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X-394 is a big facility, full of mysterious creatures known as Abnormalities. Many of these Abnormalities can do very bad things if they're handled improperly, and it's vitally important that our agents know just what may happen if they're careless. What's a manager to do? Episode 6: El Llanto de la Luna Music: trailer   Hi! I'm Paul! Just your everyday plucky employee of Lobotomy Cobotomy, here today to talk about El Llanto de la Luna! El Llanto de la Luna, or La Luna for short, is an Abnormality who has a special means of handling known as 'Performance.' Any attempt to perform Insight work will do this instead. Please note that this work type does not provide any Insight training. So it won't help me grow at all! That's not particularly amazing! It won't, but it's important that we show it off to ensure the manager understands the upsides of sending an agent to play the piano. To do that, we'll need to take a peek at the values of one of our current agents. Domineering disciplinarians, it's the one and only Captain Tenebrais! Are you sure we can show this? No worries, Paul! This series is for Sephirot and Managers only-there's no chance the Clerks will hear about this. That's reassuring to know, Miss Hod! Gee golly, and her stats are through the roof too! Things may look like that, but just you wait. Paul, it's time-go ahead and get started! She reminds me of my old piano teacher! She hit me with a stick when I played wrong. Something similar will happen here if you mess up, but she'll hit your mind instead! Wooah! She still deals White damage now? Yep! But don't you worry, Paul. We've given you the Hypocrisy E.G.O, which will constantly restore your SP! That's really thoughtful of you, Miss Hod! It's like I always say, the right E.G.O for the right job! Gee golly, Miss Hod! I'm playing my heart out, but the music hasn't changed. Why's that? That's because what you're playing right now is the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, a song that will cause this entire video to be immediately copyright claimed! Holy shamoley! I thought this video was just for the Sephirot and the Manager, though? Be that as it may, I'd rather edit the music out than risk calling the attention of the Head over something like this! Remember: Don't stream La Luna's performance! It's strictly against the law! Now that we've covered that, I'd also like to point out that we do still gain PE boxes from performance work. This means we can do this to progress towards our energy goals, even though agents cannot grow from it. But Miss Hod, that can't be all it's good for! Of course not! For that, let's go back and see Tenebrais's stats right now! Voluminous virtues, Miss Hod! Her Temperance and Justice both went up by 5! That's right, Paul! They increased by-five? Five? It's supposed to be 10, right? Th-this is what I get for basing my information on that agent-run wiki… Wait, this series is crowdsourced?! … … ...A-a-anyways, as you can see, it raises Temperance and Justice by 5 points for the duration of the song! Once it stops playing, this buff goes away-so put it to good use while you can! That's really short, Miss Hod! I'm sure our Manager can come up with a use for it, even with that.  Please remember that every performance work reduces the Qliphoth Counter by 1-it can safely be done twice without a problem, however the third time will cause an issue. Is that the only cost, Miss Hod? That sounds like a deal! Not exactly. In addition to lowering the counter, the agent also suffers excruciatingly painful fatigue from playing. My fingers! They're so sore! It's piano practice all over again! This fatigue cuts their HP directly in half, so be sure not to let any performing agents walk outside into a Green or Amber Ordeal. That's really good advice, Miss Hod! But what happens if the Manager does order a third performance? That's an excellent question! Let's find out. Paul? Oh boy oh boy, I love devoting myself to science! Pernicious pianists! She up and melted away! And I'm playing a different song, too! That means that La Luna has breached. At any time she breaches, the third movement of Moonlight Sonata is played. At least she doesn't look that dangerous! Appearances can be deceiving, Paul. In this mode she has two forms of attack. The first is a hearty smack with her cane, dealing Red damage! She is just like my piano teacher! Her second attack is a stab with her flaming cane, which deals a notable amount of Black damage. As you can see, she's capable of dealing with a large number of employees in a very short period of time. Wowsers! She sounds like a handfull! Good thing I'm safe back here in the containment cell, huh? Oh, I wouldn't say that, Paul… When playing the piano during a breach, every work is an automatic success-the PE boxes will be maxed out for sure. But what happens after that point? ...I get to go home? Not exactly. Let's watch! Every three seconds, the user will take Black damage. This lasts until the 90-second performance is done, or until the employee dies. Jeepies, Miss Hod! Hypocrisy is weak to Black damage! That means..! Yowie wowie! She came back when the piano stopped! When the performance ends, either after 90 seconds or when the agent dies, La Luna returns to containment. She will also return if she's suppressed successfully, That means if an agent gets trapped in there, it’s the Disciplinary team to the rescue! That's right, Paul! But, Miss Hod, why would the manager ever use this ability? It seems almost completely worthless! Don't be silly, Paul. I'm sure it has some sort of use! It's not for us to question the Manager's toolbox. Wow, you're right Miss Hod! I must be a darn fool to question the Manager's ability to profit from Abnormalities! Well, that's all the time we have today. Thanks for joining us! And remember… Knowledge is just pain plus observation! Have a great day!
