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A Rat's Guide to Glory

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KQPH said:
It could also be EGO corrosion. As stated in Wonderlab Ep33, if an employee puts on L Corp's EGO which is above their level, it starts to assimilate them and seems to eventually transform them.

To toss out some theories if it is EGO corrosion, perhaps the local L Corp was raided and had EGO stolen, or maybe an employee or manager made shady dealings and sold EGO. Then, the EGO was given to people not ready for it, or it was tampered with, or something else went wrong which caused it to corrode people.
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you get ego corrosion, you die, your body gets fully take over by the abnormality the ego came from, you Just straight up suffers a ego death if you get ego corrosioned and you don't have your own personality anymore.
Your body is twisted by the Emotions of the abnormality, you grow extra limbs or deform your own body, Your mind broken apart in an instant is fully under the control of the abnormality as you kill every single one of your coworkers as twisted being that does not resemble human.
That is the lobotomy corporation's ego corrosion.
and Maria here is relatively sane, does not resemble any twisted monsters and still has some fucking brain cells working.
 
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Hmm...is enkephalin used for creating EGO gear different from the enkephalin that fills the quota? Is it Abnormality flavored? Could you use this 'flavored' enkephalin like normal enkephalin, like a drug? Is Porccubus Enkephalin any different from Opium?
 
kaillll said:
you get ego corrosion, you die, your body gets fully take over by the abnormality the ego came from, you Just straight up suffers a ego death if you get ego corrosioned and you don't have your own personality anymore.
Your body is twisted by the Emotions of the abnormality, you grow extra limbs or deform your own body, Your mind broken apart in an instant is fully under the control of the abnormality as you kill every single one of your coworkers as twisted being that does not resemble human.
That is the lobotomy corporation's ego corrosion.
and Maria here is relatively sane, does not resemble any twisted monsters and still has some fucking brain cells working.
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I was mainly talking about Harry and Louis. Maria feels like more of a separate thing. Though, to comment on corrosion:

Wonderlab Ep33 said:
Rose: "Flower-shaped decorations are growing on our nails, and our breath smells like air freshener..."

Catt: "They call that, E.G.O Corrosion! You forcefully put on equips above your level, and now you're being assimilated with it! It won't turn you into a monster overnight, so enjoy the sensation while you have it!"
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Even these minor effects are explicitly EGO Corrosion, according to Catt. In the short-term, such serious effects as you describe don't happen, and this is with Aleph-tier gear. Fresh breath and flowery nails were all that happened. It's in the long-term, if one continues to wear it, that things would get worse.

If we were to say that Maria is undergoing EGO Corrosion, then she'd be in the stages somewhere between the minor cosmetic effects we see in Wonderlab and the full transformation.

I did have another theory before, though I felt it was a bit too dubious to post. I might as well toss it out though.

Perhaps Maria's workshop was performing some shady experiments and the Highlight Heroes, knowingly or not, were test subjects in something related to EGO. Something like implanting EGO into the body, grinding EGO down to mix it with Enkephalin, or some other method that's not immediately obvious, since Harry never mentioned anything about using a bear EGO and Maria doesn't seem to be using any magical girl EGO. In such a case, Harry thought he got the claws from becoming happier but both the physical change of claws and mental change of happiness actually came from EGO Corrosion. The Highlight Heroes corroded as failed experiments, while Maria was either a successful experiment or the kind of rich consumer who can buy a finalized product without the big negatives after the researchers commit atrocities in the name of product development.
 
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I mean, there are easier ways to commit suicide than trying to annoy the claw, I really don't see how calling him when we have no reasons or justifications is in any way a good idea, not when we're still that low in grade.
 
Nyarky said:
I mean, there are easier ways to commit suicide than trying to annoy the claw, I really don't see how calling him when we have no reasons or justifications is in any way a good idea, not when we're still that low in grade.
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Don't worry about it. The vote ain't gonna win. It's a joke vote.

Ain't no way.
 
questioningmeme said:
Don't worry about it. The vote ain't gonna win. It's a joke vote.

