Transcript
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 ah .wordpress dot .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot .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.
Speaker: Good morning, Brockton Bay. Unpack those lunch boxes and get a refund for all your school supplies. It looks like school's out forever.
Speaker: for Forever. her Forever. Forever.
Speaker: No, it's and what if you like school. It's true. ah In the words of apparently all of the PRT, fuck them kids, bro. And that is what they say in chapter, chapter seven here, I think. Yeah. No, no, it's 20 .6. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There we go. Welcome. Welcome everybody to another edition of the Brockton Bay book club.
Speaker: So good to be back. It is good to be back. We say that like like this isn't going to come out a week after the last episode, but it's been a couple of weeks since we recorded. So it feels like it's been a minute. And it's such a short episode. Like it's going to be such a short thing. It's like, ah could we do just this and on the next one, please? right do it once ah Well, I didn't read the next arc yet. I was but i barely got this one, y 'all.
Speaker: Be a little tricky. I got a fun, a fun arc here. Fun. Which arc is it? It's arc 20. It's arc 20, Chrysalis baby. Better be, that's what I read. that is That is also what I read. If it's not that, I'm in trouble. Man, coming in at like 4 ,500, maybe just shy of 4 ,500.
Speaker: 5 ,000 words. So one of like, what? Three shortest arcs. Yeah, especially coming off with what we just, yeah, very enough of like 17, 18, 19, and then you get to 20 and it's just like a nice little breather. It's kind of It's kind of nice. In the words of no yeah Reddit user, novenocolono.
Speaker: Worm 20 .5 is literally better than sex. And I will say that for this in almost this entire arc. Sam's the interludes, oh nothing against them, but holy cow. arc The regular arc 20 was just orgasmic almost all the way through. I 100 % agree. i think this I think this might have been my favorite arc. I think this might, yeah.
Speaker: It's not even the most well -written. It's not even like the best arc. It just but it just felt the best. It felt so... i think i I think I exhibited more emotion during this arc than all of the others because I've like i've cried and I've laughed out loud and I've like gotten goosebumps, but i did all that all of that happened with just five chapters. i it ah yeah God, I am like kind of getting out of breath.
Speaker: Like, breath catching just thinking about this. I'm tearing up. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. Like, I want to punch the air. like Yeah. I want to run up a bunch of steps and punch the air. Fuck yeah. Yeah. A bunch of steps. What are we waiting for? Michael, there's this thing called Rocky. It took me a second because I was already punching the air. I was about to say. They just did this.
Speaker: the wreckx of ever episode my mind It's been a long day, but I love the image. We should all do that. Let's dive in. Unless somebody else has some other intro thoughts they want to get out. I just want to say this so real quick.
Speaker: I tried. i Well, I tried. I did my best. I thought I thought i was doing good. I read this arc thinking there was only one interlude and right before recording realized that there were two as I was trying to write the summaries. And i so I cannot carry the conversation for the last interlude when we get to it. I'm just, I'm letting, you guys all know this, but I'm letting our listeners know that I dropped the ball and I'm sorry and I feel bad and um please forgive me. That is all. Thank you so much.
Speaker: Well, I mean, it's fair, you know, sometimes you don't want to click next chapter in case the first words are so Taylor's dead. And you like spoil the big moment for yourself, you know. All right. True. I was listening to the audio, the worm audio book too. So like, i I really didn't have any excuse that all the episodes lay down in front of me and I knew, but I didn't know. And I was a fool.
Speaker: It happens. It happens. I was a fool. You had to take a little Taylor Swift break or our sleep token break. And then as I was going to say it wasn't a Taylor Swift break. It was a sleep token break. That's fine. Anyways. Okay. Let's dive in. Yeah. Okay. I think we'll just go chapter at a time here. I think that makes sense. We not much to combine. that's kind of go We only got seven total, including the interlude. So yeah let's go through it. and Kick us off, Hannah.
Speaker: it's ah It's a short arc. ah ah Chapter one, we start out. Taylor is back at home. She wakes up at her dad's house. They have a little talk about school as they eat some delicious crepes. And Taylor heads off ah with the promise of having lunch with her dad later.
Speaker: Uh, heads off to her ah territory, um, where she's told him she's not gonna, she's gonna continue working rather than, uh, go to school. So she heads off to the territory to get some stuff done and deals with some thugs that are causing some mischief in her territory.
Speaker: hu yeah Can I just say, um, this conversation that Taylor has with her dad in the morning is the most like,
Speaker: independent teenager conversation. Yeah. and it It hurt in a weird way. Like it may be part of us because I'm a dad too. So like, I kind of can see the future of one day, you know, you hope you launch your kids out into the world successfully. You've done a good job. But just to imagine your 16 year old coming to you and being like, no dad, I'll let you have a say in my life. just Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And the line, like, I hope you never have to have a kid say that to you. ever have made That one hurt me. And she still doesn't get it. She's like, I don't, I don't understand. I'm trying to be nice and let you have a say in my life. Yeah. oh It's, it's a really, I was, it's just such a reminder that are our main characters in this series are kids and we get a few of those moments throughout the series. And this is one of them where it's just like, man, imagine it being a competent adult.
Speaker: in this world and just having a deal with this teenage bullshit all day. i i i i like Reading this story, i really ah they're great characters, but like I'm always rooting against the Miss militias, right those types of characters. But then thinking about it and taking a step back, it's like, she must just I hate putting up with awards every single day and like daddy and Taylor and the rest of the undersiders. It's just such a vibe and I love it.
Speaker: and so
Speaker: Yeah, there's also the the whole comment about we would talk about growing up and like one day you realize your parents aren't all knowing and all powerful. And I mean, that's that for me hit really home because I remember that moment and you know, it's one of those things that's never said, well, sometimes it's never said. Some people are parents and they insist they're always right.
Speaker: But it's one of those things that's never really explicitly said a lot of times that their, your parents are always right. Um, but there's sort of this, I don't know, it's implied like, yeah, I'm an adult and, uh, you know, I'm trying to do my best and therefore I have to be right all the time in order to raise this kid and you don't, but it still gets, comes across like that to the kid a lot of times. Eventually you realize they're not in fact God and It's it's that's where the rebellious stage starts because they realize you're imperfect and um I don't know. There's just a lot of a lot of feelings there Yeah, yeah Yeah, I love taylor making breakfast for danny is very much of like uh, i'm taking care of you uh, a role reversal moment of like just the two of them interacting and
Speaker: i Yeah, it's it's it's very much especially coming off of like the end of of the last bit with kind of Emma's realization that like oh well Taylor is Taylor's not the same person like she's one of the survivors now like Taylor trying to fit back into you know the square the the square peg into the round hole. is like She's trying to fit back into maybe having that space with her dad. and it's like you know You can tell me you know if I have a curfew, you can like I'm giving you permit like i'm yeah permission to put those restrictions on me. it's like we like she like We've passed that. like we've moved We've moved into a different space now.
Speaker: like oh
Speaker: yeah And that's just such a, I mean, she has been dealing with truly adult things in the sense of yeah basically being a district manager and having employees. And on top of that dealing with extremely, yeah I mean, yeah, you know, no she's a district manager. but um And now she's the team lead, actually, in fact, on top of that. Yeah.
Speaker: And she's got employees and she's dealing with money and she's rescuing kids from kidnappings and. She's surviving things. And so to her, she's really trying to forcibly insert herself back into being a teenager. And I think Danny knows way before she does, he's like, this is never going to go like the moment you told me.
Speaker: You, you can't tell me I have to live here anymore and I'm leaving and I'm not going to contact you. Like our relationship changed forever. And we can't go back to me being your dad and telling you be home by 11 kid, you know, it's like, it's just not going to work. And she's, she's trying so hard to make it normal again. Yeah. I don't know. I will say yeah on that note of the scene, I really do love her internal monologue of her trying to manage everything.
Speaker: And I think really in this arc we see more than before her, her secondary sort of thinker powers active as she's trying to multitask being a decent daughter and you know, managing everything in her territory. Yeah. I was actually going to say this, the whole start to this arc, the writing wise felt very weird.
Speaker: um I don't know if it felt like this to anybody else, but this felt like the start to a story as if we were restarting this character, sure like like the the way it felt written almost felt like getting back into this character's body and perspective.
Speaker: um Like if I had to put a finger on it, I, you know, I'm gonna look at the date. This feels like Wild Bo took an extended sabbatical and came back and wrote, you know, the rest of worm. I'm actually gonna look at the time. And if it's around Christmas, I'm calling it. Well, I mean, the arc is called chrysalis though. So there's also kind of some... Chrysalis? Oh, that's not what I meant. why no I know, I see what you're trying to say though. I mean, like we're talking but die we're talking about like tail Taylor's moment of changing. It was i in the middle of March, I don't know. yeah Okay. I mean, he had to take off for March Madness. I'm sure Wild Bo is a huge deep college basketball fan. Yeah, definitely. Reset his brain.
Speaker: ah While those who actually are a March Madness fan, no shade. It's fantastic. Everybody is a March Madness fan. I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay, Hannah has something to say. It's fine. I just mean that like when we started Worm all the way back in Arc One, like this is how we opened with like Taylor and her dad in the morning. like that that that opener to the Hebert household. like i And it feels like this is an excellent way to kind of bookend that of like, that was the that was the beat beginning of of skitter
Speaker: and And now it's the end of Taylor. you know like The idea of of beginnings and ends and like coming full circle. like It feels right to be back at home and making breakfast and talking about school with Danny. like It feels right to be back here again, knowing, of course, now looking back at the arc, like looking at it and being like, this is what we're doing.
Speaker: this is it makes sense because we can we can feel it coming full circle again and like that's it's the end of an era and i'm okay with it it feels it feels good yeah i i hadn't thought about it like that but yeah ah yeah i guess if we're if we're doing the whole uh ellipses is that right like we're back at the other end yeah yeah Yeah. Um, then this feels, yeah yeah. If that's the case, that it feels right. It feels interesting to have that like day over again, but you know, things are very different with, you know, the making toast and breakfast and going out to run and all that jazz, like, yeah, I guess so.
Speaker: and yeah And Taylor's just such a different character at this point too in the story. Like she's waking up in her dad's house as arguably the most powerful villain in the city who literally just murdered one of the most powerful villains in the city.
Speaker: She's, you know, on the hero's most wanted list. She's she's what sort of thinking of just sort of ascended to a height that is in fathomable for unfathomable for Danny or anybody else. And yes, you know, manager.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. and she's And she's still trying to sort of maintain that normalcy in some way. And we just see that it doesn't really work because she's just not normal anymore. And it's it played like i think I think Hannah said it very well. It's kind of some neat foreshadowing in the beginning of this arc for where the arc ends in that ah it really does feel like the death of Taylor here because This is like her last, it feels like looking at the arc as a whole, it's like her last attempt to try to maintain somewhat of a standard normal life and just, it's not going to happen. It's, it's, she's beyond that at this point. And we see that because really,
Speaker: It's sort of, I think we've talked about it before, but the Batman effect where Bruce Wayne says being Batman feels more like me than being Bruce Wayne. Yeah. And I think that's become true for Taylor, right? She has to pause her activities to pretend to be a normal teenager for Danny for a little while at breakfast, right? Like her mind is running a million miles a second. She's checking this, checking that, checking that. Okay. Pause. I need to pretend to be Taylor for a bit.
Speaker: to try to get back to normal with my dad. And then the moment she's gone, she's right back in skitter mode, right? Okay, gotta do this, gotta do that, gotta check on this. And it's all, you know, it's that whole thing of like, no, she's more skitter now than she is Taylor.
Speaker: And I mean, you see that in the back half of this chapter, where she goes back to her territory, and already she's got like a laundry list of things to deal with. She's got all the text messages and things are going wrong and everybody needs her. She just is fully invested in her new life as, you know, villain -esque. I don't think villain's the right word for her at this point. Maybe it is, but it feels like it's - I like manager.
Speaker: Manager. Yeah, manager is good. Just like city, city manager, territory manager, territory manager. Yeah. Yeah. yeah and Moving, moving on chapter two. Uh, yeah. Uh, I was going to say some more on chapter one. I just love the mundanity of this. Of course you do. This is, this arc is everything I wanted, you know, finally.
