Project Gamer: Anime Adjacent
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
Good thing Anime Adjacent is its own thread instead of just being side stories then, isn't it.
No I'm saying this is great, I love Kumo. I've read both the Manga and the Light Novel to the point Kumo is fighting D, never watched the anime.
What I'm saying is it deserves it's own thread, as it is not Adjacent to the main storyline at all more like Parallel.
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- Location
- Texas
Hey MF, what've you been reading lately? I need ideas and you always have interesting concepts 😅
I didn't want to clutter things up in Creative Writing with an idea that I wouldn't be able to dedicate a lot of time to. It could be partially wedged in here, though, so it's where I've put it for the moment.
Well, I've been trying to find anything decent in the Hulluva Boss fandom- Not much luck I'm afraid.
Watching anime clips at random and I've been reading a lot of different things, mostly at work during my break. A lot of wiki crawling, especially.
For Kumo Desu Ga Nani Ka, I've run across the story where the MC is a drone and I've been working my way through 'Self-Inserts are Cancer, so What?' It was a bit of a slog to get through the forest bit but it does a decent enough job of being entertaining and engaging throughout.
I'm sorry that you feel that way. This particular idea had been rattling around in my head, making it difficult to focus on either the actual story I'm working on or the vague ideas I've been putting together about a piece of original fiction.
Then the FFXVI demo came out a few days ago, the ending really hit home and ever since I've just had Alchemist in my head saying this to someone
"You do not get to claim godhood and then complain of being a puppet in the same breath!"
Which I'm sure several of us can guess who Al would be telling that to.
Anyway- Writing this out was the equivalent of closing a few tabs of Google Chrome. It helped clear out some mental RAM and I figured a few folks here might enjoy it.
- Location
- Right next to the butcher's shop.
Why not, though? If you're an omnipotent god, sure, but that's a very abrahamic viewpoint. Most mythological gods are extremely powerful, but have their own weaknesses and things that limit them.
Some pantheons have fate, or destiny, that even the gods are tied to - unable to change their future, or roles.
Imagine being told 'you're going to stab a guy, then die, then suffer forever after that'. I think you'd be pretty miffed, and might want to file a complaint, even if you have massive power in exchange.
Sure, D seems pretty free, but at the same time she needed to hide her actions, and has an assistant who can occasionaly force them to do stuff.
Just because you're a god, doesn't mean stuff can't still suck for you. And sure, a lot of gods are whiny bitches, but that doesn't mean they don't have a point.
That would have been a reference to Final Fantasy 16. Considering the scene is all anyone can talk about from the demo, I don't think I'm spoiling anything-
The various gods in the setting act through mortals, called 'Dominants', and seem to be treated as weapons of war.
Honestly got some pretty strong 'Power of Human Sacrifice' vibes similar to Naruto from how it was presented.
Anyway, the demo ends with one of the gods, 'Ifrit', being used as part of an assassination plot to kill a man, his ten-year old child who was the host of their own god, and set off a massive war.
After the bad taste Final Fantasy 15 left in my mouth upon completing it, my patience for the gods of the setting interfering with mortals is getting rather thin.
The origin of the Daemon scourge is never explained adequately. I think they went with something like pneumonia from outer space?
The story itself wasn't finished. There were literal chapters cut out and turned into DLC, with some of -that- getting scrapped and set aside for a book that never made its way to the west.
The final boss fights weren't fights. They were cinematics where the objective was to 'Hold this button' until the next cutscene started.
The Ardyn DLC showed us a reasonable descent into madness as well as severe divine overreach when he refuses to play the bit-part he's assigned. It was meant to tie-in to the aforementioned book.
The movie that came with the game showed the Kingdom of Insomnia as beholden to the ancient kings of the past. Unfortunately, these long-dead spirits give zero fucks about the kingdom and its people. At least the recently deceased king was actually willing to stand up to them but the point stands.
Finally- I play games to avoid depression. Not to watch someone go through the various stages of grief before eventually choosing ritual suicide.
Well, that's why, when I played it, I kept myself to travelling around with the boys. It's by far the best part of the game.
Axel
Tenno Wax
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He
Yeah, a friend gifted it to me; it will forever frozen in time just after Leviathan
Yeah, that's what getting rushed out the door in shambles after a ten-year development cycle that was predominantly spent fighting with the available game engine will get you.
Alternate Start: So I'm a Spider, So What? 2
Snail Trail
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
002
-----
You ever wonder about what really constitutes a soul?
