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BBBC Reads Ward - Arc 12.z - 12.all - Heavens
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This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Complete list of potential triggers: here
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The Brockton Bay Book Club discusses J.C. McCrae's Ward live! The gang reads a portion of Ward and comes together to share our thoughts with each other and anyone who want's to participate.
This week we cover Arc 12.z - 12.all - Heavens
Read along here
Play along with this week's BBBC BINGO while you listen!
Support us and connect with us @brocktonbaybc
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Good ah evening, Mega Night on the Brockton Bay Book Club. Are your time bubbles popping?
00:00:14
Speaker
Call in and find out. ah I just had a cat run by me and scare the ever-living daylights out of me. Anyway, welcome to the Brockton Bay Book Club podcast where we are reading through J.C. McRae, a.k.a. Wild Bo's ward.
00:00:31
Speaker
um those of you who are reading along this week is arc 12 the first half which was arc 12.z to i'm sorry to chapter all so first half of arc twelve um Quite a lot to unpack here. few
Schedule Changes and Community Interaction
00:00:54
Speaker
things. Welcome to the first stream of the year.
00:00:56
Speaker
we are going to be moving over to Mondays from now on. no we're not. No, we're not. No, we're not. They're going to be Tuesdays. Alan shouldn't be in charge. I shouldn't be in charge of this. It's okay. no I was so excited to be moving over to Mondays. Oh, were you really? i made I really was. And I'm... I'm so upset now. He's sad though. He's sad though. I'm so sad. Sad. Okay.
00:01:23
Speaker
sad okay Well, i mean, we can, we can talk about that if we need to. If if you want to commiserate with me on why it's not on Mondays anymore, i guess you could do that over on our Patreon discord channel. Subscribe to our Patreon channel for only a buck a month at minimum, you know, and and or you could, you know, there's many tiers, one of which, you know, the never been reached one of a kind. So limited supply gold morning tier because you needed worthy investments.
00:01:57
Speaker
um So, ah yeah, go on over to there. And part of you know doing that and discussing things with us and sharing memes is adding to our bingo, which we'll be playing tonight.
Reading Strategies and Initial Impressions
00:02:08
Speaker
a Link is in description.
00:02:10
Speaker
And you can contribute to that. And, yeah so we're going have a good time. Let's get into this. It's been a while. Been a minute. um How many of you had trouble remembering what was going on?
00:02:26
Speaker
ah i I reread my notes and the arc summaries from arc 11 to get back into arc 12 because I mark definitely did have a moment of like, wait, what's going on?
00:02:42
Speaker
I glanced at them, but i yeah. I read like the first chapter or two. like a month ago and then of our of arc 12 and then did the rest of the reading like over the weekend and that was a mistake shouldn't have done that yeah yeah My problem is I've been reading Pale at the same time.
00:03:05
Speaker
And so I literally put off a Ward until yeah last night. And then, this you know of course, reading it right before podcast. yeah Because I just wanted to keep reading Pale and didn't want to read Ward.
00:03:20
Speaker
And the feeling remains the same. It was strategic for freshness in your brain.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, well, it wasn't. We'll see about that. Being off to the last minute. yeah No. Yeah. I mean, as you all know, I always wait till the last minute because I need it fresh so I can be very upset or angry or. or joyful, or whatever it is I need to feel, I need to feel it immediately. so yeah I read all the chapters today. I put it on the podcast and put on the podcast. I put on the audiobook and listened to it all day, which is, fun fact, it's about seven hours.
00:04:03
Speaker
Wow. yes great Hello, have you those of you in chat. J-Man, Fran, Truett. Great to see you all. We are so back. ah Where am I in pale? i ah had trouble for a year. I was reading arc one.
00:04:19
Speaker
and And over the past, over Christmas break, and now I am in arc 10 or 11. 10, I think. So, you know.
00:04:31
Speaker
Okay. There you go. All right, well, now we've gotten that exercise out of the way, let's talk about overall feelings about the first half of ARC-12. Initial impressions, Nick.
00:04:46
Speaker
Hmm. Um...
00:04:51
Speaker
I don't know. i I feel like I tend to be... one of the more optimistic readers in the sense of like, oh, this was interesting. Like there are parts of it that were good and and exciting.
00:05:05
Speaker
But then something about this and there's good stuff in this section. Don't get me wrong. But something about this first half of this arc just felt so down.
Character and Arc Analysis
00:05:18
Speaker
And I think part of it is that we come off 11 and Victoria literally asking, do I have permission to kill, to go like kill people?
00:05:30
Speaker
And, and then they just get their asses handed to them. ah And I'm like, oh no, just, it's so disappointing, especially with who's with them and the extra people they got with them and who ends up saving them in the end. I'm just like, oh, oh,
00:05:52
Speaker
oh I don't know. It was just it felt ah this is the first time I really struggled to finish the reading, like not just in the sense of like running out of time, but in the sense of like, well, I would be like, oh, I have time to read Ward. I should do that.
00:06:11
Speaker
I have time to read Ward. I should do that. ah
00:06:17
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe it was coming off of a long break, but I just felt like something shifted in the energy and it just, it was hard. i don't know. That's me. That's hilarious.
00:06:30
Speaker
ah Jacob. Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of those sections where I do really start to understand and sympathize with a lot of the sort of general ah criticisms of Ward, I think are very evident in this. and hurt It hurts because we we are reading like half an arc at a time, so it's really hard to like give a better overview because Wild Boat really does write the arcs as as meant to sort of be ah a bit of a cohesive yeah narrative. So it's we're we're doing ourselves a little bit of a disservice there, but... It is what it is. We can't read 100,000 words in two weeks. um
00:07:06
Speaker
And he is like, I really do think his writing improved, like his writing technique has improved a lot between Worm and Ward. Like as I'm reading, i'm I just, I fall into his style of of prose that I just really, really like. But I agree. I think at this point in the story, our...
00:07:30
Speaker
heroes have been beat up so much. And like, yes, that's the world. And that's sort of the story we get as we're reading, you know, about these characters in this world. It's very, ah you know, there's no clear black and white. Everyone can then get hurt, yada, yada. But at the end of the day,
00:07:48
Speaker
You want a little bit of victory for the characters you're following in some capacity. Yeah. There was a sentiment in one of the chapters, like one of the comments. I do like to kind of skim the comments at the end of the chapters as you're reading them.
00:08:02
Speaker
And um ah I'll paraphrase it because I can't remember exactly, but I really, it it may was it encapsulates my issues with with this first section, which was like um reading when your heroes have plot armor, the plot is is really dull.
00:08:16
Speaker
The stories are really dull. When your villains have plot armor, the poop stories are infuriating. That's just kind of how it feels a little bit here. Like, oh the fuck is March? we Why do we... yeah why is We don't give a shit about her. Like, we've known her for all of, like, an arc and a half as a background character in a side characters cluster. yeah And then she's going to come in here...
00:08:42
Speaker
and manhandle our heroes, ah their allies, including S-tier, class 12 capes of themselves, Armsmaster and Dragon, um ah and they've all gone into this fight prepared and ready to kill and then just get obliterated. It was really frustrating to read. And the arc isn't over, and I'll let it play out, and we'll get thoughts out as we go through it, but...
00:09:11
Speaker
it's frust it's frustrating. It's just, it's a hard story to read at this point. Yeah. Quixote is the ah the commenter you were describing.
00:09:22
Speaker
Nice shout out. Talking about, um she keeps winning, writing is hard, but March is lame, diabolous ex machina. She keeps winning against heavy hitters that she wouldn't, based on any reasonable assessment of the continuity from Wyrm.
00:09:36
Speaker
It can be dull when heroes have plot armor, but it's infuriating when villains do. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
00:09:48
Speaker
Hannah.
00:09:53
Speaker
Let's ah you keep it keep it to okay general because we'll ah we'll get into specifics later. um Yeah, no. Okay, so so generally speaking, um i i I love Wyrm.
00:10:08
Speaker
Wyrm is great. I read it twice. You know, one's on my own, one's for the podcast. Absolutely love it. Stand by it. ah ah Ward, um I have not been enjoying... um ah And this couple of chapters ah fell into the same problems I've been having, which is just... um Actually, no, worse. Worse, actually. ah Just... I don't care about the characters. um I, I, we've gotten to a point now where the, the, the big moments, the punchy moments that happen, they don't punch for me anymore. Um, because it feels like we're just drowning all the time. Um,
00:10:53
Speaker
I actually disagree with you, Jacob. I like Wild Bill's writing in Worm so much better than Ward. And I think it's because, and you guys know me, I do miss a lot things sometimes. didn't know you know, I'll miss stuff and I'll be like, what happened? Anyways, but like, I feel like Ward has had me so many times be like, I i don't know what's happening and i'm I feel stupid for not understanding what's going on here and feeling like i'm I'm supposed, I'm like, there's something big thing that he's alluding to that I'm just missing somehow. But then we all talk and it's like, no, I guess I just, that feeling has overall kind of blanketed over everything and that really sucks because i i really love this world and i really love, I do really love these characters, at least our team.
00:11:41
Speaker
And it just, it that these chapters, yeah, i'm I'm tired of losing all the time. And feeling like, like you said, like we have all these top tier people and we're getting absolutely no one.
00:11:55
Speaker
And ah ah I have some other specific comments that I'll save until we get to those points. But like ah overall, i I find Ward has become such a chore to read, which is such a bummer because I did not feel that way with Worm at all. Worm is, I'm dying to read the next bit. I cannot wait. And of course, there are like slow and fast moments in Worm, but Ward to me has just felt like, and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened. It doesn't feel like the pacing makes any sense to me. And these chapters have been like the worst of all of
00:12:37
Speaker
The things that have been tough for me. I will say, too I wonder if part of it is a this as a writing style thing and pacing thing for the plot.
00:12:49
Speaker
I feel like Skitter Taylor, she was always a fairly proactive protagonist. Like, even though she got thrown into situations, it always felt like she was planning. She was thinking ahead. She was like, I'm going to be one step ahead of people as best as I can.
00:13:06
Speaker
Whereas Victoria really does feel a lot more reactive. It's sort of like stuff happens to the group. That's true. And they just happen to be there. You know, like the whole goddess thing. Like they didn't, I don't know. like They didn't really plan for that to happen. They just happened to be around when the goddess thing happened. You know, like it's kind of how it's feeling, which makes me almost.
00:13:31
Speaker
feel like maybe a different character who was more proactive or just a slightly different writing style might have been more compelling. i don't know. Maybe that's not accurate. Maybe I'm misremembering worm, but I just feel like Taylor was always like thinking ahead and like, okay, I've got a plan.
00:13:49
Speaker
Oh, stuff's gonna, you know, like people are going to come and mess up my plan, but I'm going to react. I'm going to fight back. I'm going to do this. I've got Backup plans. i don't know.
00:13:59
Speaker
She didn't just react. Yeah. Yeah. She just felt more proactive. maybe that Yeah. Even thinking about like the behemoth fight. Like if we think about the behemoth fight where she's coming up with a plan, like how do I utilize these people to help take down this massive monster?
00:14:18
Speaker
um You know, she didn't choose for Behemoth to come and she didn't go chasing in Behemoth, but she re she proactively went after Behemoth. Yeah. Something about this just feels like, oh, shoot, all of our friends have been taken. Oh, shoot, this has happened again. Oh, shoot, we got it to deal with this, you know.
00:14:33
Speaker
But kind of like you said, it's just like we're drowning and in loss. Yeah. yeah Victoria is the true lord loss. Yeah. Also, if I could address. Thalia, thank you for joining us.
00:14:44
Speaker
ah If you have any questions, please ask. And any statements you want to make that are wildly uninformed, absolutely put in the comments. We do not care how uninformed your opinion Have a great time in chat. Go ahead and just make Go for it.
00:14:59
Speaker
Cheers. I feel like, ah so I, a yes. um I also feel like Victoria has such a heavy hitter power. You know, she can fly. She's got the wretch. She's got this emotion power. She's got all these big heavy hitter frontline kind of powers.
00:15:16
Speaker
And Taylor did not. ah But she utilized her powers in a really creative way. So every time she came up against a new bad guy, it was always really interesting to see how she fought that bad guy. Yeah. Victoria's is all like heavy hitter frontline and so she does the same stuff over and over which is understandable because of how her power is but because of that I find any fights very boring. ah I don't find them interesting or unique um and like She's very good at like assessing people's powers. and You have all that like mental knowledge of powers and how they work and I think that's very interesting. But when I'm in the middle of a fight, I don't need the analysis of, you know, this and that. Now, the thought process of why this, why hitting this person with this specific attack will work, that's cool. When she utilizes the wretch to like swing a beam, that's cool. But like,
00:16:12
Speaker
i I just don't i don't find her creative in her powers. And that's probably because she's never had to be. She's always been like, me hit strong, me take bullet. Yeah,
00:16:24
Speaker
yeah yeah, yeah, for sure. One, I think too, like because of that creativity, I feel like I can think of multiple fights that Taylor had where I remember specifically how she won or how she dealt damage to her opponent. Right. Yes.
00:16:41
Speaker
With Victoria, I'm thinking back to the fights they've had and I'm like, i don't like there just aren't that like memorable moment. Not memorable. There's not the.
00:16:53
Speaker
There's not the you know slicing echidna in half with clock blocker moments or the gumming up mannequin with with spider webs moment. or Oh, cool. um cool So cool. Or the the lightning rod helped me with help made from Gollum moment with Behemoth. Stuff like that where i'm like I can name like very specific moments and how she used her powers to get there.
00:17:14
Speaker
yeah With Victoria, it is kind of a moment of like, how did they beat... that person. But also, there haven't been those same kind of fights, so I don't know if that's a fair comparison, right? Like, we haven't had a Leviathan, we haven't had a Behemoth.
00:17:27
Speaker
So, I don't know. Yeah. I think, its so and Nick, in your your regards to your protagonist, you know, reaction thing, think it's very important, because a protagonist...
Protagonist vs Antagonist Dynamics
00:17:41
Speaker
By definition of a name is your person choosing to do things. Your antagonist is, you know, like typically the person. i heard somebody talk about like, you know, the reactionary versus actionary characters and how your protagonist and antagonist bounce off that way. Like, you know, typically you don't have reactionary antagonists.
00:18:07
Speaker
Or if you do, it it's it's a yes and. Your villain does something. Your hero reacts to it and does something back.
00:18:20
Speaker
And then the villain reacts to that and does something back. And Taylor did that all the time. The whole coil situation at the end. is forced into a situation where they have to be reactionary and then chooses to go after him.
00:18:38
Speaker
Like it's a back and forth. Victoria and her group are already a very reactionary force just by definition being, you know, sort of on the ward's good guy side. That's just how they are generally.
00:18:56
Speaker
And they just get, oh, we're getting thrown into this situation and ah best we resolve it. We don't like, yeah and this, this was their one opportunity as a whole Two, we've not we've you know reacted to it, we've set it back to neutral, and now we're going to choose to go do something.
00:19:20
Speaker
And it feels like it just gets stymied the whole way, so they're not actually getting to do yeah the thing the one time they're trying to take action. And again, yeah, I think coming off that energy of like, okay, we're going to go, we've got permission for lethal force, you know, we can yeah beat some people up.
00:19:40
Speaker
and then And then even then it still feels like Victoria is like, actually, maybe not. Maybe we shouldn't kill people. Like it feels like it gets yanked back. I miss the villains. I miss hanging out with the Undersiders because the Undersiders were like, oh, yeah, let's kill them. And Taylor was like, no, guys, like I miss that. Like, let's be villains. Let's go. yeah at least just like, don't know. Heroes got to do sometimes, you know? Yeah.
00:20:06
Speaker
And ah throughout all of this is is simply the fact that Taylor as a character had an arc. Like, yeah, she was, I mean, she has that part before the Leviathan fight where she's like, I guys, I can't do this. Like, just like pouring her heart out. i can I can't be a villain. I can't handle all of this.
00:20:25
Speaker
You know, arcs later, literally assassinating people and shooting babies. Like, she she had this arc of change, and it's, I don't think our characters and in Ward have changed, like, hardly at all. There's been so little change. The most we've gotten was probably, like, Rain, honestly, and his his bit of confrontation with the Fallen. and Victoria has changed a bit, but comparably not enough. I would argue you
00:20:57
Speaker
um most of them, with with the exception of the Capricorn siblings, have had small changes. Sure. There's been some change.
00:21:11
Speaker
How much of that, though, is more is just us being revealed things about them than actual them on-page growth? Because I feel like my opinions of them have changed throughout the story, but only because of the information we've learned. Like, not because they've grown.
00:21:28
Speaker
think we've we've seen Sveta develop more... um I don't know what to call it. like Confidence. Yeah. Like um almost like ah go to like independence, but I mean, not fully, but there's like small growth that way. I think Damsel has 100% or sorry. Swan song yeah has definitely softened around the edges.
00:21:54
Speaker
That's fair. um Yeah. J man, right in time. ah I think that Kenzie has made It's been a one-two step back and forth, but um I think she's made a lot of, you know, things about just controlling herself and not, you know... yeah a the the issue is The issue is, right, that they're making changes towards being healthier people, which are just by nature less interesting.
00:22:25
Speaker
See, see i i hard disagree, but that's also... I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I mean, you're not entirely wrong, but I but i i don't like that. but From a story perspective, they often can be.
00:22:39
Speaker
you know yeah i but Yeah. I mean, we yeah we've definitely seen some character growth, but it It does feel like maybe the there's not, at least at this point for Victoria and friends, the the arc of where Wildbo's trying to take them hasn't been fully clear um because it almost feels like it feels like he almost wants to do the same thing he did with Taylor, which was the person on a good path willing to do bad things for a good cause.
