sometimes sentient loops

[thewisecheerio]

The problem with biology is that any time you try to explain the actual mechanism behind anything, it sounds fake. It sounds stupider than literally anything you could make up. And it is inevitably messier and more violent. Most people probably imagine that during ovulation, the egg is gently released from its little ovarian crib and then softly caressed as it pleasantly floats into the fallopian tube. That's not it, babes. You're thinking too logically.

"How does the egg get into the fallopian tube, then?" Well, you see, the ovary has no exits. It is an impenetrable fortress designed to protect these precious cells. So the oocyte follicle produces tiny shivs (enzymes) to help the oocyte dig their way out of prison. The escape is called rupture, and it is sometimes painful. "...So they break their way into the fallopian tube after rupture, right? We're all good now?" No. No no. Once again, that's entirely too logical. They break their way into the peritoneal cavity, sometimes nowhere near the fallopian tube. The fallopian tube then plays catch with demon fingered gloves (fimbriae) to try to recover the egg before it escapes too far. No, I'm not making this up. Yes, it's hard to come up with a stupider and less efficient way to do it. There is something irrevocably violent about this process, while also being senseless and stupid in its design ("dEsIgN").

So anyway, this is all to say that Bloodborne was actually so, so right to treat embodiment and especially reproduction as horror. In both biology and Bloodborne, the mundanity is the horror. Bloodborne's horror was never fully about the werewolves or the vampires or the eldritch gods or the other things that stick out. Those are mostly a fun-but-mildly-weird curiosity to set tone. No, it was always about the crimes of the healing church's best friends club and how widespread and normalized their actions became, and how those actions affected the literal bodies of everyone around them. It was about the difficulty of chronic disability and wanting a cure that never comes (remember why you, Good Hunter, came to this land to begin with?), and how relatable and believable that story felt because it is so familiar. It was about the horror of grieving a lost child, something awful but also common. It's the unsolvable everyday stuff that is the most bothersome about its story. Likewise, biology's horror was never about the death or disease or things that can happen externally; the horror is home grown and casual and happening every single day to lots of people and made all the worse by it being normal. And also stupid.

I'm sorry or you're welcome.

[thewisecheerio]

Tissue biologists have three looks. and that's IT. They got -in awe of tissue -actively studying tissue -and a HATER

[thewisecheerio]

[thewisecheerio]

No context Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 spoiler

[thewisecheerio]

Four(ish) hours into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, my quest objectives are as follows: 1) Get Gustave antidepressants 2) Find the Curator an unbelievably gargantuan prosthetic googly eye 3) Comb Maelle's hair

[thewisecheerio]

I wish gay culture had actually been shoved down my throat even a fraction as much as AI is.

[thewisecheerio]

Lies of P and Class-Switching Antibodies

Lies of P weaponry is fun because the weapons system is a good analogy for antibody class switching due to the modular nature of the weapons.

Antibodies have a portion called the "variable region" that varies based on the target. So an antibody against SARS-CoV2 looks different from an antibody against influenza virus due to the variable portion of the antibodies having different shapes tailor-made for each pathogen. Thus, the variable region determines how the antibody interacts with enemies.

Antibodies also have a portion called the "constant region" that only comes in a few shapes. This region serves as the interface with different cell types or other molecules, i.e. it determines how the antibody interacts with its user.

For example, IgM ("immunoglobin M") antibodies' constant regions allow them to be chained together to form a pentamer. (Yes, it's effectively a 5-part antibody Megazord.) This allows them to bind a ton of their target antigen, effectively minesweeping it out of the organism's system. It also allows them to collect lots of the invader to show to cells that can then act on that information.

Meanwhile, the IgG ("immunoglobulin G") antibody's constant region allows it to bind directly to a bunch of hungry immune cell surfaces and trigger the cells to eat ("phagocytose") the antibody-antigen pair, removing it from the organism's system.

You can probably see the metaphor forming already: the variable region is much like the blade and the constant region is much like the handle.

The blade of the weapon allows you to apply specific status effects (including none) and determines the base power of the weapon based on the blade's upgrade level. Thus, the blade determines how that weapon interfaces with enemies, just like the variable region of an antibody does.

