Ep 38 of The Letters Page! Discussion - Apostate... or is it?

You can find out by listening here

Or is it here?

Nope, it's definitely here.

I don’t trust any of these links.  

Nor should you.

This is the link you really want.

Nothing but lies.  Which leaves me conflicted we have Christopher and Adam telling us lies and talking about a character who lies.  I’m not sure who to trust.  

These are definitely not lies

Well, one of my big questions was answered by the backstory. So, I’m good.

Also, now I’m curious how big of a fan Adam is of The Wallflowers. That was a deep cut pull for a group most people only know for One Headlight.

I'm only part way through, but I've decided that what I need is a two-page montage spread of Apostate going through all of alternate BS explanations as Fanatic gets increasingly frustrated and inelegant in her responses.

And I want half of them to be blatant pastiches of other hero origins ("We were both bitten by radioactive birds!" "Oh come on that's just ridiculous.")

Is it wrong I actually like Apostate at this point?

Like, he's just so outrageously ridiculous and flamboyant with his style and lying and trolling that it doesn't merely cross the line twice but dances merrily on it, obliterates it, and keeps going at full tilt into morbid hilarity.

The way Apostate is described, he seems like the perfect foil for Fanatic, laughably evil compare to her stoicism, I have to say I laughed out loud at the coma explanation. I also like how they expanded Apostate's goals to world domination, even though it's cliche, a villain who just messes with a he is and has no other goals can't be taken seriously.(imho)   

Some of the best lies I have listened to yet although I was slightly suprised they didn't use Apostate's theme at the end like they did with Ambuscade and La Capitan. I wonder if the Guise episode will use the Guise does a funky dance music?

Yeah the coma story was the part for me where it definitely went full-tilt from "jerkass" to "morbidly hilarious". Like he's not even really trying to seriously deceive her any more after this point, he's just blatantly trolling the bejeezus out of her. And like if I was Fanatic I would definitely just want to kill the everything out of him to shut him up but from a reader perspective it's just... so incredibly funny.

Yeah I would say after this episode it makes further sense why Fanatic doesn’t believe Apostate about the Host nor focus on it a lot.  I’d have a hard time taking anything he says seriously.  I do wish Seraph and Hellion had more of a story.  

The fact that they're the spirits of Order and Chaos is intriguing considering how many other aspects of Sentinels the conflict between those two concepts permeates.

Do we have an image for Hellion? I know Seraph appears in Bethegate , did we just decide that based on this picture Hellion existed? 

They discussed Hellion during the Q&A section of the questions. 

I've gotta say:  while I really enjoyed the reveals in this episode (and the idea of Apostate as a Loki-esque trickster/deceiver), this may be the only time I've been actively disappointed that my question didn't appear.  I had really hoped that there'd be some additional notes about the idea of spirit possession as a power source, particularly in terms of the rpg, but no go...

I am, however, more and more convinced that both Fanatic and Apostate fit into that general term of "possessed".  The idea that Apostate can inhabit an inanimate object, particularly, is telling to me.  Fanatic may be "stuck" in the form she currently inhabits, but in my mind, she's definitely a Host Spirit that's inhabiting Helena's body and can't leave.

Let me rephrase,  did we have before last week any knowledge of Hellion? Like I said I knew about the good Apostate but not about an evil Fanatic.

We did know Hellion existed before last week, but I honestly cannot actually remember where the name was originally confirmed. Nor do we have a picture of her that I am aware of.

The nature of the spirits who possessed Seraph and Hellion being different from the main verse is new info, though.

Not really.   I feel this episode has given us the most information about Hellion. 

@Jeysie thanks , I guess the names could have been confirmed in one of the art streams Christopher did last year.

I like the change in spirits. Order is a lot like pure judgement and can make a lot of the same mistakes a nice foil for our Fanatic in a different way to our Apostate.

Of course chaos is the reason the three body problem is a thing so naturally I hate it, it's a great villain

I’m glad the Fake Walker question was featured. I was pretty proud of that one.

Although, the letter actually had 2 questions in it, and they only covered 1 of them. I don’t even remember what the other one was, now.

I honestly didn't think much of Apostate before this episode, but he's probably one of my favorite villains now by virtue of his devotion to showmanship and skullduggery for the sole purpose of getting on Fanatic's nerves.

I'm going to join in the chorus and declare that I loved this week's episode.