Speaker: ah the normal one two Yeah. Thank you for singing my audition song. Um, no, it's, it's, uh, whence I'm, oh my God, worm the musical. Are you ready for it? No, I think we, I think we had this bit before. Let's see. Uh, the fallen are introduced, uh, which I have, uh, the merchants 2 .0 now with religion. Um, forest is finally like officially introduced. Yes, I do. I did want to mention that. I love forest that he's here. I love forest.
Speaker: What a big goof. Strong camp counselor vibes. Yes. Oh my God. That's what I was going to say. He gives such strong camp counselor vibes. Big little Sasquatch. Absolutely. And he just like backs her up with like ah an eyebrow quirk and like a nod. And I love that so much. All the kids are just climbing on him.
Speaker: Yes. You know who he kind of reminds me of? um Visually, if you imagine, and don't I know that not everybody will get this, um but do you know the character? um His name is Sig Curtis. He's the husband of Izumi Curtis in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. Yes. Izumi was like their teacher. He's just this big burly guy with a huge beard who's really quiet but super strong.
Speaker: You just put glasses on Sig Curtis and that's what I imagine forest looks like. Yeah. That is now you've given me my mental image for forest. Um, and then, uh, Greg, you piece of shit.
Speaker: oh Yeah, it can't have a good thing without goddamn Greg. That's true. I also ah can't forget I really like the way that she deals with the thugs and the territory that are i they've like beat up and stolen from this this one couple and she's like He's like, please be lenient. And she's like, cool. So she likes has a bunch of bullet ants bite them and then has them turn themselves in. And he's like, I thought, i thought like I asked you to be lenient. And all I could think of was like, bitch, come, are you kidding me right now? yeah like the Come on. And she says the perfect line. She's like, that was leniency. Like, yeah, fuck yeah tell him, tell him.
Speaker: Oh my god, I will say I can't repeat everything that those thugs say. Oh my god. That's the most unintentionally comedic part of this arc, I think, where it's like he's like the line that gets to me. He's trying so hard. The line that gets to me is when the man is like, we're good Christians and we should turn the other cheek. One of the books just says, why don't you spread those cheeks and get fucked? It was so funny. It was really funny. I love his use of all of those words too. It's so juvenile. He's using every word he could think of. When you give a little kid permission to cuss and they're like, butt, ass, penis. And you're like, keep going, bud. You got this.
Speaker: yeah so Like that's why I felt these stupid fucking bugs, like they're just going off. And it's like, dude, you sound so stupid, man. Like you don't even sound like, okay. All right. All right. Yeah. It's one of those words I'd love to say like, Oh man, this is just wild though, not knowing how to swear properly, but I've also met those people before. Yeah. And that is absolutely, they just don't know how, like language yeah can just be used it for anything.
Speaker: it's It's like the worst form of jazz. Oh my gosh. Unstructured improv. It's like scatting, except there's no music and it's not rhythmic at all.
Speaker: Oh boy. Oh, it's so good. So good. All right. Shall I go on to chapter two? Yeah. Yeah. there All right. So, uh, chapter two, after the whole, uh, text from Charlotte in regards to Greg, Greg Taylor heads to Arcadia. Hi to talk to Greg, get him to back off. Uh, and while she's there, we run in into. ah ma I don't know what it's in regards to and in particular, but my note just says nah, fuck Emma.
Speaker: I mean, but I think it's because in in the last arc, we in the last interlude, right? We're kind of like, oh, maybe Emma's a bit more sympathetic. Not really, but like, you know, she has trauma to some context. Yeah. So so even though with that context, though, she comes in and we're just like. ah fuck a it yeah no no like i I think I'll probably put it somewhere else, but like my guess is very much like before when Emma was bullying Taylor and she was like, Taylor, what the hell are you doing with your life? Like you're such a loser.
Speaker: Like there's a weird, you know, the parent checking up on a kid and they don't know how to communicate that they want them to do something or like trying to care about them, but they're doing it in the worst way possible. Like she literally is like, what are you doing with your life? Like you have no social life. You have no job. Like was a fucker. You're doesn't even look like you're showing up to classes, which just sounds like a parent being like,
Speaker: like do something with your life. And Emma kind of gives off those weird vibes where she very clearly is paying attention to Taylor. And she yeah has this thing for her because they just spent so much time together because they were friends. Like Like she even says when like Taylor finally like starts, I forget doing whatever she was doing the glashing back. Finally. She's like, where the hell was this one all along? Like you wouldn't have picked like, obviously the, we wouldn't have picked on you as all bullshit, but yeah. it Like it it belies some sort of, I don't know, familiarity or I don't know what the word is. Like and um almost in a desire that like I wish
Speaker: this that you had been like this before, because then I could have stayed friends with you and it wouldn't have been, you know, all. See, I think it's almost the opposite. I read it is like she's trying to taunt Taylor like, oh, well, if you had been like this the whole time, we would have stayed friends. But that's not true.
Speaker: She's just trying to still get under Taylor's skin here. Really, she's pissed that she can't. Making her feel shitty. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I definitely think that's also happening. But yeah, I think I think when she says like ah for that line, at least, you know, that you. You know, for that, I think I think she was. um Hard to say. Yeah.
Speaker: it's yeah i don't know i recover Even that line though, yeah, it just made me angry where I'm just like, first of all, we know that's not true. We know that you yeah went off in your own, like, I'm not going to be a survivor. I'm going to be an overcomer. I'm going to be a hunter, whatever Sophia's messed up worldview is.
Speaker: like this is just another way for her. She's really trying to, I mean, I mean, Emma's just a little tattletale basically trying to find any weakness exploited. i have no I have notes on that. Yeah. Yeah. And in this case, um, I think Emma's new in town and she probably doesn't know as many people as she used to cause everybody's kind of jumbled up together.
Speaker: So this is her way of, I'm going to establish my dominance here with the popular kids by, oh look, here's my easy target. I can make myself look good. And it doesn't go this like you expect. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: yeah yeah i have Yeah, Emma bullying is so weak compared to Tattletail. Oh, it's so weak. Oh my gosh. She could have done so much better. She's just throwing shit out. and i like i love I love that it doesn't bother Taylor because I'm you know i'm on the edge of my seat yeah listening to the audiobook and being like, oh my gosh, please. Please, please, Taylor, do not react to this, because this is so weak. Like, please don't. And the fact that she didn't gave me such joy. But, like, I just, like, what, is this the best you've got? Like, oh, you've gotten weak in your old age, Emma, because this is, this sucks. One of, is again, it's just, again, revisiting right the beginning. We opened up the story with a scene of
Speaker: Taylor getting bullied and crying and being like, I'm not going to use my powers even though I want to, but she's clearly upset by it. Whereas now Emma's approaching her and she's like, I just want to use my powers on you to make you shut up. Like I'm, I don't want to engage with you. I don't have time for this crap. And everything you're doing is just sad now. And I, I really love that Taylor now is like confident enough to say, yeah, what you're doing is sad. And honestly, I don't really care anymore. Sorry.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, I'm surprised that Taylor stood there for that long. yes Yeah, i why did she was walk way yet give her a good shoulder bump. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree, but like the amount of she's like, I don't give a fuck about this. And she realized like, I don't give a fuck. And I'm surprised that she didn't.
Speaker: I don't know, like act on not giving a fuck more by just like, yeah, that's cool. Emma. Uh, I gotta go. I got literally shit to do. So, uh, I think part of it kind of goes back maybe a little bit into that unreliable narrator aspect of the story where I think she does give a little bit of a fuck. You know, Emma is still a big part of how she became skitter, you know? And so I think there is still a bit of a connection there. And although she clearly has risen above and beyond Emma at this point, there's still part of her that's like,
Speaker: still pretty angry at Emma and and is happy to sit here for a minute and dish it out back and forth when I just to get it. Oh, absolutely. And I think later to bring in something from a bit later, not too much when she notices Emma later in that tense scene.
Speaker: that that moment where she's like, ah Emma's so low on my concerns. God, I wish Emma wasn't here. I almost want to hit her with my bugs to get rid of her. It's like, it is that unreliable narrator thing where you kind of realize you still care a lot more about Emma maybe than you're letting on. Yeah. um Yeah. So I think it is a bit of that almost in the sense of like, I want to prove that I'm better than you now. Not like in a sense of like, I'm a better person, but just like I'm above what you're doing.
Speaker: And you're gonna try everything and then none of it's gonna work. Yeah. Yeah. Well, not to skip past Greg here. Yeah, Greg. I feel so bad for Greg. Isn't it weird? I was gonna say the same thing.
Speaker: I just, he seems so, not like he clearly is just excited that like one of his, who he considered was a friend, like has powers. And he like, I figured it out so I can like help you. Like he wants to be in on the secret. Like, and and from what it sounds like, he's kind of been secluded. Like he's been in town without being in town. And so he like, he just, I feel like he just wants to be part of something. And like, he would probably be such a good henchman but I mean, he he wants to be the guy in the van on the computer. Yeah. He wants to be. He would be so great. and And she shuts him down so fast. And she comes out swinging too because she says, ah when she first so she said, are you stalking me? That's what she said. Are you stalking me? And it like stops him cold. Because he, of course, would never expect her to come at him like that. And she's just trying to protect her identity. but like
Speaker: He's like God that felt so low like like that felt like such a fucking Emma move like damn Taylor. One thing too that hits me with that too is that Greg and even Taylor alludes to this being like I don't think where he was was really in Brockton Bay but Greg was.
Speaker: on the forums, right? He tried to get that badge that said like, Oh, I have a Brockton Bay survivor, but they're like, and you weren't really, we're going to have to revoke it. Sorry. right Um, and so he's, yeah, I don't know. It's just such a funny and interesting character.
Speaker: But yeah, he's just super excited. And I love too that the saddest moment is when he's like, well, no, I don't like you. Well, I did kind of, but like, it's not about that. It hurts. Yeah. ah man There is so much like weird high school me energy and a little bit of college me and energy in this. Cause like,
Speaker: I just, I would, if I found out something, I would want to help out so much. Oh yeah. Like, and obviously I think he goes about it in the the most strong ways. Cause the, you know, the real answer is just shut the fuck up and don't do anything. But like, if I heard something,
Speaker: And I mean, even now, if I found out somebody needed help with something, my gut instinct is to be like, I barely know you, but you know what? Do you need help? Like, let me help you. Let me give way too much of myself.
Speaker: despite and us not knowing each other at all. And like, Greg like greg is not friends with Taylor. They knew each other. They were both outcasts and were like, ah, we're both not popular. So we kind of get that and we occasionally give each other the nod in the hallway. Like, that's that's it.
Speaker: So. Yeah. i don't know Gotta feel bad for my boy like guy dog. Like I feel for Greg, but dog on it. Like you, you're out of your your year but yeah out of your league and pause way too much of a ruckus about this. Like, yeah, Jesus.
Speaker: Cause that's the thing, like she runs the undersiders and he, like if he knew who, so so he's figured out who she is. Like she's running half the city, my man, and you're going to help. Like, no, you're not.
Speaker: ah Yeah, it's definitely that sense of like, oh, I figured it out. Maybe I can help her hide her identity and then I'll be her friend and I can get in good. It's interesting though to wonder like, what does he really want out of this? Because it doesn't seem like he has an end game. No. Beyond just wanting to tell her like, hey, I know it's you. Wink, wink. Isn't that cool?
Speaker: yeah like That was his whole in -game. That was it. well i mean he talks Well, we talk about the the idea of like them kind of being on the outskirts of of the front of the you know popular kids or whatever, and like be part of something like you just want to You want to be part of something exciting and big, and you want to be part of the cool crowd, and you want to like not feel so alone and on the outside. And the idea that, like oh my gosh, one of my friends is a supervillain and I figured it out. Like, ah instantly, like, of course, of course she would want me in her inner circle. Like, of course I could be part of something big like that. Like, that's a huge secret. Like, it makes sense to to want to be part of something after being so not part of anything other than getting picked on.
