The Calvin Cell

[calvincell]

NITRO GEN OMEGA - A BORDERLINE FANATICAL ENDORSEMENT AIMED AT LOVERS OF ANIME, MECHA AND/OR TACTICAL RPGs

Nitro Gen Omega launched into Early Access on Steam this week and after 4+ hours with it I’ve personally been having a terrific time with the game; rotating playtime between it, REMATCH & Tron Catalyst all of which are recent releases from my personal list of most anticipated games of the year.

Though it’s pretty blatant at a glance, Nitro Gen Omega is a heavily anime-influenced tactical Mecha RPG. You start as a quartet of young freelance mech pilots who share control of a heavy duty mech which your squad utilizes for assisting in the defense & odd jobs of the sparse remnants of humanity living within elevated cities out of reach of the dangerous, self-sustaining robotic menace which have made the surface their territory.

Since the announcement of Nitro Gen Omega, I have been absolutely entranced by the game’s art style, fluidity & dynamism of the animations for the Mechs & Pilots alike. All of the elements harmonize perfectly to induce the effect of playing through an episode of an obscure late 90s to early-2010s mecha anime series that might have shown up between episodes of G Gundam, Big O or Outlaw Star on Toonami/Adult Swim.

One simple yet extremely impactful element it includes, taking cues from XCOM, Darkest Dungeon, Etrian Odyssey etc, is the ability to randomly generate your pilots & name your ragtag bunch; a feature which goes a long way towards making me wholly invested in their adventure. I also find it astounding how the different poses & styles of the various pilots reflexively triggers one’s imagination to start characterizing them without the need for a lot of cutscenes or major dialog exchanges.

EDIT: The devs at DESTINYbit worked hard to also include a ground-up Character Creator function allowing players to not only craft & customize their own roster of characters in both the parameters of the physical to fashionable but include their created cast in either their starting company of pilots or pitched into the random pool of recruitable pilots that you can hire on from settlements during a playthrough.

The team you’ve fashioned also becomes even more dynamic & endearing due to the downtime moments on your freelancers’ personal airship. Post-battle you’ll get the chance to use a certain resource that grants you an opportunity to have one or a pair of your pilots do an activity to boost skills, raise their mood/build morale & enrich (or even possibly sour) the friendships amongst the crew.

If all that wasn’t enough to draw me in particular, then the novel timeline-focused, positioning-dependent battle system the game sports ultimately sealed the deal for me & led me to buying the Early Access release. This overview video from the developer DESTINYbit’s own YT channel breaks it down better than I ever could:

Honestly, my sole concern at this point is that I might burn myself out on the game’s Early Access before v1.0 launches 😅 Though I’m excited for the journey as an early adopter either way.

The quality on display in NGO so far has me genuinely optimistic that the game can increase in depth and worthwhile, amazing content. I know there are a lot of gamers who have a very understandable aversion to buying games in Early Access but regardless of a purchase or not, I still give my glowing support for the series & hope that anyone interested will at least keep an eye on the game, Wishlist it & share its existence with others as it sprints up the road to Full Release

Save 10% on NITRO GEN OMEGA on Steam

A sandbox turn-based tactical RPG that puts you in the director's seat of your own shonen anime. Lead your crew through wastelands overrun b

[qwaqmeharder]

Zaza

[calvincell]

Absolutely incredible!

The ONE PIECE fandom once again revealing how it’s overflowing with some of the most talented fan artists around

[calvincell]

I missed out completely on the early days of the Inventory Management/Inventory Battle genre of games where Backpack Battles, Backpack Hero & The Bazaar were the flagship titles that influenced many other indie projects in the same vein.

These days though, more & more Inventory Battlers have begun to actually have appeal to me thanks to fresh twists on the baseline gameplay mechanics as well as striking & coherent aesthetics that grabbed me. Over the last several months, I've been hooked on a handful of Inventory Management games; those being Touhou Witch's Night Market, Fortune Seller & most recently TURNBOUND. All 3 are extremely addictive and match their unique stylish looks with equally engaging & strategic. TURNBOUND in particular really has it's hooks in me. Though fast paced once the autobattles begin, the build/synergy-crafting so often has me spending 5-7 minutes puzzling out the perfect inventory configuration & it makes my victories over other players richly rewarding.

[tpwrtrmnky]

A lot of the time when I point out that some right-wing policy is proven to not achieve the thing it purports to have as a goal, people rightly point out that the real goal is the negative outcomes that do happen.

Which is correct!

But this is often framed as me approaching the right wing naively by the respondent.