Memories could be artificially built, though I think that was only experimented with in simple invertebrates. The whole 'Sense of self' thing was debunked ages ago as not being unique to humans. Elephants and dolphins were perfectly capable of recognizing that an image they saw in a mirror was themselves once they spent a bit of time figuring it out.
Hell, I remember there was this gorilla that was friends with some comedian. She knew a lot of sign language, she'd expressed sadness when it was explained to her that he'd died.
A lot of folks argued that none of it was real. That all the signs that what made humans special wasn't unique, was just confirmation bias.
Personally? I didn't really know what to think on the matter. I'd never come to any solid conclusions.
How do you measure the immeasurable? See the unseen?
Sure, there were the die-hard atheists out there who said that lack of proof was lack of existence... But we've literally made tools that can measure things that we can't see. Ultra-violet, infrared, x-rays and more.
But there's an animal out there that can see that stuff. Naturally at that. The peacock mantis shrimp has got more than a dozen color-receptive cones in their eyes compared to the three or sometimes four that us humans have. I literally cannot imagine what the world looks like to them.
And what do they do with this amazing gift? Go around angrily punching and killing anything and everything around them.
I don't know where I'm going with this, alright? I've spent the last god-only-knows how long shuffling around in a circle, blindly bumping into some kind of barrier. My body feels weird, too. I try to clench my fists and it feels like I'm pulling my arms in.
I do my best not to think about it. That Icelandic woman, Hrist, she said I wouldn't be human. I can only imagine what the other options would be, though. Dwarf? Orc? Dagger-eared, leaf-eating Elf-cel?
Probably not. Unlike my other memories which feel disordered, that in-between place is crystal clear. What I'd read feels fresh and new whenever I think about it, her words and warnings still fresh in my ears.
Disadvantaged. The longer we'd waited to make our choices, the worse the conditions we'd be reincarnated into.
Doesn't exactly fill someone with confidence, does it? On top of that, I picked the option that's going to leave me with just as many disadvantages as it offers benefits.
Vampirism. Woo. I get to start off being able to slightly see in the dark and slowly regenerate health but I'll have an explosive sun allergy and a very restricted diet. Still, so long as I stay in my lane, I'll get to enjoy unlocking more Vampire abilities and drinking blood increases my recovery rate.
My face bumps into the barrier locking me in and I turn to the side to keep up my pacing. It always helped whenever I felt nervous or anxious and it looks like I'll be keeping up that habit.
Tap-tap-tap-tap
Go my hands, or feet, on whatever surface I'm walking on. It's one of the many, many things I'm trying to not think about.
I'm pretty sure I know what it means. I passed biology back in school pretty easily. It was really just a handful of patterns and rules with some cosmetic changes based on location.
Provided that location wasn't Australia. There's something wrong with that country.
Did you know that the British invaders there lost a war against the natives? I don't mean the Aboriginals. I mean the Emu.
Yeah. They lost a war against a bunch of flightless birds. I'd mock them for it but I've seen a Cassowary.
Birds are scary, okay? I don't have Orniphobia but I'll be the first one to admit that the modern-day dinosaurs worry me.
Even chickens? Especially chickens.
My face bumps into the barrier again and something on my cheek catches, tearing into it. I back up, surprised, then try to push my face against the spot. The barrier tears a little bit as I do so, so I push harder.
Eventually my head is out... And I'm stuck. I got my head out but I guess the hole shrunk back around my neck when I stuck it through? I try to back up but the wall is actually holding on really well.
Okay. Engage brain.
The wall flexes back and forth when I try to move. That means I can apply tension on the structure going forward and back. I could probably also go up and down but I'd rather not strangle myself.
Seriously. Tool assisted suicide, funny when I saw a video of it in Castle Quest. Don't really want to deal with it here.
So, fun fact? If something can flex, it can tear. Some materials might be really resistant but nothing is really invulnerable.
And anything that can't flex will shear instead.
Forward and back, then go forward and back, then go forward and back and take one step forward!
There's no loud ripping sound but after several cycles, I'm free! Free to not know where I am or what I am or really know if all I've accomplished is breaking out of one little prison and into a slightly larger prison.
Look, I can't hear anything. I might be able to vaguely smell something but I have no frame of reference for what it might be. I can see but only if something is reasonably close, like the ground.
Ooh, look! A rock.
And over there's another rock.
Hey, what's that? Is it another rock?
...No, no it's not. Creeping up on something, the shape comes into view and I can see what looks like a deflating bubble. There's something inside, a blurry black shadow with another, blurrier and blacker shadow on the back of it.
