BBBC Reads Ward - Arc 20.10 - 20.end - Last

Transcript

Speaker: Good evening, perpetuity, sweet never-ending city of Gimel. Were they right to leave? Were we right to bring them back? And how did you fare during the harsh, harsh winter?

Speaker: Welcome again to another episode of Brockton Bay Book Club. the end of board.

Speaker: It's been a long road getting from there to here. Crazy. and a long time, but our time is finally here. um Wow.

Speaker: How long has it been, Michael? We were just saying. um I have something like April 2025 is when we first posted our our first Ward episode.

Speaker: Woo! Hey, welcome, Vic. Welcome, all the patrons. Thank you for being here. oh Jim and Fran, nice to see you all. Yes. For those of you who are not live in chat, welcome to the Brockton Bay Book Club as we finish up Ward by J.C. McRae, this lovely book club superhero extravaganza.

Speaker: Joining me tonight, I, your host Alan, am joined by nick Hello there. Hannah. It's me. It's me. Jacob.

Speaker: Yellow. And of course, our producer, Michael. Hey, welcome everyone.

Speaker: I'm just kind of still little bit thinking about how long it's been. Yeah. yeah It's crazy. Special time. We've been doing this for a long time.

Speaker: Yeah. As LaserDream points out, a few months in-universe... And honestly, most of those months passed in the epilogue. The Ward podcast took longer than the story did. That's so true.

Speaker: jason Did more time pass in the epilogues than the rest of Ward combined? Yes. It was like all of Whistler. Which was wild. pulling and So funny.

Speaker: Because I want to say it's what, two months of actual time and then the three months and then the epilogue? Yeah. That's hilarious. So funny. That's nuts.

Speaker: But yeah, let's ah for those of you who are not watching live, like I said, you can always participate um by watching the recordings or joining our Patreon ah where we have some extra Patreon content that we will also be doing. Now that we've finished this up, we've got some things in the works.

Speaker: We'll have a final like big

Speaker: And i think I would like to, if Jacob will indulge me and anybody else that wants to, maybe a Patreon exclusive ah what we would have done differently if we were editing this.

Speaker: um and maybe Maybe even just editing it for film and television. Oh, adaptations. There we go. Adaptations. Classic.

Speaker: And, ah you know, maybe maybe we do like a tier list of an arc tier list or something. Yep. I'll need a reminder. What he's saying is this is not the last last live stream. we've got This last arc, but not the last stream.

Speaker: yeah Yeah, exactly. For sure and for certain. But if you want to play along live, we do have the bingo in chat as are in the link below on YouTube, too as always.

Speaker: And I see out in the crowd, um is that merch? I think... What? What, this old thing?

Speaker: but the The old Brockton Bay Book Club shirt? Oh. ah One day, I'm so upset that I'm the only one that doesn't actually own one. um so i could be wearing my Brockton Bay sweater, I guess, but it is so warm.

Speaker: It's so warm fair and comfortable and cozy. i couldn't possibly in the sweltering ass weather that I live in. um so high It do be that way.

Speaker: My dream, I do think about this every time I see it posted. I know that there is a Dragon Con meetup in Atlanta for Wildbow fans. day And one day I would love to show up and maybe meet people in person. I think that would a lot of be a lot of fun.

Speaker: Also, I'd like to go to Dragon Con, but that's a different issue. Listen, one day we will go to Dragon Con. we just It wasn't this year, and it probably won't be next year. But, you know, we'll do it at some point. One day. one day Next year at Dragon Con. That's what we're always saying. We'll do it we'll do it live. yeah Oh, Lord. ah And then I can argue with you all in person.

Speaker: Oh, no. Which is really what you want. i want i want It's going to be a ring, like a boxing ring, but it also has microphones. It's like chess boxing. I will get into both a physical altercation and arguments in two-minute spurts.

Speaker: There you go. See, I was thinking more it was like they they're not going to give you an official room for an event. So you just set up a table like a TPUSA thing of the like, I have all the right opinions about worm and ward. Prove me wrong. Yeah, yeah that is correct.

Speaker: That is correct. That's awesome. At that point, we don't even have to have tickets for Dragon Con. We can literally just post up outside the hotel. yeah Exactly. Sir, you're causing too many fights. yeah What do you mean? I didn't hear no bell. i would hate for us to get banned from Dragon Con before we actually even went. Especially when I've never been wrong in my life.

Speaker: No. Speaking of things that are never wrong, let's hear your guys' opinions on ah what what ah how this finished out.

Speaker: Just overall vibes. Also, J-Man, we will be reading the blog in the next episode. Yes. mind Yes. Yes. Yes, we will be doing that. That's the plan.

Speaker: So, Nick. Yes. What were your thoughts? Ah. Hmm. Hmm.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: That's okay. So so here's that here's the thing, right? Endings, there's always a bit of melancholy, right? I think I kind of dragged myself through the ending. Not necessarily because I disliked it or it was bad, but because endings are melancholy and bittersweet.

Speaker: That being said...

Speaker: Don't know if I liked it. i There are things that I liked, but there's a lot that happens. I don't know. it's I have so many mixed feelings, and it it it varies it varies almost like paragraph to paragraph yeah in the chapters.

Speaker: I'm like, oh, that was that was cool. like That's nice. ah that That was nice, though. Yeah. is that right As LaserDream says, classic k Nick answer.

Speaker: i mean, it's true. what can I say? I'm like, that's me all the time. yeah He's extremely 6'7 about it. It's true.

Speaker: It's true. Michael, as you would say, Masi Menos.

Speaker: ye Alan is going to offend every cultural generation. Alan, i ellenlan I thought it was L7 now. Oh, jeez. L6, L7. he is l like I take back what I just I would like to say that I at least said actual free and phrase in Spanish. just Michael? Get out of here.

Speaker: yeah right oh live moss right michael get out of here is They do this to me off podcast too, guys. you have to know, they did just because I speak Spanish, they do this to me constantly out in the real world. I've been friends with them for so long and they do this to me constantly. Michael, we try to understand your culture yeah and you... yeah like How else are we supposed to share that together?

Speaker: i like We take you to the Taqueria Le Perla and you don't even appreciate it. yeah Every time we go to Taco Bell, I go speak a little Spanish on of Michael. Okay. He's He's gone. We've got it, folks. We've gotten He's judging in the corner.

Speaker: I'm waiting his webcam and talk there No, come back. Michael. Is that the chair? chair.

Speaker: sort of like for production yeah that's my productions so those are production no as the pri so those are my thoughts on the ending.

Speaker: ah anybody else but No, just you. We're just going to leave it at that and move on. Fair enough. I was waiting for Alan to pick either me or Jacob. Yeah, we'll go Hannah.

Speaker: and so um I agree. i i felt a lot of melancholy because it was the end and there were a couple places I got a little a little choked up, but not really because...

Speaker: The stakes just kind of haven't existed, and they they didn't, and then they did, and then they didn't, and it didn't matter because, of course, they weren't going to sleep forever. course not. And it just a kind of, yeah, all right. and then And then you have the end, and there it was. and i ah yeah it I, it wasn't like this big climactic ending. It wasn't, and even like in context of if we had read everything together rather than breaking it into, you know, two separate reading sprints, i it still feels like...

Speaker: It felt very anticlimactic. It felt a little messy. It felt like a lot of word soup. and then there it was and it was done. And here's your little feel good at the end, little reunion. and okay.

Speaker: So it very much of a mix of like sad that we're done with Ward because, you know, it's over. And I i mean, i didn't love Ward compared to Wyrm, but like,

Speaker: you know, it had its really good moments and and it just kind of, there it was, there there the ending was. Just some some toast. No butter, just toast.

Speaker: Yeah. Jacob? Yeah, I mean, I think I'm in the same boat. I think it's, you know, we we compare Ward to Wyrm all the time, as think anyone who's read him has. And I think it's hard when, in my opinion,

Speaker: Worm has just one of my favorite endings of all time. It's just so good. And, like, it's not fair to hold Ward to that standard because it's a different story.

Speaker: But, yeah, yeah it's not... It's so funny how you know one of our one of our... Not really criticisms of Ward, but just sort of our one of the few things we've noticed as reading it as much as we did. There's not a lot of happy, feel-good moments. It's just a story where their protagonists are getting beat up time and time again. And so like you give them the happy ending, as happy as you can kind of get in this type of story. And it's just like...

Speaker: is that Is that right? do they do they get do they get to be happy, kind of? i don't know. It's just, tonally, it was a little off. i there is We'll get to it. There's one thing that I really liked ah towards the end that we'll we'll get to in one of the chapters that I absolutely loved.

Speaker: um But other than that one thing, a lot of the a lot of the endings just sort of felt very... let's just put a bow on this and make the fans happy.

Speaker: ah you know, so we can kind of wrap up our story here. Yeah. but Yeah. And like, like with that, Fran commented that we were worried about it. Me in particular is why I'm mentioning this comment. Worried about it having the devil man cry baby ending. We're like, everybody's just dead. Nothing is left.

Speaker: Uh, but its it's ironically one of the happiest serial endings wild bow has done besides maybe pale. Um, which, uh, I don't know. Part of me wonders, would it have been more satisfying if it had been, not a full Devilman Crybaby, but the half Devilman Crybaby, where it's like... I agree.

Speaker: Yes. The parahumans all commit mass ending of themselves in order to eradicate the threats. And i actually, that is kind of what I expected. And I was expecting all the epilogues to be like all the regular human characters we've been following along the way.

Speaker: like their reactions, theyre them dealing with the new world they're in without powers. you know um but what yeah it's Yeah, I know. would have been I was kind of anticipating based on where the... though Because we read the couple chapters that actually ended the story and then the epilogues.

Speaker: um Based on the way it ended, I was almost kind of expecting the epilogues to be just the few people that were brought back and like not everybody was. and like yeah Maybe having kind of this bittersweet like, oh...

Speaker: they chose to bring back a few of them, but not everybody. And like some of our characters and following didn't get like, you know, just something like, it's kind of what I was expecting. We didn't, uh, but, but no, everybody's, everybody's there. I almost expected it was to the point where I was like, are they going to, is Jack slash coming back? It's like, it's just everyone. I wondered. I wondered. Yeah. just Yeah. The whole thing. i had a moment there. Yeah. did feel, it feel weird.

Speaker: um Overall, I appreciate the ending not being a fight. Yeah. That is hard to do.

Speaker: is very true. I think the only, like, Marvel movie that I can think of where that's happened is... um The first one would be, like, Doctor Strange. Yeah.

Speaker: where the ending isn't a big fight. It's just him wearing down the bad guy until he gets tired. Yeah. And then, ah the Thunderbolts movie.

Speaker: Yeah. i think is a great, a, it like the, I actually don't like the Dr. Strange ending. It makes sense, but it's, it is kind of disappointing as an ending. Like,

Speaker: to watch, even though I think it's the right decision. Um, the Thunderbolts ending is somehow both frenetic, like feels like an action packed fight, even though it is, Hey, we're kind of just talking and, and, and talking, you know, the villain down essentially, but it feels as intense as a fight could be.

Speaker: Yeah. Um, And so I really liked the ending to that. Um, and that is, you know, it's hard to do that. Uh, not make something just a violent brawl.

Speaker: Um, you know, which is worms, you know, ending. Uh, it's just yeah throwing everything at the wall until, you know, things come down. yeah.

Speaker: and And I will say i like i I do like that contrast with Worm. I think that was a smart ending contrast decision where rather than Worm's ending is Taylor saying, if only everybody could work together, we could beat Scion.

Speaker: And the only way I can think to make that happen is to force them to do it. Whereas Victoria comes at it and says, we need to beat the entities. The only way we can do it is if everybody cooperates.

Speaker: but I'm not going to force you. Like we just are going to try to convince you and trust that you'll do the right thing. And I think, I think that is a ah cool contrast in terms of seeing them as a sequel that you're right. It's not just the same beat down until we win that the previous ones were.

Speaker: So I can't appreciate that. And I do like that. Um, Yeah, as J-Man said, my biggest problem is how vague the final plan is and how melodramatic they all are about it, considering they're calling it murder and genocide when in reality they're just taking a nap. Yeah. yeah like We can get more into the ending yeah later.

Speaker: um Overall, love the epilogues. ah They're interludes. They're so good. um Yeah. and They have their moments.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: Yeah. ah I didn't like all of them. Well, you know, like I said, we can't all have great opinions. Anyway, moving on to, know, moving on to the actual story proper.

Speaker: um these Let's get into this, Nick. While I'm fixing my lighting, would you give us the summary for, what was it? 20.10. 20.10? 20.10.

Speaker: forty point ten twenty point ten Wait, did we read 20A? I don't remember. Yeah, no, no. We finished last time. Okay, okay, all right. All right, 20.10.

Speaker: Victoria discusses the plan with a few other capes, including Crystal Clear and Rat Catcher. Kenzie's keeping tabs on everyone, and Victoria tells her to absolutely not take the virus.

Speaker: Damsel is forced to take it thanks to intervention from Swansong, and Byron and Vista are helping people get where they want to go.

Speaker: So, I really liked the conversation with Crystal Clear, Ratcatcher, and the character whose name I only remember is Typhlosion because it was close to that. I know that's a Pokemon.

