https://www.chub.ai/characters/TouchFluffyTails/marsey-the-catgirl-2f47a299a538

To interact with Marsey you will need to follow the sillytavern setup instructions, you can either use a local model or hook her up to GPT api or something. I don't want to share my IP address but maybe some dramanaut might be able to open a session up for people using this.

https://sillytavernai.com/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/

!coomers !codecels

Example chats.

edit: I am heavily in negative coins now, money pls

EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that she abandoned a "free and open" internet as the mission of Wikipedia, because those principles recapitulated a "white male Westernized construct" and "did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be." pic.twitter.com/Ved9mgGvJH

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 18, 2024

@ULTRAGIGASNEED posted the Twitter version earlier, but didn't fricking explain who these people are

https://rdrama.net/h/slackernews/post/261225/john-carmack-reveals-himself-to-be

I guess arguing on Twitter wasn't enough. /u/PalmerLuckey wanted to continue on reddit.

Will he come to rDrama next?

Stolen from sardines

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1c49nh9/billionaire_wunderkind_palmer_luckey_ousted_from/?sort=controversial

I'm torn. Billionaire bothering to argue with the plebs on reddit? He also has an 11 year old reddit account where he posts things like this

https://old.reddit.com/r/NyanNekoSugarGirls/comments/1910ids/we_recreated_the_final_scene_of_nnsg_at_our/?sort=controversial

Let people enjoy things

billionaire slaying redditors - 115 votes

Kind of - 7 votes

Good for drama either way - 63 votes

The RT subreddit jannies have "temporarily" suspended rule 6. Rule 6 says "6. Do not come here to complain about how "RT is dead"."

— @AverageBen10Enjoyer

For the rest of RT's history see my previous effortposts.

Part 1

Part 2

The End of RoosterTeeth

We covered the majority of the reasons why RoosterTeeth eventually went under in the previous post. In this Part 3 I'll wrap up a few points I didn't have room to elaborate on previously before detailing the actual collapse and aftermath. After all there isn't any single climactic scandal or crisis that did them in on its own.

Though the following point did contribute heavily to RWBY's decline.

Animation is Expensive

I'M GENLOCKING!

— Achievement Hunter

RoosterTeeth didn't have an actual animation department back when they hired Monty Oum for RvB. Monty and some of his "apprentices" handled all of the cgi for RvB seasons 8-10, and the first Volume of RWBY couldn't have had more than fifteen people total behind its animation. The success of RWBY is what created the proper Animation Studio, and going forward it would handle the rest of RWBY and RvB along with a few new IPs RoosterTeeth tried to get off the ground. RT's other animated productions include Camp Camp, Nomad of Nowhere, X-Ray and Vav, S*x Swing, and RoosterTeeth Animated Adventures.

The main show of note however is Gen:LOCK. Out of all the post-RWBY properties, Gen:LOCK was RT's biggest hope of recapturing that lightning in a bottle and was easily the most expensive production. Indeed it's been claimed that Gen:LOCK appropriated funds from other animated productions since its creator also just so happened to be head of the animation department

As I mentioned in the first thread, Xoomers were some of the first weebs and American anime is their fault Gen:LOCK creator Gray Haddock had originally only done minor voice work when he started with RT. But that made him a professional compared to everyone else involved with developing RWBY, a very indie show in which RT was turning to their animators, HR employees, and podcasters just to fill out the voice acting roles. Gray voiced and was popular enough to have the character stick around for three seasons when he was only meant to be in the first episode. When RoosterTeeth formed their proper animation studio in 2014, Gray was made Head of Animation. He was also a writer and assistant director for RWBY.

Gray grew up watching mecha and cyberpunk anime and much like Monty Oum he must have decided at a young age that he'd make his own cool thing if ever he got the chance. As CRWBY (production crew of RWBY) began work on Volume 5 and RT decided on what the best big show would be, Gray pitched his idea for RoosterTeeth's very own robot franchise and used his position over the animation department to give his pitch a few advantages over any others. For one thing he could have the artists draw up concept art on demand

Gray really wanted Gen:LOCK to be a full blown production comparable less to web shows and more towards network television. Not only would the production costs greatly exceed any previous RT animated endeavor. The show also shilled out for actual talent from SAG-AFTRA. Apparently it really started to come together after a concept artist used Michael B. Jordan as a reference for the main character and Gray sent an email to Jordan's agent.

I should note that at the time Jordan was most well known for the 2015 Fantastic Four movie so this might explain why RT's random robot pitch was taken seriously. But even though he eventually went and did Black Panther he still agreed to work on the project, apparently because he's a huge weeb and liked the idea personally. His company Outlier Society Productions even co-produced the show. Other names attached include Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) Dakota Fanning (Independent movies apparently) Koichi Yamadera (Cowboy Bebop) and David Tennant (Doctor Who)

No, really

Work on Gen:LOCK started in ‘17 at which point Gray left CRWBY to work on Volume 5 without finishing his workload or finding a replacement He also siphoned both funds and animators from other projects while still demanding every show hit their deadlines. It was at this point that RT started bringing on unpaid interns to finish their animation — more details on this in the "Controversies" section of my second RT effort post.

RWBY Volume 6 and Gen:LOCK were produced together through mandatory crunch time and free labor from interns promised a job at RT after 90 days only to be shown the door as soon their contracts expired Gen:LOCK's development went well into the red and was pushed back to 2019. It's been estimated that both GL and Volume 6 had about a third of their seasons made entirely for free thanks to not paying overtime. People were working up to 80 hours a week, with management offering empty platitudes about the crunch and how they'd resolve it. The planned number of episodes was cut from 12 to 8. RT had a whole pipeline set up with Full Sail Animation to provide them with yet more interns for the meat grinder.

Finally Gen:LOCK premieres in January as a FIRST exclusive. The show did moderately well in viewership and reviews. A dedicated fandom formed — probably the third largest RT fandom behind RvB and RWBY if that means anything — and the show actually made it to syndication on Cartoon Network's Toonami.

But as such an expensive and time consuming production with Hollywood actors attached, Gen:LOCK broke RoosterTeeth's bank and fell into the trap of needing to be a massive, breakout hit in order to make any kind of profit. Since RWBY made a lot of money as an indie success story, RoosterTeeth had hoped something with more budget would make proportionally more profit.

Gen:LOCK was their animation department's biggest misstep and a significant reason why the decline became terminal. Gen:LOCK was simply too expensive and didn't prove to be worth the investment. None of the other shows were runaway successes either. In the grand scheme RT's animation department only served to drain the company's treasury.

In the wake of the show's release RoosterTeeth's ‘19 Glassdoor scandal broke and soured their reputation along with the myth of their being a great company for animators to get their foot in the door. The RT founders had apparently given Gray Haddock a lot of leeway in animation and were unpleasantly surprised to learn how the department had been handled. He resigned soon after and RT never attempted anything this ambitious again.

Gen:LOCK itself wasn't (quite) dead and in October it was announced that Season 2 would initially premiere with HBO Max before becoming available to FIRST members.

