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BBBC Reads Ward - Episode 11
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This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Complete list of potential triggers: here
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The Brockton Bay Book Club discusses J.C. McCrae's Ward live! The gang reads a portion of Ward and comes together to share our thoughts with each other and anyone who want's to participate.
This week we cover Arc 7.5 - Torch!
Read along here
Play along with this week's BBBC BINGO while you listen!
Support us and connect with us @brocktonbaybc
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Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast: This episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club is sponsored by Made Marion. Made Marion creates custom cottagecore and ren faire clothing designed for every body. Whether you’re looking for a lace up bodice, rustic apron and pinafores, or ethereal dresses, you’ll find items customized for every individual’s fit and design. All items are lovingly hand sewn with attention to detail and a touch of whimsy. Visit Made Marion today and transform your wardrobe with clothing that feels as enchanting as it looks. Find Made Marion on etsy, at https://www.etsy.com/shop/themademarion
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
And we're live. Welcome back, everybody.
00:00:13
Speaker
o Good evening, flyinging Mega City. so Wow. Whatever the fuck it is. so slow i am wrong one shot in to some podcast juice and I am ready to go. Oh, no.
00:00:29
Speaker
You don't sound ready to This evening.
00:00:33
Speaker
Want to try that again? No, I'm not going to try that again. This evening, are your creepy kids recording you doing bad stuff and then blackmailing you? Find out on tonight's Brockton Bay Book Club.
00:00:51
Speaker
brought to you what a rough start by svetta blue you have to put that a little bit closer that glare in honor of kenzie's colors and all that you're drinking that it's my podcast juice of choice i love it blue and pink fantastic ah Well, well, well, what an exciting time to have everybody here. I don't have chat open yet because I was panic rushing to get to it.
00:01:23
Speaker
Um, but, uh, short order for those of you who never been here, welcome to the Rock and Bay book club where we are going over ward by JC McCray arc by arc.
00:01:33
Speaker
Um, and in every episode chapter by chapter. So, uh, Tonight we are covering 7.5 because of the eclipse interlude all the way to 7.Y.
00:01:49
Speaker
And um it's it's a big section. I want to say it's roughly about 55,000 words.
00:02:00
Speaker
maybe um somewhere in there. And ah as of course, ah spoilers, no spoilers in chat. Okay. um We of course would love you to spoil in our ward spoilers chat on our Patreon.
00:02:15
Speaker
If you are a Patreon member, you can go in there and you can help us ah decide what we're going to talk about and add to the bingo, which is another thing we should have bingo in our, we do in our description.
00:02:27
Speaker
um You can play along the bingo game. ah It's a good time. um Anything else that I've forgotten because I don't have my sticky note in front of Are these people here today? oh my gosh, the introductions.
Host Introductions
00:02:40
Speaker
I, of course, am Alan, one of your hosts.
00:02:43
Speaker
ah We also have joining us Hannah. Well, hello, friends. Jacob. Hello. Nick. Hello there.
00:02:53
Speaker
And of course, the most special boy, Michael. Hello. Producer Michael. There we go. Sure. All righty. Well, getting started so that I can delay and have time to pull up everything.
Arc 7 Overview and Themes
00:03:08
Speaker
ah Initial thoughts on the back half of arc seven. So many thoughts and feelings. Yeah. We're going to have to get into it.
00:03:20
Speaker
I'd give it ah a slow start that kind of ends with five car pile up at the end. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like it's like if you if you were watching the show, you'd be like starting watching a person pull out of their driveway for 10 minutes and you're like, I'm going to fast forward a bit. You fast forward a bit and you end up in the five car pileup and you're like, I don't to go here ah so fast. but I only fast forwarded 30 seconds.
00:03:44
Speaker
and So, yeah. Yeah. It went downhill pretty fast ah in the best possible way. i love it when that happens. I truly do. i there's there's There's like this moment where you're just like,
00:04:00
Speaker
wait you wait, what? What's going on? and you're not you're not quite worried yet. You're just like, ah
00:04:13
Speaker
am i i And that's great. I love that. That was fantastic. Oh, god and it And there's so much. it is ah it is a ah slower arc until that point but in all of that there's like a lot of stuff that happens and gets revealed and and it felt one of those things where it was like we get to the end and we'll get out there obviously but at the end i was like okay wait that's a big thing ah it's it is overshadowing all these other things that i'm hoping we're going to get back to um this we are compared to the interlude last last time and even the first half of arc 7 this is like
00:04:53
Speaker
a night and day difference in terms of pacing for me. this This flew a lot better. Yeah. I will say um just generally as ah as a parent, I hope to one day be an embarrassment to my children in the best way.
00:05:09
Speaker
um I do not mean it like Kinsey means it about her parents. like We're using the word. and She keeps using the word embarrassment, but I do not think it means. Oh, her parents are so embarrassing. Like, you ah and To quote the Princess Bride. Yeah. yeah and do think we I that would mean.
00:05:27
Speaker
Oh, embarrassing. What do you think of
Character Highlights: Kenzie and Chris
00:05:30
Speaker
this? Cool. Okay. i want We got so much to talk about. we Yeah, we got but so much to cover. There's a lot going on. So much to talk about. that's all my rights too um Yeah, this is one this is one of those pivotal moments, I think, as we've seen from the patrons and the listeners.
00:05:46
Speaker
This is one of those moments that people have been waiting for for a while. Can't wait till you get to Kenzie's dinner. Can't wait till you get to family dinner. We're finally here for the dinner.
00:05:57
Speaker
And um I mean, there's a couple moments that stuck in my head that I just remember very clearly. One, of course, was this dinner. Honestly, the bigger one that always stands out to me is Chris at the orphanage.
00:06:11
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's like, I remember Kenzie's being bad and it is, there's something about Chris's interaction at the orphanage that I literally was dreading working to it.
00:06:23
Speaker
Like, cause I knew it was coming and I also knew the Kenzie one was coming, but like, there's something about the conversation with Chris that just like had me cringing before I even got to that chapter, um, just in preparation for it.
00:06:37
Speaker
Um, Well, yeah, there's some very pivotal moments in here, I think, for going forward and some just very big things for our group. Honestly, a lot of big things for our little therapy group here, um which I'm sure we'll get into.
00:06:54
Speaker
ah But that being said, let's go ahead and dive in. Nick, you have a summary to start us off on 7.5.
00:07:07
Speaker
Kinsey catches some muggers, convinces the team to break into a building, demonstrates her time camera, and so the team agrees to hunt down the ones who expanded the portals.
00:07:22
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. I had already forgotten that that happened at the beginning of this. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Whoa. Fun contrast um here for me with...
00:07:33
Speaker
the first time we see Victoria deal with some muggers and some people assaulting people, throwing a dumpster at a Nazi kind of vibes, versus here where she's like, let's give them due process, let's make sure, were they actually trying to mug you?
00:07:48
Speaker
um a little bit more so, at least. you know She's still defensive of Kinsey and protective, but if the vibe felt a lot more, a lot less like I'm a hero kid who doesn't know her own strength and more like I'm...
00:08:02
Speaker
I'm a good cop to put it in one way, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Like obviously you're harassing a child, so I'm going to stop you. But I also know that it may have not been for the wrong reasons. So I'm going to question you instead of throw a dumpster at you.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, right. It was probably for the wrong reasons. I mean, it where she proved she could take care of herself, though. Like Kinsey was like, get close to me and flashbang. You'll be able to see and again in two hours. I'm blind.
00:08:32
Speaker
was great. It was so great.
00:08:35
Speaker
I love her. She's so much fun. She's just so chill about it, too. I think that's something that, like, Kenzie is always just so chipper and so chill. It's no deal.
00:08:46
Speaker
I just flashbang them. They'll be able to see in two hours. It's like, okay. All right. Kenzie. But was she smiling that whole time? I know. She's smiling the whole time. Makes you rethink everything.
00:09:01
Speaker
li Okay, but actually though. Yeah. i Oh my God. Yes, Dick. ah Michael has been banished to the shadow realm.
00:09:14
Speaker
He lives in darkness. ah For those of you who are just listening in, um our our video setup, Michael is just it's just himself in a pitch black space and just him and his mic his lovely floral daisy shirt, which is lovely.
00:09:30
Speaker
Much like old Catholic purgatory, you can, in fact, buy Patreon indulgences to get Michael out of the streaming purgatory that he is currently residing in. Go on down to our Patreon and maybe if you, I don't know, pay 25 bucks a month, he could get out of this quicker. Maybe you don't need to. Streaming heaven.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah. Good Lord. Oh my God. You never know. for now Yeah.
00:10:02
Speaker
Who needs to pay for like pizza parties at... Is that better? You can't just bring up Mega City in the background. Wow. Oh my gosh. Okay. Again, to to translate that over to just our audio listeners, ah he now is in a beautiful purple ah skylit yeah skyline background. ye Skyline. Yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
yeah It's fantastic and I love it. Neon neon punk kind of style. Yeah, it's great.
00:10:29
Speaker
I'm saying, yeah, Kenzie. Yeah, we get Kenzie's time camera. gonna She ah talks about that in this in this chapter, right? Yes. Yeah. Kenzie, her power gets stronger every time she does something, it feels like.
00:10:46
Speaker
It really does. Yeah, we learn more about it. What was i feel like innocent surveillance has evolved. what what What once was innocent surveillance of anything with a camera, you know, or anything without a camera, even for that matter, you know, has now become ah just space, you know, period is open to her discretion.
00:11:11
Speaker
mean, it seems like it's her also very much tied to her ability to understand how a specific thing can work. So like when she understands how it works, she's. could potentially build the camera to make it happen, which is really neat.
00:11:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:11:29
Speaker
i Yeah. The ability to see through time is fascinating. it's and That is crazy. It's interesting, though, that she struggles with with ordering events, right? She's like, I can't really figure out the order of events, and I can't, like, show you them in sequence. I can just kind of show you all of them at once for the past week or when whatever the time frame was um yeah oh cool because it's like finding a person you just find where they are during that time period for like yeah in that space um not like a single shot of them it's the entire area yeah
00:12:06
Speaker
But I love that the box is freaking out because it was searching for other boxes. was searching. It kept finding itself. It was really cute. I kind of love that.
00:12:17
Speaker
Self-aware camera box is so cute. yeah Oh, my gosh. I kind of need it to have, like, little cat ears and a little kawaii face. Oops, found myself. I don't know about self-aware. It just keeps accidentally. Because self-aware sounds like the box went on a live, laugh, love journey. Yeah.
00:12:36
Speaker
that not a self-aware box just a a funny little silly box silly box finding itself a little guy i don't know if you guys remember but there's the um the mouse droids from star wars which are like the little tiny droids that drive through the dev star it's like a big version of that just like you know that driving its way through through this abandoned mall yes ah which I love it. my The vibe of a good abandoned mall, too. Oh,
Nostalgia and Personal Stories
00:13:09
Speaker
gosh. A good abandoned mall that's not totally decrepit is a great. Exactly. There is one in the city that we've all lived in. it's You're not allowed to go in it anymore because it's been torn down.
00:13:21
Speaker
I was about to say it's been torn down now. It's been torn down. um You can't go in it now because it doesn't exist. But for a while there, it was a mall that only had a Barnes & Noble in it. And I think like two other active stores in various parts of the mall. and There was a shoe store and something else.
00:13:39
Speaker
have a story about that place that made me really upset. and um i But, you know, we can talk about that another time. Patreon content. Is that Patreon content? patreon and It doesn't have to be. It's...
00:13:50
Speaker
but Yeah, well, basically... Just tell us. Just tell us. Everyone wants to know. There was a movie theater on top, right? um And I bought tickets to go see a movie ah with my girlfriend, who was my wife at the time.
00:14:04
Speaker
And it took forever first to figure out how to get there from the inside of the mall. Like we were running around the inside of the mall. And then we finally get there. I open the door. The first thing I hear is an employee just looks at me and goes, we're closed.
00:14:17
Speaker
And I just, I felt so defeated afterwards. I just closed the door and we walked away and I was like, I guess I spent $20 on nothing. You didn't like go back and go like, bitch, I bought tickets.
00:14:29
Speaker
Give me a. Well, I didn't buy them from their web website. I bought it from Fandango and Fandango has a stupid refund, like no refund policy kind of thing. never oh and And so I just like, it's just not worth it. Let's just go get ice cream or something. We've been running around this mall for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to do for a theater in itself.
00:14:49
Speaker
Can't imagine why they shut down. yeah Yeah, no, no. Can't imagine why. Yeah. No, I love abandoned buildings too. Big fan. Big, big, big fan. My guess is that we were literally the only people who bought tickets for that night. And they were like, we're not opening the theater. That's for you. Sorry.
00:15:07
Speaker
ah ah can You walk up, you're ready to buy popcorn. And they're like, standing there like with the empty canister thing. Just but like, there's just cobwebs in it. Yeah. Popcorn for you. Cobwebs. No way, man. Uh-uh.
00:15:21
Speaker
If you go see that movie, nobody will find your body. no No one's looking here. No one will look here. They don't even know it's open. yeah You accidentally stumbled onto place. How did you even buy tickets for this place? It's not supposed to be allowed. That's like those restaurants we have around here where like they're clearly meant for whatever ethnic mob, you know, is meets in there. Yeah. yeah There places here.
00:15:51
Speaker
Clearly, I'm in danger. I'm the wrong Because there's a lot of people with a lot of medals and accoutrement for whatever organization they're a part of. Everyone turns and looks at you as you walk in and give you the evil and you're like, oh, shit. There's no menus or anything because it's not a real restaurant. They serve food, but exclusively to that organization for all of their meetings. There's no like, you wander in. It's like the mattress store around the corner. Right?
00:16:20
Speaker
Like, they're not selling mattresses. no You walk in and try and buy a mattress and they're like... the Nick knows the one. He's been to the one by the cookout.
00:16:32
Speaker
That's one of them, for sure. There's that other one by the bridge going into the, you know, and other side. We have a lot here. We have a lot here. Like, let's start by talking about the most important things.
00:16:48
Speaker
Tattoos in high school. Yay or nay? Oh.
00:16:55
Speaker
I don't get tattoos in high school. I'm sorry. Your brain isn't fully developed. I'm trying to think of You're going to regret it. You're going to get a movie later. yeah yeah i don't even know where where you would get one because I'm I'm trying to think. I don't know my tattoo, Laura. No, no, no. Okay. no, no. Not there. state?
00:17:14
Speaker
Oh, what state? What you mean what state? I mean, I'm assuming this is like US Canada probably. No, no, no. Any idiot can buy a tattoo gun. Tattoo gun, yes. or My dad, my my father, bless him, has a ah ah cross tattooed on his arm. You would never know it because he's got super hairy arms. But like he did that in middle school with a ballpoint pen and a sewing needle in class.
00:17:42
Speaker
So like, if you want to, you know, if you want to, you can get it done. Also, like you're also not supposed to tattoo anybody while they're like high or wasted. And like, there are plenty of parlors that do that.
00:17:55
Speaker
So, I mean, just find somebody, some biker guy who has a gun, who'll do it for like 50 bucks. Yeah. Legal aid permit in the U.S. s is currently 18, but it will allow you to get it younger if you have parental consent, which Which obviously opens a loophole for parental consent. know, all I know is I remember watching an 18-year-old being brought in for his birthday while I was getting my tattoo.
00:18:20
Speaker
um And his parents were like bringing him in on his 18th birthday party for his first tattoo. And of course, he got a brony tattoo. Nice. He got a brony. Wow. brony tattoo. Yes. It's exactly who you think gets a tattoo on their 18th birthday with their parents is that person.
00:18:39
Speaker
The parents are probably bronies too. If you're 18, you don't need your parents to be there. So Tristan brings up, oh he thought it was like, there's this one guy who had tattoo on his lower back. And I think he seemed like a really tramped guy. And him and being yeah teased about it. I'm like, no, it's a tramp stamp.
00:19:01
Speaker
It was tacky then. i don't care how cool you think he was. It was a lower back tattoo for D&D. I mean, and look it was well-playing. I like d and tattoos. has to be D&D.
00:19:15
Speaker
an RPG. tabletop RPG. Sure. Well, could have been. Just like as we'll get into later, these cards you can swipe to summon people. It's an e-reader. It could have been Warhammer 40k. We don't know.
00:19:30
Speaker
yeah It could have been Warhammer And we all know that you have a Warhammer. Warhammer tramp stamp. Warhammer tramp stamp. That's awesome. I'm going to go get a Warhammer for the King. Just for the Emperor. Just to spite out.
00:19:47
Speaker
For the Emperor with an arrow pointing down. like god emperor for the God Emperor. You know, me sitting here wearing Warhammer dog tags. I was about to say, fucking nerd. going to say Yeah. say, should I say it? Instead of the common saying, blood for the blood goddess is whole for the whole god.
00:20:08
Speaker
yeah the oh Way dirtier. now I'll take this one to say i was something that I've talked about before, but ah patrons, I'll send a picture. But I did recently get my my next ah wild bow tattoo.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, so he has a full arm now. Which we've talked about in this chapter now. So, you know, of course, we've got the cauldron symbol. We've got Antares headpiece on her hood. Antares.
00:20:36
Speaker
So we've got that. And finally, we have Blake's tattoos with the barber shears from Pact. So make it our way up. Very nice. We've got to figure out where i probably Ravage from Twig goes, for those of you who know.
00:20:53
Speaker
um Oh, Alan, I need you to just give me your tattoo guys info because I'm getting my warm tattoo next. Heck yeah. um I will send that. ah But yeah, that was ah super cringe. Just wanted to bring up the tattoo thing. That was like one of my... One of his few notes. He's like, I have to bring this up.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah. ah Anything else in 7.5?