Speaker: I know that's a Pokemon and not the actual name. Typhlosus. Typhlosus. There we go. Yep. I think that's it. Okay. It sounds like a Pokemon, so yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, any scene is enhanced when you add Ratcatcher, so. 100%. Every time she's here, it's like, oh yeah, Ratcatcher. She's so cute. She's like, but guys, I can't take the i can't take the the sleeping desk because of my rats.

Speaker: And I need them to live. And my my pets, what about my rats? You guys, my rat is so cute. I love her much. yeah Can't you give a girl a kith on the cheek?

Speaker: On her scarred cheek? Oh my god. yeah i do. Redcatcher is great. And Crystal Clear is great too. like I love both of them. um yeah And just how forthright Crystal Clear is about it. like Immediately walking up to Victoria and it's just like take my hand. yeah good.

Speaker: oh He's fast too. he comes He comes straight up to her with his hand out. She's like ah you know I'm like irradiated right? He's like yeah I know. Yeah. Also, little like, was it Ratcatcher being like, I've got no friends. I've got no family. And Crystal Kier's like, I'm your friend.

Speaker: i consider his friends. Oh, so cute. Crystal Kier. Oh, what a good guy. Also, we've seen, like, Crystal has been around since the very beginning. Yeah.

Speaker: Like, yeah he was there at the at the community center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah right He's been here since the beginning. I love that. Day one.

Speaker: Day one friend, we do appreciate that. Yeah, um i did I did like that conversation. J-Man's point earlier, it is it does add to that melodrama though, because I was convinced this was like, oh, they're committing mass genocide. like They're ending... like This is going to kill them all. That's the point, ah is they're ending the entities by like ending the cycle, literally. Yeah.

Speaker: you know, kind of takes the takes the air out of the drama with the interlude and finding out that there's a cure for it so easily. But, um you know. Just take this key fob. That's what it is.

Speaker: yeah Yeah. But, um... and and the Sorry, Nick. Go ahead. No, no, I'm good. You go for it. I just... My thought was is that, like, I think the... Yeah. Just...

Speaker: i I love when you have a group that can come together and that can be like, we're going to do this for the greater good. We're going to make this decision. And like I did really and you like appreciate that about so many capes being like, we'll do it.

Speaker: Cool. we' We'll step up. like That got me a little choked up that Crystal Clear was so willing. and like that I don't know. that that They have such blind faith in humanity, which...

Speaker: I mean, there's there's been so much anti-parahuman sentiment that like it feels like you like, not to agree with Chris here, but we're really going to trust them? Like, okay, all right, here we go.

Speaker: But it does feel good to be like to know that so many people stepped up and then did it. Mm-hmm. Would you have done it? No. Absolutely not.

Speaker: I mean... Every millennial hero. For free? Yeah. they i mean they got so maybe every millennial hero dog you do that For free? yeah, the... I don't know.

Speaker: It's the joke about like... oh yeah where am i going to post up and wait for there it's the um um i don't know it's the the joke about like a little blasphemous, I'm sorry for that, but it's the joke of like, well, Jesus did die for your sins, but it's really just like, he he he took a three-day weekend for your sins. yeah

Speaker: It's kind of like this, it's like, the heroes didn't die for humanity here, they ah I have to use that next time I'm at home for Easter. have to use that.

Speaker: I can't not. I have to do that now. This feels like um um the rejection of of part of how Worm ended with whether Taylor is alive or not, a kind of thing where you guys are like, no, she's not supposed to be alive. Like, this feels very similar to where you're like, we're like making our own, like, this was good. This, I don't know about. Yeah.

Speaker: It seems him to be fair, to be fair. with y'all This all could just be an illusion that the Simmer has created in everybody's last moments. mean, it hasn't been a theory since Worm is that we're all just living a Simmer dream.

Speaker: like right right enough or Or it could be that they think they've all woken up, but they're all still in dream space. You know, it's like like Inception, where it's like you don't know if he wakes up at the end or not.

Speaker: ah But that's not the point, is whether or not he's woken up. So maybe it's you know maybe it's like that. Drove me crazy cuckoo pants. Let tell you. Inception, I guess. Whoopsies. Yeah. That movie's been out for so long, too. The spoiler is, you might not know how it's supposed to end.

Speaker: yeah Basically. yeah oh It's 16 years old. God. Oh my yeah God. you know Honestly, you saying that actually sounds better than most things. I was expecting that to be like 25 years old. Me being like, damn. No, not 25 years old. That was like six years old my mind. Inception has been like so out for too long in my opinion.

Speaker: Like... and People have been giving Christopher Nolan credit for Inception too long is what you're saying? You know what that is? He's still riding the credit of Inception. He really has been riding the credit of Inception and we shouldn't have been letting him get away with that for so long. Tenet was questionable, but Inception... Tenet was not questionable. Tenet was bad.

Speaker: ah I haven't seen it, actually. i have no idea. Ooh. Nick, if you ever want to get drunk some night and poke at plot holes, which Jacob will explain to us are not plot holes. They're just bad writing. um pen

Speaker: Then we will... ah we That is a movie to do it in because holy cow, it doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry. I'm still going to just be on Alan's quote for the rest of the night of that movie has been out too long.

Speaker: is a great, great line. I'll be saying that for while.

Speaker: Yeah. Well, the conversation with Kinsey, I knew immediately Kinsey was lying. Obviously. You're not going to take it, right? Kinsey's like, won't. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah When has Kenzie but yeah when in this story not done something that she... Oh my god. Kenzie remains the same row. Like she... ah ah home boy. And even even because when we talked about the whole thing with her and Gru, it felt like she's freaking out. she's you know there We've cut her off from her tech.

Speaker: And even then, like... oh Sorry, i'm I'm jumping ahead just a little bit. Kenzie just makes me upset in this. And like... I just, i feel like we should, like, I don't know that Victoria was quick to believe her in this moment and just be like, oh yeah, no, the tenders all took this sleep art took the sleeping death, but she isn't.

Speaker: Yeah. Bro. Bro. Yeah.

Speaker: Also, if I'm distracted, Beckford is trying his hardest to be the cutest thing in the world and It's established that it is laying his big old head on my mouse hand and looking up at me. Oh, what a sweet baby. And then going to sleep and like every now and then just batting his eyes. Well, as our unofficial sixth member.

Speaker: it's true It's true. I mean, it seemed pretty official for him. It's pretty official at this point. Our Patreon content video. Yeah, it's our Patreon video. There's already been three allusions to that video in this one so far. You haven't watched it and you don't know and maybe you should go watch it. We won't even tell you which one it is. You're just going to have go watch all of them.

Speaker: Yeah, Fran, we'll get back into what sort of weird necromancy bullshit she was to Everybody knows that coffin is just a big box.

Speaker: that Oh my god No! God damn it. Yeah, we'll come back to that Hannah being upset part later. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. um yeah But yeah, I mean, I do like that she's keeping tabs. like She's marking the percentage and like marking where people are and she's doing all that work I think that that fits her a lot, but at the same time, it's like All right.

Speaker: I guess. and like Victoria, I know you're choosing to trust her in this moment, but that you're wrong. Don't, yeah but don't. Yeah. um The scene with Damsel was funny where she briefly gets taken over by Swansong.

Speaker: oh Yeah, that's ah that took me a second. I had to yeah go back. yeah And I was like, wait.

Speaker: Very interesting. is sort of this like, oh, i'm I'm always in here. I just can't take control because I'm not the primary consciousness. But in that one moment, she lost enough control that I could i could make it work. And I thought that was like that's kind of interesting.

Speaker: um I mean, it comes back to the problem of no one ever dies, but. Yeah. Yeah. It does bring up a lot of interesting things about... like because this is this is where Wild Boat just thrives in terms of what is clearly thought out, because this is

Speaker: ah March Hare's whole thing about Shard Heaven of like, and and, you know, all these other concepts that we've brought up with like Valkyrie and the flock that like Tristan and Byron situation, same thing where like they technically share not a body, but like a space.

Speaker: And that's kind of in like sort of what's going on with the swan saw or with the damsels, except they also all have their own bodies and spaces. But,

Speaker: They also share all of them with each other too, um because they're all, you know, shard derived. So, you know, when one of the bodies is dead, you get sent probably back to a room like state and you can see what kind of what the others are doing from the, you know, behind the wall.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: yeah Yeah, I mean, there there's a yeah there's a lot of questions this brings up. like In terms of Reign's dream space, whoever their missing member is, are they just watching everything right and just unable to interact because of that separation?

Speaker: um Which seems to be implied now, looking back at Snag's death scene, seems to be implied by his experience there, perhaps. um And yeah, the idea that like nobody's ever really dead is...

Speaker: is ah is an interesting way to solve the superhero revival problem that it often plagues superhero genres, but is ah fascinating to think about. like Okay, so oh they're like the data is saved almost, like a save file in a video game, and you can just load the character out of the save file if you have the right parameter set up.

Speaker: um and then like Which means, though, it also implies just getting into it, right? Riley or Bonesaw, when they created all of the clones with um The botany guy, whose name I can't remember now. Blasto.

Speaker: Blasto, thank you When they created all of those clones, they weren't just cloning the body, they were cloning the actual entity data. Otherwise, Swansong wouldn't have access to Damsel's body and vice versa and things like that, which is a... you know And kind of like we find out later with Five, like he has these feelings towards Jack, but they're not really his necessarily that he's experienced.

Speaker: They're just the feelings he was given from the data. um yeah It's interesting, but I think it does make for a... i don't know. I kind of like...

Speaker: characters dying sometimes. i I've said it since the beginning. I love a character death. I love, love, love it. i love it. I want them to die and be dead and be gone because death means you're dead.

Speaker: I'm so, i don't, and listen, i very happy. Everyone gets to have a happy little ending. And by happy, i mean,

Speaker: incredibly disappointed. I just, I want death. I'm sorry. i like i like it when people die. It feels final. It feels real. It it puts a gravity to a situation because otherwise if everyone just survives and and it's fine and everyone's just stuck in the crystal and we can just pull them out if we have the right ones and zeros because of hands eight. Like, I just don't, I don't like it and it makes me, it doesn't feel like anything has gravity. Everything's just kind of like, okay, it's cool. It's fine, actually, though. And it's... Yeah. On the one hand, I really enjoy the fact that

Speaker: Wildbow has done a great job of approaching superhero tropes. In this case, the death of, you know, characters. And there are, of course, inevitable return as they always do.

Speaker: ah But ah make it make sense in the world as an entire system. And that there are consequences to coming back. They're not the same person.

Speaker: um They are like you know, more power than person, but the personhood comes back and like, but it's like kind of being filled in by like trying to auto complete the empty space and like work out the gaps and it doesn't always get it right.

Speaker: So like they aren't the same person exactly. And I like, I like that there's consequence to coming back, um that they aren't the same person. You're not just getting the person back, um which,

Speaker: you know, for a lot of people having to deal with that is a great, I love Crystal and her mom. That's a great dynamic. Great dynamic there. um Yeah.

Speaker: However, honestly, that's not the, the, the, like the death part that upsets me. It's the, all the others. Um, yeah.

Speaker: that that we have. Because we have three different versions of bringing people back from the dead that all happened. Number one being the flock, number two being Kenzie, and number three being ah the ah the you know, the, dream what do they call it Dreaming death.

Speaker: Yeah. Like, right. That's three different methods of bringing people back from the dead, essentially, when they should be dead. And like, only what If you did one of those, I would be like, okay.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree. This makes sense. If it was just Kenzie, had we know she's been working on this thing. It's been leading up for so long. We finally figure it out. Great. That's a great epilogue thing to have.

Speaker: but not on top. That feels like so just as so much like, oh, and we also did this. I was like, well, everybody else came back from the dead already. So like, is it really yeah doing anything? Because I think we I mean, we known about like Glass-Eguenye and her power usage in Worm. It's like everyone knows about this. And it kind of feels like you get this aching pain when she uses a power that we recognize. And you're like, fuck, man. Like, that's Gru. Or like, that you know, like you feel it and it hurts.

Speaker: and but it And then having them have bodies as the flock in Ward makes sense because it's like, well, we've we've figured it out. We figured out a way to embody these powers back into human people. Like, that makes sense to me.

Speaker: But I feel like The Kenzie thing, like, it shouldn't work for Kenzie. Like, in in in the way of not giving people what they want, it to me it feels like it should be Kenzie is kind of losing her mind over the fact that she can't figure it out. Like, she can't make it work.

Speaker: But we get this... Oh, well, no, here's Tristan. I mean, it's not really Tristan, but I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit. I'm sorry. ah We all are. It's all good.

Speaker: Sorry. it just I just, i I don't feel like that that we should get that. I don't feel like we should get that at all. And like, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah Jacob, yeah I know you always have thoughts on death. so many um so i had a this is actually will tie in i'll save the full thought for the for the very very end because this ties into loosely sort of ties into the one thing i really liked but it's in the last chapter so i'll save it for that um i i you know i mean you got you guys heard me talk about death I think deaths are pointless. I think it's lazy writing. I think it's cheap emotion. But I also think that when it happens, it should happen and should commit to it. I don't like revivals. I think probably hate them more than deaths because I feel like that's an even copier cop-out.

