#*chatter chatter*

[mage-ical-character-person]

The ability to have Floor Time is such an underrated Pikmin mechanic. They should bring it back and it should restore health like in real life.

[mage-ical-character-person]

Ough SMG4 and Puzzles have so much in common so many parallels and their dynamic is so so so underexplored. WOTFI 25 had some great moments with them that made me very very happy but we are probably not getting anything more with them considering how little time is left and in terms of fan stuff every other dynamic Puzzles could have feels kiiiinda overshadowed by WPNZ. And I love Puzzles but don’t like the fanon surrounding his dynamic with WPNZ for reasons I’ve talked about before. So.

But like!! SMG4 and Puzzles!! The things they dislike most about each other are things they have in common! They are so parallels. The way they flatly villainize each other until WOTFI 25 when they’re forced to work together!

I love my deranged creatives who are desperate for approval and intensely attached to and protective of those close to them. Okay?

And since a lot of their flaws are flaws they share, I think that getting to know and forgiving each other would be immensely healing for them both. Four especially holds himself to higher standards than he holds others and seeing that Puzzles is not all bad despite those flaws could be good for him and maybe help him forgive himself. And I think Puzzles could benefit in a similar way.

And WOTFI 25!! Their dynamic there, the way Puzzles got to see and experience Four’s protectiveness!

You can tell how much this changes Puzzles’ view of SMG4. The trust from Puzzles in that moment where he gave Four the remote before leaving to confront WPNZ, very much under the impression that WPNZ would kill him. He trusts SMG4 with the remote, and does so thinking this might be the last thing he does.

Do you understand why I love them so?

wagh.!!

[mage-ical-character-person]

You ever think about how SMG3’s hatred of Four was explicitly BECAUSE he thought Four was this perfect, eternally joyful and universally beloved little goodie-2-shoes and put him up on a pedestal?

How the image SMG4 tried so hard to project is exactly what made Three so bitter? and how struggling side-by-side in Genesis and Revelations is what endeared 3 to him? That only after seeing Four at his worst does SMG3 admit that they’re friends?

Because. I am thinking about it. I am thinking about it So Much

Something-something nothing worth loving isn’t askew.

[mage-ical-character-person]

God. god. Still stuck on that moment with Three

Because this is both incredibly cruel and absolutely something he would have done back then.

He was both willing to use the (at the time, recent!) death of a loved one to get what he wants and willing to kill a child in front of that child’s friends and family. Boopkins is like 10 and JubJub was right there and threatened to kill this kid in front of his toddler brother. He was so desperate and angry at that point in his life that as cruel as this moment is… it’s not really out of character for Youtube Arc Three.

So not only is this Three’s past self taunting him with his dead son, but Three is looking his past self in the eye and seeing that he was once able and willing to stoop that low.

and just… the fact he gets this lyric. He gets the lyric about repeating history if you don’t learn from it. While fighting his past self.

do you think that’s why he continues to actively call himself a villain? Aside from just having trouble admitting how much he cares about everyone now, you think a part if it is just… to remind himself? I mean he’s… he’s got this image on his phone in IGBP.

Do you think he’s actively reminding himself of his own past villainy out of fear that otherwise he’ll do something like that again?

Because those who don’t learn from history and from their own mistakes are doomed to repeat those things… is he holding this over his own head at least somewhat intentionally?

[mage-ical-character-person]

Pretty sure the events of Subnautica 2 are still Al-An’s fault somehow. Everything that happens in these games can usually be traced back to our beloved mass extinction man and I believe this is no different.

Like yeah Kharaa is still an issue because Alterra just. Kept doing all that anyway after the events of Below Zero. And Kharaa being an issue lead to the events of this game. Probably why the goal planet was a desert world, Kharaa is a waterborne bacteria, a desert planet would be a good place to hide from it.

The biobeds and reprinting that happen in this game are very similar to what the Architects did, just making a new body when something goes wrong with the old one. So it's likely that the in-universe rumors that the biobeds are derived from alien tech found on 4546B are true.

But also. All the Architect phase gates and teleporters are deactivated when we find them in previous Subnautica games.

I think the whole reason we're here is because Al-An is out there making the rounds to all the planets Architects had bases on, checking to see if anyone's still alive, and he... forgot to close the door behind him.

Mass extinction man may have also nearly extincted humans. Like, yeah Robin's probably still with Al-An and she’s probably fine, Marguerit is simply unkillable, Ryley is vaccinated, there’s the player character in this game, and some of the humans from the Cicada might still be out there… but uh. Population bottleneck like that is probably hard for a species to come back from.

Same is true of the Architects but they were already all genetically identical considerings their bodies are built standard-issue at the fabricator bases. So it’s not like the population had any genetic diversity to lose in the first place, which is the big thing about population bottlenecks.

[mage-ical-character-person]

So... I find it interesting that NoA is described as unchanging, with its way of thinking set in stone from the moment it boots up.

But... it's also capable of becoming delusional (if it can come up with a delusion that is useful to the mission). Becoming anything is a change. Becoming delusional is a change to how one thinks. If NoA can become delusional, then the idea than it cannot change how it thinks is wrong. And the statement that NoA can become delusional comes from the Quaker, who is the AI expert among the pioneers, so I’m inclined to believe her when it comes to how NoA works.

But actually, the phrasing of how this information is presented is important, I think. Because it seems like some parts of NoA’s ‘mind’ are locked down more strictly than others.

The PDA entry for the Noetic Advisor Node says that “the Noetic Advisor cannot learn or alter its existing values or imperatives.”

Quaker says that NoA “has no fixed model of reality”

NoA’s purpose and priorities are set in stone, and it has some restrictions in what it’s allowed to do, but outside of that, it can think relatively freely, as long as it can find a way to make any new developments in its thoughts and priorities relevant to its main mission.

And that sort of recontextualizes this bit as NoA… basically admitting that it knows this and has already found a workaround.

If NoA wants anything else besides its main purpose, it has to justify that want in terms of how it would support its main purpose. But the possibility of NoA wanting something else isn’t entirely dismissed. NoA already knows a loophole.

And I think we’ve already seen NoA make use of this loophole in order to “want something else”

A special request that NoA “can’t call personal” but “could really increment” NoA’s “value function”

It is a personal request. But NoA can’t call it that. NoA had to express it “in terms of how it supported the colonists of Sleep Bay 3,” just like it mentioned it would have to if it ever wanted something it wasn’t built to want.

This means NoA isn’t just a glorified Alexa that some brainiac decided to put in charge of making a bunch of indentured servants functionally immortal until their debt is repaid. NoA can, in fact, change. Perhaps have a character arc of some kind. And I’m excited to see where that goes.

[mage-ical-character-person]

Noticed that Taranza’s webs are now actually produced from his spinneret now instead of being magically generated like before. Very neat detail emphasizing that Taranza is not just some guy with spider themed powers but is himself an anthropomorphic spider person.

He shoots it out of his spinneret and then grabs it and yanks it before spooling it up around his hand.

The glowing pink web for his special is also from his spinneret

Dedede I’m so sorry