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 .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Oh, don't think I haven't listened to it a lot. I listen to your soundcloud a lot, Michael. Good morning, Brockton Bay. Check your zip codes so you know which villain service provider
Speaker: is in your area. I'm always just waiting to see what we get to start every episode. I love it. All right. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you. Both to everybody listening and everybody here in the room. Heavy quotes there in the room with me today.
Speaker: One day, one day, one day soon. It is myself, Jacob joined by our rereaders today. So we have Alan, Hannah and Nick.
Speaker: Welcome, welcome. And as always, we have Michael making us sound lovely, chiming in now and then when we pronounce the name wrong, or rather to reinforce when we pronounce the name correctly. Yes, of course. And today we are diving into the first half of Arc 8 of Worm. So chapters... I'm sorry, I said that backwards.
Speaker: No, no, no. Arc 11 first eight chapters. This is the content that people want. I know. Gosh. If you, if you didn't, if you thought we edited it beforehand now, you know, you get it, you get it as raw as you can. Uh, chapters one through eight of arc 11. And, uh, we're going to dive in here.
Speaker: So let's get started. Fun few chapters. As always, Hannah, do you want to kind of kick us off with a couple of chapter summaries or a chapter summary? Yeah. Let's start with just chapter one for now. We open with Taylor's nightmare that feels insanely real and absolutely scared the shit out of me. And we check out her brand new lair. Taylor goes for a little bit of a jog down by the dock and accidentally runs into her dad, Danny. Awkwardness.
Speaker: Man, I forgot about the nightmare. Everything Kat ever feared, you know? Bam, coils ya dad. We knew it was coming. We're still not proven wrong. That's actually hilarious though. That was something that Kat said pretty early on. Did she not? I'm pretty sure she did. She was like, it's Mr. Gladly or it's her dad. Oh yeah.
Speaker: Maybe I'm misremembering that, but I'm pretty sure she at least guessed that Danny was a cape himself, but so far that appears to not be the case. So far. Allegedly. No problem. Allegedly. Yeah, but no, that nightmare, that opening nightmare really, I don't
Speaker: I mean, I read it before, but every time I reread things, I'm like, I don't remember this at all. That was a moment where I was like, what's happening? What did I come in on? Yeah. I think for me, the moment I remembered it was a nightmare after rereading it was when she describes basically how she had beaten all of the travelers and it hit me. I was like, there's no way Taylor could solo all the travelers.
Speaker: It's a very wishful thing. Yeah, sure, Taylor, whatever. I totally did it, guys. But at what cost? I was just too strong. Yeah, I mean, I get it. Then, of course, she wakes up in the cold sweats. I've had nightmares about my dad being villainous. That's terrifying in so many ways. Go on.
Speaker: Okay, well, we're not going to talk about the dream that I had about my dad being a pirate. But the point is that Taylor is like, that's a terrifying thought. She hasn't seen her dad in weeks. She doesn't know how he's doing. She doesn't know where he's at currently. She's still a kid. She's still 15, 16. It makes sense for her to have nightmares about her dad like that.
Speaker: It makes sense with all the stress that she's been under. Something I noticed about Taylor just in this arc in general that will come back is how much of a burden she puts on herself to do everything. It's very clear that she does not think that other people can do what she does.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a really good insight into Taylor's character, I think. We get that a bit in the earlier arcs as well, but I definitely think that's something that is starting to build in her. And it's kind of funny because it's so relatable, right? We all at times are like, I'm the only one who can do this. Nobody else can do this. Somebody else might have gotten it wrong.
Speaker: That's a deep mass effect cut for anybody. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Alan. What I found really interesting about, uh, this whole dream sequence thing is that we we've already had a bunch of jumping around in this arc, like.
Speaker: I mean, the first one starts off with, you know, the wards and, you know, we're bopping around there from point of view to point of view. And then we start back, we're back with the, uh, the undersiders again, but it is still jumping around in the timeline. So everything's very, you know, you don't know where you're going to end up next. We haven't established a real pattern. So when this one kicks off with, you know, we're obviously in the future and
Speaker: Taylor's done all this stuff already. Like you're about to be like, okay, is the entire arc just going to be backtracking this? Is that what we're doing now? Yeah, right. Like we're going to start with this one and the rest of the episodes are going to be not that like we're going to following up to that. Uh, so, you know, it gives that lead in with the chapters beforehand or the whole arcs beforehand that like, uh, structurally this is possible since we're obviously experimenting. We're not just going chronologically.
Speaker: you know, the way that, you know, season one or arcs one through eight went. Yeah, no, I like that. Yeah. And it is, it is clear too, that there is some kind of a time jump. So, um, you know, the fact that, um, it does open this way, it is a nice, um, sort of cold open to throw you into the middle of the action. And you might be thinking, okay, what's going on? How is this happening? Um,
Speaker: Yeah, and then it just gets weird at the end with coil. Um, but you know, that's, it's just the way dreams are. It does feel like a dream in that regard. It did get pretty oddly specific with the, like the poison thing, the dust.
Speaker: I was like, this is so much information for dust in a dream. Dream logic for sure, but okay. Definitely some Google searches that have seeped their way into Taylor's head. It was just Google searching all these weird powers and poisons. Can you Google that since I don't want it in my history? We're here to buy poison dust.
Speaker: If you just Google poison dust, you are going to get some weird shit. Yeah. Yeah. Might have to be a little. I know a fairy. A fairy. Excellent. Is your fairy's name anthrax? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. We move from dream Danny to real Danny. Yeah. What a run. Yeah. I love.
Speaker: All of this, it's awkward, but I don't know. Something about this domestic side feels real nice.
Speaker: I was going to say, this is another example. We've mentioned this several times and it won't be the last, but I really love the way Wild Bo writes dialogue. It just feels so natural in a really uncomfortable way sometimes. And like this, it, this doesn't feel like pre -generated dialogue. Like it feels like a conversation that would happen. Yeah. Yeah. Which I really enjoy reading. Yeah. The uncomfortability and the
Speaker: the kind of his awkwardness of, you know, not wanting to say the wrong things. He doesn't want to push her further. And the fact that Taylor recognizes that and sees it and is like, Oh man, I, like I can see that he's struggling to even say what he wants to say because he doesn't want to push me farther away. I forget if, if I was talking with you, Jacob about this, or maybe I was just something I heard. Um, but it was something about, uh, how Scott Pilgrim, um,
Speaker: the, the movie, how the dialogue went in that where it's, you know, it's Edgar, right? So it's perfectly on beat. It's, you know, it's very clean in that regard, but at the same time, it's very accurate and it's awkward, uncomfortable off beat. But once again, in a rhythmic sort of sense. Um, and this feels a lot like that. We're like, it's clean dialogue. Nobody's stuttering. Nobody's.
Speaker: you know, Oh, you go first. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt kind of the way that natural dialogue goes even on this podcast as obviously shown. Um, but this feels like that. It's so real and awkward and uncomfortable. Um, you know, watching Fargo right now, you get that same vibe where there's, there's a beat, there's a rhythm, there's a pace, but at the same time,
Speaker: It's like jazz where characters are just kind of... They're so unique. It's not just cookie cutter back and forth talking. There's definitely a skill to that. I was finishing that thought. That's all I had to say. No, that's good. I want to tie it back to the base scene too, where Taylor's kind of looking around and describing her very empty supervillain base.
Speaker: But there's a small part as I was just kind of looking back through where it says, you know, she's looking at herself. Um, and she's saying like, I felt comfortable with my body. Like I'd somehow earned it the way I was. And it was mine now. Um, so she's getting more comfortable physically, but then she says, if there was anything about myself that I didn't like, it was primarily psychological guilt was a big one. The idea that my dad might dislike me, if he got to know me now, that was another.
Speaker: that my mom, where she alive and showing up at the door might be disappointed in me. So bring. And so that connection to that moment where she's thinking about her dad and then she sees her dad later, just to add to that awkwardness of like, Oh, I'm, I'm just lying up a storm to, to keep my dad, hopefully still respectful of me. You know, that even, even with the distance between them, um, she still cares what he thinks of her.
Speaker: Yeah. Oh gosh. It's so tough. It's so tough. Cause like, I mean, you have enough insecurities as a girl and as a teenage girl, even more so. And, you know, growing up with basically her dad as being her primary, uh, parent that's there, like that, that the broken relationship, it hits really hard. And like the idea that this person who's supposed to be your father is supposed to know you, you know,
Speaker: who you interact with every day. He doesn't interact with her every day. He doesn't know who she even is anymore. The person that she's become through skitter is so vastly different from who she is as Taylor or who she used to be as Taylor because who she is as Taylor now and who she used to be as Taylor is also vastly different. Is there any way for her to
Speaker: reconcile those two identities of who she is, especially to her dad. And the safer option is not to do it at all, which is what she's doing. She's distancing herself. But I think at first it's this idea of we'll have to save him from the secret identity of mine, of the secrets that I've created. And now it's like you're not just trying to save him or protect him or whatever.
Speaker: you've created something that's so different from your old life that he wouldn't even understand who you are now and the decisions that you've made. It's kind of heartbreaking actually. It's terrible because they didn't have that broken of a relationship. No, I feel like they had a really good relationship at the beginning. The kind of camaraderie, the quiet camaraderie that they had together
Speaker: You know, they're both very introverted type of people, but there was clearly a, you know, connection and it just so quickly deteriorated.
Speaker: And also the, so the layer that was, uh, I love that Taylor Taylor has fully embraced the evil villain shit. It's like, I'm going to have all these, these cages and I'm going to have the beetle flip on the light switch so that I can sit menacingly behind, like over in my chair and like by bugs.