Speaker: Yeah. yeah Yes. um Yeah, it's tricky. I'll save... I'll come back to it because there's there's a point I'll make in the in the last chapter. But...

Speaker: um I didn't mind the flock because that was unique to one character's power. And ah you can kind of let that slide. Oh, your power is kind of keeping consciousness alive and useful and trapped.

Speaker: Okay. Um, The rest just doesn't work for me overall, um with one exception. But yeah, it's it's such a tricky dynamic. And we've we've talked so much about how Wildbow challenges tropes and enhances them.

Speaker: And i I think I could say that for just about every other trope that pops into his stories. I prefer Wildbow's approach and take to everything. Except for character death.

Speaker: I would just rather go full comic book and just be like, yeah, you know, they prayed to a chaos god and they gave him a soul from DC's version of hell. And here we go. Like, whatever, you know, just like, just own it. know, it's just, it's just yeah be stupid. but one One kind of meta thing that came to mind too as I was thinking about it is like,

Speaker: in theory, these entities have been cycling through Earths and universes, right? My, and in these shards, these powers have been used by other humans or human-like races throughout the expanse of time.

Speaker: and Why is it that none of them are around? Like, not that I necessarily want that per se. Is it just that, you know, that happened millions of years ago, so their consciousness has faded by now?

Speaker: Um, But just conceptually as like an idea, what if they had met? Like, oh yeah, I was on this happened to my people a million years ago and now you guys are experiencing the same thing.

Speaker: Doesn't matter. It's just a side thought that occurred to me. um Obviously not relevant for the story, but it is what it is. um But yeah, I did love to, just since we're still on the first chapter, um i just ah as we tend to say for the first 45 minutes, um i did love I do love that Vista is the one helping people get where they want to go. And she's like, oh, you want to get across the world?

Speaker: One second. you jo yeah okay but take Take like five steps and then you're there. And then, whoop. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. It's super cool. Yeah. Great power. Will always be such a cool power.

Speaker: She still should have died, but was full but

Speaker: Yeah. um Fran says we did see a couple of the other species in previous arcs. One of them almost stopped the cycle. I don't remember that, but I really don't remember. I remember seeing... I don't remember coming close to stopping the cycle. I just remember that. I remember seeing the alternate one where it was like, this was their, like Eden and Scion's plan. i Yeah. we remember seeing that like alternate reality that never occurred because Eden crash landed. Yeah.

Speaker: Again, texting while driving. Yeah. Well, it was with Abaddon, so she was sexting while driving, which is a... Oh! We don't know that that's what Taylor's mom wasn't doing.

Speaker: Anyways. So, 20.B, if we're good move on. Yeah. think we should. twenty point b if we're good to move on yeah yeah yeah think i think we should 20B interlude Presley in a survivor camp Presley argues with a bitch ass kid they learn about the hero's plan to put themselves into the hands of non-parahumans the Titans fade and they decide to wake the capes

Speaker: a cool chapter Funcion Presley again. Yeah. Good to allude. I didn't know she was 13. What the heck? Yeah. i Yeah.

Speaker: I definitely clocked her as like a 16, 17 year old. was thinking like somewhere at least 14, 15, 16. fourteen i thought she was like 15-ish. if teenager Yeah. Like young teenager. Not like yeah like barely counting. and yeah I know you just sort of like Yeah, i was goingnna say you just got the hang of arithmetic.

Speaker: Here's the fate of the world. Exactly. Like, I know you've just gained sentience and you're swinging wildly with it. but Wow.

Speaker: I meant count as in like, any you tell hour you're 13, but you're still a preteen in my mind. Yeah. You're a fresh teenager.

Speaker: Freshly teen. Honestly, that even sounds too old. like i don't like that. A completely uncooked egg.

Speaker: that's That's a different thing. way That's not an uncooked egg. That is like the softest boiled egg you've ever met in your life. It's not an uncooked egg.

Speaker: What was the phrase you were using or for ah what's his name? Uncracked or something like that. Oh, yeah. yeah What the context was. The egg.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. a Yoke boy. um yoke oh Egg. Egg. Can't be it. a better name we're trying to come up with better name egg mean egg and egg boy it it was like name can be a It couldn't possibly be. a Fran pointed out, in the red crystals, we saw the molluscoids almost stopped. Yeah. See, that's one of the things that was, i was probably reading and just blazed right over because it was in a bunch of boring paragraphs that don't matter. And they didn't.

Speaker: Thanks for putting that in on an episode of Black. Glad you remembered, though. Yeah. This why we have the Patreon members and chat. That's exactly what was going to say. Yes, chat's the best. We fall short, but chat lift us lifts us up.

Speaker: Chat is the wind beneath our wings. I can't help. I've talked, you know, when I was reading this this interlude from like the non-parahuman perspective, um I do still, I just feel like it's such a missed opportunity with ah Gary Nieves.

Speaker: Um, Yeah, where's his bitch ass? and like you know, right? How cool would it have been to have a whole side arc storyline with like the non-parahumans and focusing on them and trying their best to save what they can of humanity and then like have him and his team of of characters be given this?

Speaker: you know i thought it would have been such an interesting... Yeah, for a second there, I thought that the the guy who like steps in to stop Presley and Bitch Boy was was Gary for a second because the dad steps in. He's like, oh, this is my boss. And like you realize, oh, wait, he's actually important. Oh, wait, no, he's the boss of the boss. He is important. And then they say his name, and I'm like, I don't know who this man is. like I kind of thought it might be Gary, and that would like give us a ah little bit of an insight into like, well, he happens to be at the same place that they are and we we get, you know, a double of characters we know interacting in the space where, you know, Presley is, you know, mega fan for the parahumans and Gary obviously is very anti. so like, I thought that could have been really cool and it wasn't.

Speaker: yeah In what clearly was a fever dream, like I'm reading, I'm about to read this chapter, and I'm like, we're in the epilogues. Was there not a chapter where Presley speaks up for the heroes when they're like going to be attacked by Gary Nieves and whatnot? And I think what I did is I mixed up when the pair humans and ah the villains and Gary Nevis are working together when they're getting hunted at the one community center yeah and this chapter into one somehow.

Speaker: and Makes sense. In my head it was a lot better. ah However, this is the chapter that i almost started to feel like I might cry.

Speaker: oh um when Presley is just like giving that impassioned speech and yeah Hayden is being such an ass.

Speaker: Oh my God. She, God, 14 year boys. God, was, he was 14 and terrible. She's 12. He's 13. She's 12. He's 13. Yeah. just fourteen and terrible um she's twelve he's thirteen she's twelve he's thirteen I thought she was 13. She's 13. He's 14. We just talked about her being 13. Either way.

Speaker: Yeah. um But he's a bitch. And a holy fuck. Yeah. Like... ease I just, ah yeah, he, in which he's a great pairing because he's just such a stone wall of like, Nope, just not even going to accept any sort of logic or fact or whatnot. Just, you know, he's the gear he's Gary Nevis all of this.

Speaker: um And, yeah and she's just beating her fists against this wall. you know, trying to make any sort of crack in it, trying to get anything through.

Speaker: And you're like, damn, this poor girl is trying so hard. She's pulling out the pictures. She's like, they're people. Like, I've met them. I talked to them.

Speaker: Like, you know, they have hopes, they have dreams. They like, they're not just superheroes. Um, you know, they have families too. They have friends.

Speaker: And I'm like, if this goes on for like another two paragraphs, I will start to get that choke in my throat. Um, and like, even now I could tell if I, if I went a little bit longer, could probably, could probably, I can start to feel just a little bit, just a little bit. But emotions are scary and we don't do that.

Speaker: Exactly. I'm a man. And see, we, we, we, a as As a man, a car mood as man we We ball them up. We just... No way, I'm the only one that has a hand fries on blue card. And I would put them into something else.

Speaker: Or I save them for sad advertisements that use dogs. Oh my God. Every time it's the dog. Every time. Or like a soldier coming home. but Yeah, soldier coming home. Dog reunion. Every time. yeah Every time. yeah yeah yeah Also, she is 12 and he is 13. I just looked at it up.

Speaker: Damn. Even younger. Not even a teenage. Not even a fresh teen. Teenie bopper. She was just riding that train. train.

Speaker: yeah that drain Nick. And like was interacting with what? I don't it. That's right.

Speaker: That's okay. But yeah, I love her. Love her interaction. Love, you know, talking the dude. And it is that like, well, I was pretty, you know, on the fence, but I think I've made my decision. And I was like, I know. Yeah. Oh,

Speaker: Fuck yeah. right I think it would have... That was my major victory for this. If we were talking about what's the end fight, i yeah I could have listened to her get into arguments with adults and like get up in front of a crowd of people and argue for bringing the heroes back for like a couple of our epilogues. I would have considered that a phenomenal final fight. that The end result comes down to ultimately...

Speaker: a child that had a good interaction with a couple of heroes as heroes, but also kind of as people like, in and, and that that is the microcosm of what heroes are supposed to be like and how they're supposed to be interacting with people and what they're supposed to do for people.

Speaker: and, like this is our ideal and you know, ultimately she makes the case and convinces everybody that like, I, you know, this is why. yeah And it's that one-off character that we ran into on the train that saves the world or, you know, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Let it be known. Parasocial relationships can in fact save the world. No. Don't let that be a lesson. Don't let that be a lesson. No. I would never bring any of you back. I'll just let you know right now. You what? What you say? I said, Chad, I would never bring any of you back. I just want to let you know.

Speaker: but um Not the point I was making, but even so. um No, i I really do... This is one of the better interludes, one of the better parts of the ending for me.

Speaker: um It's just a really good... ah really good... Yeah, again, and this is kind of what I expected the ending to be more of, was just the regular people. um And yeah, very...

Speaker: Very meaningful. Very nice to see like, oh, this one random encounter that Victoria had way back in arc four or five, whenever it was, it mattered. right The way she treated just a regular person is what mattered, ultimately.

Speaker: um yeah Yeah, very cool. Very cool. And it works! We find out it works. The Titans all begin to crumble and fade. The dark light from the cracks begin to fade and they end by saying, well...

Speaker: Let's wake up our heroes.

Speaker: Let's bring them all up back. So just for context, they were gone for... 12 well Minutes.

Speaker: I was going to say how many in and how many chapters. They were gone for what, one... One interlude is when they were gone. They were gone for one interlude. They were gone for one interlude. Not long enough matter.

Speaker: Yeah, I going to say, and if we know anything about how Wild Boat time works, that means they were gone for like negative five seconds somehow. yeah somehow Like and all of that happened in a minute.

Speaker: Yeah. ah what is I think I would have liked to have seen a little bit more ah struggle on behalf of the non-CAPES of like, because it feels like relatively quickly people were like, yeah, we'll wake them up. Like, 12 hours for everyone to decide yes,

Speaker: Oh, ah yes. Also, something for two things Fran pointed out real quick. One is withdrawals Tinkertek probably comes from the Melliscoids, which makes sense. ah And two, I'm glad you brought this up, Fran, because I saw this too. ah The Caden Kid was the weird Melech slime poster from Parahumans Online.

Speaker: Which honestly is the most disappointing reveal, because i'm but preet prior to that, I was in Melechstan. Mlekistan. Lesser known country Mlekistan.

Speaker: Yeah. like Gets more beef than Bosnia but yeah. Wow. Everyone has more beach than Bosnia. Landlocked countries have more beach than Bosnia. Oklahoma has more beach side properties.

Speaker: yeah oh That's hilarious. So true. um But yeah, that that was funny. um So true. yes It hurts. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah Yeah. So they decide to wake them all up. Sure. That's what they want to do. That's fine. That's what they want to do. That's what they want to do. Bring them all back.

Speaker: and we were talking about struggle. Like, I think, i think Hannah was on to something. More struggle would have been good. I think the better struggle would have been, even if we're going to be like, hey, we can bring them back, basically be like, we are going to poison them.

Speaker: They are going to start dying. And the Titans are going to keep fighting people and doing their thing until the hostage situation of like, we're going to continue killing 10 capes, you know, 10 shards essentially every minute until you stop.

Speaker: And eventually the shards go, oh and you know, we've calculated, oh, we had to kill 30% the capes before they got the message you know, 50% of the capes before they got the message. And then we see who wasn't to sacrifice.

Speaker: I think it would have just been interesting just to have all the epilogues taking place in the dream shard space. And then you end with 20 point B. So the last line is like, so you have all the resolution kind of happening, kind of not.

Speaker: And then you just end with the, all right, let's, you know let's wake them up. And then that's sort of, yeah, you know, yeah. Yeah. This is this pretty good line. Yeah. But alas.

Speaker: But we play the the hands were dealt. But alas. Ian Flagg points out while Bo hated the Melech posting. So this was an intentional character assassination. You know what? Was Melek a real character on his blog or something? Melek was ah from the original... ah was it i want to say, yeah, in the original Parahumans Online and Worm, or at least yeah those in the beginning Ward in the Firefly arcs was there. Maybe that was just it.

Speaker: um So he's been around for a while, and I guess people... must have liked Malek a little bit too much. so Maybe. Maybe. is Here's the thing. i I love a good meme persona where they commit to the bit like a Malek type thing. you know like it's it's It's clever. It's funny.

