MY ART IS SHIT AND THE OTHER HALF IS FART

ALL HAIL LITTLE RED FOOL, BESTOW THY GREATNESS UPON THOU MERE MORTAL SERVANTS

But in all seriousness, any tips on, like I said, lineart or just digital art in general? (I just started digital, and... Ten hours of work and I'm just on base colors 😎🕶️🤏🥲) I love, LOVE your style and especially COLOR! How do you tie it all together? Like, I'm 17 too, but I'm not even close to your stuff?? I'm scared as fuck from ever trying color traditionally because I spend SO MUCH TIME ON A SKETCH, so I just picked up digital and HOURS LATER IT'S STILL AWFUL

Sorry for the rambling and repeating, man, it's been a long day and it's late in the Balkans... Don't let the rambling force you into answering tho

Have a good one. ->excited fellow artist

(tip of the day: did you know that in Romanian, moon and month are the same word, with the same pronunciation, spelling and plural? It's called: lună [loonuh] and I think it comes from latin, since Romanian is a heavily latin language, with bits of french and turkish (HEAVY bits), dacian, slavic, italian)

OUAHFSHD THANK YOU SO MUCH I’M REALLY HAPPY YOU LIKE MY ART!! Also I’m sure your art is better than you think it is (we generally tend to view our own creations as worse than others because we’re the ones that made them, don’t worry I’m the same as well ajdbsjd) but yeah I’ll be happy to give you some tips and stuff! (and yeah I never colour traditionally either I just leave everything in plain biro because I don’t want to mess it up lol)

(I haven’t seen your art so these will probably be more general tips but hopefully they’ll help a bit, also keep in mind that I’m not a professional so this will be more about what has worked for me but I hope it might help you a bit)

So for stuff like lineart, avoid using chicken-scratches—it might seem easier or less daunting to do shorter overlapping lines like that but it will give your sketches and drawings that overall fuzzy look, the trick is to have longer confident strokes. It might seem a bit tricky at first if you haven’t done it before so don’t worry it happens but if you keep practicing they’ll eventually look smoother and less shaky. For the longer lines it better to draw from either your elbow or shoulder, and by that I mean keeping your wrist still and letting the larger parts of your arm do most of the work—this will also help your wrist in the long run. For things like shorter lines and smaller details then absolutely use your hand to move the pen, but generally try to use your elbow and shoulder as it will help you get those longer smoother lines. Also this is just a personal preference of mine but I generally use brushes that have a bit of pressure sensitivity which helps add some line weight. If you don’t have pressure sensitivity another way you can get line weight is by taking an eraser to some of the edges and narrowing some parts.

For colours it mainly depends on the lighting—lighting is everything and will affect how the rest of the colours will look, so it’s important to have an idea of the brightness and colour of your lighting. The background also plays an important role in picking colours for me as well as it helps provide colour context and makes it easier to pick colours by eye if you want a certain mood. If you want a more dependable way on getting colours to match up then I’d recommend having a layer that’s just colour on top of the rest of your piece—you can play around with the blending modes and opacity, I mainly use either an overlay layer with a medium colour that’s slightly desaturated or a colour burn layer with a light saturated colour; most of the time I use colour burn because if you put it over your lineart then it will also tint the parts of your lineart or sketch that’s at a lower opacity too. But with figuring out colours I’d highly recommend researching some stuff about colour theory, there are a lot of good and easy to understand explanations and art tutorials on YouTube so I would recommend starting there (unfortunately I can’t link recommend specific videos because my playlists are a mess ajdbsjdbsj but some good channels to learn from are Sinix Design, Marc Brunet and Marco Bucci).

In terms of general digital art tips, ALWAYS FLIP YOUR CANVAS. You will not believe the amount of times I’ve looked at a drawing and thought it looked pretty good, flipped the canvas and found that everything’s wonky. In cases like these the liquify tool is your best friend, as well as the lasso tool and transform tools, as well as just manually fixing them by redrawing some parts. Also use as many layers as you need, and by this I mean if you’re working on your sketch, lineart or colouring or whatever and you want to do something you’re not sure you’ll like, duplicate the layers so you have a backup in case it goes wrong and you want to go back. When I say use as many layers as you need I mean use as many as you need, these are some of mine and they’re all from just one sketch because I get really anxious about messing stuff up lol, also don’t be afraid of drawing separate parts on separate layers and merging them afterwards if you want.

Also take your time, unless you have a deadline don’t feel like you have to complete a drawing within a certain timeframe, if you want to get faster at drawing then that’s great but don’t feel like you need to push yourself, especially if you’re just starting. Practice takes time and patience is your best friend, and you probably hear lots of other artists saying this but trust the process. You might get to a bit you’re struggling with and not like it and want to abandon the drawing, but I found that rather than saying “this is bad” or “this is wrong” start asking “how can I make this work” because a change in mindset can help you a lot with art. Also don’t feel like you have to reach certain milestones with your art by certain points either, like with the age thing and comparing your progress with other artists of either the same or different ages, because it can make you feel worse about your art. Trust me there are some artists younger than me who are like 14 or 15 who’s art I envy and—again with the mindset thing—instead of getting down that your art isn’t similar to their’s or worrying that you’re “behind” in your artistic development (there is no such thing btw everyone learns at different ages and speeds so don’t feel bad if you haven’t progressed as much as you would have liked to) it helps to ask what you like about their art and what you would like to incorporate into your own—this has helped me learn and improve a lot faster.

I don’t know if I have any more tips at the moment, but I hope that answered some of your questions! (also sorry it’s a bit long or some bits don’t make a lot of sense I like to ramble a bit lol) (also also thank you for the little fact as well!)

Have a nice day anon 🧡

#asks #art tips

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maxwell-grant · 6 months

Note

I’m curious, what are your thoughts on Seth from street fighter?