Speaker: I think, I think it plays too. And we talk about how wild bow likes to take classic tropes and sort of ah turn them around and kind of reinvent them a bit. And like, this is a textbook one for heroes is the friend. Usually it's the best friend, but it could be, you know, just an acquaintance finds out who the hero is and it's a whole thing. And maybe they join the team or, you know, maybe they become the villain for the, or, you know, comic or whatever it is. And this is just,
Speaker: It's super straightforward. It's a lot more realistic. It's like, Greg, listen, bud, have you noticed that secret identities are kind of a big deal around here where like villains and heroes agree not to mess with it because it's that big of a deal. This is the real world and people die. Like it's just, buddy, put the comic book down and go home.
Speaker: you know so yeah it's so It's a fun little ah spin on that on that trope. Also great, I do want to say great theming to wild bow in this, right? The whole theme of identity is really neatly woven into this whole arc. Because even what you just said alludes to what happens later in the arc.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a big theme for this arc. Which, speaking of which, not to touch on what happens later, but does is Greg stick around? I can't remember if that's mentioned or not. Is he like in the loop at the end of the arc?
Speaker: I'm pretty sure he's with the crowd. That's what I assumed. Yeah. Do they say that? I don't think, I don't know if they explicitly name him or not, but I would imagine he is because he's there. So like imagine. Yeah, they mentioned. it We don't get his, we don't get his perspective, but man.
Speaker: Talk about some immediate ah but justification. yeah Imagine he's just so sad. He leaves the school for the rest of the day. He misses the whole show. Oh, wait. I've got a meme. We've got to make the meme of the dude, the minor who turns around right before he hits the jackpot. You seen that? You know, I know what you're talking about. I have not leaves the school right before Taylor's outed. Oh, I'll make it. Don't worry.
Speaker: All right, moving ah moving along, any other thoughts? We got more Emma in the next next chapter. Yeah, poor Greg. Oh no, or i' I'm reading this. Greg is described as shorter than Taylor with a bull haircut. I forgot about that here. Oh no. Poor guys.
Speaker: ah oh It doesn't deserve that. I'm reading from a thing from Wildboat. It's a long thing, but man, in the social sense, Greg is like a car with bald tires, no brakes, skids like hell. He takes a topic and runs with it, faced with an obstacle or problem. He takes it too far or he takes too far too long to get it and actually stop or change direction, even after people would have just realized they can't or shouldn't move forward. oh
Speaker: He's super passionate, yada, yada, yada. something He doesn't convey a consistent narrative, verbal diarrhea. Oh no, just word vomit all over the place. A good way to represent Greg's emotional landscape would be to double his emotions. He's not just excited, he's double excited. <unk> not just He's not just upset, he's double upset. He's crestfallen, destroyed.
Speaker: much like that Uh, I would say that he's the type to fall in love with a girl with a little, fall in love a little with any girl he spends more than a few minutes with. And that is exactly is given human form. Yup. He's not actually friends with Sparky or other guy. And you know,
Speaker: They just happened to like be outcast chapter. Just the bonds forged by like, Hey, you're in science. I'm in science. People don't like us. We're friends. Like, no, that's the thing. It says they're not actually, they're not actually friends. Yeah, I know. But like in his mind, he's like friend. Listen, you got to do whatever you can to stay off the bottom of the totem pole. And Sparky knows that.
Speaker: He just like shoves Greg to the bottom with Taylor. He's like, um listen, Greg.
Speaker: Was this Greg's trigger event? Another bullied trigger event. OK, I do want to say, though, we we mentioned copacetic is one of Wild Bo's favorite words, which was in chapter one. it was ah But I think at least in this arc, I noticed how much more he wrote the phrase fuck me.
Speaker: It was in there a lot. Yeah. Well, this whole conversation, this whole conversation, Greg says something. Yeah. Basically like in her mind, she's like, ah, fuck me. Ah, fuck me, Greg. Ah, fuck me. Yeah. That just like keeps going.
Speaker: fucking hill That's one of those funny, funny things you notice. Yeah. funny God. Anyway, uh, do a move on past Greg. We've heard him enough. Yeah, poor guy. Uh, yeah, into chapter three, um, Taylor shrugs Emma off. Emma gives her best shot and then resorts to physical violence. Uh, the press principal sides with Taylor and suspends Emma summer school privileges, telling her he can return in September.
Speaker: God, that, I swear to God, I got goosebumps that went up my arm, across the back of my neck, down the other arm. Like I, ah it felt so, and what i I have been trying to nail it down all day. I feel like this is the, ah was it our last podcast where Alan was talking about the idea that it doesn't feel like Taylor ever wins anything? Like she's winning, but she doesn't feel like she's actually winning.
Speaker: I was interacting with ah somebody on Reddit. it was yeah I don't even think it was on the podcast, but one of the comments they made, because I think they were right about to begin the Echidna arc. And I could tell you if you'd give me a second who it was. I think we talked about it in the last episode. That's why I didn't. Yeah, you've definitely mentioned it as well. We don't need to go all into it. Yeah, it was a Reddit user, Vano.
Speaker: Okay. Anyways, point being though, is that I feel like this chapter, especially this section where like, when the when the principal sides with her and we kind of have this moment where like, Emma loses her cool enough to shove her. Taylor lets it happen, knowing what will happen. the The guard grabs Emma and a couple of bystanders.
Speaker: And then, of course, the and then the principal sides with Taylor and Taylor's like, am I fucking dreaming? Like, am I still in a kid now? Like, what? the Like this felt like that win that we've been waiting for for so long because she's she's she's winning, but she's not winning. And here it's like. She she rose above Emma, Emma.
Speaker: totally lost her shit and then is getting actually like con she's actually getting consequences of her actions and and like i love the teacher said the the principle she says uh do you want to press charges and she's like nah she's not worth it she's like well okay well we might anyways on like you don't have to be here we might do it anyways and like that is so Amazing to finally feel like we're getting justice for Taylor. We're finally seeing Emma, you know, brought low and it feels so good. It's just, oh, yes. I think that's probably was a big thing about why I love this arc so much, but damn, it feels nice.
Speaker: Yeah, Taylor didn't have to stoop at all. She didn't have to stoop at all to get it done. Yeah, exactly. She just, she just remained calm and she, you know, she didn't use her bugs. It just happened. Ah, yes. I loved it. Man. Yeah. Uh, also the regent texts resurface. Yes. Yes. I'm so glad you brought that up. A double fuck you Emma. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, that was great. Oh, my God. Yep, that was for a reason. I'm an idiot. Yeah. Holy shit. Okay, that is so satisfying. Like, triple satisfying. Oh, let's go. Let's go. Oh, no, that was so satisfying for that finally to pay off, right? Yeah. Because it never did in any way for Taylor. And so now for that to be brought up and her be like,
Speaker: Actually, you might not even be able to come back in the fall cause like if she wants to go here, I don't think you guys should be in the same building. ah Oh God. That's brutal. ah was all yeah ah during Before the principal, when they're kind of fighting in the hallway, was I reading into the scene or was it supposed to sort of imply, because there's the the boy that stops by and is like, hey, does you guys all right here? like That's definitely one of the wards, right? I thought it was either clock blocker or or kid win. yeah yeah As soon as he popped up, I was like, um i was like it's one of them. It's Dennis. It's fucking Dennis. Which one's Dennis?
Speaker: This clock blocker. Oh, is he a redhead? Oh, I'm pretty sure. um one was the redhead oh I mean, listen, I know that Dennis clock blocker appearance. Oop, doop, doo. Alan just stands clock blocker. So red hair. OK, so it is. Oh, OK. Maybe. Well, that was a kid with gives off redhead vibes, though.
Speaker: What does that mean as a potential record? You know what it means, Michael. So all this ADHD vibes? i Your word's not mine. No, don't do that to my boy. I'm looking at a picture of Kid Nguyen and he has brown hair. He's described as having brown hair.
Speaker: Well, I can see the red hair in him. Like I can see the red hair. You know, it's a spiritual redhead, if you will. what the
Speaker: hello so much Anyway, fun to read that part from Taylor's perspective, who has no idea who it is. It just being like, kind of, I imagine thinking again like, who the fuck is this kid? you know just Get out of here. It's not your problem. Well, this kid's like, who the fuck is this this girl bullying this other child in the hallway? Had to do some out -of -costume peacekeeping. I mean, it's very heroic of him to be like, hey, is there a problem here? Yeah. It's like, no problem here, officer. My bullying's getting interrupted. That's what's happening. Can't you see I'm busy?
Speaker: Oh, great. Some backup. Okay. You hold her down. like
Speaker: Yeah. Oh man. But yeah, it was satisfying. And just seeing, just seeing Emma's reaction to finally losing and her being like, my dad's a lawyer. And the principal's like, oh right. I'd love to talk to him. Can I just say though, I gotta say I'm kind of surprised that their code name for trouble is Eric and not Alan.
Speaker: ah it does is this supporting
Speaker: we can we you know I love that. That's great. And Alan listener, our Alan listener, he knows Alan's a great, but Alan's a trouble. Like why not? I love it.
Speaker: it's here I think we have a couple of confirmed Alan listeners now. Do we? We really do need an Alan fan club. I really would love to make shirts. That would be really fun. That would be fun. Just a picture of a guy in a suit. Just a picture of Mannequin and a guy in a suit.
Speaker: Yeah. i just love i love Next to Alan from Barbie. I love the idea of having a shirt that's like a grid pattern of all the different Allens. It's like Alan the lawyer, Alan the mannequin, Alan the... Alan from the podcast. Alan the worm listener to the podcast. Alan the worm listener. Like just have all the Allens on a shirt. Fantastic. That's so much. I stand with Alan.
Speaker: But yeah, but Collins is on the take. That was ah pretty that's pretty good. um This is one of those few details that I feel like is large given, you know, how this is sort of central to the plot taking place. This isn't like a tiny detail. ah This totally blindsided me. I genuinely had no idea about this.
Speaker: Like I knew stuff was going to happen in this chapter and I feel like I've got a pretty good memory for worm, but I completely forgot about the vice principal being on the take. That's so cool. It feels so good. I did forget about that. Like our, like villainy has paid off. Like we have, we have friends in high places. I mean, it's a, it's a principle of a high school, but like high places, ladies and gentlemen, it's the high school. It's the high school.
Speaker: Think about this, this principle knows, unlike the other one who knew the heroes were and like did, but you know, buff, you know, you know, buffered for them. Here we have the one who knows who the villains are or has taken an educated guess and is like running interference for them. So cool. So cool. So I was curious about that though, because Taylor brings it up and she says this really undercuts this victory over Emma for me.
Speaker: I mean, what what do you guys think? Does it kind of undercut it? Does it feel cheapened by that? The fact that maybe the principal was extra harsh on Emma because of who she knows Taylor is. I didn't think so. it's It's perfectly fine when the other one didn't get to care because they knew who the other parents were. I was gonna say, yeah. Tattletale is you know the faux parent for Taylor here. but know this is Taylor is the big dick swinging dad that shows up to the meeting and is like, I'm actually my daughter. Yeah, no, Taylor did all the right things.
Speaker: Like this would have probably turned out good for Taylor regardless because she didn't, you know, she didn't ah go, it give into the provocation. So like personal victory, she gets brought to the thing with a witness who basically just goes, ah, that's a bitch over there and points to Emma. And like, what are you going to say? This girl, like, like they even have the security guard who like is like, yeah, this bitch started something and then pushed her.
Speaker: um like At worst, this would have been like a chastisement you know to Emma and then just let what' what's her face go anyway. But this is like some extra fuck you peppered on top of that. So I think this is a win and Taylor should take her victories where she can get them and be grateful. I think it's so interesting though that it shows that indication of her her idealism still, right? That she still wants the system to work that ultimately She wants the heroes to all be good and all the villains to just be pure evil, right? It's iss weird kind of how she hasn't learned like, oh, systems really only work if, and in a way, right? Like a pessimistic person might say, yeah systems only work if you rig them to make them work for you. It's just so interesting to me. She still has that optimism to say,
Speaker: Oh, I wish this was just pure justice and not fought justice. You know, right yeah yeah it's not a matter it's the system isn't wrong in and of itself. It's just the small things that make it slightly warped. Like the people in it are just corrupt. Like if only we could fix the cyst, like if we got rid of those bad people, then the system would be fine. Nevermind. It's the system that is a, the, the corruption is the feature, not the bug Taylor.
