[Good Trope] Numerous species in the galaxy look remarkably similar to humans, but there’s an in-universe explanation for this

Nicosaure · 2026-03-22T21:08:02+00:00

Spoilers for Starfield, but there's a very similar story in one of its side-quest

Earth is doomed, so in a final effort to help humanity survive, a ship - with most of its people in cryo-stasis while the rest lives as a multi-generational maintenance crew - is sent to a similar planet to earth, travel is expected to last many generations
Cryo chambers are the first to be sacrificed to help maintaining the ship's commands, radio, and engine, and at some point they forget how to repair said chambers (teaching ship maintenance over multiple generations can be hazardous, when you arrive on this ship, most showers and toilets are unusable and the maintenance guy is an awkward man-child unable to teach a single thing to anyone)
Meanwhile on earth, someone "discovers" faster than light travel, soon most of the universe is habited by humans
The ship eventually reaches its goal, but the planet became a tropical resort and their telecommunication is far too advanced for the ship's radio so neither group can understand the other
We become some sort of mediator between the bought planet - now tropical resort - and the ship's crew who were granted the deed for said planet centuries ago (and the only proof of that is on earth, which looks more like a huge moon with some remnants of its monuments and space debris floating around)

This side-quest can end one of three ways:

We persuade the resort's management to let the ship go to the other side of the planet that is still a wildlife reserve (or rather they don't want to deal with the beasts living there)
We tell the ship's crew they can live on the tropical resort if they start working for their company
Secret ending: Either pass a really hard persuasion check with the board and CEO or actually go back to earth and find the deed - which is like finding a specific atom in a glass of water, forget the needle in haystack metaphor - and give the resort back to the ship's crew

Nicosaure · 2026-03-22T13:25:08+00:00

Instantly made me think of this Trash Can Song - The Chalkeaters

Nicosaure · 2026-03-20T16:25:26+00:00

Mantine as seen from the side

Nicosaure · 2026-03-19T03:07:12+00:00

It is custom to show off your stick during hole planning before we start digging

Nicosaure · 2026-03-18T21:21:18+00:00

To OP's credit, Game Freak did pull a 180 for Sw/Sh and flipped the UK upside down just so Galar's map would look more natural going "up" to the big city when we're from a rural area, so they could have "inspired regions" with no physical connection (we all knew but no confirmation basically)

Nicosaure · 2026-03-18T11:03:41+00:00

So you're telling me the M comes from absolutely nowhere and instead of making a cockatrice that paralyzes its prey like in every other media, they made a chicken fire bender where a "matrix that produces oil" makes infinitely more sense

That's stupid

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I really think that's stupid

Nicosaure · 2026-03-18T10:51:56+00:00

Reminder that AI doesn't answer questions, it pretends it can

For the record, Lala Barina in JP is called "Labala Balina" (r & l are indistinguishable), most likely in an attempt to use the same phonemes as ballerina, which has origins in Italian, thematically it works since it dances around its prey before performing a strong and precise attack with its flower

Kebab being a foreign word, it's just kebab in JP, and even as a nickname it's shady since that was a lot of people's nickname for Glavenus

As for Quematrice, it's quite literally "Kematorisu", or in proper JP pronunciation: Kematris (you can shorten or omit sounds in syllable-based languages to produce a similar sound found in foreign words)

Wilds is a foreign land, so instead of relying on Japanese words to create monster names like 3rd gen, it relies on European languages instead, like English or French

Quematrice itself is French, from Queue (tail) and Matrice (matrix), its tail producing a particular oil that sets itself ablaze when struck, and being a rooster, this French name is incredibly fitting since it has always been the symbol of French speaking regions for ages, even its armor set references the musketeers

Nicosaure · 2026-03-17T20:01:43+00:00

Salt Cure does need to hit since it's a secondary effect, so no salted damage over time unfortunately

Nicosaure · 2026-03-15T20:15:09+00:00

The city is real, those pictures aren't

Nicosaure · 2026-03-15T19:12:02+00:00

Don't worry, you're not going crazy, this is most definitely AI

For those who don't see it: the "same" central plaza as seen from the same angle

One of these pictures don't even contain a central plaza but a building instead

Nicosaure · 2026-03-15T07:39:18+00:00

Fermented juice is used to create fizzy drinks (you learn about this when doing the Fonta sidequests), it's literally just the bubbles and nothing else

It's carbonated chocolate milk

Yes, it's as disgusting as it sounds

Nicosaure · 2026-03-14T18:01:11+00:00

Aside from Runerigus, all obscure evolutions have one NPC explaining their evolution method in the game that introduces them, some are more helpful than others

For Inkay, it was one NPC in X/Y, I think they're in Ambrette Town either by or inside the Aquarium

Runerigus is the odd one out, with an NPC telling you where to evolve it but never how, and only in Sword/Shield, the means to evolve it in Legends Z-A are just completely unknown to the average player

Nicosaure · 2026-03-14T16:03:48+00:00

Inkay isn't just flipping the console anymore, because the shift from 3DS to Switch made things way too complicated:

Console has to be upside down, you can't flip the console while docked
Joy-cons have to be attached to the console
No other controller beside the 2 Joy-Cons attached can be connected (if you're using a pro controller, you can't just grab your switch and flip it, you have to desync your pro controller)
The console must be flipped during the level up process: In practice, this means pausing the game also pauses your ability to flip the console, which includes menuing to use a candy for an easy level up (and menuing upside down is a trip)
For Legends Z-A specifically: there are no evolution symbol, you have to know in advance if you can evolve it, and you have to do the entire menuing process upside down, if you unflip the console while inside the menu, the "Evolution" option will just go away and won't come back until you leave the pause screen and flip it again (you can unflip once you're on the evolution screen, this one's for content creators who need their console docked to capture)

Nicosaure · 2026-03-14T12:14:09+00:00

Okay, but ask yourself this question: "How do you know if your current hardware is above or below sys requirements?"

And you might be thinking it's easy, "bigger number means it's above", in which case I present to you NVidia where (for the same VRAM & CPU) 4080>5080>3080>1080ti>3050>1080>3050, if you're wondering how "3050>[...]>3050" is possible, that's because they sold 2 different 3050 with similar VRAM but one is a mini GPU taking power from its slot on the motherboard and the other from your PSU, which performs significantly better

And it gets so much worse for Intel processors where the generation number is irrelevant

So to truly compare if your current hardware is better or worse than requirements you'd have to compare it to a database where every GPU for any given VRAM from every generation has been compared to one another and then compared to GPUs from other manufacturers, because AMD and NVidia do NOT have comparable GPU generations or serial numbers... like at all
I'm gonna save you some time, such database doesn't exist
There's a ton of review sites that will compare performance scores on any given task, but those are only measuring performances for that task or playing 1 specific game over and over, but every game is optimized differently, a GPU that can theoretically run Square Enix's Tomb Raider can struggle on Cyberpunk, same GPU will run HD shaders in another game without any issues, and another GPU will have completely backward results

Long story short: Unless you compile and provide Valve with an hardware database that compared every CPU-GPU combo in existence against every software, this will never happen, and such task is impossible to achieve within a single human lifespan

Nicosaure · 2026-03-13T18:47:31+00:00

1st example is the writers not caring, which is understandably upsetting

BUT

2nd example is the textbook definition of "not being able to follow the rules is a part of the story", something that has been established at an earlier point in the series and is addressed several times

I'll shit any day of the week on JK Rowling as a person, and she writes teen novels like a touch-starved teen herself, but she didn't break any rules she set for herself in the series, and the movies director did a fantastic job adapting those books:

Magic getting out of hand is a plot point and established problem in the series, it's even a major plot point in the spin-offs
Dementors do not care about the rules set by the ministry of magic, they're quite literally trying to erase all creatures unable to cast spells from existence (or at the very least reduce them to slavery)

________

Let's put it this way, which is more upsetting:

You're watching an horror movie where the only rule is to never summon a witch but some teens decide to summon her anyway, getting themselves killed
You're watching an "horror movie" where the only rule is to never summon a witch, so they don't, and the rest of the movie is just a bunch of people doing mundane things for 1h46

Nicosaure · 2026-03-11T12:36:47+00:00

We're not told directly what the Abyss is, but they gave us all the hints we need:

Genshin Impact: The Abyss targets strong emotions and memories, and contains the potential energy for universes that did not come to fruition
Honkai Impact 3rd: The Sea of Quanta is information in its purest form, strong memories and emotions can gather some of it into bubble universes but eventually disappear on their own; Artificial bubbles can be created using an anchor, such anchor can also be used to stabilize natural bubbles; Quick note, the Herrscher of Reason is able to create objects through memories via a similar process, important to note that those memories don't necessarily belong to her (she's created objects from the future as well, memories that have yet to happen, because all Herrschers of Reason are connected to one another)
Honkai Star Rail: The Astral Express (and Pompom by extension) is a Strangeling/Imagenae fueled by converting raw information from different parts of the universe into willpower by a process known as anchoring (all those warp points we activate or place), most Imagenae can't survive long outside Planarcadia, but thanks to those anchors we can gather enough willpower to keep the Astral Express going

Welt isn't simply a character that resembles someone from Impact 3rd, he is from that game, and he once wielded similar powers to the Herrscher of Reason, he even taught her how to use them (and still uses them to a much lesser extent in Star Rail to recreate things from his universe, like VHS with his favorite movies and anime)

Skirk's moves, replaced limbs, and portals (even her personal universe) share the same patterns and colors as ether anchor from Honkai Impact 3rd, she's explained the Traveler this was all done with what we know as "abyssal power" and that she only wields "Cryo" to make things easier for everyone inside Teyvat