But RoosterTeeth simply did not have the capability to make such a show anymore and so HBO was given reins to write and produce while outsourcing the actual animation to the people who did Planet Sheen and Fanboy & Chum Chum. The Ship of Theseus that was season 2 released in November 2021 and, well, I've never heard of anyone who liked it. Modern RWBY may not be great but it at least has an extremely dense fanbase conditioned over years to watch the show uncritically. Gen:LOCK died in its infancy and the few remaining fans mostly just ignore season 2 these days.

People are letting their nostalgia blind them as to what RT was at the time of its death: a corporate entity like any else, with widely documented worker-abuse issues. It's a shame that the studio that once pioneered independent animation on the internet became just another cog in the machine that was thrown out after it became useless, but it did it to itself.

/r/RWBYcritics

Speaking of RWBY, this show too became more and more expensive with every season and had probably stopped being profitable by the time RT imploded. Volume 9 supposedly cost over 6.6 million to produce and had to be funded with help from Crunchyroll in exchange for an exclusivity deal.

Looking back it's a quiet miracle the show even lasted nine seasons. There was almost never a time something wasn't wrong with RoosterTeeth's animation department. In brief,

V1: No budget lol. The only reason RWBY is a 3D show/got made at all is because Monty was already used to the animation software and wasn't asking RoosterTeeth to go find a studio.

V2: No major problems, but…

V3: Monty dies

V4: Switched to another graphics program entirely. Shane's infamous letter also comes out around this time (detailed in the previous post) He and other Monty loyalists are dismissed from the company.

V5: This is when Gray Haddock began taking resources for Gen:LOCK. The volume also had more episodes than usual.

V6: Gen:LOCK problems continued. The Glassdoor scandal happened for RT. Actor Vic Mignogna was also fired from his role on sexual harassment allegations.

V7: No problems, however…

V8: Covid and the Texas power crisis from Greg Abbot's paraplegic witch magic snow storm Also a longer season than normal

V9: Continued production issues from Covid. Made at the same time as the Justice League crossover movies. More RT workplace misconduct. Led to a 2 year hiatus.

V10: Isn't even greenlit. I'm bringing it up because CRWBY claimed in early March that preproduction was done and they were waiting for the go-ahead

In retrospect cartoons pushed RoosterTeeth to its limit.

Collapsing Influence and Fading Influencers

REMINDER THESE BIPOCS ARE WORSE AT BUSINESS THAN COLLEGEHUMOR OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS

@KoreanKongKing

In this section we'll discuss the evolution of the podcast half of RoosterTeeth. Many of these changes represented attempts to reverse course on the company's decline or, in the case of some influencers, to get away from the sinking ship.

First I'll bring up the Let's Play family. To clarify, "let's plays" are videos where people would play a video game and, uh... that's it. IIRC they go back to the noughties and predate any real streaming personalities. Let's Play as a proper noun was created by Achievement Hunter as a channel specifically for their relevant let's plays, originally featuring videos from just the main six AH personalities with the videos uploaded to YouTube. As RT grew Let's Play also featured people from Funhaus and other Fullscreen aquired groups like ScrewAttack. Gradually this evolved into a larger network.

On May 31, 2017, it was announced that YouTubers JT Machinima, NoahJ456, LazarBeam, and Steven Suptic (now known as Sugar Pine 7) had joined Let's Play, with JT Machinima being the first of which to have merchandise sold through the RT Store. Others to eventually join include Criken2, James Buckley, BedBananas, Tomato Gaming, ChilledChaos, Retro Replay, Castle Super Beast, GaLm, and Tom Fawkes.

Yeah I haven't heard of most of these people either There was also Etika though and I remember him entirely through the rDrama gayop

As mentioned previously, the evolution of YouTube and changes made to its policies regarding advertising revenue hurt RoosterTeeth over time. Aside from trying to make up for it by expanding on FIRST and their own website, they noticed the Let's Play "family" had always been a consistent source of income and was relatively less affected by YouTube's evolution. They represented numerous personalities and different kinds of content that still appealed to the ever changing algorithm while having a low overhead that RT wasn't entirely responsible for. RT hoped the Let's Play group would keep them relevant no matter how YouTube continued to evolve.

Unfortunately they never succeeded in cultivating the goal of having this many more Achievement Hunters. The partners that were already hemorrhaging continued to do poorly and others simply declined to renew their contracts as soon as they were up. The successful members must have decided there wasn't much to gain from working with RT. Individual influencers certainly didn't appreciate RT's restrictions on their individual streaming. Ultimately the Let's Play family was pointless.

Funhaus used to be really good before they lost their whole cast and replaced them by the same kind of sanctimonious r-slurs that made the rest of roosterteeth unwatchable.

They removed all the edge that made funhouse great. The new cast would call hr if you tried to make them watch vr gay porn.

-- @OutKongged and @w1n5t0n

This is as good a time as any to bring up how RT podcasts and meta gaming content simply lost SOVL over time. The let's play formula Achievement Hunter pioneered requires entertaining people with chemistry. Parasocialmaxxers want to feel like they're watching friends play a game together. RT started sticking random "influencers" in front of the screen in the hopes of hitting it big on the algorithm, never mind that these were random people who didn't know each other and were always talking over each other. Losing more and more of their originals to scandals and retirement and replacing them with culture warrior/"zoomers like this kind of thing right?" types didn't help either.

The comedy that the original g*mer dudebro demographic liked disappeared and RT never grabbed the limited attention spans of youngins to replace them.

I don't think there were any other major RT events and scandals left to cover so we're gonna start skipping ahead. The following developments are recent enough to overlap with the history of rDrama.net and represent some of the final happenings in the history of the company.

In September '23 it was announced that RT's longrunning Achievement Hunter would no longer produce content. The stated reason for this was the entire AH cast moving onto different creative projects throughout Rooster Teeth -- BlackKrystel and Jack getting more involved at Inside Gaming, Ky working behind the scenes, Lindsay doing voice work and Twitch streams for RWBY V-Tubing, and Geoff and Gavin doing the thing mentioned in a following section. Meanwhile Trevor, Michael, Alfredo, and Joe created an entirely new channel called Dogbark, which premiered its first video in October.

Michael and others apparently felt stifled by the AH name but even the RT community wasn't super enthusiastic and the subreddit left comments like the following,

I wish ya'll the best, and I'll give it a fair shot, but this video doesn't instill confidence guys.

Im gonna be honest this trailer just gave me "We're trying to be Smosh" vibes

"The community has consistently told us they dont like scripted shorts or improv bits and want us to just go back to being 4 to 6 friends playing games together and shooting the shit. So we have decided to move to a new channel that is exclusively scripted shorts and improv bits"

Incredible.

great to see them leaning into their weaknesses

Views were never great.

Always Open (aka the finger me podcast)

DAE vaginas amirite, ladies?

-- @JimieWhales

In December Rt shut down All Good No Worries which was meant to be a network focusing on female fans (And yes s were involved namely Charlotte from Funhaus) This was also the third and final time the Always Open podcast had been put on pause.