I loved Fanatic's episode, in that it was cool to learn a lot about the character and have some great/cool conversations as a result.  But it was also a relatively weightier episode, and I feared that the Apostate one would be similar but dark because it's about a villain.  Instead, I got "wake up Helena!" which, in addition to making me laugh out loud, might have propelled Apostate to the top of my favorite villain list.  I was suprising pleased by the levity this week. 

Yeah, Apostate is basically a pure Card Carrying Villain Troll, and it's pretty glorious. (He's even a deliberately fabulously fanservicey villain on top of it.)

It belatedly occurred to me to wonder if Lazer Ryderz Apostate is what Tactics Apostate looks like.

The name Hellion appeared in the Oblivaeon Demos. She is one side of the mission reward card which features Seraph, so we'll see her once the mission deck is out.

The coma one is great, but I love the talk about being siblings and wanting to work together as he keeps raising corpse to try and stab her to death. In fact, my only problem with that graveyard fight is that Apostate suufered from the law of inverse ninjutsu to make it possible. Fighthing someone just as good as you that many times would be one of the hardest fights Helena has ever had. And Apostate does not miss a beat with his speech the entire time.

I'll also say there is a huge missed opportunity with Apostate in the Block. Sure, he was a "lowly patrol guard" but man, he was in the Block for years with potential access to tons of things, I really hope he left tons of messes and "time bombs" for the heroes and FILTER to clean up for years to come.

Also, Tactics Apostate sounds pretty dang awesome looking, and terrifying in the extreme. He made a new sword (an unamed sword, curse you Christopher!!) out of an Oblivaeon shard. That has all sorts of badness comning off of it.

As for the RPG, I wonder about broken artifacts retaining large chunks of the Spirit of Deception. A few unlucky souls find a few things, maybe someone robs Condemnation from the Freedom Five (they have it in Tactics at least) and we could have a minor cult movement for putting Apostate back together again. That could be super cool.

Edit: Oh yeah, on the topic of lies.

Apostate never wears shirts.

He was a Guard in the Block and the advisor to a totalitarian leader... while shirtless... yeah, that's too much

At the very least I wouldn’t be surprised if he had influence on why FILTER went from a mostly neutral group to one with more villainous intent.  

I have to admit that I had no idea what musical group they were referring to with the flavor text.

Yeah I had to look them up from Walking Targets recap ,apparently it's Dio, who were a Black Sabbath spin off band, never heard of them but music is not really my thing

Apostate's time in the block was spent setting up a long con that ended with several guards ending a long awaited and much anticipated vacation with disappointment in the size and abundance of local fish.

It was one of his most successful deceptions.

I think I heard a little Mistborn reference in there today, when they referred to Host spirits “rioting” emotions. Also, Seraph’s sword being named Preservation might be a little bit of a nod, eh?

> Apostate never wears shirts

What, never?

Apostate and Ra should form a shirt haters club

People can't properly appreciate what a heavenly being you are if you're covering it up with a shirt! It's Being A God/Dark Angel 101 stuff.

I hope so.

Oh! I remember now to mention how I love how fabulous the art for Apostate's show notes is.

It's totally him just vamping and being like "look at how amazingly hot and evil I am" and it's hilariously awesome.

Hardly ever.

Most men's shirts don't work with wings. Women just have more options in that regard (string tank tops, tube tops, backless dresses, etc).

I’m away from my cards now, but isn’t Hellion visible on Quando Ahora?

There isn’t any version of Fanatic or Apostate on that card.  

Does anyone else not like the art on the videogame/shownotes art much compared to the original artwork? I'm starting to like the new art though…

I'm a little confused, because the artwork in the show notes IS typically the card art. Apostate's show notes are the one of the few times we've gotten totally new art in the show notes instead, and I totally loved it.

The art in the show notes is the current Oversized villain artwork for Apostate and I know that is artwork Jeysie has not seen since it’s not in the video game.  

He doesn't wear a pinafore either.

Ah! OK, now I understand Lord Flash Fire's question better. XP Sorry about that, dude.

With the heroes, at least, it pretty much depends on what hero/variant is being discussed, since it's pretty much split between new/old/indifferent for me. Have a feeling the villains will probably be the same way.

I love just about all of the background portraits in the digital version and wish we had them as pics available outside the game, though.