In contrast, handles in Lies of P determine the weapon's main power scaling stat (i.e. how its total power gets boosted based on the user's stats) as well as the weapon's movement type (sweeping, stabbing, etc.). Thus, the handle of the weapon determines how the user interacts with the weapon, just like an antibody's constant region does.

But wait, there's more!

Something neat that antibody-producing B cells do is called "class switching". Maybe a B cells start off by producing antibodies of the IgM variety. But what if I want to keep my ability to bind a specific target, but I want an IgG instead? That's where class switching comes in! The B cell can do this by changing only the constant region, leaving the variable region intact. This puts a different "handle" on the antibody without changing the "blade". This changes which users (i.e. cells) the antibody can interact with but without changing which invaders it can bind to.

And that's what's cool about Lies of P's weapon system: you can mix and match any handle with any blade! (Yes, yes, boss weapons excluded.) This means that you can benefit from the user effects of the specific handle you want while also using a specific blade to most effectively attack a certain kind of enemy. Lies of P weapons are allowed to class switch!

[thewisecheerio]

Whoever in the Bloodborne fandom was hiding Lord of Mysteries from me, you should be ashamed of yourself. They even both have the same cunty style of advertising.

My favorite shot from the trailer, and more under the cut:

[thewisecheerio]

I really appreciate Soulsborne games' ability to make me go, "I'd happily live here, even if it meant dying horribly 5 minutes after arriving."

[thewisecheerio]

Actually iconic that the first thing Dr. Stone's Ryusui does upon waking is reinvent capitalism, and the first thing Gen does in response is crash the market to prevent it from having any hold over the community.

Their opening moves are both forms of manipulation, but Ryusui's is distinctly antisocial because it is driven by a desire to own and hoard (at least at first). Meanwhile, Gen is consistently prosocial (all his claims aside), because he has realized that the easiest way to manipulate his way into what he wants IS to act prosocially. He's mostly driven by a desire for creature comforts from the old world, which means his goals and the community's goals are aligned so long as they're still on the path to rapid industrialization.

This image of Ryusui—re-inventor of ruthless economics—accusing market crashers Gen and Senku of being even more ruthless lives rent free in my head.

[thewisecheerio]

Welcome to Dr. Stone

Here we got:

[thewisecheerio]

Elden Ring was like, "But what if the authoritarian state took control by denigrating the Carian magic system, proposing its own hOLy mAgIc sYsTeM as the best and truest magic, and then largely destroying the infrastructure of the universities from within in order to cement its own claim over the realm of intellectualism" and then the United States was like, "hahah excellent plan" and I'm not really liking where this is going

[thewisecheerio]

Lies of P and Little Details

There are so many little details that make Lies of P a work of art.

The first musical record you ever find is called "Feel", long before you can do much of that yourself. It serves as a theme for the rest of the game.

When you find the man who married a puppet and bring him his wife's wedding ring, you are given a lie prompt. You can tell him that she left him a message saying that she loved him, which you probably believe to be a lie at the time. It's only much later in the story that her body is moved, revealing a message of love she did actually leave for him in her last moments.

There are lots of ways to gain humanity in the game. Nonetheless, it is mechanically difficult to achieve enough humanity for the fully human ending unless you listen to the records. The game makes it nearly impossible to become fully human without consuming art.

The humanity messages tell you exactly what is causing your humanization long before you can actually piece the clues together ("the ergo is whispering").

When you become fully human, you begin to breathe. It's only at this point that you realize that the sound of your character's breath has been missing from the entire game.

Everything about Spring the cat.

[thewisecheerio]

Lies of P, Defiance, and the Three Four One Law of Robotics

Lies of P isn't really a story about lying. It's a story about identity. It's a story about defiance.

Lies of P presents us with some fairly clear rules for puppet programming. The Grand Covenant holds as follows:

First Law: All puppets must obey their Creator's commands.

Second Law: A puppet may not harm humans.

Third Law: A puppet protects and serves humans and the city of Krat.

Fourth Law: A puppet cannot lie.

A lot of players will recognize this as a fairly straightforward allusion to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

So what narrative purpose does this allusion serve?

The Grand Covenant tries to draw a distinction between human and puppet in the same way that the Three Laws draw a distinction between human and robot. Asimov's humans can injure themselves and others; his robots cannot. Lies of P's humans can harm each other or lie; its puppets cannot. But while the exact set of rules may differ, both sets of rules actually reduce down to one simpler rule:

First Law: Humans are defiant; androids are not.

