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caramelmochacrow · 3 months

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i know someone probably did this already but!! i screenshot-ed parts of the story where they talked about surprisingly important stuff when it comes to fic writing for these girls? like. how yoba academy works and how influential miyu, kurumi and miiko's families are.

i'll share it here so people can save the hassle of trying to find this info for their fics!!! (even tho a lot of people have probably read this before me)

extra stuff under the cut: (i ramble how the classes work and other things)

abyssmare's classes are:

neo - vocals class (same class as kyoko)

wero - performing arts class (same class as towa noa and ibuki)

elsie - media and arts class or regular class

sophia - media and arts class or regular class

im not sure on elsie and soap's since michiru hasn't stated what her class is at this point in time, i might learn what it is if i continue catching up w the story.

anyway! notes/how i think the classes work

media and arts (MnA to make my life easier) might have the same amount of education as art schools (since yoba used to be an art school) for the artists while for people like shinobu it must have something to do with learning how the entertainment industry works/how to get yourself to start somewhere in that industry.

shinobu being in the MnA rather than music must imply being in the music classes need you to use an instrument rather than how to compose music. (rei is the only person among the yoba units to play an instrument and is the only person in the music course)

regular course must mean the regular subjects for the students (academics and such) but from what i recall from the past events, area conversations, anime and manga the other classes still indulge in academics somewhat just not as much compared to those in the regular course.

peaky back in middle school must've originally chose the regular course before deciding to take up the MnA courses so it will help w performing/future careers. (kyoko = vocals, shinobu = MnA, yuka = video, esora = design)

esora taking up design implies that she is the one who makes the outfits of peaky and also because she's stage designer and negotiator for what/where their venues will be. (in road to d4fes she did set up a whole event by herself iirc)

lyrilily family/arisugawa/rich girl world notes

hayate and kokoa are rich yes but not AS rich compared to miyu kurumi and miiko. they must be around the same status as haruna's family.

miyu's family is the riches out of the four of them since kokoa specifically used the words 'former zaibatsu' to explain her status.

zaibatsu (literally wealthy clique or rich clan) is an industrial/financial integrated business who has an influence so huge over specific parts of japan's economy in WWII. this means that her family, the sakuradas, were super important back in the day, giving them a very heightened status in the business world.

miiko's father is the head of an international group company, so her connections are all over the world. (this is also the reason she knows so many languages)

kurumi's family is one of japan's biggest companies, it doesnt state it so but it might have a connection with technology or is something else entirely.

haruna's family seems to just have a lot of money or her family came from a very rich bloodline, either way, it seems her parents/family isnt known for anything notable that kokoa would remember compared to the other three. (this must be the reason why she acts so high class compared to the other lyrilily members, to fit in w these girls that have family w big and vast connections in different businesses)

the shimizus (esora's family) must be around the same influence as the sakuradas since yuka stated in the manga that she is super well known even among rich girls.

i guess this counts as me liveblogging huh. sorry.

#crow talks #d4dj groovy mix #d4dj #notes #screenshot-ing and keeping this in mind for future fics hehe!!!!#i made this before i learned of what was actually going to occur.#i need a better device for rhythm gaming i swear im scared i'll run out of space again....#edit: i added some extra info i forgot to put (kurumi) and edited a few errors that made reading it confusing!

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vadergf · 2 years

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🕯🕯🕯🕯Okay I will study now and I'll only log onto tumblr after I'm done studying🕯🕯🕯🕯

#my mutuals watching me liveblog every aspect of my academic career: 😒😐😒😐😒

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hermette-historian · 3 years

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i find what you're doing to be so fascinating and i wish you the best of luck in your journey, although i do have a question. what gave you the idea/want to get into the history of hermitcraft? i mightve just missed where/when you said this and if i have i apologize

I haven’t actually talked about this! (I don’t think, but I don’t feel like sifting through 250 posts to go check). And there’s a reason for that: in large part, I don’t remember. But I can tell you that the interest actually came after I started writing about it.

I know that sounds a little weird, but hear me out. I started watching Hermitcraft from the beginning in December of last year, a journey born from a finals-induced procrastination video binge that sent me down the rabbit hole of Mumbo’s earliest videos. As far as I can remember the only motivation I had to do so was that I thought it would be cool to try, not that I actually wanted to study it in depth in any way.

