played some rhombus of ruin bfore the headset started to die :3 it was fun !!!!!! helped sasha and thennn uhh idk if it saved when i quit ghfbvb at the very least i know the puzzle now

the way i think of the "3 arcs" in ffak (i am not sure i will end up with 3, btw, its possible i might cut one in half or something else..) is basically that.. arc 1 was the unplanned improv adventure that developed everything, taught me how to draw comics, write a story, ect. arc 2 is the ~actual~ story that i "originally intended" to tell with FFAK (although a lot of that is also in ARC3 too), before it was made into this big sprawling story - and has developed all this time and taken me years to write and prepare for. so im excited and interested in reactions to that. and arc 3, well, arc 3 is something else entirely, but i don't want to say too much about it yet.. it is weird to have the entire story written out though. it feels both big and so small vrs the days id spend building up more and more for the world. i don't think about it like that anymore, even though i think about it a lot every day still. I feel pretty satisfied with how the first chapter of this arc has gone and I hope the next four of this arc will also go well too. yes, im only planning this arc for five chapters. can i do it? idk. it wont be a big deal if it needs more. in a weird way, it means more to me to finish the 2nd arc than the entire story as i've waited so many years to draw the scenes in it. its kinda amazing how long it takes just to develop a story, and in a way 10 years does not seem that long at all. before FFAK, i basically gave up my dream of making comics/writing because of how "disorganized" and crazy my ideas felt.. it has always been the story that FFAK was kind of something i threw myself into, but since it worked at all i was not going to ever let go of it. Still haven't.. yet. But i feel ready to let go when its time. Now, I feel like the work of making a comic its not all that hard even if it is very tedious. sure id love to draw and write better, but that feeling will always be there. I am just grateful to see the ideas come out at all feels a lot better than being creatively constipated and feeling miserable about it, like its bad to have "too big" of plans and be "too ambitious" like its a negative thing, cuz it might not be achievable - what? i love to try. just a sad place to be as an artist, to shame yourself for your own natural creativity and curiosity and pity yourself for not being good enough to make a fool of yourself for trying. pride is such a stupid thing to stop yourself from drawing your own ocs LOL. either way, id rather have it out than just have them sit inside and not ever be shared or seen for myself. every time i think i could have done something better, in the end i just feel relief i managed the miracle of making it at all. its weird to think that i can see an end to this story too and im still getting used to that feeling. i can see all the stories i want to get to beyond it, but Im patient and i know they can wait. i am going to really enjoy my time with it while its all still here. Just felt like sharing some of my feelings as this chapter gets closer to its end and i finish the first step of this new adventure of FFAK!

SPOILERS FOR HELP WANTED 2!!

I'm talkin about some late game minigames and things so if you don't wanna see any spoilers dont loooook... but also its just me asking a lot of questions lmao

So i think there's kind of two questions i have ... and i dont have answers lol

Who do we play as??

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ENDING???

So for 1, its definitely someone who's got something special about them. Both Circus Baby and Moon make the comment "What makes you so special?" which... the combo of characters is soooo weird. what kind of connection does Moon/Sun have to Baby??????

The ending.... they Little Nightmares'd our asses. 'Oh you thought you were any old joe??? SIIIKE youre THIS CHARACTERRRR' like WHAT. But also i think this rules out us being Vanessa, since IN RUIN Gregory says a friend helped him, and she's also escaped from Glitchtrap's influence. This game absolutely is a prequel to Ruin, since we show up as the bot during the game. It also excludes Mike i think too... if Mike is Glam Freddy, or still alive,

SPEAKING OF?????? OH MY GOD HES HERE????? HES STILL HERE??????? Why??? if this is a second game... how did he get here?? unless the first game (in universe) was used as a reference for this game...? meaning he'd be transferred across.

MISC THOUGHTS:

So. Much. Emphasis. On. Moon. not Sun. Moon. He's in so many games and hes in the PQ ending and hes everywhere when he doesn't need to be and they could have used other characters or not even used any at all.

Same with Lefty... lots of Lefty love... because they're the Puppet?

Honestly the combo of characters is kind of wild... Sister Location to Ruin.

