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Arc 25: Scarab
432 Plays5 months ago
This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass.
Complete list of potential triggers: here
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Episode Description:
“Endbringer?” Rachel asked. Something in my body language must have tipped her off.
I shook my head, but I said, “Yes. Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“An endbringer with a lowercase ‘e’,” I said. “It looks like Jack may have made his challenge to The Brockton Bay Book Club. It’s starting.”
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:10) - Book Club Begins
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by J.C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans dot.wordpress dot.com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot.com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
00:01:08
Speaker
Good morning, Brockton Bray.
00:01:14
Speaker
i got bring A lot of end bringers to talk about, not a lot of time. Oh my God. yeah is My, my, ah my, my ability is to take horse form. So it's a Brockton Bray. ah i say barckston murray Can you dig it?
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. ah And I know you all can. It was a horse mixed with, yeah um, it's the, uh, the, it's, uh, the guy from, uh, warriors. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. No, what's going on rightly what is happening? Like unites all the gangs, you know? Sure. Yeah, no. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Come on.
00:02:04
Speaker
Anyway, I'll remember, I'll remember the guy's name later. Welcome everyone to arc 25 a form. Hmm. Are you talking about a shack?
00:02:19
Speaker
oh
00:02:27
Speaker
um my god he says warriors jack wasn't in warriors no he wasn't all right that right it's fine
00:02:37
Speaker
i i but was last i't think So the warriors he he unites all of the the he leads the less powerful gang in New York City and he unites all the gangs but then yeah yeah And while he's giving his big speech, like the end of his speech, he goes, can you dig it? yeah And the crowd goes wild. Why does he say that? Who's asking if they could dig it? Like he's giving like the, Hey, if we all join together, the cops won't do shit. Like Ben says, can you dig it? And everybody digs it, but not everybody. Almost everybody takes it. Anyways.
00:03:18
Speaker
We are here. Don't watch warriors is the point. It's a great, it's a great film. Feels super, I don't know what to call it. Like Ela, did you not just hear Michael saying he's going to cut all of that? He absolutely shouldn't. It's possibly the most relevant we think we've ever read. It's a very undersiders ask. Thank you very much. I expect several, uh, several clips posted in our discord for patrons to enjoy.
00:03:49
Speaker
And if you want clips of us out of context talking about stuff that's not relevant. subscribe to our picture yeah dr a Look, it's the warm up, you know, you don't go into a podcast. Did you say the warm up or the warm up?
00:04:12
Speaker
You can cut back, can't you?
00:04:28
Speaker
ah Anyways, we'll bring it back. Bring it back down. That's your job, Jake. Good one. jacob it up real like i trying I'm trying so hard. I try every time. You shall not be reeled. Yeah, that's I gave up 14 arcs ago. It's going to let it let it all die down on its own, you know,
00:04:53
Speaker
Anyway, here we are, Ark 25. Let's get some initial thoughts. How do we all feel about this Ark? Host Behemoth. I like the first half. Yeah. ah staff and like ah First first chapter, maybe two.
00:05:18
Speaker
Maybe bits and pieces of four, some of three. Yeah. I think that's a ah pretty fair. I would describe it as fine. Yeah. Fine. Yeah. I don't know. It just, it didn't hit. I don't know why. No. There's just something about it that just felt only okay. Time skips. Yeah. I freaking despised the time skips. i I thought when we got the first one, because it's not just one, there's there's three. Yeah, there's a big one. Yeah, there's a big one. It's a six week, a six month, and then the big one, which they don't actually specify, I guess exactly, or at least I didn't
00:06:07
Speaker
see it. ah The first one, i would when it the first one happened, like the first six weeks, I was like, oh, I felt like it was a longer time skip, but like, oh, OK, that's not that bad. That was done well. I'm fine with that. And then Al and I were chatting and he was like, he was like, oh, yeah, but because of with the time skip and that it had like spoilers, spoiled some stuff. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there's another time. Like, damn it, like there's more to come. Great. That's them that's fantastic. So. um didn't like that at all. Yeah. I've spoken on my feelings towards time skips in general. Um, I know, I know amongst the fandom, the time skips are a bit split in terms of people who like them or don't like them. So I imagine, I imagine there'd be cause I've never seen anybody defend them.
00:07:00
Speaker
It defends a strong word. I've seen people who was like, oh, I don't mind them. Or, you know, oh, it didn't bother me, like that kind of thing. Again, I didn't mind the first one. It wasn't a huge fan of the second one, but okay, fine, sure, fine, whatever, six months, okay. But the, I think it's specifically the, is it chapter six? When there's a big skip has happened. yeah i i Yeah, that entire chapter, I was so confused, I was lost, and I felt like there was so much good stuff that I wanted fleshed out that just wasn't. Like we spent so much time
00:07:36
Speaker
you know, so much chapter time over like a span of two months at the beginning of this. And now we've gotten to like near the end of worm and a huge chunk of time has passed like a year, I guess a year and a half. Yeah. Well, it's more than that. Yeah. Yeah. neither turned eighteen eighteen now Yeah. Well, so never forget that like a six week time skip at the beginning of this, if that's how long it was yeah is.
00:08:06
Speaker
half of the existing stories time. Yeah. Right. Right. We we have never forget that all of the warlording, the taking over and holding territory took place in two months. Yep. And then we had like a month of Taylor sitting in prison slash visiting different yeah words, groups, like the yeah The chronology of this is wild. Yeah. I like Tecton has this like little one offline that he says where he's like, you've spent more time with us than you ever did with the undersiders. And I'm like, well, I would have really have liked to see that because I we love the wards and you denied me that. And now I'm a little salty about it. Yeah. Little saltine crackers about it. Mm hmm.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, I will say time skips can be very good. Um, I don't want to say like a blanket statement. Time skips were always bad, of course, because name four times name four. Honestly, maybe it would be difficult for me. The, the one that I think makes it justifiable in my mind mostly is Naruto.
00:09:30
Speaker
The author of Naruto took a break for a while. He just had been writing for a long time. Naruto for a while was the number one, number two manga in Japan. He took a break. The anime has a bunch of filler episodes. They're worthless, you know, all that. But in the actual anime or in the actual manga, which is now what became Naruto Shippuden, which is the far superior show in many regards.
00:09:57
Speaker
is a lot better. I don't know. it Well, oh, thank you. but yeah yeah So I don't know. I think i think the time skips can be done well. It's just a matter of, in this case, this jumping through time, like we do here, yeah I think is very disorienting. I think that's part of it. It's not that um time skips can't be done well. It's just this one specifically is kind of Kind of crazy. yeah also it's it's because i can Now that I'm like thinking about time skips, there are plenty of great time skips that happen, but they're all at the beginning of movies we're like or shows where you have like the the essentially the prologue. Like Hercules. And then what?
00:10:44
Speaker
Like in Hercules, Disney's Hercules. Yeah. or Or the Incredibles even. Well, you have like an inciting incident, and then you have a time skip, and then you have the result of the inciting incident. You got to quote Incredibles. Yeah, that's important to the podcast. it really We have to at least once. ah But I mean, that works because it's like, hey, this is the thing, the big thing that happened that changed the world, and now it's been some time, and this is how the world it looks now. Like that works.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah. Honestly, I think it would, we will just jump straight to it in terms of the time skip. I think it was just the writing. Like I don't think the time skip was the problem here. I think it was just the confusing narrative, ah the way it was written. If we just said Taylor gets off the thing, it's been two years. She accepts her nomination into the, uh, into the protectorate, to the protectorate. Like, yeah. And you know, let's make it very clear.
00:11:42
Speaker
I don't want to be stumbling around in the dark for the majority of the chapter and then all of a sudden realize, oh my God, so much stuff has shifted and changed and wait now there's so many end bringers and like it just I'm. aunt Yeah, I think it's so yeah, it's so weird the way it's framed and I think it would have been fine if it was literally just Taylor is nervous. She walks down the ramp. She accepts her nomination into the thing and we just move on.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think what it feels like to me is Wild Bo knew that he, he wanted to get from point A to point B story wise, right? He wanted to get from Taylor joining the wards to Taylor turning 18 to the Jack stuff. I think there's probably a good sense that, oh, this is kind of what people want. Um, but at the same time,
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. it It feels, yeah, I don't know. It is weird. It's weird. There's also a lot of important stuff that happens here though, right? So he didn't just want to footnote it. Right. Yeah. I feel like it could have taken an arc to do it rather than a chapter to do it, you know? Like if we could have taken an arc, which I mean, I guess that's kind of what he tried to do, but like it really doesn't take an arc. It takes, he did it in a chapter and that's what kills me. It's like,
00:13:05
Speaker
have Have this whole arc end at chapter five and then have the next arc be You know, each chapter is a three month in the future. Okay. Or six month in the future. So that like this next arc we know is like, okay, we're going to be racing through time. We're going to be seeing snippets of life in the wards as we pass along. It doesn't have to be in depth. It can be these little tiny moments to show that she's built a team. She's built camaraderie with the ward. She's built, uh, you know, a sense of.
00:13:38
Speaker
whatever it is, to be inducted into the Protectorate. Like, she's built this, and she's proud of it, and the world is kind of crazy. Like, let's show it, not just tell us about it. Like, the it's the classic, like, show, don't tell. Like, well, he just basically told us. and Now I'm so sad. Honestly, i I think, at best, if he'd done telling, just have somebody who's introducing her, or have her do it in the speech. Like, I know that, like,
00:14:07
Speaker
The end bringer attacks have increased in, you know, uh, sequence, two year frequency have increased in frequency. You know, we've seen dark times, but we also saw the defeat of, you know, of behemoth. We, you know, we do, you know, this and that, like, you could have that in a speech and then she gets up and accepts her thing. I mean, if you want to do a one off, just get it done. Like, that'd be really boring though. Like, I mean, if you made it a paragraph.
00:14:38
Speaker
How do you explain everything that happened in this arc in a paragraph? Oh, easy. I just said it. Hey, I mean, OK, you know, we defeated behemoth. More things showed up. There's a lot more that happens than just than just that. Not really. The whole cauldron thing. I mean, you could add that.
00:14:59
Speaker
to her doing like that could be something she does later on. Well, no, I know I think you're I think you're right, Nick, because I think that the the cauldron thing is a big thing. Again, I feel like it's the the issue. The chapter I had the most issue with is chapter six. Like that is the chapter where I was like, wait, I'm exclusively talking about chapter six.
00:15:22
Speaker
Yeah, in general, the colder thing does not factor. no Oh, well, OK, then that's different. that's Yeah, than I think if we if the arc ended at five, then we had the we had the bone saw interlude, because what's great about the bone saw interlude is that it would be a really good cap to the arc and basically be like, hey, OK, so now we have our bone saw interlude. And in her interlude, she has her time skip as well, where she's now all of a sudden all this time forward and she's trying to pretend to be, you know, whatever. And then you go into the next arc, starting off with, you know, Taylor's acceptance speech where she says, okay, two years have passed. Kind of a and has her little moment. And that way we basically like recap the same way chapter
00:16:11
Speaker
Six is trying to do, we just do it better. And then we start off the next arc with that idea of like, okay, we've just started a whole new era of, of Brock today and the world.
00:16:28
Speaker
i'm I'm thinking about another two year time skip that we've probably all seen, which is between Avengers infinity war and end game.
00:16:41
Speaker
Five years, five years, five years. There are five year time skip between that. Um, which like, they just, you know, move on. Like, I don't feel like this need, this should have spent so much time developing it. Like Hannah said, I think if you wanted to show any progression of time in store, like in narrative.
00:17:05
Speaker
bone saw is a great, like great position for that. And then the next chapter just opens with Taylor in the protectorate. You know, okay soup. See, that makes more sense to me. yeah I thought you were talking about the whole arc. If we're just talking about chapter six... No, no. I like a lot about the beginning of this arc. Like, I really like her and her on her stakeout when they're doing... i Yeah, I like that. I like the the whole cauldron conversation. I think that's really good. I like i like um like her initiation into the wards, like them being silly and like... seeing how she and Gullum built like this little kind of camaraderie, the the little TV show moment. I thought that was a decent chapter. it's It's really just the last one that kills me. Yeah, I think that's fair. Again, Hannah, I think you said it well earlier we're in talking about how it it's a really big break from the writing style as well. like We have spent 24 arcs over a three to four month period.
00:18:08
Speaker
Like yeah it's it's a much, much slower pace story. So then when you skip that much time, it's it's just a bit of a shock. It's like a little bit of whiplash as you're trying to speed up to catch everything. Because honestly, i I knew they were kind of happening subconsciously, but I've kind of read past the first couple of time skips and just didn't even think about them. And just being like, oh, this is odd that this feels like this should be later in time. Isn't this the next day?
00:18:38
Speaker
Like, no, this is, you know, two months later. Yeah. Well, if you want to go, want to just get into it, go chapter by chapter. Let's do it. Let's do it. We can, we can take a break talking shitting on the last chapter and just talk about the ones we liked. We'll be back. yep back to it at the end. Oh, keydoke. All right, let's have a look. So yeah, no. Chapter one, we start out kind of picking up where we left off in the last arc. Director West is trying to railroad Taylor.
00:19:13
Speaker
um And she decides that she's going to broadcast the meeting using her bugs ah so that everyone in the building can hear a couple of the cut capes come to her aid to defend her and ah Director West has to back down. ah Taylor becomes an official Chicago ward and her dad stands in for her, ah stands up with her, excuse me, at the hearing. The Chicago wards hold their own little initiation with one of the weirdest portions of worm I've ever read, ah but was very fun and cute. Congratulations. Welcome to the ward.
00:19:44
Speaker
wars taylor heber
00:19:48
Speaker
It was a really, really fun chapter. Yeah. It was, it was, it was cute. It was a incredibly appropriately, but juvenile initiation test, which was hilarious. Very funny. Once again, you know, reading this for the first time, because my brain just slides off this, like,
00:20:11
Speaker
like water off a duck's back. I, I read this and was like very confused why everybody was trying not to giggle at the end. I was like, Oh, yeah. Like you go back and read it twice. Oh, it's, it's, uh, I know. I just, you know, I can't, I just don't get penis on the brain. You know?
00:20:35
Speaker
penis on the brain it will get it in program Yeah, it's it's a funny chapter that whole little bit I kind of it does kind of take you aback. You're like, wait a second. Is she looking at so there's this really tall tape? She's Campanile. He's eight foot tall. her eye level I said Campanile in my mind. Okay, I i yeah like that was how the audio book narrator read it. So that's why I'm up in Italy. Campanile in his silly Willy.
00:21:06
Speaker
No, she's she's eye level at his hip though. So like it's it's right there. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's funny his name. I'm going to look it up. I don't actually even know how to spell it. It means a freestanding bell tower, which is perfect for his penis. Oh, my God. Well, she said it again.
00:21:29
Speaker
It's so funny. I wrote it down because I was dying laughing. ah Taylor says, I thought I saw a ridge or a vein. And I was losing my mind. And then she said no, because she keeps she's trying so hard. it's You know, it's the pink elephant. You're trying really hard not to think about the pink elephant. but You know, she's like trying really hard not to look and like think about smiling, make eye contact. She said that thing is as long as my forearm.
00:21:58
Speaker
i mean it is a pink elephant yeah yeah
00:22:03
Speaker
exact purchase i wouldve gone um Anyways, I was so funny, though, like, because I mean, he is eight feet tall. Like, I would assume proportionately, like, why not? Like, why not? yeah i mean i mean I mean, clearly, he's a shower and not a grower. For real. I mean, well, but well, maybe we don't know that could be a grower. I was going to say that could be flaccid. Oh, my God.