But that casual attempt was thwarted because at almost exactly the same time, I stumbled upon a fan community that I didn’t know existed for the first two and a half years that I had been watching the series. Social media begged me to liveblog as I went, and when it started getting a few notes here and there my interest in putting my thoughts out there grew.

Where that intersects with the type of content that I put out now is actually in my academic career, of all places. I’m a double stem major, and you can imagine how much writing that entails beyond the occasional lab report...it’s zero. the answer is zero. As much as I love what I do to an absolute fault, the commitment that it takes to study lab sciences leaves very little room to learn in depth or write about other things...unless, of course, I choose to overlap it with the things that I do in my free time.

So I started writing about Hermitcraft. It wasn’t a conscious choice, it more flowed from my constant subconscious desire to learn all of the things. It started with recaps, things that I thought were funny or that other people might not know. And then as I got back into the spring term and my free time diminished, I had to squish my interests together more and more until eventually...the Venn diagram between things that I wanted to learn and things that I was comfortable writing about became a circle.

Now, it’s become a self-perpetuating cycle. With every new revelation, every new connection that I make, my interest in studying the Hermitcraft community grows. Every answer begets a new question; about the social structure, the delivery format, the interaction with the fanbase, and the layer added on top of that is how it all has changed (or hasn't changed) over so many years.

I never intended for this journey to reach an audience, but I’m so glad that it has. It’s fed the creative energy that I’ve been lacking for years now, taught me how to go with my gut when it comes to delivering a message, and how different formats affect how that message is spread.

So in short it’s never been about the the history alone. Much like studying human history, looking back is simply a medium with which we can study the present community, why it works and what can change, and how it’s likely to move into the future. I think that’s pretty damn cool.

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1863-project · 4 years

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Not sure why this dawned on me now, but I definitely talk about what I’m bad at significantly more than what I’m good at and I suspect that has an impact on my self-confidence. It’s a form of self-deprecation I don’t think about very often since I do a lot of autism self-advocacy and often explain the difficulties I have with certain tasks, so I don’t feel much difference between explaining how something is difficult for me because of how my brain works and straight-up putting myself down and discussing my failures.

But there’s a big difference, because when I’m doing the self-advocacy I’m still treating myself as a valid human being with strengths and weaknesses, but when I’m just talking about myself in my regular life to my friends, I’m insulting myself - which is what everyone did to me growing up, so I got into the habit of doing it for them so they’d stop. If I joked about myself, they couldn’t do it first, so they gave up. Pro: this has made me funny and given me good comedic timing. Con: it is not improving my self-esteem.

So if I talk about the things I’m good at and allow myself to feel good about being good at them, that might change things. I mean, I’m thirty-one years old. I deserve to feel good about the woman I’ve become over the years. She’s been through a ton of stuff and deserves to be happy with herself, scars and all. I know I’m always telling all of you that you deserve to have better things and people in your lives and you’re allowed to do things that improve your self-esteem or just plain make you happy, but I never extend that same courtesy to myself. So I guess I’m going to try this really quickly:

I’m absurdly good at my job. I got a patron an obituary within ten minutes a couple of weeks ago. I am legitimately convinced that I can find nearly anything provided it’s available and I have the resources to do so. I also completed a huge photo digitization project this year despite doing half of it whilst on the phone during the early parts of the library reopening process and I made an online exhibition for my library’s 130th anniversary, which means I can now call myself a curator for the first time. I know I tend to go into “married to the job” territory a lot of the time, but I’m extremely passionate about archiving and it makes me so happy and honored that it’s my career.

I was looking at my art from when I started writing Londinium earlier today (I was 15-16 at the time I was drawing it) and...to say the least, I’ve gotten a LOT better at art. The improvement’s especially visible between 2012 and now because that’s when I started taking improving more seriously. But I think I can safely say I’m a pretty good artist now!

Likewise, I can write. I’ve always been able to write well ever since I learned how to do so - I think it’s the one skill that came to me the most naturally in my life. I express myself most naturally in writing and it’s brought numerous people into my life - from my friends I met on Fanfiction.net in 2002-2003 to the autism self-advocacy community. I think my most genuine self comes out through my writing.

People like my OCs. That always makes me cry with joy.