Chapter 7.5 Recap and Analysis
00:21:15
Speaker
I have my one and only note for the entire arc, which is naturally a Chris quote. What the hokey garbage fuck is a relationship pillar? he has Oh, God. love that. That was amazing. on On those things, I hear stuff in ah certain like niche communities where it's usually something result like that explains a thing. ah and And it's usually very healthy.
00:21:43
Speaker
that We have that term. However, when you say it, it's cringe and stupid. And I am right there with Chris with like, I know what the relationship pillars are, but also to just bring it up like that is stupid.
00:21:58
Speaker
um So it's a tough, it's a tough time to be reading that and be called out and agree. agree yeah yes Oh, yeah. I had one note here, which I didn't realize was going to be so important until later. But I just, I screenshotted it my phone and I circled it and wrote 7.5. knew where came from. But,
00:22:22
Speaker
but ah ah Victoria's asking Kenzie about if she's eating enough, if she's sleeping enough. And she says, I eat three regulars. My parents were always very big on sitting down and eating as a family. Unless it's an emergency, I don't miss dinner.
00:22:39
Speaker
I circled it because of the the use of were as a past tense. My parents were always very big on sitting down eating as a family because of things. But I thought that was interesting.
00:22:51
Speaker
I just want to note that here and we can discuss it when we get to those later chapters. But it was funny that I i noticed it here because I knew that the dinner was coming up soon.
00:23:06
Speaker
Very interesting. Yep. Yep. Yep. Some thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah. The whole time camera power is just quite fascinating. Getting images of people, being able to figure out people.
00:23:20
Speaker
you know who was doing what, where, where common places were, where they stood. um And then eventually, you know in the next chapter, using it to find a security guard. um Yes, that was fun.
00:23:31
Speaker
Which is fun. But yeah, ah and so I'm trying to remember. They figure out who the people are, at least they have names, I think, but I can't remember them at this time. So I have to get to that later. Maybe they can. They're tracking the they're tracking the the three people that were in the...
00:23:49
Speaker
In the mall. Hotel room? or in the hotel room kind of area, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then, so okay, remind me again. Do we start in the in the mall or do we go, we start in the hotel room above the finance, in the finance building, and then we move to that to the mall. Is that right?
00:24:07
Speaker
think so. Because, yeah. so i mean yeah Yeah, because, so they're tracking the one, the lady with the black hair and the glasses, and then they they realize that she's kind of been holing up over at the mall, so they have the mall,
00:24:18
Speaker
And then that's when they get the security guard. They realize like she's been talking to him and then they can get to him and then they can drag it down and it's the whole i don't know, police detectiving.
00:24:30
Speaker
yeah Yeah, which is interesting. um But yeah, know nothing else in particular about 7.5. They have their suspects. They're going to try to find them. So, 7.6.
00:24:42
Speaker
Let's go. and but text f lets go ah The mall investigation. Byron talks about K-70s. Victoria brings up Amy and Corona Palencio of trivia.
00:24:55
Speaker
And then the gang, Foresight, and the police together interrogate the bribed security guard. Before we get too far into that, Bernard, I am also starting pale. I haven't even finished the first arc, but I need to get back into that so I can get a tattoo after I finish that as well.
00:25:13
Speaker
Um, yeah, so this is where they get kind of the sense of, okay, the mall was their staging area where they set up the device and then took it to the portal. Um, while they're doing that and they're kind of waiting, Byron talks about how there aren't many K70s left.
00:25:29
Speaker
Um, yeah, which is interesting. and again I don't think there were there weren't many to begin with with. Yeah. Yeah. Which makes sense. Weren't a ton to begin with.
00:25:40
Speaker
They were already, you know, if there were, they were often, unfortunately, deceased because of how rough it is being a K-70. And then Goldmorning just destroyed any record of any study that they'd really had.
00:25:52
Speaker
And then Victoria gets to nerd out, which I love, where she's like, well, actually, i have saved some research and I've looked into this. And in fact, this is my special, one of my specialties is a parahuman special. You just go iron, like, in a link.
00:26:05
Speaker
which is super cool. Talking about how the coach talks about dimpling. Oh, dimpling. ah Dimpling. Dimpling. There we go. There we go. That's the word. We need to put this closer. No, you're good. It was just discord cuts out when we were talking at the same time.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. She gets to talk about dimpling and ah like showing that like in brains, we can actually like see you the coronia polentia as it's like swollen, whether like where it like presses on the brain because of like it happened at an earlier age and whatnot.
00:26:39
Speaker
um So I thought that was really cool to get a more physiological look at ah powers. yeah Yeah. And the Kenzie can, yeah. The Kenzie's camera can like slice into you, kind of give you like an x-ray of the internal situation of a person, which is so cool, which is how they can look at her brain and like see how it's been affected, which is and so interesting. that the The like medical scientific side of capes is like,
00:27:09
Speaker
It's cool because as fall as we're following Victoria, we're seeing different sides of of the process or of the world that we didn't really get to see with Skitter in them because you have Tattletail and it's much more like intuitive of like, this is the this is the magic of how capes work.
00:27:27
Speaker
And Victoria's like, no, here's the science of why this is the way it is. It's sort of like... Yeah, Tattletail is more like the sociology of capes and Victoria is more like the biology or the physiology of capes almost.
00:27:40
Speaker
It's just like two different fields kind of because Tattletail is all about it. You know, they'd be so strong together if they didn't hold fingers. I mean, yeah same could be said for ah her and Faultline.
00:27:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, same thing. Tease and chat. Tease and chat. Tease chat. She was mentioned. We do get, i don't know if we put it in the summaries.
00:28:05
Speaker
I don't know when it is. I think it's later on. We'll come back to We do get a very minor Undeciders mention. It's worth bringing up. I can't remember when that was. ah It's in the Pictures.
00:28:17
Speaker
Is it Pictures Later? Maybe. Oh, yeah. i think yeah It's yeah the last interlude, maybe? Yeah. I mean, it's definitely mentioned in last interlude. I just missed. What are we talking about?
00:28:31
Speaker
The Undersiders. There's an Undersiders mentioned. Yeah, it's in interlude Y. For sure. We'll come back. Yeah. um J-Man, I would love to post my thoughts on Pale. We might need to make a new Pale spoilers channel for that, just in case people haven't read that. The Cact spoilers channel.
00:28:52
Speaker
Listen, we will all get through... While those works eventually, we're just going to do it on this podcast. So it's going to take us years. A bit of time.
00:29:05
Speaker
We read slower than he writes. We're very dedicated though. We are. Yeah, this is too much fun to stop. So. Oh, yeah. Yeah, why stop now?
00:29:18
Speaker
ah I do like with 7.5 and 6, we get a bit more Byron time than we do Tristan time, which is nice. I like it. Which I do like that a lot. Byron is like, I love we get a bit more hint of the relationship of like Tristan's like, hey, please give me a bit more time. And he switches to Byron and Byron's like, it's cool, dude. and i'll I'll do it too. But it's my turn.
00:29:39
Speaker
But then yeah he does hesitate. He's like, actually, i know Tristan would be okay with you guys breaking in, but I'm not okay with it, so I'm going wait. But then he goes in eventually anyway, so it's kind of like he just i felt bad. like that.
00:29:53
Speaker
think that It shows us some more of of Byron's personality, which up to this point we've been really lacking. and Yeah. and not yeah I need more Byron time, please.
Byron and Tristan's Dynamic
00:30:06
Speaker
yeah I don't remember Byron being as... ah Not as cool. Oh, partly. um When they describe his outfit, it's something that actually sounds neat.
00:30:19
Speaker
And, you know, like, not a complete foil to Tristan. Because Tristan puts effort into his outfits. He looks really good. But it is very attention-getting colors. It's red and white. Mostly, like, that's very...
00:30:33
Speaker
catch your vision. Whereas Byron is, of course, like but blue like dark blue and black. But when you, you know, we have the idea that they both dyed their hair. And in fact, Byron dyed his hair before Tristan did.
00:30:47
Speaker
um And then ah also we've got this thing where ah like Byron also, Like his outfit is put together.
00:30:59
Speaker
It sounds the way they described it sounds really cool. Like it's very intentional and well done. But once again, the colors just aren't catchy and flashy. So even though they put an equal amount of effort potentially into the same things, Tristan is, you know, just naturally kind of rewarded for the cut, literally the color scheme.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I just didn't remember Byron the first time I read it being, honestly, Byron and Rain could have been interchangeable in how much of a pity party they were having for each other.
00:31:29
Speaker
And this time, it it feels like Byron is just a normal person.
00:31:37
Speaker
yeah It does kind of feel that way, right? Byron's kind of the normal chill guy and Tristan is, the more you see Byron, the more you realize, oh, Tristan's just a little extra. Like, that's, Yeah. Not that he's not. um Obviously, he's a bit abnormal in some ways, but in the sense of like, he's not a bad guy. You're just like, ah, he's just a bit like, you know Byron's normal Tristan's elevated in terms of energy and things like that.
00:32:00
Speaker
Well, was not saying, yeah, in terms of energy, yeah, but also Tristan's the the like hero leader type and Byron seems to me to be more of the like background, ah not, I don't want to say hesitant or shy, but like kind of the more cautious, I guess, vibe when he's, like, interacting on the field or even here. Like, he's like, I don't know if I want to break the rules. Like, I'm going to hang back.
00:32:30
Speaker
And, like, Well, no, it feels like if they were Myers-Briggs out, not that that's ah really a great way to do it necessarily, but if they were Myers-Briggs Doubt, they'd be like opposites, right? Like Byron's the introvert, Tristan's the extrovert.
00:32:46
Speaker
Byron's the thinker, Tristan's the feeler. ah you know Byron's the judger, Tristan's the perceiver. They'd basically be pretty much opposites in that regard of how they view the world, how they interact with it everything. And I like that. It's interesting um and unfortunate for them that they share a body. Yeah.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah. Although Kenzie does mention... sorry now i was just going to say chat loves Byron.
00:33:14
Speaker
Aw, plus two. Kenzie mentions here that she is working on a potential solution. Yeah, that was interesting. um it's brought up again when later on when we're at the house, but it's I'm curious to see what kind of solution that would look like. What does that entail for them?
00:33:38
Speaker
And it's not really discussed here. I imagine we'll get more and and later arc, but i Yeah, I appreciate that Kenzie is constantly... like She loves this team. She's trying to find solutions for what they're dealing with and doing a really good job at building some seriously phenomenal pieces of Tinker Tech. With the camera she's got here, with the what she's trying to do for Tristan and Byron, what she... you know couple things we see later. like It's just... it's She's doing a really good job of being our...
00:34:14
Speaker
Our lookout. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. a Nice. Well done. Let's go. Yeah, she describes a solution as like a way for us to see the other one while the main one's out.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. So if Tristan's out, we could see and hear Byron and vice versa. So in my my mind, what I imagined is like a little old CCTV like on their shoulder and you just get like a grainy image of of the one who's inside at the time. So it's just like...
00:34:48
Speaker
you know, Tristan's here and then you need to see a tiny little Byron on the screen. He's like, I love it. Or if it's projections, it's just like the, like the demon your shoulder, except it's just a tiny Byron. He's like, was just imagining like a Star Fox, like box.
00:35:07
Speaker
Tristan, do a barrel roll. I just got really excited. I spilled my wine everywhere. So, um, hold on one moment, please. Oh, no, no. Y'all please continue. I'm just going to turn my camera off for a second while I like clean up.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Well, since Hannah's gone, do we want to talk about how Annalise was, you know, being really friendly?
00:35:34
Speaker
um You have to refresh my memory. Annalise is one of the team members of Foresight. Right. That is really hot. And ah maybe when they were shaking hands held on to Victoria's hand just a little bit longer than he was supposed to.
00:35:51
Speaker
Oh, really? i didn't even get it. Yeah, I didn't even get that's Funny. It's important. Interesting. It's not the, Victoria's got, and I guess this is probably just a ah byproduct of her sort of passive ability. we don't She doesn't really talk about it too much, but people are friendlier around her.
00:36:13
Speaker
We get another friendly interaction with, what's her name, at the ah the orphanage. Like, Head. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't remember her name. She runs it. She talks to two people there.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah. Is it Sheila and. Trying to remember the other one. Yeah. didable But yeah, I, it's, it's, yeah there's a bit of that. So interesting.
00:36:38
Speaker
I missed Annalise though. no but didn't Didn't she say that Annalise was one of the ones who prevented her from getting into Foresight, though? No. Okay, so Foresight had one of the other ones two people in her way, if I remember right.
00:36:54
Speaker
One was a girl that ah that that basically told her, don't fuck with the Fallen. And then she was like, nah, I can't stand for this.
00:37:04
Speaker
I think that was her. It might have been Shepard's. um But then... I believe Foresight... No, no, no. Advanced Guard has the the one fucking yeah ah guy who was a piece of shit. um So, yeah. I think it was just the one where she she went and... She kind messed it up because she talked to the yeah it's to the fallen guy. That's right.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yeah, Effervescent, I think, was the one. Okay. Interesting. i Yeah, I don't really recall. the The interrogation of the security guard is kind of a funny scene um where it feels like It's not just an interrogation of this poor one guard, but it's also like three different team leaders all trying to like pose as the leader of the room, including a police officer. And they're all like, oh, hey, let me let me get it here. Let me get a question in here.
00:37:52
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah. The poor and this poor guy. She's like, I don't know. She paid me money. And they're like, you didn't question it. And he's like, no, I should have. I'm sorry. Poor security guard, man.
00:38:04
Speaker
Just a regular Joe. Which, you know, it's actually funny that we're getting a bit of stuff like this prior to the final interlude. really highlights the the plight between the regular regular citizens and the and the parahumans.
Non-Cape Citizens in Cape Conflicts
00:38:22
Speaker
Like...
00:38:23
Speaker
non-capes are just not cut out to deal with cape activity. Yeah. Like, there' there's there's ah at it such a disadvantage on every single front. And then this poor bastard now has, like, the deaths of thousands of people and the rupturing of the portals on his conscience when the guy, you know, it's just, like, just how... It's gotta suck.
00:38:48
Speaker
I'm Team Gary. We'll get there. I'm Team Gary, though. I'm vote for Gary. Yeah. Also, ah correct. Annalise was the one. He was with the group that was screening her during the interview ah where they had like three thinkers basically sitting there reading her. And at the end, they were like, ah, you got too much baggage going on.
00:39:07
Speaker
That's going to be a no. Right, right, right.
00:39:12
Speaker
Gotcha. they They America's Got Talent hit the X on her. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. It's no for me, Doug. right Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. um Yeah.
00:39:23
Speaker
Bernard says, it's Kenzie. Do you think it would be blurry?
00:39:30
Speaker
Oh, like the image of the person inside? ah Maybe. i mean, I think she only did that because people asked her not to, like she was doing that to hide faces intentionally. hide identities. Yeah. Like she's not hiding the identities of like, for instance, the videos of her parents in the past.
00:39:49
Speaker
True. and And with the with the time camera too, the images are remarkably clear. Like they're able to freeze them and identify people pretty clearly. i mean, they're able to identify how freaking dimpled their brains are.
00:40:02
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. So i think I think the clarity is entirely up to her discretion, it sounds like. So I would imagine the clarity of the internal camera, whatever form that would take, would be up to her or by her interest and discretion in that case, maybe. Yeah.
00:40:18
Speaker
yeah ah I'm just imagining now like it is um it's a projection right but it's just the two different fairies from Ocarina of Time so Byron's a blue fairy and Tristan's a red fairy and whenever they want to talk just hey listen it's me Byron out I gotta say something Tristan listen Tristan listen listen listen target here That's hilarious.
00:40:47
Speaker
Anyways. um Yeah. I just had a random ass idea. Go ahead. um It's probably an ass idea. This is a dangerous thing I'm proposing, but I will anyways. Patrons, if you want to select my background, you technically could and put it in the Discord if it's appropriate.
00:41:15
Speaker
I like where this is going. Make it borderline. So yeah, push the boundaries. Drop it and in the, drop it in the discord and and I might use it.
00:41:28
Speaker
ah That's funny. Yeah. You're going to regret it. I will regret it, but it'll be fun.
00:41:34
Speaker
All righty. 7.7. Yes. Sure. seven yes sure
00:41:42
Speaker
spars with Crystal in the air and then visits Chris's orphanage. There, she talks to a caregiver, but Chris is ticked. He might be physically falling apart, and in their conversation, he brings up Amy.
00:41:55
Speaker
Finally, the gang crosses to Earth N. ah To answer Bernard's question really quick, what would happen to the U.S. if the security guard would be charged?
00:42:08
Speaker
ah That's a great question. ah i will consult a lawyer real quick and get back to you on that. Probably not punished with the conscious thing.
00:42:18
Speaker
ah This would probably be a whether it's worth it to charge him with anything. Yeah. just tell his boss.
00:42:26
Speaker
and and would probably fire him like a nickname. I think you could be charged with accessory to criminal activity. Yes. Because you... yeah I think. I think potentially. Like, it might not stick, but you could at least charge him with that.
00:42:41
Speaker
And then that would be enough for any good boss to fire him. But I think because because they've accepted a bribe on... Although it was unknowingly for a criminal organization, it was for knowing... you were accepting a bribe for somebody to trespass.
00:42:57
Speaker
And I feel like at that point, you're guilty of whatever they do while they're not exactly guilty of whatever they do. But yeah, they'd be they'd be convicted. They'd likely be charged with something. Whether or not they'd be convicted or just fined is a totally different matter. Also, if we're...
00:43:13
Speaker
If we're talking about like what would actually happen currently now in the U.S. s versus like what we're dealing with with the legal system there. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah this is some random fucking security guy. Like, I don't feel like they would do much other than like, I don't know, give him a hard time, tell his employer, but like.