Speaker: Yeah, backlit by bugs and like spin around and then like as, you know, seemingly by magic, everything turns on. I'd be like, welcome. Hello. Welcome to my lair. Big, big mega mind mood there. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I was thinking the same thing. I just, uh, it's so great. And I love that like, cause you know, like who hasn't been, you know, a 16 year old up at three in the morning rearranging a room because obviously
Speaker: Like we've all been at that point. This is this is like the ultimate version of that. Like I got a whole freaking layer to myself. I get three floors. Like, oh, I'm going to pimp this shit out. It's so hard. And this is going to be the evil throne room floor. Oh, I love it. And I love the distinction between the top floor being Taylor and the second floor being skitter and like having that distinction because well, obviously because they're the two identities. But I love that they're it's not just the
Speaker: distinction of like, oh yes, this is where I shall, I shall take guests as skitter. Like I just, I love that so much. It's so smart and probably not something I would have thought of, but that skitter has thought of it and I love that.
Speaker: Also the, uh, the comments about like, uh, but it feels so empty. All I can read is like, ah, clearly I lack henchmen. It's actually, that's something I've been thinking about that. I'm actually, uh, it's something that's kind of been formulating. So Taylor constantly has access to these books. Like they're just at the edge of her mind constantly.
Speaker: Does she think of her bugs as her minions or does she think of them as extensions of herself? I think she thinks of them more like extensions of her power. Yeah, I would say yeah, extensions and with that probably extensions of herself.
Speaker: Um, because I mean, the way it talks about how, cause she can feel not pain or anything like that, but can feel, she can sense her environment around her bugs and things like that. Um, it does, it does read more like an extension of, of herself, I think is probably how I've always read that, but open for debate. Yeah, I think so too. I just, that thought of like, you know, she's in her, her lair and she's all alone, but like,
Speaker: You've created all of these cages that are just, you know, these terrariums that are overflowing with your bugs. So like, do you feel alone with all of your bugs here? Or do you, or, or do you feel like they're just more versions of yourself or their extensions of your power in this case?
Speaker: So they don't count as keeping you company in a weird way that people would feel like keeping you company. I don't know. There's just something else. Yeah. Well, I think it's actually a good point because I think there is a pretty clear distinction between Taylor's relationship with her insects and bitch and her dogs, where bitch very, very clearly has her pack and the dogs are part of that.
Speaker: And the difference of their course being that Bitch doesn't have any actual mind control over her dogs either. But yeah, that's very clearly her group and her henchmen if you want to make that comparison, that kind of thing. Whereas Taylor and Skitter has really no care for her bugs at all. Yeah.
Speaker: kills them, destroys them, burns them, drowns them. They've always felt more like fools to me than extensions of herself even. Because I'm pretty sure she can turn off her connection to them as well. So I remember her saying early on how if she had full connection to her bugs all the time, she would have gone crazy because the sensory overload in her brain would have just been too much.
Speaker: Um, so she's able to focus in on certain ones or seemingly turn off her connection to certain ones. Um, or even like now it seems like she's gotten to the point where she can kind of say, do this and then kind of leave it in the back of her mind and not think too hard about it. Um, at least that's been my take on it. I don't know that that's, I don't know if that's accurate or not. Um, but that it, they do feel more like tools of.
Speaker: Yeah, just tools to her, not necessarily extensions of herself or her personality or her power. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Maybe kind of like passive perception versus active perception. Yeah, yeah. And like Jacob said, she doesn't have a relationship with these creatures. And I think part of that just has to do with the type of creatures they are. You can't...
Speaker: I don't know if any of you guys have ever had a pet bug before, a pet worm, but an ant farm or something. I've had a pet rock, but I don't think that... Yeah. I mean, the conversations are just about as riveting with the pet rock. That's riveting. So, yeah. Yeah, no, I like that. I think tools is an apt description.
Speaker: I feel like going back to, you know, the loft and feeling alone and stuff. I feel like this is like, she's in her, the artist phase that just made it big, but now they don't have anyone around them. Like musician or like a movie star, any, any, any artist really. It's like the classic phase every time. Yeah. Yeah. Big old house all alone.
Speaker: Yeah. That's the vibe I'm getting. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. She really is all alone. Like she's got her territory, which is interesting to me. I think we talked about it last time, but the idea that Coyle put her here of all places, but like they're all, the under centers are also isolated now. Yeah. And also separated. I mean, Lisa's surrounded by people, but like,
Speaker: That's tactical. I mean, this kind of this honestly sort of sort of builds into the chapters to come and maybe it's maybe we dive in now, but like I think that's part of probably why Skidder makes a pretty quick play to control her territory and higher underlings is is probably to sort of reclaim some of that group dynamic in a way. Yeah.
Speaker: hire friends. Who needs real friends when you can just pay them? But also, and maybe this is coming up later. This is something I've truly forgotten. So if this is a spoiler, we can edit it out later, Michael. Are the travelers also split up controlling territories? Or was this just an undersider thing? I believe this was just an undersider thing. They do say that there are nine territories.
Speaker: Oh, that's right. Lisa does say that later. Interesting. I believe the travelers have different territories. Interesting. This might get boring so we can get this out if need be. But if there are nine territories, how many undersiders are there?
Speaker: There's, there are, there are, well, Gru and Imp are together. So count them as one. So there are five territories held by the undersiders. Five territories held by the undersiders that you add coil having one, um, at minimum. And then the travelers together having one at minimum. I wouldn't be surprised if the travelers have two between them. Cause I want to say that ballistic has his own.
Speaker: Okay, gotcha. Interesting. So maybe there's something there. I don't think they're as split up as the undersiders though. My impression, if I remember right, even Coyle says I have other things that I need them to do. So my impression is that they're not as split up as the undersiders are. Interesting. I'm sure it'll come up again, but that is interesting. Yeah.
Speaker: Did you feel like maybe that's because Coyle trusts the undersiders? They've proven themselves to be able to handle their own territories? I was thinking maybe it was more that Coyle didn't want the undersiders together for whatever reason. They're too powerful. Yeah. Well, not even that. And again, I have honestly no memory of this whole dynamic. So I'm completely just guessing again.
Speaker: I mean, it feels like one of those things where Coyle used his power, got a few different answers from Dinah and was like, okay, my plan works better if the underside is split up, that kind of thing. So curious to see how that plays out. I think though, it also probably has a lot to do with the traveler situation. We don't know much about it yet at this point.
Speaker: We do know that Coyle is trying to help them with something that feels pretty urgent. And I would imagine that the travelers don't want to be too far from that. And so I think... Yeah, well, we did. Her name has been brought up. Yeah, we do know that the travelers are... What's her name? Noelle. Noelle, yeah. Are concerned about her. Yeah, they have this concern about Noelle, which we don't know much about yet.
Speaker: but we know they're concerned. So I imagine. Behind a very large door. Yes. Here we go. I have it. There's a good, a good portion of that too. If I had to guess. That's a good point. I don't know the source on this, but I'm looking at a picture. It's got skitter, you know, with the Bay, with the ferry, it's got Regent to the south through an imp to the west. Hellhound slash bitch to the north.
Speaker: Orion or Parian holds Daltown, which is sort of a little in between regions, grooves and ballistics territory. Below region and ballistic is Sundancer. To the right of Sundancer and region is Tricksters. And then all the way in the corner, sort of with Trickster is Genesis. Interesting, okay. Well, that's a lovely sidetrack who went down. Yes.
Speaker: but very necessary. Yeah. So as they always are. Um, but yeah, let's get into the next couple of chapters. Yeah. Uh, we get into territories. Uh, yeah, we got the DJs from up country. Yeah. So we've got, uh, we've got chapter two, uh, skitter claims her territory and, uh, passes out supplies with help from some of coils, uh, soldiers.
Speaker: uh, deals with a challenger from the merchants and then talks very briefly with battery, uh, the hero battery. Um, and then chapter three, skitter dispenses with the merchants in her territory, uh, from the safety of her lair, which is just this, that's so cool. Uh, and we get a little bit of a flashback to her conversation with Sierra and her promise to help find Sierra's brother, Bryce. God, I love Taylor running around in the,
Speaker: you know, the, the military. Yeah. And this truck truck with her, with her soldier boys. Yeah. And she's like, Hey, I like, I tried to find my upper limit in terms of how many bugs I could control. And I kept gathering bugs and I never hit the upper limit. Damn. Taylor, you're powerful.
Speaker: Yeah, I love the smoke. And then follows that up with more of that, like talking about really leaning into like showmanship, seeing the villain does the whole thing where she like gathers the bugs at one corner behind the crowd and then jumps it over.
Speaker: to like land and then she like steps out as if she like teleported via bugs. I love it so much. Well, it's so smart too because we've talked before about, you know, you don't necessarily want everyone to be aware of what you can do. And so having a little bit of like showmanship, a little bit of, you know, trickery is good because that way if you do run up against someone who, you know, has your file on hand,
Speaker: That way you can pull out little tricksies. I just love it so much.
Speaker: to keep with the Megamind comparisons. Huge flashbacks to the climax of that film, Megamind. You might be a villain, but you're no super villain. Yeah. What's the difference? Presentation. Oh my God. So good. Yeah. I feel like this is such a great moment of like that. Oh, I've
Speaker: my own lair. I've got my own people. I'm living by myself. I don't answer to anybody. Well, maybe Coyle, but not really. I don't answer to anybody. I'm in charge of my own space and I'm going to make a name for myself and my territory. And that this coming into herself even more so now is so much fun. All hail Skidder, let's go.
Speaker: And I love her approach to it as well with just using basic supplies and food and stuff, just to get the general population, one, on your good side, because he's going to turn that down, but two, make them dependent on you too. So there's that backhanded force of control there, which is really interesting.
Speaker: And that's such a common thing too, obviously, like supply chain control is a really big, real, like in the real world, it's how dictators and gangs and things like that, that's what they control, is controlling the flow of goods and, yeah, necessary stuff. And she does care too. That's the thing that I like about her still as a character is that,
Speaker: Even throughout this, uh, she still like got this hint of like, I'm still a good guy. Like I'm still a good person at least. Um, and that's why she's doing it the way she is too. You know, she's not going in with a show of force. Um, although, um, forgive me if somebody else mentioned this already, but her, the other thing I love about the way she takes out the merchants and the scene is she has this like bug surveillance force.
