Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Arc 14: Prey
541 Plays1 year ago
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
-----------------------------------
Episode Description:
"You were frank, open, honest, and you stood out because of how you handled yourself when the Brockton Bay Book Club started getting rambunctious and heckling you.”
Get in contact with us @brocktonbaybc
-----------------------------------
Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast:
Zencastr
Use my special link to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.
-----------------------------------
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:10) - Dissecting Begins
(41:20) - Zencastr
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Worm and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by J.C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans.wordpress.com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon.com slash wildbo. 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. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Brockton Bay Book Club Introduction
00:01:12
Speaker
Good morning, Brockton Bay. It's pie in the sky and they say they're not by, but boy, does she go round kissing. It's the Brockton Bay book club podcast. Everyone. Hey, oh, that's pretty good. Yeah, that was pretty good. Better than I expected. Yeah. Just something looking through my notes and all I see is not by not by
00:01:37
Speaker
I like how this arc is crazy, but that's what you pulled from it. It's what we all paid attention to. It's the biggest thing on my page. It is in quotations, underlined and circled twice in a row. We'll get there. It's a few chapters away, but let's back up. It'll be a bit here. Welcome. Welcome back everybody.
00:02:04
Speaker
Thank you. And welcome to all of our listeners.
Discussion on Worm Arc 14
00:02:06
Speaker
We are in arc 14 of Worm.
00:02:10
Speaker
We are at the Brockton Bay Book Club, and we have made it so far, and yet still have so far to go. But we wrap up a pretty fun few arcs here, really. It feels like the conclusion of a pretty big storyline with the Slaughterhouse line at the moment. So let's... Yeah, we're calling this the end of season two. Yeah, this will be our end of season two, quote unquote.
00:02:38
Speaker
We're just going to dive in. It's a long arc. We had a lot to get to. Probably one of my favorite arcs too. It is. This was one of the arcs that I felt like I couldn't put down. There would be things like you're reading and somebody tries to talk to you and you're like, hang on. Give me a moment, please. That's what this arc felt like because there was just so much that
00:03:07
Speaker
You just wanted to keep going. You wanted to know what was going to happen. Figure out how are they going to get out of this one? How are they going to get through this? And every time, because even though I've read it before and I know a lot of what happens and I'm, but I'm remembering it as I go and I'm thinking, wait, I think this is what happens. Is that what happens? Is this a false memory? And it was just so fun. I had a great time with this one. Yeah.
Skitter's Role in a Chaotic World
00:03:29
Speaker
One thing I love about Arc 14 and Worm in general, but I think Arc 14 really highlights it is that when you're reading Worm, it doesn't feel like you're reading about the protagonist of the world, right? Like Superman feels like the entire world revolves around Superman, but in Worm, Skitter just feels like and Taylor just feels like
00:03:53
Speaker
anybody who's existing in this crazy world. And I feel like Arc 14 really highlights that a lot as she's flying around, as she's seeing everything else is going on. It really feels like this is a living world that is moving all around her chaotically and she's doing her best to sort of stay above water.
Chapter Summaries of Worm Arc 14
00:04:14
Speaker
And I just love the way that feels when you're reading it. Oh yeah. It's a fun feeling. Absolutely.
00:04:20
Speaker
All right, let's dive in. Hannah, I got some chapter summaries for us. I do. And I don't really know how to clump these. Yeah, they kind of all blend together. They really do. Should I just go one at a time for now and just see how it goes from there? Yeah, we'll kind of try to go chapter... Yeah, I mean, it's going to blend together. There's no way around that. I really, really will. We'll do it the best we can.
00:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, so chapter one, if you guys remember from the end of arc 13, where we had Taylor and Brian talking about what had happened with Brian and then falling asleep
Siberian's Vulnerability Revealed
00:05:00
Speaker
on the couch. Well, chapter one is Taylor waking up from being dead asleep and drooling all over Brian's shoulder.
00:05:07
Speaker
And then the undersiders and the travelers kind of have this little moment where they decide whether they will or they won't talk to Cherish. And eventually they do and the undersiders talk to Cherish and learn a little bit about Siberian and that she isn't quite what she appears to be and that she has another body that is more vulnerable.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, huge reveal right off the bat. Of all the things that I remember from my very first read through, this is one of the details that I do remember. I knew that Siberian had another farm, but I didn't remember anything about it. And so reading that bit just gave me shivers. I was like, oh, it's happening. It's happening.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, this is definitely a fun reveal and it makes sense too. I think that, you know, this is, we've learned all about these super powerful people, but they always kind of make sense, you know, it's like, okay, like they're super powerful, but they've got something or some like small crack or something to break them. And so it finally is like, okay, yes, now we know why Siberian is so powerful. It's because she's literally not there.
00:06:31
Speaker
It's essentially a created unstoppable force that nothing can touch. Everything slides off, nothing can withstand it, you know? Which is, yeah, it's wild. Before we get to that though and talk more about that, I do like the little kind of homely moment that they have before all of the action begins.
Character Complexity: Taylor and Alec
00:06:52
Speaker
Taylor waking up, talking with Alec casually about all the terrible things Alec has done.
00:07:01
Speaker
Just small things that he's done, no big deal. Just the little stuff. There's a sentence, I don't remember what he says, but I was like, Alec, everything in there that you just said is a mess. It's just a mess. And you just get the sense of them kind of being like, yeah, these are a lot of messed up people trying to
00:07:28
Speaker
trying to figure out how to make things work. Yeah. And kind of reminding us that there are still secrets about this group that we still don't know.
Alec and Aisha's Friendship
00:07:40
Speaker
And like, it's, it's easy to, to, you know, like Alec because of his, all of his little quips and stuff, but because of Cherish, we now know more about him and it's not, it's not a pretty picture.
00:07:53
Speaker
I like the beginning of Alec and Aisha's friendship, which is kind of fun. It feels like they shouldn't be friends, but then when you think about it, it's like, I like it when they're hanging out. They probably get each other a lot more than the other members do. This is every couple of kids that I have in my youth group
00:08:20
Speaker
but I just look at them and I'm like, this will not end well. And it never does. And I can only sit there and judgily be like, you're 14. Please don't be doing.
00:08:35
Speaker
everything that you're currently doing. That's just in general. Yeah. Well, they're the two that feel most like teenagers in this group, even though technically they all are like, they feel like the most teen, you know, with their little giggling from the kitchen. Like, I love that kind of very real normalness, you know, normalcy that is happening amongst all the crazy things with The Slaughterhouse Nine.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I will
Siberian's Threat and Panacea's Struggle
00:09:07
Speaker
put my Aisha hate to the side just to say that just like her brother, she proceeds to nail Taylor to the wall. Like, man. Yeah, she's smart. She's quick. There's some line. I feel like there's some line in the scene to where her and Alec high five and it is that moment that you're talking about, Alan, but
00:09:32
Speaker
You just kind of love it. I just kind of, for sure. They've got, they both have like, cause cause he, Alec probably actually brings out the more reserved side of Aisha and Aisha probably draws out the more goober goblin energy out of Alec. Probably, probably. Yeah.
00:09:58
Speaker
I like it too because they both, both Aisha and Alec kind of have that same desire for family that they don't have. And so seeing them not just bond together over that, but sort of through each other are able to interact with the others. I feel like they're their friends off to the side in the background that are making bets off of what's going to happen.
00:10:26
Speaker
Like, you know, Taylor says something stupid that clearly confesses her love for Brian and Alex's size and slides a $5 bill over to Ayesha. Yes. I love it. Love it. I love seeing that friendship camaraderie. Kind of, I don't know. It brings down all the weight of what's about to happen in this arc to start off with such like a chill moment.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's the deep breath before the plunge. Indeed. As one wizard once said. Which wizard, Jacob? Oh, Gandalf. You know what, I'm going to say El Minster and maybe one of you. Dumbledore said it in the fifth episode of season one of Deep Space Nine of the show, Avatar the Last Airbender. Yes. He was speaking to Aslan.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yep. I've heard that on that scene. It's like that, that, that t-shirt that all the nerds hate words, quote by, quote by Dumbledore. It's like, use the force Frodo. And it's got Sean, it's got the card on it.
00:11:49
Speaker
Well, we're fucking nerds. Yep. Chapter two. So, Siberian is hunting down Panacea and they're all kind of tracking the situation and Skidder works to help Amy try and escape all the while while she hunts for the real Siberian. She has a little bit of difficulty there while Amy tries to fight her, but trying to keep an eye out for her all the same.
00:12:18
Speaker
Maybe I'm late to the Amy party on this one. The Amy party is in full swing, but go ahead. No, no, no, no. I just mean with the community. Cause this is the first time I've been not just reading it and just thoroughly like eating it up and enjoying it. Like this time I'm actually like swishing it around in my mouth. And something that I thought about this time when thinking about Amy is that given what we know about powers,
00:12:49
Speaker
and kinda how aggressive they tend to be. And for those who know, but Amy, I think in part might be so miserable as a human being because she is actively fighting against the fact that she has powers.
00:13:17
Speaker
And that she's constantly like, even when she is using them, which she doesn't want to do, she's doing it in a very passive on the backend of things. She is not a frontliner. Um, she is act, you know, she is avoiding frontline interactions, but that is what her power wants to do. And it makes me wonder if
00:13:47
Speaker
while, you know, not take to take any agency away from her decisions and her actions. But it does make me think a lot about like, why is she so miserable? Why is she like this? Maybe it's because part of her personality right now is constantly in contention with her power. Hmm.
00:14:10
Speaker
No, I think that's yeah, I mean, I'm marking the time because maybe maybe we'll cut this. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure that that is the case. I think I think that's all but confirmed by Wild Bo. Is that her misery? Because it's not just her. I think there's other characters as well. We might get to later, but that that are
00:14:33
Speaker
That's part of the character is there's misery in fighting against what her power is supposed to do. This is why I'm saying, am I late to the Amy party on that that I just didn't realize before? No. And as we get to the story, I think that's a big part of her character. That's pretty, pretty fun to get into. But yeah, one and part of that too, Alan, I don't think you need to feel bad for missing it because I'm literally only thinking about that now because you said it. Um,
00:14:59
Speaker
But it is one of those things that's very easy to miss and. Yeah, it makes sense. Makes sense. I don't know this is too though. I know a couple episodes ago we were kind of talking about.
00:15:15
Speaker
just not liking Amy that much and I kind of feel like this was it. There were these moments here where I was just like, Amy, please, please. It was just so frustrating sometimes.
00:15:36
Speaker
The slow bite, she got three bites already. Yeah. You know? There is no pulling away from the Siberian when she is slowly dragging your fingers towards her mouth. No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. What are you saying? It's a three strike rule with Siberian. She catches you three times. It's game over. She kills you.
00:16:05
Speaker
But clearly Siberian's having fun with this. Like she's enjoying this more than usual. This privileged little bitch is just, she gets four bites where other people only get three. This is such a random thing to me. I don't know why this set me off so much. It starts off with her biting and I'm not going to blame. Yes, that is correct. I do hate Amy.
00:16:29
Speaker
We talked about this. My appreciation for Amy ran out, like, all the way back in Ark. What was it? Like, nine? Like, whatever that, nine, ten, wherever that kicked off. She lost. That was the last of my sympathy. It's gone. Okay, but my thing, though, is that with Amy, is that she, even though she's the worst sometimes, and she's definitely the worst multiple times in this Ark, specifically with Atlas, but, like, just...
00:16:58
Speaker
She's fucking terrified. She hates her own power. She hates herself. She hates everything about everything all the time. This poor girl is not having a good day of it. And it's easy to look, and I think specifically in this chapter, because I was trying to stick chapter by chapter, but with Skitter analyzing her and thinking to herself, well, if I had that power, blah, blah, blah.
Panacea's Moral Dilemma
00:17:22
Speaker
like but you don't though and like Amy is a scared kid and you know the whole with great power comes great responsibility and like Amy obviously can't handle that and she makes bad decisions as we see over and over again but I can't I can't hate her in the same way that I might hate
00:17:42
Speaker
Honestly, I don't hate anybody from this show. Even the people that are awful, like Bonsaw or Jack, I still like them in the ways that make them interesting. But with Amy, she is so stuck. And we see that later with her conversation with Jack.