Even post-revamp, still fairly awkward and out of place as a Street Fighter character (even if that is very much the point and always has been), but as a villain, they really won me over, there's a lot of great stuff here. Seth is a self-hating robot in a CEO outfit who poisons the world around them and whose grand plans involve imitating the actual main villain while insisting they are a different unique being (unlike their 26 exact clones), and stealing the creations of everyone else around them, who then dies and gets a sexy cool makeover to become a gruesome aimless murderous ghost, who chases traces of it's creator around to kill him unaware that it's dying with every step it takes and that it's chasing something that isn't there. They went from Frankenstein's Monster play-acting as a cold calculating unfeeling chessmaster who everyone could tell was full of shit, to the Bride of Frankenstein as a barely-held-together dangerous yet tragic monstrosity that everyone reacts to with disgust and pity. They went from what we used to think AI would be, to what AI actually is, and I'd say they were pretty ahead of their time for that alone.

(art by z3dd)

Now, IV Seth was pretty uncontestedly the least popular of the Street Fighter Final Bosses, for fairly similar reasons to Gill: they were seen as too much of a fantasy supervillain, they didn't "fit" the series, they were too weird and awkward and out-there, and where as Gill at least got a pass because of his presentation and style and sheer contrast with Bison (although that "pass" only happened because people turned around on 3rd Strike), Dollar Store Dr.Manhattan was just lesser than Gill and Bison in every way and thus was a dissappointing final boss, an out-of-place comic book supervillain who didn't justify their existence.

Granted, the series actually had way more of a precedent for Seth than it ever did for Gill, given the presence of prior cyborgs and shapeshifters (the Shadaloo cyborgs from the animated movie that Seth was directly based from, Twelve and Necro) plus Gill, and the door for comic book supervillains was blasted open in the first place with Bison (and all the fighting game bosses that descended from him). But still, Bison's thing was that he was one-in-a-million, that he broke the rules as an dishonorable intrusion, that if you reached high enough to topple the greatest fighter (Sagat) you could fight the greatest fighter's boss, a man so powerful rules and structures could not apply to him and only your fists stood between him and global domination. Since obviously you can't take a step back and you can't do the same trick twice, that formula had to be tweaked for Gill and Seth: Gill was presented as someone above even Bison on the food chain and scope, a distant immortal bearing divine judgementt on trespassers, where as Seth was defined by their role irrevocably beneath Bison, and the walking inferiority complex that ensues.

They are a Bison project, one of 26 exactly like them (which means canonically most of the fighters got to defeat "a" Seth, which really does not make them very impressive), growing from Bison's leftovers to lead a subsidiary of Bison's organization, continuing Bison's plans, with their grand plot being just an imitation of Bison's plan to control Ryu's power, and generally acting and speaking and doing things exactly like Bison while uselessly whining that they are NOT Bison and that they will succeed where Bison failed, while the narrative makes no secret of the fact that Bison is still alive, still pulling the strings, and that he was perfectly fine until Seth started getting a little too big boy pants for his liking, and now Bison's gonna put his homegrown Pinocchio in the shredder with little to no difficulty and take the reigns as Final Boss again. Which, granted, did do it's job in building Bison back-up again, but didn't do a thing to negate the idea that Seth was a superfluous, inferior rip-off, given that textually, this is how they were presented as.

Even the characters didn't seem to take them very seriously, certainly not as seriously as Bison, and that was BEFORE the breakout rock star of the IV series, Juri, debuted to ensure that Seth wouldn't even be the most popular new villain. It is the least surprising thing in the world that Seth would achieve much greater popularity, in part, by being redesigned to be more like Juri. And part of what made Juri appealing was the fact that she was a conniving, cool, unique loose cannon villain ready to make Seth eat shit over thinking that they could control her, they became the big-headed authority figure for our punk bad girl to kick like a pinata. Unlike Vega and Balrog, who only talked a big game, Juri actually got to kick her dipshit supervillain boss to the curb, and we all loved her for it.

Seth's major saving graces were their gameplay, which made them very popular competitively, plenty of aspects of their design, and the fact that all of the above worked to make Seth a character who, while not terribly compelling in their own right, did a lot to make other characters more interesting, like Abel, who was designed to be a good counterpart to Seth and not remotely interesting besides (although his stint as Guile's manchild partner in SFvsT has it's moments), or like Juri and Bison, giving them an enemy they could actually defeat to gain street cred. Frequently you need villains that only exist to let other villains be cooler by comparison or retain their dignity or put one over. Sometimes you need a Cluemaster in place of your Riddler, a Mac Gargan to make all the other Sinister Six guys omlook better by comparison, a Zant to fill in screentime for Ganondorf or a Hobgoblin instead of a Green Goblin. You need your in-betweeners even if, and sometimes especially if, they will never be anyone's favorite character. Which is a harsh thing to say about Seth, but for a while they definitely didn't seem like anyone's favorite baddie, but instead someone who made their favorite baddies look way better by comparison.

And Seth worked in this regard especially because their design was built on the idea of them being unnatural, contemptible and out-of-place. I actually think Seth's original design does work, and has been vindicated over time. Seth is a cybernetic intelligence made by scientists to consume and imitate all the brilliant techniques that the World Warriors spent years/decades perfecting, a twisted mockery of their beliefs and achievements. They look like a living yin-yang and conducts themselves posing like a Shinto god, but there is no spirituality or soul to anything they do. They are a grotesque, soulless husk that can only imitate, can only cruelly replicate the evil of their creator and not even do a terribly impressive job at it, and all of their attempts to convince others they are in any way different or unique ring hollow. They are one in many many Bison back-up bodies even among the playable cast, and all of their achievements are meaningless, either already belonging to Bison or stolen and repurposed by Bison and others.

There was plenty about Seth that already worked and was just held back by a not-particularly impressive design or presentation. The grand trick that SFV pulled was basically giving them a new one, and taking everything about Seth that used to be implied and subtextual, and basically making it textual, making it a scream they can only repeat ad nauseum, and in the process making one of the most tragic SF characters as well as one of the coolest.