Speaker: that was just all over her territory, almost to the edges of it is how far she can reach now. And she's just like, basically she's just got a bead on everybody of like, okay, these are these people, these are these people, I've got some merchants here, gotta watch out for them. And she just like, it almost makes her feel omnipresent in a weird way. And that's really cool to see her again coming into her own as a hero and saying,
Speaker: Yeah, I got this, like, don't worry about it. I can handle these guys in her own way. Not in the way that, you know, Coyle or Bitch or any other character would, but in her own, both caring, but also needing to know all the information way. And I love it. Flip that over with like, I get, okay, so that's her taking care of everybody, which, you know, her sip and tea
Speaker: Just casually, I'd like to think that, I can't remember if this is the exact point in time, but I'd like to think that she's sip and tea talking to Sierra about the merchants at the time that she's like currently like, I'm sorry, what did you say? And then just like outside you hear like screaming. They're not happening at the same time, but I do love that. Running the world. Justifying, you know, justifying your bakuta like actions.
Speaker: But the other, on the flip side, she lets the dude run up and just to show people that she can't be stabbed, lets this guy try to stab her like multiple times. I would argue too many times.
Speaker: Like maybe a few too many. You didn't have to let them do all that. Like you let them do once, like to prove a point, but then you let them go like two or three more times. I love the internal monologue too there. Cause she gets hit and she's like, Oh, Oh fuck that hurt. Remember don't see me. That's right. Never let them see bleed. Yeah. Stand up straight. All right. Cool. Yeah. Don't forget you're invincible. Okay. Oh, invisibility sucks. Yeah. Is that all you got?
Speaker: Just like a little bit of blood comes at that all you got. But also like that would definitely work.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, it's so intimidating. It's so intimidating. Cause like we have, we have these huge superpowers that we know can get hit by a train and are totally fine. But the common, the common man as it were, does not know that skitter bleeds like everybody else. And so like to see that happen and kind of this fallacy of, of, you know, what are her powers? Like we don't really know. Like, oh, it's so good. It just further cements this image of, of, of who skitter is as, as, you know,
Speaker: as a villain of her territory. Like, ah, so good. I imagine there is a big dividing line essentially between heroes that can get shot and heroes that can't. Yeah. Cause on one, on one side you have, you know, the proctorate, you have all these people with either armor or physically, you know, they're just, they're, they're invulnerable essentially. And then on the other side, you have what feel like humans with a power.
Speaker: Um, grew being one of those, uh, Lisa being another, like these are human beings with a super power attached to them as opposed to the, you know, glory girl. If you don't know her glory girl is, you know, mini Superman, right? For all, you know, she will take a bullet and then throw you through a truck. Like there's, there's a big feel.
Speaker: uh, difference and feel between those between your tattletales and your glory girls. And to show someone that like, Hey, you thought I was a, you know, a human. It's like, no, I'm not a villain. I'm a super villain. I love it so much. The show of power just gets me every time.
Speaker: Yeah, so any final thoughts for moving on? Alan said protectorate wrong and bakuta wrong. So is it proctorate, protectorate, protectorate, protectorate, protectorate. You said proctorate. Not like they proctor the city. It's a test of good and evil. And if you do evil, they kick you out.
Speaker: I think it's time for your protectorate exam. I failed. I do want to say this before we move on because Alan mentioned it and I think it's worth bringing it up.
Speaker: Skinner, Taylor does bring up Vahkura. And it's like, hmm, interesting how what I'm doing now, it reminds me quite a lot of what she did. And I don't know about you guys, but that sent a couple bits of flags in my brain. And also, that's interesting that
Speaker: Taylor made that connection because she's always been very clear even with her own self even in her own head that she is a hero wearing Villains clothing like she is she is still a hero underneath and this feels like because she's making references to to bakura Hmm interesting to me
Speaker: Yeah, I think she's not blind to the comparisons there. And I think Taylor is like the example that you could point to for the classic, everyone's the hero of their own story, or every villain's the hero of their own story, where Taylor certainly fits that mold. Because she called herself a villain, she recognizes that's what she is. But yeah, but she sees herself as a hero, as a good guy.
Speaker: But no, it's a very interesting comparison because obviously without the terrorism attached to it, there is almost like that hint of admiration for Bakutah and probably to a greater extent lung too, or a lesser extent I should say, just seeing
Speaker: Oh, I have a territory just like they had a territory. I have people just like they had people. It is interesting to get into that. I don't think it was like, ah, that's right. My role model bakuta. I don't think so either. But I do think it's interesting that she did bring that up and that was the best.
Speaker: I think she's acknowledging her sort of intentional slip into villainy. Yeah. If you're a villain, you have a territory. Like that's just, yeah, she's recognizing that. I love it. And then we move on to other territories. Yeah, yeah. So in chapter three,
Speaker: Nope, nope, sorry, chapter four. Chapter four, Taylor meets up with Lisa in Lisa's territory, dressed as herself rather than skitter, and gets together with the dates that Lisa sets up for them. And they head to the merchant party at the mall, the mall where literally all the mall things have happened. And now it's just a very broken and sad merchant mall now. We're making news of this set.
Speaker: I love Lisa's whole setup here. So good. Oh, it's great. It's perfect for her. I love Lisa's broom closet full of interns and information. I love her harem of sexy, sexy special forces. Ah, gosh, she's living the dream.
Speaker: She's like, all right, boys, we're going shopping. Get your best sweats on. We're going to the mall. Sweats on. Did she say that, actually? No. Oh, I wish. Okay.
Speaker: I just hear the put on your Sunday clothes from Hello Dolly and it's like them traipsing off arm and arm towards the mall. Just like skipping down the sidewalk. Just some jumpsuits though. Yeah. I don't remember all their names, but I do love the camaraderie too. Minor, jaw, Brooke, Senegal. Bless you for knowing that. I love this crew. Alan's writing the fanfic. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, but I love how whichever two are the two that are left over. Senegal and Bruh. No, I think because Senegal was with Taylor. Senegal and Ja, right? No, I think it was, I was going to say Senegal was with Taylor, I think. Correct. You're right. But whichever two were left over, they're like, wait a second, who do we go with?
Speaker: And at least it's just like each other, obviously. It's Brooks and Miner. You can see the camaraderie and I think it's just a well -written part showing sort of the friendship between these soldiers who clearly have worked together for at least some amount of time.
Speaker: um, are used to being around each other to the point where they can kind of joke with each other and be like, all right, yeah, we're a couple. Come on, bro. I love it so much. It's great. Even when they show up, uh, to the mall and it's like, they're letting them in the door and, and you know, he's got it. Senegal has his arm around Taylor and, and, uh, what's his face? Brooks has his arm on the small of, uh, what's his face? His back and they're like leading him in like, Oh,
Speaker: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I love it so much. It's such a great image of, um, I guess the six of them walking in like, Oh, so good. And then the, the, the no gaze moment where they beat the crap out of it. Oh man. Like the equivalent in my mind would be like, if the visual image, this is going to be for Star Wars fans.
Speaker: would be like, you know, and most wisely in episode four where the bartender's like, Hey, we don't serve your kind here to the droids. Yeah. Imagine, imagine him doing that, but the droid walking in was like general grievous.
Speaker: Exactly. And it is like, it's kind of that feeling of like, you just imagine these two huge soldiers and you know, they're there. I mean, I know that if I was a big muscular soldier guy with another big muscular soldier guy, I would be, I would maybe be hamming up the couple part, um, a little bit and they're like, Hey, we don't serve your kind here and just get absolutely wrecked. It's fantastic.
Speaker: as it should be. Also, for those out there before you say anything, Nick does know that General Grievous is a droid. He was just using that as a general example. Yes, General Grievous is a cyborg. I was going to say, got to get ahead of that one. We're just going to get ahead of that one. Where we get the angry Star Wars face. No, no, wait, Michael, take that out. That's free engagement, Michael. That's free engagement. Cut this part out.
Speaker: He said, fight me. He's a droid. He's always been a droid. The people who know and would have commented have already commented before they got to this part. I was going to say, you're safe in that regard. Like they stopped listening at the moment.
Speaker: They've been writing and now they're upset because they're like, okay. According to Wookie Pedia, Grievous born was a Kalish male warlord who served within the military forces.
Speaker: Oh my god, I understand nerddom and I know that this group is very nerdy, but you all are the most nerdy nerds and I love you all for it. Test me. Test me on this topic. I have not yet begun to find out. Just wait till I get started. Just wait till I get going.
Speaker: You know that meme? Is it true blood? It's not true blood. What's the other? I don't know. The meme with the three vampires staring down on the crowd. Is it vampire diaries? Maybe vampire diaries. I don't know. Oh, God. I messed up that fandom. So we're going to get the angry fans there. It's fine. It's okay. Al and Ogral Demon in Dissecting War. It's okay. Vampire Diaries has thoroughly infected my mind. I take full blame for that. Thank you so much.
Speaker: To get back on track as best we can never never
Speaker: So yeah, we get to, we get to, we kind of threw through those chapters, but there's really not too much to dive in there. I don't want to skip past it if anybody had something they wanted to say, but just sort of meeting up with Lisa, introduction to her territory. Yeah, her squad. And then we get to the mall where the merchants are at a little party.
Speaker: It's it's the mall. I don't. This is the first time I've realized that we have been to this mall. Yeah. Numerous times. Three times now. Three or four. We've got Sophia pulled some earlobes in the mall. That was a different place. Taylor slapped the shit out of Emma. Yeah, this one's the - downright punched her. Or did she punch her? Yeah, she popped her in the nose. Give her a little boop. I want to say the only time we've been here before is with Emma.