AstralSpiff buying an ENTIRE PS5 AND THE VR SET FOR MYSTIC HIPPO just for it to be A COMPLETE SCAMMMMM oh my god. HE STARTED AN ARGUMENT WITH THE STAFF BOTS IM CRYING

Glamrock Freddy remembering that you're retrying and loosing at his minigame... makes me think this is some kind of training game for staff... but then all of the Ruin and references that outside characters wouldn't understand (the Scrap crew and basically anything in fnaf 6, Ennard)

MatPat staring at the pictures on the walls for like 10 minutes trying to figure out the Timeline lore. He's got some good points thought. The Funtimes, The OG 4 and Moon all being in the same place (the carousel)

MAT BOUGHT THE HEADSET FOR THE HIPPO TOO????? IT'S JUST A TECH DEMO-

CANDY CADET!!!! i bet hes got 3 stories like last time (ive heard 1 and a half of them so far)

last thing:

WHO'S 'THEY' (this is the screens in the private room nights)

LAST MINUTE EDIT: about the 'who are we'

Carnie (the blue Lefty in fazerblast) says "You look like you've got kids." At this point, who in the franchise a) has kids and b) is alive in some way to be able to be in the headset?? Cassie's dad? but i feel like they would need to have more knowledge about the rest of the franchise and not just a technitian...? idk

help wanted 2 spoilers under the cut ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

okay. SO MUCH LORE. IS CASSIES DAD THE FUCKING MASK BOT????? FUCK AWFFFF CUNTTTTTUH /pos. THE TIMELINE IS SO????? ITS SO CONFUSING!? its like in between sb and ruin but also kind of not? but also like freddy remembering between retries of the cold storage game??

also. also the princess quest 4 and vanny mask reveal hit SO FUCKING HARD. SOOOOOOO GOOD.

(also what the fuck was with the charging station and cassie lol?)

okay so i first thought candy cadets story was about cassie being lured by mimic because of how it described it but it also fits for VANESSA. who had previously been VANNY but ESCAPED in the CANON PRINCESS QUEST ENDING and became VANESSA again..... but has been LURED by GREGORY AS GGY???!??!?????? AND BECAME VANNY AGAIN???!?!??!?!?? OH MY GODDDDDDUHH

also NO MONTY i didnt even notice because i was so focused on everything else rip 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 monty drought real

the vr portion of princess quest was actually SOOOOO FUCKING EXQUISITE. THE MISSING CHILDREN????????????????? (does this tell us the death order??)

SUN AND MOON.... OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THEY COULD FIX ME. THEY COULD LITERALLY SAVE ME.... SUN BEING A CUNT IS WHAT WE AS A SOCIETY NEEDED LOL AND JACK O MOON?????? HELLO?????????

CASSIE????? CASSIE MY BELOVED.. cassie is literally my skreenkly skrunkly baby precious actually and i will tolerate no CASSIE HARM.

the ballora gallery was actual peak. being able to throw the minireenas is insane. they are like a forbidden snack to me.

BABY GIVING US THE FUCKING ICE CREAM?????? LIKE OKAY BITCH???????? AUAHBSSHS

funtime foxy new pronouns just dropped

the fucking GGY reference had me INSANE. gregory reference save me. save me gregory reference. ouuuuuu 😭 i dont even care if hes evil thats my nephew.

the eyes in bonk a bon are so scary like so unnerving

glamrock bonnies fuckin model in the gallery looks like hes in the middle of being attacked and its making me insane i think

OKAY. OKAY NO GUYS. OKAY IM SOOO FUCKING NORMAL ABOUT DJ MUSIC MAN. GUYSSSS NO ACTUALLY HES LITERALLY MY FUCKING HUSBAND. LIKE OHHHHHHHHH MY GOOOOOODDDDDDDD GUYS.

im so interested in all the weird lore people will find in this i auaauuagagahgeh

too many wips im insane sorry....

concept for the inside of hassan's cockpit, which *is* a cockpit sure, but it's been modified to be like. a weird vr room thing. he tends to get mentally lost in his mech, hard to explain, so i feel like later on down the line, once he starts using it for battle more, he'd eventually make a system inside that allows him to control every little errant move of his raleigh without sacrificing his whole mental processes into it. cuz he can do it without said system, and its fucking freaky, but he tries not to its kind of. again. freaky. and also he loses his own bodily senses in the process. AGAIN HARD TO EXPLAIN, ITS A CHARACTER THING OF HIS YK... oh and that's his usual outfit while piloting. the one ive been drawing is outside of battle

i was gonna start this post to talk about solen my beloved but actually im just gonna talk about roa again