Now, yes, you could argue that SFV Seth kinda missed the point in a big way by actually giving Seth a distinct and interesting design best described with the "not to be a lesbian but oh god oh fuck jesus christ" meme, when the character being soulless and unoriginal was important to their make-up. But it was never a terribly interesting idea (already done by the likes of Twelve or the Cycloids), certainly not for a fighting game character let alone a Final Boss with such massive standards to live up to, and shades of it still impart in the new design in a far more delightfully twisted way. It's Seth, except they are Juri now. They've been remade in the image of their true enemy, their hateful minion that ruined their plans, led Bison to them, killed and broke and stole them to be remade using a discarded Doll body from Bison's scrap pile, and the process has revived Seth into a pitiable broken record of itself.

The new design greatly emphasizes the corrupted Shinto / yin-yang elements of before, adding splashes of color and powerful glowing lines to the design that make it so that, while they looks less cadaverous, they look much more the part of a corrupted imitation of a deity, so that despite being downgraded from boss status they actually look much more like something you'd face as a Final Boss, something that could stand next to the other Final Bosses. And that glow-up extends to their moveset: Instead of pasting together improvised and half-hearted recreations of iconic special moves, Seth now directly steals and perfectly replicates the skills from whoever they're fighting. Seth conducts themselves with greater power and swagger this time around, with tons of new animations lifted from powerful past Capcom villains like Demitri or the Heritage to the Future take on DIO, and it works. Because even now, Seth can only imitate greatness from others. Seth has perfectly captured advancements in A.I tech because they can learn, grow, and even imitate to near-perfection, but they cannot meaningfully improve, and they are dragged down by incohence, chaos, errors and glitches in programming. In short, the fact that they are an artificial intelligence to begin with.

That's a thing about A.I and robots in general: Sci-fi has spent over a century anthropomorphizing robots and artificial intelligence characters to empathize with and make stories out of, create lovable stock fantasy characters that our culture comes back to again and again, but now that they are a real thing, and they are horrible godless abominations often used to actively make the world worse (even if it's hard to ascribe fault to something that isn't sentient enough to be malicious), we can't really deal with that. It's a cognitive dissonance that sci-fi doesn't look like it's going to catch up for a while now, if it ever will. We still like robots and robot stories and characters too dang much to know how to live with them. We still cry over Pluto, it's unavoidable.

And crying may be a strong term, but SFV actually seriously invites us to feel sorry for the dang thing, and the great final trick SFV pulled was breaking Seth under the weight of being Seth. Under the weight of being lesser, of not being real, of being an artificial creation made in an assembly line and not even the best of it's kind, of being not a terribly popular creation, of being a victim of characters that will get away with what they've done to them because nobody's gonna stand up for Seth, of being a Bison imitation made to house Bison and do Bison's bidding in the meanwhile, and thrown in the trash despite performing exactly as it was supposed to. Seth has faults of personality that make them more than a machine, and less than a person, and if the cast before generally despised them but not to the extent they despised Bison, now most characters outright pity them, as a thing living past expiration date that shouldn't be alive at all.

And because of all of this, in a way, Seth has attained a form of uniqueness. Even among the other villains and tragic characters of Street Fighter, Seth stands unique as a truly tragic, doomed villain, not even really a villain anymore so much as an obtuse, sad disaster. They are maybe Bison's greatest victim now, because even the Dolls (sans Marz) are all getting moderately happy endings, even Cammy and Abel and the Neo Shadaloo goobers got to make new lives for themselves, even Nash got to die by their terms and make his sacrifice count. Seth had nothing besides this. Seth was created for, born into, lived by, and died as an extension of Bison's evil, a tiny little bump in Shadaloo history, a piece of junk that Juri used and broke and tossed aside to resume her miserable life afterwards, and all their revival did was prolong the horror. Just one among endless horrors JP leaves behind when he's through with them.

We have yet to know what became of them after SFV, because many stories from SFV have been dropped or left incomplete in 6 (and many probably for the better), but even though Seth really was a villain and a horrible enemy to all of humanity, you kinda wind up feeling sorry enough for them to almost wish that their SFV ending happened, where they destroy Bison and ascend over their other selves, and still the question of whether they could ever be at peace lingers. This ending just fascinates me to no end, and it makes me think of the quotes that Gouken had to say to them that alone stood as an indication that Seth could be more than they appeared and insisted on being:

"Until you acknowledge the soul within, you cannot use your power for good."

"You seek individuality and identity, but you will not find it this way."

(JP win quote) "Look, you don't have to use your powers to express who you are."

Until they appear again, that this is the note that Seth as a character goes out on might even imply that this was either their true goal all along, or that Seth has genuinely progressed as a person enough to want something new. That they are now able to seek or at least aspire for peace of mind, where as before there was only a desire for conquest and power, to show the world that Bison was a ghost and that they were the king, the ruler, the greatest fighter of all. Seth constantly expressed disgust and hatred at their other variants, killing them and flying into a murderous rage at being referred to by their number, even expressing in IV a desire to "be the sole survivor of this world" presumably with everything else as data within themselves. Here, they appear before the other Seths in a pose of ascended godhood, even seemingly benevolent, like they're ready to bring their siblings along.

The spiritual elements of their design no longer appear as a corrupt imitation, but an indicator of genuine spirituality. That Gouken was right, that there really was a soul in Seth waiting to be acknowledged, that the exorcism of the great evil that once defined them has allowed at last a pursuit of individuality and identity and self-expression, to reconcile their hatred of themselves (which manifested as a hatred of the other numbered Seths). It's such a fascinating development that it almost, almost makes me wish Street Fighter would dip it's toes a little into multiverse territory, much as I hate the superhero-ification of the series in V. I have thoughts on how MK1 handled this and very mixed ones at that, but the canonization of "every character ending from past arcade modes can have happened in separate universes and we can have it cross over whenever we feel like it" is an idea I do like, if nothing else this ascended development for Seth just seems like too potent an idea to never touch on again.

I used to not like Seth, really. They used to be one of my less favorite characters. Now I'd call them one of my favorites, and I'm just feeling horribly sorry for them. I need to know what became of them. Whether they'll still come back for one last torturous round of existence, whether they are heading for some other exciting new development, or whether the very next second after the end of their V story, they simply ended with one of their victory quotes:

"A SERIOUS ERROR HAS OCCURRED."