That's not the case at all. I know they're evil. The goal is to demonstrate that they're lying by exposing the way the rhetoric fails to line up with reality.

This has to be ongoing work because someone new has their political awakening every day. Every day, someone needs to learn that the right wing position is wrong on all levels, not just the obvious ones.

[realflaminglily]

there will be people out there who still think the war on drugs (as the absolute first thing that comes to mind) is a legitimate social cause against an antisocial blight on society. if you come out the gate with (the very true statement) that it's actually been a deliberate campaign to target minorities and other undesirable groups to the ruling class, you're going to sound like a clueless conspiracy nut

whereas if you come with a very defensible, statistically supported point of "it doesn't work and has never worked" you can open the door to the follow up question of "why did the government do it in the first place, and (in many cases) why are they still doing it?"

[tpwrtrmnky]

This, exactly.

The play is to:

Demonstrate that the policy doesn't work

Demonstrate that the people enforcing the policy have everything they need to know it doesn't work

Provide the context of what the policy achieves in the absence of its "intended" outcome.

Remind people that the purpose of a system is what it does.

Then, instead of being a non-sequitur claim you're just pulling out of thin air, the conclusion is the most reasonable way to assemble the provided puzzle pieces.

[calvincell]

Fantastic insight! Every last right wing fantasy & regressive ideal needs breaking down bit by bit. It definitely does spark that frustration that as someone living in reality you have to work two to three times as hard to dismantle the delusion & misinformation that regressives unflinchingly devoured from right wing politicos & talking heads via vapid sound bites, social media disinfo and/or 20 minutes of Fox News, Ben Shapiro Asmongold etc. Yet considering all that is currently happening & all that is in peril, buckling down to make that effort to deprogram is still crucial and valuable.

[calvincell]

In my previous post regarding my perspective on the Father/Daughter relationship between Jet & Edward, concluding my recent Cowboy Bebop rewatch also has me similarly pondering over how much I love the side character - Ol’ Man Bull/Laughing Bull, the Lakota/First Nations Shaman. Bull’s scenes & speeches/monologues are some of the most engrossing & thematically resonant in the entire series. It’s quite poignant that two of his appearances feature in the first & last episodes; with him giving a spiritually-divined prophecy to Spike (Swimming Bird) in Session 01 & then in Session 26 Bull does the same for Jet (Running Rock) & following up by seeing right through Jet’s anger & frustration to his true emotion of fear, fearing the death of his partner/friend. Personally, to the day I die, I will NEVER forget Bull’s advice that Jet: not fear Death as some monstrous inhumane threat ruthlessly culling lives but rather that, though Death is by the side of every person and every living thing, when it is finally someone’s time Death looks at them gently & guides them towards Peace without an ounce of malice. 

Also as an aside: It’s only now in the 10-15+ times I’ve seen this series, have I noticed that Bull also shows up in both episodes Jupiter Jazz capstoning the two-parter with the scene where he tells his son that a shooting star is the sign that a warrior has reached the end of his life. That scene starts Session 12 & concludes Session 13. Though it might not mean a lot at first glance, it becomes awesome when you realize that Jupiter Jazz’s episodes are smack dab in the center of the whole series

[calvincell]

Rewatching Cowboy Bebop again & I always love how quickly Jet goes from Rugged Bachelor to Unapologetic Girl Dad the moment Edward joins the crew.

Despite Jet not being as prickly about kids as Spike pretends to be, fatherhood rarely comes up as something he’s ever earnestly considered nor aspired to seemingly even during his relationship with Alisa long ago. Even from what we hear about their disillusionment, the subject of family-building isn’t highlighted as being related in any way to the friction between them when they were together or if it was it was negligible.

So even though Jet drifts into a pseudo-paternal role from a few times pre-Edward, I still grin at the moments he straight up kinda just acts like a dad when Edward finally does enter the picture. From listening to (& forgetting) Ed’s requests for souvenirs, to telling her myths & fairy tales including going so far as adopting a slightly whimsical vocal cadence similar to what teachers & librarians often use when they read aloud to children, to letting Ed cling to his shoulders when the Bebop’s internal gravity is off so she can get pulled along while floating behind him.

Heck, due to certain events in one of the last few episodes, Faye & Ed both return to the Bebop in a noticeably uncharacteristic mood and Jet pulls the classic clueless but loving dad move of cooking for his daughters for them believing their sourness is the result of hunger 😂

Also one the best & very hilarious bits of the episode: Brain Scratch has Jet & Edward posing as father & daughter, both dressed to the nines & spinning a BS sob story all in an effort to get access to a hospital room for an investigation.

