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Ward: So...who's hype? Cuz I'm fuckin HYPE.
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Mar 21, 2018 07:19
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| # ? May 31, 2024 15:37 |
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i'm dread I'm loving DREAD!
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Mar 21, 2018 07:51
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Why not both?
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Mar 21, 2018 20:30
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Looks like Mama Mathers has some concerns about this whole thing.
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Mar 22, 2018 16:02
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Ward 5.8: Thursday update! The pseudo-2D breaker makes for a really cool mental image. Shame that Mama Mathers decided to make an example of her. GreyjoyBastard posted:Looks like Mama Mathers has some concerns about this whole thing. Yeah, she's definitely not playing this smart. Even if they survive this fight the Mathers family is basically hosed now that they're mindfucking their own 'allies', but I guess that kind of apocalyptic thinking is to be expected for a cult run by a maniac.
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Mar 22, 2018 21:52
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ward 5.8, good timing for a thursday update IMO. With the action picking up, an extra chapter makes the pace feel even a bit quicker for people who are reading as it is released. I really liked this chapter, things buildings both for our knowledge and the character's knowledge. 2D breaker was pretty awesome as a power. Victoria/Sveta/Tristin/Byron are having some good synergy. The Mathers have pretty much always been this way, just that before it wasn't worth the risk dealing with them when you had poo poo like the Endbringers going on constantly (cauldron also was willing to let them be around to 'encourage' people to become heroes). I don't know if Mama is worried, or if she's just always willing to go all out on any lever she has. I'm fairly sure that this has to end with Mama being killed, but the interesting question is who is it going to be that does the deed.
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Mar 23, 2018 00:38
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If the Mathers (the specific family, not their cult) all specialize in mindfuck thinker powers, are all those powers serially branched off from one original one?
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Mar 23, 2018 04:25
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maybe. or they all have mind gently caress powers because they all have mind gently caress triggers. there seems to be some thematic connection between se'ir and mommas power of projecting themselves but she does it not physically and he does it physically that implies it could be a bud just with physical stress instead of whatever gives you crazy long range sensory fucker power
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Mar 23, 2018 04:32
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I was thinking that Mamma's power would really suck unless you wanted to leverage it as a cult leader or something. We don't really know if she can turn it off, but considering her level of physical isolation in the compound and the fact that her attendant blinded himself, probably not. It doesn't seem like she sees and feels everything her projections do, rather her power can send information back to her if it's deemed important, but even just the level of isolation from everyone flinching away from you would wear someone down. Of course she's a terrible person and I don't feel sorry for her, it just seems somewhat thematically linked to the ways Victoria was isolated. Could you imagine having that power when you'd wanted to be a hero or something?
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Mar 23, 2018 04:49
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PetraCore posted:It doesn't seem like she sees and feels everything her projections do, rather her power can send information back to her if it's deemed important, but even just the level of isolation from everyone flinching away from you would wear someone down. Yeah, I wish the text had been a bit clearer about how her schtick functions. From her initial interlude I initially thought that she couldn't do anything through her projections, since she explicitly told Rain that she'd only heard his half of the conversation, but what the mathers inside his head had brought up, and the way he'd responded, told her a lot. But later on when she's spying on team therapy and Tattletale it feels like she's explicitly in control; her projection is giving him orders, and when he gets back to the compound he sees incoming reinforcements and siege preparations that she must've ordered on her end. Maybe it's kind of like Taylor's swarm without the multitasking, where she gets a ping whenever someone thinks of her but she has to specifically concentrate to have her projections do more than autopilot?
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Mar 23, 2018 04:56
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PetraCore posted:I was thinking that Mamma's power would really suck unless you wanted to leverage it as a cult leader or something. We don't really know if she can turn it off, but considering her level of physical isolation in the compound and the fact that her attendant blinded himself, probably not. It doesn't seem like she sees and feels everything her projections do, rather her power can send information back to her if it's deemed important, but even just the level of isolation from everyone flinching away from you would wear someone down. She seems to be able to turn it off, though that might have just been an outright lie to Rain. I don't see why she wouldn't have mind-zapped him otherwise though.