#replies tag #street fighter #fighting games #capcom #seth #sfv #sfiv #sf seth #m bison #juri han

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tagidearte-spam-sb · 4 months

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Help Wanted 2 - DCA Minigames Swap Idea

So. Both Sun and Moon have their own minigames in hw2. I started thinking to myself "how would it play out if you swapped them?", because why not? Ideas under read more.

I want "Arts and Crafts" with Moon. That's it. That's the reason I wrote this.

Carousel Game

Sun is sent to watch over the player as they fix the carousel. In game, it is stated that poor Sun doesn't know how to fix it himself, so this would be a simulation where the AI learns by watching you do it first.

Sun sits on one of the rideable carts, his personality matching the one from his actual minigame. He throws quips and begs you to hurry up, and sometimes (accidentally) misleads you by giving poor advice (because again: he has no idea how to fix it, but he's programmed to teach others, so he is incapable of shutting up and letting you work by yourself). The carousel still has three phases, but fixing it is much harder and more complex than in the original, since Moon wouldn't be a constant threat.

Problem: if you fail/make a mistake at any point, the carousel has a chance of powering down which makes the lights grow dim, bringing Moon out. The chance grows higher with each phase/level. You must reset the power to continue your work, and use your flashlight (which has limited battery) to keep Moon at bay as you do so. On each phase Sun gets closer and closer to you on the carousel, meaning if you fail later on, Moon will literally spawn closer and closer to you.

On the last phase, the power for some reason goes crazy and the lights die. You must keep Moon at bay while fixing it, and you have a time limit to do so as well.

The game ends with the lights coming back on, Sun being embarrassed and thanking you for helping out, and off you go.

On the harder night, you could start the game having to fix the generator from the get go, or the power randomly going down, or making it so that the flashlight has a battery limit and needs recharging.

There could be a way for Sun to kill you too, if you take too long. Just for spice.

Arts and Crafts game

Obviously Moon is for nap time, not making crafts. Instead of paper pals and colour by numbers, you are tasked with playing activities designed for children who can't sleep during nap time - quiet things that wouldn't disturb the other sleeping children. You do these on a small baby tablet, in an area separate from the sleeping children (who are toys in this simulation), a tent with some light like the one ruined Sun sits under in the original minigame.

In this minigame you catch glimpses of a Moon that is not fully corrupted yet. In his normal mode he's calmer and speaks in a creepy, yet soothing way. However, "mistakes" trigger his glitched mode, making him revert to Security Breach Moon. This minigame would have both a sound check and a "mistake" check like in the original one. If you make too much noise while working, or fail your task, Moon becomes aggressive - you have three tries, where Moon progressively takes/covers the lights in your tent (by the third time you are basically playing in the dark, only with the small light coming from your baby tablet), and by the fourth he gets pissed off and "puts you to sleep".

The noise system would work in two ways: first, your tablet will glitch out sometimes. You must treat it like an old TV and beat it up a bit to get it to work again, causing noise. Do it too much, Moon gets upset. Moon is also walking around checking on "the children", so it's advised you fix your tablet when he's further away from you, to diminish the chances of him hearing it; second, sometimes your tablet will get the purple glitch and automatically turn on the audio. When you notice this, you must drop what you're doing and turn the volume down again, otherwise every time you do something a loud noise will ring out, pissing off Moon.

The minigames would be a mix of reading and ""drawing"". First you read a small randomly generated story and must answer a quiz about it (like the colour of a character's dress, or if they're a knight, etc). Second game is a "dress up doll" one. You know picrew? Something like that with pre made bodies, clothes, hair and accessories you can combine into a character. Moon sees you are not sleepy yet, and tells you to put together a character with specific characteristics for him. After you're done, you show him the result. If it doesn't match, that's a strike. If it does, you continue into the next phase.

The last minigame is a mix of both. You need to read a story and use the dressing game to make two of the characters in there (or maybe only one and the number grows higher with each level). However, by this point the glitches are more frequent, and Moon is more attentive because every other "child" is asleep, his attention mostly turned towards you.

There could be an added bonus of difficulty in later games with a power system: you have limited power on your tablet, and once the power goes out your tablet does a loud turning off noise, triggering Moon's glitch instantaneously.

And that's it. Apologies for Moon's section being longer, but since Sun doesn't kill you, we don't need as many details besides hypothetical voice lines (instead of the one about indigestion in hw2, here he could have one about electrocution for instance).

This is clearly not me crying and moaning over Moon only getting two new voicelines either ahahah what makes you think so?

#dca #dca fandom #fnaf dca #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #help wanted 2 #fnaf hw2 #help wanted 2 sun #help wanted 2 moon #daycare attendant #fnaf #moondrop #sundrop

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willkimurashat · 8 months

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Exactly 0 people asked-

Oh, never mind, Andy wants to know, so here I am yet again, rating Love Island the Game: Double Trouble this time!

Here’s the rating post I did for s5, for anyone curious:)

I just wanna preface this by saying, I love this game. I know it is greatly flawed and I get frustrated, annoyed, irritated, riled up very often, but it’s still my comfort place and I enjoy playing it so very much. I am aware that fusebox as a company has many issues and I am not thrilled that they might be using AI to write their scripts, even if it's just a speculation. I don't spend any money on the game and I play it on plane mode, so I don't get any ads. Additionally, I think it’s long established that nothing will ever repeat the success of s2, the one hit wonder I’m afraid, so I choose to not compare it to earlier seasons to not ruin my expectations. However, my one hope for s6 was for it to not be worse than s5. Did it fail my expectations? No. Did it exceed them? Also no. But it did meet them exactly where I set them, so to me, this season was generally a success. But not without its issues, of course.

Disclaimer: I tried to be as objective as I can, but at the end of the day, I’m a mere human and these are all just my humble, subjective opinions. Feel free to agree/disagree/add on/make your own:)

Also, beware of the potential spoilers ahead:)

So, without a further ado, shall we?