00:23:11
Speaker
And how far does that person go to try to do what they think is right? where Taylor ends up becoming a villain. And it feels like he keeps almost putting Victoria on that same path. Like even that last chapter where they're like, I don't know, should we kill people? And Victoria's like, I think it like we're going to have to kill some people. um Yeah.
00:23:30
Speaker
It feels like, okay, cool. Like, let's put her on that path. Like, maybe not as a villain, but just like, a I'm a hero, but I'm going to kill you if I need to kind of person, which is cool. That moral struggle. That moral struggle. And then it just kind of gets yanked back again, where it feels like maybe, yeah it's like, oh, well, maybe, maybe not um I don't know.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. it's Maybe we'll see more. There is a lot more to ward, obviously. There's so much more. yeah so Well, well we're we're I think we're past the halfway point. we there are We've got eight more arcs after this. and then Okay, I just had a thought.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yes? I yeah thought. i don't... Okay, so you know how with almost any book, you... you throw out what the problem's going to be and how we're going to tackle it. With Worm, it felt fairly simple, fairly quickly, fairly early on.
00:24:25
Speaker
ah Taylor wants to be a hero, but is stuck pretending to be a villain in order to try and help the heroes. And by the end of the first, you know, big oomph, big section, you have an Endbringer. You know, what is that? The eighth arc? Arc eight? Yep. You have you have an Endbringer.
00:24:41
Speaker
And Ward is like, okay, so... Victoria helping out this group of misfits and um something weird's going on.
00:24:54
Speaker
Okay, well, we've solved the weird thing now and the group is there. So now what? What is, i guess, broken triggers supposedly are going to be, but like, it doesn't feel like, like, I don't know what we're camping up to and we're more than halfway through. Like, I don't, I don't know what we're doing here.
00:25:11
Speaker
It feels like there's just more things that then oh also don't forget there's more things. So like once we handle the March situation, there's plenty of other things we can handle. But it's like it's all just kind of like here and here and there and there. It doesn't feel like it's all going somewhere.
00:25:28
Speaker
It's interesting to that point how, you know, worm... i yeah I think we all agree ah correctly gets a lot of praise for being sort of a reconstruction of superhero genres, but is still very tropey. Like there's a lot of very classic storytelling tropes in Wyrm, the reluctant hero, prophecy, um you know, ah ah the, the, Evil clones. Evil clones, right? um The fallen leaders, like all this kind of stuff is very tropey. And Ward really doesn't have... there's ah there's it's There's not a lot of tropes, which is a really fun challenge, I think, from a writing perspective to try to avoid falling into traditional tropes. um And if there's anyone who could do it, Wild Bo would be on that list for sure. But I think you can i think you can run into these issues where...
00:26:24
Speaker
It's like, sure, you don't want to telegraph what you're doing for your readers, but at the same time, the readers have come to expect certain things. And if you're going to deny them those things, you've got to justify it.
00:26:36
Speaker
really well. And I think that's probably where it's falling short. I don't mind being denied a trope. I think that's really fun. But you gotta match that with ah with a resolution. And again, we got a long way to go. we'll I'll give them a benefit of the doubt until we finish the whole story. Yeah. i yeah as As ranty as I feel right now, i also...
00:26:59
Speaker
I love Wild Bill's work and I'm struggling with Ward, but like that that's not going to stop me. And like when we finish Ward, we'll do another one. Like it's yeah you're not going to stop because we really love Wild Bill. Yeah, anyways, i I did read some of the comments on that last chapter on the the All interlude. We'll get to that. That was the only one I read the comments on, and they were like going hard. And i agreed with some of the things, but also at the same time, like a lot of people were like, I'm done reading Ward now. Like, this is this was the final straw. And I'm like, oh, well, I'm not at that point, but like, I'm going to keep reading, of course. I still have to know what happens next. like I got to know.
00:27:46
Speaker
But yeah, so like all of my all of my snarkiness with the grain of salt that is, I mean, I love Wild Bowls, so. That's fair.
00:27:56
Speaker
Oh yeah, clearly, because here we are. yeah Here we are. are i have remember reading this for the first time, and I remember not necessarily what happened, but I remember thinking that Arc 12 was probably my most hated arc.
Arc 12 Reflections and March's Character
00:28:14
Speaker
And now I remember why. um Like, this was the one that tested me. And I remember entirely why. Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah. well yeah i think And I've never read any of the comments before. And this was the first time I was like, I think I need to go read the comments on this one. Because I remember reading this the first time and being like,
00:28:43
Speaker
What? Just what? You know? Yeah. um Overall, we'll get, you know, i think y'all saw a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff already thought. Yeah.
00:28:59
Speaker
We'll see how we feel in a couple weeks. We'll see. And at the end of the story, it'll be very interesting. Because we may change our tune completely. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker
Now, all right, let's get into it chapter by chapter. little unusual, starting with an interlude. First time an arc has ever started with an interlude in either Worm or Ward.
00:29:23
Speaker
Wow. so Interesting. There you go. Arc 12Z, Nick. Arc 12Z, interlude, March. Flashback to March's trigger, learning of flechette.
00:29:38
Speaker
and meeting their third and goddesses cluster while she and her crew enter Brockton Bay in the present.
00:29:47
Speaker
I will say this was an interesting interlude in the sense that I liked learning more about cluster triggers. So the way that how every cluster now we know has very different behaviors So Reign's cluster is very unique. Not every cluster has like a ah night dream room where they all meet together.
00:30:09
Speaker
um Because it seems like her cluster with Flechette and Homer, who we find out about in this arc, um they not only have similar powers, but they share like negative attributes with each other.
00:30:26
Speaker
So she's like, oh, sometime like March is like, oh, i must have. he's Homer says something like, oh, you must have gotten my drug addiction or something like that. And Like they each got like weird little personality quirks from each other, right? Which is which the bleed through was hinted at with the other group.
00:30:43
Speaker
They, yeah because I assume this is something that's been studied. They assumed that they were getting natural bleed through Blachette's group, which is just everybody took one aspect of themselves and handed it like off to the right.
00:31:00
Speaker
And, just you know, Homer got essentially, like, stability from Flechette. yeah You know, Flechette got Homer's addiction and... Or not Flechette. March got Homer's addiction and Flechette got um her, like, I don't know, her drive.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. so Which was funny. um Versus, like, goddesses, which is... more similar to reigns except it is literally like oh it's my day i have all the powers now and i can tell you all what to do right which is very interesting and it makes sense now like okay how did goddess convince a group of capes to do what she wants it's like well it just depends on the day and clearly it's my day forever it's my day forever yeah exactly um so which is very interesting um
00:31:57
Speaker
I don't know. The psychopathy of March is also very fascinating too. Of just like this weird obsession and don't know. what it is Very odd character.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. Yeah. it it And maybe this is a good time. We'll touch on this a little bit now and then we'll touch on this a little bit at the end. But in this chapter, what is her motivation?
00:32:28
Speaker
What an excellent question. For going to Brockton Bay? Like, no, no, no, no. For literally freaking anything. Honestly, I get a lot of like Joker, like Heath Ledger Joker vibes where it's just like, I'm an agent of chaos. The chaos. You know, some people just want to just't want to watch the world burn. We already did that. We already we already did Jack Slash.
00:32:53
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, I i i mean, she says she says it very briefly, the whole thing of like when she's on the platform and she's looking at ah ah foil and she's kind of having this moment of like, or she's looking at I think it's foil. And she's like looking at her clothes and her life and kind of like having this moment of like,
00:33:10
Speaker
she can be free and she's like looking at the the the two unhoused people on the platform who start the fight or the one lady who starts the fight and she kind of has this moment where she's like well at least they're free to do whatever they want like I'll I'd be fine going hungry for six days out of seven if as long as on the seventh day when I eat I can eat whatever I want so like it feels like Every choice that she makes is finally this idea of like that hand on her shoulder is no longer there. So she can just be like, I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want.
00:33:40
Speaker
And she does. Okay. I was thinking more so like i think she says kind of what she wants, but I was just trying to figure out everybody's interpretation of it. um Yeah, i I think freedom is a big one, right? Because it is that, and maybe that's why she's so obsessed with Flechette. She's like, I'll never be truly free until Flechette's hand is off my shoulder, so to speak, controlling me in some way.
00:34:03
Speaker
But it it did feel... I was to say wants to be one with Flechette. That too, guess. Well, that too, yeah. She wants to be Flechette. We did get that vibe as well. She wants to be in Flechette's skin.
00:34:14
Speaker
She wants to wear her like a coat. That was weird. For those of you who know, gives kind of some strong Evangelion like melding type thing of like, ah, let's just all be one, you know?
00:34:31
Speaker
Well, it's this weird to... um feeling of like... She's like, if we do that, then not only will we be alive together, so to speak, but when we die, we'll still be together forever. It's like she has an awareness that the shards are kind of eating away at their personalities, and if she can bring them together, then her and Flechette can be the same person forever, basically. um Which is a disturbing way to think about things. um
00:35:02
Speaker
And yet I don't quite know how that leads her to where she is today. i think that's still kind of the the missing bit for me is like, okay, I get that creepy, but I get it.
00:35:21
Speaker
It gives more like stalker vibes, though. That doesn't give like, now I'm a crazy villain who's going to destroy the world vibe. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:32
Speaker
That's what I was wondering. It's like, okay, so a you want to you will just, you know, simplify. You want to become one with Blachette. You would have done that with Homer, but you know, he did because you want to never be alone.
00:35:55
Speaker
and this is like the ultimate way in life and in death. i mean, she describes it as shard heaven. you know, they'll be together forever. We do know kind of from Snag that there may be something to that.
00:36:08
Speaker
um Snag and from Glyciglinia. Yeah. as valer yeah there There may be something to that of sort of the shard heaven, you know, you get to live on forever inside of the worm.
00:36:23
Speaker
um Clearly there's something going on with like... ah Okay. You know what? No. I'll hold off on this. We'll discuss the rest of that part at the end because I have a theory about Shard Heaven.
00:36:36
Speaker
and. Yeah. yes and All right, cool. ah Interesting things here. I took and tried to take note on all of Goddess's cluster.
00:36:47
Speaker
um Just out of curiosity, they so there's Goddess, obviously. Uh-huh.
00:36:59
Speaker
Blonde one. Got it. There is, ah Corey, the tractor beam, which we're soon getting. all right. Hannah's are, are you already on what I'm going to go for?
00:37:10
Speaker
All right. I think so. Go on. There's, uh, Megan, the battery pack. Uh-huh. Right. who were Who was like in print. We're guessing he is the battery pack in prison as well. all right. There's Jace, the shield.
00:37:24
Speaker
All right. There's, uh, Yasmin. which is separate, I believe, from the brunette and the bald guy who is not Bill.
00:37:44
Speaker
Does anybody remember what number they gave for how many were in goddesses cluster?
00:37:52
Speaker
i do not Weren't there five? i believe there were five. And even if you subtract like, oh, well, so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so, so-and-so, that's still six. I think Wild Bo miscounted.
00:38:04
Speaker
ah i know i did wonder that. But, like, also chalked it up to, like, maybe Hannah misunderstood. Because I assumed at one point that I was like, well maybe maybe it's not all of Goddesses' Cluster. Maybe it's, like, some of them are Goddesses' Cluster. And then, like, Megan the Battery and Jace the Shield are not from Goddesses' Cluster. And they're, like, tacked on. Because... But I don't know. i
00:38:34
Speaker
yeah There's so many names and people and things and planets and interdimensional realities. i don't' You've lost me. i I was going to say I thought you were counting towards different parts of the Death Star from Star Wars and how they all become the Death Star. No, no, no. They become the shield. They become Voltron. I love that so much. You just need a laser beam. my God.
00:38:59
Speaker
ah I mean, yeah. Yeah. amazing But yeah, I was counting beefaroni. Yeah. Maybe the battery was separate, but ah Megan constantly gets talked about as like this charge up battery pack that like, like the battery that they talked about. It's not that she provides a new power. It's just that she super charges kind of whatever you've got going on, which is how the battery pack in goddess prison was described.
00:39:27
Speaker
um And of course, you know, there's some, she, they're cluster people. So of course all the cluster people hang out with the cluster people. So who knows?
00:39:40
Speaker
cluster fact Yeah. Big old cluster fuck. um Let's see. Tori. She can now ah hit on um her girlfriend's March because now she's to quote old enough
00:40:00
Speaker
Gross. that what she said? yeah That is what she says. no. Because we assume they met probably four years ago when March was 16, and now March 20, and I was very not a... Gross. um Moving on.
00:40:21
Speaker
um my gosh. like the... Another thing I... i Maybe this was... ah Maybe this is a goddess thing.
00:40:33
Speaker
Maybe this is just color coordination thing with ahle blue. But um when they... The blue? The blue. um I believe the three goddess cluster mates all wear blue.
00:40:46
Speaker
One girl has the blue and they even mention instead of where there would be fur on her blue coat, she has chains. for I want to say Megan.
00:40:57
Speaker
um And then they all have the bunny handprint on them. some like ah but bunny they They all have some some sort of bunny thing on them because not everybody has... yeah Jace has the shield with the bunny Sauron handprint like over a couple places. Also blue, like distinctly Jace, Megan, and Tori all have blue outfits is what's like the big thing mentioned for them.
00:41:24
Speaker
Maybe it's just the three of them who are in the cluster. It is because I thought i guess it was going to be everybody. does and maybe the other of them are not friend Plus Bill. well bill we we We downed Bill, I'm pretty sure.
00:41:37
Speaker
no, no, that's what I mean, though. So if there were five, and you have Goddess Bill and the three of them, Goddess are out. The rest of them are just, like, friends who were there, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, but there's also Yasmin. Does she have a power, though? that's Hold on. Ah. um ahs Without... so Anyways. Yeah, so that's that's the thing. ah i had to look up Dino and Enyo because I'm like, for the gray twins.
00:42:04
Speaker
And I'm like, that's too interesting. And it reminded I did not know this is what they were called, but the gray twins are... traditionally the gray, you know, three sisters are what we associate with the image of the fates.
00:42:20
Speaker
The three sisters that all share one tooth and one eyeball. right um They're not the fates, but that is the imagery we usually associate because the three, but they're three hags that share the tooth and the eyeball and they tell Percy, Perseus, I think how to defeat Medusa. Yes.
00:42:37
Speaker
So, um but this is two of them and we know that they did something to the third. We're assuming ate them or something. ah Interesting. Yeah. I love it when we can just assume that they ate them. Yeah.
00:42:49
Speaker
Like, i I mean, welcome welcome to Wild Boas World. Everything else we've seen It seems quite likely in all honesty. Nothing faces, this doesn't face me anymore. Oh yeah, no, that makes sense.
00:43:01
Speaker
what Right, right, right. Of course. I'm going to go down. I'm going to go down real quick. So we've got Goddess, a.k.a. Bianca. ah We've got Tori Heflin. We've got Bill, the Blood Priest.
00:43:13
Speaker
We have Yasmin. We've got Megan. Okay. And we have Jace.
00:43:20
Speaker
but you go yeah that'd be six that's the rest are just the homies one two three four five six okay so i'm gonna assume then that yasmin is the brunette and the bald guy is jace or well i think they were talking about bill so it must be jace yeah okay all right so they're just multiple descriptors but we're talking about the same person okay yeah But that is six, and I'm i'm almost certain i that they said five or like earlier in the story. Well, is it possible point that they don't know about the sixth one? that
00:43:58
Speaker
Well, no, what I was thinking yeah is, is it possible that earlier in the story they said five because they had actually they'd already offed Bill? so there Maybe. worse six i think was Bill offed one of them first. yeah Somebody died pretty early on.
00:44:15
Speaker
Somebody got it. Yeah. Somebody died. Okay, but wait wait. Wait, wait, wait. But if somebody died... ah One of the cluster mates, presumably Bill, lacking powers, eventually committed suicide. um There you go.
00:44:31
Speaker
Without spoiling too much for myself. Was Bill not the blood priest? That was Bill. thought Bill was the blood priest who was like rampaging. Or that's what I...
00:44:43
Speaker
Bill was the blood priest, but then I think somehow Bianca stole all of his days, so he never had powers anymore. And as a result, he killed himself. Gotcha. That is what all right occurred.
00:44:55
Speaker
i Gotcha. Brutal. i yeah Somehow Bianca took over everybody's days, and that Bill was so sad he had no powers anymore. He just couldn't handle it.
00:45:10
Speaker
Or something. That's rough, buddy.
00:45:14
Speaker
pretty rough. Anything else on Yeah, let's move on from the weird stupid numbers. We'll get to criticisms of the writing at the end.
00:45:26
Speaker
critical hold that writing hold that at the end i will say I will say I do agree with you more on arc 12, Hannah, than any previous arc where I felt like I wasn't sure what was going on all the time, but here we are.
Mission Strategies and Character Dynamics
00:45:40
Speaker
The teams, plus Vicky's parents, pull themselves together to go after Love Lost, Cradle, and March in Earth End with potentially lethal force, but the battle in Brockton Bay is lost.
00:45:52
Speaker
So, um i was hopeful until the end that something didn't happen, but my hunch was like, Vista got got off screen.