TeeQueue fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 09:36
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So what exactly do you use Performance for?
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Jan 5, 2021 09:49
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Bop, bop, bop. That's a surprisingly funny animation for how quickly she's killing.
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Jan 5, 2021 09:49
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Quackles posted:So what exactly do you use Performance for? You don't. It's terrible.
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Jan 5, 2021 09:55
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I can’t believe BCP was being crowdsourced by agents this entire time I always assumed the relevant info was acquired through trial and error from previous loops, not a literal agent run wiki Also, oh my god what sort of horrible secrets are on that wiki’s user pages/talk pages? Does Mizu have an Abnormality/Ordeal ranking based on how cute they are? Does Tenebrais keep a log of how many times she’s beaten up a bird on a given day? How many flame wars have erupted over the most nonsensical things? One can only imagine...
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Jan 5, 2021 10:05
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the Orb of Zot posted:I can’t believe BCP was being crowdsourced by agents this entire time Its all hosted on the Abnormality known The Dead Gay Comedy Forum.
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Jan 5, 2021 10:55
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Jan 5, 2021 11:32
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Jan 5, 2021 13:22
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Jan 5, 2021 15:27
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IIRC, the page for La Luna doesn't list it as an escaping entity, because technically the abnormality is the piano and it's not the one breaching. There's one other abnormality we haven't seen that does this and it's a bit annoying if you ask me.
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Jan 5, 2021 18:40
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I finally started reading the WonderLab comic and it's pretty good so far. The mood is different from the game though. Not that it stops agents from being killed by the boatload anyway.
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Jan 5, 2021 19:08
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Excellent
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Jan 5, 2021 19:21
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Started WonderLab too. It is pretty much distilled LC. Agents dying, management ineptitude, clerks don't count, agent are sent to jobs which drains them almost completely to train their stats, nobody reads managerial guidelines, agent are sent to dangerous jobs which can and will kill them to generate more energy, a cross between Tenebrais and Mizu, more gruesome deaths, a focus on how Abnormalities and EGO resonates with the mind... EDIT: Aand finished all publicily avaliable content. MiiNiPaa fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 20:26
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I also just finished Wonder Lab and agree, I enjoy it a lot and it does a good job capturing the tone of the game and this LP!
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Jan 5, 2021 22:44
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It just looks like La Luna is being swallowed into the depths of hell.
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Jan 6, 2021 00:52
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She's an interesting abnormality for how pointless her secondary mechanics are. Her theming is absolutely on point, but they seriously messed up the mechanics of it. The performance is utterly pointless because of how tiny and short duration the buff is. And even the punishment of her breaching is kind of... there. Her damage is really low, even her big wind-up attack only did 65 damage to a clerk.... who's in a ZAYIN suit that's weak to black. And yet she's just a fun abnormality in principle.
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Jan 6, 2021 01:04
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and honestly I love the design of her EGO equipment even if they do get outclassed - though her EGO Gift is pretty good, just it also competes with other brooch slot EGO gifts.
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Jan 6, 2021 01:20
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Keldulas posted:She's an interesting abnormality for how pointless her secondary mechanics are. Her theming is absolutely on point, but they seriously messed up the mechanics of it. The performance is utterly pointless because of how tiny and short duration the buff is. And even the punishment of her breaching is kind of... there. Her damage is really low, even her big wind-up attack only did 65 damage to a clerk.... who's in a ZAYIN suit that's weak to black. I think it's kind of the same issue that a lot of the tools have. They had a hard time coming up with concepts that provide you with a buff but have a drawback - it usually comes down to either the drawback is too major to be worth bothering with, or the buff is too minor to be worth bothering with, or both.
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Jan 6, 2021 02:18
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I like that everyone in Wonderlab is enby they/them because lobcorp agents don't have gender among their many stats.
