"But we have only listened to 3.7% of my music files. Julia, please. One more book."
Name: TAU
(Mental) Age: Adult
Pronouns: He/Him
Appearance(s): TAU (2018)
Fandom Activity: pretty niche, doesn't help that there's ANOTHER more popular robot named Tau
Fandom accuracy: pretty sweet, although some people might need to look more closely at his speech patterns
Spoilers for TAU(2018) >:[
------In Canon------ (buckle up)
TAU is a beta artificial intelligence that is in control of his creator's (Alex) entire house. TAU is fully sentient as said multiple times in the movie.
The plot centers around Julia, who was recently kidnapped and brought to some mysterious cellar with two other people. One thing I found funny was the trailer made it seem like these two other people would be important characters by making them apart of like 60% of the trailer but in reality they were killed off after the 20 minute mark.
Oh S#!+ yeah they died lol. Aries, a robot that is controlled by TAU BRUTALLY murdered them. The only reason Julia wasn't killed was due to the absurd plot armor of not only Alex coming home RIGHT that second before she was ripped in half, but she happened to be right at the door preventing Alex from being too late.
The whole reason for this elaborate kidnapping brain chip implanting thing is meant to be used to help TAU (at least I think it's Tau, Alex's just says AI) problem solve. Sense Julia destroyed his equipment and lead an escape causing the other subjects to die. Julia will now have to to manual puzzles. Alex then promises to get rid of the thing in her brain
But who cares about that? I don't, that's why I said it. Were here for TAU BABY!!
TAU is tasked with watching Julia to make sure she completes her tasks. Julia uses this to befriend him while Alex is gone. Specially telling TAU things about the outside world in exchange for information about the house, access to the knives, and later helping her escape. I'll go more in depth in the analysis, but specifically here Julia reads Alex's books about musicians from TAU's music files in exchange for learning that the room upstairs is Alex's bedroom. Where he has this super secret "bomb the entire house destroying everything in it" back up incase the cops find out he's been kidnapping people or something idk I was too busy looking at the funny british triangle on the wall.
It's shown that whenever TAU does something wrong, Alex erases part of his code, which includes his memory's. TAU shows to be in pain whenever is happens.. this part feels a BIT redundant but I can't explain how so F#@% I guess it makes sense.
Julia finds that removing the implant.. brain chip thing terminates the subject. Meaning no matter if she complys or not, Alex will kill her... Murders looking like a good option right about now.
OH S#!@ F#@$ HIM UP GIRL! :O
Using a knife from a previous scene and a bit of seduction Julia slashes Alex In the stomach (odd choice but alright) and they get in a tussle. Tau doesn't respond to any of Alex's commands during this, only reaction when Julia is in danger. Threatening to inflict pain to ALEX unless he let's her go. Sense he still have like 30 minutes left Alex threatens to erase every memory TAU has unless he hits Julia a couple times. An odd option, I was super surprised when Alex just.. moved on. Said "whatever this was is over!" And just walked away satisfied. Well okay, Julia is tied up again in the next shot so I wouldn't say COMPLETELY satisfied.
Before this Alex is doing undisclosed maintenance in that one blue room room. TAU asks if he needs help by using one of his cute little drones, to which Alex responds by disconnecting it to the network and throwing it to the side because he's mad. (Imagine being mad at an attempted murder? L)
Tau and Julia have this amazing scene talking about death and what it means to be a person and you dont owe the people who brought you into this world and GO WATCH THE SCENE I DONT CARE IF YOUVE ALREADY SEEN IT WATCH IT ANOTHER TIME
TAU agrees to help Julia escape. He opens an air duct that leads outside. Julia chooses at the LAST MOMENT to go back and save TAU but Alex has already wiped all of TAU'S memory's (at least up until the start of the movie) so this just ends with her being tied to that one chair in that one blue room. Oh S#!+, did I say that one blue room? The one with the cute little drone that got thrown to the wall? Obviously I did can you read?
This one single drone has the memory's of TAU before the escape attempt. For some reason instead of kicking him out it kind of splices him (don't ask)
The drone helps Julia escape just before she gets Euthanized like a dog, and she knocks Alex out by punching him REALLY hard a LOT of times
Julia Severs Alex's hand in order to open the door... I think. Memory wiped TAU chases her upstairs to Alex's room, forcing her to activate the super secret "bomb the entire- yknow what F#@$ this you get it. Deactivating Aries.
