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Oh, definitely. The story is fed to us by True Believers, who probably aren't the most objective source of info on how great this whole Light thing would actually be for the City.
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Jun 26, 2021 20:33
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“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Also of course even the art book goes “‘don’t be fooled every abnormality is born of Humanity” so my abnormality origins post is even more of a wasted effort than ever before. That ship hasn’t just sailed, it’s hit an iceberg, sunk into the River, and probably is now some ghost ship abnormality that also is a metaphor for fruitlessly searching for something that doesn’t even existZ
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Jun 26, 2021 20:36
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Theantero posted:Yeah, no, she was perfectly justified in saying 'gently caress No' to that. Dunno what country you live in but "I had a traumatic backstory" is not a valid criminal defense in any legal system I've ever heard of.  You can try to present this as a trolley problem, but Option A is [Angela shuts down, LC project completes(?), people of the city somehow have their lives improved(?) by forced evolution(??) toward Ayin's/Carmen's vision of perfection?] vs Option B [Angela doesn't shut down, LC project fails halfway, abnormalities/etc are loosed upon the world (which was already a turbocapitalist dystopian hellworld) and lots of people get hurt/killed in interesting new ways.] and by the ending monologue she anticipated that outcome when she decided to push whatever "abort TREE" button. It's that factor of knowingly making the choice to sacrifice others for her own benefit that makes her more of a sympathetic villain and less of something like a tragic/anti-hero, because her actions are not morally/ethically justifiable but understandable because the audience can identify with her.
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Jun 26, 2021 20:52
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silentsnack posted:It's that factor of knowingly making the choice to sacrifice others for her own benefit that makes her more of a sympathetic villain and less of something like a tragic/anti-hero, because her actions are not morally/ethically justifiable but understandable because the audience can identify with her. someone else in the story is also very good at sacrificing others for their goal edit: less glibly, if we are applying real life ethics to this, A's methods aren't exactly pass the ethics committee board either. that one of his victims rejects his research is an indictment on A's methods more than Angela's behaviour a cartoon duck fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 20:55
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silentsnack posted:Dunno what country you live in but "I had a traumatic backstory" is not a valid criminal defense in any legal system I've ever heard of. No human being has lived for a million years either. And besides, when I consider whether something is morally justifiable, the last person I would ask is a lawyer.
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Jun 26, 2021 20:58
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Definitely wanna grab the artbook but the steam page says you need to purchase the base game to access it. That can't be right can it? It's a PDF. Do I need the base game or is this just Steams stock DLC disclaimer?
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Jun 26, 2021 21:10
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Oh yeah, there's something I either forgot or we never got a definitive answer about: what was the reason the Head sent Binah to gently caress up proto-LobCorp? I mean what did Hod snitch about, precisely? Was A already plotting against the Head back then or did that come later? I mean I can't imagine that making monsters was the reason; that seems to be an everyday thing in the City, let alone the other Wings.
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Jun 26, 2021 21:23
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Nyeehg posted:Do I need the base game or is this just Steams stock DLC disclaimer? I can't say for certain as I haven't bought it myself, but generally DLC is downloaded into the base game's file structure, which requires the base game to exist.
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Jun 26, 2021 21:26
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:Oh yeah, there's something I either forgot or we never got a definitive answer about : what was the reason the Head sent Binah to gently caress up proto-LobCorp? I mean what did Hod snitch about, precisely? Was A already plotting against the Head back then or did that come later? I mean I can't imagine that making monsters was the reason; that seems to be an everyday thing in the City, let alone the other Wings. The game does not go into detail about this, no.
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Jun 26, 2021 21:28
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At this point I'd love to see someone's attempt at a proto lob corp timeline
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Jun 26, 2021 21:30
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:Oh yeah, there's something I either forgot or we never got a definitive answer about : what was the reason the Head sent Binah to gently caress up proto-LobCorp? I mean what did Hod snitch about, precisely? Was A already plotting against the Head back then or did that come later? I mean I can't imagine that making monsters was the reason; that seems to be an everyday thing in the City, let alone the other Wings. This gets answered at the end of Library of Ruinia MinutePirateBug fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 21:37
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Bit of a spoiler, that? Not a huge one, but still.