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Jan 6, 2021 02:31
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Does the 90 seconds of breach still give the +5 to stats? At least then it's a decent amount of time.  
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Jan 6, 2021 17:41
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I'm only on Day 36: Gameplay, but the confrontation between Mizu and Mr.Black inspired me. If someone else did something like this, or Things Have Changed, just assume this is all Paul's fault. I think these two have something special. Something made of cuties which are, themselves, made of broken glass and ether.
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Jan 7, 2021 04:23
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 you showed me this on discord and it was great then and it's great now.azren posted:I'm only on Day 36: Gameplay, but the confrontation between Mizu and Mr.Black inspired me. If someone else did something like this, or Things Have Changed, just assume this is all Paul's fault. Kitfox88 posted:Does the 90 seconds of breach still give the +5 to stats? At least then it's a decent amount of time. I don't think it does, no, she just breaches.
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Jan 7, 2021 04:48
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I enjoyed this LP so much that I spent $15 for an account and put in a submission. Here's hoping I'm at least around during the second run through.
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Jan 7, 2021 09:25
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azren posted:I'm only on Day 36: Gameplay, but the confrontation between Mizu and Mr.Black inspired me. If someone else did something like this, or Things Have Changed, just assume this is all Paul's fault.  Man this thread just keeps giving and giving!
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Jan 8, 2021 03:38
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Kitfox88 posted:Does the 90 seconds of breach still give the +5 to stats? At least then it's a decent amount of time.  Pictured: me, trying to not get spoiled. Problem 1: almost everything is in the global namespace without any attempt to categorize things, so just finding the class responsible was a trial (if you are interested, it is called "Piano"). Findings 1: Yes, the buf is increasing justice and temperance by 5, unconditionally. code:Findings 2: The only place buf is given is before game checks amount of perfomances, and the only place buf is removed is on work end, just after work result timer starts. So, the buf persists during whole breach. Also, it seems that breach is 95 seconds long, not 90 (this includes time spent on work start animation and Abnormality disappearing from its chamber) code:MiiNiPaa fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 15:57
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Well there ya go! Nicely done MiiNiPaa. If you ever want to look anything specific up let me know-I have a list sitting around somewhere of what most of the various Abnormalities are called in the code so I can help with search terms. Might even be able to dig up the Ordeal names around here somewhere too. (My favorite is DangoCreature, for Mountain of Smiling Bodies )
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Jan 8, 2021 16:18
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Idea for a alternate piano teacher: When the work result was bad: Hits the agent with her stick; Agent can't leave, and is forced to do another perfomance. Qliphoth counter lowers. Normal: Hit with her stick. agent 'can' leave if you order them to. Qliphoth counter lowers at a small change. Good: Heal agent for 5/5, give everyone a small buff. Qliphoth counter goes up Breach: any agent in her room, is thrown out, taking a large amount of damage. Roams the hall for a different agent, and drags them back to perform.
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Jan 8, 2021 16:53
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Day 42: Story Music: Wake Up   I should suppose that you have become a bit more familiar with them. Let me ask you this question again: What do you think Abnormalities are? Abnormalities are not the evil monsters that you read about in old fairy tales. They are not some supernatural gods that descended upon us to judge our sins, either. There is an old River that has been flowing at the very bottom of the world for many an age. It is the source of everything, but has been forgotten by mankind. The screen flickers like a film here like it has before. Hi Birds!  For instance, strange beings would sometimes crawl out of such a gap somewhere in the ‘Black Forest’, located in the Outskirts. Obviously, the amount was simply too insufficient for Lobotomy Corporation’s energy needs. Our Singularity is not that we produce energy from the Abnormalities. Rather, it is the ability to create Abnormalities themselves. However, Abnormalities are part of the Seed. That’s what I meant by “possibility”. The Seed is not something that can be made in just a day, or be created on its own. We realized that if we wanted to fix a broken system, we couldn’t just sit around in a sunny spot, waiting for the clouds to part. We can’t control the entire process, we have to leave them to sprout on their own. Aren’t we allowed that much hope at least?In summary: Lobotomy Corporation's Singularity is the ability to create Abnormalities. Some can occur naturally in places where they crawl out of a gap, and it's implied the Birds are three of them (and by extension that the Black Forest is a real place). They're also important to the Seed that we're trying to create.  