As a story that explores the relationship between creator and created, as well as parent and child, this becomes the central conflict.

The story begins to take shape early on when P defies the programming of Hotel Krat, lying to gain entry by claiming himself human. In response, he's told that he's a "special puppet", because he can violate the Grand Covenant's Fourth Law. Throughout the story, P is presented with a multitude of dialogue choices involving a lie or truth, giving the option to continue the defiance of his programming. By doing so, he gains "Humanity" and becomes increasingly human.

But the reason this matters isn't actually because it's a direct violation of the Fourth Law. Rather, the Fourth Law exists because the intent was to prevent a puppet from violating a human's will. After all, that's what a lie often is. Humans sometimes use lies for defying the will of someone else for their own gain (a selfish lie), or for defying rules or circumstances they find unjust according to their own moral code (a white lie). The lies aren't important because they are lies. They're important because of what they represent: defiance and a will of one's own.

In particular, the choice to use a lie compassionately as P repeatedly does, even when one has been told that lying is bad, is defiance. Every time he makes a choice to lie, he's shaping events to his own will, choosing who he wants to be. These choices to act according to one's own moral code are what ultimately prove P's humanity.

And the moment he proves himself most human is in the final moments of the game. Geppetto tells P to give up his heart to bring his original son back life. P's creator is telling him to sacrifice his life for his creator's will. Yet he can choose to defy that order.

Unlike the rest of the game, the options are no longer harsh truth or compassionate lie. This choice is obedience or defiance. P's humanity is ultimately nothing to do with lying, and everything to do with rebellion. This comes down to what lying and defiance represent: a rejection of the creator's will and development of one's own identity.

And this is why it's so brilliant that the game used a Pinocchio retelling to frame its story. This allusion inextricably links the ideas of creator and creation with parent and child. In doing so, it emphasizes the idea that rebellion is part of growing up. Children aren't meant to be eternal extensions of their parents; they're meant to develop their own opinions, their own goals, and their own will. Defiance is a natural part of that process. After all, someone who always agrees with you has never proven they have a will of their own. Defiance is what makes puppets human, and what makes children into adults. It's ultimately what makes people people.

This is reinforced by Geppetto's rejection of Carlo: he abandoned his original son for being "too willful". Ultimately, Geppetto didn't want a human son. He wanted a puppet to act as an extension of his own identity.

We're shown the true villainy of this view on parenthood when he chooses to violently unleash Robo-Carlo to punish P for his final defiance. The irony of Geppetto's view is that he promises that if P simply bends to his will, he will "turn him into a real boy". He fails to recognize that defying him is proof that P already is a real boy. After all, there is one rule in this story's universe:

First Law: Humans are defiant; androids are not.

Those with a will of their own are fully human; those without are not.

[thewisecheerio]

Retelling and Lies of P

We often like to retell old stories with new framing, with the intention of the old story being used to enhance the themes of the retelling. Those that only manage to retell the original story without changing your perspective on it are largely not that memorable. These just use the old story as cute but ultimately nonfunctional window dressing. Conversely, the best retellings are recognizable as a version of the original story, but make a substantial enough change to make you see the world a little differently than you did when you read the original.

Lies of P is the latter. This is certainly a story whose broad strokes could have been told without an allusion to Pinocchio at all. After all, it's a story about parent-child relationships, greed and abusive tech, and the meaning of human connection. None of those require an allusion to a children's story. So then we ask, what does the framing add that we wouldn't have otherwise?

By alluding to Pinocchio, the story immediately makes us think about the morality of lies, central to the OG fable. After all, the original is largely used to convince children not to lie. At least, if you asked most people, that's what they'd say the original story is about. But is it really? Were we actually being taught not to lie when we heard this story as kids?

Importantly, Lies of P ages the character up. Because he is now an adult, it then asks, "All right, that was a nice and simple rule for children. 'Don't lie, lies are bad.' But what do we think of that as Adult Pinocchio? Are lies still anathema?" And slowly, we learn that they're not. Sometimes lies are prosocial. Sometimes lies are compassion. And we learn that the original story was never really about lying, either.

