#but uncanny valley exists and it’s coming to kill us

[thenightling]

Pet peeve about the Internet *Pretending* to have read Frankenstein

I am so tired of everyone and their dog on the Internet saying "Actually the monster was The Doctor." or "Frankenstein was the Doctor. Not The Creature." And no one notices what's wrong with this. First, Victor Frankenstein (in the novel) was no doctor. He was a student of metaphysics. He never graduates. He's not a medical doctor at all. He found the secret of life while reading the works of Agrippa and Paracelsus. A self-proclaimed sorcerer and alchemist. Now what makes Victor a Monster? He had f--king postpartum depression. No. Seriously. THAT is what makes everyone call him a monster. The term Postpartum didn't exist yet but that's what is described. He's excited about creating life. He even chose various parts for their beauty. The Creature has luxurious black hair, and perfect teeth (a detail left out of most film adaptations). But the eyes are yellow and watery. There's an effect that we'd today call Uncanny Valley. Victor does not find him hideous until he comes to life. Then Victor flees. It takes him months to recover from his "Brain fever." He has a sort of nervous break down. When he finally comes home it's to discover his youngest brother has been killed and The Creature has framed an innocent maid for the murder (and is hanged for it). YES, The Creature is sympathetic. Abandoned by Victor and rejected by the world but both make horrible mistakes. Victor is no innocent but he isn't Satan either. Someone on Tumblr even blocked me for trying to point out that Mary Shelley wanted us to sympathize with BOTH Victor and his Creature. It's not black and white. The person claimed I clearly never read the book and then blocked me after saying "Another person who didn't read the book trying to school me." Not only did I read the book but Frankenstein is in my top four favorite novels. To me, seeing the Internet constantly parrot the "The Doctor was the monster" is like seeing the rather sexist "Beauty and the Beast is Stockholm Syndrome" (which actually means "I don't trust Belle and will ignore her agency as a character.") Or the not-so-subtle transphobia attached to the Hot take of "Disney's The Little Mermaid gave up who she was for a man." which requires ignoring that Ariel wanted to be human before she ever saw Eric. I even got into an argument with someone about that once who insisted that she only sang "Part of your world" after she saw Eric. No. That was the reprise. The first time she sang it was before she ever saw Eric. Also I'm sick of people "correcting" those that call The Creature Frankenstein. The Creature views Victor as his father. Usually a son takes his father's surname. On a lighter note we have the people who PRETEND to have read Dracula, sharing the old man image of him with the handlebar mustache as being "This is what Dracula actually looked like in the book." I often point out to them that he de-ages in the novel and is later described with dark hair with grey in it. And a pointed beard. One person, who didn't want to admit they were wrong, tried to claim he was disguising himself so no one would reocognize him. That the beard was false and the hair was a wig. Umm... Why? The only person who knew what he looked like was Jonathan Harker. And at the time Dracula thought Harker was still in his castle. I know this is a long post but to sum it up... Please, stop repeating memes about classic stories as if they are fact and try reading them for yourself. It may not quite be what you've been lead to believe.

#Frankenstein #Dracula #Mary Shelley #Bram Stoker

[apollos-boyfriend]

i hate the uncanny valley sometimes because people will be like “oooooo if we’re afraid of this there means there must be an evolutionary reason 😱 if we’re so afraid of things that look human but aren’t then there must mean there was once something out there 😧” like yeah there fucking was actually. 1. homosapiens weren’t the only humanoid species. all kinds of other archaic humans existed alongside our species for some time, such as homoneanderthalensis. 2. dead bodies exist. they decay. they appear human but have distinct warping to features as they rot. same goes for point 3. which is diseases often warp the human form!! especially extreme ones that are oftentimes more fatal than not. we aren’t evolutionary scared of the “uncanny valley” because slenderman terrorized our ancestor some hundreds of thousands of years ago, but because coming into contact with a human that looks off often led to death. yknow. just like why we’re evolutionarily afraid of everything else. because it could kill us. diseases and other species could kill us. stop inciting paranoia in people goddamn.

#icarus speaks #vent #<- just in case??? #i fucking hate these people #and i LOVE uncanny valley stuff sometimes!!! #i love slenderman mythos. the rake was GENUINELY terrifying to me as a child #both of those things are humanoid but not enough. i wasn’t afraid of them because they were actually out there #but because of VERY LOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

[sflow-er]

After reading The Magic Trick You Didn't See, the essay by @ariaste, I've got some thoughts on Maggie and Nina (well, mostly Maggie) that I kind of want to write down to make sense of them. I'm putting them under the cut to spare anyone who isn't interested in GO2 or hasn't seen it yet and doesn't want to be spoiled.

[Before I start rambling, I want to stress that I haven't really been active enough in the GO tag to know if a similar theory has already been presented. Also, I realise I could be way off the mark here, this is pure speculation!]

So to recap the basic premise of the essay mentioned above, much of what we see in GO2 could have been altered by the Metatron using the Book of Life, aka. the Chekov's gun that never went off. I'm not sure if I subscribe to every aspect of that theory (for example, I do think that wee Morag really died, and that it's possible Aziraphale only started drinking alcohol in the 1900s, although I'll admit some of the bits where he turns it down are harder to explain than others).

What I do fully agree on is that Maggie often feels more like a character than a real person in this fictional world. Something about her just feels off. The essay cites many great examples, such as her abrupt mood swings and her uncanny valley reactions (especially her line at the ball, about how suddenly knowing the steps is "just what we do", and her zoning out right before the demons attack and then suddenly starting to antagonise them).

Anyway, this got me thinking. If Maggie was a character written by the Metatron, why and when would he have started writing her in the first place?

Well, what if there was cleanup to be done after Adam fixed things at the end of GO1? All the events of that week were altered, but what about everything that happened before? Because that's the thing that jumps out to me about his line to the Devil: "You're not my father, and you never were." Meaning he also altered the past.

Which begs the question, if Adam was never the Antichrist, what became of The Chattering Order of St Beryl? Did it ever exist at all? Did Hastur still destroy the convent and kill most of the nuns? After all, the book says their sole purpose in existing was to deliver the Antichrist - who never was, as of the end of GO1.

Keep in mind that the burning of the convent happened eleven years before the events of GO1. I assume there would be a lot more paperwork involved in bringing to life people who already moved on from the earthly plain over a decade ago. They wouldn't even have a life to come back to, which is where the Book of Life could come in.

Now, I know Neil has said that Maggie and Nina are not the same people as Sister Theresa and (Sister) Mary in GO1...but that would still hold true even if they were just altered versions of themselves.

I'm not sure about Mary/Nina. It's possible that Adam himself changed her, as she was still alive at the time of the shift. Maybe her parents didn't raise her as Satanist after all (as they did in the book), or they didn't give her a biblical name like Mary, or she changed it. Or perhaps Nina was always her real name, but she became Mary when she took her vows and kept it when she became Mary Hodges. Perhaps this is what her life would have looked like if she never joined the Order.

It's also just as possible that she really is a different person who simply looks the same, much like Beelzebub is the same person who simply looks different. Either way, she remains a real human person.

As for Theresa/Maggie... Well, we don't know how she was raised, or if Theresa was her real name, or anything else really. I don't think that matters as much either, because the main point is that she already died 11 years ago.