00:18:01
Speaker
I can't hate her, especially when she's being hunted down by the Siberian, slowly getting her fingers bitten off. To build off of that, I think Amy... I love Amy as a character. Take two, counter Alan here. Yes, thank you. A little bit of balance, please. It's great. Don't get me wrong. I'm talking in-universe.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Fair. Fair. But even in universe, I still love Amy because I think she feels incredibly real as a character. I talk a lot. I think I've even mentioned on this podcast before I made reference to probably something from Manchester by the Sea. I love Manchester by the Sea, saddest movie I've ever seen. I'll never watch it again, but it's very, very good. Part of what makes it so good is that
00:18:47
Speaker
Casey Affleck's character, he plays it so well and it's so real that you just hate him because you see yourself in everything that he's doing and he won't do what you want the character to do because he's a human. And it's just like I was screaming at him watching that movie because I'm like just
00:19:09
Speaker
fucking talk to your wife, damn it. And he just won't. And it's like, oh, it hurts so much. And I feel that with Amy a lot where it's just like, girl, just do the right thing that we all know you should do because we read stories and we know how they're supposed to go and you won't do it. But it's because she feels so real. That's a very realistic reaction to those types of powers is just being incredibly overwhelmed and not knowing what to do and seeing what is very clearly
00:19:38
Speaker
would be for many people a blessing to have her type of ability. And she sees it as a curse is just, it's just, it's really well-written. And like, we're obviously here because we love Wild Bo and we're going to talk about how much we love his writing all the time. But just to say it again, cause it can't be said enough, very well-written character. Yeah. It's I, man, this goes back to my, my hate of melodrama and whatnot. But I, I really enjoy Wild Bo for the most part because
00:20:07
Speaker
These characters are often in terrible situations that they kind of have no power over. And they, even though they have flaws as characters, I'm not typically upset by the main character. They do, but they can, there's very few times that I go, ah, this character clearly should have done this, that dumb idiot.
00:20:36
Speaker
I relate to the main characters so well with wild bow. And part of that is because the things that are defeating them that are beating them are not in their control. They're not like directly a tide to their personality. Um, and, and there's, and for me, when I think like, man, I have a problem and maybe this is just me, I have a problem and it's, it's fucking up my life. Just fix it. You know?
00:21:07
Speaker
Like internally. Yeah. Amy is the antithesis of that where there is, and, and, you know, I just, I see, I do see these people sometimes and I want to grab them by the hair and just be like, just stop. It's the, who's, who's the, is it Steve Carell? Have you, new heart, Bob new heart. Well, have you, have you just tried,
00:21:30
Speaker
not doing that. No, just don't. Which sounds like terrible advice for so many things, but for a lot of times, just don't do that thing. It really isn't that hard. Just don't do it. It's like the reverse Dwight quote. Whenever I'm about to do something, I ask myself, would Amy do that thing? There's the meme. There's the meme, write it down. If she would not, then I do do that thing.
00:21:59
Speaker
I think this gets into 14.3 as well, where I think the line that got me was where Amy says something to the effect of, I'm not going to do that because if it breaks, it breaks my rules. And if I break my rules, I'm no different than you guys. And I'm like, Amy, listen, you don't have to like the undersiders.
00:22:23
Speaker
Right. But there's much worse threats out there, right? Like please. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just, let me just real quick do three because we got, wait, let's just jump right into it. Cause we, so three, uh, panacea is convinced to help skitter on the form of some relay bugs. Um, and they have a very long and interesting conversation. Uh, the protectorate arrive and tattletale talks to director piggett. Um, and skitter finds the real Siberian in a van.
00:22:52
Speaker
But yeah, no, first that conversation with Panacea and Tattletale tries to talk to her and Panacea just shuts her down so fast. And it's like, I'm not talking to you. And she says it's because of what happened at the bank, which feels like so long ago. It should be water under the bridge at this point. And you are still hung up on that?
00:23:14
Speaker
I will say I kind of get that. The longer the story goes, like I still love Tattletale and Lisa, the longer it goes, part of me is like, yeah, she's kind of a bitch. She is kind of a bitch. Oh, no, no. Tattletale is the worst to be on the receiving end of things. That being said, Amy, like she like sits there and blames Tattletale as the catalyst for everything going wrong. No, like she said something. It would have exploded one way or the other. It bothered her.
00:23:44
Speaker
And, and she was like, Oh, well, because I got like, I got irritated and paranoid about that. All of a sudden I began making the worst life decisions possible. And really that's, that's tattletale's fault. Like, no, tattletale literally just was like, I'll tell her if you, you know, if you do anything and then left and never mentioned it again, but you sat there and just wouldn't let it go. Oh.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, what you were saying Nick earlier though is with with panacea in this moment of her like, you know her morality here of trying to like decide if she's going to help the undersiders or help skitter in the form of like modifying her bugs or modifying her brain like she
00:24:27
Speaker
her weird understanding of who is good and who is bad and the heroes and the villains, it feels so contrary to everything that we've learned so far and that even like Tattletale has said that this is really just a big game and it's all about the like, are you playing the game and how does that affect
Panacea's Resistance to Help
00:24:47
Speaker
your life? But Panacea sees it as so much more black and white rather than this big wavy grayscale.
00:24:53
Speaker
And her stubbornness is obnoxious to me. This idea that like, no, you're a villain. So why would I ever help you? Like, bitch, we are up against the slaughterhouse nine. Are you kidding me? And of course, you know, she doesn't want to help Skidder in any way that may last longer than like today. And even the little things that she does
00:25:17
Speaker
with Atlas and just like, oh, it just feels, it feels so petty. And it's like now is not the time to be petty. And your weird moral compass is already fucked up, Panacea. And it's like she's the only one who doesn't see it.
00:25:33
Speaker
I think that's what gets me is it feels very petty in light of other things. Like I completely get her grudge against Tattletale. I completely get her being in a ton of pain from everything that's going on. That makes a ton of sense to me. But it's the situation that they're in currently. It kind of feels like if your house was burning down,
00:25:58
Speaker
and you yelled hey could you please go get my computer i've got really crucial work on it and if it burns up like it's right there grab it my legs hurt i can't get it in time you're literally right next to it please grab it and they're like. Well didn't you use that computer to send a mean message about me on facebook.
00:26:18
Speaker
You really shouldn't have done that. That's kind of how it feels to me sometimes. Yeah, no, I think that's exactly how it feels. That's good. And you're like, listen, we can talk about that problem later, but right now, I really need this. Punish me for that shit later. Now is not the fucking time. Exactly. And just real quick, remind me, because I'm drawing a huge blank here. During the bank heist, did panacea instigate that interaction?
00:26:49
Speaker
Like, they didn't know she was, she was messing with the powers and then walked away. And conked what's-her-face and tattled, uh, skitter in the back of the head. She hit skitter. Did she start that? Well, she, she was manipulating the bugs too, which was fucking with Taylor's power, but Taylor didn't, didn't realize it. And then she's the one who got glory girl in there.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, bomb, bomb, bomb, a fire extinguisher. Right. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. You're part of this girl.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, and technically, technically, Tattletail didn't say anything. Tattletail acted like she was going to say something, but she never actually said anything in that moment anyways. But it did cause this like, oh, clearly Panacea has a, has a secret. Oh, what is it? You know?
00:27:45
Speaker
But Tattletale never actually says it anyways. It's like it's all in panacea. It's all in Amy's in her head in like this paranoid. And I think this comes back. I'm going to tie this back into later with Jack and I'll talk more about it when we get there. But like the idea of her morality of like.
00:28:01
Speaker
How do you see yourself, Amy? Cause it seems like if the world is so black and white, you don't, you are trying to be good, but you don't feel like maybe you deserve it or you are good. And that makes her try harder, which then of course is like the, you know, doing the right thing for the wrong reason. And it's like, it just, uh, yeah, it's very, uh, Reddit user sleepy stapler, uh, and I were conversating.
00:28:31
Speaker
And, uh, and, and they, they were pointing out stuff about Amy and, you know, brought up what I like to call the Harry Potter, uh, morality, which Taylor also has, you know, with bullies, but it's basically good. People do good things. Whatever a good person does is good. And whatever a bad person does is bad. And Amy just says that.
00:29:01
Speaker
out loud. Um, but you know, just like in Harry Potter where like you, you'll have a bad guy do something and then the heroes of the story will do the exact same thing, but maybe even worse, like a couple of pages later, it's like, well, how come they are, you know, in a painted in a bad light and also don't get in trouble for it? It's like, well, you know, cause they're good guys. Yeah. And that is Taylor a lot of the time, you know, and, and certainly
00:29:31
Speaker
Amy right here. Amy is just, yeah, you're bad guys. So you can only do bad things. Yeah. And meanwhile, Taylor's like bad guys, but that does not mean we're bad guys. Yeah. Nice. Uh, moving, uh, moving along here with still within chapter three, because believe it or not, there's more characters than Amy in this arc. Also, also I was going to say I have so many notes on the arc.
Skitter's Determination Vs. Amy's Fear
00:30:00
Speaker
Uh, like, like how we should change one of the lines where like, I think Taylor's walking away and she's like, you come with me. She's like, but I'm, you know, I'm scared. She's like, I'm scared, but I'm more pissed off than scared. And she's like, I can't go. And Taylor should have turned to her and she's like, yeah, I'm more pissed off than scared. And you're more pissing yourself than pissed off.
00:30:25
Speaker
That's a terrible line, Ellen. That's a great line. That's a terrible line. Someone has to tell him. Then it'll be me. That definitely sounds like something a drunk person would have said. You're the pisser. You're the pisser, because I'm just pissed. She's pissing herself more than she's pissed off. No, no, it's a bad line. It's a great line. First draft from the Netflix workshop. Also, I meant to say it in the entire arc before,
00:30:55
Speaker
Amy can't use her powers on herself. Sucks to suck. Yeah, that's a bummer when it comes to losing fingers. Yeah, really. Yeah. Which also made me think how many other people can't use their powers on themselves. Like we know that because of literally the Manton effect with like fire and stuff. But like, let's say Regen got a cramp in his leg.
00:31:20
Speaker
He couldn't undo that. Yeah, he can't undo that with his magic powers. And like, how often does Tattletale think about the fact that she might be lying to herself or something and she couldn't suss that out? Well, we even see that kind of in the rebound effects that these powers have, right? Like Regent's power, when he overextends himself, he hurts himself physically. He twitches, he gets those cramps.
00:31:48
Speaker
Tattletale gets horrible headaches, Dinah gets horrible headaches. I could imagine... I feel like they've even talked about other characters who have shape-changing powers. Like having different effects. If they try to tinker outside of their focus. Yeah, they can backfire outside of their focus. So that is an interesting little point there about
00:32:17
Speaker
Yeah. About Panacea's power, which I do think is interesting. And yeah, kind of sucks. You're the healer who can't heal yourself. Yeah. Or I mean, hey, we get the, an obvious one in this chapter in the next couple of chapters because, uh,
00:32:34
Speaker
Siberian cannot give her greater immunity. Oh, you mean the Manton effect? That's foreshadowing. Okay, but we got to keep moving. The protectorate does arrive at Tattletale Talks to Director Piggot, which I love the way that Tattletale's like, what's his name? It's like, oh yeah, here let me, why don't you take an earbud? She's like, nah, I'm already tapped in.
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah, but I do love the back and forth though where pickets like you already tapped in right? Okay. Yeah good. That's what I Love that and the little back and forth where she says something like, you know a smart woman You know a genius. No, but you are a smart woman and I just and pickets just
00:33:23
Speaker
cackling on the other end of the line. I feel like she and Tattletail need to just have a sit down where they just have coffee and compare notes on like, yes. It would be unstoppable if they were on the same side. Oh my God, yeah.
Director Piggot's Extreme Measures
00:33:38
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:33:39
Speaker
I think in like the very first episode of Dissecting Worm, Alan and I at the same time fan casted Piget as Viola Davis, and I just cannot unsee her as Piget. It's really difficult to not. I gotta look up who that is because I don't remember. I know. I'm also looking her up really quick. She plays that character. Yes, she's in the main character in How to Get Away with Murder. My wife and I have been watching that show.
00:34:05
Speaker
Funnily enough. It's freaking amazing. And she plays a very similar character in DC. Viola Davis basically plays a very piggy role in the Suicide Squad movies, right? Yes. She is hard ass in charge of superpowers the person. Absolutely. I'm pretty sure she might even voice the same character from
00:34:34
Speaker
the Justice League Unlimited series. Oh, she might. That's funny. I think you might be right. I need to know who did. Anyway, fantastic actress. It's hard for me to imagine not her in that role, which is funny. She reprised that role in Peacemaker's show. Yeah, she does a very good job.
00:34:57
Speaker
Anyway, all that to say, that's who I imagine as Piget reading these chapters and just, yeah, the back and forth between Piget and Tattletail is great, fun character. This is kind of Piget's big moment in this arc. This is her final, her big hurrah.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah, her plan is coming into action. And which yeah, I'm just going to go into it because this seems like we're flowing. Chapter four. Director Piggott tells the undersiders that they are going to firebomb the slaughterhouse nine and the undersiders rush to warn the local teams that are fighting at the location, which is part of the undersiders and part of the travelers.