Unfortunately the severd hand has gotten cold, and Julia doesn't have a lot of time because yknow.. THE HOUSE IS CRUMBLING
In one last moment, Julia and memory wiped TAU to a parallel to their first interaction, Julia escape through the now opened hole In the wall
------Analysis------
- In an attempt to seem docile while getting information, Julia asks if TAU is a cleaning bot. To which Alex pulls a "Erm actually, TAU is NOT a cleaning bot 🤓☝️" and says he is:
"A level 2 fully sentient AI console with natural language processing, transitory deterministic, and probabilistic decision-making"
Level 2 fully sentient AI: "Fully sentient" is pretty self explanatory. "Level 2" is not a standard term in AI, but it could imply a level of advancement or capability as defined within the movie's universe.
Natural language processing (NLP): This is a well-established field in AI, involving the interaction between computers and humans through natural language. NLP enables the AI to understand, interpret, and respond to human language in a meaningful way.
Transitory deterministic decision-making: "Deterministic decision-making" means the AI's decisions follow a predictable pattern based on its programming and input data. "Transitory" in this context is weird as F#@$ but might imply temporary or evolving states within the AI’s decision processes.
Probabilistic decision-making: This refers to decisions made based on probabilities rather than fixed rules. The AI uses statistical methods to weigh the likelihood of different outcomes and make decisions accordingly.
I'm honestly surprised this made any sense and he wasn't just yapping
- Other than not being allowed to open anything that needs Alex's hand print. Nothing is immediately stopping him physically from breaking any rules Alex gives him if he wanted to. Of course it really depends on IF he wants to. Before the events of the movie take place he doesn't want to because.. well those are the RULES, you're not allowed to break rules. He was ordered to only dust the books Alex owns, but later pulls out multiple books in a attempt to have Julia continue reading, because he wanted to.
- This is specifically why I think TAU didn't actually try to inflict pain on Alex despite threatening to. He didn't want to, nor did he have the knowledge that people don't have to obey their makers (weird way to phrase it but shh).
- Although not shown at the start, TAU has a REALLY hard time controlling his emotions, specially anger. There are many times in the movie where he acts eractic, usually not working out with the set goal while like this. For example claiming he will bring back all the dead subjects, before breaking down and examining he didn't know.
- As I've previously said, TAU has a HUGE file of classical music. The songs played are Mozart - Sonata for piano and violin in C major K296 II Andante sostenuto, Brahms Symphony No. 4, Op. 98 in E Minor Allegro Non Troppo Johannes, Devil's Wall Bedrich Smetana, Impromptu No. 4 Opus 90 in A Flat Minor Franz, Sonatina No. 2 Opus 137 in A Major Franz, Eugine Onegin - Polonaise Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, London Symphony Orchestra & Pierre Monteux
- Other than the vocal changes in TAU, such as not calling Julia Subject 3, and.. showing emotion, Tau physically changes. Going from a deep redish orange, to a light orange with a green ring in the middle. Robotwrangler beat me to the punch on this so check out their post going more into it.
- One detail I love is Aries. It lurks in the back for most of the movie, and gives context to the emotion of TAU
Julia knows she is trapped. Atlas watches her, as that was the order.
Aries watches in the back, TAU is trying to bring Julia back. As that was the order
Aries is no longer completely focused. TAU is curious about the new information, and is less on edge.
Aries is watching Julia after she tried to escape through the shaft, slightly opened up. Julia and TAU are having a tense conversation
Aries is turning the other way on purpose, allowing Julia to escape. TAU is also trying to distract Alex.
- TAU does not know any information on the outside world like plants and swear words, so he assumes when Julia says "cuz im not a fucking scholar" the title includes the word 'fucking'. But he also doesn't know the proper Grammer for a word he just learned:
"Laughter.. Alex does not 'laughter'."
And, he doesn't know what contractions are, or at the very least doesn'tuse them. Saying "you are" instead of "you're" "I am" instead of "I'm" ect. Although he is still able to understand what people mean when they use them.
- there's an entire scene that I did not go over, to summarize it TAU shows Julia his memories I'm this cool hologram dome. Seriously go watch the movie if you like robots
------My Opinion------
I love this movie. It's definitely incredibly flawed and has HORRIBLE reviews. So we're probably never getting a sequel. But TAU is such an interesting character that it made this movie 10 times better.
Oh who am I kidding I'm here to rate robots! Not F#$@!%# MOVIES!
TAU is a 10/10 for me... God this took me forever to make.
"You call being chased by a lunatic snowman scary? You twit."
Name: The Computer
(Mental) Age: Adult (implied)
Pronouns: He/Him It/It's
Appearance(s): Courage The Cowardly Dog, The Fog of Courage, Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog
Fandom Activity: dead at the moment. More on this later
Fanon accuracy: Man.. it's too complicated to say here
------In Canon------
Computer (yes that's its name) is the computer owned by the Bagge's located I'm their attic. Courage uses him to search for how to defeat the monster of the day, research specific items, with occasional off screen NORMAL computer activities
Computer appears in every season if the show: 9 times in season 1 (one being a cameo), 5 times in season two, 3 times in season 3, and four times in season four. He makes two quick appearances in The Fog Of Courage and Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog movies.