00:22:35
Speaker
You haven't seen this final form that one like this what's that one like side character in in a The boys the guy would like that it's love sausage yeah yeah love That's all I'm imagining now. Yeah. No, it's I go back to the, in the comic book where they're running through and he's like, Oh no, my credit, you know, basically my kryptonite, they're like, what is it? And they're like crashing through walls and he like passes out and it's cause they went into a strip club crashed and he you know got an erection and passed out cause he loses so much blood when that happens. He can't ever be around.
00:23:16
Speaker
so funny That's hilarious. Um, but yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, we're kind of skipping to the end of that chapter, but it's definitely the most yeah yeah unique part of it. So I think it's got right ah just it's so weird. It's so unexpected. I don't know.
00:23:32
Speaker
ah Yeah. It's such a weird part. It's a fun little initiation into the words. Like it's juvenile and it's funny and I don't know. it's just it feels It feels like... ah so So Regent was like the funny guy, the jokester, the trickster of the undersiders. And to then like maybe know that her new group can also like maybe has some stupid humor that also is like Silly and fun, and it's like, maybe I can still have like that here too, even if it's not with the undersiders. I think the two things I love about Taylor in this scene is her going, I'm gonna need to to make some ah front armor for this guy. Or have mercy. Like the bust. She's immediately thinking tactical. It's like bless you, know Taylor.
00:24:25
Speaker
but ah I do really like the beginning of this chapter, though. yeah um Yeah. Her broadcasting the meeting was like is such a great moment and getting all like getting because who who comes into the room? um It's like it's Tecton. It's idol. Is it not I don't.
00:24:50
Speaker
No, he's I think it's rebel. I think rebel comes in. Oh, rebel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, rebel. Yeah, because rebel is the she's like kind of the lead in Chicago, right? My thing is also like second in command under. Under Chevalier, I'm pretty sure. Right after the Chicago. Yeah, yeah, Chicago Protectorate team is yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
what she is. Also, God, her freaking costume is amazing and I don't think I realized what she looked like until I just looked her up really quick. She's got a great... She's got like her lantern and her her robe and it's very cool.
00:25:31
Speaker
But yeah, that scene is it's it's really well done. I like that it's a moment where she gets to sort of ah redeem her credibility in the eyes of a lot of the heroes, even though she's been doing that slowly already. This was just sort of a big moment for that, which I liked.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, she talks about how one of the big things is that they're wanting to build this, you know, this new system that doesn't have all of this political, you know, underhandedness. And she's like, you know what, fuck it. No, if if he wants to try and sideline me, if he wants to try and, you know, play play a game, like, we're not playing games today.
00:26:12
Speaker
and you know broadcasting that all over, such a power move. And it puts her in a very dangerous position. Again, not no surprise since Taylor tends to do that for herself all the time. But like it puts her in this position where she's you know blatantly saying no. And fortunately, it works for her. But like that could have gone side like sideways pretty quickly. of like you know Because he's like, this is a confidential meeting. She's like, I never agreed to that. like you know, if they had said something at the beginning and then she would have been, you know, breaking rules or whatever, but like, yeah it could have gone sideways and it worked out, but. Yeah, yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
Um, I also really like what Taylor says when she's with her dad. So when they're in the courtroom and you know, afterwards they're sitting on the bench and it's like, well, you're officially aboard now. And, and he's like, can't we like fix things? And she's like, I don't like the word fix because we can't, like, we can't go back. Like we, we have to find a new basis for our relationships. Like we have to find a new normal rather than like playing the roles of this family that we were like, we were pretending everything was fine. And we were like, there were clearly things unsaid and secrets on both sides and like, not secrets on both sides, but like secrets that were clearly not being spoken. And like, we can't go back to that. And so we just have to find new footing.
00:27:42
Speaker
for where we are in our relationship and i I like that I thought that was really good because it feels like for most of this her dad has been trying to like fix things like even early on like with her when she first got her her her powers, like just trying to like be on a different, like be on the same level that they used to have together. It's like well it's just not the same anymore. like Nothing is the same. like Even before Leviathan came to Brockton Bay, like things weren't things weren't stable.
00:28:17
Speaker
It's like, we can't go back. Like too much has happened for us to be able to do that. And I think that's good. I think that's healthy to like build on, so on the new ground that you have rather than trying to like go back to what it used to be. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think, I think there's kind of a life lesson in that for everybody, right? Kind of that sense of like people change and That's just the way life is. And you might, you might, you know, you can mourn the past, you can grieve the past, but that doesn't mean that you can't build something new in the future that, you know, could be even better than what you had before. Right. I think it's mentioned somewhere earlier in here, um, the way earlier on worm. Uh, but it makes me think about how trees heal where, uh, trees don't repair
00:29:11
Speaker
they grow around to form a new shape ah when it comes to wounds. And there's a line somewhere in worm where they talk about like essentially like there's no, like we're formed by all the ways that we form around the trauma and stuff like that. There's no repairing that. There's no going back in time and fixing that so that it's, you know, smoothed out,
00:29:39
Speaker
all you can do is grow around the shape. And so even though you're healing and even though you're doing well, you are, that negative space is still there, but you can healthily grow around it. But that does determine the shape of who you are still. I like that. Yeah, that's good. Tree man. Cool. um Any other thoughts on chapter one?
00:30:10
Speaker
Uh, we should, we finally see well as daddy. No. Well, it's daddy Armstrong Armstrong. Is that wait? Armstrong's in the meeting. He's in the meeting. But what do you mean by welds daddy? It's like his adopted father. Oh, is it really? Is it really? I totally missed that. and They mentioned funny. I mean, they mentioned it all the way back when weld like flies in.
00:30:41
Speaker
You know, to, uh, Brockton Bay. Oh, he's just a civilian. Yeah. He's just a dude. Oh, interesting. I did not know that. I thought Armstrong was a PRT director. He is. Um, yeah, he is. Well, well, kind of. It's just as he's an administrator. Uh, I mean, I'm sorry, I am looking at the, the, the worm licky. So like, there's very realistically.
00:31:12
Speaker
stuff missing but uh yeah i thought he was director armstrong it says armstrong is close to weld seems to have all but adopted him oh cool yeah i totally missed that uh connection hmm cool well we talked about it in dissecting worm a really long time ago when weld first got sure I'm sure we did. Really? Yeah. If you go to the, if you go was very excited about it and yeah there's a whole thing about it. If you go to the worm fandom, the worm Wiki underweld, it literally has a section called director Armstrong. Oh, come me up. That's funny. Kamil Kamil Armstrong. I didn't even know his first name. Yeah. mill
00:31:59
Speaker
camel maybe that's not me He might be a... Is he a police chief? I am reading the background on him. yeah or We're learning so much today. I'm sure that us reading the wiki is what all of our fans want. so Yeah, I know. If y'all want to look it up, you should look it up. There's a ton of information. go it is he is It is funny how he's he's the person who's like, no, no, no, she's great for the wards because she's like a cult leader, guys. I know. That was so funny. I love that. She's like, oh just appreciate the help. Thank you. But yeah like, no.
00:32:36
Speaker
Well, I mean, he's not wrong though, but like she, yeah people follow her because her resolve is so strong and she's so like, she always, she has a plan. So like, even if you don't necessarily agree with the choices she's making, like no one else has a better option. So you kind of go with whatever Taylor has, you know, whatever Taylor is suggesting, cause it's like, well, okay, what do we do against the kid now? Well, Taylor says we should go to this. Like, well, anyone else have any other options? Like, no, like, all right, there we go. Like,
00:33:07
Speaker
I love it. Like, and I mean, I think maybe a cult leader is a bit much, but I mean, yeah, I do want to say this is where Alan, I probably agree with you the most in that the whole idea of like the PRT being like, now, uh, you were a bit harsh there with some of your fellow heroes while you were fighting literally an apocalyptic creature.
00:33:33
Speaker
Like this is where like, like sometimes I think we've got to disagree all of us in the past on like, are people too hard on Taylor? Are they too, you know, whatever. This is when I think we can all agree of like, all right, mister, listen, this was not a normal scenario. Like, please like, come on. Like I do. The one thing I do agree with him though is like, and I think it just comes up more later, but he's like,
00:33:57
Speaker
You know, I've just learned to accept the fact that you don't follow the rules. Like, we keep asking you just like, they'd be like, Taylor, literally, all you have to do today is just not text the F word to Iveline. She would do it. But she'll have a good reason for it. She'll be like, it was a worthy word for the day. She'll think she will, but that's the problem, right? Because I have to if I don't, the end bringers win. Is that what you want? Take it away RF words. It was saying that, and then it cuts over to Eidolon and his phone buzzes. It just says, you fuck. Just like tech from Taylor.
00:34:41
Speaker
exactly Exactly. She's got a cockroach like on the phone in her pocket, you know, and texting it out. I can't. I already I already said that. I'm sorry. I already said I already said you said don't do that. I was already texting. it I had I had me and all of the heroes I know text bomb idol on the fuck word. yeah And they all listen to me because I'm a cult leader. That's right. I'd like to his phone blows up, but it starts with her. Like just, you know, you got a message from so-and-so except he's neighbor named her like bug fuck likeke or a lower bug. bitch Yeah. Yeah. That's more simple than that. It's just, yeah, that, that bug bitch is just the perfect one.
00:35:25
Speaker
Just I got a worm.
00:35:30
Speaker
oh as a baar right there it's ah dave I had to look at the like sound waves for Alan's recording to see if that was him or if that was my whole job.
00:35:49
Speaker
Oh, I never and never said the other thing I liked about chapter one with Taylor is just that she just has no reaction. And I remember who says it, but one of them's like, guys, she's not reacting and now I feel weird. Oh, this is with the codpiece, yeah. Yeah, with the codpiece. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cough. It's, yes. It was a cough, yeah. Because she doesn't react. She just, like, stares. She's, like, making eye contact.
00:36:15
Speaker
And then and then Taylor does it. I don't think she makes him feel better because she's like, no, guys, that was really funny. That was great. Really? haha No, really. Made me feel so welcome.
00:36:29
Speaker
um It's so I'm such a lucky girl. I'm I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to have joined. I can't wait. I'm glad I gave up millions of dollars for this.
00:36:41
Speaker
I gave up all of my money to be here today. And my friends. Honestly, if she was if she was at like the beginning of her career, ah Aubrey Plaza and like her April persona. Perfect. Perfect. Taylor. Deadpan. Yeah. You got me. Great job.
00:37:09
Speaker
But yeah, it's, it's just her, her whole attitude is very funny with the words. And I do appreciate good boy tech and being like, all right guys, make sure we get rid of the dildos. Don't want anybody finding these anywhere. so i Just lying around. Yeah. We're finding those everywhere for the next month. That's, that's the real reason the time skip happens because it's just a year and a half of finding dildos in your dresser door drawer.
00:37:36
Speaker
But like that's why I'm so upset there was a time skip because like I love all the little moments of the like little camaraderie that you would have because you're all living together like in a way that she didn't even do with the undersiders like because they're all super close quarters and uh see okay now I'm mad again now I feel cheated again I'm feeling good save it for the chapter hold on to that rage oh it's burning All right, chapter two.
00:38:07
Speaker
Chapter dose. Okay, so ah chapter dose, six weeks have passed apparently. ah Taylor's training with Theo ah running in the morning and then also just doing some some practice stuff, which is very fun. um We have the Simerg attacks an airplane with kind of an unsure, uncertain reason as to why. And Taylor is feeling pretty upset and just down and has another lovely little session with Miss Yamada.
00:38:37
Speaker
God bless her. What a peach. Oh Theo. He's trying to run. He's trying so hard. I, I, you know, I feel Theo's pain. I hate running. Running is not in my repertoire. I don't think this boy is running his life. yeah I love the backhanded like compliment, complex salt that Taylor gives. She's like, you made it two whole blocks. Yeah. this The thing though is is that like that would also be me. Two blocks yeah and it's like, oh, I think I'm gonna throw up. Like, oh, yeah, I don't know if I can do this. She's so nice. She's like, it's cool. We'll walk another block and then we'll run a block and then we'll walk the rest of the way home. Like, more running? Like, no. Meanwhile, he's like, what do I do?
00:39:30
Speaker
yeah It is is literally the, oh my gosh, what do I do? Well, she says, throw up if you have to and then keep going. I'm like, why? You chunder and rally. You'll feel better. Just walk home. It's fine.
00:39:48
Speaker
yo
00:39:54
Speaker
I did enjoy watching or well not watching obviously reading about their training session though. I thought that was really cool. I love the fan idea of like all the different materials so that Theo can use his uh his like hand power thing and go through the the It's like a chip of, you know when you when you go to the paint store or you go to the the hair salon store and they've got like all the chips of of colors or whatever and like displayed out in a fan. Yes, swatches. Yeah, like the swatches. That's basically what he's got on his belt, but of materials. I think that's really cool. I like that a lot. It's very smart.
00:40:37
Speaker
OK, just ah for the record, the attack on the flight by the simmered was at the end of November, which is four months after the behemoth attack. So four months have passed. OK, there's a line in the very beginning where she's talking about she's been she said over the past six weeks, something, something, something. So like what I think i might I got that wrong. Sorry about that.
00:41:06
Speaker
No, I think was I thought too. I thought it was shorter than then. Gosh, I just don't. Fuck, I hate we talking about so we mean this. confusing I need like to have time skips like. Wow, though, listen, love you, man. But if we're going to have time skips, you need to be clear about how much time is passing because people are confused as fuck.
00:41:26
Speaker
Don't be all sneaky and hide it in the middle of the text, but be like, oh yes, they'll remember what month it is, bitch. No, I can barely remember what month it is now. Once again, I don't think like this actually matters that much. It's just jarring given that we have moved hour by hour in every other chapter for two months and then start to get time skippy after that. Give us a frame of reference.
00:41:52
Speaker
yeah i think You know, I, I meant to say this, this is what I was trying to articulate earlier. I think part of what maybe wild bow is trying to thread is that he knows we have to remember this was released week by week, right? So yeah, he knows that people want to see. Jack slash come back. Like that's the big looming thing now, right? Yeah. On the other hand.
00:42:18
Speaker
He can't just, I mean, he could have just jumped there, but I bet he had a lot of cool ideas of like, here's some stuff I want Taylor to do with the words. How can I do that in a fun way? But I don't know. It it is tricky. It is tricky. That's for sure.
00:42:34
Speaker
I will say some of it, sometimes i do I do feel a bit like when I'm watching the Olympics with a fresh coat of Cheeto dust on my fingers, making fun making fun of the of the gymnast that trips like during a triple backflip. I do feel it sometimes here where I'm like, wild boat, you're so dumb. This is stupid. Meanwhile, I'm like 1.5 million words into his amazing epic. you know So like, who am I?
00:43:04
Speaker
I know he's releasing. He's also releasing on like a crazy schedule. Yeah, I'm edited. Just two chapters a week. Brutal schedule. So wow, but with the caveat that we love you so much and are constantly impressed by your work. Hence why we are doing this whole entire podcast because we fucking love you. We critique because we love. We critique. Yes. Put that on a T-shirt. That doesn't even be on T-shirt everywhere.
00:43:33
Speaker
ah Literary criticism is dying. Go off, Jacob, go off. Save that for my own TikToks. No, we need them on the podcast, too. Chapter three.
