So about Tumblr

For those not in the know, Tumblr staff recently announced that starting December 17th, they will not allow explicit visual porn (images of real human genitals or “female-presenting nipples”, or images – whether real or drawn – featuring sexual acts).

That’s alright for me, though there are plenty of people who are hurt by this. What’s not fine is that they’re using their completely inept bots to find posts and blogs to block.

What’s most worrying to me is that there’s enough backlash to this decision that some people are genuinely concerned that the site is going to die if they go through with this, or that it’s going to become a mess to work with due to the random false positives everywhere.

People I know are backing up their blog content, and a lot of people are jumping ship. Even if they do go back on this, people are pissed at Tumblr. The site is taking a big hit either way, and while I’m a little skeptical that this one hit is going to be quite as bad as people are saying, the site going down in a limited time is a very real possibility. This is one big hit on top of many smaller previous ones, and I don’t think it’s going to be the last if they survive it.

So what does this mean for my liveblog? Well, for one thing, I’m backing up my blog content locally (using the export button in blog settings). But more importantly…

…introducing krixwell-liveblogs.com

I’m moving to WordPress.

It won’t be an immediate move. I still need to copy all my existing content over there, which is going to take a while. WordPress does have an “import from Tumblr” feature, but I ran into trouble trying to use that from mobile, and since then I’ve decided I want to adapt my content to the new site format by hand. For instance, I’m collecting the Tumblr posts into one WordPress post per chapter, and transcribing the old asks for accessibility purposes.

I will continue to liveblog on Tumblr until I catch up with myself on WordPress, though the sessions will get a bit less frequent for a while, in an effort to get it done reasonably quickly.

[This did not end up being the case, on account of me not trusting Tumblr to keep my posts available after December 17th. I did liveblog 15.8 before putting the blog on hold for the migration, though.]

After the move, I will begin blogging directly to WordPress. I will cross-link my posts there to the original Tumblr blog, though, so that any of you who rely on Tumblr’s notifications or dashboard to catch my blogging sessions will still have that.

So… yeah. This is the plan now.

[FULL FUCKING CIRCLE GUYS I’M ALMOST DONE]

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A thought from earlier:

I try not to speculate too much on spoilers, but if I correctly interpreted one of the spoilers I got once and the final threat is some variety of giant worm with spacetime powers, that would neatly fill in the apparent gap in the Endbringers’ lineup.

We’ve got Leviathan, the Endbringer of Water.

The Simurgh, the Endbringer of Air.

Behemoth, who was just cemented even further as the Endbringer of Fire.

And the final threat, the Endbringer(?) of Earth.

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Thank you for recommending “You don’t know me”, I quite liked it. – You have liveblogged quite some time now, but I assume you have read normal texts besides. Can you compare the approaches for you as a reader? Do you get more details, are pacing issues more apparent and does the pause after every paragraph sometimes take you out of your immersion in the story? Are you sometimes tempted to sneak a few lines ahead?

Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

I used to read a lot without liveblogging, but I’ve had a couple problems with it that tie into what you’re asking here. One of them is that I’d just barrel through, not taking the time to think much about what I’m reading. Another is that my eyes would often flicker further down on the page for a moment.

Liveblogging helps solve both of these things. The former thing is actually one of the main reasons I started doing this – forcing myself to slow down and think.

Wrecking the pacing is the main downside of liveblogging, so yeah, if the pacing is off to begin with, that’s easier to notice when reading normally. Then again, back when I used to read a lot, I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it, just because I was kind of an uncritical bookworm at the time.

These days I have a hard time hyperfocusing on books like I did before, which has made it difficult to finish them in a reasonable timeframe, but I’ve found that audiobooks work well for me. The pacing and staying on the right line is all handled by someone else, and I don’t have to put any effort into the reading itself. They’re great for occupying my brain while trying to sleep, too.

(#strap in folks there are a lot of asks today)

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Souless ginger has a lot to do with an old southpark joke turned meme by a video of a kid crying about it that went viral. Ginger as an insult is tied a lot into anti-irish sentiment. You can look the latter up.

Ahh, I see.