Speaker: hu ah was ah Was that a pun? It was a pun, thank you. okay Good job. Also, I do like to think, I don't know if this is this might be reading into the text in terms of what Wild Bo was trying to do, but I think back to early on, like our you know what is it, five or six or so, when they're all sharing trigger events and The rest of the undersiders are pestering Taylor for why she's not going after the bullies. And they're all like really pissed at her for not getting back at them and she doesn't want to. But like they all clearly care for Taylor and clearly would step in and defend her if they needed to. And Regent does it in his own fucked up way with Sophia.
Speaker: And I'd like to think that Tattletale here is also sort of doing that. yeah just Just sort of passively, but you know, hey, keep an eye on my girl. And if anybody starts to try to rougher up, make sure they're expelled, you know, just kind of like, just just sort of a let's got gentle sort of keeping an eye on her. Yeah. Again, I don't know if that's intentional or not, but I kind of read that they read into that a little bit.
Speaker: it's She's like, I got a list of names and the principal turns it over and it's just one name, Taylor Hubert.
Speaker: yeah but yeah Yeah, I don't know. I just thought it was an interesting point, right? She still kind of holds that idealism. Yeah. In spite of everything that's happened with her and the authorities and the PRT. I mean, taylor wonder that is Taylor's character entirely in this at this point. And she's very idealistic in everything that she does. She's got this she's got this perfect ideal of what ah how the city should function. And she thinks that her way is the best way.
Speaker: yeah it It makes me wonder how much of that ah like her weird ideals are going to shift in just an hour. like After everything that's about to happen, how how like i'm I'm very curious to see the new skitter, how she's going to be now, now that she no longer is going to have an identity. it's like How much of this, the the good versus bad versus whatever, like and still matters anymore when you have no real identity anymore.
Speaker: Like how how much of that still has a hold on her?
Speaker: Well, let's get what I was going to say, speaking of what comes next. do it Yeah. Okay. So, so chapter four, um, Taylor, uh, gets warned of the truck of this trap. This is there. They're coming for, uh, tries to hide in the school and then tries to escape. Decoys aren't working. Um, and, uh, and then defiant and dragon touchdown. And we realized that things are very, very fucked.
Speaker: What the fuck, PRT? She was so close. She was so close. So close. Come on, Taylor. Just quick in and out of the school 20 minutes. 20 minutes. Then you're going to have lunch with your dad.
Speaker: She never a gets anything. Poor thing. I like the chapter basically. Taylor says she's not going back to school. Goes back to school anyway. Regrets every minute. Every second of it. poor thing. Oh, my gosh. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, I know. ah Fuck all of them, really. fuck Fuck all of all of the heroes because it feels like this is such a dirty
Speaker: It's such a dirty move.
Speaker: I think for me, the two, I mean, maybe we can do like 20 .4 and 20 .5 a little bit together. Yeah, they're kind of linked. Yeah. We can do like the end of 20 .5 where she says goodbye and everything. I think that deserves its own moment. But part of what's so messed up about this too is we know, knowing what we know about Dragon and Defiant,
Speaker: Like it's so funny when Taylor, when drag, you know, Defiance says, you know, it's more complicated than that. When Defiance says we have to obey what the PRT says. And Taylor's like, uh -huh. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. yeah her blood It defines like, I can't say it, but literally she has to, right? Like it's not, I mean, I don't know how much of it really is a has to, but in the sense of she has her programming, she has to do what she's told.
Speaker: it really does and I feel like you feel that from Defiant and Dragon. They're like, we know that we're messing this up for you. We literally can't do anything about it. Yeah. It it is weird because you do get that vibe from them that they don't want to be there.
Speaker: Um, they've got bigger fish to fry, but orders or orders type of thing, especially obviously from dragon. I love this. Every time they fly by, it's like, Hey, Hey you. And they're like me, like, yeah, get down here and bring your robots with you. And they're like, God damn it. Yeah. Fucking stupid AI orders. Bullshit that I got to follow.
Speaker: ah Okay, I guess I'll stop my super important thing that I was doing that was saving the world and come help you with your high school problem. It's literally like, you just wanted to say hi and sorry.
Speaker: Now we got a lot more stuff to apologize for. Everything has backfire. I want to get to Dinah a second. I have a guess about something. Yes, please. I think the Dragon and Defiant wanted Taylor's help with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Yes. ah I can see that. Who has taken out as many as them?
Speaker: I think that they were talking about Skitter and Defiant was realizing he's like, yeah, I'd kind of messed up and Dragon, you know, Dragon being the good robot counselor that she is and we all need. She's like, yeah, here's all the ways you messed up. I have them outlined for you in a three, you know, in a 30 slide PowerPoint presentation. ah Um, and I think that maybe they're like, you know, we could probably use a little help with the slaughterhouse nine. I wonder.
Speaker: I wonder if she'd be interested in help. like i I would not be surprised if that was their original intention, right? Yeah. We talk about this on ah the Dissecting Worm podcast, but I have a...
Speaker: I have a, uh, an idea for an alt universe a fanfic, if you will, but it's, um, what if we did, uh, a suicide squad in this universe? yeah And it would be exactly that they recruit Taylor.
Speaker: They pull in Theo, you know, because he got dropped off with, you know, the PRT fighter shader. Oh, that's right. They pull in Scrub. Fuck it. We'll bring in Scrub too, because he's got nobody. Like, and that's their suicide squad of, we're going after the Slaughterhouse -9, and, you know, you're all ex -villains, kind of defiant included. Like, if this is the only thing he's allowed to do,
Speaker: And we're going to, we're going to take all this really cool equipment and we're just going to have kill orders. Cause like imagine scrub just wiping somebody's head off. You know, all that mesh does not stop your head from going to another universe, you know? Yeah, it's a fun, that's a fun, yeah I don't know that that is a fun, that's a fun thought. Okay. Real quick though. I did want to talk about the Dinah thing. Oh, yes. What a heartbreak.
Speaker: Yeah, get fucked. Get fucked, Dinah. Jesus. That's so shitty. like we
Speaker: For the amount of time that Taylor has been thinking about saving Dinah, and ah it's been driving us all fucking nuts because we're all sick of hearing Taylor whine about it. And then Dinah turns her fucking back and she just absolutely tosses her under the fucking bus.
Speaker: i i i I'm so upset. And I don't i think I can ever forgive Dinah for this. Ever, ever, ever. like It doesn't matter if she's like 12. I don't care. i'm I hate her.
Speaker: And I hate that she did this. i I don't remember specifics, but I do vaguely remember that Taylor goes through all of this whining work, you know, through most of the story, just for Dinah to fuck her over for the rest of the story. That's what I remember in my head. Like, and and so far we have been proven right. Like,
Speaker: God damn it, Dinah. like what i you know This may have been... Dina on her own, just make it a terrible decision. This may have been somebody asking Dina questions cause they clearly, like clearly she's not staying at home cause PRT it's got her ass locked up probably and using her the same way coil was. Um, but you know, they're just like, Oh, uh, could we, you know, get, you know, skitter? And they're like, yeah, if I mean, sure. You got like a 98 % chance if like right now you like,
Speaker: called air traffic control got dragon and defiant down here. And they just immediately busted her ass. Cause they like, they know who she is. And they're like, interesting. Let's do that. And she's like, God damn it. You know, like, sure. That's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is she's like, uh, I mean, you could do it another way, but one way is to just fuck her over right now.
Speaker: Classic Dinah. Classic Dinah. I wouldn't be surprised if Dinah did not fully explain to anybody what happened with Coyle, what happened with Skitter. Oh, for sure. For sure. And so because of that, I wouldn't be surprised if her parents didn't say like, Hey, you should go join the wards. Like we know you have powers now. You should go join the wards. Maybe she does. PRT knows who she is already. Maybe because of, well, not on purpose, but just like he was investigating it, right?
Speaker: And so they're like, oh, we can use you, you know, nicely as heroes do, quote unquote. Yeah. That's, I think that's the only saving grace that I have for Dinah is that I feel like there's a better than not chance that she was coerced into doing this somehow. Um, doesn't, doesn't define it basically. Cause cause doesn't Taylor say something where she's basically like, she wouldn't, she wouldn't do that. Like she was, she didn't have a choice, right? And defines like, and
Speaker: is that am i re i Was I reading that wrong? That's what that's the vibe that I got. was hurt was Taylor was basically being like, she wouldn't do that to me. And Defiant was like, think again, bitch. Maybe, maybe. To be fair too, I mean, we have to remember, right? Dinah was kidnapped by a supervillain, held there for a long time, made promises to by another supervillain, finally brought back home sick and unwell and recovering from drugs. When her mind gets clear,
Speaker: I mean, who's to say that she wouldn't just think this was a really messed up situation and I can't believe that Taylor left me for that long. I was gonna say, what if it's just her being as pissed off as Taylor was about leaving her there, but just pissed off about Taylor leaving her there for as long as possible.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, yeah, like I could genuinely see that being and a thing. This bitch could have gotten me out at any point in time, statistically, based on my readings. And she oh yeah and she didn't even because she's a bitch. Or even even like just the idea of the PRT coming to her and being like, you know that Like, she was on Coyle's side the whole time and that she used you to get things too, right? ah Even just not not necessarily gaslighting her, but just being like, you know, Taylor's not a good person either. Half -truths. Well, yeah, I mean, the half -truths that the PRT knows for sure. What does the PRT know? The PRT don't know shit. No. Also, Dinah is a child. Like, the e they're all children, but Dinah's like especially a child. Like, they're all...
Speaker: babies but Diana's like 11 like I just I don't know if she's actually that old I just don't like she's so I'm still I'm i'm ah i'm i'm still be upset about it but you're probably right I mean you have every right to be upset about it i just yeah
Speaker: I also wonder too, because of the way Dinah works, and this is me totally speculating because I have such a vague memory of Dinah after this point. In fact, if you had asked me like six months ago, I would have said that Echidna killed her because I couldn't remember. um is But like her whole power is is constantly trying to find optimal futures.
Speaker: Part of my mind, I guess part of like the optimist in me is thinking like, maybe maybe she just saw a better future if she betrayed Taylor here. you know Just kind of one of those bigger picture picture things. um I don't know. That could be totally wrong, but that's... I mean, that is very possible. Yeah. Yeah. She was like, saw a bunch of different options. Also, there's a moment where Taylor is like,
Speaker: man, you would think that given everything I've done for this city, the PRT, especially given recent things, the PRT would give me a little credit, you know, enough soda, not ambush me in civilian like yeah identity, so breaking the truce, which I'll be honest, we've talked about this truce and I think it's a great idea worldwide, but we have never once yeah enforced this at all. like We start the story off talking about it and then Coyle immediately outs everyone. That's true. And then all the stuff goes down at Leviathan and then we get to you know finally ah this moment and it's like, yeah, nobody gives a shit about that. like That's the unspoken rules, but they're unspoken because nobody actually follows them.
Speaker: Where's our, we get our, we get our captain Barbosa rules are more like yeah more like guidelines and extra rules. Cause like even Taylor, you know,
Speaker: spies on Sophia when she's at a costume and then goes ahead and immediately kidnaps her. And then also goes to the mayor son's house and outs him and his like, you know, identity, not on purpose, but like does that a lot. So like really come on, like Hey, you can't rec i can do that. it's but um yeah It's been a hot minute. Nobody's enforcing these. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, you kind of speak to ah an important sort of, I think underlying tension within, within the story, which is that a lot of these rules are just sort of upheld by goodwill and just sort of ah a tense understanding of consequences should they be broken. And like,
Speaker: there's really nothing stopping anyone from breaking them other than threats of imprisonment or something like that. But, but I mean, you know, how, if you're the one owning the prison, then what's what's really the, what's the benefit here for you? So it's, it's kind of a, it's an interesting delicate balance. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the other part of this is, you know, if there's no other villains in town,
Speaker: and the heroes break the truce, like are villains other villains gonna come from out of town to like yeah force the rule? like row this is almost p this is p This is straight PRT sanctioned. So like none of the good guys are going after them or outing her. Like none of the bad guys are gonna go after them because like who the only bad guys in town are the undersiders. So like, and you're taking away the heaviest hitter
Speaker: Well, Oh man. Imp with a pocket knife, but yes. That's true. That's true. That's my, that's my standard for like, how strong are you? Can you beat Imp with a pocket knife? The answer is no.
Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, they finally show up and fuck her over. And I love how clock blocker is trying to low key use his ability on skitter that he learned from skitter. Yeah. like You dumb motherfucker. You think you got to pull that shit on her. Like.
Speaker: Don't excite the deep magic to me. Me, witch. Yeah. Bitch, I didn't teach you all my moves. Yes. Oh, it's so good. Well, I mean, we might as well get into, do you want to just get into chapter five here? Did we get a - What? Alan guessed it.
Speaker: Guess what, guys? We got a voice move. How fun. Oh my gosh. Are we going to live react to who's... We are going to react to it right now. I'm so excited. um We have not done this segment in a very long time, but it's finally time to listen to a voicemail. So thanks so much for calling in. And if you want to call in, it is... See if I can remember this off the top of my head.
Speaker: 9 8 0 9 9 9 0 4 3 8. And I was right. Boy, you man you're never wrong well done. all in And you might be featured just like this. And without further ado, here we go. Well, how are you there? I've been made book club. I've been listening to your show and I will love it. ah My, my kit name is jockey.
Speaker: And I just wanted to really thank you for your great show and ask y 'all a couple questions here. um So I wanted to ask y 'all if you got the money to do a spin -off show after your main show, what would it be? You know, me personally, I like the idea ah the of a hospital procedural, you know, we get received in the world of the, of the power humans hospitals or perhaps underground fighting, you know, more of the mundane stuff. I'd really love to see. I just think it'd be a lot of fun. Um, and yeah, I think your show's great and I can't wait to listen to more. ah Have a good day and bye.
Speaker: Oh my gosh. Thank so much, Jackie. What a good. I mean, for I do love that cape name to Jackie. That's very great. i ray came name So good. ah That's a good question, too. That's a good question. I love the idea of ah of a medical procedural. That would be so much fun. Heck yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I feel like I've already imagining. Oh, no, go ahead. Go ahead. What were you saying? oh oh I'm already imagining it. It's, yeah I mean, you basically have all the problems you would from like other shows, you know, where like you have the doctor who's really good at everything who guest appears sometimes and annoys everyone. And that's panacea. Like they yeah kind of find her going, like, what's it like to you know study your whole life just to have this girl come in and like heal people that you can't in like an instant. Like how frustrating that is, but also she's doing good. And then you can also sit down and like talk with her about it and like the conflict of like maybe having to, you know, treat villains. Of course you could literally do a parallel show where like Leviathan happens. And then they're like having to triage, you know, yeah like, Oh my gosh.
Speaker: That's true. That's a good idea. yeah I just like keeping people alive until she arrives. yeah their time Yeah. And then you have like the big climactic moment where it's like, you're in the middle of something. It's like, I'm in the middle of surgery. It's like, you don't understand doctor.
Speaker: Leviathan has come to Brockton Bay, and you're like, clear out the rooms, you know, move this, you know, do the thing, yeah. You have a hospital being taken hostage at one point, and one of them brave young doctors, unpowered, like stabs one of them with the sedative, so staves it. I've watched my wife watch Grey's Anatomy enough to know this would be great, people would love it. Heck yeah, heck yeah. One of them has to trigger, you know, they're having a moment.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. stress of The stress of the job and all of a sudden one of them triggers. And then you have to have like a moment where like, you know, you have you have a cape come in, but you have to be really careful about their identity. And then there's this this idea of like, well, the moral obligation like that we have to like, they're a villain, we have to turn them in. It's like, no, we have to respect that theyre that they were a cape regardless. You know, we have to, it's our duty to perform care.
Speaker: question ah Yeah. actually, no, I'm sold on this. I would take all of my money that I would get to do my own side show and I would just back up Jackie's idea and like, we combine our money together and make the most amazing procedural medical show ever. i ah Hands down. Yes. with jo On a completely different angle.
Speaker: I kind of love the idea of doing a Dr. Phil style show with Kate. Oh my God. We could do that as a bitch show. Like we could actually just imagine us like, uh, so tell us about when you triggered, you know, that's my best Dr. Phil, but, uh, you know, just like going through and how does that make you feel? There you go. That's pretty good. It's actually my impersonation of Dr. Cox.
Speaker: doing an impersonation of Dr. Phil. in order to help In order to help them get over their trigger event, we're going to try to have them have a second trigger. Bring out the bugs. um
Speaker: Oh, that's so fun. I love the idea of having smaller sized shows that take place in a large universe where you clearly are not following the main characters of this world. Yeah. We're watching Brooklyn Nine -Nine. We're watching a bunch of human cops run around trying to organize in a superhero world or something like that. Right. I love it.
Speaker: I mean, I've always said, uh, another great one is just literally the, uh, yeah, the criminal mind CSI, like, yeah, it's the murder procedural. Yep. But with superpowers like, Oh, or like, even imagine, I can imagine like a, uh, like a breaking bad style show, right? If somebody down on their luck in Brockton Bay. And so they decided to get a job as like one of coils henchmen.
Speaker: And it's about them trying to survive the dark underbelly of Brockton Bay and the superhero crime world as an unpowered individual, you know? yeah like Like just imagine Jesse from Breaking Bad, but as one of Coyle's Henchmen trying to survive. yeah Yeah. Also law and order PRT. That's what I would want it was. Cause you've got the like the PRT actually going out there, but then the prosecution, like all the legal stuff that we would really want to get into.
Speaker: Like, you know, we got a hint at the Canary case, but like. Yeah. I love the little, I actually, it's one of my favorite little interludy bits with Canary is that, that like little, that, that fun little peak we get into the judicial system. I'd totally be down. Yeah.
Speaker: Um, or I mean, Hey, Brock, Brockton Bay watches is, you know, standing right there. Oh my God. watch yeah has And it's just like a super serious shark NATO style. Like it's just a bunch of lifeguards trying to fight Leviathan, you know? Oh, see, I was going a different way with that. I was going like, um,
Speaker: Like a, like a bachelor or love Island kind of show, but with superheroes. Oh, that's good too. Heck yes. I like that. You know that all of us would sit down and watch that shit. Like we'd all be cringing, but we'd all be popping popcorn. That's another good bitch show that you could do. Like where it's, it's fake, like six minute episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. Especially if you did it with like the bedroom cams. Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah. Just really, you make it really like that way it's really poor quality. Like you don't have to get nice cameras and stuff, but you could do a lot of work there. Um, no, I, I said it. I think I said it maybe on a previous podcast episode, or maybe it was just hanging out with the patrons on our patron discord, which you could be a part of. If you joined our Patreon, like yeah um I said, I really, really would love to see, uh, the murder like mystery one.
Speaker: but it's super powered capes set in, uh, shoot a true detective season four in Alaska. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I know that that already exists as a role play thing that, uh, that, uh, goodness my brain, the wild bow did like, I'm pretty sure he already did like a little like PR station 37 or something like that stationed in Alaska.
Speaker: or some remote location. Maybe it was Washington. um He already did like a small town role play thing for a Weaver dice for that, I think. But that's one um I would love just Alaska. It's already kind of creepy doing that 30 days of night, but you have like, you know, there's very few, you're trying to figure out who triggered. You're trying to figure out like, you know, yeah, like we don't have capes here or maybe we have like one, but somebody in the town has triggered.
Speaker: and like a who done it And they're killing people. And so you're like trying to that yeah yeah ah school you're like trying to figure out what their powers are too, because like yeah the deaths are in a certain way that you're like, this is not, it starts off like, okay, somebody's killing them. And then you're like, wait a minute, they physically couldn't have done this. like You know, this is too weird. And then you're trying to navigate what the power is. And the only person, the only Cape that actually lives there that can help is like really secluded and doesn't have a holocaust, of course. and all basically it's it's It's arms master, but like, if you didn't get a redemption story until now yeah and you just moved to Alaska.
Speaker: Like all he does is make a tiny vapes, like he condenses all the vapes so he can rip massive clouds. you know eyes of but I wouldn't go visit the hermit tinker on the hill, man. Some say that his specialty is sex robots and... ah happy Never been seen again. whatever call ital um yeah I heard he fucked a Roomba.
Speaker: He's fucking a Roomba! And that's when we leave it. Thanks so much! Thank you, Jockey! Thank you, Jockey! You are the man. Hell yes. Chapter five is ah there's a bit of a showdown ah in the in the cafeteria. Skitter is outed in front of everybody. um There's a little bit of back and forth between Skitter and Dragon and Defiant. ah ah Taylor rallies the students in a ah ah in a yeah
Speaker: what's it called, the the ah jury of your peers vibes. And they fucking rally behind her and get her out. And we have a little um butterfly to say goodbye to Danny at the very, very end. Oh, yeah. You got to save the ending. Need a whole little section for that. yeah rallying yeah All I need is I need my moment. It's like, careful, she's a villain.
Speaker: Okay, I literally was thinking that the entire time, the the whole Spider -Man thing of like, careful, she's a hero. Like, ah it's so good. It was so good. It just felt right. I really wanted just a little moment to her standing there, phasing down the heroes. And then you just hear Greg on your left.
Speaker: it' just
Speaker: damn it great No, I do love that know she has Charlotte there though. Yeah. i in Charlotte going to school together is such a vibe and I wish we had, you know, I wish some people hadn't ruined that because Taylor going to school, fucking over Emma constantly and literally having like.
Speaker: who actual employees working for her, but also attending school with her, um it like like and the vice principal on the take, I could have... Guys, I could have read that serial for a long time. Like, and I'm sure if somebody else wanted to run a power trip fantasy of that kind, we're like, yeah, I'm a villain who basically owns this school now. And the super, the superheroes go to this school and I 100 % have figured out who they are and they don't know who I am. Uh, but I run the school now and I have my employees that are other students here and. Oh man. and So good.
Speaker: But they're not just employees, Ellen. They're friends. It's more of a family, really. It's really more of a family. It's family. But yeah, that is a vibe. Charlotte like giving her the lowdown while she's at school and like, hey, you need to get into school. Somebody's talking shit. And you're like, oh, so good. So good.
Speaker: Imagine if the security there was like also like Miner and Brooks and shit and so she just like gives them the nod and walks in like with her weapons and some kids like, how come she gets to go in? And it's like, yet because because fuck you kid. get out Get the fuck out of here. Don't make me beat your ass. I'll tase you again. Asking stupid ass questions like that. Oh man. i One of the things I love about the scene, though, is how Taylor is like, okay, who have I learned confidence and fear from? I know. Jack Slash and Bakuta. Oh, this is so good. Bakuta, not the one I would have gone with for this. But okay, but all right. You know, Jack Slash, I get, Bakuta, not so much. i think yeah I think what she's thinking of is Bakuta's usage of
Speaker: fear to control a situation in the way that she did at the, uh, uh, the lock locked area. but Yeah. Storage center. Yeah. Um, to, to control the people around her, right. The people who followed Bakita didn't want to be there, but they were afraid of the consequences of not doing it. So maybe that's, I mean, I'm sure that's more of what she means, but it is kind of a funny example of like, Oh, oh, Bakita. Okay. Not like, you know, long or.
Speaker: hook wolf out on anybody else. I mean, not that those are better people, but you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ah terrible Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, what who else are you going to pick though? She's not going to be like with the power of leet. I learned how to rally an army. No. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No, no, no. It's it's the power of an Uber and it's that one ah Instagram video that I'm going to say Nick sent me, which is the dad advice.
Speaker: Like when your kid's losing it, thing it's like, yeah, I learned from Uber that you can overcome failures. Like I, how I'm overcoming a failure, right? Looking straight at lead.
