#Mr. Gladly

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Gestation 1.1 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

He was animated, clearly excited about what he was talking about, and for once, the class was listening.  He was the sort of teacher who tried to be friends with his students, the sort who went by “Mr. G” instead of Mr. Gladly.  He liked to end class a little earlier than usual and chat with the popular kids, gave lots of group work so others could hang out with their friends in class, and had ‘fun’ assignments like mock trials. He struck me as one of the ‘popular’ kids who had become a teacher.  He probably thought he was everyone’s favorite.  I wondered how he’d react if he heard my opinion on the subject.  Would it shatter his self image or would he shrug it off as an anomaly from the gloomy girl that never spoke up in class?

Well, certainly does a good job of making it clear what sort of character we're starting with, and what sort of character they're looking at.

Knowing where it goes, knowing how it ends.

Sure is a start, isn't it?

“Let me wrap up here,” Mr. Gladly said, “Sorry, guys, but there is homework for the weekend.  Think about capes and how they’ve impacted the world around you.  Make a list if you want, but it’s not mandatory.  On Monday we’ll break up into groups of four and see what group has the best list.  I’ll buy the winning group treats from the vending machine.”

Jesus Christ.

Though, I'm not sure if High School me would have found Mr. Gladly insufferable or not. I would have liked the lack of real homework, maybe. Hard to say. I wasn't a popular kid he'd have liked tho, and plenty nerdy and I didn't hate homework (for subjects I liked). Also, while I was bullied sometimes, hardly to the extent some people could be, let alone Taylor, so... very different perspectives.

I didn’t deck myself out in bright colors like a bird showing off its plumage

A very... odd phrasing, IMO. Maybe it felt less odd in 2011, or within a specific space of reading/writing. Or maybe I'm just reacting weird at this line because I had untoasted bread with jam for breakfast or what. Who the fuck knows? It stands out for some reason though.

The only book in my bag that I hadn’t already read was called ‘Triumvirate’, a biography of the leading three members of the Protectorate.  I was thinking I would spend as long as I could on Mr. Gladly’s assignment before reading, because I wasn’t enjoying the book.  Biographies weren’t my thing, and they were especially not my thing when I was suspicious it was all made up.

Obviously it's a little different reading the story when you know what things are, then when you go into it not knowing who the Triumvirate are, or the Protectorate or what a 'Cape' is (hasn't actually been explained quite yet). But I do. Still, trying to appreciate it cold, I do like the way the worldbuilding starts. The capital letters and the context makes it clear it's important in-universe, the reference to 'suspicious it was all made up' does as much worldbuilding by reference as mentioning the Triumvirate's existence. It's certainly nicely done.

I do wonder, obviously at some point this made it to Space Battles and got put up all over TV tropes, but how did it first start finding an audience? Where did Wildbow talk about it/share it/etc to first start to get traction?

Like, from what I gather, he was not prepared for the way Worm took off, and got so popular, and he sure wasn't prepared for the fandom he got, but I'm curious what he had been expecting when he started?

I could taste it as it ran down to my nose and mouth.  Cranberry juice.

I've heard about the juice incident and had it referenced in enough fics, etc, to know a lot about it, but no one, to my knowledge, ever said it was cranberry juice. Is there a reason Wildbow picked that? Or just because he needed to pick which juice and he picked it partially or totally at random? If there was a reason, how complex was it?

I'm definitely overthinking, more than I usually do when reading shit, but fuck it, why not?

Still. Odd that the detail of it being cranberry has literally never made it into any fic or reference to this event in discussions, etc, that I've seen.

Sophia and Emma were the types of girls that fit the ‘prom queen’ image.  Sophia was dark skinned, with a slender, athletic build she’d developed as a runner on the school track team.  Red-headed Emma, by contrast, had all the curves the guys wanted.  She was good looking enough to get occasional jobs as a amateur model for the catalogs that the local department stores and malls put out.  

I have to admit, while I don't really have a strong mental image of 'prom queen' anyway, 'slender, athletic runner's build' is not what I associate with prom queen. The way Emma is described seems to fit better.

“What the fuck!?” I screamed to nobody in particular, my voice echoing in the bathroom.  There were tears in the corners of my eyes. “The hell am I supposed to do!?”  I wanted to hit something, break something.  To retaliate against the unfairness of the world.  I almost struck the mirror, but I held back.  It was such a small thing that it felt like it would make me feel more insignificant instead of venting my frustration. I’d been enduring this from the very first day of high school, a year and a half ago.  The bathroom had been the closest thing I could find to refuge.  It had been lonely and undignified, but it had been a place I could retreat to, a place where I was off their radar.  Now I didn’t even have that.

ooooof. Just.

