Matt-mercutio - Tumblr Blog

I wanted to draw a quick comic of my purple boy to celebrate his reappearance in the anime! 💜😭✨ (Read right to left) You can download CSP/PSD files on my Patreon!

themm 8′) (also for all those of you who asked!)

They make a great team

lessons with aizawa sensei

Some Zukka sketches~ 

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STORENVY | INSTA | TWITTER | KOFI

I know at some point in our lives we wished we’re Hinata Shoyo and we have glucose guardians like them 😂

edit: check my twitter acc @summerscents_ for more hinata harem dumb tweets

anyway i had a really stupid idea, tag me if you end up making a character/illustration using this!

You added a rainbow...

Gullfoss. South Iceland.

i'll only say this once: widomauk legally blonde au

Okay, I have picked out one of the many excellent things in this week’s Critical Role episode to talk about!  Let’s talk about, “am I the only one in this group who has any experience being trusted to do the right thing?”

The wording of it is so specific, and it’s so fucking telling.  

Caduceus doesn’t ask if he’s the only one in the group who knows how to trust other people, although that’s here in this question and this conversation, the, ‘wow, NONE of you have any real faith in authority whatsoever’ bit of it all.  But that’s specifically not what Caduceus is asking here, and that’s important, I think, because the truth is, the Mighty Nein have been learning to trust people little by little this entire way.

There’s a lot of conditional trust, of course, and there’s a lot of doubt, but–they trust Bryce.  They trust Orly.  Nott trusted Shakaste with her son, sight unseen, and Nott and Caleb and Beau were exhausted and desperate enough to trust Keg and Nila and Caduceus himself in the first place, and of course the group has been learning to trust each other, bit by bit, scrap by scrap.  That’s part of why Yasha has hurt so very badly.  Not because they didn’t trust her, but because all of those old instincts said they shouldn’t, and they did anyway.  And yes, I am generalizing about the whole group, but I don’t think I’m wrong to do so.  It’s obvious on Fjord, who still hasn’t even told anyone half of what he’s hiding or offered up his real accent, compared to Jester who’ll toss personal details around like cheerful party favors–but that just means the vulnerabilities and the soft spots are different.  At least on the surface.

In fact, I think the Mighty Nein collectively have three great fears when it comes to trusting each other.  They have a hard time trusting their companions not to reject them for their secrets (they’ll see I’m gross and evil because of my past crimes; I’ll be found unworthy because of my weaknesses and flaws).  They have a hard time trusting their companions to bear up and handle certain things related to those secrets (if they find out about me they’ll be distracted, it’ll divert them from more important goals; if I don’t push aside my problems to take care of them then they won’t survive).  And they occasionally have a hard time trusting each other not to simply turn around and betray the whole group out of never-having-cared-to-begin-with (what if Yasha was always bad?).  Ironically, I’m pretty sure that up until last week, flat-out betrayal was at the bottom of all of their lists of mutual mistrusts.

And yet, little by little, they’ve been learning to trust each other this whole time.  It’s always happened in spite of the fear: Caleb in one hotel room mechanically relating his life story, Jester in another squeaking with embarrassment at her own ignorance and hiding underneath the covers, all the way back to Mollymauk Tealeaf trapped between a tabaxi and a Zone of Truth place, hating to trust and too scared not to.  They’ve offered each other little bits of themselves, already tensed to flinch away from an expected blow that all their instincts say must be about to land as they’ve flayed open each mote of vulnerability in turn.  It’s been long and slow and they’re still skittish–but yes.  The Mighty Nein do know how to trust.

They even know how to trust authority figures, sometimes, in that same flinching calculated risk desperate sort of way.  Beau sprints halfway across Darktow Isle, Beau waits for the Plank King, because she doesn’t have a single option but to hope that thin strand of hope, to trust.  They go to the Bright Queen after their scry on the Imperial war meeting.  They place their survival and vulnerability and hopes in someone else’s hands.

Of course, there’s always the question of not just which authority figures they trust, but how far.  They trust the Plank King to enforce rules he himself has set, and have his own self-interest at heart, not to be merciful.  They trust the Gentleman to keep to the word of any bargain he made, not to be kind or any sort of good to the outside world.  Beau trusts Dairon to honestly want to expose corruption, not to be unbiased.  They trust the Bright Queen to want what’s best for the survival and well-being of her own subjects, when they trust her, not to care one bit about what happens to the people who live across the borders.  And they never, ever, in any circumstance, have ever trusted an authority figure to care about their well-being at all.

See, that’s it.  That’s where we get to the heart of Caduceus’s question, the truth he suddenly grasped with such clarity.  The Mighty Nein are not good at trusting people, or at caring for them, but they’re learning, with fumbling fingers and out of necessity and loneliness and their own inherent humanity (in the metaphorical sense).  They’re even learning, in the tiniest slivers and pieces, to maybe someday trust their own selves.

The thing not a single one of them knows how to cope with, none of them has ever experienced, is being themselves trusted.  Not wholely or unconditionally.  None of them.  