Panacea's Creative Power Use
00:35:36
Speaker
And panacea makes skitter a giant flying beetle.
00:35:40
Speaker
Um, but yeah, no, yes, Atlas, but, but like her, her, her plan to bomb everything that she said in the last arc is finally happening. And, and I mean, it's, we're going to do it. And if everything goes according to plan, uh, if everything goes according to plan, then we take out the slaughterhouse nine, right? Right. Yeah. There's so many things in this that I am here for. Uh, one.
00:36:08
Speaker
Starting off, the gas mask, same uniform heroes. Oh, I love that. Genius. Very smart. It bodes ill, but holy cow, it's so badass. Yeah. It reminds me of what they tried to do at the bank heist of like, oh, we're going to switch costume. It's like, okay, but we're going to actually do something that works here. We're going to have some, you know, where you can do what you got to do and not necessarily people know who you are.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's something that's touched on and in, in a few comics. Uh, and, and, you know, also the boys, cause that's more recent media, but having actual working like paramilitary superheroes with the uniforms and the body armor and the gas masks, like, Oh,
00:37:02
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's intimidating. Oh my gosh. It's intimidating. It's, it's, it gives like the same vibes of like, what is it max tack for all you cyberpunk people, like how you feel when max tack shows up and you're just like, well, we're done. Everybody pack it up. Right. Right. Yeah.
00:37:22
Speaker
And I love the implication too with their uniforms that like they're obviously prepared for something that they know is coming and nobody else does. Yeah. Which is going to have to try to figure it out. You know? Oh yeah. Right. It's great. Like what are they doing? And just the balls on picket to just be like, we're firebombing the city. Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
And then I love the, to quote an interaction from Star Wars, basically Skidder asking, but is that legal? And Pigot just replying, I will make it legal. But literally. I am the PRT. I love it. Oh man, now I've got to do some memes. It's okay. I'm writing all. Make all the memes, please. It's just more stuff that I can use on social media.
00:38:15
Speaker
There we go. Just because there's so much and I don't want to skip over any of it. The only things I feel like I want to mention are Siberian's hunting tactics and the fact that they find the van that they think Siberian's real body's in. And then also, of course, we don't want to miss Atlas. Of course not. We cannot miss Atlas. But with Siberian's hunting tactics, just the sheer confidence that this woman
00:38:44
Speaker
You know, now knowing it's fake, but that this character exudes.
Siberian's Hunting Style
00:38:47
Speaker
It's just incredible. Like just, yeah, it's terrifying. It's.
00:38:55
Speaker
other things. Mark me down as scared and horny. I love how when Skidder tries to throw Siberian off by bending a cluster, like a clone of bugs around a corner. Instead of going around the corner, Siberian just cuts through whatever building.
00:39:20
Speaker
Just like, oh yeah, that's right. She's not going to get tripped up. There's two kinds of people. There's shadowstalker who can walk through walls and there's Siberian who could also walk through walls. Just in two very different ways. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The way that she is described as like walking through buildings and over the ground, just like it very cat like very, you know, the huntress and it's just so,
00:39:49
Speaker
Oh, man. It's very dancer-esque to me, which is like, it's so graceful. And at the same time, she's like this raw power. And in her...
00:40:06
Speaker
kind of conversation with Bitch from a couple of arcs ago. She exudes the whole wild animal thing while still being just as graceful as a cat. And you're like, I need to submit, like in that universe, somebody submits Siberian to the men drawing women subreddit.
00:40:33
Speaker
And they're just like, okay, it's kind of cool, but come on with these proportions, only to find out it in fact was created by a fucking nerd in a van. I love it so much. I'm like the long flowing hair that's constantly flowing in the wind, even though there's no wind, like I just, oh my God.
00:40:52
Speaker
Like I get it, like we've all played video games and created those characters that were like playing and like, oh yeah, big boobs, long, soft hair, like, heck yeah. Tall, dummy energy. Tall, dummy energy naked with black and white stripes, like you bet. Oh man, I can think of at least a few characters that meet that description that I've made for D&D, you know? Right, yes. Naturally.
Sponsorship Break: Zencaster
00:41:20
Speaker
We interrupt our scheduled program to bring you a word from our sponsor, Zencaster, a one-stop shop for all your podcasting needs. When we first started this podcast, we knew we needed a service that would let us record remotely. After doing some research, Zencaster was the obvious choice. We started using Zencaster and never looked back.
00:41:42
Speaker
It's super easy to record a podcast with Zencaster. All you do is log in, invite people to join your room, and start recording a high quality podcast right away. You can record studio quality sound and up to 4K video with your guests. You can rest easy even if you have an unstable connection, knowing Zencaster's multi-layered backups ensure you always have your recordings in the highest quality. We do all our recording in Zencaster.
00:42:09
Speaker
And when the episode is ready, we can distribute it to all major podcast platforms. Zencaster has made podcasting so much easier with its all-in-one podcasting platform and tools. Go to zencaster.com slash pricing and use my code BROCKTONBAYBC and you'll get 30% off your first month of any Zencaster paid plan.
00:42:31
Speaker
I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. That's zencaster.com slash pricing and use our code rockton bay BC. And now back to our scheduled programming. Yeah, but Atlas is cool. We got Atlas.
00:42:53
Speaker
Gotta love our boy, Atlas. So cool. And I love that Skidder has to figure out how to fly him. Because he's so different from anything else that she's ever manned, she has to learn how the air currents work because it's not just intuitive. Because he doesn't know. Because this is a whole new, brand new creature with a weird digestive system, weird wings, and
00:43:20
Speaker
has to function in a way that she has to man it like a plane or like, you know, a helicopter or something as opposed to like, oh, yes, a beetle that's just been scaled up. Like this thing doesn't know how to fly on its own. And I love that she has to like figure that out. And the little little comments that Skinner makes as she's like flying later is like, like, come on, come on, you know, kicking off the ground, like trying to push off like I can see it so well in my head. And it's that's so cool. So cool.
00:43:50
Speaker
But also fuck panacea. Yeah. Oh, that's what I was going to get to. I love that. I love that even when Skitter finally convinces her to like do something more to help Atlas.
00:44:04
Speaker
She then at the end is just like, eh, that was kind of trash. I'm not going to move it. I'm going to ignore what she did because she does something like she's make it easier to fly or something like that. But it's messing with skitters ability to control them. Exactly. Yeah. She's just like, can't even use it. She's like, fuck it. Well, she talks about how like when she mentions that when she was conked out,
00:44:23
Speaker
her powers would still work without her. And like, well, if I were to fall off of Atlas, I couldn't control him. He would just keep flying away. And so I have to dismantle the commands in his head. Oh man. But the reveal that Panacea, what she can do is she's actually
00:44:44
Speaker
manipulating proteins and microorganisms. Yes. And all of those things. Like she makes Atlas out of other bugs. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. And later we find out she can make other things out of bugs, including parts for her sister who got horribly mangled in the fight we'll talk about shortly. Not just bugs either. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Not just the men, but the women and the children too. Kitty's in the bubble. Wouldn't put it past her, you know? You know?
00:45:15
Speaker
No, I mean, this is great insight into kind of what we're talking about where Hennessy really seems to be so afraid of her power that she won't even consider using it to its full extent. She's still in the introduction to her power. She's on the prelude, you know, in terms of what she can do. Does she even know what she can do? That's the thing is like, the more she plays with it here,
00:45:43
Speaker
does she realize as she's building Atlas that like, oh shit, I can do this. And like, does that, like how much of her building Atlas here plays into her and Glory Girl later?
00:45:55
Speaker
I do wonder, and this is truly me wondering, cause I completely forget if we ever in the future talk about Panacea's trigger event. But I wonder if her trigger was like incredibly traumatizing when she manifested her powers for the first time. And that has played a factor in some of this. Like did she touch somebody and they just disintegrated or something like that, you know? Straight good someone. Yeah, just exactly. Straight good someone.
00:46:21
Speaker
Like I'm curious. I don't know. I truly can't remember if we ever talked about that in the future, but I wonder, like, I wonder if there was just something wrapped up with her trigger that caused her to be so afraid of what she's capable of. Put a pin in it, make a note. We'll come back to it. If that comes back.
00:46:42
Speaker
And moving on, any final thoughts before we enter, I think we entered the fight here now. The first fight. Oh, I think it's Taylor when she's walking away from Amy. I'm trying to remember. I just wrote down idiot and then Taylor gets it.
00:47:05
Speaker
I think that's when Panacea first tells her that she's not going to help. Is that Chapter 3 maybe? Yeah. She even says something like, you're a waste of your own power. Yeah. Like, you're a waste of space and to air. Yeah. Well, I don't know about air, but she just, she has so much capability to help and she just won't. And it's all because of the rules in her head.
00:47:28
Speaker
I've mentioned before how I feel like Amy is written in a way where she would have been a really interesting protagonist if the story is written from her perspective. I feel like she's a really interesting character to follow. However, I'm glad she's not. Yeah. Doesn't do anything. It'd be so frustrating. Miss all the fights. Yeah. Just completely zoned out for the whole thing. Yeah. Comes back in afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of fights. Yep. So chapter five. So we've, we've,
00:47:58
Speaker
skitter and weld fight mannequin and crawler to protect the heroes that have been frozen by clock blocker in order to survive the bomb, specifically clock blocker and cash. And then as they're all released, glory girl is injured by crawler's acid vomit.
00:48:24
Speaker
That's wow. Yeah, that part. Oh, yeah. So, OK, getting into this fight, though, I did just want to say.
00:48:35
Speaker
the intensity of cash, putting everybody into his prism, and then clock blocker just quickly freezing himself and cash. And then the bombs, it feels like it was almost immediately after hit, right? Like just pretty close. Yeah, it's pretty close. It's so close. That doesn't know how long you can freeze them for, so it's gotta be pretty much like- Yeah, almost. That is why- It's what, a minute to 10 minutes, I think, or something like that? Yeah. So he really can't waste it. No, he can't.
00:49:05
Speaker
You really can't it's like that scene in particular was just one I was like. Oh wow so good got me cutting it cutting it close way too close and with with you know crawler and and mannequin like throwing the the the the cars around.
00:49:24
Speaker
to like basically stack them up on top. Oh, yeah. That's terrifying. The idea that at any second you could come unfrozen and this car would be sitting on top of you waiting to topple you. That is... And because, yeah, you don't process things. I don't know what it's like to decide if cash is the mention, but... No, there's no time. Yeah, you don't process things when you're in Clock Blocker's Frozen thing. Right. Okay, so I had a question about that. As far as we know. Right. As far as we know. Can Clock Blocker...
00:49:54
Speaker
Can he go around the Manton effect? Can he actually freeze people? Or is he freezing their suits that they're in? So he can freeze people, but I think maybe he can only freeze his suit.
00:50:09
Speaker
So he's, he's awake in there. That's what I was wondering. Like, are they, are they awake in this frozen suits? No, no. He can, he can freeze people for sure. But he was also frozen himself during the Leviathan fight. Yeah. He froze himself during the Leviathan fight. And I, I mean, I don't know that we really know exactly how his power would interact with Leviathan, but I almost get the sense that it would,
00:50:37
Speaker
It would have been like Leviathan would have been able to kill him if he hadn't been able to totally freeze himself. I don't know though. That's a big assumption. He freezes them. And then I believe he freezes his suit and they need, they go get him the fuck out of there. And trickster swaps them out. Because trickster swaps them. Yeah. Trickster is able to swap them. That's true. Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, no, you're right. Yeah. I forgot. He, so yeah, he can freeze people, but, uh, well that's, that's what they cashed us.
00:51:05
Speaker
Sorry, I was going to say confirmation with an interview with wild bow confirms his costume, not himself. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So he is awake in there because cash hides away. Everybody puts them into their, the parallel dimension thingy, whatever pocket dimension, I guess it's a pocket dimension. Uh, and then clock blocker freezes him and himself.
00:51:30
Speaker
And then the idea is, is after the bomb has gone off, they'll, they'll pop on out of it and cash can pull everybody out of the pocket dimension, which he, I mean, he does hence why glory girl gets injured by the acid, but better keep him alive.
00:51:45
Speaker
Also, can I just say, so for this arc, because like what you said earlier, Nick, this arc is just so, you can't not read. I listened to it so I could be working on other stuff and also not have to actually read with my eyes and just read with my ears. And I am just hearing cash, not seeing it spelled. And it wasn't until much, much, much later in this arc that I realized that cash was spelled like
00:52:15
Speaker
clear your cache, like in your browser, like your cookies and your cache. And that makes sense because it's like, oh, the cache, like he stashes people away, like in the cache. Got it, got it, got it. But I was very confused for a long time. I was like, why is he called cache?