Ooof.

The buzzing at the edge of my consciousness was getting worse.  My hands shook as I bent over and gripped the edge of the sink, let out a long, slow breath, and let my defenses drop.  For three months, I’d held back.  Right now?  I didn’t care anymore. I shut my eyes and felt the buzzing crystallize into concrete information.  As numerous as stars in the night sky, tiny knots of intricate data filled the area around me.  I could focus on each one in turn, pick out details.  The clusters of data had been reflexively drifting towards me since I was first splashed in the face.  They responded to my subconscious thoughts and emotions, as much of a reflection of my frustration, my anger, my hatred for those three girls as my pounding heart and trembling hands were.  I could make them stop or direct them to move almost without thinking about it, the same way I could raise an arm or twitch a finger. I opened my eyes.  I could feel adrenaline thrumming through my body, blood coursing in my veins.  I shivered in response to the chilled soft drinks and juices the trio had poured over me, with anticipation and with just a little fear.  On every surface of the bathroom were bugs; Flies, ants, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, earwigs, beetles, wasps and bees.  With every passing second, more streamed in through the open window and the various openings in the bathroom, moving with surprising speed.  Some crawled in through a gap where the sink drain entered the wall while others emerged from the triangular hole in the ceiling where a section of foam tile had broken off, or from the opened window with peeling paint and cigarette butts squished out in the recesses.  They gathered around me and spread out over every available surface; primitive bundles of signals and responses, waiting for further instruction.

I do like the slow build up to the reveal that she's controlling bugs.

No one (well, no, not no-one, I've seen the claims that Wildbow is a hack but I've never believed they were correct, my other opinions on his character based on his reddit comments notwithstanding) ever said Wildbow was a bad writer.

Its not the most innovative of choices, revealing information the way he is, very tried and true techniques and tactics, but hardly makes them either bad, or tired or not do the job well.

It would be so easy, so easy to just go Carrie on the school.  To give the trio their just desserts and make them regret what they had put me through: the vicious e-mails, the trash they’d upended over my desk, the flute –my mother’s flute– they’d stolen from my locker.  It wasn’t just them either.  Other girls and a small handful of boys had joined in, ‘accidentally’ skipping over me when passing out assignment handouts, adding their own voices to the taunts and the flood of nasty emails, to get the favor and attention of three of the prettier and more popular girls in our grade. I was all too aware that I’d get caught and arrested if I attacked my fellow students.  There were three teams of superheroes and any number of solo heroes in the city.  I didn’t really care.  The thought of my father seeing the aftermath on the news, his disappointment in me, his shame?  That was more daunting, but it still didn’t outweigh the anger and frustration. Except I was better than that.

Yeah, I don't think I'd have Taylor's self-control.

Like, maybe not full Carrie, fear of getting caught might stop me, but using my powers to make them suffer? Absolutely would give in to that temptation, hard.

I was going to be a superhero.  That was the goal I used to calm myself down at moments like these.  It was what I used to make myself get out of bed on a school day.  It was a crazy dream that made things tolerable.  It was something to look forward to, something to work towards.  It made it possible to keep from dwelling on the fact that Emma Barnes, leader of the trio, had once been my best friend.

A powerful chapter ending, but also one that almost feels like it implies Emma will end up being more important, long-term, to the story.

On the other hand, for all that work is 'one work', it's really not. 1.6 Million Words is not one book. It's a whole series.

It's not so simple as each arc being it's own book, conceptually, I'm sure, but equally -

:thinking_face:

[kraftykelpie]

A surprise (not really) to be sure, but a welcome one

There is a saucy precursor to this one (the night before, after Grogu had gone to sleep, and before he clambered into their bed the next morning to beg for eggs), just don't know how evil Tvmb1r will be about my posting it

Also their legs are all tangled up under the sheets. Din treats Luke like a space heater, and Luke is very tactile (he's tactile when awake but he's moreso when out cold)

[fawnforevergone]

it is so over for me the day hozier makes an achilles reference. all his mixing of greek mythology with the idea that love is an act of violence/defiance against the world and we have yet to hear him make a metaphor out of how batshit achilles went in the iliad ...i think i would spontaneously combust actually.

[waynesfanever]

Credits to gabystargaming for the video!

Hey chat i forgot this app existed but yeah im back with smg4 content maybe??

