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pixelrhys · 10 months

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They're only dysfunctional because Sigma just wants to kill and steal and his crew wants to save everybody 🙄

#starbound #starbound fanart #sigma the novakid #novakid #starbound novakid #original characters #digital art #artists on tumblr

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pixelrhys-ocs · 11 months

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Terry: Do you know how to fly this thing? Sigma: Maybe. Terry: MAYBE?!

#sigma the novakid #terry the avian

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yay855 · 5 years

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Today, in: Series with Wasted Potential

The classic Mega Man series is the story of a robot killing his brethren to protect humanity, and stopping Doctor Wily without defying his morality. But the game’s morality is never portrayed as complex!

Is it really okay for Rock to be killing his own kind to protect humans? Is Doctor Light a savior of mankind, or the creator of a slave race who now seeks to preserve the status quo? Is Doctor Wily a megalomaniac seeking to dominate, or is he simply trying to create a better world for his creations through any means necessary?

The only time any sort of complex storytelling is used in the classic series is in Mega Man 9, where Wily saves robots who were scheduled to be killed for the crime of being alive for long enough. But even then, he still seeks to kill and destroy, and is merely taking advantage of a larger number of robots willing to join him.

The X series does go into this a bit, but there’s never any genuine complexity, just twisty storylines. Sigma becomes the new Wily, and eventually creates a few problems between his enemies, like with the Repliforce incident, but it’s never anything actually meaningful. Repliforce didn’t rebel because they sought freedom or justice, they rebelled because they were too stubborn to actually be taken into custody by the Maverick Hunters after they were found at the site of a destroyed city; they didn’t even bother to defend themselves legally, they just chose to start a war because they were accused of starting a war. And all this because Sigma once again. And the new-generation Reploids didn’t go maverick because they were inspired by Sigma and Repliforce and such, they just carried copies of the Maverick Virus built into their systems thanks to their copy chips containing Sigma’s form after he was infected.

The Zero series honestly does almost have some meaningfully complex morality in it, but they chickened out at the last minute. What could have been X being forced to make an impossible decision instead became a fake X killing Reploids because he was programmed to value humans more than reploids (racist much, Ciel?). What could have been X and Zero fighting over ideological differences, with X being a hardened realist forced to make an impossible choice and Zero being an idealist who refuses to let innocents die, instead became a fight between an almost mindless clone and an amnesiac who barely knows his own name.

The ZX series is mostly just weird. The villains all believe in Kraterocracy (aka might makes right), believing that only the strong deserve to survive, that only the strong deserve to control the world; the heroes are mostly just trying to protect innocent lives and/or get revenge and answers. Though the villains are also all being influenced by Model W, which is basically Doctor Wiel’s emotions and mentality stripped of all conscious thought and turned into a memetic virus that corrupts people and makes them think like he did.

The Battle Network series is just a stereotypical monster battling anime using the Mega Man name. Character A is a highly skilled Netnavi Operator, and together with Megaman.exe, they defeat criminal organizations and deadly computer viruses. And of course, no monster battle series would be complete without a middle school boy to direct his creature in battle strategically. Except that Netnavis are sapient beings capable of independent strategy, and Lan’s only real use is that he can give Megaman.exe extra abilities via Battle Chips, something that was completely unnecessary from a game design perspective, and which only served to make Lan important.

Then, the Star Force series turns a monster battler anime into a *superhero series.* It’s the exact same plot as Battle Network, except with aliens instead of criminals, and the main character battles by fusing together with his partner instead of giving him powerups. And he still calls himself Mega Man for no reason... especially given that this series takes place in the distant future of the Battle Network series, as you can meet up with Megaman.exe in each game and receive his weapon. Geo Stelar doesn’t know who MegaMan.exe is, and Omega-Xis *certainly* wouldn’t, given that he’s a space alien. He doesn’t even have anything to distance himself from the classic series’s name, like with Megaman.exe. He’s just... Mega Man.