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Mar 23, 2018 05:36
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The Shortest Path posted:She seems to be able to turn it off, though that might have just been an outright lie to Rain. I don't see why she wouldn't have mind-zapped him otherwise though.
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Mar 23, 2018 05:41
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her attendant didnt blind himself taylor did that
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Mar 23, 2018 05:43
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violent sex idiot posted:her attendant didnt blind himself taylor did that *not sarcastic
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Mar 23, 2018 05:46
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PetraCore posted:...wait, THAT'S who that is? Man I'm dumb, I didn't make the connection. Although the fact that he hated his circumstances but felt he couldn't escape so much he brainwashed himself is still extremely messed up. Good job* blinding the brainwashed brainwasher, Taylor. looked himself in the mirror right in the eye and told himself to like it, yeah. its mentioned i think that his power changed once he was blinded so it works on his voice now. hes why lachlan, mentioned in glow worm as being kidnapped, is now happily fallen while also being just a really nice guy
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Mar 23, 2018 05:50
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PetraCore posted:...wait, THAT'S who that is? Man I'm dumb, I didn't make the connection. Although the fact that he hated his circumstances but felt he couldn't escape so much he brainwashed himself is still extremely messed up. Good job* blinding the brainwashed brainwasher, Taylor. It never actually explicitly says "Elijah is Valefor" in the text but it's as close to that as you can get, pretty much.
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Mar 23, 2018 05:54
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Well we've seen exactly 1 guy who can mind control people with his gaze that we know got potentially blinded in worm, so when we find a blind guy who tells a story about mind controlling himself by looking into a mirror we've got a pretty short list of who it is. I dunno if Mama has to be a terror with her power, if she wasn't evil the apparition could show up and give you tips about the environment and what you're doing, and basically be a phantom wingman. Instead of driving people insane she could probably boost their confidence, or help them ignore pain during a tough fight, and stuff like that. Then she could neutralize villain surveillance people by just turning off their sensory input or something instead of torturing them.
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Mar 23, 2018 06:09
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ZypherIM posted:Well we've seen exactly 1 guy who can mind control people with his gaze that we know got potentially blinded in worm, so when we find a blind guy who tells a story about mind controlling himself by looking into a mirror we've got a pretty short list of who it is. No but actually that'd be helpful, too bad she's a bigoted power-tripping rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 23, 2018 06:33
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Also, I dunno how much of this applies since it was pre-Ward WoG, but someone found some old WB quote about the mathers family (I think it was for a weaver dice clarification) where he said that her ability isn't just limited to sight and sound- apparently if you see her, she can effect what you see, if you touch her she can cause tactile sensations, and so forth. Speaking of Elijah though, does his crossdressing schtick from Worm seem a little weird in retrospect? It worked in context, but now that we've seen what a huge pile of intolerant jerkasses the Fallen are, I find it weird to imagine that they would've been okay with his corsets-and-fishnets routine.
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Mar 23, 2018 06:35
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Omi no Kami posted:Also, I dunno how much of this applies since it was pre-Ward WoG, but someone found some old WB quote about the mathers family (I think it was for a weaver dice clarification) where he said that her ability isn't just limited to sight and sound- apparently if you see her, she can effect what you see, if you touch her she can cause tactile sensations, and so forth.
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Mar 23, 2018 06:39
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Turns out when you can control people with your mind and you've mind fuckled yourself to be 110% on board with Mama, everyone else kind of loving lets you do what you want. Or as the famous saying goes, "It's good to be the king." Cognitive dissonance is a pretty real thing as well, like all the stories you see about the anti-gay traditional marriage senator caught having gay sex in his office ( link ). @omi he has pretty recently mentioned that as well, I know I recently quoted that in the thread and it was a post I saw that day. We saw in Rain's interludes that he could feel her touching him when he was talking to her apparition in the bedroom.
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Mar 23, 2018 06:48
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Taylor really should have killed that guy.
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Mar 23, 2018 08:51
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PetraCore posted:I think it works but only if he can convincingly spin it as totally about the Simurgh you guys. Yeah to be honest the Fallen here seem pretty far divorced from the impression you got through Valefor in Worm. Obviously him being a big important cape vs most of our perspective being from regular and low-tier members this time around is part of that, but I definitely had the impression of something more image-focused and thematically coherent regarding the endbringers than the more generic 'redneck cult' flavor we have in Ward. The endbringers almost come off as an afterthought. Then again, you could also reasonably claim that the events of Gold Morning and the lack of Endbringer presence for years would have eroded that part of the cult somewhat as well.