Speaker: um oh a Good times. Good times. And yes, that was me. Um, can I ask a quick question about this? Okay. So I,
Speaker: I love, I love that they rally behind Taylor and that we get the instant stand up of like a third of the group, which is just so great. A hundred kids. It's a hundred children, a hundred babies just following this bug girl into the abyss. And 200 that don't do shit. I get why a lot of them would stand with Taylor. Like i I stand with Taylor. So like I get it. Like I would, I would be there right along with the rest of them, but Did it feel a little bit like, like I felt like Taylor could have given a little bit, cause she's like, she stands up, she's like, I'm not going to give any speeches. Who stands with me? Like, could she perhaps have given maybe like a little speech? Because I feel like just a tiny little baby speech would have been, would have made it even more make sense. Cause it kind of feels like it doesn't make sense that they're all standing just like, yeah,
Speaker: No, I think this is one of the examples of like, these are like, this is all of the justifications I've ever had for Taylor coming back to pay off. And they, and they say it afterwards. Like, yeah, like you did, you rescued a lot of people in your territory. Like, ah and I'm sure those people talk to other people like, yeah, this,
Speaker: what is clearly a teenage girl in a costume, fought one of the slaughterhouse nine to protect us in this area and got her ass handed to her for like a solid 10 minutes and still like took him out despite it crippling her. you know And and ah you know I think there's enough people that followed this to like, yeah,
Speaker: What what did skitter ever do that was super bad except rob a bank one time all the other times are like like direct hero to like villain confrontation the only other time that you know, I take it back There was the mayor, the mayor incident. That was pretty bad. That was pretty bad. But like the gala incident, that was direct hero on like, yeah, fighting like all all those are direct confrontation. The undersiders really haven't done that much bad. The only person that you could maybe bitch about is bitch.
Speaker: Yeah. And I think it's also worth noting that there's ah probably equal parts support for Taylor, equal parts just against the protectorate and the PRT here. That's the vibe I was getting for sure. This is very much like Brockton Bay has had to fix itself. They haven't done anything.
Speaker: right? Like you're supposed to be the heroes protecting the city. Leviathan. Okay, sure. Maybe you let that one side a little bit because everybody pitched in to fight that thing. But then you've got the slaughterhouse nine and you've got, you know, uh, bone saws plague and you've got all these problems and like the, what, what is an Echidna and like the PRT has done nothing to help rebuild the city except just patrol around. Like I can't, I got to imagine that a lot of these people were just done supporting them. yeah just die Yeah, for sure. And I mean, she even points out the people who side with her are the people who've stayed, right? They're the ones who've seen what's really happened. so but like You mentioned the the gala event. None of those kids who side with her were at the gala.
Speaker: None of them were rich enough. Except for one. Except for Emma. Well, she didn't side with Taylor though. You're right, you're right. But point being, right, like these are the people who have seen the worst of things. And it's kind of just that thing of like, okay, when things went wrong, who was there for me? You know, like maybe, maybe everybody looks up. It's kind of like, I'm trying to think of a good example.
Speaker: But it's sort of like, you know, maybe everybody looks up to like a religious leader, right? And you think, oh, that's a great person. Like, yeah, but who was with me when things were bad? Not, you know, the people you would expect. And in this case, it's kind of that same thing of like, oh, oh, the PRT, they're great. They're wonderful heroes. But who was really there for you when things were down? It was skitter. It was the other side. Look, yeah when the slaughterhouse nine was in your hood,
Speaker: Who you going to call? Undersiders.
Speaker: That's so good. I really enjoyed that. That was excellent. Thank you. It'll be part of Worm the Musical. Jacob, we're we're scream we're either scrapping dissecting Worm or we're doing another one. Worm the Musical. Let's go.
Speaker: Oh no. I mean, it's just that matter of who is really there for you. Ah, it was Skidder. That's what they point out later. At this moment, who is breaking the cardinal rule amongst the kids, right? It gets to protect her here. In this moment, Skidder has done nothing. She is on the right side here.
Speaker: Which is crazy. That might be one of those unwritten rules that the heroes know about. But I feel like that's also an unwritten rule that everybody can kind of suss out. You do not just randomly out some... You know what? We have enough for this today. Like, you don't dox people.
Speaker: yeah yeah Like that is a ah big Cardinal no -no on the internet. yeah Like because ah because of you know with the implications of just like absolutely ruining their life. You might not like someone, but you do not post their home address. yeah Like that is an absolute no -no.
Speaker: So i that's why I don't think Taylor really needs to give a speech. I feel like the PRT, you know, Dragon and Defiant being there is speech enough. Taylor just gets up. I'm a villain of a few words.
Speaker: i would ah I think maybe I just would have enjoyed like a little bit more speech. You want her to monologue a bit? I do want her to monologue. Then the heroes would have caught her monologuing and we don't want that. That's true. We all know how that goes. I would have fallen for the age -old trap. There's the reference. That's why I could never be an actual. Once a podcast. Once a podcast. At least. Has to be. Every time. But no, I mean, yeah, I think.
Speaker: I will say too, um, we haven't talked much about, um, adamant and Syria yet, um, which ah I just want to talk about their powers. Cause I think they're cool. Why should we, they're losers and they got wiped out. Like as us we after a thought, they got their asses. and they got Um, but I do wonder, do you kind of get the feeling that Defiant and dragon don't really try that hard at a certain point?
Speaker: They're like, you know what? The PRT fucked this up for us. We're going to let Taylor fuck them up. Hey, we're just going to let her, you know, it's like, this isn't worth it. We're just going to let her go. Yeah. kind I don't know if they were going to, if they were going to let her go, but they definitely like, I think they knew that this was going to suck. They got there and it sucked worse than they ever thought it was going to suck.
Speaker: o Talk about beating the odds though. I mean, Taylor just. continues to be like, okay, what's the percentage I'm going to escape? Okay, 8%. Bet. I'm going to find that 8 % and exploit it somehow. who Yeah, those thinker powers I'm telling you. She's using her thinky box. It's true.
Speaker: I mean, i like I like the thought that ah Taylor, if you took away her ability to control bugs and she just had her thinker sort of multitasking, essentially, yeah she'd still be crazy strong. yeah Like just put her in a room with a bunch of computers and and cameras of the city and she probably does just as much damage. Yeah. She's so smart. We're so proud. Are we at the end of the chapter?
Speaker: I think we are. It's just time to say goodbye. It's time to say goodbye to sweet Danny. I completely forgot about this moment when I was rereading this. And I think in my mind, I didn't like I didn't realize this happened. It's such a sweet moment. Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, it hurts. It's so, it's so beautiful. And now our boy knows, theoretically. i I want to just protect him all the time. And I can't. And I am upset that we can't. I want him to figure it out, but not like this. But not like this. Not like this.
Speaker: I do hold to the, my, my own personal interpretation, which is that he's known for a while, but just never accepted it. yeah This was the final, the final moment.
Speaker: I mean, Taylor rolled up with a brand new truck for him, right? So like something somewhere down the line. Yeah. He's not an idiot. You know, he knows something's going up. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, Danny. Sweet, sweet, Danny. Oh, Danny boy. pipes the pipes ah ah holy That'll be in the musical too, don't worry. Oh i my God. Oh, I do love Taylor's consideration though. If we're saying I don't want his last thing thought of me to be something ugly. So she finds, she finds a butterfly just to put it on his hand.
Speaker: Yeah. Excuse me a second.
Speaker: yeah man just ah it it It really does feel like the end of an era and I i don't don't want it to be.
Speaker: I think Danny could have been such a good villain, Dad. Like, all right, don't get stabbed today, sweetie. Don't forget your lunchbox.
Speaker: And I'm upset that we never got that chance.
Speaker: hey
Speaker: it such a It's such a bittersweet way to end such a beautiful arc minus interludes, obviously. we get We'll get there. But like Taylor's story here, is it's it feels very ah like final. like You could almost end the whole web serial here and I would be happy.
Speaker: Like nots not to like I would want more, but you could end it here and it feels like the end of a character. Yeah. It's the kind of the end of Taylor's character. It feels like oh I was going to say Danny. This is why. Yeah, that was why Jacob. This is a reference to another podcast episode. People should listen to the question of what would you do for three movies of worm? I think you do a trilogy maybe that ends here.
Speaker: That's good. yeah i yeah like a A good way to end a trilogy. And then if people want more, you can always do more, but you could also just kind of end it here. and do and You could kind of be left wondering what happens next. Yeah. Yeah. imagine am yeah um Agreed.
Speaker: Ooh, you could do it here. um I'll also speculate if you wanted to make it bigger, you have them go to the like, you basically redo the mayoral thing where they're doing the mayoral candidates and they bust her in front of everybody.
Speaker: Like it's actually a big gathering of students and parents and stuff. And at the gathering, a ton of adults and kids all choose to side with the undersiders because of how she's taking care of them. And there's like people from her territory there and stuff.
Speaker: And they are like, no, like this girl was here when like, they're you know, they're asking the mayors all these things of like, Oh, what are you going to do to update infrastructure and all this when Taylor's already been doing it? And they basically comes down to like, yeah, like, uh, I'm sorry, who's been getting you running water? Who's been like clearing debris? Who's been giving you housing without, you know, pests? Uh, you know, and they can't answer those questions because they're not doing it. no And that would be a great moment to have it kind of hit bigger.
Speaker: who Yeah, I could see that. I could see that. Anyways, theory crafting aside, beautiful ending. I think, yeah, this does make a great bookend to Taylor's story. Um, at least what you would call kind of her anti -heroes journey in the sense of her fully having to embrace the villain side. and Yeah.
Speaker: Let's get into the interludes then, I think. Yeah, let's jump in. So for interlude one, um we kind of have this ah perspective of ah Stan, who is the the the the news anchor, ah trying to figure out stuff of like what's happened after after the event. We get a little bit more. And then ah the rest of the art of the interlude is kind of shown right through ah different people.
Speaker: Throughout Brockton Bay, as they're watching the new story kind of play out, ah we have ah Sophia's perspective, which is super, super great. Loved that. ah From Danny, the PRT, and the Slaughterhouse Nine.
Speaker: Uh, what is up this is a part of this chapter and with Taylor's observation, but I'm going to blame this on wild though. What is up with dissing howl or, uh, the, the, the vice principal?
Speaker: ah Just every comment every time she so she gets brought up like this both by Taylor and by the ah Oh about the shirt her way about about her not being attractive like i think what Really attractive she's she kind of low -key ugly, but like but whatever the thing that we say yeah Every time I think it works though, to be basically show like, she you you you might underestimate her when you first see her and by and visually how she appears to come across versus when you speak to her or two very dramatically different personas or vibes. And I think that's the point of of of putting it out like that is to make it look like, well, you know she's not very attractive and she wears kind of this like,
Speaker: unflattering blouse and you're kind of ready to like be able to walk all over her and then she speaks and she's very curt she's very clear to the point she talks with authority and you're kind of like oh and you realize like oh okay my assumption about her was wrong i think that's more of the vibe but because taylor says the same thing about like oh and she starts speaking she's like oh just kidding everything i thought about her is out the window
Speaker: Yeah, she's got strong picket vibes. OK. All right. I can see that.
Speaker: I liked the news anchor, but I thought that was a fun way to kind of show everybody's interaction with the story. ah That was really fun. I enjoyed that a lot, actually. Yep. I mean, i yeah, the reactions to everything is a great. Like Sophia's reaction. Oh, yes. So good. That's joy. And then it flips immediately to Danny and Kurt being like, you you don't need to watch this.
Speaker: um
Speaker: And of course him, him immediately, just again, the heartbreaking, like, is, is this my fault? Did I do something wrong? I think that's the indication he didn't know. He says that we want him to have known, but I really think he just, no, you're just blindsided by it. Right. Like it's, it, you know, we talked about it way early on of the, like, Oh, that would happen to other, other kids, parent or other parents, kids, but not. Yeah. My kid would never.
Speaker: Yeah. It's the, it's the last thing you think of. Like you, you think, Oh, maybe she's doing something a little sketchy and that's where she's getting the money. But you know, it's like the one dude working for a villain. Yeah. Yeah. know yeah Like that's, he might think that like, ah, she might, maybe she's running packages for a villain and that's the worst thing he can think of. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker: But it's so much worse. It's so much worse.
Speaker: Yeah. And then, okay, so then it goes to... It's Sophia, then Danny, then the PRT and um at the PRT meeting Defiant and Dragon are both there along with... Kosta Brown is on the phone.
