face of a dead king

Independent rp/ask blog for Gray from the Lord El-Melloi II Case Files (Type-Moon novels in the Fate universe). Mod also runs leonardodavinci-chan.

[pkjd]

“Lord El-Melloi II Case Files” anime key visual and screencaps. It’ll premiere during the “Fate Project New Year’s Eve TV Special” on December 31st (TROYCA)

[gravekeepergray]

We’re back in business, everyone!!

[gravekeepergray]

“Well, I think I’ve had my fill of fun here. I’ll be taking my leave now. Thank you for the entertainment, everyone! Until next time, do take care of Gray and my dear brother on my behalf!“

“...Miss Reines? What are you doing on my blog?”

“Whoops! Gotta go!”

[gravekeepergray]

//please look at this actual, real life reaction image of Reines from the Fate/Zero manga epilogue, directly after Waver tells her he’ll accept all responsibility for Kayneth’s death:

*Translation: SERIOUSLY!?*

[gravekeepergray]

Does Trim always wear a maid outfit? Or do you dress her up?

I certainly do! What’s the point of having an automaton if I can’t have fun with it sometimes?! I often use her as a mannequin when I go shopping, since she can alter her body to my measurements and therefore try on clothes for me. But to be honest, I think the maid outfit suits her best.

Technically, she doesn’t even need it– I could certainly program her to manifest a maid dress out of her own mercury. But the outfit sort of helps Trimmau contain herself in that shape. In a way, it serves the same purpose as the glass vial my uncle kept her in.

Oh, also, I can alter Trim to be clothes if I want to! I’m no fashion designer, but I’ve thought about having her turn into a ballgown for some high class event or other… now that would turn heads. I’ve also programmed her to turn into armor. I don’t need it, personally, but it might help protect a certain descendant of the King of Knights in battle… ;)

[gravekeepergray]

REINES!! REINES!! Can I please borrow Trimmau for something?!

“Something” is a little bit too vague for me to give my stamp of approval, Flat. If you’re interacting with Trimmau during unsupervised periods, I need to know exactly what you’re doing, so I can inevitably include it in the analysis of her resulting misbehavior. You’ve appeared in the methodology section of my research papers enough that now I just refer to your meddling as the Escardian approach.”

[jennajfeather]

“Haha!  Thanks Reines, I’m honored!  Anyway, I wasn’t going to teach her anything today, I…” He paused as he dug around in his pockets and pulled out two tickets.

“I randomly won two tickets to the zoo today, and I wanted to take her along with me!  Of course, I can make it educational for her too!!~” 

[gravekeepergray]

“Tickets to the zoo? Now, that’s not a bad date idea at all. Go ahead. Make sure to report back to me if she chooses to shapeshift into any new animal forms. But don’t tell Lord El-Melloi II-- if a silver crocodile barges into his office one day, I want him to be surprised.”

[gravekeepergray]

REINES!! REINES!! Can I please borrow Trimmau for something?!

“Something” is a little bit too vague for me to give my stamp of approval, Flat. If you’re interacting with Trimmau during unsupervised periods, I need to know exactly what you’re doing, so I can inevitably include it in the analysis of her resulting misbehavior. You’ve appeared in the methodology section of my research papers enough that now I just refer to your meddling as the Escardian approach.”

[gravekeepergray]

obdurcte

      No. He would rather not have his “sister” drabble on about his flaws. Or what she considered to be his flaws. “Unlike you, I am appreciative to any help I am given.” Whether it was from his apprentice or a stranger, he possessed the ability to be polite and accept it when it was offered without making a fuss like a pompous brat. “There is nothing wrong with having help in the morning.” It was the worst part of the day, and with the responsibilities thrusted upon him, waking up was the most difficult task to do. “And isn’t the pot calling the kettle black? It is doubtful you pick out your own clothes or do anything on your own.”

Ah, she enjoyed when he tried to fight back, but it really was no use. He would have to do better than that if he wanted to get under her skin. “True... but I have a Mystic Code specifically programmed for that purpose! Gray is not a mindless mercury automaton. She has a life of her own to spend, and the poor girl really should learn to spend it on herself instead of other people.” She looked at him slyly. “Or, that is to say, instead of on you. I wouldn’t mind having a lovely girl like Gray around to eat breakfast with every morning. Would you like to trade?”

[gravekeepergray]

More fun facts about Trimmau!

The humanoid form is also easier to teach. Basically, not to go too much into the technicalities of the magecraft involved, but when teaching VH a task, it’s much easier to program VH to “copy my movements” when doing something (i.e. sweeping, washing dishes, etc.). Obviously this works best if she’s in a humanoid form. But it might not be the most efficient way to complete a task for her, since she has flexibility that human bodies do not. The dishes might get done much faster if she reverted to a fluid configuration and used several appendages at once, but I don’t personally know how to do that, so I can’t teach her.

Flat, this isn’t an invitation to teach her more weird things, by the way. I’m still having trouble getting her to stop doing the robot dance in public spaces.

[gravekeepergray]

By the way, this is called apprenticeship learning! Trimmau’s apprenticeship learning function uses a method known as inverse reinforcement learning.

Normal reinforcement learning means that, when Trimmau attempts a task she is trying to learn, a reward function provides feedback on how close her current state is to achieving a goal. Let’s say she’s trying to beat Lord El-Melloi II at Mario Kart. She’ll start out just mashing buttons randomly, but after many, many games where she is told what place she got in the race, she’ll eventually figure out that if she mashes them in certain patterns according to what she sees on the screen, she will begin to succeed at winning the game.