Speaker: Is that the only other time it's just been mentioned a lot? It's just been mentioned. No, no. We went there with Sophia, with Brian. Sophia and Brian, that was a different area of town. Was it? Yeah. Although make a note, make a note, Alan, for dissecting where we should make that the same area of town. I was about to say, I feel like it making it all the same mall is a really good. It was, it was a, they went to a strip mall. They didn't go to a, they mentioned the free strip mall.
Speaker: Um, I do want to say, uh, I feel like, did we, did we jump past the reason why Taylor's coming here anyway? We, we meant, I mentioned it, we didn't really talk about it. Yeah. I mean, with, with Bryce and Sierra. Yeah. We don't necessarily need too much, but of course the whole reason she's there is to save, try to save Bryce. Um, Sierra's brother, um, according to Sierra,
Speaker: uh, was taken by the merchants after a very violent attack against, um, a church shelter. And it's one of those moments where, you know, you don't, we don't know how bad the ABB was until the very end when they were really desperate and doing terrible things under Bakut's control, but it never felt like they were this bad. This just feels like monstrous behavior.
Speaker: Um, the, the things that, uh, Taylor has told that the, the, um, the merchants are doing. Yeah. This specifically did in the attack on the church too. Yeah. Sounds like the kind of guys that would hold down a sick ostrich. Yeah. I was going to say it reminds me of, uh, some of those scenes in Breaking Bad where you see like, um, the meth heads who are, you know, taking the drugs and.
Speaker: Like that scene where they're trying to get back the money or from this like meth head couple and there's a kid there. Yeah. And it's just like, Oh man, like this is, this is like the darkest, dark side of the, of this type of person. Right. And I feel like the merchants are just that on with superpowers. I was gonna say it's that in plus like Mad Max. Yeah. Yeah. Plus witness me. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the degeneracy of meth heads.
Speaker: with the culture of Mad Max, you know, the, the witness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If, if, if there was ever a time that felt kind of very like every man for himself, zombie apocalypse vibes, it's here at the mall with the merchants, like that very, everyone's just kind of wild and crazy and we're doing what we can to make do, but also like everyone's high, everyone's smashed, everyone's fighting.
Speaker: Like it's just a, it's a mess and they're, they all love it. They're all here for it. Yeah. It feels like this is where that long list of trigger warnings we put in the description start to kick in up until now we've getting like bits and pieces. The bullying is pretty bad and traumatic and Leviathan fights really bloody and all this kind of stuff. But then now we're sort of getting into the,
Speaker: Now we're at Burning Man. Now it starts to get dark and it stays dark for a while, but this feels like kind of the diving board into this side of the world really. I'll add in though too, what I love about this in the way that it's written is that when we find out that Bryce is part of the merchants, like he's chosen to be a part of this group,
Speaker: It creates this really fascinating contrast where you're set up to really hate the merchants and just to be like, man, these people, they're the scum of the earth. They could probably all die and the town would be a better place. You have no pity for them. And while that is still true, all of a sudden you have these two characters, Charlotte and Bryce. Charlotte, who is a victim of the merchants, doesn't want to be there.
Speaker: And Bryce, who is choosing to be there, but at the same time, you're like, you just kind of feel bad for this kid. You're like, yeah, the, the town does suck right now. Your life does suck right now. I get why feeling with a power, you know, being with a powerful gang would feel good to an extent. And it creates this interesting juxtaposition where now these people you hate, you also just feel really bad for.
Speaker: I think Taylor says at one point in time, like there's, you know, merchants used to be a small group that was essentially like a homeless encampment, if you will. And now it's, it's exploded. And population wise, she's like, there's gotta be, you know, this is a decent percentage of people from the city. Like I could have passed by any number of these people in normal pre -Leviathan days, and they were probably just a normal person.
Speaker: Like statistically these were normal people. A lot of these people were normal people before. Not to be too like horrible and dark, but like it reminds me of like child soldier situations where you've watched your whole family die. How could you imagine joining them? But you do because you have to and you are desensitized to it. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, when your entire life, your entire family, your entire city has been destroyed and taken away from you. And you feel so powerless, you feel so such a lack of control. It makes sense when groups like this form, when people like this form, because, you know, okay, so you have no control over anything in your life, you have no power. And yet, by joining this group, you have a monopoly on the supplies, you have power, you have
Speaker: a status of being part of a group, being part of something bigger than yourself. You have a new family because everyone else is in a very similar position as you. It makes sense that these groups form and that they grow so quickly after such a disaster like Leviathan. And it's so... Yeah, like what you said, Michael, it's really easy to just be upset and be angry until the motivation and you're like, well, it makes sense. Yeah, exactly. Sad.
Speaker: It is done. Let me go ahead and read the summaries for the next couple of chapters for the whole outline. Yes, please. So we've got chapter five. I put, disgusting merchants are disgusting. Taylor saves Charlotte from the display case window and is recognized as locker girl. Skidmark pits the merchants against each other to fight for superpowers in a can. Chapter six, Taylor and Lisa find Bryce in the mayhem, but he gets pulled into the ring with the others.
Speaker: Scrub or a racer. I like a racer much better scrub triggers and Taylor and Lisa get a glimpse of the entities Chapter 7 fault line and her crew coming through the roof cutting off escape routes Taylor and Lisa and the gang try to leave grab Bryce and escape to the parking lot where they can talk where they talk cauldron with neuter Yeah, I'll stop there. So chapters 5 through 7
Speaker: So let's go all the way back. Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's funny. It's a really slow few chapters and then everything happens. Everything happens at once. Yeah. Just to tell the audience, I haven't read, I'm not reading along with, but I have in the past, just like everyone else here. And I don't know why, but I remember this chapter really well. Especially this last part that you just described. It's so interesting.
Speaker: That is interesting because I don't remember this part at all. I thought it was fascinating the first time. I think because they're introducing like some new like stuff with how powers can be attained. And I just thought that was very interesting. There's also all of the domestic stuff that's going on. Like I know that Chris chapter exists, but all of the just kind of day to day
Speaker: feel, you know, Taylor running, running into your dad, drinking tea, but still doing super power stuff, talking with people face to face. Like all of that is so comfortable and I love it. And then, you know, also the merchants, but this, this is an archive. I don't remember liking as much. And this has been such a great arc. I've really enjoyed these chapters so much in terms of enjoyability.
Speaker: Like obviously we have more hype ones. This arc was my most enjoyable to read. Yeah. This part really feels like the Mad Max portion, like you're describing as well. Like funny that you said it. Cause that's kind of what I was imagining the first time I read it. Yeah. It's got that vibe to it. For sure. Interesting. Oh, shiny and chrome. Lisa was, uh,
Speaker: Lisa was a coward. She should have given them all ecstasy. And I'm really upset we didn't do that. I forgot about that when it was happening. And I was like, wait, did they get high here? Oh, they got so high. She's like, all right, boys, pop the X. And they're like, yes, ma 'am. I love that she like turns to Taylor and she's like, open your mouth and like puts the thing on her. I was like, oh.
Speaker: I don't know why that was so hot, but like, all right. You've got the brain for it. You've got the brain for it. Just know in dissecting worm, we're going to be running off vampire diaries logic from now on, which is anytime there can be shipping, there will be shipping. There will be shipping. It's just an entire show of queerbaiting. That's the whole show.
Speaker: You understand I do like you join keep coming back to just Taylor is just secretly attracted to everybody
Speaker: I mean, everyone's hot. It's so that we get to enjoy it as the first person, you know. Exactly. It started at the beginning of this arc, really, with Coyle being daddy, and it's just like... Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah, Pat, you like that? Oh, my gosh! You can't say things like that! I'll keep saying it, and I'm going to use it from now on, too. It's so hot.
Speaker: It seems like as good a time as any, but I had a thought while editing. We talk a lot about how hot people are and stuff in this. We need to start referring to it as Brockton Babes. Do we need to have a new segment?
Speaker: A t -shirt. We need the whole shebang. Shouldn't it just be the Brockton Bayes, though? I feel like Brockton Bayes is better. Oh, the Brockton Bayes. Oh, Brockton Bayes. I was in my head. I was going back and forth between those. Is it our Brockton Bay watch? That's the segment title. So many options. Welcome to the Brockton Bay watch. The podcast within a podcast. Keeping an eye out on all those hotties. Surfside.
Speaker: Now this episode, I'm going to give out a shout out to special hotties here. I'm going to go with Senegal. I was going to say he's going to be at Senegal. I was about to say, isn't he the creepy one? Okay. They say creepy. He's got, he's got the like, you know, grab Taylor by the hip, you know, like I'm, I'm in charge here, but as soon as she's like back off and Lisa's like, Hey, she said back off. Like he just instantly changes the mood. Cause it's all in character.
Speaker: And Lisa even comments like, Brooks wishes that he could pull off what Senegal pulls off. I don't know. Senegal just strikes me as a kind of guy who would unironically use the word toots.
Speaker: And that just makes me the wrong way. This is the funniest thing I've ever said. Nick, if the job required it, he would. He would. It's a commitment to the bit. I think about Peacemaker, where it's like, they're a beach full of dicks and I had to suck every one of them for America. I would. Oh my God.
Speaker: This is not the Senegal I was memory reading, but I don't think this is anything like Senegal at all. Oh my gosh. Are we fan casting John Cena as Senegal? Is that part of your lead? Yes. Oh my gosh. Better believe. This is a cameo. That's funny. That would be good. He would. John Cena would do it. He would be great.
Speaker: There's got to be someone out there who's made fan castings of the worm cast. And I just need to know what everybody's is. I need to know for science, of course. Go ahead and send those in. Also send in recommendations and upcoming arcs for our Brockton Bay watch. Yeah, for sure. But Kevin Spacey has coil, obviously. For reasons. For so many.
Speaker: So Brockton Bay's or Brockton Babe's. That is a really tough stuff. I like Brockton Bay's. We can use both and just call it Baywatch. I have to look at it. No, no, no, no. The Brockton Bay watch is the podcast within the podcast. We keep track of our Brockton Bay's.