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Just noticed this today, but the blog @krixwell-liveblogs seems to be hidden? I can only get to it by directly typing in the entire blog name, and none of the posts from it show up under any tags tagged on posts?

That’s… odd. None of the hiding visibility settings are set to hide it.

Then again, Tumblr has been known to act even more oddly than usual the last few days.

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“…we do know of a character who died from cancer. She seems like a very unlikely pick for an Interlude, though, due to her seemingly complete irrelevance beyond having given birth to Amy.” While Amy’s mother did die of cancer, it’s rather unlikely that this happened 8 or 9 years before Amy was born.

Hah, that’s another good point.

You never know with all these time-powered capes running around, though…

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A comic by CPericardium that takes a few liberties with events but ultimately captures the sense of loss in this chapter.

(also by Pericardium🙂

Pericardium is a treasure trove of memes and I love it. :p

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Maggie Holt books were mentioned by Vista in Sentinel 9.5. Trivia: there’s also a character named Maggie Holt in Pact.

Assuming no one’s already submitted this, Maggie Holt is a reference to a character in Pact. Wildbow has a tendency to reference his other fictional works in each other. I think the Maggie Holt series also exists in Twig, and that there are other references to Pact later in Worm and Ward.

Ooh, nice! I love this kind of thing.

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In his interlude: Krixwell white washed the Doctor and forgot she was black and instead thought that Wildbow out of all authors would oversimplify the presence of a Zebra lady in the presence of a ternage girl that barely knows how many heroes exist

Hey, I didn’t briefly forget the Doctor was black.

I briefly forgot she existed.

That’s much better, right? :p

aaaaaaaaaaaaa you predicted an Alexandria interlude in approximately 0.000 seconds but you also forgot that Doctor Mother is a character that exists

Okay, but seriously, I think what happened there was that I had a hard time seeing the Doctor as doing something so active. She’s been such a fairly passive character, who stayed in the background despite her importance, that the idea of her even being out and about rather than at a location that didn’t even exist yet was… counterintuitive. My brain was so used to the status quo of the Doctor’s role that when she appeared out of it, “this is the Doctor” didn’t even seem like an option.

All that said,

You really don’t think Rebecca would have mentioned if the woman she was talking to had black and white stripes like a tiger, instead of looking like a normal human being?? I’m little confused as to how you jumped to the conclusion that the black woman talking to Rebecca was *Siberian*, instead of being the black woman who calls herself the doctor, who we’ve already been introduced to twice as being part of Cauldron (in Battery’s and Legend’s interludes)…

If Rebecca meant “black” as in “complete absence of light or jet black”, instead of what someone outside of the superhero setting would mean (which is what she is at that point, honestly), wouldn’t there be more commentary on the subject?

…I did get pretty silly about the alternatives.

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The Alexandria – Legend exchange about costumes sounds like something Batman and Superman would have said to each other.

Pfft, yeah.

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Remember that Legend is afraid to go completely in his Breaker state, and that he transforms more the faster he is. So while Alexandria is probably as fast as Legend in his day-to-day flight, it’s entirely possible that he will leave her completely behind if he challenges himself. But still far faster than Glory Girl or Aegis for example.

That’s a fair point. Who’s to say the Doctor even knows about Legend’s apparent lack of a top speed short of light speed?

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“Alright, so I’m gonna tentatively peg Becca’s age as 18 or 19.” In the U.S., generally a minor is someone below the age of 18.

Yeah, I’m aware. Unless I misread badly, the Doctor was implying that Rebecca wasn’t a minor, since she (supposedly) would’ve involved Rebecca’s mom if she were one.

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Seeing as you’ve finally made it past one of the most Gruesome (ahem) scenes in Worm (good job for that, btw), I think I’ll mention something that Wildbow confirmed for me in the Cauldron discord. Grue’s freezer box scene is a direct reference to the “fridging” incident from the Green Lantern comics. Specifically, it’s a darkly humorous gender-reversed example, written to make sense in context of the story. Look up “Stuffed into the Fridge” on TVTropes (warning, memetic hazard) for more history.

*goes to the page*

Heh, the word “gruesome” appears in the very first line of the body text.

That’s a pretty neat reference. It looks like Worm did it better than the original, honestly.

