You might want to check your math there. In 2030 the war has been over for 85 years - even if Bucky lied about his age to join the army in 1941 at age 16 he'd still be 105 years old.
The Amazing Arachne (Spider-Liv Sequel!)
- Thread starter open_sketch
- Start date
- Archive Superhero
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I was talking about Vladimir Putin, not Bucky Barnes.
I was taking it as a given that Bucky, like his pal, would have spent some time on ice at some point and thus be much much younger physically than his chronological age would indicate.
(That's assuming Bucky is 'around' and is the Winter Soldier at all, of course, and that Sketch isn't intentionally merging the two characters a bit by having a one-armed Cap)
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Anyway word of QM that it was A. a paperclip maximizer and B. had a Tony Stark's Money Uber Alles utility function.
The only options other than deleting it were a personality death level rewrite or a shutdown that Stark Industries couldn't undo.
- Location
- Leeds
I think the important point to make here, is that calling it libertarian was a piffy joke and not an actual description.
What they destroyed was not self aware, and probably didn't have the capacity to become self aware. However several iterations in the software might have brought it to that point.
They specifically mentioned "yet" in reference to whether it would be considered worthy of personhood. There are multiple ways to interpret this, but the most obvious one to me is that it would have gained such at a later date.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
That could just as easily refer to an iteration of it a few years down the line instead of it growing on its own.
- Location
- Leeds
Thats why I said probably. We don't know and will never know, but hey, we got a cute dance out of it instead.
However given how learning processes usually work and that quantity of data is required, this specific version was probably not in the learning stage and so 'yet' would likely mean an updated version that was trained on more data was released that was self-aware.
Of course, consideration needs to be granted that this is a superhero story so who knows.
As I understand it, Neural Networks rarely learn as they operate because the calculations are very expensive and would slow them down alot, and because the incoming data is something like a billionth of the training data they've gone over before anyway, so changes are minimal.
New Thread: The Arachne System!
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
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- Pronouns
- She/Them
im 23 but knew about transness since i was 18. dont do this to mee 😭 should of went on the waiting list at like 19 instead of 21. oh well
- Pronouns
- She/Her
hey, i'm 32; it's never too late (excepting for hips, perhaps, but even that's not a closed-off direction, just...'going through a window instead of a door' sorta thing).
tbh it might've been a lot later, were it not for Liv. so she's got that going for her <3 thanks, Erika
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- Pronouns
- She/Them
honestly it sounded kinda scary anyway. i thought i was already locked into my current bone structure so wasnt worrying about it. the possibility that as a late teen i still had a chance hurts. but alot less probsbly than my bones shifting about so, swings and roundabouts
- Pronouns
- She/Them
dont know where this part is going yet. just got up to the stark bit. and i hope he doesnt get to have an about face. one of the first things out of his mouth when meeting liv was asking on the legality of grooming/ sexually harassing her.
if this were irl instead of a mahvel au, he'd forsure be on the flightlogs purely by virtue of being a tech billionaire. (literally all of them are btw) and his behaviour in this chapter does not do anything to distance himself from this archetype.
if this were irl instead of a mahvel au, he'd forsure be on the flightlogs purely by virtue of being a tech billionaire. (literally all of them are btw) and his behaviour in this chapter does not do anything to distance himself from this archetype.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
there's a really cool procedure involving 3d printed pieces of titanium which i have been looking into (interrupted by covid unfortunately 😭). but i started HRT at 27 and have been wildly satisfied.if i never manage to get that surgery, which is honestly the only gender-confirming procedure i'm really interested in, it'll still be okay.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm working through these threads and having so much fun with this story. I hope it's okay I'm leaving comments all these years later, but I wanted to leave my compliments for this delightful story.
I think my favorite thing about this arc is how you tied Liz's chronic pain into the standard Spiderhero narrative about being overwhelmed and not able to handle everything. It adds extra layers to both and gives this crushing weight to it all, and it makes the importance of putting your own oxygen mask on first so glaringly important. And I love way Liv ended up with this incredibly abnormal arm as part of her solution to that. It's a great disability narrative, and it also comes off as this wonderful synthesis of the common Spiderhero narrative of learning to value what's important over successfully and also the experience of priorizing being authentically trans over being comfortable for cis people.
Honestly I'm just so impressed by how coherently and smoothly you write the narrative and moral structure of this story, and the character arcs, through a quest format! Especially such an atomic quest with so many little detailed choices.
Speaking of character arcs by the way, I really like the way May's depression and relationship anxiety are written, and the way she's so clearly a teenager who's still learning how to balance reaching out for help and self-managing in ways that mitigate the way these issues burden loved ones. Because they are problems for Liv. These are the kinds of problems where being there to help with them is core to a romantic relationship, but they're also not costless to deal with and May isn't a secure adult who knows how to manage that yet.
Like ... Liv's mother's advice about dealing with a partner's depression was undoubtedly harsh and not really what Liv wanted or needed to hear. But like ... it spoke to something that made Liv's relationship with May into so much more than a story about a Spiderhero "getting the girl" and then balancing "keeping the girl" with hero work. Because it makes for a May with her own issues and need for character growth. It makes her into her own person with an impact on Liv's life that's about who May is, rather than an abstract almost objectifying framing where May is a thing that takes up Liv's time.
