BBBC Reads Ward - Arc 10.x - 10.z - Polarize Interludes

Transcript

Speaker: Good evening, Mega City. I know you're all falling to pieces tonight, but try to hold it together and hang on because boy, do we have a bunch of questions that are finally getting answered tonight on the Brockton Bay Book Club with your hosts, Jacob. Hello.

Speaker: Hannah. Hello. Hello, babies. Nick. Hell Michael. Heyo. And I, of course, am Alan.

Speaker: Welcome to the Rockton Bay Book Club. We are a bunch of friends reading through Ward by J.C. McRae. We are currently going through Arc 10, the back half.

Speaker: ah which would be, I believe, 9.x to 9.z. um Exactly what you said, but 10 instead of 9 there the beginning. Yeah, 10, not 9. We're in Arc 10. Y to 10.z. So all of the interludes. I'm going to take away your hosting responsibilities. I look here, okay? I've got a little sticky note over here, and I can't see it well, so I'm basically going to ignore it. Wear your glasses.

Speaker: it's not a glasses thing. It's a light thing. Cause I have this light ring and then I have my microphone and honestly, glasses might help, but I'm not going to wear them cause they glare so much. Um, Important things to note. Tonight we have, of course, bingo in the chat. If you'd like to contribute to the bingo card that you can play along with, um you can, of course, join our Patreon where we have a Discord and you can provide answers for that.

Speaker: And, of course, you can always buy some sexy looking merch like Jacob is wearing. ah good a good Brockton base, you know, remember old Brockton, rest in peace.

Speaker: You know, ah very important, especially while going through Ward. um A few things to clean up before we move on. Daylight savings time did happen in the U S of a and ah yes, Democrats and Republicans, everybody wanted to abolish a daylight savings time. Cause this is the 21st century and that's dumb, we still do this.

Speaker: um The original purpose of it was to set your clocks back for farming, except you can just get up an hour earlier and, That's just how it works.

Speaker: um But every everybody adjusts it for time, and it still kind of doesn't work out. As somebody who used to coach soccer with no lights at the fields, it still gets dark way earlier. It doesn't really help all that much.

Speaker: so um Now, ah getting into this, I think we had a pretty full arc here. um not just with the last time, but with this time as well.

Speaker: um I would be overall, i have to look back at what we read, you know, another 50,000 down this time, but I want to say this might be my favorite arc so far.

Speaker: Oh. But... Like in total. and As a whole. And I have reasons, but I'd love to hear what y'all thought about the back half of this arc. Starting with Hannah.

Speaker: Oh, well, you know, you guys know, I've always been a big Bonesaw fan because I love body horror. I think it's fascinating. I think it's really interesting. I'm a big Criminal Minds person. So opening up with that bloodbath was...

Speaker: ah immediately I'm locked in. I am locked in. Let's fucking go. ah Really enjoyed this a lot. Really enjoyed ah some stuff finally coming to light.

Speaker: um It feels like finally, we're finally things are happening. So i i I enjoyed it.

Speaker: ah Jacob. Yeah, I feel like we're going to we're probably going to get into a rhythm here with the remaining of these arcs being as big as they are. where We you have to split them up. We just have to. It's too much to read. So we're going to get a lot of like, you know, one ah one one uh session will be slower build up uh questions things like that and then we'll read the back half of the arc and it'll be the exciting fight the action piece the answer whatever so we definitely got that with 10. we're like we talked about it last time we're like first few chapters like it's good it's lot of build up wonder where it's going and then

Speaker: here we go. And now we're into it. And a lot of questions answered. Still some big questions out there though. But yeah, it'll be fun to talk about. Nick?

Speaker: Yeah, generally, um There are a lot of callbacks and characters that show up again that I'm really happy to see. um Kind of like Hannah, I am fascinated by Bonesaw and kind of the vibe of those scenes feel very similar to things that we've seen before. Plus, yeah, getting a lot of answers, getting getting some...

Speaker: character development with a fight, but with a power that makes it easy to understand the scope, which we'll get to when we get to that bit. It's probably one of my favorite powers in the arc. um I'll probably call that out later as my favorite. but ah yeah just a really There's a lot going on, but a lot of good stuff. and i I enjoyed it all.

Speaker: um and I think it helps, too. We got three interludes. so The Vicky perspective was broken up by others' perspectives. two of which are people that we've been wanting and one of which is a person who we didn't know we wanted or needed, but we did. But we definitely did. So, ah you know, ah so three really good interludes definitely help as well, making this, yeah, pretty strong arc overall, I'd say.

Speaker: Yeah, like you said, a lot of questions answered, literally left on some important questions. um A lot of interaction with the oldies. um Yeah.

Speaker: A solid fight scene, in my opinion. I think it... Yeah, we'll get to talking about that. um And of course, some as we love, new powers and stuff introduced.

Speaker: As a whole for ARC-10, just looking over the chain of events, we've got up dealing with family drama in which Sveta, you know, calls out mom for being a, you know, terrible mother.

Speaker: Um, we've got Sveta and Vicky talking boys while going on the shopping trip. Um, we've got, which is just like, you know, not to torture her, but, uh, loves Sveta talking about her body dysmorphia.

Speaker: Like, Yeah. Really hits hard with that. Interpersonal stuff. We do some tracking with the time, like the time camera, talking to the police. Really enjoy that interaction. Learning about how cluster draining potentially works was an interesting discovery. Yeah.

Speaker: ah doing a little bit of the surveillance, talking with other groups, talking with mercenary groups, having the big group discussion, having tattle. And then and that's just the first half from last session.

Speaker: Yeah. Then we get into this and we get answers. We get to see tattletale. We get to meet the heartbroken. We get to ah meet, you know, our old Chicago wards team. I should have worn my Chicago wards sweater.

Speaker: but sure Might go get that. Yeah, go get it. And then, you know, all of the the body horror and the other two interludes and of I think a very solid fight scene um with some great reveals and some great cliffhangers.

Speaker: Like, you know, when we get to Victoria just looking at the notes and going, what the fuck? I remember that being the, a moment, the definitive moment for me of, I need to know what the fuck.

Speaker: Yeah. Um, not a lot of this when I was reading, it was cliffhanging me to the next section. That one for sure. Her opening that file. I had to know I had to keep reading. So, Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker: um No, this one felt like one where the the individual chapters really rolled more like I would expect a book to roll, but with those good cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, right? Where it's like, oh, oh, like, oh no. You know, the because 1010 ends with Victoria basically saying, hey, all of these people are alive.

Speaker: 10, 11, 10, 11 ends with, i don't remember what, but I know there's something. Um, and then 10, 12 ends with people getting shot. 10, 13 ends with Victoria going, what the heck is this in the files? Like, it feels like every chapter really rolls into the next one to where things are definitely picking up and it makes it, it pulls you into the reading. You want to keep reading it.

Speaker: Um, so yeah, very, very good second half for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But let's get into this. Nick, if you would start us with the Tattletail Interlude while I go don my Chicago Awards. There you go go. Go, off you go. Off you go.

Speaker: All righty. 10.X Interlude Tattletail. Tattletail tracks March and watches the Wardens return from their mission.

Speaker: Then she's hacked by Kenzie and cuts off the cameras. She watches the heartbroken torture Aiden and attends a villain meeting.

Speaker: Hmm. Finally got our Tattletail interlude we've been waiting yeah think so long for. And I'm kind of add that it's over. at another one Oh my gosh. yeah ti and I do hope we have more Tattletail interludes because she feels like we're...

Speaker: Show off that sweatshirt. Oh, yeah. Let's see the sweatshirt. Show off the sweatshirt, Alan. but let's Let's see it. let's Yeah, show it off. So this is a this was a merch option. going tell everybody. Oh, no, he's talking about Brockton Bay is owned, designed by Hannah.

Speaker: Got Chicago. course, represent. PRT logo right there. course, Chicago. Wards. Made by your own Hannah. Hannah.

Speaker: can I say? oh This was actually an optional sweatshirt that we were thinking about selling March-wise, but because we don't want to overlap on Wildbow and... His copyright.

Speaker: it's Since it's... Yeah, we don't want to rip off him and his stuff. That's why our March is just Brockton Bay Book Club merch at the moment. Also, for those of you who know, ah got my next tattoo for Wildbow arm.

Speaker: couple of Wyvern formula with Ravage, for those of you who know. There you go. I suppose we will all learn eventually when we get to the rest of the world. Those works. so but yeah Yeah. All right, cool. Yeah, so Tattletail Interlude. Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, man. So Tattletail having her finger and everything just as always. course. As always. I think the thing that stuck out to me the most, though, um is her perspective on Aiden or Chicken Little and just how he really is for her like a proxy for Taylor.

Speaker: um And I think we talked about it previously how... Tattletail didn't have many people who she really trusted or cared about, it seems, like in a deep way. Obviously, she cared about the Undeciders to an extent, but I don't think she had close relationships with them, except for maybe Taylor and I'd even say grew to an extent, right? Where it's like they were both the leaders. He was kind of the tactical frontline leader. She was the more behind-the-scenes leader.

Speaker: But they definitely had some rapport. So she's lost Gru. She's lost Taylor. But Aiden has received kind of a piece of that same shard that Taylor had. And it's it makes sense that being one of taylor's kid Taylor's kids from her time as an undersider, it's like, yeah, Chicken Little is sort of, I'm going to take care of you as if you were my best friend's kid.

Speaker: yeah And we know this sort of transference that she had from her brother to Taylor was yeah why she latched onto Taylor in the first place. yeah So it makes sense that like she would just kind of continue.

Speaker: i mean, if Aiden's gone, she just kind of feels like she would wait until she found another Taylor, you know, somebody who's in that position Yeah, absolutely. Hang on to them.

Speaker: um i um I like her interaction um with... Oh, shoot. I can't remember what's her name. Lily? Is her real name? Is it Lily? Not Lily.

Speaker: Foil? Oh, we're talking about... yeah Lily is Perri-Ann, right? No. Or is that foil? Lily is foil. She's talking to foil. I was trying remember her real name, but yeah, no foil. um Like this kind of every, cause I, love interludes with Sattletail because she picks apart everyone's body language and everything about them. And so like you see the train of thought that's happening.

Speaker: um

Speaker: And you you see her shutting them down, even as she's looking at her like her PJ pants and like the fact that she's gained some weight and that she's like really settling into kind of a more domestic space. Like, oh, she's saying, you know sorry, but does she actually mean it? And you know she's she wants something, like, what is it? And trying to push all of those thoughts away in order to engage with her teammate, engage in this space.

Speaker: um And that's... It's so interesting that like she's always thinking of 18 billion things all at the same time, and that affects like how she talks to the people around her and how she interacts with them. And even in a non-tactical sense, even in this moment where she and Boyle are standing there and they're just chatting, it's like she's she's still having to turn off the tactical parts of her brain and just like engage with another human being.

Speaker: And man, I, God, I miss, I, I miss Tattletail. I miss having her around just all the time. Yeah.

Speaker: Well, it's, it's kind of interesting because Tattletail functioned as the Hermione character for a lot of Wyrm. Yeah.

Speaker: You know, where you, which is a, is a, you know can be a smart writer's tactic. but And to explain is simply, you create a character who is really intelligent and knows a lot about the world that you've created.

Speaker: So if you need somebody to explain things to your audience, your main character, who's the proxy for the audience, can have this character explain things to them without it feeling, you know, okay.

Speaker: too like overt or overhanded. And Tattletail definitely played that role. What's interesting about Ward is that because Victoria is kind of a cape nerd, she kind of is her own Hermione character.

Speaker: And I wonder if sometimes that weakens the narrative just in the sense of she... Not that it's not interesting, but just like her knowledge about the world feels a lot more overt or maybe heavy-handed.

Speaker: But then also, Victoria doesn't know a lot, so it kind of goes, down along no I don't know. Yeah, I think those little little subtle things like that i would make, ah I think for a lot of people, Ward harder to latch onto as quickly than Wyrm did. Just those small little tropes and tactics.

Speaker: but we yeah It feels like that classic, like you need to have a kind of boring blank slate main character. Not necessarily, but you, that people self insert onto. And then also like, you don't want them to be the funny character because that's the side character's job, but you also don't want that funny side character to be the main character. Otherwise it sucks, you know, looking at you, Johnny Depp.

Speaker: Um, and yeah, and like That's why Han Solo is so great. Han Solo is not great as a main character. But Luke is because you can kind of just glass over that person and everybody explains things to them because that's you.

Speaker: But Vicky's got more personality than Taylor does and has like this very strong history that we're aware of because we've lived through it as an outsider. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: So it's hard to, when reading, kind of step into her position and hear her explain things because she takes on all these roles that are typically divided amongst side characters.

Speaker: Yeah. um And not that you can't do it that way, but traditionally it's done that way because it's hard for ah the audience to engage with and also, you know, which makes a little bit harder to write.

Speaker: hu Yeah, yeah, for sure. And at the same time, though, it is a sequel, so I can understand like, oh, these characters should know more about the world they're in. So it it works, but it is definitely a difference that, yeah, I think could make the bar to entry of enjoying Wyrm or Ward a little bit higher than Wyrm.

Speaker: Besides the fact that you have to read all of Wyrm to really enjoy Wyrm, and Wyrm is incredibly long. ah you know The bard entries pretty titanic. would love to hear somebody's take on Ward if that's the first one they wrote. like bread cause i'm not writing I would have a blast because I love stories that pick up in the middle.

Speaker: um I think all narratives should work that way personally but and just not explain anything. i mean think I just like a villain story better than a hero story.

Speaker: worm Worm does that. ah d Worm does a really good job of of combining a lot of exposition with like easing it into in a very natural way.

Speaker: um And Ward does some of that in chunks, but for more complicated concepts, like you need that for.

Speaker: um but otherwise kind of just goes in swinging, which I really enjoy. Like I said, for most stories I read, I will pick up via context clues what's going on. So like if I read this for the first time, it'd be, I think I would have a blast, but I would love to know if anybody else has ever read war Ward first. And then it was like, I wonder if there's more of this world.

Speaker: Yeah, for sure. I feel like you'd have to, If you're the kind of person who could accidentally read Ward first, you're going to have a bad time because of how many times on the web website itself, Wildbo says, if you haven't read Worm yet, read this first. This is a sequel. So like you're reading comprehension and ability to notice detail already has to be lower than average.