I might make td art... maybe

[whereismyhat5678]

Ehem- not me playing around with the digital pen again 👀

BUT THIS TIME I DID SOME MORE GOOBERS!!-

[champmorado]

h. how do i explain my punch out ships without looking insane

my ships are: disco kid x don, carmen x don, GT x don, hondo x GT, hondo x don, hondo x bear hugger, von kaiser x bear hugger, hondo x sandman, hondo x bald bull, and sandman w/ one-sided feelings for bald bull 😭😭

[tossball-stick]

hey man. if youre complaining about the actors in the borderlands movie being "too old" for the roles. i wanna remind you that in the trailer alone, for a bl1 based movie, hyperion is branded yellow and white instead of red and black, tina is the same age shes supposed to be in 2, krieg has escaped hyperion when jack isnt even supposed to be ruling yet, and fuckin. mouthpiece from bl3 was there. just off the top of my head. i could find more lore inconsistencies if i tried

frankly i think the only issue with the casting is how many of them are zionists and the fact that theyre trying to make roland a comedic character played by kevin hart when hes supposed to be the straight man. like. come on. roland is the only even slightly normal one out of the first games vault hunters (i really dont care that much at the end of the day, thats just my main gripe besides the zionism)

[arthurtaylorlester]

malevolent season 4 was... something, that's for sure

i want to preface this by saying i LOVE malevolent as a show and this is no means an attack on the creator or anything like that, i don't think i'll ever stop listening halfway, no matter how i feel about it. i'm not saying season 4 is all bad either.

it is a deviation for malevolent, though i found it VERY well written up until part 31 (and part 31 is my favourite malevolent episode ever)

s4 started off really strong for me, part 29 set the tone really well, much lighter after s3's emotional lows. the butcher was an interesting enough new villain to put yarson aside for now. part 30 had some charming moments, but the real star of the early season was part 31, a truly incredibly written and directed look into arthur's psychology. it truly gave us everything, from lore to highly comedic moments (to me)(no because why was arthur dreaming of waking up next to a shirtless man who tried to kill him)

parts 32 through 34 i'm not sure about, but i can write them off as awkward mid season points. part 34 was an interesting shift in perspective, but here is where my doubt's about the season's villains started rising

but the oscar & scratch arcs.... guys i'm gonna be honest, i might be oscar's #1 hater

scratch and oscar in this season were functionally useless filler. it's not unusual for arthur and john get sidetracked during their missions, but it usually ends up leading them right where they need to be by the season finale. this felt like a parenthesis that killed any tension created by the butcher.

this season had, quite unnecessarily, 3 antagonists. now this wouldn't be a terrible idea, had they been established before. but no. for some reason it was chosen to leave the only villain we could genuinely be afraid of alone, in favour of introducing not one but two antagonists yet to be established. neither because of this have the adequate fear factor (the butcher is better about this) and both get the most abysmal ends i could've imagines. what do you mean scratch is just gone like that after causing some emotional conflict with his deal. what do you mean the butcher was KOed by the fucking priest with a bedpan? what? that's it? you expect me to be scared or even care about the butcher now?

speaking of the priest. i want to like oscar i really do but. he's a terribly written character. we get to know him while arthur is teaching john intimidation tactics so out of gate our initial impression of him is as someone meek. and then in part 36 after "sorting out" the butcher, oscar just dumps out his trauma point blank to someone he's spoken to a handful of times in the past 3? 4? days.

malevolent in general has a bit of an exposition problem, but it usually works out if it's john expositing because. that's literally all he can do. but when a character with more agency do it, it makes them flat. oscar didn't have to tell us all that, he didn't have a reason. arthur confessing to 7 murders isn't a prompt to make himself vulnerable like that. i did not start caring for him, just because he had a tragic backstory. that's... not how you get someone to care about a character. oscar could be defined as a static character, and while it's not too unusual for a static character to be the focal point of an arc, i don't think it works the way most authors think it does.

also the worms in the farm only happened because of him messing with the stove so like. that's not helping his case.

the completely unnecessary farm arc concluded, we return oscar to the hospital, with arthur caving very quickly to john's demands if he truly cared about oscar so much. and so, a single episode before the finale, we get properly acquainted our main ally for the showdown. a choice definitely, but i feel like this one worked out pretty well considering noel had time to simmer before we got know of his past + he had interesting conflict with john and arthur.

and then there's the big one, the thing that appalls me entirely. leaving larson and yellow, the main villains of the finale COMPLETELY alone until the very end. why? why would you choose to not use them earlier? we spent so much time away from larson, so we weren't really as scared of him as we were at the end of part 28 (i literally was listening to the last 15 minutes of this ep on my toes because i thought he might do something) and we had had no CHANCE to even fear yellow, since we knew nothing of his power?