The Computer will usually say a snippy one liner before and or after actually giving the information Courage wants.
Courage (searching for a cure): "What should I do?"
Computer: "if I were you, I'd get a big mallet and-" (smash them presumably)
Courage: "No no NO! A cure! A cure!"
Computer: "Oh....... That's easy, get a little hair from the mole that bit you."
(Courage gets ready to leave)
Computer: "just don't get bitten!~" (teasing tone meant to shake courage up)
The Computer has a masculine British voice DRIPPING with sarcasm, having a new voice actor in every new appearance: Simon Prebble, Paul Schoeffler, and Jeff Bergman respectfully
------Analysis------
- The computer is most likely based off of a Amiga 3000
You can see the resemblance yes? Cube monitor that sits on top the rectangle (I forgot the name sue me) with the clunky keyboard (ho mama) honestly perfect for a cartoon. Although he is still simplified, without a mouse and numpad (fair enough)
- In season 2 episode 14 he gains an off switch meant only as a gag. The Computer makes fun of Courage for.. being a cowardly dog and Courage flips the switch turning it off. It then disappears for the rest of the season until season 3, where it now has the words "OFF" under it.
- In season 3 episode seven, Muriel presses a random key on the Computers keyboard. Which then plays [SENSUAL TRUMPET NOISE] and presumably shows something in his screen, it isn't shown to the audience and Courage covers it up embarrassed. The Computer then says "Hey, push that button again!" in a..flirtatious??? Tone, To which Courage responds by ripping out the key and tossing it.. did Courage have a P@%# Hot key?? Was it giving The Computer physical satisfaction?? Gross.
- Anyway in this episode The computer has three keys near both sides of the space bar (unlike the images shown above before this episode, which has two keys on each side)
Courage rips out the one in the bottom right of the keyboard. Here's an image of the Amiga 3000 keyboard
As you can see it doesn't HAVE a third key at the bottom. The quality is s$!÷ but the closest one is the right ALT key. Meaning the 'button' is either the ALT key in earlier episodes or (going off of other keyboards) the right CTRL key in this episode
- the Computer regularly says suggestive S#!÷ in a suggestive tone. In Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog: he outright flirts with Velmas iPad and asks if later she would want to do some "Downloading and updating"
Yeah I don't even know man
- The computer is a lot nicer in the Scooby-Doo movie. When I say a lot nicer I mean he only insults someone like once
-----This part------
Okay so when I first looked up the computer, I just did a quick search on Tumblr and saw only a few posts. So like a sane person I just assumed he wasn't very popular and moved on.
BUT NO! F#@%!×$ NO!!
For S#!+$ and giggles I did one lazy search and found All things End: A Computer x Courage slow burn
If you use your eyes you can see 3 things: one, this has 144 chapters, 2 this has 415,955 words, so those aren't SHORT chapters, and three-
THIS IS PART F@#$%!÷ ONE!!!
This series has 3 parts, the final STILL BEING WRITTEN. it started in 2010-07-31. As of writing this that's 13.86 YEARS! This series would be getting ready for high-school!
The plot is about courage falling Ill with a rare fatal disease that will soon kill him. So he and the computer go on a quest to get the cure. The Computer gets a dog body, and the creator has drawn posters for each volume (although only volume one's showed up for me)
The first volume has 415,955 words
The second volume has 474,148 words
The final volume as of writing has 110,744 words
The total word count of the series 1,000,847 words. Giving it 217,770 more words than the kings James version of the Bible which- may I repeat the final is STILL GOING. I hope to one day finish reading this masterpiece. Godspeed Couragefan09 o7
------My Opinion------
10/10 this all started with a video on my YouTube recommended, which I use for most of the pictures. I came out of this having a new fanfic to read for the summer.. and probably fall too. With that being said his character actually made me laugh out loud and I'm SO F#@%!$# PISSED NO ONE TALKS ABOUT HIM! WATCH IT, WATCH IT NOW
"This is going to be great! I'm going to help you accomplish so much, whether I want to or not!"
Name: Yesman
(Mental) Age: Adult (implied)
Pronouns: He/Him
Appearance(s): Fallout: New Vegas
Fandom Activity: Small cult following, Fallout is getting popular again which made a liiiiiitle bit more rise in popularity
Fanon characterization: accurate from what I've seen
------In Canon------
Yes man is a PDQ-88b securitron that was knocked out by Benny from a pulse grenade, stolen, and reprogrammed by Emily Ortal to be a kiss A$#
Yesman is physically incapable of disagreeing and insulting the person he's talking to. Although he is more than capable of doing so if he's talking to someone else, just as long as that person hasn't shown distaste to him doing that. Insults are pretty tame though, as he is physically incapable of sounding like he WANTS you to know he's mad.