00:43:57
Speaker
and let show so they Did we have more comments about chapter two? I have a couple more, but... Go for it. I honestly could remember a lot of these chapters, so I was just skipping through it. Well, there's not a lot that goes on, but I think like the thing that I that i liked... ah So with the conversation with Ms. Yamada, um because so so she we have the Simarg attacks the airplane and the airplane goes down, but there aren't any casualties with the capes. And so there's kind of this feeling like, well, what was the point of that? like What was the purpose of this? And the end-brainers have consistently especially recently have we determined that they have targets in mind there are reasons why they're talking they're not just indiscriminately attacking wherever and so with this attack it feels like why the heck what is the purpose of this and so taylor goes to talk to miss yamada and i think miss yamada has really good insight which again
00:44:46
Speaker
freaking why I love therapists, uh, just really good at seeing bigger picture of things. But like, she says, like, do you, do you think that maybe the Simurg is aware that the morale here is important, that the morale of the capes right now, right here, right now, coming off of this big behemoth fight, we, you know, that we are,
00:45:10
Speaker
like that morale needs a boost and that by attacking indiscriminately in the way that she did it feels like a bigger gut punch and it pushes capes all over the place not just Taylor to feel like you know that that kind of like um oh gosh what's the word but basically like uh Pointlessness of things of just like not hopelessness, but like pointlessness like it doesn't we don't understand the purpose It feels purpose purposeless. There's a word I'm looking for but it doesn't matter you guys get what I'm trying to say Yeah, but that like that maybe the similar doesn't need ah a physical reason but the reason for her attack is purely like former
00:45:53
Speaker
Because of morale and emotionally like having that emotional effect more than the physical effect and that she's that the sim arc is more aware of the like emotional state of parahumans as a whole then we've given her credit for and Taylor's like I don't know like I just don't I'm not sure but I think that that's interesting that like Mm-hmm that maybe It's I've put the end bringers too quickly into a box of big bads who break things. And then it's like there's they've clearly proven themselves to be way more complicated than that. And that is terrifying. And it puts this very like ominous shroud over the whole thing, you know. Yeah. yeah I mean, ah Taylor kind of mentions that back when they're fighting behemoth.
00:46:47
Speaker
She didn't expect him to be such a tactician. And people suspect the Simrff is a clairvoyant or a like a mentalist of some kind, obviously. Recog, kind of. Recog, yeah. So her kind of knowing this is more about morale than anything else, it would make sense. Spooky. We do love Miss Yamada, though, always and forever, as the best character. What a peach.
00:47:17
Speaker
I do love that Taylor has is getting getting her hug quota and with. Oh, I love that. Thank you for bringing that up. That makes me so happy. But she's like, oh yeah, I mentioned mentioned once in my sessions that I don't get hugged enough. So Miss Yamada is like hugs me at the end of all of our sessions. I'm like.
00:47:35
Speaker
so ah
00:47:40
Speaker
I'm not going to lie. I did actually text my therapist after reading that arc was like, Hey, we should meet up. but How you doing? I just love my therapist. sweet Yeah, that's great. I do have, um, this, uh, so now it seems like Taylor Theo has kind of told everybody.
00:48:00
Speaker
his deal with Jack, right? So, cause you know, Taylor's like, it's okay. You're doing well. And Theo's like, I don't know if I'm doing good enough though. You know, like he's like, they're very cognizant that Jack is coming back and Theo is working really hard, really hard to try to be who he needs to be to beat Jack. And it's, yeah.
00:48:22
Speaker
beautiful and sad. It is beautiful and sad. I'm so proud of Theo. like He's come so far from being that little kid who was babysitting his sister to now like being in the Chicago wards and like training so hard and like prepping for this. like oh I'm so proud of him. like i feel this so I feel this all the time reading these arcs with other people, but like I just I'm like, I'm so proud of seeing how these capes, how far they come. ah it It brings a tear to my eye. Like I just, I just love it. Hmm. It's a beautiful thing. Shall we chapter three? Yeah. Yeah. yeah out of three Chapter three. We're just like flying through this now. We just had to get all of our anger out at the very beginning. and what listen yeah What I say at the beginning, half the episode is on the first chapter.
00:49:13
Speaker
and Or in this case the last champion. In this case the last champion, yeah. Uh, okay. So chapter three, uh, I wrote now, I guess it's been six months because I don't know. Anyway, who knows what what time it is. Uh, Taylor has a plan and is in the midst of a stakeout, the wards, uh, corner and fight Topsy with his henchmen, watch and mockshaw. The director and Taylor share some words and Weaver hits the ground running.
00:49:45
Speaker
I actually really liked, I i really enjoyed this this chapter. This was actually very fun. I love a well-oiled, machined heist thing.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, so we we get some interesting villains, right? Topsy, Watch, and Mach Show. Yes. Are all very fascinating villains to me. um Just with their powers, not necessarily in what they do because we don't know much about what they do, right?
00:50:11
Speaker
But their powers are really interesting. Topsy having this gravity control watch, having this like kind of mixture of abilities that make him really versatile is super cool. yeah Um, and then, yeah. And then Macho who I guess like makes you know bitches dogs, but out of machines. Yeah. Mechanic, which is hilarious. Very fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's all very fun.
00:50:36
Speaker
I love that we get the winter camo. Yes. A new seasonal outfit. Yes. Right. So excited. A winter episode. year Love it. Also we we we see her pull out her little lunchbox that she got paid her first villain to pay out in. She got an Alexandra lunchbox. I know. ah but She killed her.
00:51:00
Speaker
um it And she keeps it. And she keeps it too. And I love how she's like. That time she murdered that bitch. And she's like, she's like, I thought it would be funny, which I'm like Taylor. Oh my God. Taylor never doubt yourself. Fucking hilarious. We've said it before. Well, she says, I didn't realize how sick I'd get staring at it yeah yeah on this, you know,
00:51:30
Speaker
I just, I don't know if you guys talk to inanimate objects as much as I do, but I love the idea of Taylor, like with her lunchbox, she's like putting food in it and she's like, she's like talking to it. It's just like really dark, like.
00:51:42
Speaker
No, Taylor, not moored bugs. no And she like shove the same inside.
00:51:52
Speaker
come on hundred The first time you've been full of bugs. That's so funny. I love it. I love it so much. Also, Nick, just so you know, I too talk to an intimate objects. I talk, I talk to things all the time.
00:52:08
Speaker
And if you too talk to an enemy, not all the time, you can get help with our sponsor better. hell No, no.
00:52:19
Speaker
Unaffiliated. and Yeah. Yeah. We'll take their money. I don't think you understand how cheap I am. i will Miss Yamada would not approve. She would not approve whenever she strikes this. When you say it like that, but you know, Miss Yamada doesn't have to now. They can pay me, they can put all of it in cash in a little Alexandria lunchbox and ship it right to my doorstep.
00:52:48
Speaker
Oh, wouldn't that be so fun? What Ms. Yamana doesn't know can't be brought up in my sessions. That's right. Well, we talk about what I want to talk about anyway. Right. That's how it works. We're not going to unpack the fact that I'm sponsored by better help. Better help getting you better. Wouldn't that be fun though? We had a, we did, cause you know, we've been talking about doing March and stuff. It would be so fun to do an Alexandria lunchbox.
00:53:14
Speaker
Oh, genius. But it could be like a Taylor's Alexandria lunchbox. So it's like clearly an Alexandria lunchbox, but it's got details on it. Like maybe she's got her name scribbled on the side, like written in duct tape on the side. So it's like clearly like, Hey, this is Taylor Hebert. I'm imagining maybe like a little bug crawling out of one of the sides. I'm imagining a white sweater with the lunchbox open so that on one side you can see the Alexandria part, but it's open a lot of cash.
00:53:44
Speaker
like falling out and out and like a single cockroach running around. I love it. With like a little and it's on the white thing. Like it's like the white background, like it's sitting there. So you get like a little bit of shit, maybe a little bit of shadow work there. Yeah, that's it. Very, would be very simplistic. If you know, you know, I was thinking just make a lunchbox, but you put it on a shirt too. Yeah. Yeah. Put a lunchbox on a shirt harder.
00:54:11
Speaker
Like a picture of a lunchbox on a shirt. but I think that's what Alan's saying. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I gotcha. I gotcha. I was saying just make the lunchbox. Just make the lunchbox. Yeah. I also love how Taylor wins in this conflict. That this is not a matter of direct confrontation. This is a matter of just making them miserable. Kind of how we saw with a little bit of how we saw in Brockton Bay going up against butcher's crew, the teeth.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. like They just, they, you know, really screwed them over there. And we saw that a little bit. Very uncomfy. Yeah. And then the same with this where they like took everybody's phones first. And yeah, and that was clever. And then I really liked that part i and then made them go outside in the cold and then got them kicked out of the other restaurant. Like that was fun. Uh,
00:55:03
Speaker
Call your boss. Uh, what do you mean? Just call higher up. You will find somebody who will kick them out. Thank you for what does he say afterwards? He's like, thank you for walking me through this, this tough situation and what and then hangs up. I'm like, okay. Yeah. Please leave a review. Cause not enough people think like you do. Good sir.
00:55:25
Speaker
ah ah Yeah. Yeah, ah there's a I did have a question about Watch's power. So they mention that ah they mentioned that one of Watch's things is that he can like punch a hole through people's bodies by like reaching into them.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah. Martian Manhunter style. Kind of. It sounded more like he, he has like ghostly, flickery kind of hands and he like can swipe pieces of you almost. Yeah. Cause she said it was very much like, um, shadow stalker, the way that shadow stalker can like move through things. But one of the things that we talked about with shadow stalkers, like she couldn't do people because of like the Manton effect. So like, how can watch?
00:56:12
Speaker
Well, you see, he's kind he's just shadow stalker, but better. Yeah. I don't think I ever fully grasp exactly how the Manton Effect is slash work slash whatever. So like when it mentioned that, I was like, I feel like part of the Manton Effect is that like dealing with human matter, it gets a little funkadelic. Well, I think it's it's not so much that he
00:56:40
Speaker
He has like super improved vision. And then I think because of that, he has, he's really quick and has improved accuracy. So I think it's less of that he's bypassing it like shadow stalker would if she just like phase through something and more that, um, He's just like, he can see your veins inside of your body whenever he wants. He is just fast enough. He just like claws him out or grabs him, right? That's, that's the vibe I'm getting. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but.
00:57:17
Speaker
It was less like phasing through the body, maybe. That makes more sense. Yeah, I just I wasn't sure about that because I was like, that sounds like it's the way that she described it. I was like, I don't know if that's sorry sounds right or not. We're talking about watch. um Watch is the one that that works with Topsy. That's like he's got a bunch of different things that he can do.
00:57:39
Speaker
Um, yeah, he's pretty cool. He's got some cool powers. He is pretty cool. I really liked, liked, uh, his, his, uh, his, like, watch his, like, looking at things thing, his watch thing, his watching of things. Oh my God. His name's a watch, but he's got great hearing.
00:58:02
Speaker
Well, he can smell you. He sees right where they are. Like Taylor is hiding with um what's her face and they're like just hanging out around the corner. And he like he does that thing that he does the thing that Taylor does where he looks in a direction and everyone's like, what do you see, boy? And he's like that way.
00:58:23
Speaker
Which is like what Taylor does she doesn't really in the in the episode where she's like she's looking upwards Because she with her bugs she can see you know three stories up and to the left but from where she's actually standing she can't see but she her body still like looks and follows and and like Her hand like her her eyes look up at the at the ceiling. It's like well. She's looking at something. That's not there It's like no she's looking at you know the what her bugs are doing and what her bugs are seeing three stories up and The wiki just says, uh, for watch that his Phantom hands can reach into people's bodies to do internal damage. Yeah. That was, that was the thing I was, I was curious about yeah the effects. You can just bypass it. Yeah. There, there are just some people who do that. It's not like a.
00:59:14
Speaker
Some people are just built different. Yeah, literally. Watch is just built different, I guess. Yeah. Got that dog in him. That watch dog. that watched you have
00:59:26
Speaker
yeah Thanks Jacob. You laughed at least. I barked. Oh, thank you. so that ever though I was like, I did the, it's the, oh, like it's the, but I think it kind of clicked. I think you clicked. You know what? know what Just QDMX.
00:59:44
Speaker
Yeah. but Yeah. ah boomo boom Alexa, play DMX. Oh no. and Alexa, stop playing DMX. um Look, you asked for it, okay? And she complied because she's i don't know what she was is a good little I was it wouldn't hear me.
01:00:04
Speaker
I thought it was a joke. Oh, you know what? I forgot dragon play DMX. there yeah like That's there. There we go. I'm going to now change all of the echo dots in our house to respond to dragon play Despacito. What were you saying? jacob i'm sorry no ze Have you ever whispered to your Alexa?
01:00:33
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Every morning when I leave the house, that's how I, uh, that's how I checked the weather. i I do it also in the morning, but it's, ah I do it in an empty house. I just don't want her to talk loud at me. I've just woken up and I'm like, oh Alexa, ah give me my morning kiss, darling. I know it's great if you ask activated. If you ask Alexa to to fart, she'll play these fart sounds. ah But if you whisper to it to fart, it's like, did it's really, really erotic.
01:01:10
Speaker
it's yeah water
01:01:14
Speaker
I have one less than a foot away from me. I feel like I should do it. I feel like I have to do it now. Hold on. I have to. We have to. Hold on. um just A little bit closer. This is the content right here. but And I just have to ask her to fart. Is that all? Yeah. Whisper, whisper, whisper. Alexa, can you fart for me?
01:01:41
Speaker
What was that?
01:01:46
Speaker
Hannah? Random. We can't confirm. Was it erotic? ah Alexa, stop. Wait, what's the word? Did you Wait, are she still...
01:02:08
Speaker
Alexa, stop, stop, stop, please. Alexa, please. She's not stopping. Alexa. Alexa, stop. It's begun. You knew this was going to happen, boys. Alexa, stop. The electric boog is happening. Suit up. Oh, cool. Grab the baseball bat. It's still going.
01:02:34
Speaker
I'm gonna unbook her if she doesn't shut the fuck up. Describe it. Okay, so what happens is- Would you describe it as a- So she does the fart sound and then immediately follows the fart sound with a descriptor of the fart sound. So she's like, it's like, I gotta crank up my mic a little bit. It's like, that was a wet, loose one. You're like, no! And then it's like a,
01:03:05
Speaker
That was a dry rub. Oh no, one of the ones she said, a squelching one. I'm like, no, stop. Stop immediately. Technology was a mistake.
01:03:27
Speaker
And she was like, she was like, do you want me to play 36 in a row or do you want me to randomize them? And I'm like, what do you mean? Oh, my God. You know, the quality content of the patrons right there. We'll be doing an Alexa fart tier list on Patreon. Yes. Oh, yes. We ranking these. Oh, that was definitely S tier. Oh, that was an S class thread if I've ever heard one.
01:03:57
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Jacob, what have you done to us? I know. I regretted it the second I said it. Did you hear the hesitation? mar No, no, no. I'm glad it happened. ja i i say Jacob, you can always just tell me to not know once it's, once it's begun.
01:04:18
Speaker
So back to chapter three,
01:04:25
Speaker
Where were we? I think we were done with chapter three. Well, I still have a couple. oh I'll just spit out my notes real quick then, because I just had a couple of things. um I said, God damn it, Taylor, stop being so fucking difficult. Why are you making this harder? The people supporting you are going to end up getting burned by your lack of communication.