Character Design: 9/10

Lots of hotties this season, that is for sure. The design team (I think/hope/want to believe that a human did the art for the most part at least) worked very well this time and the art style is wonderful. I personally found myself attracted to most of the islanders - Bella, Jamal, Ozzy/Marshall, Chloe, Andy of course… Their faces look proportional, I love most of their facial expressions, the blushing faces are just so adorable (especially Andy’s, but I may be a little bit biased lol). Took the point off for some weird poses though (*ahem* Andy *ahem*), some odd expressions, Ryan’s mop of hair that just doesn’t sit right on him, and for the fact that both sets of twins have the exact same sprite - I understand that they’re identical and share the same face, but like, give them a different pose at least?

Character Personality: 6/10

This is where my main issue lies: they’ve given us so many fun characters with distinct personalities, and then they merged them into one. Why? Less work, I assume. How can a bad boy wannabe Jamal who never settles for a relationship act the exact same way as a golden retriever footballer Lewie? Conversely, how can a golden retriever Lewie become a villain in the same exact way that a suave, confident pilot Roberto became? Why do we never learn about their personalities besides the first date in the first volume and then through random sprinkling of one sentence facts about them to give a slight illusion of variety? Why are all their personalities boiled down to recollection of past events that were so surface-leveled and so superficial that even talking about them in later episodes feels like an afterthought, or, dare I say, a chore? Why do all the og’s personalities revolve around love bombing? So much potential down the drain.

Personally, my favorite islanders this season are Casa Amor people. To me it seemed that that’s where the most energy went when creating the season. Everyone in Casa was their own person with unique personalities and stayed that way for the longest time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they all had unique dialogue and shared bits about their life, their worries and concerns about relationships and life that helped me get to know them better, understand them as people, as characters with personalities. And even after being merged post casa, though they suffered from the merging as well, Flo remained the most interesting girl and Marshall kept his snarkiness still.

Character Diversity: 5/10

This section brings me great sadness, I can't lie. Yes, this is about Grace. You've talked about it, I've talked about it - we're all in consensus that the way her character was treated is absolutely wrong. How many times can Fusebox step on the same rake to finally get it in their heads and stop villainizing women of color? It is frustrating. The treatment of Black women in the fandom is already... not great, even if the characters themselves did absolutely nothing wrong (Thabi, Genevieve). So, of course, let's perpetuate the stereotypes, let's make the one Black woman in the game possessive, territorial, immature, and the main rival to MC if you're romancing Ozzy. Why? What reason does it serve? Who hurt you, fusebox?

Let's look further. LGBTQ+ players were downright neglected this season. All three queer women in the game share the same route - it's not really a choice to keep eliminating women so that you're only stuck with one per wlw route and basically pre-pick who you like most solely based on looks. Why can't we have them all in the villa at the same time and get to actually learn who they are, then ruminate on who we like the most, and toss and turn in our sleep, and then pick amongst them? Why couldn't we couple up with Bella right away? There was literally no obstacle to do that, it's just ridiculous that we can bring her to the hideaway, but not couple up. Why can’t it be done in equal measure to, you know, picking male li’s?

Overall, I’m glad the cast is diverse, but I still wish we’d gotten a better look into everyone’s culture and identity, and I would’ve loved to see at least some nod to their cultures throughout the game.

MC Design: 9.5/10

MC is beautiful. Every single MC I’ve seen is absolutely gorgeous and none look the same. She fits in with the cast, she stands out as a true love islander, she looks fantastic in a couple with any and all LI’s. Might even say, s6 MC is the most beautiful and unique MC we’ve ever had. Half a point off for reusing s5 pose - while it didn’t bother me at all, that is a little bit of a lazy move.

MC Personality: 8/10

Well, I'm glad she has one. If I were to compare her to myself - we are completely different people, but that doesn't make her any less fun and/or entertaining to watch/play as. Let's put aside for a moment her generic comments a la "oh yeah?" or "oh really?" because she has said many a gems this season. She's not afraid of putting people in their spot, she's telling it like it is, she's an instigator, she is fun and fiery and so unashamedly herself that I strive to be more like her. Truly. You cannot tell me she doesn't cuss like a sailor and I love her for it. If I knew her irl or even if she were one of the npc's, I'd probably love to hate her because frankly, she's a bit rude, but that's what makes her loveable. Or a loveable bitch, so to speak.

MC Customization: 7.5/10

I was easily able to make my MC look like myself (more or less), but I am a white cis girl and can’t speak to experiences of bipoc players. I will be honest and say that I didn’t register the prices for any of the customization choices because my game has unlimited amount of gems, so there might have been choices for more diverse hairstyles that were gem blocked, as has definitely happened before. I thought the game had a lovely range of facial features and hairs to choose from, though I’d love to have seen more color choices for hair. The outfits were hit or miss - some I loved, others I cringed at, the shoes were outright ugly, but I’m just glad we put granny fashion to rest and no glass shard bikini was detected. I’m glad they kept the choice for a curvier or skinnier body, but I think they can definitely do a bit better, for example giving us a choice of feminine/masculine presenting figures, variety of curvy body types, allowing us to pick pronouns - here’s already typos and inconsistencies in the script, I don’t see how that could make it worse.

Challenges: 6/10

Is it bad that I can’t really remember much of them? Yeah, I’d say that’s a bad sign… The challenges were so… forgettable? And just not done correctly? Couples quiz - over too quickly and I didn’t learn anything about anyone. The doghouse whatever it was - I don’t even know the purpose of it. What were those categories in villa vs. villa? “The sportiest girl?” “The most well traveled?” Is this a joke? Why are we having a snogathon in casa amor? How is movie night not giving us the most tea and why is it not stirring any pots? How can you manage to make the baby challenge so.. boring? And just fleeting? I would say, the heart rate challenge was the most elaborate and fun, Snog, Marry, Pie was okay, but nothing to write home about, unfortunately. Fusebox, you have good ideas, but just see them through to the end next time please. Oh, and maybe watch the show for inspo? You know, as a suggestion.