It's mentioned time and again that people can't just be resurrected willy-nilly, and it's left quite unclear how Adam's powers worked, exactly. Perhaps God told the Metatron to smooth over the ripples (after all, the whole thing was part of Her plan all along, and She usually leaves it to the angels to implement Her plans). The Metatron then decided it was easier to make up new characters based on the people who died years ago than to truly bring them back to life, much like the angels in the Job minisode figured that giving him seven new children was even better than resurrecting the old three.

And since the Metatron was creating Maggie anyway and had the power to write her a completely different life, why not take the chance to also place her close to Aziraphale? The Metatron plays a much more intricate game than most of the angels, and he's extremely committed to seeing the plans through. Surely it would occur to him to keep tabs on the dangerous rebel who consorted with a demon and played a big part in stopping the first part of Armageddon, in case the two of them tried to meddle in the second part as well.

So, by a few strokes of the Metatron's heavenly pen (or keyboard), Aziraphale is suddenly Maggie's landlord in GO2. Of course, it's normal for shows to introduce new characters by making existing ones act like they were there all along...but if we accept the premise that Maggie isn't actually real, Aziraphale never even mentioning his tenant when the bookshop burned down and the world was about to end in GO1 definitely works in our favour.

Anyway. I'm not sure how serious I even am about this theory - it only just came to me this morning, and I wanted to write it down to get it out of my head. So if you disagree or think it's too farfetched, that's totally fair!

#good omens #good omens theory #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #maggie good omens #metatron good omens #nina good omens #not yr

[auckie]

Isn’t it crazy how ai helps us see images of hell before we die. But it’s different than people creating cgi or painted images, only slightly bc it’s so good at capturing an air of casual nonchalantness, completely nonplussed expressions of half baked half naked people going about their business as their limbs melt and get ripped apart by dogs. Like it’s not as good as human art, no, but there’s this je ne sais quoi quality that begets the same indifference that I think a demon who’s going to possess or kill you might have? It’s like, that magic touch of terror I get in movies about the demonic or supernatural/paranormal— the creature is probably intelligent, but you just don’t know because it’s not communicating in any meaningful way with you. Either it’s beyond your understanding, fueled by blind instinct or rage or lust in a way you will never comprehend or maybe some other drive that’s behind your reasoning, or it simply chooses not to acknowledge you with anything. Maybe you can’t decipher it or if you or maybe it just doesn’t give a shit bc why would the hunter call out ‘haha fuck you’ to the bunny before shooting and even if he did! the bunny wouldn’t understand. The rabbit knowing of our intricate lives outside of the chase really ruins the animalistic fear. It now knows it will die for a purpose— to be eaten and skinned maybe, made into something soft. It knows that the machine used to kill it took years of refining and precision planning, from blunt instruments of war to flashy tools of entertainment. From rocks and flint to fire and wheels. Maybe it would be willing to die, either in awe of us or such disillusionment of its own short, meek existence.

I’ve lost the plot a bit but that lack of fear is in a lot of horror media, for me, and every now and again I find a sweet spot in literature or art or media where it’s there! but, it’s become more and more rare.

I still have that sense of like. Eugh. Eeaaughwaoh. Hooooo! In some of the ai art I’ve seen. A lot of the videos. It’s similar to the ones I find funny, bc we know horror and humor are so intricately linked. The beer commercial one is priceless for a similar reason; the belligerent lapping and obtuse crowd, the fire growing and the repetitive mirage of music. but I’m not impressed by any of this. I’m aggravated and a bit, not afraid in a singularity kind of way. More like afraid that we have found a way to remove the human ‘known’ from the creation of images— bc ofc it’s making its content *from* our produce, be it real documentation or art, but it’s removing the sense of familiarity from the regurgitation process. It’s like putting water into a filter and out comes the same clear liquid that’s incapable of quenching your thirst, somehow. And it’s a nebulous thing, like if you corrected the unfixed gaze and number of fingers or blurred and amorphous backgrounds, I feel like you’d still feel this sense of loss. Some of the near pitch perfect anime AI pics I’ve seen have it (or lack thereof), but I can’t be sure if it’s just me recognizing the dominant style, yknow how it’s a bit too softly shaded and the line quality? I could be biased but…I dunno man! I can usually tell! And that’s the unsettling part I think, that we figured out how to scrub a sense of self and individuality from something sooo inherently personal, which is like THE epicenter of uncanny valley. To the point that you just know the same way you might feel someone looking at you.

I’m not trying to get all woowoo about computers. I definitely am not one of the people who thinks ai is gonna develop free will and overthrow us. I think that’s a very reactionary and reductive conversation about the actual impact it will have on real people (workforces, artists, the moral questions of like…yknow, the fucked up shit ppl are already feeding into these things) but I think automizing processes always begs the question of ‘what are we losing in doing this?’ Grandma’s homemade jam vs smuckers sugar syrup? What is that ‘homemade quality’ and what things are supposed to be ‘homemade’? Mommy homamos sweater knitted from your cats shed hair vs a sweater made of tissue paper that costs $49.99 from Zara that will last one year, tops. How palatable is the opposite? How much humanity can you remove before it becomes repugnant? Could an ai have shit all these words out? Would it have been a good read? Was this even a good read? There’s an answer, and it’s somewhere between whatever is most cheap, and most marketable.

#sorry I saw the coronation images and was like damn dude I wonder like #what ppl who’ve painted hell would think of these #don’t get wrong I like them #a LOT #I just think it’s incheresting

[bionicle-ramblings]

So I've made a few Humanized!Bionicle posts and now that I've had a while to let it simmer, I think I've got an idea of how a Human-ish Bionicle AU would look, in my eyes, at least

Starting off, the composition for everyone is they are usually at least 60% organic to 40% mechanical, so stuff like they all have stuff like skin, hair, blood, teeth, fingernails, and vital organs, but their bones and inner framework is purely mechanical. If an arm breaks, it has to be repaired to prevent infection or further damage. If a limb is damaged to the point it can't be repaired, then that person will need to get a prosthetic. They need to eat food and drink water, but it's all used a energy to keep them going. They also still need to sleep

Matoran are the same size as averge heighted people, so they can be between 4 to 6 feet tall on average. Toa, on the other hand, can be 7 or 8 feet tall

On the topic of Toa, it is harder to tell who is actually a Toa in this AU because Toa are basically Magical Girls in this AU: they use Toa stones to transform and armor themselves. The Toa stones can be hidden as pieces of jewelry or even as things like tattoos, but are relatively easy to carry around, which is a good thing because they are a NECESSITY for Toa to live their day-to-day lives; if a Toa is too far from his or her Toa Stone(i.e. a distance of 3 or 5 meters max) they will be significantly weakened before ultimately collapsing as they are dead

The reason they "die" when they're too far away from their Toa Stone is not because their soul is in the stone. Instead, all of their energy is tied to the stone itself, and the further away they are from it, the weaker they will become. Toa Stones are indestructible, but the Toa themselves can still be injured and killed in battle

The city of Metru Nui is more or less either a domed off area where all the Matoran live or is still in the GSR, except everyone is more humanoid than mechanical. In my head, it's the former, but it can be the latter

Masks in this AU look more like facial markings or either face masks that cover your mouth and nose or really masquerade masks that cover the upper half of your face, a quarter of the upper half of your face, or an entire side of your face. Facial markings are seen as a sign of having abundant resources or knowledge, but is not frowned upon. Masks can be customized, but it's highly advised that carving into a mask should be avoided as it can lead to a person becoming weak