It’s worth noting that the trope itself doesn’t seem to apply – not played straight, anyway. Grue was not killed (though at the time he probably wished he had been), and he didn’t seem to have been left there specifically to be found by the protagonists so they’d be riled up.

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Remember when you compared Skitter and Legend after his interlude? That despite good intentions Legend probably also made shady decisions in the past? Using a civilian as Siberian-bait might count.

Yeah, I suppose it would.

Ironically, opposing that decision is what originally got me comparing Alexandria to Skitter.

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Sharks: Sent in by an account called “Cauldron Memes.”

[meme]

Other Universes: *exist*
Cauldron: It’s Free Real Estate

Pfffft

It sure is!

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Seems like Krix is hitting that “overthinking” button a lot more this Interlude. Any reason why? I’m noticing patterns in things he will focus on being different from his normal style. Not that he has never done it before, its just that it has been some time since he has lost focus in this way this many times in a row. Hope this does not offend in any way, as I was just really curious if anything was going on or serving as distraction IRL

There’s not really anything that hasn’t been the case for like four months now, so I don’t know what it’d be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I think the Doctor might have meant merely “opens portals” and “sees too much” as the set of powers. If you think about it, not all teleporters necessarily see where exactly they are teleporting to, instead they generally just kinda mentalize where it is they want to go. Could be that his mind is focused in the places he opens portals too, but never in his body, so he watches in real time the areas he connects or something like that

That might be the case, yeah.

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“I wonder if the Force still got explained as midichlorians.” My headcanon is that earth bet’s George Lucas tried to explain the force in terms of superpowers (because the 90s were when superpowers really started to become a big thing in bet, so incorporating that into star wars would have seemed like a cool idea to him), and he managed to piss off both star wars fans *and* cape fans.

Oh that is good.

Headcanon accepted.

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Minor correction, Leviathan is 30 feet tall. Still a mini-kaiju, but a lot more than 10-15 feet.

I think Leviathan’s more like thirty feet tall. Which still makes Behemoth’s “45 feet or more” at least half again that. Of course, Leviathan also has a whiplike tail, so he’s probably a lot longer than Behemoth.

Oh.

Right, I was remembering my units wrong. 10 meters (which shakes out to about 30 feet), not 10 feet.

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About the name “Arash”, It’s also the name of an Iranian/Turanian Mythical/Heroic archer called Arash Kamangir (Arash the Archer). Who supposedly ended a war by firing an arrow between two countries to determine the border (with divine intervention) but the backlash costs him his life. It’s still a popular name in Iran.

On Rostam, Jamshid, Kaveh, Arash: Wikipedia tells me that all of them are names, and that they all four show up as important characters in Iranian mythology. Given that the team was called the Mythics, and that the mythological Kaveh’s title is “the Blacksmith” I find it likely that they named themselves after said mythological figures.

Arash is a persian mythological hero (look him up, he is awesome, even if the first results you will get will probably be about his fate version) so the Mythicals are probably persian

Also, sorry for the doble ask but seeing how one of the Mythicals was named after a Smith, all of those names are probably middle eastern legendary figures

Oooh, nice. Thank you!

Hey, I was onto something, about the names sounding Middle Eastern of some variety.

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Not sure if Krix would count it as a spoiler since it’s never said in story but it’s confirmed by the tags on the chapter and that’s the only place were you can find the info. It’s not a huge spoiler, more of a cameo really. We know the guy that Alexandria collected on that battlefield: it’s Newter.

Oooh!

That’s a pretty newt detail. Uh, I mean, neat.

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I think you misread one thing because it’s really only apparent in retrospect. The sentence “There was a whispering”, the Doctor is not whispering to Rebecca, rather, Contessa is whispering to the Doctor, followed by the Doctor speaking normally to Rebecca. This happens a couple more times later on. So what the heck do you think she’s saying?

Whatever Contessa’s deal is, she’s definitely not just a bodyguard.

She later seemed to be giving a suggestion to the Doctor, or even an order, on how Alexandria’s deal should work. This makes me think she might be in charge in some way, either beside or above the Doctor, and they don’t want others to know that.

