we start chapter 2 today!
If you didn’t follow with the schedule this is actually a great opportunity to try from scratch since every chapter is a stand alone!!
have fun all 
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Just had a quick look at the chapter. It starts with a few 短歌, it seems. I’ve heard about those, but I really don’t know much. Still, they seem longer than the one I’ve seen before (but I don’t know the rules anyway and it’s possible that they more freestyle/modern in any case).
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I struggled with the beginning of this chapter and understanding what it was about - I had to use the dictionary to translate more often that I wished to, which was a bit disappointing to myself personally. However, I loved the story. I loved the concept, I found it super original and well constructed for a short story. It was bittersweet, but also left me somehow feeling hopeful at the end. I liked seeing the interactions between the characters and how they felt human, with their fights and imperfections. Overall a very pleasant read - I read it all at once 
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This one was harder than the first, mostly because of the tanka, but I liked it. Bittersweet, though somehow I felt the ending was more sweet than bitter.
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(Second story)
Well, it feels like one of those stories that are written to make you cry and, well, it worked with me.
I thought the last character was clever too.
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Just finished the 3rd story (the manga). It felt silly, but not in a good way. 
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I was also not a big fan of it - have to say it was my least favorite so far. I was also not expecting a manga short story, I hope we don’t get more of them…
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No it’s the only one.
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Well that manga sure was, uh, something.
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Got caught up and totally agree on that last story, my main thought at the end was just …what?
Really enjoyed the first two stories though.
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Ah, there’s a typo in the end sentence in the table. I almost missed the end because I was expecting something else 
About the story, that girl needs help. What the frick. I was intrigued by the setting… but then things took a sharp turn.
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oh, sorry sorry, could you point it out?
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Spoiler
I’m not only intrigued, I also quickly got entranced by this one! Akina’s character is so… creepy, and I think the author does a great job conveying that with so many disturbing descriptions (and the poor younger sister)… I have to say that I couldn’t (and didn’t try to) completely understand the sci-fi/science explanation, but the idea of a character that gets so deranged to the point of proving a theory/satisfying their intellectual curiosity make for a great narrative. I’m curious to see how it will end, though I don’t think there’s a very happy ending in sight.
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アキノがなに not なの
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That’s not how I took it. She isn’t proving anything, she just found some theory she likes and ran with it.
She just says that she wants to minimize the difference between what her brain is expecting to receive as information for her senses and what her senses are actually providing. That’s just a fancy way to say she hates the unexpected. Free energy doesn’t in any way provides a universal reason for everything (I assume that’s her mistake, not the author’s) because we (and the world in general) are dynamic systems and eating food to get more energy is a thing. If our ultimate goal was indeed to just minimize free energy, being dead is a great way of doing that.
She can also minimize the discrepancy between her internal world model and her observations by living fully restrained in a pitch black room while being fed by an intravenous drip. That’s kinda hand waved away by saying that humans are social animals and she needs to be with other humans due to evolution (that one doesn’t really make sense, but whatever).
So, yeah, she killed the sister because she was too touchy and unpredictable for her tastes, so she “simplified” the observation distribution.
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This is how I understood it though I couldn’t fully make sense of a lot of the sentences in her explanation haha.
I liked this one! The setting was cool. Using the realm of the dead for computing power is sounds pretty bad ass and not something I’ve seen before. I like how the religious aspects are brought together with sci-fi elements. I think I’d actually enjoy a longer series with a setting like that actually.
Luckily it didn’t seem too important to understand exactly what Akino was saying at all times, but there was quite a difficulty jump there haha. Pretty tragic story between to the two of them (I think the main girls name was only mentioned maybe once at the beginning by her mum? 与加能(読み:とかの)と書く女の子の名前 - お名前辞典 - 赤ちゃん・子供の名前 約18万件から検索できる名前辞書).
Spoilers for end of short story
I thought the ending was well written. I especially enjoyed the description as they sunk into the 幽世. Looking forward to the next one =)
We were supposed to only read half of the story this week. I stopped reading as soon as it seemed like you read until the end instead. Could you confirm?
If you read ahead, I think it would help if you added a mention of that before your blurred part 
Wait, is her name アキノ in y’all’s copies? ‘Cause it’s アキナ in mine.
Also, I didn’t remember reading the line we were supposed to leave off on. I scanned pg 93-95 for it beforehand since it should be in there somewhere, but I didn’t see it, and I didn’t register it when I was reading (but then, I’d forgotten it by then). But by halfway through, I wanted to be over with it anyway, so I just read the whole thing. It’s only 30 pages.
Update: Ah, it was on pg 92 bc it counts from the title page, not the first page of the story. Also, we’re supposed to read the first line of the paragraph but not the rest of it? Or is that line supposed to be the first of next week’s section? That’s confusing. I’m glad I could read it all in one day…
This one might not have been as bad as 3, but that doesn’t exactly mean it was any better. I know that makes zero sense and also is a paradox, but that’s how I feel. I disliked it more the more I went on…
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It is アキナ, yes. In my message, I just copy/pasted from the thing at the top without checking. The whole time, I was just focused on the なの thing, so I didn’t even notice
Even at the half point, I really can’t see any “百合” going on at this point because things are bad anyway 
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Okay, I saw two people calling her Akino, and it made me doubt for a bit that I wasn’t misreading, but nope, it’s definitely a ナ I was reading
In the latter half, there’s… a small instance that could be interpreted as yuri, but really it’s Tokano enjoying having power over Akina. It just feels like a superiority complex or some such, not attraction, so I’m not counting it. Update: Just realized Akina being jealous of Tokano’s little sister hogging her attention and wanting the old Tokano back etc. could also possibly be interpreted as yuri, but really it just feels like her need for everything to stay exactly the same. She kinda really takes the autistic resistance to change to the extreme. And now that I’ve realized the story’s kinda taken some autistic traits and demonized them, I hate it even more…
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