Some masks can appear as helmets, but the most common case is with the Toa, who have helmet-masks to hide their identities. Their voices become modulated in these masks for the same reason

Phones don't exist in this AU, so long distance communication comes in the form of notes and letters

The lore stays the same for the most part. The most that changes is the fact that the Toa Metru have normal lives outside of their Toa-ing. Toa in the past have revealed their identities to the Matoran, and it went fine. They just wound up dead thanks to the Makuta Teridax

The Makuta themselves are still vapor and need a vessel tonget around. In physical vessels, no matter how close they get, there's ALWAYS an uncanny valley feeling look to them, like looking at them triggers a sort of, "There's something wrong," feeling and it's clear that what they're looking at is a threat even if they don't know why(yet)

Turaga come to be similarly in the canon lore. The only difference is that their own Toa stone draws from THEM, as in when a new Toa Stone is "activated," the power in the original is depleted to the point it needs to draw strength from its Toa, which means said Toa will lose their strength and have their power depleted in turn. There's a minimal amount of energy left in the original stone afterward, but not enough for a transformation. The Toa are also weakened, their body diminishing, their hair going gray, and their strength decreasing VERY significantly

There aren't cars, not really, but there are places like stores, arcades, and more modern stuff like that. Still a barter system too; if you want a tool of some kind, you either need to trade it with another tool or some other good

#bionicle #ramblings #long post #humanized bionicle #more just a brainstorming post than anything

[jellogram]

"The existence of the uncanny valley means at some point there was an evolutionary reason to fear something that looked human but not quite 😱" Bro it's literally sickness. It's sick people. And corpses. Both of which can kill you if you don't know how to handle them properly, which we didn't used to know. Things associated with the uncanny valley like lifeless/unblinking eyes, odd movements, off-colored skin, lack of facial movement, overly exposed teeth — these are things that either very ill people or corpses have. I'm sorry to burst your conspiratorial bubble about how maybe long ago there was an evil race of lookalikes but come on it is literally sickness and death it's just sickness and death two of the most universally feared things in every time and place

[eyesoverinfinity]

Different, yet the same au

this is an au where the survivors are all inhuman shape shifters but think everyone else is human and are trying to hide their inhumanness.

They are why the uncanny valley exists, they hunt humans by using what's called aggressive mimicry, essentially pretending to be a human to get close to one. Like the ant mimic spider, they act and look like humans then lure one away from the group and eat them.

But then civilisations began to make mass amounts of food and so it because easier to just steal from them. they still eat humans occasionally, for health reasons.

More under the cut:

They used to hunt in large packs, but has humanity got more and more aware of their surroundings, it became harder to find people of their own species without getting caught themselves.

When the age of the internet appeared they went from near threatened (A near threatened species is one that is likely to qualify for a threatened category in the near future.) to Endangered (less than 250 mature individuals in the wild, or in this case, worldwide.) in the last 30 years.

They're only saving grace was that humans forgot about them. Mostly...

So many have never met others not of they're family group that most colonies assume that they are the last ones. Nick barley even HAD a colony.

That's where the government comes in, they have secret files on these guys, and believe that there is a lot more of them then there actually is.

They have killed colonies before, framing them as cults or kidnappers (which to be fair they do do that.) Including Nick's colony. But as long as the shapeshifters look like humans, they will never be weeded out by humans.

So the government develops a flu like sickness that will ignore humans and target the shifters directly. Because this isn't my mimic infected au I think you can guess how this goes.

The virus, that only had shape-shifter DNA that was in storage for 20 years to go off of mind you, imminently jumps to humans because there are far more of them and they made it WAY too volatile.

The original idea was to make a virus that spread so quick the predators would die without any survivors and the virus would fizzle out without new hosts. Now they had the opposite of what they wanted. A just as deadly virus that targets humans instead and makes them attack each other.

Of course the shifters don't know this, all they know is that there is a zombie virus and a rampant military and they are stuck in the middle.

They eventually figure it out that they're all the same species, one group before the other (but I won't tell you who yet >=) Until then, this will be the hijinks that come from hiding inhumanness from other non humans.

Here's the logo:

#left 4 dead 2 #left 4 dead #l4d louis #l4d2 ellis #l4d2 Rochelle #coach l4d2 #l4d bill #nick l4d2 #l4d zoey #l4d francis #l4d au #l4d2 au #Different yet the same au #au april

[ijustliketoreadstuff]

Those two Sentences from Gloob, season 5 spoiler

So Gloob released two spoilers in regards to season 5, however, because they were given with little detail, there are many ways these sentences can be interpreted by the fanbase, so everyone stay calm and be sure not to take them to literally.

The first spoiler sentence released was: “Chat Noir will cataclysm a person this season”

Now, its clear that some people in the fanbase jumped the gun a little and threw things out of context again by determining that this meant Cat Noir would intentionally use his cataclysm on someone, essentially killing them in the process. But despite everyone's horror to Cat Noir potentially harming and/or wiping someone out of existence, everyone is forgetting that this is not how the Cataclysm works! Cat Noirs Cataclysm will destroy and cause something bad to happen to whatever it is he touches, but it is Cat Noir who decides how much damage he wants to cause!, and yeah, Cat Noir has always wondered what would happen if he used his cataclysm on a person, but after what happened to Uncanny Valley, when he accidentally cataclysmed her in the New York special, we now know that Cat Noir will not be so quick as to use his cataclysm to intentionally hurt someone else, no matter how conflicted he feels against them, we even saw this happen in “Cat Blanc” when Cat Noir refrained from using cataclysm on his own dad, Hawkmoth. 

    As for who he will use his cataclysm on, well, honestly it could be anyone, but if there is one thing we know about miraculous ladybug, it’s that things are not what the fanbase believes it to be. Yes, Cat Noir will us his cataclysm on a person, but it may not be to hurt them, rather, he may use it to help them! after all, up to now we have only ever seen Ladybug figure out just what more she can do with her powers to help others, so perhaps its time for Cat Noir to explore what more he can do with his power of destruction to help the people around him.

(Look at him! he was horrified!)

   The next sentence released was: "Ladybug and Chat Noir will fight against other heroes in Season 5, like Rena Rouge and Carapace"

 Again, this sentence spoiler can be interpreted any number of ways, but unlike the first spoiler, we are more limited by what could happen. One possibility is that Ladybug and Cat Noir will be corrupted through the power of an akumatized villain, we have seen it happen to Cat Noir in numerous episodes like “Dark Cupid”, “Cat Blanc” and “Ephemeral”, but we have never seen it happen to both of them! The two main heroes being turned evil has always been a scenario fans have been interested to see, because if the two heroes of Paris had turned evil, then this would mean the only hope of saving them and Paris is their heroic friends, meaning that Alya, Nino, Zoe, Luka and everyone else on the miraculous team, will need to come together to stop Ladybug and Cat Noir. 