00:43:34
Speaker
Listen, he's going to get fired. He's going to be homeless in this new earth. Oh, no. He's going to end up getting hired by some supervillain gang. And then, or he's just going to die. And then that'll be that. He's taken care of.
00:43:47
Speaker
The Lord. Goodness. Oh my God. He's been taken care of. Also, you'll all be very happy to know I didn't spill all of my wine. i know So glad to hear that.
00:44:02
Speaker
thank My night is saved. It was honestly ruined earlier. I was stressed. yeah Just hearing that. Yeah, I was i was stressed. So nice. Thank you.
00:44:13
Speaker
screaming crying and throwing up over here while we yeah hear the results yeah that's why had to mute and mute and turn off my camera was really upset i was just and i was actually over there in the corner i got a second just like rocking and crying and may wane just yeah the like you forget to turn off your camera just muted in the it's
00:44:39
Speaker
Yeah. No. like It's exactly is. Oh my
Light-hearted Intermission
00:44:44
Speaker
gosh. Vic wants to know what wine it is. Oh, it's a it's a red.
00:44:50
Speaker
um It's sweet and it's sparkly and um it's got notes of... Got an oaky afterbirth.
00:45:02
Speaker
Grapes. Yeah. ah It's got kind of like a raspberry... undertone thing going on. I like it a lot. ah yeah understand like yeah ah Fruits, cherry, raspberry, and red berry.
00:45:19
Speaker
ah Like pear, maybe non fruits. I have no clue. Nice. Always go with stone. ah press don't crush stone is actually usually i will say the the opening 7.7 was weird and to me like i honestly had no idea what was happening at first i was like it took me a second honor of saying oh yes it did take me a minute and it feels like a weird one-off scene of like it's almost like wild but i was like i gotta remind people crystal still exists because she's gonna come back later and they can't have forgotten she's still important to victoriania
00:45:55
Speaker
Well, it's a good place to also mention the whole thing about like her moving. And also Crystal is on a mission that she's not allowed to talk about. yeah lots Yeah. We do know that too. but Like, I feel like, yes, it's a way to bring this all back up. But also I think it's kind of fun. Like her and Crystal training in the air and like flying around. And so I thought I liked it. I thought that was fun.
00:46:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It was just very dis jarring at first. was like, wait, a little. Yeah. As an opener, it felt a little like surfing, surfing. yes reffa Yeah. Oh, just funny to imagine.
Chris's Physical and Emotional Struggles
00:46:37
Speaker
um Yeah, so this chapter starts out, I feel like, very optimistic talking to the caregiver. like Victoria is getting more insight into who Chris is and why he is the way he is and some of the things going on um The caregiver is very careful not to say too much. It feels good. And then Chris comes out and he's pretty good.
00:46:59
Speaker
fuck i I actually do really want y'all's opinion on this. Do we feel like Victoria overstepped? ah Because I think Chris has some important things to say. like He shouldn't be um like written off just because he's maybe being a bit dramatic and he's a teenager. But like I'm curious what you guys felt about this, her coming to see him here.
00:47:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's, you know, i think um i think Chris is mostly in the right, anger issues aside. But I do think, like, Victoria, it's not malicious. Like, they have legitimate concerns. They can't reach him.
00:47:44
Speaker
They are trying to meet up. He's not aware of that. Not to mention just being concerned about his whereabouts in general. um But I feel like they probably could have contacted him differently.
00:47:57
Speaker
What with a camera tinker nearby and was able to call people from all over the place and like talks to Ashley in prison later on. So I feel like there was probably ways of contacting him that didn't involve going to the orphanage.
00:48:11
Speaker
And I do think Chris is ah in the right to be a little frustrated by that. and I was going to say, we actually point out later in this arc that she cannot contact everywhere. I believe the reason she contacts them in their little like prison that they're in is because they have phones.
00:48:30
Speaker
Um, Oh, like that's like, it's, and it's, uh, not so widespread. if I were going to say in retrospect, because I probably would have done the same thing Victoria did.
00:48:41
Speaker
Like, honestly, she goes up, she tri she tries her best. And I think, I'm going to say Sheila for now, do their best to like not guinea give too much information away that Chris wouldn't like to.
00:48:53
Speaker
They do spoil themselves both a little bit, but for the most part, they are very careful to tiptoe around. I'm not going to ask anything to too much. You know, i just want to hear, how's he doing? You know, kind of, you know, general,
00:49:06
Speaker
the equivalent of house, the weather. However, in retrospect, the correct answer is you go up, you say, Hey, I would like to talk to Chris. Is he here?
00:49:19
Speaker
I'm going to go stand right there. If you could send somebody to go get him. Yeah, like I don't want to bother you. I'm not going to talk.
00:49:29
Speaker
We're not going to do any of that. you You're busy. You've got lots of kids to handle. I just want to know, is he all right? We could tell him we couldn't call him. So I'm just waiting outside for him. Yeah.
00:49:41
Speaker
Then he comes out. He's like angry. What the hell? It's like, dude, no cameras are here. I literally just asked them to get you. That's it. Yeah. And then I stood over there. I was over on the bench. Exactly. Yeah.
00:49:52
Speaker
it It is an in retrospect thing because it does feel like the natural thing to do. But I understand the vibe of it is it feels like an impromptu parent-teacher conference. um And I think any kid who's already a troubled kid accidentally walking into like an impromptu parent-teacher conference, you're going to feel like, you guys have been talking about me? Like, what have you been saying about me?
00:50:13
Speaker
Very defensive and with Chris's issues. At the same time, though, I get it. Like, I get why Victoria did it. And I feel like
00:50:24
Speaker
Chris isn't willing to share. He clearly needs help, but he's not willing to share himself. At some point, somebody needs to help him.
00:50:36
Speaker
But again, it's that balance of like... It's it's such a weird balance because on one hand, it's like, okay, he's got the autonomy to do what he wants to do. like He's his own person. You shouldn't have done that, Victoria.
00:50:48
Speaker
However, he is a minor. He's not... living on his own. He's in like a facility with other kids. He's you know he's accountable to other people.
00:51:00
Speaker
But it is is i don't know it's such a... it feels like there's really no right answer with Chris, unfortunately. ah yeah Yeah. I think there's a point where she...
00:51:12
Speaker
She says the kids are, are ah some of the other kids are afraid of him. He had a roommate and the roommate requested to leave. Like there's, there's, and she says at one point um that, you know, he's, he's breaking curfew. He's coming in super late. He's going on all these walks, whatever.
00:51:28
Speaker
Like, we just don't know what to do. Like if we should try and push the issue for being like, Hey, you need to be back by curfew or if we should just give him him his space. And so far we've just been giving him his space.
00:51:39
Speaker
And like, Again, it it it really is, like, the whole hindsight thing because, i mean, with kids, like, you think, okay, well, I'm trying to give you your space. I'm trying to let you have some autonomy here. But, like, you also have to, like, prove that you're going to be responsible. But, like, there's clearly stuff going on with him.
00:52:00
Speaker
i i think that, yeah, I think, Alan, what you said – She needed to be there to find out where he was to make sure he wanted to come on the mission or not or whatever.
00:52:12
Speaker
But she didn't need to stand by the fence and just chit chat. Like to me, even in that moment when they're like talking, she's like, so how's he doing? All I could think of was like, Chris is going to come out and you guys are just chatting by the fence. Like he's going to immediately assume.
00:52:28
Speaker
And then that's exactly what happened. Like he came out the door and he was like, what the fuck, man? Like just sitting here chatting about me, like checking up on me. And like, I understand why.
00:52:42
Speaker
But he's absolutely right. Like he nails it. He says like, you're just, you're just, i'm you're checking off your list. Like checked up on so-and-so, now you're checking up on me.
00:52:53
Speaker
Like you're just making sure everybody's okay. And i it did very much feel like, oh yeah, we can get ahold of you so I can get you.
00:53:03
Speaker
But also. i'm going to use this as an opportunity to be nosy. Yeah. And I. Could have left a message. Could have left a message. Could have gone... Could have written a note and handed it to somebody. That's what I'm saying. Right. As much as it sucks to also, like, go without him, like, we need to be a a team. We need to be able to trust that we can contact you. Like, yeah, power isn't great. Cell power cell towers aren't fantastic, but, like, you have to remember to charge your fucking phone.
00:53:32
Speaker
And, like, if that means you have two phones that you alternate in terms of, like, batteries or something, like, okay, fine. But, like, we... Like, Yeah. ah Yeah. it This feels like there's so much happening, especially with the chapters that happen later with Kenzie, that like we need Miss Yamada to to like be the middle ground, and Victoria's trying to be that middle ground, and she clearly cannot.
00:53:56
Speaker
like ah As I'm theorizing, think she's actually the most problematic in some ways. I... ah True. i so I still am not sure, but but I do think that like there is...
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think she's going to take she's taking on too many roles and trying to be the
00:54:19
Speaker
the... I don't even want to say she's trying to replace Miss Yamada, but like that kind of energy is what she's I think she definitely is. She definitely is trying to replace Miss Yamada. And kind of the to piggyback off of what I just said about her being the most problematic, I think this is part of what...
00:54:35
Speaker
Miss Yamada feared in bringing it up to Victoria. She knew that Victoria was going to take this whole team on her back if she could. Yeah. um Because we even see later to bring in something from Seven, the interludes, like, I mean, Victoria's making these big sweeping promises to Kinsey about, like, how I'm going to take care of you and get you out of here. Yeah.
00:54:54
Speaker
Fix things. Yeah. We've got to fix things. We've heard that before. You know, and, like... You know, and even even talking with Rain and Ashley, they're like, you know, we're going to do the best we can by you guys. Like, keep stay strong. It's just like a whole it's her taking on the burden for everybody else. And I think that's part of why Miss Yamada was afraid to bring it up to her. And now that Miss Yamada is not there to balance it, Victoria is just taking on everything. And because of that, she feels a responsibility.
00:55:22
Speaker
I think with it with a normal friend, this would be overstepping bounds, but Victoria feels the responsibility of a teacher or a counselor to say, i need to check on my patient or on my you know a teammate, Chris.
00:55:34
Speaker
Yeah. um So she uses it as a convenient opportunity to see how things are going. Yeah. It made me uncomfy. And I think that like his his reaction, while very visceral, is...
00:55:50
Speaker
Like, he makes it very clear about boundaries. Be like, you want to push boundaries? All right, I'll push boundaries. And so him bringing up Amy, like, I think it's a low blow, but also, like, I think it's valid.
00:56:02
Speaker
Like, him bringing this up, he's been very clear about not wanting anyone in his business, about not wanting anyone near the orphanage. And, like, and yet she has pushed this boundary.
00:56:15
Speaker
And, like, I kind of think she deserved it. Him bringing up Amy, like, yeah It was ah was like a perfect little response. Yeah, she he didn't push it any further than that. was just like, hey, you push my boundaries, I'll push back. you know It was ah like, let's not let's not go there. Let's not do this.
00:56:35
Speaker
yeah and Didn't he say too, like um because he alludes to the fact that he might be physically falling apart in ways that are possible to remove his power.
00:56:46
Speaker
But in in response to that, he's like, Where Victoria is essentially like, well why don't you tell any of us about it And he's like, well, I would trust Bonesaw and your sister before I trust you. I'm like, wow.
00:56:57
Speaker
That's crazy. That's a deep emotional punch. yeah Yeah. Which, speaking of that, is there another example of a cape whose power is like literally tearing them apart?
00:57:14
Speaker
like I feel like there has to be, but I can't Right. Well, I mean, like other than, but even there, even I'm trying to think even there, I don't think I can think of another power. Another body being torn apart. It's more brain. Not moving. Well,
00:57:29
Speaker
not yeah not moving oh yeah No, no, no, no. That's only some of the things that have happened. We've we've had the guy turn into a crystal tree. We've had the black goop at the... I think that's the end of... It was the end of Worm. We had the black goop.
00:57:45
Speaker
Yeah, like we had the black goop. Yeah, true, true. We've had some... Are there other capes, though? Like, capes we're familiar with. Not, like, one-offs that get me murdered or deadened by their power. Yeah, I mean, we know that...
00:57:58
Speaker
We know that some powers do affect the body or the mind in different ways, right? Like, as we talked about with Oni Lee, um his mind, you know, leaving pieces of itself behind, so to speak.
00:58:10
Speaker
um Three quick examples from our chat. Side piece, who literally throws parts of her body to explode. ah lab i think that's supposed to Labyrinth. And then Echidna.
00:58:22
Speaker
Echidna is the main one. Yeah, Echidna would get a weird pass here just for half a vial. but She's a partial trigger as well. She's kind of the weird. And One Lee, is as they point out, ah Fran also points out along with you, Nick, degrades over time personality-wise. Like by the time we get to One Lee where we're at, it's kind of a weird autonomous shell thing.
00:58:45
Speaker
However, that is only by word of Jack Slash. That's the only confirmation of that. Yes. Yes. But it is description of his power that every, you know, granted from Jack Slash, but the way he describes his powers every time he does it, you know. yeah yeah something yeah so Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:05
Speaker
hi I don't know that we have so explicit a mention of somebody's body degrading as a result of overusing their power or just from having a power. um I mean, we have, you know, Labyrinth was, there's a lot of psychological things, of course, that go with powers, right? Like Labyrinth and Burnscar have their issues.
00:59:24
Speaker
You've got, uh, uh, Dinah gets headaches as a small thing. Um, but I don't know that you have somebody who's like, he's like, Oh, use my power.
00:59:34
Speaker
My pinky fell off. well oops I mean, we think about with like, ah ah we don't see it all the time because we don't see too many people, we'll say, overdoing their powers. But when Dinah or even Regent as well, um Regent was the big one.
00:59:52
Speaker
Regent has kind of misfire the other direction where he becomes you know, ah nerve paralyzed all of a sudden. But on the flip side, ah you know, you could have somebody whose ability is to change into monstrous sc creatures.
01:00:08
Speaker
But the flip side is if they overdo it, they stay for too long. It has a negative side effect of like, oh, they start to kind of unravel as they've, you know, they've raveled their physical form.
01:00:20
Speaker
You know, it kind of undoes, but then goes further than undoing. You know, it goes this way. And then as it's coming back, it passes by human and just kind of falls off the other direction. Yeah, that makes sense. so Yeah, I'm curious to get more into Chris's backstory because it feels like given his age and not the, it doesn't have the frequency of power usage that you would like. One Lee has theoretically teleported thousands of times.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and yeah. is only now of have you know lost their mind after years and years of ah power usage. I wonder if my theory, i don't think this is true, but this is my fun theory that I'm playing with at the moment, is that the Chris we see is one of his forms, and he stays in that form too long, which is why it's degrading.
01:01:09
Speaker
Ooh. Interesting. Ooh. I like that. That could be interesting. I like that. He's a 53 who takes on human form?
01:01:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's funny. I like that. um I was thinking it was maybe like with Rachel's dogs, how when the skin like falls off, it doesn't immediately go away. It kind of lingers.
01:01:33
Speaker
so Kind of sloths off. Yeah, he like is in one of his forms. He like sneaks into his room and he's just trying to stuff extra meat down his toilet. He's like, no, no, no. Yeah, like maybe because we have one moment where he lets his form go at the end of this one chapter and like wraps himself in a cloak.
01:01:51
Speaker
But maybe sometimes it isn't a clean, oh I just go from this to human form. I like, like you said, it just like sloughs off a bunch of stuff and liquid and everything. Like it's not a consistently clean power. Yeah.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yeah. yeah you I mean, like, shapeshifters in Supernatural, they literally shed off their skin and you leave it in viscous-y piles, you know? Like, i maybe that's what's going on and we're seeing part of that, or this is just, like, I don't know. Like, ah when you get a... I mean, I've never gotten a colon cleanse, but I imagine when you get a colon cleanse, like...
01:02:30
Speaker
cleans you out, you know, and maybe that's kind of what's happening when he has to transform and his body's literally just like cleaning him out, I guess.
01:02:41
Speaker
He does also don't mean kind of pay for insulin. You just get Mentos and Diet Coke. Yeah, easy and to do yourself. DIY. DIY cooling lens? Oof. You never butt chugged a two liter of Sprite and shoved a banana up there?
01:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. God. Okay. Sorry. Jacob, please continue. You ever done the Coke and Mentos challenge, but it's a butt chug? Alan, shut your face.
01:03:08
Speaker
Oh my Butt propelling out. Yeah. Jesus. I hate you guys so much.
01:03:18
Speaker
I was saying, I think Chris, he's being very vague about it all, obviously. Yeah. But he doesn't he also doesn't shut down, unless I'm misremembering, he doesn't shut down the possibility that it's something else or somebody else out messing with him as well. Messing him, yeah. um And I get the sense that it's not like bullies in the orphanage because...
01:03:39
Speaker
It sounds like he sort of terrorizes. He is the bully. He kind of terrorizes everybody around him. So I'm curious if if that was meant to be ambiguously leading to maybe. Yeah.
01:03:54
Speaker
I kind of want to look at this again. Is it 7.7? Yeah. but seven I kind of want to look at it again because the way that he said it, I remember I was going to screenshot it and then I didn't. But he says something because Victoria comes back and is like, wait, is something else happening?
01:04:11
Speaker
And he's like, he doesn't confirm or deny. He just moves on. Here, hold on one second. While you're looking for that, Vic, I mean, I think we could do a Patreon exclusive colon cleanse stream, you know?
01:04:24
Speaker
if we got ah you know If we got enough people interested, you know we'll see. We'll need way more patrons. wasn't there a Wasn't there a streamer who was like, I chugged a bunch of laxatives and I'm going to play Elden Ring until I shit myself? Wasn't that a thing? God, I hope so.
