K6BD asks

HaveyouacceptedJadisasyourpersonallordandsaviour?

No, but only because she’ll have to fight Gog-Agog for the title.

One thing I really love about the conclusion of White Chain and Solomons fight, in addition to White Chains self actualization, is that Solomon doesn’t get to lose cleanly on his own terms. White Chain did something miraculous and marred his perfection but it barely wasn’t enough to draw blood only to give him a slight bruise. Thus he was trapped and had to give up some of his pride, either by allowing flexibility over rigidity, or by refusing and betraying the spirit of his condition.

Oooh, yes, that’s very good!

I’m pretty sure that Alison origionally spoke english and it’s just that as more and more time was spent in Throne rather than on earth, the language of Throne became the normal and english the exotic foreign special language instead of the other way around like it was in the beginning of the comic.

I’d probably agree with you if not for one crucial detail:

White Chain was the one asking. The first person Allison really spoke to in any meaningful sense in Throne, and now one of her closest friends and partymates, is reacting as though this is the first time she’s ever heard In-ge-lish spoken.

Also, while Allison did have translation magic the first time she met Ciocie, that wore off quickly, and this firmly establishes that none of their dialogue with each other up to this point has been in In-ge-lish.

The only logical conclusion, as I see it, is that either something about Allison’s origins or something about the means by which she were sent to Throne made it so that she implicitly understands and speaks the main language of Throne when talking to its residents. I’m not sure if she has even realized it herself yet, though it’s possible that the realization happened during the timeskip and was what led to Ciocie learning what little she knows of In-ge-lish.

Stealthy pun: the demiurge Gog-Agog is a demagogue.

Hah!

Juggalo

hOnK!

---

Worm asks

“Was pyrokinesis always part of Circus’ powerset?” Yeah. Pocket dimension, minor pyrokinesis, some physical enhancements for balance/aim/coordination.

Circus was established as a pyrokinetic in Tangle 6.7.

Pyrokinesis was one of Circus’s powers. Tangle 6.7 – “Circus was one of those capes that had a whole pile of very minor powers. The ones I knew about were some minor pyrokinesis, …” But I don’t blame you for forgetting, it is a minor throwaway line about a minor character and basically the only time she was relevant (attack on the debate) she didn’t use it.

Huh, right, there it is. Yeah, by now that’s a thing I’d only remember if I’d gone back to check what all was explicitly mentioned there at some point.

Wildbow’s tags provide the names Unter, Pwn, and Carnie.

Oh, yeah, and Scape for the Vista clones.

This chapter’s character tags give us three new names for evil clones – Carnie, Pwn and Ünter. I’m sure you can guess who’s who.

I knew about Scape already, but Unter, Pwn and Carnie are pretty good. I particularly like Pwn.

Even if he acts more like a bishop.

What I didn’t realize, though, was that there’s only one official name per source person. I suppose that makes more sense, for chapter tagging purposes and not-running-out-of-good-names purposes.

You misformatted the line “Second floor, near the back. Stairwell is this way.”

Thank you, will fix immediately! It’s so much easier to accidentally misformat short paragraphs now, with the new block-based post editor.

My review of “Worm” by John C. McCrae: a decent-enough vore fic once you get past the million-word filler intro.

Ahahaha

“Jbezirefr cbjref graq gb vebavpnyyl crecrghngr gur cnenuhzna’f vffhr. Vzc’f cbjre gheavat bss jura fur’f hapbafpvbhf jbhyq or jnl gbb urycshy.”

Sharks: V qrongrq ba fraqvat guvf, ohg hygvzngryl qrpvqrq abg gb. Yrg zr xabj vs lbh qvfnterr jvgu guvf qrpvfvba, ohg V guvax vg’f gbb oyngnag.

Decode here.

Assuming that Echidna has to be killed, how do you expect her to be killed? Assuming there is a solution that doesn’t involve killing her, what do you expect it to be?