Speaker: like Not super clever, but it's amusing. Tickles me in a way. i guess and get tickled by the Malek. And the Malek tickles I tickle the Malek back sometimes. All right. What's the next chapter? You can Malek in my balls if you're going to keep saying it. What's next?

Speaker: Careful, Nick. I'll make you back down here on the bottom shelf with me. Oh, no. You've been on top too long.

Speaker: You've been on top. You're going to turn from big dog to... the zag dog or something to put me at the bottom with a Z. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of something that starts with a Z. 20.11, shall we? Moving on.

Speaker: yeah Victoria's final chapter from her perspective, by the way. yeah Important to note. 20.11. Victoria gets some closure from Dream Dean. She meets with Now, see, I wrote this myself, and this is supposed to say swan song, but I misspelled it as Swanson.

Speaker: Swanson. Which is a very funny mental image now that she meets with Ron Swanson in the dream space. Amazing. He gives such good advice.

Speaker: Yep. She's woken up and decides to get a cup of coffee with Tattletail, who is not her friend. Not. They're not. Clearly, clearly. su come They're dating is what yeah why they're not friends. They're dating now. exactly They're like, honestly, I guess the closest thing is that they are, their kids are friends and they're kids are two parents that just are always interacting with each other. Yeah.

Speaker: Honestly, Tattletail gives off the sister that Vicky never wanted vibes, but is better than the sister she had. Yep.

Speaker: waff definitely little sister vibes um I don't know if she's actually younger than Victoria but very much little sister vibes yes I would say although they might be the same I think they're the same age though or close to it i feel like they're closer to the same age no they probably were both around 17 I think in in in Worm we have the technology ah figure that I can look up shit now and not you can look shit up yeah that no we're gonna At the start of Ward, Tattletail is 21. Would make her two years older, even with the changed like body thing with Vicky?

Speaker: and a year older? At the start of Ward, ah chronologically, Victoria is also 21, but physically 19. Okay, okay. okay okay ah yeah Okay, so they are the same age.

Speaker: Ian says, Tattletail is giving ex-wife. Extremely. Extremely. That is, Ian, you nailed it.

Speaker: That's funny.

Speaker: Fran said, it's kind of like she visited the afterlife and talked to all her ah her lovers.

Speaker: You know? Kind of. Yeah, so um the scene with Dream Dean is is fun. um I thought that was a nice bit of closure for her.

Speaker: Just sort of the... Her you know kind of coming full circle on that, right? A lot of the the... Not just the guilt, but the anger that she's had towards everybody who's let her down.

Speaker: And kind of the realization of like, you know what? You were just a teenager. I don't know why I put so much on you to be perfect and to never lie and to never make a mistake.

Speaker: And like just that bit of reconciliation, I thought felt very nice as an ending to Victoria's arc as a, as a character arc of like her willingness to let go of everything that was wrong with Dean and realize, you know what?

Speaker: You're just a kid, just like I was a kid. Nothing we had was perfect, but it was wonderful for the time. And I'm glad that we got to have it. Um, And that was really neat. That was really nice.

Speaker: I thought that was a good scene.

Speaker: Yeah, I've been pretty critical on ah how much Dean we've had with Victoria's inner monologue. And I stand by it.

Speaker: ah At least it went somewhere, though, right? Like that internal monologue about Dean, we we got somewhere with it eventually. It did. That is that is that is quite fair.

Speaker: but he's a dead now now he go yeah good one of the yeah e gone he gone for good it's only one letter only one letter away being dead it's like it was meant to be so close

Speaker: sad cheese i don't like it. That's okay. um Yeah, I don't remember much specifically about the conversation with Swan Song.

Speaker: I don't really have a comment on it. Swan Song basically is like, I've seen everyone. By the way, hey. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Not much there.

Speaker: But that's the ah that's the last Victoria chat that we get. From her perspective, yeah. From her yeah from her perspective. Yep. It was the end.

Speaker: listen It was interesting. I thought it was going to be the end of ah Rain doing all the narrations for the audiobook. I read a couple of these chapters, but I did listen to most of them.

Speaker: And I was like, ah, you know, what a chapter. That's the end. Thanks thanks so much, Rain. But then he he brought up. because He was in a couple more. So he was like, he couldn't let it end on there. Yeah. nice yeah Love it.

Speaker: was great. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. um So she gets woken up. We find out Tattletail did not um did not statement and take the virus.

Speaker: So, interesting. Very Very her, though. Yeah. Who else ah didn't take it that we know of? Chris. Chris ran. Well, yeah, Chris. Chris ran. so He's a bitch. yeah Yep. Yep. We'll get back. Yeah. as we Yeah. We'll get back to him later. i do feel like that is the most appropriate ending for him. that It was his ending. but I was very happy with. that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: I'm trying to think. it too There aren't many. There aren't many who didn't take it that that we know That like to talk with.

Speaker: ah Wasn't it one of the villains... um

Speaker: I don't think Lord of Lost did, but he comes back later too. Right. No, he did. I don't think he did. I think they talk about that. No, he didn't. come him Yeah. I think that's why he's scamper scooting around.

Speaker: Yeah. There's like a couple of those those named villains that we know about. um Bitter Pill is another one. oh yeah. Bitter Pill. the only The only person we like who didn't take it is Dattletail, I think.

Speaker: Yeah. The only one who matters. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, what did we say? About 70%? Something like that. That's crazy. that's a That's a crazy high number.

Speaker: i mean, you got I got to imagine at that point where they were at, and Wild Boat did do a really good job of setting that part of it up, right? Like it it was the end of the world. Like... Teacher was even helping.

Speaker: Yeah, what are you going to... Like, okay, you say no, sanity doesn' not work and And the cracks in the world and reality splits right in front of your face. like You're dead either way. like I feel like it was probably...

Speaker: a little bit of an easier sell. To be fair, Saint was trying to fuck over Dragon during the last world ending event. I gotta respect the the hustle from him. my man You don't.

Speaker: My man has still one shit he has one op and he is just not going to let up. He's got two ops. Number one, do teacher crack.

Speaker: Two, over the entire universe just to spite Dragon. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. No, I respect. i respect my man. He's made for real.

Speaker: Uh, uh, freaking. What's his name? Bone or bone boy. Marquis. Um, marqui Marquis. Marquis. Marquis. He didn't take it.

Speaker: That's right. He didn't take it. They said to Damsel. Now, here's the thing. um I'm going to say that Damsel did not do it willingly because... you did not have a choice. Because Kenzie probably had it and then hugged her.

Speaker: It says... um It was a projection. No, they forced her onto it. Yeah, that was projection. Yeah. They first put onto her because a Damsel attempted to attack the Kinsey projection.

Speaker: I remember that. I think Sveta grabbed her. Yeah. and In spanish that little fight in the hallway, they are all kind of grapple her.

Speaker: Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Hmm.

Speaker: yeah Into the unknown. Yeah, LaserDream, I'm sorry that a little bit of you heat like dies when you hear the word pronounced correctly and not whatever dumbass Canadian way like they say it. once again i mean, I like Marquess, but like you can't spell it like Marquis and be like, oh, pronounce Marquis. Also, you're not going to have a fake pretend to be like royalty and uppity and have all these like codes and drink tea and stuff them not have him be the Marquis.

Speaker: Like Marquis, Eidolon, Chevalier. It's just how they were meant to be pronounced. You know what? I will i will give up I will give up the Chevalier for Chevalier in order to keep Marquis.

Speaker: Like, that's how much that's supposed to be that. It's true. It's true. easy Because, like, at least Chevalier is, like... I've just got a guy my little stank on it.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every time, every time they say Chevalier, i go Chevalier under my breath. And that's because of you motherfuckers. It's what it is. It's Jacob really. But you know, you guys have done this.

Speaker: I've completely blocked out the other pronunciation of Eidolon. Like that's not, there is no other. That doesn't exist. There is no other. Eidolon. Yeah. Eidolon. Yeah. i know win yeah No.

Speaker: like I don't mind Eidolon. I mean, I don't care for it at all. So I will say, i will say vibe-wise, he is an Eidolon. But the word should be pronounced Eidolon. It's because it's those stupid, the meme cartoons, the like ah meme knockoffs of... ah of all of like um Donald Duck and Goofy, where it's Goofy and Dolan.

Speaker: and so Every time i still I hear the word Dolan, it's all I think about. That's horrible. As Fran points out, of course, you know you song as as we're talking big heavy hitters, of course, Legand.

Speaker: Legand, yeah. Which makes sense why he's so like oppositional to Arm Master.

Speaker: you've got You've got Alex and Rhea. Yeah. the two yeah yeah okay Another or whatever. yeah miss melidia yeah melidia nope yeah I also prefer the French pronunciation for grouet, much like the... Oh, yes. Grouet. Grouet, like the cheese. Yeah, grouet. That's like...

Speaker: No! No! As LaserDream points out, ski-tier. Ski-tier, yeah. Tottle-tally? Yes. Yes. tough tattletale dot here on politics play presently do we could this for a while but we could be perception speaking we could get to twenty e one which is chevalier so we ah it is yeah look bring it bring yeah chevalier look who lives all the way through the end

Speaker: a boy who lived chev on my art to i alia yeah There we go. There it is. Almost got Hannah to spit out her water. Oh, did we get?

Speaker: Did we get a little bit? A little bit? little leak. Fuck I have to say, years ago, before we started reading Ward, and I had finished Worm, but Ward had already finished. would not you know Whatever that in-between time was. night just wasn't sure i was ever going to get around to Ward.

Speaker: I did look up just some like character endings, and I had started with... chevalier because he's one of my favorite characters from ah from Worm. And so the only spoiler I had for this entire series was knowing that he makes he makes it through the end because I had looked up his character biography.

Speaker: There you go. So this was satisfying to finally read. Yeah. you just Just look at the summaries and there's like, oh, no tab named Death. Excellent. yes Yeah, exactly. yeah Although, i guess none of them have a tab named Death now. yeah ah Don't get me started again. 20E1.

Speaker: ah twenty e one Chevalier relives his trigger event and pre-protectorate life. He asks Alexandria about Titan Fortuna's activities.

Speaker: Chevalier wakes up and talks to the other capes and gets a few answers from Tattletail.

Speaker: I will say the... I think one of the the funniest small happy moments for me in this whole section was when he wakes up and he checks his email and he has no emails. And just the right and the relief he feels. He's like, oh, ah just the mental burn. I'm like, oh, yeah. That's a happy ending right there. As someone who i happy and clocks in the work to like between 30 and 50 emails every day, I feel that. Man, if I ever so like clock in, pull up the laptop, and I have zero emails,

Speaker: That'll be a good day. Or it's the day we get fired. It's one of the... either One of the others. In all honesty, both are good days. Both are good days. Exactly.

Speaker: ah Yeah. Yeah. um His trigger event... I'm trying to remember... He's in a car and he's literally getting pulled out by the Snatchers. Yeah, yeah. We've seen his before, right? Like, this isn't the first time we've seen it. we talk a but we couldn't remember it. We've talked about ah finding, essentially, a little boy and then, ah you know, in, like, cardboard armor, you know, who went after a gang and we saw him lined up with, I think, maybe even Miss Malicious Dream.

Speaker: or not It might have been Miss Malicious. her dream you know where it's like her and him and like i want to say somebody else lined up with like hero talking to them i think yeah yeah no it wasn't it wasn't his perspective to protectorate because that was that was part of his power was like in that moment he was able to like energize something like a knife or something to get himself out but he couldn't get his brother out something like that I remember the crash, the seatbelts, though, and, like, his brother getting pulled out by the Snatchers.

Speaker: I remembered all of that, so it felt very remember any of that. like we'd seen it before. I don't remember any that. I just remember them talking about how he went on a rampage and, like, was a rogue, and then they had to, like, bring him in, and then, you know, they're all standing. All these kids are standing next to each other, you know, in their different states of, of you know...

Speaker: what they look like, and he kind of looks like this goober in cardboard armor. yeah. yeah Okay. interesting And ah who could be here but Aaron likes cookies? The TikTok commenter.

Speaker: Hi, Aaron. We're glad you're here. Welcome. um a Yes, Fran, it is a little bit fucked up that looks like Alexandria's identity did get fused with pretenders. Oh,

Speaker: Oh, missed that. You know what? She deserves it. I missed that too, but she deserves it. She deserves it. Oh my gosh. does Pretender. Basically, yes. Which I know nothing about, but I'm just going to assume deserves it.

Speaker: i mean I mean, the real question for Pretender is, that did he ever let his bro hit? That's the question. Did his bro ever hit? Yeah. ah That's the question. what Wait. Okay. Okay.

Speaker: Anna, it's a real question. If you were gay, but you were in a woman's body, would you let bro still smash? Would your bro even, would you as bro still smash? Every man has had the mystique debate with his butt. No, this is an inverse mystique. my way This is an inverse mystique. Okay, as a woman, someone explain it to me again because I i don't think I have to admit they got So, Hannah, Hannah, imagine that you are pretender, right? Imagine that you are a pretender. a pretender.

Speaker: You have now taken on the guise of what may be one of the most, like, 1% most beautiful female figures in the world. Mm-hmm. You have a friend who's like, man, I've always thought Alexandria was kind of hot.