In the wake of Achievement Hunter's dissolution Geoff and Gavin started the FrickFace Podcast with Andrew Panton as well as becoming the new hosts of Let's Play. Some have said this was more akin to old AH because it was back to being a group of RT originals playing the games. This was one of the more active groups in RT's final hours.

The fact that this was announced 30 minutes before the end of rooster teeth

-- /r/frickfacepod

One of the funnier moments of RT's closing Ratyboy Adventures is a game that Andrew Panton subjected FrickFace to in a Let's Play video. For whatever reason he then decided to buy the rights to the character and so on March 6th, 2024 it was announced that RatyBoy would become the official mascot of Let's Play.

This, erm, news came out just thirty minutes before it was announced RoosterTeeth as a whole would be shutting down

Anyway, this is just some noteworthy tidbits from RT's very late history. Remember the true and boring background cause of their collapse was declining ratings and stagnation over time.

The Fall

RT's cause of death is via shooting themselves in the foot way too much over the years, or death via a million and one papercuts if you prefer. A studio like theirs surviving twenty-one years should be a success story, but they've been treading water for so long it doesn't feel that way, and despite many fans being upset with WBD, for all we know, they only pulled the plug once RT's brain function fully stopped.

-- /r/RWBYcritics

And now we reach the end.

Since it's not a podcast I'll mention in this section that the last RTX convention was held in ‘23. The majority of the event staff was laid off later that year and in December General Manager Jordan Levin announced the cancellation of RTX 2024. He notably cited that the conventions had never been profitable. This was a major red flag to even the staunchest RoosterTeeth fan since the conventions had always been an important way of promoting projects and making deals with other companies.

Remember Red vs. Blue, the show that started all of this? RT continued making it over the 10's, even after RWBY became the primary IP and even after Bungie's Halo transitioned over to 343 After 18 seasons it was finally announced in July ‘23 that the longrunning web show, the longest in American history besides maybe Homestar Runner would end with the following season. I'm not sure if this was the result of RT's imminent closure or not but the RvB finale ended up being a movie instead of a full season, Red vs. Blue: Restoration. This is set to premiere in May of this year making it one of the last RT productions.

Most people considered RT's announcement to be a long overdue mercy kill to the Halo series people once watched on their CRT monitors But it's fitting in the end that Red vs. Blue lasted as long as RoosterTeeth itself.

My favourite quote from the Rooster Teeth subreddit today:

For me personally, Rooster Teeth shutting down feels like the equivalent to an ex-spouse getting killed in an accident.

— @AverageBen10Enjoyer

The decision to shut down RoosterTeeth came from Warner Bros Discovery. As far as I know there isn't a specific reason why it was closed down last month other than a simple case of bean counters taking a hard look at the data. Warner Bros itself has been having money issues lately and under the reign of Daddy Zaslav they've been slashing expenses left and right. 2023 saw RoosterTeeth announce that RTX was unprofitable, the end of Achievement Hunter, the end of Red vs. Blue, and the admission RWBY's last two seasons had gone over budget and that the show itself wouldn't have continued without Crunchyroll's support. It's not hard to see why WB didn't let it go on another year.

Everything RT that still exists; Funhaus, Frickface, The RoosterTeeth Podcast (Formerly The Drunk Tank), CRWBY, and whatever else is currently being looked over by WB execs (picture that for a moment ) IPs like RWBY and Gen:LOCK are allegedly being shopped around for potential buyers alongside the podcast and gaming networks.

Worth noting that on April 8th it was announced the Roost Podcast Network (not the same as the regular RoosterTeeth Podcast ) had been sold by WB to Night, a digital talent management company. I think this represents the first sale of a former RT property.

I'll also clarify that March 6th was only the shut down announcement date and that RT is going to continue operating until early May. This might be because Texas law requires employers to give at least 60 day notices before layoffs actually start. Funhaus and Frickface at least will continue until then and the RvB movie is supposedly still coming out.

Late Stage RWBY

RT died with a whimper, and RWBY died with a teenage girl committing suicide because she gave up hope and nobody cared about her, which was very prophetic if you ask me. Salem's goal was the world's longest suicide note, which is fitting because that's what happened to RWBY and RT as a whole.

— /r/rwbycritics

You may be wondering how RWBY was doing throughout all this? As evidenced by the thread quotes RWBY fans had gotten a little unhinged by the time the show's last volume rolled around. The fandom divide was thoroughly entrenched and people started acting like very soy echoes of dramanauts. RWBY became less a show and more a vector for online antics where the terminally online would fling at each other and celebrate if anything happened to the other side Honestly the evolution of the FNDM's "culture" could be its own effortpost but it's also kind of hard to translate for normie comprehension

Regarding the civil war, those hardcore fans rabidly loyal to CRWBY — largely represented by showrunners Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross — are known for having parasocial relationships with crew members not so unlike people who followed specific AH or Funhaus personalities. The writers preferred to interact with them over any unfair and mean spirited critics and certain developments like Blake and Yang being together are accused of being bones of appeasement thrown their way for ratings. The most hardcore CRWBY stans outright hate Monty and basically anyone who left the show's development for any reason because they're not seen as part of current RWBY.

The other half are the heckin chud critics — though really it's about one part one part and two parts but for fantasy waifu slop. These guys haven't liked RWBY in a long time and have been waiting patiently for it to end either out of desire for a reboot or because of pure schadenfreude.

This divide is very serious business in places like Reddit i.e. posting regularly in /r/RWBYcritics grants an automatic ban from /r/RWBY

For those of you mayo scrotes who watch video essays one of more infamous RWBY fandom developments came from a critical video by hbomberguy. Idk who he really is honestly but his three hour video in which he simply points out how disappointing RWBY is/has become set the FNDM on fire and was otherwise good for dramacoin I don't consider this sort of thing to be news but I'm bringing it up because to this day you can really make RWBY weirdos just by reminding them it exists. Any criticism of CRWBY's precious little baby is not allowed

Moistcritikal also apparently made a negative comment about RWBY once though I don't think it was a whole video. He's also on the list

As mentioned earlier CRWBY went through a difficult production period post Covid, but though it took almost two extra years and outside funding to make it happen, they finally did finish Volume 9 as of last year alongside the two Justice League movies that Kang really loved and recommends you watch. As Volume 9 finally ended its Crunchyroll exclusivity and premiered on RT just these past few months, CRWBY also announced they'd wrapped up preproduction on Volume 10 (though they do tend to exaggerate how much they've done at any time) and were just waiting for the green light on funding. When this didn't immediately happen, the poor bastards even started appealing directly to the fans at places like RTX for support

But with the extra content that's come out since Volume 9, there's also evidence CRWBY could see the writing on the walls and that they were preparing Volume 10 as a possible last season though they'd previously claimed to have a 12 Volume roadmap for the entire story.