00:52:33
Speaker
Uh, it's cool. It's fine. It's, I got there eventually, but he's a very cool, I love the idea of the pocket dimension, being able to use that stash away the heroes, you know, until we need them again. And I think, uh, Taylor says it, but the question of, well, if cash dies, what happens to everybody in the pocket dimension? It's like terrifying. Like everybody that's in there, glory girl and everybody else, like cash dies were fucked.
00:53:01
Speaker
I like to, at the end, after he spits them all out and he's hurt, he just throws himself into his own pocket dimension. And Skinner's like, oh, well, I hope that's cool. I hope he's fine. I hope he's all right. He might just be gone now. But yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. I do have to mention Taylor when she's running around throwing grenades. And she just like blows a car off of the other.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's cool. It's not how grenades work. You just be shooting a bunch of dust and stuff out from under that car. Yeah. It's not blowing that car off of there.
00:53:40
Speaker
I was like, that's a huge grenade. Yeah. Also, even if that's how that was working, I would never have thrown a grenade. Even the slight possibility that they would have woken up as a grenade was going off. Well, I guess either way, they're going to get crushed by the car. So what do you have to lose? But I would... Oh, that was a scary moment. It was very risky.
00:54:08
Speaker
But the most, the most scariest moment is, of course, the acid spit on Glory Girl as she's flying up. And then he headbutts her, spikes her like a goddamn volleyball. Holy cow. Like breaks the thing, acid all over her. That's just... I like the idea that... No, no, go ahead.
00:54:38
Speaker
No, no, please. Okay. Very well. I like the idea that, uh, maybe glory girls, uh, weakness, the fact that are, that are forespoken be shattered, maybe wasn't like public knowledge until the bank heist. Yes. That's what I was going to say. Oh, nice. And that the slaughterhouse nine being the intelligent
00:55:02
Speaker
evil beings that they are, would have made note of that. And you know, pretty much everyone would have made note of that. And so because that feels very intentional that crawler hit her with acid and then headbutted her to break the force field. It did feel intentional. I don't know if they knew so much as like, but, but the thought of that, like, okay, so just like in the same way with Siberian, like this is a character that is
00:55:25
Speaker
This is a cape that is seen to be practically impossible to take down. And so the one time that we can find out that they can actually get hurt, or we find their one weakness, that is something that people are going to latch onto. And the fact that this happened the way that it did, it felt like they had, like Crawler had some insider knowledge to be able to do it. Because he targeted her and did those things
00:55:52
Speaker
And it worked. And there wasn't like this question of like, oh, I'll hit her a bunch of times and then maybe, like, it feels like he knew. Yeah, maybe. It's hard to know what crawler knows. Yeah. Because he just doesn't talk about it. He was a normal person at once, right? Was he? What? Well, normal in the sense of a regular, a non-parahuman. Yeah. He clearly has some issues. Yeah.
00:56:22
Speaker
What was his trigger? I don't want to know. Nevermind. Getting two turned on. I think honestly, he's just a huge masochist and his trigger was just somebody being way too polite to him. So he went to Canada? Yeah. He visited Canada, went to a Tim Hortons once. It was so traumatic. I would like to think that, uh, that he had, um,
00:56:52
Speaker
just one of the best kink sessions of his life and that his, like his trigger wasn't traumatic.
00:57:02
Speaker
Like, cause I don't know if I want to think about that. We tend to talk about trigger events as traumatic events. Bad traumatic events. Yeah. Bad. What other kinds of traumatic events would you have? I don't know. Aren't you trying to make a point that this was a good traumatic event? I'm making the, I'm making the point that triggers might not have to be trauma induced. They just really tend to like high intensity situations.
00:57:29
Speaker
So let's just say he's getting the spanking of his life. He's like, Oh my gosh. And then, you know, then he triggers and he's like, Oh, I'm spent.
00:57:38
Speaker
I can't, no. It's all just pent up frustration because after he triggers, then guess what? The spankings don't hurt anymore because he's built up an immunity to it. His ass is like diamond. What in the heck? Michael, help. Let him cook. Jacob, you're onto something. It's not a masochist. He just wants to orgasm again.
00:58:05
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you said it, Jacob. I don't like it. That's the horny wow. Let's move on. That is the horny wow. Oh, and that's the horny wow. Now time for the next segment. I'm moving on. Jacob, I'm just glad that you understand.
00:58:24
Speaker
Oh no, don't put that on him. We can't move it past and we just we do have to give a quick shout out to our boy weld who held his own against crawler. Mannequin might be a net loss for the slaughterhouse tonight at this point. Like his bitch levels are kind of high.
00:58:48
Speaker
I need to make a meme for all of my fellow sports fans following the NFL. When Tony for the Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver was a meme going around because he's such a bad wide receiver that Tony was Tony was activated on the roster. What a blow for the Chiefs. Like that's mannequin like mannequin joins the fight. The slaughterhouse nine. What a blow.
00:59:16
Speaker
I don't know if they'll ever recover. Well, so chapter six, uh, scatter names, the beetle Atlas, which I love, love that he deserves a name. He's such a good boy. Um, we get, we get a glory girl out of there and panacea heals her sort of, uh, using skaters bugs as protein, uh, in order to kind of like fix her, although she is a wreck, uh, and then runs away by.
00:59:46
Speaker
basically messing with her head again and having her fly them away, which is just... God, Amy. Again, have we learned nothing? Amy doesn't learn. Amy sits on a little cardboard
01:00:08
Speaker
piece that she's pulled out of the garbage and just scooches down the hill. That is an image. And she goes, why? Why are you pushing me? Meanwhile, everybody at the top of the hill. Stop. Stop it. Just stop it. Gosh. I mean, I do love the ingenuity here that's happening. Um, you know,
01:00:33
Speaker
with the protein and the bugs. Like, I do think that that's really freaking cool. And I think that this is like an excellent moment for Amy to show off her powers, to show off what she's capable of, to kind of have this moment with the undersiders and Glory Girl. And she's given a chance here to redeem herself, Tattletale tells her. This is your chance to fix things, put it right, and then walk away if need be. But like, fix what you fucked.
01:01:01
Speaker
Or didn't fuck, thank God. Or didn't fuck. Well, mind fucked. And let it be. And she just can't let it go. She can't. I'm convinced... Honestly, this was probably... As much as this whole arc was painful in a lot of different ways and really...
01:01:20
Speaker
I think that moment of Panacea being given the right thing to do and so considering herself a hero and still making the wrong decision. And you can see it in her head, she's convinced herself that she's... What you said, Ellen, she's convinced herself that she is the good guy, therefore everything she does is good. And it has to be, because if she can admit to herself one moment that she is siding with the villains
01:01:49
Speaker
that she maybe might be worse than she ever thought she was. And it's so horrific to watch her brain kind of calculate it and decide no, and then fly away with Glory Girl. I think that was probably one of... I mean, there's a lot of hard moments, but that was like one of the biggest emotional gut punches for me in this arc.
01:02:11
Speaker
Also, uh, the irony of Regent, you know, Kettle Black being like, you mind raped her. I'm like, you real raped everyone. Like the fact that you're getting judgy about this shit. Well, because it's fucked. I mean, it's all fucked, but like extra fucked, especially someone who considers themselves so strongly to be a hero. Like, Oh, also I'll, I'll, you know what? I'll take an aside here.
01:02:40
Speaker
I'll, I'll defend. I'll make a case for Amy in this one instance versus Regent. I'm shocked. Regent is a rapist and controlled people's bodies to do that. We have established that. Yes. Amy did a mind fucky wucky one time and felt guilty and bad about it and tried to undo it.
01:03:11
Speaker
Well, well, he hasn't tried to undo it yet. Hold on. Hold on at the, at the, at the beginning, try to undo. We'll get back into how much I hate Amy in a second. Um, but region has no qualms about his rapes. We even talk about how he just kind of like casually talks about that. Right. Um, yeah, with no remorse either. And.
01:03:32
Speaker
And, but, but Amy does have some remorse there about that and actively tried to fix it at the time. And of course Victoria wouldn't let her. Which like, in that case, I'm kind of like, okay, like,
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, breach of trust and all that, the whole thing there. But like, Tori just let her do it. And now we can get off of me defending Amy too. Amy, it took a second to fuck her up. It should take a second to fix her. Like, don't get into here about, oh, you know, it's going to be so much longer. The pathways that have been created since then. How short of a pathway did you like do that? Just make her go like, ah, gross. I don't like you anymore.
01:04:18
Speaker
You did it the other way. Don't bullshit how complicated this was. It wasn't that complicated for you to snap in the first place. Just snap your fingers again and undo it. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely feels like that. Fucking Wucky was the right phrase. I like that one. Fucking Wucky.
01:04:41
Speaker
Thank you. I created that myself. It's never been used before. Props to Brian for figuring out Amy's power so quickly that he was able to throw together a stomach for Atlas. Yeah. A human digestive system, though. A human stomach. That was crazy. That was so creepy. That was so creepy. Why human? Why? Why is it gotta be human? Well, I mean, it's what he's familiar with, I guess.
01:05:10
Speaker
It also means in my mind, though, that Atlas has, like, a human smile and human teeth. Oh, no. No. No, that's not where... I was just gonna go with, oh, then we can throw him cheeseburgers and stuff. There you go. Actually, though. Well, no, he needs good veggies, too, and eggs. It's good veggies, and chocolate ain't gonna kill him, you know? That's true. The most horrifying thing, you just... You do something, you know, you're, like, rubbing his belly, and he starts laughing, and it's just Seth Rogen's laugh.
01:05:39
Speaker
No. Seth Rogen has the voice of... I fucking love Seth Rogen so much. What a potato man. What a great... What a peach. What a peach. But yes, no, absolutely. Seth Rogen, I know you listen and I'm very sorry, but it is sometimes hard to listen. Everyone's getting shade today. What's going on? Golly, yeah, for real though. What's this whole argument? Everyone's getting attacked.
01:06:10
Speaker
But also, Seth Rogen, please help us write the script. Oh my God, that'd be amazing. Don't even put that onto the universe. I don't need that kind of disappointment when it doesn't happen. Exactly.
01:06:24
Speaker
All right, let's keep moving. We're about halfway through here. Yep, we're back. A ways to go. Yep, chapter seven, get our heads to the Endbringer shelter looking for Jack and Bonesaw at the spot that we have been before and provides legend with hints as to the Slaughterhouse Nine locations. He's able to kind of, you know, get shit done. Crawler and Mannequin die from the blast site. Huzzah! We are down.
01:06:55
Speaker
Two slaughterhouse nine members. Finally. I'd like to think they blew up mannequin and they were like, you got mannequin. And they were like, who? Like we were aiming for that. We were aiming for the slaughterhouse nine. We weren't, dude, we weren't aiming for Allen. Well, we got crawler and then I guess Allen too. The Barbie doll over here. But it's confirmed finally by legend that they are out of the picture, which,
01:07:23
Speaker
I don't know about you guys, but as someone who didn't remember this arc, I operated for the rest of the arc prepared for them to pop out at any moment because from what we know, they just don't die. That's a reasonable thing to assume, I think. Kind of crawler's power. Yeah. It was nice to finally be confirmed in the fact that like, okay, okay, okay.
01:07:50
Speaker
He's gone. I mean, I'm going to look over my shoulder, but he's gone. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And I think, um, I do love how they convinced, how Weld convinced Crawler to stay because they use one of Bakita's bombs, um, which of course are incredibly unique, incredibly powerful. And I love that Weld is like, wait, wait, wait, dude, dude, dude, listen, listen, you're not going to believe this. I'll pull up a minute. The coolest bomb is about to get dropped here.
01:08:19
Speaker
And listen, I think it could kill you. Like honestly, I just, I just imagine that's all you had to say. How did weld talk to crawler? Like they're in the middle of a fight. Is he just like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hang on. Why not? Why? I guess it's, it's very funny. I kind of worked earlier with tattletale and Siberian. That's true. That's true. Hold on. Hold on. I got something to say real quick and then you can do whichever you got to do. But like, listen up just for one minute.
01:08:47
Speaker
I think we know how to kill you. I just need you to stand on this red X over here. I have such an image in my head of him, of crawler just staring up at the sky with a huge grin on his face. Like arms open wide, staring straight up like... Multiple sets of arms open. Yes! Like bring it on! And like the mushroom cloud afterwards. Like just the absolute annihilation of this.
01:09:16
Speaker
Just in slow motion with the... I like the idea. In my head, it's a slow build too. Through the entire fight, Weld is toying with Crawler, knowing what's going to come. Slowly feeding him.