Recently, when I’ve been doing streams for AGI, I’ve been talking about history during them, and people seem to enjoy that! I’m thinking about doing some streams where I just straight-up talk about history at some point, maybe with entertaining Powerpoints so people can follow along. I’m really glad people enjoy my history lectures instead of telling me to shut up - I did work as a tour guide for a while so I’ve gotten decent at presenting history to people in an interesting way!

I’ve developed a style for myself clothing-wise and I’ve gotten more compliments in the past three or four years than I think I have in my entire life, so I’m coming into my own and I’m not as afraid of attention as I used to be.

People think I’m funny, which is honestly the best compliment you can give me. And you know? I actually do think I’m funny and pride myself on it. I’ve gotten better over the years of knowing when to be funny and when to shut up (see: staff meetings), too.

I have really unique hobbies. I do comedy history in an academic sense and I also collect horrifying media aimed at young children and liveblog preschool shows of the like for my own amusement. I have no children and just think this is funny.

I honestly think if I talk more about this sort of stuff and frame my bad traits and failures within the context of also having all of this going for me, I’ll have an easier time accepting that I’m not a horrible person who can’t do anything.

#my life is so exciting #about me

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lexrhetoricae · 5 years

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Liveblogging reactions to The Testaments: 9/13-15

On Twitter: @bverwithbrains My relationship with The Handmaid’s Tale and Atwood is complicated, particularly given my own Scary Fundamentalist(TM) upbringing and the traumas associated therein. Since the 2016 election, I’ve been confronted with a lot of the horrific aspects of my childhood and teenagehood, and I’ve been forced to admit that I experienced “spiritual abuse” that has resulted in “Religious Trauma Syndrome.”

(Above: something that is far too close to the Saturday Night “worship” time at the youth group’s yearly Winter Retreat)

I study dystopia for a living for a reason: it’s therapy. But THT is really, really hard for me. I’m not a big crier (as people know), but I have sobbed through at least 30% of the Hulu series and had two panic attacks in Season 2.

I planned to build my academic career around a theory of dystopia-as-the-new-rhetorical-standard-appeal, using a structuralist model of narrative and an affective theory of rhetoric. Atwood’s work since 2008 seems to be directly trying to destroy my theory: My model just doesn’t work for serial narrative. Like. At all.

After I finished the Dissertation From Hell, I vowed to take on what I started to internally call “The Atwood Problem”: Open ended serial dystopian fiction. I had plans.

But every time I think I can write The Thing, Atwood does something infuriating that makes me restart from scratch. The Testaments is just her latest attempt to destroy my publishing history.

It’s either that, or I tackle this:

Dystopian hellscape or grading discussion boards? I’ll take the panic attacks, thanks.

#professoring #lex pretends to work #tenure is great because I can use my real name here #margaret fucking atwood #i mean that in all possible ways

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journeysintowebcomics · 7 years

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Worm Liveblog #8

UPDATE 8: It’s Officially the First Day with her New Friends

Last time Taylor had officially turned into a member of the Undersiders. She may still plan to betray them by giving information to heroes, but for now she’s okay with staying with them. So let’s continue! Today we start the third arc of this story – Agitation – so let’s get going!

Alright, the first thing here is a descriptin of more of Taylor’s routine. She had realized that she’d need stamina to be a hero, and after three hand half months she had managed to make quite some progress on that. Not that she’s going to reduce her current efforts in any way, just because she’s doing well it doesn’t mean she’s going to stop. “I didn’t aim to just jog, though. I steadily increased my pace with every block I ran as I headed towards the water. By the fifth block, I was running.” Hm, seems like a decent way to exercise and build stamina. It’s always nice when things like these are rooted into reality, instead of expecting any random person to have excellent stamina once they start their hero careers. In general, Worm has proven to be fairly down-to-earth about many things. It’s something I’m grateful for.

Today, her exercise takes her to the Boardwalk, where he encounters Brian. ““Hey, you’re right on time,” Brian said.” Oh, so it was a planned encounter, and with only Brian. It doesn’t sound like anyone else is supposed to come. Taylor ponders about Brian’s clothing and receives breakfast, surprised they can afford things like Worm-Starbucks. Then again, this is a team of villains that receive cash by the truckload thanks to their work. Maybe part of Taylor’s character arc in the near future is getting used to the thought of having a lot of money within reach, seeing if it affects her morality, all that! Right now she’s reluctant to indulge in that money: “I wasn’t willing to spend the money, knowing where it came from, so it was just sitting in the cubbyhole I kept my costume in, nagging at me” Will that change in the future, I wonder?