00:46:08
Speaker
That sucks. but That's, uh, oh, I, don't know I hadn't thought about it at all. So when it, you know, later that, not, not, not a good time. yeah So that's, I do want to shout out, uh, two things. Um, mother ball is a hilarious move. Um,
00:46:31
Speaker
And that was great. I did love that. I like that was plus. That was fun. Nothing like Victoria kickballing her mom into a crowd of soldiers or in a, you know, whatever she does with her. Right? Getting to, like, actually hurl her as hard as she can, which is just, it's got to be, like, cathartic for the soul. And then I noticed this.
00:46:51
Speaker
Exactly. No, especially especially with their relationship. She's like, I may have kicked her a little harder than I intended. like Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. um The other thing I noticed from this arc too is that Rain keeps getting attention from random female characters.
00:47:07
Speaker
It's so funny. Well, he's like a cutie dude. yeah Well, somebody commented there. Why is Rain getting all these getting all of this attention? and somebody, Pizza's Good commented, Rain's new breaker state, stud, only visible for those who are looking for action.
00:47:24
Speaker
Victoria's immune for now, so she doesn't realize what's happening.
00:47:30
Speaker
I do love ah ah the audiobook version. um ah What's it? Robert, I guess, is the narrator, the primary narrator. Also Rain, yeah. Robert Rain Ramsey.
00:47:42
Speaker
Who does a fantastic job. And he's very consistent oh my god with the voice you know choices, character choices he makes for his characters. He's very consistent. But the voice he's given Rain is this, I think appropriately, but like a very, very nerdy sounding voice.
00:47:57
Speaker
Like, just a little bit of a wimpy voice. And so... Like, um, actually... And so all these... all There's always so funny whenever there's a little bit of that. Like, right like's really got Rain is the player.
00:48:12
Speaker
think it's so great. I... ah It's because they can pick he's because everybody loves a sad puppy dog that you can take home and, know, put in a little, crew you know, put in a little cardboard box.
00:48:23
Speaker
It's just impressive. He could turn the dog. The character I was convinced was a dog lesbian. Like, you know, I was like, dang, you even got the dog lesbians flirting with you, Rain. Like, how are you doing that? Wow. Wow. Because he looks like a sad dog. That's why. doesn't look like a sad puppy.
00:48:41
Speaker
ah um Blasm. yeah I mean, everywhere Rain goes, it just plays Charlie Brown music. but just just per You just hear the Christmas time is here. You know. yeah Oh my gosh. Accurate. Poor guy.
00:49:01
Speaker
oh yeah Let's see. Go ahead for the kill order. That was cool. Getting the kill order. Being like, i'm not going to say yeah no but you know. not and then I'm not saying no either. Yeah.
00:49:17
Speaker
yeah And then she, ah Victoria flying above their camp to do like a scouting, like see how many people. And all I could think is, because real villains never look up.
00:49:32
Speaker
I do like how she internally... differentiates her parents' um like actual names and their cape names, and she'll she'll internally call them separately depending on like the front that they're putting on, and she interacts with them differently. It's it's kind of sad, but it's really it's really interesting. like that's That's where her relationship with her parents are now.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like she also, I mean, I feel like in general, she does that with the team too. But like if they're in in like private, she calls them like Kenzie, but like even in her own head, but if they're out and they're doing, you know, cape shit, I think she calls in her head too, the name change switches. and i thought you were going to say she calls her dad, dad, and she calls her mom the the maternal unit. At one point, she's like, I looked over at dad and the maternal unit.
00:50:32
Speaker
That's funny. nice that's one one of you know that one are in My thing that birthed me. That's 100% what her contacts for them are like in her phone. Yeah. Like, you know.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah. but journal it's it's It's dad and other parent. Yeah. yeah Yep. It's like Papa and Carol.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yes. Exactly. oh Well, 12.2? 12.2? Is that all of our notes? Oh, gosh. ah yeah The notes will ramp up.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah, the notes are all for 12.Z and 12.0. yeah I was going to say, I'm like, yeah, i actually, my notes went way down as the arcs went on until the very end. Yeah, I have more notes later. Is it is it ah point one where she has the thought about how she hates their public displays of affection, her parents?
00:51:34
Speaker
Oh, when they're like her dad like holds her mom and she's like... that's later That's later where he catches her in ball form and then she pops out in human form and they're like... like He's like holding her and it's like super cute or whatever.
00:51:48
Speaker
ah still got it. I think... Well, at one point at one point he like he has his hand on like the small of her back and like Victoria like looks over and is like... like it She loves her dad and she she doesn't want him getting him back into a bad situation.
00:52:07
Speaker
None of us do. on a way ah Oh, You know, we used to have this saying, you know, don't stick your dick in crazy. But I have a new saying for Mark, and it's don't stick your dick in toxic.
00:52:22
Speaker
No, I hate it so much. You might be right, but yeah.
00:52:31
Speaker
I guess everything she used to mother ball move in bed. Anyways. No! No! Oh my gosh. I mean, first off, absolutely.
00:52:42
Speaker
And second. I mean, they call him Flash Bang for a reason, right? Right? And he can make the bat the ones that don't do anything? Imagine they just disappear. Where do you think those go?
00:52:54
Speaker
The realization if Victoria, read like, she notices her parents are calling out, like, team moves in combat. Oh, no. Realizes they're just all their sex positions. eat No. No.
00:53:07
Speaker
No. I've been before. Oh, my God. i I had to do something to bring it to that point of the night, you know. Thank you. As B. Feroni points out, Victoria has, in fact, called members of her team by their names in public.
00:53:24
Speaker
She called Byron and Sveta by their actual names in front of villains. Okay. To be fair, for Sveta, I don't think she has much of a secret identity.
00:53:36
Speaker
yeah They were trying to call her Tress, but Lord knows that hasn't stuck. yeah no Yeah. I was going to say Sveta is the one exception to that. yeah I think Sveta is... She goes back and forth with with a Ashley slash Swansong and Rain slash Precipice. I feel like pretty regularly.
00:53:56
Speaker
But and even like Byron, Triss and Capricorn, she goes back and forth with that. But Sveta is just always Sveta. I feel like except for the one arc, they were trying to make Tress a thing. And it's like, stop trying to make Tress a thing. it's kind of make the thing Honestly, i i I forgot her name was Tress. If you had asked me like, oh, what's her cape name? I would have been like, it's not Garot.
00:54:19
Speaker
And I wouldn't have known. It's Sveta. Yeah, obviously. yeah um Have we moved to 12.2 already? yet. I'll read the summary.
00:54:34
Speaker
The team gets a pair of number boys as backup, get filled in on the situation in Brockton Bay. Damsel and Brandish argue about Marquis, and the group falls into a trap.
00:54:47
Speaker
I just want to say the backup was visually described And I immediately was like, it's Numberman. It's Little Numberman. It has to be. It's Little Teenage Numberboys. Little Harbingers.
00:55:03
Speaker
i Also, I did like Victoria's little reaction when she was she's like, wait a second, are you guys? And they're like, yeah, we're Harbinger clones. And she's like, oh. And like, no, don't. And Ashley's like, my brother. Go, kill some people. We're gonna kill order. We can Slaughterhouse-Nine's back on the road again, baby.
00:55:24
Speaker
two exactly we got we got two We got two damsels, we got two harbingers, let's go kill some motherfuckers. And then they don't. And then they... ah And I do say, yeah i just praised Rain's narration in the audiobook and his character choices. I will have to critique his character choice for his voice for the Harbinger clones. Because those you know those boys sound like just preppy, like snooty math geniuses.
00:55:51
Speaker
And he went for like sleazy scumbag voice. was like, no. He got very nasally with it, so he kind of talked like this. Which, like, i sure, kind of close preppy. Yeah. i would see i am It's...
00:56:07
Speaker
slightly younger it's I mean because we're we're doing twins right now so it's it's Hikaru and Karu but they're both dressed up twins it's Hikaru and Karu but dressed up as um who's number two boy with the glasses for those of you who watched Oron High School Host Club you know who I'm talking about then like they're dressed up as yeah it's not Kiyosan whatever his name is um our number two guy who's like the ice cold mathematician. Oh, mom. but um you're not and Cheeky is those two. and
00:56:39
Speaker
so Yes. Sure. Sure. Yeah. yeah Oh, it is Kyo-ya. It is Kyo-ya. Yeah, so it's Kyo-ya senpai, but Cheeky is Kyo-ya. All right, who has a better voice? Go ahead, do it.
00:56:56
Speaker
ah hear it Let's hear it. What do they sound like, Jacob? No, no. oh Oh, you're putting me on the spot for voices. Well, it's funny because I was going to go like the the you know the whole anime route, anime antagonist route. you know You dare. you know like You threaten me.
00:57:13
Speaker
like That's how I'm thinking of voices. Can it just be Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh? It is Kaiba, but so i mean I think Kaiba, but slightly whiny is perfect for those. not familiar with someone should do the voice.
00:57:25
Speaker
I mean, Kaiba is like, Yugi, I brought you here to duel. That's perfect. You can't, Mokuba, get out of here. You're useless as a brother. That's perfect. Except you've got to pitch it up a little bit because they're both they're both you know very that confident, but they both got that nasally, like they're constantly pushing up their glasses at you.
00:57:45
Speaker
But, you know, they're, they're a sprezzatura. They've got their whole, like, the shirt, unbuttoned collar, always undone, blazer thrown over haphazardly, but calculated, you know?
00:57:56
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. I was just going to hang out here all day and maybe do some math. Harbinger and all the clones are they you know they're doing all the acrobatics and flips but like with their hands still in their pockets. you know Yeah. yeah yeah they you know i don't want to lose my I not that i need it You know, and then talk like this. know And then my favorite line, like, no, we do everything together.
00:58:24
Speaker
Oh, two boys. Oh, no, there's five i guess five of us. We would get jealous. We're a package deal. Okay. Okay. Listen, it listen, it listen. Now they, they minors. So I will say that. But I will also say that I read a lot.
00:58:41
Speaker
I read a lot of fucking smut. And a lot of why choose reverse harem nonsense. And they were like, and clip they were like oh, no, we we get jealous. And there are five of us. I was like, it's a book for this. There's an audience for this. We get jealous, all have to, you know.
00:59:04
Speaker
Ian says that we need two I'm not going to Y'all all know what meme my brain went to right as soon as they were like, no, it's a package deal. There's five of us. Chastity was like, my word.
00:59:15
Speaker
it Bless Chastity. She's like, oh. oh You were thinking of a specific meme? You know which meme. I'm scared. I'm going to move on. with the couch which um Yes, it is. all hours Yes, it is.
00:59:31
Speaker
I thought about making it. i can make get ah Five nice gentlemen behind it and one girl sitting. Five nice gentlemen. um Anyways, Ian says for Patreon goal, we should read up worm.
00:59:47
Speaker
Danny DeVito every time we're going to get cameos of but but that's where all the patron money's going it's going straight to cameos to get Danny DeVito to read out critical like very important worm lines the narrator yeah make that you worm imagine cameoing and just like two minutes of with the tough time and just paying for cameos for the entire read through that would be amazing would love it though but i I believe in the worm.
01:00:18
Speaker
If I win the lottery, I won't tell anyone, but there will be signs. Wow. It's, you know, I can't believe Ben Affleck reading his quote. Yeah. Also, you said Affleck, dude.
01:00:34
Speaker
think it's Affleck. I'm pretty sure. I'll be honest. I'll be honest. Michael, until you said something. but No, even though you said something.
01:00:45
Speaker
Is that not his name? Is it not Ben Affleck? Affleck. Affleck, I believe. You said Affleck, though. You definitely put an Ack in. Yeah, with the duck. Yeah, close. not close Affleck. Affleck. Ben and Casey Affleck.
01:01:00
Speaker
Oh, boy. Affleck. We'll talk offline. We'll agree to disagree. Ben, can I see you outside moment? Yeah. We'll circle back.
01:01:13
Speaker
Oh, my God. Everything's going according to plan, Skitter. Quack. Quack. just doing... you're going back to Danny DeVito's... Danny DeVito's penguin from the old Batman. Yeah, that's true. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Wow. No, that's not Danny DeVito. Well, that's more for the Adam West. I can't remember who played that because he's not Cesar Romero, and he's the only villain that matters. I see. I'm feeling well.
01:01:40
Speaker
All right, we're having too much fun. I played the Riddler was the best actor in that whole movie. That's a great movie. Well, you know what? Michael has to wrangle them in. That's another. Yeah, I'm doing it. Putting my foot down. I always forget the bingo. At least we're not talking about milk. Am I right?
01:01:55
Speaker
Anyway. God damn it, Nick. a Nick. Nick. We tried. there's i'm all out and I'm all out of root beer. Speaking of mommy milkers, we can get to interlude 12e. my God. It must not have mattered because I didn't even write it down.
01:02:20
Speaker
No, 12e is love lost center interlude. She's a mom. So, you know, that's all.
Love Lost's Past and Rain's Guilt
01:02:25
Speaker
Oh, OK. I actually have thoughts about this. yeah Are there any other thoughts, though? we We kind of scrolled over Damsel and Brandish arguing about Marquis.
01:02:36
Speaker
Wait, wait, wait. Oh, my gosh. That's right. we But yeah I just felt like that was just kind of like, whatever. Like, Damsel. Are you 12? Yeah. yeah Yeah, a bit of that.
01:02:51
Speaker
You know. Also, like, I... It's so interesting. either It's so telling. You have... Because it's really four people in this conversation. We're talking, but it's really four people. Because it's Carol, it's... Swansong, Vic, and a Damsel.
01:03:12
Speaker
And Damsel and Carol are having the conversation. But it involves all four of them. Because the... You know, the Ashleys. And Vic.
01:03:23
Speaker
And... Vic puts a very clear line in the sand of, I, please stop. Please stop. um no please stop. And I totally understand ah Damsel plowing right on through.
01:03:41
Speaker
Because it's Damsel. Because... Twan Song was the one who was like, no, stop. Stop it. Cut it out. But Carol also, right on through the line. And it's like, I should have expected exactly what happened. And yet a part of me really hoped that one of them...
01:04:03
Speaker
Honestly, I kind of hoped it was going to be damsel would like reel it in and point out the fact that like, which she kind of did, but point out the fact that like, Carol, your daughter has asked you to stop and you're still pushing the issue.
01:04:17
Speaker
yeah Also, I thought that ah ah Damsel had a fantastic argument about the whole, like, yeah, well, that's not what everybody wants. And you idolize it. You you you know you talk about the whole of like how important it is to like have a family and being able to raise your daughter. And your daughter can't stand to be here with you.
01:04:33
Speaker
like Like, get it. Oh my gosh. Nail on the head. I mean, stop, but also nail on the head. Might not have any self-control, but, you know, it is least aware enough to, you know, read the room for five minutes and be like, you fucking suck.
01:04:50
Speaker
Yeah. Also, like, Carol as the only adult in this conversation. Clearly not the mature one, but... and Definitely felt like she just felt like she had to keep getting the last word in, right? yeah Maybe it's a hero thing. Maybe it's a hero thing. It might just be a Carol thing. But I do feel like we've seen other heroes. It's also that too lawyer thing.
01:05:13
Speaker
It's a lawyer thing. it's It's many things where it's like the character who's like, no, I have to prove I'm right. I have to explain why I'm right. And I think it comes from the... Fallible, the the false belief that if you can just explain why you think what you think well enough, everybody will agree with you. Oh, like Amy? That's Carol and Amy's characters.
01:05:38
Speaker
Ironically, Amy got that probably from Carol. Of like, probably hey, no, no, listen, if I explain to you why I'm right, then you'll understand. um And if you don't understand, it's not because I'm wrong or you just have a different opinion. It's just because you didn't understand me.
01:05:55
Speaker
And so I need to explain myself again because you're not listening enough or you're misunderstood, you know, whatever it might be. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've I'm sure all of us have kind of run into people like that. And I'm sure I fall into that trap, too, sometimes of thinking, no, I'm right. And if I just explain it well enough, you'll you'll believe me.
01:06:10
Speaker
but But, you know. I hate to say I used to be that person a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. i'm that I'm sure we all are in our own areas of expertise or things that stick with us.
01:06:23
Speaker
You know, we just have to get that last word in. But it is funny, yeah, that basically Mark is like, okay, Connie, let's step away from the teenager and stop the fight now.
01:06:35
Speaker
And then, of course, they fall into trap and yeah Well, Victoria points it out, too, that when he walks, when he takes her away, she's like, and he does what he always does, which he comes in at the end. He doesn't say anything in the middle of the fight, but he sure is happy to be the peacemaker at the end of it all, which is something we've talked about already yeah in the past on here about about Mark and his, you know, the man doesn't have many faults, but his two big ones are Carol and Carol. So.
01:07:04
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Pretty much.
01:07:09
Speaker
Well, 12E. 12E. 12.E. 12.E. Interlude Love Lost. Flashbacks to Love Lost's detective past and the circumstances surrounding Colt's trigger.
01:07:24
Speaker
Colt is a Love Lost bud inside the dream room. The cradle has been turning the cluster into monsters.
01:07:34
Speaker
Hmm. i This was a good interlude. This one was one of those where I'm like, oh, not only do we get to understand Love Lost a bit better, which I really like, but man, the fact that that reveal at the end where cradles where she realizes Cradle's been manipulating us this whole time.
01:07:56
Speaker
ah gosh. And what i what I like about it, right, is we just got that whole cluster thing at the beginning talking about how clusters bleed into each other in different ways. And the realization of like, oh, Cradle has been bleeding his hatred and his conniving into Snag and into Love Lost. Because Love Lost even has that moment of like, why am I this way? Like, I i need to s snap out of this. I'm doing stuff I said I would never do.