Speaker: And the Boston head of PRT is there. And then the guy... What's his name? Tag? He's the new guy who's taken over from Brockton Bay. He's there. He's leaving the meeting. Yeah. yeah Big sigh. I think we we see here that, yeah, dragging and defying it at a certain point kind of gave up and was like, you know what? Screw it. We're just going to let this all burn. We're so mad. Burn, baby. You know what? I love the whole like...
Speaker: This could have been avoided, the director said, on multiple levels. Most likely, Defiant replied. If you would have cut off the feed, deleted deleted the footage, we won't ignore people's First Amendment rights. It's like, okay, Defiant. All right, you little sassy bot. Yeah. Sassy bot.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I love, I also love them talking about, uh, talking about, uh, I, I forget what the context was. Pig it basically says, I mean, Oh, it's about cleaning house, like going through, like getting out all the cauldron insiders. Yeah. And and they're saying like, Oh, I don't think we should do that. And Pig, it just goes, I mean, I wouldn't lose my job. I'm not cauldron. Yeah. And like obviously throwing shade on everyone else.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, well, if you, you know, if you're not with Coltrin, then you have nothing to hide. It's like, yeah! Like, who is it? Who chips in? Everybody pulls a collar. Yeah, right. And i love white I love the whole like between defiant and tag thing. And he's like, what are you going to do? Arrest me? And Tag's like, well, maybe. And he's like, what are you going to do? Send me to the birdcage? And it's like, who runs the birdcage tag? Stay it. Stay a bitch. It's the, how I can think of is the tone of in the iron giant when he's like,
Speaker: That bomb is aimed directly at the giant. Where's the giant, Mansley? it's just Who runs the birdcage tag? You really want to find out? It's great. You love him. Also, fuck this tag guy. i like i i I honestly remember how remember having better first impressions of Tag from earlier reads. And this one immediately fucked this guy. Oh my God, fuck this guy so hard. I hate him. And he's not even I love to hate him like Piget. I just hate him.
Speaker: I don't know enough about him to determine just yet. Just strong, I'm an ass vibe. I mean, yeah. but So i'm I am interested, one small thing in that that I don't want to over skip is a ah guy named Keen, who's not a director, Piget says, but he's a liaison between the protectorate and the various other superhero teams.
Speaker: um
Speaker: but ah yeah they're asking where do our biggest problems lie? And he mentioned something called the CUI. Have we heard of the CUI before? um No, but we'll hear about them in the next interlude as well. and Okay, cool. um i I figured something like that would happen. I was just curious. ah Do we want to go ahead and talk about what they are? Please do, because I don't know. Yeah, sure. yeah Okay, CUI is China's superhero squad. Okay.
Speaker: That's it. ah Because we've talked about other international groups. I was expecting so much more. Villain -wise, like Gesellschaft and um other, you know, other groups that are just abroad. I think we've even maybe briefly mentioned Canada's teams, um but China has the CUI, which, you know, I'm just going to assume is like literally the national ah organization, like the PRT, but for For China. For China. Because then he also mentions the suits in the Kingsmen, which I thought was a great pair of names. And again, not mentioned, and I don't know that they get mentioned much later. They actually do, I think. Okay. Are the Kingsmen like England or something? I believe they're both UK based. Oh my gosh. It's such a UK name too. Yeah, the Kingsmen I believe is
Speaker: I want to say like officially the UK's team and the, what was the other one? The suits. The suits. Maybe they're like new wave or something. Yeah. I was going to say, I feel like one of them's not um with the government. I feel like one of them's their own private entity, but I don't remember which is which. So, you know, time to look it up.
Speaker: Right. fun And this one is so big or yeah how big it already is reading everything. It's so much bigger and that's so fun for real. Um, and then I do love, I do love Jack's response. Just him being like, Oh, this is, this is so good. Uh, you know, him just smirking. I, I feel like Jack
Speaker: I don't know. I almost wonder if Jack has a sense of pride of like, I had a hand in this girl becoming who she was in a twisted sort of way, you know? Yeah. Oh, I definitely believe it. I mean, we, we see that with his interlude with Theo, where he's just like, he, he absolutely sees himself as the center of the universe. And so like, yeah, he totally has that vibe.
Speaker: It's like, ah, looks like my work paid off. Yep. But then we get the sense, uh, bone saw doing something, something naughty, something. I wouldn't have used naughty, but okey dokey. Does she still have like half a blasto attached to her?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. They mentioned that. Yeah. That was horrifying. I had forgotten about that. And this was a quick reminder of like - Wait, wait, wait. Was it still attached? I forget, honestly, if it was still attached to her or - She might've made it into its own thing. I was gonna say, was it its own zombie? It might've become its own zombie. I think at that point it had become its own, but what it seems like they're doing, and I'm kind of remembering the future as well,
Speaker: But they have they have containers with fetal shapes of people, 10 named crawler, 10 named Siberian, 10 named Chuckles, one named Grayboy. I guess even they knew that the world couldn't handle 10 of that one. i all i All I remember about previous readers is that Grayboy is important somehow to Jack. That's all I remember.
Speaker: I can't remember if it was like an ex -boyfriend or whatever. It feels like it could have been an ex -boyfriend thinking about Jack, but you know. I don't know if it's that. I don't think it is, yeah but i was that was Marj making a joke and nobody left, but it's fine. That's it. I thought you were serious. No, no, no, In reality though, i I know that he's important to Jack, but I don't remember why. And I don't know why they're not making more of him.
Speaker: But I mean, it looks like they're making clones. making clones. That's what blast assist power was. Oh boy. God damn it. We cannot win. We cannot fucking win. Nope. Not a moments piece. I mean, that is the point. The world is ending in two years.
Speaker: That's true. That's true. I keep forgetting that like, I guess the big climactic moment at the end of the book is going to be this, this big thing. And I guess that's it, but like, I don't, I don't remember that. so How exciting for you.
Speaker: One interlude left. One interlude left. Yes, okay, so the last interlude is the one that I only read a small portion of. ah but so So this is 100 % thanks to Space Battle's summary. Accord thinks about his plans, and the undersiders meet with the teeth, the fallen, and the ambassadors, which is a Accord's group. And Accord discusses the butcher.
Speaker: Uh, can you, can someone else give me a better, uh, summary of what happens in this, in this episode, uh, in this chapter? Cause I don't, I don't know. that i mean That's pretty much, oh was that is that it? but they have their It's a cord thinking a lot and then going in there i and thinking more. And then they have the meeting in which basically Taylor or a skitter, uh,
Speaker: Edges everybody out by giving them impossible restrictions to follow. and ah know But knowing that a court and his group will you have to follow it for a little bit so that they'll be amenable to it. But everybody else, they don't want, because they're pieces of shit. Right, they don't want them in in town. um so they Yeah, so they know they're not going to follow those rules. Okay, solid. And and then it ends. And the Butcher? is that Was there more about the Butcher?
Speaker: ah the So Butcher is, I know, one of Nick's favorite characters. And so Nick, would you like to talk? Nick's like what? She is? Is she? ah Nick, I mean, you're the one who I always heard talk about Butcher.
Speaker: out ofture You know, Alan, I think I think this is it might all be in your head. I think you should just explain it. Maybe. I mean, I remember what Butcher does, I think. Well, don't don't give it away if it's not talked about. no Wrong. You even had a D and &D boss based on Butcher. What?
Speaker: I feel like Gandalf in the minds of Moria have no memory of this place. Yeah. Cause this, this is something I'm pretty sure we discussed like a long time ago, but you know, you know who Butcher is, right? Okay. So, so we're talking about the Butcher is the leader of the fallen, right? No, no. The leader sorry the teeth. Yes. See that I knew I got, I got to that part. Okay. Butcher 14. I know who Butcher 14 is. You're 14.
Speaker: I'll be honest, I never hear the name Butcher in my head without the number, which is like, even when you say Butcher, I'm like, that just doesn't sound right. Doesn't Butcher get her own interlude later on in the book?
Speaker: Maybe. Possibly. I think so. Because that's what I remember. You said butcher 14 and it instantly came back. Fun fact, Hannah just remembered another thing about worm that she did not remember five seconds ago. So, I'm very proud of myself. I remember butcher 14. Yeah. I mean, I remember what's mentioned in this arc, which is that butcher Butcher is sort of, um, you know, sort of a, uh, uh, all for, or one for all sort of thing, if we want to reference minor academia, where it's sort of like somebody gets a power and then eventually they pass it on to the, their successor. Um, except in this case, I think the new person has to kill the previous one. Um, but the sort of the souls of all of the previous butchers also stick around. So each butcher gets a little bit more and more crazy.
Speaker: Yeah. It's like a combination of the all for one mixed with ah the Royal lineage from a stardust. Yeah. Right. No spoilers. um starts They do appear again. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. but I just want to know which, which D and D boss I made that you think is based. No, no, no. We hadn't ever run into it, but you, you and I had talked a long time ago. This would have been like. I feel like, Alan, you and I talked about a D and &D boss that was based, and I thought this was a boss you were building for your campaign. No, I've i never used that for one of my campaigns. I had a character that was lightly based on the reincarnation thing, but ah never that. But this was like an idea that I'm pretty sure Nick floated way back when you were writing
Speaker: I mean, this would have been pre you running the campaign that you were running now the first time. The first time when you were talking about him for a story. What's it called? Into the compendium. I know I've had two kids since then. So yeah, it's been a while. I mean, granted, this would have been, let me calculate now. His brain is probably muhi what? 10 years now.
Speaker: Oh, geez. Like you and I were walking and talking around the apartments, if that gives you any indication. Oh, God. That's 2014, my man. No, this would have been 10 years ago. Twenty fourteen years. OK, so eight years ago.
Speaker: yeah okay i'm gonna I'll go ahead and i just kind of get us back on track here because I know our audience is just so invested in the history of... Y 'all chat that. I'll talk about this later. yeah I'm going to go get some pizza. Not much like right yeah yeah not much left in the interlude anyway. It was a pretty simple interlude, not too much. It's it's kind of neat to see ah kind of everything from a chords perspective, just given his sort of OCD nature and yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and his power is crazy strong. who And it kind of just gets glanced over, I think a little bit. but um Yeah. I love, I love the ambassadors. I think we get a little bit more. I'm not, I, my memory is a little fuzzy, but I really, really like a couple of the powers of the ambassadors. That's some of my favorite writing in terms of like power creation that wild bow does. And, uh, it's fun to kind of get back into them. I'm excited to read more about them. I love the names, if nothing else, right? Like a fellow in Citrine are such great names.
Speaker: Yeah. And I know, so we know that, um, a court is a thinker, a fellow appears to be a stranger, uh, like imp and like, um, what's the guy in the fallen or the teeth, one of them valor for, um, or however you pronounce it. Yeah. Um,
Speaker: and availabl enough yeah um And i think that thinkers and strangers are some of the most interesting powers just from a design standpoint because it is it is truly that problem of how do you design a character who is. Literally way more intelligent than you ever possibly could be yeah and it creates an interesting sort of. Writing dilemma for the writer but i think wild but of course handles it pretty well.
Speaker: Um, and I think a court is interesting too, because he's another example of a, a good guy who went bad because he wants to do something good. yeah Obviously he's kind of pompous about it, but he's like, Hey, I know how to solve world hunger. Here's my plan. You're like, no, no, no. You're just a finance accounted guy for superheroes. Just like, just do your thing. Yeah. That's a big, uh, from, from live action, the Grinch, you know?
Speaker: I'm planning on his day. Solve the world hunger. and little' tenderer Tell no well one. oh god the best Also, I love that that's still his goal. Yeah. Yeah. it's He's like striving towards a perfect world. Honestly, i i'm I'm here for it. I'd be an ambassador. I'm down.
Speaker: I don't know. I'm so way too clumsy to be an ambassador. I'd be dead in seconds. He'd be so upset with me all the time. He'd be like, I can see the root. Like, I can see your roots. Like, do dead. Like, oh, I forgot to bleach my roots this weekend. Like, okay. I can't stand accord.