It’s such a fun dynamic that causes an increased amount of heartbreak during a certain moment in the series’ concluding episodes & one more reason I have the blasphemous & saddening wish that Cowboy Bebop had more episodes or at the very least a few more movies to see more of the rich interpersonal relationships the Bebop Family had with each other.

[ihniwtr]

I don't really ever share video game reacts but this man has the only correct reaction to this game, which is UTTER AWE.

[calvincell]

😂 I literally just finished devouring the Demo almost an hour ago & put the game at the top of my Steam Wishlist when I was only 10 minutes into playing. The Eternal Life of Goldman is a tour de force of blended Gaming & Animation to the point of baffling me to the same degree that games like Skullgirls/Indivisible & CUPHEAD did when that game was revealed & released. And the fact that, like those previous examples, Goldman is also a legitimately fun game just makes the experience of playing it all the more engrossing.

The Eternal Life of Goldman is also a blatant display of not only the value of real Artists & Animators as well as the kind of work that results from true creativity but also highlights the kind of results that AI is absolutely NOT capable of achieving especially currently. This game is a justifiably ruthless spit in the face of AI “Art” & AI game development both bolstered by the cult of AI Evangelists repeatedly trying to pass off their lazy, prompt-generated slop as the future of art, entertainment & tech.

Genuinely feel that any & everyone who’s a fan of either Metroidvanias, hand animation and/or games with incredibly distinct art styles give the Demo a shot at the very least.

The Eternal Life of Goldman on Steam

In this breathtaking platformer adventure, explore a vast hand-drawn Archipelago, inspired by ancient fables and depicted in classic frame-b

[norathianprincess]

please anyone, don’t take this as a diss : but I like how Imu’s design looks like edgy and that it looks like he takes himself very seriously … it’s just fitting for the nemesis of Joyboy, the guy that brings laughter and joy everywhere he goes, to be like that, serious and dark and edgy.

[calvincell]

😂 I definitely don’t take it as a diss at all & honestly think it’s a very insightful observation & analysis such that I’m 99% certain that it might’ve been point for point Oda’s explicit thought process when he crafted Imu

It’s such a great contrast that makes me eager to see the interactions between Imu & Luffy when they’re finally face to face

[shamebats]

If you see the quote "I refuse to share my body with a man who wouldn't defend it politically" or any variation of it floating around the internet — it was Kat Blaque who originally said it and she would really appreciate it if people gave her proper credit for it but it's gone viral on a lot of different platforms and most of the people sharing it don't know it's from her or choose not to credit her on purpose.

[bmoharrisbankofficial]

she’s specifically a Black, transgender woman too which is the context of the quote — here are her captions about it (IDs needed)! she also posted two short form vids on insta + tiktok about the quote and people divorcing her from it when it is specifically talking about how Black transgender women are lusted after and pursued by extremely conservative men

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Good Morning! Today is Trans Day of Visibility. Kat Blaque is the first Black trans woman that I followed and I made so many friends in her space. Some, I still have to this day and some that I catch up with every now and then. She has always been very transparent with various stages of her life and has been a powerful Black voice for well over a decade. I know that because it was over a decade ago when I found her and met friends, some who I have had the privilege of seeing discover themselves and some who have transitioned and been open and vulnerable with me and followers of theirs about their journey.

Give Black women their things. Give Kat HER things.

[calvincell]

Despite being woefully behind on watching much of her content over the last year or so, she remains amongst my favorite YouTubers

[callese]

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

[growing-yet-into-magic]

Worldcat is my bestie and my one true love!! Not only does it tell you what library a book is at, but it also price compares different used book sites against each other for easy view! It's how I got Tarot For the Master for $10!!

[growing-yet-into-magic]

Oh, and since I have your attention: z-library (books and textbooks) and sci-hub (gatekept scientific journal articles.) I just ripped a textbook for class off z-library and snatched a required reading from sci-hub. Life is good and education should be accessible at every stage and station of life.

[mckitterick]

information wants to be free

[no-one-offical]

@thesightofthestarsmakemesmile

[letterbox-sparrow]

THERE’S A SEARCH ENGINE FOR THAT

And it’s called SearXNG. It’s a metasearch engine, so it takes information from whatever providers you select and presents it to you as Google might but without ads or tracking, and you can pick which sources it searches, so you could only search Wikipedia and scihub and worldcat and whatnot by default

[domrom]

HI TUMBLR I wanted to do a text post focusing on my characters because I have been working on this animation + comic project SO much this year!

