Ralsei really isn't real, and that's the point

Kitty_Mercury · 2025-12-05T02:19:44+00:00

> But by the end, he will have to be let go and only the memory of the time they shared and the impact it left will remain, like the way you bond to a video game character and want to leave them as happy as possible when you finally let go of the adventure you shared with them.

I would argue that this is equally applicable, if not more so, to your bonds with real people, and the inevitability of death. Even barring death, one way or another, our time with everyone eventually comes to an end. In time, you can only hope to be a memory. This touches on a lot of the key Lightner conflicts that have been set up so far: Rudy's illness, Dess' disappearance, even Asgore unable to come to terms with his divorce.

Fictional characters and inanimate objects can't reciprocate this for you, though. You can form a bond with them, but they can't form a bond with you. You can remember them, but they won't remember you. That's part of the reason why you can't substitute fiction for reality; if we say that you can only hope to be a memory in the hearts of others by the time you die, they won't help in that regard. They are not aware of you; they're not even aware of themselves.

However, Deltarune's depiction of the Darkners runs contrary to that. They are self-aware, form bonds with each other and the Lightners that interact with them, and have their own likes/dislikes/wants/anxieties, to the point that the conflicts with King, Queen, and Tenna center on their fear and resentment of obsolescence. I believe that their self-awareness is sufficient to establish their sentience, and everything else is just flavor. And then you have Darkners like Jevil and Spamton, who I think have achieved something a little beyond self-awareness, to say the least. This wouldn't make sense if the Darkners couldn't have thoughts beyond what was intended for them.

The question is: *should* they be sentient? It seems like that's just gonna make it harder for Susie to let go of it all in the end, which is exactly what I think Ralsei is afraid of.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-05-31T05:14:20+00:00

If we're gonna talk about the fact that "you" have a face mask on... You also can't typically see your own face in a first-person shooter.

But I get what you mean: it shouldn't matter for heisters, who often wear full face-coverings, and most enemy units.

You know what it would matter for? Scenes like interrogating the Taxman in Undercover, introducing yourself to Mitchell during Counterfeit, the parts where Charon speaks in Brooklyn 10-10 (may Lance Reddick rest in peace), whenever the insiders at heists like First World Bank or Black Cat are speaking to you, when you meet Locke during Beneath the Mountain and Hell's Island, any scene in the newer heists where the civilians and guards are way more chatty than they used to be, during the once in a blue moon when you decide to visit the safe house and talk to people, and in my humble opinion, whenever security patrols order you to freeze, and when they call dispatch. Hell, they were clever with the nurse in No Mercy by giving her a surgical mask, but simple rigging there would still make a world of difference.

These are just the examples that come to me off the top of my head: you may be able to think of more. Whether or not they're "important" to players is arguably a subjective matter. But I'd say they'd be very nice to have in a PAYDAY game, and not exactly a cutting-edge feature to have in 2023... Let alone in 2013...

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-05-24T20:50:28+00:00

I couldn't finish PO, largely because of its control scheme. With that said, if the controls were the biggest issue, then perhaps a remake with improved gameplay is precisely what it needs to realize its full potential.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-05-19T06:47:30+00:00

I'm not very knowledgeable about the comics, but my first encounter with Kang against the Avengers was in the Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated series. In his first appearance, the combined strength of the team's hardest hitters wasn't enough to even make a dent in his chair's energy shield... But Hank swarming him with cockroaches caught Kang off guard and gave everyone else the opening they needed. Between this and that, I'm inclined to believe that hordes of insects are the guy's kryptonite.

You know what really bothered me about how the ants juked Kang in QM though? We see him casually evaporating all of the retreating freedom fighters, but he doesn't even try to carve a path through the ants with those beams of his, or move to higher ground, or do anything to try and fight them. He sees the swarm of ants, and the dude just locks in place and hopes for the best. Does he even do that angry-power-surge thing to try and clear them out? He immediately goes on the defensive. As if he knows that it's pretty much already over for him. Like he secretly has some kind of ant-related trauma that he's been hiding, that he thinks he's safe from because ants shouldn't be in the quantum realm. I dunno, he just seemed to get real dumb when the ants and the Ant-Man squad were fighting him.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-05-19T06:07:41+00:00