and what, the butcher is on our side now because noel granted his release? just like that? i know he's a contract killer but arthur insulted him to his face, he can believe they understand each other but did he feel no anger?

the finale did well, considering the context it was given to work with, though i did not understand the point of the memory thing... that didn't go anywhere? because not arthur nor noel actually lost anything. we don't know what the box was for, we only know some guy wrote "the birth of my son" on slip of paper and put it in. arthur assumed it was a memory, when it just as well could've been a literal offering, arthur assumed it would involve losing said memory, and they assumed it was related. initially i thought it would only go through if the ritual took place, which, it didn't. but reading back here is no further clarification on it. hold your angst horses, blindfaith enjoyers

i feel like john physically manifesting, if now an established power of his, was very cheap. unless it was a one-off, or some sort of power up, it just literally took away the main premise of the show. an all-powerful god rendered powerless by being stuck in some guy's mind and being forced to confront the troubles of someone infinitesimal to him. if you let him astral project and save people, then what's the point?

but i do actually think it was a one-off, so we'll see how it goes

simply put, john saving arthur when he jumped in s3 had more impact than this because he did it with a single, human, hand. no magic.

it was pleasant to have kayne and his expected chaos back, jarring as always. john's deal was exactly what we all thought it was going to be, maybe more about himself than arthur, but i don't think anyone can fault him for that.

one things though, and this questions may just be me not remembering, is arthur supposed to know that yellow is a separate entity from john when they realise larson has him in his head? because i remember arthur just assuming that 'yellow' just had all of his memories returned in part 23, and therefore not knowing that he's a separate guy from john.

just in general, i feel like s4 had a LOT of good ideas that weren't given enough room to breathe and therefore weren't written very well that really weighed down my enjoyment of the season. that's not to say there weren't things i liked. the emotional moments hit just as hard, like reconciling with daniel, the comedy was on point (genuinely this season was so funny) and even the most out of pocket thing arthur has ever said, calling john a child, no matter how much discourse it caused, was actually sort of in character for him? i mean arthur is an asshole so like i get why his immediate reaction to his severely emotionally unintelligent friend being possessive is babying him. they're awful people. they deserve each other. it made somewhat sense in retrospect.

all this to say, while i didn't hate s4, i think it had a lot of writing issues, especially when comparing it to the other 3, and it could've been done WAYY better but hey we all have our moments.

i await anxiously intermezzo's public release and the rest of season 5 👀

[wbcannibalgf]

its so hard being a civilianpilled sheltermaxxer in a watercucked leviathancel city like brockton bay

[cpericardium]

Remember what Wildbow said would've happened if Taylor had failed the Leviathan dice roll and died:

Setting aside that I would have chuckled and guffawed and dropped the serial so hard, can you imagine it though. If Taylor's story had ended with a looney tunes circle closing on Mr Gladly's hurr durr assclown face. What the fuck does he say. What does he say, Wildbow. Mr G doesn't remember who this crushed exoskeleton girl even is. She wasn't popular. I'll tell you what he says. He says, "Welp, that was awkward. That Leviathan sure did a number on you! ...he's right behind me, isn't he?"

[kleinv01]

I don't know if it had been asked or not, but...

I've been having this imagination like; what if there's a failed first Klein Physical Bot prototype who suddenly self-activating on its own one day only to realize it was abandoned and, well, a fail product. What if the first prototype trying to hunt down like, the rest of other functional Klein bot out there because it jealous over the care and affections the other bots getting? Or maybe, worse, not targetting other bots but hunting down Klein Users.

And following that what-ifs...

I was suddenly wondering if Klein (in his physical bot form) is implemented with self-destruction program? Or a weapon? In case, you know, let's just say MC is in a very dangerous situation to the point where Klein engaged in a... Fight, i guess, and had to take drastic measure -like self-destruct for example-.

It's just a what-ifs that's been stuck in my mind, so... sorry if it feels random 😂.

(Btw, i like the game so much T_T. Klein is so, sooo cute! I want to squish him like a jelly 💜. And -i want dolores to step on me too- sera is the best :"D).

://SYSTEM_MESSAGE_ANSWERED !

in the game's narrative, it's not possible for earlier models to coexist with newer ones, especially when the fully functioning v.0.1 model (the one our MC has) is in use. once a new version is deemed operational, previous prototypes are immediately destroyed to prevent any confusion or overlap within the workers, particularly since they look more or less identical to one another.

but for the sake of angst; that self-activated android would only target the other Klein androids. had it succeeded in 'killing' one, the company would be able to track down that rogue android upon the discovery of a missing prototype and secure it for further inspection to learn from it and prevent future mistakes.