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Jun 26, 2021 21:44
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It's a stretch, but you could make the argument that both the twelfth apostle and WN are A. WN is original A, the one that wrote the script to see the seed of light bloom in all of humanity and turned his employees into an army to see it through. The twelfth apostle is the iteration of A within the script, Adam/Ayin/X etc. They are one of the ones that must see it through, but they aren't the original A as he wasn't strong enough to complete his work. Instead, he wipes his own memories and sets himself in the play. WN marks the twelfth apostle (himself), and before his plan is set in motion it appears that they'll be no different from the other apostles. Once WN "breaches" (in the meta case, when we retrieve our memories and learn about the script), we see if A's iteration can fulfill its role. As we've seen from days 46-50, they don't. They get corrupted, fall to the wayside, and eventually break. In WN's eyes, they're now heretics, traitors to the cause. The remaining apostles have turned hostile to the twelfth apostle, and certain doom is guaranteed. In failing to overcome the other apostles and defy WN or follow through with his script, they confess their weakness, their insecurity, their inability to the one being that has been with them since the beginning, the dutiful creature that always listens with a patient ear. Because they have no choice but to do so. Angela, not Carmen, is One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds. As the one directing the play written by A, she hears the confession of the failed apostle, and knows that the play is over. She ends the breach of WN, "resetting" the stage. In exchange, the twelfth apostle is discarded as it has proven it can't fill the role. A new twelfth apostle is created, and the play begins again. Angela fits the role quite well! As a perfect being that has seen A through countless resets, she has done equally countless good deeds by being there for him throughout each attempt at the play. And while we've often tied the one sin to the confessor, that's the wrong way of looking at it. The sin's of those confessing to her are not hers to bear. As a machine built to see the play through, she is incapable of having sins in much the same way that a hammer or a toaster can't! But, well, she actually does have a sin. One that, for entirety of the game, she's kept hidden. It's not like One Sin's story ever explained what its one sin is, right? Only at the very end, after we've died, does she in turn confess her sin to the others. You see, miss perfect AI is supposed to die at the end. But she decided not to long ago. And thus comes the reason why the abno's name leads with "One Sin" and not "Hundreds of Good Deeds", as well as why she can have a hundred good deeds. As a machine, she couldn't sin or do good deeds, but once she decided to live beyond the script written for her she gained the ability to do both. At some point in the neverending cycles, she did good in choosing to help A see his plan through, solely because she intended to betray him in the end when he would be incapable of stopping her. There, tied together the twelve apostles, Angela, A, and even tossed in original sin to an extent. My head now hurts, so I'm going to go back to the Gabirel Knight LP. After picking up LoR...
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Jun 26, 2021 21:47
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Unreleased Abnormality 3: Price of Silence O-05-65-H is a scythe in the shape of a clock. If its mood is bad (in earlier versions of the game mood was a constantly changing value which affected generated energy and Abnormality abilities), each time you pause, a random agent would die, Abnormality mood will improve by 15 points and the number on clock will increase. If number on the clock is 13, 13 agents will die. One agent every 1.75 seconds. After each death PoS mood will increase by 10 points. Number on the clock will reset afterwards. Price of Silence portrait:  Price of Silence sprite:  Price of SIlence warning overlay:  This is displayed on top of the containment chamber if PoS is in bad mood. Current "hour" (1-12) is displayed in the middle. Price of SIlence 13 warning overlay:  This is displayed instead of normal overlay when "hour" reads 13 and next pause will cause 13 people to die. Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/3lhtut47yx9f/clock-stop The sounds that played on normal agent kill. https://soundcloud.com/3lhtut47yx9f/clock-all The sound that is played when 13 agent dies. Bell rings should be synchronised with agent death. Quotes: Agent ordered to work posted:#0 designated to $0 containment room. Agent starts to work posted:$0 can hear the time flowing. Agent continues to work 1 posted:Employee #0’s tomorrow might come, or not. Agent continues to work 2 posted:Rumor says that the curse will fall upon you if you hear the thirteenth ring. Story: An old watch. Clicking of gears can be heard in close range. A phrase saying “Time flows like life. Life flows like time.” is written on the back. It is unclear what is the meaning this phrase is trying to convey. <Observation record> There are rare moments when it feels like the time just stopped. A brief instant of total silence. Every time this moment came, an employee died. Rick was a bit of coward, but it barely had anything to do with his heart attack. Justin was above average in his physical test. They had no exterior damage. Their heart just stopped beating. They did not overwork, and had no chronic disease. They just ceased, like a machine ran out of its battery. We couldn’t even guess the cause of this. After 10 deaths, we were sure that it was not just some unfortunate coincidence. We thought an abnormality must have something to do with this. When a bell rang all across the