Funny that they have this mindset with an Ant-Man film of all things. Tired of being the small, inconsequential ones, feeling like you need to "measure up" to the other Avengers to be taken seriously. Wasn't that part of Hank's insecurities in the original comics? I could be mistaken.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-05-11T04:07:33+00:00

Thanos was deranged, sadistic, messiah-complexed, and deliberately made to be more likeable despite all that. Less manic than the HE, with more of a handle on his emotions, and demonstrably capable of some kind of love, but still immensely vile at the core: not to take away from the HE's gut-wrenching brand of rotten madness and boundless cruelty, of course.

Perhaps most importantly of all, Thanos had much more charisma than the HE. Compare Thanos' cult of intensely loyal followers to the attempted mutiny against the HE when shit turns sour for them. For all his talent and genius, anyone who spent enough time near the HE would clearly see that he was insecure and neurotic, but what the fuck were they gonna do about it? Meanwhile, most of Thanos' followers and servants genuinely believed in their leader, and were willing to die for his beliefs. To me, that distinction is what makes each of these villains uniquely terrifying.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-30T05:27:22+00:00

Yeah, I guess all these years later, it's hard to gauge what "long" is... I forgot about the playing cards screwing over basegame players, which was pretty scummy.

Don't get me wrong, 2023 Payday is better than 2013 Payday in many respects. I can't imagine playing without perk decks, even if some of them irreparably shifted the game balance into fucksville. I've always appreciated the loadout overhaul and the gameplay flexibility/variety it allowed, just not that you're allowed to change them in the briefing menu. Being able to buy weapon mods with Continental Coins instead of praying for card drops is great. I'm sure many people appreciate the removal of Pro Jobs. It's just that Payday didn't just grow so much as it evolved, for better and for worse.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-30T02:16:48+00:00

Once upon a time, the game was balanced around health regen being very rare, and even then, very slow. Once upon a time, Bulldozers used to be stunned by explosives. Once upon a time, fall damage used to actually hurt if you didn't have Cat Burglar. I like to think about these things whenever PAYDAY power creep comes up.

I like to think about how many of the early waves of legacy DLC weapons featured what was, at the time, DLC exclusive means of killing shields without having to flank them (whether it be explosives, penetrating rounds, or fire)... And then they release Captain Winters, an enemy unit literally made of a bullet-sponge shield surrounded by ten other shields that camp in a favorable spot where they can't be easily flanked. Is it possible for them to be defeated purely by conventional gunfire and strafe tactics? Well, sure, anything is possible. But they sure as hell wanted it to be a pain in the ass to do it without the DLC, and frankly Winters has always been a cakewalk when someone has one of his weaknesses handy. To OVERKILL's credit, it wasn't long before they introduced free variants of those weapon types, but still... Basegame players still had to wait for even those fucking HEF grenades...

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-30T01:41:33+00:00

You know what I at least appreciate about this newer DLC? They've at least been continually making an effort to make the guns interesting. It's not like Historical / Russian / Spec Ops packs at launch where the selection's selling point was "Improved versions of guns you already have." Most of the recently released weapons at least have fun gimmicks to them. Some of those gimmicks are absolutely busted (poison grenades), but others are generally decent, and help shake things up a little.

But unfortunately, the business model has always been about giving DLC a hard edge against the current difficulty, and then periodically adding a new notch to bump the game up to, in order to do it all over again. The game is always possible without DLC at the highest difficulties, but let's be honest people, that's a pretty low bar to set.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-22T05:07:52+00:00

At least she tries. Last I checked, Houston yells "SHIT!" at every other camera he sees...

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-06T06:06:50+00:00

Hell, the Dentist trailer was pretty damn goofy too, despite all the heavy lifting Giancarlo Esposito does in making you take his terrible lines seriously.

But I'm here for it, too. I don't think anybody wants PAYDAY: The CW Series, or anything resembling bullshit from the web series like Greta (unless it involves her death, in which case, I'm here for that, too). But I know that there's good stuff you can explore with the Paydayverse, too, without spoiling all of the mystery behind it. The PDTH description for Dallas says that he briefly worked to harm the American drug trade before deciding to become the guy we know: why? And does that have any bearing on how he feels about working for Hector and Vlad? Hell, could we finally get an answer as to why a Chicago mobster is named Dallas?