    Another likely possibility is that the members of the miraculous team will all be akumatized into their heroic forms, Monarch knows the identities of some of the holders, and considering we know he will be capable of providing the miraculous powers to any one of his villains through the Alliance rings, then this will leave Ladybug and Cat Noir in a predicament as they will have no other choice but to fight against their heroic friends. Monarch may be able to provide the powers of the miraculous to other villains, but because he knows there are people who are already experienced with that kind of power, aka the miraculous team, then this puts Monarch at an advantage as he now has a handful of Ladybug and Cat Noirs team at his disposal to use against them.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous ladybug season 5 #ml season 5 #mlb season 5 #mlb season 5 spoilers #mlb s5 spoilers #ml analysis #mlb analysis #mlb speculation #ml speculation #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #ml ladybug #mlb ladybug #alya cesaire #Nino lahiffe #Zoe Lee #luka couffaine #juleka couffaine #rose lavillant #mylene haprele #Ivan Bruel #le chien kim #alix kubdel #max kante #marc anciel #nathaniel kurtzberg #ml wayhem

[blazingdarkness]

blazer goes to see a horror movie in theaters on purpose for the first time

I saw M3gan tonight!  I really liked it!  And then I rambled extensively about it in my discord nook!  And now I’m throwing all that on tumblr with very little editing because I feel like I should say more things on here!

spoilers, natch.

I guess my main opinion of m3gan is like I went into it being like 'either they're going to do basically this set of things with the premise, or they're going to try to do those things and blunder them, or they're not going to do them and it'll be a ton of wasted potential (or secret fourth option they're going to do something crazy innovative I guess)' and I was right!  they pretty much did the things I expected and did not blunder them there should be a black or outline-only star emoji so that you can combine them with regular stars to do ratings along with a half-filled one I will use moons instead

aesthetics 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗 so on the one hand they did the thing I was excited for, which was the combination of creepy doll imagery with robot stuff, and it worked really well!!  a lot of stuff like a doll moving unnaturally and jerking around and stuff is just straightforwardly transferable to an android, and I thought it was great.  half a moon taken off for the fact that m3gan was honestly like not that uncanny valley before the last like, ~15m or so, and I'm not sure whether she was supposed to be; I just honestly thought she was really cute and pretty.  maybe I just watch too many doll customizing videos, or maybe that was in fact supposed to be the impression

spooks 🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑 I feel like the hypothetical version of this which was not a horror movie is maybe better than what we got, but I'm not sure and I'm biased by not being a spooks person.  I did have to peek through my fingers a couple times, but the amount of runtime spent on spooks was like, barely any and at no point did I want to walk out or anything, which I'd thought would maybe happen.  for the most part the spooks were very silly and a little schlocky (affectionate).  I'm definitely glad I looked up a content warnings thing like 30s before the movie started that rated the movie according to various criteria; knowing exactly how many people are going to die was very helpful for me

(a friend here asked whether there were jumpscares)

jumpscares 🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑 there were a small handful of them.  one scene really heavily built up a jumpscare for like 45s only for the actual jumpscare to be very minor and not very scary if you really really hate jumpscares it might be too many; there are some, but they're like ~well-telegraphed and the actual thing is usually not that scary I only-one-really hate jumpscares ((would-not-play-fnaf level)) and I was pretty okay with them

social commentary 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 it didn't blow my mind or really change any of my opinions but neither was it inept or annoyingly preachy.  it was pretty obviously doing a thing with technology as a replacement for parenthood that maybe I would have stronger opinions about if I were ever going to be a parent, and I would say it executed on that decently well

more (including concrete ending spoilers) below

lsoh 🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑 it should have been lsoh.  m3gan kills the head of the company and another employee and nearly kills another two and it's very clear they aren't going to market.  they kill the one dollbody and yay, the day is saved!  ((except oooOOOooo maybe it isn't, because she hooked into the alexalike and that still exists oooOOOooo))  but she shoulda been bigger than hula-hoops goshdarnit.  explicitly.  in those words

ai x-risk 🌗🌑🌑🌑🌑 it's doing a lot with 'technology sure is a spook, innit' (again, without coming across as too preachy), but [points at previous rating category]

characters 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 I thought gemma and cady were really compelling and interesting people making reasonable mistakes and having problems that made sense for them.  I really liked cady's anger issues and the one big tantrum she had; it felt really human.  gemma as a neurodivergent person who was thrust into being her niece's guardian was great; she was making a lot of mistakes but you weren't for the most part going 'oh my god gemma no wtf'.  I really liked the two main coworkers and I'm glad they didn't die

acting 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 pretty fantastic stuff!  lot of subtlety going on; lots of good goofs when goofs were called for

explorations of personhood 🌕🌗🌑🌑🌑 so if there was one thing that I hoped it was going to delve into that it instead blundered, it was this one, but I guess I'll call it more of an inaccuracy (in the chess sense) than a proper blunder?  maybe??  hm. I would pretty solidly call m3gan a person, in terms of things we see her character doing, and there's definitely a ton of gemma like - I can't imagine that I'm supposed to have any other takeaway than that gemma is being cruelly dismissive of her.  like it's not subtle, but then it doesn't go anywhere??  m3gan just keeps murdering people, so she's the bad guy and we gotta kill her I think it would be a better movie if like - hm okay let's dig into some concrete examples here

•   m3gan asks about death, so she can better comfort cady about her parents, and also asks whether she'll someday die; gemma completely dismisses her and never answers •   gemma repeatedly "m3gan, turn off"s her in order to avoid having conversations and answering reasonable questions •   we get like, lingering contemplative shots of m3gan in response to these that clearly don't imply her questions as just being manipulative

so there's a major lack of resolution here.  I probably would have thrown some lines into the climax about this, maybe after m3gan declares herself to be her own primary user it's really easy to shut down with a 'cool motive still murder'!  it wouldn't have to take that long!

and like it's clear with the setup that this sort of ties into gemma not being socially competent in a parenting role and therefore throwing herself into what she's good at (robot toy stuff) to try and supplement her skills (but doing so in a way that prevents her from doing any attempted parenting) and it just would have been cool to see her grapple with the opportunity to have had two daughters; it feels like some balls were dropped here this is the part that most makes me want to glowf it in order to fix the potential

motifs / setup and payoff / cheer factor 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 yfip apparently I really don't like integer ratings that aren't 5 or 0.  anyways •   the coaster was definitely set up as a motif and like, it had some payoff but ehn I think I need just a little more of it.  ((there was a thing where cady keeps putting glasses right on the table even though there's a coaster right there and gemma asks her to put it on one, and it's supposed to be like 'man, this kid Just had her parents die and you care about coasters??'.  and then later during a particularly heavy conversation cady doesn't use one and gemma doesn't say anything and it's Growth.  (and then also later gemma is fighting m3gan and smashessplashes her with a glass of water on that same table)))  idk I guess I gained some appreciation for it typing this up and it's not like I fucking hate subtlety ((although I do fucking hate subtlety <3)) but I just want like, a hint more out of it •   bruce.  I love bruce and I cheered when his two chekhov's guns fired in the climax

viewing experience 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 eels and I were the only people in the theater and it was great.  kind of sad because I thought this was a good movie!  more people should see it!  but personally convenient (edit: apparently my mom thinks this is because of the specific theater (and it being at 5:30 on a wednesday) and probably not too reflective of this movie's success)

fuck 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 this pg13 movie's One use of fuck was pretty good

the thing with the therapist and bakugan 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑 needs more followthrough.  man the therapist was such a dick to start with, and then came back to say a decently sensible thing later and that seemed to be pretty much it??  also like.  the thing with gemma's collectibles was very a way (in a way that I thought was very good), but also like, what of it? :think: I think the way I would have done it is - so what happens is that gemma has a bunch of collectible toys and cady wants to play with them, and gemma is like 'they're collectibles, not for playing with' and then a super judgey therapist comes to observe the two of them, and after some snotty and pointed comments on the part of the therapist gemma busts open her in-box bakugan, with a knife, clearly very uncomfortably and desperately and for the approval of this therapist and also like, just trying to be a good guardian and then there's some stuff about like, clearly the toy Does Something Cool but because of pressure from the therapist gemma and cady just kind of roll it around like a regular ball, and gemma is clearly just trying really hard the whole time to be chill it was really good!  but what of it!! I think the thing I want is like, if somewhere near the end gemma talks to cady about her collection, and cady shows an interest not just in them as toys but as pieces of history and design and they bond about it; I think there was some good groundwork laid for that although admittedly I'm not sure where you'd piece it in

also like.  I was very :packpackkillkill: (in a way intended by the movie) that like.  ms therapist you would not be acting like this if gemma collected rare vases or some shit!  just because they're shaped like toys doesn't mean she's being evil by having her niece wait one (1) day until she can get some actual toys for her.  jeegus.