Speaker: Got it. Would you let him? That's the question. um yeah Or her. Or her. and they well, that's a different question.

Speaker: I mean, that's the question. How hot my friend, really? mean, that's the question. much do you like your friend? I don't know, Hannah. How hot are we? So flip it. So flip it. Your friend is pretender. You dare. Yeah, no, no, no. Jacob's on the right track. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think the Alexandria part had anything to do with it.

Speaker: I think it's... Yeah. I think Pretender and was it... Not Scapegoat. Was it Sater? Sater. Yeah, Satirical. Satirical and Pretender. Yeah. Won a bang.

Speaker: But... Pretender is in Alexandria's dead body. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah So weird. As bro, would you hit? as bro Would you still smack? yeah I mean,

Speaker: i i feel like this is on a case-to-case basis that would require a lot of forethought. It's a very simple question. Lots of lots of healthy communication. Both please. and That's why Jacob's a good friend. Oh, okay. Jacob, I just wanted to let you know.

Speaker: You've moved up. Thank you. I want let you guys all know that if I ever do get Mystique's powers, just just let me know what you want.

Speaker: I mean, that's a dangerous question. Let's see. hanna's and is Hannah's too afraid. too afraid? it ask tweet To even ask. even ask.

Speaker: Yeah, listen. I... You can tell when ah the chapter didn't generate enough for us to talk about, but we don't want to move on this yet because that feels like we're rushing through it. the video is also still like buffering and Michael's trying to figure us out. I know ah that for for those of ah those of you who are listening to this later, ah we're currently dealing with some internet issues, ah which Michael is trying to fix um for our for chat. We put Michael to sleep.

Speaker: We're actually asking right now if we should wake him back up and get the internet started again. True. Exactly. what exactly The morality scaling of waking somebody up to fix your internet.

Speaker: me

Speaker: Listen, Michael just helps us with everything and we'll we'll wake him up in the middle of the night. good yeah i A quick refill of ah podcast juice then. my gosh. You know what? I need to start drinking more than water. that him but Oh no. Oh boy. Howdy. Oh no.

Speaker: Mike, she just started twitching. Holy shit. Okay. i don't drink enough water. Also, Aaron likes cookies. ah I actually just finished Pale not too long ago, which you probably listened to.

Speaker: um And, you know, got my lovely coven tattoo ah for our girls that I also think is pretty great.

Speaker: um So, I would love you know love to hear your thoughts on it. If you were in the Discord, I'm going to go get a shot.

Speaker: Oh, no. Okay. oh ah Everybody's saying it's back. was going to say, I think we're back. That's okay. Now that everybody's left. Okay. All right. well Hannah, how are you? Just you and me now. I'm so good. I'm so good. I'm ah i'm so so, busy. ah Fun fact, for those of you who, some of you do know what I do for my day job. ah Last week, I worked, I believe, I have to do my final math calculations, but I believe I worked about 80 hours last week.

Speaker: Yeesh. Ooh. That's, that's a lot. Yes, it is I'm sorry. I'm sorry to hear that. ah And or happy for you because that means you have a lot of business. so I'm very busy.

Speaker: All right. looks like we're back. Michael, we got a of comments. Michael, you're amazing. You did it. You fixed it. We're all working now. just looked and I just stared at the router long enough that it got better.

Speaker: You gave it it you You intimidated the shit out of it. You rolled really high for intimidation. oh Thank you Thank you. No, literally like before each podcast, I go and I like turn off the printer.

Speaker: I make sure that everything, like every device is turned off so we get all the internet possible. So I was like, what? Who turned something on? had to check everything.

Speaker: Turn off the goddamn printer. Everything was off. So I don't know. did it just rough out here. That's okay. That was all right. Yes. I'm glad came back. carrying the weight of all of us shoulders, Michael. Glad i came back and Okay. Moving on. I'm going to make a make a right drink or a shot right now. I guess... um Y'all can tell me what we should name it. What what hero or villain name we should name this.

Speaker: um It is a variation of a baby Guinness shot, which you've never had it was great. um Half Kahlua and usually the other half Bailey's, which makes it look like a tiny little beer. on This, however, we're doing the Kahlua. We'll be doing Salted Maple Cold Foam Creamer.

Speaker: so So it's a, sorry, say that say that again. It's a baby version. it's It's a version of a baby Guinness shot, which is Kahlua and Bailey's usually, but I've done Kahlua and salted maple maple cold foam creamer.

Speaker: So if we have a good name for this. So ah one one shot for a baby Guinness is a dead aster.

Speaker: Dead aster. I saw Jacob's face. I knew he had it right away. What is i knew you wrong you? you?

Speaker: That's okay. If you can do it with white chocolate, ah you do Kahlua and then a white chocolate Bailey's, which was only special for a short time. It's called a crack baby. No. So good. ah Fabulous.

Speaker: You know, I will say, i just saw a post on ah the Parahuman subreddit where somebody was like, is there like how do you guys explain certain things in Wyrm to potential readers?

Speaker: they're like So I was talking to a friend and I was like, yeah, it gets it gets pretty dark at times, but it's really good. And he goes like and my friend goes, well, long as there's no like you know baby killing or anything, that's probably cool.

Speaker: And then he looks at me and he's like, Why are you looking at me like that? yeah hear me out. One of the heroes shoots a picture. It's a good thing.

Speaker: If you really think about it. And it was the better choice. You would have done it too. We should do we should do a shot. We should do shots for some major war characters. It would be really fun. That would be fun.

Speaker: yeah That's a good Patreon episode. yeah Fran said, I hope Wild Bo is listening to this episode just for that conversation about Pretender. You know what? Fran, clip it. Email it to him. We all still have things listening. Clip it and ship it dog.

Speaker: I've always thought about that. If there's one moment... If Wild Bo is like ever periodically just like listens to different podcasts or things like that. And it's just like for a moment, like what's, what's the one moment from our podcast of all time that we will be like, we would want wild people. Like, you know what? Let me just tune in right now. Let me see what these guys are up to. Oh,

Speaker: Also, obviously, the conversation we just had about Pretender. it's The Pretender shot. Okay. Actually, though, the pretend Pretender shot would be great because you you make a shot that would represent Alexandria, but it's got something else in it that's hiding in there in the shot.

Speaker: or Or you make you make two identical shots. You make two identical shots. They visually... No, no, no. Not like that. not like that They're visually visually identical shots and tastes identical.

Speaker: One is alcoholic. That's Alexandria. One is not. That's Pretender. Hear me out. you know that's you You make... Hear me out. um I can't think of it. We'll do a darker alcohol with ah a splash of white on top.

Speaker: You know, very close to the baby Guinness. But then you have a dropper with um like bubblegum pink flavoring of some kind. You just really need that bubblegum pink color for the eyes of Pretender and you just drop it in the top.

Speaker: It kind of has the dark color of Alexandria's outfit, the white of her eye, and then the a drop of pink in the eye. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then what we do is we get all of our shots from all our different capes and we line them up.

Speaker: And you do you do all of them one after the other until you black out. And that's the text and drive. yeah I'm sorry, what is it? That's a text and drive.

Speaker: I thought were going to say it's the it's the ah the dreaming death. but or that but You know what? I was trying not to say, like, in this shot is the dreaming death. But That's good, too. Anyways. ah yeah so ah back to 20E1, since we're still there, technically.

Speaker: ah We can move on So, well, the one the one bit that we didn't talk about that I feel like was somewhat important um is Alexandria's asking, or sorry, Chevalier's asking Alexandria about Titan Fortuna's activities.

Speaker: He's like, she was drilling towards something. What was she doing? ah We find out Alexandria kind of hints like not drilling like a message is what she ends up giving him.

Speaker: Then he wakes up. He eavesdrops a little bit on Tattletail and Victoria. And then finally Tattletail notices him and is like, you have a question for me, don't you? Go ahead. Just get it over with. um And ah but yeah, just ah basically her saying it was a message.

Speaker: It was an etching like sort of to the other entities. um In my understanding of it, this is kind of spoiling later, I guess. My understanding is it's almost like a message to the other entities of like, stay away from this one.

Speaker: Abandoned mobile you entered here. Yeah, kind of is the vibe I got. It's like, don't i don't mess with this universe. I kind of, and again, i will talk more about this towards the end.

Speaker: um i kind of got the opposite. that Maybe. that I couldn't decide if it was that or the opposite. Yeah, yeah because at the very end, Tattletail has some answers, but is also like, I don't know. you know It's just very... There's not information. Yeah, there's not enough information.

Speaker: um Yeah, it kind of picks back up towards the end. But um yeah, it was very interesting conversation. Yeah, I was under the impression that it was out of their realm of understanding. Yeah. It could be a warning.

Speaker: It could be just information about, you know, something the other entities needed to know as they sweep by and pick up some shards. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, like it was but it was beyond our comprehension. We can start working on it, but the likelihood is we're not going to understand what it is until they show back up again in 300, 3,000 years.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe that's what it was. It's more of a like, maybe maybe even it was like a signal like, hey, we need help. We failed. Like this cycle failed. Pick it up. If you want to pick it up, you can. Yeah. you know Yeah.

Speaker: That's true. That's interesting. Yeah. And Ian, I flag i think you're right. ah i wouldn't call that drink a nursery. a nursery is half Kahlua, half like red velvet Bailey's Irish cream. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: It's got to have some fleshy bits in there too. It definitely has to have fleshy bits in it. was going to say, you could do something, you could you could do anything that has like um a pulp, so like a grapefruit juice that has pulp. Oh, that's good. But it needs to be read Blood red.

Speaker: So like do a blood red grapefruit juice and something this. There you go. you Where I was thinking like you just put some sprinkles in the bottom, let them soak for like five, ten minutes so they get moy and weird.

Speaker: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Speaker: yeah oh oh my god That was close. These shots. The shots, Alan.

Speaker: No more shots. No more shots, Alan. They haven't even hit. Oh, God. I enunciated.

Speaker: Anyways, kept moving on quickly. All right. Epilogue 2. Yeah, how about that? All right. Three shots. Oh, Lord have My eye will stop twitching. My cheek will not stop twitching. Oh, my God. 20 E2.

Speaker: Chastity battles the voice inside her head and contemplates her feelings for Rainn. A lawyer arrives to escort Rain to jail, but Lily rescues him. Chastity and Rain decide to be friends as a prelude to whatever comes next.

Speaker: I think for all of the character endings and just taking them as we get them, this might be my favorite of the epilogue endings. It just felt the most deserved in terms of where these characters are and have been.

Speaker: um Rain is sort of... ah What's the word I'm thinking of? ah be Saved, but, you know, um in a way.

Speaker: And it's there's though there's a lot more, like, unknown in terms of where they're going, but it's headed the right direction.

Speaker: I don't know. it just It felt a little bit more fitting for the story we got with ah with their characters. yeah that Exactly. this This is a very satisfying conclusion to Rain's arc, almost to the point where it reaffirms the feeling I've had where we're like, man, Rain would have been a good protagonist.

Speaker: like Like, you you know, yeah yeah exactly like this is this is a very satisfying ending to his arc where he's like, yeah, i I messed up and I still want to do the right thing and pay for what I did. Like, I'm not letting myself off the hook for what I did wrong, even though so many other people would excuse him and say, look, it's in the past. You were a kid. You didn't know what you were doing.

Speaker: yeah I don't know. i I really like that. And even for chastity. You know, we don't know much about her, but knowing enough of where she comes from, her ability to kind of put aside her typical characteristics to treat the moment seriously. um i don't know. it was It was a really good ending for them. I really appreciated it.

Speaker: Yeah. um I think I'll defend the choice not to have Rain as the main character for the exclusive reason that while it would have been good And the easy thing to do, um just having a character who is ah good to the point of naive, ah would not have been different the way that Wild Bo likes to subvert tropes.

Speaker: no Rain good. like Yeah. Right. Yeah, he's a good boy. He's a really good boy. And while he could have done a very easy, like, honestly, probably would have been more enjoyable as a story um in terms of how, you know, a lot of this is a version of tropes. I don't think, you know, yeah that would or would fulfill that. Makes sense.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know. Yeah. i Also, I would like to point out that Rachel is the one o I believe steps up first, doesn't she? Yes, does.

Speaker: She's the one sitting there like, oh my gosh, I can't take her away. She's like... And then walks out like, yeah I need a boy. Excuse me. I need that boy to finish my greenhouse.

Speaker: He has work to do. I love it. I'll kill you before I left you. I'll kill you. Also... and This lawyer showing up having muddy footprints all over his nice fancy suit because it's a dog ranch. Like, get wrecked, my dude, with your fancy bullshit. Like, coming out here to the wilds.

Speaker: Ugh, I do love that. Also, who does he think he is? I know. What the fuck do you think you are? huh You look here, unnamed bitch number two.

Speaker: but Unnamed bitch lawyer number dos? I don't think you know. Ugh. Yeah. yeah But I do love he gets to go with a Lily and... um ah What's her name? Yeah. Zaba. And Cassie and Chastity are going along. Yes, I love that. Everybody kind of stays together. oh and ah Roman as well goes with them. and roman Yeah, Roman was already going. And some others that we have not determined. few others.