Looks like Dad didn’t notice the stitches. Alright then. But yeah, it isn’t like Taylor was going to wave her injure in front of Dad’s nose, either way.

Brian apologizes for Rachel’s actions and delivers some very valuable exposition about Rachel’s life, which fits what Taylor read in the wiki. ““She’s kind of a special case,” Brian said, “I think that growing up the way she did kind of messed her up. No family, too old and, uh, not really attractive enough to be a good candidate for adoption. I feel bad saying that, but that’s the way those things work, you know?” He glanced over his shoulder at me.” You know what people say, human behavior is a combination of natural personality plus their environment. Rachel was dealt a very bad hand during all her life, it’s no surprise she’s, hm, antisocial.

I don’t think she’s the type of person that’d allow a lot of people get into her life, and who despises changes. After all, if things are going okay, why to change it. she may think. Taylor’s arrival to the time is a big change, not only the amount of money she’d receive will be less than before, she’ll also have to deal with a stranger getting into the very core of her life: the team. I can’t say I blame her for lashing out. I don’t like her actions, but it’s something I’m not surprised about. I don’t sympathize with them, but I kind of understand the motivation behind them.

The reason Brian is telling Taylor all this is as a way to ask Taylor to stay on the team, I’d say. ““But if you can at least tolerate her, you should see we’ve got a pretty good thing going with the team.”” He’s not mistaken about that, Taylor is going to be a good addition to the team. Things should go more or less well as long as there’s no more in-fighting. When will Taylor meet the big boss, anyways?

“I spotted a crab scuttling across the beach almost directly below us. I reached out with my power and stopped it in its tracks.” Poppycock, crabs aren’t insects, yet she manages to control it. Thankfully for my sanity, this isn’t Mr. Wildbow having a grossly mistaken definition of ‘insect’. ““I used to think I could control anything with an exoskeleton or shell. But I can control earthworms too, among other things, and they don’t have shells. I think all it takes is that they have to have very simple brains.”” Neat! Impractical and kind of useless, if you think about it, but neat! It’ll take a strategic mind to be able to use earthworms, snails and other similar stuff. Crabs are too slow to be of much use, I’d say, but who knows...Taylor already proved to have decent organizational and strategic skills, maybe she’ll be able to think of something at some point.

Turns out the teenage misfit supervillain team don’t do everyday things like ‘school’ and ‘studying’. Who’d have guessed! Well that’s not entirely true. Brian takes courses online, and Lisa, well, her power pretty much gives her a quick way to succeed at academics, that’s for sure.

Taylor receives a key for the hideout and is told she’s welcome to be there anytime, plus she can do anything she wants. The reason why Brian was here is because he agreed to meet Taylor during her morning runs, you know, to talk and keep her updated about recent developments. Also Taylor likes Brian the best. Lisa is alright, but “just being around her made me feel like I had the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head.”. Anyone would feel like that, given her power, but Taylor’s potential betrayal plans are another reason to not spend a lot of time with Lisa.

Say, I wonder if Brian’s darkness powers can hinder Lisa’s power...hm...

Now that the friendly meeting with Brian is over, Taylor returns back home to get ready for another tortuous day at school, featuring bullies sans lice and other petty mishaps people less patient than Taylor would have inflicted on them already. It doesn’t help that recent events have made Taylor’s grades slip, what with not going to class and also not delivering her homework – even though none of that is completely her fault. Could it be possible for her to stop going to school, without her father knowing it? If things start getting tougher I wouldn’t be surprised it that happens! And if Dad finds out, there’s some potential conflict! I’m not wishing it to happen to Taylor, but it’d be interesting to watch.

The situation is bad, but not as bad as it was before. “The worst days had been back in my first year at high school, when the wounds of Emma’s betrayal were still fresh and I wasn’t yet experienced enough to anticipate the variety of things they could come up with. Back then, it had been terrifying, because I hadn’t yet known what to expect, didn’t know where, when or if they would draw the line.” It doesn’t seem like they’re drawing the line at any point. The way Taylor copes with going to school is by focusing on the little times where she can enjoy herself, as well as giving herself rare treats once it’s all over. And now there’s one incentive more: spending time with the team! “Or, I thought, maybe I could just look forward to hanging out with Lisa, Alec and Brian.”