Speaker: Which will also be a sweater that Hannah's working on. That's about the same. We're going to go anyway with this for sure. That's true. And don't forget to look for our beefcake calendar. Okay, so I'm a visual person. I think Brockton Bay written out looks a lot better than Brockton Babe's. I think we're all in agreement. Let's do it. Yeah. All right. Thank you for tuning in. This has been our podcast within a podcast. Tune in next time. Anyway, back to the show.
Speaker: Back to the sex trafficking. Is it time for an ad break? We interrupt our scheduled program to bring you a word from our sponsor, Zencaster. A one -stop shop for all your podcasting needs. When we first started this podcast, we knew we needed a service that would let us record remotely. After doing some research, Zencaster was the obvious choice. We started using Zencaster and never looked back.
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Speaker: BPN, they'll never find you. Michael, I'm so sorry for what you have to add here. Yeah, this is going to be a fun edit. So Charlotte's in a window. Is she in a window? I thought she was on a pedestal. Maybe I just read that wrong. She's behind glass. Yeah, it's like a glass display. Well, the glass is broken. There's no space. Right, right. It's like a former display case. Yeah, like a display window at like the gap
Speaker: She's like up on a thing and people are like around her. Well, if you're ever at the mall and you're walking by, there is a slightly raised platform that the mannequins are all standing in behind the glass. So they're not, they're like, I don't know, it's up like a foot or something. Sometimes they're taller than others. So yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker: Okay, I always felt I felt like this was like a giant pedestal thing in the middle of like, not in a store, but in like, the middle of the well, Taylor talks about how Charlotte can't get away because there's glass on the floor. And if she would try to get down from the glass from the window, she would cut her feet because she's barefoot. Yeah, yeah, I remember that part. Yeah. Either way, not a great place to be not great at all. And I mean, Lisa even mentions earlier about how like,
Speaker: with, or I guess maybe Taylor says it, but the idea of like maybe not everyone here who's on the arm of a big chunky hunky dude wants to be here. And Charlotte is an example of that. Like she does not want to be here. We don't know exactly how she got pulled into this mess, but here she is. And she does not want to be here. She wants to leave and there's no way she's going to get away without intervention, you know, from our team of hunky soldiers.
Speaker: And to add to that, um, she recognizes Taylor, which means that she's a high school student. Just to add again, you know, talking about those trigger warnings, just to add to those like, Oh, Oh shoot. Oh no. Kind of moment where you're like, Oh no. Yeah. Big yikes. Big yikes for sure. Yeah. There's two lines. She says back to back that just killed me. Number one,
Speaker: Uh, you were locker girl. Yeah. And then they had to cart that stuff away in biohazard bags. More details to Taylor's bullying and trigger event that we didn't know about, but God, that's awful.
Speaker: I do like how that whole scene, we get another glimpse again of Taylor being a bit better than her friends in the undersiders mostly. Your superhero is showing. Yeah, exactly. But with that, that Taylor and then with just a little bit of prodding, the other our Baywatch group,
Speaker: are very quick to jump in and help. She pushes back a bit, Lisa does, but also trust Taylor enough to know, I know you're going to want to do this, so let's just make sure we get it done. And we're with you there. Lisa is such a best friend. What an absolute bro.
Speaker: Damn, she's like, uh, you know, even at one point she teases her, but it's like, what are we doing? And Lisa's like, I don't know, up to locker girl over there. Which I thought that was interesting that she is locker girl. I was like, okay. All right.
Speaker: What you do, you razz your friends. You're hanging with your buddies. You just bring up some childhood trauma. But also how traumatizing for Charlotte to just be there already freaking out, already not wanting to be there. And then the biggest dude around fights his way through the group and just grabs you.
Speaker: and is like i'm taking this one like a sack of potatoes yeah he's like i'm buying this one throws money in the air and walks away with you throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes yeah i was about to say we of course i know there's fan fiction of this out there hannah's already written it you can go find it under uh big daddy potato on a watt pad jesus okay
Speaker: Now, since we're slightly off track again, um, I'm, I feel like, um, Lisa should be played by like Anya Taylor joy. Oh my God. She will be too old by the time, but 100 % right. That is it. That is a great testing. Now, by the time we get around to this, all the under setters will be like,
Speaker: You know, unknown. Here's the thing. We need to be scouting out children right now. We need to go to the Disney Channel and watch the young, young kids, you know, look at them small. Maybe let's not talk about scouting children in the context of somebody buying a high school girl. Maybe scouting out the kids is not. That's what pops up 10 years from now in like the YouTube recap.
Speaker: We've not cancelled Alan yet. In the Age Bomber Guy video about Alan. Oh, Jesus. I don't need that association, please. I have places to go. I don't need Alan dragging me down. No, but there's a... Yeah, that's I like that. I like that fan cast. That's good. Shouldn't nail it. If we could make this five years ago.
Speaker: Yep. Yeah. And then we get maybe the most, for me, the most interesting part of these new chapters is the, uh, is the mushroom hair. Oh, I was going to say when they compare mush to golem, not golem worm, golem, golem, Lord of the rings, golem in this universe, baby. That's exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, they say that he looks like this kind of weirdly proportioned, very flashy, greasy fantasy.
Speaker: a character from some fictional novel, some fantasy novel that people are really into. I'm like, okay, I see you. I got you. I got you. In my mind, it's the one cosplayer. I forget her name, but she does the intentionally really bad cosplays. She does one of Gollum. And just like her and like half body paint with like a shower cap and like goggles. And like it just looks just as really hideous.
Speaker: Maybe didn't nail the look, but nailed the vibe. Exactly. That was my mental image for this. Yeah.
Speaker: No, but then we get to the main event of the evening, the whole point of the merchant's little get -together, which is Skidmark's free -for -all. I was trying to remember when reading this. Had we met Skidmark yet before this? We've run into Skidmark before. I don't feel like we've interacted with him too much. We made him sit at the booth. Yeah, he was in the villain meeting.
Speaker: Yes. Nick's favorite character told him to sit over there. Never going to live it down. I'm sorry, Nick. Too soon. R .I .P. Kaiser. Yeah. No, I interacted with him a little bit, but I feel like I didn't necessarily remember what his powers were. And so to see them here in action is
Speaker: was like a lot more like memorable in my mind now. Cause I feel like I'm always playing this game of like, okay, we've mentioned a cape, like shit, fuck, I can't remember what they do. Like, okay, I guess I'll have to figure it out. Some powers that I require double checking with. And this is one of those as I read them. Cause I have a very difficult time with abstract concepts. And as we all know, worm is kind of full of those. Is his power,
Speaker: Essentially hot wheels boosters. I think so. Yeah. It feels like, you know, like when you, when you have one was like little cars and you pull it back and it shoots forward. Like I feel like it's that.
Speaker: Well, if you've ever had Hot Wheels, which apparently Hannah hasn't, you've got the two wheels that spin. And when the car comes into those, it hits that and it launched. Oh, on the track. Yeah. It's not the cars, it's the fricking track. I had Hot Wheels, bitch. I had the case that held them all. Thank you very much. You guys see the guy that made the particle accelerator with Hot Wheels tracks?
Speaker: I did not, but I'll say that I'm not going to go off track again. Remind me afterwards. What are we talking about? Sorry. I'm pretty sure at least from what I gathered, he has like the circle or whatever. And if you get close enough to the line, which has a slight draw to it, it launches you out the other side.
Speaker: And then once you're in at that side, because it's still launching one direction, you essentially can't go to it. It's a deflector force field. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. It's a one way, a one way door. Which I imagine that if you layered like a bunch of those lines in front of each other, you could essentially like.
Speaker: toss a rock in and probably launch it. Yeah. It does say you can exponentially increase any force put into it. Okay. Oh gosh. I'm just, I may be wrong, but that is, that is the impression I got. And I was just kind of double checking it out. It's a one way like gust of wind type idea. So yes. Yeah.
Speaker: He's got one of those powers that are really fun to sort of think about the applications for. Yeah, but he's too stupid to use it for anything. He can create it and dissipate it, right? I mean, we talked about the area of effect, but he can like dissipate it. Yeah, looking at what it said. Basically, he can create them, but he can't, he can only dissipate them. He can't move them once he's created them. Yeah, and the idea is that
Speaker: Actually, according to one comment by wild bow on Reddit, according, I found this on the worm Wiki in the hands of someone more clever, equipped, or practiced. Good Mark's power could have repeatedly knocked Leviathan or behemoth on their asses. There's a lot you can do with a general, I create treadmill fields and can stack the effect to increase the push and drag. Um, however, he was an idiot and unfortunately.
Speaker: That is how he will be remembered. I love that so much. I love that.
Speaker: Wild Bo's just not afraid to say like, yeah, if you give, if you give the smooth brain unlimited power, you're probably just going to like, regardless of how powerful the power is, it's still a wielder. It's what, it's what you do with it. Yeah. Great responsibility. Yeah. In here I have a God fuck you Bryce.
Speaker: Cause like his whole, his whole whining thing is like, Oh man, they did made me do chores. Cause we were in survival mode. Man, that was so boring. I'm like, I like, I get it. Don't get me wrong. I get bored easily, but also like you little, you little bitch. And then followed up by fuck. I love Lisa. What a bro.
Speaker: But I love the realization, and I think it's Taylor that has it. I don't think Lisa, I think it's Taylor that says it, where she realizes that Skidmark is trying to trigger people. Trying to get somebody to trigger. Just horribly. Can we talk about some powers since we're triggering here? Because there's something that Lisa talks about way back in chapter four. And we'll bring that into the larger discussion of powers here.
