Manchester is getting taller

Got a Worm meta question for you. I'm starting on the early parts of Taylor's warlord era - I'm about to leap into Arc 13 - and the general concept of a ravaged American city being divided up by various supervillain groups is reminding me a lot of that Batman story arc No Man's Land from the late 1990s. Unfortunately my comics knowledge is rudimentary at best, and I haven't been able to any discussion comparing the two stories, so I was wondering if I could pick your brain on the subject. Was it just convergent evolution, or was Wildbow engaging with the Batman story in some way?

I myself have only read about half of No Man's Land- and several years ago to boot- so I've got limited ability to do a direct compare and contrast. No Man's Land is absolutely the sort of status-quo-shattering, history-book-making upset that, within Marvel and DC, nonetheless always inexplicably heals and loses salience until you can barely tell that it's still in continuity. Worm is heavily informed by Wildbow's irritation with that sort of thing, so I think it's totally reasonable to view the warlord era through the lens of "What if No Mans Land had no editorial escape hatch." Alternatively, I think it kind of makes sense to view it through the lens that it's working backwards from the premise of No Man's Land- In what kind of setting would it be plausible for the Federal Government to write off a sufficiently-damaged American City? In what context would the legal infrastructure have been established for that, in what context would that even fall within the Overton Window? What muddies my opinion on this is that the general concept of a ravaged, atmospherically-apocalyptic American city torn up by superpowered gang warfare is something that's kind of just been in the water in superhero comics since the mid-eighties at least, and it was a relatively common thing to see during the Dark Age- they were choice prey for all those overpouched musclemen with their poorly rendered firearms. I'd be surprised if Wildbow wasn't at least aware of No Man's Land, but it's definitely not the only cape book from the late 90s or early oughts where you could pick up that idea from. Ultimately this leaves me unsure if No Man's Land is the specific referent or if it's just part-and-parcel with trying to do an involved, thoughtful take on what cape comics were like at the time.

Can only picture San gaming with them but on a PC, like tower and monitor and all and gets made fun of for it so much. However, using a computer rather than being one does make it easy for him to get up and stretch. And by extension, force everyone else (Deimos) to stretch too. He absolutely makes a comment about it too

Also, kind of curious. When it comes to the player's character in VR in DS, does it matter on the person's perspective? Like does the model change depending on how the person sees/remembers themself or is there something pre-made they're just plopped into? Or does it change depending on the game?

Sanford has 0 rig envy. He’s seen way too many of the negatives with his job, let alone the mess that is Deimos. He’s fine. No thanks. Grandpa gaming for Sanford. Doesn’t even go for a headset like Doc has ‘cause it makes him nauseous, and he likes being on his A game. The designated driver of group gaming.

At some point in the past Victor showed Sanford how to stick a magnifying glass to the monitor to get pixel perfect headshots, but he only does it if someone (Deimos) makes a comment about his lack of a rig. Only Doc knows he does this, while the other two are wholly in VR and can’t defend themselves from practical cheating.

As far as VR bodies go, I imagine it sort of depends on the game/software, sort of depends on person, sort of depends on the rig. Like, I imagine one would probably have a certain amount of biometrics stored, so things like height and length of arms might be something you would set up in the machine so virtual worlds can figure out the placement of your body and viewpoint, and its all easily fetched from one place (hence games containing the data of other people’s hardware. If you want to be stealth, there’s probably an option for default settings but then you’d need to have your brain understand the new size of your body so you move the right ways)

Theoretically you could fudge that data for catfishing/ego/shitpost/cheating purposes. Deimos definitely fudges that data. (And thus has become accustomed to “being in” weird sized bodies, and has his rig getting read by whatever he’s playing.)

Appearance-wise, there’s probably options. Rich people probably get their body scanned and rigged up for their avatars for certain stuff, like. VR business meetings. Otherwise it’s likely a lot of commissioned avatars and default stuff and custom-behind-a-paywall and other exploitation. If you gotta pay for showers you definitely have to pay for looking like yourself in VR.

I think racing games would be something where the avatar wouldn’t really matter, an fps has more typical goofball shit, but social or business software may have a sort of “Dress Code” and limits (and spyware).

Real talk though, why did we build a society where human connection is elusive and illusory and public spaces are nonexistent or hostile to life?*

I keep talking about building a 'found family' when I know the only way to meet people outside work is on apps and I have to moonlight as an event coordinator just to see them once every 3-4 months. I rarely have the energy to do that. If we hang out it will inevitably cost both of us $20-$50. They'll text me 'I had fun!' and I'll say 'yeah, we should do this again soon!' and then I'll go home and have another mental breakdown over the impossibility of ever achieving real human connection in this dystopian nightmare I can't afford to escape.

*(we know why. It's been the last whole century of corporate greed and racism that poisoned everything.)

doodle i did in a small fit of hysteria

Once again I am asking drivers on the 401 to Not Be Like That

Prompt 27: Hail

Contrary to popular belief, Garlemald had a plethora of seasons.

There was Winter, of course – that was the easy one. Winter lasted about six months on average or, if you were really unlucky and got a wet year, closer to eight. It took about a week for Winter to start and somewhere in the vicinity of two months for it to end.

Those two months were called Brown. It was a period of time where the chinooks came in over the Magna Glacies and melted all the snow but it was still freezing balls outside, so nothing dared to grow yet. The grass was flat and dead, the trees pallid and skeletal, and the city caked with dried mud from back when the snow was melting. It still snowed occasionally during Brown of course, usually right after you washed your car to rid it of corrosive road salt, just as the occasional fuck you. Brown also returned for two weeks at the end of Autumn, which itself lasted two weeks, which was all the time it took for the trees to panic and ditch their leaves before the first snows fell.

At last, came Spring. Spring also lasted two weeks. That’s when the vegetation all around exploded into life. Green unfurled and flowers bloomed and it pissed rain like the end of the world.

After Spring came Construction. Construction lasted the two and a half months when everyone else was having Summer, wherein the crews would descend upon the city with their magitek en masse and hurry to repair all the roads and rails from plow damage before it started snowing again. New buildings also went up at this time, so with the end of Winter also came the end of sleeping in, as every crew started bright and early at 6AM. Learning which roads were closed on any given day was a constant game of discovery, especially downtown where the answer was typically “half”.

But there was another part of Construction that made it an especially lively month.

“Ooooh.” Marcus grimaced as the fist-sized hail stone smote Dad’s car, crumpling the hood in. They’d all gathered in the window to watch the storm, but apparently were just in time to witness a murder instead.

“That’ll buff out,” Dad said.

In response, a second stone obliterated the windshield.

“That won’t,” Laelia replied.

I don't have a quote for Lyric since I haven't really Written him much. He's a deaf ""musician"" who pretty much illusions his way through having a career and helping out with a proletariat uprising. He is also 100% pure fae, a fairly rare occurrence in the city. He's ostensibly been recently exiled from the fae realm, which is a tough-to-earn punishment, especially considering its current state of decay.

Road to somewhere

I wonder how many years it took after thinking that Aria was probably dead for Sol to be able to listen to She Makes Me off Sheer Heart Attack again without it hurting

i have watched all of marble hornets (9 hours) in two days and I feel extremely normal rn

Got home and for the second day in a row, some truck is parked around the corner and there’s some machine, cleaning apparatus, device, thing, ?!?!?! droning away. And it is driving me nuts. I left a window open and let the kettle speak for me. It’s screaming because I can’t. *pours tea angrily*

allergies piss me off and right now there is something blooming out there that is making me want to commit murder or arson.

Neon signs and lights on rain slick pavement my BELOVED