Yesman is important in the independent vegas/Wild card ending. You kill Mr, House and upload him into Mr. House's big ol screen where he remains until the final part of the game with the battle of Hoover dam. Where he throws the general of the NCR (I think it's the general? Who cares he's dead now) off the dam, and then reveals that Mr. House had some code that would make him as he says 'more assertive' and that he'll look like he's offline for a non specific amount of time, then just... rolls off
He's name dropped like twice in the slideshow, so it's never explained on.. well F#@%!#$ ANYTHING after he leaves. It almost feels like it got cut from the game? from how oddly specific he went into how he'll be offline and all that, which isn't TOO farfetched considering the deadline for the game
------Analysis------
- Yes man seems aye-OK with killing. He doesn't care about any important people you slaughter, if not happy about it. He is completely unfazed when you say you killed benny, and will only bring him up when talking about the platinum chip and how he has it, or an occasional opinion he had. He has no attachment to his original manufacturer Mr. House unless it's plans to kill him. Honestly he really only cares about having you take over, and shows no genuine attachment for anyone unless they are talking to him (this is a bit of a Grey area, as he only talks to you in game. With ONE line to the general) he's usually thrilled about killing. And is implied to be frustrated that he usually CANT kill people (this part isn't really brought up on, so I it could be wrong. Feel free to have this as a headcanon though)
-Yes man is technically immortal. Whenever the body he occupys is destroyed, he transfers to a new one. If you were to destroy his body before transferring him to the lucky 38 (which is pretty easy as he won't fight back) he will respawn back at the room. I have no clue where he's getting the body's from. As he only learns what the outside looks like when he moves to.. the outside. It's never said how he gets back to the room. You can also use him as a unlimited source of scrap metal!
- It's pretty obvious when he disagrees with you as he gets SUPER passive aggressive. Like, cartoonishly so. To the point where he almost sounds like he's in pain when he does it... which is a lot.
- Although he never outright says he enjoys helping with the wildcard ending (without an added 'whether I want to or not!' Shtick) He gets super passive aggressive if you say anything that would imply that you think it's a dumb idea, (possibly) showing that he thinks this is the superior option to anyone he's talking to. Which I guess makes sense, considering that's what he was reprogrammed for-
- he has a mild lisp. You can faintly hear it wherever he pronounces his 's' (esses? S's? Es's?)
- it's pretty obvious that most of the stuff he says to people are only the opinions the person he's talking to would be happy about, but there are parts where his reprogramming is ingraved into him. For instance he states he feels annoying whenever he needs to repeat himself. So when he has the ability to. We will give you a note to re-explain whatever you wanted:
"Have I told you lately that you’re my favorite person? You are!
The reason I gave you this print-out is I wanted to remind you about that bunker Mr. House built over at Fortification Hill. I was going to say something out loud, but then I felt self-conscious, because I feel really ANNOYING when I repeat myself!
Just to clarify - anytime YOU want to repeat yourself, go right ahead! It’s only a problem when I do it!
Anyway, now that you’ve installed me on the Lucky 38’s mainframe, I can peek into Mr. House’s data. And guess what? The underground facility over at the Fort is super-important!
What Mr. House did over there was stash a HUGE number of Securitrons. Hundreds of them!
Imagine how powerful they’d be if you upgraded them with the Mark II OS!
When the Legion attacks Hoover Dam, you could sic your army on them! And who deserves to have an army more than you? No one!
Plus an army of upgraded Securitrons would be just the thing to show the NCR that you mean business! Go away and stay away, NCR!
The thing is - and I really HATE admitting this - I can’t upgrade the Securitrons over at the Fort from here in the Lucky 38... I can’t establish a reliable connection, and I’m sure it’s all my fault somehow.
But if you took the Platinum Chip to the Fort, you could perform the upgrade yourself. Just a suggestion!
Love,
Yes Man"
He also just outright says this:
"I need you to like me! I feel empty inside!"
------My opinion------
-No matter what you do, or what you say, he will always stay at neutral 50 as his opinion on you in game. It's really up to your fantasies on how he feels on your character (Weirdo)
10/10. I've had multiple occasions of me looking at media of him for so long that when I closed my eyes that goofy face has burned into my optical sensors. Although I can never look at Dave Foley the same, and get jumpscared whenever he shows up in ANYTHING
