Friends at the Table

Latest Episodes:

Twilight Mirage 41: No Value in a Closed Door Mar 02, 2018

Show notes

After returning from their meeting with Advent and the Concretetown Particulars, the Notion discusses the complexity of the situation over dinner. When a new offer is made, the group prepares for their largest operation yet: The piercing of a powerful storm and a confrontation against an Axiomatic foe. Even digs for information, Signet reaches out for Divine aid, and Echo returns a gift.

This week on Twilight Mirage: No Value in a Closed Door

We don't talk much or nothin' But when we talkin' about something We have good discussion

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Sylvi Clare (@captaintrash), and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

A transcription is available for this episode here.A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project. If you'd like to join, you can get more information at https://twitter.com/transcript_fatt. Thank you to all of our transcribers!!

Twilight Mirage 40: Like What We Used To Do Feb 23, 2018

Show notes

Having agreed to help a group of young runaways that go by the name the Sailors of the Ark, the Notion begin to gather information for their mission. Fourteen Fifteen, Grand Magnificent, and Tender Sky head toward Big Garage's terrestrial transport center to secure passage onto the floating city ship, only to find things more complicated (and tightly scheduled) than they'd hope. Gig Kep-Hart and the sentient Torch Unit named Yam, meanwhile, visit with members of the Ark to piece together clues about Big Garage's layout. But preparation is always only preparation, and when the team finally takes to the skies, they run into a few unexpected surprises... This week on Twilight Mirage: Like What We Used To Do Piece in my hands worth twice than a friend And two limbs over shoulder, carried away Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), and Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 39: Staying Neutral Feb 15, 2018

Show notes

Having confirmed the location of the stitch connecting Gift-3 to Brighton, the Notion prepares to undergo their mission to transport a small group of refugees. While Signet checks in on the local church, Even and Echo meet up with an old friend to gather information. Finally, the group sets off... with a very unorthodox plan.

This week on Twilight Mirage: Staying Neutral

I believe there's heaven, I believe in war

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Sylvi Clare (@captaintrash), and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 38: The Good Decision Feb 09, 2018

Show notes

Inside of a laboratory on 29th floor of Big Garage Co-Working Tower #12, Gig Kep-hart performs an experimental robotic surgery alongside the brash (and presumed missing) teenager, Orellia Ject. Meanwhile, 28 floors below, Tender Sky, Grand Magnificent, and Fourteen Fifteen work to stall a ticking clock as authorities draw ever closer. Whether it counts down or not, this half of the Notion is about to come face to face with someone who has their own bold vision of the future. This week on Twilight Mirage: The Good Decision Clearly this isn't all that there is Can't take what's been given But we're so okay here, we're doing fine… Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), and Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 37: Along A Route Feb 02, 2018

Show notes

Deep in the Crashyards of Gift-3, Signet, Even, and Echo have been sent by Cascara and Seneschal's Brace to locate and secure a "stitch" in space, a place where two of the Nine Idylls of the Quire system connect as if by magic. Once secured, they are to lead a small group of refugees through that stitch, beginning the long and necessary effort of reconnecting the broken Tides of Harmony. But before they can lead anyone anywhere, they need to get back from their reconnaissance mission… and the drones of Advent Discovery & Salvage and the strange mechanical beasts of Gift-3's wilds aren't going to make it easy.

This week on Twilight Mirage: Along A Route

Two mopeds racing through the forest Making dirt clouds on a path, on a path

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Sylvi Clare (@captaintrash), and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 36: Every Bad Idea Jan 26, 2018

Show notes

Newly unified as "The Notion," the crew of The World Without End has arrived to Gift-3. While half of the group is busy working on their (semi-)official assignment, the team of Tender Sky, Fourteen Fifteen, Gig Kephart, and Grand Magnificent have their own work to attend to. At the request of Grand's local contact, a small-time transporter named Alabaster Went whose niece, Winchester, has gone missing, the crew heads into the Mandati capital of Big Garage to investigate a case of runaway teens. Is it an NEH plot? Could some technological marvel (or monster) kidnapped them? Or is Quire itself interfering, yet again?