01:08:22
Speaker
Like, Love Lost, very clearly from her backstory, she had issues, but she was pretty clearly a decent person and has become a horrible person. which makes me so much more interested in Cradle's trigger. Like, who was Cradle before all of this to make him such Because we still haven't had his interlude. Such a maniac, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This could have been... think it's at the end of 12. This could have been, like they said, where Rain, for all of his goodness at the time, was a shitty person.
01:08:52
Speaker
And he did, in fact, the you they blame him. Your shittiness has bled into all of us. Very possible. What we found out from this is that this wasn't a an unwilling bleed like in the Lechette cluster where that just happened. Everybody got you know the bleed over no matter what. yeah um This one was intentionally, they would give parts of themselves away and people were taking that into themselves and because nobody ever...
01:09:26
Speaker
fucked with him, it kind of rules out like, oh, no nothing came from him, which is why he's such a bitch boy. Everything has come from Cradle, who's just been giving it around like hot candy, you know?
01:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because that's what he's that's what she's been saying, right? Is like Rain has never given his power away, nor has he received anything from us. Cradle has also, though, never received anything from the others, really.
01:09:52
Speaker
He's only given his power to the others, to Snag and to Love Lost and said, use my power. But as far as we know, Cradle has only really ever used... You know, like he gets the the little bleed over love everybody does, but he doesn't he hasn't like ask for Snag's power or ask for love's lost Love Lost's power.
01:10:12
Speaker
He's only given away his Tinker powers, and so... Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. it's like, oh, no, he's the reason we are the way we are. Yeah. Gotcha. that oh And even like literally that being shown by like the room slowly, you know, love lost realizing i have less room now. Why do I have less room now? Not just because Colt's in my zone now, which is awkward, but oh, cradles is getting bigger.
01:10:38
Speaker
Oh, it's so good. So yeah and not that it's just getting bigger. He's probably bleeding her out in her sleep. Like, yeah, in the whole, probably doing the whole blood transfusion thing or something. Yeah.
01:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. It makes me wonder where he... Because, like, everyone's so surprised when they make the realization, like, snag. We have that, like, little tiny moment of clarity right near his death. And then... and Now we're we're getting it again of, like, maybe this little moment of clarity before... Potentially before death. And that it kind of that sort of... look So if it was such a surprise to them, how did how did how did Cradle know to do this?
01:11:18
Speaker
So what background does Cradle have to, yeah like I guess, have figured it out? He could manipulate everyone like this? like It's so... well like There's so many empty spaces that I'm excited to find out about.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, sorry. No, it I was just thinking it's it's possible he didn't really know so much as he just realized, oh, the more I give it away, the more they're willing to listen to me. That's good. And then we we do know that at some point March approached him and told him how clusters work.
01:11:51
Speaker
So we do know that. And it's also possible he did his own research. He clearly seems like a very smart person. So but yeah, no, i'm I'm definitely fascinated to get more of his backstory because I feel like there's a lot more to him than just meets the eye.
01:12:05
Speaker
um But yeah, and and yeah so the fact that c Colt is like an offshoot of Lost 2 is so interesting how that even works for triggers. Like ah her shard like connected to Colt because of Love Lost's connection to Colt. It's so interesting.
01:12:22
Speaker
yeah i mean, we've seen bud shards because like clearly that's what Victoria is. But we've never seen one in a cluster trigger that I know of. Well, so we're we still don't know who the the fifth piece of the pie is.
01:12:38
Speaker
We still don't know who that was. yeah So if if it was, like, what if it was Everly? What if it was her daughter, but she died in the stuff, and you have, like, this weird connection with her, and and she's got this weird emotional connection with Colt now, and we've talked about the whole Trigger thing, ah not Triggers, ah ah Clusters thing, being um like the location of like being physically close to each other and she's around Colt all the time and then Colt triggers and it's kind of like this like well if there was already this empty space that was maybe already connected to love lost and then she's already got the emotional connection to Colt like i don't know it just seems like I'm not sure how that has anything to do with the other room
01:13:29
Speaker
Like, if she's, like, I just mean for the shard. is Is that, does that not make sense? no I mean, I think that's what I just said beforehand, but I don't know what if that has to do with, like, the empty room.
01:13:42
Speaker
No, I mean, like, I'm saying the empty room is your daughter. Yeah, what if the empty room was her daughter, was Everly? Why would it be Everly? Everly? Why wouldn't it be Everly? We don't know who it is. Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:56
Speaker
I'm just like, why wouldn't it be any one of Everly's friends? or I mean, it could be. Well, yeah, no. that That's what I'm saying, though. by saying It could be literally anybody. And I'm saying, well, what if it was? What if it was Everly? So you already have two people that are tied by blood. And then you have this emotional connection. And then she's already gone. And it's like, well, that could be an extra tie. i mean, ah I'm just.
01:14:22
Speaker
It could be. I don't know. I'm guessing, man. Throwing spaghetti at the wall. That'd be interesting.
01:14:32
Speaker
Based on 12.0, not to go too far into that, but it appears as though shards do desire connectivity. So it I think there is something to that in the sense that Love Lost's so connected to her love of her daughter and missing her daughter that that is part of what created Colt is what I understand, right? Is that idea of like that connectivity between her and Colt and her still ironically seeing Colt as a child, even though c Colt's but like basically an adult.
01:15:07
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, no, you're, you're kind of like that care of like you, She's like, Colt is the one last person who is innocent, so to speak, of all this. And she needs, like, I want her to leave before anything goes wrong.
01:15:24
Speaker
But then Nailbiter gives her an upper instead and she triggers, so. yeah I do like the characterization, you know how we've kind of seen with Colt and ah interacting with other people and with how she talks to Colt or sees Colt with like, she's not an adult, but she's not a kid. She's innocent, but she's kind of tainted by, you know, hanging around with villains um You know, she's at this midway point with everything on her. Like, where do I draw the line? And right now, Colt straddles it. um
01:16:05
Speaker
I thought that was interesting. Also, as... Where where is it? ah Somebody said... um was like the best... Ah, here we go. J-Man. The best part of this is that it confirms that Rain's character development of becoming a better person is all him. It's none of the bleed through. Yeah. Because they never gave tokens to him.
01:16:32
Speaker
Yeah. what it alsolthough From what I've gathered from the interludes... Oh, go ahead, Hannah. I was just going to say there's another comment in chat, too. Yeah, I was going to read that next.
01:16:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just going to say, it does make that clear because at least from what we've seen of the interludes, Snag was a really good person before his trigger. Love Lost was a decent person before her trigger.
01:16:57
Speaker
Rain was a child who was abused and at heart a decent person, though in a terrible circumstance. So all that leaves again is Cradle being the messed up one in the... yeah you know yeah I believe Cradle is an older teenager.
01:17:19
Speaker
Is he? Okay, yeah we know. Because I think Rain triggered when he was, what, 14?
01:17:24
Speaker
13, 14. That sounds about right. yeah Somewhere around the 14th. Yeah. And I believe Cradle appears to be like 20 now, so it was probably like 17, 18, I think.
01:17:39
Speaker
Interesting. I guess we'll see. Find out. Truett points out Rain's main quality is guilt. um It's the emotion blast and whatnot.
01:17:51
Speaker
ah And Truett believes it's a little poetic that the cluster never accepted guilt for what they'd done and they became worse worse persons because they try and cut the guilt's Rain out.
01:18:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. oh was interesting I thought that was really interesting. I like that.
01:18:14
Speaker
Fran points out that the Caillou connection happen is becoming clear. The Caillou connection. The Caillou. It all comes back to Caillou. Oh my gosh. The Caillou connection, which is the title of the next Mission Impossible movie. but we it only i only this ah is Strangely enough, only the second worst movie compared to Fallout Part 1.
01:18:39
Speaker
Was that Fallout? Whatever the newest one was. And then Part 1 of that. I don't know. I haven't seen a Mission Impossible movie since I can't remember. Most of them are good.
01:18:52
Speaker
yeah You'll be surprised that Caillou actually is in all of them. make He's in all of them. That's why he's saying that. yeah amazing It's crazy.
01:19:03
Speaker
You're missing out. um Or are you? Anything else you want to follow up with Love Lost? I liked seeing her, how she handled the case when, you know, when we're reflecting back when she's a a detective or a cop or whatever, like how she, she like analyzes the situation and puts together her, the like, you know, the pills in the bag and the photo and the file. And like, none of it is actually applies to her case, but like she knows that it's going to have an emotional response. so she uses it and it works. And like,
01:19:40
Speaker
I lot of feelings about cops, but like, yeah. like and And the girl breaks down and she can't handle it because it's like, she thinks they know. And so she's like, oh man.
01:19:53
Speaker
no And so she tells them what happened. like ah J-Man, thank you for pointing out it was dead reckoning. Dead reckoning is the worst fallout. And then right before that, the Caillou connection.
01:20:07
Speaker
worst The worst Mission Impossible? Oh, by far. and Okay. um You keep saying Fallout and I'm like, like the show? like No, no, no, no. The Fallout was the one before Dead Reckoning.
01:20:22
Speaker
um That's the one where we started watching it and thought it was a parody movie of the stuff. And so we had to check the label. Oh, yeah. Nice. It was a good time. Yeah. ah was theres something Oh, yeah something I had a thought of.
01:20:37
Speaker
So we've seen emotion powers in each one of the other characters in this cluster, and I'm trying to remember what Cradle's emotion power was.
01:20:53
Speaker
I don't know that we've seen much of it. Yeah. If he's used i feel like... Yeah, I feel like the most we've really seen of Cradle, even in, like, fighting, was during the... The Fallen Battle. Yeah, where he's like... Thank you, the Fallen Battle at the barn. Yeah, I feel like that's the most we've seen of him. So, like, when you said, oh, yeah, I think he was an older teenager whenever... they Like, I... Oh, okay. Because I... You could have told me he was a 50-year-old man and I wouldn't have known. If...
01:21:27
Speaker
If I recall correctly, he didn't use any emotion powers at that point. I didn't think so either. He's strong Seto Kaiba vibes. Yeah, he is strong Seto Kaiba vibes. Just replace the helicopter. He's always flying away with with the giant the hand. Yu-Gi-Oh! Once again. but the yeah Thank you. Clarification. Thank you, Michael. be Because Love Lost has the the rage kind of yell, yeah the scream.
01:21:55
Speaker
um Rain has the guilt, which we know now kind of how that works. the ah The time capsule trainer of guilt. yeah um And then what was Snags? there was just like an emotional punch, right? Like it got punched. Yeah, it hits you emotionally. Like bad feelings?
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, think so. Ian points out that has not yet been revealed. No wonder we don't know. But ah if it was a more subtle...
01:22:24
Speaker
Like I'm thinking, because I genuinely don't remember. If it's a more subtle thing, makes him aware of, you know, maybe more aware of how to emotionally manipulate people, that would make sense in terms of figuring out the dream space easier than other people.
01:22:45
Speaker
Like where theirs are very active powers, his might be a very passive or, you know, subtle power. yeah sort of Sort of like Reigns took a while to figure out.
01:22:59
Speaker
Makes sense. It's possible, yeah. well twelve three Well, 12-3? I almost feel like, just as a ah quick question, should we put
Challenges and Battles
01:23:13
Speaker
12-3 and 12-4 together to discuss? i Because I feel like we want to spend more time on 12-all at the end. Yeah.
01:23:21
Speaker
And i don't I don't want to get bogged down in 12-3 and 4. I don't even have a distinction for twelve four which um And they they do go together. like Sequentially, they're very closely tied.
01:23:33
Speaker
um All right. twelve three The fight continues with spasms and weakened powers. The team negotiates a hostage exchange. And Prancer tries to separate himself from Love Lost's crew.
01:23:46
Speaker
12-4, the two sides have a standoff. Prancer negotiates and lies to everyone about Cradle's manipulations. Paris walks away, and Antares gets a look at Cradle's base.
01:23:58
Speaker
um Yeah, so the return of Moose and Prancer was a welcome. Side for store eyes. I love Moose. don't know about Prancer. Well, Moose. Well, in this case, Prancer, because he's like, I'll help you guys. Like, I don't want to do this anymore, which, you know, I can appreciate. He lost Velvet.
01:24:18
Speaker
Rest in peace, Velvet. Yeah. That's sad. You know, it's a bummer. And I, you know, he's just a sad boy trying to make amends for the bad things he's done, which, you know, we can. Yeah, we can. We can vibe with that. Yeah, we can.
01:24:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just anthem redemption. Yeah, yeah. ah This this was the scene I was mostly talking about where they're like, we're going to go kill people. And then 12, three and four is like, oh, shit, no, we're getting our asses kicked. Run. yeah Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah Yeah. The electricity mines just took them all fucking out. Jesus Christ. just watched a Predator Badlands and the like cube that they like lay out and it like and like the red electricity that like grabs them and pins them down.
01:25:05
Speaker
That's all I could think of but just like all over the ground instead of like any sort of third dimension. Yeah. Well, it's it's that combined with we find out later they got hit by the double second broken trigger happening in Brockton Bay.
01:25:20
Speaker
They got like hit by the shockwave of that, which knocked all their powers out, too. It was like a double hit of, like, we got stuck in the trap, and also we got you know screwed over by this double double trigger double double trigger thing happening.
01:25:36
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. The Harbinger boys and lose to Contender, but Vicky goes two for two. yeah I will say of all people, Harbinger.
01:25:51
Speaker
Well, I guess it kind of makes sense if they didn't have their powers. Maybe they're not that good, actually. what They're just annoying. They're just teenagers. Yeah, I guess I guess that's a good point, actually. Now I think about I'm like, man, Harbinger's so cool. How did he lose to Contender? And I'm like, oh, hey that's Contender's whole thing is he takes your powers away. If Harbinger can't see the math of where to kick, he's just like,
01:26:13
Speaker
Wait. that's a, that would be a brutal, like a thinker powers. they've got to be brutal to lose in a fight. like if you're just like so reliant on them. Oh yeah. Yeah.
01:26:25
Speaker
It makes me wonder if Cattletail would at least get some relief from her headaches. Just be like, oh, thank God. yeah whoa Oh my gosh, I will pay you $500,000 cash right now. I will summon it from a portal if you your job is to just use your ability in the next room.
01:26:41
Speaker
yeah Yeah, exactly. Eight hours so I can fucking sleep. All I'm thinking is Harbinger gets into the arena thinking he's going to beat up on this guy having lost his powers. And i don't remember what the guy says, but the wrestler and is it the wrestler and Spider-Man who's like, you ain't going nowhere.
01:27:01
Speaker
i got you for three minutes. like minute Three minutes. Three Bone saw is ready. it's just what I'm imagining. And Harbinger's like, I'm fucked. Yeah.
01:27:15
Speaker
love Fran, I thought they were like 15 or 16. I'm pretty sure they're older than that. Also, Truett compared it to stepping on a bear trap, but also there's a tornado happening.
01:27:27
Speaker
Yeah. know Pretty much, yeah. Then to go back a little bit, what what is the secret, you know, the secret emotion power that Cradle's been hiding? Fran says maybe it's happiness and he's never had a reason to use it.
01:27:41
Speaker
And ah Ian spoils a little by telling us all it's Cradle's super secret happy bean. Super secret happy bean. Amazing. I've been over here laughing my head off. y'all are going with that. I was just thinking of the Miku. Beep.
01:27:58
Speaker
Oh, the Miku Miku beam. Keep going. going. were watching that, but they'd replace the orbital laser from Helldivers with ah the Hatsune Miku beam.
01:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I've seen that. That's great. ah um Yeah. ah In the end, though, um you know, at least Prancer was useful and came up with a great lie on the fly.
01:28:24
Speaker
That turns out to be semi-true. yeah Yeah, more true than he realized. yeah Yeah. I'll be honest, I remember reading this the first time and not catching on. I just took it at face value like, oh, oh shit, okay. I guess that's just what's happening. And this time it was more like, I don't think they're in a cabin.
01:28:48
Speaker
Damn it. i don't do it the second read through. Yeah. So, okay, so so just to make sure, yeah and just to double check that I'm on the right track here. So when Cradle shook their hand, he did pinprick them with something.
01:29:04
Speaker
But because Blue Stocking said she had the scab on her hand.
01:29:12
Speaker
Yes. And he lied. So, okay, so here's my thing. I was like, yeah, he's lying the whole time until Blue Stocking was like, yeah. yeah And they both had like pinprick scabs on their hands.
01:29:28
Speaker
Because he says it and he's like all confident that like, yeah, no, I think I think he did something to me. I think he did something. Did you feel weird after he after he shook your hand? And Moose was like, yeah, I definitely felt weird. And Blue Stocking's like, yeah, me too. I had her check that out. And she said it was fine.
01:29:45
Speaker
Like, okay, okay. So he's pulling a little bit of mind games on them. We love that. We love that. Way to go. Doing great, Prancer. And then there's a comment about both of them having scabs on their hands, like pinprick scabs. And I was like, wait, did he pinprick them with something?
01:30:03
Speaker
Like, what? I'll be honest, I get stuff like that all the time from working outside. So like... Listen, woodshit man. On near my hands would not be anything like out of the ordinary. Okay, but in what it would be weird though.
01:30:21
Speaker
It would be weird though that he's like talking about this and he's talking about them getting pinpricked and then she happens to have a pinprick scab and so does he. Like, that's a little weird. here's my thought. just to make sure...
01:30:33
Speaker
This isn't one of those things that I totally just like. shaha no No, no, no. The first time I never confirmed she has a scab. and I think this is everybody just going like, yeah, yeah. i also don't want to be here, actually.