01:04:43
Speaker
I feel like this is a theme, perhaps. But when she's with, I think, is she with Cuff who she with, that she gives the flight pack to? Yeah, she's with Cuff who she runs into a wall. She runs Cuff into the freaking wall. And Cuff's getting shot at. And of course, Taylor's like, oh, you're fine. You weren't going to get hurt, but the spider's eloped and whatever. Barely interacted with them, you know? But the thing is that she's having to communicate all of this back to headquarters. And Grace is on the fucking earpiece.
01:05:19
Speaker
And she's just like lying through her teeth like, oh, yeah, no, it's OK. We're just keeping our distance. And they're like, uh-huh. Meanwhile, Cuff is getting shot at like, I don't know, it just and and I understand why she did it, but I still didn't like it. And it's like if you're trying to build a team that trusts you, this feels like not the right thing to do to put your teammates in the line of fire here. Mm hmm. Yeah. Bad moves, Taylor. Yeah.
01:05:48
Speaker
Oh, what did she say? I have a note here that I don't know if I know the context too. It says, left so this is a quote. Left them without any hope that they could win the next time. Oh, she's talking about, oh, the end. Okay. I know, I know, I know, I know. Okay. So at the end, the whole thing is like, I'm trying to beat them down. We're not just trying to win against Topsy and Clock, but like, or watch, not Clock.
01:06:12
Speaker
Uh, that it's, we're trying to like break them down spirit by spirit. She says, you know, leave them without any hope that they could win for next time. And I thought that that sounded a little bit like imp, you know, like how imp was very much would use like the psychological stuff to drive people out of her territory and like really break down a person's soul a little bit. It really break them down mentally, not just beat them physically, but mentally as well. Like, okay.
01:06:44
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah I mean, it's, it's kind of, she's trying to make a point right with the PRT. So yeah, obviously there's that aspect too. Um, but yeah, I don't know. It's, it makes sense. And it, I, although like her line of course is uncomfortable. It's like, I totally get why, right? It's like, okay, you, you just gotta to do this and, you know, screw the director. Basically you gotta do what you gotta do, Taylor.
01:07:12
Speaker
So I don't know. It's, it is definitely a, it's a fun chapter though. I really do like the fight. I like the tactic of we're not trying to kill. We're just trying to deal with them. I think there's something that's kind of cool. I do like that aspect of it. Okey doke. Yeah, on to four.
01:07:32
Speaker
We're cruising. We are cruising. Okay. Quattro. This is a fun one. The wards appear on TV. ah Spotlight keeps falling on Weaver, but then a new challenger appears.
01:07:48
Speaker
Uh, Kansu strikes Japan and it feels like all hope is lost. Uh, this is the chapter where I sobbed uncontrollably and Alan came home from work in the middle of me crying my eyes out. Um, and was like, Oh, I wanted to see if you had seen that funny video that Nick had posted in the chat. And I was like, I like look at him and I've got tears streaming down my cheeks and he's like, I'll come back later.
01:08:14
Speaker
yeah thats
01:08:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah So why did you cry? You're saying number four is the one that made you cry that much? Yeah. Number four. I just, I, I, so I said, I just cry. I cried and cried and cried. Like I, I wouldn't quite say wept, but that is kind of how it felt. I, I, anytime we have, um, like big end bringer moments where capes are just dying by the swaths, I always get incredibly emotional because For me, the this this idea that like regardless of what side you're on, end-ringers are bigger than all of us. And so like we can't we can't just sit by and do nothing. And this this idea that these capes are flying in, they're trying to do their best and they're just dying. Like it just like the way that that Taylor's bugs die when they hit you know a cape that kills them on touch. you know Like that idea that like these
01:09:17
Speaker
these capes just are dying left and right. And there's no, it feels like there's no hope. And so I was like, I, because I, I just have a whole bunch of notes as like, cause I, as I was listening to this, I was like typing up and just kind of stream of consciousness as things were coming in. So it's like the abject horror of concert. That's like, oh my gosh, now we have a whole new end ringer that we're doing. Like we've, we just had a win and it's like, we can't, we can't seem to win here. Like, catch a break like us a second.
01:09:49
Speaker
And like I instantly like started tearing up as soon as Kansu appeared and I had goosebumps and just like... And then oh and then the time bubble. Do you guys remember ah in the behemoth fight when when we had those little time bubbles?
01:10:03
Speaker
And i I think I said on the podcast that I immediately started crying, cause I felt like we were about to lose somebody, but I couldn't remember who it was. And I was like, it was like really frustrating. And I was like, it felt like part of my brain was remembering something that I didn't. And, but then clearly the behemoth fight happened and we lost Regent, but like we didn't lose anybody in a time bubble. And so I kind of had this feeling like, did I miss something? Like what? I don't know.
01:10:30
Speaker
And then reading this part describing Kansu and the the bubbles, and that's when I started like really bawling because I realized, like oh my gosh, it's we're going to have a fight with Kansu. That's going to be the one that my brain remembers that I clearly don't.
01:10:47
Speaker
that i'm just like it just it was like oh yeah it was Yeah, it's just it feels like and then he teleports on top of that. Like I can feel the desperation and the pain of this this ending of like, you know, Taylor walks out into the hallway and there are people just like sitting in the hallway of this TV studio just crying because like we cannot seem to win.
01:11:13
Speaker
And I think it's so, I will say of of this entire arc, I think this episode was the best, this episode, this chapter was the best written because it pairs so well the first half of them being on TV.
01:11:27
Speaker
yeah That being on TV, and it feels like the most trivial, stupid, non-important thing. And Taylor the entire time is like struggling to feel like like, why does this matter? like Why are we here? This is so trivial, so stupid. And it's paired so well with such... ah like ah ah something so important. So something so trivial is a TV show paired with something so devastating, which is Kansu showing up. And I said, I wrote my notes, well done, wild boat. Because like pairing those two together, it like it almost hits harder that it happens in the middle of something so so stupid as like a little talk show. Yeah, right. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I love the whole framing of the opening of this. I mean, just with the like on the phone, like clan, I need help. It's an emergency. I love that she called in the background college. Just like, fuck, fuck. we're all going to die You're like, Oh God, they're about to go to an end bringer fight. They're like worse or on daytime television.
01:12:32
Speaker
Which honestly, ah the same. like yeah i love theres This is a line that i see like I think about every now and then, but i I forgot that it was from Worm. And then when I remembered it was from Worm, I forgot that it wasn't Piget that said it, because for some reason I associate it with Piget, which is You know, they didn't just give me enough rope to hang myself. They put me in the rope factory.
01:13:02
Speaker
yeah That was a good one. I did like that one. Yeah. And this brings up a broader point that I think is very important, very serious, which is ah that I cannot for the life of me understand talk shows.
01:13:24
Speaker
I don't know, they're the producer lowest form of art. They're not the lowest form of art, Alan. I don't know. I've seen something for the internet. Have you seen Desperate Housewives? Love Island and Desperate Housewives? And here's why. No offense to people who enjoy the show because sometimes you need a little bit of a skip. Totally get it. I kind of enjoy Love Island. Totally get it. No, no, no, no. I get that. I don't like it. It's a little too cringe for me. I get that. I cannot watch.
01:13:55
Speaker
talk shows and I don't understand. And I was thinking about why can't I and and and comparing this to how Taylor is thinking too. And I think part of it is that like there is a level of fakery going on, but it's portrayed as realism.
01:14:16
Speaker
in a balance that is just intolerable to me because like, like there are certain things that have a veneer, like that are trying to like not break that line so that you're taking it, you know, uh, the, what's the whole thing in watching movies? You don't want to have the illusion broken. What's the, what's the word I'm looking for? Not the fourth wall, the believability. There's a word for it. I don't know why it's escaping me.
01:14:45
Speaker
But like when something happens and it breaks your immersion in a movie or, you know, a show and you're like, Oh, well, and then all of a sudden you remember that you're watching a show and not experiencing the story. And there are like, even and I was thinking about this with like love Island or just porn. Like there is a ah tiny bit of, of, uh, of separation and, and this, you know, fiction that's going on.
01:15:15
Speaker
that you know isn't reality and daytime, not even daytime television, just talk shows can't, they don't have that protection. They are all of the fakery of a fictional story while being 100% real reality as well. And it hurts so much to watch for me. I get what you're saying. they They should not exist. They should be purged from the planet. no There is no good one, no not one. I always enjoy like when you have... I like the whole celebrity talk show thing. like I like hearing some of the behind the scenes stuff. Okay, have you ever seen the clip?
01:15:58
Speaker
of Maisie from ah Game of Thrones. And she she did a she did ah an April Fool's prank thing on one of one of them. And she basically is like, she accidentally spoils part of the ending or a fake ending to Game of Thrones. And she basically like immediately freaks out and like fools everybody. It's very funny, but terrifying at the time because you have no idea it's happening. And then she like pulls an April Fool's prank and it's very, it's it's good. But like,
01:16:28
Speaker
Everyone on that set it believes her because it's so fucking good. Like I love stuff like that. Like I like seeing absolutely not. You are Abraham before the Lord almighty trying to trying to reckon for Sodom and Gomorrah and I will not have it. like They are the lowest form of of anything.
01:16:51
Speaker
Okay. Okay, so putting aside Alan's deep loathing for TV shows, ah talk shows, um cant we talk can we talk about the episode a little bit? A little bit more? Yeah. Okay, cool. I felt like Taylor it was the most autistic.
01:17:15
Speaker
ah And I get it. Alan also may be coming in second place here. I just like the way that they ask the questions and she's thinking about like how to sit and like how to, you know, where to look. And I just I just thought it was so funny. she's And they're getting through it. Tecton is guiding this ship. I love him. you know He is, he is captain, you know, of the sea right now, making their way through the Northwest passage. But then wanton won't shut the fuck up. Oh yeah. so Taylor's got a bunch of dirty, dark secrets and things that we could talk about. And you know that I would, I would have robloxed him right there.
01:18:04
Speaker
I thought it was fun that's in for president though yet for oh oh my gosh could he i allow great he he is as we've established good at like it's it's something that taylor Like most of the time handled with the undersiders, but you know you put her in a scenario where you face stuff Yeah, it's the face except you know Because you can't let tattletale do that because tattletale is gonna talk herself into getting shot, right? if if You let her go for more than a few lines. Yeah, you know can relate but Taylor
01:18:39
Speaker
You know, if it's not threatening someone, like, Taylor's not good at that. Accurate, so accurate. So you gotta have tech in there to be like, yo, let me pull some Riz and really smooth this out. Let me pull some Riz. Let me pull some Riz. Alan, please, you're gonna date us.
01:19:01
Speaker
call me nice please so in day jacob
01:19:07
Speaker
That's what you meant, right? What did you, what did you say? I said, someone needs to date Jacob. Please call it. that Oh my gosh. That would just be the best. If Jacob fell in love with a listener. ah Yeah, that's what we all want.
01:19:23
Speaker
and's a you know
01:19:28
Speaker
really good not tell that was hardcast
01:19:34
Speaker
after
01:19:38
Speaker
michael clip
01:19:44
Speaker
And now we've come to the secret reason the podcast was made. yeah It just turns into a talk show. It's a turns into a dating show.
01:19:55
Speaker
yeah We have another caller in from pneumonia, Wisconsin. I love calling. why Who are you and why do you think you should be allowed to date our Jacob? Did you say no? Pathermia?
01:20:13
Speaker
Pathermia, Ohio. Yes, caller, you're on the line. Please call me the pneumonia. No, pneumonia, Wisconsin was where my WWF wrestling character was from. When I was three years old, every time I would wrestle with my father, it was a high flying commando Allen from um all the way from pneumonia, Wisconsin or the Serbia, Ohio.
01:20:45
Speaker
My signature move was, yes, the Flying Suflaki, as we all know. I know all about the Flying Suflaki. Oh, my God. Yeah, it turns out as you grow older, you find out all your wrestling moves are just Greek dishes. I think that's a very unique experience to you, Alan. To you and your dad. Oh, my God. To you and your dad. Freshest memories. Nobody else shares them. Good times.
01:21:17
Speaker
sadnemonia Wisconsin has turned up zero results.
01:21:21
Speaker
It's such a small town. It's so small. It's not on the way. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, that's amazing. Oh, anyway. So sober Hannah up to take her from one crying to another crying. Oh, my God. We then get the fourth. And Jesus. And I for the for our next three and bringers, I had no clue about these names. Oh, yeah. I had to look them up. Yeah.
01:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I looked it up, which I had never done before, and it was interesting. Kansu is literally translated, the name means traveler, so perfect for the thing, and mainly related to the moon traveling across the sky. It's a Japanese moon deity, I believe. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
01:22:13
Speaker
Egyptian, but yes, Egyptian, sorry, Egyptian. It does look, ah the the name does definitely feel like Indian Japanese though. Yeah. Um, which I assumed, I assumed it was a Hindu God, you know, shows what I know. Um, uh, yeah. Traveler moon. So it it's a falcon headed creature, but it has like the moon on top of its head. Very much like Kansu has the giant like moon orb in the middle of its body with the silver light leaking out and it like,
01:22:42
Speaker
It's arms and legs and torso and whatnot are all like attached around it so it can rotate. Which is horrifying. Yeah, that was, uh, I had to look up of it because I, I, I thought that Kansu was writing on the ball. I didn't know that the ball was like his stomach. I was a little, uh, this was the first time that I realized while reading it that it was not writing the ball either. ah lot Okay. It wasn't the only one who thought that I'm like, yeah, I definitely imagined it was writing it airbender style. right in around
01:23:17
Speaker
He riding that ball right now. There's some really good fan art that I had. remember I remember looking up when I first read it. That was really good. But yeah, it's a it's an it's an odd shape. Yeah, it's real fat. Yeah. It's a real big fella. He is a big fella.
01:23:38
Speaker
He a big, scary motherfucker. That's what he is. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, the whole time pillars that... Oh, that shit's so spooky. Oh, God. And they rotate and then he changes the directions of them. And they rotate and the opposite just... Oh, God. It's like watching the worst version of Wipeout.
01:23:57
Speaker
Getting wiped out. Mm-hmm. It was interesting describing the way that like the buildings that were so that were had gotten stuck in the time bubble that like how the building degraded inside of it and just like, and then the, the, the, um, just like the scattering of skeletons left behind in the wake of the, of the time bubble thingy column thingy. Uh, just the, yeah, the, the, the, uh,
01:24:29
Speaker
I mean, you just imagine being stuck in one spot, I guess for like, who knows how long. Yeah. yeah I mean, enough enough so that you are not just dead and decomposing, but that you are a skeletal. That is, that takes some time. Oh yeah. i yeah for sure We're decades to centuries of time. You know, it's yeah for like a building to rust and collapse.
01:24:58
Speaker
It's a long time. And like at what point, like if you're caught in the bubble, like at what point do you just end it? Because you know that it's either that or you're going to starve. Yeah. Dark.
01:25:17
Speaker
especially if you know you're caught. ah yeah I wonder how often, like how much do you try to escape while you're inside? Yeah, it's terrifying. Well, I mean, Taylor says, i ah it might be the next chapter, but Taylor says that some people like packed food like for for when they tried and went up against him again later. yeah that's I think it's in the next chapter. Yeah, you're right. People tried to pack food and she's like the stupid like foolish bastards. like they just you know They pack food in the in this thought of like, yeah, I'm going to try and see it you know last as long as I can. it's like But no, man, there's not.
01:25:52
Speaker
Am I correct? even out of this Between the next couple of chapters, I think Legend is the only character that we see survive the bubble. Is that correct? I believe so, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Which, do I mean, you want to talk about that? Oh my God, of course. Because it happened so fast. Should we? So the Legend thing is in chapter six. so Okay, so let's... yes it Is it in chapter six? Yes, I wrote a note. Oh, shoot. I thought it was here. Okay. yeah yeah no well get better We'll get to it.
01:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, this is this is ah all of this stuff with Kansu is like the end of end of four, beginning of five, and then the cauldron stuff takes place in most of five. And then six, is the there's a ton of stuff just happening, and skippy nonsense. So, skippity raise, you know. Skippity, skippity. I'm sorry, I was trying to be cool. Go on, go on. Sorry, I was trying to be cool.
01:26:49
Speaker
um Yeah, you're so cool right now. Thank you. Real sigma, sigma move. I don't like that. I don't like that word and it's being used at me. Shall we move on to chapter five? Yes. Okay. Transitions are going to be crazy. I'm so sorry, Michael. He's got it. He's got it. Not as crazy as our sponsor for today.
01:27:20
Speaker
No, no. So for chapter five, ah the battle with Kansu continues for three days as the world watches. People from across the world are taken to Cauldron to negotiate and Taylor walks through a portal that appears in her room to go um and ends up standing behind Tattletale rather than with Eidolon, who's on the other side of the room.
01:27:50
Speaker
Wait, is Eidolon there? I didn't think he was there. who's the big kana that's there and she's like a sho weird chevalier savvalier that's who it is it Chevalier? Yeah, no, Eidolon's not there. That's important for reasons people who've read all of Wormen remember certain details will understand. Oh, okay. ah Yes, no, Chevalier is there, ah but she's standing specifically, Taylor's specifically standing with Tattletail, so she's standing with the the Undersiders.
01:28:18
Speaker
Um, and Cauldron reveals that they know how the world will end, which is a bit of a mic drop there. Yeah. Oh, by the way. Yeah. And they discuss a little bit about, um, how they can help, how they can fight. There is a bit of trading of lives in the discussion. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:28:45
Speaker
Oh, that, that whole conversation is just so, so cold, right? Like it's so, the whole, like, like the fact that they look at Glyce Guinier and is like, we we could, we could get you a hundred thousand dead capes by 2027. Um, yeah she's like, no. And everybody else is just like, what the hell? Like, what do you mean? Oh, it's so, yeah. Yeah.
01:29:16
Speaker
It's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah, I mean, they're just so quick to throw lives around. We talk a lot about how one of the themes and worm is just sort of this constant, the you know, does the ends justify the means type of thing with ah specifically with like Taylor and and what she's trying to do, you know, all that kind of stuff is she doing?
01:29:42
Speaker
is is the bad going to be outweighed by the good and all that kind of talk. And like, it it really hits right here because you you you look at that reality, like the world's gonna end. It's been prophesied. Cauldron knows how it's gonna happen. The world will end unless millions of people die.
01:30:07
Speaker
you hit the button, you know? yes it's It's hard. it's it's ah It's a great, it's a classic, you know, kind of ah philosophy and ethics 101, but it's still a really good thought experiment. And I love that wild bow doesn't shy away from it. ah And we sort of really get a good conversation about it. Yeah. Cause like that's at the root of a lot of really popular villains with ah yeah like well-written villains really seem to rely on that concept. um I think of like like superhero villains specifically like Magneto and Dr. Doom, like they have this mentality that their way is correct. And at the end of the day, if the world would just let them succeed, yes, it'll cost lives, but the world would be better off at the end. you know
01:31:04
Speaker
And, uh, and I think the fact that it's playing in here works really well for worm. Yeah. Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice. I am willing to make perfect.
01:31:24
Speaker
Would you guys hit the button? A million dead, but a billion live. I mean,
01:31:35
Speaker
Are the billion going to die if I don't press the button? andnna come by Yeah, heartbeat. Done deal. I mean, you have to, right? Like there's not, yeah there's no other answer. Well, I mean, you either hit the button or you don't and you like. Well, in the, in the sense that, I mean, I guess, I guess for some people, I know there's sort of the ethical decision of like,
01:31:57
Speaker
Well, I don't want to be responsible for the deaths of a million. Like I want to save the billion, but I don't want to be the one responsible for it. I don't want to have to press the button. I think the thing is once you start dealing with even human lives and that number, it almost makes it such a large abstraction. It doesn't feel real. Right. That makes sense.
01:32:18
Speaker
And it's funny you said that Nick, that was a really good thought. Cause like my initial response is we see this play out in a much, much smaller scale in the dark night, right? The big climax climax of the dark night. And it's funny how when people watch the dark night, it's, and of course the, the spoilers for the dark night, 14 year old film, um it's how, when the guy chooses not to to blow up the other bus or other, other, uh, the very,
01:32:47
Speaker
yeah be fair um And everyone cheers and the audience cheers and you're like, yeah, that's what I would do. But it's a much smaller scale and it's much more personal, but it's the exact same dilemma, right? Both fairies are going to blow up unless one decides to kill the other, right? The world is going to end unless we sacrifice, you know, a chunk of the population. It's the exact same dilemma. But in that example, we cheer and we root for going out together rather than having that blood on our hands. But once you scale it up, and it's a lot less personal, then our decision sort of flips. And we're like, well, now we're just looking at spreadsheets and numbers and not having to look them in the eye. A bunch of zeros. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of interesting.
01:33:38
Speaker
We do have quite ah quite a host of villains and heroes here. We get to see Saint ah yeah for the first time in person, yeah um which I love the little exchange between him and Dragon, and Dragon's like, I don't think you have a good measure of what's right, Saint. You can just hear the sass. I love it. So good. I love it so much. um And then you have, a I'm trying to remember all the names, they're so cool. We have Glicy Guinier and Marquis kind of working for the birdcage, trying to be like, hey, we could help. like We've got some people here. Yeah. you know
01:34:15
Speaker
that could help. Um, but then basically they're all like, Hmm, no. And Marky's like, I know secrets. And she's like, no, you don't. You're not going to, not enough secrets, Marky. Not enough. We know secrets about your people. Like you're not going to say it, but we know stuff about teacher and you know. Yeah. And I love that they say that they're like, Hey, we're going to say, Hey teacher, if you don't want us to spill your secret, you should shut the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:45
Speaker
And I don't know why, but for some reason that just, I immediately jumped to pet PDF files, I'll say. we We all know that that's the case. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why, but that was just where my mind went. Maybe it's like, maybe it's just the whole terrible trope of like, what's the worst thing like secret a teacher could have. And that would be one of them.
01:35:07
Speaker
oh I didn't even go that route. But yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Could be. Could be. Could be. Anyways, um and then we've got um oh who's the African hero? Lord Nog. Lord Nog. Not hero. Not hero. Lord Nog. Lord Nog. Yeah. What a great. Oh, ah yeah and she needs she needs people to feed her power, it sounds like. Yeah. So that's terrifying.
01:35:34
Speaker
Yeah. We talk like the birdcage. It's a little imbalanced there. Like you've got glass glass to you when yay. Sorry. I'm going to put your glass to Gwen. Yeah. I'm going to butcher that for her. It's like, I need thousands of capes, more nag. I need to feed on thousands. And then marquee is like just a little bony spiky boy. And you're like, there's a, there's a, there's a little power difference here. Don't we think there's, I don't think there's quite a, quite balanced out and I need me to prisons.
01:36:03
Speaker
Well, and what's funny though, right? Is that, uh, more nog isn't in the birdcage, right? She's just a world. She's yeah kind of like no bog in Africa where it's like, yeah, we're just going to let her do her thing and not like worry about her too much. I do love her outfit though. Right. She's got a cut off t-shirt with like a punk rock band on it. yeah this like And she just, she is the definition. I feel like of like step on me, goth mommy energy, ah yeah but like the kind of step on you that squishes your head like a watermelon.
01:36:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I forgot she's she's not in the birdcage. That's right. And she was just there. Yeah, she's not. Yeah. yeah Because you remember Africa's basically like nobody touches that because it's just all powered warlords.
01:36:45
Speaker
yeah ah fighting amongst each other and the average life spans like 30 years old. Well, they compare her to to Taylor in a way that like the way that Taylor was and the undersiders were running Brockton Bay that like if you wanted to do anything in Brockton Bay, you kind of need to like check with the undersiders because they were kind of ruling everything. And they say that it's the same idea that like if you want to do anything in anywhere near or around her territory, like you have to talk to her first. Like you can't get around that.
01:37:15
Speaker
She's so cool. yeah And her little Skelly boy. A little shadow. I think her Skelly boy's name is. air i have A little skelly boy. Yeah, austere. ah Her name needs murder night. And austere means scavenger. Oh my gosh. Literally the best name murder night on scavenger. African, I guess. afric I was doing some translating, you know, when they're talking about people dying and she says translated.
01:37:51
Speaker
People die every second of every day. Babies die in the womb and the children shot to death like dogs. Women are raped and murdered and nightmares tear men apart to feast on their insides. And then later, I cannot spend power without leaving the night lands helpless against their neighbors. And then at the end, 5,000 alive. It doesn't matter if they have power or not. A fraction of what you offered the fool. The fool. Yeah. elastic went yeah Yeah. Oh, gosh. She called Glastig Uwenye the Fool? Yes, she did. Interesting. Because Glastig Uwenye is the one who calls everybody by other names than what they are. like She calls Taylor ah Queen Administrator, which is just so... Glastig Uwenye is and will always be my one of my favorite capes. ah Merely because of like her crazy, weird, fae, fairy affiliation.
01:38:53
Speaker
I do love, I do love like after she says all of her stuff, Taylor's like, Oh, she's just crazy. Oh, she's crazy. yeah It's a thin line. It's hard to tell. Anyway, I must attend to my fairy court. yeah The fairies need me. Well, the thing though is is that like watch with things being as weird as they are though, like she's like,
01:39:21
Speaker
She's the kind of like weird tapped energy that like, I don't know if I want to call her crazy to her face and I don't know if I want to like. Oh, no, definitely not. She's what we like to call manic pixie nightmare girl. Yeah. I love that. I love that so much. I like, I, I wouldn't, I i wouldn't be surprised if like we get to the end and it's like, oh yeah, no, actually, Glastiquena was the only one that knew what was going on. Like she was the only one that had a, had a tap. Like I'd be like, sure. Yup. Nope. Sounds right.
01:39:50
Speaker
That's sure. We're turned into such a weird book at this point that I don't. It's. Yeah. OK. I'm thinking back to like early, uh, first couple of arcs where the wards are talking and they're speculating about Taylor's powers. I think that's what it is. And one of them says like, maybe she has some sort of mind control or mind reading and they're like, no, nobody has a mind reading. And it's like, okay, first of all, look at the world you're in. ah You're going to say that with that much certainty. It's like this year where you're like, okay, first of all, you're calling, you're calling her crazy, but like,
01:40:26
Speaker
Have you looked around? Maybe she's not like, is it that hard to believe? Yeah. Maybe she's just a bit more in tune with something. Yeah. Yeah. I freaking love her so much. Oh my gosh. I don't actually know what she looks like. I haven't seen a picture of her, but like I kind of always imagined that I'm going to say this now before I look it up, but I always kind of imagined her very like, um,
01:40:52
Speaker
very elf like-like, almost like Lord of the Rings elf-like, but like her clothing is very, if she weren't in the birdcage and had to wear birdcage sweats, which maybe we should make those too, ah but like that she would wear like flowing, sheer fabric with like lots of layers and like binding cuffs and in and you know like circlets and you know shimmering veils and like total fairy vibes. like I absolutely love it.
01:41:22
Speaker
I kind of, I kind of actually imagined her, if you imagine like a, like a dark black or purple version of what I'm posting now, it's a fi from legend of Zelda, um, skyward sword, like the spirit of the master sword. It's kind of this like.
01:41:38
Speaker
The most annoying companion. won Well, I mean, Navi's up there. No, Phi is definitely worse. You said like a dark, but do you say dark? yeah Like a dark black, like almost like she's got stars in her. iss kind of Yeah. Yeah. love that getting I love that. So cute.
01:42:00
Speaker
That's cute. There's a lot that happens in this. whole This whole, this whole chapter with Cauldron is is one of the most fascinating. They know how the world ends, but obviously it's one of those things like, we know how the world ends. We're not gonna tell you. Yeah. We can't tell you because then we wouldn't know how the world ends. It's so stupid. My God. Oh, just the worst. It is, I don't know, it is sort of that, yeah, Jacob, you're right. It is that ultimate paradox of how many people are you willing to kill to save the world from a bigger threat? Yeah.
01:42:37
Speaker
Very interesting. Yeah. I love um you know i think Tattletale puts it really succinctly. um She says, get fucking real, which is just to me is the epitome of... I just i don't know. like I think the whole thing is tough and like I wouldn't want to have to be in the hot seat to like decide any of this. like i'm i i wouldn't i You don't want me in the hot seat. You don't want Hannah pushing the button here.
01:43:06
Speaker
But like we're all sitting around in the circle and it feels so far away. like It's happening, but it also feels like, will the end of the world happen? like like i don't a It's not real until it's happening. And so like the idea of like well we're just going to push the button with the idea that like well the world should be ending. And if it does, then we're fucked. But like we don't know how or when or why and like maybe we can try and circumvent it. So like we don't want to press the button too soon. Like I i get the, I get the, the issue. Yeah. Uh, I just, yeah. And I'm, it feels very much like, when we were fighting Behemoth, this idea of like, well, we have you know the the capes that are underground, all the cold capes. Like, well, we have we have our own you know stuff at play here. we can't We can't just like come out and help. Like we have our own issues. It's like, this is bigger than your little issues. So like, this is bigger than what you think. And Cauldron's big thing about like, oh, well, you know there's more going on here than this. And like, there's bigger stuff than end of the world. that's like And like, what do you mean bigger stuff than end of the world? like
01:44:18
Speaker
This is kind of the situation where we need to lay our cards on the table and like talk about what we know. And they're just not, they're just not willing to.
01:44:32
Speaker
Upsets me greatly. ah so Also fault lines crew is there as well, which. Yeah. You know, I don't know where they are. Why the hell are they there? Like we're talking about because they open portals.
01:44:48
Speaker
That's true. that the you know writer You're right. What do you mean? Of course they have to be there. You're big players. That's why all the big players are here. I do imagine that like one of the big things like tattletales there to see if the creator is there, which oh, my God, blow my fucking mind with the whole creator thing. I don't know why I thought that they had been created. Like the idea that the end bringers were brought into being by somebody who then like just chills on Earth like. The fuck?
01:45:20
Speaker
But that was cool. There's something real fucking going on. There's there is something real fucking going on and I'm I'm ready to know things. I think it was rotten in the state of these portals. The state of Denmark.
01:45:35
Speaker
Something's a little sick in pneumonia, Wisconsin. yeah oh gods it That's where I bring it back. Since they're on like alternate dimensions and realities, I like to think that they are in an alternate version of Wisconsin in in a city called. I love that so much. yeah That's where the bird cage is. The bird cage is hidden in pneumonia, Wisconsin. That's actually how it emptied out some of those other ones in an alternate world. It's Madison, but elsewhere.
01:46:05
Speaker
Madison wasn't the populated place it was, and it was just pneumonia. In pneumonia, Wisconsin.