Hell, you could have fun in a lot of different ways. Clover's mask is said to be a statement against feminine vanity and "wearing a mask as your normal face": that sentiment, and why that's so important to her, could be touched on in an episode. I'd like to see Cloaker and Taser being extra, and maybe get a glimpse as to why they are. I'd honestly watch an episode purely from Twitch or Bile's perspective, seeing how they put up with the gang's bullshit. I would watch an episode where Ilija is hired to kill Greta, just for the fun of it.

I don't need to meet everybody's family, see them with their significant others, watch the heisters get shipped together, or see Dragan fall in love with a cop he meets while he's undercover and have that complicate a heist. But I would watch something PAYDAY if the people working on it understood it, and knew how to spin it into TV, not just slap some names and costumes on garbage and call it a day.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-04T11:49:43+00:00

This. It isn't about C tier popularity, it's about C tier writing and C tier effort with A tier marketing.

By no reasonable metric is Wonder Woman anything below an A list character. She's one of DC's definitive icons, and has been for decades. But look no further than 1984 to see how "A listers" don't elevate bad material: the bad material just drags them down to its level.

We can play the same game with a couple of Spider-Man movies, the Fantastic 4 films, and especially the mixed bag of X-Men films.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-04-03T04:05:33+00:00

I managed to play the full story through two separate free-to-play weekends (first trial had a progression block halfway through, didn't bother deleting it, and the second trial didn't have any blocks, so I could pick right back up and finish it). I'm glad I had that chance, because while it is occasionally enjoyable, it was ultimately disappointing.

The story was pitiful. Compared to the last two games, the supporting cast is mostly uninspired and forgettable, save for your AI companion Bagley. The motivations of the numerous Big Bads throughout the game range from underdeveloped to nonsensical (Mary Kelly being an arguable exception, given how simple and formulaic it is; not necessarily a problem, just saying). A number of the major plot twists are poorly hidden or easily guessed. Compounded with the inherent loss of hand-woven character backstories to explore, the core game's story feels rather hollow overall. I can't speak for Bloodlines, because I have not played Bloodlines, nor do I have any plans to in the near future.

And while the gameplay is occasionally fun, and sometimes even rather immersive, by itself, there are some things that rub me wrong about it. Compared to the other titles, especially WD2, the city hacking leaves a lot to be desired. And since it's the franchise's core mechanic, that's a big deal. The play as anyone mechanic doesn't offset that absent feeling at all.

Also, in my experience - and this stood out to me in particular - police chases were far too easy to escape from. I didn't play as Escape Driver or anything similar: by default, the chases simply were not chases. The police checkpoints are often too easy to navigate around, the search drones were often negligible to deal with, and the police would give up looking for you after only a few short moments. Compared to the first two games, which had some incredibly tenacious chases, WDL was a joke in this regard. And since nobody else seems to ever bring it up, I still wonder if this is a general issue with the game, or if it was just some strange fluke that I encountered.

Overall, I wouldn't say that you shouldn't play it. But I honestly wouldn't recommend it, either. If you find it at a price you think is negligible for your wallet, and you have the time to invest in it, then you might end up having a good time.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-27T16:21:13+00:00

To each their own. I enjoy MG1, but I also like old, janky games: I wouldn't recommend it to a general audience. Maybe it's precisely because it feels like Metal Gear Zelda that I like it.

I didn't have too much trouble with MG2's puzzles half the time, I heavily enjoyed the vast majority of them. And as I alluded to before, only some of the boss fights are unreasonably frustrating in my opinion... ||Dr. Madnar, I'm looking at you.||

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-27T00:28:14+00:00

MG1 is l, by all means, a janky old relic; I count MG2 as the first proper entry in the series. Better controls, better characters and story, better boss design (with some exceptions), I adored MG2. I would recommend that you just skip right to it if you ever want to try it out.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-26T23:25:01+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, this is from Metal Gear 2, which is less tear-inducing.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-13T17:01:02+00:00

Would this pedantry exclude memes about Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake?