01:30:50
Speaker
no Yeah, and unfortunately, Hannah, Blue Socking does not confirm she has a scab. I was just looking at it. Prancer says he had a scab on his hand. ah Moose agrees and said it seemed weird um at the time. Cradle touched my arm.
01:31:07
Speaker
And then Blue Socking just says, yeah, he shook my hand. If you were right, then alliances don't matter. He broke the truce. Yeah, because one, it makes you paranoid, and two, it gives you a reasonable out to be like, oh my gosh, you're right, I've totally been mind-controlled, I'm not even guilty, and everybody can go, they're not guilty, that means all of you can get the fuck out of our way, and anybody who, you know is still under mind control can get their ass whooped.
01:31:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:36
Speaker
Ian says, I think the whole point is that this is a plausible lie that anyone could jump on. Yeah. Sure. and and Isn't there a whole bit about Moose and Prancer talking about, you remember, like, essentially prepping this lie, going like, hey, you remember that clerk? Yes. You remember the whole thing? Yeah. And that's why they're the first two, like, yep, totally.
01:31:57
Speaker
I totally got pricked. Yep. du was I thought it was weird. Yep. Totally true.
01:32:04
Speaker
That is confusing. Okay, no, later, later, Blue Stocking said... I had a mark on my finger and a weird heavy feeling like I get any time I have an injection. I had Bitter Pill take a look at it. That's what I was thinking. I took it for a splinter. Yes. So it may have been actually just a splinter in her finger. But it builds a paranoia whether not. But it builds that paranoia with people like that. it does build the paranoia. Okay, okay.
01:32:30
Speaker
I guess i I read that and I thought... that that come And especially after the last chapter and the fact that we know he's been like essentially scanning other Tinker stuff and powers to build his own cradle thing.
01:32:47
Speaker
It would make sense that part of that scanning is grabbing biological material by you know doing a quick little you know thing or injecting stuff because we know we just saw that in the previous chapter. they' like That's how the chapter ended.
01:33:02
Speaker
in 12.E and then to immediately roll into these and be like also he might be affecting these people. It's like oh so he's not limited to being a piece of shit in the dream world.
01:33:14
Speaker
Also Moose
01:33:19
Speaker
just wants to run an adult camp and I love that. Bless him. I've always loved Moose. This is great. Moose is so great.
01:33:30
Speaker
Moose is so great. I like him a lot. Victoria says something like, when I hit you, Moose, didn't you say that would make your mom sad? And he's like, that's a low blow, Victoria. like Yeah, like like, come on. like Bring it up my mom again. confidence Here's the thing. I, wait, someone confirmed for me that Moose is an adult.
01:33:49
Speaker
Yes. I do believe Velvet was fucking him. We'll hope that's a... Well, you cannot. we We know that Velvet was up to something. You're right. That imp...
01:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, let's remember that Imp and frickin' Alec were boinking and they were definitely underage. yeah Okay, but Velvet was not underage, but you know Prancer was doing stuff with underage people.
01:34:15
Speaker
you know and Listen, listen so that's why I asked. that That's why it's a fair question to ask. And um I ship Moose and Vic. Oh.
01:34:27
Speaker
I like it. I liked it before. liked it before and I like it now. would their Would their ship name be Antlaris?
01:34:40
Speaker
Antlaris? It's kind of... We'll workshop Do you say Moostaris? Moostaris? Victus? this yeah you say stories blue stars vi too sorrys I feel like there's a moose tracks in here somewhere.
01:35:02
Speaker
we know and we need to find a constellation of a moose and find the name for that. i'm on a Glory moose. No, no, I don't like it. I don't like moose. Ian, Hannah, moose has been 15 this whole time.
01:35:21
Speaker
No, that's not true. Moose has actually been retroactively changed to 15 the moment Hannah started talking about him. No! ah You can go ahead and clip that.
01:35:33
Speaker
um The Moose constellation is known as Moose, which is M-O-R-Z, so that's not very helpful. Oh, good. Thought we were cooking there. okay it's Now, real quick, something said offhandedly... The Moose constellation is known as mos What charities do you think Paris gives all his money to?
01:35:54
Speaker
oh it's some...
01:35:58
Speaker
Yes? Go ahead, Hannah. What were you going to say? oh it was about to It was about to be really... It's not it's not worth it for the internet. ah Please. It's Paris Fashion Week, right?
01:36:10
Speaker
it's just It's just Fashion Week? Yeah, hell yeah. There you go. Not like Paris Fashion Week needs more money. Yeah, exactly. They also talk that it might be a guilt thing.
01:36:24
Speaker
so now i'm really curious as to what.
01:36:30
Speaker
It sounds like he's been doing it for a while, though, so it's not just. But like I mean, the thing is, though, we know from his past, at least it appeared he was targeting LGBT individuals. Yes.
01:36:43
Speaker
So is it it's possible that maybe those are the charities he's giving to? Right? um Possible. Is that what we were assuming? I mean, that's kind of how it feels implied. If it's a guilt thing, then perhaps. Sure.
01:36:58
Speaker
Maybe. um i don't know. It's interesting. He and Byron's conversation is interesting. And we only know the context because we had that interlude with Tristan and Byron. But where he's like... The the line where Paris is like, man, if you had any guts, you would have done to him what he did to you.
01:37:15
Speaker
like, ooh. Yeah. i The chat is really funny right now. Chat, and we're not going to say who so they don't get you the introduction, but 100% of conversion camp, Westboro Baptist, unsolicited opinions about Israel. from yeah Oh my God. Literally chat rubbed my mind. See, except chat, it wouldn't be to Israel. It would be APAC money from Israel. That's the...
01:37:37
Speaker
Oh my lord. That's hilarious. yeah They all said it like chat was like to do do do do. Oh yeah chat was on it. And remember their words not mine. um yeah Chat's words.
01:37:52
Speaker
ah Yeah. Follow up thought. I think I've said this before. But how is Paris not dead? Like yeah Paris kind of sucks.
01:38:08
Speaker
Like, we're talking precipice levels of ass, and he somehow is a dangerous villain. Like... Yeah.
01:38:19
Speaker
Listen, he throws really six, Nolan. What? The six he throws, they're really sharp. They're sharp and sure. If they hit you, it's really bad. But so's a bullet?
01:38:31
Speaker
Like... Again, what's preventing rain with a handgun or or a Byron with a handgun or a Tristan with a handgun? I know. Just maybe like it's not even it's just like your abilities to create little like buckshot spraying pellets that hurt from whatever material that comes out of.
01:38:57
Speaker
But in terms of overall powers, like, all Sveta has to do one time is just, what bot like, right on the nose, and you're gone.
01:39:08
Speaker
Like, how is how is he to the level he is? This is, you know, is the same thing I have with Jack Slash, but at least we can explain a lot of things about Jack Slash, and Jack Slash's ability to, like, make a knife go the distance and, you know, cut, you know. or And also magnetism.
01:39:28
Speaker
Yeah, oh well, we'll... Paris has got more wrist than he ever had, so... All right. I just... I don't get why Paris is a big deal when he is just immediately outclassed by a dude with a shotgun. Like...
01:39:45
Speaker
ah I just thought that Byron should have killed him already. Like when he has this moment where he's like, it's not up to me. He switches back to Tristan and ah Tristan, I, I i i listened. i had to go back and listen to it because at first I thought he was saying like, yeah, do it.
01:40:02
Speaker
And then I realized he was saying, no, don't do it. I was like, why are we listening to Tristan right now? Tristan's guts are hanging out All I can think of is he's got to have some bullshit power like ah Jack.
01:40:17
Speaker
It's like, oh, well, actually, his real power is never getting fucking killed. I'm like, oh, well, you know. cool he does seem to i mean from the capricorn interlude i feel like you get the hint he's really coordinated in the sense of like kind of like march's timing we did think he might have been part of the flechette cluster yeah i guess but boy howdy does it feel like that yeah because he's got the ability to create these you know piercing needles and stuff i don't know um
01:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, and the way he's described too, this is only for Alan and maybe someone in chat if they're lucky, but Alan, he's described as having long blonde hair and a metal mask and being like a tall, lanky figure. He's Yuritsa from Fire Emblem. the the Yeah.
01:41:08
Speaker
Yuritsa, I also got the, what's the guy from Street Fighter who has like, the you know. Oh, ah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's ah not Volo, that's Soul Calibur. Yeah, the Volo but hot.
01:41:19
Speaker
The Volo but yeah. I don't know, man. have you seen Volo? Oh, no. me tell you. Oh, God. Yeah, everybody go Google Volo from Soul Calibur right now.
01:41:31
Speaker
Look up. Volo from Soul Calibur. See if he's hot or not. Vega. Vega is a sh street fighter. Vega. We need our honest opinion. Yeah. Volo is V-O-L-O from Soul Calibur. Yep. Everyone listen to Hannah. Everyone wait.
01:41:45
Speaker
Okay, well, first of all, the internet is telling me that it's Voldo with a D. Voldo, sorry. Oh, well, Nick, I'm going to need your gamer license and registration back. We're going to suspend that. Okay, and then there's multiple versions that I'm seeing here. There's a blue one, a pink one, a purple one. That sounds about right. Does it matter? Okay, I'm going to click on one of these and have a look-see up close.
01:42:19
Speaker
it's the me wow mouth That is and he's ah unfortunate, to say the least. somely how much Some of these costumes are better than others. Just wait until you watch him move. That's all you really need. He's very flexible, let me tell you. Oh, yeah. He's a flexi boy. that that bad had the reach, but he had the flexibility, you know what I'm saying?
01:42:42
Speaker
He's got the flexibility and the reach. Let me tell you, look at that, man. Boy, howdy. Alright. There he goes. Whoa. Whoa! What? He sure is. whoa what wow what ah ah yeah ah yes like you yeah sure is yeah so it's what I
01:43:04
Speaker
ah googled hot was that question is he yeah that was how how hot is he not is he hot but how hot is he let me ian says he's very hot thank yeah Thank you. I love that I Google Voldo Soulcalibur and the first thing I see is Reddit. What's wrong with Voldo? so Oh Alright, last question for this chapter because we end on a very clearly setting up for the next swing of things.
01:43:34
Speaker
How would you crack the egg? And by that, I mean you have the cradle egg that he has built that is a shield of all the body parts of your friends and has assumedly um love lost and cradle being drained, like the powers being drained into him possibly. How do you get around this?
01:44:04
Speaker
You are the crew.
01:44:11
Speaker
Or even in general. like A long time ago, I would have bought bought out Coil Sniper, and I think that that's the solution here, right? You just need one bullet to get through all the body parts to hit Cradle right in the noggin, and you got them.
01:44:26
Speaker
And that that's all you need. Yeah. I'm going to have to agree with that. Someone's got Contessa on speed dial. just Yeah. Someone call Contessa. Need little help.
01:44:40
Speaker
And we're at the point now where where shit shit's gotten bad enough yeah that like she can come out of retirement for ah for a hot sec. yeah If she could, that'd be great. I would get all the gun-wielding capes, the Texas guys, whatever. Miss Militia, Young Buck, and Contessa. We haven't had enough of her.
01:45:05
Speaker
yeah Yep, that would work. Yeah, no, I do think actually the fact that they have harbingers with them is a good sign to me because they're like, yes, we need to get a bullet two of them through here.
01:45:18
Speaker
There's only a 1% chance we can get it between the body parts. like, don't worry. I got the math. I know a guy. but And rain can probably assist with that, actually.
01:45:32
Speaker
if need be Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, as Beefaroni points out, as well as Fran, but ah Victoria hates eggs. And this was a meme in the community before this chapter came out.
01:45:47
Speaker
That's funny. and so this I don't think that the egg is... see-through, think it's just like the patchwork of body parts are kind of like interspersed around it, you know, making a patchwork force field.
01:46:02
Speaker
So there are slots that you could probably shoot through it, but because there's so many of these body parts, you wouldn't want to just like take a shot and miss because you're just hitting one of your people in the liver or something like that.
01:46:17
Speaker
Sure. Which... They seem pretty injured already. They're in pieces. What's one bullet between? They're still alive. but Honestly, honestly, you choose.
01:46:30
Speaker
You pick a body part that is like the obviously don't want to shoot any body parts, but the one that doesn't seem as most critical, like a knee or a arm and you go for it. And then you pull out all the stops and you get yourself in touch with Amy.
01:46:53
Speaker
Like, I... Bionic legs. It sucks, but, like, we can't... We can't keep playing... Well, the assumption is, like... can't this fucking game. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I believe Cradle has alluded to the fact that he can reverse what he's done. Yeah. But you have to have the tool that he used.
01:47:12
Speaker
But did they didn't they find it? Did they find the thing? They just don't have the body parts now, right? They have the tool. And Rain's working on it. Or Rain was working on it. Well, they're literally discussing this as they're sleeping in Dreamland.
01:47:27
Speaker
and yeah I don't trust Cradle any more than Rain does. which Oh yeah, no that that part was like, Love Lost is like, wait a second. And then Cradle's like, yeah you know what? You're right. I'll give you some of my power, Rain. We took this too far. You should you should you should work on that.
01:47:43
Speaker
What? No. It's going to blow up in your face. You're going to permanent is what you're going to end up doing. Which I do love. Love Lost is like, I know I'm going to kill Cradle now.
01:47:56
Speaker
I might have to kill Rain if he takes Cradle's power. This is that thought process. um But yeah, spooky. ah Probably like viscerally one of the spookiest things since the like Brian in the meat locker kind of thing. Just imagining up there. The idea of like looking through a window and just seeing like an egg or like a a shield of all your friend's body parts. A shield of flesh parts.
01:48:25
Speaker
Yeah. Welcome to war. All I can think of is it's the yeah it's like the the Morty shield from Rick and Morty where you saw the Morty. Yeah, like the first thing I thought of, Nick. It was the first thing.
01:48:39
Speaker
um I'm glad. I'm glad you're reminded. Yeah. Yep. Well, 12 all to discuss. Oh, boy. All right.
01:48:50
Speaker
I don't want to be up too late, but you know we'll do what we need to do. If if we have to you know get this to... a
01:49:00
Speaker
i don't know. Also, Bernard, we we said that we were going to be meeting this one time, I guess, on Monday. I'm sorry, Bernard. Just because... i sent out... I forgot. No, Fran, don't lie.
01:49:17
Speaker
depran Yeah, DeFran is is is is ah trying to pull a fast one. i i thought they were all going to be on Mondays. Apparently, it's just this Monday.
01:49:28
Speaker
um Lord Almighty, no one reads their texts anymore. It's okay. It's okay. um I sent out a message. still haven't read any of those texts y'all sent the other day, by the way. All 50 of them.
01:49:40
Speaker
As soon as the number got past seven, I didn't read any of them. think we found the problem. it this There was never a doubt. um Bernard. I apologize. I tried to send out a message last week letting everyone know it be Monday. wait yeah but We also did talk about this last podcast, did we not?
01:50:03
Speaker
Yeah. We took it on Monday for our first. we said the twelf I thought we said the 12th. Yeah, to actively change some stuff because I am busy tomorrow. I have to go Atlanta, but we'll get into that later.
01:50:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um Now. Yes. Not. It's still going to be on Tuesdays. We just needed to do this Monday. Yeah, this is just the weird week starting next week. And we're not next week, but next time it'll be Tuesdays again.
01:50:33
Speaker
Yep, 12 point all. Let's do it. 12 point all. All right. 12 point all interlude the shards.
Shards and Their Consciousness
01:50:44
Speaker
Victoria's shard describes this connection to its host and their shared history. March's shard follows the battle in Brockton Bay. Vista and others die.
01:50:55
Speaker
Dauntless and Alabaster are freed, only to have broken second triggers.
01:51:03
Speaker
All else aside, the perspective of the shards is very cool. Yes. Get everything else. yeah i like Let's let's like describe what's in text to begin. Yeah.
01:51:20
Speaker
yeah um Biggest thing up front, Vista.
01:51:28
Speaker
a That sucks.
01:51:33
Speaker
A lot of people saying shout out to Shadowstalker for being the longest surviving Brockton Bay Ward. Wow. God. Yeah, at this point. Yeah. um I... Man, it it just sucks. Like, I i had hoped that maybe Vista was just, like, at gunpoint and was forced to lower the... You know, to return the city back to normal, but... yeah I don't know. it It does, we mentioned this before, but it or Jacob, I think you mentioned it, but it does feel like, right, you've got Dragon, Defiant, Vista, even Golem, who has vastly improved in his powers and usage of them, along with other heroes ah who we know are there, who maybe they're not a rank or you know S rank or anything like that, but they're heroes, they're prepared for this, and marched
01:52:27
Speaker
Not only does she time everything perfectly, but she's got superhuman stamina to keep moving when things seem... Like, I just... There's so much... i don't know.
01:52:39
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. and um Yeah. and So, the the confirmed deaths that I noted, i don't know if there's any. We know Vista died. Withdrawal and Tempura seem to have died as well.
01:52:51
Speaker
yeah withdrawal being from... Steam soap. I wasn't sure exactly. the head was something It said that Shrapnel cut her head in half.
01:53:02
Speaker
oh Oh, okay. Oh, wow. and i ability being that and Another down. Yeah. Well, she apparently had something help withdraw from falling. And so when she got whacked, I imagine that he also fell because she couldn't hold him up. That's what... So March's shard notes that she planned for that, that she would knock out Tempura and then that would knock out her power a few seconds later when she died. And then withdrawal would probably fall to his death um as a result.
01:53:34
Speaker
Not confirmed, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, i I don't believe it until it's on screen. Like, I see the bodies kind of a thing. Yeah. um i um And then maybe Golem, but that's a little bit less clear. i Yeah, I didn't feel like Golem. I feel like the big one was Vista.