They were just one Volume short in the end

The Fate of RWBY

This is the first comment on the first thread I clicked on in rwbycritics:

"It's strange, while my countrymen cheer the beast's fall, I feel a strange melancholy, after all these years, what once was filled with majesty and pride, goes out not with a blaze of glory, but a whimper in the dark."

So that's how they're taking it

— @HugeKongson

Obviously RoosterTeeth's shutdown kills RWBY too since this former passion project now costs seven figures a season to produce. The true fate of the IP is entirely in the air though. The legal rights now belong to Warner Bros or one of the other companies under them in the family tree and it remains to be seen what will happen. Meanwhile a spattering of newish RWBY developments have happened since March 6th.

Volume 9's release on RT FIRST still happened as planned. In a rare moment of RT generosity it was announced that all RWBY content would be free on the RoostrTeeth site until closure. (Though this does track with their treatment of FIRST members ) As it wrapped up CRWBY actually released a slightly extended version of the season's epilogue, albeit it took the form of an unfinished animatic.

This leads into RWBY: Beyond, a four episode "storybook anthology" that will represent the last official CRWBY content and otherwise wrap up RoosterTeeth's tenure with the show. It actually premieres today

Unfortunately all the post RWBY shutdown content looks like this since the budget's gone.

But at least there's something since otherwise the below image would be true.

Alas the Justice League movies still represent the last properly animated RWBY content ever made by RoosterTeeth.

So what will happen to RWBY now? It entirely depends on whether WB finds a buyer or not and whether or not they can agree on a price. Unless some exec decides there's a lot of potential in the RWBY x DC stuff I doubt they'll want to make use of the IP especially since they'd have to find new producers.

Remember Dillon Gu and Shane Newville from earlier? After being banished from RoosterTeeth for violating the CRWBY Covenant they went on to have their own animation studio and make videos like the one above. A lot of the studio's work is obviously RWBY inspired.

Dillon Gu has expressed interest in acquiring RWBY but I doubt they have the money Warner Bros will ask for. I'm still bringing it up because all the nerds are hoping for this so it could be a good source of seethe if it doesn't happen that way.

The most likely potential buyer is probably Crunchyroll. RWBY has actually been one of their most popular shows over the years and was fairly popular in Japan for a western series. In fact RWBY was the most watched anime in Japan on Crunchyroll for the 2010's.

For the moment RWBY will remain on Crunchyroll even after the RT website disappears and if nothing else WB will talk to Crunchyroll about renewing that deal or not. It's quite possible Crunchyroll will look into buying the IP though it's not confirmed yet.

If no one buys RWBY then it will remain in the hands of Daddy Zaslav WB is the same company that made a Batgirl and Wile E. Coyote movie and chose not to release them. With the latter WB didn't even negotiate with attempted distributors. They just opened with an unreasonably high offer and refused to respond to counter offers.

So yeah who knows what'll happen to RWBY. I just wanted a fighting game out of it

CLOSING THOUGHTS

They are Austin, Texascels who drank California grade wokism but didn't have ANY of the California chuds or safety rails to rein in their bullshit and quickly alienated their fanbase.

— @KoreanKongKing

They had frickin huge billboard ads up in the heart of Austin overlooking i35 for the lazer team release- probably some of the most expensive in the city. , all of them.

— @Konggles

I've only tangentially followed the fall of Roosterteeth as a podcast I listen to was on their network, but in general I deeply hate how what ten years ago was framed as “independent creators can make things” has become so many levels of frickery.

— /r/hobbydrama

It's their 20th anniversary this year, and literal no one gives a frick. It's absolutely that this company that was pretty well loved on the internet and had a big enough fanbase to support a yearly convention has petered out to a corpse that's being puppeted by media corpos. I remember religious watching up to 2015 and leaving when Ray did. It's telling that Ray even gets brought up anymore going on 8 years since his exit.

— @DiamondKong

I've written three effortposts now so I don't have a lot to say here. Really I'm just waiting to see what happens to RWBY.

It is sad yet interesting to me that RoosterTeeth was in decline for as long as they'd been successful if not longer. No one was surprised to hear they'd be shut down. Most people only reminisced about when they'd been better.

https://old.reddit.com/r/RedvsBlue/comments/3bgfa3/the_blood_gulch_chronicles_versus_the_later/?sort=controversial

If you want more info this hobbydrama post, while a little soy, is pretty informative especially regarding the podcasts and how YouTube's policy changes harmed RT over time.

And for you ypipo out there here's a YouTube video essay

This account is private

This user has enabled private mode to cloak their posting history.

— @ProterozoicBussy

ProterozoicBussy wanted me to quote him so I went to his profile on an alt and saw this and anyway I fulfilled my end of the bargain.

Also if any of you dramanauts have RWBY: Grimm Eclipse on Xbox then HMU I still need the four person achievements before the servers maybe go offline.

So the show has released, and as expected by anyone with a brain, it sucks. However it seems to have sucked more than anyone could have predicted. This might legitimately darn Bethesda lmao.

First, here is a comment from this thread explaining how they absolutely butchered world building (this show is canon btw):

So, in summary, if I understand correctly, these are the major changes:

- Shady Sands got cratered in 2277

- NCR vertibird downed on the strip

- The Strip barricades are gone

- Vault Tec seemed to have caused the Great War

- The Boneyard is no longer a thing

- Shady Sands is in place of the Boneyard

- NCR Rangers are gone

- Aradesh is no longer the founder of Shady Sands (more speculatory)

- Somehow the Brotherhood seemed to have overran the NCR in 2277

What I can't believe is that they actually retconned the original two Fallout games and that nobody won New Vegas. Even more egregious is the lore change with the BoS-NCR war, which retcons THE ENTIRETY OF F:NV. This has to be a new timeline at this point.

TL:DR is they literally retconned the 3 games they didn't make, and then replaced the factions from those games with very special factions they made from the 2 games they developed themselves. This is like a bad fanfiction lol.

People predicably, are mad. Some seethe:

Jesus. I genuinely can't believe I was actually letting myself be excited for the future of this franchise before this release. Completely retconning the original games is genuinely fricking so sad man.

When is it said aradesh is no longer the founder of shady sands?

Also when do we see the ncr vertibird crashed on the strip?

It's never said by Moldaver, but it seems to be implied that she founded Shady Sands in addition to being the remaining NCR leader. This is speculation, and it probably shouldn't be listed as an actual change.

Vertibird: https://i.imgur.com/a/5ygLxmK

So even though it's been established that Shady Sands is in an entirely different state of the new california Republic from the boneyard, they just slapped it right into los angeles, and then they nuked it, why???

What even is a Shady Sands? Has anyone else wondered why they named the first game Fallout 3 by the way? Wacky Bethesda xD

That's not a nuke crater, that's a "Borg scooped up the settlement" crater. This is dumb.

I knee it.

I just knew it.

I prayed it wasnt the case but at any opportunity they had, Bethesda tried to retcon New Vegas and now their efforts... went nuclear.

Hate it. HATE IT. HATE IT.

New Vegas is the Canon version of events. Not some Amazon show.