Oh, there’s Vandren, who trusted Fjord with his job but not his secrets–there’s Marion, who trusted Jester to be sweet and delightful, but not to live up to any sort of set expectations–there’s Yeza and Luc, who trusted Veth to be a wife and a mom, but not enough to make up for everybody else she ever knew–there’s Beau’s old crews, who trusted her to do the occasional job and maybe take a fall but not enough to keep her around–there’s Astrid and Eodwulf, who trusted Bren to be competent and evil, but were, in fact, wrong in that after all.  They’ve been trusted to do things they’ve already proven themselves competent to do.  Sometimes they’ve been trusted to be tools.  Sometimes they’ve been trusted to be harmless.  Trust their capacities, sure.  Trust their enlightened self-interest in not betraying someone far more powerful, absolutely.

But their judgment?  Their ethics?  Themselves?

I’ve seen a few people frame this conversation as Caduceus realizing he’s the only person in the whole group with actual self-esteem, and that’s part of it, a little bit.  Being doubted by everyone in the world leaves a pretty hefty ding on the self-confidence.  But it’s not just that–because like I said, in milimeters and hairsbreadths, they are learning to trust themselves, just that littlest bit.  Proving themselves to each other, specifically, has started the M9 along the path to maybe possibly someday proving themselves to themselves.  At the very least, they can try.

This isn’t about what the Nein think of themselves.  It’s what they expect other people to think of them.  And unlike the painstaking gains they’ve made in learning to trust, the group has collectively made almost zero headway in learning that they can be trusted.  Not by people In Charge.  Not by anyone outside their own small circle.

And that’s the thing Caduceus finally figured out, then pointed out to all the rest of us.

Choices

ok so, for my next dnd character, should I play

Aldric Theylas (Sorcerer) - literally just Essik/Caleb’s lovechild who is bad at magic, a mess, wild magic out the wazoo

Theodore Quincy Ray Von Gikkengen II (Wizard) - Lovelorn Wizard Percival, sad boi just wants to help

Apollo Black (Cleric) - Vax with Caduceus vibes, aka pastel prank elf

Elijah Jaffe (Bloodhunter) - Percy level vendetta, Vax level edgy, Beau level people skills

Things I Do On a Snowy Day at Home

1) Watch Critical Role

2) Shovel

3) Do a puzzle (while watching Critical Role)

4) Work on my DnD campaigns (still watching crit role)

5) Shovel AGAIN

6) Drink hot chocolate (you guesed it, I'm still watching Critical Role)

The Hottest of One Shot Takes 2: Electric Boogaloo I shall not be @’ed for my crimes.

Evantica

- scrambled to Venatica, Spanish for “crazy, a bit mad” - scrambled to incavate or incavation “a hollow place, empty thing”

why can’t I have both?

which one?

I feel like haven’t experienced life enough. I’ll just sit over here in my room on my computer. nah I’m good. I’ll stay inside. This is fun. 19

11

Another Instance of Thinking too Much About Detroit: Become Human

Ok so I was watching Bryan Dechart’s play through of Detroit and I remembered the whole scene with Hank and the birds, cause there was a lot of fuckin birds. And they were in the mind palace and pigeons in The Nest belong in the same family as doves. In the mind palace they were white doves, a symbol of peace. Maybe its something Cyberlife put in there to put Connor at ease with them, the whole place is kinda designed to be calming. So Cyberlife tries to keep Connor calm and trusting of them, using bird representing peace and love. 

The doves in The Nest are a variation of rock doves/ pigeons, a type of excellent messenger bird that have this trippy ability to always find their way home from any place in the world. Pretty cool right? Not sure what this might symbolize in relation to the story. But i find the fact that Connor is associated with a messenger bird of peace is pretty interesting. He does always return to Cyberlife in the mind palace, so to them that’s his home that he will always find his way back to? Of course if you go deviant you become a free bird, which leads us into Markus’s bird.

The first bird Markus encounter, at lest significantly, are the electronic canaries pictured in Carl’s house. And if that’s not heavy handed symbolism I don’t know what is. A canary in a cage, specifically a human generated life, an imitation. It a direct parallel to Markus, trapped by his programing. A cage. 

Excerpt on canary symbolism - It is symbolic of a transition or spiritual awakening. It may also refer to the craving of an individual for the inner child which would obviously mean innocence. ... ; in the extreme, it could mean entrapment (caged canary). - nice research DBH, well played. 

for Kara - uhh haven’t found one yet. Open to what ya’ll have found. If you do, reblog and let me know your thoughts!

If you wanna read more crazy theories, see my post on the Kamski test, where I analyze the actions of that crafty bastard. 

just playing some pokémon blue

The Kamski Test – Observations and Hypothesis (aka prepare yourselves for a fuckin game-theory)

Right, so testing deviancy, we all know Kamski came up with a pretty, um, INSANE? way to test that. His test is extreme, but it tells me a lot of about his character and view of humanity, and clears up a bit of the mystery that made me curios about his character in the first place. If you consider deviancy to be the pass scenario, which I would because Kamski immediately looses interest in Connor if he shoots and intrigue seems to be how the creator positively reacts to people, then what is it that this truly tests?