Speaker: yeah But he does build... yeah the greenhouse slash barn whatever it was he does he better go well build the greenhouse yeah ah okay he can come over and build the greenhouse for me that'd be great good job buddy well done rain crushing it crushing it you survived this whole thing 20 e4 what three no sorry 20 e3 my bad i'm bad at counting see you aaron ah thanks for jumping in aaron

Speaker: Good to see you around. Number boy five ends a road trip with Sveta with a final visit to the time looped Jack slash and the major malfunctions gain a fourth member.

Speaker: i really like number boy five. um He's great. I love I ship him and Sveta. um very much so. Isn't he a child? I mean, i also, same, but also, is it is he a child?

Speaker: Yeah, that's the issue, right? He's a clone. He's a clone. He was a clone as a kid. messy situation. it's It's messy. The thing is, they're like, 15, 16?

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Smeta's not that old, though. Like, You know, he goes off, hangs out with the malfunctions for a bit. She does her own thing. They meet back together in five years.

Speaker: Have a little Anakin Padme situation. It's great. thank Right, exactly. Uh-huh. yeah yeah I mean, yeah. I can see it.

Speaker: No, I... We don't actually even know how old Svetta is, so she could be a teenager too, for all we know. Exactly. I thought she's 19 by now something. by now or so I always thought she was kind of crazy. I think it's an assumed age, but we don't really know.

Speaker: She's definitely a teenager. i always assumed she was like 14 when we first see her. You know. In Worm. i tried Yeah. I tried to look up how old he number five is.

Speaker: And just on the wiki it says Yeah. it's ah a literal child now So let's just stick with that we like him.

Speaker: is it close sayronologically He's he's two. We don't know. like no You don't have to justify. but now you stop, stop. You can move on. Abort, abort, abort. No, stop.

Speaker: So the first thing Nick said was, hey, I really like him. Let's go back to that and then we can go from there. Yeah, yeah. We'll stop there. Nothing else happened. Number um number boy five is great.

Speaker: Yeah. Yes. He is great. I was a little confused when we started this chapter. i Just did not know what where we were.

Speaker: and Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. And then at one point, he calls him Jack. And I went...

Speaker: Slash? Like, are we talking about about baby baby? Because baby baby Jack, not baby baby, but teenage Jack, that's really weird. ah Because they keep saying King, and i was like, King, isn't that King one of the, like, original, original Slaughterhouse-Nines? Because I couldn't quite, you know, the warmnesia.

Speaker: But it took me a good bit of time to realize that, oh, no, no, no this is This is Number Man and Jack. You know, as teenagers here with King, the leader. Yeah, because we've we've seen this scene before at the beginning of E3.

Speaker: um We got an interlude, I think, back in Worm about Jack and Harbinger. um Maybe from Jack's perspective, though, not from Harbinger's. I don't remember exactly. Maybe so.

Speaker: Maybe. I don't remember exactly how that played out. But I do remember. I remember the scene and I was like, I think we've seen this before. um But yeah, it was it was a cool recap back to that and then Five basically saying, yeah, like i I have all these feelings towards this guy, but like they're not really my memories. I don't know what to do with these feelings. It's an interesting...

Speaker: thing um i don't feel bad for jack but gosh dang what a fate to be where he is um and just the conversation about them like we've learned how to break time powers but basically anybody in a time power we just break it and then kill them because the odds of them like second triggering or exploding is too immense and yeah so you know they're just going through all the people they can to Eliminate them and eventually Jack will be like he's one of the last ones they're going to do just in case, you know, which I think it's great. well ah They're going because you can undo the bubble or you can like collapse it.

Speaker: Opp it. collapse Collapse it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Damn. I don't know. I would leave him alone. Just put some tape around it. can You know, well, stay back. Yeah.

Speaker: He says, ah number five says that the whole, that whole area is going to be underwater in a few months. Yeah. In six months, the whole thing is going to be underwater. And I imagine even in a time loop, you still got to breathe.

Speaker: And like all the containment foam is there, but the containment foam allows air, right? And so like if this building collapses down, like, okay, but it'll still be air because of the bubble.

Speaker: But if it's all underwater, he's going to drown basically slowly. he would drown and he would reset and he would drown again for infinity. Oh, that's awful.

Speaker: Oh my God. i would, I think I'd rather bleed out than drown. If I had to choose a way to die. Like between those two. I would not want to drown.

Speaker: That's not. I've seen that movie. myself Charlize Theron. Where she's like one of the immortal assassin. Mortal killers. Old Guard. Old Guard. Yeah.

Speaker: No I did not watch it. That's how they. That's how they. haven't seen giant spoilers for the awful second one that was so bad. but what less have second That's how they kill one of them like back and back in the day, like centuries prior, as they just drop them and drown them.

Speaker: So that they're just like dying and and coming back for centuries just underwater. it's great I hate that. I think that's um that's basically what happens to one of the villains in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 2, where key he's killed a lot of people. He's responsible for a lot of deaths.

Speaker: And he gets stuck in an eternal time loop experiencing all the deaths that he caused. Oh, well, you know, that's good. Yeah.

Speaker: Fuck you. You know? that's Maybe that's deserved. Yeah, yeah it's it's kind of deserved. He's an asshole. um I'm pretty sure that's right. Somebody in chat will probably correct me if I'm wrong on that, but that was my understanding of what happened to him.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, as Ian said, I don't ship Sveta and Five, I mentorship them. That is a better way to put it. Mentorship, yes. I like that. In hindsight. The words are hard.

Speaker: I did like the... ah Honestly, I would have preferred just to never see Jack again. i liked knowing that he was in a loop, but never having to interact with him again was was neat.

Speaker: um But since we got him, i did I did like the fact that it was pretty clear that he's he's lost his mind. like he's yeah He lost. There's no... Even even in even him in his in his best case scenario when the bubble has popped and he manages to survive and is freed, like he's still he's gone. hes yeah So that is that is satisfying.

Speaker: Cooked. Yeah, cooked. yeah We got a few more to go. Getting late. Oh, boy. Alright. I do like that he joins the major malfunctions too.

Speaker: So do I. really random no yeah Just a quick quick aside. I like that he joined the major malfunctions. um Later we find out the name he gets is Limerick. I don't really know how that fits with what he does, but you know what? It's whatever it's whimsical, which I think is clearly like Sveta trying to get in with that. And it's a five, isn't it like a five line poem traditionally?

Speaker: So there's the five. um yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it works with like limerick works with finale and like a musical sense. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Limerick. Cause it's what limerick carry out. It's withdrawal and finale. Yeah. Yeah. anna yeah They don't really, I guess they don't really have a theme to their name as much.

Speaker: It's fine. well They joke about, don't they joke about getting him an instrument? Yes, they do. Yeah. yeah Which I imagine he would just like use a violin string like a garrotte.

Speaker: right I do love, though, he's got the laser pointer right for Finale. I love that. And it works on her because she's got the mind of a cat with ADHD. He's like, Finale, here, pee-pee, pew-pew.

Speaker: It's so good. That's super fun. I also love how as as he's working with them and they're interacting together, he's realizing that, like, oh, no, you were already doing that. Like, oh.

Speaker: So you guys... You guys are capable. like he It's a a surprise to him to realize that like actually, these they're pretty good. And they kind of are working really well together. And they have a really good system down that works. And like I like that of him because he's so good.

Speaker: And you know good with the numbers. Mm-hmm. You know, he's always going to be one step ahead of people just because he can see the lines and then all the numbers. And the fact that he like gives them props for being like, oh, no, there they've got it. Like, oh, yeah, that's fun. Yeah. well yeah twenty twenty e four Well, 20E4.

Speaker: Riley returns herself to the warden's supervision and offers an olive branch to an imprisoned cryptid A visiting Kinsey admits she has been withholding a grave secret.

Speaker: Clever word choice. Summarizers. ah Ah. The grave, yes. The grave. I do wish we had gotten more Riley before this interlude. It just made me miss, again, with how much ward we got.

Speaker: didn't feel like we got enough of her. I thought she would have been a really interesting character to to see more of in the story. um Very similar mindset to Rain. It's kind of funny we get two chapters with characters being like, well, I'm going to turn myself in now since the world is saved.

Speaker: It's the right thing to do. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it just, i who I don't remember who's driving her, but I love that she still has the reputation, and she's like, I don't freak out anymore, man. Like, you're good. You're fine. And he's like, yeah, but you've also got, like, your thigh open in my backseat, and I'm like... I bleed all over my car.

Speaker: And she's, like, pettting petting the the sleeping creatures she has inside of her thigh in case she gets blown up. Yeah. The eggs thighs. Her thoughts like if yeah if she dies and and gets blown up. She's like, this will kill most people.

Speaker: There's only nine people who could stop it and four of them would be distracted enough that I could probably get away. That's so funny. Like, geez. There's one other point where she's like, ah when they're like scanning her body and like doing a pat down and stuff for weapons. She's like, guys, I'm a bio tinker. Like she's thinking to herself, hi you guys, I'm a bio tinker. I've got like, and she said the way she says it, she's like,

Speaker: whatever it is. Like, I've got 10 weapons hidden in my body and one weapon of mass destruction. Like, it's just... Yeah. Just loaded. the The guard just wanding her and then like, i'm going to do it again just for good measure. Yeah. Like, surely there's got to be something.

Speaker: Because would what does one of them say? Like, aren't you a tinker? Shouldn't you have dropped more off than your little tool set? Mm-hmm. She like hands a little box as if she couldn't just rip herself open.

Speaker: oh Yeah. oh Rough. Oh, man. ah But, you know, great character. We do love seeing her return. um Chris's fate is to sulk in a jail cell and warden security for the rest of his memorable life.

Speaker: And that's what... So satisfied. yeah What he deserves. ah Great ending for Chris. Which I love. It's like... Well, go ahead, Hannah. I was just going to say, I think his final line is being bothered by two little girls.

Speaker: One who won't shut up and the other who won't... ah The one... oh what is it? The one who keeps yapping and the one... i don't I can't remember exactly what he says. I might have to look it up.

Speaker: But his lot his final line is complaining about the two people who are actively interested in engaging with him. And it's like, you're never going to change, buddy. Like, this is you. like This is me.

Speaker: Are you looking it up, Jacob? No. Okay, I'm going to look it up really quick. I just want to know. The curiosity has got me.

Speaker: Yeah, but just just him. i love that the reason he's pouting too like not only is it that people can't trust him, that is an an issue. um But I just love i love that it's almost by choice, right? It's like, oh, he's not pouting. He's not like in jail just because we can't trust him.

Speaker: It's because he's unwilling to cooperate because he's so upset that he was wrong. Yeah. yeah Yep. Like, he's just so upset that he was wrong about humanity.

Speaker: It's the whole Dark Knight ending, right? It's like, his whole belief is that humanity is the worst. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker: I know what you're talking about. Yeah. His final line is, I'm tired of little girls chattering at me. One's gloating, the other's lonely. yeah And like, honestly, that kind of also sums up Chris.

Speaker: But like, he spent so much of his time in the last couple of, you know, chapters, in the last couple of arcs, just kind of gloating that he's like, oh, you're never... The Simmer, she has her own plans. Like, you're not... like You're not going to outsmart her and like, bitch, you are the keystone to her plan. Like, you are it already. Like, and and him being so smarty pants and so, oh, well, I'm going to just go off and I'm going to, and you know what? Maybe I'll turn Riley and Riley and Riley's like, i don't want to be your friend. and And, you know, just being bitchy and the other's lonely. And like, that's you now, bud. That's you. You did this to yourself. You had so many people who were willing to like try for you.

Speaker: And even Kenzie's still trying for you and you're still a fucking bitch. Like, oh, yeah. Oh, it's good. Oh, i love it.

Speaker: Feels good. Feels nice. Feels real nice. It's great. um Yeah. Yeah. Well, ah we find out Kinsey's got a secret that she's worried will change change the way people view her. What's new with Kinsey?

Speaker: That's new every week, Kinsey. Kinsey. Monster of the week with Kinsey. Get a new hobby rather than keeping bad secrets, know? Come on. Oh, gosh.

Speaker: Kills me. Also, like, how quickly she spills the beans to Bonesaw. Yeah. Yeah. just Like, immediately. Because doesn't Riley then, like, tattle on her later? You know, pun intended. Like, she's the one, she's like, hey, by the way, just so you guys know, I know, like, I'm crazy, but...

Speaker: nothing Y'all should check on her. Like, she's a bit... I don't... I think that's the entire story. The entire story is people going, ah like, I may be a supervillain, but...

Speaker: You need to make sure that she's like checked on. Like, yeah don't let her out of your sight. Like, I might die into mass murder, but she's fucked up. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Exactly. Definitely a different level. Well, anything else on the E5?

Speaker: yeah you five five 20E5. Victoria's semi-retired life continues online, in pho.

Speaker: A date with Annalise, errands to run, and news of the major success. Then Dragon informs her that Kinsey was secretly communicating with a semi-cognizant Tristan prior to her breakdown.

Speaker: Victoria reluctantly listens to Darnell's advice.

Speaker: My only takeaway from this chapter was that Annalise is a total dweeb.

Speaker: Wait, why? No, he's great. He's hilarious. But he's just, yeah, their whole interactions were... cracking me up. I love Annalise. Annalise is the best. I will hear no slander. Everybody knows the best way to cook is in an apron.