so Rise of Aeolia (roa) is my self indulgent as fuck sword art online wannabe universe, and when i say wannabe i mean wanna be better out of love for the concept and spite for the execution of the first arc (who even Likes the second part of season 1) so like same concept (successful vr mmo that removes the log out button, die in the game you die for real) but with more love

so like roa was explicitly created as a social experiment, it launched nov 22nd and The Incident/Lockdown happened a month later (to avoid unnecessary newbie deaths) but none of the locked in players know this, they dont get told fuck nor shit, this info has to be brought in by people who knew about the news and then intentionally went out of their way to trap themselves inside the game as well and like even then wouldnt those people sound like conspiracy theorists

anyways

roa being created to study how communities are created (among other reasons) means that a lot of resources are put into weird shit like changing your avatar

lets take my two beloved guild leaders shoo and solen for example!

shoo is trans, ftm, realized during his time in the game. the game lets you change your entire avatar every in game year (roughly 7.5 months) to see what that would do (would people use it to avoid punishment for crimes they did as the previous avatar, would it be widely used, how would it effect the health of the players)

solen is Not trans BUT uses a similar mechanic in that for a certain amount of resources and a level requirement; you can get another avatar you can switch to a la animal crossing outfit wand (shoo also uses this very notably but not for the intended purpose so its not applicable here) which means in essence you can have two or more player characters

solen is the guild master of Danelaw

morgan is the guild master of Roundtable

solen also just so happens to Be morgan, a secret very few people in Either guild knows about

the reason for these features being different is because one allows for total customisability and the other is like a money sink

mmos are things that just print money, if you keep an mmo running for a while inflation is gonna become a problem so letting high level players buy a new character slot and spend all their fortune levelling and gearing up their new character is one way to keep it in check while also studying how giving everyone a master disguise kit will change culture as well as letting the people actually interested in combat and beating the game not get bored of using the same things over and over again (solen uses swords and morgan is a magician, shoo uses swords and in battle switches to a second character that's levelled with guns)

this post had no point i just wanted to talk about my little guy (my little guy is an entire fake video game)

can spinner get motion sick or is xe immune? cause of the rotating thing

OH THIS IS A FUN QUESTION

ok so. even with the ability to rotate: xe doesnt really tend to do it. its an ability xe Has but... doesnt frequently use.

im absolutely sure that if they COULD feel motion sickness, he would. because she doesnt really rotate xyrself often, xe wouldnt be used to it n it might make him sick. sorta like how if you play vr for the first time in months it can make you a bit sick, but then its fine after you get used to it again.

but even with that, spinner has like. schrodingers organs. and you kinda need organs to feel sick. so i think if xe DID feel sick it would probably like, depend on a few factors

mostly like. Did xe eat recently? because eating obviously involves the use of organs its like. Yeah xe would feel sick. but spinner also cant really throw up bc there Isnt anything to throw up (see: schrodingers organs. its weird n code-y in there. xe eats something n it just gets converted into code fuckery instantly with no waste or food remains. it takes time to process but like... the food itself is instantly Gone thats just digestible code now)

anyways. tl;dr. yes and no. Yes if xe has eaten recently and therefor are actively using her weird pseudo-organs to process it. otherwise no. and not at all if theyve gotten used to rotating frequently

whats sam & max whos the silly rabbit guy. if u want an excuse to talk about it im asking im interested

sam & max freelance police!!!!!!!!! im bad at explaining things but uuhh it started as a comic series way back when, it also has some point&click adventure games (which is what ive mainly been posting) (one 2d one by lucasarts in the 90s, three 3d ones by telltale in the 2000s) and a short-lived cartoon. (theres also a vr game but nobody cares about that one)

the premise. uh. its pretty simple u have a dog guy (sam) and a rabbity guy (max) and their job is basically to solve weird cases that the regular police dont wanna deal with. shit like uhh "the bigfoot trapped in ice in this carnival exhibit went missing" "this daytime talk show host is possibly holding her audience hostage" "theres a zombie outbreak being led by this fruity european vampire" etc. hijinks ensue.