Speaker: but We have to like get a, we have to get a guinea pig. Like we have to set this up. We have to be like, Hey, listen, everyone's going to tell you to read Worm first. We're telling you not to do that. You know what do? as We think somebody but he told him to read it wrong as a joke.

Speaker: know what we we just tell Taylor, he's like, hey, I know you've only read like the first eight arcs of Wyrm. Just go and read Ward now and tell me what you think. Our Taylor, by the way. Our Taylor. Taylor, I know you're just slammed with school and work, but we want to add extra two million words to that. It would be really funny for us. We'll pop popcorn and watch you struggle. Amuse me. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah Well, yeah. Anyways. I was going to say, that like did have I took, rarely do I take notes when I'm reading or listening, but I did tell few. um Tattletail mentions ah one dormant and one active endbringer.

Speaker: We know the Simurgh is the active endbringer. Do we know who the dormant endbringer is? Kansu, I believe. Oh, the time one. The time one. okay Yeah. make sense I believe they've mentioned, I'm pretty sure it's Kansu and somebody in Jack can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they've mentioned like the others are kind of missing, but Simurg is still floating around and Kansu just has a time bubble in like South America on EarthBet and he's just chilling there. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. that's I think. I think. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's Kansu.

Speaker: um I don't know. Chat confirms. Yeah. The other thing, chat confirms. Okay, cool. Yes. Good job, Nick. Nice. Home school high five. ah um ah Also, um speaking of weird things they mentioned, I took a note on this. um They mentioned they're they're trying to get Imp's arm back.

Speaker: Yeah. well yeah Yeah. She lost an arm, but they think they can get it back. It didn't sound like ah she's lost an arm. We're going to get her a prosthetic.

Speaker: It sounds like she literally lost her arm and we need to find it and bring back and put it back on. I love it. I love All right. You know, now we know how that works, but...

Speaker: yeah Yeah, right. Now we know how that works. But it's like, oh, okay. That was funny. and Too many mentions of the ah of the Machine Army, too. I'm waiting but i'm convinced that'll have a payoff at some point now.

Speaker: Initially, I was like, oh, I wonder if that's just some, this is the state of the world. Everything's kind of crazy. But it's been mentioned a few times now. So I'm i'm ah anticipating a yeah payoff at some point.

Speaker: The biggest tease would be Wild Bo just mentioning the threat of the Machine Army for 20 arcs and nothing happens. That's keep as is the big cliffhanger. We're all just waiting very impatiently, tapping our feet.

Speaker: and yeah yeah Yeah. No, I mean, i I feel like we... I think I said this before last time we interacted with the Undersiders, but that it feels like Victoria and and the their crew is so small in comparison. And when we were in Wyrm, again, not to...

Speaker: you know, always compare the comparison game between the two, but like, since we're here, um like Tattletail is looking into the big threats. She's looking into the big problems. She's seeing the big picture. For her, it's not just the town or the city or the planet. It's the multiverse, as it were, and like the looming problems that are happening and how each group is interacting and the bigger threats. And it feels like while Victoria and her group like knows about it, like they're very, like, especially in the beginning, like they're very focused on like,

Speaker: a hollow point. Like that's where their focus was. And then it was like, okay, now we had our big fight at the prison. Okay. And now we're going to have, and it's like,

Speaker: it's so It feels so small potatoes compared to like Tattletail, who's got like her eyes like both looking in like two different directions because she's like watching what's going on in the rest of the fucking universe. And and ah it's nice to see her board and to see her like connecting dots and like thinking about the Endbringers because they were such a big problem and in Wyrm, and now they're like, eh.

Speaker: cares? Who cares? Which I hate. Makes me so upset. I love the Unbringers. I think they're great. So, yeah. We know that Simberg's still up to no good. Things are happening. Oh, yeah. Bless her. Give me big creepy angel in the any day. We know that Eidolon's wettest dream is still out there doing stuff, so. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker: yeah God. Love it. God. ah Things I noted down, ah being tattletale reminds me of when I got an eye infection. ah I was not allowed to have any light sources and I was not allowed to read.

Speaker: So I was forced to lay in a room and listen to podcasts at best. And sometimes the podcast gave me a headache. So that was a really shitty couple of days.

Speaker: How long was that? It was like, it was really like a solid 48 hours of, I had to skip classes and just literally lay on a couch in my room.

Speaker: And you know, it sucks being sick, sucks being sick and not being able to like watch TV or mini play video games or or even read. Like I said, literally just couldn't do anything with my eyes and had a massive headache the whole time.

Speaker: And that's what like, the tattletale, like when her power gets ramped up and she's alone in her dark room, just trying to cut out stimuli. Like, that's what I imagine. It's like, she's got a massive migraine from just being awake and alive.

Speaker: Wow. And Kenzie doesn't help, of course. I did love Tattletail's reaction is like, just smash everything. Just instant shut down, hit all the buttons.

Speaker: She's like, Kinsey's logo pops up and she's like, nope, nope, nope, nope. no no no no Just hits the big red button. yeah Just marked Kenzie or lookout. And I yeah i knew in my head what Kenzie was going to say later. Like, I know, like, Kenzie's not being malicious, like, to try to spy on her.

Speaker: Kenzie's like, I just wanted to say hi, Tattletail. I used to say hello. Hello. Oh, bless. ah ah we don't Here's the thing. I don't trust Kenzie for a second and not drop something else in there. you know Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Of course. Her those reaction is completely reasonable. It's just funny to me. I just wanted to say hi. All I did was say hello and drop a virus into her computer so we can keep an eye everything that she does and says and moves and all of her mouse clicks. And it's like, oh.

Speaker: I love too that Tattletail has like her backup server is this like four foot by two foot by six foot brick that's like located somewhere in New Brockton. And she just like has everything on there. And it's all just like randomized stuff.

Speaker: fake shit that only she knows and there's no actual like code to how the files are sorted it's just like truth mixed in with all these lies and the only way that you could decode it all is with Tattletail's power because literally she would look at all the information and be like that's wrong that's wrong that's wrong okay this is the correct one like it's the most Tattletail shit I've ever heard Yeah.

Speaker: That's using your power. that's that's People who made it out alive. ah Bryce.

Speaker: Remind me who Bryce is. Bryce the brother that we saved from them all.

Speaker: Little douchebag brother. Little bitch. Little bitch boy brother. Is that Sierra's brother? Yeah, Sierra. okay Who's like Sort of the de facto mayor-ish until the election thing. it was She was runner-up.

Speaker: Yeah, and then she was runner-up because she was the big CEO. Yeah, big CEO in charge of all the development for it. Forrest still around? Mentioned later, Forrest and Charlotte.

Speaker: Forrest and Charlotte are still around. Which are kind of like de facto parental figures. Probably taking care of the kids. mean, Chicken Little says, like, you're not my real parents. And Chattletail's like, okay, well, I'll call Forrest and Charlotte. All right, then. Love it. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker: Okay. Coil sniper team. Yes. coil sniper team. I love that. Not just one. love that. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the spinoff I need. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Once again, that is what the oil sniper the original boys was in the comic. It's like them rigging ah like rigging all of the heroes' houses and then sitting out with a sniper and being like, all right, we're going to blackmail the shit out of them if they do a step out of line.

Speaker: And if the heroes act up like really bad, we just shoot them in the head from across the street. And that's what they do. that's what the That's what the whole, like the boys was like a CIA operation to keep powered people in check.

Speaker: Well, Sniper did nothing wrong. We'll come back to how effective guns are. or the boy howdy like And then of course we have the mention of the Haas Eagle, which was like a real bird. Yeah. Like a thousand plus years a hundred thousand plus years ago that, you know, all super big. up um ah The comic boys did have powers, though. That is correct. However, their main job like wasn't them using their powers to ah keep people in line.

Speaker: It was the CIA operation. And if it came to it, they happened to have powers that they could use to rough up heroes with.

Speaker: and I've heard the comics are a lot weirder than the show, though, which is saying something. I don't know about weirder. They're both pretty ah bad. I've seen some i've seen some some some some ah some images from the comics and whoa, that's a choice.

Speaker: Yeah. yeah Yeah. Certainly a choice. um Yeah, the Haas seagull, real bird. yeah um South Island of New Zealand, um between 22 and pounds Which is huge for a bird. That's a big old bird. I was going to say, compared to the next largest, the harpy eagle at 20 pounds.

Speaker: Yeah. um So, ah twice the size of the largest bird. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: And then I know it comes up later, but him nicknaming it in his head, Chicken Big, is really fun. It's incredible. It's the best name. Such joy. But he's not allowed to say it. He's not allowed to say it. Not allowed because they will kick him out.

Speaker: ah So he just calls it Chicken Big in his head, which is great. Love that. Yeah, the heartbroken um are creepy.

Speaker: I think that needs to be addressed. ah The heartbroken kids there are are yeah like peak creepy kids. Cult, ex-cult kids, you know? Yeah. um But yeah, yeah, not my... Okay. You were right.

Speaker: A chicken large does give off Atlas vibes. Yeah. Oh, bless. Yep. For sure. Love that. um I need someone to explain to me the game slash test was. Because all of a sudden, someone's being told to shoot the kid, and then they're tackling Chicken Little and kissing him.

Speaker: I don't understand what happened. I don't understand what...

Speaker: What happened. My understanding is like... Basically, one of the guards is like, hey, these kids are having fun, but they have a tendency to go overboard. Just be aware you might need to shoot them if they do.

Speaker: And the guard, I think the guard's reaction justifiably being like, wait, what the what the hell? What do you mean? Yeah. And what they're like, no, no, no. Trust me. It it could happen. I'll let you know. And then the older brother that says it, too. It's Samuel, I think, who's like the oldest brother.

Speaker: Yeah. It's like, yeah, you might gonna have to shoot one of my siblings. Just be ready. But I don't understand what's happening. What are they doing? i think like I think the actual game is just kiss tag where their goal is just to like plant a kiss on Aiden.

Speaker: Right. but like but But there's a chance because of how their powers interact with emotions and feelings and things that they they could take the game too far and do something to aid in like this permanent damage.

Speaker: Do you remember their dad used to make them do stuff for each other all the time and they would yeah call it tests and games and stuff like that. Yeah. It just it it was one of those things where it felt like If it ok yeah on the daily, we're worried about this so much that we're casually going to just tell a random dude to shoot a kid, those kids don't need to be out with the group. like i I don't understand. i i feel like it was more, this is the way things used to be, but...

Speaker: Samuel is more like, I think it was Samuel saying it is like, yeah, it's not as serious as he's making it sound. He's like, okay, the odds of a of a kid needing to be shot is very low. Like it's not, not zero, but it's a very low chance, but he doesn't explain that to the guard. He's just like, I just want you to be on your toes just case, even though it's like 5% chance he actually needs to do it.

Speaker: It feels like there's three tests going on. Yeah. um Yeah. It feels like this is a layered thing. This is a layered thing. One is that's a new guard. Clearly like, at least an exposure to dealing with the heartbroken.

Speaker: And he needs to be essentially aware of these are really dangerous children. These are children running around with loaded weapons. When they are playing with you or with other people, you need to be aware that you might have to like literally knock them out or kill them because they're going to do something really, really bad.

Speaker: Like, So that's test number one. Test number two is for Chicken Little. um In this building up confidence and his villain persona, he needs to learn to, you know, be like, I'm, you know, I need to be villain mode and, ah you know, stand strong and whatnot.

Speaker: Or how, you know, building that villain identity. Not letting these kids push me around. but Not letting them push him around or, you know, play with him or whatever, ah you know. And the third is the literal kiss tag where they're going to tackle him and plant as many kisses on his mask as possible.

Speaker: Which is also, you know, pulled off. Probably a layered test for those kids that they can play fun games and not go overboard with their powers and hurt somebody.

Speaker: It was kind of like a super layered test for everybody. Because a lot of them are... sam That makes some more sense....have to make contact with somebody to use their power. And to make contact and not use their power might be the...

Speaker: test, especially when i forget who are the two that chase him down. It's Darlene. Darlene's one of them. And I forgot who the other, but specifically for Darlene, Hey Darlene tackle this boy you have a crush on and don't use your emotion power on him or your, you know, yeah, we'll get to that.

Speaker: So, Yeah. Okay. A lot layers going on. It felt like it all happened really fast and I was really confused. And in the end, I was just kind of like... It was it was a bit weird. Yeah. No, it was a bit weird. I agree.

Speaker: It was a bit odd. and Yeah. they're just Sometimes there are sections where it's like... I say sometimes. Many times there are sections that Wild Bill writes that are ah like meant to not have, you don't have all the information until the end, and then they explain it.

Speaker: And then you're like, oh, okay. um But then oftentimes he doesn't do the explaining part. He just like lets you sit with whatever just happened, and you're like, I don't know what just happened, so I guess I'm going to just have to keep reading.

Speaker: again Well, I think that's part of the ah that's part of the serial format. I mean, and there are some when you read, like, I'll just say harder to read books. The idea is not that you read through the book as fast as you can.

Speaker: It's that you read a chapter on your you know your your you're break, and then you think about that chapter for a couple days, and then you read the next chapter of the book. That's not quite what I mean, but...

Speaker: And in this thick case, you read the chapter and maybe you reread it and then the next are you know the next chapter comes out in a couple days. you know And you sit and you think about it. Wild Boat also has ah has a tendency to like, maybe more you meant is Wild Boat's tendency to kind of throw things in there without really any explanation and no promise of a future one.

Speaker: Of like, oh... you know like I think a good example would be Sleeper in Worm, where he's briefly mentioned a few times, but there's never any payoff for Sleeper in Worm. He's just kind of a throwaway line. or even even we could say what happens in one of the interludes we'll get to later, a lot of that was throwaway material.

Speaker: Yeah. So we thought um that we found out to be something more interesting now, like taking up something. So, you know, it's, it's one of those where it's like, what happened here? I don't know. does It doesn't matter. Maybe, maybe we'll find out. Maybe we won't. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Maybe I'll, maybe. ah Yeah. Yeah. yeah Maybe. I don't know. Bernard puts a good example is the entire prologue of Ward.