Speaker: But Lisa getting kind of a feel out for Taylor's powers and Taylor talking about it, uh, talks about the idea, you know, getting in the headspace of your powers, the closer you get there, the stronger they become. And we've had moments where Taylor's been like, Hey, my powers are stronger this day. I wonder why that is, especially since we, you know, I've either been directly encountering my bullies or handling Leviathan, which is like the biggest bully in the world.
Speaker: Um, but she talks about this Pavlovian response to those situations where like you get stronger in those situations. And because of that, because that feels kind of good to be stronger, you tend to put yourself in those situations more and more. Um, and for Taylor, you know, talked about like bullying is kind of the big one bullying and trapped like corners, if you will, you know, these impossible situations where she's trapped sort of like in a locker.
Speaker: Um, and she puts herself in those unintentionally, but that gains her more power. Um, and it kind of feeds off itself where Taylor likes to be the victim or the underdog and puts herself in the middle of chaotic situations because that's where she thrives. Hmm. That's good. It's good insight. I like that. And you know, that's just Taylor as the example, but also look at other heroes and it makes me wonder like arms master kind of puts himself in these.
Speaker: uh, these one -on -one situations with people. He puts himself, you know, against, uh, against the undersiders and then, you know, eventually Taylor, like he didn't have to one V one that, but he, you know, he kinda kind of does put himself there and he does the same thing for, um, for fighting against Leviathan. Like he has all these moments where he has to do it himself kind of. Um, and I wonder what that says about his trigger event and, you know, that he,
Speaker: subtly leans towards these situations where it's always him versus everyone kind of. Interesting. But following that up to, we have a trigger, we have a full on trigger. This is the first trigger we have seen in the present full on. And damn do we get some world building.
Speaker: I forgot about this reading it again. What a fun read. I listened to the audio book when I'm going to and from work every day. I walk to work.
Speaker: And I was like, when I got to this part, I just started to slow down a bit. I was just walking really slowly as I was listening to this part again, because I completely forgot how Wildbo introduced this.
Speaker: the visions and not just Lisa and Taylor, but Skidmark and like anybody else, any other, any other cape in the vicinity sort of got hit when somebody - They're like babies. They're like gods. It's on the tip of my tongue. We've talked before with Hannah, Miss Militia. I was going to call her Lady Militia. Miss Militia.
Speaker: where she has these dreams, and we've kind of mentioned it before. But this full -on moment, and specifically with Lisa, her power connecting the dots and making those connections. I'm just wondering how much does she... Because Taylor immediately forgets.
Speaker: And it's like, you know, weird, like, I was just thinking about something and it doesn't matter moving on, but like because of Lisa's power, the way it is that connecting the dots, like how much of it does she remember and how much does she learn every time she's around someone with a trigger event that like piecing her power, just piecing more and more of it together. We've kind of also dealt with this in terms of the stranger power with imp or imp's ability is to have you forget her actively. Right. And.
Speaker: Uh, but, but Lisa's able to kind of parse out that there is somebody with powers, you know, on her side, um, you know, or at least that's, you know, kind of assumed from Taylor's point of view when they're fighting at the PRT building. Um, and in this, when she's talking about it's on the tip of my tongue, you know, I'm trying to figure it out. Uh, I like the idea that her power is racing against.
Speaker: uh, whatever this event is. And it's outpacing her power, you know, kind of where she's able to build connections, but it keeps, you know, as fast as she builds the connections, it's pulling all of the stuff behind her away. Um, this is an interesting idea of not being able to put this together.
Speaker: I was reminded of her interlude during Leviathan where she talks about how sometimes her power will just start going and she has to reel it back in before she goes off and goes down a rabbit hole. How she's just cycling through Leviathan as a creature and she hits that like never was human bit and it's sort of like
Speaker: It's kind of this weird moment where she gets an interesting realization about a character that nobody else can get. And you just kind of wonder what her interlude would have been for this bit if we could see that and read that rabbit hole. And just like how far, how deep did she go? Because she's clearly like wiped. The depths of that mind palace. Yeah, exactly. So cool. I want to say too, I think it's interesting how
Speaker: Although it's subtle, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99 % sure only people with powers were affected by the trigger event. Correct, yes. Which is what outs Taylor to Charlotte. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yeah, and it kind of reveals that there is some connection between all of these characters that have powers. We don't know what it is.
Speaker: Um, but this trigger event kind of shows, uh, because we see skid mark, you know, waking up from his reaction, the other, uh, villains on his side kind of, you know, struggling to get up afterwards. Um, so clearly, yeah, a trigger event does affect people who have powers as well. And I just thought that was a really interesting and subtle way to show all these, all these people with powers, heroes, villains, whoever they are, they're all connected by something.
Speaker: Yeah. I wonder. So maybe this is a... I don't think this gets mentioned ever again. Maybe this is just a slight oversight on Wildbo's part. I hate to say it, but I'm going to throw it out there because would not... Or I guess it depends on when it happened. But do you think Shadowstalker felt Taylor trigger?
Speaker: Oh, man. Oh, that's a good point. That is really good. Oh, shit. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Well, we don't know how she was. I was about to say, and we don't know when Shadowstalker triggered. Like, when does Shadowstalker have her trigger? Well, she triggered that summer before. Yeah, she triggered that summer before. Okay. I think, though, it sounds like Taylor didn't trigger immediately.
Speaker: So it's very possible that they shoved her in the locker and then ran away quickly to try to get away from the evidence that they were part of it. Right. So my assumption would be that's a big part of why she wouldn't know. Um, it also might have to do with the strength of the trigger event. Not saying that Taylor's wasn't super strong, but this, this particular trigger event seems a little bit more, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Um, just due to the particular circumstances. So it's also possible that maybe she did feel it, but had just no idea what that meant. She just got a bad headache and a little vision because she, she would have forgotten about it. Exactly. She would have forgotten immediately. Yeah. So it wouldn't have mattered even if she had like in that split second realized that like, Oh, someone's triggering. Like she would have forgotten so quickly afterwards that it wouldn't have even
Speaker: That's right. She would have forgotten. Never mind. My apologies, Wild Bo. Not an oversight because she would have forgotten. Well, I don't think they forget what just happened. They just forget the vision of the extra stuff. Like they still have both. Something happened to me. Something like, you know, there was a trigger. You just don't remember what happened during that blackout period. Interesting.
Speaker: And then, um, well, yeah, sorry. I can't, this has got a real in the spoilers here. I'm about to say things and then I don't. Okay. Now remind cut that this fight, this like all of a sudden people are kind of turning on their group and you've got, you know, two gals in the middle and the four guys in the outside. I love this fight because Taylor goes,
Speaker: and does a new power upgrade where she's got the bugs on everyone, and she closes her eyes and starts blind fighting with two knives. So cool. So cool. So good. What a badass. What a badass. In my head, it's the extraction two.
Speaker: with Chris Hemsworth during the prison riot scene, except she gets knocked down. It's the moment where he stands up and he's kind of dazed, but it's Taylor standing up, just closing the eyes and then just start stabbing people.
Speaker: So we're gonna do a slight deviation to dissecting worm here, Alan, welcome. Yeah, welcome to the dissecting worm. We've slipped in, we snuck in. What of a couple of sneaky boys are we?
Speaker: In this scene, right? So we're on the same page, I'm hoping here, closes her eyes, all the sounds and everything fade, and we just hear the buzzing. And we just use buzzing and cues from insects as where people are. And we use that to direct all of her action and movements. Yeah, we get a little bit of that Spidey sense from Spider -Man, Far From Home, where he's in the dark and there's nothing there in the hallway.
Speaker: Yes. Oh, exactly. Oh, I love that. That's so cool. I love that moment. Just a taste, guys, for what's to come. Please listen to the next. Once you've read Worms, or if you've already read Worm and are okay with spoilers, head on over to our sister podcast, Dissecting Worm, where we work on the movie slash television portion. Which is actually what you just heard. Exactly. More of that, if you enjoyed that.
Speaker: Yeah. Blind fighting. And then she, she literally opens her, like, she finally opens her eyes at one point and is like, whoop, that was a bad idea and gets like vertigo. Yeah. And then also, uh, well, I guess this is, is kind of, uh, yeah, kind of going into the next chapter or two, but, um, or I guess we're in the same chapter. I lost track of where we are, but I also, we haven't done everything but the last one. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker: There you go. That's our ad break.
Speaker: I love the image too of her just sensing her bugs collapsing on the roof and immediately knowing why because of how they collapse. She understands what they touch and she's just like, oh, neuter's here. It's such a great moment. Also, he's so cool. Drops down and does the palm touch.
Speaker: falls over. So good. Oh, instant KO. So good. I love it so much. Just the, the, I, I loved it. Our neuter is one of my favorites and just that. Oopsies just. It is so good. Great character. Yeah. I love the image too of all of the, you know, the maze walls just coming in and like,
Speaker: forging up out of the ground. And I love the statues too, because I always forget about that element with these like... Basically, Taylor mentions that the whole mall feels like it's been turned into a temple. And I love that imagery of like, there's vines and there's all this stone and there's these beautiful statues that are just kind of like with their arms uplifted. And it's like, so all of a sudden,
Speaker: this very Mad Max, you know, mall, decimated mall, has been turned into this what feels like a temple. And that is so cool. I love that so much, that shift, and seeing the merchants slowly being picked off. And I think Taylor even says it at one point, where Skidmark slowly realizes that he is fighting a losing battle. His other leaders in arms or whatever,
Speaker: have fallen. The entire tone has shifted and this is not going to end well for you. It's such a good segment. Yeah. Hard agree.
Speaker: Oh, man. Let's see. Neuter's awesome. We get introduced to Shamrock as well as the new hero. Yeah. Say her name, but later Shamrock has my favorite power of all time, which is just luck. Luck. Yeah. Everything goes your way. It was a domino long shot. Yeah. I'm trying to think of other universes. Those are some Marvel characters, right?