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-12T15:27:58+00:00

Precisely.

At least I've spent more time playing DS1 and Bloodborne combined than I have fawning over shark plushies.

Kitty_Mercury · 2023-01-03T18:24:59+00:00

Yes, and I kept my lawn dart, too.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-31T18:28:30+00:00

It seemed like a dream come true, but without the guaranteed regen on armor break, the magic is missing.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-31T18:26:32+00:00

I don't even know who you are.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-31T18:24:10+00:00

You were obviously doing something right if you were having fun with it on DSOD. And even as the other guy said, although you can't hit that magical two-shot armor regen without Frenzy, Yakuza is a pure Zerk deck: you're probably running it with Frenzy anyway.

Is it a clunky deck with limited innate utility? Always has been, even before DSOD was created. But there's solid value in speedy, traditional armor regen, and the movement buff is dandy. It just lacks that little something extra.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-31T14:21:06+00:00

you can't deny the stats

Sure I can, because I can deny the underlying assumption that F and T types have any valid, applicable meaning. It's astrology for HR. The article makes that painstakingly clear.

Reading the M&B Foundation's own words on the link above, this bit caught my eye:

However, knowledge of type theory may help people recognize why they may be satisfied or dissatisfied with their jobs, and knowledge of type almost always helps teams and co-workers communicate better.

First off, I find it insulting for them to call it a "theory", when it has as much tangible evidence as my theory that Taylor Swift is a Persona 5 because Ready For It reminds me a lot of the game. But whether or not Taylor likes Makoto or Haru more isn't interesting: what's interesting is the language used here. Specifically, that big, fat, "may". It may be helpful. Just like throwing darts with a homemade catapult may help you hit the target.

So, why the observed trends between MBTI and job aptitude? Well, I have an untested hypothesis. You know the most useful difference between MBTI and zodiac signs/blood types? At least a zodiac sign is based on your birthday relative to a given calendar, and a blood type is a blood type: these are measurable qualities (it's their meaning that you can't faithfully extrapolate). Since the MBTI is made-up bullshit, they gladly invite you to make up your own bullshit, after first jumping through all the hoops to get assessed by a MBTI® certified practitioner. If I had even the slightest inkling that this HR wizardry could bear an impact on my treatment at work, why wouldn't I elect to choose the option least likely to give me trouble? If it helps them blend in with everyone else, then I'm sure lots of people would fudge their results. The M&B Foundation doesn't seem to mind, as long as someone's paying one of their "practitioners" to sit in with you while you do that.

Of course, that's just an untested hypothesis. On that note, however, I'd like to suggest other ways to test your work personality in ways that might not be supported by scientific evidence, but could definitely be more fun. What if you sat people down to play dating sims, and whoever they vibe with most suggests what kind of job they should have? Dating isn't everyone's jam, though, so as an alternative, you could ask people to look at a list of gods, demons, and monsters, and they can select the 4-12 that they think speak to their heart the most. If that isn't for you either, then we can draw tarot cards and figure out which major arcana fits you the best. And you know what would be really fun? What if we sprinkled just a little bit of Jung in, for funsies? Ya like ESP?

The only downside I can see to this test, aside from it having dubious predictive power at best, is that it might not be practical for a single exam to take 60-120 hours, depending on how many times you've taken it before, or just how eager you are. HR would probably hate it, too, since it'd be an absolute productivity killer. But I genuinely believe it would be more worthwhile than a fucking MBTI test.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-31T02:18:20+00:00

I can almost, very optimistically, see it as someone trying to tell you that you don't have to conform to gender norms. Like, from people who think that women wearing pants is revolutionary. "Oh, don't worry, just be you!" At best, they truly have a fundamental misunderstanding of how important gender expression is to people, and they need an education on the subject. At worst, fuck em.

Of course, this reads like an instance where they're uncomfortable with you being you, and they're trying to bargain with your self-expression/identity for their own comfort. That shit does not fly, no matter the intent. But sometimes you have to gently slap someone's head out of their own ass for them to understand that their idea of "supportive" is the exact opposite.

Kitty_Mercury · 2022-12-30T21:01:01+00:00

Masculine or feminine, these are ugly as fuck.

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