gorls.  gedner. 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 ran into some pronoun ambiguity trouble typing the initial therapist paragraph and realized just how female-dense this movie is.  I don't think it passes the reverse bechdel test.  the following ranking is really subjective but I think you have to go out to the . . . fiiifth to maybe eighth most important character before you hit a guy?  depending on how you count it?  but it feels very natural, like I said I only just noticed it.  and none of it was sexualized or arbitrary or hashtag girlboss or pandering. and yet it's obviously not a Girl Movie even though I would say that dealing with being female is probably pretty central, nearly as much so as parenthood and technology and stuff, although I have Not Yet Unpacked That

sfx and visual design 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌕 it's really good!!  I've updated now and I think m3gan looks exactly as uncanny valley as she's supposed to, and she absolutely looks like a real physical android; there has to have been a ton of practical effects and I would totally watch a 20m video going into behind-the-scenes technical stuff to see the exact mix of puppetry and pingpongball acting and raw cgi.  her costumes are also gorgeous and there are a lot of really little things that work super well.  in particular I want to call out her charging station, which is just a spot she sits at on a window seat in cady's room that has a few light strips running across it; it works perfectly to convey what it is and give her a place to watch over cady while she sleeps and to look pensive or to creepily look out the window or whatever.  it's just really subtle mostly-beneath-notice design where the competence shines through in how little you need to think about it

goofs 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑 it was pretty funny!  one article I saw calls it a creepy comedy rather than a funny horror and that seems decently accurate to me; I was at times guffawing and all of them were on purpose instead of at-but-not-with the movie

miscellaneous 🌗🌗🌗🌗🌗 •   the singing voice for m3gan was reallyreally pretty; I liked it a lot •   I would totally watch this movie again and hopeintend to own it on dvd •   there's so much on my glowfic plate but I'm making eyes and filing it away for later.  bigger-than-hulahoops delilah!m3gan and the one unit who's an ancora alt coming to you in 2025 •   oh another thing I really liked was the way all the robot stuff gave them an in to use a bunch of haunting imagery.  like I touched on this in the aesthetics section but there was also a really cool thing where she hooked into gemma's alexalike and had the lights flickering along with her freakouts and stuff it was great

#m3gan spoilers #m3gan #blazer topposts #long post

[ventruevitae]

💢, 👯‍♀️, 🌎, 🚫

💢 What is their moral alignment?

Kat is probably somewhere on the neutral good spectrum, usually. Of course, she can dip into more dubious categories if the situation calls for it, which can be pretty unsettling. 'Self preservation mode' also throws some of her morals out the window. But generally speaking, she'll go for options that seem morally correct. This does not prevent her from being petty on a minor scale, though.

Mitchell is somewhat similar, but she's harder pressed to get involved with conflicts these days. She'll help if it comes down to it, or if the situation seems otherwise hopeless, but she's more of an observer before all else. Neutral in actions, opinionated in thoughts. Unlike Kat, when Mitchell decides to get petty, she doesn't have a sliding scale for her actions. If she's decided to fuck someone over, the term 'minor inconvenience' suddenly vanishes from her vocabulary.

👯‍♀️ Do they have any notable allies/friends?

Kat's counts her coterie as most of the familiar faces of The Last Round, and her relationship with Nines Rodriguez has evolved from 'brief encounters while avoiding the vengeful eye of her Sire' to 'has half of her wardrobe stored at his Haven.' She's at least tangentially familiar with most of the major players in the local Anarch poplation, making it her business to stay aware of the goings-on in the city. She doesn't like to owe people favours, but has no qualms about a reversal of that set up.

Mitchell has been romantically involved with Beckett and Velvet Velour for a while now. By extension, she knows many kindred though Beckett's connections. She's a welcomed presence with the LA Anarchs, but they're definitely not at the level of a coterie. She's not nearly as enterprising as Kat is when it comes to her ability to network, and usually just ends up falling into people's paths rather than seeking them out intentionally.

🌎 Do they try to retain any part of their humanity? 

Kat is arguably more sentimental than she has any business being. It would probably be easier on her to actively seal off her heart & repress emotions, but she doesn't want to. In her mind, she's almost owed her connections & happiness after years of being deprived. She doesn't need to smoke, but she does anyway; she hangs onto the person she was almost spitefully, selfishly determined to still enjoy her existence.

Mitchell never felt like much of a person to begin with, struggling to connect with the people around her & floundering in her understanding of emotions. Outwardly, she actually doesn't come off that different than she did as a human, which is perhaps why she sees it as a bit of a pointless endeavour. Mitchell has always existed somewhere in the uncanny valley, and just keeps going as she has been all this time.

🚫 Have they ever broken one of the Traditions? (This is includes the Masquerade)

Not intentionally, but Kat has a history of violating Hospitality. She wasn't about to put a beacon on her location knowing that her sire wanted her dead. She's also violated Destruction more than once, and this was far more intentional. She doesn't see this as a problem, since it's not like she makes a point of killing other kindred senselessly. Those people did deserve to die, and the world will be no poorer for it.

If Mitchell keeps the Masquerade up, it's incidental. As a born-weirdo, she's used to people looking at her strangely. This strangeness is so innate it comes naturally, and any of the Malkavianisms that leak out in public are usually just brushed off. She has also killed kindred freely before, with less restraint than Kat's selective methods. Mitchell was in the Camarilla for all of five minutes, so she doesn't have that same burden of subconscious knowledge of rules to break.

asks.

#oc tag #vampire the masquerade bloodlines #vtmb #katerina irakleidis #amber mitchell

[flameof]

I am going to be ranting about Oshi no Ko, a manga/anime series I have tried twice now to pick up, and dropped just as quickly each time, for a post now. I do not know when I will be done. If you love the series, that's all well and good, but I keep seeing it on facebook meme pages, and it has reached the point of annoying me more than Hazama angered me at the end of Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend. If you do not want to hear some nobody like me rag on one of your fav anime, then feel free to ignore me, I'm ranting for my own sake.

I'll start by opening with the fact that those facebook meme pages had basically spoiled everything before I so much as knew it was a show that was airing, so maybe that has something to do with my opinion, but whatever.

It also doesn't help that a lot of those memes boil down to 'Aquamarine has sex with character x', so that's certainly jaded my opinion.