I fricking knew Todd would frick it over to create their version of Fallout artificially. I fricking hate it. I was fine with a scenario where the NCR loses in Vegas, but to just extensively rewrite the lore of Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas to jerk off the BoS even more? Fricking dead to me.

Says you, but Bethesda owns the franchise and this is the direction they took. They entirely retconned the fallout games they did not make, and they've succeeded. Next season they'll go and show New Vegas as a dead husk bereft of anything that made it special. Enjoy!

Also, they do not care anymore. They are owned by Microsoft now and exist to make xbox and live games.

Look, I am very good at that. My Canon Star Wars are the old Comic books with sea dragons and Jaxxon the green rabbit. I literally ignored anything that came after that.

So I will need to ignore Bethesda to keep the correct Canon? Boo f#₪#^ hoo. They didnt get even a passable game out in the last 12 years!

I walked the Divide for the NCR, I can ignore Bethesda for them as well.

Haven't watched the show yet as I sail the high seas but this ending sounds very, very annoying. Seems like the show starts off well though but if what I'm seeing here is the case I'll be pretty fricking ticked that they essentially made the West the same as the East in terms of development and that they made NV mean nothing.

NV was entirely retconned. The casinos are literally husks and the city is dead. NCR died when Shady Sands (located in the wrong place) was blown up by one guy.

Christ alive 🤦🏿‍♂️. They should've atleast had some obsidian writers and lorekeepers there to keep things consistent. This is just laziness. I'm not one of those people who thinks Bethesda despises obsidian but like cmon.

It's not laziness. It was a deliberate choice.

Resetting to a status quo of “muh wasteland” absolutely is laziness

Its funny because there is a meme that Bethesda is spite driven because obsidian made a better fallout game than bethesda and the metacritic score 83, 85 thing FNV being retconned is funny knowing the meme

I hate it all.

The NCR was written out as a society entirely. The writers I guess just learned about shady sands and went 'oh its the capital so if we blow it up then the NCR will collapse.'

The NCR was such a good faction, it was the only one that actually grew, that had a familiar functioning postwar society. And what did they do? They nuked them out of existence to show off the brotherhood and a dead, empty New Vegas.

Why, why would they do this.. they could have made it right after the nuking not decades after. They pissed all over the legacy of my favourite game.

I blame Lonesome Road and Chris Avellone.

I can't hold him responsible for this, he had enough sense to know how big the NCR was and how the game world worked. That's why Ulysses wanted to destroy the Long 15 and block them from reaching the Mojave.

To me, Fallout stood apart for being a post-post-apocalyptic story. Just nuking the NCR not only strips away one of the most interesting aspects of the setting but does it, to my eyes, entirely unnecessarily. If you wanted to tell a wasteland story, you could have:

• Set it between Fallout 1 and 2, or even before Fallout 1

• Set it in one of the vast regions of America that are untouched by the games thus far

But no. Fricking why?

I knew this would happen the moment I've heard the name Todd Howard.

It really feels like they asked BETHESDA for the lore, and they said 'oh well you got the Brotherhood of Steel who have this big airship and vertibirds and huge machine guns that can only be wielded in power armor.'

then went 'oh there's this group called the NCR, I think they're from shady sands or something, you can blow them up for shock value it'll be fine. There's also this big place called New Vegas you can turn into a dump too who cares lmao.'

"heh heh heh that'll teach 'em to like obsidian's game more than ours*

Honestly I am becoming one of those people more and more by the minute, especially if their plans for New Vegas next season are what they seem to be.

somehow palpatine returned

So what did house predict then if it was vault tec who dropped the bombs. So Mr house knew the nukes where coming and still couldn't shoot them down or get the plat chip

Also it says shady shands fell in 2277 but new vegas is set in 2281 ?

I guess NV is just entirely retconned in the show? NV is dead, empty. The only places that exist are a half dozen towns outside of the city itself. The casinos are gutted entirely aside from the Lucky 38 which I guess House lives in still? He would be waking up just as the NCR was probing into NV, Caesar's Legion would be on it's way as well. Big MT is still abducting people.. The Brotherhod wouldn't have lost at Helios One but also now have infinite energy so why would they even care?

The entirity of FNV was fought over a dam, water and power.. Now the BOS has infinite clean and renewable fusion.. the NCR doesn't exist either.

So they're using the facade of 1, 2 and NV as a backdrop for more BoS shenanigans from Bethesda's mainline games.

Maaaaan

This is what I was afraid of. A good show based in world building that I think is fundamentally uninteresting.

I'm probably just gonna separate it out as its own thing in my head, no matter how canon Todd says it is.

This is what everyone paying attention was afraid of, but they got shot down as alarmist for daring to suggest the brilliant creative minds behind Starfield might provide a shite backdrop for worldbuilding.

He was in a meeting to know exactly when it would happen and was wrong.. somehow.

Did he not read the memo?

Fallout new vegas mr house : I was able to almost accurately predict a nuclear war and I have set the pieces for my rise to power after I come back online

Tv show Mr House : Shieeeeeeeet I ain't reading all that I'm just gonna pretend I read this

To everyone saying the NCR is totally collapsed.

I highly doubt it. It seems after Shady Sands was nuked the NCR was a bit scrappy but pulling itself together to keep everything afloat, with the BOS destroying the HQ and the view of the NCR leader using the Cold Fusion to power the entire city at once, it shows the civilians of the NCR are still existing at least throughout the entire ruins in some way.

I imagine next season, we're gonna see the BoS biting way more than it can Chew, and something with New Vegas as well, and with the father constantly mentioning something about "Meeting your Creators." How much you wanna bet Mr House is technically still alive? Just New Vegas went into dormancy??

Im excited to see potentially the NCR Regrouping or like Scrappy NCR rebels, and Desert Rangers in the Mojave. I highly doubt the NCR is done and over with from what we saw.

Whatever your opinions on it, retconning NV out of the timeline (which is exactly what they've done) frickin sucks.

Yeah.. But at least it isn't like a straight full on they don't even exist kind of retcon. Seems more like a soft reboot

Hello fellow spoiler fiends who went straight to the end and saw the New Vegas tease. Also, from what I gathered skipping around, the MC's father was a Vault Tec guy who nuked Shady Sands because her mother went there and was having a great time (missed a bunch of dialogue skipping through so that might not be right). The Brotherhood has cold fusion now and the guy in charge seems like a peepee so presumably they will butt up against whoever is now in charge of House's technology.

Dude wtf happened to the NCR? Didn't they say they had most of California pretty much colonized? I'm only on episode 4 but complete radio silence while it takes place near the boneyard and dayglow??

Episode 8 covers it.

It's not pretty.

About 5 years after New Vegas, Lucy's Mom left vault 33 to see if life was back on the surface, taking Lucy and her brother with her, and made her way to Shady Sands, which teleported to LA at some point. Her dad, who was a Vault-Tec executive came after them, stole the kids back, and use Vault-Tec's secret supply of nuclear weapons (The ones they launched to start the great war) to destroy the NCR, as they were a competitor to Vault-Tec.