It's ... it's something that would matter and be a struggle in Liv and May's relationship even if Liv wasn't a superhero and a revolutionary against the corporate and reactionary system. It's something that May would be dealing with and learning to handle even if Liv wasn't in her life. And it's something where managing it isn't just, like ... neutral. It's not Peter Parker from the first Spiderman movies trying to show up at May's play because he's supposed to and it's bad when he doesn't. It's joyous and lovely and wonderfully positive when May and Liv help prop each other up or bounce back from their emotional struggles.
Last thing! So the standard Spiderhero thing about pulling back from superhero work is that it always goes horribly, even fatally wrong because the hero taking a break is always terrible and gets someone killed. And like, for all I know Ultron slipped out becase Liv wasn't there and it might be a problem down the line. But the world didn't end right more because Liv went on a date, and it was because she wasn't doing this alone and I kind of love that.
Athena isn't exactly a superhero in her own right and Justine is ... not necessarily everything Liv would want in Arachne's pupil. But they're there, and they care, and Liv has made the conscious choice to trust them and that makes all the difference. This would be such a different arc if Arachne was tackling this alone. It's a divergence from standard Spiderhero narratives and it's not just the fact it's new that I love, but why.
Which is what's really great about this story. It's not just that it's fresh and new in many ways, as a Spiderhero story. It's why.
This might be a bit heavy but like ... I'm. writing from 2024 and it did not go the way it did in this story. And ... and Spiderhero stories are very much about having heroism thrust upon you, no matter how unfairly. And we're entering a world where there's going to be a lot of demand for trans people to stand up and fight for themselves and for others to do the same. It's not fair and it's going to hurt.
So it hit me unexpectedly hard to see Liv fighting so damn hard through all these chapters before her pain and burden got too much and she had to pull back (to "just" working to solve some of the major privacy issues in a piece of global corporate spyware) ... and then it being fine. Because she wasn't doing it all alone.
It's not just that a post Gen Z tech focused trans girlSpiderwoman Arachne with chronic pain who's better about self-care is new and that's fun. It's that she's the spiderhero we need right now. And that's genuinely inspiring.
I think my favorite thing about this arc is how you tied Liz's chronic pain into the standard Spiderhero narrative about being overwhelmed and not able to handle everything. It adds extra layers to both and gives this crushing weight to it all, and it makes the importance of putting your own oxygen mask on first so glaringly important. And I love way Liv ended up with this incredibly abnormal arm as part of her solution to that. It's a great disability narrative, and it also comes off as this wonderful synthesis of the common Spiderhero narrative of learning to value what's important over successfully and also the experience of priorizing being authentically trans over being comfortable for cis people.
Honestly I'm just so impressed by how coherently and smoothly you write the narrative and moral structure of this story, and the character arcs, through a quest format! Especially such an atomic quest with so many little detailed choices.
Speaking of character arcs by the way, I really like the way May's depression and relationship anxiety are written, and the way she's so clearly a teenager who's still learning how to balance reaching out for help and self-managing in ways that mitigate the way these issues burden loved ones. Because they are problems for Liv. These are the kinds of problems where being there to help with them is core to a romantic relationship, but they're also not costless to deal with and May isn't a secure adult who knows how to manage that yet.
Like ... Liv's mother's advice about dealing with a partner's depression was undoubtedly harsh and not really what Liv wanted or needed to hear. But like ... it spoke to something that made Liv's relationship with May into so much more than a story about a Spiderhero "getting the girl" and then balancing "keeping the girl" with hero work. Because it makes for a May with her own issues and need for character growth. It makes her into her own person with an impact on Liv's life that's about who May is, rather than an abstract almost objectifying framing where May is a thing that takes up Liv's time.
It's ... it's something that would matter and be a struggle in Liv and May's relationship even if Liv wasn't a superhero and a revolutionary against the corporate and reactionary system. It's something that May would be dealing with and learning to handle even if Liv wasn't in her life. And it's something where managing it isn't just, like ... neutral. It's not Peter Parker from the first Spiderman movies trying to show up at May's play because he's supposed to and it's bad when he doesn't. It's joyous and lovely and wonderfully positive when May and Liv help prop each other up or bounce back from their emotional struggles.
Last thing! So the standard Spiderhero thing about pulling back from superhero work is that it always goes horribly, even fatally wrong because the hero taking a break is always terrible and gets someone killed. And like, for all I know Ultron slipped out becase Liv wasn't there and it might be a problem down the line. But the world didn't end right more because Liv went on a date, and it was because she wasn't doing this alone and I kind of love that.
Athena isn't exactly a superhero in her own right and Justine is ... not necessarily everything Liv would want in Arachne's pupil. But they're there, and they care, and Liv has made the conscious choice to trust them and that makes all the difference. This would be such a different arc if Arachne was tackling this alone. It's a divergence from standard Spiderhero narratives and it's not just the fact it's new that I love, but why.
Which is what's really great about this story. It's not just that it's fresh and new in many ways, as a Spiderhero story. It's why.
This might be a bit heavy but like ... I'm. writing from 2024 and it did not go the way it did in this story. And ... and Spiderhero stories are very much about having heroism thrust upon you, no matter how unfairly. And we're entering a world where there's going to be a lot of demand for trans people to stand up and fight for themselves and for others to do the same. It's not fair and it's going to hurt.
So it hit me unexpectedly hard to see Liv fighting so damn hard through all these chapters before her pain and burden got too much and she had to pull back (to "just" working to solve some of the major privacy issues in a piece of global corporate spyware) ... and then it being fine. Because she wasn't doing it all alone.
It's not just that a post Gen Z tech focused trans girl