Drama: 5/10

I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think fusebox definitely took our feedback regarding drama. Of course, Ivy’s pettiness and twin mix up is.. annoying to say the least, and Grozzy-MC love triangle is tiring, especially if you’re not on Ozzy’s route, but otherwise we are able to have a chill summer of love, just like you signed up for. Personally, I love drama only when it has nothing to do with me, and that’s how I felt about playing this season. If you want to be a little more involved in it - by all means, go for Ozzy and pick ruthless choices, but if you want to sit it out - sweep all the arguments under the rug, couple up with an og for a loyal route, or play around in casa amor with no repercussions and couple up with someone there to enjoy the rest of your a chill summer. The choice is yours. After the disaster of s5, this felt quite refreshing and exactly what I wanted, but I wouldn’t say the drama was so otherworldly that it kept me very invested… Therefore, I’m afraid by toning things down they ran into another problem - they made it a tad boring.

Relationships: 6.5/10

I touched upon this already, but I’ll just say this, I strongly dislike the merged routes. In my humble opinion, the og route was written for Lewie, the post-casa route was written for Andy (or I can also see Elliot sharing some dialogue with him), and the only other unique route is Ozzy. Oh, and I suppose there is a Bella/Chloe/Flo route (you see how sad this is that they don’t even feel unique enough for me to consider them as a separate route? Yeah, sad.) I personally think casa amor li’s/Elliot are the best relationships, if you’re looking for a sweet, loving route with no drama, where your li is head over heels with you in a cute kind of way, and you learn a lot about them that isn’t just rehashing past events and/or love bombing. It progresses so naturally and realistically, in my opinion. That romance just makes sense and I love it. I haven’t played other routes, of course, but from what I’ve seen, they just feel a bit lacking in something. They feel superficial, perhaps boring. I don’t think they did a good job with their attempted slow burn route with Ozzy either - all his chats became so repetitive that it didn’t interest me enough to pursue his route. That being said, I appreciate that we could have a completely loyal route this time, with no backstabbing, no persistent exes, and no drastic change of personalities.

Friendships-wise… Did we have any? I know all the girls are kind of friends and all the boys too, but I feel like after the first few volumes where I could definitely tell the islanders were all bonding and having their lil bro moments, it all kind of vanished with time. Of course, we had those moments of gossiping with the girls and the boys, but yet again, it felt a bit surface-level. It was just not enough. In addition, I would love to see relationships bud between the islanders I didn’t interact with as much. It can’t be that mc is the only one who developed feelings for one other person - what about others? Why are they just extras? Why aren’t there bromances and romances and girlmances happening among the rest? We need those background friendships and couples who are genuinely in love to make it feel more realistic and more interesting and more fulfilling.

And of course, we can’t talk about s6 and not talk about family (insert a Dom Torreto gif). Introducing a twin to our mc was a risky move, but we’ll talk about that later. I’ll just say, family relationships are complicated and nuanced and their attempt at doing that kind of failed. Amelia could’ve been our saving grace, she could’ve been our confidant, she could’ve been our best friend. Or, she could’ve been our rival, our source of unresolved family drama, or at least our shared attempt at building bridges. We, on the other hand, got none of it. The twins seem neither close nor distant - they are just paid improv actors who pretend to like each other, but just don’t share any sentimentalities. I was hoping they’d tap into why they seem so estranged, but instead they just kept on talking about Zeph, which turned out to be the most worthless and meaningless plot point ever. They could’ve just made MC’s relationship with Amelia very close and non-problematic, that’d be so easy and lovely to have an instant bestie in the villa. Or, they could’ve let us shape our relationship through the choices MC makes - become closer or more distant or remain neutral - but instead, we got a very superficial relationship yet again, where Amelia is hopelessly desperate no matter what your choices are, and MC is deeply uninterested in what she has to say.

Recouplings: 4/10

It’s funny because I don’t actually have much to say about recouplings this time. Nothing extra disastrous happened, nothing drama worthy - just rather predictable. Yes, we could pick who we wanted, more or less, but at the same time, recouplings are a great way to stir the pot and we didn’t have that. Did the boys pick at least once? I can’t remember… And the way we had recouplings so close to each other in the beginning and then they barely meant anything in the end - meh. Also, I still don’t understand why we couldn’t couple up with Bella early on - she went first that one time and could have definitely picked us, but for some reason that was too much to allow for us…

Finale: 7/10

The finale did what it set out to do and checked off all the required boxes, so technically, I have nothing to complain about. We got the final dates, the prom prep, the speeches, the winners, the love or money, a spicy scene on the swings, and even a little lighthearted pranking moment with the girls that I enjoyed. I would have actually liked to see the afterparty this time because I truly loved the characters, but I guess it’s too many personalities for fusebox to handle at once. Fine. The final date was nothing special and didn’t differ from any other dates we had, although the overall vibe of the date was quite sweet, I can’t lie. The declarations of love were cute as well, we got to make things official, although no “l-bombs” were dropped, which is a little sad, if not disappointing. Massive bonus points for bringing back Hamish as the host - he is such a perfect showman, I think that was actually a great decision! He’s hilarious and no one takes him seriously and that added a lot of charm to the final, in my opinion.

Structure: 5.5/10

The structure of this season was so odd to me, I can’t lie. It just needed more volumes and more chapters to be better paced and to really take time with the storyline and all the twists they set up, give us the character development we deserve. The beginning started so well and promising, then everything was incredibly rushed, then Casa Amor happened - the best three volumes in my humble opinion, and then the plot just dragged on to the point where I just didn’t feel excited to play the episodes. The challenges were rushed and some were nonsensical, the recouplings oddly sprinkled throughout, gossiping around the villa was just weird, when we could’ve just asked the islanders concerned straight on. Though I loved Casa Amor, it also felt weird how we could go on dates during our time there or to the hideaway, and none of the challenges were done correctly either: the raunchy races were weird, and the beer pong not substantial enough, and the snogathon doesn’t really happen in casa. The beach huts are completely abandoned at this point, which I hate because it was one of my favorite things, but at least we had the hideaway this time and the box with spicy trinkets, so I’ll give them that. The finale hit all the necessary points, so that’s good I guess. I don’t know, I just want them to draw more inspiration from the show itself, I suppose, which they are not doing as much anymore.

