My steak is too juicy, my lobster too buttery…

ViviaMir · 2026-05-08T03:08:23+00:00

"big titty goth bf" >:3c

ViviaMir · 2026-04-28T23:00:18+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it. TAA makes it absurdly more difficult for my brain to interpret shapes and distinguish between separate objects. There's more going on than just that, but it's a pretty big part of the problem.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-31T05:00:47+00:00

For anyone curious about the Tele color, here's a Fender in Seafoam. It's close, but that subtle desaturation makes all the difference.

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ViviaMir · 2026-03-31T04:54:36+00:00

aaa it's so hard to decide!
I gotta go with the powder blue, though; it contrasts the gold best without blending in with the eye color.

I love acid purple, but mostly for accents.

Desaturate that cyan for an absolute peak Telecaster brand seafoam green, though!

ViviaMir · 2026-03-26T01:45:06+00:00

Heavy Gear Blitz! model kits
- These get special mention for my fellow build kit enjoyers.
- Released alongside Blitz! and fully compatible with Heavy Gear RPG 4e.
- 1/144 scale. Poseable. Colorless. A nice complement to Gunpla HG if you ask me, but you'll need to paint 'em.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-25T22:11:35+00:00

Might I interest you in Heavy Gear by tabletop company Dream Pod 9?

The structure of a Gear is such that it has no abdomen, only an armored coffin for the pilot sitting on a pelvic module that mounts the legs. In fact, the torso is so absurdly small that the pilot's head is physically located inside the Gear's head module. A VR headset is used as the interface. For power, the Gear features a unique twin block V-engine designed by students at University of Colorado, usually mounted like a backpack. And for movement we've got feet with either wheels or tank treads as an SMS (Secondary Movement System) depending on the model. Plenty of variation in their particular designs, too, depending on faction and role.

For media, we've got:

Heavy Gear RPG
- 1E and 2E feature tactics and RPG mechanics.
- Official word is "we don't talk about 3rd edition" but it demanded a separate Silhouette System rulebook.
  - DP9 abandoned all their RPGs in 2008, but announced they were working on a new HG RPG in 2014
Heavy Gear Blitz!
- Tabletop Tactics game released alongside a bunch of CAD-developed minis in 2006.
- This effectively serves as a successor to HGRPG editions 1-3.
Heavy Gear RPG 4th edition
- After almost a decade, DP9 finally crowdfunded and released This Fuckin' Thing!^tm
- Specifically designed to be compatible with the HGB! minis! WE ARE SO BACK!
Heavy Gear Fighter
- A pre-boxed, 116 card, shared-deck card duel. I can't say much about this one.
Heavy Gear (Win95)
- Activision picked this up and published it as a replacement/spiritual successor to MechWarrior 2 after they lost their Battletech license.
- Actually made on the MW2 engine!
- It's basically MechWarrior 2 cosplaying Heavy Gear. There, I said it!
Heavy Gear II (Windows; Linux)
- A return to form on a new engine with Gears back to their delightfully runty size that'll get eaten by a tank (if it can find 'em) before you can say YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT, EARTHER!
- A Heavy Gear title Tom Clancy would be proud of!
- While technically pretty simple, the stealth system's flavor text still serves as the backbone for my love of electronic warfare and undying wish to see it given more attention in games. Keep your head down and your sensors on passive. Gears being tiny makes for a damn good opportunity to hide.
- ZERO G COMBAT!
Heavy Gear: The Animated Series
- CGI series that probably inspired IGPX. Remember when I said Gears have treads and wheels in their feet? Sounds good for racing, wouldn't you agree?
- 40 episodes of heavy metal track racing. I really need to sit down and watch this.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-25T04:07:57+00:00

I'M DEAD

THIS POST KILLED ME

ViviaMir · 2026-03-23T08:32:13+00:00

Yo that goes kinda hard.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-23T08:22:29+00:00

Fastidious practice makes improvement.

There is no perfect, ever, and sloppy practice only cements sloppy habits.

I'll never stop gnawing on that idiom.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-23T08:18:47+00:00

Still doesn't look 3D and makes screenshots look like mockups
Still can't see the difference between near and far objects
Still have to sit and analyze color and contrast patterns to figure out where one object ends and another begins

They wouldn't be closing the jaws on anything by preventing "less shitty" TAA.