01:04:45
Speaker
And the second thing i was going to mention is um ah In order to, bring yeah in regards to Bernard's question from a while ago about what would happen to are our guard who got bribed, it depends on the state's accomplice rule ah liability rules and if the guard knew what the trespasser was going to do.
01:05:04
Speaker
So probably would get tried for something and also to tell the little nerds that this is not legal advice. Yep, yep, yep. Gotta say that, yeah.
01:05:17
Speaker
Also, I found this section. Okay, go for it so ah So he brings up Amy. She says, you don't go there. He says, you don't come here.
01:05:28
Speaker
ah i have i have to fucking, and I'm going to just tell everybody now. We've all read it already, but it's got some language and some words in here. What kind of fucking language does it have?
01:05:42
Speaker
It's okay. Come on, man. ah You know what i mean? I have to fucking balance everything. I lose my heart or I lose my body. I've gone to the fucking bathroom in the morning and there was blood and meat in the bowl when I was done.
01:05:56
Speaker
There's two people I could trust to handle the clog or leave me alone so I can handle it. She was one of them. You don't fuck with that. I didn't. You did. You said stuff that might have changed her mind about stuff, and I can't know how to balance it if I don't know what what was said.
01:06:13
Speaker
She changes my sheets when there's fluids on the bed that aren't blood, semen, piss, or shit, no questions asked, because Jessica said it's under control. Now, Jessica isn't here, and you're putting ideas in her head, and she might change her mind about things.
01:06:28
Speaker
What the hell is going on, Chris, that you're dealing with stuff like that? Powers don't usually tear you up. I saw a flicker of something between the outrage and reckless madness I'd seen when he talked about fluids and Jessica.
01:06:40
Speaker
Not his powers? None of your business. It's not your powers? I asked. Someone else's? Someone did this to you? None of your business and fuck you.
01:06:54
Speaker
yeah.
01:06:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we need more. We need so much Waiting on that Chris background. Mystery. In defense of ah you know going down this, because I do want to hear theories on this, Victoria is also, especially during this arc, wrong about a lot of things.
01:07:18
Speaker
um We'll get to later where she's like, yeah. They're talking about the conflict of interest is obviously Marquis and I and our drama.
01:07:29
Speaker
and then And they're like, yeah, it has nothing to do with you, bitch. yeah Right. You're not that important. Yeah. Yeah. I just love that. Yeah. I mean, I think that even... go ahead. I'm sorry, Nick. please Sorry, no, I'm i'm thinking about something else. Go ahead.
01:07:47
Speaker
um I just, I think like even with her assumption here about wondering if if it wasn't his powers, if it was someone else doing it to him, even if that is a leap, she is she is right about about the whole thing about like your power shouldn't be ripping you apart to this extent.
01:08:07
Speaker
And it also makes me wonder how much Jessica knew. He says two, he mentions two people, says one is her, of the girl at the fence, the woman at the fence. And he doesn't say the other is. I assume it was Jessica.
01:08:19
Speaker
um But you i mean he says that I could... Two people that I would trust to, like, help me deal with the clog. So that kind of makes this assumption that they're there at the orphanage. So, like, it makes me wonder how... Like, who is it who knows?
01:08:36
Speaker
Or do we... Does everyone just have, like, little bits and pieces but no one has the complete picture because Chris hasn't decided to share it? And, like... How much, because we see this later with Kenzie, but this idea of like, you think you're fine and everyone else assumes you're fine because they don't have the complete picture. But once you get the complete picture, you're oh, this is in fact not even close to the realm of fine.
01:09:04
Speaker
We are in fact galaxies away from fine. And like, yeah Yeah, that that like scrabble, scrambling for control, for normalcy, for as as Chris says here, balance is like when you can't control your own body, you are craving some sort of normalcy or balance. Or once again, the body autonomy that we have seen over and over and over again is like,
01:09:38
Speaker
Oh, it's so... um Bringing it back. Wild just knows how to do it, you know? he knows how to, like, grab you and suck you in. I'm like... ah I'm so, so excited ah finally get the info for Chris. And I hope that it keeps getting teased like this because this was fucking amazing.
01:10:04
Speaker
And i'm I was pissed at Victoria for this, but... i Yeah. yeah Nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was good chapter. That's very good. um Before we get to a couple of theories about it, I want to correct something I said, ah which is an interesting little world building
Speculations on Chris and Other Characters
01:10:20
Speaker
bit. He says, I'd go to Bonesaw if she was still around.
01:10:24
Speaker
So that leads me to believe people don't know that Bonesaw is still around. Interesting. She's sort of a... Well, at least Chris doesn't.
01:10:37
Speaker
ah Because Ashley obviously does. um Well, I mean, i thought... Okay, okay. I thought that that reference to, like, if Bonesaw was still around is a reference to when the portals opened.
01:10:53
Speaker
Oh, true. Maybe she died. Fucking, you know, because he mentions that's, like, where they were staying. That's true, yeah. Which makes me wonder if we lost Bonesaw, potentially.
01:11:04
Speaker
Because if she was, like... in the years of yeah Someone mentioned earlier, maybe last arc or before, maybe in, and I can't remember when it was, but I felt like someone had mentioned about like, oh, well, Nilbog's gone because he was like under the protection of the wardens.
01:11:20
Speaker
And then when the portals all, like you know, expanded and moved and shifted, whatever, they're like, well, we lost part of the warden. Right, we lost part of the Warden's headquarters. We lost ah big chunks of the city. like We lost him.
01:11:32
Speaker
like well We would have lost Bonesaw as well because she was also there. And then Valkyrie, question mark?
01:11:40
Speaker
Maybe. Again, we don't we don't know the status of people who were inside the portal zone. There's a lot of like ah question marks around us. lot question marks and stuff like that. But yeah, I don't know.
01:11:51
Speaker
A couple of theories. Yeah. I see three potential theories for Chris. One, he's a partial vile trigger like Echidna was. um Maybe not as volatile as Echidna, but still like with the uncontrollable powers.
01:12:10
Speaker
um Another option is ah he is a creation of... something parahuman. Potentially, that thing that came to mind was the Simriff's baby that she was making.
01:12:27
Speaker
um for understand He could be something like that, or ah he could be like one of Blasto's, like Blasto and Bonesaw's last creations that like just didn't work out, kind of.
01:12:40
Speaker
And then grew up. and We don't know anything about his family, his parents, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. so So thought onto what you were saying just now is Tinker Tech tends to break down after a bit.
01:12:54
Speaker
If not, renewed, rejuvenated, remade. her yeah Maybe that's what we're dealing with. Maybe he's literally falling apart because he's made.
01:13:07
Speaker
You know? that's a oh That's a very interesting theory. I like that a lot. And if he's like bio-tinker tech, like Blasto or The Simmer for something like that, then that would make sense as well. still ah See, any excuse to bring back The Simmer.
01:13:23
Speaker
i i I just am obsessed with her. and She's out there somewhere. She's outling around out there somewhere. We have not discussed that in the slightest, and I'm upset about it.
01:13:35
Speaker
I'm sure we will. we got She's probably still friends with The Simmer. who was who was always Who was talking to her at the end? Tattletail. Tattletail, right? Tattletail, yeah. Tattletail's like chatting with her through the window and such. Still chatting.
01:13:49
Speaker
ah so cha
01:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm assuming we'll revisit that in a interlude or I'm sure we will. I sometimes forget. I've just forgotten a couple of times how how freaking long this book is.
01:14:04
Speaker
It's huge. I was like, wow, we've done so much. We must be, like, nearing a halfway point or a third point. And I remember, and I was like, wait, what? No. No.
01:14:18
Speaker
nick and there's oiler I'm looking at, there's 20 arcs. but We're not even a fourth.
01:14:29
Speaker
And it cracks me up. I was like, wow. And they get longer. And they do get longer. I'm scrolling through the table of contents. Arc 19 is ginormous. Arc 20, huge. Like, what the fuck?
01:14:46
Speaker
ah like You cannot go spoiling right now that Chris is the son of Eidolon and Leviathan through the surrogate. How dare you? How dare you? I can't believe you would say that right now. How you?
01:15:00
Speaker
would do this. Scion's blast on Eidolon actually impregnated his corpse. What is that? Let me see that fanfic.
01:15:12
Speaker
I thought he said Leviathan. thought he said Leviathan. I did say Leviathan, but what if we yeah we don't know if it's Leviathan Simmer. you know or Michael, I vote. It's the new worm. You and I. We got to get some of that Simmerfra-C.
01:15:25
Speaker
Oh, God. The Leviathan-C and the Bahamastia. Michael, I vote we just kicked them all out. We start our own podcast. We're back at it. No, hold on. Wait, wait, wait.
01:15:37
Speaker
Amazing. Thank you so much. I swear I'll be good. Perfect. I lied. I'll never be good. ah how ween know can Bring back the old theme every once while when you're bad. a Banger. so butar yeah Anything else ah ah ah but let's at seven point eight thats Yeah, we got a lot to cover. see Yeah, for real. All right. So ah they've narrowed down that the people they're looking for on Earth Inn, which belongs to Lord of Loss. So 7.8 discussion on Chris before they travel to and through Earth Inn settlement.
01:16:15
Speaker
They enter the Lord of Loss, or sorry, they enter Lord of Loss's court. They decide on a team and individual names on the spot, and Marquis appears.
01:16:27
Speaker
Marquis. Marquis. Marquis. I actually did. I had a friend in elementary school whose name was Marquis, and it's spelled very similar to mar Marquis, so it does every time it comes to mind.
01:16:39
Speaker
um Yeah, so Earth Inn seems like an okay place. Not the best, but Lord of Loss. Lord of Loss is the epitome of, like, he's a bad guy, but he's not a bad guy.
01:16:55
Speaker
know? i've got ah I've got a real important question along with the rest of the names. So if, you know, but Beast of Burden, they called him Bob casually. For Lord of Lost, do they just call him Lol?
01:17:08
Speaker
LOL. That's his face. Yeah. yeah
01:17:14
Speaker
The Lol troll. um The big old Lol cow he is. He just needs more support.
01:17:26
Speaker
Lord Famine and Organization. I'm just trying to think of something for LFAO. Right, right. um But we finally got the names locked in.
01:17:38
Speaker
We got our names locked in. We do get our names locked in. ah Breakthrough, good team name. i like that. Yeah.
Character Names and Symbolism
01:17:45
Speaker
it Plays on therapy and... Plays on therapy enough.
01:17:50
Speaker
and and also And I like Lookout better than Look-See. I do like Lookout better than Look-See. Yep. Yep. um The look-see reminded me of kind of like monkey see monkey do and I didn't I don't like that. so Yeah, I see that. Lookout's a lot better.
01:18:07
Speaker
Lookout is also funnier as Chris alludes to after she's dropped a camera on somebody's head. yeah Yes. yeah That's very fun. I like that as well.
01:18:19
Speaker
Capricorn is Capricorn still, right? like Yeah, he's got Capricorn. Yes. And Cryptid for Chris. I love that so much. That's so great. it's I'm honestly shocked and appalled that Cryptid wasn't taken.
01:18:30
Speaker
Like, what are they even doing? Or maybe it was and got Golden Mourninged. So, you know, a lot of names opened up that day. That's true. It was great for the creative endeavors of heroes all around the world.
01:18:43
Speaker
Exactly.
01:18:47
Speaker
And then Antares. ah Yeah, Antares. Victoria. What does Sveta go with? Hers is the one I can't remember. Trest. Oh, Trest.
01:18:59
Speaker
Trest, that's right. what hers Hers didn't stick with me because it it sounds like a real name. i think it is a real name. um But it like a tress of hair, right? Like twisting bits of hair. That's what I was kind of thinking. What it means.
01:19:13
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you've also got like trestles is like that weaving in between as well. Yeah. no Yeah. Not my favorite name of the group, I'll be honest.
01:19:24
Speaker
It just sounds like, honestly, sounds like a normal person's name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. it sounds It sounds like it would be an Irish name, like just a regular.
01:19:38
Speaker
Yeah. I think.
01:19:45
Speaker
What? Sorry, what was that? Okay, that's what i'm thinking of. There's a ah ah book in the Redwall series. The main character's name is Triss. T-R-I-S-S. Yeah. And I was like, that's what I was thinking of. I'm like, pleased for that name. Triss Marigold The Witcher.
01:19:59
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes. around Right, right. Anyway, so that's all unrelated. I was just trying to figure out. know I've heard the name before. um Yeah, yeah. Breakthrough is a good team name, though. That one's good.
01:20:12
Speaker
i'd give their I'd give their team name like a solid seven out of 10. I was going to say a six or a seven. Yeah, I just feel like it's pretty solid. I feel like and they're not quite themed enough. You know, we've got like two stars. We've got Capricorn and Antares.
01:20:30
Speaker
And then we've got like a pun and we've got cryptid like, and then also just Sveta's there with her name. So...
01:20:40
Speaker
i guess I guess we'll see if the names come together when Rain and Ashley finalize theirs. Yeah. I also think that like as what I really like about about when they fight is that she'll she'll call them by their names like even internally. So it's like if she's fighting, she's like, oh, I looked over there and Capricorn was fighting or threw a guy 50 feet, whatever you want to do. She refers to them as their cape name even in her mind when they're in their cape identity space headspace or you know physical space and when they're just them hanging out it's in their mind it's in her mind it's still their like actual name like tristan kenzie and so it it helps because i there's so many names there's so many things remember i don't fucking I don't fucking remember everyone's names, even people that are supposed to be important.
01:21:33
Speaker
And so like being able to remember like, ah, yes, uh, fricking press mentioned and being like, ah, yes. Okay, cool. yeah And you say it enough times. I'm going to remember.
01:21:46
Speaker
And I'm glad that she does that rather than just keep saying Sveta in her mind. Yeah. I do really like it. So with Antares, I actually have a little bit of special connection with this because in middle school, had to do an Odyssey of the Mind adventure involving Scorpio, the Scorpion, you know, getting a fight with Orion and learning about the stars involved.
01:22:13
Speaker
And Antares, of course, is the like central point to the Scorpio sign. Um, and, ah looking up, of course, other people's stuff on this, we have some wonderful comments on Reddit, uh, from about three years ago, asking about it.
01:22:29
Speaker
So Antares literally comes from anti Aries. So the opposite of war and like conflict. So trying to deescalate rather than escalate. Also your camera got real fuzzy there for a second, Hannah.
01:22:48
Speaker
I did nothing. So just trying to deescalate conflict, which is, you know, very much what she's gone from kicking, you know garbage cans into Nazis as opposed to like walking up in this arc and being like, yo, guys who just got flash banged, you know, like, what were
Victoria's Armor and Cosplay
01:23:03
Speaker
you doing? But also, are you all right? Like, you know, I don't like you, but I'll call you a cab.
01:23:10
Speaker
Um, so not only do we have the anti Aries, but we've also got it being part of the scorpion, kind of her feeling in the heart of the wretch as, uh, rid Tom of all people points out here.
01:23:22
Speaker
Um, we also have some, uh, astrological meanings where Antares is the component of the divine tetramorph initiating change and the metamorphosis of form life.
01:23:35
Speaker
It's sense of qualities are healing or destructive. Um, um And then in Christian tradition, the star was known as one of the four archangel stars, um and it represented Oriole, the Watcher of the West.
01:23:49
Speaker
um Which is ah when we do get into her outfit and that what it looks like. which is this. um It's a battle angel.
01:24:01
Speaker
um It's got like little wing designs on it. It's got little star signs on it, which is all, of course, in that Rubbermaid box down here. i' say It's really hard to see on your camera, but... yeah and Pull it in closer. but Alan made some amazing... Which is think, off of a Red Tom design ah from one of the Breakthrough team ah like pictures I designed this off of.
01:24:28
Speaker
Very proud of this. You can't hear me right now, but everybody better be nice. Yeah, sick.
01:24:38
Speaker
Yeah. And you've got like the little wings on the back. That's right. I believe, red um I don't know if completely designed that, but yeah, you got that. and then there's like little gauntlets and leg pieces. Give us a spin. Yeah. Give us a spin. I was going to say, bring it in.
01:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, bring it in so we can see it. It's getting a little bit of that reflection, but... Yeah. This is just just the chess piece. it used to be it yellow. spray painted it. But now I've painted it all gold.
01:25:10
Speaker
I will not be cosplaying as Victoria for Halloween because I did that many Halloweens ago. he did Instead, i will be doing a performance as Victoria um and and I'll be wearing the armor set.
01:25:26
Speaker
So... all very excited. Maybe Patreon exclusive if we ever release that. There you go. I think you're... Maybe top tier. If we didn't already post it in the Patreon, we talked about posting your old ah Halloween cosplay.
01:25:42
Speaker
i It's currently my Patreon. Like the back of it's my Patreon profile pic. Yeah, it is. It is. Somewhere in there.
01:25:53
Speaker
We need to post it on the Discord. Yeah. yeah Alan did a great job. It's very cool. He the whole thing himself, and it's very impressive. This is like this was your first armor build, too, right?
01:26:05
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah. i yeah i i was It's really rough. It's been hot glued many times together. um It looks a lot better. like The gold is a lot more forgiving than the plain yellow, to be honest.
01:26:17
Speaker
um But I did really like the yellow and black. ah Looks great. We'll see how it holds up. job, Bibi. oh Maybe I'll wear it to a Comic-Con that we have coming up.
01:26:29
Speaker
Oh, there you Pictures. That could be fun. Join the Discord. lecture Pictures if you do, for sure. Or it didn't happen. how the second get off true That's true.