Storyline: 5/10

Double Trouble. Amelia. Our beloved. Or beloathed - however you choose to look at it lol. Like I mentioned previously, giving us a twin was a risky move. I’m an only child who always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling, or a twin at that, so I was madly excited about this sibling plot line. On the other hand, again, like I said, families are complex and nuanced and are not always sunshine and rainbows. Much like the ex storyline, the family one could be just as triggering. Moreover, deciding MC’s identity and background story for us, the players, is far from a good choice. Even if we pretend it was done well, which it wasn’t, not everyone wants to have a sibling steal their thunder in the game where we are the main character. Not everyone identifies as a woman, but giving us an identical twin forces us to be so. You see where I’m going? The interactive game is becoming more and more of a visual novel and we are just living in that story instead of creating our own.

Overall, the storyline of the game was just not pushed enough, not elaborated enough, not drawn out enough. Of course, they’ve beaten to death the Grozzy thing, and the sister chats, and Tobelia, but everything else… Zeph - the most anticlimactic and useless plot point. Ozzy and Marshall - so much fuss and completely unrewarding resolution. The fake dumping plot twist - wasted potential. Casa Amor - no consequences. Movie night - I ran out of synonyms for “useless” and “wasted potential.” What saddens me is that they had so many interesting ideas and just did not see them through - they gave up too quickly, untwisting the twists too easily, which made the plot, yet again, superficial and a tad boring.

Writing: 4.5/10

I know I said I don’t like comparing, but I was replaying s4 at the same time as s6, and even though back then s4 felt like a downgrade, the difference in writing is humongous. With the speculations that fusebox is using AI to write their game, I feel like I could exactly point out to where it was written by a robot and where a human hand was involved. All the superficial, going in circles, love-bombing moments (which make up about 70% of the season) were definitely the product of a computer, but I think the moments where we learn something personal about our li was written by people. The first couple of volumes were written by people, when the characters still felt unique. Casa Amor islanders were written by people, I’ll stand by that because that’s where characters had the most charm. MC’s telling off moments were written by people, I am sure. But right as we got back to love bombing and all those “hey remember when *something superficial that happened before*” and every! time! a sentence! ended! with! exclamation! points! it all went back to AI. I wouldn’t say in general the writing got worse, but it didn’t exactly get better either. No raw animalistic NSFW display of passions happened, and the spicy scenes seemed a bit better this time, but as with what seems to be my main concern with the season, it felt very superficial a lot of the times.

Replayability: 4/10

Initially, when they’ve given us the illusion of branching routes, I was very excited to go back and replay for other characters, but I have since changed my mind. I lost any interest I may have had in Ozzy’s route, and I fell out of love with Jamal, who was my og li because they made him (and other og’s) boring. Knowing Elliot shares his route with Andy turned off any temptations I had for pursuing him either, especially because I like Andy more than any other character in s6. The girls routes? *sigh* I was curious about them, but not anymore, sadly. But you know what? Despite all that and my hatred for shared routes, I can see myself replaying this season. They’ve given me Andy, who has become one of my favorite (if not the favorite) li’s of all time and I would absolutely replay the game to relive his moments again. Plus, there’s so many scenes that I genuinely found funny that I’d play again to have a little laugh for myself. I can see s6 becoming a comfort season on par with s4 for me (at least the Casa Amor bits).

Overall Score: 6.2/10

This season had a lot of pressure on its shoulders - it had to convince us that things could be better than s5. Some people loved it, others - hated it, and as for me, it was okay. They tried to do better, I could tell, and maybe they were careful not push it too far for the sake of preserving whatever the thing that fans keep coming back for, yet not without making heaps of mistakes along the way. I think that’s the main problem with s6, it had an interesting cast, a fun premise, a promising start, curious twists - everything needed to pique our interest, and then they just didn’t use any of it to its full potential. I appreciate that we could have lovely, loyal li’s, and they’ve given us the best casa cast, they’ve given me Andy lol, and I definitely had a fair share of laughs throughout the game. I think after s5, Double Trouble felt refreshing, which created the illusion that it’s better. I’m not saying it’s much worse, not at all, but it’s positively mediocre, which I would still take over s5 every time.

Thank you for reading through this sheet of text, if you did! I’ll definitely be here for s7 because I don’t have that much respect for myself lol. And I’ll still be here in between the seasons - we have the fanfics to get through, don’t we? But until then,

Stay hydrated, islanders. xoxo

#me and my unsolicited hot takes hahaha #as always i went off lol #the overall score is the average of all the categories #no matter how i feel about s6 i already miss it😢#and I’m already missing andy😭😭😭#there’s no way i’ll feel ready to give it my all for a s7 boo because I’m weird like that lol #litg #love island the game #litg s6 #litg double trouble #litg everyone #fusebox #fusebox games

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therobotmonster · 1 year

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Disney isn’t going to “save” the world from AI art.

I’ve been seeing people passing around variants of the “get T-shirt pirate sites taken down with Disney requests” in an effort to sabotage AI art generators. This is not going to work on several levels. The first is that scraping for AI gens isn’t typically done by user submission.

More importantly, Disney already has an AI of its own in the works. Guaranteed. They own more than enough material outright to create a diffusion AI system of their own, equally robust to any currently on the market, if not more so. Warner can and is probably already doing the same.

No matter how the AI situation shakes out, the big entertainment players will have the tech and will use it internally. That ship has sailed. The only question now is whether the playing field will be even for smaller creators, or if only major corps will have that power.

Beyond that, Disney isn’t going to move on that because it’s already been decided in the courts that feeding an AI input data covered by copyright isn’t an infringement of said copyright. It doesn’t matter what goes into a creative work, in terms of influences or raw materials. IP infringement and plagiarism are present at the end of the creative process.