Skyrim should have allowed the player character to become the new High King (and eventually emperor). They’re the Last Dragonborn, they’re basically one step away from being a Septim, and all of Skyrim already respects them by the time they finish the game, to the point that both sides of the civil war reached a truce until the dragon crisis ended thanks to the Dragonborn’s prompting.

Fallout 4 was perfectly primed to explore robot ethics, but they chickened out. No, the Synths aren’t androids, they’re just genetically engineered humans who are treated like androids by everyone around them, including the Railroad, who seek to free them from slavery. There are only two genuine androids in the game, one of which only in the Far Harbor DLC, and they’re both just machines carrying copies of an actual human’s mind.

Never mind that Fallout 3 was rife with slavery, you don’t see even a smidgen of that here unless it involves Synths (or the Nuka-World DLC, which doesn’t have a story unless your character, previously established as a good person by the limited dialogue choices, chooses to be evil for no reason). Never mind that the game was perfectly set to make the player question whether their character is a real person or a synth, that just gets one conversation in a DLC and is never mentioned again. Never mind that your character’s motivation for the entire plot is taken away from them halfway through. Never mind that the first faction in the game is an endless series of randomly-generated quests that you have to accomplish yourself despite them making you their leader.

Shantae is perfectly set up to be a post-apocalyptic setting similar to Adventure Time, where people are still living their lives after the end of the world, just with a wilder world around them and more colorful denizens. But instead, throughout all four games, we barely even know anything about the past. We barely know that Shantae even had parents! There’s this massive colorful and zany world, but they don’t bother exploring even a smidgen of it! Every single new piece of lore they give us only raises five more questions!

Starbound never really explains half the lore. What is Erchius, and why does it mutate life forms? What is the Erchius Ghost found on every moon, and why is it both immortal and deadly; why does it only show up after the Ruin appears? Why don’t we see more concrete human settlements, settlements that are more than glorified campgrounds or abandoned prisons? Where did the Novakid come from?

What is Kirby? What is Meta Knight? Who are all these bizarre alien and eldritch creatures that keep invading Pop Star? I suppose we’ll never know, because they never tell us anything more than what is absolutely necessary for the plot of the game to make sense. Which is often very little, given that they’re classical platformers.

#mega man #skyrim #Fallout 4 #Shantae #Starbound #Kirby

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nyotasaimiri · 7 years

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Melody

This one turned out long so I’ll be sticking it in a spoiler tag to avoid dash clutter.

Arrowmail woke up on the library sofa, stiff with terror, trying to banish that last vision from his mind. His whole body felt heavy, like his joints were made of rust.

Six days had passed since the battle at the Baron’s Keep, a battle he couldn’t help seeing again every time he slept. The details were different every time: sometimes it was their captain trapped under the rubble, too hurt to free herself. Sometimes it was Arrowmail himself, clawing at the stones until even his metal fingers cracked. Dreams had never been like this before he became self-aware…

The worst version had just woken him: the Occasus bearing down on him again, laughing, swords raised to kill, but with Sonny’s face, Sonny’s voice! He shuddered, remembering again the cold steel biting through his side, her face and the cultist’s melding in his mind…

There was a sudden rattling nearby and he couldn’t quite stifle a low startled drone. The stiffness evaporated as he looked over, just in time to hear another rattle, like a tinny little purr. Sonny sat next to him, head bowed and light dim, fast asleep. She had all but clung to him and Hadley lately, as if she was afraid to leave them for long after the Keep. Just the sight of her now chased away the last wisps of his nightmare. Arrowmail felt his circuits warm with happiness.

She snored again, shifted a little too far in her sleep, and jolted awake as she fell off her cushion. The Glitch shouted in alarm and lunged, managing to catch her.

“Good golly wha—oh, hi Arrowmail.” She shook herself with a slightly wavering hum, then turned toward him. “Arrow? Hey, you okay?”

“Pained. I am alright, Miss Sonny,” the Glitch replied, leaning back stiffly. Moving that quickly had not been wise with his body still adapting to the repairs.