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Mar 23, 2018 10:50
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Insurrectionist posted:Yeah to be honest the Fallen here seem pretty far divorced from the impression you got through Valefor in Worm. Obviously him being a big important cape vs most of our perspective being from regular and low-tier members this time around is part of that, but I definitely had the impression of something more image-focused and thematically coherent regarding the endbringers than the more generic 'redneck cult' flavor we have in Ward. The endbringers almost come off as an afterthought. Then again, you could also reasonably claim that the events of Gold Morning and the lack of Endbringer presence for years would have eroded that part of the cult somewhat as well. I haven't read Worm in a while, but from what I recall we also didn't see an awful lot of him. I remember he and his buddy did a behemoth & simurgh cosplay skit at the big gang meeting in Accord's interlude, then they picked a fight with the Undersiders a few chapters later and got one of the best "...geez, Taylor" treatments in the entire story. From what I recall Accord only thinks about them in encyclopedia terms ("X and Y are members of a cult that worship the endbringers"), and since Taylor's cape geekery was pretty heavily focused on Brockton Bay, I could see her either having incorrect ideas about the Fallen, or plain not having a good sense of what their community was like. Although on the flip side, I do remember someone mentioning that the pre-GM Fallen were huge, as in one of the biggest organized villain groups around, so you'd think the average cape fan would have a pretty decent impression of what they were about.
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Mar 23, 2018 13:37
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Speaking of Endbringers, I wonder if Tattletale has kept in contact with the Simurgh since Gold Morning. That would be an interesting way to end this party.
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Mar 23, 2018 23:24
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Honestly I'm hoping the Simurgh doesn't really feature in the story. I think that she is really interesting as an idea, but for a story the removal of agency is something that really annoyed me in Worm.
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Mar 23, 2018 23:59
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Speaking of the Simurgh, here's something I was never clear on- that weird clone-baby she used someone (riley's?) tinker shard to make a tube for during GM was heavily implied to be a clone of Eidolon, right? Was it ever established what the deal with Lung killing it several chapters later was? It seems weird that the Simurgh would go to all that trouble if the baby was going to get killed so soon after being made. I know it's possible for Simurgh plots to misfire, but it seems extra-strange that something she put so much time into setting up, especially while benefiting from the precog boost she was getting from the thinkers she imprinted on, would fall victim to random acts of dragon.
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Mar 24, 2018 00:06
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It wasn't a random act, Lung was working with Teacher and Contessa at that point. It was implied that it was an Eidolon clone based on the description similarities between the two.
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Mar 24, 2018 00:12
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Because Lung loving owns and the Simurgh is a multi-winged plot device.
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Mar 24, 2018 00:39
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that chapter was well after gold morning i think, considering it took place partially at the new wardens hq. also contessa teacher and lung is pretty much cheating. teacher said he could make lungs power be on always which if true (probably a lie) could probably also mean he could help contessa get over her eidolon related blind spots in her power
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Mar 24, 2018 01:56
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Gosh good thing there's no baby Eidolon making more endbringers. Actually maybe with him dead the endbringers got nerfed a bit. I mean they're still super powerful but if Eidolon subconsciously made them to have something to fight against, their attacks are arguably triggered by the needs of his Shard. The fact they stopped their regular attacks for at least two years following his death indicate something's at least shifted. I don't think it's really his fault, either... in Eden's 'ideal timeline' there were endbringer-like entities created deliberately by her and Scion to isolate factions. To me that indicates there's a shard whose purpose is to create endbringers and Eidolon got a big old dose of that without the knowledge of what it was supposed to be used for or how to control the results. Actually it kind of makes me wonder if Manton got some of that shard as well, just greatly watered down.
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Mar 24, 2018 02:09
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word of god about vials says manton and eidolon got totally different samples i think.
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Mar 24, 2018 02:13
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Oh! Well it was a fun thought.
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Mar 24, 2018 02:14
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Also word of god says every endbringer was basically always pulling their punches. So having them stay dormant seems like its for the best.