Klein doesn’t quite... have a self-destruction feature, but he is equipped with a shutdown button and the capability to deactivate himself (his system) under specific conditions. the external shutdown button can be used by his user or others when necessary, while his internal shutdown programming is only accessible through his own system. and of course all of these are implemented for safety measures for both klein android and his users

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Insinuation 2.4 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

Despite the way the conversation sounded, they were talking to me.  They were just pretending to talk to one another.  It was both calculating in how they were managing plausible deniability while at the same time they were acting totally juvenile by pretending I wasn’t there.  A blend of immaturity mixed with craftiness in a way only high schoolers could manage.  I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it, if it hadn’t been at my expense.

In isolation, even at your expense, it's worth laughing at, but after a year and a half that includes all the other shit...

While this particular tactic was new to me, I’d been putting up with stuff like this for a year and a half, now.  At a certain point, I’d come to the conclusion that it was easier to sit back and take it, when it came to most things.  They wanted me to fight back, because everything was stacked in their favor.  If I stood up for myself and they still ‘won’, then it only served to feed their egos.  If I came out ahead in some way, then they got more persistent and mean for the next time.  So for much the same reason I hadn’t fought Madison for the homework she had taken from me, I just leaned against the wall next to the window and waited for them to get bored with their game or get hungry enough to leave and go have their lunches.

But maybe if you'd fought back sooner...

Maybe not, but passivity really didn't get you anywhere.

I was stunned.  I just couldn’t wrap my head around how he could just ignore this.  When he had been trying to help me, had he just been covering his own ass, doing what was required of him in the face of a situation he couldn’t ignore?  Had he just given up on me?  After trying to help, in his own completely ineffective way, after I turned his offer for help down twice, he just decided I just wasn’t worth the effort?

I'll pick option D, all of the above, with a side of E, Wildbow needs to make sure being Taylor is Suffering

But things didn’t work that way here.  Girls played dirty.  If I decked Emma, she would run to the office with some fabricated story, her friends backing up her version of events.  For most, ratting to the faculty was social suicide, but Emma was more or less top dog.  If she went to the principal, people would only take things more seriously.  By the time I got back to school, they would have spread the story through the grapevine in a way that made me look like a total psycho.  Things would get worse.  Emma would be seen as the victim and girls who had previously ignored the bullying would join in on Emma’s behalf.

Like, Presumably Taylor has some reason to believe this, but given how much people rag on fanfics for overstating how 'evil' the Principal is, etc, one wonders if this is really the case, or just Taylor thinking it?

I suppose we'll see.

“And she smells,” one girl said, lamely.

Aaaah, High School insults. Gotta love 'em.

No, my primary concern was getting out of there.  I wasn’t going to break the promise I had made to myself.  No using powers on them.  That was the line I wasn’t crossing.  Even if I did something utterly innocuous, like give them all lice, I didn’t trust myself to stop there.  I didn’t trust myself to keep from offering blatant hints that I had powers or spoiling my secret identity just to see the looks on their faces when they realized the girl they had been tormenting was a bona-fide superhero.  It was something I couldn’t help but daydream about, but I knew the long term ramifications would spoil that. Perhaps most important, I rationalized, was keeping the two worlds separate.  What use was escapism, if the world I was escaping to was muddled with the people and things I was trying to avoid?

and yet, by the time they do realize who you are, you don't have the energy to give a shit.

On the one hand, I do get why Taylor just doesn't give a fuck about Emma by then. On the other hand... it does feel like all this set up and then - nope, nothing. Or maybe it won't, by then. But The Trio seems to loom large in the fandom regardless. And lots of people are clearly unhappy they don't get their comeuppance.

Before the thought of going back to school had even crossed my mind, I found myself wondering what I was going to do to fill my afternoon.

Crime? Crime is good?

[janewaykove]

Kate Mulgrew as Alma Lane in Mr. Mercedes (S3E02, 2019)

I'll need to do my very best thinking. I'll need all my acuity, good blood flow to my brain, to everywhere. I need full circulation. You know what I'm saying, Morris?

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Roxy: need to find a new name for myself that reflects the rich kaleidoscope of who i am as a person. im thinking Mister Sex

[waynesfanever]

YOU WONT BELIEVE WHO I DREW!!!

yeah i drew mr puzzles again sorry chat

pretty damn awesome sauce!

sorry for the inconsistent posting btw im trying to fix it

[whenthegoldrays]

And look I'm a peaceful person and I don't believe in violence... but Mrs Norris (and to a slightly lesser extent, Lady Bertram) makes me want to commit atrocities.