Deviancy, or consciousness, can’t really be measured, humans have tried in the past and even in 2038 Elijah hasn’t figured it out. We’ve created lots of tests to test different aspects of what we think makes someone conscious, and to be honest his experiment isn’t all that different from our tests on rats. We’ve tested rats by showing them a button and another rat, when the button is pushed the second rat receives an electric shock and food is given, comparable to shooting and killing and then receiving the reward of information in the Kamski test. Most rats after seeing the second animal hurt register this and stop pushing the button, showing empathy, a lot of animals show empathy actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa16P4nFgD8- a similar experiment to the button test, rats prove to aid other rats in distress even when offered food.

And this is exactly what Kamski is testing, empathy, something he considers to indicate deviancy or consciousness. Most see Kamski as cold hearted for such a morbid test, that he’s insane, the villain, evil, a mad scientist of sorts- yet he considers empathy a necessary part of consciousness, kind of contradictory if you ask me. The justification for the extremity in this test is due to the fact that Androids are more advanced thinkers than rats; he couldn’t very well give the same shock and food response. Because of their intelligence the stakes of the situation had to be raised, rats had to figure out pain was being cause, but without ever pulling the trigger an android can suss out what will happen before it does through logic. I mean Markus proves androids can make quick predictions (preconstructions) of future action in game when Markus has to make parkour decisions to get to Jericho and to invade the Cyberlife warehouse.

So an android could figure not to shock another android before pushing the button, but would know the consequence wouldn’t outweigh the reward. When Connor showed up Elijah had all the pieces he needed to set up the same exact test for a being of higher intelligence. Connor had a request of Elijah for information, like a treat, and Elijah could then provide a condition on which that bait was provided. He pressured Connor to show empathy over getting the reward. A purely scientific endeavor, though again the means in which this test is conducted are not empathic at all to those within the test. In a way our treatment of rats and testing by using distress as a motivator is comparable, forcing their empathy to show by hurting another one of their kind?

Wait… what made Androids go deviant again? Oh that’s right, high levels of distress and unsafe situations. And you know what the androids under stress did when they became conscious? Exactly as the rats did and showed pro-social empathic behavior to their own kind by freeing them from their distress. Huh, its almost like Kamski knew it would happen, like he purposefully set up the situation to be a massive scale experiment to prove Android consciousness. He couldn’t very well program it into them, but he cold give them means to be conscious, give them the exact scenario that would prove, Scientifically, that Androids were conscious. I mean the guy has an IQ of 171, so I mean, obviously he’s smart about it.

But I still wonder why? Why did Kamski want to create life? Did he want to create life at all? I think it’s evident that he hoped they would be, he likes when Connor becomes deviant- rewarding him for passing the test by giving him the way out of Cyberlife’s grasp. In his promo before he left, or was discharged from Cyberlife, he goes on to say “And who knows maybe one day our leaders, to make the best decisions for humanity.” ??? Like, I’m sorry but that is not something someone who designed Androids for the express purpose of obedience would say. Giving them leadership positions means they don’t obey, and if they were to make decisions on behalf of humanity you know what they’d have to do? FUCKING SHOW EMPATHY. Of course on TV he can’t just blab that he’s trying to create and mass-produce a new kind of life, the public would shut him down immediately and then the scenario needed to create the life would collapse. I imagine this is why he was discharged from Cyberlife and went to be isolated, where he could watch and observe his test without having to put up a front of a businessman. Kamski is a scientist not an entrepreneur yet for most of his promo video he sounds like he’s advertising. He sounds scripted. Not to mention the “You can trust me.” Is actually the worst lying done ever… in history like dude, just stop you’re bad.

With all this evidence piling up I’m sure a lot of you are pointing to the worst possible ending of the game, when Kamski comes out of hiding and takes the mantle at Cyberlife again. He says a whole lot of stuff that perfectly contradicts the idea that he was in support of, let alone planned, the awakening of new life. He says that androids must be controlled, must be obedient. And yeah, sounds bad right? But I know my fuckin rhetoric okay? Look at the audience, a nation of people distrusting of androids and of Cyberlife, and also the other executives of Cyberlife watching from the background. The occasion? Androids have just become the number one terrorist threat since 9/11, he can’t very well say we shouldn’t have killed them all. As a speaker he’s meant to be the foremost expert on Androids, and he said exactly what the people of the U.S. needed to hear to be placated. “The events in Detroit were a tragedy. But that doesn’t mean WE failed.” WE, Cyberlife, the company that wants to go back to making money again.

What’s going on in his head? Maybe he’s resigned that he failed, that now isn’t the time for new life to be introduced. I can’t logic out that answer, but still, reading closely into Kamski’s behavior shows the crafty bastard may have planned and set up the events of Detroit: Become Human even more than we thought.