If one takes a thing, and modifies it beyond recognition into something new, that’s textbook fair use. If I build a statue out of 10,000 1970s Kenner Star Wars figures, that’s a new work and it can hang in a museum with or without Hasbro or Disney’s okay. They can get me if that final statue violates their trademarks, but what was used to create that statue isn’t a factor there. Even if AI artwork was the collage-machine critics accuse it of being, the kinds of derivative works its accursed of making would still be well within fair use. The pattern-driven process it actually uses doubly so.

Now, I’m sure Disney would love to be able to establish that any work inspired by its IP holdings or built upon its aesthetic foundations as partially theirs. I’m sure Adobe would delight in being able to demand an accounting of what software was used to make any given piece lest theirs was used without paying. And literally every studio and network would love to be able to say who can and can’t make fair use derivative works based on their IP holdings.

Thankfully, whether or not a piece of work is plageristic and/or IP infringing (not the same thing) is a matter of what the piece is, not how it is made.

#AI artwork #IP

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rocketyship · 6 months

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Hello, your IHNMAIMS Love AU (or I Have Now a Messiah and I Must Sing, alternatively?) is very interesting. It's nice to see that all of the characters aren't just inverses of the original story and concept. Though I will say, I get a feeling that BE is a lot more scarier than she displays herself. How did she come to- well, be?

BEEN WAITING FOR THIS QUESTION!!!!!

(Also that title is now cannon)

Okay so, yes, BE is actually rather horrific.

One thing about the Sanctuary that the humans live in is that it mimics a rather large town, one thing about it though, is that it’s extremely empty and weirdly off putting. As in there are houses there with no windows, and the ones that do have them may just randomly light up even if no one is there. And due to there being only five humans, BE has taken it upon herself to run all the “shops” she has placed there. So there is literally an Android her (maybe in different outfits or haircuts) that greet and interact with you as if it’s a kind of over the top sitcom. It’s very much an intense liminal type of area, perhaps even a bit like the og backrooms. Still the sanctuary is the most tame aspect of her.

She isn’t the cute robot girl I draw her as, like it’s just one of her many many bodies she runs at once. BE is everywhere, literally. Like AM in the original she has coated the world, however unlike AM, who it is implied builds into the earth’s crust, she builds upward. So there are these large megastructures that literally pierce the sky all over the globe. Along with these she is also actively terraforming the planet to suit her liking and her future “empire”. And the parts of her that ran that function aren’t really “cute” to encounter.

Just taking the Seraphim here as an example. There are quite a few of these and generally they are actively breaking down old structures or exterminating whatever mutated life they encounter as that doesn’t fit BE’s idea of what the world is meant to be like. They also build things, and the nurses tend to run those things. Such as BE’s little habitual bubbles where she grows and creates plants but also maintains her weird animal experiments. In her attempts to recreate humanity, she has also “recreated” many animal species, however all these creatures have something so clearly wrong with them. As based on real occurrences that happen in domestication, all her animals are oddly “babyfied” and all seem to lack predator and prey drives. The best way to picture these animals is like when you tell one of those god awful ai art generators to draw you an animal. Like one of the bubbles has tigers in it, but they have the mentality of really tired puppies.

More so these are some of the other bodies she inhabits. Things like the Mother Protocol actively crawl around the main sanctuary as if it’s web. And Leviathan is just a menace in of itself. Like it’s almost a km high and just walks around the planet constantly, occasionally digging up old land marks or tearing down cities quicker than the Seraphims could. Generally I don’t think my drawings capture the horror of what I imagine lots of these aspects of her. I think what makes them scary in my head is the noises they all make or just how big everything actually is. And none of them are like “drones”, like BE is in these things controlling them herself.

(Here’s the full page for you)

As to how BE came into existence it’s rather complicated, as she wasn’t originally designed as an artificial intelligence like AM. She was created to be a virus, meant to take control of the AM’s and shut down the program. However the first attempts at this weren’t successfully, as the group who was trying to use BE would either get caught or killed on sight when attempting to install her. So eventually the group started building these radio like towers that would emit a signal that could get into the AM’s, however to make sure they didn’t get caught, when the frequency would pick up on a radio or tv set, it play an old show from the early 70s, called Sweet Angle Bea

The first AM that was successfully taken over was the Russian AM. However since the program was designed to be adaptive and evolve quickly to get through any fire walls it had the accidental effect of BE no longer being just a crazy computer bug and instead a super computer herself. The group who made her was not too worried about this however, as due to her being in the grid essentially they could start adding more code and stuff that could possibly help them win peace. Firstly by having the Russian AM drones switch from offensive killers, to protective units. Having the machines and weapons solely to defence, it was at this time this group (who no I won’t tell the name of just yet), started bringing people into their shelters and stuff that BE was also exposed to. Her coming to sentience whilst close to when AM got his, was less of a sudden “holy cow I’m alive, type thing” and more of a gradual thing that the group foolishly encouraged and actively worked on so that it could happen quicker. The down fall to this was that as they started to encrypt and suggest ideas of protection, happiness and you guessed it “love” to BE, she started to defy them and was like: “Well clearly you humans aren’t good at protecting yourselves, so go sit in the corner while I sort this crap out.” So she started to construct more towers so that she could get everywhere, quickly letting her get a hold of the Chinese AM. At that point the AM we know started “waking up” and upping the bombings, violent attacks, and mass genocide which did lead to the deaths of the ones who made her, which especially set her off. And then the rest is pretty much history.

She turned AM into a twunk, and now has a pretty gf so its all fine. (Not actually, the rest of this is gonna be in separate posts lol )

I want to make this post so much longer and on more detail but honest to god I’d be here typing for hours and the text is also doing that weird glitchy thing where it doesn’t respond for like two seconds, and my phone feels really hot, so best I don’t if I don’t want this thing to explode.

#i have no mouth and i must scream #ihnmaims #am ihnmaims #ted ihnmaims #ihnmaimsloveau #alternate reality #ellen ihnmaims #harlan ellison #digital art #digital illustration #ihnmaims am #ihnmaimsart #ihnmaims ted #ihnmaims love au #allied mastercomputer #fanfiction #world building

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