01:26:43
Speaker
But yeah, those are some fun Antares facts that i ah you know I was reading through here, but I've also been sitting on because you know we haven't gotten the word name Antares thrown out yet. Yeah, yeah. Very cool.
01:26:55
Speaker
People are very excited in chat about having the the full names they can use now, by the way. Right. And we also, mass somebody mentioned again that, ah yeah, Bernard mentioned Ashley, you know, had Swan Song going. And as far as, you know, she's kind of locked into that.
01:27:12
Speaker
Yeah. And Reign is undecided. Yeah. and And now we have, since we have her and her twin, ah we've got, you know, we can call them kind of Damsel and Swan Song.
01:27:24
Speaker
Yeah. Instead of the Ashleys if we really need to. I have to read. a I have to read Beefaroni's comment because it's so funny. He said that if caves dying in Goldmoring frees up their names, then Chris should have gone with Cyan, obviously.
01:27:45
Speaker
Missed opportunities there. It just makes me think like, yeah, what if when you die, your name is no longer copyrighted and people can just take your
Marquis and Lord of Loss
01:27:53
Speaker
old name? That's actually very interesting. What if you just killed people to take their names?
01:27:57
Speaker
It's like good names, yeah. I mean, and Sion's not even his real name, you know, like you just... Exactly. I mean, they got the spelling wrong. What if somebody else his name? It took Zion and he was just so pissed about it. That's why he gold Right. That's right. He gold morninged.
01:28:16
Speaker
He didn't renew his domain registration. Exactly. Right. yeah right so It was someone in the UK for sure. They were like, well, you know, somebody started a Scion OnlyFans account and he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. Yeah. And they're like, no, no, I've trademarked this name now. And now you can no longer sell your products here. I missed. I mean, Scion missed. Can't sell your own feet pics anymore. Yep.
01:28:41
Speaker
Which is actually what happened to Sierra Mist if you're curious why it stopped existing. Yes. sorry is a Pepsi let their trademark lapse and somebody else bought it. Is that really what happened? Somebody else?
01:28:53
Speaker
who An adult star bought it and Pepsi was like, wait, you're hurting our brand. and She's like, actually, your drink is hurting my brand. Yeah. Think about that. I love that. Because she owned the trademark.
01:29:06
Speaker
It's phenomenal. He's so dark, but his little... Okay, nobody likes Sierra Mist anyway. Yeah, fuck Sierra Mist. Oh, I like Sierra Mist. I can't like it anymore.
01:29:18
Speaker
It's Starry now. Yeah, Starry, I'll be honest, Starry does not that. You can still like the other Sierra. I don't like Starry. That is a cat in the camera. That was a cat butt, 100% cat butt.
01:29:29
Speaker
You got all cat ass all the time. Everybody got to check that box on the bingo card. Yeah, for real. ah All right, let's keep going. We might need to make the bingo card more specific, that it's like cat ears, cat butt, cat tail. Right, sorry.
01:29:43
Speaker
Anyways, Marquis comes back. We love Marquis. love Marquis. He's great. He's one of the best villains. Ah, yes. Such aura. He's just standing there. He's got a lot of aura farming. Looking hot. He's so much better, I think. His t-shirts and his billowy shirt.
01:29:56
Speaker
I think he's so much better this go-round than he was in Wyrm, personally. ah do like how he's only gotten older and hotter after the meeting, how they were all like, so Marquis's really in charge, right?
01:30:08
Speaker
They're like, yeah. Marquis's in charge. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. i love that so much. He's flexing on him. He also, i you know, in my weird fashion, you know, quick side rant, he he has this wonderful sense of spreczoturo, which is making a very difficult thing look like haphazard and easily done. yeah So the idea of like your tie is always just like a little bit crooked because it actually looks better than if it's well done and like tightened up.
01:30:39
Speaker
yeah And he pulls that entire like, oh, my shirt's just slightly askew. Casual bedhead. bedhead. gives that off so hard. Also, she she says he is wearing tight pants and of like a a billowy shirt. And all I can think is like he's giving Mr. Darcy coming across the field in the morning, like billowy white shirt that's like unbuttoned at the top and like tight pants.
01:31:03
Speaker
Marquee, Jack slash saw Marquee and was like, gonna steal that outfit. Right. Let's steal that. I'm going to make the greasy version. and yeah, you got to make the the yucky version. And he's like, not even a third as hot.
01:31:17
Speaker
see that also says um Mark, you might go off a cliff. If you guys keep saying Marky. ah Instead of Mark's question.
01:31:29
Speaker
Instead of it's not Mark. We're not calling it Mark. It's definitely. That's not his name. Mark. and and mark Marquise. Marquise. I will Marquise. Marquise is amazing.
01:31:43
Speaker
Before I pronounce it that way. We're going to find out. ah Okay, keep going, please. Keep going. We can do it. Sorry.
01:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, Marquise. Okay, so... Marcus. Yeah. the the group dynamic here. I mean, I think it's, I think here's the thing. Anytime. treaty Good to see you.
01:32:09
Speaker
ah I'm sorry. Chat is just, it's weird that he from Fran. It's weird that he seems to think of Victoria kind of like family because of Amy and treaty response. He's trying to get the better done.
01:32:21
Speaker
you Trying to get a better daughter. Wow. that is That's a time. i mean, facts. ah Yeah. I do think it's interesting.
01:32:32
Speaker
Victoria makes a note here of Marquise's... His mannerisms kind of remind her of Amy a little bit, of the way that he holds himself, or the way that he has his like thinking face on or whatever.
01:32:46
Speaker
and And I wonder if... like Like some of that is probably just like familial facial features, but like also the time that Amy spent in prison with Marquis is like, you know, victoria does that yeah the mannerisms. Yeah, the mannerisms and stuff. And she's like, oh, that's where she got that from.
01:33:07
Speaker
She's got to suck in a way to be like, uh, well, I feel like we should read 7.9 summary because we're kind of into it already. um Yeah, might as well. uh breakthrough and league of legends groups discuss their mutual connections um exchange on exchange info on the fallen uh they find a wounded kingdom come thrall in a cabin uh and then there are conspiracies afoot about what it means um but yeah so this is the scene you're talking about alan where victoria is like oh when they're discussing mutual connection they're talking about me
01:33:42
Speaker
And then it's actually like, actually, no, Tristan has history with this person. He used to be on a hero team. And it's like, oh, yeah not me and Marquis. Marquis brings it up later, though. And he's like, yeah I do know her.
01:33:54
Speaker
um Like, we're kind of related. And Victoria's like, we're not related. He's like, oh, we're not fucking related. I don't. I don't actually think it has to do with Tristan and... it not Tristan? I'm trying to remember who it was. It's two things.
01:34:08
Speaker
It's Tristan and the Ferrymen, the three guys that leave. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Tristan and the Ferrymen, and then someone else, because it's it's all of them. They're all fucking connected. So Tristan and the Ferrymen. The Merrymen. The Merrymen. Tristan Merrymen. Tristan and Ferrymen, for sure. Oh, Ferrymen. Victoria...
01:34:30
Speaker
And Marquis. And what was the other one? Because there's at least one other or two other connections for sure. I can't remember. but Sveta? No. piece better No, not Sveta.
01:34:43
Speaker
don't remember. like and Oh, somebody somebody knows Look-See. Lookout. That's what it is. I'm pretty sure, right? about somebody From her work with the wards, maybe?
01:34:54
Speaker
Her work with the wards, yeah. Like a former... I thought maybe can't remember now. and The big one is Tristan and then the Ferryman. Yeah. yeah Yeah. i Also, Bifaroni pointed out, Marquis literally starts off this chapter with being like, ah, name pronunciations.
01:35:13
Speaker
And I think that was Wildbo's way of saying he fucked up when he tried to, you know, make that, you know, mark in the first one. And he's corrected himself because he's learned better in Ward.
01:35:25
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Maybe so. Maybe.
01:35:32
Speaker
Does really say that?
01:35:36
Speaker
Yeah. Like literally the opening to what is it? 7.9. Like, I love people who could reinvent themselves. Because the guy's like, yeah but not carny.
01:35:49
Speaker
yeah ah name yeah Yeah. I admire those that can reinvent themselves. He met my eyes again. Which is clearly Wildbow reinventing how Marquess is pronounced a Marquis the correct way.
01:36:02
Speaker
It's a brilliant mark on his part. Marky Mark. like like Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Did Wildbo officially say that it's supposed to be more Marquis? Yes, because it's a fucking Canadian-ass French pronunciation. Oh, no. Well, so it's the Canadian-ass pronunciation of a French word that should be Marquis, but they pronounce it Marquis because, you know, D-gens from upcountry.
01:36:28
Speaker
Right. Okay. All right. It's good enough for me. Marquis. Marquis. It's pretty good. Marquish. I do Marquish. We'll refer to him as Marquish from now on.
01:36:39
Speaker
Perfect. Everyone will be upset. You need to make a quiche again. I made a quiche was thinking I really want a quiche. Vic apparently prefers... Oh my gosh! Vic prefers Marquish, actually.
01:36:52
Speaker
marque also To So we're good. Marquish. Perfect. We talked about it a while ago, but Lord of Loss is like... pretty decent throughout this entire thing he's very simple very reasonable i wonder if how much of that though is because marquish says the thing where he's basically like because of my connections with victoria i would ask that we be simple here and he's like all right well that's part of it but like i'm pretty sure they didn't they reach out they reached out beforehand to set up the meeting and he was like i understand this is important you can come talk to us
01:37:26
Speaker
Yeah. Like he even then, like even if there was a sort of a hostile, to even if there had been a hostile zone to their meeting, which there really isn't, like he was still willing and open to communicate with them about, you know, somebody who blew up the portals.
01:37:41
Speaker
Yeah. Because that's like a big deal. It affects everybody. Yeah. It's not just like a heroes versus villains thing. It's like we're tapping back into like the, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when I was going to say it goes back to the community center too, where he's like, hey,
01:37:55
Speaker
We didn't do this. Like, please let people know we're not bad guys. we We're just doing a job. but Also, the reason they're doing it and they talk about but is they're essentially letting the pressure valve off of society by like, like, even though it's weird and not directly like, oh yeah, that's a good guy thing. Like it's a, the move that they're trying to make is societally beneficial in their mind.
01:38:21
Speaker
Like, they're like, yeah, people have a really, you know, really ah not feeling great about heroes. And especially ones that were villains trying to reform just, is you know, is worse.
01:38:32
Speaker
So in order to release this, you know, the valve, we're to come in make kind of an example of this one person as a sacrifice. And that way everybody gets there, feels like, oh yeah, we had, you know, a good witch burning and we can kind of like let off for a bit on the capate.
01:38:48
Speaker
And so like, it's weird. It's not great, but it is like weird, uh, thinking societally rather than like, I'm holding this territory because this is what's most beneficial for me.
01:39:02
Speaker
just want to kill and steal and like, you know, a very individualistic meme in a sense. Yeah. when he he he comes across right as like a ah prime minister sort of person for Earth End where he's like, hey, I'm just looking out for my settlement, you know, trying not to ask too many questions. We have hard times. You know, we just want to make sure, know, we're just getting rent, getting supplies, making sure everybody's taken care of.
01:39:26
Speaker
um You know, so it's it's a very interesting sort of villain group. It feels like this is the kind of position Taylor would have wanted eventually had she been around for this. oh yeah You know, of like,
01:39:39
Speaker
Like, yes, you're technically a villain, but you're really not a bad person. And actually, people living under you are probably flourishing more than they might be in some hero-controlled areas. Yeah, definitely.
01:39:50
Speaker
um Sort of the, what is it in Marvel, Dr. Doom's country is like one of the best countries. Not Lafayette. That's a real country. Lafayette.
01:40:02
Speaker
I was like, was so confident in it. A made-up country Latvia. It's like other questions like Estonia. the you know just Unreal. that was like I saw this long-moving thing. of like um it was like It was a trope thing on Reddit of like fictional universes you wouldn't want to live in.
01:40:24
Speaker
and It was like the Invincible Universe, the Worm Universe, and the former Soviet bloc. Excuse me. I was like Yugoslavia. Yeah. yeah Or Yugoslavia just in general. Oh,
01:40:38
Speaker
Well, you guys aren't. Latveria. Latveria. It's very close names. Yes, Latveria. Sorry, Alan said Latvia and threw me off. I knew it was wrong the moment it left my mouth.
01:40:50
Speaker
But even though Dr. Doom's a villain, Latveria is like a paradise because he takes so much pride in taking care of it. um Yeah. Yeah. and Well, it depends on which run of comics. Depends on which one. It's generally... very Romanian-coded, like, he's Dracula in his castle and, like, doesn't give a shit. Sometimes it's... yeah The point stands. But in in many runs, especially the more recent ones, he's like... From what I've seen, it's just like... He's like... At one point, he was captured and couldn't take care of Latveria, and the Fantastic Four let him go because so many people in Latveria were protesting his arrest. Yeah.
01:41:26
Speaker
And they're like, give him back. We need him. Yeah. There are quite a few runs like that, actually. Yeah. Because the the alternative is a bunch of very incompetent people, and you'd rather just have the one competent person.
01:41:38
Speaker
Exactly. It kind of is what it feels like, where he's like, I take care of my people on Earth. And then we get to a little kingdom come, dude. Oh, yeah.
01:41:50
Speaker
Kingdom come. with come of this Kingdom come. Yeah. your Kingdom came. All right.
01:41:56
Speaker
um
01:41:59
Speaker
and That's basically what his power is. Yeah, I mean... i think I think we made all the the kingdom came everywhere jokes before.
01:42:12
Speaker
Yeah. I do like how he's got to be immediately like, wait, no, this is me. This is me. Like, this is I'm kingdom come. Careful. And he's like, his his body is like dying because he's tried to Did I get it right? He was trying to kill. that guy because to leave the body that what he was trying he was trying to shock himself or or blow himself yeah he was trying to pull out the wires that were yeah eventually like prevent so not sutured but like clamping down all the blood so he's pulling out the wires ah that the the body would die because they were using him to like they said talk cross-dimensionally and yeah
01:42:52
Speaker
Which is crazy. Crazy, yeah. Yeah, and he even says, like, if I'd known you were coming, I wouldn't have tried to kill myself. yeah Yeah, right, 20 more minutes, god damn it. Oh, my God. If only you'd called ahead and they were like, Kingdom Chris, you didn't charge your phone.
01:43:08
Speaker
And, you know, I forgot to, I was busy bleeding. my God. Oh, gosh. ah Bernard asks, ah and no, no, Fran, here we go.
01:43:21
Speaker
um Asking about ah Fantastic Four and how New Wave is the closest we have to Fantastic Four in the Wyrm universe because they're an exposed, you know, identity with a family unit. That's the main thing.
01:43:37
Speaker
So Bernard asks, is the heroine in Fantastic Four, I'm assuming, the Invisible Woman, and as bad as Brandish? And the answer is by far fucking no. Absolutely not. no Invisible Woman is like the only sane person in that group. normal.
01:43:54
Speaker
yeah So, you know... I thought she was chill. Yeah, she was very chill. The only thing I've gathered recently about Invisible Woman is that ah everybody in the Marvel Heroes game calls her mommy.
01:44:06
Speaker
And that's that's what I know. Wow. yeah You know, i imagine it's like Mrs. Incredible. imagine it's like Mrs. is Incredible, like Elastigirl. She is mommy to everyone.
01:44:17
Speaker
Yeah. That's true. Once again, the only sane person in that group as well. I've seen a clip of the cast of the Fantastic Four reacting to Invisible Woman skins in Marvel ah Rivals. I saw that too. like That was actually very funny.
01:44:35
Speaker
Great clip. That movie was really good. I just saw it actually. I enjoyed it. i Yeah. it was good Oh, nice. All right. right Anything else on 7.9? Just trying to keep it a pace.
01:44:48
Speaker
I know. We got the big chapters to come. Yeah. The big ones are still coming. Yeah. Don't stop coming.
01:44:56
Speaker
All right. All right. All right. so Seven.
Kenzie's Troubled Family Dynamics
01:45:00
Speaker
ah End of 7.9, the only thing I could think of is that they're talking about war with other dimensions and how yeah there's this inter... Which I will say, there's this interplanetary conspiracy involving the fallen. I think I may have been right.
01:45:16
Speaker
That one religious planet might is definitely involved in all of this. You're closing in on something. yeah they Real quick, they did say they were like, the attack was really just...
01:45:28
Speaker
ah just Not even a thing compared to what's what's really going on. Yeah, like they're just like, this is the the very beginning. Yeah. yeah Classic. Yeah, exactly.
01:45:39
Speaker
Alright, 7.10...
01:45:43
Speaker
Do we want to do 7.10 in the first interlude together? um Just kind of put it all together because the first interlude is Kenzie's interlude. Yeah, and was going to say, might as well just put it together. We're going to cross wires yeah talking about Yeah, I feel like we're going to cross over much. The Kenzie chapters in general.
01:45:59
Speaker
Yes. All right. Well, 7.10. Victoria and Kenzie discuss what they've learned with Rain and Ashley. ah Then they go to Kenzie's house. Vicky gets a tour of Kenzie's work and home. And then the Martins try to poison their daughter.
01:46:13
Speaker
So, in the interlude 7.x, Kinsey shows Victoria holograms of her background, being abused by her parents, being put in a good foster home, unwittingly wrecking her relationship with her foster parents, triggering, and then Victoria promises to get her out.
01:46:31
Speaker
Wildo hates parents. Yes. and it Except Danny. No, no, no, no there's There's a specific... There's some very specific, like...
01:46:43
Speaker
ah archetypes or some, yeah, some word here that he likes to repeat. um Chris is very much one of those. um Another one is the people bad at being people.
01:46:59
Speaker
This is very much feels like a repeat of um who is it? Theo describing Night and playing Fog.