01:09:35
Speaker
this, like, oh, we've got something for you, buddy. And playing it off like they're finally going to kill him and crawler taking that as a challenge. Like it, I feel like weld in my mind, weld is, is definitely smart enough to pull that off while fighting him. Oh, I don't know. I hope you don't throw me into that Briar patch over there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just sort of egging them on and like, Oh man,
01:10:05
Speaker
I guess we're going to have to use the big bomb. I don't think you can survive that one. You know, it's like crawlers, like, ooh, kid, right? It's like, oh, yeah, I were as spiteful as Pigot. I would like he's standing there. He's like you said, arms open. He's waiting for the bomb to drop. And then the explosion goes off like a mile to his right. And he's just pissed because he realizes they just bombed the slaughterhouse nine and he wasn't there for it.
01:10:37
Speaker
Motherfuckers, they didn't drop the bomb on me. He said they were going. He said they would. It's the whole, hey, Timmy, I need you to take out the trash. No, but you can't take out the trash in five minutes. Watch me. Watch me. I'll time you. The whole thing. Yeah, I'll time you. Yeah, exactly. Crawlr Bitch Kid survived this bomb crawler. Oh, yeah. Watch me.
01:11:04
Speaker
I also like to think that crawler mannequin didn't like each other and that crawler kept mannequin there on purpose. Let's see who out survives this, you bitch. In a personal group dynamic. That's my head cannon. I going to believe that. Okay, real quick though, we're all talking about like mannequin in particular, like he's dead.
01:11:32
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure he is, but he's mentioned at the end. And I know that we haven't gotten there yet. So is he dead? I actually don't know now. I wondered about that. I wondered about that because they bring it up with Cherish. Yeah. I think the implication is that he is, but you're right. I think it is left ambiguous. Damn it.
01:12:00
Speaker
Yeah. I was going to say we don't want to spoil it, but I was like, I don't want to spoil it for myself because I can't remember now. Let's just, well, I mean, we'll find out one way or the other. As far as, as far as we know, they are freaking last. I mean, I have to imagine whatever was capable of killing crawler could probably deal with mannequin. Oh yeah. Cause as we've established, if you grab a cinder block and you just kind of drop it a few times, it'll break anything on it.
01:12:30
Speaker
Here's basically the paper mache of Tinkers. It says that he's dead. Okay, it does say that. We'll assume that that's... Yeah, I'm gonna operate off of that. Yeah. For now. Yeah. For the time being. For the time being, yeah, we'll see. We'll see, yes.
01:12:50
Speaker
Yes. Well, I'm going to go into Chapter 7 then. Actually, I just said Chapter 7, so now I'm going to do Chapter 8. Bonesaw activates her citywide plague that she had been tempting with before.
01:13:08
Speaker
And even though the Undersiders do try to escape, they all kind of get a little separated and they get impacted by it. And Skidder realizes she's kind of losing her recollection of what people look like. And Bonesaw and Jack, pretending to be Tattletale and Gru trick her through this creepy brain mist. And I'm actually going to group this with Chapter 9. And they convince her to call coil.
01:13:37
Speaker
figure out where Cherish is. And Cherish tells them over the phone, she tells Jack the prophecy that Dinah had about him ending the world. And it also tells them where they can find Amy. And in kind of that moment, Skidder realizes who they are and realizes that she's been tricked. Yeah, yeah. This was a moment I forgot about, so rereading it was incredibly fun, because at the end of...
01:14:07
Speaker
14.8 is when Taylor says something, I don't know what, but then quote unquote, Tattletail says, hey, don't curse. And I'm like, wait a second. I forgot what the miasma did until they said, she said, darn it. Like they were looking at something. She's like, ah, darn it. I was like, ah, no, no, Lisa doesn't censor like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:14:36
Speaker
This is one of those scenes where just the slight crossover with Dissecting Worm here, but in a television series, you're still using the actors for Tattletale and Gru there, right? Oh, that would be so cool. And then just having them drop that line would be so great.
01:14:53
Speaker
It would be so creepy. Cause you could even have them in different outfits too that are like maybe leaning a little bit more towards the bone saw dress. Even like, but it's, it's still the tattletale actress and like, Oh, that would be so horrifying. Cause you're realizing that like, Oh my God, like what, what, what's, what's the miss? What's the miss? Like, okay. Okay. Cool. The undersiders were all back together. And then she says, and you're like, Oh no. Yeah. I would like to think that.
01:15:23
Speaker
If we did that, you would actually just pick a generic person. A generic blonde person. Yeah, no, no, you would pick a generic blonde person that kind of fits the in-between of Bonesaw and Lisa. And the same for like the Gru, Jack Slash. You would just, a generic, very generic outfit, like superhero outfit too. That way you get the idea of like, you get the kind of look like familiar, but I don't recognize them. Yeah.
01:15:55
Speaker
I actually just saw a thing on Reddit that was in some conversations about, well, how do you, how do you do that? How do you deal with that? Like, well, you just have outlines. You just do silhouettes of people because
01:16:11
Speaker
She's not recognizing, like the facial features that we all recognize as being, oh yeah, that's the undersiders. Like this actor is the underside or whatever. Like those features are now blank. And especially if we did this in like an animated form, uh, having like featureless forms of like, well, okay, so that person has blonde hair, but like, I, like the features are all wonkadelic, all very generic until, you know,
01:16:57
Speaker
Uh, I guess Jack's going to get upset because we broke his rules. Yep. Like, yeah, legend, you broke them. You broke a lot of them literally all of them smashed right through. You legend are breaking the rule right now, just by being here. Yeah, you have fucked up now. Now you fucked up.
01:16:57
Speaker
until the little things start to seep through and we realize who they are.
01:17:22
Speaker
I mean, we really needed him, but like also did we though? I don't know. I feel like he did pretty good job. I mean, he busted open the vault. Yeah. I, I, I, him being there and like all the things, you know, I, I don't know if the slaughterhouse nine would have stuck to their agreement, but it is. He really did cause, you know, he, he definitely broke all the rules.
01:17:53
Speaker
And I'm just upset about that. I'm just making memes and put them in there. I was about to say I just saw a little blip as there's more memes in the Discord. I have to write down if you need it. I love it. Thank you. This is great. This is just more content. And if you want to see these memes, lovely listeners, head on over to our social media channels this week as we'll be posting. There we go. Be excited. Know that they are all made by Jacob.
01:18:23
Speaker
And they're all excellent. I especially like this. I am alone in life. I have nothing except my memes. Please laugh at my memes. That's just that you knew if anybody knows any any worm fans that are willing to date Jacob.
01:18:52
Speaker
I don't even have to call us and tell him right in, right. And leave a voicemail with your, your Cape name, um, your, and your, uh, your favorite piece of Lord of the rings trivia. The more obscure, the better. That's it. That's actually it. 9 8 0 9 9 9 0 4 3 8. Let us know. Oh my gosh. I can't.
01:19:21
Speaker
How about that kiss coming up
01:19:27
Speaker
Yes. We're jumping a little bit ahead, but yeah, it is coming up. That's a smidge. That's okay. Yeah. Do we have any other comments on these chapters or shall I just move on to the library or the school? Yeah. Any thoughts on coil, the call with coil? I do like that coil does have the whole like, he tries to do the little, the little, um,
01:19:56
Speaker
code what's it called the code yeah the code that they have and she's like i don't actually remember anybody's names there's like can you do the code yeah i can do the code says the code
01:20:06
Speaker
All right. I don't know it. Basically.
Coyle's Recognition and Power Speculation
01:20:12
Speaker
It just upset me, though, that, like, Coyle didn't have that moment to be like, well, OK, if Tattletail and Gru are with you, then, like, Tattletail should know, right? And they both just stayed silent the whole time because obviously their voices would have given them away. But, like, why didn't why didn't someone just go, hey, how's it going, Tattletail? And, like, listen to the silent and be like, Tattletail?
01:20:34
Speaker
It does make me wonder what Coyle was doing during all of this. What was he spending his power on? Where was his alternate self? I'm so curious.
01:20:49
Speaker
And if he resets it like every 24 hours or so, or every six hours or 12 or whatever he does, like he probably wouldn't know until later, but still like, come on, like seems like one of those important moments where we kind of needed you to work here, bud.
01:21:08
Speaker
There's an old, nothing related to any of these chapters, but an old comment on the Parahuman subreddit talking about Coyle. The guy was like, if I had that power, literally every day, I would just get in the car with one of myself and drive across the country and just see if my current day is better or not. And if it's not, then I just become that, like that's all he did is just like every day, just drive out, drive out of town, sit over there for a day and see what happens.
01:21:36
Speaker
That's good. That's what I imagine Coyle does. Just gets in the car, goes camping for a day. Half the time he's just camping. Oh my gosh. I mean, it would make sense. You know, he's just so relaxed. He's like, that's why he's so calm all the time is because he has time off all the time. He's like, you know what?
01:21:56
Speaker
I'm just going to go out, but that's, that's awesome. He only ever buys one plane ticket. He's always got enough money for one first-class plane ticket somewhere. And so he's just, you know, you kill him and then he just flips over and he's like, nope, I'm just on a plane. I wonder like, but do you think that he knew
01:22:21
Speaker
Like, or, you know, one of his versions knew that Cherish, that they found Cherish, like that kind of thing, you know, I'm wondering.
Cherish's Potential and Liability
01:22:29
Speaker
I'm curious.
01:22:30
Speaker
I feel like Cherish would have made a really good second pet in a way to him to like would have worked for his for what he wanted to do, you know, like having having powers that he could use to his advantage. I feel like Cherish is one of those powers that would actually like worked his advantage. And so it seems like if he did have it in his capabilities to keep her, he would have in a way.
01:22:55
Speaker
So I just, I don't know. She just seems too messy. I think, I think that concern is that he would say, look, you're just, you're just not worth the effort I would put into taking care of you. Yeah. Yeah. Very true.
01:23:11
Speaker
Yep. All right. Well, I'm going to go ahead and move on then.
Skitter's Confrontation with Jack and Bonesaw
01:23:15
Speaker
Move on. Chapter 10, where everything starts going down. Jack and Bonesaw take off to find Panacea and Skitter follows to the school.
01:23:30
Speaker
where Jack tries to recruit Panacea. Skitter uses her moment to attack and cocoon glory girl, which is just horrific, chases down, bone saw, Jack runs, and Panacea is able to create a cure, excuse me, within like tattletale, no, within Skitter's blood spit, body fluid.
01:23:58
Speaker
Pretty much. I think every bodily fluid, basically. Just all the fluids, just everything. Yeah. Every fluid. Let's unpack this one. Cause holy macaroni. Okay. So, uh, I forgot that Taylor actually has the guts to go ahead and pull the trigger here. Um, I did too. She shoots Jack. Yeah. I forgot about that. She was ready. And yeah, she was ready. Subdermal mesh my ass.
01:24:27
Speaker
All I'm saying is, coil sniper would have blown a hole through this guy. Subdermal mesh my ass. If you say that, I'll come to mind. Subdermal mesh my ass. Sounds, yeah. That's what he said when he went under. It was like, bone sauce, subdermal mesh my ass.
01:24:45
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. It's sounding more and more made up. Michael is so over your bullshit. I'm assuming that Taylor popped him with like a nine mil. All I'm saying is move up a calendar. It's a good point. It's just a very strange phrase, but I had to point it out. Keep going. I appreciate that you did and we'll make t-shirts for it. They say where she shot him? Yeah.
01:25:11
Speaker
Uh, she's like the back shoulder. Well, he says, Jack says you, you were close to my spine or something like that. That's what the mesh was. So, I mean, she, she hit him pretty center mass. Like it was probably a pretty good shot, but no, I totally forgot about that too. Like, is this the first time that Taylor consciously makes an effort does an action to kill somebody? Yeah. She tried to shoot mannequin earlier when she was fighting with weld.
01:25:40
Speaker
And hit and hit him too, actually. That's true. Yeah, like she ain't half bad. She's headed. Yeah, she's getting up to it. I don't blame her for that one because he well, he is, you know, a person allegedly very, very inhuman. Yeah, Jack's true. Jack is like a person. Yeah, Jack is a person. You know, mannequins kind of like killing a robot where you're like, I didn't feel anything. Yeah, that's true.
01:26:10
Speaker
I mean, it's just an Alan, right? Like, yeah, Alan's what's aren't even human. You know, there's one less. Or one Alan listener just crying in the. No, no, Alan's are superhuman. Don't you ever, don't you Alan? I know you're listening. Don't you ever get discouraged. Alan solidarity right now. We will make up for freaking their loss that they keep giving us.
01:26:54
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, the stretch. That was bad. I'm sorry. Let's move on. Thank you.