sam and max are such a great duo to me becuase theyre both like. insane. in slightly different ways. sam is comparatively the more logical (looney tunes ass logic, but logic nonetheless) and laidback one while max does not take anything seriously and loves wanton violence. they end up causing more problems, buildings blow up, they manipulate and take advantage of bystanders, shoot stuff, steal stuff, etc but its all for the greater good. also they have insane amounts of gay subtext but i think that goes without saying. AND theres so much to their universe too its like sensory overload but in a good way, u will see the craziest shit ever happen and somehow its not rly out of place at all. the stakes ramp up throughout the games so eventually sam and max are becoming president of the US and going to the north pole and fighting santa and traveling thru time and saving the entire world and going to hell etc but its just like. yeah this is normal. it never feels like stressful or anything (maybe in the 3rd telltale game it does but i havent played it yet. i just know its apparently way more grimdark and im scared)

im relatively new to sam and max so maybe that is not a good summary but that is what i know

random goof ramble omg,,,

i hope whatever the valve deckard is is its Good and the same price as psvr2?? but i also dont care about new vr,, i only want valve deckard or new valve vr headset or whatever because it means they'll come out with a new game at the same time

half life alyx was *so* good and i dont think there's been a vr game to come close to how good it was and still is 2ish years later. i think half life 3 coming out with their new, not super expensive (~$500 please valve) headset would probably bend over and spank the other 5 billion standalone vr headsets coming out. half life 3 should *not* be only vr, fucking Obviously, but if it didnt have native vr support id be pretty upset because holy shit the end scene of hl:a ***you were HOLDING the fucking crowbar*** i need that for a 10-15 hour long campaign

valve,,, if yoy use tumblr,,, please.,.,.,.. youd make so much money hl3 wouldn't even have to come with the headset it could be $70 and youd be PRINTING money for the rest of time PLEASEEEE

also, it'd be really cool for a new valve game that's not a tech demo,,, i dont think hl:a was a tech demo for vr, but it.. kind of was? a really really good tech demo, but they probably wouldn't have made a spinoff half-life game if not for New Cool Technology. im pretty sure all of the recent valve games have been glorified tech demos. which i like them!! they're fun!!!! i adore hl:a and aperature desk job. and their vr game with the minigames is cute. the aperature game with the hand robots is cute, too. im probably missing one but all of them have been cute fun lil games.

hl3 tho,, new full valve game not just for a specific new tech thing? wooh.,.,. works on their new (and old) vr thing, steam deck, and a normal pc? Wooh,,,,, money printer right there.

more deckard rant... i hope to got its not a standalone.

maybe a standalone that doesn't play games.. hear me out wait hold on

valve doesnt like splitting up steam im pretty sure. if it was standalone, itd run on the xr2, an ARM chip, whereas all of steamvr is x86 because fucking duh yeah its for computers. i don't think valve is gonna have that thing running proton and like.. box86 or whatever. itd be TERRIBLE!! and theres no way in fresh hell they're putting the steam deck chip in there, or any other x86 thing, because it'd SUCK!!!!!! but if it was like... xr2 without steam. you can stream from your desktop, play those games wirelessly (or with displayport pls valve) or just look at your monitor in vr and browse the internet Whatever. i do wonder if a valve standalone with ARM would run linux ARM or android... knowing valve i bet it'd be linux. something thatd be SO fucking cool is- ok hear me out again this is a long one

steamvr home is cool... it sucks right now because valve hasn't done anything with it forever, and it just tanks your computer the second it starts, and there's.. not much to do BUT WHAT IF there was... what if it was like.. steam home (corny idc) and-

hello. i just spent 10 minutes describing neosvr. i deleted all that because i realized, i want valve to buy neosvr and put it in steam. just, right in the client. the whole thing. share media with ur friends, have a home world u can do Whatever the Fuck you want with and custom avatars and whatever you Want. neosvr is in a weird spot and if valve just fucking swallowed them whole and rebranded it as a Steam Home thing id ascend into the 6th dimension. neosvr is so fucking cool.... it makes me very sad though because again its in a weird spot and im sure they'll figure it out but Eeeeee,,,

anyway as i was saying... neos but in steam .. u start ur Valve Deckard or whatever its called.. new shiny vr ... and you sign into your steam account and ur put into steamvr+neos. its some new home lobby, there's a desktop sitting somewhere that you can boot up and its just fucking. linux arm with kde. because that'd be insane. or u could set it up to stream your big beefy desktop (maybe a vr headset modeled sitting next to it u can physically put onto your head to turn on the streaming as long as ur pc is accessible on the network). but also you could go outside or maybe just open a menu and go into whatever public world and do social vr things and neosvr things. please. itd be so cool,,, all the deckard could run would be steam home 2.0 and game streaming but itd be So Cool.... kind of a tough sell to people without computers untill vr cloud streaming becomes viable but i think people with computers (already valve's main demographic lol) may consider it.