But sometimes there’s not a simple function to tell her how well she did at a task (i.e. cleaning the house, which is far more complex than a video game). So we need a way for Trimmau to determine the correct action to take herself. So we use inverse reinforcement learning, where Trimmau infers a reward function based on behavior she’s observed! If she watches a human maidservant perform her duties for long enough, Trimmau will eventually be able to clean the house just as well.

Oh, and she’s a beast at Mario Kart. And pretty much any game, once you set her in front of it for fifty hours or so. Waver’s banned her from all video game competitions, but I still sometimes sneak her into MMORPGs he’s playing just to knock him off the leaderboards.

[unwcvering]

me: wow. I’ve always wanted to roleplay with a Reines. : ))) 

//// two posts into the thread

WELCOME TO THE ROAST OF LORD EL-MELLOI II !!

[gravekeepergray]

/////(( I’VE ALWAYS WANTED A WAVER TO ROAST ))/////

[unwcvering]

@gravekeepergray || cont’d x

       If only he had the power to ground Reines, she would be banned from his office, his apartment, anywhere that required them to be in the same vicinity. Unfortunately, life was terribly unfair. “Your defintion of the word ‘confiscate’ is still equivalent to theft,” he corrected, displeased by her answer. It would be easy to call her bluff and assume every threat was an empty one, but he wouldn’t put it passed Reines to do either. “My apprentice does deserve her privacy. Do you have nothing else to do?”

[gravekeepergray]

“Well, if you’re volunteering yourself as an alternate form of entertainment, I can think of some things. Would you like to talk about your various insecurities and personal failings? Let’s see... we’ll start with the fact that a grown man has to rely on his student more often than not to brush his hair and lay out his clothes for him. What, do you fancy yourself a high-ranking general in the Ionian Hetairoi already?” Her eyes shone with mischief. How kind of her brother to provide her with her favorite sport-- torturing him.

[gravekeepergray]

Does Trimmau count as a soft-bodied automaton? She’s technically fluid, but if she’s keeping a consistent shape, she looks entirely metal. There’s been a lot of interesting studies on how hard-bodied automatons and soft-bodied automatons elicit very different tactile interactions with humans, and thus soft-bodied automatons should be programmed differently to keep that in mind.

However, people seem to keep their distance from Trimmau as much as possible. I suspect that people perceive her as hard-bodied due to her metal appearance. The uncanny valley of her humanoid shape, I’m sure, is also a factor in why people become visibly unsettled around her (which, to be honest, I quite enjoy seeing).

Flat Escardos, of course, who attempts to embrace Trimmau >5 times a day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.

[gravekeepergray]

"Borrowing without permission is equivalent to stealing, Reines." He should know, after all.

“Ohhhh nooooo!!! I’m being chided! What are you going to do, brother? Ground me? It’s not like I stole an extremely expensive ancient Macedonian artifact, or anything. But speaking of which, if you tell Gray about this, I might just have Trimmau confiscate that little scrap of cloth from you…”

[cobblepottery]

I need to stop working on this or i’m gonna tear out my hair

There’s not enough Lord El-Melloi II or Reines Archisorte love out there and I AIM TO FIX THIS

[cobblepottery]

hey now that Reines is finally getting some attention let me drag this ANCIENT FANART back up from its 3 year old grave

[unwcvering]

Everything about these panels…  Gray is precious. Bless her.  ❤︎

[gravekeepergray]

More fun facts about Trimmau!

The humanoid form is also easier to teach. Basically, not to go too much into the technicalities of the magecraft involved, but when teaching VH a task, it’s much easier to program VH to “copy my movements” when doing something (i.e. sweeping, washing dishes, etc.). Obviously this works best if she’s in a humanoid form. But it might not be the most efficient way to complete a task for her, since she has flexibility that human bodies do not. The dishes might get done much faster if she reverted to a fluid configuration and used several appendages at once, but I don’t personally know how to do that, so I can’t teach her.

Flat, this isn’t an invitation to teach her more weird things, by the way. I’m still having trouble getting her to stop doing the robot dance in public spaces.

[gravekeepergray]

Thinking about it, it’s actually immensely ironic how much Trimmau has attached herself to the ‘killer robot from the future’ role. I certainly didn’t predict it when I started work on VH. The whole idea of giving the mercury a humanoid form in the first place was to more easily integrate it into everyday human life. Humans relate better to anthropomorphic forms, after all.

But whoops, instead of being relatable, she just has a longing to kill us all! Well, I suppose that’s relatable in its own way.

[gravekeepergray]

Well now, what’s this? Gray’s personal blog? How interesting... It doesn’t look like she’s been active on here for quite some time. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I just... borrowed it for a while.

Hello, everyone. Reines Archisorte here. What, you don’t know who I am? Then perhaps you’ve heard of my dear older brother, Waver Velvet, or my uncle, Kayneth Archibald. That’s right, I’m the littlest and prettiest of the El-Melloi line, and poor Lord El-Melloi II’s captor. I keep him quite in line for my own purposes. Although I never can get him to stop playing video games...

I’m also the developer of the “Maid Golem” program for the Mystic Code Volumen Hydrargyrum, aka that big blob of mercury that I use as my houseservant. We call her Trimmau nowadays. Say hello, Trimmau.

”COME-WITH-ME-IF-YOU-WANT-TO-LIVE.”

...Thank you, Trimmau. This glitch again? Well, I guess I’d better get to work debugging that. I swear if Flat sends her that DVD of Terminator one more time, I’m going to murder him.

~

(Mod here. Gravekeepergray is still basically dead. However, this weekend, and possibly more times in the future, I’m going to be using it to prep for job interviews in robotics. I’m going to be doing that by relaying interesting robotics information using Reines as a mouthpiece and Trimmau as a subject. So, consider this Reines’ brief takeover. Feel free to send her asks while this is happening, but I probably won’t be on much again after this weekend.)