“You sure? I can getcha somethin’ from Lumen,” she offered, standing up. Her light wavered a bit and Arrowmail had to catch her again as she lost her balance. “Ooh, nope, that ain’t no good…”

“Worried. Are you ill?” Arrowmail asked as he helped her sit down again.

Sonny shook her head. “Nah, I ain’t sick… jus’ sleepy…” The last words came out in a fractured slur as she dimmed again, leaning back against the cushions.

-

“Ah, I was afraid of this…” Lumen muttered as he put the bruise salves away. Arrowmail had found him beside Hadley’s bed, checking up on her again. Six days, and still no sign of waking… The orange Novakid shook his head, looking up at Arrowmail. “Dim, sleepin’ too much, and dizzy spells. Sounds like that little glowbug ain’t been eatin’ like she should.”

“Bewildered. She is trying to starve herself?” An awful surge of fear shot through Arrowmail

Lumen shook his head. “It ain’t tryin’, I’m thinkin’... Sonny’s feelin’ mighty low, I wager. She’s a bright ol’ spark, but she feels it core-deep if the folks around her are hurtin’.” He brushed the hair back from Hadley’s face, adding softly, “An’ some of ‘em are hurtin’ real bad right now.”

-

Sonny woke up from another dream of distant stars to a smooth hand on her shoulder. “Eh... Arrow? Whassit?” She shook herself as the sleep-haze faded, but it didn’t vanish completely.

“Enticing. I brought something to show you,” Arrowmail said. He held up a strange-shaped case.

“Eh?” she said, sitting up a bit more. “Whatcha got there?” It was hard to muster the energy to even lift her head, but curiosity got the better of her. She had almost forgotten that case. It was the only thing he’d brought with him from Tessera Sigma.

“Amused. Just a moment…” Arrowmail sat down on the chair across from her and opened it. Sonny lit up she caught sight of a beautifully made violin.

“You’re a fiddler?” she asked, fizzing with delight. “Yeehaw! Go on, play a reel!”

Her sleepiness retreated a little more as he laughed, making a wonderful sound like a deep brass bell, and started tuning the strings. It only took a minute of work before he paused, tapped his bow a few times to catch the beat, and launched into the liveliest jig she’d ever heard.

Bubbles of light whirled in Sonny’s plasma as the music took hold of her. She wanted to dance. She wanted to dance so badly. Her feet tapped on the floor, fingers playing out the tune, but her legs gave out as she tried to stand and she flopped back onto the cushions. A low wavering whine, almost a sob, escaped her. “I just can’t, Arrowmail,” she moaned, leaning against him as he set the violin down. “I ain’t got the spark for it.”

Arrowmail gingerly put one arm around her, patting her shoulder soothingly. “Caring. That can be remedied,” he offered, holding out a green glass bottle, one of Lumen’s ‘emergency fuel’ jars.

Sonny looked at the bottle, looked at him, and took it. She didn’t feel any desire to drink it, but she needed to dance… to feel happy right now. “Aren’t you sly,” she hummed, taking the jar from him. “Teasin’ me like that... But I thank ya for it. Maybe… that’s why I need someone like you.” One bottle wasn’t close to enough for days without food, but she stood up anyway as Arrowmail put his bow to the strings.

Oldarva looked up from her sewing, Arjun paused in his vent repairs, Aggy and Namina left off their shooting match, and Nyota set aside her work as music and laughter drifted through the ship. Lumen heard the song and hummed contentedly, shining brighter than he had in a long time. The song brought back feelings long forgotten, feelings echoed in Sonny’s laughter. “Well now, ain’t he clever…”

A hand touched his wrist. “Don’t let him stop playing,” Hadley rasped, her violet eyes fixed on his face. “Don’t let him stop. I’ve never heard her laugh like this.”

#story post #arrowmail #sonny #lumen #alice hadley

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pixelrhys · 7 months

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