Carnageman: IKE is the story of an invincible man who travels across a post-apocalyptic USA on his quest to kill billionaires.

Everyone on the cast has diametrically opposed views on justice and punishment.

The story's themes explore America's specific culture of violence, the absurdity of righteous brutality, and the concept of humanitarian justices suffering under fascism.

I wanted to make a story that is very much about being an American because my country is so terrible and sometimes I did wish a big monster would just destroy it all. I am very inspired by Hideo Kojima games and hate politically overt stories that refuse to be politically opinionated (like Call of Duty)

Explore the tag if you are interested in more art + story, and feel free to hit my askbox.

[calvincell]

“I…hate politically overt stories that refuse to be politically opinionated” is 100% getting tattooed on my brain because it’s absolutely the most eloquent & succinct description of politically/ideologically cowardice in media and the creatives behind such travesties! It’s always so damn frustrating when the disingenuous peddlers behind the tripe go about stating that their intent was to be “apolitical”; getting miffed when people don’t buy it. Works like CoD & the recent Far Cry games eagerly trade in narratives steeped in military worship, authoritarian hellscapes, revolutionary rhetoric, drug war conflict etc. Yet the architects behind ‘em fail to grasp that, by claiming those blatant aspects within their work(s) have no relevance/relationship to the historical and/or current social & political climate, they are obliviously & loudly announcing that they carelessly throw those elements in into what they make strictly for aesthetics alone; completely void of even a flyspeck of insight, honesty or tact. As a fellow writer, I too find works like that nauseating and couldn’t imagine putting so much effort into a project without anything to truly say or express. It’s why I admire your craftsmanship of CARNAGEMAN because it’s a project with vision that so clearly has the kind of depth, style & bite that way too many vapid corporate media pushers are completely horrified by & obsessively try to erase.

[celestialstateofmind]

just saw the lanterns trailer and i don’t have any nice words. Why does it look like a low effort attempt at combining cowboys vs aliens and the rookie

[calvincell]

Best thing about the trailer? Hal’s Accent 😂 Genuinely like Kyle Chandler’s acting too

I do love the Lantern Ring design too & though I do like the suit on a shape & material level, the colors are abysmally muted. Guy’s outfit in Superman 2025 was so much more distinct. It’s honestly to the point that my best rationale is that while the empty Lantern Suit might be drab, the colors will brighten either while a Lantern actually wears it or possibly the moments when the ring is in use like building a Construct. The latter would be an extremely weird choice but I’m just spitballing anyway 🤷🏾‍♀️

Trying to ultimately remain cautiously optimistic that the show will actually click in the moments outside those cut for the trailer simply because I genuinely do think that the True Detective-esque premise is genuinely promising on paper yet still needs stellar execution

[wrongplaceworsttime]

and if i say this made me tear up then what

[idontknowanametouse]

It angers me that many will read chapter 1174 and only think of Loki's fruit reveal and powerscaling.

I was on the verge of tears during the scene with the kids. How they all thought they were being punished, and regretting those small moments of just being children as if their fate is their own fault. They all broke down crying, even Colon, cuz they are all just kids. And then their parents and guardians coming to hug them, being aware of what will happen to them because of it, but refusing to let their children die alone. That page as a whole was absolutely heartbreaking.

Sommers has proven himself to be disgusting before, and now even more. Celestial Dragons suck in general, but he is a specific brand of terrible that makes him look even worse than the others. He doesn't even account for his own mistakes, and instead chooses to rejoyce in the suffering of these people. Oda is awesome at making truly evil, hate-magnet characters. I genuinely wish for him to have a terrible fate, be it death or not, just let him suffer the worst ever and feel the consequences of his actions finally coming to eat his ass.

When Luffy showed up my heart was so relieved I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. It felt like watching superman show up (or, well, better, since I'm not usamerican and thus superman culture aint strong here). I missed him a lot in the flashback, and now that he is back I can feel good because our hero- I mean, our pirate king is back. Loki was also a relief to see, and the way he was talking like he didnt care although he obviously did made me smile after such intense moments. And in the final page, I got chilled as Jarul talked and both Loki and Luffy showed up. Seriously, Luffy's arrival made me feel such joy and hope I kind of felt like a person in-universe watching Nika show up to save them.

Awesome chapter, Oda, and I must say, one of the best in these last months. I didnt like the flashback much (just personal taste tho, it was good) and everyone treating Harald as a stupid asshole made me tired, since he was clearly meant to be a failed ruler and father who did the best he could, although his best wasn't always enough, but someone who is essentialy kind-hearted and has the best of intentions, and it was clear to me how much he and Loki loved each other and the circunstances fucking sucked. Also I just am basically unable to like Xebec sorry.