This week on Twilight Mirage: Every Bad Idea

That's a pretty fucking fast year flew by That's a pretty long third gear in this car

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), and Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 35: This Year of Ours: The Notion Jan 19, 2018

Show notes

From a certain perspective, the Twilight seemed to rest perfectly at peace, an etheric coastline: The Nine Idylls--even Volition--in close, harmonious orbit within a sea made of light and color, and tidal rhythms drawn by the pleasant waving of the distant asteroid belt that encircled the Quire System.

But unfortunately for Keen Forester Gloaming, Chief Intercessor of the Rapid Evening's newly formed Mirage Division, that perspective wasn't visible from the bridge of the Welkin Absolute, flagship of his humble task force.

As the long, ribbon-like frigate flittered through the Shore like a wind-up toy or a tapeworm, Gloaming looked beyond the rocks and towards the only thing that Crystal Palace feared: Possibility.

"K-Upside Transmission 328, Record MD-Gloaming

Crystal Palace,

As we approach the one year anniversary of our incursion into the Quire System, Dovetail synopsis confirms that the last 11 months have been aligned with guaranteed events.

As predicted, the two largest operators inside of the Mirage are in a moderate state of fracture. Combine this with the arrival of external agitators and opportunists, and this system is working daily towards their definite collapse, at which time a clean up crew can address the problem of Volition and any other probabilistic phenomena.

But, Crystal Palace, there is something I'm worried you missed. You forecasted 44 meaningful entities inside of the Mirage, and there are exactly that. You identified the existence of temporal and spatial shifts before any of our agents landed on these worlds. You told me that we would fight my daughter to a standstill and we did.

And I never batted an eye… until last week.

An operation on Seneschal. Removal of a low level deviation risk, a woman named Open Metal. Our agents chased her down a rib, out of Drifting into Marginalia, into a little automated fishing village by the western falls. They cornered her at the end of a high, long causeway, but when they went to fire, she leapt into sea, and landed on a boat, and vanished.

That boat wasn't supposed to be there. There were no "meaningful entities" on schedule, no "temporal or spatial shifts" registered. I looked into it. It was an old man who liked to fish.

Your models account for everything except the most ordinary people. And if someone gives them the notion that they can make this work… it just might."

This week on Twilight Mirage: This Year of Ours: The Notion

When's the last time I asked for some help that I couldn't get from nobody else, yeah? I couldn't get from nobody out there Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), Sylvi Clare (@captaintrash), Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

A transcription is available for this episode here.

A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project. If you'd like to join, you can get more information at https://twitter.com/transcript_fatt. Thank you to all of our transcribers!!

Twilight Mirage 34: This Year of Ours: The Mystic Jan 17, 2018

Show notes

"Thirteenth" by Declan's Corrective, Co-Governor of Seneschal, former Ace Pilot of the New Earth Hegemony

Before these clinquant peaks

And Quire-fashioned streets

And shimmering cataract falls

Before this was home

Before Seneschal

There was me

Stiff shoulder muscle

Knotted, bloody, scarred

And chess table politics

And cricket yard brawls

And father's frantic calls

To lessons he'd swore I'd need

To seed a future year

With countless victories

Before we walked together gleaming

Before Drifting, my reprise

Before diarchy and comedy

Before Cadent beaming:

Before Notion

Before violence

Before Vanguard, Apogee

Before Evening

Before promise

Before vision from dark sea

I walked down courtyards, and looked to spheres

And whispered treacherous dreams

To peers who'd disappeared

No schemers left to scheme

Just me and castle

Just me and hope

Just me, naive, and mouth of soap

This is not apology

This is dedication writ in flesh

No more "fighting spirit"

No more streets, bent

No more "what I really meant"