Speaker: You're just reading the text messages. Right. Yeah. i guess I guess what I mean, though, is is like we've talked about this before. When it comes to writing, that like you don't want to hand your reader everything. like You don't want to spell everything out for them because you kind of want to have the bent like give your readers the benefit of the doubt that they'll put two and two together and they'll make the facts that you've, the clues that you've given them make sense and they'll tie all together and they'll be like, oh my gosh, you have the light bulb moment. I feel like too often i don't have the light bulb moment and that might just be that I'm I'm too stupid for a while though. But i I honestly like there, there are times where I read it and I'm like, I know I was supposed to get what just happened, but I, I don't.

Speaker: And like with this, i Like, okay, we were playing a game or or it was a test or we were going to shoot a child. But I i like i understand the points. like I understand that the heartbroken children are dangerous. i We've known that since Wyrm. I understand that Chicken Little is being tested and he's supposed to be this villain kid. He later talks about that in his own ah interlude.

Speaker: um i get that like... you know But I don't understand the purpose of it. So it's just kind of like, i okay, all right, I guess.

Speaker: So, yeah, it doesn't happen all the ah super often, but every once in a while we'll run into a section like that where I'm like, I think I was supposed to get what you're trying to do, Wild Bill, but I didn't. And I'm just, okay, I'm just going to keep going because I don't get it.

Speaker: Yeah, he does tend, like he every now and then has those obtuse chapters where you're just like, you said like, what just happened? Like, I think I know that something happened, but man, you could have probably written that a little bit better.

Speaker: That's why we've got a podcast. We can discuss it. Yeah, that's why we talk about it. Right. Exactly. Now, let me think of other chapters. I mean, to a degree, the interlude with ah Chris has a lot of that. And even in retrospect, get I still go, okay, well, you know, i mean I feel like there's a better way that you could still leave it, you know, retrospectively understandable, but not write it as weird, but you know.

Speaker: Week to week writing is tough. Yeah. Oh yeah, of course. and i And I appreciate it. It's definitely different than a lot of writing ah that I read. so Yeah, we always always got to say that with that caveat every time. Like no no polishing, no editing, no rewrites. like right yeah every novel like Every professional novel is going through like four or five rewrites. yeah More. 20,000 words. too low yeah Too low. Too low. Too low, Jacob. Go higher. higher.

Speaker: So yeah, it's, it's a, it's a crazy amount of, of dedication and talent to try to get it all done in one shot. Absolutely. Sometimes it doesn't work out. That's fine. All right. Well, after an hour of talking about that, do you want to go to the second chapter?

Speaker: Yeah, I think the only thing left for 10X is to say Tattletail attending this big villain meeting and basically at the end just saying, you know what? You guys do what you want.

Speaker: I'm not going to interfere anymore. Just, you know, go to town. Yeah. Dangerous. Yeah. But yeah, let's do... Makes me nervous. Let's do ten ten But... Yeah.

Speaker: Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Which, 10-10, we could blend with 10-11, too, if we wanted to.

Speaker: Victoria and Sveta meet the returning heroes and encounter Vista, Golem, and Cuff. And the group investigates the grisly scene of the deaths of three heroes. Deaths in quotes.

Speaker: 10.11, Victoria Interfuse, the still-living nailfarer, learns that they were baited to the encounter and informs the other heroes who begin hunting the culprits.

Speaker: So, in 10.10, we get to see a lot of people come back. Golem and Cuff, of course, are great, but Vista's there, Crystal is there, Weld is there. It's like, it's a big reunion of a bunch of characters we haven't seen in a while, and I i love it.

Speaker: and got Has Golem gotten taller? I think was a note that I had of like, is he like even taller than he was before? He's taller and they were like, and he's big, but I can't tell.

Speaker: Like it's not, he's not fat. He's not exactly muscular. He's just big boy. He's just large man. He's just thrown into himself. He's just he's just a brick. So proud. yeah So they said he's as big as Weld is now.

Speaker: Isn't Weld like fucking tall? Didn't we say Weld was like I don't think Weld is so much that he's huge. It's just that he's heavy as all hell because he's made of metal.

Speaker: I'm pretty sure Weld is... kind of assume grows with metal. Yeah, right? i saying I've always assumed that Weld is just a metal man, not like a colossus metal man. but Yeah, no, I assumed he wasn't, he wasn't like a, you know, iron giant or anything like that. But I also had the, I had the assumption that he did like get bigger, the more metal he took on.

Speaker: But probably, yeah. But he's also at this point in his life, probably pretty good at not touching metal accidentally. So, yeah, you know right. Where's lots of penalties and gloves.

Speaker: Yeah. I'm blessed. Can bulk up whenever he wants, you know, Weldon a Henley.

Speaker: Yeah. Oh, man. that Good to see him, though. And Victoria just piecing together who he is immediately. I like, oh, you're his. And he's like, yeah. Yeah. I get that a lot.

Speaker: I get that a lot. Love that. yeah Love that so much. lot i love you a lot of fun to see all the old people again. yeah love it I love seeing Gollum's nerdiness. And I'm glad he kept the name because I remember with with Taylor, he was like debating it. Like, am I going to keep this name? Maybe it's too dorky, but I like what it means and how I'm trying to be different than my dad. And he's like, yeah, you might notice the irony in my name. It's Victoria. I'm like, yes, Gollum.

Speaker: Keep it. So good. Boy. yeah imagine Get it? Get it? Get it? oh Also, just like the nerd stuff of like they were in the same city together and like he knew her through association and like she didn't really know him because he once he got his powers, I mean, he was gone and then he was in the Chicago Ward. So like their interaction in Brockton Bay didn't happen.

Speaker: And Like, but he she was always like, he knew who she was. oh I just love that. Like the, the little like kind of fangirl moment of like, okay, so you don't know me, but you beat up this guy once and it like really changed the way that I looked at life. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God.

Speaker: Such fun. And who just says her abuse of power back in the day didn't have positive benefits. We gave Victoria a lot of flack for chucking dumpsters at Nazis, but maybe she should have chucked more dumpsters at more Nazis. More dumpsters at Nazis. I mean, i don't i i see nothing wrong with that.

Speaker: The world would be a better place, perhaps. Right. I love that we still have Vista still keeps up with Rachel. We had that you know in the ah the epilogue chapters yeah before, and those meetings continue to happen. And so do, assumedly, because they talk about Miss Malicia as well. With Miss Malicia, yeah. And Miss Malicia still regularly meet with Rachel.

Speaker: And that Vista feels comfortable enough saying, hey, can we invite Rachel? I don't know she'll come, but... Yeah, she's like, I want to invite Rachel to my birthday party, Victoria. And they're like...

Speaker: fucking hellhound and she's like ah bitch first off yeah she's like I'll vouch for her and Miss Militia will too and Victoria's like what Miss Militia just the girl used to tear people off

Speaker: with dogs I didn't find any I didn't find any official height for Weld unfortunately so yeah I couldn't find any either Gollum is taller than Weld though. that is in Weld is just jacked and made of metal. That's all I could find. He's very muscular. i think I think it's that we at least for me when I think of Metal Man my brain immediately goes to Colossus who is huge. Weld is not Colossus though. He's not that big.

Speaker: No, no, no. But I do like to imagine Weld is Colossus and Theo is just naturally that much bigger than Colossus. He just got absolutely bulked up. yeah I love it. ah um I love Vicky talking about Shadowstalker and Tattletail.

Speaker: I thought the comparisons were pretty interesting. Yeah. Especially the contrast between the two, or well, a somewhat comparison between the two, I guess. So ah with her talking about like, she does, Shadowstalker did good things to feed her ego, but is ultimately like a bad person.

Speaker: She just got in the situation where feeding her ego was doing the right thing. And Tattletail, on the other hand, feeds her ego, ah And by by being a like, situationally, by being a bad person, but can't help herself but do these good things that kind of eke out, like, you are a good person, ah you know, at at your core.

Speaker: It's sort of the... Tattletail is like a small-scale version of what Cauldron was, where it's like, Cauldron does heinous stuff, but ultimately for the good of humanity.

Speaker: I think the difference, of course, is that like for Cauldron, it was kind of the cold calculation of what's the path to victory. Whereas with Tattletail, like there is something about her that, like no, she kind of cares about some people and like she actually wants the best for people.

Speaker: In some words, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Where Shadowstalker's true self kept eking out because... she couldn't help herself but be a piece of shit.

Speaker: yeah Yeah. Yeah, right. It's like she read one Punisher comic and decided that would be her whole personality. Gosh, what a bitch. Except she wished she kind of had a code like Punisher.

Speaker: like Punisher is a jackass and nobody likes him. But like, he's like, I kill anybody I deem to be a bad guy. And Shadowstalker is like, I'll fucking punch a girl in a mall. I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because she can't be happy.

Speaker: Oh, my God. Exactly. Ugh. Yeah. What a mess. Um... That aside, though, I do appreciate Victoria being like, let Sveta and Weld have the night off. That was nice.

Speaker: um Yeah. ah And then immediately they come back and Crystal's like, oh, I just got this message. Something terrible's happened. And Victoria's like, well, I'll come. I haven't slept in days, but why does that that matter?

Speaker: It's fine. Sleep doesn't matter. Yeah. And then the attack scene, though, very reminiscent of Gru in the Locker. Yeah. The scene where it's just like body parts everywhere and absolutely horrendous.

Speaker: And then to find out that they're all alive and being kept alive by some power while being split into pieces. Yeah. It just sounds awful. I'm just like, oh, oh no, that's. I, i was, i was telling Alan earlier. oh I'm sorry, Nick, go ahead. No, go ahead. Good.

Speaker: I was telling Alan earlier, but I was listening and um getting some work done at the same time. And it got to that part. And I kind of had this moment where, like, I watch a lot of crime shows and they talk about, like, blood coagulation and like, understanding when beatings happen to a body or, like, when the body was killed. And, like, okay, well, we can tell this was done after they were dead because of the way that the the blood pools and blah, blah, stuff like that.

Speaker: And I'm like listening to it and she's talking about the red blood and the red blood. She, she, it's wild, both blow but you know, Vicky and like red blood. Cause she, it's Vicky's like looking at a scaffold and he's like impaled. I won't get into a bunch of details, but he'll, you know, he's impaled and there's a bunch of stuff and all the things and also the other thing. And,

Speaker: She's like looking at it, trying to decide if, you know, this happened first and then he was thrown. Like, and I'm i'm like, okay, but what do you mean the blood's red? Like, i'm I'm like listening to this happening and I'm like, is he still alive?

Speaker: And right about when I was like, ah wait a minute, is he? Is he? That's when she like, she put a hand on his chest I was like, oh shit, oh shit. And so I was very proud of myself that I called it about nice four seconds before Vicky did. But that like full body chill when she goes, oh shit and i was like oh shit like full body just like i i kind of started like shaking a little bit realizing like oh my god they're they're alive like these oh boy that fucking hit me man i'll tell you ah cried yeah did i did tear up no it hit me real hard it it is one of those like

Speaker: Wild Bo does a really good job of the whole fate worse than death kind trope. Yes. And this is an example of that. what it I'm going to go on a little little tangent here of what ah something reminded me of. Because this idea of being alive alive and in pieces but in pain for who knows how long, potentially forever, um is one of those like deaths that has stuck with me from Naruto.

Speaker: um There's a villain in Naruto Shippuden called Hidan who is immortal. And the only the only way they stop him basically is by blowing his body into pieces and then burying him in a massive hole.

Speaker: So that way he can't, his body parts can't regenerate. But he's alive because he's immortal. Like he's not dead. yeah There's just no way. And they basically cover it up so nobody could ever find it again.

Speaker: And I'm like, well, that's, that's awful. So that like image has stuck with me. And this is similar enough to that, that I'm like, I can't even like, ah it it gives you the heebie-jeebies. It does. Yeah.

Speaker: sharing your trauma with us live. Thank you. will Yeah, and yeah, you know, I mean, things I read when I was 15 I shared with you guys. Stay with you forever. Can't be alone in this.

Speaker: But still not as weird as the guy with tongues in his hands, but anyways. um

Speaker: So weird. um One of the names I thought was interesting and for nail fairer. who is sort of the star of this ah next chapter.

Speaker: um Nailfarer comes from the Norse mythology. It was the boat made of the dead people's fingers and toenails. Oh, yes, that that thing. Yeah. Delightful. Classic, classic thing.

Speaker: um I can't remember exactly, but I want to say they ferry like all the monsters involved with Ragnarok to the Ragnaroking. I believe might be mistaken on that. It's a little rough, but um that also there was signs of a shovel at the crime scene,

Speaker: um which that combined with some other information makes me want to ask. I think they established that there were, did we say like three people potentially there?

Speaker: Yes, they yeah found... there was there was a team of It was a team of three that they they had been attacked that they know of. Okay. No, no, not not the three people who had been attacked. The three attackers.

Speaker: Yeah, oh they determined with footprints and stuff that it was... That's later... They talk about that later. Lum...

Speaker: 10, 12, I think. I think is his name. He's the one who's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure there's three because he's like looking at the um he's looking at the like footprints and stuff.

Speaker: um So my question for you is who do we think the three attackers are? Oh, Jesus.

Speaker: Fuck if I know, man. i get and Do we get any hints? We've got claws. We've got attacks from directly above.

Speaker: Yes. And um the person who had the claws potentially went back to put ah Scaffold out of his misery. That's why he had the the throat. to yeah here four um So potentially someone with at least a little bit of a mercy killing vibe. Yeah.

Speaker: a Yeah. i mean no um No fucking clue. In terms of characters we've encountered who might have power sets that make sense with this, obviously the preservation is reminiscent of Bonesaw. I think we've mentioned that already.

Speaker: The preservation of flesh. But it doesn't really fit with her MO. This feels like power that's doing it rather than a tinkering.

Speaker: um well There is... Nailbiter is a character we've also seen who has claws, but has been shown potential... No, not Nailbiter, really. She's not very merciful.

Speaker: um So the other character that comes to mind is Hookwolf, but I'm pretty sure he's dead, right? he I'm pretty sure Hookwolf was dead.

Speaker: ah Tristan mentions barcode. it could be a clone. Oh, Barcode. Yeah, Barcode is the one they mentioned. the deal that they have with Barcode. Right, right. They mentioned Barcode could be involved.

Speaker: so Yeah. I mean, Barcode makes the most sense, but I... I... Yeah, don't know. They don't really know how their powers work other than keeping people alive.

Speaker: Yeah. In painful ways. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It feels like it feels like we've got we've run into a lot of mercenaries and we do later in this arc even. um But the idea that like maybe these could potentially be mercenaries that we don't know or mercenaries we like vaguely know of.