01:53:54
Speaker
big one was vcevo All I could think of is like, okay, but we didn't say she's dead. and like exploded in pieces and people looked away. Well, her armor exploded.
01:54:07
Speaker
Her chest exploded. I think chest. They talk about chunks. The armor on her chest exploded. Okay, and they say that people looked away from like the viscera.
01:54:23
Speaker
I didn't hear that part. It's all right. I'm pretty sure she's she's gone. jez But ah anyway, in my head, I was like... clearly I was like, no, but I'm hanging on. I was hanging on for hope, okay?
01:54:35
Speaker
And all I could think was, like, maybe at the last moment, she made an impossible distance between her armor and the sword. Like, it's the it's a Goto from Jujutsu Kaisen where, like, you go to punch him, but he can just always make infinity between you and his fist. So even though it gets, like, right here, he makes, you know, the distance impossible every time.
01:54:57
Speaker
So... You know, that like, oh, like when the sword goes in, it basically is like a magician's trick, but she still hits the armor. So, you know, it explodes, but typically they explode.
01:55:10
Speaker
and Well, I was hoping it would explode outward because they're true. They're like directional explosions. Generally, it does say the words Vista chat Vista's chest explodes. God damn it. what i said Okay. wow Well, and and also, even if March didn't have her.
01:55:27
Speaker
you know, explodey sword power. peroni said But she can walk it off. She can walk it off. Yeah. yeah No, but even if she didn't have that, she said ah she ah comes. Yeah. Her rapier points at the heart using both hands to overcome the resistance of the breastplate. She presses forward until the hilt sits flush against Vista's armor plate. So basically, even without her power, Vista just got stabbed all the way through the heart in jest. So yeah. Yeah. yeah Right.
01:55:56
Speaker
But Beckford, your breath stinks. My God. I gave him tuna today. steam Smells so bad. um I mentioned earlier that like the punchy punches don't punch anymore. And this was one of those things. ah When Vista died, like i i I shed some tears, absolutely. But it wasn't the visceral... Like, when we lost... When we lost people in Wyrm, I weep.
01:56:30
Speaker
You know? I've got... I'm, like, eyes puffy, can't see straight... bawling my eyes out and so laying on my floor like that is me when people die and i just kind of shed a couple of tears and was heartbroken and then moved on it didn't punch which sucked because losing vista is huge yeah i love little big v little v big v little v Very upsetting, but it didn't punch.
01:57:03
Speaker
And I don't know if that's maybe because we're kind of getting this shard view, which feels a little bit removed. um But I imagine that when we get Big V's response to Little V's death, it's going to hit probably ah ah maybe a little bit harder. But yeah, I mean this this sucked. there's no There's no way around it. It it felt...
01:57:31
Speaker
I am a very big fan of Killing Your Darlings. Um... I like when characters die. I like i like the emotional rollercoaster, as you know emotionally wrecked as I am over it.
01:57:45
Speaker
ah i I do enjoy when characters die. um This didn't feel like it was earned. It didn't feel like it made sense. It just kind of felt like, oh, March needs to kill somebody to make her feel extra bad rather than just like the chaos gremlin Joker thing. that she is, ah because she's helped Rain try to understand trigger ah cluster stuff before, so it's like, well, maybe she could be helpful, maybe she's a rogue, and like this kind of firmly is the kick the dog thing of, like, firmly places her in villain territory past the point of no return, where, like, well, you did this to Vista. It just feels lazy me. don't like it. I don't like it. And that's not coming up from a place of being like, why'd you kill Vista? It's coming from a place of, like,
01:58:32
Speaker
i didn't I didn't really hurt when Vista died. And to me, that says a lot about how it happened and everything that's happening before this in the previous chapters.
01:58:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I mean, I'm the opposite. I've talked about a whole lot about how I i hate character deaths in stories. i don't like them. that's just That's a debate for another day. But ah already, it just adds to it.
01:59:02
Speaker
I felt it felt really pointless in the context of the story that's being told and just, just unnecessary. It was just like, yeah, I think you said lazy. I think that's a good word for it It's just like, Oh, here's our here's our cheap semi meaningful death to cement the villain as bad, ah as if they weren't already.
01:59:27
Speaker
yeah. Yeah. And in all of this, it seems like at least, and we don't know maybe the full story, but it feels like as they allude to at the end, even her subordinates are like, all of this just so Ixnay can bleed their cluster partner.
01:59:44
Speaker
Like, this is why we all of this. That seems like even that just seems if that is the end goal. And I'm hoping it's not. But even if that is the end goal, I'm like, well, that's stupid. Stupid as a motivation for a villain. Although Jack Slash was the chaos, the chaotic person. Right. Like that was his thing.
02:00:06
Speaker
at least even he found out that he was prophesied to end the world. and he's like, oh, I'm going to end the world, huh? Cool, I got to survive and mess up things up as long as I can. Like, it felt like he was given a bigger purpose than just being chaotic. But this feels like taking that and instead downsizing it to just, oh, you just wanted to help one of your allies get a little stronger.
02:00:31
Speaker
that feel so petty. Well, allah i'll make I'll make a defense, my one defense of March in this case.
02:00:42
Speaker
So, if you're a Christian and you believe in the concept of going to heaven and essentially trying to save people's eternal souls at all costs, extrapolating that to shard heaven and that essentially cluster people are the only ones who get to go to Shard Heaven.
02:01:03
Speaker
But the only way they get to do that is if you connect them. It is imperative to get the people that you can and into Shard Heaven no matter the cost.
02:01:16
Speaker
Everybody else will, when they do die, are just going to die out. And it people who are unconnected cluster people will die out as well. So...
02:01:27
Speaker
so Like, i I guess in that regard, ah kind of makes sense she's granting immortality for the few people can experience it or and and Or immortality, but you know what I mean.
02:01:45
Speaker
I suppose. yeah We don't know the full story yet either. We haven't finished chapter 12. ah why we can we could if we want to lay into March as a whole, i if we want to just move into that gauntlet, I'm okay. Or do we want to talk about the time bubbles?
02:02:06
Speaker
real quick or something else before we get to... I do want to mention mention a couple of small things. um Yeah, go for it. with the With the time bubble in particular, you had Dauntless in there, who I forgot his whole thing was charging up power over time. right so So the idea that they just opened this time bubble of who knows how long he's been in there, right probably um unconsciously charging his power this entire time based on what it sounds like from the release.
02:02:37
Speaker
Yeah. Is just like, oh, that's terrifying. That's so cool. Yeah. And then just the ideas like he and Alabaster just like explode with second triggers. Because what I'm imagining, right, is what if they've been in this time bubble, but their brains have been going the whole time, right?
02:02:58
Speaker
So they're under this extreme stress and their brains have been trying to create second triggers. Yeah. Because they're under such heavy stress, but they're in the time. Right. So they've been frozen this whole time.
02:03:09
Speaker
Yeah. And so that's why it was such a big explosion of trigger. And that's why it like knocked out powers for a time is like a big EMP blast. I mean, again, who knows what they released? I don't know. I don't think we knew what Alabaster's powers were, but he and Dauntless seem to be like melding into this giant being of light. I don't know. It's iss weird. i'm interested that In terms of that, I'm interested to see what happens.
02:03:36
Speaker
um Oh, yeah. So, like, as a consequence for this, I think that's fascinating. um I'm not sure... i like how we got there, though, I guess. Yeah. the Is the point, right? Part of the thought, because once again, we're we're almost alluding back to Gold Mourning in terms of, like,
02:03:58
Speaker
or or in reverse in a way. So we've got the the sting power, which is the same um as ah oil when we killed ah scion we have the sting power which pierces through everything that pops the time bubbles essentially so we have that going on then we we have what I here's what I'm thinking right now is that
02:04:31
Speaker
In a way, maybe there is a secondary objective here that like we are trying to get the essentially the network back up so that everybody can go to Shard Heaven.
02:04:43
Speaker
um But the way to do that, you can't do that because it would require an entity. And the entities, when they died, much like um how we saw with Eden...
02:04:57
Speaker
ah first, that her... The things that when they make powers out of her, those are still dead shards. um Dead being different for them than it is for humans, obviously.
02:05:10
Speaker
And when Sion got killed, all of the shards are still dead. um And when they are... attaching and doing things because there's the lack of the network to stabilize everything.
02:05:28
Speaker
um Some of them end up broken. um Potentially some of them were already hanging around people waiting for triggers to happen. So like those are kind of like maybe good, but overall the network's down and ah everything got the kill order, like to turn off or die when Sion died, except for those in the time bubbles.
02:05:52
Speaker
So those are still maybe live shards. So now the time bubbles popped, you have a live shard. And all of a sudden, all of the other shards in the network can kind of maybe be like turn on and them going to like when the powers get knocked out, maybe is like a rebooting the system.
02:06:14
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. is this Because we do get that perspective from... You're wondering. This is... my random thoughts reading through this chapter. yeah Because I'll be honest, I am very fuzzy on the rest of like the details yeah of... like I remember events.
02:06:37
Speaker
I don't remember like yeah the stuff. i was just curious. If that makes sense. um So all of this is from what we've gotten here. i can see that.
02:06:51
Speaker
That'd be really interesting. and just how how they were talking about networks. because they were talking that They mentioned the word, like yeah what do they call it, catalyzers or something like that? um that they're I forget if they're looking for catalyzers or they know what the catalyzers are.
02:07:07
Speaker
um So that's what I'm thinking. Is this a catalyst where you're trying to like, yes, they're trying to drain them, but they're also trying to bring essentially the 5G online?
02:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. What was interesting to me too with that in mind is how conscious the shards are. Like if if this is genuinely like not just an artistic rendering, so to speak, but genuinely how the shards behave. The shards, Victoria's shard, for example, is conscious of all the different identities that she's had for herself.
02:07:40
Speaker
yeah March's shard is conscious of March's relationship to others and aware of that, right? They call her, like, the shard calls him calls her their March, you know? yeah um And so there's an eerie consciousness there, right? We had that idea of, like, okay, Scion is greater than just, you know, what we think.
02:08:04
Speaker
But it always felt like the shards maybe were sort of an inhuman thing. or not inhuman but unconscious part of him so to speak in Eden yeah so having this realization of like oh no they're aware and they have purpose as well they're like little pieces of the entity is a fascinating revelation realizing you know there's more to it which is and interesting Victoria Shard is a bro she's yeah like imagine what we could do yes what she realizes her potential and our power
02:08:36
Speaker
but Yeah. And it's also like a sad sack of shit as well. Like, it's, um and I even know what comment you got that from, Jacob.
02:08:48
Speaker
I was thinking of the same thing. Yeah. um There's, yeah, there's ah ah an interesting, like, we've seen shard perspective before, and it did feel very inhuman, but it almost feels like because of the lack of entities driving them, and or maybe it's just time spent connected, because we've talked about, I mean, there's been a lot of talk thematically about bleeding,
02:09:17
Speaker
um bleeding through and we know from worm like the concept of like you're essentially putting like the power is putting a you know personality and you're shaping it with your own personality and you're becoming more shard and you know yeah but we've never considered the possibility that the shards become more human um And this feels like maybe without the entities, they essentially have to become more human um because they've got no other source to draw from.
02:09:52
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. there's no return route. So they're just staying and becoming. ah So you have the sad sack. That's, you know, like, Oh, kind of man. I suck. But like, man, we could do great things. if we would get our shit together.
02:10:10
Speaker
That is Victoria's wrench. Like, It's called the wretch. It thinks of itself as a wretch in a lot of senses. um And then you look over at Marches and Marches is very possessive. It calls himself their March, and which is very, I mean, imagine March calls like foil their foil, you know, like, ah, yes, we'll be together.
02:10:36
Speaker
Is your mine. And I will wear your skin. That's extremely how she thinks. So it makes me wonder if there's like, oh, if it's just been bleeding the other way.
02:10:48
Speaker
um And because it's been around enough. ah Yeah. That that that is what they're developing. Or they have developed. or From a lore perspective, too, I do love how...
02:11:03
Speaker
marches shard notes oh withdrawal he's pulling she like the shard is like oh he's that shard is pulling juice from this planet we discovered if only he knew what he really had you know like kind of that like but again getting back to that lore perspective like I think uh You, Alan, or Jacob have mentioned how whenever there are powers is kind of the idea of like, but where does the energy to create that come from? it's sort of this idea that the you know the the entities are pulling from alternate dimensions, from alternate reality. It's all portals. yeah Yeah. And so just kind of that allusion to that again is always fascinating. and like Oh, withdrawals, juice, for lack of a better word, is
02:11:47
Speaker
like from another planet. It's not just like a random biological thing. It's literally like a like there's a pool of it somewhere on another planet that he's drawing from. Yeah.
02:11:58
Speaker
I mean, even for Thinker Powers... we'll never know what it does. If you will, allow me. Like even for Thinker Powers, you essentially have a It could be biological. It could be, ah you know...
02:12:11
Speaker
a product of you know the environmental or it could be literally an AI server on another planet that is just or you know just servers doing calculations that beams information through the worm portal via shard into somebody's head. And you're like, wow, how do the Harbinger boys do all that math?
02:12:33
Speaker
Where does that come from? It seems like it might even be more powerful than a human brain can handle. and it's like, well, because it's off-sourced off-planet and then the energy gets beamed into there. And what is information if not like it can be you know downgraded into energy, you know?
02:12:51
Speaker
and i eat into the right into their brain so like even thinker powers like it's all portals um
02:13:01
Speaker
love it it's all portals yeah but uh uh any more on the bubbles and the shards
02:13:15
Speaker
um in case I just missed it, but just to mention the cool bit of world building with the Molluscoids planet that the shards visited. yes yeah so prior That was fun.
02:13:28
Speaker
love What was that in reference to? A mile tall? Was that just an energy source is what they said? they were i think they were just referencing ah certain interactions that the the shard was kind of remembering from a previous cycle. Yeah.
02:13:45
Speaker
I have go back and read exactly. I thought they built mile-tall things. but they they did They They built mile-tall suits, essentially, in order to survive on that one planet so that they could they could breathe above like the gas that encapsulated the planet.
02:14:07
Speaker
um All right. With all of that out of the way... let's Let's talk about March, and then we will talk about the writing in general. Okay.
02:14:25
Speaker
We've mentioned it before. We've read a comment, but i i find March to be a generally uninteresting character who is...
02:14:40
Speaker
kind of complete bullshit and has an ability as one of the comments described on the thing um on on the chapter when it was written ah that that hit. I felt the exact same way, um but they, you know, they said it first, which is how is March just Contessa, but with ah the ability to explode anything.
02:15:05
Speaker
And yeah, and complained about it before, but it really is just a it's an uninteresting character who really wants to be cool, like expressly like, oh, but they're going to be so cool when they all like when I do this and oh, at least Vista died in a cool way.
March's Role and Impact on the Plot
02:15:29
Speaker
And March just kind of is boring. And and i don't care. And we talked about how it's at the like even Vista's death part of the writing aspect. Like it's not cool because it's abstracted and this is some big event going on sideways to all the stuff that we are trying to care about.
02:15:55
Speaker
Like what we, you know, we're having a little trouble with this over here. Why take us away from that to care about or to, to bring us into the backstory, which is interesting. That's fine. As a lot of seeing behind the, you know, the curtain on people are,
02:16:11
Speaker
But overall, I really, really have never liked March. And before it was a vibes-based thing, and now that I'm really examining it, I think it's just poor writing.
02:16:24
Speaker
So, I opened the floor. Well, it's that too, and like you said, this is a sidebar from the main event, right? And I am invested in Cradle getting his ass whooped. Like, I want to see that happen. In the same way that, like, I was invested in seeing Coyle get his ass whooped. I was invested in seeing Jack Slash get his ass whooped, you know? Like, I was invested in those characters being taken down. And that is how I feel about Cradle. I'm like, oh, he an asshole.
02:16:57
Speaker
Like, he gotta go, yeah you know? And so to have, then, this interruption of March... Who it does feel like is like, oh, don't forget March is this really dangerous villain.
02:17:11
Speaker
But it's like, well, wait a second. why Why do I care about March? I haven't spent any time with her. She's she appeared at the fallen fight helping our side. Kind of. Yeah, like mostly they helping our side mostly.
02:17:26
Speaker
And then just peaced out for a while. And now suddenly she's the biggest villain taking down the entirety of Brockton Bay. I even forgot. I was looking back through the arc. Narwhal was there too. Not even Narwhal. Narwhal, Dragon Defiant, Golem Vista. So many characters could not take down this one person.
02:17:44
Speaker
And yeah, it's like, like you said, it's like, oh. She is... And not only that, but this entire fight in terms of practicality, this entire fight is taking place on the top of skyscrapers. As far as I know, March doesn't have a flying power.
02:18:02
Speaker
Like, again, in terms of like BS fight scenes where this is the one time I really understood where they were. And it felt like she just had like ninja powers, all like crazy ninja powers. i See, I didn't even get that.
02:18:16
Speaker
I thought they were on the ground walking the city. Literally on top of a building when Vista dies. They're top of skyscraper in Brockton Bay. And I'm like. I don't know if if it's the weird environment thing. Like, oh, maybe you can just run up the side of the skyscraper because it's all twisty from Vistage or whatever.
02:18:33
Speaker
I don't know. like But still, it just felt... I think it just felt... For it to be a character we really liked, it felt a bit cheap. I think it unearned for her death.
02:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's a combination of a lot of little things. Like, again, to kind of go back to to Taylor's fights, right, where she's getting beat up and and sort of you see the exhaustion in her fights and all this kind of stuff. um I think of like it was one of the high praises of the early Netflix Daredevil series was like, oh, you can see them just like having to exhaust themselves in these fights. It's brutal. takes forever. You know, that kind of thing. And I think this was another comment at the end, but I like it too. It's like, what the, does her power also have unlimited stamina? Is that part of it? Yeah. Like, who's, yeah how is she hanging on this long? Like, it's just, for for a story that is constantly in and a world that kind of praises itself in a bit of realism in a really unrealistic world, Little things like that just sort of start to trip you up after a while. And it just sort of gets annoying to sort of read through a fight scene that doesn't really belong in compared to the other fights we we read about. um
02:19:46
Speaker
yeah I'm trying to think, too. i know i know that Wild Bo has killed off characters quickly. I'm not saying that he hasn't ever done that before. But I'm trying to think, has he ever killed off a character, quickly or not, in a side story that we cared about? Like, I'm trying to think, is it is part of it just, like, this is the first time we've had a character we actually cared about killed and an in an aside, basically, right? Like, in an interlude?
02:20:18
Speaker
Because I'm, like, obviously, like, you know, some characters get killed really quickly. Like, you know, not I'm not saying, like, thinking about like Kaiser. Kaiser's death was really quick, but it was in the middle of the Leviathan fight. So it was like we were, it was maybe the closest would be Slaughterhouse Nine.
02:20:37
Speaker
Well, i mean, yeah, Accord died in an interlude. Accord died in an interlude, but I don't know how much. trying yeah I mean, Defiant and Dragon all like come down and they've like killed.
02:20:48
Speaker
you know, Siberian and other people. And they're like, hunt yeah, down, you know, we've had these lab, but they go like yeah half the slaughterhouse nine gets marked off screen when they're chasing him down.
02:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But even that kind of feels appropriate somehow, I guess, because it's, I guess I'm thinking more of like a death that could be ran points out. Yeah. Bakuda is a very like,
02:21:16
Speaker
It's led up to, if will. Even death, though, is led up to, right? Because it's a lung kilter, and it's like, oh, no, that makes sense. Like, that fits. I guess I'm thinking more of, like, a death that should have some emotion behind it. Not just, like, a character we are interested in.
02:21:32
Speaker
Like Bakuda interesting, but I don't emotionally care if she dies or not. Yeah. Being killed off in an interlude. You know? Right. And I guess that's more what I'm thinking. um you i Right. it's it's a It's a death we I would have preferred from Victoria's POV.
02:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. like Somebody should have been there from the main cast to see this happen, I feel like. Yeah. Well... And I do think we'll like we' we'll get that emotional hit probably later when Victoria finds out that, like, oh, that's what happened. And, you know, she goes full revenge mode about March. but It could also be the... Sorry, i didn't mean interrupt you.
02:22:12
Speaker
No, no, no, go ahead. I was just going to say it could also be the Phantom Menace problem in that if you watch the Phantom Menace, you realize the movie has four endings happening simultaneously. right And you're like, wow, there's a lot happening all at once. ah And it feels kind of like that, where it's like, we've got Cradle that Victoria is trying to deal with, but we don't want to fit forget what's happening in Brockton Bay. We've got to follow up on that, because that's really important, too, with March.
02:22:36
Speaker
And maybe it just feels like there's two two arcs are happening, but we're only getting pieces of one of them. Not that I want Ward to be any longer, but you know if we'd had more time with the Brockton Bay people who were trying to protect Brockton Bay, maybe it would make more sense. I don't Yeah, i I definitely don't mayor really understand.
02:22:59
Speaker
Well, yeah. yeah yeah yeah What it comes down to is March is boring. I agree with Alan there. March is kind of a boring villain, and I don't care about her. Yeah. Like, I care about Gradle.
02:23:10
Speaker
I think so, too. Like, i I really enjoy... Somebody said it in chat earlier, and also i was kind of thinking about this. Alan and I had ah had a whole conversation in the kitchen earlier about this. But, like, I i really like um that kind of Joker type of character that's just like chaos for chaos's sake. I i really enjoy like the Heath leather e Ledger's Joker. And I really like Jack. um I think Jack is really fun and ah like a lot of his thought process and whatever. And I feel like March...
02:23:45
Speaker
is supposed to also fall into that category of like chaos for chaos, but I can't, I don't find her interesting. i it It does feel like she's just kind of there. Like the chaos that Jack brought was very like calculated chaos in a way. And for someone who has such good timing, you would think that like March could be a similar way of that kind of calculated chaos of like, well, I have all the freedom in the world and the best timing to make it happen. Like I can do it. And, but I don't get that from her at all. I get this very like,
02:24:27
Speaker
She's constantly, she just, she throws herself out of a window and realizes, oh, huh, I guess I didn't plan that this, you know, this didn't work out the way that I thought. I guess I'm going to die. And then laughs because, what's her name, snatches her out of the air. Like, it doesn't feel...
02:24:46
Speaker
Yeah, I i don't. She's not interesting. And I think like she was more interesting when she was kind of this rogue element who jumped in to like help Rain figure out Cluster Chef. And they were all like, whoa, be careful with that, Rain. And like, I think that that's more interesting as kind of this like rogue entity on the fringes of things than like,
02:25:11
Speaker
The girl who busted the time bubbles and exploded Vista. Like, that doesn't seem to make sense to me. It just doesn't.
02:25:24
Speaker
I don't like it. don't like it. I, ah yeah, bringing up the Joker, you're a very good point. The Joker and the Dark Knight, as much as I don't like him, has ah thing they're going for, which is like the destruction of systems, ah you know, trying to basically draw out the worst of humanity. Very Jack Slash-esque.
02:25:48
Speaker
um And as Fadi points out, the Mark Hamill Joker specifically. Mark Hamill Joker has one thing, and that's to essentially get Batman to, you know, just get his goat.
02:26:03
Speaker
You know? And in this case, just replace the whole, like, Batman, you know, love-hate for Batman that Joker has with foil.
02:26:15
Speaker
you know, and it kind of makes sense, but it's all this extra stuff that she's going out of the way. When she was just hunting down foil in, ah you know, and these cluster triggers, it it it feels much more directed. I like them keeping the Undersiders on the run.
02:26:34
Speaker
And when we talk about, like, what is our... Because... ah
02:26:39
Speaker
um Fran points out that there's been a lot of buildup for her. I don't really think there has, not in terms of like actual exposure to her. We've seen her like hinted at when talk about like, oh she showed up and she talked to Rain off screen, um you know, in like one of his interludes. And then like she was at the fallen compound.
02:27:02
Speaker
Okay, there's one. to like we get told all the way in arc nine when the undersiders are running from her because she shot a tattletale in the leg or something so then the next time we see her is now
02:27:26
Speaker
okay I think so. Yeah, that's not enough. like three times. shes yeah Yeah, she's been kind of a named boogeyman, but not really present. Yeah. And it's...
02:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, she's just she's she's very aloof. It's great as an outer character, but as soon as we get into trying to skip straight to a large event that involves her as the central character doing who knows what type things, when her goal was very, well...
02:28:02
Speaker
weren're we weren't sure, kind of specific, it was going after cluster people, very specifically foil. If this was foil's death, I still think it would have been unearned or foil's capture or whatnot.
02:28:18
Speaker
um It's ah yeah, we would like, because there's just, what the heck is this abstracted
02:28:30
Speaker
You know, i my gosh. Yeah. All of that. And I don't think her power in terms of timing makes sense as being strong enough when it comes to group dynamics.
02:28:42
Speaker
Like if everybody shoots a bullet at her from 15 different directions, like I don't care what your timing is. Like I don't see you dodging the Gatling gun and five other powers coming at you because you can only go, you move forward five steps. And by the time you try to talk to the next person to throw a shield, they shoot you in the head. Like it really an unbelievable amount of power given to a demonstrably minor character.
02:29:17
Speaker
Um, even if her power is timing, even if she has sting, we would like, we would not give Flechette this much. Like the only reason Flechette is as powerful as we you know, we know is because of a very specific instance that we developed through shooting all the end bringers and then ultimately getting to, okay, but wait, this does actually do more than we think it does, even though we've been using it for the same reasons.
02:29:46
Speaker
And then, you know, the final blow. But that's 30 arcs of lead up, you know? Foyle doesn't even get the final blow, technically. She just opens the gateway for the the giant gun. It's a team effort to kill Scion, right?
02:30:03
Speaker
Yeah. If March's timing was really so great, where was she at the Scion fight? Like, I mean... That's funny. yeah She's really so unstoppable.
02:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, I just, yeah I find it all to be unbelievable. I think there's some good yeah chat yeah moments here that I want to highlight before we move on.
02:30:27
Speaker
Um, Ian notes that March is and is, she's not interested or invested in the living world. So she's difficult to be interested or invested in for us. So that doesn't help.
02:30:40
Speaker
And then Jay man says, i actually think she had interesting elements, but not great setup and with bad execution, like a lot of things in ward.
02:30:51
Speaker
Hmm. so Yeah, i she's this she's the summation of, I think, of a lot of the little ward problems. Like, yeah, interesting concept, some some fun stuff to play with, and just really wasn't executed very well in terms of how how she was developed.
02:31:10
Speaker
lightly touch on this because I really don't think there's much more to say about this but ah as Truett and Fran have both pointed out um the one thing they really don't like about ah this is that March is another one of the few canonically queer women who is a lesbian and once again she's man in we talked about Tori maybe in a predatory relationship and yeah also the bad guy yeah um yeah You know, while they're not like lesbians, because
02:31:43
Speaker
I yeah. I mean, what other like good role model women have we seen in other than foil and Aryan and Parian?
02:31:55
Speaker
Oh, bless. Of course. How could I forget them? They're adorable. i'm I'm trying to think. there I'm sure there's another. There's not that many. There's not that many queer people in Worm or Wild Boat either. Which Boy Howdy does... Worm or Ward either. I'm reading Pale, and Boy Howdy does ah our boy try to make up for that as hard as possible. Oh, bless him. I'm sure it's an innocent mistake. and It's just... Oh, no, no, no. I don't think it's it it's at all malicious. I think it just happens to yeah be the case. It's definitely one of those things. Narwhal gives off strong. Yeah.
02:32:34
Speaker
Well, Narwhal's not, i don't know, but Narwhal, in my opinion, is the same way you treat all of the gods from Hades um in Hades 2, video games, which is they just fuck.
02:32:47
Speaker
There's not really a sexuality other than that. right um I think that's pansexual. Who are they? They fuck. That's who they are. um yeah What's your sexuality? Greek.
02:33:01
Speaker
no Yeah, Greek sexuality. Yeah, so Narwhal gets put on god tier when it comes to that. What do you mean? um if they would be limited by mortals. ah Yeah. True.
02:33:13
Speaker
ah true Yeah. I don't know. yeah Valid criticism. just I don't think it's on purpose. But it is still valid. yeah But it is so it is still valid.
02:33:26
Speaker
um With all of that, a finish on the just another thing I've come to having read Pale and having read Worm are an and a Ward now, which is at Worm, I still think, has the best plotting of all of them.
02:33:45
Speaker
Now that I've read up to Pale, that's all of the, you through Twig ah and the others, I've already forgotten Twig, Pact, Pale, Ward, and Worm.
02:33:56
Speaker
um it Worm is just the tightest story. And in terms of like making sure everything is in, everything is like, uh, tied back together. Um, it has a plot. And I know from what I've heard is that wild bow had the most time for planning on that one.
02:34:18
Speaker
Um, he wasn't writing. I'm sure he was writing, but he wasn't writing anything big that taking most of his brain power and whatnot, you know, before he moved into the next one. So he had the most prep time for that. However,
02:34:29
Speaker
I know that some people say his writing gets better and I feel like there is aspects of his writing that gets better um teamwork complexity. He was already a complex writer, but he, I think he does a very good job However, i think his writing gets worse every single time.
02:34:53
Speaker
He, as I've talked about in the, you know, we each have spoiler chats for, you know, ones we're reading and whatnot. ah Pale, you could, for some chapters, knock out nine out of 10 paragraphs and nothing would change in your reading because it's just useless words.
02:35:08
Speaker
It's an amazing amount of useless words and paragraphs. And you could say like, oh, but it's important. I'm like, no, it's not. I've skipped whole pages and nothing. I went back. i was like, oh, and maybe I missed something. And the answer is no, you don't.
02:35:20
Speaker
You don't miss anything. You don't miss anything by skipping one or two pages in some of those arcs. Like waiting in time there's entire chapters you might be able to skip and it doesn't matter. I still really enjoy the overall story, but coming back from that, which is, you know, the one after Ward, I come back to Ward and it's not nearly as bad, but there's a lot of just superfluous paragraphs.
02:35:47
Speaker
And... If this is all part of just the experiment of him writing to just takes his pen. he doesn't do a whole lot of editing because obviously how could you?
02:36:00
Speaker
And he just writes down and he writes, you know, brain to paper, you know what he's got, you know, semi plotted out then as an experiment, that's great.
02:36:12
Speaker
But by the time we've gotten to ward and pale, as I'm reading, It's been more than five years. You would think that, not eloquation, but like his ability to say what he wants to say
02:36:35
Speaker
in the like in a non-superfluous amount of words would have been a skill that he has improved upon. And he has just gotten worse.
02:36:50
Speaker
I wonder if that's just a product of the web serial-ness of his writings where he's driven more by needing to release a certain amount of words every week or so, right? And so that's the driving factor with how he writes. I'm speculating. As opposed to like, okay, let me complete this idea.
02:37:15
Speaker
You know, where, oh, hey, that was only... a thousand words to complete the idea, but I need to release 5,000
Writing Style and Publishing Challenges
02:37:21
Speaker
words. So, you know, again, I don't know how his brain works, but I would imagine that probably, probably plays a factor in it. I wonder how that's changed over time.
02:37:30
Speaker
I really am interested in hearing his, uh, hearing his, um, like his shorter stuff that he's released claw. And I think still doing seek, maybe I'll be honest. I lost track of a,
02:37:44
Speaker
more you know up-to-date ones, but I know Claw at least is a shorter one, um how that fares in comparison. um And part of this is something that we have discussed with Brandon Sanderson, where Brandon Sanderson, while he does write a lot, and I do think there are, sometimes it gets a little bit more than necessary.
02:38:06
Speaker
Generally, it's it's good. It's good writing and can be a lot, but whatever. And then we got to his newest book in the Stormlight Archives.
02:38:17
Speaker
It is, of course, bigger than any, ah I think it's like 700,000 words or something like that. It's, you know, it's a stupid amount for a book. But that's to be expected. And however, as we discussed, it was an incredibly fluff book.
02:38:35
Speaker
There is... he needed better book. Basically nothing happens in that book except at the very beginning and the very end. And as Nick pointed out to me, i was like, what is wrong with this book? Why did nothing happen for 700,000 words or however many it was?
02:38:53
Speaker
And Nick, you told me that sadly, his editor that he's had for all of his other stuff passed away. And so now he has a team of editors or whatever to keep up with his writing because he writes so much and so fast.
02:39:07
Speaker
And the feeling that they might have been, and this is not like, He's Brandon Sanderson, so it's kind of hard, but maybe a more yes-men than critical, like his previous editor had been.
02:39:21
Speaker
There was a lot of reeling that in. And without that, the work really suffers. And I think that it would, while Bo doesn't have that, editing's part of, the and the lack of editing, rather, is part of the process of a serial.
02:39:39
Speaker
It is just amazing And not amazing. That's sarcastic. I am disappointed to find that as time goes on, he does not know how to say what he wants to say in a concise fashion.
02:39:54
Speaker
I agree with you. i would also, as you were talking, i was thinking about it and kind of the idea that like you you do see it with authors Alan and I were talking about the whole thing about um one of the great things about traditional publishing is that you have a team of people that you can throw your books off of. You have your publisher and who puts their logo on everything. You have a team of editors. You usually have your literary agent. There's a whole process of people. And the goal is, is that they're there to help you.
02:40:29
Speaker
craft your book until it's perfect ready to go out onto market and with ah self-publishing or with doing a web serial like this like you don't have that team of people and so you I feel like Wildbo has pretty hardcore people who read you know every time he posts new something and then the comments go off but like even then with their help with some editing stuff and spelling whatever like that's that's a lot that's coming out all at once and no one is holding him to any kind of like, oh, you need to be meeting, you know, you need to be doing this in order to make your book publishable. Like he he does what he wants. He writes what he wants and he puts it out there. And other than like small edits, like spelling stuff, he doesn't edit stuff really. And i think that that can, there can be pros and cons to that. But like, out as you were talking, Alan, was thinking about it of like,
02:41:27
Speaker
we read certain writers because of what we like about them. Like, oh, I really like reading so-and-so because
02:41:39
Speaker
of their characters or because of their world building or whatever. It's like, Wild Boat just likes to go off, like Brandon Sanderson. And feel like if I skip something, I've missed something major.
02:41:51
Speaker
And i I mean, I haven't read anything else other than Worm and Ward, obviously, but like, i I mean...
02:42:02
Speaker
yeah I don't know. i I feel like that's... I don't like when you go on and on and on so much, ah but with the web seal serial format as it is, like it works for him and it works for most of the readers.
02:42:20
Speaker
Yeah. But I think... Well, i just, to wrap what I was saying up, just that I think that the my problem isn't him going on and on and on because he did that with Worm. My problem is is that there feels like there's a lack of focus and plotting why that I think makes the story feel more kind of rambly where we're like, I, where what well, I say, wait, I'll say me. I feel like I, you know, and I'm not as connecting as much to the story or the people, whatever. And it's like, I think that doesn't feel that way with Worm because it felt, the plot felt tighter, I guess.