01:47:10
Speaker
Yeah. Like almost a dead repeat with the them sitting down, eating, trying to pretend to be this some sort of idealized family. With them, it almost feels like a 1950s cover. With the Martins, it feels like your very 90s, 2000s, keeping up with the Joneses, upper middle class, like stereotype that they want to live like. She's like, i slaved away all day on this.
01:47:35
Speaker
You know, honey. I'm still not convinced they're not supervillains too in their own regard. Or serial killers. Or serial blades or something. They give off, once again, maybe it's the Night and Fog thing, but they give off strong like... Yeah.
01:47:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, they very much so feel like... um Because i'm I'm trying to think of timeline-wise. Did Kinsey trigger after Goldmourning?
01:48:01
Speaker
ah She triggers when she's what? Nine? It's still pre-Goldmorting. It's a pre-Goldmorting. so It would have been a year after she triggered. Yeah. Okay. So it's still pre-Goldmorting. Okay. Yeah. So that's that's definitely... Because my my assumption of what what the timeline is, so to speak, right? is She's with her parents.
01:48:24
Speaker
She's removed from her parents' home, put into a foster home. then goes from home to home, triggers because of it, goes to the wards for a bit, then Goldmorning happens, and in the aftermath of Goldmorning, she finds her parents and forces them to live with her and take care of her.
01:48:41
Speaker
Also, which think of those reasons. Because whatever prison they were in, probably collapsing Goldmorning. Yeah. Probably. um The trigger event, I think, if we just happens at the office.
01:48:55
Speaker
Is that when they so they they say it's it happens? She has this moment where all the colors shift and there's like this weird up is down. And and there's and she kind of has this moment where she's like, ah and it's where she realizes that like, oh no, no, I've lost him.
01:49:10
Speaker
i've I've absolutely lost them. I've gone too far. Because she shows up at his office. Yep, yep. You're right, you're right. Yeah, and then the girl who's like trying to take her back, she's like, are you okay?
01:49:21
Speaker
And she's like, like me home. And yeah that's like, he's like coming out of the trigger event. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot that was when I was, you're right. Yeah. It makes me wonder a little bit, just as a side note, if her tinker powers are more of a coping mechanism than her main power, as in because she talks about not wanting to use her power to do more, knowing that she could.
01:49:48
Speaker
obviously with her camera power, if she can't. But it it feels like a hint to me that there's more to her powers than meets the eye of like, oh, I can make a lot of good cameras. yeah I think maybe the Tinker tech is more like this is the avenue through which I use my power and not the power itself.
01:50:07
Speaker
Sort of like how Taylor had the master power over insects, but then has a bunch of subpowers in order to make it work. Sort of like, Kinsey has this one main power she doesn't really understand yet. The Tinker power is just what controls it and uses it.
01:50:21
Speaker
ah Yeah, i feel that I feel like that's probably pretty accurate just because of some, there's just, it's so messy. like And she's worked so hard to like try and stay within the parameters that she's built for herself and also that the wards have put in place for her.
01:50:36
Speaker
So it makes sense that she's falling back on that Tinker Tech and that is like that is how she uses her power. ah do have a slight, ah my slight theory brings in ashley's line about they're not your parents um i think these are not her parents i think they are another dimension of her parents i think her parents died in cold morning oh and our and she found copies of them which is why they were like and they pretended they didn't know who i was and they got really angry when i confronted them about it and why they're trying to they they don't know who she is
01:51:13
Speaker
yeah yeah And I mean, and from what it sounds like, they know never should have been parents in the first place. So the idea of like these parallel dimension parents who didn't have a daughter, never wanted a daughter. The big thing is is that the one thing we know about her mom, her real mom, is that she can't cook.
01:51:32
Speaker
What then we know about her her current mom is that she's a great cook. She's great cook. Well, I think, I mean, part of it was, a part of it feels like it's part of the blackmail thing, though.
01:51:44
Speaker
I mean, yeah, yeah it very well. She's got to better at it. Like the art thing. Like they've had years and she's like, one of my requirements for blackmailing is that you have actually have to learn how to fucking cook. Like, you can't. Well, they... Oh, sorry.
01:51:58
Speaker
Like, I agree with Jacob. I'm just... You know. Yeah. No, no, no. There's a moment when she's showing Victoria around the house where she shows her the art supplies in the living room.
01:52:10
Speaker
And there's there's like some stuff on the table next to the easel and whatever. And it's covered in dust. Yeah. And I kind of had this moment where i was like, why is it covered in dust, Kenzie?
01:52:23
Speaker
Like, why why is your mom's art stuff like...
01:52:28
Speaker
i do I do think, yeah, the they i'm not they're not your parents' line from Ashley. do think it's a bit more literal then yeah than we're supposed i think I mean, that sounds like nail on the head.
01:52:40
Speaker
Like that sounds, because yeah she makes another thing about the stained glass where she's like, oh yeah, I remember your stained glass from that you made, you know, years ago. And the mom is like, she's like startled. She's like, that was a long time ago.
01:52:53
Speaker
Like, you shouldn't know about that. That makes no sense that you know about that. And she's like, I just remember. And it's it's clearly like, Irene is like thrown off. She's... she's Yeah.
01:53:05
Speaker
I will say at first, too, the end of 7.10, my initial thought was, oh, these people have been kidnapped and she's holding them hostage to pretend to be her parents. Yeah.
01:53:17
Speaker
hu and like the Martins are actually in trouble they're just trying to escape and the only thing they can think to do is kill Kinsey with poison but yeah so it might be a mixture of that though right it it could be like what you're saying Jacob like they're actually captive by Kinsey and they're like yeah we gotta get out of here somehow we gotta kill this girl so we can escape um yeah and They're getting paid for it, though.
01:53:40
Speaker
That's the other thing. It's like they're getting paid to be her parents to play this role. They wouldn't have to do that. Yeah. If they didn't want the money. Like they the the selfishness here is very forefront of like.
01:53:57
Speaker
Well, also blackmailing them. They'd go back jail. Right. yeah But if they were never... like If they're from an alternate world or they're not her real parents and she's just like in denial about it, but the idea that like she if she knows that, she could hypothetically... like the idea of, like well, we're not going to put you in jail for something that like one of your alternate universe selves did...
01:54:30
Speaker
but also you've done so much in the meantime ah try and murder her. Yeah, now we have bunch of evidence of you trying to kill Kimzie. Yeah, the whole is dug. It's probably compounding. And really, like I imagine i could see a scenario where, I mean, like how would you prove you're an alternate version ah of yourself, you know?
01:54:53
Speaker
Especially after to the end of the world. Especially after the end of the world, yeah, where it's like, no, no, that wasn't me abusing this child. She she showed up. She essentially, they were like, we don't want her, potentially because she's not actually theirs.
01:55:06
Speaker
And then she goes, no, let me show you my evidence, which as we know, she forges constantly. yes Like she manipulates evidence. So like, that's evidence oh yeah, this is them.
01:55:18
Speaker
Look, I have all the relevant documentation and they're like, yeah, you have to take, I mean, this the government says, is like, yeah yeah, that's your kid. You can't just abandon your kid. And so they're like, fuck.
01:55:29
Speaker
Well, right you know, we'll just treat her like the last one that didn't make it. Well, bold move of them to poison her when a guest is there. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy.
01:55:41
Speaker
Like, so they put, so she says to give, I think they were going to poison Victoria too. Yeah. That's what it sounded like. And she swapped up the plates and that's when they started getting really mad because they realized they were, they were getting found out.
01:55:55
Speaker
But like, it's, it's so ah so, interesting to me that like, you're choosing now. It's, it feels, excuse me, it feels very like a weird, desperate situation of being like,
01:56:10
Speaker
We need to like take, this is our moment to take things in control. Like we're going to lead poison, lightly lead poison our fake daughter, maybe fake daughter, who knows?
01:56:22
Speaker
And guest. Like at this point, they know who Victoria is or sort of. They've heard enough to know who she is. Like it's a bold move yeah to just like poison Victoria as well.
01:56:40
Speaker
I mean, it's it's got to be maddening, though. Like, I imagine... ah You see, like, you know, those ah TV shows like Love Island or Big Brother where you have a camera watching you literally 24-7.
01:56:52
Speaker
And in... Right. I was just... I think I referenced it earlier. was watching a Legal Eagle video about the contract for Love Island ah participants. You sign that you give away your rights to privacy and the bathroom included. Right.
01:57:06
Speaker
yeah Like there are cameras in in the bathroom and you have zero privacy hidden microphones everywhere. And obviously that's exactly what's happening with Kinsey. And like, that's gotta be awful to live in that fire. Even if you're a horrible person, which, you know, the mark and seem to be a horrible person, horrible people. yeah At least Irene seems to be horrible. Martin at the very least is just, you're not Martin. He tolerates it.
01:57:28
Speaker
Julian. He tolerates it. Yeah. Which makes him just as bad. Yeah. Julian. Um, but you know, they are now with Kinsey, they are under constant 24 seven surveillance. I imagine she has probably has footage of them doing literally every bodily function that you can imagine. Like, it's just like, I just imagine that at some point you just break mentally and you're like, I gotta do anything. I don't care if I've got a poison two superheroes. I gotta to get out of here, you know? And maybe this is our chance because she'll be with a friend and distracted and not paying attention, but she's always watching.
01:58:03
Speaker
I'm always watching, Irene. always Bernard has a couple questions. um They want to know when you first started suspecting something was wrong at the dinner, and they also want to know do we think the poisoning is a first attempt?
01:58:23
Speaker
Well, we know the poisoning's not first attempt. I mean, I think we've known something was going to go wrong at the dinner since like arc four. Yeah, exactly. Fair enough. i honestly didn't suspect, like I was waiting for it to happen, but I didn't like nothing was suspicious until Kenzie's like, oh, by the way, don't make a big deal out of this. Okay.
01:58:44
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Message. I was like, oh hold on. back I went back and like I thought I missed something. but yeah moment like that which i had to reread ah yeah The moment she switched plates, I'm like, she's getting poisoned. like There's poison involved. i i It clicked for me immediately. It took me so long to realize. was so confused. Something clicked. Because it's the classic thing, right?
01:59:03
Speaker
um tried to poison her like something like something clicked where because it's the classic thing right of like you keep yours safe, mine's poisoned. So what does she do? Switch plates? You know, it's just that. Yeah. yeah my Unless you've built up her resistance to Iocane powder, then you can't poison both plates.
01:59:18
Speaker
That's true. My thought the first time I read this, you know, so many years ago, was that that that there's some weird hologram robot shit going on.
01:59:30
Speaker
Because when I read it, it's her, like, essentially treating them like they're not people. but they don't do anything against her.
01:59:40
Speaker
Like, she just kind of walks around and they all sit in their chairs like animatronics almost. And then they keep talking about her peeking back out at them and they're not moving.
01:59:51
Speaker
Like, they're staying at the dinner table in the suite. So there was this whole, like... just, sitting at the table. Yeah, like... what is going on? So I remember the first time reading this, having to reread it a couple times, still not figuring out that there was a poison thing.
02:00:04
Speaker
Just thinking that Kenzie was having a freak out moment of being embarrassed and kind of like punishing these robot parents because she felt like there was an embarrassment. And she was like, okay, okay. Like,
02:00:17
Speaker
this has been a really bad day. So I'm going to help you understand why I have these like weird little tantrums like this. And then you get the whole, Oh wait, this is what's going on.
02:00:28
Speaker
Um, yeah. But the first time read it, was just very shaken out of reality. She said something like, you guys sit here until you finish eating, basically. And was like, okay, there's like poison. It felt like a callback to, she said you can sit there until you finish eating or until Victoria leaves.
02:00:45
Speaker
And it's interesting because there's a similar kind of statement is said later when she's in, you know, we're getting her diary flashbacks of her sitting at the table. Like, yeah, you're going to eat this and we're going to go get burgers and milkshakes. And you're going to stay here and you're going to eat this disgusting food.
02:01:01
Speaker
And you're going to sit at the table until you finish your plate. Kind of a mental very adult scolding child for not eating their food kind of thing. i yeah I think um there's a moment.
02:01:13
Speaker
So, okay, I will say, I'm going to say this right now. i i mean We all knew dinner moment was going to come. Like, if I hadn't known, I think I would it would have still gone into this with like a little bit of like, like worriedness.
02:01:32
Speaker
ah i'm I will say I'm a little, I am a little disappointed that we knew the dinner was going to be such a big deal because y'all were talking about it in chat. Yeah. which is why i just I've given up on looking at chat anymore.
02:01:45
Speaker
But... ah chat Shut the fuck up about future stuff. Yeah. Like, don't even hint at it. Don't even mention. Don't even hint, because, like, if you guys are like, oh, just wait till you get to dinner. I'm like, okay, but now I know dinner is important, and it's better if I don't know. Like, I don't like to watch trailers for movies. Like, let me just go in blind. Yeah. I i will say, like,
02:02:06
Speaker
The dust, the dust on the art supplies had me like, because we've been we've been worried about Kenzie's parents for a while. The um at one point, she says, mom's Irene says.
02:02:20
Speaker
um Oh, Victoria, you're from a Cape family, aren't you? And Kenzie goes, sore topic, drop it.
02:02:32
Speaker
She's like, okay, dropping it. And then moves on. And that was my moment where I was like, I wonder, because, you know, one of my initial things was I wondered if they were like bots, AI bots, AI something,
02:02:44
Speaker
ah And the idea of like drop it being a keyword to be like, don't press. Like some parents will press. Like maybe she's programmed them to like be be like, oh, no if, you know, she wants to tell us. Okay, but drop it is like a keyword.
02:02:58
Speaker
That's like a leave it alone. But she dropped it so fast. It was like, that was weird. And then the switching the plates was when I was like, what is happening?
02:03:11
Speaker
What is going on There's like these slight hints that like things are... You're like, how is this dinner going to Because and in a more human sense, because the dad has always been like...
02:03:24
Speaker
kind of cold and whatnot. And we get the sense when he's like talking, he's like, yeah, I'd be crazy with these, you know, radical anti-cape groups. Like I can't join one because what if it came out that I had a cape daughter? Like, that'd be crazy.
02:03:38
Speaker
It's like, wait a minute. So if you didn't have a cape daughter, you would be part of one right now. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. The only thing that's preventing you is the embarrassment of having one. Like, yeah. like Yeah. Nobody would have found out you would have joined them today.
02:03:52
Speaker
like Right. And it's not be a traitor to your tape daughter. It's the embarrassment to you of being found out that you had a cape daughter. Like, it's so self-centered.
02:04:04
Speaker
It's not it's not being like, oh, because I have a cape kid because he is a cape and I love her and she's my daughter. But because I have a cape kid and that could be embarrassing. Like,
02:04:15
Speaker
like Oh, so we have a a cape daughter living with two anti-cape bears, which you like immediately after, you're like, well, of course he's anti-cape. He's the bad guy.
02:04:26
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yeah. I mean, and um in the midst of all of that, we get to see Sweet Kenzie's room and just all the things she's collected, all the posters and pictures and stuff.
02:04:40
Speaker
Her e-reader cards. Her e-reader cards. Yeah. boy advance exactly that's really fun um for her mind game boy um and then like how and also she has a diary like she can create visualizations of what she fears will happen or could happen or wants to happen which is really cool hopes and dreams hopes and dreams and stuff um it's just so interesting and and again 7.x again just the perfect example of the ability to biologically reproduce doesn't make you a parent, right?
02:05:17
Speaker
Like the yeah with parents versus her foster parents, like you can see... Although I got to say, that was a, what a line to drop in there of like, yeah we can't have kids of our own. And one of the guys is like, well, it's not like you haven't been trying. I'm like, damn. Oh my gosh.
02:05:35
Speaker
like That is a statement. That is a statement said when we think they're alone in the backyard. Yes. No, know. I know. ah though But still. I've heard it.
02:05:47
Speaker
ah What is it? I've heard that before in something else of like, ah you know Lord knows we've tried. Oh, I remember. It was there it's bit is unrelated. I'm sorry. On a tangent. It's getting late and my brain goes on more tangents. But in a Magic the Gathering side story, two characters who are of different species talk about how They're like, well, we know we can't have our own kids. It's like, we've definitely tried. i like, whoa, damn. I did not need to know that lore bit that that character does not use protection. All right. oh my gosh.
02:06:25
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. um Even so, though, you know, there's to bring it all back just so that. Man, it's yeah. I mean, and I I feel like I've encountered some of those people.
02:06:38
Speaker
as ah teacher and in other capacities is where you're just like, I get the sense you didn't want to be a parent. And that's hard. I know that that's hard. Like that's a very difficult position to be in is if you've had a child, but you don't feel like you really wanted this life anymore. That's a very difficult place to be. Obviously what Kenzie's parents do is not right, but man, it's just, oh, yeah, it's so tragic. And it makes me so sad.
02:07:08
Speaker
It's it's this like not to say, oh gosh, okay. Not at all to say that like you would deserve it if you were a bad kid. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying though is is that like Kenzie is on the side where she is, not only is she a phenomenal student who's incredibly smart, she's very aware of the rules rules that her parents have put in place.
02:07:35
Speaker
And about, you know, keeping things clean and tidy and the way that like just the the the the comment about how her mom and dad had renovated the bathroom and made it so that the sink was too tall.
02:07:47
Speaker
So she had come up with a solution where she took the crate off the shelf that held the towels and flipped it over to so she could stand on so she could wash her hands in the sink because they hadn't thought about the fact that you have this short little girl who's your daughter who can't reach the sink.