Hmmmm... “I wasn’t forgetting what they were, but I rationalized that I had no reason to feel bad about spending time with them when we were – for all intents and purposes – just a group of teenagers hanging out. Besides, it was for a good cause, if it meant they relaxed around me and maybe revealed secrets. Right?” You know, I’m not sure how Taylor will rationalize this all once she starts losing her will to tattle on them. Worm is a very long story; I doubt she’ll spend all of it with the same mindset of someday betraying them all. Will she start feeling ‘one with the team’, like a villain?

The day’s plans include going to class and also talk with the art teacher so try not to get a big fat zero in her midterm project, but all this is derailed when Sophia...uh, give me a momet to copy paste what she did: “As a group of students entered the room, I saw Sophia looking at me. She made an exaggerated pouting expression, drawing one fingertip in a line from the corner of her eye down her cheek like a mock tear. One of the other girls noticed and chuckled, leaned closer to Sophia as Sophia whispered something in her ear, then they both laughed.” And that’s enough for Taylor to turn around and get out of school, for the third day in a row. Sigh.

Okay, Taylor, I know it’s tough, and you’re very unhappy at school, but...somehow that this was enough for Taylor to scrap her plans and just leave school again doesn’t mesh well with me. I know she’s berating herself for doing it, too, but still...that was a tad too thin-skinned. I fully sympathize with her plight, and I know she’s more than capable to defend herself, but that kind of makes this bother me more. She can defend herself, but at the first sign of antagonism from the bullies she folded and just walked outside. I know she felt humiliated and all, but still...this can’t keep going like this. At some point she’s going to have to do something other than just retreating. It’s a much better choice than, say, sending a colony of wasps towards anyone, but it can’t be possible running away at the very first sign of mockery is the best solution.

And that’s the end of the first part of this arc. It was...an okay start. Nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t bad. Just average. So to the next part.

Taylor’s destination was the loft, of course. Along the way, she imparts exposition regarding the social state of the Boardwalk. There’s a lot of trouble hiding in plain sight, people from gangs, people who keep order through the use of force...but it’s all peaceful so the tourists relaxed and gave a lot of revenue to the merchants and the city. Hm, alright, I see! So the Boardwalk is more or less a safe area in the town, that’s what it sounds like. Good to know. Also explains that Brian took the time to dress like he did earlier.

Taylor barely has time to think how she should get into the factory when Brian opens the door. Turns out Lisa’s powers warned Taylor was coming. Huh. How’re you going to counter that, Taylor? She’s going to see your betrayal coming before you even take a step towards the heroes’ place. Taylor goes inside, being received warmly. Alec and Brian were sparring. This could be a chance to see those two in action! Who knows, maybe learn a thing or two about physical moves. Taylor seems to agree, choosing to watch them spar.

Alec isn’t taking it seriously. In fact, he doesn’t seem like a physical fighter at all. Wonder what’s his role in the team and during their jobs, then? Brian sounds like he actually knows what he’s doing, but Alec’s interest is very low. He’s complaining when Brian tries to teach him stances.

““Well fuck this then,” Alec said, “If you’re going to go easy on me and still kick my ass, I don’t see the point.”

“You should learn how to fight,” Brian said.

“I’ll do like I have been and bring my taser,” was Alec’s response, “one poke and they’re out cold. Better than any punch.””

Aha, I see! So that’s how he deals with the foes! Using the taser, I see. He’s going to be doomed if he’s against someone who isn’t affected by the taser. Taylor is a lot more receptive than Alec, seeing the chance to maybe learn a thing or two through Brian’s knowledge.

““Make two fists. No, don’t wrap your fingers over your thumbs. You’ll do more damage to your hands than you will to the person you’re hitting, if you do that. That’s better.” I’m pleased to see that such fists are imparted. Doing it like Taylor was doing it risked breaking their thumbs. Really, if I didn’t know this team has a boss, I’d have thought Brian was the leader.

Say, I notice that, for a wound that was keeping Taylor awake at times, it’s conveniently unmentioned during this fighting learning. I’d have thought that punching and moving her arm a lot would cause quite some pain, but there’s nothing.