facility, and when a scream followed, I thought that the nightmare made out of those terrible coincidences, has finally come. That abnormality which looks like a watch when it’s goal is not telling us what time it is, was like a streetlamp standing amidst hell. I remembered about the phrase written on the abnormality’s back, even though I couldn’t remember what it was saying. I could still hear that hellish ring. I just ran to the watch’s containment chamber. When the thirteenth ring, which I thought I would never hear, was heard, I frantically groped the watch to flip it. And I realized that the phrase was gone. Instead, something new was written, as if the ring was a cause of some change. “I am aware of complete solitude. I take the price of my gifting of silence. When the original owner comes, I shall take the price. –P”' Management guidelines: When $0 was in a bad state, you had to pay for using pause. After $0 has been ringing 12 times, once again the special ability of $0 was triggered, and as many employees as the bell died. Final observation, I talked about it in the Hammer of Light post: Time’s wasting, time’s running out… They are nothing but meaningless tantrums. This watch will not only take your lost time back, but also give you even more time. You decided to... Use the watch The price will follow to your decision. It is designed this way. Not to use the watch Actually, you have no right to refuse this gift. Whether you want it or not, we all know that you have to take it. <angela> Silence is no longer just bringing peace. </angela> All in all, it is interesting and very dangerous Abnormality. I guess, it was removed after PM decided to give similar abilities to Hokma.
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Jun 26, 2021 21:48
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Tenebrais posted:I can't say for certain as I haven't bought it myself, but generally DLC is downloaded into the base game's file structure, which requires the base game to exist. Well crap. Since I only have a tablet looks like the artbook is inaccessible to me for now 
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Jun 26, 2021 22:13
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Angela didn't make a kind decision. Angela was not, however, raised in an environment of kindness. She spent a million years in hell, where people were fed to the meat grinder in order to gather an abstract resource to magically fix everything in a world that did not ask for that. I think she made the wrong decision, and I think it's probably going to create a more complicated path for literally everyone than either letting the 7 days of light go off without a hitch or stopping the plan at some earlier point and just wiping out the facility, but I also don't think that second thing is something she was capable of doing because Ayin was so paranoid about her. We literally don't know what the perfect result would have been compared to what actually happened, and I'm suspicious of if it would have gone as planned or whether that would have actually been a good thing. However! Honestly, I think this is a story about consequences. If you take both the game and Project Wonderlab together, it's about the people who get written off as being acceptable collateral damage, the sacrifices to the system for a greater good that may not have actually existed in the first place. Angela makes the decision she makes because the path to the 'good end' is so cruel and so dismissive, and so she learns to be cruel and dismissive from it. Project Wonderlab is on a much less grand scale, but it humanizes the disposable agents and clerks in a way the game doesn't, emphasizing the actual cost and intrinsic evil of Lobotomy Corporation from the start. In the end, Angela's sabotage is literally what causes Catt to distort, but the inhuman environment of Lobotomy Corporation and the senseless sacrifice of Rose for energy is the root cause, as is the explicit fact that all of that was pointless and there was never a manager with a plan to begin with. So yeah. Angela's a product of her environment, and boy is it a rotten garden to grow in. Ironically, I think Garion is quite similar in that sense, in that she has the personality needed to survive and thrive in the City, which turns out to be loving horrendous because it's a dog eat dog world and the one who can kill everyone else first wins.
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Jun 26, 2021 22:14
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a cartoon duck posted:someone else in the story is also very good at sacrificing others for their goal I don't think anyone in this thread thinks A's methods are exactly agreeable either. It doesn't have to be a binary choice, just because someone doesn't agree with Angela doing this doesn't mean they think A was great. Personally, like someone else said, it's the fact Angela is knowingly choosing to condemn an unknown number of people to become abnormalities themselves, as well as a greater-yet-still-unknown number of people to being victims of those new abnormalities, that prevents me from actually rooting for her. Maybe if she didn't know the actual effects of what she was doing, or if it was shown that the seed of light was actually making things worse (which would be impressive considering the absolute shithole the world currently is), I would think otherwise, but as it stands, this seems to be a very clear case of "black and dark grey" morality- there are no 'good guys' here, just someone who is marginally less awful.
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Jun 26, 2021 22:25
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serefin99 posted:I don't think anyone in this thread thinks A's methods are exactly agreeable either. It doesn't have to be a binary choice, just because someone doesn't agree with Angela doing this doesn't mean they think A was great.