Yeah, I caught that too. Plus, the way the Host is described makes me think of Spren from Stormlight Archive.

Christopher talking about the host as gelatin reminded me that jelly is one of those words that means somehting different in the US. I always forget that, and now I'm going to have to rethink every mention of The Void...

Yeah.

We have gelatin or jell-o, which is that weird jiggly stuff you make fruit salads/molds with.

We have jelly, which is fruit spread made with fruit juice and pectin that sort of has the consistency of gelatin but is more spreadable.

Then we have jam, which adds the actual pulp from the fruit into the mix to make it more fluid and thickly spreadable.

And then there's preserves, which is jam with large pieces of fruit! Lest you think us barbarians. :B

It's like the Inuit having a billion words for snow, except in this case it's Americans and words for things with sugar in them.

The gelatin here is jelly, and any of the spreads are jam. Or marmalade, if it's made from citrus.

Oh right, we have marmalade here too, because, you know, words for sugar.

Maybe we should make a crib sheet of all the Americanisms in the podcast or game. I know over on Reddit someone asked a while back what the difference was between IHOP and Denny's.

Denny's has the surreal online marketing stuff. That's all I know

Denny's is kinda surreal in real life too, by virtue of being the kind of place you tend to end up at when it's 2AM and you're on the way home from whatever road trip thing you were doing all day and you're starving and it's either that or some fast food burger joint and the diner sounds more appealing. So it ends up being a very liminal space kinda place in general. Not horror movie, exactly, but weird dreamlike "this movie was made on drugs but is otherwise mostly benign" sort of movie.

I ended up there after a lot of barbershop concerts in particular.

While IHOP is more of the kind of breakfast place you go to because you actually specifically sought out to go to IHOP.

I've heard it said that:

You don't go to Denny's. You end up at Denny's.

Much like Steak & Shake or Waffle House, Denny's falls into that category of restaurant for which you only have two reasons to go:

1) You are in an altered state of mind due to some substance and there's nothing to eat in the house/apartment/etc.

2) You've recently completed some exerting, late-night activity with a partner and require sustenance.

I feel like both the Dark Watch and the Prime Wardens probably end up at Lenny's a lot. (The Southwest Sentinels prefer local cheap Mexican food joints instead.)

That's probably their preference, but that's not where you take a tween when you finish beating up some bad guys at 3 in the morning.  I can easily imagine treating her to IHOP in that case.

WOAH. WOAH. Don’t talk sh*t on Steak and Shake! It’s REALLY GOOD.

That's what jam is? I thought it was just another word for jelly.

Technically speaking yeah, that's the difference. Compare apple jelly to strawberry jam for probably the most noticeable distinction between the two concepts.

To bring this around to the original topic, if the Host is gelatin, and the Void is jelly, I wonder what compares to jam. Or marmalade.

Now I feel like Lenny's and IHIP must be strange nexuses of cosmic power in the Sentinelsverse considering how many mystical forces keep ending up as breakfast substances.

I can say in all honesty, most of the multiverse was created in those two places.

Hence the Void Jelly! :D

Gonna second McBehrer, Steak & Shake is ace. Although the one nearest to me has crap service. :B

Why does everyone hate on Denny's and Steak and Shake? I love 'em both!

I don't mind Denny's, but I freely admit it's the kind of place you end up at.

It's a very chill place to end up at, though, where people don't mind if your barbershop pals want to sing a tune or two.

I can’t believe we’ve gotten this far without anybody pointing out:

McBreher admitted to being Biomancer!

Dio quotes on Fanatic cards!

I guess it's obvious that the Holy Nova quote is a song lyric.  It's from Holy Diver.

But that got me thinking, when Fanatic uses Final Dive, that makes her a Holy Diver, doesn't it now...

Don’t get me wrong – I have No hate for Denny’s, IHOP, Waffle house, or Steak and shake. Much love, in fact.

But in all cases, I don’t think anyone goes there for the food.

Funny story – my then girlfriend (now wife) learned that her roommate was a lesbian because of a late night S&S run.

Damnitdamnitdamnit!

I went to all the trouble of setting it up and then completely forgot to use it.

Sigh

I meant to do this

You can find out by listening here

Or is it here?

Nope, it’s definitely here.

Ugh. Now I feel bad.

You can highlight my post directly under that to see it was my intent all along.