As for what exactly she said in the hospital… maybe something along the lines of “this is the one”, or “make sure she’s drugged”?

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Also, wiffle balls are lighter than baseballs, and gwnerageneasier [sic] to throw.

(Sharks added that “[sic]” and I’m very tempted to add a second one to show that the first one was already there….)

I occasionally fix up minor typos in the asks, but this? This is too beiuetuifiul to fix. And hey, who wouldn’t want a ball that’s gwnerageneasy to throw? 😉

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Hey Krix, I’m here to relieve you a bit. A while ago after the Battery interlude I sent an ask that sharks thought had a spoiler, which was what the rot13 was all about. Now I’m confident that it isn’t though. Go back to interlude 8 and search “unique talent” to see what I was hinting at then. It shouldn’t be a surprise anymore, but it’s not something you seemed to notice at the time either.

…which Interlude 8

(guessing Coil’s)

[from Interlude 8b]

Perhaps worthy of a celebration.  Coil maintained his own vices.  It would be unfair to expect more of himself, when he had the unique talent he did.

It had certainly been an expensive talent.  Even with his ability to game the markets in a way that clairvoyants and precognitives couldn’t detect, it had taken him years to pay it off.  A maddening, frustrating endeavor, when he had already been thinking of plans he wanted to set in motion, having to postpone them.  And he still owed a favor, even now, up to a week’s services.  He couldn’t be sure if he was powerful and secure enough to fight back if they demanded too expensive a price, or too much of his time at a point critical to his plan.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

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“She held a glass eye in one hand, the remains of her other eye in the other.” I wonder if her power keeps her eye invulnerable even post-removal. Like a broken glass eye, except much more detailed and gross.

And if it does… does she still have it?

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Private domain registration? But but but I was going to mail spoilers to your house. 😦 Foiled again.

Mwahahaha

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There’s a repeated paragraph in the WordPress version of Between 1.1-1.2 that starts “As for the word “cliché””

Fixed, thank you!

What a fitting paragraph to get repeated until it gets stale, though…

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I find the thought incredibly funny that after devising a final plan before the prophesied end of the world, everything’s gets screwed up because a minion of the pivotal guy doesn’t like his hiring practices.

Hehe, I know, right?

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Look. All the Worm artists I’ve been shown works from have been fantastic, but…

Sharks: Sent in by Vweewr, drawn by Sandara!

…this message made me internally go “oh hell yes” even before the image came through.

And the image certainly didn’t disappoint.

Cod damn this art is awesome.

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So. Halfway through this ask session I was made aware of the fact that Tumblr’s latest weirdness involves posts not showing up on the blog’s front page. Instead you need to go through the archive or tags, or follow along on the dashboard.

What the actual fuck are you doing, staff.

I’m gonna need to pick up the pace on the WordPress migration, because this site really seems to be going down hard.

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Apparently the posts do show up on the pages behind the front page.

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Wait, so…

Remember how a while back I found quow’s liveblog and shared it here?

Well, guess who just got reminded that he inspired that liveblog’s existence in the first place. [here]

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So the good news is that the latter half of the blog is now on WordPress.

The bad news is this happened automatically by way of the Tumblr import finally going through anyway after leaving me with the impression that it was stuck on zero and possibly canceled.

So now I’ve got manually mirrored posts up to Insinuation 2.2 with a new and improved format… and maybe four thousand and counting automatically mirrored ones that are tagged but unedited and uncategorized.

Well then.

I… think what I’m going to do is treat this as a safety net. All the content is on WordPress now, which is good if Tumblr goes down earlier than expected, and it’s just a matter of adapting it into the new format. I will continue doing what I already have been doing, and delete the automatically mirrored posts as replicate their contents in the new format.

Basically, the WordPress blog is a mess right now, but it means I have a second, more accessible backup while I continue the grand reformatting, and there’s less of a time limit on it.

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Huh. I forgot the first mention of Shadow Stalker was in 2.7 rather than 3.3.

So Taylor reveals her civilian face and name to the Undersiders and the very next cape that gets mentioned other than the Undersiders, within minutes of entering the Loft, happens to be one of the Harpies who torment her in her civilian life.

Nice.