Speaker: um But then again, like I don't know if I know all the people in March's group. um yeah This is clearly baiting kind of thing. like they're They're baiting people out.

Speaker: And with the fight later, like it it could be a lot of different things. It's hard to know. The shovel throws me off. I have no freaking clue what the shovel is.

Speaker: ah So the ah Bernard, to your point, not a spoiler, mostly because just a seeing if we can figure out any sort of thing, because to be honest,

Speaker: I don't remember who the three are are either. um However, the shovel being a big thing, and it's a little bit hinted at in the chapter, like wasn't there a person with the, ah you know, who that we knew with a shovel as their main weapon?

Speaker: Gully, the Case 53, used to carry a shovel around as their weapon, I believe.

Speaker: I might be mistaken on that. There might be another Case 53 that's also a large person with a shovel. but ah From Wyrm. Near the end? Yeah. ah No, it's during the big confrontation in... Cauldron. After Echidna, when it all gets released, they're like, oh yeah, Cauldron, a bunch of people. Yes. Gully's like, I want to be in on this. I want to know what's going on. and and Gully leaves.

Speaker: I couldn't have told you that Gully had a shovel. Could not have told you that. um Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, you are correct. I just looked it up. Yes. Yeah. um With all honesty of not remembering anything, my first thought from the above attack was that it was Cradle, but that would mean that crate like potentially, because like imagine the and the little hand thing and then dropping from above. Right. um Oh, Gully got killed in Cauldron HQ. Well, never mind.

Speaker: Okay. Okay. Well. um also hook wolf also got killed apparently in uh okay he literally shot him through the heart uh that's right animal i was thinking and cradle and and and who else because love lost is the obvious for me for the claws and also like yeah love lost i assume if they're not rain would want to like put somebody out of their misery and but also doesn't but going back to m mo i don't see them working learning you're Working like this, luring people into a trap.

Speaker: Yeah, this seems very... This feels almost like... I was just going to say this. or something This seems more like March or almost more like Slaughterhouse-9 type chaos agent.

Speaker: Where it's like you even just mercenaries doesn't make sense. Because it's like... Right. If you're hired to do this, you don't then... like it It seems too brutal even for most mercenaries. Too brutal. It's very, very brutal. playing like It's one thing to slaughter people. It's another thing to... like Oof.

Speaker: That was a choice. Okay, follow-up.

Speaker: Once again, genuinely, I don't remember. so The other groups at play ah that we were thinking about was that... um you had the anti-humans.

Speaker: Yeah. Or the anti-parahumans, right? So like, and they were hiring mercenaries. We had an attack with them, with the mercenaries right after this. And did they didn't they say that they attacked a couple other groups at the same time too? They might have. They had put feelers out to try to lure other groups out.

Speaker: yeah They hadn't successfully attacked anybody else yet. But I thought when they were attacking Vicky's group during a hero meeting that there were other groups getting... In 1013, I think they mentioned there were a couple other attacks or attempted attacks that weren't as successful as theirs.

Speaker: Which, to me, feels very anti-parahuman. Yeah. I'm hiring parahumans to do the shit to them. um The Fran points out could be sleeper.

Speaker: You could always be sleeper. Sleeper is always possibility. Yeah, I don't know. this one's This one's tough. And I feel like because there's so many capes working all the time and because there's so many that I don't just don't remember if they're alive or not.

Speaker: it's It's just two. We have to. Yeah, I won't. Yeah. And then if if they weren't seemingly good with hanging out in Shin for a while, this could easily also feel like Chris and Amy.

Speaker: Yeah. But yeah. Because like Amy would probably have the power to make body parts self efficient. Right. Yeah. And Chris has enough weird forms and body parts that right he he could have the claws. And then Amy would want to show mercy to somebody and like go back and be like, I'm sorry. Let me try to kill you. You know? Right. um But like, don't think Amy would ever agree. doing stuff. Yeah. One, they're busy too. I don't think she would ever agree to do something like that. You know, too it's too awful. We just always got to remember and throw it out there.

Speaker: The Simurg could be fucking with somebody. So it could just be... Simurged up? Yeah, all all juiced up on that Simmussy.

Speaker: Yep. What if it's a bunch of normal people trying to get powers and it's just like, it's not working and it's just getting more and more brutal and they're just... being gas Like some rogue teacher agent or something like that. Or teacher just gives Tinker powers though, right? Tinker and Tinker.

Speaker: And Tinker and Tinker. And he can he can enhance existing powers. Yeah. I don't know. yeah i don't know Yeah, too many unknowns.

Speaker: Speaking of more weird powers, though. Well, I was going say, speaking of weird power yeah powers, the nailfarer's power, Victoria only mentions it, so we never see it. But her power is something about making doors in dead flesh.

Speaker: Like, what that what the hell does that mean? Dead tissue, I think, is the phrase used. Which I find fascinating. like yeah Knowing her backstory and what probably triggered that.

Speaker: ah is awful. Awful. Truly awful. You know, just the idea of like, oh man, I've got to make a door and I'm in a container and there's probably dead bodies around me.

Speaker: whoo hu ah But yeah, what's her name? buy you I love this shit. yeah the world's strongest champion right there. um Oh my God. Is literally just, you know, the eye blinking and being like, do you want to rest? Do you need a break? And you're just like, no, we need to keep going. Like, like oh cut up and you couldn't even stop her.

Speaker: Yeah. And the whole thing about trying to stay, out stay cold because the numbness helps, but she wants her,

Speaker: head to stay warm so that she can be cognizant enough to like respond and not be you know falling asleep basically numb basically which is whoa who yeah damn yeah no this shit got me this shit got me real good um and like and also just yeah sorry No, no, go ahead, please.

Speaker: I would say Vicky's doing the eye thing and the tracking. And then it wasn't, of course, until Crystal took over. and was like, oh, I know how to do it. And I was like, of course, because i keep forgetting that Vicky, that was the only way she could communicate yep for years. and yeah And, you know, to have Yeah, to have a for and Crystal being, you know, there and, you know, also knowing how to do it from when she visited her. Like, of course, and that hits so much harder because, ooh, just Vicky being there with the somebody else on the kind of the other end of that situation.

Speaker: Yeah, and she doesn't she doesn't leave. No. She stays there, and she's an advocate for them all the way to the hospital, you know?

Speaker: And then she leaves, of course, ah to come back to find her roommates asleep. You know, wine passed out on the couch together.

Speaker: ah Like, yeah, with the charcuterie board. That's the most damsel and Ashley thing I've ever seen. Ashley damsel shit. Are they fucking? They give their fucking. They're fucking, right? here Come on. Okay. I had this conversation with myself.

Speaker: So you have to you have to know. Okay. So I'm going to re i'm goingnna reenact this for you guys really quick. so Oh, boy. you are You are my audio player, right? You're you're playing the audio book for me, right? I'm here.

Speaker: here. I'm i'm working. I'm working. And the the part comes on. I just kind of like...

Speaker: I have a moment where I talk to myself. I go, Hannah, now, if we were to ever be in a clone situation, would we? And I said to myself, I said, fuck yeah, we would.

Speaker: but ah What do you mean? Yes. Fuck yes, we would. We would do it. Yes, absolutely. And clone me went, yes. Okay, cool. So me and myself and I had a short, definitive conversation.

Speaker: We all would. and anyone who says they wouldn't is a liar. the fucking writer And I think, I think Jacob to various degrees, you know, and maybe fooling around does lead to something more, you know, nothing turns me on more than myself already. So i that's the thing. It's like, it depends on the day. Cause there's some days I look and I go, God, I'd tap that ass. But then there's some days I look and I go, that is, that potato needs to get its hair in order.

Speaker: ah you know Now, most most days I look at myself and think, ha what a lump. What a lump? No. maybe.

Speaker: but but But hey. ah i Unless. yeah yeah Unless. um As Ian put, it's just Vicky coming to him to her two cats.

Speaker: Yeah. Which honestly, if they're not fucking makes the most sense that they're just always like curled up like my cats do. yeah yeah Yeah. That's the other option for certain. yeah ah will William Doe asking the good questions.

Speaker: and with The history. just is This is the entire history of parahumans online is this question. Is the Ashley slash damsel thing number one, self-cest, number two, incest, or number three, just masturbation?

Speaker: Masturbation.

Speaker: It's two separate entities. Oh, my God. that share the same DNA that also are... That share the same DNA.

Speaker: Yeah. And also, i think the lack of close proximity for most of their life kind of leads to the... weird separation.

Speaker: We get into talking about like what makes incest weird. Yeah, clearly it's a hard discussion. Stop trying to make this weird, okay? Listen. we're We're trying to make it not weird. Hannah, don't you understand? We're trying to make fucking yourself weird. If they discuss it on Parahumans Online enough, then clearly there's a reason.

Speaker: It's not cut and dry. Damn it. and This is like one of those free will pretty destination things. Maybe we're just not supposed to know. Maybe just supposed to do it and find out. It's the mystery of the divine. The mystery of do having a clone. Oh, boy. So this was one of the greatest threads on the history of Parahumans Online. Thread was locked at 800 pages, B-Faroni says.

Speaker: Oh, my God. see What discourse? i Only the most educated, you know, the most educated incest discourse on the internet. yeah Just to sit in like, you know, a post-grad ethics class yeah in a parahumans world, you Oh, 100%. Now, many of you will encounter as you are experiencing other selves from other universes. Some of you are visiting from EarthBet. Some of you have fellow classmates that are yourself from EarthAlaf.

Speaker: Now, if some of you were to hook up, which I know some of you are, you've got to ask yourself. Some of you are already hooking up. is it I assume you didn't even ask for their name. You're all horny and in college.

Speaker: oh If you can, you know, ah ah regenerate your own body parts and you consume your own flesh, is that cannibalism? It's like, these are the, you know, other, and other this is all ethics 101. It's auto cannibalism. Yeah. yes Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Hey, I buy my own don't know what that says about me. It says a lot about you. um how And then, of course, among and other cozy scenes, Vicky doing what we all wish we could, which is make themselves into a charcuterie board, place everything on it, and then float to bed.

Speaker: I know. Cheese on stomach floating. That's the most... It's the most... something Hannah would do shit I've ever heard in my life because y'all I come in through that door with like I've got a glass of water in one hand I've got like a bowl of ramen tucked under one arm I've got like my phone um this is a heart but you know in one hand and I'm just like trying to like hold things and also like open the door so like it's you know look I could just turn myself horizontal I would

Speaker: It's the classic thing of like, if the if the Force existed and we had access to the Force, most of us would just be horribly obese as we reach into the kitchen to get more snacks with the Force. and We don't even get up to get the remote anymore. We just reach...

Speaker: We use the force to send our urine to the bathroom, you know? Oh, God. It's just some guy trying to wax eloquent about how, like, he doesn't need, you know, material things and how he's at peace and yada, yada, because he's sitting there all Zen-like. And his apprentice is like, but Master master Joe, i just saw you...

Speaker: float the remote over to yourself so that you could change the like yeah like well you know that's different that was just I was just testing my abilities you know and the bag of cheese puffs that you just floated from the kitchen listen you know you're not even oh you're not even reaching into the bag to get the cheese puffs you're floating individual cheese puffs into your mouth that's what the force wanted ah force wanted me to have this plane so I could fly around.

Speaker: Yeah. i on with the Speaking of speaking of who's responsible for the crime scene though I got the vibe from the team meeting when they're meeting with the heroes and trying to decide what to do about the crime and like how are we going to hunt them how will we meet out justice all that stuff.

Speaker: I got the vibe that a couple of teams definitely know more than what they're sharing and they those are the teams that are like no we need to hunt down these people and kill them like there they know something I feel like right like there's they have a connection somehow to it but I don't I don't know exactly what that is it's just a vibe I got yeah I like it.

Speaker: All right. Well, let's move on 10.12 then. 10.12? Also, I just want to show off my my heart that I have that I'm very proud of. i felt like it was very um apt for today. oh yeah.

Speaker: You know, on my desk today. Very nice. Maybe 12 and 13? I was going to say, actually, yeah, 12 and 13, I was just thinking could be brought. Yeah. 10.12. Breakthrough and the other heroes investigate further investigate the crime scene. Annalise gives Victoria an open invite.

Speaker: Wow, chicka wow wow. And the group is attacked. 10.13. heroes fight back the ambushers. Sveta kills an enemy cape. Kenzie gets shot. The time camera is destroyed.

Speaker: And after all is said and done, Victoria talks with Dragon to get the notes on Breakthrough.

Speaker: it goes down. no Yeah. the as As somebody commented on 10-12, anytime something good happens, you can guarantee that Wild Bo, something terrible is going to happen immediately after. Yeah. Like we have this nice moment where it's like, like obviously they're investigating a grisly crime scene with a time camera, but it's like,

Speaker: Sveta's like, hey, I had a good night with Weld. We figured something out. And Victoria's like, I need details at some point, but I don't know if I need details at some point. You know what mean? all need details. Come on. we all need details, though. We need to know the anatomy scans.

Speaker: Um... And then, you know, we've got the Victoria and the Annalise moment where they're both like, hey, Annalise is actually like really nice. And it's like, hey, for what it's worth, I really thought you'd be a good fit on the team. I wish I'd pushed harder for you.

Speaker: You seem like a good person. She's like, oh, you seem like a good person. He's like, well, maybe we can hang out sometime. She's like, I don't know if I'm ready yet. And he's like, that's cool. I respect your boundaries, queen. Just let me know. And then they get shot. They get shot at. God damn.

Speaker: yeah Related. Can't have anything nice. Can't have a damn thing nice. Yeah. I've said it. I've said it before to Victoria, but I'll say it again. Listen, I respect your journey and your trauma girl.

Speaker: It sounds like you and Dean had a real good thing going when you were 16, but it's been like four years. You know, let's let's open up a little bit. Let's start.

Speaker: that's Let's start. growing You know need to fuck. What can we say? and like go lay like Get it out of your system. You know, and it gets slow. Maybe doesn't have to be a big deal or maybe maybe bang it out and, you know, but decompress and ah yeah figure it out afterwards. Right.

Speaker: Yeah. You have a phone? I'm sure there's Tinder. um but I'm sure there's circular Tinder. i'm sure there's something. yeah, because the phone... Do they go in the middle the circle or do they go to the out of the circle? you know?