But chapter 1174? Holy shit, this brought me back that same old one piece emotional ride and joy, finally could smile whole-heartedly with this whole situation. After all, Luffy is here, and if Luffy is here we know it's gonna be okay.

[calvincell]

100% agreed about the scene with the parents! Something about the line from Bent’s Mom, “Don’t worry, darling. Your Mama needs to be scary sometimes to keep you safe”, TRULY gutted me and dragged out my tears. It’s likely partially because it sounds like something that my own mother might say in a similar situation. It’s just so heartbreakingly REAL not only on the words & actions of Bent’s Mom, Ripley & all of the family members in that scene but also in regards to what the minds of all the children went to when they thought that they were being punished; moments that seem trivial through the eyes of an adult, yet monumental through the eyes of a child.

[suspiiriium]

Alberto Mielgo (artist, writer and director of "The Witness", "Jibaro" and "The Windshield Wiper") concept art for "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" when he was hired on as a "Visual Consultant" for the film. If you would like to know more, he tells his story here

[suspiiriium]

A few more of Alberto Mielgo's more character centric concepts for "Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse"

[lenny-link]

rem gaming

[walkingzero1]

So last night I read The Jaunt by Stephen King, and I went into ìt thinking...."ok...this probably aint gonna be that bad" Like..yeah its supposedly fucked up, but like...I be reading fucked up shit all the time ya kno? This'll probably be mid at best.

So I read it, and first & foremost, the way King builds tension is insane. How the Jaunt workers were getting closer and closer as you progress through the story...?*chefs kiss* Immaculate. (My shoulders were literally next to my ears by the time I finished) They don't call him the master of horror for nothin right? But anyway....when i finished, i was just kinda like "ehh...ok. That's a wild and awful concept, but it's fine. I fly on planes and be anxious AF the entire time so probably would still Jaunt just like everybody else. It ain't that bad. "

But yall...when i tell you this story has stuck with me since last night....And the more i think about it, the more scared i get 😭. I can't even imagine being stuck in the Jaunt for what feels like a billion lifetimes. Like...wtf would your brain even do at that point?? At first you'd just be thinking about how you fucked up and landed yourself in this situation...then your brain starts thinking of every thought/scenario it could possiblely create....but eventually its gonna run out of shit to think....You cant have an infinite amount of thoughts with no new stimuli right? (And that wouldn't even take that long..maybe like a couple years?) So... what does the brain do after??? Just start slamming you with endless hallucinations? Nightmares delusions? Flashes of light? Feelings and emotions that you dont even understand anymore? No coherent thoughts..Grasp of whatever language you spoke long gone...Mind just...gone. Empty. And then you still have A BILLION LIFETIMES OF THIS TO GO?? Bruh....absolutely not.

Then imagine.....you finally get to the other side after millenia of nothingness, your brain mush.....Just to be BOMBARDED with lights..noise...people...touch...smells. Overstimulation on MAX. No fuckin wonder they all died after. Whose heart could take that?!?!

Yall would NEVER catch me Jaunting. Period. Yall wouldnt even see me within 5 blocks of a Jaunt entrance/exit cause i would be tàking NO chances. If i ever even saw a Jaunt station id probaby go straight into a panic attack cause wtf. I literally wouldn't wish the Jaunt on my worst enemy fr. I went into the story thinking nothing could top I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, but this......this is definitely up there. And I guess...sometimes you gotta let shit marinate before you realize how terrifying it actually is hahah

[calvincell]

😂 🤙🏿You honestly spoke to damn near every single reason I also love The Jaunt, view it as a PERFECT Short Story & also rank it alongside IHNMAIMS as amongst the best works of short fiction ever; not just within King’s total bibliography nor just the horror genre but within the short fiction medium overall

Being pitched still awake into The Jaunt is one of those existentially terrifying fates that would make a quick death the preferred option. Additionally it was a masterstroke on King’s part to also include that anecdote of that inhumane criminal who, eager to rid himself of his innocent wife, cruelly chose to erase her by voiding her bound & alive into The Jaunt Interstice with no destination or return targets. I estimate that it’s been around 2 decades since I first read The Jaunt yet to this day simply thinking about that moment makes me legitimately feel physically sick to my stomach. No exaggeration. It’s a moment that highlights how human nature can be equally as horrid, unfeeling, vile & frightening as The Jaunt itself & the horror of infinity.