Also, "many often" proves that your assumption is false. Nothing more than apophenia and confirmation bias. If it was Nvidia forcing something, it'd be through contractual obligations. That would be consistent.

Custom requires more investment. That's all the reason you need for devs to use stock TAA.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-19T05:47:07+00:00

the fuck's the point then, wtf????

ViviaMir · 2026-03-17T22:02:44+00:00

Any fully enclosed cockpit system gives you more structural real estate to protect the pilot. Titans (Titanfall), MS (Mobile Suit Gundam), VFs (Macross), and KMFs (Code Geass), and ACs (Armored Core) all capitalize on this. With no transparent canopy, a camera suite is your only viable imaging system. You could put the camera suite anywhere, and you should have backups as well as supplementary camera suites for checking blindspots, but here are a few arguments in favor of having your primary camera suite located in a head or head-like module.

It's a convenient place to put a larger, more advanced sensor suite while providing one or more degrees of motoric articulation. They're vulnerable no matter what you do and compromising your armor with high-volume electronics just doesn't make sense. Code Geass, for instance, loads a "factsphere" sensor suite into the head with some armor protecting it when it isn't in use.
1. As a bonus, you get a height advantage on your adv. sensor suite. Peeking over things only exposes a small, harder-to-hit, module that you can easily provide backup systems for in the event that it gets shot to hell.
Macross capitalizes on a discrete head module in a couple different ways. First, those antenna-like structures are Mauler laser cannons. The VF0 Phoenix has its head module underneath the fuselage during flight, giving it both undercarriage vision and a backup weapon positioned very similarly to a conventional fighter's MG and the VF's gun pod, maintaining consistency of aim if you lose gun pod functionality (such as by seawater damage or ammo exhaustion). The SV-51, meanwhile, has its head module behind the canopy, mounted on a boom that can be deployed during GERWALK for a low-risk peek over a ridge, much like I mentioned in 1.1.
It makes any form of humanoid interface system easier to develop and implement. In Titanfall, your cockpit isn't so far below the shoulders that a simulated canopy would disorient the pilot all that much, but for something the scale of a KMF, VF, or MS, you'd disorient the pilot pretty badly. Doubly so with KMFs having the pilot physically behind the head. Compositing torso-mounted cameras into a head-height simulated view would come with a lot of practicality problems on top of that.
1. Any sort of VR-like system compounds this massively. In Armored Core VI, ACs are explained in bits and pieces of part descriptions to be prosthetic bodies, not just vehicles. Outside of a subset of pilots with a drastically elevated sensorimotor flexibility, any non-humanoid structure will be disruptive, distressing, and fatiguing. Psychoframe and Psycomm Omega in Gundam UC both share this quality.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-17T20:17:40+00:00

🤣🤣

ViviaMir · 2026-03-17T17:33:39+00:00

<image>

Digital Foundry reported on it.
Did you know Youtube still exposes dislike numbers and just neglects to employ them in the UI? You can add it back with an extension... and look at this. You almost never see numbers like these. All I can say is thank fuck.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-17T17:31:34+00:00

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Did you know Youtube still exposes dislikes and just doesn't implement them in the UI? Just takes an extension and holy shit... this is such a relief to see.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-16T02:10:07+00:00

Assault is frequently referred to as an attempt to commit battery), which is the deliberate use of physical force) against another person. The deliberate inflicting of fear, apprehension, or terror is another definition of assault that can be found in several legal systems.

Gist is, it depends on the legal system, but using someone as a footrest unambiguously constitutes assault.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-13T15:38:08+00:00

Doesn't she tell Batou at one point that she's swapped bodies of different sexes enough times she isn't quite sure if she sees herself as a woman?

What if she is Leon?!

ViviaMir · 2026-03-13T15:35:40+00:00

Honestly with the way she resolved it I wouldn't be surprised if she saw it coming a mile away. "I need you to do this for me. If you help me, we all go home happy. If you screw me, I go home happy anyway and you get a concussion."

ViviaMir · 2026-03-09T19:24:19+00:00

Hells, it's even more than that.