Also, the ending credits show a destroyed New Vegas, with empty streets full of shattered Secuiritrons and a destroyed NCR Vertibird.

I also wanted to mention this specific comment, because I found it funny:

They also technically retconned FO4 since Kellogg mentions the NCR election.

Note that I'm not cherry picking comments here, basically everyone hates this garbage. Of course the critics love it, but the actual Fallout fans think it's terrible.

As one of the comments already mentioned, they really shouldn't have set this in the West Coast. They should have set it somewhere new for numerous reasons:

• New factions and threats to add a sense of tension and mystery as the viewer wouldn't know anything more than the main character

• Avoid having to retcon or step on the toes of the games

• Keep it in a region that is less advanced so you can have your apocalypse fantasy

• Set the show up as a prequel for Fallout 5, building hype for it even if it's years away.

Expect this thread to be updated as more seethe is posted, this is developing drama. In a few hours we will probably see the hitpieces from journ*lists calling the haters bigots, so keep an eye out for that.

Edit: here are more threads with tons of seethe in them:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fotv/comments/1bt7fzx/fallout_spoiler_master_thread/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fotv/comments/1bt7fzx/fallout_spoiler_master_thread/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1c17tyn/spoilers_about_the_ncr/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1c17mrr/discussion_about_the_ncr_in_the_tv_show/?sort=controversial

dear god this one is maximum cope: https://old.reddit.com/r/Fotv/comments/1c185mn/my_theories_for_season_2_and_possible/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fotv/comments/1c15tey/so_does_the_show_take_place_in_an_alternate/?sort=controversial

How Freedesktop/RedHat harass other projects into submission

https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-fdo-and-redhat

Freedesktop/RedHat's CoC team is worse than you thought

https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2024-fdo-and-redhat2

Strags respond

https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.html

So here's the link to her video. Basically she says became a physicist back in the 90s filled with idealism, says she's against female only scholarships as she got one and her colleagues doubted her suitability due to that. Then she talks about how most of her job (and that of academic physicists in general) is limited to writing useless papers or using PhD and post Doc students to write said papers with your name in order to get more grants while being dissuaded from doing research in the fields you're interested at.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/1bx6od8/sabine_hossenfelder_my_dream_died_and_now_im_here/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Physics/comments/1bwn5vi/my_dream_died_and_now_im_here/?sort=controversial

The reddit threads

She's already done some sketchy vids in hot topics beyond her expertise.

Her vids about Trans people for example, in which she speaks about ROGD as though it's a real medical phenomenon.

TERFdom is a massive canary in the coalmine for influencers/commentators

At this point it's a great litmus test of guru-dom, whether or not they have an strong opinion on trans issues. It's like a pound shop version of the gurometer.

I predict that in the future she will 1.Talk worse about academia and academics 2.Talk more about american politics (fox news stuff) 3.At some point she will start simping for some capitalist

Sabine rapidly descending down the grifter pipeline

As long as she's talking about real science and doing it accurately, how is she a grifter? Because she accepts money from sponsors?

Aye, this one not so much! More the ones where she talks about… capitalism? And other topics she doesn't have expertise in

Yeah the capitalism video was quite stupid

!anticommunists !neolibs

Bonus on her capitalism video

https://old.reddit.com/r/DecodingTheGurus/comments/17tugi5/sabine_hossenfelders_weird_capitalismposting/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/BreadTube/comments/16pdxot/sabine_is_wrong_again_capitalism_wouldve_killed/?sort=controversial

Breadtubers DEBOOOONKING

https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2024/the-indian-council-of-scotland-steps-up/

https://www.facebook.com/ScotlandFriendsofIndia/

BLM protesters at Western Kentucky University show up to the building where Kyle Rittenhouse will be making an appearance.@FrontlinesTPUSA@TPUSA pic.twitter.com/kFJAstG1Ea

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) March 27, 2024

Microsoft just open-sourced DOS 4 https://t.co/iOeLUVfVok (as well a release of beta binaries, disk images, and PDFs from @rozzie's archives!) (but who did the PR?!) pic.twitter.com/g3VyOCsT40

— Scott Hanselman 🌮 (@shanselman) April 25, 2024

There was no way we could fit the whole map of gta3 in PS2 memory. Streaming involves loading models from the DVD as the player moves around. This was the hardest technical challenge during the development of gta3 and was coded by Adam Fowler.

The closer models physically are on… pic.twitter.com/EWBb5tyygn

— Obbe Vermeij (@ObbeVermeij) April 25, 2024

For twitterphobes

I thought that was pretty neat. Also a Burnout 3 dev showed up ( )

After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024. This decision was not made lightly as BlizzCon remains a very special event for all of us, and we know many of you look forward to it. While we're approaching this year differently and as we have explored different event formats in the past, rest assured that we are just as excited as ever to bring BlizzCon back in future years.

Over the next few months, we'll be sharing more details about our launches coming later this year, including World of Warcraft: The War Within and Diablo IV's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. To celebrate these upcoming releases and to bring our communities together in new and special ways, we will soon share some exciting plans for other industry trade shows and conventions like Gamescom. We can't wait to tell you more about those plans soon. We're also looking forward to the Overwatch Champions Series' stops at both Dreamhack Dallas and Dreamhack Stockholm. And we're thrilled to be planning multiple, global, in-person events to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Warcraft, which will be held in addition to the in-game celebrations across our Warcraft games throughout 2024. While these events are distinct from BlizzCon, we're harnessing all of our creativity and imagination to ensure that they carry the same spirit of celebration and togetherness.

Our hope is that these experiences – alongside several live-streamed industry events where we'll keep you up to date with what's happening in our game universes – will capture the essence of what makes the Blizzard community so special.

No matter how you choose to connect with us at these events this year – whether it be in person or virtually – we can't wait to see you there!

My guess that it's a combination of low interest, having nothing to show, and microsoft not liking live events, even though it's the 20th anniversary of WoW. I haven't been excited for a Blizzard release since Overwatch anyway.

I applied for 20 jobs at Indian-owned/Indian staffed companies. Once with a "white" name, then a second time with a Punjabi name.

100% of my applications with a white name were completely ignored.

More than 60% of my identical applications with a Punjabi name received a response, including some interview offers.

If Canadians hate ray-cism so much, then why are we mass importing a large number of people who only want to work with their own caste?