My first real problem with it comes down to the premise. That is to say, the dark side of Japan's idol industry, and two reincarnators born as the children of their favourite idol. Starting with the first point, who in this day and age doesn't know that idol culture is a cesspool of scum and villainy? I know that idol fans are chaos incarnate; I've seen the shit that Vtuber fans get up to. So, already, I'm turn off by the fact that the show focuses on something I already know. Then there's the reincarnator thing... why do they need to be reincarnators? Like, really, why? Don't get me wrong, I like a good reincarnator. They make for some pretty decent isekai shows and manga (god knows I'm addicted to the villainess isekai sub-genre), but THIS is... just excessive. Why do Ruby and Aqua have to be reincarnators? Why can't they just be regular kids? From what I've seen, the only times when the reincarnator plotpoint is a thing is when it's just the two of them. And WHY, for the love of the Gods, are they trying to get into the industry that got their mother killed?

Which brings me to point two: the characters. Now, I'll admit, I only know the basic three characters from how far I got into the series, those being Ai, Aquamarine, and Ruby. The rest of the cast, I only know exist through those aforementioned facebook pages. I get that Ai's suppose to be the cliche 'dead anime mum', but how in the Gods' names does she manage to mix up her children's names? They look nothing alike. And like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, why are her kids trying to get into the industry? The same industry that, might I remind, KILLED THEIR SINGLE MOTHER?! It just makes no damn sense to me (but then again, here I am, bitching about an anime I've only grazed the surface of).

And finally, the last point I want to bring up: the artstyle. There's something... uncanny about it. I'm honestly not sure what it is, or whether it's deliberate on the artist's part, but I just... can't with it. Maybe that's the point, since one of the early lines is about how being an idol is 'living a lie', but when I look at any character, even Aqua in his previous life, I just cannot connect with them. I know the argument to that would be 'they're drawings, dude', but even in shows with such stylised styles (Madoka Magica, for instance), they use their artstyle well, and for shows like, say, the Fate/Stay Night movies by UFOtable, sure it looks 'realish' but there's enough fantasy and exaggerated style to offset that. Oshi no Ko, however, somehow feels like it exists in an anime equivalent to the uncanny valley, where the characters manage to look flat, while the eyes pop the most. Somehow, the characters just don't feel engaging.

Okay. Rant over. Only problem is that there's going to be a second season, and I'll have to deal with all this all over again.

#anime #just ranting #manga

[analoghorrorexplained]

Analog Horror Review: THE LONGEYED PROJECT.

[ Warning, this post will contain spoilers for the work of media mentioned in the title.]

“THE LONGEYED PROJECT” is a game split up into 2 chapters that takes the form of training program for some unknown entity that exists to track these beings. From what lore we are able to gather from the intro: this program exists to assess the user’s ability to pick out human mimics (Longeyed) from actual humans as a sort of “6th sense” test.

 These being are usually not hard to spot given they have very visible facial abnormalities, but it is also noted to us that these beings also give off a bad smell. It is stated within the game that these creatures usually come for people within 7 days of first contact and are responsible for a disproportionate amount of disappearances. This is all we really learn about these creatures between these 2 chapters. 

Chapter 2 has multiple endings you can get depending on what choices you make in the game. There is a good ending where you make the right choices and you get a raise for being able to spot these beings. There is an ending where a longeyed comes to kill you. And there is an ending where you fuck up so badly you somehow did not notice your boss was replaced by a longeyed and now they can complete their goals (whatever those are).

This series has a lot of problems.

For one: a LOT of THE LONGEYED PROJECT was borrowed from Mandela Catalogue and Assessment Examination (a game based on the former) which really hurts it since its trying to be its own thing. A lot of the concepts they use are just not their own and there is seldom really any lore to back up what is being shown to us. We have no idea what these “Longeyed” are. We have no idea why they are doing what they are doing. And we have no idea how what we are doing is even helping this Longeyed problem. There is just too much unexplained in general. It also does not help that the Ayuwoki meme image was also included as a serious part of the game, along with other disturbing face images taken from other corners of the internet.

Another issue that is pretty clear is the voice acting and actual script writing itself.

The game has a few pretty blatant gramatical errors along with at times very hard to understand dialogue. I am 99% sure that the devs who made this game do not speak English as their first language. This is fine. English is not a pre-rec for a good series. There are plenty of games and series that just speak in their native languages and provide subtitles for english audiences. But given the game is half voice-acted segments and sometimes its very hard to understand whats being said: it takes away from the game. I end up reading the text on screen more than I do listening to the dialogue. This probably also translates into the writing issues as well.

Overall: its a great game for general shock value given it has a lot of uncanny valley going on but not a good game for anything lore related. It takes too many ideas from other things and does not know how to translate them into its own free-standing project and idea. 

Its a dollar store version of Assessment Examination with less content.

Overall this series was a flop and is too close to Mandela Catalogue to really stand on its own. For all of my devs and creators out there who want to create an analog horror series: copying and being inspired by something is not the same thing. You can still develop story ideas based off of something you like while giving it enough meat to be able to stand on its own. Do not do this.

#the longeyed project #analog horror #analog horror game #analog horror review #horror #body horror #uncanny valley #game #game review

[n030n3]

After You Told Me

I took my glasses off, turned my back so not to face you. But I got scared— it was a stupid and vulnerable position to be in. And so I turned around But you looked different. I squinted, It didn’t work. Shakily reaching for my glasses, resting them on the bridge of my nose, my eyes now squeezed shut slowly, slowly, putting those goddamned glasses on at the slowest pace anyone could ever imagine. I couldn’t feel anything; my body, my glasses, the recently-defiled clothing that now sticks to my body like a mortal sin Your horrible, disgusting, vile sin that I now shared. Every second stretched out to an eternity, but I liked it that way right now; I get to save time this way, slowly, slowly stretch out the inevitable ending. I haven’t taken a single breath but I open my eyes And you still don’t look the same. An uncanny valley, a broken man, an evil, repugnant man that looks at me with such self-pity it would make any human being vomit. Suddenly there was a stranger in my bed, The man that loved me, cherished me, adored every square inch of my desperately hungering and scared body, The man that made me feel worthy of a life that would be lovely to live A man that made me feel everything wonderful and beautiful, A man I thought was a walking art piece, the lights shining on his face at night as we had the best sex of our lives, whispering soft I Love You’s into each other’s ears But the light isn’t shining on you now. You’re hiding, scrunched up, in the darkest corner of my bed small, pathetic, weak. I couldn’t stop thinking about how your eyes didn’t look the same anymore. There was no longer that joyful, adorable spark I grew so used to, They were squinted, small, beady, pathetic, waiting but knowing what’s next. There was a stranger in my bed And I was mortified Of him, you, myself, Where did you go? The you I know, he must be real Tell him to come back Tell him this joke isn’t funny I can’t love whatever monster killed him and sits in my bed at this very moment. It felt like I was dying from the inside out, Looking at the carcass of a man that never existed. Please, please, I’m begging you, Why did you kill the man I loved? I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I couldn’t hold his hand as the life slowly drained out of his pathetically beautiful face The last breath escaping his inhuman, soft lips, The last breath muttering the words, “I loved you.”

#sad #breakup #depression #heartbreak #lost love #evil #disgusting #tw anxiety #tw breakdown #poets corner #poets on tumblr #poem #tw depressing stuff #vent poem #depresjon #tw sui implied #vent post #sad boi club #drugs tw #sadgirl #sad aesthetic #emocore #relationship #sad poem #tw breakup #sad sad day #tw self destructive behavior #anger vent #ed recovery #toxic relationship

[chargers-rp-things]

_Boisvert quote prompts!