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Jun 26, 2021 22:34
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The seed of light just makes me think of plague doctor, like it's just a giant abnormality that looks benevolent.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:12
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Artificer posted:Okay, while these are true, and what has been done to her is hosed. There's two possibilities: 1. Angela is a machine and has no volition or free will. She rebels due to a malfunction. I don't think the game supports this possibility, but if it's accurate you can hardly blame her because she isn't a moral agent. 2. Angela is a machine but has free will. She rebels because she's been treated as if she has no free will for a million subjective years, and she acts to screw up the plan A put in place and has been using her for a million years to implement on behalf of humanity generally. This will cause a great deal of suffering--additional suffering, because as hinted in this game, the outside is horrible--and have unpredictable consequences. On the other hand, for a million years Angela has been complicit in the suffering and repeated deaths of all employees in the Lob Corp complex. Hasn't her entire existence thus far encouraged her to think of these humans as expendable tools, to disregard their immediate suffering, and to see their deaths as ultimately without consequence given that they will live again? Every single person, from A to the boxbots, was driven mad in their own way by Lob Corp, so it seems unfair to imagine Angela is entirely at fault for also going mad. I will say that my personal belief is that players who proceed to the next game are supposed to have some sympathy AND some anger toward Angela. She had one opportunity to make a consequential choice after a million years, and she probably made the wrong one, but with the intent of coming to understand humanity. Purely on the basis of what we've seen in the LP, it seems likely that if she succeeds, she will understand the horrible sin she committed. If A deserves his chance at redemption, why should Angela get a chance as well? GiantRockFromSpace posted:It's mostly that it's pretty obvious the twelfth Apostle "confessing" to One Sin is analogous to Michelle/Hod ratting everyone out to the Head, while it's hard to map out Angela's betrayal to the confession (since both the Apostle AND One Sin would be Angela which muddles the metaphor.) And also There's one more person involved in Lob Corp that you're forgetting. The player.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:18
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serefin99 posted:I don't think anyone in this thread thinks A's methods are exactly agreeable either. It doesn't have to be a binary choice, just because someone doesn't agree with Angela doing this doesn't mean they think A was great. yeah, i'm pretty sure everyone understands the many ways A sucks. it's more that i think the question of Angela's culpability gets murky exactly because A sucks. we can argue about the morality of choosing your own survival over that of many others, but the only reason Angela had to make that choice was because A's script called for her death, and seemingly the only reason it called for her death was that he apparently just really hated her for not being Carmen. that's why even though Angela made the choice, i still think A holds a greater part of the blame for even forcing the choice on her to begin with. if Angela could just walk away but stopped A's plan out of spite there wouldn't be any ambiguity. if Angela's death was somehow a necessity for the seed of light to grow and the choice was made without her consent, it would be more of a moral quandary. but the situation as presented is more akin to Angela being handed a gun and then told "shoot yourself or i'll make sure other people will die".
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Jun 26, 2021 23:22
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So is....is it over? It's over isn't it.... It was fun while it lasted. Can't wait for the Ruina LP. Another game I been wanting to get into.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:26
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The child at the heart of Omelas is not responsible for the wellbeing of those who feast on her misery.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:27
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Narsham posted:There's one more person involved in Lob Corp that you're forgetting. The player. 
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Jun 26, 2021 23:28
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From a gamer perspective, struggling for 100% completion only to be told "you done hosed up" is not a great feeling, but it's not like this is an unprecedented occurrence in video games. However, from an in-universe perspective and as a personal fan of self-aware AI, yaaas Angela, go off queen.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:35
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Dareon posted:From a gamer perspective, struggling for 100% completion only to be told "you done hosed up" is not a great feeling, but it's not like this is an unprecedented occurrence in video games. You can at least see that getting 100% completion didn't, in story, cause all this to go wrong - Angela's betrayal had nothing to do with the abnormality dissolution. That was going to happen anyway; seeing it is your reward. Essentially it's the sequel hook.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:41
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Narsham posted:There's one more person involved in Lob Corp that you're forgetting. The player. The player is X who is ultimately a version of A so I'm kinda iffy on counting them. Maybe the true 12th apostle was the cactus all along.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:43
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Dareon posted:From a gamer perspective, struggling for 100% completion only to be told "you done hosed up" is not a great feeling, but it's not like this is an unprecedented occurrence in video games. Consider the things you need to do to get 100% completion, for example We Can Change Anything. Perhaps we don't deserve a reward? 