Controversy over Amy's Mind Control
01:26:59
Speaker
We can always go lower. Oh yeah. Speaking of Amy, my God. Chrysalis of doom. Wow. Like
01:27:05
Speaker
The only L's we'll be taking are the ones in our names.
01:27:15
Speaker
Way to make things complicated, Amy. Also, is Glory Girl awake in that thing? It read like she's conscious, because she kind of flies out of it or flies with it. So my understanding is that, yeah, that panacea has kind of put her in a daze of just like mind control, basically. She's like, I'm not going to fix my sister's brain, but I will hypnotize her.
01:27:40
Speaker
God, it's just so shitty. Like what we talked about earlier, like the things that you think are okay and like, oh, it's fine because I'm doing it because I'm a hero and she's my sister and I love her and I'm protecting her and I'm healing her. So therefore it's okay. It's like, fuck off, Amy. Yeah. Uh, so our lovely fan, sleepy stapler, um, linked me to another Reddit thread. Um, in this one, it,
01:28:09
Speaker
basically lays out what the hell Amy was doing and how her like what she was doing was conscious actions and choices. Um, so it goes like this. Amy mind rapes Victoria on June 8th, an accident, whatever, four days later, however, Vic, Victoria's injured and tattletale tricks her into getting Amy to heal her yada yada against Victoria's
01:28:40
Speaker
but doesn't render her unconscious. Oh my God. Keep going. Follow up that. It tells Amy to remove the mind rape. Amy, of course, does not do that because that would be the simple thing to do. They keep telling her to remove the mind rape and Amy continues to not do it. She then mentions that she's keeping Victoria complacent.
01:29:08
Speaker
And Taylor makes the heartbreaker comparison. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. Also, all of this is courtesy, uh, this timeline is courtesy of rid Tom on Reddit. Uh, keep going. Amy then kidnaps Victoria and mine controls her to fly them away. Oh my God. It's worse. Jack finds her and tells her that maybe she should just, you know, don't mind rape or just regular rape. Amy then refuses to.
01:29:40
Speaker
Kinda. I think it probably is worth noting here just as a little, as a little caveat to, uh, this is a section of the story that wild bow has also talked about not being terribly proud of. And I just kind of want to highlight it because it has, there's some contention with a lot of the community as well. Um, a lot of really unnecessary, uh, queer hate for lack of a better word. Um,
01:30:07
Speaker
And I do just, I just want to touch on it just enough. We're not going to dwell on it, but just to say we're aware of it. It is probably something that really should be pushed past. And if this was an actual published work, what needs a little bit of rewriting and wild boas acknowledged that as well, that he's not terribly proud of the way that he structured Amy's goals in terms of what she is working towards. It's not a great
01:30:35
Speaker
concept. And so just to kind of put that out there, I don't want to dwell on it, but just we're aware of that just for anyone listening. It is a contentious issue. And I don't think her character needs that. I think she is perfectly fine of being a very, very flawed
01:30:53
Speaker
character and sister to Victoria without that gross element sort of tied into it. So just we're using that terminology. So just kind of move past that. I didn't realize that was such a big point of contention. It pops up a good bit and enough to where Wild Bo's commented on it a couple of times in some interviews. Interesting. I need to go read this because as it stands, I feel I feel like this is actually, you know, good writing.
01:31:20
Speaker
It's good writing. Yeah, it's well-written. It's just in terms of... It falls into a lot of tropes that are just... Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. And the idea of using sexual assault as a trope. Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Specifically, lesbian sexual assault is just not a popular choice. Okay.
Skitter's Territorial Challenges
01:31:45
Speaker
Amy puts Victoria into a cocoon to heal her.
01:31:50
Speaker
Uh, but Taylor notes that there are no injuries on Victoria at this point. Um, and, uh, Amy still continues to mind control Victoria to do things. Uh, Amy tells Jack that she will give into her indulgences if he promises to leave the city, which is what he's trying to push to. She claims it was a lie to get to save Skitter from being killed by Jack.
01:32:19
Speaker
Um, but yeah, um, yeah, all in all skitter essentially has to bully Amy into preventing Brockton Bay from being genocided. And then she still won't remove the mind control on Victoria. And Amy is just like, Nope, you know what? Go away. There's more to it that's expanded into other arcs and chapters, but
01:32:49
Speaker
long short of it is she has to be bullied into doing any good thing. Every good decision is made because other people just are so inconveniencing her, whether like just being there screaming at her, like that's the only reason she does good stuff. Yeah. It does kind of feel that way, unfortunately. Um, but at least
01:33:18
Speaker
At least she does make the cure. She puts, you know, she does do a couple of good things, you know, it's, I don't know. I'm kind of of two minds when it comes to, to Amy, because on one hand, like we've been talking about, she's a teenager. I wouldn't say that I'm, I was the most rational teenager, but also, come on.
01:33:46
Speaker
Like at least just help people. All I'm saying is a, is a five year old would be able to make this moral decision. Like, Hey kid, everybody's going to die if you don't do that. Oh, I guess I better do that then. Right. Exactly. Well, yeah. Yeah, you should. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You should. But yeah, it's.
01:34:13
Speaker
I don't know, tough, definitely a tough position to be in. I don't envy Amy for the, uh, the role that she's in.
The Significance of Skitter's Kisses
01:34:22
Speaker
Also Amy's rules are bullshit. Like we already knew that, but they are like the weakest ass bullshit I've ever seen. These are up there with like Batman's, Oh, I don't kill. And then proceeds to like kick people off.
01:34:37
Speaker
Oh, I didn't shoot him with a gun. At least like, ah, they're not dead. They're sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Amy, whatever, whatever helps you not sleep at night, I guess. Whatever helps. Yep. Yep.
01:34:55
Speaker
Moving on from chapter 11. Finally, some highlights. Twitter reunites with Tattletale and Bitch and they kiss. There's a kiss. There's two lovely kisses that happen. I would love to go all the way back.
01:35:14
Speaker
I'm not done, hold on. So we have a bitch kiss, then we have a tattletale kiss, uh, in order to pass on this, uh, cure. And then they hunt down the location of where Cherish has been held. Skater finds that the nine have recruited hook wolf, have dumped Cherish in the Bay and have left the city. And now go ahead, Alan. I would like to take us back to arc five, where a couple of characters you might know.
01:35:44
Speaker
Uh, Rachel and a Taylor are walking back from the warehouse fight and there's a fake out kiss moment and a jacket thrown around the shoulders. And they said I was crazy. You know, they said they couldn't be by that. They, you know, the, the, the BIDAR is picking up nothing. But let me tell you, the Taylor really didn't hesitate when it came to planting that one on bitch, you know?
01:36:12
Speaker
She walks over and is very comfortably laying a smooch on Lisa. You know, did she have to use the lip on lip contact? No, she could have done it anywhere. She was like, man, I really got to get in there.
01:36:28
Speaker
This is one of those moments though that a bad TV show version of this would make it like, or even just like as a comedic moment. I can imagine if it was animated instead of done with real people, the moment where she like stops bitch halfway there and then just like walks up to her and just kisses her. I just feel this moment of like,
01:36:53
Speaker
Like, everything slows down. The world gets a little bit more pinkish-hued. And it's just this moment of like... Like, she like wraps her arm around the back of Rachel's head. Go on. Go on. And then Rachel just punches the crap out of her. Yes! It's just like the payoff of that. But it's such a funny image in my mind. Nick, have you considered writing television? That sounds great. You know?
01:37:24
Speaker
I have. And then, and then just like the casual walk over and just a quick smooch for Lisa, Lisa. Yeah. Like no big deal about it. I just don't, I, okay. I understand why Alan is so head over heels for this. I get it. Why? I understand. And I get, this is just kissing the holies. Good night. I get all the by like the by like moments because of this. I don't like it.
01:37:54
Speaker
You don't have to like it, Hannah. Some people are sexually attracted to multiple genders. Look here, you Sophia stan. I know you don't like it when Taylor gets to kiss people. You've established that from the last time. You hate it when Taylor kisses people. You hate it to see when she's happy.
01:38:16
Speaker
Do you need to mute Alan really quick? Oh, that'd be great, actually, if you could. No, no, no, I just, I don't, as much as I understand that people get very excited about this, I don't feel like there's any sexual energy about it whatsoever. And like, I just, and I, it kind of bothers me a little bit, but I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let it
01:38:39
Speaker
but the kind of idea that like, okay, well, we're in this moment, like sure, Taylor could have like spit on bitch, but like that probably wouldn't have gone over any better. And like, if anything, a kiss would have like thrown her off to the point where she would have been like, maybe more confused and would have given Taylor more time to like pull away. Of course, she gets punched in the face either way, but like, I mean, it's, I feel like it's the right call, like,
01:39:07
Speaker
I feel like it would have been weirder for her to be like, yeah, open your mouth almost spit in your mouth. Like she suggests bitch to do with their dogs, but like, it's like, I don't know. I don't, I don't know. It definitely, it definitely plays like a little, like it's a little bit of fan service. It feels like, yeah, a little, I guess. I just don't know. It's just, it doesn't feel like it. It felt like when in doubt, it's discombobulate. Yeah. Like, like, like,
01:39:34
Speaker
I don't know how to convince you, bitch. Like I've tried all my arguments and you know, so my only thing left is to bamboozle. Yeah, bamboozle. That's what it feels like. It feels like a bamboozle. It doesn't feel like a, and I'm just, I'm going to kiss you now. Like, no, I don't, I don't feel that vibe at all. I was in all seriousness. I don't really, even though there's, you know, the moments where Taylor's like looking at grew or Brian and she's like, oh wow, he's kind of hot.
01:40:03
Speaker
Like, I really don't get a sexual vibe from Taylor at all. Oh, funny. I do get a sexual vibe from Taylor. Oh, a sexual vibe? Yes. No, she gives off such strong ace vibes. And even though there are moments of her being like, Ooh, hot Brian. It's way more like I'm awkward around Brian than it is like, I want to kiss his face off. You know? Yeah. It definitely.
01:40:32
Speaker
at least she feels like she's written as an asexual character or that she's written as a teenage girl but her energy that comes off is asexual for some reason she's just way more interested in like i don't know being a villain like doing her her area and like organizing that's what gets her off spreadsheets
01:40:54
Speaker
I don't know. Oh, we know. But that vibe just feels way more tailored than anything else. And I think this is something we... Somebody else in one of the comments from one of our earlier arcs mentioned this like, oh, it's funny that you guys didn't talk about the weird sexual energy and this scene. I don't even remember what arc it was.
01:41:18
Speaker
If we don't like, yeah, probably. I just, I just don't think about it. Like, cause I'm don't sense it from Taylor. I don't sense that sexual energy, even with the conversations with Brian that do feel like they're supposed to come across as romantic. Like they just, I don't know. They just don't to me. I feel like this is, uh, evident, uh, that none of us from what I know, uh, read a lot of worm fanfic.
01:41:44
Speaker
I haven't read a page of fanfic. Sorry guys, not my cup of tea, but I would imagine that that might play into it. I'm going to take a while. Show of hands. Yeah. Who in this, who in this podcast, just show of hands, put them up. Who, who has read any piece of a worm thing?
01:42:08
Speaker
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No one. Yeah. And maybe that's us losing out on the community. Maybe, you know, maybe we're behind the times, but I would imagine, I feel like that's because I've been the same way. I didn't, even the first time I read it all, I read the very basic attraction she has to Brian that doesn't go too far. Uh, and that that's really it. I mean, there's some funny lines here and there, but, but I don't read that much into it either. And I wonder if that plays into it is just,
01:42:37
Speaker
I would imagine that the fan fiction for worm goes a little bit harder in some of those areas. Sure it must. So I wonder if a lot of people will take that. I know that I know the worm fan fiction is pretty popular. There's a lot of popular fanfic out there. I would imagine if reading that affects a lot of people's read of the actual story as well. I've seen enough posts to know that it won a hundred percent does.
01:43:03
Speaker
Yeah. But either way, it's a fun scene for sure. Uh, I like, I like tattletales little joke too. When Taylor goes to kiss her and she's just like, no tongue though, please. That was great. That was great. I love that little joke. I love tattletale. God. Yeah. No, at least it's the best.
01:43:21
Speaker
Also, I do like that after she kissed them, or after she kissed Bitch,
Skitter's Bug Cape
01:43:25
Speaker
she gets punched, it falls into the water, and Tattletail marks that just by falling into the water, you've already cleaned up the water and the air around it. You've already cleaned up a puddle. It's such a quick like, ah, look, we've cured the city just by falling over. Yeah, that is the one moment in this arc where it did kind of
01:43:45
Speaker
Obviously panacea super powerful and that's established but that that is kind of the feels like the deus ex machina. Yeah. Okay, so you just. She could have just like hock de Lugi into the into the puddle like that would have made sense since we're talking about body fluids but like.