Um… launch her into space and hope the Simurgh doesn’t just basketball dunk her back down?

…

oh

oh cod

oh fuck

fuck fuck fuck

THAT’S WHY THE ENDBRINGERS WANT NOELLE ISN’T IT

THEY WANT TO BE COPIED

you know what Eidolon I changed my mind you can nuke Brockton Bay it’s totally fine

*ahem*

Maybe there’s some way to incapacitate or kill her by getting her to copy someone that might not be ideal for her?

In particular, I notice we have a guy who has previously proven capable of putting an Endbringer on timeout. If we sacrifice Clockblocker, it’s possible that one of the clones will find himself with the power always-on, freezing everything he touches… including, perhaps, Noelle, while he’s still stuck inside her.

I don’t know that I expect this to be as simple as “kill or not kill” in the end (the dilemma is there, but I don’t think we’re cleanly settling on either side), so something like that is more the sort of outcome I could see happening here. A hero sacrificed, Noelle frozen in time as a permanent landmark in Brockton Bay akin to Lake Heroic, a clone unfrozen but trapped within her by his own power… hopefully one that doesn’t need sustenance, I suppose, or she’ll unfreeze after he starves or dies of thirst.

There also remains the possibility that the route we’re taking is the other “neither”. The outcome where they get her to stop going after the Undersiders but she remains at large as the Endbringer of Earth, the final Endbringer to rise before the last threat.

Well, final if we don’t count the possibility of her being able to duplicate the other Endbringers holy fuck

…let’s hope that their immunity to directly applied powers does something good for once if that happens.

“But it kind of makes me feel like Taylor doesn’t care about the distinction when it comes to Leet, or worse, that we’re not supposed to because unlike Vista, Leet only exists in the story as a low-level antagonist with not a whole lot to him.”

Maybe Taylor doesn’t care because Leet tried to actively assassinate her, so she wouldn’t feel bad if it was the actual Leet being killed?

Thus the “or worse”. This is the better option, that he’s being treated like that as a characterization thing for Taylor rather than because Wildbow doesn’t care about Leet or because he doesn’t want/expect us to.

I mean I don’t care about Leet but that’s beside the point.

Ah, that ramble about name and identity! If you weren’t already, I’d tell you to read Worm! Anyway, Yamada is a lot of people’s fave character, but perhaps that’s more because of what she draws out of other characters. Among your own characters, what would be the most interesting thing to come out of such a therapy interlude?

Oh now you’re speaking my language.