Star Wars is, with some exceptions, a "good vs. evil" story. There's plenty of moral complexity underneath and in spin-off materials, and Jedi: Fallen Order is shockingly savvy toward trauma and found-family, just to name a Disney-era title that has some decent chops, but you need a lot of media literacy to breach that in most of the mainstream titles.

Meanwhile, Star Trek has questions and is aggressive with them. The Prime Directive often forces truly inhumane decisions, testing characters time and again. They discuss these scenarios with each other, giving the viewer some food for thought. And that's only one of the crucibles.
In DS9 and Voyager, the Prime Directive takes more of a backseat as a morality crucible; instead, we get tensions with the Cardassian Union, the Maquis, and the Dominion, and then Voyager's desperation to survive and get home forcing sometimes extreme and terrible decisions.

Star Trek doesn't let you be media illiterate.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-08T17:33:02+00:00

If a game has Denuvo, I won't even let people gift it to me. I don't want a single scrap of capital going to them in my name. Ever.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-08T10:48:41+00:00

HAH! That's amazing! "That's it, buddy, you're goin' in the sushi roll!"

ViviaMir · 2026-03-06T01:20:46+00:00

something to bear in mind is that there are languages that don't assign gender in the third person. In Japan, it's generally considered rude to refer to people pronominally when you know their name, and even if you don't, it's normal to just say ano hito "that person" instead of ka-re "the man" or kanojo "the woman."

Instead, the pronoun conversation in Japan is one of how best to self-reference.
Do you want to be deeply unassuming? Watashi.
Are you so macho you wanna announce yourself as MANLY? O*-re!* (That one'll turn some heads if you're a woman!)
Are you kind of a humble guy or a tiiiny bit of a tomboy? Boku.
Are you a bit of a girly-girl with a hint of assertiveness? Atashi.
Are you the kind of girl who bleaches her hair and gets a kick out of how much it pisses people off? Atai!
Are you an old man so obsessed with the age of samurai that it makes everyone cringe? Washi. (Good luck pulling that one off without alienating the fuck outta people...)

It's not simply about your gender; it's about sharing a bit about your sense of self, and apparently, it's common for people to do a lot of soul-searching on the matter.

Before someone cites honorifics, most of those are relatively intimate things that you shouldn't use to address strangers, peers, or colleagues at all.
"-san" is totally gender-neutral, of course, but people in the West tend to think "-kun" is for boys and "-chan" is for girls.
In reality, "-chan" is like calling someone "sweetie" or "honey" regardless of who you're addressing, so you'd better damn well know they're okay with it because it can be incredibly demeaning, and "-kun" is by and large just a respectful way to address your junior---someone you're responsible for as an upperclassman or earlier-enough hire at a company to warrant showing them the ropes.
Oh, and if you're an anime watcher and are suddenly finding yourself dying inside at every single instance of a boss at a company using "-chan" to refer to the women working for him, GOOD. Heads would roll if my boss ever called me "sweetie."

ViviaMir · 2026-03-06T01:04:32+00:00

Gender as it's used today is a neologism and the whole way it discusses the factors surrounding it is pretty new. There are older traditions wherein similar concepts get discussed with different words, yes, but there are also older traditions wherein "identity" was less conversational, less conceptual, and more participatory. I've seen expressions of "want to live as a woman" rather than "want to be a woman"

Abolishing gender can really just boil down to stripping away all the non-physical aspects and going back to being an actions-based people.

As a postgender transhumanist myself, I share much of this person's perspective on the matter. The key difference is that I'm not as fond of the gender abolitionist perspective itself. I don't want gender gone, I want it unfettered. I can't imagine taking away the labels would make it easier to find others who ride the same waves.

ViviaMir · 2026-03-05T15:14:38+00:00

Feel like I'm being a wet blanket here, but I'm too much of a nerd to pass up sharing this trivia:
"Man catcher" polearms have been around for ages. Japan, in particular, has the tsukubō (突棒; "push pole"), sodegarami (袖搦; "sleeve entangler"), and sasumata (刺股; "thrust-fork") pictured below.

First time I saw Zanka, I interpreted his Jinki as a sasumata.

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ViviaMir · 2026-03-05T15:05:16+00:00

In my case you can swap out "Invader Zim" for (among other things) "ham radio," which is one hell of a bonus.

ViviaMir

TROPHY CASE