Speaker: However you're... On a more serious note, with with Victoria's whole... you know, romantic journey. I've noticed, I think we've mentioned it maybe once or twice before, but Wild Bo's written a lot of little moments between Victoria and other women, just like glances and things like that and nods and notices, yada, yada. I got to move my hat so you can see my eyebrows. and we know that ah Amy messed with Victoria.

Speaker: um and Oh, no. what I mean by serious note. oh yeah but there's but But with that, we get these moments too because like Victoria's ah love for Dean was obviously you know incredibly strong and she still has such an emotional attachment to that and is was very traumatic. And so like now here we get another little moment with a man and Victoria's doesn't really give it a second thought. It's like a she's very professional about it, but it's very just there and gone. And thank you yeah, I can't help but wonder if there's some.

Speaker: i I feel like you ah it's the some trauma there. It could be that. But i we made a lot of jokes about Taylor and Tattletail and Rachel and like a whole bunch of things like that. Honestly, I think that it's a bit of a joke, but it's also kind of serious.

Speaker: I don't know if Wild Bo knows how to not write a bisexually coded female protagonist.

Speaker: That's funny because that's literally pretty much what Fran just wrote in the comments. This is just how yeah Wild Bo writes straight women. Yep. You know, that's ah that's a good point. yeah You know, look, I can appreciate that.

Speaker: And you know, it's, you know. If you can't straight, like flirt shamelessly with all of your friends, what are you even doing with your life? Valid. It's not a bad theory, but Jacob. it's i think yeah know That's not a bad... In world theory, yes, theory that's probably true. Out meta theory, i think it is just like... so Because I think ultimately ultimately what it might come down to, and I feel like I would be guilty of this too, is that I am a male author trying to write a female perspective, but I can't help as a straight male myself write females in attractive ways.

Speaker: But if you're always presenting other females as attractive to your female protagonists, then it comes across as like, why are you doing that? Oops, all bye. He has the prettiest and softest hair, but I swear I'm straight. I can't. I love that so much.

Speaker: So I could see it just being an accident of Yeah, probably. right i Both plays. That's right. I didn't hear anybody complaining, you know. There you go. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm not upset about it. I just, I think, I think that, and like sexual trauma stuff,

Speaker: relationship trauma is not something like we, I mean, I, yeah, we joke about it, but like that shit hangs on with you for a really long time and it affects how you view yourself, how you view the people around you in any romantic or sexual partners. You are true. Like, unfortunately those things are all connected. Um,

Speaker: at the same time, like we have seen Victoria do a lot of work on herself. And we have seen her stand up for herself, especially against her family. And like i i from a non-horny point of view, I also just want to see her happy. And I want to see her in a space where she can like let her hair down and have those those sweet moments that she you know reminisces on that she had with dean that just like hanging out together laying on the bed studying or just cuddling like because so much of your relationship is outside of the sexual ah part of it as well it's just like that closeness like i want that for her i want that for her so badly and like with

Speaker: especially you know now that Weld is home, ah like Weld and Tress, like they deserve to have a fulfilling sexual relationship because they have the romantic relationship and what's lacking is the sexual part. And I think that even if the sexual part is also lacking from from a relationship for you know at least the beginning Victoria, she still deserves the the companionship. And I would love to see that for her. And i mean, we've seen a couple people pop in that are flirty and whatever, but like, I don't know. I just, I want that for her.

Speaker: and he was so sweet and polite about it too. Like he was such a sweetie. Which is why I would even disagree that it's a thank you, no thank you, or like, you know, kind of left it moment. It felt like she lingered on the thought more. She's like, not right now, but I'll keep you in mind. She's like, I'm going to put a pin in that.

Speaker: And I think maybe that's what I'm saying. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I mean, that's part of the arc in the story. I would be little surprised if Ward ended and there wasn't some type of even partial resolution to that aspect of her character. There's some. Yeah.

Speaker: She deserves it. that's Yeah. Hey, you know what? Maybe maybe ah yeah um Valkyrie and Bonesaw will get together and just create her like a zombie Dean. You know, and and and something like that. That's the best case scenario. right Horrifying. What a th thought. you know You never know. i Could you imagine? going to say something. magic going to say something horrible.

Speaker: um but alan Do it. it and i was yeah I happened to be looking at his name when Alan said it. um Alan said, keep that ass on speed dial.

Speaker: And my immediate thought was, because his name is Analace. No! Listen. You know what?

Speaker: Is Alan's video frozen? also Frozen in the rest phase. Alan is just like frozen in the like thousand yard stare. Alan is definitely frozen. I didn't think he was frozen. I thought he was just not reacting. Oh my gosh. thought he just giving us a scene. I need to take a screenshot.

Speaker: Did we lose Alan completely? How long has Alan been gone? He's been yelling this whole time probably. Probably. You know he has been. Yeah. gone Oh my gosh. Hannah, you might have to go.

Speaker: You might have to go and save him. Do I need to go check on him? Yeah. Oh, there he goes. Okay. He must be able to hear us at least. Okay. Amazing. That is hilarious. and would never have noticed. Phenomenal. You know, I was wondering. It's been so long since we'd heard from Alan. I was confused. Crack me up.

Speaker: That was really hilarious. Perfect. Perfect expression. I wonder if his computer crashed. That's probably what happened. Maybe it like updated or blue screen because he would have been back in so fast otherwise.

Speaker: Yeah, that's true. Oh my gosh. The internet gets a little shitty sometimes. so Yeah, your video has been freezing on and off Hannah a little bit too, unfortunately. Yeah, i have my um have the YouTube or live stream pulled up on my other monitor. yeah it's Watching myself glitch out and get all pixelated pretty painful. You guys are sharing the weathers internet as well. You and Alan. Audio is still clear. That's all that really matters. That's all that matters. Listen, I'm here for the podcasters.

Speaker: I'm not here for the live streamers. That's not true. I love you guys. No, yes, of course. um As long as they can hear us well, that's all that really matters. Yeah, that's that's what's important. That thousand-yard stare, just put in the Discord. Do I need to go? I might go check on it real quick. Yeah, go give us an update if you don't mind.

Speaker: yeah We'll pause until then. I'm gonna get some water real quick. what ah that Quick yeah water break. this is insert Insert sponsor here.

Speaker: Oh yeah. Because we have those. Yeah. all horror All of our sponsors.

Speaker: Well chat. Now's your time to ask me and Jacob anything you want. Yep. We're just, we're just, ah you know, hanging around. Yep.

Speaker: Technical difficulties. We don't need water. What do you mean?

Speaker: Just, you know, let's sing a song. hu and a good, any a good, so what's the weather like? like What are you saying?

Speaker: It's going to go through all the, all the, yeah. All the small talk. The videos of people passing each other at work and the little things you have to say as you pass. yeah so again Any weekend plans?

Speaker: Yeah. Trying any new fad diets? It's almost five. Am I right? Oh, God.

Speaker: Bitches, I'm back. ah Apparently, all of Alan's power out. Ah. Well, can think he's coming back. Now, at least... You got to hear my spell. Thanks everybody for having my Helldivers with John Cena. My time is now. So yes, we yeah which I like to call my dive is now.

Speaker: i love everybody. Anyone else? Anybody else playing Helldivers? Anybody else? Let us know in the chat. Divers in the chat. So what what happened to Alan?

Speaker: ah My ah T-bar that all my stuff is plugged into just decided to give up. Yeah. yeah Which, you know, it does sometimes.

Speaker: It happens. That's annoying. That's no good. um Welcome to SuperCenture.

Speaker: My mic's still good? Do I need to pull it in closer back here? Let me make sure I got my... Whoa, whoa, hello. Settings. a Virtual microphone. Yeah, I think all my... Yeah, that sounds right. You sound good. done good All right. ah Did we ever get around to talking about 12 13?

Speaker: we were We were in the middle of it. but yeah um I had just made an anal ace joke, so... Oh, thanks for the chance. That's right. That's right. That's where you were.

Speaker: Yep. Yeah. No, brought me right back. Yep. We're good. The worst part is I saw, I knew you had some kind of horrible thought because I could see in your face, you're waiting to say it. You can see the twinkle in his eye. You can rewind and look at Nick's face when Alan says, ah whatever joke he said. Keep that as on speed dial. Yes. Yep. Look at that ass dial.

Speaker: Keep that ass on dial. Oh, goodness. Make that boogie call. Okay. All right. pat dan That's the third time now. That's that's quite enough. ah How about that fight scene? Yeah, the fight scene.

Speaker: Yeah. Good fight scene. That was was a good fight scene. what I could not find find the Capes name who had the axe and had the nullifier field power.

Speaker: yeah And chat, don't say a goddamn thing. oh okay because Because he feels like, of course, an offshoot of Hatchetface in a way. But what I like about it more is it feels like Hatchetface, and yet it's more like an arena where it's like, all right you and me are in a duel now.

Speaker: And nobody else, can you can't get out, nobody else can get in, nobody can interfere. Right? It's not just the nullification power that Hatchetface has. Although I did like that about Hatchetface. um Because it made him like the perfect movie villain type of character. but But this is just such a cool power of like you and me, nobody else, and I'm trained to fight without power. So I'm like, oh, that's such a cool power. That's so cool. What's the... It's a D&D spell, right? Like compel or compel duel or something like that?

Speaker: Yeah. Same idea? yeah it is a really been really fun... We had the one character... what Was it King that had the power in your campaign, Nick? Yeah. That could do the compel duel, but it's in an alternate universe?

Speaker: Yep. I'm pretty sure that was King. They essentially... hours Yeah, they essentially they yank one person to another dimension to have a duel. Yeah, they banish themselves in one other person and then whoever comes out.

Speaker: Yeah, no only two men enter, one man leaves. Yeah, exactly. Such a cool power. I really liked it. Did I lose a life that way?

Speaker: vaguely remember losing a life. You think so? Then yes. I got yoinked. Yoinked and yoinked. Maybe. Maybe. maybe um Anyways.

Speaker: But then there's also Noontide had a cool power too. I just i can't remember what it is. But I remember thinking... Waves of like sapping. ah yeah yeah kind of how There was one of the... um One of the Slaughterhouse Nine that they revived as the clones had the cold ability where it wasn't just that they were sapping the heat out of everything, but they were kind of sapping like Citrine does where like sapping the forces out of an area, including will to live and stuff like that.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah So, Noontide, but she does it in waves, where that wave goes out, and it hits you, and you're just kind of like, uh... Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, man. Again, though, it was mentioned, i think Jacob said it, the effectiveness of firearms against capes, though, remains to be valid. You know, we had Winter. Winter was the the Slaughterhouse Nine character. Winter, that's right. Yeah, yeah. But then had Leo...

Speaker: Brio, Swansong, Tristan, and Lookout all got shot within like a span of 10 seconds. um it's It's guns in superhero stories just to kind of like meta it for a bit.

Speaker: And this is, i would imagine, far more of an American trope than other parts of the world. But it is just fascinating to me how much subconscious, subconscious,

Speaker: ah power we give to firearms in our stories. Like even in larger superhero narrative, like Marvel and DC stuff like that, like being bulletproof is um is a big thing. Like, oh, you know, if you're really strong, you're bulletproof. We don't label it any other way. Like it's it's bulletproof.

Speaker: And so like- There's three options for that. There's essentially you're bulletproof. You're faster than people can shoot you with bullets. Faster than a speeding bullet? or yeah Or you have armor to prevent you from getting hit with you know bullets, which is essentially bulletproofing. Cause you're either, spite you're either, you know, Superman, Captain America, who's like a good, you know, combination of all three or Spider-Man who like, I'm just nimble enough to avoid all bullets. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker: And it it's, it's just really interesting to read chapters like this. Cause we get it in, in worm. We have it in ward and just again, now more so in this fight than a lot of the others, but like,

Speaker: It's still, for some reason, just such a understandably massive fear for a lot of the audience. Again, probably more an American thing, unfortunately, than a lot of other parts of the world. But it's crazy how like reading this chapter was terrifying.

Speaker: ah haveta die like a lot more than some of the other fights where there's, you know, limbs flying and lasers and, and all this, you know, crazy powers, but I'm going bring out a gun and mentally, as I'm reading, I'm just like, oh fuck.

Speaker: It's bad. Like it's crazy. Like that's what, that's what happens. It's just weird reading fights like that. It's just, they're still, that's scary. I mean, at the end of the day, ah since Hannah, we've been watching justice league at the end of the day, if you put a gun to,

Speaker: everybody's head in the justice league with the exception of wonder woman and Superman, everybody dies. Yeah. Yep.

Speaker: Pretty much. Yeah. When you're a kid, but yeah. Yeah. Oh, good. but yeah yeah oh good oh What was that? i Yeah, just with... It's funny because I've been watching Justice League and I was thinking... I literally have been thinking that this whole time comparing it to Justice League characters and being like, well, you know, if you had this, you could do this. you had this, you could do this. But if you got caught unawares and caught a bullet to the back of the head, you're gone. Unless you're, you know, Superman.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. what was the Wasn't there a Superman movie where they showed a slow-mo close-up him being shot in the eye? There would Superman Returns where the Gatling gun... means returns yeah The bullet hits him in the eyeball and folds up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's our friend. No, I can't say that I've seen all of the movie. was yeah very mid-movie, but a great clip. Yeah. yeah yeah yeah um Yeah, I don't know. It's a crazy thing, though, because in this world...

Speaker: We do see that as like, oh yeah, like guns are effective and we've seen that in the past. They've even mentioned how even in universe here, when people bring out guns, it's a breaking of protocol.

Speaker: Of like, oh no, we don't do that. Like we don't just shoot people. So yeah these people who very clearly were hired by anti-parahuman people anyway. um Yeah, very...