well i just finished the flash: fastest man alive and i genuinely think whoever wrote it should be locked up. uncomfortable, bad comic that built off of characterization so shit that dan didio called mark waid to tell him they'd be killing bart and waid responded with "he's been dead for a while". bart becoming kid flash was already always a bad idea but him becoming THE flash was worse. i will give it one thing though; i like the idea that post infinite crisis bart has a weird, more immediately destructive relationship with the speed force he needs to learn to live with. basically containing it rather than being a conduit. i think it could've been interesting to explore in literally any other scenario. also him trying to become a mini-barry allen and retconning barry to be around for his childhood in VR was cringe and im glad it never lasted, its like some writers can not picture bart developing in any meaningful way without making him a copy of barry or wally when what made him such a great character were his differences and how he used them to be a hero, how he navigated the world and learned gradually with his friends and mentors, his personality that got wrung dry in everything post-yj98 and flash. i blame geoff johns' san francisco library plotline for being the beginning of the end because bart was smart and capable before he regurgitated book facts. most of all im going to hit kon and bart's writers with a stick repeatedly for their "love interests". goodbye

yapping session about a phobia i have

verzephobia (the fear of video game glitches and bugs and such) is so freaky to have if you play games alot i have it and its freaky

stuff like the gmod error sign or seeing my own head in vr espcially clipping through a model and seeing the eyes

i basically just break down and perish

a recent example is trying to play fallout 4 vr with a mod that shows my body

but when i used the pip boy it would show my characters head too and it scares me so much

sometimes if the thing im doing ingame is reallly important to me

i basically just have to tank it and just grit my teeth and move forward

its also strange to talk about because its uncommon to play alot of video games in the first place, so people see it as weird

i think it came from me playing gmod as a kid on my dads ancient ass computer and i got jumpscared by an error symbol

Day 2 of owning a VR set and i have absolutely fallen in LOVE with Ghost Signal. Im already a slut for roguelite games, but a roguelite that takes place in Stellaris' massive universe??? Fuck yeah, man!

I also greatly enjoy that its a sit-down game, so i can play it while the headset is actively charging! The hand tracking with the Quest 2 makes it a little frustrating at times, but its really fun once you find a way to work around the weird targeting controls!

(The game recommends you play with controllers first THEN start using hand tracking. Nah, i went full hand tracking first and i might regret it lmao)

March 29 - 2023

9:35 AM

Lately I feel have been the perfect conditions for a mental spiral into despair, but I was able to avoid that. Maybe it was a fluke or maybe the things I’ve been doing are paying off. I’m having trouble understanding why exactly I haven’t gotten stuck in my own head but I think again I can relate this to my anxiety. Just like how I used to get an upset tummy or otherwise feel odd and immediately assume I must be sick, I was able to stop making that my automatic response. Maybe when I feel alone and unproductive, I’m able to stop my automatic response being “I’m worthless” or “No one cares about me.” Maybe I really am on the right path and I’m starting to see the results. Either way I’m happy about it. 

Today I mean to fulfill my entire schedule like usual and remember the reasons I’m doing it. I think I also need some real me time because I tend to only think about others for extended periods of time and I forget I’m my own person in a way. I wanna strengthen that personal bond with myself. 

4:18 PM

I finally met someone that might be really cool in VRchat. It’s hard to describe it but I just get a really good feeling with people that end up being my friends. I had that good feeling with her, but unfortunately I HAD to leave and get lunch since I worked out and was starving. I hope it wasn’t weird that I wanted to friend her so quickly, I don’t wanna give “OMG WOMAN???” energy because it’s not about that at all. Its just nice to find people with my same kind of energy. 

Now I gotta make a deliberate effort to join on her and make some more contact. I have a protocol and it’s fun to exercise it. 

9:25 PM

Tonight SUCKS. I WANT to be social but no one I already know has been on. The girl from earlier was on but apparently doing something private. I even cracked open a small drink to max my social stats. So all I’ve done is world hop on my own and feel like ass about it. The few people I have talked to can’t do their part in the conversation so it’s just shitty for me. UGH. I should have just stayed out of VR and done something I wanted instead of wasting my time. 