Is that... Me? I mean, I'm not making any solid guesses here but, again, I passed biology. Unless there's a cuckoo thing going on, it'd make sense for there to be a concentration of only one species in an area during hatching, or... Whatever this specific event would be called.
Crawling up directly against the transparent membrane, I can make out more details. The thing inside has two distinct, forward facing eyes that glow or shine somehow. There's a pair of stubby antennae on the top of its head and four more stubby outgrowths around the base of its head.
Which are apparently part of how it moves. Those things grab on to the floor and then the butt of it inches forwards in a really, really awkward crawl.
Awful design choice. Incredibly inefficient. How am I supposed to avoid predators if I move like a handicapped snail?
At least it looks like the back of the creature is covered by a shell. Still looks kind of soft, though... Did snails come out of their eggs with fully formed shells? Or was I some kind of funky hermit crab?
...What do I even eat? I don't see a mouth on random unnamed sibling #1.
Okay, yeah. I know. Stupid question.
Vampire. Blood.
I are Hot Topic friendly.
I did not think this through very well. I mean, I didn't have enough time to draw up a spreadsheet and do a cost/benefit analysis, no, but still. I'm going to have to find something lower on the food chain and literally parasitize it.
With no teeth.
As a baby snail-looking thing.
...I think I might be in trouble.
Pulling away from the egg sac, I start pacing in a circle. I don't have any knowledge of my options and I don't know how to fix that. There are supposed to be abilities, skill and magics that I can buy but that requires currency of some kind, which I don't have.
Do I?
Inventory? Status? Menu?
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Great... I have no idea how to access the W System thing.
Wait...
SYSTEM: TREE?
"Accessing." A voice chimes straight into my head, speaking a language I don't understand. "Now listing full directory tree-"
What happens next is, quite possibly, one of the most user-unfriendly experiences I've ever had. The voice starts to literally speak into my head at length, using words I don't know in the slightest. I have no idea how deep it's gotten to explaining the file structure but I don't understand what it's saying anyway.
Uh... Hell. SET LANGUAGE: ENGLISH?
"Error. Language "English" not found."
No idea what the damned thing just said outside of the word English. Alright, try something else. SET LANGUAGE: SPANISH?
"Error. Language "Spanish" not found."
That didn't work either. I know I'm getting a rejection code but I've got no idea what it's specifically saying. How about ACTIVATE: SUBTITLES
"Activating: Subtitles"
Yes! Success! Sort of.
I can't read what it says. The words type themselves in front of my very eyes but it just looks like gibberish to me. Alright, try this then- SET LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN?
"Error. Language "Russian" not found."
Alright. So the first word is probably some kind of rejection code. The second one probably refers to the command I've tried to give it and it said 'Russian' in English, so I've got that as a frame of reference... SET LANGUAGE: JAPANESE?
"Error. Skill "n% I = W" not present."
What? That doesn't look anything like the last rejection code!
I sway from side to side, wishing I could reach up and scratch my head. I'm just completely confused, honestly. Confused and hungry, maybe a touch frustrated.
Seriously. Who in their right mind would design a user interface that communicates information via voice?
Bethesda?
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
002
-----
You ever wonder about what really constitutes a soul?
Memories could be artificially built, though I think that was only experimented with in simple invertebrates. The whole 'Sense of self' thing was debunked ages ago as not being unique to humans. Elephants and dolphins were perfectly capable of recognizing that an image they saw in a mirror was themselves once they spent a bit of time figuring it out.
Hell, I remember there was this gorilla that was friends with some comedian. She knew a lot of sign language, she'd expressed sadness when it was explained to her that he'd died.
A lot of folks argued that none of it was real. That all the signs that what made humans special wasn't unique, was just confirmation bias.
Personally? I didn't really know what to think on the matter. I'd never come to any solid conclusions.
How do you measure the immeasurable? See the unseen?
Sure, there were the die-hard atheists out there who said that lack of proof was lack of existence... But we've literally made tools that can measure things that we can't see. Ultra-violet, infrared, x-rays and more.
But there's an animal out there that can see that stuff. Naturally at that. The peacock mantis shrimp has got more than a dozen color-receptive cones in their eyes compared to the three or sometimes four that us humans have. I literally cannot imagine what the world looks like to them.
And what do they do with this amazing gift? Go around angrily punching and killing anything and everything around them.
I don't know where I'm going with this, alright? I've spent the last god-only-knows how long shuffling around in a circle, blindly bumping into some kind of barrier. My body feels weird, too. I try to clench my fists and it feels like I'm pulling my arms in.