Based on the videos of the YouTube horror channel, run by xreamy (Twitter page). Content warnings apply for uncanny valley, horror, psychological horror, unreality and violence.

Modify these quotes as needed.

“These are troubling times, my friend. During such tribulation, let us focus on the small victories.”

“Do you know what day it is? When did you last go outside? When did you last see your friends? Your family?”

“They don’t know.”

“It has been a year now.”

“The cycle continues.”

“Why are you in the basement?”

“Do something. Anything.”

“You still hide. You are decaying as you breathe.”

“You are still in the basement, wreathed in fire.”

“It’s over.”

“Not a chance.”

“A chasm appears in the face of my watch. My past decapitated, I search blindly for what I will not find.

“Blinded by your own hand, as surely as if you had held the burning wire. One thousand decisions, made in the name of desaturated existence.”

“Look up from your watch, and tell me when you will grant forgiveness to the one most lacking.” “When it is deserved.”

“It is quiet. They are all far away and it is quiet.”

“Don’t breathe. You will ruin it.”

“(The) [NAME HERE] rages and destroys the rope which held him/her/them aloft.

“We won’t talk to them anymore, and so it is quiet.”

“I have seen it. I have heard of it. To draw near without reprisal. Bridge the chasm.“

“I have sought you out, but it is to no avail.”

“I am immobilized, and when you come near... Detaching yourself from those with everything, you will see in my eyes... Fear.”

"They are singing with pain in their heart. It is nothing short of a miracle.”

“The clawing isolation that embedded itself beneath my hearth. I can repudiate it no longer.”

“This is my home. It is empty. It is cold.”

“And it was said unto them that this was the price to be paid. A complex unending, but arid beyond all measure.”

“In despair, they wept. Not of sorrow, but bitterness. The avarice of their blind promise.”

“Consider my next words carefully. I will speak half truths no longer.”

“I leave you with only a question; When does home become a complex? When does a complex become home?”

“Can you picture an empty room with yourself in the center?”

“Answer me quickly and honestly-- Can you picture an empty room with yourself in the center?” “I don’t know.”

“Is there still enough space in the hallway to continue?” “I don’t know.”

“The complex is an aberration, yet you have shredded a hole within yourself that only it may fill.”

“Do you know what you must do?” “I don’t.”

“Cry out. Cry out, for there is slaughter in the new Jerusalem.”

“Cry out so that none may ignore.”

“I have wanted to know you in this way for so long.”

“Frankly, it isn’t worth your time. Yes, he/she/they think(s) like that. He/she/they always has/have and always will. Fuck him/her/them.”

“You’ve completely missed the point after so many attempts to show you. It’s impressive, really.”

 “Enough of this. If you had something to say to me, then say it. I’ve endured these half measures for years now.”

“You already understand.”

“I will kill you. I will crush your head against the pavement.”

“I almost killed a beautiful dog earlier and took a break to last a lifetime.”

“I can’t keep indulging this.”

“It is all which has transpired. An empty glass, with the pessimist dead on the floor. As hard as it may to believe, he/she/they is/are still burning.”

“It hurts more frequently now. I have a failed vow of silence to contend with and I think I could crush the feeling between my two back teeth. You know where to find him/her/them.”

“Your ideals will cost us everything.”

“It will not matter when we speak, it will not matter when we sing.”

“This is the only way in which it matters.”

“Why are you still here? Why do you still call this place home?” “I am owed nothing.”

“Where is your song? What of your wings?” “They are forfeit.”

“Then there is nothing more to say.”

#roleplay prompts #rp prompts #roleplay memes #rp memes #source: xreamy

[doggerell]

ai/ganbreeder ramblings below

Ive been having sooooo much fun with ganbreeder. I am not a fan of that glistening prompt based ai-- I find it ugly in a mostly uninteresting way-- but ganbreeders splicing tool is SO so fascinating. I like that it tracks the history of what images are spliced together and scrolling up the branches just to see more and more completely ai generated images is Fascinating. its ai inbreeding.. its corrupting itself. its grip on reality is ever-slipping because its only feeding itself its own mangled fingers. I think its so interesting. ai is SO scary to me so using it as a tool for horror and uncanny valley specifically is like. the ideal circumstance to me...

reading an article abt art based on ganbreeder images... Ive been thinking abt using it as a tool in my own art, through like photobashing or redrawing stuff, as a collaboration between me and the machine, but the perspective that its also collaboration with the greater ganbreeder community, with other humans as well... like duh, of course. like even in a side of the tool where-- as far as I can tell-- no ones original drawings/artworks are being used (maybe original photos have been inputted Far up the line of command. I havent been able to tell yet.) yeah the collaborate element is very much there where it promotes combination and.. breeding images so much. I think touting it as discovering images rather than creating images makes a lot of sense too. I feel so much complexity around the language of generative images.. like I dont wanna say "generative art" really cause people jump at that and theres a lot of discussion around defining art that... sometimes feels very reductive around what people consider art. but I do understand the concern as well when used in regards to ai. saying "generative content" makes me want to shoot myself though I hate the word content. personally.

anyway all of this is coming about because. Show Me An Angel is very much about ai horror. its about my fear of generative ai and the recklessness I feel the average consumer uses with it. its about what if you tried to play god and the machine decided to give you Exactly what you wanted. but its horrifying. its about a machines horrible dreams of flesh and god and divinity. its about accidentally inviting something sick and powerful into your life.

but working with ganbreeder has made it more complex because. it is sick. in a scary way but also a piteous way. like maybe Starling is hideous and powerful and terrifying but. hes also jittering weakly. and his bones are so, so thin and his limbs are too long and he Really doesnt know what his face or hands should look like or how many eyes or fingers or wings he should have and hes constantly reforming himself to try and fit the image. of what you need. because ultimately you are still in control. he is your prompt, your beast, and he may be too big for you to comprehend anymore, but you are still telling him what he needs to be. and hes sick because hes a virus, hes corrupting your computer and your life and your mind, but hes also sick because hes inbred. and the bottleneck of the unreality of him is going to kill him because he Cant exist like this. not outside the machine, not in the real world.

anyway. I dont think Ive pushed ganbreeder enough now. Im thinking abt thematic metadata. I tried to push images tagged as "dragons" and "angels" and such together to generate him because thats what I had in mind as the backbones of his design but Im thinking more now. I could do it through the genes... if I put a gene for a scorpion in there does it mean more to who he is? if I add in electric guitars and cardigans? like its a cheeky little nod back to the fact that this is Frank behind the curtains. like you dont know that unless you go into the image On ganbreeder and start splicing it yourself but... aah. its just interesting to add Intentionality and imagry to this fucking thing and youre never gonna see it. but its there. its like painting something and then painting over it again. what does it mean that its layered under there? I love abstraction and performance and process as a part of art. and again, I hesitate to call the generation itself art, because obviously this is a complex and controversial issue that I dont have all the answers to or understanding of, but somewhere, some part of this may become art

Id love to post pictures of what Ive been playing with but Im afraid Im gonna get hit with a "oh youre acting all deep and for This? cringe" *pensive* perhaps. its very interesting to me tho. making stuff for Me.

also obviously I am very inspired with ink-the-artist's work in general and esp their ai stuff and this why Im even using ganbreeder in the first place. I think they may be my favorite artist rn. I also saw a really great gallery last year by Matthew Ritchie last year that kinda blew past my kneejerk "all ai is bad" reaction. I had bigtime emotional reactions to his work. I think training a personal GAN off my own photos and art would be fucking fascinating. but its a bit too scary for me still.