02:43:05
Speaker
And I don't, I didn't mind it because I felt like I knew what was happening. It does, it to to go back, then Jacob said I think there is something to maybe realizing you know the web serial format you're sort of looking for a certain word count per submission right to give your readers the feeling like okay this is worth my time ah you know I'm committed to this this is enough content for me it is sort of the sort of the content bloat in a way maybe of
02:43:39
Speaker
Worm did feel like it was written from an outline, but from a very, from like a complete outline maybe. Whereas Ward has felt like more like it's an incomplete outline.
02:43:52
Speaker
And so to Jacob's point, I can easily see somebody writing into this and being like, oh, this is what I wanted to happen in arc 12. Man, I just wrote out all of arc 12 in a single chapter. i need to branch this out more. Like i need something to happen.
02:44:09
Speaker
You know, like, I i don't know. i And I don't know if that's the case. Again, i I've not written a true web serial in the sense that I'm trying to publish something every week, so I have no idea the pressure that comes with that.
02:44:21
Speaker
Oh gosh, I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. like But I can't imagine. it's It's a little bit too of maybe just... I don't know. I find, you know, to counter Alan's point, I find that oftentimes the longer I write on the same thing, the more bloated it gets.
02:44:40
Speaker
And I wonder if it's almost like overworked dough where like Ward is just, he just keeps going and going and going and is like, I don't really know when when I'm going to stop or where this is going to go, but I'm just going to keep going. People are along for the ride if they want to be. And here we are. And so it it does feel, all that to say, it does feel a little bit more bloated and a little bit more just like,
02:45:03
Speaker
I don't know. it it's it feels more directionless than Wyrm did, too. I think we kind of alluded to that earlier as well. just I don't quite no i don't know. i don't know what it is. there's just The vibes are a lot of...
02:45:19
Speaker
the vibes are off and log in it we've we've actually talked about think i think we may have even made this exact comparison before but it just feels relevant again um you know it feels like the the legend of korra problem where the creators of korra weren't guaranteed future seasons so they couldn't write uh an overarching narrative they had to contain everything to a season at a time unlike avatar a last airbender and that like core is good it's it's it's fun it's a good watch fans like it but you feel the lack of that larger cohesive story that's being told really negatively impacts the overall show and it feels like a lot of that in ward where we're just sort of lacking that overall narrative like i'm enjoying the bits and pieces and the stories and the characters and the world building and the interactions and the fights like
02:46:13
Speaker
ah individual elements of it are are are fun, and i'm I'm having fun and a good time reading it, but the amount of time we put into it with so so little accomplished, is ah it it just drags. It gets it gets really, really sloggy.
02:46:32
Speaker
yeah Well, don't despair yet because to soften Alan's opinion, all of chat disagrees with his later work. So we'll see you how we all feel when we get there.
02:46:43
Speaker
You know what I mean? We're used to disagree with that. Are different. think... are different ah i think As I've said, his ability to write characters does improve.
02:46:56
Speaker
I think his ability to write complex systems is incredibly interesting and... Amazing. ah um' it's It's good. I'm not... if He bites more deep, maybe not complex. I know that's a weird way to describe it, but he writes deeper systems...
02:47:12
Speaker
as complexity stays just as complex as and good as it always has, um, his characters are deeper and more complex. Their ability to, the dynamic that characters have so much better. He's plotting though. um,
02:47:30
Speaker
With that, his writing meanders and in like so much more in Twig. And Pact is not as bad.
02:47:41
Speaker
um i think it's closer to Worm. But you so can start at Worm and you can just trail downhill in terms of like where the plot goes. Yeah. and like where it ends up at the end. Like it just, we'll see how pale goes, but right now pale is just, it's not a matter of, it's not even a matter of the big story. Although that I do have problems with that and I'm enjoying reading it. It's just randomly there's,
02:48:09
Speaker
just whole chapters that are, and it's, it's, it's paragraph, pay paragraph where so many paragraphs just aren't necessary and they don't need to be in there. Um, I, Fran, I will be checking out claw. If it's the least bloated work and I'm interested in seeing what he looks like in a tight, I forget how many arcs it is, but I think it's like, what's six, seven, eight arcs. Who knows?
02:48:31
Speaker
Um, yeah for Hannah, um asking ah from Bhatti. As someone who is... i Really quick, before you read that.
02:48:43
Speaker
What are we reading after Ward? What it what is the plan? Is Pact next after Ward? I think we should figure that out. Okay.
02:48:54
Speaker
I didn't know if we had determined what was next after Ward. No, I don't think there's any specific. No, not really. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, Alan. um from Vati ah question for Hannah as someone who is it was published two stellar books and working on a third how does Wildbo's approach to writing and plotting differ from yours ah First of all, Wild Bo's a beast. I could never write as much as Wild Bo writes. i dream of being able to write like that because be able to churn out so much so fast on a regular schedule, it takes the most immense amount of dedication that I i honestly do not have at all.
02:49:39
Speaker
um That's really nice of you to say that they're stellar books. Thank you so much. ah um I don't know what Wild Bo's writing process is. Exactly, but I can tell you mine is not anywhere near close to writing that much every week like that. um The Black Crown I wrote a lot faster because I wrote it in a year. I was on a mental deadline that I had set for myself. And ah I still feel, looking back, like it needed so much more work. And like, yeah, no, I...
02:50:16
Speaker
for for for Looking at how many drafts I go through and looking at how many drafts Wild Bo goes through, the stuff that he's putting out and this the complexity of the systems are like insane for the amount of of stuff that he's turning out like that. And I went through Black Crown. Well, I'll tell you, Black Hand went through 15 drafts before I published it, and Black Crown went through eight, I believe. And that's with a ton of beta readers and an editor.
02:50:52
Speaker
ah And... rounds of beta readers actually so yeah I I mean I definitely don't come close to the kind of output that wild bo has like that um uh yeah no not in the same league at all but uh like I mean the thing that I learned with writing The Black Crown was consistency. Like, if you are going to write a book, you have to be consistent. And, like, Wildbo has shown that with everything that he's written because he stays consistent and he's posting consistently.
02:51:27
Speaker
And having that kind of, like, accountability was how I got through how I finished The Black Crown in a year because I was writing weekly with a friend. We got on every Wednesday and every Saturday and we wrote for at least two hours each of those days.
02:51:43
Speaker
And... That's the only way I would have finished that book. Otherwise, no. And I'm still working on book three, and I took a lot of time off this year because I rushed through the Black Crown so quickly and burned myself out.
02:52:03
Speaker
And so, i'm I mean, the Black Kingdom probably won't be out until 2027, 2027. seven end of twenty twenty seven So, yeah, no.
02:52:20
Speaker
I have criticisms about Wild Bill, but not when it comes to his output. Holy moly. I will say your writing from book one to book two, I think, is much tighter.
02:52:33
Speaker
um Oh, thank you. Thank you. I think it reads a lot a lot better than the first book. Not that the first book is bad, but like book two was like, oh, shoot, like,
02:52:44
Speaker
I thought it was thank you ah an improvement from the first book. Very nice of you say. Visibly so. Well, book one also was originally ah really long, and I cut it back. I cut about 50,000 words out, which compared to coming into Wild Bill, that's like, what'd you do?
02:53:07
Speaker
Anyways, yeah. Yeah. but They are both phenomenal books too as well. Just to add on to that. oh As one of your beta readers, I really enjoyed being a part of the process.
02:53:20
Speaker
He had amazing feedback. Bernard, to answer your question, I have been reading the essays thanks to and detachments. Thanks to ah our patrons for telling me to do that. Otherwise, i was just skipping right by those because I didn't even know they were a thing.
02:53:35
Speaker
um But apparently I'd only skipped like two when i when they told me. A big congratulations to, i believe, Truett, who got a double bingo.
02:53:47
Speaker
um Cat on screen. Jacob makes his movie TV comparisons. How many are in the goddesses cluster? Michael wrangling them in, as well as Alan ranting goddess cluster marches bullshit. And someone
Book Purchases and Community Events
02:53:58
Speaker
had to check whether they were reading the right chapters.
02:54:01
Speaker
Let's go! Yeah, other ones, because we're just going to finish this out, other ones that were on there, the guy were arguing whether March is cool or not, anger about Vista's death, confused over what the hell is happening, um and then the ones we didn't get is, is this the peak of the story?
02:54:16
Speaker
Hannah crying, Milk, someone other than Hannah cries. Actually, Nick did a pull of Milk earlier. so we did i did pull on Milk. It didn't feel genuine.
02:54:27
Speaker
Yeah, his prance around some bullshit, which I do think could be marked off as well. And Nick, ghostful teacher. Well, if we need a little milk comment, Vic did call out Alan. He said, maybe Alan's just a hater. Ever since the milk incident, he's changed.
02:54:42
Speaker
I was drinking cider today. Thank you very much. Good old apple cider. J-Man asks, how can you find those books?
02:54:53
Speaker
Oh, that's so nice. Thank you so much. ah So the first two books in my trilogy, The Black Hand and The Black Crown are available where all books are sold. um They're on Kindle Unlimited. They are available through Kindle, ah Amazon, um Thrift Books, Barnes and Noble. You can get them wherever books are sold.
02:55:13
Speaker
You can then request them from your local library or from your local store. You can request them from if you have a local bookstore near you. That's not like not a chain. You can go in and you can request them and they will special order them. They're available in paperback and hardcover. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
02:55:36
Speaker
I have a special shelf. So um these books, first of all, f freaking gorgeous. My artist who did them, Devani Yoptic, crushed it.
02:55:48
Speaker
um She did the most beautiful artwork for both of them. This is the first one. and of This is the second one. um Really gorgeous. Really beautiful. Try that one more time. You were frozen. You were frozen.
02:56:01
Speaker
was frozen. i thought Okay, I'll hold it up again just in case. Well, my perspective is what everyone sees. That's true. rare But, but yeah, so there we go. That worked. that were yeah we There we go.
02:56:17
Speaker
Okay, good. ah My author name is H.M. Reinhardt. So you can link it in the chat right now, too, if you want, Hannah, before we get off. Oh, I could. Oh my God, you guys. I'm going to it. Last things, we're going to skip the powers because I don't really think we introduced any new ones.
02:56:35
Speaker
The only one I want to call out there is Ixnay, who has the joke power we've talked about where you're invisible if you don't look at them directly. Yes. Good call out. Thank you. That's hilarious. That's the only one I wanted to mention.
02:56:48
Speaker
That is Ixnay. And also can free stuff, I think. Ixnay is confusing. But at least has that, which I thought was funny. It just goes like, no. Yeah. um All right. And i don't know if i can but this ah Bernard points out Kindle Limited is US and UK and not in Singapore. Oh, Singapore is in China.
02:57:13
Speaker
Oh my God. You know what, Bernard? oh Bernard, if you want to read, if you want to read the black hand, you let me know. I'll find a way to get you ah of a file. I'll find a way to get it to you. um I can't, I'm stupid and I don't hold on. Let me, let me. Hold on one second. While she's figuring out, it's Michael, what is, what is next on our announcement? Okay. So excitement, exciting.
02:57:39
Speaker
Um, We are going to do a community event in two weeks where you all get to hang out with us. So we're going to do something new to the Brockton Bay Book Club. We're going to try and do some live gaming with everyone who wants to.
02:57:55
Speaker
We might do some, depending on ah what we decide, we might also read fanfic, but we're not sure. But we're just going to do a hangout session. um and you are all invited.
02:58:08
Speaker
If you're on the Patreon, we will all be in we will all be in the chat and you can join the chat and we can all hear you live if you want. And if not, we'll, if you're not a, if you're not a in the discord because you're not a patron you will still be able to join we will have the ways to join the games um probably jackbox games and things like that so that it's easy for everyone to join with just a room code and you don't get to be in chat with us but we'll still have the normal live stream chat you just won't be in discord
02:58:44
Speaker
Or you could just cough up a dollar, you know get in the patron. desk Or you can come and hang out in there for a dollar. Exactly. What if we played the board game?
02:58:55
Speaker
We could play as many people as we want. There's a lot of different options of games. Among Us? We could play Among Us. we could yes oh what day is that going to be on, Michael? That's what I'm trying to tell you. it'll be on Tuesday again.
02:59:12
Speaker
The 27th. So that's in two weeks. Um, and we are excited for this new kind of just chill, get to know each other community event where we all get to connect more.
02:59:28
Speaker
Um, and yeah, just have a fun time. We haven't tried anything like this. Let us know your ideas, especially if you're a patron. Um, what you want to do, what you want to see, what you would like to play.
02:59:41
Speaker
And we have some ideas, so don't worry about that. But if there's something specific, let us know. Just so you know, it's because we're still traveling around for holidays and stuff. It's not like this is going to be like we're moving to once a month reading.
02:59:54
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no. This is not at all. It's actually so weird. It's mostly work stuff for people who have conferences and things work for me. I was trying to give them an out, Michael, but that's fine. It's worked for me. and work and I'm the working man.
03:00:09
Speaker
um It's important. I must do work things. Will it be recorded? Yeah, it'll be a live stream just like normal. So you'll get to watch it back after the live has ended just like normal. It'll just be on the main channel. Everyone can join the live stream.
03:00:26
Speaker
But instead of talking about um what we've read, we're going to hang out and play some games and stuff. yeah We're still going to finish arc 12, just not in two weeks because Nick and Hannah potentially won't be able to join, but we didn't want to do an off week and have you guys waited it being longer to hang out. So we figured let's hang out and have fun.
03:00:49
Speaker
And I will be at some point in time, maybe I'll make it just next Tuesday at the same time, ah work and play the rest of Dispatch, the Picket playthrough. oh yeah, yeah. That's super well funny.
03:01:06
Speaker
I've probably got a few more sessions in me. i I went and started playing my own playthrough as well with Hannah because I was just like, I love this. I need to play this again. It was very fun. I've enjoyed it immensely thus far.
03:01:19
Speaker
But we need we need to finish that. And we also have our anime thing to finish. So maybe we'll clean that up. yeah Our anime thing, Alan? Our? Look, I wanted to do it by myself because I knew it was going to take a while. And I had it like down to like an hour and something. like Just like me like banging it out as quickly as possible. And then you're like, oh, but we should all do it together. And I was like, okay, if you want this to take three hours.
03:01:46
Speaker
It's taking more than three hours now. ah I was just going to make that a one and done. Like, hey guys, 40 minutes. I'm just going to go bang, bang, bang, bang. Instead, I just have whole series.
03:02:00
Speaker
How are we going to make sure everyone read the hidden session in Arc 12? I have no idea what the hidden session is. if Please elaborate, Bernard.
03:02:13
Speaker
Well, unless spoilers. you had a unless Somebody would elaborate in the word spoilers chat. yeah I have no idea what this is. Is it a spoiler? I mean, it's hidden. There's a hidden something?
03:02:26
Speaker
Arc 12? Is it? just remember Just remember to read slash listen until the end. The end of Arc 12. Yeah, which we'll yeah and the march we'll do we'll be doing we We always read everything.
03:02:41
Speaker
For sure. Right. Yeah. Okay. No problem. It's not like hidden in comments or something, right? but If it's a if as's an old part of the arc, we will read 100%. onivery not to All right.
03:02:55
Speaker
Don't skip the outro. Don't skip the outro. That's all right. This is one of those Yuri on ice. They start to put stuff at the end after the credits. I have a feeling that most of our feelings towards this half of this arc are going to be changed at the end of the... We'll see. Some of these are structural issues.
03:03:14
Speaker
Well, yeah. Some of them, but, you know, we'll see. Also, I love the TTs in chat. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it makes me so happy. ah All right. All right. oh ah Real quick before we close out.
03:03:27
Speaker
Yes. You haven't already and you want to. We have merch. boom Oh, my goodness. Oh, shoot. Nick, what are you even doing? he sure ah i'm I'm in in color. I'm in color, I guess. i think is Nick is partially sick, guys. Don't be mean to him. I am also a little ill.
03:03:50
Speaker
ah We have the Brockton Bay Book Club logo t-shirt that I'm wearing. And then we have the Brockton Bay's sweatshirt that Jacob and Michael are wearing right now. And I want you all to know...
03:04:03
Speaker
There is more coming. I'm currently in the works designing a book club bingo t-shirt with all of your favorite bingo things. And if there's a specific item you'd like on the bingo card that you just have to include, oh don't worry. Milk is on the bingo card. about and we want let me know.
03:04:21
Speaker
As it should be. It'll go on the shirt. And then we're also working on stickers. And I kind of want to do some like really something really fun. Maybe like a hoodie or something. But we're still working on the kinks.
03:04:34
Speaker
What about black hand merch? Oh, my gosh. Okay. ah I have no black hand merch. Sorry. yeah Problems to solve. um Michael, do you have a song to play us out? Let's go ahead and play out.
03:04:49
Speaker
All right. Thank you so much for all being here. We love all of you. Thanks to our patrons. And Michael. Join the Patreon. Please come on in. Join the Patreon.
03:05:00
Speaker
Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come support us and join the Patreon. Please help us enjoy.
03:05:20
Speaker
all right. We will see on the 27th for community hangout time.
03:05:33
Speaker
see you all there. or a community hangout time let us know if you're part of the discord what you want us to do and we can't wait to see you all there
03:05:48
Speaker
Bye. It's pretty long. Three hours and nine minutes right now. Pretty good. It couldn't be done. Bye.
03:06:14
Speaker
It's great now. Join the Patreon. Why don't you just join the Patreon?