Speaker: very it seems like extreme measures are starting to be taken by their enemies which is interesting to see the ramp up yeah if as Fran pointed out Martian Manhunter can take the bullet but he will whine about it and be unable to use his powers for the rest of the episode yeah you leave Jaune out of this that's very fair although I do wonder also for Wonder Woman as well like if you put a bullet to the soft part of their temple

Speaker: Yeah, I think I'd take her out. She's an Amazonian, but she's not bulletproof. It depends on the version of Wonder Woman, for sure. Yeah, because she's blocking bullets all the time, and is that like a minor inconvenience thing, or is that like a I'm also made of flesh because I'm, like you said, Amazonian, which means I'm super strong, but I am made of fleshy bits, as opposed to Superman, who is super strong and essentially not even, like,

Speaker: made of flesh for all intents and purposes. Martian Manhunter, also strong, maybe closer to Superman, but, you know, he's a Wonder Woman probably point blank, might not be able to take a bullet. say that

Speaker: Green Lantern, Flash, and Batman, and Hawkgirl, Enzo, One-Zo. Okay, yes, but just to because we're nerds, the Flash, you couldn't he would he would react okay way before. Spoilers. I feel like I just watched an episode of him tripping over a crack and sp sprawling across the road. Spoilers for literally the show. Somebody plugs him.

Speaker: So, you know, didn't run away from that. and In an alternate timeline, Flash jobs every fight because nobody knows how to write him, but it's fine.

Speaker: Anyways, i can what yeah back to Ward. Other. Yeah. Yeah. Other capes. It's just the problem with any inherently world-breaking power, right? Where it's like yeah like time time control, where it's like, how do you write that in a way where this person can lose?

Speaker: Yeah. Which is why, you know, you take the the Chad Watchman approach, which is like, no, he can't lose. But that's why he's an unaffectable God who lives on Mars now, because he doesn't care anymore. but Yeah.

Speaker: okay Anyways. Sorry. Just wanted to throw that in there. No, it's great. Totally accurate. Yeah. Let's see. if What do I have for this chapter?

Speaker: Oh, to what? hannah If two rockets as well. Oh, yeah. That go off. Yeah. can well She can hear them yell clear. And then she's behind the car and she's like, oh oh yeah. Get away from the other rocket launchers.

Speaker: Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. forgot about that yeah ah We have the dragon in the fire cameo as well. Oh, do you have notes about the fight? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everything before the too. Brio, absolutely strapped to clap.

Speaker: ah He's got the emergency sawed off inside of his shield. Amazing. What an absolute, Chad. um Let's see. Annalise, Vicky, you need to tap that. ah Oh, talking about the raised guard lowered walls. I really like that. um that description of her talking with Annalise, he's like, hey, want to be upfront because it would be weird, but I know that like you essentially have connections with the institution or the asylum.

Speaker: Right. Don't know the details necessarily, but I know, you know, maybe it's something to do with your team. Maybe it's you, but just want to let you know that I do know stuff about that.

Speaker: So, um and for her, I do like the immediacy of like, that does put her on her guard, on her edge. But since the topic has been broached, she knows that she doesn't need to have that wall about like hiding that. So I i just like the, the thing guard up walls down was an interesting way to put that conversation.

Speaker: um I really like that. Let's see. dams dam Damsel and Ashley interactions are peak here. ah This is probably my favorite fight we've had so far.

Speaker: It's pretty good fight. It's... It almost lost my interest, and every time it did, it would do something to like pull me back into it.

Speaker: um Maybe it was the immediacy of the arena... or the, you know, the kind of like blood and knuckles just struggle, sans, you know, too many powers.

Speaker: ah But I really enjoyed the ah the fight there. So. Yeah, it got a little convoluted, but keeping it to one chapter was very helpful. Yeah. Instead of like three or four chapters of fighting, which I love. Don't get wrong. The long fights are great, but for these types of things, it was very effective. Just a kind of a quicker skirmish.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Anything else for those before we move into the interludes? Only note I have is just a funny line. I even forget the context. I just wrote it down. i you forget to I guess it was probably Victoria who said it. It was just a talking about remedies and just went, Apana, cure all. Yeah. yeah That's yeah Victoria. ye No, that was a good one. She's that's she's ah thinking to herself.

Speaker: yeah Yeah. Right. I would totally forgot that's funny i just wrote the line. I actually was listening to it and I went, wait, and I went back and I listened to it again because I i i thought that I had missed something.

Speaker: Sometimes with the audio book, they'll say a line and then they'll repeat the line again and it just was a spot that didn't get edited properly. But like, so I went back and I was like, that sounded like she almost said panacea and she cut herself off mid-sentence, which is interest so interesting. Gosh. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: You know, Amy fucking invading in every single little space. Taking up space where she doesn't fucking belong. I did get a little scared. I'm glad we got some a little more of resolution in the last interlude. But it's point 13 ends with a little ah question mark on Kenzie.

Speaker: i was I was a little nervous until yeah told the o Chicken Little interlude. Shot twice. Bleeding out all over the snow.

Speaker: in Anybody is is not great, and in a child is terrifying. Real. Realistically, though, they stop bleeding so much faster, though. They have that special thing that clots their blood a lot more than and an adult will.

Speaker: You know what? That's right. They're bulletproof. What? Exactly. who could Who could take a bullet in this universe? Kenzie, twice. Twice. Kenzie, no.

Speaker: He's got such a small... It's like that guy on Reddit who's to try to build up resistance to bullets over time yeah by shooting himself with increasingly larger bullets. Don't fuck.

Speaker: i do God damn. Yeah, yeah i do I do love the... Oh, go ahead, Alan. was going to this cliffhanger moment, like we said before, this was my i need to keep reading moment. yeah i What did y'all think the what the fuck was going to be in reference to?

Speaker: Well, I mean, we knew it was in reference to Chris, right? Yeah. Because they could well like look at his folder or look at his file or whatever. Well, she doesn't say Chris. Doesn't she just say, like, keep reading or something like that? Because she gives her the file. She's like, yeah, she's like,

Speaker: Yeah, she's like, look at this. And she's like reading through what it is. And it's like attempted blackmail and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah And it's all this stuff. And it like very quickly, it's like, ah, yeah, no, it's the team.

Speaker: It's the team's folders. Like this is clearly Yamada's folders on everybody. And then she's like, read the last one. She's like, what the fuck? I... think I don't think they say it's Chris. It names Chris. I guess I could have sworn it. It does. Yeah. Because it um it goes, I shouldn't be looking at it. I said, the screen went black. You should, Dragon said. The screen came back a different page closer to the end.

Speaker: Chris, I realized. I read some of the notes, clicked the button, read another page. Fuck, I said. So it's very much like this is the one you need to focus on. Yeah.

Speaker: feel very validated. not going to lie. so Yeah, I don't know and don't know. So it's interesting. um We can see some of the things that um that we know about people already. right Killed brother, murder charges, that's Tristan.

Speaker: Fallen, at relations to the McVeigh, we know that's Rain. Blackmail, individual and already in compromising position, sought counsel, but this message was intercepted. That's probably Kenzie.

Speaker: um Suicidal ideation. We don't know who that is, but I would imagine Sveta is my guess. Or Byron.

Speaker: Could be Byron or Sveta. um But no, Byron makes sense. a Potential bipolar diagnosis. Ashley. i Probably. Yeah. um yeah Pervasive feelings of betrayal, lack of trust, including herself. That sounds like Sveta. uta Yeah, that's totally Sveta. And then, yeah, Chris with chris with his thing.

Speaker: Yep. Can we get into that interlude? Yeah, let's read it. yeah What that interlude do, though. I do i do just like, um though, for that last thing, obviously Dragon Defiant Cameo is peak.

Speaker: and Always. i I find just the interlocking of of these characters where you've got dragon defiant Yamada, Victoria and Citrine and cauldron, like all kind of interlocking to where dragons, like I'm giving you this in part because Citrine said it's okay.

Speaker: And like having that, like kind of interlocking of powers that be is really interesting. Like just, you talking about like meta big picture stuff. I'm fascinated to know how all that's coming together. Yep. Me too.

Speaker: So cool. But yeah, let's get 10. Why? We finally, i was like, the next interlude better be Chris's. Like if it's not, then wild bow, you're fired.

Speaker: So my God, why? Extra stinky. Hmm. That tuna breath, Alan. Probably like Chris's after his mouth got clucked, you know? Yeah. Yay! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, um ten point y interlude Chris.

Speaker: Flashbacks to Chris's past as Lap Rat's replicant. Forcibly reminding himself of his trigger and of Gold Morning, talking with Yamada and the therapy group, and pitching the Earth Shen takeover to Amy.

Speaker: o Wowie. I feel like we were all so close. So close. So far. So far. will say way back.

Speaker: We got that he was somebody's baby. Yeah. We got that he was somebody's baby. yeah Yeah, or a clone or something. If there was somewhere way back where said he said something...

Speaker: about, I want to say Lab Rat. Like, literally, you were just, like, going through, like, weird tinker names. And this was all the way back in, like, episode two or something. Where, like, y'all just said that out of nowhere. And I just, like...

Speaker: ah Interesting. thought well and This gets back to what what we were saying at the beginning with like throwaway stuff. is With Wildbow, you never know if you'll get answers or if throwaway things will be yeah mentioned. because yeah As somebody pointed out in the comments, like Labrat was a throwaway side character who happened to save Taylor's life. like Yes, we don't want to discount that.

Speaker: Yeah. But seeing it now from his perspective was so interesting of like, oh, he had he's one of those characters who had contingencies in case he died.

Speaker: Yeah. Like, of course, because this fuck Tinkers, right? As Taylor would say, like, goddamn Tinkers. Right now. Especially Bio Tinkers. Like, I think they're probably the worst of it.

Speaker: Between Blasto, Bonesaw, and now Labrador. I know. I'm i'm waiting for Blasto. Goddamn Bio Tinkers. Tinkers. yeah well he Mannequin 2 is out there somewhere. i mean, I wouldn't be surprised. No, don't put that kind of energy out into the universe.

Speaker: It's okay. The world could use... fewer Allens. Wow. Wow. Fewer Allens like mannequin. Yeah, there we go.

Speaker: Goodness. ah Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's funny because like they she says, you know, okay, lab rat. like, fucking shit is lab rat. Like, I was just like, I don't remember. And then, you know, as the interlude is going through, realizing like, oh, shit. No, I do remember lab rat. Like, as as soon as they mentioned the oil rig, I was like, oh, yeah. No, I remember you. And even the conversation with Rachel about like, well will this work on my dog?

Speaker: Like, who Interacted with that, too. Like, I remember that shit ah real well. And, of course, Taylor just getting, you know, ripped apart into, you know, Bug Taylor.

Speaker: ah Just, wow. And getting that snapshot into into his head. so interesting. So, so interesting.

Speaker: Just... setup it makes me wonder how how far back wild though planned this like how far back did he lay the groundwork or was this something where like he finished uh worm and then was working on ward and doing like setup and was like oh know what i could do like i'm so i'm so curious if anybody in chat knows if Wild West said anything about, you know, how his strategy goes for planning shit like this in advance. Like, I'm so interested in that because, like, I, like, as a writer myself, I have times where I'm like,

Speaker: oh man, that would have been so cool if I planned that way back then, but I didn't. Now I have to see if I can make it fit. So like the groundwork, I mean, I don't know if he did it on on purpose or not, but like, holy moly.

Speaker: Yeah. and that So along the lines of sussing this out, we have talked a couple of times about the person who figured this out months in advance of the reveal. ah That would be Ginger and Thyme on ah I believe it's Ginger and Thyme.

Speaker: Yeah, Ginger and Time on Reddit. um I'll go briefly through this thing. I'm trying to answer the question, what's the deal with Chris? I don't i know, but I have a few ideas. Let's talk about Labrat, cape from Worm Now Deceased.

Speaker: Here's the description of him. Labrat, the last person you might expect to be a tinker. He has a mouthful of teeth that are screaming for braces. um all crammed towards the very front of his mouth, overlapping and sticking out of his lower gums. He has a mop of hair, heavy and heavy brows, tall and broad shoulder, bit of a belly, which what do we know about Chris has braces.

Speaker: Big thing about him. Don't worry, champ. You'll get those. We'll see about getting those braces. Uh,

Speaker: totally forgot about that. The whole specialty was that it turns you into a monster temporarily. um So what if, you know, you take it, here's the first hand of count of what that feels like. Rage bubbled inside me, but it wasn't mine. I'd experienced my own anger. I knew how it influenced my own body, how it was connected to my emotions. This was something else. Hormones kicking into overdrive. God. compelling my body to react other parts of my body being designed to angry designed so that they were primed for fight or flight driving me to act and refuse to let me sit still.

Speaker: So there's an emotional component to the transformation. that's Interesting. Uh, The turn turned to a multi lens skittering whore with the ability to communicate verbally talent for climbing. it sounds like mad anxiety. Uh, what else happens in that chapter? Uh, we see lab rat assisted by Taylor swarm through a tinker device in the ocean. What was the device called?

Speaker: A good question. Distilled lab rat in a jar in case he didn't make it not a clone. Exactly. The jar wasn't supposed to be recovered. It was supposed to be for when things were unrecoverable. Um,

Speaker: Did that jar happen in worm? Did we? was that something that was like a throwaway line? I guess He tries to throw something too. So Fran points out in the comments. He says, on the oil rig fight, Labrat tries to throw a small device into the water but fails to.

Speaker: So Taylor uses her bugs to roll it over into the water. Then we hear Labrat angel before dying. I did forget that. That's great.

Speaker: completely forgot. I mean, the oil rig, there's a lot of fucking shit going on, let's be honest. but we were Lab Rat was not high up on the priority list. Whenever we're like, when did that happen? It's a good chance it was on the oil rig, let's just say that. Exactly.

Speaker: Wait, Gru's dead? You're not wrong. yeah Gru, Clockblocker. yeah yeah god Don't talk to me about Clockblocker. I don't even want to hear it. I'm not over it. His ghost is is chilling with Valkyrie somewhere. Yeah.

Speaker: um But the big thing here with how much he talks with Kenzie also, he's always, when when he talks with Kenzie, when he talks about powers, every time he discusses them, it's very clearly like in, I'll just generalize it with STEM. It's like STEM talk.

Speaker: It's not necessarily the biological component in terms of like, powers. It's the tinker component of things. It's geometric. It's, it's the numbers. That's why, you know, can you draw a line through it? You made a camera, but you know, they can look through time. How did you not implement timestamps, which, you know, all seems stuff.

Speaker: Uh, I need, you know, just talking about, I need my stuff, my space, my workshop, his lab essentially, you know, at the Institute. um you know, all the vials and stuff he's carrying around. ah Yeah, the vials. Gosh.

Speaker: Love that. I love that clicking into place being like, oh, fucking shit. hit's He's injecting himself. That's what it is. Oh, so good. Yeah. The regular maybo power is the injections.