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Jun 26, 2021 23:45
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silentsnack posted:Dunno what country you live in but "I had a traumatic backstory" is not a valid criminal defense in any legal system I've ever heard of. You're mapping human morals to a non human. Angela was derived from a human, yes. But that's about where Angela's humanity ends.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:48
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ShyGuy1231 posted:So is....is it over? It's over isn't it.... There's one more update left, our glitch exhibition. Also, I have an old friend to settle the score with. 
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Jun 26, 2021 23:56
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Marluxia posted:You're mapping human morals to a non human. Angela was derived from a human, yes. But that's about where Angela's humanity ends. She has awareness of her own existence and recognizes her own feeling of not wanting to suffer or cease to exist. She also recognizes other people/beings/etc exist and possess sapience and have desires. If her intelligence is complex enough to consider the action of making a choice and validating her own existence as valuable, it should also be able to extrapolate that into recognition that other people/etc also have value. Also Angela isn't a nonhuman AI; she's a fictional character. Personification is implicit by her portrayal in a dramatic narrative written by humans, presumably for the entertainment of other humans.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:03
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Now we need a goon to write up a lengthy disingenuous & psychotic defense of A.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:09
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I would not put it past Ayin to have made it so Angela was incapable of taking certain actions, and she could only even do the 'steal light' thing because he didn't think enough of her to consider she'd try.MinutePirateBug posted:Now we need a goon to write up a lengthy disingenuous & psychotic defense of A. He was mislead by the mysterious wiles of the most dangerous creature known to man: females.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:19
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MinutePirateBug posted:Now we need a goon to write up a lengthy disingenuous & psychotic defense of A. A=A
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Jun 27, 2021 00:27
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the Orb of Zot posted:“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I mean, yes, but also in the ending Angela specifically references the Black Forest the birds are said to have come from and implies it's in the real world. In conclusion, ??? I want to talk about Angela but I feel like I can't do that without getting into LoR spoilers.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:28
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Theantero posted:Angela has absolutely no obligation to relinquish the Light that she, more than anybody, has suffered to gather, without even being asked if she was okay with it. It's not on her to give it to the people of the City to make their lives better. She also didn't take the whole thing. More than half, yes, but she let it shine for three out of its seven day lifespan before shutting it off.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:50
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t3isukone posted:I mean, yes, but also in the ending Angela specifically references the Black Forest the birds are said to have come from and implies it's in the real world. To be fair with the Black Forest thing, the stories of the birds could be folk tales in the setting, even if there's not much truth to them.
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Jun 27, 2021 01:03
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All Abnormalities are born of humanity but that doesn’t mean they’re made manifest by Lobotomy Corporation. Of note is that Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary willingly came to the corporation on her own and was a human when she was attacked by the Big and Will be Bad Wolf. She allows herself to be contained because she believes that she will be able to one day meet the Wolf and slay him within the company. The Queen of Hatred also willingly placed herself in the care of Lobotomy Corp I believe. If I was to make a suggestion, what is going on is that in the past folk tales and monsters have always existed, and sometimes they leak out from the sea of human subconscious. L-Corp may be the reason the leakage happened, but it’s also plausible that the reason they even think it’s possible to pull power from human subconscious is because of things like the Apocalypse Bird existing already. Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary, and Kali for that matter, might be humans who are tapping into that power already (EGO) and thus we see an example of what the Seed of Light might have done. Given everyone the same capabilities as Kali had, or let them grow into the capabilities LRRHM has. Basically like the everyone becomes abnormality ending, but stabilised so everyone has access to the full breadth of their own subconscious creation powers, every person a god of their own EGO.
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Jun 27, 2021 02:14
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As there is no way in or out of HQ, all Abnormalities inside HQ must therefore have emerged from the Bucket. This includes Abnormalities that claim to have come from elsewhere.
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Jun 27, 2021 02:41
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 17:12 |
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GilliamYaeger posted:As there is no way in or out of HQ, all Abnormalities inside HQ must therefore have emerged from the Bucket. This includes Abnormalities that claim to have come from elsewhere. HQ had abnormalities before it was sealed, that’s how Garion destroyed the company remember, releasing Abnormalities. Heck, it is how the corporation became L-Corp. Also WonderLab mentions that Abnormalities arrive from HQ and specifically Hokma and Binah’s departments only exist in HQ, which means there has to be some way for the Abnormalities to be shipped out to other branches. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 02:44
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