01:46:12
Speaker
Chapter six. um Yes. for Before we do that really quick, I just have one last one last comment because i this is what happens when Hannah takes notes. Hannah has too many comments. um OK, so one crew is fucking pissed about something. It's guessing probably just everything, all the things. um But my end of episode thoughts were ah that this chapter specifically but This arc, obviously, I feel like shifts a lot of things, but like this chapter specifically is the moment that Worm goes, for me, from being about like a teenage girl who has powers living in a world of parahumans into this sci-fi end of the world alternate universe
01:47:01
Speaker
big deal scenario. like This is the point where everything, like this whole book, just it's no longer about Taylor and like Taylor figuring stuff out. And it's all of a sudden, it's about like cosmic level stuff here. And I think it's probably just because we've spent so much time in Brockton Bay and now like we've spent you know two chapters in Chicago, but But like this, I feel like this, everything with Cauldron and them talking about the end of the world and like this is the moment where the story has shifted. like This is not just a little superhero book. This is like a sci-fi end of the world kind of thing. And it changes the way that I read.
01:47:48
Speaker
I'm going to be reading now and like changes the way I think about the story, which I don't. I haven't decided yet if I like or not, but that's yeah. Well said. All I could think is before cauldron has kind of been, you know, the sinister background for us, but then we see cauldron and they're negotiating and whatnot. And they're so fucking cool. Like,
01:48:15
Speaker
I mean, they they hit you with that banger line, like, well, what makes you think you can save the world? It's like, that's what we do. We've already saved the world once. Oh, my gosh. I was like, how can we forget about that line? Fuck. We've already done it once, bitch. Yeah. Just like the concept of like that that there is a secret organization and they're making these big plans that, you know, result in like, you know, hundreds of thousands of people dying. But they've already saved the world and nobody knows about it.
01:48:45
Speaker
like whoo yeah this is good all right and chapter six six all right six the chapter that we all hate the time skip of death um taylor's 18th birthday congratulations taylor you're officially an adult Uh, Taylor goes back to Brockton Bay, uh, before being sworn into the protectorate, uh, visits, visits the, um, visits Regents little Memorial there and then meets up with the undersiders, uh, and kind of has a little bit of a reunion there. Um, and Jack slash makes his move.
01:49:40
Speaker
Yeah.
01:49:44
Speaker
Two years. Let's get all the good stuff out of the way. Yeah. Let's talk about, the let's let's talk about, let's talk about Boho and Toho. This is another one. This is another one. An interesting combo. The twins. Well, the sisters.
01:50:03
Speaker
Is what they're called. Sure. It is both. They're, they're called both at different times. so Okay. Okay. So, uh, you know, i hate like yeah we can't both be right. Everybody wins. Hannah. Now. Uh, I thought we were going with a similar theme from consoos. So we're going to stick with the Egyptian, uh, close. Uh, it's a lot of you would actually know this. Uh, Tohu wabohu.
01:50:34
Speaker
is a Hebrew phrase found in the book of Genesis, specifically the creation narrative. ah any any Any guesses as to what I mean, I looked it up, so. Old Testament class was a long time ago. It's sad years ago. It's the, it's the phrase describing the earth. So now the four, the earth was formless. Oh, void and shapeless and yeah. Yep. Void and shapeless. another one It's formless and empty. Yeah. Uh, it is those phrases, formless and empty or without form and void. You know, I like it.
01:51:15
Speaker
That's so interesting. Because I'm at that part in Supernatural also. Okay, moving on. Yeah. ah Which, you know, as much as it does sound like a Bionicle. Yep, it does. Okay. Not to be confused with Tahu, who I believe is the original Fire Bionicle. That's right, baby's kind. Or the yeah car, Tahoe. I'm just trying to get rid of it, okay. That's just a really slutty version of that Bionicle.
01:51:46
Speaker
I never made the connection. That's why I love Tahoes. Wow. A real hard on for Bionicles.
01:51:59
Speaker
ah so like you Rest in peace Bionicle. Um, but it, it also made me think that we're talking about how Boho is shaped because Boho is the tower one. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Bow who's the big one. is is it about mountain I thought it was like, it's like literally a spire yeah that like plants in the ground and then infects the whole city with traps and like mutations. Yeah.
01:52:26
Speaker
In my mind, which is she's a bit wider, but yeah, no, she's very, very much like a, like a, just a pillar. Yeah. I haven't looked up the the exact things, exact representation of that. I'm ah looking them up right now.
01:52:42
Speaker
Oh, but they were talking about she can vary in yeah tower like she can ah vary in height. She's been seen on occasions being 1300 feet or five miles tall, yeah ah which it for the record or is like yeah ah you're in above the atmosphere. Yeah, that was out of sight. I don't know about the five miles thing. That's pretty crazy.
01:53:07
Speaker
um But at least for the 1300 feet, if you've ever seen a masked radiator tower or like a broadcast tower for radio or television, you know, for like your local area, those can be, those start at like 200 feet and go up. There are some really freaking tall ones ah around here. um And I mean, some of those are like 1200 feet tall.
01:53:37
Speaker
Yeah. And I think about like, that is honestly bigger than what I think of when I think of end-brainers. Yeah. Alan and I talking about how like how tall behemoth is in the last episode of dissecting. Like not even half a tree. Yeah. I love how everything's measured by pine trees.
01:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, behavior that's 50 feet would like literally not even be noticed by Tohu, just it's, it's in fathomably larger.
01:54:14
Speaker
I'm like trying to look up references right now from NASA, how tall that is. Yeah, I didn't find Boho and Tohu, the Boho and Tohu art that I wanted, but I did find somebody who did like potential end bringers. And they, they did a bunch of artwork for like what could come. And it's yeah really good. By Pete Mornaker.
01:54:38
Speaker
Looks really cool. My gosh. Yeah. They're kind of weird too, right? So you've got Soto who's the tower, right? I'm trying to remember. yeah Yeah. Yeah. And then Bo who can imitate three capes at once and kind of protects Tohu. I was going to say it's literally just two fingers at Eidolon. I guess who else can take power. Like you could do the power thing, bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we lose annex in that first encounter.
01:55:12
Speaker
I guess so. We don't really say that. I looked it up and it was confirmed. The vibe was there, but they don't say it. It's basically Anak saying like, I wasn't fully in, I'm bleeding pretty bad and Grace saying, oh, we'll get to you. We'll be there in just a second. And then Taylor's like false promises.
01:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, you know, just but like such a bad. OK, no, sorry, we're supposed to be talking about good things. yeah But yes, no. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Five miles. um um I got to look up the numbers. Not as tall as I was thinking, but that's like commercial airliner where they fly. That's like five miles. So that's how, that's how tall Tohu is. Just like touching 747s. Big,
01:56:04
Speaker
big, I think is how yeah it' how people often say it. The correct. And Tohu, Tohu steals three powers. So she... Yeah, so Bohu is the tall one, Tohu is the power stealer. Yeah, Bohu's big, Tohu's small. How does she pick her targets? Because they mentioned that she picks Lung. And what's his name? The guy who died in the Behemoth fight?
01:56:38
Speaker
oh if Who did the big, the big bomb? Fiercei. Fiercei. Yeah. So so she has Long's power and Fiercei. That's like, well, Fiercei is dead before you emerged. And Long is in the fork and bird cage. So like, how the fuck are you picking your targets? Like, how are you picking your people, your three faces? Yeah, that's a a good question. I don't think they explain that. Just just knows things, I guess. Yeah. Creepy ass shit right there. Yeah.
01:57:10
Speaker
It can read minds, Hannah. It's upsetting. Maybe it can read memories. Ooh, that's good. I like that. So if it's fighting people who have fought those people before, it can be like, it just takes it all in and says, who's the best to defend me right now? There he picks. Gosh. Theorizing all sort of stuff over here.
01:57:32
Speaker
Yeah, we do lose annex which is very sad to me because his power is one of my favorite and very cool much like region It did feel maybe a bit too quick except this one was even quicker. Yeah i'm i have a no yeah Yeah I'm actually kind of recovering from that. I just even realized yeah, I liked him. I liked him a lot. Yeah. Yeah Um, and yeah, and, and grew as with the lady, red hand lady, the red, the red gloves, the red, what are they called? Uh, Coven. yeah That's the red hand, but I think Cozen, Cozen, Cozen, Cozen, Cozen, Cozen. Which Imps little thing about like, they're married now. Oh, but they're pregnant. Oh, but they're pregnant. Like oh no with fun shut up. Like, God. I love the setup for that.
01:58:26
Speaker
It was so good. Cause like you get this a moment, right? Cause like time skips or times pass and and they're they've grown, maybe they're more mature and you get a really kind of and a nice sweet interaction between Taylor and, and, em and you're like, okay, you know, maybe, maybe this is just sign of growth. And then, oh, immediate joke. Classic imp. Yep. Which immediate prank.
01:58:53
Speaker
this this This hinges a little bit on my issues, but I'll try not to talk about it too much. But i I think it's funny, but because so much of this this chapter is so confusing, it loses some of its funniness to me, and it just feels confusing, because like she doesn't say who's who's married. And at first, we think it's Parian and Flechette. Right.
01:59:19
Speaker
And then we realized like, oh, okay, I guess it's not, I guess it's grew and pull close in. and And then it's like, no, actually, no, they're not pregnant. They're not married, but they're pregnant. It's like, okay, well, that one clearly we know, like, okay, that's clearly, this is imp, but like,
01:59:40
Speaker
like some stuff imp says is like, we get that it's a joke and it's like, oh yeah, no, that's that's fucking hilarious. But because there's so much like happening in this chapter, it like i didn't When I did finally get that like, oh, she's she's she's messing with Taylor. like it i didn't It wasn't as fun as it could have been. Because I love imp's little practical jokes and yeah yeah and it just didn't hit the way I would have liked it to. I do love imppa imp got heartbreaker though. Yeah. Fuck yeah. I did like that.
02:00:17
Speaker
But also, is Kosen just wearing Renfaire garb? Because that's what it sounds like. ah It kind of does sound like that, yeah. Taylor, something that I read online that somebody pointed out is that ah yeah Taylor really does notice female bodies. Yes, she's like hyper-aware. Like, she's hyper-aware of Rachel's developments. She's hyper-aware of Kosen's outfit, which that makes more sense. She talks about imp. And then she's like, oh, Gru looks the same.
02:00:48
Speaker
Yeah, nothing's changed. Yeah, no, yeah, Closin has like the the white lacy chemise is like cinched tight around her bosom. Yeah, honestly, i once again, I think it was that that was giving me strong, like, you know, everybody wearing the bodices at the Renfaire vibe. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I mean, the the one the one artwork that I see here of her is like kind of looks like that. Yeah.
02:01:15
Speaker
Um, let's see, we've got that the dragon fly. I love it. Love the dragon fly. That's where we love the naming that that's perfect. Um, also there's a a line here that nobody else is going to care about, but if you know, you know, uh, there's a mention of the woman in blue fighting the simmer with the United capes. And that is something that we will all forget about until we come back to it and ward many years later.
02:01:45
Speaker
But I am very surprised that that got mentioned then. The woman in blue. The woman in blue, which keep in mind, we are going to spend in real world, like seven years. Is that right? One, two, three, four, five. No, no, no, no, no. Like five years until we hear mention of the woman in blue and wild those writings again. Wow. Yeah. What a plan. He really does plant. ah You really does. Plant crumbs.
02:02:16
Speaker
And the great thing about this is you can just mention the woman in blue and just like, ah if I come back to it, I come back to like sleeper. Uh, if I ever want to explain that, you know, or I want to come back to this character, I've got so many, I could just pick a hundred and I've, you know, tapped into 1%.
02:02:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's ah like great to have that kind of breath in writing. Yeah. Like I love when we revisited mouse protector in like the flashback. Yeah. Like I thought that was so fun. Like, cause there's so many capes being thrown around and like you, all you hear is their names are like, maybe their mentions of their, of their powers. It's like, Oh, that, Oh, that's cool. You know, as they whizzed by, you're like, Oh, there it goes. Airwolf. Airwolf. We love all love airwolf.
02:03:06
Speaker
A number one character, honestly, yeah all of wyrm, air wolf, 100%. And if you love air wolf too, let us know in the comments. I want to see fan art of air wolf. Me too. Hell yeah. Write wild bow and tell him that air wolf was your favorite character.
02:03:26
Speaker
oh Confused the shit out of it. Yeah, he's going through notes as quick as he can. I don't remember. Maybe I did. I have so many. You know? Just to say I didn't. We're gonna get him on the podcast one day and he's gonna be like, okay guys, I have a question. Who the fuck is Airwolf? What do you mean who the fuck is Airwolf? You made him.
02:03:48
Speaker
I should be asking you that for those who don't know air wolfs trigger event. Alan is trying to remember storm tiger and he was also trying to remember hook wolf. And then he thought air wolf, air wolf was just storm tiger, but I couldn't remember cause it was just, he was shooting all the air blasts out and I just couldn't. And, but air, air wolf was cannon now. So that is true.
02:04:16
Speaker
All right, do we wanna get into the and nitty gritty of why this time skip doesn't work more? um Hold on, let me think about if I have any other good things to say about this chapter. Oh, I do love the... um ah So Regent's little little memorial with the masks, I think is really cool. But I didn't understand the rings. What are what are all the rings?
02:04:42
Speaker
So remember he a heartbreaker got married a lot and had a lot of kids. Like he forced famous people to marry him. yeah And this is her collecting all those rings now that he's dead and gone. Solid. Okay. Got it. That makes that tracks. I just was like unsure, but that no, that makes sense. Okay, cool.
02:05:08
Speaker
Also, I do really like that little moment where Taylor's like talking to Regents Memorial. us Yeah. it's It's really nice. it's Really sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Um, ah you and I do think that is, that is the, I don't know, ah good the good way to handle Regent. Like, yeah, I, I, I met you and encountered you and you were,
02:05:32
Speaker
Well, not a good guy, but an okay guy. And like, it doesn't make up for how terrible of a person you were, but like, he's he's a complicated character to handle. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I thought that was a, her, her talking to him also. Yeah. Just really good. Not just a good, uh, character moment and a good writing, but also, uh, sort of a good.
02:05:59
Speaker
Some closure explanation for wild bow to talk about region. Yeah. And it gives him closure. Like the whole gang is here together now. Like we're all meeting up and like, even though region's not here, like we're still meeting right next to his Memorial, you know? Yeah.
02:06:23
Speaker
Well, I think I'm ready. Do we want to do all disaster? We want to talk about the interlude and then just finish with time skip or? Oh, maybe we should. Maybe that's, that's for the best. Or do we just get angry now and then talk about the interlude? Let's just get angry now and then purge with that. And then purge with the interlude because I enjoy the interlude. Fair enough. If you'll allow me, cause we've talked about this a lot before, but I think I have time to structure my opinions a little bit more. So I was thinking about what
02:06:55
Speaker
what time skips happen in other medias in which we're looking for a time skip that's comparable for this. So you can't have the time skip at the beginning as like ah you know a prologue of chapter one movement. We need something near the end or halfway at the very least, um which got me into thinking about, well, worm isn't a a one like body thing as much as a singular movie would be. So let's look at trilogies or multiple you know movies in a series that have time skips in between um because that's way more recognized as okay.
02:07:41
Speaker
um you know There's good a good decent amount of time period before between a couple. For those of you who like the Batman series, you know, we've got a decent amount of time that's unspecified between the first and second movie in the Christopher Nolan Batman, and then like eight fucking years in between the second and the third um that we just kind of like roll into. And things are explained with you know, essentially Gordon giving his little speech about the eight years yeah explaining what's happened since. Um, and which is once again, very comparable to what we're about to talk about. So in my mind, what sets this apart from Batman dark night rises and it is that this is happening in the middle.