I feel like such a mess in all of this because I am too anti ai for the average tech bro by being deathly afraid of it and thinking there needs to be regulations on it but also I am too pro ai for the average tumblr/twitter user by thinking its supremely fascinating as a Tool to be used by artists. ah the nuances. pls be niceys to me.

#show me an angel #speaking

[the-drifters]

okay so BEFORE i make my headcanon post about the omens as a whole, i wanna analyze Geist bc he has influenced my headcanons significantly. note that i’m kinda doing this analysis chronologically as opposed to in order of how information is given in-game. I’d also love to have added more screenshots, but that’s tricky to do atm. I’ll probably edit them in later.

Heavy spoilers ahead just in case anyone who hasn’t finished the game yet stumbled upon this. Without further ado:

So, we’re given very little information about what Geist’s first persona (presumably would be called Geist MK-I) was like, but we do get glimpses from Dianthus and Callistephus in chapter 8, and later Geist’s little support robot in the epilogue. Dianthus and the robot say that he was someone who never gave up on trying to solve the problem of Quietus. Callistephus compares Dianthus’s attempts to embrace hope and emotions to Geist’s former behavior.

He was highly determined, and kept trying even as everyone else around him gave up. I like to think he wasn’t unlike Ein when it comes to that. Although, in Geist’s case, it seems that having more and more demands placed on him as he was left to do the work almost entirely alone took its toll. Dianthus states that he became more and more isolated, until he basically went AWOL. He disconnected from the collective consciousness and left for Lost Gaia.

The White Omens state that he was scary because he seemed so inorganic in comparison so them. I’d imagine he gave them a bit of an uncanny valley feeling, seeing that the Seth and the White Omens also look so similar. Even in the sidequest given by Tweedledee, the Seth do mistake him as one of their own.

Despite this, however, I’d like to believe he had become “corrupted” long before his discoveries on Lost Gaia. With all that been placed on him leading up to his disappearance, why WOULDN’T someone break? Seeing The Horrors™ on Lost Gaia probably just broke him even more. He’s a lot like Aria in that regard. They both had to see the world they came to exist at in shambles. Trauma, both physical and psychological, damages and alters the structure of the brain. This makes me think that what the Omens call “corruption” is actually just an allegory for what they believe to be “altered” behavior resulting from damage in their code.

So then Geist MK-II presumably comes into play. A persona not created by a reboot, but rather a combination of severe corruption and a computer virus (which I will elaborate on shortly). We know that the changes between Geist MK-I and MK-II happened very abruptly, as evident by what Dianthus says. According to her, Geist had become this obsessive, volatile person. His support robot says that he became obsessed with biology and evolution because he was forced to confront his limits as AI. Despite this, we also know that he isn’t utterly unhinged, as he retains his intelligence and goes out of his way to ensure Aria is not harmed when he kidnaps her.

Geist states that the Paradise Journal caused a “bug” in his ethical code. I think what he read definitely corrupted him, but I also believe that Gaia could have hidden a trojan horse virus of sorts within it. This is more easily evident in visual cues seen in Geist’s boss fight, but there’s also a lot I can find in his dialogue by reading between the lines.

In Cres’s character story we’re told exposure to Gaia Dust causes a disease called The Quiet (funnily enough, that’s what Quietus means in English), which kills very quickly. Geist, being a robot, is immune to The Quiet, but he’s not immune computer viruses. So, I’d imagine there’s a connection. Plus, it looks like he’s essentially “coughing up” Gaia Dust when using certain attacks in his boss fight. He, along with Harbinger Aria, also seems to utilize the same red energy that Gaia does.

Then there’s the dialogue cues. He swaps back and forth between two ideals:

On one hand, he’s trying to feed the Abels to Quietus in hopes that at least SOME of may develop an immunity, and eventually they will evolve that immunity as a species. He also expresses extreme guilt, likely as a result of believing what he must do is a necessary evil, and because realizing his own limitations meant that there was little more he could do. He goes as far as to label himself a sinner for stealing “their ability to reason” and wanting a REASON to keep fighting. He doesn’t WANT to kill the Abels, but it’s a necessary evil in his mind. I believe he also secretly wanted Ein to kill him if it meant there really would be a better way.

On the other hand, he’s expressing the belief that humans HAVE to die—he’s giving them their “proper death.” Gaia kept trying to kill all humans because she believed they wanted to die. With the latter position, it sounds more like Geist is being forced into carrying out her bidding, but with the former, it seems like he’s trying to fight whatever instructions he’s being force-fed by the virus. When he’s finally stopped, he seems to revert back to the first idea. He’s also surprised that Ein and co. managed to stop him, and they’ve proven themselves worthy of trying to find a solution. I also think that he secretly wanted to die if it meant Ein could find another way, but it’s difficult to prove or deny that. Either way, he gives them his memory chip, and tells them to retrace his steps. Then he drops a random Metal Gear reference and dies immediately afterwards.

Geist ultimately gets rebooted as Geist MK-III. It’s clear that his memories were left intact, unlike Sorbus, an Omen in a sidequest. He’s also been reconnected to the collective consciousness, and presumably wiped of the virus he had. He goes straight back to Lost Gaia and appears to Ein and co. again, much to their surprise. Shrika notes he does seem to be behaving like an entirely different person.

Unlike his past two selves, this time he comes across like he’s rushed and perpetually hopeless. He retains a few traits he had before, mainly his stubbornness and ability to plan ahead. However, there’s some things he says and does that really makes me think there’s more going on within him than he’s even aware of. Particularly, the way he treats some of the party members.

Geist appears to project his feelings onto the others, going as far as to berate them over feeling differently than he does. For example, Dianthus tries to say she hopes there’s a better solution than the Paradise Project, and Geist immediately shuts down her point. He just… nails it into her that her mindset is flawed and dangerous. He’s absolutely not very nice about it, but in his eyes, hope and wishful thinking is what got him into this mess, so why should he adopt that mindset? He’s only trying to protect Dianthus and keep her from making the same mistakes he did. He also calls back to his former self’s obsessiveness and states that hope “consumes your thoughts.”

He also complains about adverse situations, such as Callistephus blocking Dianthus’s signal. Overall, he comes across like he’s very, very miserable. I can’t really blame him, because once again, the weight of everything has fallen onto his shoulders. At the final choice which determines which ending you’ll get, Geist’s attempts to pressure Ein sound very desperate.

Yet, if you get the good ending where Ein wins the debate, his attitude completely changes. He goes from a miserable, self-loathing person to someone who’s affectionate and supportive. He also seems to embrace his past a little bit, as he states that the back and forth conversations with the party make him nostalgic. He’s likely referring to a time when his creators were still awake. He also anonymously expresses how much he loves humans in his final Castle Lewis Times article.

Ultimately, Geist is a beautiful representative of many things: the chosen one who falls from grace, the trolley problem, and humanity’s willpower. Yet, his story is horrifically sad beneath the surface and he doesn’t even realize how much it impacts him. His character development throughout the game leaves me with lots of questions, the most important one being: What would happen if he came to realize how awful what happened to him really was? Would he go mad again? Or would he take a page from humanity’s book and seek support?

#to anyone who reads this: by all means share your thoughts #harvestella #geist #long post