I do my best not to think about it. That Icelandic woman, Hrist, she said I wouldn't be human. I can only imagine what the other options would be, though. Dwarf? Orc? Dagger-eared, leaf-eating Elf-cel?
Probably not. Unlike my other memories which feel disordered, that in-between place is crystal clear. What I'd read feels fresh and new whenever I think about it, her words and warnings still fresh in my ears.
Disadvantaged. The longer we'd waited to make our choices, the worse the conditions we'd be reincarnated into.
Doesn't exactly fill someone with confidence, does it? On top of that, I picked the option that's going to leave me with just as many disadvantages as it offers benefits.
Vampirism. Woo. I get to start off being able to slightly see in the dark and slowly regenerate health but I'll have an explosive sun allergy and a very restricted diet. Still, so long as I stay in my lane, I'll get to enjoy unlocking more Vampire abilities and drinking blood increases my recovery rate.
My face bumps into the barrier locking me in and I turn to the side to keep up my pacing. It always helped whenever I felt nervous or anxious and it looks like I'll be keeping up that habit.
Tap-tap-tap-tap
Go my hands, or feet, on whatever surface I'm walking on. It's one of the many, many things I'm trying to not think about.
I'm pretty sure I know what it means. I passed biology back in school pretty easily. It was really just a handful of patterns and rules with some cosmetic changes based on location.
Provided that location wasn't Australia. There's something wrong with that country.
Did you know that the British invaders there lost a war against the natives? I don't mean the Aboriginals. I mean the Emu.
Yeah. They lost a war against a bunch of flightless birds. I'd mock them for it but I've seen a Cassowary.
Birds are scary, okay? I don't have Orniphobia but I'll be the first one to admit that the modern-day dinosaurs worry me.
Even chickens? Especially chickens.
My face bumps into the barrier again and something on my cheek catches, tearing into it. I back up, surprised, then try to push my face against the spot. The barrier tears a little bit as I do so, so I push harder.
Eventually my head is out... And I'm stuck. I got my head out but I guess the hole shrunk back around my neck when I stuck it through? I try to back up but the wall is actually holding on really well.
Okay. Engage brain.
The wall flexes back and forth when I try to move. That means I can apply tension on the structure going forward and back. I could probably also go up and down but I'd rather not strangle myself.
Seriously. Tool assisted suicide, funny when I saw a video of it in Castle Quest. Don't really want to deal with it here.
So, fun fact? If something can flex, it can tear. Some materials might be really resistant but nothing is really invulnerable.
And anything that can't flex will shear instead.
Forward and back, then go forward and back, then go forward and back and take one step forward!
There's no loud ripping sound but after several cycles, I'm free! Free to not know where I am or what I am or really know if all I've accomplished is breaking out of one little prison and into a slightly larger prison.
Look, I can't hear anything. I might be able to vaguely smell something but I have no frame of reference for what it might be. I can see but only if something is reasonably close, like the ground.
Ooh, look! A rock.
And over there's another rock.
Hey, what's that? Is it another rock?
...No, no it's not. Creeping up on something, the shape comes into view and I can see what looks like a deflating bubble. There's something inside, a blurry black shadow with another, blurrier and blacker shadow on the back of it.
Is that... Me? I mean, I'm not making any solid guesses here but, again, I passed biology. Unless there's a cuckoo thing going on, it'd make sense for there to be a concentration of only one species in an area during hatching, or... Whatever this specific event would be called.
Crawling up directly against the transparent membrane, I can make out more details. The thing inside has two distinct, forward facing eyes that glow or shine somehow. There's a pair of stubby antennae on the top of its head and four more stubby outgrowths around the base of its head.
Which are apparently part of how it moves. Those things grab on to the floor and then the butt of it inches forwards in a really, really awkward crawl.
Awful design choice. Incredibly inefficient. How am I supposed to avoid predators if I move like a handicapped snail?
At least it looks like the back of the creature is covered by a shell. Still looks kind of soft, though... Did snails come out of their eggs with fully formed shells? Or was I some kind of funky hermit crab?
...What do I even eat? I don't see a mouth on random unnamed sibling #1.
Okay, yeah. I know. Stupid question.
Vampire. Blood.
I are Hot Topic friendly.
I did not think this through very well. I mean, I didn't have enough time to draw up a spreadsheet and do a cost/benefit analysis, no, but still. I'm going to have to find something lower on the food chain and literally parasitize it.
With no teeth.
As a baby snail-looking thing.
...I think I might be in trouble.
Pulling away from the egg sac, I start pacing in a circle. I don't have any knowledge of my options and I don't know how to fix that. There are supposed to be abilities, skill and magics that I can buy but that requires currency of some kind, which I don't have.