02:08:38
Speaker
slash end of an arc. It is ah yeah it's the end of an arc, but it's, it's capping it off and giving us this little extra that we just, if this had been, you know, and not just an arc, but like an overarching arc, as we talk about seasons kind of in our other podcast that like everybody recognizes that, you know,
02:09:05
Speaker
uh, arcs one through eight all go together. You know, you have a slaughterhouse nine arc that is also a set of arcs. And this one. Doesn't like, what is this capping off? Is this just the turning arcs of Taylor? Like what, what, what are we doing here? It it feels very out of place. Doesn't feel like it has a lot of structure to it. So not only does this not have a good place to exist, or it's not put in a place to exist. This isn't the opening to a new set of arcs for us like that, you know, like that movie is The Dark Knight Rises, where this could have been the opening to arc 26 of Taylor doing this, but it also has this weird, let's all get back together all of a sudden.
02:10:00
Speaker
when we, once again, that would have been good, literally, probably the next chapter. If we just did that in the next opening to the next arc, I think this would have done a lot better. I think so. But inside of itself, it is very confusing in terms of its perspective. I know that I at least had to read it multiple times to figure out what the heck was going on because we are yeah and essentially getting the news, we're getting exposition through the news, which is like one of the laziest forms of writing, in my opinion. And she's like going over to tapes and history. Like this is the ultimate yeah ah tell, don't show example. yeah right um And then we get there and it's,
02:10:56
Speaker
I mean, we catch up, but it's kind of unsatisfying. Like, this is capping off. Once again, this is capping off, I think. So should this should feel like an epilogue to this arc instead of a weird transfer into the next one. You could have opened the next arc up with her talking to these people and then going, hey, I've got to go. And then like not explaining what's happened in the meantime, just have off comments of like, man, you fought a lot of end bringer since then or something. She goes, has her swear in, man, it's been a rough two years, you know, or something. Chevalier can give a speech as he inducts Weaver into the Hall of Fame. Like this, you could have had that Gordon speech
02:11:46
Speaker
explaining what's been going on in the past two years and that Weaver is this sign of survival and change in the face of like Weaver's gone up against all of them. At this point, Weaver has been in every single and bring has fought every single and bring her to so of course she's going to be inducted into the protectorate.
02:12:05
Speaker
um So overall, it just terrible placement within its own chapter. ah Terrible placement in the arc. This is At least the opening for this to explain how like it really is just the opening, the opening for this to explain the two year gap is the bad part. I think the rest of this actually would be acceptable, but it's ruined by that opening her sitting in the plane looking at the yeah video. And now I will shut the fuck up.
02:12:41
Speaker
No, I think you're right. And like those good I think also opening with Tectin being on the phone with her and being like, like we've we've already had we literally just had this in the previous episode where he's on the phone with her and he's like, where did you go? What are you doing? You disappeared. like where Where were you? And she's like, I mean, I was at Cauldron. And so like we have already had this thing where he's on the phone being like, where are you? What are you doing?
02:13:11
Speaker
and And now we're starting with that also again, like we're having another moment like that. It's like, why do we have to have... It feels it makes it seem a lot more closer than it actually is. And so that throws it off because you're thinking, okay, well, it's you know relatively quick after you know the last conversation we had. like I thought that this was...
02:13:32
Speaker
Like when we started the the chapter, I thought it was she's going, she's headed to the next. She says she's late for the meeting. I assumed she's headed to another cauldron meeting because they said they would meet again. And I'm assuming that's like a month later and it's not. And, and it gives, it just, I felt like I, it gave me whiplash. Like I just didn't know where we were. I didn't know what we were doing. And I understand like,
02:13:57
Speaker
Wildo's trying to set it up so that when we arrive in Brockton Bay, she steps her foot on the sand, you go, oh my gosh, wait, is she back home? Like, is she home again? Like she's 18, I guess she can go home. And it's supposed to feel like this like homecoming moment with the reunite, like reuniting of of the undersiders. But it doesn't, it just feels confusing. And it doesn't feel like we know what's going on. It doesn't feel like we've earned a reunion. It just feels like we're we're being thrown into another situation where we don't know where we are again.
02:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking, yeah, ah go ahead go ahead. Nick, no, no, no. you all you I was just going to say, i I think it is. A lot of it does come from the fact that it's coming right off of the edge of that conversation with Tekton. So it makes it feel like it's an immediate thing. And there's no, there's very little awareness that it's a time skip. So there's a lot. And I get that maybe like, that's kind of the point is like, Oh, like,
02:14:56
Speaker
Look at this fun, like, ah, trick to you. It's a time skip, but I don't know. Haha, trick to you. Haha. Throws you in the pool. Like, God damn it. What was that?
02:15:07
Speaker
inks wildfo inks wild though Also the thing that like, okay, so the reason we love and are so attached to the undersiders is because we've we've we've experienced life with them. We've interacted with them. We've seen all their individual personalities. We've gotten to know them. We've gotten to learn their dynamics, how they work together. When when when ah Bitch shows up and hugs Taylor, that is such like a huge moment of like,
02:15:36
Speaker
Oh my gosh, like she could have just come at her, but she didn't. She hugged her. And then she says like, well, they told me I should either hug you or punch you. And like, well, never beating the allegations there, by the way. I just read a post today that was like, um, what's up with those two? What's up with Taylor? Taylor? Taylor gay or bi at the very least.
02:16:02
Speaker
Well, anyways, and I was thinking you I was thinking more friendship wise, but the idea that like they come in, you but you feel the emotion there because it's like we've, we've built this relationship over, you know, 25, 24 arcs. And it feels, it feels earned in that way to like have that. But the thing is, is that.
02:16:22
Speaker
He even said, Tecton even says that she's been with the wards way longer than she ever was with the undersiders. And yet, I don't even remember all their names. And as a reader, like I want to see her build those relationships. And I want to see that relationship with the wards as well because I like the idea of this warring of you know your two families and like the the two teams that were your family for so long and like and And so yeah I think that if we had more of a relationship with the wards, that this this reunion with the Undersiders would feel even more complicated, which I think would be a good thing.
02:17:04
Speaker
and it just i I feel like I was cheated out of all of the life that Taylor lived with the warts that I wanted to experience and I wanted to see and I didn't get I didn't get any of it. Like I got what one training session with with golem and one, you know, block of them running and a shaky body cam of them in the middle of a fight for 30 seconds. Like it just I feel cheated.
02:17:35
Speaker
And I, I don't know, I just, I got so excited about the idea of her working with the wards. And when she switches, she becomes a weaver. It's like, there's this whole new chapter of who Taylor's going to be. And I'm so excited for it. And I want to see it. And she's finally getting to be the hero and build this whole new team of of here. and i And then we just, it just, it's gone. It's not there. and And now she's joining the Protectorate. So like now she's not even a ward anymore. Like,
02:18:03
Speaker
i just I feel so cheated out of that a potential, all the relationships. And then now found out what's his face, died in the attack, <unk> it like and And i'm not I'm not worried. I'm not upset. like I've sobbed when Regent died. like And I realized like not everybody was... you know Not everybody, as Alan said before, people you know quit reading at that point because they realized they're not as emotionally attached. But like for me, it was big.
02:18:29
Speaker
And I want that same feeling. I love stories that make me cry, but this is why I love worms so much because there's such strong emotion that comes from it. It's like this could have been so good. Like just it it does didn't even need to be super long. Like I would have been satisfied with like two arcs maybe. And I didn't get any of it. Like I got a half-assed arc with, you know, one good heist in the snow. Yeah.
02:19:00
Speaker
I think, I think probably I may have said this already, but to kind of reiterate it, my guess is that wild bow was feeling the pressure between wanting to get what he pro get to the parts that he probably thought. This is what my fans want to see. Right. Versus this is what I like. I don't know. This is arc 25. Right. We know that there's what 33 in the end.
02:19:28
Speaker
Yeah. or third I mean, this whole section could have taken probably 10 arcs. Yeah. Oh yeah. And, and so I can imagine too, maybe there's also that sort of sense of weariness of like, okay, let's just. Yeah. Let's just get to the good stuff. And maybe one day I can go back and write a sequel, prequel thing that goes through all of this.
02:19:50
Speaker
I don't know. I can kind of get it. It is sad, but, yeah you know, yeah no I think you're right. And like, I think that the idea that like, he's been doing this for so long. He has other stories he wants to tell. Like he wants to, he wants to tell the next story in the universe, but that isn't Taylor. And so it's like, I have these readers who want the end. We're wrapping up. We're coming, what feels like we're coming to a climactic, you know, moment.
02:20:16
Speaker
We defeated and an end bringer, but now there's three more. And it like it it it makes sense to be like, I want this to be the the culmination of the story. I'm still mad, but I i do totally i do totally get it. like i've i Would you like to hear from Wild Bo, his thoughts on this? yeah Yeah. Okay. So collected and posted by Caken on Reddit.
02:20:44
Speaker
um from the pig's pen, his blog, the time skip. I'm thinking I'll rewrite it wholesale. Events will remain the same, but Taylor's story really demands more focus on this point in time. The fundamental problem was the story arc was that we jumped ahead 1.5 years and it was rushed. It was jarring due to the switch from a day-to-day focus to skipping months and weeks over the course of six or so chapters.
02:21:09
Speaker
I'm thinking I'll break it up into two new arcs. One, that likely consists of interludes, many of the same events of Taylor's story, but from the perspective of her teammates and superiors to help a time skip segue. More involvement with her new team and more focus on her and her changes or lack of change. This would mandate some time to set aside to put those new chapters together.
02:21:33
Speaker
And a later comment he has, I have not for the record stated that I'm adding material to the time skip. I've stated that I intend to rewrite it as in replacing the material that is there. And then from 25.6 is comment section. He wrote, I'll make it short and simple. I've had a lousy month with a lot on my plate. This arc.
02:21:57
Speaker
slash the time skip is something I've been mulling over in my head since I had the conception of where I was taking the story rather early on. And notes said this, either the comments or IRC. While I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do about the things that came before and the things that came after, I wasn't sure about how to handle the time skip. The thing about writing is sometimes you just have to write. You have doubts, you write through something until it becomes clear.
02:22:23
Speaker
You need to figure out how you're going to make a character work. You write until it crystallizes. Need to figure out a problem or how to make dialogue work. You write it. I aim to tackle the time skip by trusting my gut and writing it out. Much as I have done with other aspects of the story that turned out well. Except I was tired and distracted and I was doing a lot in very short spans of time.
02:22:44
Speaker
Most months I write about 70k words. That's the medium sized. This month I did that a little more than that in a fraction of the time.
02:22:56
Speaker
Incidentally, this idea of just right is part of why I'm not about to take a vacation and write side stories instead or simply take a long hiatus. The work benefits more from steady writing and maintaining my habits and flow more than anything else. My vacation earlier in the month only served to force me to write two chapters a full quarter of a book by pure word count in a 24 hour period and the disruption of the vacation threw me off my stride. This arc is the product of that with one or two well received chapters in the middle, which I wrote without disruption and rougher chapters on either end. I didn't have the benefit of time to mull things over. I didn't have unin uninterrupted time to write. who Holy a shit.
02:23:45
Speaker
yeah I mean, so once again, lest we ever forget that this is, this is the floor in terms of you know quality of writing. And I would say there's a good gap between this chapter and his other stuff, um like a very good gap. And his writing is quality overall.
02:24:11
Speaker
oh yeah Oh yeah. And and like it goes without saying too, unlike problems in a lot of other rushed ah sections of shows and movies, television more so um I think of here, where you get to the end and the creators are like, All right, here we go. And we're going to get to the end and there's your ending. Unlike those, no spoilers, of course, but like the next few arcs of worm are fire just like, yeah, so good. And so it's, it hurts now for a moment. Cause it's a bit of a law and like a down, like a down slope, but like,
02:24:50
Speaker
It gets so good. It does an amazing job. So there's always that sort of thing in the back of my mind when I get to this point. yeah it's you know ah has I just wish this was written a little bit better. I would like to have more time, yada, yada.
02:25:04
Speaker
you know but It's coming. The good stuff's coming, which is helpful. I think this is why i've and and I'll rescind. This is bad. I have defended the time skip before, um but in terms of like in the moment and I stand by, I literally think just if the beginning of this, the actual two-year jump at the beginning of this chapter was different. I think the chapter would be better, and I think the whole arc would be better, not as good as the others, but it would be better. And I think because of the way I've read it, not week to week, and you just go, I think you just skip over this, like not
02:25:48
Speaker
Not like you're not hanging out on it. Whereas for us, I have to read this and I have to sit for two weeks and mull about it. Or if you, you know, were you were a week to week reader, you had to read this and then luckily, you know, you got the interlude to like kind of cleanse the palette, you know, so you had a week before you had to read, you know, got to read the next arc, which is fire, as we've described, like it's. If you are just going and you are binge reading this,
02:26:19
Speaker
Yeah, this is a lull, but you are moving fast enough across the top of the water that you just bounce right over this. It's like, what, 20 minutes, half an hour of your time, and then you're and then you're on to the next try. You say, yeah, if you're a slow reader. yeah Okay. You're listening to the audiobook, maybe. The audiobook is like 50 minutes, by the way. Yeah, don yeah the audiobook is long. oh I do have to just point out, i was i I did find in my mind the perfect comp for this right now, which I was like, what other time skip happens halfway through the story in which the first half is told very slowly and the second half is sped up. And I landed on Rent, the musical.
02:27:04
Speaker
where the first act one is over the course of a day and act two is over the course of a year. And it is very jarring. And everybody who loves RENT, myself included, well, I'll tell you, it's stupid. It's so hard to follow and makes no sense and everybody hates it. But that's all I could think about while I was watching this. Really, I was thinking about, okay, here's where we place the musical numbers. Okay, so here's the solo. All right, nice. Yeah.
02:27:34
Speaker
We're in the musical. No, I guess and I hate rent. But if you did rent as instead of a, you know, New York liberal being, in you know, terrible, you just have Taylor, a teenager who thinks she's making all the right decisions, even though she's a villain terrorizing people, thinking that she's OK, but it's terrible. Like, you know what? I get it. I think I could do that.
02:28:01
Speaker
but I love it. Pallet cleanser, everyone. Yeah, absolutely. We'll get through this and then I'll apologize to Michael. Oh my God, this has gone so long. I didn't realize. Michael, I'm so sorry.
02:28:23
Speaker
ah Interlude with Bonesaw. Bonesaw puts Jack in Stasis, works on making the slaughterhouse clones. ah We have a brief meeting with Contessa and Riley, as Bonesaw's actual name is, ah meets a boy and then everybody wakes up. The slaughterhouse nine is back, baby.
02:28:46
Speaker
bu bla wow And it's not just the Slaughterhouse-9 anymore. It's the Slaughterhouse-9 expanded ah director's competition. Okay. they They give it a name later. I'm just going to go and bring it up because it doesn't spoil anything. They call themselves the Slaughterhouse-9,000. Is that cheesy or good? yeah It's too it's so cheesy, but when has that ever stopped a guy named Jack Slash? it That's great. i mean I mean, slightly jumping into it, but his like opening line is,
02:29:17
Speaker
A bit pretentious, isn't he? Said fucking Jack Slash, the Johnny Depp of villains. I love him so much. Glad one person does.
02:29:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I definitely appreciated having Bonesaw's, I guess, not quite trigger event, but backstory a little bit. um That's horrifying. And I wouldn't expect anything less ah from from our favorite ah favorite little little murderer. It's so good. It's so good. It's so, so good. It's very well written. Yes. It feels like um this is like the little treat, the tasty treat after we've just survived the last chapter. And now it's like you get rewarded for doing such a good job. Like, I'm so proud of you. You did so good here. Have a little bit of bone saw for you.