Ain't no way.
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I mean:

Adhoc vote count started by Nyarky on Jun 28, 2023 at 11:52 AM, finished with 66 posts and 21 votes.
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Unless Naron vetos it, it is way too close to winning for confort.

Of course, he could still let us do it, write an update that ends with our death, and then redo this choice, but personally I don't see any interest in tempting Murphy like that.
 
Nyarky said:
Unless Naron vetos it
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I mulled over the validity of this vote for a few hours now, but I think I will let it stand. I am also withholding any and all personal opinions on it, so please do not try to read any from this post.

What bothers me more is the three people with illegal approval votes. I think there used to be a fourth but may be mistaken.
 
Naron said:
What bothers me more is the three people with illegal approval votes. I think there used to be a fourth but may be mistaken.
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There's three:
questioningmeme said:
[X] Hang out with Mai
Also extra joke vote (definitely impossible).
[X] Call for a chat with Agnus
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AUnderSave said:
[X] Hang out with Mai
[X] Spend time with Giano
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ImDead1ns1de said:
[X] Hang out with Mai
[X] Call for a chat with Agnus
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And by the way, Meme, that's why you don't make *joke votes* with the expectation they won't be voted for, because people do vote for them and then you have problems.
 
Naron said:
I know there are three right now, but I feel like I remember seeing four when tallying yesterday. Could be someone remembered this is not allowed here, or I misremembered how many I saw.
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I checked all the votes individually, there's three now, there might have been four before, but in that case the fourth was removed. I didn't pay enough attention to tell you if there was a fourth before.
 
oh right.

I completely forgot about the whole approval voting thing.

Uh. I'll just redo it real quick then.

Edit:
Naron's words made me curious. The vote is actually possible?

Though I can probably guess a good estimate on how many pieces Ciel (and therefore the rest of their friends) will get turned into for bothering a Claw, I'm kinda curious on where he might bring this.
 
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For all those voting for Agnus:

What do you expect out of it?

Becoming his friend? The guy is a claw, he works directly for the Head, the guys who would only accept Angela in the scenario where she kills all her friends. The few Claws we see don't seem to even understand the concept of friendship, and are only dedicated to their job. And I want to remind you that the one and only reason he gave us his number was to call about his job, trying to be friendly is going to end up with us ignored, at best.

Discussing Taxes? Why? We don't have taxes problems right now, so we are at risk of just wasting his time, which is probably pretty valuable and he could very well decide to make us pay for it (literally, with money)

Attracting the attention of the Head and asking for a job offer? OMGWTFBBQ are you insane if that one is the case, we do not want to work for the Head, we do not want to be on their radar, we do not want to be anything more than a name and a taxe payment to them, they are not a carrier choice, becoming a Claw is almost certainly just a fancy way of having Ciel commit suicide, if only via personality death.

Do not vote for Agnus, there are no good possible consequences out of it, best ones are neutral. All the other options can lead to positive results, not this one.

Edit:

*Look at Tally results, see Agnus tied for second place with only one vote less than the winner*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
 
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I'm curious about him thats all. And besides, I can't vote for both so I'll just give my vote to the under dog just for the fun of it.

That and I like Claws interactions. They remind me of the Combine from HL2 (though seemingly more emotive than those synth robots), so I'll take whatever little interactions I get.

Besides, Agnus is probably not gonna win so don't blow your top off that much.

There hasn't been that many votes yet, so Mai will probably lead by like double by the end of the voting period.

The people voting for Agnus knows full well there's less than 1% anything good can come from it.

It's just...curiosity kills the cat, but who knows? Maybe inside shrodinger's box is a cat that's full instead of a starved rotting corpse.
 
I'm personally surprised it got more than 1 vote at all. I made it with the curious idea of just calling a Claw and seeing what kind of death will happen.

And besides, I'm still pretty sure its not gonna win.

Even if it does somehow gain the lead.

Once people come back and see that it's (somehow) winning, they'll probably switch their vote to just make sure it doesn't win.

Thats the thing with novelty and bandwagon vote, they'll fall off after a while due to the fact that the logic behind them isn't really there.

And well, Quests players are usually on the more logical side. Usually, because I'm voting for Agnus so it can't be 100% logical.
 
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