Speaker: No, it's just, it's the satisfying. It's the Harry Potter potion. Wait, hold on, hold on. I thought we're nerds. I know, I've upset it myself. It's like, it's Latin. It starts with an F on it. Felix Felicis. Yes, Felix Felicis. Felix Felicis? Felix Felicis? Felix Felicis, that sounds right.
Speaker: I'm gonna look it up. Too many S's for me. F -E -L -I -C -I -S. There's ironically only one S in the name of the potion. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis. Felicis
Speaker: Does this thing, of course, fault line showing up, I assume in the battle skirt with the welding mask and everything shows up and like is fighting this one dude and he goes to like.
Speaker: shoot her and she, you know, she's got her slicey power that makes things fall apart and she takes her feet and slides them both to the side and it cuts the floor open underneath her and she drops. Holy cow. That's like the Kate Beckinsdale, you know, underworld shooting, but just it's so, it's so cool.
Speaker: I had to read that section over again two or three times just because I was like, did she just slice the floor open? But the gesture was with her feet. Yeah. And that's 100 % what happened. And then popped up somewhere else too. I love that. And the guy looks down into the hole after her like, oh, where'd she go? And she boop -boop somebody goes right into the hole. Like, ah. Yeah. So cool.
Speaker: It's so hard not wanting to like, like where it's one of those stories where you understand why fan fiction is so popular for worm, because like I would, I want a whole story just following, uh, fault lines crew, you know, or a whole story, you know, just feel like it's, it's easy to see why there's these characters are so well written. Uh, so much fun to read, but they make their escape.
Speaker: they do. They do make their escape. Oh, right before they make their escape though, the explosion of papers as Skidmark does finally go down and the briefcase launches papers all over the air. And Taylor, I love that she doesn't necessarily grab the papers with her bugs, but she uses the air currents and the bugs
Speaker: help guide the papers down so it's not super, super obvious. They're like, ah, yes, there are suddenly bugs flying away with pieces of paper. But she makes it a little bit less obvious so that they can get a couple of pages. They get like, what, four or six pages? Yeah, something like that. Before they make their escape. I love that because she's still being conscious of the fact that she is not in her costume here. She's still dressed as Taylor.
Speaker: And like trying to remain in some semblance, you know, undercover, but, you know, there's only so much you can do bug girl. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I do love that Taylor has, you know,
Speaker: now kind of outed herself by the end of the chapter. Yeah. To a fair amount of people. To a fair amount of people. Yeah. Goodness. We are just revealing identities left and right. Goodness. I'm cool with, I feel you. I don't know. I feel like it feels like a really, a real power play, like a real power move for Taylor to be like, yeah.
Speaker: because if she's revealing her you know secret identity even if it is to just a couple of people that's in a weird way like combining her true identity and her secret identity merging them more and more into one and like the line has become slightly blurred and like the more people that find out the more blurred that line will become.
Speaker: No, I think that's spot on. I was thinking the same exact thing where Taylor's starting to have her, I think we've mentioned this before, having her like Batman moment to where in the comics to the point where there is no difference between Batman and Bruce Wayne.
Speaker: sees himself as Batman first when Bruce Wayne is the secret identity, you know? And it feels like Taylor's starting to sort of cross into that territory where Skitter is her true self, is her persona. And it makes sense too, because other than her dad, other than Danny, she does not have much tied to her identity as Taylor, really.
Speaker: Danny and her past with the bullies that she probably wants to avoid. But that's about it. She's not protecting too much beyond that. So it seems like it's probably not that big of a deal for some of these people that aren't going to make those connections or she's not worried about making those connections to see her.
Speaker: Which is interesting. And in a weird way too, the way of life has shifted. She's not going to school anymore. Half the city is disrupted. I'm sure plenty of people have died or left the city altogether. And so the idea of, yes, I have to hide the skitter side of me as I go to school or I interact with my dad, none of that really exists anymore. And so that feeling of, yeah, I have to hide the secret identity.
Speaker: the whole, everything's kind of a shit show right now. So like, if we find out that you're a superhero, like, well, all right, a super villain, really, like, well, I mean, okay, it's it's I mean, yeah, Leviathan did blow up half the sit or drown half the city. So, sure. Okay.
Speaker: Plus, to make another DC reference, it's very much like when Lex Luthor is controlling or has taken over the mind of the Flash. And he's like, I don't know what to do, but at least I can figure out who the secret identity is. And he takes off his mask and he's like, I don't know. I have no idea who this is. Very much the same thing. Who's going to see Taylor walking around and be like,
Speaker: She's always so worried because of like, yes, if someone sees my height and build and the way I walk, they're going to figure it out. It's like you live in a giant city with a ton of people. Unless someone is incredibly observant or interacts with you often on a daily basis, people aren't going to figure that out. Come on. Yeah, exactly. I think that brings us to the final chapter, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker: Well, I mean, we should maybe mention briefly the papers and, uh, yes, you're right. You're right. You're right. They sell a lot of things on here. There is quite a bit of information on those papers. Uh, I just wow. Okay. Break it down. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker: So there's a whole bill of sale and instructions and all these things about like. Yeah. If you buy these, uh, essentially you, you, you know, there's money involved, but also. Yeah. Six figures. You also owe, um, which six figures as much as that is.
Speaker: for superpowers. Yeah. It's not a lot, which raises a lot of questions. Um, uh, the other thing that, you know, they talk about is like, um, we clearly, we don't know who these were originally intended for. So he's got yoinked. These were not meant for the merchants, obviously. Uh, but
Speaker: You've also got to do this organization, I think they said it's Coltran. Yeah, they mentioned that it's Coltran. You've got to do them one favor, essentially. If you don't, yeah, you owe them a favor essentially. And there's talk about the, I think they talk about the Nemesis program as well. Yes, they do mention it. Which is specifically for case 53s that you can buy into.
Speaker: So this isn't something put into you. This is something put into case 53s. And the reason I'm going to talk about it is because it's not something mentioned in the story. It's something wild that talks about, uh, somewhere probably on space battles, uh, which is a web forum, which he talked about. No spoilers then. This is not a spoiler for anything in the story. Uh, but the nemesis program from what I remember is.
Speaker: a case 53 like Nuder or Greger, when they're released have a brainwashed trigger phrase that if you say it, they will lose the fight. So if you're fighting one of these very monstrous, super powered beings, and you've bought the superpowers and you've bought the bonus package,
Speaker: You run into one of these guys, you go, ah, I can use the code word and I'll look like an even better hero for taking one of these guys down pretty easy. Interesting. That's interesting. I think that's how I remember. What's the other word that Nuder uses to describe them? Not case 53s, but. There's another word here. He says, here, I've got the chapter up in front of me. Hunting down, what are they called? Deviations. Deviations, there we go.
Speaker: He says, well, and subjects. So he says, so Lisa's talking about it. She says, there's a whole enterprise here with a private army. There's a bit that politely notes, blah, blah, blah. The cauldron will not accept bribes and these subjects are apparently something different from deviations. And then a voice says above them, cauldron calls us subjects. The PRT calls us case 53s. Regular people call us monsters.
Speaker: Okay. Gotcha. That's, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Space battles. One of his works, Alan. The space battles is a web forum, uh, that he commonly use talk. Yeah. Cause I found your article. So yes, if anyone's interested, type in case 53 space battles. I want to say he also used to run, uh, worm like role playing.
Speaker: forums as well, where he would be like, Hey, I'm doing a warm thing. And whatever he ran, you know, he'd be like, Hey, first five people to respond or in, and then he'd run something at some random. I think one of them was like,
Speaker: a PRT base in Alaska. So very rural, very disconnected, but whatever he ran was canon to the universe. Oh my gosh. That was fun. That is cool. Ultra nerd stuff. I love it. So some ultra nerd stuff. There's, you know, some interesting - That's why you join our podcast guys. That's why you find out about all the fun things. Yeah. Which, you know, what a time to be alive back in those days. Wow. Okay. All right. Cool. So.
Speaker: That's where you can find it. Space battles. Case 53. There's a bunch of stuff about. Yeah. Ancillary stuff, basically. Um, and if you, the, the best thing that I, I, you know, we use space battles for is some brilliant, brilliant man named steam wreck, uh, with helps from WKZ, low register and lower Cersei, uh, did links and summaries for all of the chapters in the entire worm saga.
Speaker: Um, if you're like, man, I'm, I know I stopped halfway through. Where am I? You can start at one and kind of peruse down without spoiling it for yourself. I need to do that. That is very smart. It gives you a really good way to catch up, uh, you know, quickly find stuff and they're all linked. So if you're like, find your one, you can click on it. It takes you right to the WordPress site where you can start reading. And where can you find this? Base battles type in space battles, worm chapter synopsis. Okay. That will hop up.
Speaker: Not me having just read the chapters meeting summaries the day of the past. That's very something we could have used probably. That one might have been very helpful. That's awesome. I'm writing my summaries. That's beautiful. Thank you, Alan, for your nerdiness. Nerdiness, your nerdum. I knew that autism would come in helpful.
Speaker: Yeah, but to bring it back, I think we were talking about why this chapter was so fun to read or why these chapters are so fun to read. I think a lot of that is because it feels like we're starting to get a lot of answers to questions, not necessarily questions we were like, oh, I need them to answer this, but just like sort of background world building questions that sort of are really helping to tie the world together a bit, which is really satisfying to read.
Speaker: and helps kind of keep the plot moving. Because obviously, Taylor's story is engaging and fun and we're having a lot of fun with her as a character. But the world itself, having a thread there to read with as well and sort of starting to piece together. I mean, we kind of mentioned it before, but like
Speaker: Power's just bloomed in the late 80s. It was a normal world before then and then boom, power's everywhere. And we don't know why. So getting bits of that, getting bits of this Cauldron storyline as well, that seems pretty detailed. It's really fun. I don't know how else to describe it, except this is part of what has just made me fall in love with Worms so much. It's just such a fun world to read.