Let’s see how much therapy some of these characters need…

• Enterprise: Hoo boy, Enterprise is a mess. Yamada would have her work cut out for her with this one. She’s ordinarily excitable, optimistic and resourceful, but if you tick her off the wrong way, often through no actual fault of your own, she’s also prone to emotionally lashing out. She’s carrying a lot of grudges and envy, she’s obsessed with flight, and her childhood desire to become an alicorn princess (so she could have her magic and wings) has festered into a deep-seated hatred for any alicorn she believes doesn’t deserve to be one. And then there’s her feelings about Luna in particular, and… it’s just A Lot.
• Moon Dream: Ah yes, that sweet, well adjusted young mare who would do no harm and always put everypony else before her… because she’s been systematically beating every selfish thought out of her head for two decades for fear of becoming a villain if she ever allowed herself to want anything of her own. Also carries the burden of understanding more of the hints dreams give of the future than she tells her dream-reading clients sometimes.
• Valvula: Trying to balance her loyalty to the changelings and the friendship she has been taught by some of the ponies she’s supposed to spy on. Struggles to feel emotions as strongly as her pony friends. She’s very laconic, so it might be hard to get much out of her.
• Party Popper: Nervous wreck riddled with identity problems and paranoia. She only truly remembers a few years back, because that’s when she came into existence, but has knowledge of things from Pinkie Pie’s life that comes back to her when prompted (so for instance, she can see Enterprise and know she hates helium balloons, but has no memory of actually meeting Enterprise). Her paranoia is justified; she needs to hide what she is because she believes she will be killed if found by the very ponies who should have been her friends, including her creator, and it’s hard when you have the subtlety and self-control of a boulder to the face. Where Enterprise lashes out, Popper runs away.
• Gena: Keeps claiming she’ll betray everypony she cares about at the drop of a hat, then largely hesitates to actually do so. I think Yamada could get deep into why she puts up this front and insists on having others not trust her. She actually does lay plans to betray people, but she cares too much to actually do it most of the time, and she wants to hide that part of herself behind a tough girl attitude. (All my changelings have different spins on loyalty and Gena is honestly my favorite.)
• Clypeus: Just plain clinically depressed.
• Traffic Pattern: This guy is pretty minor but he’s the closest I’ve come to an actual therapy chapter, sort of. He was introduced in Reflections (Party Popper’s story) as a jovial police officer, and then later showed up in Dreamers (Enterprise and Moon Dream’s story) during Moon Dream’s first time actually visiting somepony else’s dream. His dream turned into a nightmare and Moon Dream had to pinpoint the root fears causing it so Luna could combat it. Anyway, to the point: He’s worried he’s not contributing to the team, that he’s just the naïve optimist who tries to keep up spirits.
• She’s not my character, but I’ve also inflicted Fluttershy with a serious case of impostor syndrome and self-hatred.
• Eris: She has put upon herself the burden of taking on the Ascended solo (not counting Tracker’s remote services), and had to harden herself on the matter of causing them to kill each other. Then we throw Potence and his “we’re not so different, you and I” rhetoric at her, sparks fly, and the end result is a mixture of rage, confusion and fears that maybe she really is enjoying herself too much for a hero.
• Tracker: Painfully aware of how much people are breaking social distancing rules.
• Overclock: Would be sooo booored if he had to sit through a therapy session.
• Rose Caltz: After that meeting, Yamada would be the one seeking therapy.

I don’t know what all of this would actually come out during a therapy Interlude, or what would be the most interesting bits (really subjective, that), but there it is. Yamada, we need you! My only therapist character is a couples’ therapist and I haven’t even written her yet!

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Misc ask

Hi Krix! I have come to a realization that I really like book liveblogs. Do you know anyone who liveblogs books, preferably fantasy/urban fantasy?

Sharks: I liveblog comic books, if that counts.

I do know of a few!

Neuxue, a.k.a. Lia, has been tearing through the Wheel of Time series, aided by insight, memory and reading comprehension far better than mine. More recently she has also started blogging the TV series The Untamed.

Mark Reads tends towards more of a chapter-by-chapter review style, but he has a massive backlog of books covered and what I’ve read of his reviews, I’ve enjoyed. He also has a second site for episode reviews of shows, Mark Watches.

(I would have recommended starting with his Twilight Saga book reactions (yes, seriously) and continuing from there to the Harry Potter series — those were the first ones he did, and as I recall it, the turnaround between them was beautiful — but unfortunately they seem to have been lost after he moved to his own site and decided to make links to the original Buzznet posts instead of migrating the content. Nowadays it seems these particular reviews are only available in book form for purchase.)

I also asked some people if they had additions to this list, so I can’t personally vouch for quality here but people I trust like them:

wtfanimorphs: Animorphs liveblogger. I was vaguely aware of this one but haven’t read it myself because I’m not directly familiar with Animorphs.

---

Memes

[meme]

Yamada: Thanos Weld isn’t real, he can’t hurt you
Thanos Weld:

Did you mean: Solomon David

[meme]

Tronald J. Dump: STOP THE COUNT!

[K6BD panel]
Mammon: Ah!
Mammon: The count! Who has stopped the count!

And then Joe Biden comes crashing through the ceiling of the White House on his flying palace…

[meme]

Jessica Yamada: [pointing gun labeled “therapy”]
Wards: [have a tank]

Ahaha, accurate.