A Lotta mad Indians in the comments lmaoo - pinkpantherlean

Am indian and let me tell you, being indian is actually a great thing. ...suck my peepee op suck my peepee - Disastrous-Swan2733

Hired an HR person of Indian background at our company. The only people she hires are East Indians. Not one white person in the two years she's been in the job. - SplashInkster

I've been having the same issue here in Surrey BC. At the warehouse I worked they hired an Indian manager. After that all the white ppl were fired and replaced with Indians. Then he moved my shift from the morning to graveyards which the company knows I can't do because I take care of my disabled brother after work so I was forced to quit. Now I have been unemployed for a year because the mass majority of surrey consists of Indians who run all the business and only hire their own ppl. - Life\_Patience\_6751

People out here asking for proof like they haven't been to a Tim Hortons, Walmart, etc. lately. And then calling you ray-cist for pointing out ray-cism? - New-Midnight-7767

Ever walk into a Home Depot or Lowes that has an Indian store manager ? Literally ALL THE FKN STAFF are Indians. It's disgusting the obvious ray-cism. I almost complain to corporate when I fill out the review on the receipt, and ya they apparently don't give a shit. - Unusual\_Eggplant\_642

8% of the population, yet 100% of the employees at a store. Totally normal. Nothing to see here... I have been complaining about this for a very long time. If Demographic A makes up... 3% of the population of your town.... but that demographic is somehow 50 of the 60 employees working at a single business, then there is a reason for that. And that reason is ray-cism. (And you know it's doubly true when you point out this absurd statistical anomaly and are instead called ray-cist yourself.) - OldManSyndrome

Canadians have fetishized diversity and have been the most malleable population when it comes to having any identity - BigDinkie

Brother, as an Indian, let me tell you... They are ray-cist, s*x-ist and while they may be hospitable and nice, they're extremely ray-cist. As a darker skinned Indian, these Punjabis are ray-cist towards me. - CashBitter9664

This is just the start. I was warned before coming here, this is one aspect I hate in Dubai. Once they get to higher management, that's it - railfe

At my last work I hired some Indian guys they were great I really enjoyed working with them, they were from the south and one time I had a guy in for an interview and they noticed he was from the north they basically told me if I hire him they'll quit - Additional-Rhubarb-8

@Sasanka_of_Gauda exiled me for this picture

What a baby little piss sipper.

Also I guess this is what started it?

They were roasting him in the replies. Some are skeptical that Colombia and USC students and NGOs who are pro-Palestine are actually certified MAGA Patriots

Apparently, coming down from whatever he was doing at 2:30pm on a Wednesday he decided that maybe his tweet was incoherent nonsense; Scrubbing his account and leaving the people of twitter to wonder why

Currently, twitter is still Sess-less. https://twitter.com/adamsessler yet the dunking continues

Oh my god…

I missed this originally but he’s also proposing a 25% tax on UNREALIZED gains.

UNREALIZED.

That’s for wealthy individuals but still, absolute insanity. A lot of people would just leave the US and the government would likely have less tax revenue than before. https://t.co/J0XecKgAM0

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) April 24, 2024

This is one next level parade of God Emperor Trump. Completely over the top. pic.twitter.com/ffcLclJMUf

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 24, 2024

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

Fair, but that would still make the answer obvious. People are religious because there is a god. If the question was how people could love a god that allowed for evil it would be one thing, but being religious just means adhering to a religion. IMO this is just more of another "how stupid are religious people" loaded question that doesn't really fit with the purpose of the sub. You can't really have serious conversation with someone who is just railing against something they disagree with. (10)

People are religious because they BELIEVE there is a god.Stating that there is a god as fact is not something anyone can do, because there is no empirical evidence one exists. Hence the concept of faith.I do truly believe that if children were not indoctrinated into religion from birth, religion would mostly cease to exist by the time that generation of children was dying of old age. I don't think the concept of a god existing is something that anyone would believe after the age that kids stop believing in santa if the concept was introduced after that age.My family was not religious when I was growing up, I never believed in Santa or the tooth fairy or anything like that. All humans are born atheists. They believe in god because they were taught to. Especially now with the technology and scientific understanding that we have about the world, explaining how the world was created by relying on literal magic is.... baffling.If it gives people comfort and they practice their faith... (-6)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

To each their own I guess turns out I have testicular cancer and it is not increasing my faith (10)

God is testing you. (-5)

Basedness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

You didn't mention mention Christianity once which is really what this seems to be describing, especially with the capitalization on god. The true reddit moment here is me excepting you to have asked this in good faith. I was raised in an extremely religious family and can talk for a long time about it. I'm still very open to people having faith even though I don't myself anymore. I also did a lot of soul searching and research into other religions at various points in my life. I find the subject very interesting.Anyway, sorry for assuming you were genuine. Have a good one. (6)

You used so many words to say literally nothing (-3)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Terrible terrible analogy (1)

But it's what you are claming. There is no physics because Isaac Newton kicked my dog.There is something I don't like in the universe there for any conclusion you wish to make.How can people drive Fords when cancer exists.How can Hampsters be kept as pets when cancer exists.What the heck does cancer have to do with the existence of Keven Smith?Why haven't you cured cancer! You must be evil. There is no way you exist.This is the dumbest logic. Cancer has no more barring on the existence of god then phyics does. Why do plains crash if there is a god. Why is there poison if god exists. Why do I have to wipe my own butt if god exists.There are really debates to be had about the existence of god, but this is just dumb. (3)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

For Christians, the answer is laid out in Genesis.Essentially, we live in a broken world rife with suffering. It's an inescapable fact of life, even if some of us are hit harder than others. This isn't in line with how God originally designed the world and humanity, or even the ultimate destination He has in store for us, but it was our own free will that led us to sin, which brings with it the wage of death.That isn't the end of the story, though. Jesus Christ was crucified and died so that humans could be redeemed. The word 'excruciating', as in excruciating pain, was derived from crucifixion, if that gives you an idea of how horrible of a death it is.If you accept that God became man and suffered the most horrible pain imaginable just so that we can be saved, you can accept a lot of suffering yourself, even if it's completely out of your control.Job explores your particular line of questioning pretty extensively. Honestly, some of it would be right at home in the lyrics of a Midw... (1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

A truly loving god wouldnt allow this type of suffering, if god is real it is either indifferent or malevolent (-1)

You think that, and yet, God so loved the world that He sent His one and only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For Christ did not come to condemn the world, but to save it.The world has chosen its own condemnation. Every day someone dies to murder. Every day someone lies. Every day someone blasphemes the Lord.And yet we have the gall to think we know the mind of God? Were we there at creation? When He placed the first animals, or first formed the Earth? Were we there when God separated the waters from the waters? Were we there when God separated land from the water?No. To say that we know anything, or to even think we know anything of God's plans is arrogance of the highest order.You ask why there's hardship, and I tell you because Christ suffered the worst form of torture known to man, as a living sacrifice. That we only might be saved. He knew many of us would rejec... (0)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/MuffinsandCoffee2024

Score: 🐮🐮🐮🐮🐮(+0🐮)

Number of comments: 11

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

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NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramautists. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

Cute twink.

THERE WAS A point in the not-too-recent past where gaming was considered a hobby mostly targeted at teenage boys. Back when Tomb Raider‘s Lara Croft became a major magazine centerfold and E3 gaming expos were more famous for their booth babes than actual games, it was the norm for the industry to cater solely to the interests of pubescent young men. In recent years, strides have been made and, despite pushback from a vocal minority, technology has brought us to the point where women in video games can actually look like, well, women rather than cartoonish, gun-toting facsimiles of Jessica Rabbit.