Speaker: And on the last chapter, unless we got something else for. Yeah. Yeah. So for chapter, the last chapter of, of this bit, chapter eight, Taylor and the gang, uh, get stitched up by the good doc and Taylor recruits Charlotte and Sierra leaving Bryce in tattletales care. And then they head back to, uh, uh, Taylor's lair and grew and skitter, grew and, uh, Brian and Taylor talk.
Speaker: And we kind of see a glimmer of redemption for their friendship and possibly hope that they could be friends again. Yeah, I was really grateful for that little moment between them. Me too. Yeah. Not to skip to the end of the end, but I really like that moment. No, that's like the back of it. Between them, of them just getting back to the point of like, okay, we can be friends again.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that. He's like, we gotta, you know, obviously there's a lot to work on, but I want to work on it. So this is nice. Yeah. Like he even, he even says something about how like I saw potential for us to be best friends. And I love that cause it's not just friends, but like they really clicked. They really connected like them sparring together, them talking about stuff and just like existing in the same space. Like I really enjoyed that camaraderie and.
Speaker: I want that back. I miss it. I feel bad that Skidder doesn't have that. And she does operate really well on her own, but having Brian... Brian is just... I love Brian. Lisa's fantastic, but Brian is a different type of friend, and I'm very much wanting that to be renewed.
Speaker: back to normal, whatever normal might be. Yeah, I do think he's a little like, he's like, gosh, in terms of managing your territory, you are smoking us. Yeah, jeez. And maybe that's something that she's uniquely suited for, given her power and personality. But he's smoking him like a Christmas ham. And he's like, you don't have to go this hard to prove yourself to me.
Speaker: And I'm just like, all right, bitch, please. Yeah. Like, come on. This isn't about you. I was drinking tea all morning and, you know, outing all of the merchants in my area. Like, I'm not even trying. Don't make this about you, Brian. I've been drinking green tea all day. Sometimes it's not about you, Brian.
Speaker: Yes. It's also cool because it like starts with her being aware of how alone she is and it kind of ends with this little hope. Yeah. I know she's got two people in the house. She's got friends coming over. Things are getting better with Brian. Things are getting better. What a way to end this chapter. I feel like everything just might work out.
Speaker: And she was two days from retirement. I know! Don't even say it. It's funny you said it because it really does. It's a really positive end to a rather dark set of chapters. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's some sunlight here, which is a nice contrast for sure. I do really.
Speaker: really appreciate. We talked earlier about the flow of conversation and how Wild Bo writes. Very realistic conversation here with clear beats, but also we feel the awkwardness of Taylor talking with Charlotte and then talking with Sierra. That kind of the sinking feeling that Charlotte's getting of like, oh my gosh, you're a villain and I know who you are.
Speaker: And Taylor's like, I can't just let you go. Like, oh boy, oh boy. Like two teenagers talking to each other, but one is clearly like the powerful one here. Like that interaction just... It was good. I liked that a lot. I feel like Taylor could have gone harder.
Speaker: Just been like, yeah, I might have to just kill you. It's funny though, because she's like, look, Charlotte, listen, I'm kind of new to this whole villain thing. So forgive me if I'm improvising. And I feel like that would be the last thing you'd want a villain to say to you. Wait, wait, wait, you're telling me you're a super villain with powers controlling this big territory, but you're new at this?
Speaker: I'm new in town. That's what I was going to say. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I think I, something I was, well, with, with all of this of like, well, villains needed to figure out what they're doing with their lives and with their, with their people with, um, with Bryce and kind of this idea of like splitting, uh, Bryce and, uh, Sierra up and having Bryce be with tattletale and Sierra come with.
Speaker: skitter. I really feel like that dynamic was a really smart move of giving Bryce the space to kind of figure out stuff on his own, which is what he wanted. And Sierra still has access to him, but is able to be taken care of and be okay. I know that he's being taken care of and is maybe getting a little bit more of that structure that he needs.
Speaker: Especially since, you know, Bryce just has a thumb now. Stop potato with a little wiggler. That is one way to put that. That is definitely one of the ways to put that.
Speaker: One of the most ways you can call the ways that is one of them. All right. Well, I think that about wraps up our, our conversation on these. We, uh, we got the doctor, got a name, Dr. Q, not much of a name, but he's got one. All right. All right. All right. That's my last one. Yeah. Nothing. Uh, the letters you're talking about.
Speaker: What are you talking about? The doctor that's patching them all up. He's never had a name before and now he's officially Dr. Q. Maybe next time we'll get a last initial so he'll be like a QR or something. QJ. Cool. Got it. But yeah, we don't have any interludes for this section because all of the next section, all of the rest of Arc 11 is interludes, the next eight chapters.
Speaker: I'm excited. Yeah. We're going to have a lot of fun. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait. If I haven't said it before, I'll say it again. I am very excited. I love this section. I am very excited. It certainly is something. No, it's going to be a good time. We're going to have a lot of fun. It's one of the sections of all time.
Speaker: But anyway, so next, so the next episode will be the remainder of arc 11, which are chapters, they're let, they're lettered for the remainder. So it's letters eight, A through H next eight chapters will be the interludes. That's going to be what we're looking over and discussing on the next episode. What do we, what do we got left? We got some favorite powers.
Speaker: I think I think fault lines crew would like to have a word with you. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. All right. Go ahead. Favorite powers. Oh, no, no, no. You first please.
Speaker: Well, okay. I mean, I'll give my favorite power. It's because if I had to pick one, I do really like scrubs power. It's it screams like this is crazy dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it. And it's it's going to be interesting to see how how he develops his power because instantly obliterating anything it touches.
Speaker: sort of the opposite of the dynamic with Skidmark and his power where like, if a more competent person had it, it would be actually dangerous. But because it's him, it's, you know.
Speaker: It's like the, like how a, like a baby snake is more deadly than the parent, right? Yeah. In this case, scrub is just, you know, blast it off, you pop it off left and right. Yeah. Um, and that, you know, that's way more dangerous than somebody who had a controlled, you know, useless power. Exactly. That's my submission. That's a good one. Mine of course would be fault line.
Speaker: Uh, we finally get to see her in action. And though it's brief, it's super bad -ass. So the foot slide, uh, to open the floor, slice and open the floors, you know, breaking shit.
Speaker: Really cool. I get now when Gregor's like, hey, remember that one time you dropped a building and she was like, ah, it was luck. I like really seeing the fuller extent of labyrinths power here. We didn't, we didn't talk much about it. Was that what you're going to say? I'll let you expand on it then. But just seeing the more full extent of it, the idea of like,
Speaker: temple, looking like a temple to a god and just the way it's described so beautifully. It's like, yeah, this is really wild. And, you know, it's kind of weirdly fun, the fact that she's a little out of her head, maybe. So, yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker: Yeah, I just, I'm a slut for aesthetics and vibes and I feel like Labyrinth's whole, the whole aesthetic of the temple and the statuary is just so visually appealing. It's just, I'm such a sucker for it.
Speaker: So I really love that. And I think you're absolutely right. The fact that she's a little not all there in the head, like makes it even more, makes it even more like mysterious and very kind of like stepping through a portal, you know, stepping through the wardrobe kind of vibes of like converting this very, you know, like we said, Mad Max mall falling apart grossness to like this gorgeous temple. I love that imagery so much. But, you know, if I had to pick somebody else, also Tamara.
Speaker: Very nice. All right. Am I missing anything? Any other segments? I was going to say, I want to know what Michael's is.
Speaker: Oh, my apologies. I was debating if I should really say because I'm not reading along, but just from from remembering, I do like I do like skid marks a lot from what you guys, well, mostly just the research I just did as to how cool the power could be. Right. Yeah, but to somebody good. Yeah, it could be really, really cool. So it's very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot of fun with those. There's a few times where Wild Bo's talked kind of offline about powers that he's written that were like, I don't know, maybe this could have, you know, ended the universe. He's like, what? I love his community interaction. Yeah, really fun. Please join us.
Speaker: That's one of my favorite things about worm is that because it's so weirdly abstract, not abstract, but it's so weirdly niche that if you find somebody that is familiar with worm, you're going to nerd out about it together because it's so... We're such a good community. Speaking of community and nerding out, please reach out to us on our social medias. Let us know what your favorite powers were. Let us know
Speaker: what your thoughts are on this chapter. A lot of world building, a lot of really dark imagery and moments to work through. Weren't lying with those trigger warnings. They hit pretty hard sometimes. So be aware of that moving forward if you've kind of let your guard down. That's Brockton Bay, Brockton BC.
Speaker: Rockton Bay, BC, all platforms. There you go. And the link is in the description. And we do love interacting with people. We're a bunch of nerds here. We love nothing more than nerding out with people that nerd in the same nerd.
Speaker: Yeah, come be nerds with us. If you haven't gotten that vibe yet, I don't know why you're still here. We made a whole podcast just so we had an excuse to reread worm and talk about it. It's subtle, but it's there. Pick up on it.
Speaker: Anyway, with that, once again, the next eight chapters finish off Arc 11 for the next episode. Read along with us and stay tuned as always for our sister podcast releasing for those of you who either don't care about spoilers or have read all of worm. But if you don't care about spoilers, what are you doing? Care about spoilers. It's a great story. Read it first, but then join us. Come back as we discuss this arc and how we would adapt it. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker: Oh, hell yeah. And until next time, Michael, can you please play us out?
Speaker: 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, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, B .C. or click the link in the description.
Speaker: We have a very exciting announcement. We now have a voicemail, 980 -999 -0438. You can call us and your voicemail might be featured on one of our episodes.
Speaker: Do you still have bitter feelings about your ex and no way to get it out? Well, perhaps you could consider hiding it inside a worm related rant. Tell us all about how legend broke your heart or just how skitter won't call you back. We'll listen and air your grievances at 980 -999 -0438 on the podcast. That's right. Leave us a voicemail about your sad life at 980 -999 -0438.
Speaker: What triggered you?