Speaker: i think he's I think his power is really cool, but I don't like him. as I don't even like his power all that much. ah like he is I wonder genuinely sometimes if he understands that his power will not stop him from just getting slugged in the face. He is a more useless power in that regard than Tattletale.
Speaker: And he is constantly like, oh, I could do this. I could set up the wrecking ball. I'm like, cool. How long is that going to take you? Because all Taylor has to do is whip out a baton, walk over and recap you when this is over. Like, you don't get to set up that kind of, but you don't get to be this much of a bitch when all it takes is one of these people slapping you. That's all it would take.
Speaker: Like, he's thinking about car bombs and they're thinking about like, man, I could just stab this motherfucker right now and all those problems would be gone. Like, ah you are so lucky you have ambassadors because damn.
Speaker: I mean, it is kind of true though, right? Like, the thinkers, I mean, all of the characters who were kind of thinkers, like even Tattletale, yes, she's got a mouth on her. Like we've talked about how many times has that gotten her in more trouble? So much that if she didn't have a team, she'd be dead 10 times over. you Oh yeah. Even now she's got like a nasty scar. That's only a scar and not a and not a lethal wound because Jack felt like she could have been dead. Should have been dead. Should have been. Yeah. You know, yeah, that's that's the downfall of all the thinkers really is insane, insane minds, fragile bodies.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, even coil in the end, yeah dodge a bullet, ah um which to confirm coil did not know about being like basically used by Coltrin. We did have that confirmed finally. ah we What did you say about what? Oh, that he wasn't nowhere aware. He wasn't aware that Coltrin was using him. That makes sense actually.
Speaker: Um, no, I, i all just cog on the machine yeah I found it really interesting to read this chapter because it's a cord. Um, you know, in terms of the thought process, after the first paragraph, I was incredibly bored.
Speaker: for the rest of it. it's ah I forgot how rough it is. to read I think it's just it's a long one. It's a really long chapter. And a lot of the I think it's the longest chapter in this arc. um and you And the rest of the arc is just so good. And you're just getting through like this great bit of storytelling. And even the even the interlude before this one is like,
Speaker: fine. It's kind of putting like a little bow on it. And then you hit this interlude and you're like, it's just such a shift in tone. And it goes on for 2000 words, too many. And just to sort of like, okay. All right. Okay. ah Okay.
Speaker: ah Okay. All all right. Okay. And arc 21. Okay. Hold on. Not yet. You know, like it's just, you're just kind of waiting for it to end because it's good. I mean, these these are the chapters I love. I love the world building chapters, but it's, it still does, it does drag a bit. So the other groups at the meeting are the teeth and the fallen. Uh, the fallen is the, they're the cold, right? The in bringer cold. Yeah.
Speaker: And the teeth are just, they're just an old Brockton Bay villain group that suddenly has kind of come back. Um, and they're right. I thought they were just a general villain group. Well, I think, I think it was mentioned early in this arc when Taylor's talking about the other groups that are trying to butt in. Cause she mentions like, you know, the ambassadors are here, they want to meet.
Speaker: Um, and the teeth and the fall on her, both trying to come in Nick is crime. And she mentions that the teeth was an old group that got beaten up really bad, like 10 years prior. And now like none of the original members are there, but the teeth do have butcher. So there's kind of that legacy of like, you know, not an original member, but has the soul of the original members. Hmm. Yeah. Cause they like went out of their way to get.
Speaker: the, the soul back into one of their teammates, like on their team. And then they also have a ritual within the teeth to pass it along. Well, that's right. Yeah. Alan, eat your pizza.
Speaker: ah soma was yeah i can I can hear it. I can hear it. i've been leaving I've been leaning so far away from my mic while I've been chewing. It's not that I can hear that chewing is that when you were just talking, I could hear that you still had a little bit of food in your mouth and it was kind of disgusting, but it's fine. I understand. Wow. Wow. Way to fat shame. yeah No, no, no, no. Classic Sophia stan over here. No. Thank you very much. No, I just, I just, I just meant that.
Speaker: Please don't talk with your mouthful. That's all. Thank you. You haven't even begun to see a full mouthful. I have to fit so much more pizza on here. So gross. And if you want us to have more pizza, please remember to sponsor us on Patreon. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that. This pizza is only possible because of our patrons. Every time we eat pizza, it's because of them.
Speaker: All right, friends, so i think we're I think we're at the end of arc 20. Any residual final thoughts? People want to shout out? um Just that I am really excited for what's coming next. I feel like ah feel like this is with the end of taylor but the with the death of Taylor and Skidder now being her soul identity. I'm so excited. I'm ready for it. I'm ready for the tap for the Taylor era to be gone and the Skidder era to begin. like Truly, truly begin.
Speaker: We've hit the part for me where I am now firmly into, I remember the big highlights, but very little of what's between them. So this is going to be fun. I'm excited to kind of get back into it. Yeah. Any favorite powers, uh, either returning or old or new? I mean, that's a good question. Does Emma's bitchiness count as a power?
Speaker: I think it counts as a weak ass power. because yeah like ah It's a thinker 0 .5 rating. Just can barely bitch better than others.
Speaker: ah Yeah, not a lot of powers here. I will say it's ah from the ambassador's side. We don't really get into the powers too much, but it's Othello's power is one of my favorite powers in the whole series. Just because of the way a court is like Othello and what's the other... What's her name? The other ambassadors. The Train. The Train are like the only two to survive the slaughter of the ambassadors. Right. And you're just like, ooh.
Speaker: how do they do that? And then Othello makes this one mention here where he's like, my other self saw something, you know, something, something coming. And so there's not a whole lot of insight into what his power is right now. And so I won't spoil it for what's to come, but it's a really, really cool power. And I really like the way it's worded. He's one of my favorite, favorite powers. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, they talk about other self and all I can think is, well, your name's Othello. So like, I imagine the game Othello where you like flip the light and dark side when you, you know, win stuff. Yeah. But I'm like, yeah. Alternatively, if you were working for the ABB, his name would be Ikaruga.
Speaker: ah guru my cu do i not yeah i don't you know you know okay and and and got it it's it's a It's a video game in which just michael you play a little ship. alan is a fucking wire along all and There two types of bullets. There's white bullets and black bullets being fired at you all over the screen. And depending on which side you flip your ship to the black side or the white side, it's not affected by one half of the bullets.
Speaker: Oh, that sounds fun. So interesting. Hence the like other self thing. Gotcha. Nice. Okay, that works. Michael, you can cut that. I liked it. I liked it. Maybe we'll see. Fix it in post. My motto for life. Fix it in my post. An unnecessary Alan. Jesus. So rude. Eat your fucking pizza. Jesus.
Speaker: yeah i'm I'm definitely curious to learn more about Othello. um his and don't know any yeah Anytime, like I said, there's a stranger or a thinker, powers are always getting really weird and interesting. Speaking of which, Valifor, having some kind of like hypnotic gaze,
Speaker: ah I had to look it up to remember what he did, but it sounds interesting. Um, and i also kind of like Sears, I know he's like kind of gets beaten pretty easily, but yeah, but I thought that was really cool. right Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that Taylor even says like, yeah, this is a pretty brutal power probably would have gotten him a villain label if he didn't have like the, you know, the support of the PRT.
Speaker: Cause you think about like, what is he doing? Right. He's sucking, uh, sucking all the moisture. Yeah. It's, it's desiccating. It's, it's like, um, extreme water bending is kind of how I'm thinking of it. Right. Like just sucking the water out of everybody. Yeah. It's great. I, I'm definitely a fan. Oh, and I, I looked up his name too. Yeah. I looked up his name too, because I was like, how do you pronounce this? Is it Siri? Is it seer? Um,
Speaker: So it is seer. Um, and, oh, I gotta find it. How was it spelled? Cause I was listening to the audio book. C R E. C R E. No, it is S E R E. S E R E. S E R E. Yeah. Seer. Um, which means being dried and withered. Oh. Mia. How about that? It's an old English seer that we know S E A R.
Speaker: But you know, there you go. A little old English fun fact for you from your English teacher. I was wondering if I was connected. Oh, thanks, Nick. Yeah, I like to see her. i think I think in general, because there aren't a ton of ah like new capes in this and this section, i as much as I don't like a chord as a person, I do still really like his power and the the way that his brain thinks.
Speaker: What I think is cool is because we see that with with tattletale that she has like this, her mind kind of like goes off in a direction and she has to like purposefully stop it in its tracks and like wheel it back in. And the same way we see that with a chord and in that interlude bit of like him having to you know His brain is like going off about how he's going to like cut the building and like do all this stuff. And he has to like physically stop it and rein it back and like thinking about pushing Citrine down the stairs. and like you know He comes back to himself and he realizes, like oh, no, she's standing right in front of me. I think that i think that's really interesting that like ah the thinkers have a brain that can run a run away with them. And it takes a while to come back to that.
Speaker: yeah I'm a huge fan of Butcher 14. I really need to finish the introduction. Number one, for just for the the the concept of, I had a character concept once for a power, which is like basically that, you know, where they, they didn't find out until afterwards that their power, ah part of their power set was that they reincarnate kind of in the next person and pass their powers along. And they're talking to them too.
Speaker: um So this is passed on, we now have the 14th one and the powers have stacked where they have the ability to essentially never miss whether it's with a sword and did they carry a katana, like a big old die katana or whatever. um I forget which one the show katana or the die katana is the bigger one.
Speaker: And then they have the, uh, the, like the big old, what what what else did it say they were carrying? Is it a Gatling gun? Cause they have like enhanced strength plus never misses. So boy, are those, you know, firing a Gatling gun. That's a lot of bullets, not missing all at once. Right. like Very focused bullet attack. Um, I want to say there's something else about they can essentially make sharp objects sharper. So like all the things that they have on them, they can extend out. Maybe I'm just bullshitting that one. i was so say Is this, is this stuff that's talked about in the interlude or are you just throwing this out? Cause you know, like this I know, I know, I know for sure that the never missing is talked about it in the interlude. Okay.
Speaker: Um, I know that is for sure, but yeah, like, and honestly, I just named all the ones that I remembered. Uh, plus them being crazy from 14 layers of people talking in their head. Yeah. No, that's like schizophrenia on crack. Like that's gotta be crazy. But it's so, that's such a cool, like it's such a weird badass character, especially with the, like, like I said, a giant Katana and a mini gun strapped to their hip. Like.
Speaker: This is a crazy character. Yeah. I mean, I definitely would be interested in learning more. I can't wait. Yeah, it's great. All right. Well, I think that wraps up our favorite superpowers from the section. So yeah, let us know in the comments. What did you like? What's your favorite power? Is it Emma's bitchiness? Is it Greg's whininess and persistence?
Speaker: and Is it Charlotte's happening to be in the right place -edness? And is it the Brockton Bay himself, Forrest? The Brockton Bay himself. I love that so much. Michael, I think you should play the song.
Speaker: yeah
Speaker: Yeah!
Speaker: Oh, what a fucking bop. Yeah, that's all. the rock bay ah Brockton Bay Award goes to Forest for sure. We should have done that sooner, but yep. Good point. All right, take us home, Jacob.
Speaker: i Well, you know Michael, I think that's i what I'm supposed to say to you, but we'll go ahead and just wrap this up. Thanks everybody for listening. ah It's been a pleasure. and This was a really fun arc, ah kind of getting into some of the great character moments here, things we love. Stick around for Arc 21 coming up for Brockton Bay Book Club. And of course, next episode will be ah for Dissecting Worm for Arc 20, where Alan and myself will dive into now season four of our hypothetical worm tv show starting with our 20 i know it's crazy that's me a lot of fun don't forget to keep a lookout for those specialty episodes if you're a patron again we've been recording fun stuff we got some stuff coming out for our patreon members
Speaker: And again, we did kind of shout them out already, but thanks again. It means the world to us. ah we love that We love that you love it. It's a lot of fun knowing that that people really do enjoy ah hearing us talk about worm. It's a lot of fun. We enjoy doing it. And ah yeah, stick around for all the Patreon members. We've got some fun stuff coming out for you guys, so it's going to be a lot of fun. And I think that's all the announcements. So with that, you you friends, thanks for joining me. Have yourselves a lovely evening. And Michael?
Speaker: Play 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? Anything you think we missed, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on