Im alone tonight. Get over and it play Red Dead or something. 

one thing i find particularly striking about The Breach now in the context of horizons as a whole is the role it plays as the first "true" song on the album

just the title alone, the concept of a breach, implies some sort of escape, a hole in a barrier of some kind that allows unwanted passage through it. and then the very first line of the song is "follow me," and the rest of the chorus goes:

Follow me Follow me now once more into the breach Can you see? Can you see how this is the way to destiny?

there's this whole sense of movement to it that just feels, very compelling, i guess? the whole thing is about the act of following, particularly INTO something (into the breach, which has its own sense of movement to it as i explained above) and along some sort of path, the "way to destiny." the words like "follow" and "into" and "way to" all lend to this movement and makes you feel like you're actually going somewhere

not only that, but it feels almost compulsory, like you're helpless but to play along. "follow me" is a command, and the "way to destiny" makes it seem preordained, further highlighting how you have no choice. and the way the choruses repeat with little variation throughout the entire song makes it all the more insistent in beckoning you forward

looking at the music underneath the lyrics, the choruses are loud and rambunctious, full of energy, almost seeming to push you along in the direction that you're meant to follow. it's almost another sign of insistence, another way to subconsciously compel you forward. meanwhile, the verses are quieter and more reflective, with less action verbs - that contrast makes the chorus seem all the more pushy

ultimately, this is all super interesting as the first song on the album. since it's the first one, the listener doesn't have a sense of what the overall story is - but by these vibes alone, you can tell that you're being pulled into some grand journey. and that is such a cool feeling to have as you start the rest of the album!!!

i really like the idea of a thad au. do you think some differences would have been caused by like, being raised by a different ai or did they all have versions of the same one? i can imagine president thawne maybe focusing on like, an emphasis on different battle strategies w each of them. like, obvi they all know what the others do but it doesn't hurt to have a little variety in battle tactics. also i think 1 should wear a suit everywhere. jr president thawne

YES yes yes ok. Definitely I imagine they've all got slightly different specializations and different circumstances for their upbringing, especially when the clones (minus thad ii/inertia) actually know about each other and begin comparing themselves/trying to set themselves apart.

And I did actually have an idea about the aging thing and how they really all could be varying wildly in physical age.... Hold on I'm gonna do a flowchart.

OKAY SO heres a jumble of my very rough ideas, they are very prone to change but I've got some thoughts.

Basically: President Thawne originally made 3 clones, Thad II as the key part of his whole "destroy the Allens" plan and Thad's III and IV as backups/failsafes. (im realizing now I screwed up IV/4's roman numeral on the flow chart ignore that). Thad II went ahead and beefed it, running off into the speedforce, so Thad Four took his place as according to plan.

(I'm imagining the idea would've been for the three clones to basically continue cloning each other/themselves, but maintain that they were all the same Thaddeus. So if one of them went rogue/died it would appear like Thad was just this unkillable terminator type figure. Thad II wouldn't have needed to know any of this because he'd necessarily have to be the first to die)

Thad Four though is still slightly different than Thad II, much more focused on Bart specifically rather than the whole of the Allen family, and MUCH more violent in his methods. And then he Super Fucking Dies after exploding a baby.

Thad III is the last of the original clones and so tries to continue with the plan by making more Thads, but he makes some mistakes (whatever they used to stabilize the first three is like hundreds of years old by now), and Thad's V and VI (five and six) end up with their ages all fucked

Thad VII (seven) is a weird case that I'll get to in a sec, and Thad's VIII and IX (eight and nine) are unauthorized creations of CRAYDL.

Thad III I imagine is the de-facto leader due to being 1st generation, and he really doesn't like to talk about Four. He's also got the widest power set, skewing more towards the speed side of things rather than the time side. Unlike Thad II, he can phase through objects.

Ok so here's my rough ideas for these 2nd and 3rd generation clones:

THAD V: Five's abilities mirror Bart's more than Thad's, and so he was also afflicted with Bart's rapid aging problem. By the time Three managed to get it under control, Five was physically much older than any of them, but didn't have the same VR experience as Bart did, so is still pretty behind in terms of development. Its definitely not like "he has the brain of a child" or anything, he learns wicked fast and is still able to strategize and have complex thoughts and feelings, but he does defer to Three much more than any of the others and is less confident in his own abilities.