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Mar 24, 2018 04:47
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PetraCore posted:I don't think it's really his fault, either... in Eden's 'ideal timeline' there were endbringer-like entities created deliberately by her and Scion to isolate factions. To me that indicates there's a shard whose purpose is to create endbringers and Eidolon got a big old dose of that without the knowledge of what it was supposed to be used for or how to control the results. Actually it kind of makes me wonder if Manton got some of that shard as well, just greatly watered down. Yeah, I've always been a little unclear on how the Endbringers worked, but didn't Eden's interlude kinda-sorta imply that they made 20 conflict engines/endbringers right at the getgo, and that Eidolon was more accidentally tapping into the shard that controlled them than he was explicitly creating them? That doesn't quite gel with how they evolved, though, since each one was literally a direct response to tactics that'd been used to mitigate prior endbringers. Also, contessa and lung hanging out with teacher still bums me out so much; before we met the fallen, his whole greasy-mind-control-cultman thing probably unsettled me more than any of the other villains who were left standing by the end. I wanted contessa to get to, like, retire and become the world's best life coach or something else fun.
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Mar 24, 2018 04:51
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honestly contessa should just have a restaurant
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Mar 24, 2018 04:56
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I highly doubt that Lung/Contessa would actually let Teacher use his power on them. Lung is too proud, Contessa literally doesn't need it (and is probably aware/suspicious of lingering effects). My pet theory is that Teacher is behind the capes/aggression from that other Earth. The good news is that they're with Teacher mostly because they don't have something else to do and not out of any loyalty or being super on board with him, so even if they're still with him there is room for the good guys to peel them off.
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Mar 24, 2018 04:57
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ZypherIM posted:I highly doubt that Lung/Contessa would actually let Teacher use his power on them. Lung is too proud, Contessa literally doesn't need it (and is probably aware/suspicious of lingering effects). My pet theory is that Teacher is behind the capes/aggression from that other Earth. The good news is that they're with Teacher mostly because they don't have something else to do and not out of any loyalty or being super on board with him, so even if they're still with him there is room for the good guys to peel them off. I think we should be less eager to take Contessa's description of her powers at face value: she's a precog, and probably a better one than the spaceworms had any intention of letting a human be, but there's no reason to assume she's perfect. The rear end in a top hat aliens' rear end in a top hat plan was to start super-wars on Earth so that they could gather more data on how to do power stuff; if they really had perfect future-predicting powers, why would they need to bother? Anyway, Ward: the gun thing really shows how much this society is afraid of escalation. It makes sense from an in-story perspective (the governments and their associates really don't have an effective monopoly on force), but also conveniently gives us a setting where it's superheroes and not airstrikes that get sent against people like the Fallen.
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Mar 24, 2018 09:38
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Dzhay posted:I think we should be less eager to take Contessa's description of her powers at face value: she's a precog, and probably a better one than the spaceworms had any intention of letting a human be, but there's no reason to assume she's perfect. The rear end in a top hat aliens' rear end in a top hat plan was to start super-wars on Earth so that they could gather more data on how to do power stuff; if they really had perfect future-predicting powers, why would they need to bother? I've always been under the impression Contessa's power has some limitations in terms of being able to "give information." Otherwise it makes no sense that Cauldron had to experiment to improve the vials in the first place*, since Contessa should have been able to produce them perfectly from the get-go and know who would respond positively to them. *The one possible explanation that comes to mind is Contessa's power not working correctly with anything related to spaceworms, even if they're dead, though it seems like she should have still been able to "phrase" her requests like "give this vial to a person who it won't kill/mutate" or something.
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Mar 24, 2018 19:59
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Ytlaya posted:I've always been under the impression Contessa's power has some limitations in terms of being able to "give information." Otherwise it makes no sense that Cauldron had to experiment to improve the vials in the first place*, since Contessa should have been able to produce them perfectly from the get-go and know who would respond positively to them. in the eden/contessa interlude you actually get to see directly the moment when eden set a limit to contessas power to not be allowed to read anything to do with the worms, yeah. shes also got a blind spot regarding eidolon since hes special, as well as his children the endbringers
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Mar 24, 2018 20:19
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