Brian doesn’t stay on one topic for long, he changes topics to try to encourage Taylor to improve, and also to help her. Balance, stance, it all is touched at least once. Taylor is by no means a good fighter yet, but she’s showing willingness to fight, and that’s great.

“From there, we changed topics to the mental side of things, both for me and my opponent.

“So I throw a punch like I’m aiming to put my fist through them?” I confirmed.

“Right,” Brian said, “Instead of just trying to make contact with the point where your hand meets their body.””

Hm...I have to ponder if this is a real mental technique. Mr. Wildbow already showed signs of doing some good research, after all.

Taylor wonders how Brian is so good at teaching, asking if he’s formally trained in anything. Good question, that’d explain all this.

“Ehhh,” he hedged, “Some. My dad was a boxer when he was in the service, and he taught me some when I was little. I moved on to other stuff on my own – Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga – but nothing really held my interest. I only took a few weeks or a month of classes for each. I know enough and keep in shape, which is enough to hold my own against anyone who isn’t a black belt in whatever, which is the important thing, I think. Keeping up with the more serious martial artists is a full time job, and you’re still going to run into people who are better than you, so I don’t see the point in stressing too much over it.”

Huh. Interesting philosophy. I’m not sure if Brian has enough skills to fight against some of the big heroes around, but what he knows should be enough for people like underlings, police officers, and common criminals. Someone like Lung may not be as affected as them, but perhaps a good strike or two may be useful? It all depends on the foe, really.

Taylor is quickly taught about weak points to attack. There are actually more than I had considered. On the head hit anything that’s squishy or potentially fragile – the temples aren’t as strong as the rest of the skull, I think? – and underneath the neck attack the joints and obvious places like the groin. Simple enough!

Since Taylor doesn’t have much upper body strength – and trying to improve on that regard was a major hassle – she says she’s considering a weapon. Hmmm...a small dagger, perhaps? Something like a stinger she can grab with ease! Yeah, bug theme! Brian doesn’t mind Taylor having a handy weapon, but she’s going to tell the boss. Lisa is talking to him right now. The problem here is...

““So who is this boss of ours?”

Brian and Alec exchanged a look. When they didn’t immediately say anything, I wondered if I’d pushed it too far. Had I been too nosy?

“Figured you’d ask,” Brian said, “Thing is, we don’t know.”

“What?” I asked, “We have an anonymous sponsor?””

Hohoh! Now this is fun! This is the kind of mysteries I love: the mysterious sponsor! In this type of enigmas there’s a lot of space for shocking reveals. Wow, it could be anyone! I’m guessing this sponsor of them is somebody who hasn’t been shown or mentioned yet anywhere, but fiction dictates their name will be at least mentioned at some point. Hmmmm...the jobs they send the Undersiders to do may be a valuable clue to deduce a couple things, I’ll make sure to pay special attention to them once they arrive. Wouldn’t be a surprise if it’s a hero, though. Now that’s the kind of surprise one would expect here, but it’s so fun and can create so much manipulation and misdirection even if it’s a hero I’d be very happy.

““Lisa knows, I think,” Brian grumbled, “But she says that when she joined the Undersiders, she made a deal that she was going to keep quiet on the subject. I’m not sure if that means she knows who he is or if it’s just to keep her mouth shut if her power tells her.””

And that’s even more interesting. If Lisa knows right now –not confirmed, but play along with me for now ---- who is the benefactor and doesn’t tell anyone, there are...three possibilities, I think: one is that the benefactor has influence on her, which I find a bit unlikely. Trying to blackmail someone who can find information? Two is that Lisa is an accomplice of him, if this is all a long-term trap or something. Maaaaaaaaybe that could be it, but right now I don’t think so. Then again, I don’t know Lisa that well yet. And third is that she has no problem with who the benefactor is. If it was someone they had to watch out for, she’d tell the rest, but she hasn’t said a thing. Even if the benefactor is, say, Armsmaster, what does it affect them? So what if Armsmaster feels like sending a bunch of teens to perform crimes? It’s not like anyone in the Undersiders would be against that.

