The Tsuki Project (Premium E278)

Liv Agar SHODAN

i’m pretty sure tsuki is charlie fang/miya creator of kaliacc/ remilia and milady maker and is super far right and worked for palantir

(1) sound track is like heaven place in SNES Zelda and (2) this sounds like if you read any employer provided life insurance product.

While I too would like to believe like Liv that there was a Golden Age of the internet before the real sickos arrived, I think not only were the sickos already there from the beginning, they are responsible for much of the modern internet’s infrastructure (like how the porn sites were the pioneers of e-commerce). TL;DR it’s this comic https://xkcd.com/2347/ except the internet is held up by a guy who fucks toasters

Finally, Jake gets to be the one with all the insights.

LFE is Life without I, who ever thought of that saw themselves as very deep

Rewrite got an anime. And this just moved it up my to-watch list. Bananas.

I feel compelled to mention this cosmology is wholesale stolen from isekai light novels that exploded in popularity at that time.

Serial Experiments Lain was actually way more cracked than that summary makes it sound. I owned it on VHS. The experience of watching it was like being stuck in a nightmare while on an acid trip. And it's interesting that he chose an image from that show, because his cult ideology sounds much more like an isekai, and Lain wasn't an isekai. Though it did have a whole Majestic 12, psychic experimentation on children plotline, so it did have some conspiracy theories baked into the show lore.

liv signed up for bg3 beta but we still never got another gandalf the green stream 😞

Tsuki’s visions remind me of Joan of Arc being visited by St Micheal w the really good idea of France taking on the English - join me on things not working out and lots of people dying ... visits from Lacan’s “Big Other” … Tsuki knowing what the Big Other wants plus the internet …

Liv pulling out an impeccable Musk impression this ep

Had to interrupt my listening to this episode to hear this again https://youtu.be/Uoox9fpmDP0?si=JWhBhsufhkoz6iGp

Liv Agar

Liv Agar

Liv Agar arriving in heaven: getting a lot of boss baby vibes from this…….

jake movie ref corrections: • LUKE PERRY • diagonally

Oh man the "relationships with" thing on the end really put a spin on it that I wasn't expecting, damn

Woah a classic era Qaa episode. I really liked this one. Thank you all!

For those needing context one of the messages of the show Lain is to not lose yourself on the internet, this group missed that part.

Reminds me of the Final Fantasy sharehouse cult story where a bunch of cosplayers and roleplayers started recruiting with actual pamphlets randos on the streets. They have enough steam to recruit other unwashed, greasy children but normal people were not biting, the non cult members of that house were unamused by their rituals and lack of rent paying. Tumblr and Livejournal was a hive of little versions of these charismatic personality cults who pour all their energy into fandom frameworks and 'multiples' systems which is a weird offshoot of discourse about D.I.D/Multiple personality manifestations. No one is acountable for what they did because at the time they were Sherlock Holmes (the version that lives in your head that's you and is exactly like that fan fiction where he's exactly like you so important and powerful right!?) and Sonic is there too usually.

Vice has a pretty good article from 2017, also the Lain subreddit has some ancient posts and some people who remember signing up.

Just a thought, the next time you guys cover one of these heavily anime inspired cults and such, it might be nice to bring in a guest host who has more experience with the medium. Some of us old nerds know what Lain is but an expert could have helped explained it better to you guys and give more context to the listeners about this cult.

I like how these people completely misunderstood Serial Experiments Lain

Jake's right, the server is a better place with you in it. You're presence makes this sithole a little more more tolerable.

I wasn't in this exact cult, but a few years earlier I was part of a very small group with a similar concept. Fortunately there was no grifter at the head of it and we all eventually realized that we were just a bunch of sad, lonely people that didn't fit in where we lived trying to find purpose and community. I'm still friends with some of them today actually.

I knew someone back then who got into it by posting on Lainchan, he was a heavy drug user and I don‘t know what happened to him. Hope he‘s well (and alive). Maybe he‘s in the maidcafé universe now (Luigi does not approve)

Robot Liv sounds like Elon Musk

Ok Jake brought up Prodigy. I think he’s cool now.

This sounds like a ship show

L I V A G A R

No! That was Luke Perry!

John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats wrote a really good novel called Wolf in White Van about a game designer whose fantasy world leads to the deaths of some teens. It came out long before this cult but I just had a really strong flashback. Future episode on the Zizians? They’re an effective altruist murder cult that have been in the news recently.

Great ep, I had no idea about this one. 2010s 4chan, especially a/, was charmingly unironic in it's overrating of Serial Experiments Lain. It's a good show, but I'm not surprised at all that sensitive or alternatively minded Anons got baking with it.

Hey Travis if you’re interested in another religion-adjacent fandom imbroglio check out the ‘EU Movement’ and ‘Star Wars Supernatural Encounters: The Trial & Transformation of Arhul Hextrophon’.

What’s the source for the outro?

Is Liv calling out the newfags

liv agar

Sounds like hikikomori and reincarnation anime.

Liv Agar

I should have known an online isekai cult was something that had ALREADY happened.

I remember hearing/looking into this in my chan days, crazy it’s getting coverage like this.

i was in this cult ><

let's all love lain

Only started to listen to the episode but basing your cult on serial experiments lain sounds like one of the dumbest things you could do and yet totally appropriate to the themes of the show

Liv Agar

deep dish me

Liv... Agar?

Liv agar

Hell yeah this sounds extra melted grilled cheese.