02:08:03
Speaker
in her bathroom. Like, that you cared more about the architecture of, like, renovating your bathroom this way. and so she's she does all the right things. You know, she's she's very careful about, like, oop no water droplets on the sink. She wipes those down. She's a phenomenal student. she's she's Even the couple comments that the teachers make later is that, like,
02:08:23
Speaker
she's ah She's great in the classroom. She's super smart, little bit of a loner, but like all the teachers love her. Like she's clearly a kid who does everything she can to do the right thing or be whatever. And it's like over and over again that gets like pushed back in her face. Like she knows the food is gross.
02:08:43
Speaker
She knows if she makes a ah comment about it, she's going to get in trouble and she does her best not to. But like I remember being a kid not wanting to eat my Brussels sprouts. Like, they tasted gross, and they made me throw up, and i couldn't help but gag while trying to eat them. Like, she's a kid, and... and yeah You guys have steamed vegetable, parents.
02:09:03
Speaker
They steamed all the vegetables. That the only way they It steamed, you didn't just get them straight out the can like mine did? No, no. My mom was big on... Honestly, it would have been better. Honestly, would have been better. I'm not gonna lie. Can vegetables are bad. They're not great, but like...
02:09:19
Speaker
When you tried to do like some of the shredded chicken dishes, it looks like cat food, like the white cat food. yeah And, you know, it tastes great, but holy cow, the smell and the look of it. The smell's not great. Sometimes really um a casserole just goes bad, okay? And it goes bad before you have even baked it yet. You know, like that's the vibe of this yeah dinner dish.
02:09:41
Speaker
And it's so cruel of them to be like... smash her head basically into the plate so she's bleeding and then be like, ah, yes, clean up while we go get milkshakes and burgers. Like, it's such a- Because Julian wasn't about to eat it oh That's the other thing is like, they're all struggling to eat it too.
02:10:00
Speaker
Like, they're not they're not like, ah, this is so delicious, dear. She doesn't have the palate like an adult. The mom can't even cut it. The mom can't even cut it. Julian can't. How bad of a cook do you have to be to mess up what is clearly a hamburger helper kit?
02:10:16
Speaker
Well, that's the thing. I don't think it was a hamburger helper. think it's too high class for hamburger helper. I'm sure. yeah Here's where we get to talking about what it means to be a bad person.
02:10:27
Speaker
Because i love I love his description of this. I think about this all the time. Where there are some people, and and the Martin is a perfect example of they... they perhaps understand renovation.
02:10:41
Speaker
they under they i wouldn't even say they understand renovation. They know what how to renovate. They know how to do art, potentially. Like, what art looks like, how to recreate it. how to They can recreate all the things that people do.
02:10:57
Speaker
Having a successful life, being social, and whatnot. But they lack the fundamental soul of a human being to do the thing. They are, in a sense,
02:11:10
Speaker
AI. Yeah. They are, eggs they are pulling from everything around them to be, uh, to produce art, to produce, you know, to, to fix up the house.
02:11:24
Speaker
My thought with the with the the too tall um sink was not that they'd like just neglected to think about her, was that they just made a sink and it was just too tall for a normal sink because they knew that they wanted a sink and they did all the steps to make it, but it was just awkwardly tall. Even for a normal person coming up would just go, oh, why is the sink?
02:11:51
Speaker
a foot taller than it should be. So goddamn tall. Because they don't know. her her mom yeah for real knows that this is this is how cooking goes. You go into the kitchen and you work and we want to do fine, upper class, very nice dish, but then like literally chat GPT's the recipe and it just fails on every level. And and like they yeah It's one thing to have a recipe that doesn't go right.
02:12:21
Speaker
It's another thing to like treat your family are your kid this way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's. Yeah. yeah and And Alan, it's actually funny you bring up the AI thing about the art.
02:12:34
Speaker
there's There's a I thought I had saved it. And I guess this is why fascists love art, by the way. They lack the human soul to create real art. And that's what her parents are.
02:12:44
Speaker
There's a line where it says that like, oh yeah, i I don't really create for myself. I tend to kind of like take what other people have done. And all I could think of like, that's literally AI. Like AI doesn't ever create anything new. It literally steals in pieces pre-existing stuff together based off of an algorithm. Like you' you're not creating anything new at this point. And I...
02:13:06
Speaker
again because of all of our theories and stuff I still was like I am still not one well no I'm pretty convinced at this point but like I'm still not 100% convinced that they're not just fucking robots what the fuck that'd be better yeah it would Yeah, it would be better. It would be easier to convince myself that they are robots rather than human people who could do this to their kid. Like, it's on a whole nother level of unspeakable that I don't, I don't understand.
02:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, I, am yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we get some, yeah, Kinsey's definitely got the handle on the tragic backstory here. um from wearing a hologram constantly to hide her scar.
02:14:00
Speaker
yeah So y'all weren't too wrong about that. Yeah. Well, it was. Yeah. mean, what I thought it was. Yep. what i thought it was yeah um and to her being raised so poorly that she has to Google, how do you show someone you love them, and clearly came across like a Cosmo article as the first.
02:14:25
Speaker
Right, ah some some, the wrong kind of. and Which to be fair, is probably the exact same way that her parents dated. Like, right.
02:14:37
Speaker
how How do we date? No, i would I wouldn't be surprised. Like, you see you see a lot of these people who have podcasts now, like, because everybody can have one like us.
02:14:48
Speaker
Hey. No, but we have a good one. But you see these people, right, who clearly shouldn't have a microphone. And, like, I've been seeing clips of this guy who's, it's very clear to him that being married and having a kid is, like,
02:15:02
Speaker
part of a mental checklist he's created for what it means to have a good life and not something he actually wants. He doesn't want a partner. He wants a wife to serve him. He doesn't want you know, kids to love and appreciate and raise to be good, empathetic humans.
02:15:18
Speaker
He wants children to have progeny in the world like that. You know, it's very clearly like there's a checklist there. And that's almost kind of what I feel like with her parents is like, honestly, and Irene led, I would assume like maybe she's like, I'm going to be this great artist. I'm going to be this great interior decorator.
02:15:35
Speaker
I'm going to have a great career. I'm going to find a good husband who is also in a good career adjacent to mine. We're going to have a perfect child. Her child's not perfect because her child's human and she gets angry. As close to perfect as could be. Kenzie is... Yeah.
02:15:51
Speaker
yeah anyways Here's the thing. it's I will say, this is my teacher moment for this one, maybe. I will say it is often those quiet A-plus students who are a bit lonely that are the ones that often worried me a lot because I knew I'm like...
02:16:07
Speaker
If there's an A-plus student who is clearly very motivated, had goals in life and intentions, right? And I'm like, okay, you're you're wanting to go places. I get why you're doing well in school. If you have an A-plus student who never explains why they want to be an A-plus student, but you can tell that there's something motivating them to always get A's and they're upset if they don't get them, ah there's something yeah something's going on there. It may not be like, I'm not saying that that implies abuse at home at all. I'm just saying like there may be this internal sense of I have to get pluses to be valuable in some way.
02:16:38
Speaker
um yeah And it feels like for Kinsey, that's kind of what it was. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I love that we're talking about the mental checklist. I had a thing recently I was talking about people...
02:16:53
Speaker
ah meet boring people and boring people who have like no real personality. In my opinion, they like, you know, get up, go to work, come home. And then they like watch TV and go to bed.
02:17:06
Speaker
And you ask them like, Oh, what do you want? You know, just like, it's just the stereotype life. It's like, well, you know, what are what are they, what do they take picture of? What is on their like dating profile, for instance.
02:17:16
Speaker
And it's like, you see skydiving and camels. That's a, an instant. They went, what do people do for... I have vacation time built up.
02:17:28
Speaker
What do people do with vacation time? And it's like, yeah oh, go to Egypt and ride the camels. Oh, skydive. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to ride camels or go skydiving. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but that it's literally they looked up like, oh, what do you do that's interesting? What do people do with their vacation time?
02:17:51
Speaker
They go to... Same thing Alan said, basically. They go to the Great Wall of China. you know like It's not any in particular desire to do that thing. It's just, what do you do? and they literally you know In this case, that is Kenzie's family.
02:18:09
Speaker
yeah I will say, i appreciate Victoria at the end of this arc, 7X, basically saying, doing the right thing when you encounter somebody who's in an abusive scenario, you don't leave them until they leave the abusive scenario.
02:18:22
Speaker
Right, right. You're like, no, we're leaving. And she's like, I don't know. and No, we're leaving. no yeah We'll figure out the details later, but we are leaving right now.
02:18:32
Speaker
Yeah. We've got to point out the contrast between how she deals with Chris and how she deals with Kenzie. um Now, part of that is Chris being obviously incredibly reluctant. Coming out swinging. Yeah.
02:18:45
Speaker
But... ah But night and day difference in terms of how, um like, i've i when I was reading the way that Victoria responds to Kenzie, I was like, that's correct. that's That's right. That's very oh mature, very aware.
02:19:03
Speaker
um was like, this is good. This is good, positive character growth and a good moment for Kenzie. She's in a healthy space. Absolutely, yeah. And I was not the case with Chris. Yeah. Especially at the start of this, I would say that Kenzie is not in a good space because it starts off with quickly identifying Victoria as a threat.
02:19:23
Speaker
yeah And I'm like, Jesus, fuck Kenzie. Like, yeah. like what is exactly we Like, we've got to contain, we've got to shut this down. We can't let Victoria leave this house with these ideas.
02:19:34
Speaker
Like, what are you going do? Blasher and then mind wipe her? Because that sounds exactly like something Kenzie would do. yeah Well, like, Kenzie's a talker. I believe she could probably talk herself out of a lot of things and has.
02:19:47
Speaker
And is, like, convinced in this moment of, like, Victoria's a threat. I, and again, she even specifies, she's like, not a threat like a villain threat, not like a threat like a bad threat, but like you're a threat to the things that I have built and the normalcy that I have created for myself, even if it is a fake kind of normalcy that doesn't actually exist. Like that's just, we're all in fairyland here.
02:20:13
Speaker
But like, it's very clear that she's like, and I am going to this all into a perspective that will make it clear that i'm justified in the things that i've done that you understand that i'm not crazy i'm justified and even at the end i i got a little bit of chills and felt very much of like the unreliable narrator so ah over and over and over again we hear the whole thing kenzie talking about the smiling thing is that like well i smile when i'm
02:20:44
Speaker
<unk>pp or Like I smile when I'm i'm upset. And she's like, well, what do you do when you're happy? And she's like, I don't do anything, you know? And at the end, she calls Ashley and she smiles.
02:20:57
Speaker
And I i don't know if I believe her. I don't know. Oh, absolutely. that's That's her being very upset. Like she calls Ashley and then it says like the entire time she's talking, she's shaking and she's got the stupid smile stuck on her face for a long while before it goes away.
02:21:16
Speaker
Calling Ashley, she is smiling state bad and it doesn't go away until Ashley's talked her down. I think that is how and I initially read it, but I don't trust that.
02:21:31
Speaker
I immediately, especially coming out of the gate, being like, I must do everything in my power to convince Victoria to be on my side about this. Hence, showing her everything.
02:21:44
Speaker
But there is like a sliver of how much of that is true. Because we already know that the box, the diary, isn't just things that have happened, but is things that she wished had happened.
02:22:04
Speaker
And they're also recreations of things that can happen. They're never recordings. No, no, no. I know. I'm aware of that. I just mean that like, I don't, why is it that now we should trust Kenzie's recordings?
02:22:18
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think we should. like, that's what I mean is that like, by the end of this, while Victoria is absolutely correct in her response, I don't know if I believe it 100%.
02:22:33
Speaker
hundred percent Like I'm sure but most of it, sure, 95%. eighty five percent But i there's too much of Kenzie that she's kept back for so long that like i I just don't know. And I'm not so quick to believe that this is, it feels like, ah, yes, now we have the full story.
02:22:54
Speaker
But I don't believe it. Like I still think there's gotta be pieces missing. Very possible. I don't know. But like, we also felt the same. Like, I wonder if having having the interlude is like the moment of confirmation of like, ah, yes, we thought we knew and now we do. Of like, we saw that with Ashley. Like, now that we have Ashley's interludes, we know her story. b Same with Rain.
02:23:24
Speaker
We know Rain's story. Same Rain. Yeah. Yeah. And this is, we're getting the same thing. This is what really happened. Yeah. Yeah, maybe so. Like I, as the as the reader, i don't know.
02:23:37
Speaker
I don't know yet.
02:23:39
Speaker
Well, we've got one last interlude to go. Yeah. um Also, ah just one more thing. before us about step x yeah yeah I love seeing Victoria from another perspective.
02:23:52
Speaker
She is so cool from Kenzie's perspective. For obviously biased reasons, but it's nice. We've seen her, I think, in the Ashley one. and she yeah ah I mean, it's one of those where from her own perspective, you don't get... You almost feel like you can't be...
02:24:12
Speaker
like living up to who you are kind of in my vibe. Like, I don't know how to say it, but both from Ashley's and from here, it does seem like Victoria is kind of the cool, calm, collected, like got it together person for the most part from their perspectives.
02:24:32
Speaker
Um, and to be fair, Victoria knocks it out of the park with this interaction with Kenzie, you know, so really keeps it up there. And of course, no wonder Ashley has a soft spot for an a abuse child in an abusive home.
02:24:49
Speaker
Like... Yeah, for real. No wonder Ashley is ride or die for Kenzie. Yeah. Like, she's like, yeah, Kenzie's in the situation i was in, but...
02:25:03
Speaker
but you know, is, is the optimistic version of that. And so I will, write she's, you know making sure that like, Hey, I don't want you to go down the same route that I did.
02:25:16
Speaker
You know, there are steps that you can take to, to avoid that. And part of that is like, you need to fucking get away from those people that you call parents. Like, right um,
02:25:30
Speaker
So yeah, I just actually caught in Ashley, of course, called it, you know, how bad did it go?
02:25:38
Speaker
should try to tell him. Nice.
02:25:45
Speaker
Alrighty.
Political Tensions and Character Arrivals
02:25:47
Speaker
7.Y. Gary Nieves. Nieves. going to say Nieves. Nieves? and Nieves. Nieves.
02:25:57
Speaker
Nieves. Alright. Gary Nieves helps organize the Bet evacuation when an unknown group attacks but is rebuffed by Dragon and Defiant.
02:26:08
Speaker
Later, Gary has a meeting, and he is told he can win the election with public fear of parahumans and another Earth's patronage.
02:26:19
Speaker
Hmm. Oh, man, this evacuation scene is peak. ah What you were talking about, Jacob, i want to go back to that about the regular humans have no shot against parahumans. scene, right?
02:26:31
Speaker
yeah Except one parahuman was taken out by a sniper shot, could have been Coil Sniper. We have established that is the most powerful being in the universe. Yeah, but he was a good guy. Those guys suck. Yeah, ya I'm just saying, like, Coil Sniper, theoretically the most powerful being in the parahuman universe.
02:26:46
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. No, yeah, the chaos of the of an attempted evacuation while you're getting the slaughtered by parahumans is like yes It's right up there with like being a citizen in the, in the, uh, you know, in the bunkers during Leviathan and stuff like that. It's like, how do you even try? It's just waiting.
02:27:10
Speaker
You're just, yeah, you're just waiting. It's brutal. Like they're like when he's like, we're ahead. And he's like, some of us ran some turn to try to fight. I forget how it's worded, but it was just like, not even tried, just turned around to accept it.
02:27:24
Speaker
You know, just. Yeah. Cause there's a, there's a very only lead like assassin who attacks them. Yeah. Who's like just teleporting around knife. air people We don't get a name for him. I think I get a name in this, but I feel like it. Yeah.
02:27:37
Speaker
yeah Yeah, he's got the ah hood on, which honestly, i you know, don't tell me in chat, but it felt like one of the speed runners.
02:27:51
Speaker
Like, I'm pretty sure there's one of the speed runners that has the like burlap sack, you know, hangman's noose kind of with the bag over the head vibe. Very scarecrow, but, you know, with time.
02:28:05
Speaker
The way I immediately clocked Defiant jumping into the scene, though. Yeah. so happy Yeah. He's got a big old pole and he knows how to use it. It's like green and gold and a big old pole. Let's go.
02:28:21
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's that's the shirt right there. Green and gold and a big old pole. but It's funny. I did. ah i don't know why the battle scenes from a very human perspective just hit me so hard.
02:28:35
Speaker
This I I didn't cry until this chapter. This is the chapter I cried in when Defiant arrived. I literally that's when I started crying. I was like I said thank God out loud because I was like is it dragon? Is it Defiant? It looks I think it's so and I said thank God and then I kept reading and then it was when it was like oh yes Defiant and dragon step out the car. was like oh my god. I'm glad.
02:29:00
Speaker
I do like how they haven't changed a bit in the two years since we last seen them. And they're both like the same exact talking points. yeah You know, exactly the same.
02:29:12
Speaker
The same hand on the shoulder. Colin, calm the fuck down.
02:29:19
Speaker
ah We're working on it, you know. We've been working on it for two years. You need to give us more time. We're doing the best we can. Dragon gets an excuse because Dragon's having to recover two years of lost memory get back to this.
02:29:34
Speaker
However, Colin has had way... Colin's been just... He's had plenty of time. excuse Vic got a bingo. Let's go.
02:29:45
Speaker
Yay! Bingo baby. was going to say busy throw it into his computer.
02:29:55
Speaker
But it was. It was the bingo. It was the bingo. As soon as Vic puts it in discord, I will. I'd love to see it. I'd love to know.
02:30:05
Speaker
Hannah. Look. yeah You know, you know, that's what it was. Either Hannah cries while reading or Hannah cries on the podcast. You got both tonight.