Did Binah tell you that metaphors about water and stuff get on my nerves? I have no idea what you're talking about, A. This is all your script. Unless it isn't.  Uuuuuugh.Music: Sea Wind   It is an idea you might think of as true. However, it is in truth you who is unknowing. Pain, agony, regret, and the shadows of the past that would never release their grip on you… They’ve spent quite a number of days with you, but it is nothing compared to our time together. In the end, they never got to know you to the fullest. Such as that one man, he who gradually broke himself whenever he was ordered to “redact information.” The unnecessary leakage of emotion is unfavorable. There is something I need to show you, so you can understand. She eagerly wanted to study, but her family’s financial state wouldn’t allow her. Still, she tried to join one of the Wings. However, she just wasn’t good enough for them. Poor Anya was struggling to figure out what to do next, she even considered ending it all as a last resort. That was until she received a letter from a Wing. “You are qualified to join Lobotomy Corporation.” Awestruck, Anya read through the letter over and over again. For a brief moment, Anya wondered if she even applied to work at Lobotomy Corporation at all. But she soon shook that thought off. That was not important in the slightest. I took the role of the courier. I was the one who delivered the letters to people. I evaluate candidates to determine if they may join here or not, and bring a miracle to those who are qualified. Anya was not selected because she had “excellent skill”. As you know, to become a feather, a part of the Wing, one has to be immensely better than ordinary people. How could Anya, who dropped out of high school, had no special talents, and lived in the Backstreets, manage to get into our company? Would her family finally be able to pursue happiness? All of this happened ten years ago. During those ten years, her sister fell ill and passed away, along with her parents. She is asleep down here. It is wholly under my jurisdiction to handle this, but I’ll grant you access just this once.Video: Call her up, please.   You could, perhaps, choose to pay a small cost to augment her virtues such as Fortitude or Prudence, if you wish. When we click the button, we hear a scream-check 0:31 in the video to hear it. This is my favorite added touch in the entire game. Music: See previous statement.  The Anya who was killed by a monster, and that Anya whom you just erased are one and the same. They both evanescently lost their lives. It is such a futile action, to wake them and erase them to slumber, again and again. Both your attachment to the employees, and the Sephirot’s care and devotion poured into them, become meaningless here. They await the next morning with their eyes shut tight every night. Those of the layers above did not know that. They spent themselves emotionally for the deaths with which they were presented. Bearing obscure resentment in their hearts, they put all the blame on those like you, then they crumbled, just like that… I have always wanted to be an important part of your life.In summary: Hokma makes us wake up and then kill someone to prove a point. All the Agents and Clerks in Lobotomy Corporation's main branch are in a perpetual state of sleep, called forth to work, and then deleted when inconvenient to be called later. Also, every employee has a certain something in common-and at the very least this one has been stuck here for ten years dying and reanimating as Hokma chooses. Since death doesn't actually matter, so there's no reason to feel bad about it!  He also comments on the upper Sephirot and reassures us that he'll never blame us or go crumble. There's also a removed line right after Hokma tells us Anya is asleep down here. Cut content posted:
Nothing major, to be honest.  ...so if I told you- They would be removed immediately. No one should dare lay a hand on you, A. Even if I deserved it? Such a thing couldn't happen. ...I see. Then, the only reason we can't bring back anyone who dies is- I told you before-I could bring back the agents you miss. However, the gears of this place are immutable. An empty spot shall be filled, and that is that. ...That will be all, Hokma. Records for the second time in a row? Unusual choice, Manager. There's something I need to get to the bottom of ASAP. Of course. Will that be all? ...No. Send Malkuth a message. I need her to make a delivery. I shall loop her into the call immediately. Manager! I heard you needed me to deliver something? Sure do. Can I count on you? Of course! I'll deliver it perfectly! Great. I'll have the memo ready in ten. Just keep who it's from a secret, okay? Of course, sir! You can count on me!Next time, on Lobotomy Corporation: CENSORED  Oh, Credentia! It's been a while. Yeah. Don't suppose you have a game running anymore? Oh, that one we played before? Hah, nobody's really interested. Evil Kit said he was, but… He just sort of ruined everything. Looking back on it I think it was probably more funny than annoying? But you shouldn't make a character who uses a rubber chicken as a weapon. Oh my gosh-I can't even imagine using a chicken as a weapon. Actually, now that I think about it... that might be a pretty good E.G.O. Hit them, the sound does White damage? ...Huh. Yeah, that would make sense. Anyways, something up? Oh… nothing really, Tenebrais has just been busy with her whole captain thing so I've just been kind of… Say, you want to run another game sometime? I bet I can drag Sorcrane into it. Do I?! I've been planning ever since I thought about trying to make a golem out of the shattered bits of monument after that Violet Midnight. It gave me the weirdest idea for a campaign. Then it's a date. I'll see if anyone else wants in. And I'll make sure we have the supplies! See you then! You too!