Do I?
Inventory? Status? Menu?
Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Great... I have no idea how to access the W System thing.
Wait...
SYSTEM: TREE?
"Accessing." A voice chimes straight into my head, speaking a language I don't understand. "Now listing full directory tree-"
What happens next is, quite possibly, one of the most user-unfriendly experiences I've ever had. The voice starts to literally speak into my head at length, using words I don't know in the slightest. I have no idea how deep it's gotten to explaining the file structure but I don't understand what it's saying anyway.
Uh... Hell. SET LANGUAGE: ENGLISH?
"Error. Language "English" not found."
No idea what the damned thing just said outside of the word English. Alright, try something else. SET LANGUAGE: SPANISH?
"Error. Language "Spanish" not found."
That didn't work either. I know I'm getting a rejection code but I've got no idea what it's specifically saying. How about ACTIVATE: SUBTITLES
"Activating: Subtitles"
Yes! Success! Sort of.
I can't read what it says. The words type themselves in front of my very eyes but it just looks like gibberish to me. Alright, try this then- SET LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN?
"Error. Language "Russian" not found."
Alright. So the first word is probably some kind of rejection code. The second one probably refers to the command I've tried to give it and it said 'Russian' in English, so I've got that as a frame of reference... SET LANGUAGE: JAPANESE?
"Error. Skill "n% I = W" not present."
What? That doesn't look anything like the last rejection code!
I sway from side to side, wishing I could reach up and scratch my head. I'm just completely confused, honestly. Confused and hungry, maybe a touch frustrated.
Seriously. Who in their right mind would design a user interface that communicates information via voice?
Bethesda?
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LiamOfOrmonde
67% lewd. Oh my!
- Location
- Florida Sometimes
I have a fond memory of shouting FUS RO DAH at my television at one point. Well… once. I tried it once, died from embarrassment, got reborn, and swore off voice commands ever since.
MaimakteriAnn
(Verified Sleepy)
- Location
- Enormous And Round Terran Homeworld
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Dr
Gonna have to eat you a lot of siblings. You took whampire after all.
Yep. Poor choices were made.
At least he's part of a species which doesn't tend to suffer severe negative consequences for cannibalism.
Hell, there's actually this French delicacy in which snails are set in a shallow dish which is filled with the flesh of other snails, whole milk and salt. The salt forces them to keep drinking and eating, bloating on the flesh of the other snails and filling up to bursting with milk. Once they literally can't eat anymore, they get cooked up (Roasted or stewed, can't remember which) as part of a meal.
I've heard it's actually quite good.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
Here's a fun fact: Mac OS 8 had voice recognition built in for the Finder (aka file system navigation.) It even worked pretty well, as long as you used file and folder names that were easy to pronounce the way it expected. I was actually angry about Copeland being cancelled for OSX and the step-backward MacOS 9 (IIRC actually based on 7) that was more of a compatibility layer for pre-OSX software than a real update.
- Location
- Land of Confusion
It hurts because it's true.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As a deaf person, I feel this on a spiritual level. espeically when they don't subtitle EVERYTHING. like in Bethesda games aka Fallout, they'll sub random passing comments from NPCs and what monsters say before you kill them, but they won't Sub lines for the radio AT ALL.
So I don't get that same immersive feeling somebody else would get listening to three-dog sing my praises or scold me for being a monster, for example. and I do miss out on some important key facts when I get a quest that requires me to have to listen to the radio that then conveys important info.
all I can say is, thank god for quest markers and the like otherwise I'd be so fucked.
There are three main sophont races in the anime. Humans, Demons and those dagger-eared leaf-eaters.
Vampires also exist and can breed true but primarily spread via infection.
Lesser species such as goblins do exist and form basic tribal societies but are kept in check due to active culling by humans and their own self-destructive behaviors.
Dragons do exist in-setting but are extremely rare and exceedingly powerful. There aren't enough, however, to have a solid basis of behavior.
Monsters, such as spiders, worms and other beasts kill each other primarily for food but do eventually reach an experience threshold at which point they evolve. The titular character starts off as a demon-spider born to one of the direct descendants of the current demon lord and goes through... Seven or so evolutions before reaching her final form.
Most monsters lack the intelligence to actively hunt each other for the sake of evolution.
As a note- The system is omnipresent throughout the reality and everyone has access to it. Given its incredibly restricted nature and lack of standard query function, it's less useful than it may sound. A religion has sprung up among the humans, however, who venerate it as 'The Holy Voice'.