Speaker: Great. Yeah, it's not a power. It's the injections. And the when he talks about at the foster care center he's at, like, body parts needing to be disposed of and things like that. Right.

Speaker: It's not a side effect of his power making him fall apart. It's like literally, no, that is his power. He's a bio-tinker. More than likely, he's also probably collecting small animals and experimenting on them. I wouldn't I would imagine, or something similar to that effect. yeah We could probably look at all of the things he's made and look like, oh yeah, he found a millipede on the sidewalk and was like, I'm going turn myself into that.

Speaker: you know yeah Yeah, exactly. yeah Lots of that, lots of... ah yeah It's interesting that he can clearly, he doesn't just require... he he can both...

Speaker: as he did in in the birdcage, kind of stick somebody go, I'm gonna suck out your depresso espresso. Yeah. And I can inject it in somebody else.

Speaker: like Yeah. um and

Speaker: and And stuff like that, where like he can just he can withdraw something. But not only can he do it that way, but he can also just scan people because he scanned nursery. Yeah. whatever the hell that means.

Speaker: oh oh

Speaker: Yeah, I imagine we'll get some more answers. I can't wait. Chris slash into how lab rats power work. Did, um so is lab rats name Chris and was Chris ever said in Worm, or was it always just Lab Rat?

Speaker: It's just Lab Rat. Always Lab Rat, I think. I was like, that would have been i probably been into ah a dead giveaway. yeah know people what People would have control F Chris real fast. yeah yeah um Also, I just want to point out, ah oh I'm sure, Michael, you were about to do that. oh go go ahead oh Sorry. Fran said in the chat, um Victoria said that it's not normal for a changer to be affected by their power the way that Chris was, um which was kind of a hint that he was a a tinker rather than changer and when rain was dying during the fallen raid Chris gives him some medicine implying that he gave him some of his tinker healing to save him and then beefaroni says the coagulant he gave to rain during the raid on the fall and he tells Victoria to give him two fingers worth who else but a tinker would use that as a measurement like Bernard oh go ahead

Speaker: oh go ahead I was just gonna say, and Bernard says ah that he had to fight the urge to not correct you and I, Jacob, when we were talking about Cryptid as a changer. ah yeah Well, it's funny because, yeah, go off of that. it's We clocked so many of the inconsistencies, but we just yeah didn't. We did. We just didn't bridge. We just didn't connect Yeah.

Speaker: We were like, wait, that's that's not right. Something's weird there. Like, I remember I was stuck up until this chapter. I really did think he was some type of no-bog spawn or something like that. I remember that. which Yeah. felt i'm still i I was kind convinced up until this chapter that he was a Simmerk baby. That was kind of like back of my head. That was my running theory. i was like, I hope he's a Simmerk baby. That'd be cool. Yeah.

Speaker: And we were so close. We were so close. so we were We were close. He was someone's baby from Worm. Yeah. ah Somebody pointed out way back in the chat, everybody's somebody's baby. yeah I was also going to point out Chad said that um in a way Taylor's responsible for Chris being born since her bugs were what pushed the ah thing into the water. oh And so through she kind of we can get over there in a sec yeah she kind of fucked over goddess twice is what Brian said.

Speaker: Yeah. True. That's funny. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Also i think it's really cool. His sister um string theory ah built the, I was the one that built the G driver. Right. The G driver. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah I did like that little that little interaction of like, i get they're like, oh, i'm I built the G driver. I'm going to win. And he's like, no, you're fucking God. in What are you doing? And then later he's like, not only did you not kill God, but now you're dead. Who's winning now, bitch? Yeah.

Speaker: and He has that line about a thousand rats. And you know what? He's not wrong. The thousand rats that did make it off the sinking oil rig ended up killing God. So.

Speaker: You know, his sister's not string theory. Who was it then? was about to I didn't know they were. they not the owner the giantine but I No, I think that is string theory. I just don't think they're siblings.

Speaker: I didn't think they were siblings, but I could be. Am I not mistaken that that's his sister that's doing all the experiments and stuff? Alan, Google it. I'll look i'll look this up. and we None of us will Google it because we can't find it. Yep.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: poor poor Kenzie though throughout all this. Oh, i think Alan, they're saying that you're confused because his sister was a serial killer and he was just saying that string theory reminded her of them.

Speaker: that's yeah That's correct. I've always been under the impression that older sister his sister was

Speaker: just a regular serial killer. I did not know that. ah i've I've always thought that his sister was string theory growing up and that ah that that's just like the next time we see her is her going by her name and then she's always been the older sister who's been like clearly outperforming and you know their brother didn't make it through one of her bullshit experiments and yeah he did. and now his His sister was just a terrible person.

Speaker: And that's why I'm not going to choose to believe that. so I reject your reality and substitute my own. and All right. Well, keep it to yourself.

Speaker: just That's wild. The more you know, you learn things every read through. yeah i do I do genuinely feel the worst for Kenzie reading this chapter. was like...

Speaker: That's why I'm glad it looks like I fell in love with the villain. do feel like Wild Boat. I fell in love with a 30-year-old man. Yeah. I feel like Wild Boat gave us a little bit of relief there where he was like, all right, this is bad. always write bad things, so I will give Kenzie some potential new friends, which maybe they'll interact with more.

Speaker: Maybe chicken little. Yeah. Little little little chicken. Little chicken, big chicken, a little and the heart broken. Sit down. Spank your little butt. There we go.

Speaker: He's talking to the cat. He's talking to cat, everybody. yeah Beckford is walking all over my notebook. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you for the audio listeners. When Alan whispers, there's cat that is basically him. I can hardly see him when he's in your arms. He's just a black hole. He's a void. Little void basically i can hardly i can hardly see him when he's in your arms like because he just a black hole he's just a void chickenten little void boy He's a tiny little void chicken.

Speaker: Yes. um But yeah, let's see. Other thing. He's trusting Amy. Good God. Come on, man. Yeah. Yo. Like, is it so much trusting Amy is using Amy? I was going to say it's using her, but like yeah any amount of use sometimes requires trust in her to do something.

Speaker: history You know, that's true. ah And then we have, but do we have this line here. it said Sorry, I'm just going to hate it on Amy for a second. ah As we all said. Oh, you know something, what I can do for my sister.

Speaker: Do for your sister? and what do you mean? You mean do to your sister, you piece of shit? Like, oh, I'm so benevolent. Oh my God, Amy, go fuck yourself. I do kind of appreciate...

Speaker: oh Yeah. Yeah. would kill her. Every time Amy cries, it's like putting blood in the water. I just want to like... No, I agree. Fight her. The pity party never ends.

Speaker: It almost does... The end of that interlude where Chris is talking to Amy, it almost did feel like he's like, no, Amy, you need to leave Earth. Like like even Chris, a villain, is like... He got it at least. No, what you did to your sister is is screwed up. You need to leave.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, it's time to go. It's like, listen, I might be the replicant of a long dead villain who really just wants to take over the world and experiment on animals, but you're a sicko. yeah You're a real piece of work.

Speaker: Exactly. You've got real problems, Amy. You disgust me. I know what I am. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. At least Chris knows what he is. Like, Amy's just sitting over here crying, woe is me. I can't.

Speaker: oh Oh, God, I can't even. say Oh, I can't torture the people I love. Love and heavy If you can't do that, what can you do? yeah What can you do? also that gives Take over an earth, I guess.

Speaker: Bingo? Alan gets a bingo. Bingo, wango. You give yourself some bingo. Alan Ranson. Who is that? no sex Nice. as let's say Have we had any other bingos this evening? It's kind of a bummer. This is our first one and it's 10, 12.

Speaker: ten twelve I know. We're getting it here at the end. How many hours are we into this shit? Too long, let me tell you. Two hours and 12 minutes. Also, one more note from me on this one. he ends up working with the cluster mate.

Speaker: ah Oh, yeah, right. um The goddess's cluster. Also, goodnight, J-Man. Thanks for having me. Thanks for stopping by. It's Goddesses' cluster, right? Yeah. she He talks with the battery and is basically like coordinating between them and everything. like So potentially the battery in some way maybe just like cut off a little bit of power.

Speaker: So she's not as powerful. Her danger sense is down. like ah A lot of things in the background all kind of stopping or, you know, ah not working for her all at once, you know, leads to drastic, um you know, underestimating the situation.

Speaker: that fantastic Gang up and get any more notes on, ah on the lab rat situation.

Speaker: The rat's out of the lab. Rats out of the lab. and but Very good. 10.0.

Speaker: Let's go. 10.0 interlude for Aiden. Aiden and some heartbroken visit Kinsey in the hospital. Together they plan to get everyone working together.

Speaker: He gets in trouble with Tattletail and he looks at her bulletin boards.

Speaker: Yeah, Kenzie's alive. Yeah. Thank goodness.

Speaker: thanks all right goodness Chicken Little. Okay. it's It's really funny when Wild Bo writes a character so well that I'm immediately like, I know I just spent half a million words with Team Therapy, but like ah Chicken Little's already maybe my second favorite character in the story. and i've known him for all of 20 minutes. Yeah.

Speaker: You know, it's great. Yep. Great.

Speaker: I love how um sweet, sweet, classic little boy, ah completely oblivious to girls having crushes on him. Just like.

Speaker: um the straightest the straightest man thing that Wild Bo's ever written. is true I just be just that everyone like you want. I can make you one.

Speaker: Right now, it won't even be any effort. And no effort put into it whatsoever. You want a necklace? And she's like, yeah. Yeah, well, it it doesn't help that Darlene... my My note on Darlene is that she is tsundere, which is the the classic anime trope of the girl who's like...

Speaker: aggressive and kind of mean to the protagonist, but secretly really likes him. And that's exactly where I feel like that's how she treats him. She's like, it's not like I like you or anything.

Speaker: Gosh. Gosh. Gosh. Yes. ah all i gosh i i guess oh you're And like like the moment that got me especially was when Chicken Little was like talking to Kenzie and he felt her connection to him like immediately zap away and like weird. That was weird. but She was like in the corner like. Yeah.

Speaker: be Brooding. Love it. just Love it. um Oh. As Fran points out, and I have this as note, Fran, but thank you for bringing it up. I love this. note is, he saw this cool grizzled guy with a leather jacket and was like, wow, that's one badass grown man over there who's really cool. And it's just rain. I was like, oh, how did you make rain sound cool? Like...

Speaker: leather jacket and like his like slight stubble he's like 15 and he's just like oh yeah he's so fucking cool but you know granted I had babysitters who were like 15 years old and they could beat Spyro and I was like oh my gosh this is maybe the coolest adult I've ever met yeah yeah yeah yeah They just have to be like semi semi self-confident with like a little bit of fashion sense and a couple years older than you. And it's like, oh my God, look at them. They're so mature. They don't even need any of those. I'll tell you right now. I saw too much tie-dye growing up from people I thought were cool.

Speaker: Hey, no. They were probably not cool at all, especially since they were like doing some sort of vacation Bible school thing. And I was just like, yeah, when that is the coolest person. Right. They're older than me. They're the coolest. because they're not They're not. I know they're not boring adults, but they're older than me. So, yes.

Speaker: It's like camp counselor vibe. Exactly. yeah And that camp counselor could be anywhere from 12 years old to 20. You got no clue. You never know. I do got to point out my favorite line of the arc.

Speaker: Obviously, Chicken Little. a little conversation between Chicken Little and Precipice. Precipice says, yeah you're a good kid. Precipice told him. No.

Speaker: Aiden replied, his eyebrows knitting together, nodding together. I'm a bad guy. I'm an other fighter, which makes me a villain. so ah You're nine. You're nine, but bless because that's the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life. I think he's 12.

Speaker: So you're fucking 12, my dude, but you're right. Like we've been edgelord, man. I love that. He's trying to out edge. Mr. Edge over here. yeah Yeah. These boys are so, both of them like, oh, i've got i i was raised by i but villains. i've got I deserve this. ah There's nothing can do about. It really shows Rain's growth that he didn't follow up. You're a good guy with the phrase, is unlike me where Yeah, because they could have gotten to an edge off, you know? Yeah. Could have just been edging themselves. so Oh, my gosh. No! and knew it was gonna make Alan, aor we don't need to go there. Alan, they're children. Alan, stop. They're both children.

Speaker: This isn't Fire Emblem. We can't go there. No.

Speaker: you Yeah, no. I really love it, though. And it's like it's it's so funny to me because all of these children think they're so cool. And they come back and Tattletail's like, you're grounded, bitch. He

Speaker: so it was like, you're like in a dark room. i was going to go do my thing. And she's like, you're 12. You're grounded. that's yeah right he's i had a guy with me.

Speaker: one guy And a bird. Like, you had a 12-year-old protecting you. No, no, because he's younger than the 12-year-old heartbreaker kid who was with them. I think he's like 11 or 10, maybe. Roman. Aiden was. Yeah, Roman. Yeah, Roman. Because Roman is 12. Roman's...

Speaker: Okay, so Roman and... uo Because he said something about like, Roman's like, what, six months older than him or something like that? They're basically the same age. Oh, really? Okay, I thought Roman was like at least two years older. I did like that, though, where he's like, I've got the mercenary with me and Talitha's like, well, that one's fired.

Speaker: yeah yeah He's gone. He had chicken large with him. Yeah, had chicken large with him. Yeah, the oversized chicken, you know, really... Is it chicken big chicken large? Yeah.

Speaker: The chicken big and large. Also, Bernard, the Fire Emblem references how, and the latest Fire Emblem, I'm assuming, you essentially are a teacher who can date your students.

Speaker: It's really sketchy. And album just the concept of adults making sexual reference to children weird being a big no-no. um the The wiki says is five.

Speaker: but wiki says chicken little is five No, he's not. He's five in in the early, early, early chicken little days when he's of a sweet little baby angel coloring at the warehouse. Right. That makes more sense.

Speaker: ah He's, yeah. He is 10 at the start of Ward. There we go. And at the start of Ward. And it's only been two fucking months. Yep.

Speaker: There we go. Or three months or something. Whatever. man One month. Ward's been going on. in one month Probably not even. Okay. That's fine. All right. So chicken little Chicken Little, bless his little tiny baby heart, is goddamn 10 years old.

Speaker: His little chicken heart, 10 years old. Oh, gosh. That's funny. I love it. Yep.