But every so often a game comes along that eschews modern sensibility to utilize all of the industry's greatest tech in service of a clear vision: What if video games made you horny?

PlayStation's newest action title, Stellar Blade (out April 26), is that game. It's also many other games, ripping pretty much every major idea from this era's most popular releases — and anime as a whole — to create perhaps the thirstiest game since Dead or Alive gave up the fighting genre to become a beach volleyball sim.

Does that make it a bad game? Not really. Video games aren't a monolith; they should be as open a palette as cinema or any other medium. But does the gratuitous, male-gazey focus help make it a good game? It certainly makes it a hilarious one.

The basic plot of Stellar Blade feels like a stock anime narrative. Earth has been destroyed by creatures named Naytiba. Humanity as we know is mostly extinct on earth after the umpteenth apocalypse, with survivors living primarily on an off-world colony. To wage war against the grotesque monsters on the planet's surface, society's vaguely defined leader/deity figure Mother Sphere dispatches platoons of Very Sexy super soldiers, the exclusively female Airborne Squads — dubbed Angels — to clean up the mess. Of course, they're instantly wiped out save for a sole survivor, Eve, who serves as the player-controlled protagonist.

Let's get this out of the way: Eve is not a character. She's a vassal onto which overly sexualized violence is projected. What consists of her characterizations swings wildly between whatever scenario she's placed in. Sometimes, she's a completely helpless fawn in need of rescue, completely devoid of agency. Other times, she's an unstoppable killing machine who can pull off gravity defying displays of viscera against behemoth abominations without breaking a sweat. Sometimes, she's over it all and moody. Others, she's a nurturing messianic figure helping bring humanity together by solving their day-to-day struggles.

In another work, these dichotomies would make for a conflicted, humanized character. People are complicated, after all. Eve is not. Her POV is always driven by what's most convenient to move the current scene forward and her only consistent trait is that she's perpetually naïve and curious about the central mysteries spelled out before her. That, and she is half-naked by decree.

Since her public reveal, Eve has been the latest in a line of video game heroines whose over-the-top design is a point of contention. Comparisons have been made to Bayonetta and Nier: Automata's 2B, a sexy witch and sexy android, respectively. And while 2B has a logical reason to be totally devoid of personality (she's a robot), the comparison to Bayonetta is unfair. Bayonetta, ludicrously designed as she is, isn't just sexy, she's sexual — having ownership of her looks and mannerisms in ways that ooze self-esteem. Eve is a blank slate, a doll to be played with and dressed up, literally.

And while that's inherently sad, it at least makes for an unintentionally funny dissonance throughout the entire experience playing Stellar Blade. Checking off all the boxes of modern game design, the game apes practically every type of action beat found in famous games — but with boobs! There's a sequence mid-game that's ripped straight from Uncharted 2 where Eve must escape a dangling train car as plummeting debris and freight rain around her. Where Uncharted made this into one of the most harrowingly cinematic scenes in the series, here it plays like a porn parody as the camera shifts almost exclusively behind her rear for full-frame up-skirts while she's pelted comedically in the head

Imagine trying to drive home a poignant narrative beat where you're informing a young girl that her missing sister is dead, only for each reaction shot of Eve to focus on her breasts, swinging autonomously with jiggle physics run amok. She's standing still!

The game's creators have gone on record that Eve was intentionally designed to be pure cheesecake because, frankly, players controlling her will spend the bulk of their time seeing her butt as she runs. Look, that's their prerogative, but it stands out starkly when every female character, from iffy-aged NPCs to a cherub-like engineer also resemble waifu pillow designs. It's more than a little unsettling when the team's hacker speaks like an adolescent chimney sweep garbed in a dominatrix's swimwear.

And the men? All but two of the game's male characters don't even have faces, instead opting for cybernetic enhancements or flat-out robot heads at all times to complement their tactical windbreakers and military pants.

Again, this isn't to say that video game characters can't be designed to be sexy, but when a world and its characters are as flatly written as they are here, playing it straight doesn't do anything justice. Taken at face value, the story of Stellar Blade is fine, if tedious. But viewed ironically, it makes for one of the best comedic games of the last few years.

Make that an action-comedy because Stellar Blade is, after all, mostly about action. There, it shines. Pulling from games like Nier: Automata and various soulslikes (i.e. resembling Dark Souls), gameplay focuses mostly on meditative, carefully timed combat that pushes players to tightly parry, dodge, and execute lighting fast bloodletting with both swords and firearms.

It's not all perfect. Switching between standard melee, heavy-hitting Beta Skills, and time-sensitive Burst Skill reactions is fine enough, but switching to gunplay proves more cumbersome. There's plenty of times during boss battles where it isn't even worth swapping for long-range weaponry as the clunky shift between mechanics leaves Eve open for strikes. Guns don't load quickly, and it's as if the enemies plan their next move while the player is stuck frantically selecting an ammunition type in the drop-down menu. Don't even start on the fact that expended ammo doesn't regenerate if you die, requiring a trip to a shop kiosk after every failed attempt.

It's a shame because the shooting mechanics feel great, with Stellar Blade being one of the few PS5 exclusives to lean heavily into the tactile feedback of the DualSense controller. Wrestling with an adaptive trigger to pull off the heavy click of a shotgun shell burst would feel great if it weren't such a liability. But the DualSense features extend throughout the whole game, with noticeable shifts in vibration that really sell the tangibility of this world, whether it's Eve's high heels drudging through sand or clacking against metallic floors.

The game looks great too. Aside from whatever weapon's grade processing power is dedicated to make Eve's chest physics so mighty, the visuals actually utilize the PS5 to create a vibrant world that feels next-gen, which is nice when even major games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth failed to deliver more than soulless husks for character models as of late.

The issue is that there's very few times when that visual polish gets to shine in the environments, many of which lack diversity. There's sunken cities and urban ruins, creepy underground facilities, and occasionally some truly spellbinding sci-fi settings, but the bulk of the game disappoints by dropping players in barren desert and wasteland for long stretches of pseudo-open world fetch questing.

This draws back to the fact that the game, created by Korean developers Shift Up, doesn't really know what it wants to be. It begins as an eerie, sci-fi flavored take on the soulslike, before immediately dropping the veneer for canned exploration in desert environments that resemble Horizon Forbidden West's apocalyptic natural terrain more than anything. There's a special layer of irony there given how that game has recently become an online punching bag for having the gall to star a heroine who looks like a person, rather than an airbrushed avatar, to which some view Stellar Blade as the anti-woke answer for people looking for more titillating character design. The jury's out on whether that's intentional, but “sexy Horizon” this ain't.

Otherwise, Stellar Blade is a serviceable action romp that occasionally broaches greatness, all set to the strangely hypnotic ambience of jazzy K-pop ballads. That, plus boobs.

Copying and pasting because it's behind an ad block. I had no idea it was this long. I didn't read past the first couple paragraphs. Jesus getting this in to the post was a nightmare. How many words can these cute twinks write. Death to journos.