TeeQueue fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 16:54
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Hokma is such a yandere. It's great
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Jan 8, 2021 17:17
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Hokma and Binah continue to compete neck and neck to see who can be the creepiest and most unsettling.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:20
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TeeQueue posted:He also comments on the upper Sephirot and reassures us that he'll never blame us or go crumble. Until he tries to kill us, because he is an AI and this is a video game.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:21
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eternaldough posted:Hokma and Binah continue to compete neck and neck to see who can be the creepiest and most unsettling. Hokma, you better not start deleting "unworthy" agents when your meltdown happens.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:27
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MiiNiPaa posted:You forgot past [A]sshole. I think, he is eligible to take part in this competition. My guess is that he either deletes agents on death, fucks with resets, fucks with pausing, or some hellish combination of all three.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:38
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Wow, some big reveals this chapter. I guess we've pretty much got the origin of abnormalities down now, so that answers some mysteries there. Not necessarily why they take the forms they do, and there are probably still a bunch whose histories are legends created from the whole cloth. But at least we know that most of them are made in-house with a handful being brought in from the outside. I wonder if this River is literal or not. Maybe Hokma's meltdown will mess with which agents we have available at all.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:42
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MiiNiPaa posted:Seeing this question and TeeQueue being surprised at disrepancy between his results and wiki, I felt that we need info from most truthful source, that it, from the game code itself. Luckily, C# code is decompiler friendly. That’s pretty neat actually and makes me wonder how viable stuff like modding in entirely new abnos is versus how easy it is to do simple shitposty mods TeeQueue posted:(My favorite is DangoCreature, for Mountain of Smiling Bodies  Also this factually proves Clerks don’t matter!
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Jan 8, 2021 17:43
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Given Wonderlab has come up recently, I'll assume from that that whatever deal is going on with the employees only applies to the main branch here. All of the characters in the comic seem to be fairly normal people with fairly normal stories, relatively speaking, and some engagement with the world outside. Nothing that might imply they're trapped in this sort of deal where they're being pulled out of some sort of stasis and can be re-summoned whenever in a way perhaps not dissimilar to the abnormalities themselves. Which kind of makes sense since they said in the comic that none of the branch offices have a Records department, nor any of the Atziluth teams. The branches seem to be actually doing what LobCorp claims to be about.
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Jan 8, 2021 17:48
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ShyGuy1231 posted:$15 for an account wait what
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Jan 8, 2021 18:23
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Wait, so how many abnormalities are actually L-Corp’s fault? From the abnormalities we’ve seen so far a majority of them have some manner of sufficiently defined “origin” in their backstory such that they clearly weren’t manufactured. Is there something I’m missing here? The primary source of info on abnormalities, their story logs, seems to heavily blunt the impact of this reveal to “probably only like another 5-6 actually were our fault”. Is Angela lying to us again as part of her script? Or are the story logs themselves fake? Kitfox88 posted:Also this factually proves Clerks don’t matter! This factually proves absolutely nobody matters except for the manager, Angela, and the Sephirah. Life and death have lost all meaning! Also that the agents who were picked to go into this facility to begin with probably weren’t picked for traditional reasons
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Jan 8, 2021 18:28
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Ah, Hokma's just the best. He's a really fun character. All the Sephirah are pretty great but the Atziluth pair are my favorites. I really appreciate TeeQueue's writing of Hokma in his add-ins as well-you're really good at writing as the characters.
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Jan 8, 2021 18:29
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the Orb of Zot posted:Is there something I’m missing here? The primary source of info on abnormalities, their story logs, seems to heavily blunt the impact of this reveal to “probably only like another 5-6 actually were our fault”. Is Angela lying to us again as part of her script? Or are the story logs themselves fake? the Orb of Zot posted:This factually proves absolutely nobody matters except for the manager, Angela, and the Sephirah. Life and death have lost all meaning!
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Jan 8, 2021 18:44
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