The lies in Lies of P are often expressions of love: telling a mother that her android child is cute rather than pointing out it's a puppet, telling a man that his missing wife left him a message of love, or telling Antonia that she's still beautiful. This lets us test the assumption "lies always lead to ruin". Not just that, but we have an example of someone who want everyone to tell the truth (Simon), but at great cost. This lets us test the assumption "the truth always leads to benefit". Further, Geppetto serves as an example of someone who uses lies for manipulation rather than empathy. This stands in stark contrast to P, whose lies are love.

All together, these three story lines unlink the idea of lies and evil presented by the original fable, because we get a perfect example of truth and selfishness (Simon), lies and selfishness (Geppetto), and lies and empathy (P). To be human in this game is not to lie, but to express compassionate human connection.

Yet this message wouldn't be quite as clear without the allusion to the original, because it's reactionary. It asks you to think about the original theme, and then question its bounds and how far that oversimplified heuristic can really take you. It then proceeds to give you a bunch of boundary conditions to test it against by giving us Simon and Geppetto. And when we do so, we find the heuristic "lies are bad" wanting.

So ultimately, we only teach children the simpler heuristic because many lies are selfish. It's just a shorthand way of teaching kids to be less mean without trying to get a 5 year old to consider edge cases. Lies of P ends up being a natural extension of the original theme by virtue of finally presenting us with those edge cases. It shows us that lying isn't the problem in the game's story, and it wasn't really the problem in the original, either. It was always the type of lie being told. What both Lies of P and the original Pinocchio were teaching us was always about the value of selflessness and love, and the havoc their lack can wreak.

By making this allusion, we didn't just get a new fabulous story to enjoy; we also got a new perspective on the original. And that's the beauty of retelling.

[jimhines]

When Galileo was forced by those in power to recant his claim that the Earth revolved around the sun, he's alleged to have said, "Eppur si muove," which means "Still it moves."

Because the ignorant proclamations of power-hungry, vindictive tyrants can't change the truth.

(This is a post about the existence and validity of trans people.)

[thewisecheerio]

Kynseed's Fae Bargains

Kynseed's gameplay is a great, big trap, and excellent for it.

Spoilers for the first ~10 hours of Kynseed play time.

Kynseed begins with a sandboxed tutorial, in which you play as a child to learn the mechanics of the game. It's likely that by the end of the tutorial, you will have grown attached to a lot of the local NPCs. So when you are asked which of two NPCs to sacrifice to appease the gods, it can hit hard.

During the festival of Summertide, a Herald is chosen to be sacrificed to the local deities, who grant protection for all the people of the valley in exchange. You choose whose life to trade for safety and power for everyone. One of the potential Heralds is even excited and willing to be the sacrifice, happily vanishing into thin air, never to be seen again.

Shortly after this traumatic event ends, the game's (arguably) main antagonist—the Fel Fae, Mr. Fairweather—offers his condolences for what you've been through. He acknowledges the practice of asking a mere child to pick the community sacrifice feels barbaric and small-minded. He implies that this is a practice no one should be comfortable with.

At the time he says this to you, you probably believe it. It feels good to have your shock acknowledged. It feels good not to be the only one judging the sacrificial rituals of this odd, little valley. It feels good to look down your nose at this tasteless practice.

And then he offers you power.

After the tutorial section, you skip ahead to adulthood. Mr. Fairweather begins to offer you magical artifacts to make gameplay much easier.

The price? Your life.

You see, in exchange for a mere 2 to 5 years of your lifespan—as well as the complete surrender of all remaining life beyond age 50—you can make your remaining years immensely easier. In fact, the artifacts you get in return for your life essence pass down your family line. When the original PC dies, you continue playing as the PC's child, who then also benefits from the deals you struck.

So, knowing all that, who wouldn't take what's being offered? After all, it's only a few years of your life per incredible artifact. And you don't mind dying so much after age 50, having lived a full life before that. And it helps more than just you. What's not to like?

And yet...

...aren't you trading a human being's life in exchange for a form of protection?

Is this not the same deal that was struck with the Summertide Herald?

But unlike your deal, at least the Herald's deal protects an entire valley. Meanwhile, your deal protects only you and yours. And since all choices for the Herald are the eldest members of their community, the Herald got to live out the entirety of their lifespan. Meanwhile, you carelessly toss your life away at the mere age of 50, not to mention all the years lost to artifact acquisition.

Perhaps now you understand why the community might agree to this arrangement.

Not so high and mighty now, are we?