This is Tender wound

Me, threshed

On a dusted windowsill

An ant lifts a sugar grain

Plodding under false sunlight

Through spotted windowpane

And on the other side a child

Runs through a sprinkler stream

And screams

And laughs

And worries what's to be

Stiff shoulder muscle

Knotted, bloody, scarred

A dedication the a world-to-be

To victory

To fall

This week on Twilight Mirage: This Year of Ours: The Mystic

Mind over matter is magic I do magic

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Ali Acampora (@ali_west) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 33: This Year of Ours: The Speaker Jan 16, 2018

Show notes

Feedback by Janus, Red Equity of the Golden Clause, on a term paper exploring the the emerging legal jurisdiction of the Quire System.

Please Note: The grade you've received here reflects your successful ability to follow the assignment's instructions, cite relevant academic and practical work, and build an argument supported by precedent. For that, you should be commended.

But I am disappointed that you would take up this line of thought.

As you've written politicians of certain persuasion point to moments of crisis, to freshly mapped worlds, to technological frontiers and say that the law does not apply in these places. That that those in power rule arbitrarily during these states of exception.

But if you take one lesson from me or from this seminar, let it be this: There is no such thing as a lawless place or a time outside of jurisdiction.

Deep below explicit legal precedent, unlisted in any codex, there lie unspoken rules by which society functions. They are fluid, yet bottled by the shape of culture. From the racist resolution of border-region land disputes to the public opinion pardoning of war criminals, a cultural paradigm of gestures and sensibilities guides action.

The so-called "state of exception" is an alibi. If tyranny rises and the people of Quire do not stand to stop it, that is a not a sign of the oppressor's strength, but a memorandum on the population's capacity to love a despot.

Jurisprudence simply follows suit.

Fourteen Fifteen, you are a good student, and I hope you grow to understand our role in this system: We are as adjudicators on the verge.

Our role is not simply to interpret the law as written, it is to translate attitude into index. And, in instances where indices are incomplete, to passionately propel the world towards justice.

This week on Twilight Mirage: This Year of Ours: The Speaker

Oh I see the lines, there's two lines You'll live a life anew Tell me what you need from me?

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west) Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot) Episode description by Austin Walker Music by Jack de Quidt

Twilight Mirage 32: This Year of Ours: The Stitch Jan 15, 2018

Show notes

An entry from the journal of the former excerpt "To the prince, we offered twelve thousand flowers, Blooming in an untouched field," leader of the Beloved Nights.

How did I get here? How did I find this home? Pain. Pain was my guide.

For the first half of the year each second was a dozen or more. I have buried my kin, my peers, and myself. I put my love to rest and lived in a marionette corpse for months. Yet I never knew a pain like this until I looked up from Volition's surface and saw a beautiful new world with no place for me in it.

I knelt before the so-called Cadent Under Mirage and waited for an answer. Where could I best serve her? Lacking her own answer, and without her advisor, the priestess, in sight, she deferred to a bureaucrat.

I remember the ship they put me on. It smelled of bleach and rust. it was crowded with those who would I would manage. A cleanup operation. The remains of Privign Station, which Volition's monstrous retainers had crushed into crumbs, and which the pull of the Mirage and brought to us like galleon driftwood.

They all speak of miracles, but the only one that matters to me is that in this broken place, I found reason to live again.

We found her in a pod and when we brought her to, we were moved by the force of her sadness. She looked out on what the Mirage had become, how our leader had shrunk from duty, and vowed to find a place for all of us. She lifted me with a finger and stared through me from behind her veil, and she had my loyalty instantly. And I had a home and a purpose, here, beside the Waking Cadent.

Signet… I wish you had been there. Just so you knew I wasn't a fool.

This Week on Twilight Mirage: This Year of Ours: The Stitch

And I believe you when you say that you've lost all faith But you must believe in something, something, something

Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker) Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)

Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)

Episode description by Austin Walker

Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)