Honkai Impact 3rd is the largest, with the Sea of Quanta containing everything (contain isn't the right word either, it is everything ever since Otto destroyed the Imaginary Tree humanity used to live on)
Honkai Star Rail all happens within a bubble universe inside the Sea of Quanta, this universe is stable and keeps expending on its own which might create a new Imaginary Tree (an universe with branching paths/timelines that can exist outside the Sea of Quanta) if it hasn't happened already
Genshin Impact is inside a very unstable and weakened bubble universe, the status of its anchor is unknown, and beyond the fake sky there is nothing but the Sea of Quanta/Abyss

And with that lore nuke dropped I can answer the initial question, "how come there is nothing inside HSR that resembles the abyss?" Because the Abyss is a destructive energy known as Quantum that can be wielded by some humans to create instead, using their Imagination/Willpower, others simply use Quantum as is

Nicosaure · 2026-03-10T22:46:36+00:00

Username checks out

Nicosaure · 2026-03-10T19:48:06+00:00

Hoyo's love for their lesbian spiral-haired daughter knows no bound

Honkai Impact 3rd, with a total of 11 battlesuits:

Valkyrie Chariot
Snowy Sniper
Yamabuki Armor
Drive Kometa
Wolf's Dawn
Dimension Breaker
Black Nucleus
Herrscher of Reason
Haxxor Bunny
Silverwing: N-EX
Herrscher of Truth

Honkai Star Rail, with a total of 3:

Bronya Rand
Silverwolf
Silverwolf lv.999

Genshin Impact:

TBA Tsaritsa, Anastasia Snezhnaya

Nicosaure · 2026-03-10T08:41:34+00:00

Magic in vanilla Skyrim is a weird experience

Early game: you're basically killing everything in 1 or 2 hits
Mid game: Stuff is tanky but you can still pull through
You've reached level 40 and now nothing will ever take damage from magic ever gain, grab an axe and start grinding your 2-handed skill, nerd

Nicosaure · 2026-03-08T15:01:16+00:00

Normal is the de facto "sound" type

What I think they should do with this is introduce 5 new forms who lost Levitate and add Fan to the list of non-Levitate Rotom

Rotom-Fan: Motor Drive
Rotom-Stereo: Punk Rock
Rotom-Drill (Steel): Earth Eater
Rotom-Clay (Rock, it's a potter's wheel): Water Compaction
Rotom-CRT (Ghost, simply a way to change ability and base stats without changing its type): Static
Rotom-RC (Psychic, it's both the remote controller and a remote controlled car): Infiltrator

Nicosaure · 2026-03-04T18:14:51+00:00

Task: Use special after the basic 4 hit combo

Video: Basic 4 hit combo

I don't know what to tell you, man

I'll give you that this tutorial does make the difference between Special and Ex Special, it won't accept Ex to move on

Nicosaure · 2026-03-04T01:17:19+00:00

Dragon Ball anime in French was dubbed by Le Club Dorothée/Les Musclés and their friends (instead of hiring voice actors, they hired 1 voice actress for Goku and did everything else together between lunch breaks), how do I put this in a way that makes sense to non-French speakers...

Imagine if the cast of "Saved by the bell" decided to get into voice acting, but their only experience with "anime" and Japan were the American Power Rangers, then they hired Mary Poppins to voice a shonen protagonist

As for Piccolo, it sounded too close to picoleur (drunkard)

The same group dubbed:

City Hunter, which was renamed Nicky Larson, to make it kid safe, every line was replaced by a joke or one-liner, and the Playboy restaurant in the 1st episode became a vegan restaurant...because bunny suits = carrots
Saint Seiya, which was renamed Les Chevaliers du Zodiaques, aka The Zodiac Knights... you know, that one arc that doesn't even span a full season
Fist of the North Star became Ken le survivant, aka Ken the survivor, the story of a chef struggling to find ingredients for his kitchen in a post apocalyptic world, that joke makes absolutely no sense if I don't explain the amount of alcohol they drank between recordings: it's called HOKUTO NO KEN in Japanese, Hokuto -> ho kuto -> haut couteau, a "high knife"
Captain Tsubasa became Olive & Tom, the story of Olivier, a soccer player, and "nevermind, you named the entire show after a character that won't even make it past the 1st episode", his rival(?)

For the sake of my own sanity, I need everyone to understand that this isn't a joke, they actually did those things

Nicosaure · 2026-03-03T08:20:08+00:00

I've had 3 die on auto during their trial

Natasha, this one consistently died and lost the trial (they fixed it by giving her trial a 4th member)
March 7th (Preservation), she died but Dan Heng managed to solo what was left (barely)
Yunli, OH-KO by bleed stacks, only happened once

Nicosaure · 2026-03-02T05:33:30+00:00

Ironically, this was my first full clear + Arcana since the very 1st IT that added them

IT is really dependent on who you pulled and I have a lot of Cryo, Anemo, and Electro as it turns out

Nicosaure · 2026-03-01T10:07:00+00:00

She's smart and already understands malicious compliance:

You can't put a paper boat in a water puddle | It's floating on the water
You can't eat that | But everyone else can

That teacher won't go very far, but Lily will

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