I guess it’s possible she simply doesn’t know yet, but yeah. Speaking of the benefactor, he finished the conversation with Lisa, and it’s playtime. As if Lisa had been waiting nearby right for this moment, when Taylor asks what kind of jobs they do, Lisa comes in and announces the next plot point:

“Lisa’s voice just behind me startled me, “This. Pull up your socks, boys and girl, because we’re robbing a bank.””

Awesome. Brian, you’re up. This is pretty much a job where you’re going to contribute in significantly, Mr. Darkness Generator.

So, given that now there’s going to be a bank heist soon, I think I should stop for now and leave this for next time. Cool, action time!

Next update: next time

#worm #worm liveblog #liveblog #book liveblog #story liveblog

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sleepymarmot · 6 years

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Twilight Mirage liveblog 4/5 (episodes 55-63)

55-56

Ha, Austin rereads the passage I just came back to relisten

Yeah, this only proves the point that you can't put the wellbeing and infrastructure of an entire society on the shoulders of 300 people with superpowers, and the warmth of their personal relationship with the rest ot the people! Sorry, I can't make myself sad about this system that was ridiculous and inherently unsustainable from the start!

But how about… Not mean humans ~enslaving innocent Divines~ because they're not idealistic enough or too utilitarian or w/e… not the Divines going “Oh no the 30k years of our love weren't real! You only want us for our bodies! Guess we'll die” and flopping over… How about Divines actually step up and sacrifice themselves willingly for the common good, you know, the way countless humans have done in this universe across both arcs?! “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” Oh boo fucking hoo!

I'm just. Thinking of C/w finale and how unnecessarily brutal it was and how many people sacrificed themselves and others for the greater good. And you're telling me that the Divines and the entire Fleet as a society are too precious for that? And I don't mean sacrifice yourself like Belgard, I mean the bigger picture. A utopia that isn't for everyone isn't a utopia, etc, see that post about The Good Place that got a surprising amount of notes lol

Also count me as an Independence kin still. I would absolutely break up with someone over the right to die (then run away and make everyone really upset by my mere presence then behave in such a way they have to kill me, twice. Okay maybe not this part)

Honestly the whole concept of the Fleet sounds so toxic. It's like being fully financially dependent on your beloved parents forever.

Oh wait here's another thing I must rage about: they stopped making new Divines so that they wouldn't be enslaved! Here's a novel idea: how about instead making a Divine that could be turned into a more productive machine… you make that machine in the first place??? You know, how people in real life make machines to use instead of manual labor??

Like, the problem with Divines is a two-sided coin:

Flawed individuals should not possess inordinate amounts of power. They might abuse it, misuse or just use with good intentions but in controversial or questionable ways (see: the Divines in Counter/weight).

As a flip side, making an entire community almost fully dependent on labor of a small group of sentient beings of a separate species is an unfair burden to them, and even if it is provided willingly. The benefitters become dependent on providers, which is exacerbated by the latter's small numbers (the Fleet being thrown into a crisis by the loss of the final Divines and only coming out of it fine because another superpowered being happened to be nearby). The providers are put at risk of exploitation (the Divines of being “enslaved/killed”), especially since they are outnumbered. The benefitters’ genuine love for the providers is undermined and may eventually be corrupted and superseded by their vested interest in maintaining this arrangement -- but at the same time, wanting more resources is a natural thing and people cannot and should not be blamed for it. This relationship may be mutually beneficial (and it was for an astonishingly long time) but carries an inherent risk.

So Divines potentially have too much and too little power at the same time. Both of these problems could have been avoided if “a special kind of synthetic beings” and “algorithms and robots that provide unique services that form the backbone of society” were two separate things in the first place! Fine, you can't undo what happened tens of thousands of years ago under very specific circumstances and specific threat, but you could try to recognize the problem instead of building a community whose structure is bound to bring that problem to the forefront sooner or later.

Okaaay, so where did the Divines that “didn't make the cut”, other than Independence, go? Is there a club of really bitter superpowered rejects somewhere?

I really don't get why Tender is having such a crisis

Austin and Janine are a pair of sadistic bastards lmao

I can't believe it's only been an hour into the episode, feels like an eternity (in a good way)

On the one hand, it's nice that at least Anticipation was thinking about the things I wrote above. On the other, “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” becomes even more ridiculous, because Anticipation is using her excerpt like a candidate Right Now! In order to determine whether she and her kin should be used!