THAD VI: Six's powers lean hard on the chronokinesis side of things, and a very VERY localized version of them. He doesn't use them as a substitute for speed like Thad II and IV did, instead manipulating and traveling along his own timeline to his hearts content. He can manipulate his own physical age and appear younger or older depending on what he wants, and has travelled back and forth and over again so much that he's actually Lived far longer than he's Existed. Might be up there with the first generation age-wise.

THAD VII: Seven is where we start to get weird with it lol. I don't have as solid a grasp on his whole deal but the basic idea is that Six, in his time travel fuckery, at some point finds a... piece of the speed force, kind of. Think the speed force manifestation in Young Justice One Million. Six wrangles the speed force ghost into a physical form, possibly mechanical, and just uhhh. Keeps him. Seven tends to do what Six tells him, but not always, and as a manifestation of the speed force he's by far the fastest Thad there is. He doesn't talk much though.

THAD VIII/THAD IX: Thad's Eight and Nine I have a much looser idea for in that I wondered what it'd be like if CRAYDL decided to do some cloning of their own. Maybe they wanted to fulfill a paternal role, maybe they wanted to raise these ones outside the bounds of president Thawne's mission/mandate. Maybe they were just bored, not quite sure!! Either way, Eight and Nine are now part of the Thad team (whether by force or by choice) and are also the only two who age normally and had the closest thing to a childhood. Eight's abilities are more on the chronokinetic side, although more external than internal. He doesn't speed himself up or slow himself down, instead he controls the speeds of other people. Nine has never used any powers, it's unclear if he even has them.

Some are closer than others. Eight and Nine were raised together, Three kind of raised Five, Six and Seven have whatever the hell they've got going on. But crucially, they can all barely stand each other. Three's leadership is tenuous At Best, and they've all got different motivations that have at this point gone SO far beyond whatever president Thawne originally wanted from this particular project.

ok ok last outer wilds spoilers post for today because i have to go to bed lmao

so first things first: HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE I ACTUALLY GOT TO TALK TO A NOMAI OKAY WHAT THE FUCK HOLY SHIT

when i said i was screaming i mean i was genuinely screaming when that happened- not very loud but still

i wish someone was there to see my reaction because i was so floored i had to keep pausing the game in the middle of reading dialog just so i could take a second to go "oh my god holy shit oh my god" i was just fuckin grinning from ear to ear and SO happy within the first like 10 seconds of the encounter started calling the nomai my friend and getting so giddy at the little remarks like "im rather fond of your 4 eyes" and shit like i was being complimented

the moment when i first saw them i had like a weird mixture of happiness and amazement but was also kind of unsettled at first because while i was super exited and stuff, for so long throughout the whole game whenever you see a nomai space suit theres usually a corpse in there so my brain was like half registering the like very much alive looking nomai in front of me as a moving corpse and i guess i wasnt so wrong about that one..

i have a feeling some weird shits going on and they're definitely supposed to be dead and part of me wants there to be a way for them to live but also i dont know if they'd really want to considering yknow.. their whole clan is dead

second thing: motherfucker really just pulled some psychonauts 2 type shit on me i was so sure as soon as i got to the quantum moon the game would be like over pretty much but nope! i just kinda unlocked a new area.. still have no idea what the ash twin project is or if its even possible to get to the eye from the quantum moon seeing as i tried to multiple times and it didn't work

third thing: im so happy i got to tell someone i talked to a nomai i was like hoping and praying and hoping like please please please let there be dialog for this pleaseeee and there was! and it was really good dkdbd

despite the game being more known for the super good mystery stuff i still love the characters i think they're fucking great throughout the game ive been thinking about how much i hope theres more dialog in the dlc (disclaimer: i know nothing about the dlc) or just in some sort of post game id love to see if any characters have reactions to certain things like me being in a loop

and i loved going up to riebeck and being like "I TALKED TO A LIVING NOMAI" and both of us just losing our shit

i know i kinda said this the other day but this game does such a good job just.. making you the main character i dunno if its just because i have sort of the same reactions to things the player character does but it really just adds so much to the game like if my character reacted to things with tons of dialog and their own opinions it wouldnt feel as good in a way? i guess what i mean is that i can very easily see myself as the main character and the main character as me and i like that alot

anyway i totally expected to finish the game today but i still have so much to do and its almost 1am so i better get out of vr and rest dkshdj