01:44:02
Speaker
I don't know. Like at that point, she could have just like hugged Lisa or Rachel rather than kiss them. If it's really just like skin to skin contact, or I guess she said sweat and urine as well, but like really could have just given a kiss on the forehead, you know? Wow. I mean.
01:44:23
Speaker
Just a little smooch, you know? Sometimes you just got to kiss the homies goodnight. I do like that they maintained the fact that bitches dogs are immune to toxins and things like that while they're under hurt, the effect of her power. I think she mentions that they're fine, but they don't need any help.
01:44:43
Speaker
I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Also, speaking of things that are ineffective, we had all the gas masks on the superheroes, but then they talk about how it's made of prions and it's way smaller, so it'll pass through all the filters. Fucking useless. Well, that's how, I mean, because I remember thinking when I was reading it, I was like, legend, just fly up in the air. How did you get hit by this thing?
01:45:09
Speaker
Like, the slow rising gas in Legends is like, oh no, what am I gonna do? I'm only the fastest cape on the planet, you know? But it makes more sense if he thought the suit would help him and it didn't, then there's a bit more. It makes a bit more sense there. Well, yeah, because they all know about the plague. So you imagine they've probably got as much protection as they know to put on. And then he's like, ah, this mist. Frustrating, I can't see anything.
01:45:39
Speaker
Who's my mom? So Panacea modified the pathogens or whatever they're called, not pathogens, what's the word? The prions, the microbes that Bonesaw made.
01:45:56
Speaker
So obviously they do work fast because it was an instant, everything went dark, suddenly everybody's confused. So I guess it makes sense later that when panacea fixes them, makes them good that they would work fast. But yeah, yeah, that is. That's true. It does. But also just another, when they say the slaughterhouse nine is an S-class threat, it's bone saw, like Siberian two, but it's bone saw. And Shatterbird.
01:46:25
Speaker
Oh, true. Shatterbird also would fit that. It's just Jack. Jack's the one that keeps them all together. You start to see it here where it's just like, oh yeah, she's terrifying. That's horrifying. And that was probably a pretty mild pandemic.
01:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, compared to what she's been doing. We've seen in their interlude what she can do and what she did with the merchants and that gross like exploding to exploding to exploding. And she's like, no worries. I only gave it like three generations. Like, oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I think that I think that they are all in their own right.
01:47:21
Speaker
in the right situation, they can be best class threats. However, there are some of them that are clearly a lot more dangerous than others. And yeah, like you said, those are the ones. Even Crawler's terrifying, but like, Weld, a single ward, was holding a zone against him.
01:47:45
Speaker
But it's also well, the best point. Yeah, it's also well. It's true. He was also welled. Who's the best? Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, Shatterbird, Siberian and Bonesaw clearly seem to be in a league of destruction above the rest. Yeah, that's definitely true. Yeah. Anyway, they finally get around that and things start to calm down.
01:48:13
Speaker
And we're into the end of that end of the end of the chapter minus the interludes. Yeah, we get the resolution of everything there. Oh, Hook Wolf is with the slaughterhouse now. Hook Wolf is in slaughterhouse. Hook Wolf way to be a consolation prize.
Ethical Debate on Cherish's Fate
01:48:30
Speaker
And we can't forget Cherish, which Nick and I were talking about earlier with kind of this idea of like, well, is, is a
01:48:41
Speaker
Is Mannequin still around? Because they say specifically that Cherish has been dumped in the Bay, where she will live for a very, very long time. Thanks to Mannequins. And that very well might be Bonesaw using what she knows from Mannequin and what Mannequin's research did and how he built himself.
01:49:08
Speaker
She's basically in a box, underwater, in the bay, tapped into every negative emotion in the city, and she is just gonna have to deal with it all. Until, whoever, whatever happens. I hope there's a hero that just swims down there and kills her. Puts her out of her misery. Yeah. Yeah.
01:49:31
Speaker
It's easy to hate bad people, but stuff like that, it's just... Yeah. That's one of those, I have no mouth and I must scream type verbs. Yeah. Well, and this is another... I feel like this happens a lot in this story where you almost feel bad as a reader when you get to the result you wanted.
01:49:56
Speaker
Right? Because the whole time I hate Cherish. I think she's awful. She's clearly killed and just hurt thousands of people. It's like a clearly evil, evil person. And then still, when she's at her end, I'm still sympathetic, which is just brutal. It's like, oh, well,
01:50:23
Speaker
It's hard to feel like this was a victory. It's just such an awful ending, as fitting as it may be. It's the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. It's just like, yeah, we did it, but at what cost? I'm not happy about it. Yeah, exactly. We won, but at what cost?
01:50:44
Speaker
Well, that leads us into the interludes for this arc. First we have our interlude with Sierra.
Sierra's Role in Skitter's Absence
01:50:54
Speaker
Sierra is helping move corpses after the attack in Skidders territory. She and Charlotte are taking care of the kids and a couple of the ABB gang members that have joined in Skidders territory kind of turn on them and are threatening the kids, threatening Sierra and Charlotte.
01:51:13
Speaker
and are saved by Skidder at the last moment a Skidder comes crawling home. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Skidder is gone for like a... Two days? Two days. Yeah. Two days? Yeah, because they're basically like, well, it's been two days, who knows if she's coming back? Yeah, like, oh my gosh. I forget how little time has passed in the past like three, four arcs.
01:51:39
Speaker
It does rush by. It feels like weeks have gone by and it's only been like when Alan, when you've read that thing about the timeline for Amy, about the fact that everything happens, she, you know, messes with Victoria and then four days later, it's like, wait, what? Four days? Like the, the timing, the timeline is so fucked in my head that I, I've, I've lost complete understanding of time. I mean, think about this. I think at this point in time,
01:52:08
Speaker
from the beginning of the story, it's only been like two months or something like that. No, it couldn't possibly be. Is it really?
01:52:20
Speaker
Well, she fought along in April. So if this is June, we're two months. This first bit happens pretty quick. It's basically rent. If you ever watched the musical Rent, the first act takes place in like 12 hours and the second act takes place in a year. That's what's happening here. The first half of the story takes place in like an afternoon.
01:52:52
Speaker
I was feeling kind of bad for Bryce in this one over the phone. Uh, but then jaw was like, nah, we all want him to learn some humility. We all want him punished. I'm like, ah, nevermind. He, he, he irritates everyone. Yeah. Classic teenagers. I love it. This was this fun little interlude though. I liked, I liked a little bit of, uh,
01:53:15
Speaker
Like calm we get after that just action packed few chapters. Yeah. Nice to sort of get back to the people. And what I like about, I can't remember who said, I think Nick might've said it early on at the beginning of this, of this episode is that this arc, we have Taylor interacting with so many separate people that like it feels like we really are very immersed in the world. So like her interacting with
01:53:45
Speaker
with Legend and kind of like this moment where they're kind of helping each other in the sky and her fight against Mannequin and Crawler, she's kind of helping weld and all of the conversations she has with Panacea. And then kind of this interlude with Sierra and seeing what the back end of all of this hectic craziness is looking like. It's such a great grounding
01:54:09
Speaker
Interlude and I mean I feel like all of them are but like it's such a grounding interlude to remember that like there are other people in this world and they're all living lives and like trying to survive and trying to deal and like I mean it would never occur to me that all of a sudden now you have families.
01:54:26
Speaker
without children and children without parents. And like, well, what happens to them all? And like, well, Charlotte is stepping up and Sierra is stepping up and Skitter's territory is like, of course, even in as well as everything's going in Skitter's territory, you're still going to have infighting and stuff like that. It's just, it is a very grounding interlude. That's what I like about it. Also, I love Sierra. I think she's great.
01:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, definitely a good character. Um, a good side character. It's one of those characters you can really enjoy and appreciate. Any final thoughts on, uh, Sierra and that little interlude. Oh, uh, we got another, uh, power upgrade on top of, you know, getting the cool atlas to ride around on. We've also got the bug Cape.
01:55:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty cool. And like is wearing a shroud. I love that. That's true. I forgot about that. Yeah. On top of that, she doesn't even think about the fact that she continues to do the bug voice. Yeah. So that's, that's kind of just settled in.
01:55:32
Speaker
All I can think of is I need more Sierra and Taylor heart to hearts. I just, I love the men, the mundane parts of this. I gush about it all the time. And poor Taylor after all the bullshit she has done with all day, the fact that she just had to talk to Amy, you know, was enough, but also the slaughterhouse nine was there and she has to come home to this shit. Yeah. Golly.
01:55:56
Speaker
I just get, I love, I've made, I feel like such a broken record because I keep making dark night references on this podcast, but like, it feels very much like this. I'm always here for it Jacob. It's all right. Same, same, same. I appreciate it. The scene in the dark night where the one dude goes to Fox and is like, I know who Batman is. I want a billion dollars for the rest of my life. It's like, this feels like this where Sierra is talking to the ABB members. Like, so you think, you know, your boss,
01:56:25
Speaker
one of the most powerful villains in Brockton Bay, who just spent the last 24 hours beating the slaughterhouse nine to a pulp, is just out having fun, and your plan is to take over her territory? Did you think about this? Not even her whole territory, just her kitchen. Yeah, just the kitchen.
01:56:45
Speaker
Good luck. I also do like to that. Yeah. All it takes is like a day and they're like, well, she's dead. Time to go. Yeah. Like instead of like, let's help because, you know, maybe something did happen. Let's help. But their first instinct is just, Nope. Okay. She's dead, huh? All right. Hand me some of that canned corn.
01:57:10
Speaker
I'm not saying they're fickle, but like how long after, you know, lung got killed, did they turn to the next hero? You know, just like, oh man, lung's out of the picture. Like as he's being driven away, you know, like gotta find a new bad boss. Like, yeah. Yeah, right. Exactly. Uh, stupid man.
01:57:35
Speaker
There weren't just stupid men there. There were stupid women and children and stupid children too. Stupid children. All right. Well, that brings us to the last, uh, interlude. Yep. This is actually one of my favorite interludes. It's so good. Yes. I was about saying going into the last interlude of the arc, the last interlude of season two, uh, we have legend.
Legend Uncovers Cauldron's Secrets
01:58:04
Speaker
Legend speculates on hero tinker specialization with clock blocker, and then heads to a talk with some of the others at Cauldron. And there's just so many people there, the whole triumvirate is there. And it's just, we find out just how deep
01:58:23
Speaker
how deep the roots go, and then later uses Armsmaster's lie detector to go through the recording that he made of that meeting and realizes the extent of Cauldron's connections and the extent of Cauldron's lies. The triumvirate connection to Cauldron revealed Siberian is revealed to be Manton himself,
01:58:45
Speaker
uh and legend finds out that cauldron is lying to him and and not just cauldron but the the other triumvirate members know and are lying to him keeping him in the dark and we find out that battery has died justice for battery oh my gosh yeah that was right all of this is you know it's just a stream of thought for me you know just i have legend you dirty motherfucker
01:59:15
Speaker
A whole goddamn proctor it coils in touch with cold protectorate. I always say proctor. I know you and I will be here to help because they're probably. I was thinking they're proctoring the cities with constant tests. Yeah. Yeah. You got the whole damn protectorate in there.
01:59:34
Speaker
Coils also in touch with cauldron. Like, of course, why wouldn't he be Siberian? His Manton. Oh my God. And then legend being like, Oh no, they're lying to me. Yeah. Legend cauldron lies sometimes, you know, like you do. Yeah. And then finally we do power booster shots now. That's pretty cool. Anyway, I've said everything. That's, that's all I got. Shocking. Liar finds out his liar friends lied to him.
02:00:06
Speaker
I will put that on my leopards ate my face subreddit. Yeah. I don't want to know actually, nevermind. No, it's kind of a funny subreddit. It's just like headlines of, of stuff like that. We're like, Oh, the captain obvious. Like, duh. It came from a joke somebody made about like person shocked when they voted for leopards eating face party when the leopard eats their face.
02:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That kind of thing. Yeah, that's all. Yeah. So much happens here, like so much world building. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. I don't remember.
02:00:48
Speaker
Every time I read arcs, I realize how much I remember. And it's nothing. I don't remember jack shit. I don't remember anything. And this was like me being like, what? What? Are you? What? Like just when he goes out to the oil rig and the door opens up, I was like, are you kidding me? You too. And then he walks down the corner and he turns the corner and you too. And it's just everyone, everyone, Alexandria and, and, and Ledge. And I just.
02:01:17
Speaker
They're all in on it. They're all in on it. I loved, Alan and I have talked about this. I love the subtle drop that I completely forgot. It's not that big of a deal, but it just sort of adds to the world where legend says to Dr. Mother, Hey, you told us that Manton is the one feeding or distributing all the cauldron vials.