02:30:16
Speaker
yeah There you go. Jeez. You were sneaky tonight, though. Yeah, we checked a couple of the free stances. I was. I was wondering if they would get you during the Kenzie thing. was like, I was trying to, I was trying to like keep it in and I was like, okay, I think I'm good. And I like leaned back and I was like, oh, they're going to spill down my face. I was like, eh.
02:30:36
Speaker
yeah I tried to be really sneaky with that. I'm sorry I cry at everything, man. I just i feel a lot of things. I have a lot of feelings. The rest of us are just addressing those things, and you know that's healthy.
02:30:52
Speaker
ah Bernard asks, so is Gary Nieves justified for his hate of parahumans? Yes. um Yeah, I mean, yeah. I think any regular human in the worm universe is justified in hating parahumans.
02:31:06
Speaker
Yep. It's not like it's It's not like I'm trying to think of a good example from another series like this. It's not like J. Jonah Jameson who just hates Spider-Man because he's a vigilante, right?
02:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. he was like, be Spider-Man. You know, like it's it's just unreasonable at a certain point. and it's not like Lex Luthor who hates Superman because he's envious of superheroes. It's literally like.
02:31:31
Speaker
I wish he was the jock. This is a universe in which it's much more like the um the boys universe where it's like, if you hate superheroes in that universe, that's totally justified. and More than likely, it's because one of them probably killed somebody you know for no good reason. like And then didn't apologize for it or gave some bullshit PR...
02:31:53
Speaker
Yeah. hockery See, I would argue that while that is, more you know, it is leaned slightly that way. This is actually closer to the relationship between ah the Superman interview with Lois Lane and the new Superman movie.
02:32:11
Speaker
It's like a five-minute clip that was put out, you know, basically before the trailers. So this was a scene everybody saw beforehand. But essentially, Lois Lane interviews Superman about an intervention he did, you know, that made a lot of people angry.
02:32:27
Speaker
And she is justified to ask the questions and bring up, well, did you think about the consequences? Did you think about that? And he's justified in saying, i was just trying to save people.
02:32:39
Speaker
yeah I wasn't thinking about that. I was just trying to do a good deed, essentially. And I would argue that this is closer to that, where most of the heroes are just trying to do the thing.
02:32:54
Speaker
They are. It is an overwhelming situation. Scion was inevitable. You know, this is like you can hate parahumans, but it's like not really justified to hate all of them you know this is very yes there are things they could do better but like and and there are there are so you know things to look out for but i do think that while some of his is justified the hatred he has for a pair of humans is not
02:33:33
Speaker
I think I would disagree but because for one big reason and and something Victoria has talked about a few times, which is that although from ah from the meta audience perspective, Wyrm presents itself as ah as a much more gritty, mature, realistic portrayal of these types of fantasy scenarios in-universe,
02:33:57
Speaker
they've joked about it being kind of cops and robbery. Where like, there's this game that the parahumans are playing with each other where like, guns are a no-no, that's not fair. Don't go after families, that's breaking the rules.
02:34:10
Speaker
Like, the parahumans, cat the the the heroes and the villains are still, even if loosely and not officially, having fun with the setting.
02:34:22
Speaker
And but that's pretty yeah probably putting it a bit too lightly. But... in their eyes, the civilians are just pawns in their games. And I think that ah Gary is speaks for ah probably a lot of people that pick up on that and recognize that.
02:34:41
Speaker
Like, hey, you know, some of these villains probably just need to die because they're mass murdering people and you are, drats, they escaped the city again.
02:34:54
Speaker
Like, you know, Batman and the Joker. you know It's like... yeah Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. You know, especially you bring up... Broke out of Markham once more, you devious Joker, you know?
02:35:05
Speaker
and Yeah. So, no. I think that's a good point. I'm still less on the side of him being just... He's justified, but... ah and yeah there's a There's a couple things I want to keep in mind as well. One is more of a meta thing, and then the other thing is just a bit of irony that I think is interesting.
02:35:23
Speaker
um One is a meta thing, is that we know the entities pick universes where conflict is likely to occur, because of that's what causes the shards to evolve.
02:35:34
Speaker
Right. And so... with their vision With their vision of what they wanted the Earth to become, we know that it was literally a side A versus side b like the end of a risk game, you know where it's like just the the massive most massive world war.
02:35:50
Speaker
And so this is a universe that is primed on conflict and obviously has experienced a lot of trauma with that. ironic The irony, though, is that we see how desperate regular people are for a sense of power, and this is why I think maybe it's a bit justified for regular people to have, at least like kind of like you said, Alan, at least a base level dislike or distrust of any parahuman.
02:36:18
Speaker
is that the power difference is so great. People are so desperate for that power. They're willing to say, if there's a 10% chance I get a superpower and a 90% chance my brain explodes out of my body, I'm taking the 10% chance.
02:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. you know Like people running towards the- ah Yeah, running towards the cluster trigger, right? We see that when people are so desperate for any sense of power that, and obviously this is a post-apocalyptic world. I'm sure that emphasizes it to a bit, but I think you know They talked previously in Worm how people tried to trigger. They had to put out a lot of publications about how you can't make yourself trigger because clearly a bunch of people had tried.
02:37:01
Speaker
Probably for similar reasons of just that pure desperation for a sense of power in a chaotic universe. Yeah. yeah And to play off of that... Sorry, Alan, if I could just real quick. Go for it. The idea, the power dynamic that...
02:37:16
Speaker
I mean, I think literally every you all basically said it, but this this specifically with him with Gary is that as one of the mayoral candidates who's running against two people who are powered that he's pretty convinced, yeah, they're they've got powers.
02:37:32
Speaker
And then it's confirmed later on that, yeah, they did, is that it's like it does feel so much like a game. And like when you're a human and the the the space between you and the powered people who say they're not running running the government, but certainly do seem to run most of the government, it's it's it's.
02:37:52
Speaker
It feels like you don't have any accurate representation for yourself. And what can you do? You can do nothing. And it's like, there's this, there's this, the gap is so broad.
02:38:04
Speaker
That's like, if you decided one day where you're like, yeah, no, in fact, we are quite done with the capes. Please know. And thank you. Like, what are you going to do about it? Nothing. Because yeah, you might be in the majority in terms of just sheer population, but with the With the universe as decimated as they are, like you you can't just say no thank you. In fact, we'd rather not and opt out of having capes in your government because they're going to do it anyways. And like the the system was set up, you know okay, in a perfect world, they had a setup that, okay, might have worked.
02:38:41
Speaker
But The problem is it's not a perfect world and it is such of a game and we know better. There's this kind of like us versus them like, well, we're powered and we have cauldron and we have precogs and we know what's best. So we'll go ahead and take those positions of power because we know best.
02:38:59
Speaker
And don't you worry about it. Well, we've got your best interests in mind. And there's like something so so, ah what's the word when you talk down to somebody? Undescending.
02:39:11
Speaker
It's so conda-fucking-sending. That's like, we as the capes will take care of things. Don't you worry your pretty little heads about it. And you can't have a unified that way.
02:39:26
Speaker
Having one group that thinks and acts based off of everything they've done that they're better. like Obviously the science situation was not optimal but I think Gary for everything he's seen, for everything that he's been through, trying to have a positive impact as mayor or as whatever, he's seen it and he knows.
02:39:49
Speaker
And I think his hate is pretty valid. Yep. Yeah, i I think the one one point in your favor is just like, I can come up with reasons why they didn't, but we should have just outed everything.
02:40:06
Speaker
Like, we outed Cauldron. We should have done that more publicly, you know, instead of just the... Because everything happened internally. Cauldron got outed internally to just all the capes fighting Echidna. Yeah.
02:40:23
Speaker
Then we killed Alexandria, which we once again just handled internally and didn't say the exact reasons. Yep.
02:40:33
Speaker
We were converted internally, and then we made up a bullshit reason. And then ultimately, the end of the world happened, and it all stayed internal. And one knows Nobody knows why.
02:40:44
Speaker
so like... We have para-human college courses on how these things work. There are non-para-humans who have PhDs, you know, in this potentially, even para-human physiology and psychology.
02:41:01
Speaker
These are unpowered people. Why the hell aren't we also sharing the information of, hey, this is what happened at the end of the world? Like, we can come up with some reasons, but to be honest, they're all pretty fucking weak. yeah the The spin should be the end of the world came about because fucking evil god showed up and that's what all this is based based on.
02:41:27
Speaker
And guess what? All of the capes, including the villains, banded together to sacrifice themselves to try and figure out any way to take the evil space alien out.
02:41:38
Speaker
It's an easy spin that, like,
02:41:44
Speaker
Oh my gosh, babies. um that they They could have just said. if they Because they haven't, that's why I feel, once again, not a complete justification for everything Gary, you know, probably believes.
02:42:00
Speaker
But it would have gone miles to... cutting that sentiment down because clearly the being kept out of the loop is a big part of all of this.
02:42:14
Speaker
You know? yeah ah all All of that said, and maybe to wrap it up since this is getting late. so fucking long yeah All of that said, and ah talk though Gary wanting being told he can run a campaign based on public fear of a select group of people is a recipe for disaster. Yeah. also a recipe for winning.
02:42:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's a recipe for winning, but it's a recipe for disaster in terms of the people. yeah. Yeah. Erwin, what a fucking plant. Yeah. I mean, again, once again, he's saying you could have another Earth's patronage.
02:42:52
Speaker
I have no doubt. At least it's that, that one religious Earth. I'm, I'm so convinced that that's behind a lot of this. Um, uh,
02:43:03
Speaker
and Or it's just all sleeper and, you know, it just sounds like bullshit. All this stuff is just X-Men to me. Like X-Men when they have no power are completely killed by the normal humans. and And when they have all the power, the human suffer. It's like the hate goes both ways and hate never really works. It's got to have equality as much as you can.
02:43:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, which once again, why I'm like, okay, what you you know, literally we are powered. We have a powered plan that will solve everything because that's what this guy's power is to solve everything.
02:43:39
Speaker
Just let him cook. Yeah. Well, the the thing though that comes down to is that power or no power. and you cannot take ego away from man, ye mankind, humankind, not mankind, humankind. You can't take ego away from that. Like you will always, you will always have, unless if you're, you know, no bug, but you will always have somebody who thinks that their idea is better or is best or that they have the solution and that that makes them better than everybody else. Like,
02:44:09
Speaker
Like even with them Accord's plans, like he has binders and binders and binders of plans. And like, sure, I'm sure if we just followed them all to the letter, but like humans can't exist in a binder.
02:44:24
Speaker
We can't. It's not possible. Like ego and hubris and. Yeah. And to quote the great film Men in Black, the person is smart.
02:44:34
Speaker
People are stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Nice.
Nostalgia and Community Engagement
02:44:42
Speaker
And on that note. What a phenomenal arc.
02:44:47
Speaker
yes Some fun trivia for the end of this. ah Kenzie is singing a song in her room while she's doing homework. It's the same song that Cherish sings at the beginning of her interlude. Oh, they recognize it. Yeah. On the street.
02:45:02
Speaker
Also, during an interview with the We've Got Ward people, Wild Bill mentioned that he was teary-eyed writing Kenzie's interlude. Oh, bless.
02:45:13
Speaker
That's fair. It was a fucky-wucky is what it was. Very fucky-wucky. ah We didn't have very many powers at all show up in this, but do we have any any special shout-outs ah for just favorite characters?
02:45:34
Speaker
Nothing like a good King would come. Yeah.
02:45:40
Speaker
Old King. so I'm sorry. i just noticed I actually started watching the live. ah Michael, when you pull up your upload to pick a background, it like pops up on the live. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone got to see that.
02:45:53
Speaker
It's important. The dancing cow is a fun, a fun time. The patrons picked it. um Also, ah one of our patrons got themselves a bingo because they wrote down bingo equals Hannah cries.
02:46:07
Speaker
um Thank you, Vic.
02:46:10
Speaker
um oh What was on the bingo card? Ah, the bingo. Well, what we got was Tears for Dragon. Jacob throwing his hands up. Annalise is DTF. um Alan rants, cat on screen. Michael has to wrangle them in.
02:46:23
Speaker
Discussing tramp stamps. Chris theories. Jacob compares something to a TV movie. Hannah cries and Nick goes full teacher. What we didn't get was nature versus nurture discussion.
02:46:34
Speaker
Wild Bo writes weird, which he does have a weird thing. Every time somebody is overweight, even slightly, he writes weird about them. He did in this chapter as well. somewhere else i've stopped I've stopped bringing it up.
02:46:46
Speaker
I know. I just, you know, put it in case anybody else brings it up. Someone else besides Hannah cries. ah Capricorn theories. Victoria, get help.
02:46:56
Speaker
Because, you know, she kept mentioning Dr. Darnell. And Kenzie is so strong. Mm-mm. I feel like i i I'm still on the Victoria get help train. I feel like you could count. I'll give you that one because I keep saying that she's the biggest problem the therapy group. Bernard, if you ask it again, I'm still going to say it's Victoria. It's my answer every time.
02:47:16
Speaker
Kinsey is now a close second, though, because that's the spookiest. Spooky and awful as shit. Yeah, especially if we go with Hannah's line of thinking, which is Kenzie's still manipulating us.
02:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not feeling... I will say, actually, it's kind of a tier list now, right? Like, for me, Victoria's still at the top. Kenzie and Chris are now both like second place. Kenzie and Chris are And then Rain, Sveta, and Ashley are like, they're fine. They're going to be fine.
02:47:43
Speaker
they're they're is They're fine. Tristan and Byron are like below ah first wiring and Chris. Yeah, they're between like they're between the rain. they're We're not quite sure where to put Tristan and Byron.
02:47:55
Speaker
I'm going to put Tristan... going put Tristan above the rain level, but Byron's in the same level as Chris. can Or not Chris, sorry. Same level as rain and Sveta.
02:48:07
Speaker
you know So Byron's lower, Tristan's a bit higher. But not as high. We're really we're just missing Capricorn's backstory at this point, right? Pretty much? Oh god nobody else my gosh, that reminds me There was a line...
02:48:21
Speaker
Someone said somewhere that Tristan, oh, family is tough for people. Tristan doesn't talk to his family, but Byron does. Something about that. Yeah. that very yeah That there's a fucky-wucky. Tristan's the gay one, right?
02:48:36
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Tristan does occasionally go to church with them, though. yep So I'm assuming sometimes it's like maybe it's an on off week where like Tristan goes to church with them one Sunday and ah yeah um Byron goes the other Sunday, but they actually like probably after church want to have lunch with Byron and after church Tristan and his family just kind of dip.
02:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Unfortunate. Interesting. I can't wait. i I love getting backgrounds of all of these characters. They're so cool. They're so fun. i mean, they're traumatizing.
02:49:11
Speaker
They're so cool. So fun. Just childhood trauma. ah but but But they really are. Like, I think that Wild Bo just consistently just nails nails the characters so well. Yep.
02:49:25
Speaker
Yeah. That's why we're fucking here, man. Yeah, absolutely. Well, doing it again this has been a great night. We've got so much longer than we have with any of the others. um But, you know, and this was a big pivotal moment with a lot to discuss. I feel like um there's definitely been some arcs that ah not a lot has really happened.
02:49:43
Speaker
And this one, a lot was revealed. a lot has happened. um Well worth the discussion. Thank you all for coming tonight to watch us. And those of you listening, we appreciate you listening here as well. Of course, you could always talk with us on the Patreon Discord. Please do.
02:50:03
Speaker
It's fun over there. um we share memes. We hang out. We do, we do. And i would really like to ah see more backgrounds. What backgrounds besides the dancing cow Michael gets suggested to put on.
02:50:16
Speaker
Yeah.
Future Reading Plans and Closing
02:50:17
Speaker
we now is That cow is a lot. What are we reading next time, Alan? That's a great question. Oh, yes.
02:50:27
Speaker
um It's a lot. but Arc 8 is pretty big. So Arc 8 is going to be probably the last small one we have for a while. Oh. um Okay.
02:50:39
Speaker
Yeah. After this, they are pretty much over 100,000 until arc 14. So um him i was going to say, I don't know how y'all are feeling.
02:50:52
Speaker
i feel like I could read a ton, but if we want to break up arc eight as well and just keep breaking up the arc. So we're doing what's the word count for arc eight, 82,000. eighty two thousand It's 12 chapters. It's 14 total chapters. 12 chapters. I feel like it would maybe for the sake of the podcast, we should split it up.
02:51:11
Speaker
but I will also say, ah for work-wise, I'm in my busy season. I'm a tired of little gnocchi. No reason to to rush.
02:51:24
Speaker
So doing it split would be great. Yeah. um I need to maybe look at the exact... ah thing but we'll say 81 to who let's say to sevenvan or eight point one to eight point seven i think will be a good right yeah um Cool, cool. Yeah. And we'll be back in two weeks on the 2nd. Everyone good with that? Time flies. Stay tuned. August is done.
02:51:59
Speaker
Thanks for a good August. Crazy enough. oh September 2nd. It's crazy. like September 2nd, probably 8.1 to 8.7. That's what we'll be reading.
02:52:12
Speaker
And just follow the YouTube because we'll have... i mean, I know today didn't do a great job of having the... video coming soon thing, but if you're subscribed to our YouTube, you'll see exactly when the live will be happening.
02:52:26
Speaker
So can tune in. Perfect. Okay. all Alrighty. Well, you have a song for us, Michael. Ah, yes, of course. Play us out.
02:52:39
Speaker
Join the Patreon, and see us when the camera's not rolling.
02:53:14
Speaker
green and hi Kinky, kinky, kinky my god Alright guys, we'll see you soon Stay tuned Join the Patreon Please come and join the Patreon Why don't you just join the Patreon Come support us and join the Patreon Please help us and join the Patreon We have fun Join the Patreon It's great now Join the Patreon Why don't you just join the Patreon