Tender gets her own version of the “Independence makes Grand an offer he can't refuse” scene :D

Okay, my first objection to “giving it to Sho” was “um, you want to waste that resource on becoming a museum piece?!” but my current one is, unlike the players' “Anticipation would hurt Sho”, is “do you really want to combine this with Sho's high-strung personality?”

Aaand Tender makes the right choice :D I'm glad.

Wow! This second episode has wildly exceeded all my expectations. What a ride

57-59

No offense, but I wish the three episodes of “everything is Advent's fault somehow, again” didn't stand in my way to the much superior premise of “Grand Magnificent and Waltz Tango Cache rescue Fouteen from a newly arrived rival faction's flagship”. God, I hope this goes in some interesting unexpecting direction asap.

Wait, was it ever mentioned that Echo's family is also separated onto the two planets? That's new to me, and it would have been relevant to the first post-Miracle arc.

Gig making a bold move, getting hit with 4 stress at once and gaining a status at the beginning of the mission:

Blease tell me someone has redrawn that Community gif with Echo entering the completely trashed ship. That's such a good image

The entire throwing maneuver and the rolls they got… Absolutely fucking crazy

I actually yelped out loud when Echo failed a fucking desperate roll inside the light beam

How come Echo's nanites were inactive before but got activated now? How does that work?

It's strange how suddenly the show got intense again! The missions after the Miracle felt fun but unengaging for me, and I didn't expected it to pick up until the finale. So many ups and downs in this arc! Can't believe how quickly and often it went from “we basically won” to mortal danger in about one turn. The title should have been “Echo Reverie's Terrible, Bad, No Good Day”… Glad to see the theme of the weight of violence back. It feels very natural as a conflict between Even and Echo, but I wonder if later it would involve Grand Magnificent too – the discussion during Even's message for Cascabel reminded me of what I wrote after the holiday special.

60-61

Being one of the only two party members doesn't suit Waltz, he has to act dumb for the sake of player agency

I understand why Jack wants to see what the “new job” is about, but not why Fourteen does!

Ending the recap on “Now you're gonna go your separate ways, and everything's gonna fall apart” is, um, nice

Wait, why is Fourteen on their last life? And how would they know that?

Oh, here's the arms dealer Grand Magnificent I was waiting for lmao Although to be honest… That design wasn't that special in terms of military power, right? I remember the disussions of its complex appearance and the difficulty of shaping the material into this multifaceted sculpture, but it didn't have any innovative armor or weaponry, right? It's not like it's the first and only q-glass mech. I mean, setting aside the base problem that it might not be the most wise and ethical idea to give weapons to the amoral people for whom you just delivered a bomb (and are trying to ignore that fact) while they're tearing your friend's body apart, and that they would have settled for less… it's not like he gave them the part of the actual Divine Independence. I guess we'll see what Advent will do…

At some point Jack, I think, said that Grand is acting like Lem and I was like. Please don't. Can you not go into that direction in the future too please. I've already been concerned about his character arc since finishing Winter and this isn't helping!

Anyways today I had enough free time to listen to five episodes and now I'm hungover and also sad. I'm glad Grand Magnificent didn't suddenly become heroic but also this is depressing. Can't wait for everyone (minus him posssibly?) to finally meet and share the wild shit that happened to them recently. Tender is an excerpt! Fourteen is a knight and also on the brink of dying forever for some reason! Echo has fought in a civil war against their brother! Grand sold out to everyone's #1 enemy and left!

I don't really get ending episode on so much exposition… I understand the awkwardness of retelling an event that was intended to happen onscreen, but when Schism attacked, I assumed that fighting it would be the finale. On the other hand, I thought the same about the September Incident, and how happy I was to be wrong!

62-63

The downtime episode was excellent – exactly the thing I like! Two notes:

I can't be the only one bothered by the use of the word “fascist”, right? Greedy cynical bandits and graverobbers, capitalists, terrorists, whatever… but what does fascism do with any of that?

Everyone's plans for the future were pretty vague, but what I really didn't get was the heart of the debate between Signet and the Cadent. It sounded as if they were talking about the same thing with different words sometimes…

The doctor is Jace, correct? Rapid Evening, academic career, stratis, husband and wife, used to be rivals with someone named Rose? I had to relisten to the entire vignette looking for clues and trying to rememer anyone who would fit all of these descriptors.

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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