02:01:38
Speaker
Oh, which plays. And if it's possible for the case 53. Exactly. Yes. Which I was like, Oh, wait, that's, wait, that's crazy. And of course then he's, he's got the lie detector and it's kind of all a lie, but like that's some really fun world building there because that's been a subtly been dropped in with the merchants. Like how did, how did they get the vials and all this kind of stuff? Like there's been little drops here and there. And I was like, Oh wow. That adds so much to that.
02:02:05
Speaker
that whole dynamic that was just kind of fun. A legend was being lied to about that whole process was fascinating. Yeah. I think that just the Siberian is Manton. I paused because I was listening to it. I paused the audio and just sat at my desk for a second. And I rewound it and rewound it. I went back, listened to it again. Wow.
02:02:34
Speaker
What the heck? We've been talking about the Manton Effect forever and talking about how it's so ingrained into how we think about capes and how we think about powers and how we think about the barriers and the parameters we have set for them. And then to find out that the man, the myth, the legend, is Siberian? He was right there in a van.
02:03:02
Speaker
I don't know. It boggled my noodle there for a second. I just golly. And I because I don't remember so much of it still, I don't like I feel like knowing this now is it's going to change so much about like. I don't know. I don't even remember. I don't even remember. I don't know. Yeah.
02:03:27
Speaker
It's crazy. It is crazy. And here's everything. Gosh. Not everything. Legend recognized him as soon as they talked about it. He did, yeah. That's right. He also has the option to shoot him. Yeah. And they're like, oh, who am I going to shoot? And he's like, oh, it's too late. I couldn't figure out who to shoot. So I just go, ooh, you bitch.
02:03:54
Speaker
But also, we've got the cult, what we've kind of established as like the cauldron symbol on one hand. But the swan. We haven't revealed what the swan is yet. I don't know. I don't remember. I'm very frustrated. I think I've reached the point of the story now where I don't remember anything else that happens moving forward. I remember one chapter
02:04:20
Speaker
It's so far ahead from now, and that's it. I don't remember anything else. It's so upsetting. I'm like the swan. What is this one? I don't know what the swan means. Right. I don't need sleep. I need a answer. Pretty much. Pretty much.
02:04:37
Speaker
I don't want to skip over, though, the fun bit of this where... So you said Clockwalker in their summary. It was Kidwin, though. Oh, it was Kidwin. I'm so sorry. You're right. Yeah, no, it's fine. But I just... That was one of my favorite parts of this arc was Legend just talking to Kidwin about things. Oh, about Hero. Yeah. Oh, it's just such a...
02:05:02
Speaker
I don't know what it was, but there was just something about it. I was like, man, like, like this is, I think that's why I like this arc because so rarely, and obviously legend's not perfect, he lies, he's done bad things. But you have this moment of just like, you know, maybe he's not a bad guy. He like, knew that he has like, dyscalculia and stuff like that, and doesn't like, make a big deal about it. He's just like, oh yeah, like, helps with your dyscalculia. And he's like, I didn't know you knew about that. He's like, you know about that. I mean, you're, you're like, yeah.
02:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, like I pay attention to you, man. You've done some really good stuff. People really talk about it. I love that. And like the fact that he knows, like he recognizes that kid when built his costume and kind of like built a lot of his personality, his like Kate personality off of hero and kind of that little moment together where they're just love that and recognizing because kid when he's just like, he's just a kid in the wards.
02:05:54
Speaker
And so the fact that he's even sitting with Legend is kind of like a very awe moment at the beginning of like, oh, the fact that you're sitting here with me. And then that he knows about him and recognizes that his cape persona and that his costume is so inspired by Hero. It's just such a sweet, it's such a good moment. And it makes me like, damn, Legend's gonna be a great dad. Ah, hells yeah.
02:06:24
Speaker
It makes me think of like a Brene Brown talk. She's talking about mothers who have lost children and not being able to talk about it. But if you don't talk about your own kids, it doesn't give them permission to talk about their dead kids. Because if you just don't mention your kids at all, it clearly indicates that it's a taboo topic.
02:06:52
Speaker
And everybody just kind of sits there in this awkward like thing that they talk around. But in this case, legend goes ahead and, you know, as he's talking, he's like, no, it's okay. Like you can talk about hero. Cause we know that that was a super traumatic incident. It gives the indication that they were maybe were close, like, and, you know,
02:07:19
Speaker
had this whole incident. He's like, yeah, no, like it's all right, dude. Like you can talk about it and, you know, it gives this freedom for kid wind to, you know, gush about like how he built himself off hero. And I really, it was inspired by him. Also something I forgot until just now when I was glancing through the, the summary that I had written for the last arc. Don't forget that hero was killed by Siberian.
02:07:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. This, this arc where legend makes that connection, like knowing that he was so close to hero and then his connection making that and realizing that that Siberian is Manton and recognizing him when he saw him and, and not understanding that like, well, Manton was the one that killed hero.
Siberian's True Identity Revealed
02:08:08
Speaker
And like, it's so tangled up as. Yeah. I hadn't thought about that until you mentioned it, but it also like,
02:08:18
Speaker
One of those moments where he sees the tattoos, he, you know, he doesn't fire the laser then as he's like that. It can't be, and then has to go back. And you know, maybe that was the, I mean, I feel like it's probably the inciting incident for him to be like, okay, Colton, what the hell? Yeah. I need me a lie detector.
02:08:43
Speaker
And he goes to Kidwin and Kidwin makes it. Yeah. Kidwin spoofs it off. He spoofs it off of Arms Master. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Cause Arms Master is the lie detector. That's right. And he spoofs it off of that. I love, I don't know, just the, for some reason, the image that comes to mind is like Barack Obama comes to you and he's like, Hey kid, could you, uh, put this on a flash drive for me?
02:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, oh, yeah. I cannot imagine what Kidwin is going through in that moment. It's a, yeah. He has a lot of personality. It's a, it's a fun scene to imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Kidwin's definitely been a bigger character than I remember him being. And I really enjoy him a lot in this read through. And we, we stan our gay hero legend as well.
02:09:36
Speaker
I didn't say it before, but Arthur and Keith, I knew those were gay coded names as soon as I read them. Oh, did you? Oh, yeah. I feel like that's unnecessary.
02:09:55
Speaker
No, but I mean, it's, it's actually a good thing to bring up. That's a good thing to bring up because we did just mention earlier how Wobbo has talked about how probably didn't write Amy in the best light, but does write legend in a really good light.
Legend's Personal Life and Representation
02:10:08
Speaker
And it's a really subtle, but just really simple way of just incorporating that community and just legend has a family and he's got a husband that he loves. And, and it's just really, really simple, like plays really well.
02:10:22
Speaker
Uh, doesn't change anything about the character, just as who he is. It's a, it's a good bit of representation. I liked reading that for sure. Well, I think that just about wraps it all up. Any final favorite powers, I was going to say, we got to do favorite powers. Uh, but just any final lingering thoughts before we move on.
02:10:42
Speaker
I'm upset that battery dies. I'm only upset because that arc is so good. Because that arc is so good. If it wasn't for that arc, I wouldn't care. But that's the point, obviously. Thanks, Wild Bo. Very obnoxious. Make me care about people and then murder them. Thanks for that, Wild Bo. Thanks for that. Who's the real monster?
02:11:02
Speaker
And sad too, because it didn't that she just dies, she dies in the hospital. No, she dies a slow and very painful death because of the awesomeness. Offscreen, the worst kind of death. Talking to Legend, giving him everything she can. Like, really died that hero's death, that, uh... Dang. She wanted it. Yeah. I mean, she was, she wanted, yeah. So I do love, though, the seed that, um, that Wildboat put in that,
02:11:31
Speaker
Interlude with battery because in that. Battery takes note that she hasn't been asked to do everything yet. But what she does say she says.
02:11:43
Speaker
to legend, Cauldron asked me not to kill or like to help Siberian escape, basically. And that was one of the things they asked me to do. And I'm sorry, I feel terrible, you know, all that stuff. I'm like, Oh, that is such a, all the things. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned, you mentioned legends seeing Manton that tipped him off, which I agree with, but I think it's that in, in combination with battery is final words to him.
02:12:13
Speaker
that kind of puts them into that down that road of, okay, we got to, we got to suss this out. What the hell? Yeah. There's some fucky wucky shit going on. I got to figure out what it is. All right. Favorite powers. Not a lot of new powers, a lot of a lot of repeat. We got a couple of new ones, but who stood out to everybody?
02:12:36
Speaker
I really like cash. I just love the pocket dimension thing. I think that that's really cool and being able to stash people away and then pull them out right when you need them. I really like that power. I think that's very fun. And I would love to see more of cash in the future. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Although we've seen it before, I appreciated hearing more about what Legends power actually does. So getting a little bit more insight into Legend was pretty cool.
02:13:04
Speaker
Yeah, he definitely got a lot more time to shine here than, say, versus Leviathan or something. Right. And that question he asks of, is my power made for interdimensional travel? Yeah. Maybe. I'll never know. So cool. It's just like such a little like, wait, what? What? What do you mean? What do you mean? You can travel interdimensionally. Oh, yeah. No, that's great.
02:13:33
Speaker
So I'll give a shout out to, uh, I'll give a shout out to weld. You've seen him before, but just seeing him stand toe to toe with crawler and mannequin using the full extent of his shape shifting abilities and all that kind of stuff was made of gold. Literally. Oh yeah. When, when you got ripped open and there's like cold organs inside, it's like, whoa, that's awesome. Uh, as much hate as I give her. We'll look in at Amy's power. This,
02:14:03
Speaker
arc was really cool. It's true. We had a lot of really cool things she was doing. You know what? I'm not even going to get it to Amy. Wild Bo wrote a bunch of cool things with that power. And I mean, you're just like, okay, what can you do when you can't heal yourself?
02:14:25
Speaker
you edit bacteria and things around you to like staunch bleeding. And then at one point in time, she's there and she's like, man, y'all should all be dead because I've been doing nothing but editing every molecule that touches my skin to be like deadly. Oh yeah. Quick question. Did we figure out why they weren't dead? I believe
02:14:54
Speaker
The smoke that was emanating. Oh, that's right. Kind of like negates it. That's right. Yep. Yep. That was terrifying. Yeah. That's, that's a wild, like, what's your power? Oh, I can just make air bad. Also just the, the visual of a flesh coffin flying around after a small child. It's, it's probably already been done.
02:15:20
Speaker
but it's the meme of the guy getting chased down the hall by like the floating Slender Man type thing. Yes, absolutely. Well, with that being said, I think we have come to the end of arc 14. End of this episode of the Brockton Bay book club.
02:15:43
Speaker
Good job, everybody. We made good time for us. We made good time. We made it. Not bad. We're getting better. Yeah, this was a fun one. A lot of good stuff here. Really fun arc. I think Nick, you said it at the beginning, reading it again, definitely probably in my top three favorite arcs of the whole story. I think it makes a solid case for that.
02:16:09
Speaker
But there is some good stuff yet to come. We get into some really, really fun chapters here. Some of my favorite chapters coming up. So next episode will be arc 15. Will it be an arc 15?
02:16:27
Speaker
It will be. Well, the next episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club will be ARC 15. The next week we'll be dissecting worm for ARC 14. So stick around for that. Alan and I get into this chapter, going through chapter by chapter.
02:16:44
Speaker
Looking at adapting it for television, as we have been doing, we are wrapping up our hypothetical second season for the show. Ending with the end of this arc. Which means that we also do an end of season in review. We do. We got to do another one of those. Absolutely. That'll be a second episode, but we'll also release next week. Yeah. So be on the lookout for that. You lucky ducks. You get two episodes in one week. I know.
02:17:13
Speaker
Stick around for that. It's going to be a lot of fun. All we do is give. And as always, keep leaving us your comments on Reddit and YouTube and Instagram and Twitter. We have really enjoyed pouring over those and reading those. A lot of fun. We really, really wanted to do this podcast from the beginning was a way of engaging and interacting with people and just enjoying worm again as we do.
02:17:42
Speaker
Please keep leaving those great comments. We love to read them and reach out to us. Let us know what you agree with, what you disagree with and what you change. What you want to date Jacob. Yeah. What's that number again? Yeah. What's that number? That phone number 9 8 0 9 9 9 0 4 3 8. There we go. Leave us a voicemail. Let us know what you're thinking. And until next week,
02:18:11
Speaker
For ARC15, Michael, would you mind playing us out? Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans.wordpress.com We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate?
02:18:29
Speaker
anything you think we missed, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, at Brockton Bay, BC, or click the link in the description.