Speaker: Bless him. Although Aiden truly is Taylor's heir because what does he want? This is his quote with what he wants. He wants to get everyone working together. Dangerous thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. We don't want those.

Speaker: Bless him. Get a mind wiper. Weep baby angel. well it's so That's the thing though. It's so innocent too. Even with Taylor. like It was so innocent. like I just... Can't we all just get along? Like, can't we all just work together? No, no, we can't. Because you know what happens? Bad. Bad things happen. The world ends. That's what happens. Well, I mean, we save the world. But no.

Speaker: Someone needs to, like, sit chicken down and be like, buddy. Auntie Taylor ah also thought that. Auntie Taylor is dead now.

Speaker: Or, well.

Speaker: yeah She was out of line, but she she was right. and No, no, no. I mean, yes, but no. Listen. listen Sometimes people just need a push in the right direction. o ah Nope. Is that just the that's the the underlying major theme for all of the parahumans?

Speaker: Just and someone just needs to push in the right direction. Sometimes Sometimes free will is a mistake. Yeah. And democracy doesn't work.

Speaker: Yeah. and Manage democracy? need to manage that democracy. Exactly. It's true.

Speaker: it Anyways. yeah The only other thing I i thought about were ah Tattletail's post-see notes on her bulletin board at the end is the only other thoughts I had.

Speaker: Right, right. So... wait Let's talk about that for a second. Yeah, I can read them off real quick because I pulled them up because I wanted... They're very specifically worded and I thought it was interesting. Yeah. So, a Bulletin Board.

Speaker: Valkyrie. Scared. Dragon. Hid for a while. Scared. Legend. Chev. Staying away on long missions. Clandestine meetings. Bogeyman of Cauldron, captured, weapon kept up sleeve.

Speaker: Dinah Alcott, compromised, ships shift of motives. Why capture corner co-opt precogs? What is the threat? Why scared? Hiding in alternate worlds won't save us, so why avoid the city?

Speaker: Who or what is here? Ay caramba. There's some spooky stuff in those. Okay, so Bogeyman of Cauldron, that's Contessa, I assume, because that was what she was called.

Speaker: um I think so. Oh, good thought. I hadn't thought about that. I was kind of thinking the Number Man, but I guess that's also that's that's true. because Number Man's not captured, though. Number Man's hanging out Citrine.

Speaker: right Having mathematically perfect love. So Contessa... Was it Cantress? Wasn't Contessa the last we saw with Teacher? So yeah we did see in her... Well, remember after that she goes and she plugs Taylor. So yes I believe there's that. She talks with Teacher and then... yeah but She does have a talk with Teacher and Teacher essentially gives her an open invitation to come with him.

Speaker: Right. And as far as I remember that like maybe she maybe she does. i think she... She kind of gave him a non-committal, like not no, but not yes either. Because that was in also Teacher was trying to gather up a lot of people, right? He was trying to get as many important people as he could. Tried to get Amy and Marquis and Lung and a bunch of other, a few other people. Yeah. um Yeah. i And then with Dinah, we know that she has also kind of started her own

Speaker: group or like her own mercenary project but we don't really know what's been going on with that so it's interesting to hear her brought up again yeah see again it's been so small potatoes it's and refreshing to see a look at the board she's had some like political pushes yeah because they've talked about her influencing the mayoral race and stuff like that interesting And then there's the the idea that somebody is trying to co-opt a bunch of precogs.

Speaker: we don't know We don't know who or why. The assumption might be teacher, but I feel like that's just the easy assumption. I think there's something. Makes it feel like something else is going on. Maybe the Simmer. you know She messes up with precogs.

Speaker: but My big question for here is the big, the big point that all of this comes to is why are they avoiding the city? Right. yeah What's in the city? That's the problem. Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, i mean, my first thought with that is, is um so many of the broken triggers were in the city as well. And like, that's probably part of that is just being a collection of having so many people in one place. But

Speaker: I don't know. I mean, like, having so many people in one place could be the catalyst for something big like that, that has a ripple effect that moves outward. And it's the most dangerous because it is most people. It's just so populated. That's like, you don't, whenever the thing is that's going to happen, that's so big that ripples out through people. You don't want to be in the place where all the people is. Like, that's what my initial thought is. And like, when we saw the broken trigger at the very beginning of ward, um having all of those people gathered there,

Speaker: it was It was literally rippling out and bam, bam, bam, and hitting It's like, we need to get the fuck out of here. We need to clear it out. And so, like, that's... it I was just... because That's part of, like, my thought of why the city could be so problematic.

Speaker: Yeah. But that's hitting, like, regular humans, not people have already triggered. Because that's a bunch of people triggering succession.

Speaker: mean... So, like... I don't know. It could be a surveillance thing. It could be a somebody is somebody has got eyes, slashes, like, you know, watching everything in the city.

Speaker: ah You mean Kenzie?

Speaker: Kenzie, the biggest threat. It's just Kenzie. yeah kens Turns out Kenzie was the biggest threat. Miss Yamada had her locked on the whole time. If we don't get a handle on this child, she's going to end the world.

Speaker: Yeah, it does feel... it does feel i'm not like Nothing's really clicking in terms of obvious things that we've seen to avoid the city for, given some of the other crazy big threats that we know are out there that would make more sense to avoid at this point. Yeah.

Speaker: So it might just still be a yeah little bit of a mystery box. Yep. But like the other chapters, it does a good job of making me want to read more. I really had to... I had to pause and be like okay I'm done I can't read anymore don't want to read ahead I finished this like a week ago and I'm like can't read ahead I wanna this is why I wait till the last minute to read cause I'm like I need it fresh and also I need to not keep reading further

Speaker: yeah um all in all uh Last things for this. um Any predictions for the future? Where they're going with after this?

Speaker: It's so hard to predict anything at this point. We're so wrong. There's a lot of things up in the air too. and it's I'm sure they all are going to end up connecting. like i can't see how right now.

Speaker: um i' I'm fascinated to see Like, um i i don't, i the the the the regular unparahumant humans problem is shitty and fuck them, but they're not high up on the list for me.

Speaker: Highest up on the list right now in terms of problems that I'm like trying to keep an eye on, like think about is the ah cutting people up and they're still alive thing. ah That's the big one. I don't trust Amy any farther and I would throw her. And I don't trust that she can't just sit on Shin and cry her little eyes out and have a little pity party. And then everything goes to shit because fuck Amy.

Speaker: ah Yeah. ah Honestly, Teacher has never been hype on the list as a problem. He still isn't. I don't know. like I'm sure he is. just don't care about Teacher. He's just a bitch. He's just bitch. The Machine Army.

Speaker: i machine army i I'm just waiting for everyone to forget about them until they're literally at the door. And then they're like, ding dong. Oh, who could that be? It's your death. Like, a yeah, i I don't know. so i i have this thing that I was thinking about with what could be happening.

Speaker: um And it I mentioned Fire Emblem. It kind of came to me because I mentioned that in one of the other Fire Emblem games, part of the concept is There's a character who is trying to... i believe he's trying to bring about like a god of chaos so he can absorb its power.

Speaker: but in order to bring it about, he needs the world to be in a sufficiently chaotic state. So he starts a war between a bunch of countries to try to get everybody fighting to cause this massive chaos in the world.

Speaker: And I feel like that's kind of what we're heading towards, right? We've got all these converging forces. We've got Amy and Chris on shin. We've got teacher doing his thing. We've got the machine army. We've got ah Cauldron. We've got all these other groups. We've got the anti-parahuman groups, Dinah,

Speaker: they're all going to converge, but there's going to be a reason for it. Not like somebody's masterminding everything necessarily, but like there is someone who's sort of instigating behind the scenes.

Speaker: um And I'm, I could easily see it being like, there's a Cape who really needs all of this chaos to come together for some reason. My guess is for what's in the city is related to all the broken triggers. I wouldn't be surprised if a piece of Sion's body was there somehow.

Speaker: Like the city was built on top of Sion's body, basically. Like we had Eden's body ah where Cauldron got a bunch of power. So part of why everything's so crazy in the city in particular is because you're literally built upon the body of a dead god.

Speaker: And the so the shards are exploding and things are going crazy. um because it's all concentrated on that one spot. And so precogs are aware of that. That's why they're maybe avoiding the city more.

Speaker: It's like something's weird about that place. I just need to stay away. i don't know. Yeah. Ideas. I like that. yeah Interesting theory of something like that um we've heard of before is like, yeah with I like your chaos theory.

Speaker: So with the chaos theory um causing all this problems, you know, we have... certain individuals in this universe that are attracted to chaos that, you know, sort of get activated by it.

Speaker: Uh, the end bringers. Yeah. so Yeah, exactly. Stuff like that. Or even just like, obviously there, if people know that their world is marked by the entities, then more entities won't come. But who's to say that somebody hasn't theorized, well, if we create enough,

Speaker: chaos, then they'll recognize something's wrong and maybe an entity will pass by. Like, I don't know. It it could be something like that too. Who knows? You've got a Captain Ahab situation. I'm going to hunt me a white worm.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Going to get me that baddie. I mean, right i mean we know yeah we know all the shards have a degree of sentience, you know, so... yeah ah there we we We've dabbled in, in obviously, ah the the Taylor's last moments, right? Shard is kind of fully in control, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some shardnannigans going on with yeah with some maybe fully realized shard or something like that trying to rebuild Scion or or you know Eden or something. So, it'd

Speaker: so yeah yeah Who knows? It's fun. It's funs crazy. Yeah, if I was writing a sequel to my first story, I'd also include Shards in some way and Endbringers in some way, at least at some point, because that seems like one of the more unique parts of this universe.

Speaker: Right. Yeah, Endbringers, Simurg slash Kansu, maybe, who knows? I definitely feel like we're getting... a We're getting the return of the Titans at some point. Well, real quickly, favorite powers from the rest of this arc.

Speaker: ah The comments dubbed him Arena. The capable who can ah put you into a zone, depower you, and then face you one-on-one.

Speaker: so I just think that's it. The compelled dual power is is pretty neat. I really like it. That'd be hard to beat. That was a cool highlight for the arc, for sure. yeah i'll i'll just give I also like that one the most, but I'll give a special power to shout out power to the nail fairer because that's just a weird power to make doors out of dead tissue.

Speaker: Whatever that means. We don't even know what that means yet.

Speaker: Honorable mention to chicken large. Yep. Yeah. I will say getting to see Chicken Little's power from his own head about how it works and how it's very different from how Taylor's power worked, I thought was yeah interesting.

Speaker: Yeah. um agree Similar yet. Taylor power, but worse. Yeah, exactly. Not as good. Without that that much of a mastery that she had.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. she hasn't He hasn't gotten there yet. He'll get there. Bernard, I'm not going to answer either of those questions. A little too leading. um um i My favorite power.

Speaker: i really like Darlene. I thought she was kind of cool. the She has kind of this connection to other people and the, like, don't know, the, ah i guess it's like the the feeling of I don't want to say feeling of your body, but like like you're aware of the people I don't know. It's a soul bond.

Speaker: Yeah. It's a soul bond. No, but like, I don't know how to describe it other than like, As Chicken Littles, that's they're walking through the the hospital. He can feel the whole, like you know Darlene, she's biting her nails and it's getting just a little too close to the the quick of the nail. Or she can he can like feel like the hair on someone's legs like rubbing against the pant leg. And like the fact that they're all connected and like kind of feeling each other like in the aura space, is I think that's really cool. I like that a lot.

Speaker: And you know just any of the heartbreaker powers all kind of connected back into this space. manipulation of, you know, your senses and, you know, how those things connect together. Like I, I find that's really cool.

Speaker: Yeah. They're cool. They're cool powers. Yeah. There's a, I was just say metal gear solid for the, uh, para military mercenary squads with the nanites operate like that, where they walk around and because they have the nanites, they can all see what each other see and feel what each other feel.

Speaker: So they're really effective, like little four man squads running around. nice Um, But yeah, all right. Well, with that out of the way, ah next week, we've got another 100,000 plus.

Speaker: Not next week. Not next week. Two weeks from now, which Michael will give the date because he's smart. But we'll be reading 11.1 to...

Speaker: two I'm going to give us a little bit more in the first half. It's going to be uneven. It'll probably be like, you know, a little bit more like 60,000 or something in the first half and 40,000 in the back half. So ah we'll do 11.1 to 11.8. So that'll be on the slightly bigger. Yep. Week of Thanksgiving.

Speaker: Week of Thanksgiving. Perfect. Yes. Bernard in a fortnight. It's a great time. Wow. So, like I said, 11.1 to 11.8. That'll be weeks from now on the Mm-hmm.

Speaker: it'll be two weeks from now on the twenty fifth huh Um, thank you all for being here live. We love really interacting with you and, uh, you provide so much help, good answers, good questions. I thank you so much to my hosts here. um you know, Michael, especially for helping produce all this and keep all of this running. And a special thank you to our patrons as per the huge, uh, we love you guys so much. And, um gosh Oh, you're so close to a bingo. The bingo. I got to read off the big i don't forget the bingo. And we'll drop off.

Speaker: ah But thank you to you all who are here. And thank you for those who are listening. As for the bingo, we had Nick, ghostful teacher. I'm sorry. We'll do the ones that we did. Annalise, should she?

Speaker: i knew it. Alan Rantz. Who is that? Fuck Amy. Hannah loves the body horror. Cat on screen. Hannah cries. And love for Coil Sniper. We didn't get with Nick Ghostful Teacher. Someone's name is mispronounced.

Speaker: Clusters are the real threat theory. theory Michael has to reel them in. Milk. Aiden, that's a bad idea. Jacob makes a TV movie comparison. I was close to Reliance in several times, but the chaos was too funny. There were a couple times fun you had a look on your face where I was like, oh, gotnna he's gonna. yeah I'd say we we probably hit the Aiden. That's a bad idea, too. we Yeah, we definitely hit the Aiden one. for sure Well, it doesn't give me a then give me a bingo, so I don't care. Sounds like it doesn't apply to me, so fuck it.

Speaker: All right. and Well, oh, Truett did get one. Hey, there we go. Sweet. There you go. Let's listen to a sound of relations, Truett. ah Yeah. And Michael, but do we have some music?

Speaker: Music?

Speaker: All right. Thanks for joining everyone. Thanks for commenting. We'll see you on the 25th. Two weeks. two weeks

Speaker: It's great to join the Patreon Why don't you just join the Patreon