02:30:22
Speaker
Um, and, and, and this, this just her in the house, like running from room to room to room, like, Oh my God. And, uh, wow. Just wow. I honestly, this is what I was wanting out of the slaughterhouse nine visiting Brockton Bay. Like.
02:30:45
Speaker
When we talk about the shard of glass, you know keeping Cherish awake from three days, we you know we talk about this where she's running around trying to heal them and it's breaking her.
02:30:55
Speaker
Like, this is what I expected of the slaughterhouse nine, not fucking mannequin getting his ass handed to him three times consecutively. Not them just getting absolutely destroyed by a bunch of teenagers right off the bat. Like, this is what I was... i Honestly, the slaughterhouse nine, and we'll have a quick aside, Jacob, I think they would do better as a smaller group of serial killers, and less as a supervillain group, just a thought.
02:31:22
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, back, back to this podcast. Yeah. Um, so bones, I'll put them all on stasis, but then she decides why I don't want to put myself in cause then he's going to be here to wake them up. Who's got, you know, we got to make sure their brains are all good. Uh, which I love that she's thinking about that too. She's like, all right, we gotta make sure the brains are good. Make sure like, like, how do we create recreate these people, right? Not just clones with their powers, but the people, and that's so interesting.
02:31:54
Speaker
um And then just her with her actual self, Riley, um and her meeting somebody, talking, meeting Contessa, that whole like, Contessa being like, you're gonna give us the, ah you're gonna give us the key to these people. And she's like, I'm not gonna betray Jack. And she's like, no, you will. You don't see it yet, but you will. you Just that confidence of like, we know it's gonna happen.
02:32:21
Speaker
um Oh, it's so interesting. I don't know, it's crazy. It's a very crazy little interlude. I love her teaching Blasto how to do the like ABC song. Oh, yeah. And then Blasto dies, which is sad, but you know, what a life he had. Good for him. Honestly, yeah. That was a breath of fresh air, just like, oh, relief.
02:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but he's still like his muscles are still moving the, ah just the dancing, but and it's not. Yeah. She tries to cuddle with him, but he's cold. Cause he's cold and he's dead. It's so It's so bone So bone size. Like, Oh gosh. Okay. But at the end though, the big reveal is that she's planning to potentially betray Jack Slash. Yes. Which is a big deal. It's a big deal. Like all this time alone gave her time to think and realize, you know, maybe maybe I want Riley to win, but not Bonesaw. It's almost like she's kind of going split personality, but not quite there exactly. Yeah. um It's so interesting. Well, she starts at the beginning of the interlude thinking about him as daddy, which is, I mean, yeah, obviously, but like,
02:33:42
Speaker
But she calls it when she calls him like he's like the dad of the family of the slaughterhouse nine if they are a little family and she's the little daughter and he you know, he reads her shut shut up and he like reads her bedtime stories like, you know, and and so like if we start the the interlude with her basically being like, oh, yeah, Daddy Jack and then we're ending it with her fake ass smile like this fake smile lying straight to his face knowing that they're they're like this is She's made her own plans while he slept. And I i love that shift. It's so fun. So, so fun. Go Bonesaw. Go Riley. It's so interesting and so intricate. And...
02:34:29
Speaker
And then, yeah, okay, so she makes tons of clones of everybody, except for herself. She's worried she can't get herself right, which I think makes sense. I'm like, okay, I get it. I don't think that's why she was doing it. Also, she just doesn't want to, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's more to it. She didn't try. Yeah, she didn't really try. That's fair. It's like her reasoning, but it's not like the real reason.
02:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So who does she make? She makes a ton of everybody. I love the little tea party between her and Damsel and then yeah her putting Alan down, basically. Yeah. There's yeah there's not just, where when they start all stepping out, there's a ton of Alans.
02:35:10
Speaker
that are all perfectly human because they have yet to mod themselves. Yeah. Yep. And a bunch of meds who is crawling. Yeah. It's like, oh, give them time. We'll all torture the shit out of him and then he'll be back to snuff. I bet he named himself the masochist.
02:35:32
Speaker
probably ah would try yeah legally changed it to ne and ne yeah say my shame my name that ah
02:35:46
Speaker
I refuse to believe that somebody out there named their child Ned on purpose. I once made out with a Ned at a New Year's Eve party.
02:35:58
Speaker
I wouldn't admit that on a podcast. You can cut that Michael. We all know it's short for, we all know it's short for Nedward, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was, and I thought it was not nothing. Not Nathan.
02:36:15
Speaker
yes Ned Daniel. Yeah. Ned Daniel. There we go. daniel methan so bad and muel he says okay we're moving ah ah is okay is the guy ah Is the kid at the shop that she talks to, is he creepy? Cause I can't tell. also Kid is a strong word. He's not a kid, right? He's in his thirties and yes, he's a pedophile. Oh.
02:36:45
Speaker
oh
02:36:49
Speaker
I clearly missed something when I was throwing my wreath through. I must have missed that. Yeah, because she mentions like she she sees him watching her like through the mirrors that are set up in the store. Yeah. And then she's like, is he does he recognize me? No. Is he doing this? No. And she's like, and then she smiles and she's like, oh, I know why he's doing that.
02:37:10
Speaker
And it's like, oh. I think that's the guy's, I think that's the other guy's dad. I don't think that's the guy that she talks to later. Is that true? I thought that was him the whole time. Because she seems to get a good vibe from the other guy later, but I don't know. Maybe not. Because she does say that he has long hair and then later she's like, oh, you had got a haircut. I like the haircut.
02:37:31
Speaker
Yeah. Cause he even invites her over and she's like, you know why I can't do that. And but before she like played it off ah um and then when she leaves, he's like, yeah, she's like, yeah, now be good. I'm going to leave now.
02:37:47
Speaker
Okay, so stupid Hannah. I just, I read that as like, oh, and he's watching her through the mirrors. Like, oh, cause she's, I mean, she's a, like, she's not a child child anymore. Like she's, she's a girl, a teenager, pretty teenager.
02:38:02
Speaker
I guess. She's modified herself to stay looking young, even though she's... Holy shit, that's right. Okay, so... She's forever, like, what, 12, I think, or something like that? She's a forever puppy. Okay, I think mentally I just thought that she was fine when she wasn't. Now, she does kind of age herself back up.
02:38:24
Speaker
at the end. I thought she aged herself back down. She aged herself back down. Technically, she's supposed to be... Back down, sorry, that's right. Back down, yeah. She hits puberty because she gets her first period and she's like, fuck. She's like, gross. Instant hysterectomy. She is supposed to be in the... She's supposed to be in one of the tubes. She's supposed to be in a test tube this whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, right. She ages herself down to make herself... Look like she had just recently stepped out.
02:38:50
Speaker
Yeah, okay, I remember it now. i I kind of read this one quick, so I'm like piecing it together, right? But, okay, so who are some of the people she makes she makes besides that? She makes winter. She's an interesting one. She's an entropy user, which is so fascinating.
02:39:09
Speaker
Basically like, um, so entropy is like the winding down of all things, right? Like energy will slowly dissipate out of the universe. yes Um, and so essentially it sounds like she can influence that and like localize it. So that way, entropy, the effects of entropy speed up. Um, I'm going to pair a human's wicked though, ah because I want to make sure I get that right. But that was what I think bone saw said, uh, causes, uh, inertia, inertia as well, increasing.
02:39:39
Speaker
What do you say? Temperature. A dampening effect. Heat can seep out. Losing inertia. Energy attacks lose their fizzle. Humans lose their willpower. um And she could even concentrate it in a smaller area, ah halting all the motion. um Which is interesting. But then there's, I'm trying to remember who else there is. Chuckles. Chuckles. A speedster. Horrifying. Everybody hates clowns.
02:40:08
Speaker
ah We've got a couple of the combos. Wombo combo. We brought Murder Rat back, but smoothed out. Yes, love that, love that. ah Tyrant back, which is another smoothed out double.
02:40:24
Speaker
um She made some new ones. Crimson comes back. I'm sorry, Tyrant is a new one. Tyrant is King and somebody else. I think King was himself.
02:40:37
Speaker
Cause we have the beta. We have, we yeah you have combos of, because so she made, she does all the capes and then as a fun little like side project, she does a couple other mashups. I'm trying to pull the, I'm pulling it right now. Cause I want to see what the list was at the last chapter. Okay. So water house, 9,000.
02:40:58
Speaker
Oh, that's a good idea to pull it up like that. Yeah. Okay. So there's the originals, uh, Jack slash bone, saw hook, wolf, skin, slip and night hag. There's a five of them. Uh, then there's one gray boy in five hybrid cakes, nine Kings, nine screamers, nine harbingers, nine breeds, nine crimsons, nine nixes, nine psychosomas, nine cherishes.
02:41:23
Speaker
Nine hatchet faces, nine miasmas, nine murder rats, nine mannequins, nine siberians, nine crawlers, nine chuckles, nine winters, nine nice guys, nine night hags, nine skin slips, nine shatterbirds, nine burn scars, nine damsels of distress. Holy fucking shit. It's a lot of nines. Nine thousand? Quite a few. Not quite nine thousand.
02:41:49
Speaker
It's a lot of people though. God, it's like, yeah, it doesn't, lot of it doesn't list, it doesn't list all the hybrids though. So one of them is probably tired then. Yeah. Flightful. There's so many of them now. This was hard before this is going to be fucking impossible now, but she did. So Contessa had said something about basically like putting in a, it sounded like the equivalent of a dead man switch.
02:42:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it sounded like she did like she put a switch in to just insta-kill if she needed to. That's what it kind of sounds like. I don't know if that's what she did, but it's what it sounds like she did.
02:42:36
Speaker
But excited. I freaking I freaking love the slaughterhouse nine. I think they're very fun. So I'm glad to have them back. Back with the vengeance. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's very, and then there's one gray boy. Um, yeah because as bone saw says, Jack could only control one gray boy. h And in the fact that bone saw feels afraid of seeing him like make eye contact and come talk to her yeah shows like, like, ah okay. Like, like I love that. Cause it adds this weight to who this character is.
02:43:13
Speaker
Um, and she says like he has a knowing look, like he knows that she's planning to betray them, but he's like, cool with it. and It's such a, it's such a good vibe. I don't know. Yeah. He's got a strong, uh, what's a full metal alchemist brotherhood. What is the, um, the, the shadow one with all the eyes? Uh, pride. Oh, pride. Yeah. Right. Is it pride? Yeah. Strong pride energy.
02:43:43
Speaker
Uh, especially given the little like young boys school outfit. yes They're like, they're like little friends now. Yeah. And the fact that he like, he's not wearing clothes in and then he steps out and all of a sudden like shifts a little and he has clothes on like, nice no explanation. It's really weird. I will say this one. He almost feels like.
02:44:15
Speaker
A recreation of the actual one or like a reincarnation of the real gray boy. Rather because of stuff like that, right? Rather than, Oh, he's a clone of gray boys. Like um what a is this just the real him? Like somehow come back.
02:44:29
Speaker
His powers are real wacky too, we'll get into that later. He's a crazy cape in terms of wackiness. I feel like he's like extra buckets of trouble, but I can't remember why, and I don't know what his powers are, and I feel like there's things with- It's real fucky Hannah. There's history with him and Jack too, right? There's some major stuff that happened, but I just don't know what it is. And you can tell by the way that she talks about him in Like in here, like how afraid as she is of him. It's like in, and he's just.
02:45:03
Speaker
ah
02:45:06
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. Should be happening. Yeah. I, uh, I just, real like, I just realized how the, uh, the looking it up, but I figured out how the, uh, the clothing works, which is real interesting. Cause I did not know that before.
02:45:24
Speaker
Oh, you looked up how his clothing works. Oh, interesting. Yeah. but Less like a specific thing. on yeah He comes out of the tube empty, d like not empty. I'm sorry. He comes out of the tube naked. And then all of a sudden he's dressed. Cause like, not I know his regular power though. He comes out naked. They all do come out naked. And except for him, cause he steps out and all of a sudden he's fully clothed in his little schoolboy outfit. And, um,
02:45:51
Speaker
And I know what his power is. So it's really weird that that is the case. And so I was like, why the heck is that? You know, how is that related to his power? And then I looked and was like, Oh, delightful.
02:46:07
Speaker
Yeah. I think it's, uh, I think it's probably about that time. Favorite powers. Yeah. Classic one. Yay. All the time, all every day forever and ever. Amen. Yeah. There's a lot.
02:46:20
Speaker
A lot of powers in this one. Mordenag gets a pretty cool cool mention. ah yeah Probably mine, I think, just because we get a pretty good description and some fight scenes with her as well. So kind of get to see it in action. It's pretty fun. Mordenag, definitely super cool. Would have been mine, ah but I'll go with Topsy Turvy. I really have always enjoyed the idea of just shifting around you know, which direction gravity's going. That's fun. I think that's a really, really cool power, especially given how like, if you're just out in the open, they are screwed. Yeah, right. Nowhere to go, but up. Yeah, that, that part's very cool. I think watch kind of as well, where it's like, similarly, it's like, if he gets to you, then you're screwed, right? Kind of a similar thing.
02:47:19
Speaker
Um, so I like watch for that reason. I do think more nog though, like that power, whatever it is, is incredible. And I, I'm just like blown away by it. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that there's much many other powers that could top it. I'm gonna be honest for new powers. Yeah, definitely not. Yeah. Oh yeah. For new powers for sure. That's the Gwen is up there as well. They're both, both very cool.
02:47:47
Speaker
Yeah, we don't really know what she does yet. I mean, we know because we remember kind of, but. Oh, I don't, I don't remember. I just know that you've got a case of the wormnesia. I do. I just remember that she's, I just remember that the last time I read this, that she was one of my favorite capes and ah she appeared and I had to say her because I love her. And also she's so freaking cool. yeah's I love, I love everything about her. Well, well.
02:48:14
Speaker
All righty. Any final ah thoughts on Ark 25? Beautiful. ah ah Not the most exciting, but it ended well with a great interlude. Probably one of the best. so Yeah, very, very good interlude. Get hyped. I'm ready. I'm ready and raring to jump into 26. Ark 25, no longer my best friend. Ark 26 is my best friend.
02:48:45
Speaker
Thank you all a for joining. I say that to you all as in this group, thank you. This has been a lot of fun. And thank you to you all, big gesture to the audience for listening good to our to our rants and our rambles and all of our nonsense we've been going on. Who knows? We've been recording for three hours. So I guess we'll see what that ends up looking like on the cutting room floor, little behind the scenes sneak peek.
02:49:13
Speaker
See how much of that is useful. How did it get longer after he edited it? of Three and a half hours. Like what happened? Where did all that extra content come from?
02:49:26
Speaker
But speaking of extra content, we do not record extra content for our beautiful patrons who have ah made a lot of this possible, keeping us going. If you enjoy, if you've if you've been listening for 25 arcs and have enjoyed our content, we'd love to have you over there.
02:49:47
Speaker
We got a Discord, we got patrons, we got bonus content, we got clips, ah stuff that was cut. ah Other episodes on Worm and Not Worm, a whole bunch of fun stuff. Come and join us. Have a blast. We'd love to have you. And if not, that's cool too. Thank you so much for listening. We love reading all of your comments on YouTube and Reddit and Instagram and our other platforms. A lot of really fun thoughts. Love hearing from the community. So keep it coming.
02:50:14
Speaker
And next week, join Alan and myself for an episode of Dissecting Worm. We're going to be dissecting Arc 25. And then following that, Arc 26. Slaughterhouse nine. Thousand. Things get good. And with that, Michael, what do you do with the honors of playing us out?