Mainly because there's actually multiple people who write Biomancer letters: I know Powerhound admitted to writing one, and the Cult of Gloom has said they know there's more than one person.

Speaking of which, I successfully got the Cult of Gloom to come to Twitch chat the other night; I feel accomplished.

Also also, am I the only one who felt a little bit sheepish when Christopher called out all the Fanatic discussion on the forums during this episode? It was kind of this guilty feeling of "Oh yeah, Dad was listening to us squabble…"

For Biomancer, are we sure that's not just evidence that his clones are multiplying and spreading? Looks around nervously

As for Cult of Gloom, that doesn't fully surprise me.  Their letters are very distinctive, and there were one or two recently that didn't sound quite right.  I had orginally just assumed that the letter was rushed, but someone else having written it makes more sense.

Looping back to Apostate, one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet but that I found interesting was how Fanatic and Apostate were each differently affected by their humanity.  Fanatic's humanity was what saved her from being even more judgemental, and yet Apostate's humanity was his downfall that led him to change from "mess with Fanatic" to "burn the world and rule over the ashes".

Actually, AFAIK there is just the one Cult of Gloom writer; what I meant was that the Cult of Gloom writer somehow knows there's more than one Biomancer letter writer. Sorry for the unclear wording.

Me too; I've had squabbles in other fandoms where attempts to resolve them left me at best with an enemy and at worst with me having to actually leave the fandom, obviously neither of which result I liked very much.

Agreed! It definitely makes our job as Mod easier…

i saw that, I just forgot to say anything. Good for you on figuring that out, although now I have to break it to you. The Biomancer clones are just a collective of 8  people all coming up with great questions and using the Biomancer facade. When other people try and use it, they find themselves stalked by an unknown presence, that feels… wrong. Eerily similar to themselves, actually. Until they finally end up somewhere ranging from annoying to dangerous, depending on how annoying they were to track down and/or how well they used the Biomancer cover. If they were relatively easy to find out and did a good Biomancer impression, then they might find themselves unconscious for only a few hours Andy wake up in the dumpster behind the >Games building. If they were hard to find and annoying to render unconscious, they may snap out of it on a life raft in the middle of the Atlantic. If sharks come, well, it was your fault. You may have found out McBehrer and me, but there are still 6 of us left! Hahaha! (Jkjk, I’m not Biomancer, but McBehrer has done a good job on this (if he is actually Biomancer.))

I'd think any creator would be happier to see people discussing their work to the point of getting upset than to see no discussion happening, so there's that.

Ah, Godzilla 1998.  Atrocious Movie, great sountrack.  I wonder if i still have my copy…

I am Sad people didn't know Black Sabbath and Dio. I laugh so hard the first time I open the base game and read the flavor text. Love old metal music.

I agree with most that Apostate went for a meh villain to my favorite one now (besides La Captain and Baron Blade). So much ham. My favorite is him saying he wants to work together with Fanatic in the graveyard while she cuts in down. That probably messed he up for a bit. A+ troll.

Indeed.

Also, "Black Sabbath Spinoff" is a new one for me. it's almost like Ronnie James Dio didn't have a distinguished career with Rainbow and (to a lesser extent) Elf prior to joining Black Sabbath.

Well I did a whole series of Fanatic questions just flooded with Dio lyric puns but i guess they werent original enough or maybe i was just, last in line 

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  

…

…

I hate you so much for that…

Well played.

I can neither confirm nor deny that. I CAN confirm that my forum signature will now be changing.

Woohoo, I’m misquotable!

They pseudo answered one of my questions. I asked about his pants. Like, what does he wear? What are his pants made out of? They talked about it at the very beginning without mentioned my name. So... yay?

I was I admit a bit confused by the green pants bit. Either they're leaning in with the Apostate is a lying liar deal or I am color blind (or I misheard what they said which is probably the most likely of the three options), because Apostate totally wears grey pants.

And Apostate's pants are clearly made out of the defied prurience of villain fangirls everywhere.

His pants are green on Fallen Angel and Remorseless Provocation.

And you're right now that you remind me. X3 I think I've gotten to the stage where I'm so used to playing the cards that I don't pay as close attention to the card art anymore versus just the main card and background arts; I should go and read through the Multiverse section again to remind myself. So Apostate's pants are like Captain Cosmic's mask.

I maintain my statement on what they're made from, though.