Speaker: no not not nothing. That would be Ratcatcher. That would be Ratcatcher. Thank you. I think he's blaming Ratcatcher what he was going to do. He was going to do that anyway and Ratcatcher spilled the beans.

Speaker: yeah He wanted it to be a surprise when he just comes out. He and Ratcatcher are roommates. Yeah. That's really fun. She's got her rats, I so i assume. yeah Also, like imagine as long as like you can keep... you know because You can keep them pretty cleanly.

Speaker: Imagine all the things you could train those rats to do. like my gosh. Like, you know, roll roll you beers across the floor. love rats. I don't know if we've talked about this before. Alan had fancy rats ah after college or and it through college, but they weren't in your dorm. Yeah, I wasn't supposed to have them in college, but I had them in college.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. They were great. I just remember, like, wearing my sweatshirt backwards with the hood here, and they would, like, or just what the one of them would, like, curl up when I played video games at your apartment, and it was so great. I loved it. I loved the rats. They were fantastic. Great pets.

Speaker: I approve. Fran says the movie that she's going to watch with Annalise is based on a fairy tale about a woman who gets turned by her sister into an egg.

Speaker: yeah No, Annalise, no. Whoa. That's so weird. Wasn't Vicky the one that picked the movie? She recommends it. She's like, how about this one? He's like, haven't seen it. That's funny. I haven't either. like Y'all are in for a treat.

Speaker: Y'all are in for some trauma. Are you ready for a good trauma bonding night? A little trauma bomb. Hey, listen. After the trauma bond comes the... Hmm?

Speaker: yeah The bond. Bond. My face keeps betraying me. the best wow bond and

Speaker: my face is betraying me I try to make a joke and my cheek starts twitching. My face is just like, Hannah, shut up.

Speaker: Amazing. Amazing. We can't see the twitch. well That's good. And and ah Victoria goes back to therapy at the end.

Speaker: Yay. We love that. We do appreciate that. therapy, girl. yeah I like that she and Darnall have kind of, like, have really connected well because she was not... She was so hostile at the beginning.

Speaker: Yeah. yeah I do respect that for the most part, unless I'm forgetting anything, Wildbo writes all the therapists as very competent.

Speaker: Yeah. yeah you know yeah so Which is good. yeah There's already enough bad therapy iss great bad press about therapists. 100%.

Speaker: Go to therapy. I love that her and Darnell's relationship has been very antagonistic, unwilling to begin with for arguably good reasons.

Speaker: But part of those reasons are that she is not giving him a chance and he needs time to get to know her in order to build that reputation with her.

Speaker: ah you know, or that rapport, I should say, not reputation. Yeah. yeah And like on one hand, he's got some experience with first responders and stuff like that, but not necessarily parahumans. So he's like trying to learn ah to help her, but he needs that time to do that.

Speaker: And, you know, she has to learn that like you need another therapist besides Jessica. Like,

Speaker: um Yeah, I think it's a good it's a good arc um for those two and how they interact with each other. Because it's not just, oh, go to therapy and everything's great.

Speaker: um Yeah. You know. Not how that works. Uh. Mm hmm. We're getting sleepy and slow. got to keep going. Let's keep going.

Speaker: are. We are. Two more chapters. Two more chapters. Yep. All right. Another shot. Taking one? Oh, my God. yeah E6. The remaining Dallin-Pellin crew deal with Bitterpill's creations.

Speaker: Crystal advises Mark to divorce Carol. Finds... Hell yeah. let's go Let's go Mark. Finds an unexpected degree of humanity in her resurrected mother and pays a visit to Amy suggesting that she leave for the European Gimel settlement for a fresh start for her and Victoria's sakes.

Speaker: Now this arc maybe or chapter maybe had the most mixed feelings for me. Agreed. I like Crystal as a character. i like the advice to Mark to divorce Carol.

Speaker: I like... i I hate the fact that Carol has not learned her lesson and is just angling for power still. Still a terrible person. i So I dislike that. I like that her mom has that very human moment. That was really nice.

Speaker: This ending is too nice for Amy. Fuck Amy. It doesn't feel fair. The Amy ending almost... almost ruins this entire epilogue section for me. it's It's so bad. I can't... i can't express I'll save it for the wrap-up, I guess. But, like, as I'm reading this, I'm like, what the hell? What the fucking hell is this?

Speaker: She... Wins. or I mean, almost. yeah like Regardless of getting exactly what she wants, ah this is the next best option.

Speaker: like It's just such a such a bizarre choice of ending for Amy. Yeah. yeah um She gets to the point, though, where she's so sad that even Dot doesn't want to be around her anymore. Which I do appreciate. least that that's a win. It's a small win.

Speaker: Yeah. um

Speaker: LaserDream says, Hannah, you're an Amy stan, though, through and through. How could you say that about your goat? It's true, Hannah. That's a good question. Yeah, good point. That is a good question, Hannah. Now my cheek twitching again.

Speaker: No, it's Also, Fran points out, it's funny how they treat the winner like a time skip when it could possibly have killed the entire cast. yeah yeah like did you survive the winter? Like, what? What happened in the winter? lot of people died, apparently. Best case scenario, when we had the city, supplies were not great. Things were not looking good. We were trying our best with support from other births.

Speaker: And this is the worst case scenario. so i will say i will say I did really enjoy it. We didn't talk about it much, but the scavenging section with Chastity and Rain, I did really enjoy that as well.

Speaker: um I thought that was fun. But you know, that that was kind of nice. I mean... That system is yeah cool. like The system is cool how they have it set up. Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot. And there's still, like, the idea that you can you can ask to claim something, like the laptop, and and the the owners have a chance to be like, oh, no, shit, no, i would like my laptop, please. and you're like, okay, well, got laptop. But I got all this glass, and it's going towards the greenhouse, and that's cool. I like that idea. of it Like, it helps to to clean do a bit of cleanup.

Speaker: You don't end up with just, like... all of these items that just get bulldozed by, you know, the wrecking crew that they're, you know, break it down and rebuild.

Speaker: Yeah, because there's still like these... use as much material as we can. Yeah, there's still these like cracks to hell all over Earth, so they got to be careful, you know? Yeah. Um... Yeah, I love LaserDream said, to be fair, guys, going to Europe is punishment enough.

Speaker: That's fair. Send her to France. Send her to France. I know, right? They were doing so well in the summer, but wait till that summer hits and their un-air-conditioned asses are just boiled to death.

Speaker: yeah As someone who grew up in Europe, it never really got all that hot. And now all of a sudden it's so hot in the summer. someone who lived in Europe when people were dying in France, ah I get it.

Speaker: um It is miserable not having air conditioning. You want to spend all of your time on the lower floors of the building. Luckily, I lived in the basement most of my life. So I was fine It's so funny that we had very different experiences for summers.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. Summers, I was in the basement. was nice and cool. Winters, I was also in the basement. I had all the hot water pipes run right underneath the floor. I heated floors. Always the best. Very nice.

Speaker: Oh, no. We didn't have that. and you're like No. nice. yes But I was going for like the traumatic childhood angle, but like no none of the trauma stuck. You were just like, this is cool. I like this. i mean lock my life My life is I am like a duck trauma just sliding off my back.

Speaker: Oh

Speaker: my gosh. Just waiting for the oil spill. Just, yeah. It's fine. yeah Wonderful. Yep. We're moving on. I'm keeping us going. Thank you, Michael. No, I was going to say, ah ah so i do again, there keeping ah go keeping going. what I said about Mark this whole time. I really like Mark as a character, and I wish we got a little bit more of him, because I really like it, and I've mentioned this specifically, but I like the idea that he could recognize that Amy is

Speaker: a bad broken person, but also like Amy also fixed my brain and saved my life. And so like having that, having that, that duality. Yeah, exactly. I thought it was, it was very interesting. So I liked his bits and his talk with Crystal all that. i thought it was, was very good.

Speaker: Yeah. It's, it's so tough too. Cause we also talk about, you know, the responsibility of not just a father, But like in the sense of like, I could have done better because he was not an absent father, but you know, he even when his brain was not all messed up before then, he was still so depressed that he basically was an absent father.

Speaker: Yeah. So like, yeah. Mental health takes a big toll on you the people around me. Some of this is on me. Obviously a lot of this is on her, but you know, there's so much going dynamic wise between the two of them. And I really like the only dynamic we did not explore too much that I really wanted to get into was actually Carol dealing with her sister being back.

Speaker: yeah Oh, true. Yeah, we didn't really get that. would have really liked to see that fleshed out or at least, you know, some other chapters. At least small— Well, I mean, I didn't even need a whole chapter, but, like, I would have liked to have seen them— Because they're here. They're fighting together. that's what I mean, like, when they're in the going to fight teacher and stuff, and they're kind of like, that's where we have, like, one of the first interactions between, like, Laser Dream and her mom. Yeah. I think it would have been interesting to have, you know, that same amount of interaction between Carol and her sister.

Speaker: Yeah, very true. Yeah, it's it's hard because and i don't know what a satisfying ending for Amy's story would have been, honestly. death like i mean yeah victoria kills a rebel oh i think we've all described it it's a a rock from orbit yeah right right which is almost a couple stories up no which is almost we point blank you know just it from hand apply directly to forehead in in defense of tropes

Speaker: Like, just kill her. Like, I think, you know, there's something to be said for trying to... Whoa, whoa, whoa. A character death? yeah Jacob, you hypocrite.

Speaker: so Stay tuned for my PowerPoint. Can't wait. Can't wait. Is it called rolling a hypocritical? It is now. That's good. I like that one.

Speaker: No, I think i think we I can point to so many examples of times when storytellers have attempted to subvert the death of a character, death of a villain trope.

Speaker: And, or so many times they do that and it fails, like it's so hard to do. And like, at the end of the day, you're trying to tell a story that is satisfying to the audience and, and,

Speaker: you can argue realism. You can go the game of Thrones route, whatever you want to try to do to try to make it work. But like, if it's not satisfying, then it it didn't work as a piece of fiction around telling true stories here.

Speaker: So like, it's gotta be satisfying, even if it is a little trophy. And I don't think death, I'm you know being facetious. I don't think death was the only answer here. I think there's a lot of answers, but you know, you could have gone, but I think this felt like an attempt to sort of subvert the clearly expected death or punishment of a character.

Speaker: And in that loses the satisfaction. and yeah Yeah, I guess it's it's ah it's a bit of a an attempt perhaps at a redemption arc, and i think that or at least it feels like it. I don't know if it's intended to be necessarily.

Speaker: i think it's maybe more intended to be equivalent to like exile forever is your punishment, which is yeah it would be okay, but the way it's written, it feels like it comes across more as a you need a fresh start.

Speaker: Here's an opportunity, almost like a redemption arc, right? And I think we've kind of, like we discussed, we hit the point where we felt like we weren't sure if Amy was really redeemable. um Yeah, we hit that a long time ago in many ways, but her continued actions in Ward made us feel like, no, she continues to be unredeemable.

Speaker: but yeah i I guess the the best we can say is that at least at this point now, she recognizes I'm a bad person and have done bad things. Yeah. I don't know. But it still feels like it's like this shroud of self-deprecation that makes it feel less genuine.

Speaker: But it is also Amy, too, so it's hard to, you know. there's like no charity There's no charity left to give her the most charitable read of how she reacts to the idea, right? Right. yeah yeah The first time i read this, I was in a much more um

Speaker: redemptive mindset. And to me, while Amy was infuriating and ah really rough to deal with and has obviously done terrible things,

Speaker: um like she's, you know, I always get the, give the benefit of the doubt. She's going to therapy. It's clearly doing something.

Speaker: Um, like, She's taking actions to improve, to actually improve. um and for me, I was like, ultimately what I would like to see happen to every character is a redemption. i would love to see, ah damsel be redeemed.

Speaker: Um, you know, uh, and, and, um for as terrible as Damsel is, look where we're we're ending at. Her and Kenzie, you know, she spoke three words.

Speaker: Hinted she might even want to rehire her. Like, yeah it's this it's it's a tiny step, but it's a step in the right direction. and um And I think this is like, i it is fun and memeable and even okay. Like, yeah you know, depending on your how you would evaluate this in real life. I think about, you know, the whole thing of justice and is that punitive or redemptive or what balance of that.

Speaker: And I think we do get caught up in the, Amy's a really terrible person. Therefore we should kill her. Um, which is fun. I love doing that. I love nuking and Amy for morbid, but in actuality, like I think even now, like,

Speaker: if if redemption is a possibility, and there are some people like Jack Slash where I'm like, eh, I'm not even going to try. um We'll see. LaserDream, Simurgh's not a person.

Speaker: so um Concept. Yeah. um I think that like, I don't know if this is the best possible outcome, but, and, and it's certainly not satisfying if you're looking for a punitive ending, but in terms of redemptive, like Amy's going away, she's trying to do other things. She's not just hiding from her problems.

Speaker: Like it's an actual, I'm giving not just myself space, but actually give Victoria her space.

Speaker: um Like she talks about like, oh one of the reasons she couldn't work in a hospital here is the possibility that Victoria is always getting hurt or always dealing with hurt people. They're going to run into each other at a hospital.

Speaker: Like that's going to happen. um So. I mean, at the beginning of war, Victoria is flying kids around like yeah from the hospital. So like,

Speaker: That's a genuine thing to actually be worried about. like um well might I think there's a lot of the Amy behavior and thought process.

Speaker: And she even says, i have the same thoughts, but I'm, I mean, it kind of sounds like ah cognitive behavioral therapy where you interrupt that inner monologue. Mm-hmm. You know, same, you know, with like what Chastity's doing is like, you've got that voice inside your head and you have to disrupt that somehow.

Speaker: And she's like, it it's very easy for me to just think I'm, I'm, you know, a victim here, yada yada. And I've got to stop that and make a turn in my head. But that is an intentional writing of the ship.

Speaker: And she appears to be doing that. So like, it's not satisfying, but I like part of me, I don't know, in real life, I would prefer that somebody does have her adeptive arc.

Speaker: I mean, J-Man says, if it's any consolation, she doesn't face tangible punishment. She's personally miserable and will be for a long time. And then Fran said, she doesn't get to hang out with Dot anymore. How horrible. Because, like, even Dot's not with her anymore. She is actually alone now.

Speaker: Yeah. And, like, you know, we had the weird... Skin sticker for a bit. Yeah. And we've had, she's had Dot with her for a long time. And that's a constant chattering in her ear that's now gone. She is actually alone.

Speaker: I was going to say, i think Dot leaving is actually a, my indication was this it's a sign of healthy. Yeah. yeah. Because yeah Dot is like- She doesn't like it anymore. She can't feed off of the energy of old Amy because old Amy is slowly dying out. and she's like, well, you're not fun anymore. Yeah. I was literally going to say, it's like, you don't like to have fun anymore. ah Yeah. Dot's like, what happened to you? stopped talking shit, staying out late and getting blasted. Like, what do you mean?

Speaker: yeah I started taking care of myself and not making terrible decisions. Like wasted. that Is that fun anymore? heard wrong nick I don't know. Is that? Okay. I meant it as getting wasted. No, I know.

Speaker: bla i just said't I don't know that I'd ever heard it described as blasted before. Blitzed Hannah. Blastered? Blitzed? I don't know. does usually have other connotations. know it's on i Yeah. yep Yeah. No. So, yep. She's gone. Dot's gone.

Speaker: um I don't know. I feel like her conversation with Crystal, like, yes, while she is clearly, like, she is doing the steps, obviously not enough time has passed for us to, like, actively see a huge change in her. been three months.

Speaker: but it's been Exactly. It's been three months. But like Crystal, you know, she's talking about, oh, well, I i travel. takes me a full day to travel for therapy. And then it takes me a full and then I'm at therapy and then takes me another full day to travel back. And it takes me three days to like readjust. And then it's time to go back all over and do it all over again.

Speaker: And Crystal's just like, if you're looking for pity, like i'm I'm not going to give it to you. And I think that that is one of the big issues that I've had with Amy so much is that she has this like pity party, woe is me. And that that drives me up the wall more than a lot of her other stuff. like If she was just bad because she was bad and she did what she she did what she did because she was selfish, then what?

Speaker: okay, then you're you're a villain. That's just, that is what it is. But the fact that she's always backed up everything with, oh, well, Victoria's aura, or, well, I loved her. Well, I was trying to save her. Oh, well, I was trying to undo. And like this constant giving herself an out and this like pity party that she throws for herself constantly. Like,

Speaker: Yes, we could be seeing a glimmer of of a pretend put but potential redemptive arc here, but I don't see that glimmer here with Crystal. I see it more of she is outwardly doing all the things, but is not...

Speaker: is still not getting it. Like, she's she's doing the self-talk, she's doing the work, but it's not penetrating deep enough. Like, to me, I don't see it. And her even her her her, she kind of, like, hints about the party and then hints about Victoria being there. She's kind of needling again to, like, find out, well, how is Victoria? It's like, I'm i'm not going to talk about Victoria. Like, she's still she still hasn't learned her lesson. And even with the comment about the hospital, like, she knows she's not supposed to run into Victoria. And by saying it out loud, she's saying, well, i'm I wouldn't want to run into Victoria.

Speaker: But she clearly does. Like, and i don't know. I just, I, yeah, I don't see, i see in the recovery very much like, um,

Speaker: a psychopath who is actively working on themselves and like being a member of society, knowing that they are a psychopath, knowing that there are things that they can do to exist within society and a really safe space for them and for their community. And like, but also it's a facade at times and you have to rely on the facade. And I feel like that's where Amy is. Like Amy is relying on the facade because she doesn't actually believe it.

Speaker: i can see that.

Speaker: yeah Off she goes. Goodbye forever. gone. We'll talk more about this it's not next time. yeah we' got I got wrap-up thoughts about Amy. but we'll say that' not not Not the way we'd like her to be gone, but at least she gone. yeah All right. 20 end.

Speaker: Vista reunites with old and new friends alike in a final birthday celebration. Victoria finds a balance with her shard in a teaching position with the patrol block.

Speaker: Tattletail offers elaboration on Fortuna's intent. I will say, um I think Fran mentioned it earlier, ah but we do see that...

Speaker: ah Victoria has achieved some kind of internal equilibrium. We see that from Chevalier's perspective because he has the ability to kind of see shadows of people and how in tune they are with themselves.

Speaker: And um we see ah that Victoria is whole in Chevalier's vision. in chevalli's vision She is like one whole unit with herself.

Speaker: And so i I do like this ending for her where she is like offering her wisdom, getting to use her cape nerd nerdiness in a positive way. um and yeah, it's good.

Speaker: Fran said, this is birthday, a.k.a. the five-year anniversary of Leviathan ripping Kaiser in half. Yes. well Wow. rip Rip to a good one, so to speak. No.

Speaker: You might say. Vista has plans to rip something else, though. Oh, my God. She's pretty... She's like, I'm going to rip all this clothes off. I love the image of somebody's clothes getting blasted off in an explosion in a cartoon or something. I'm sorry, have you seen Food Wars?

Speaker: yes Yes, exactly. um But she's like visualizing that and that's the visual I'm imagining is he's like just with her powers and and his clothes just explode back. i Yeah, literally imagine her just using her powers on his clothes to just stretch them until they break.

Speaker: No, no, no, no, no. Here's what you do. You shrink the distance between his body and the clothes. or no Sorry, you expand the distance between his body and the clothes so that they naturally just... The shirt is like he's essentially too skinny for the shirt hole in the middle, so it slides off. Like all the clothes just... hit the ground Because he's, you know, it it'll it can't touch his skin anywhere, so it just falls off. yeah so yeah, he walks in, all the clothes just, boom. He goes, what? What? I do love that moment with her mom, and she's like,

Speaker: She's like, i hope I hope you'll be good. And she's like, yeah, going to be good at riding that. yeah yeah like Basically. Like, look, get it. Go go do it, girl. You you have a good job. Anybody deserves it.

Speaker: Vista. And Viren. I would like point out that should they ever get married? And he, you know, takes her last name. but should they ever get married and he you know takes her last name huh He would be Byron Byron. What's your name, Byron?

Speaker: Missy Byron. Missy Byron, yep. That is funny. B-I-R-O-N. okay. Wait, what's his last name? I think it's like...

Speaker: just I don't know actually what their last names are.

Speaker: Vera. Vera, that's right. Vera. Vera.

Speaker: Yeah, Victoria gets her gets her ah happy ending. Right. oh I love that she's just handing out papers with her powers. Because she can either have her, like, she is embodying her power, or she can send out an entire other person.

Speaker: Yeah. Like, completely separate from her.

Speaker: Which is, ah it it reminds me, this is a sidebar, but um there was a a recent conversation online about if you could pick any level one spell from the D&D spell book to be able to cast, you can cast it three times a day.

Speaker: What level one spell would you pick? And one of the most popular options is Unseen Servant, which is basically it's basically that, where it's like, yeah you just got to you just got a thing that nobody else can see, but it washes your dishes for you and hands out the papers for you Yeah, absolutely. ah

Speaker: Yeah. Easily. House chores. That would be so great. I'm really glad my background's blurred out because I got to vacuum my office real bad. and Fran Ward is the most positive Wild Boat ending because it ends with Victoria going to a barbecue without Amy or her mom.

Speaker: Unlike arc one of this. and iss very I was going to say, actually, I did like that. You know, that it's poetry. They rhyme where the the ending kind of fits where it's like, it's another barbecue. You know, I got to bring up that George Lucas quote every opportunity I have. Which I really don't have to. but I have to. It's... it's I'm contractually obliged to. You could bring it back to wisdom literature if you wanted to, but instead you're going to go with a George Lucas. it's it's a and That's who said it, though. That's the quote. And I that i really hate that it exists.

Speaker: yeah Gotta respect the visionaries, Alan. I don't have to. Steven Spielberg isn't doing good shit nowadays. Respect him now. Gotta respect where he was.

Speaker: I did not respect George Lucas when it rhymed. Clearly, episode one, the best Star Wars film. But that aside. yeah get it Obviously.

Speaker: um No, ah but I did like that, though, that little parallel of the started with a barbecue, ending with a barbecue, but very different vibes and with our protagonist in a very different place.

Speaker: Yeah. um Should we talk about the... The Tristan in the room. the tristan and yeah Hold on. One more. Fran added on top of that.

Speaker: um It's like as if the last chapter, Taylor got her happy ending by going to eat on the in the bathroom without people throwing juice on her head. yeah Yeah. ah yeah J-Man, we'll tell you where you can buy a Brockton Bay Book Club shirt at the end of this.

Speaker: Absolutely. They're comfortable. Great shirt. Link in description always is the answer. Link in description below. There you go. Yeah, Tristan and Byron. I believe the shirts are all at cost, by the way.

Speaker: Yeah, we make... i just want everyone to know, we do not make any money. We sell them as cheap as possible so you guys can get them. Yeah, i make we make maybe 17 cents.

Speaker: tristan and byron reunite Tristan and Byron reunite. Tristan is back as a projection. um a la Kenzie Powers.

Speaker: Yeah. ah Thinks I hate it? I don't know. Yeah. Wasn't he dead?

Speaker: yeah permanent stasis. but Listen, he's he's only mostly dead. There is a difference between all dead and mostly dead as we've learned. yeah The only thing that's left to do is go through his shard and look for loose change.

Speaker: Exactly. the But the chocolate coating makes it go down easier. It does. That's true. There we go. yeah Nice. Good work.

Speaker: We got there. Give yourself a homeschool high five. yeah about Yeah, there we go. That works too. my the copium i've I have allowed myself to believe, and this ties into the one thing that i ah really, i am choosing to like about the story a lot. And it's about kind of when Tattletail is talking about Fortuna's intent and and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker: And although there's like a lot of unknowns, she hints that they found what they were looking for. Maybe it something to that extent. and this loops all the way back, of course, to worm and like why the entities are there and like what their purpose is and all this kind of stuff. And like, we know they're trying to survive the end of the universe or, sort of you know, stop entropy or you know, whatever you want to call it. um And i really like the idea. Cause I was, I mean, even when I was reading worm, was like, what could, what could, what could humanity offer to that equation?

Speaker: you know, um and I like the idea that the ultimate reversal of entropy would be resurrection and that the reason humanity ah achieved that was because it's a uniquely human thing to care for the ones we've lost.

Speaker: And so like, I like the idea that maybe the entities saw and like it took humanity to figure out, oh, this is possible. And like, that's going to sort of push them in the right direction.

Speaker: It's a very, uh, you know, they went to the power of love at the end of the day, which is really cheesy, yeah but it's allowing me to accept the, everybody comes back. The Tristan is back.

Speaker: The, like the, the non totality of their ends in a very universe, like makes sense within the universe. So, um,

Speaker: With that, I i am accepting a lot lot of outends with my own headcanon in terms of like, that that is what the Entity has needed this whole time. so But with that in my question, what if there't if not that, what do you think it was that the Entity has got?

Speaker: Yeah. I think... what do you think was etched? Yeah. yeah or Or, you know, we yeah what did they... I think, I wonder if maybe part of what it is, and I'm just kind of coming up with this off the top of my head right now, based on kind of what you're saying.

Speaker: um i wonder if part of what it is, is the realization that the entities had that it's not separation that we needed, it was cooperation. Because the whole thing with the entities is, right, they were like creatures at war, and they were so...

Speaker: hellbent on growing in power that they would have ended each other had they not split apart across the universe to go to their own paths, right? but what But even so, the entities still need some level of cooperation, you know, Scion and Eden as an example, in order to succeed.

Speaker: What if part of what the entities learned from humanity is powers or no powers, what we needed was cooperation, right? I like that the only reason The only reason the parahumans were able to beat the entities it was because of the humans and the trust and faith that they put in the humans to help them do the right thing through the corruption of the data, through the corruption of the entities, you know what they've learned.

Speaker: But in that, maybe it was kind of that. you know i mean, power of love is a cheesy way to put it, but it is kind of that. iss like, no... The cooperation and the faith needed to work together is what would beat entropy ultimately in the end.

Speaker: And maybe it is sort of like a a come here signal is like, no, we don't just need, we don't need to go further away. We need to actually come back together if we're ever going to yeah to survive the end of the universe.

Speaker: As an idea. good i like that. I do like, i like that no I like that too. That's a good one.

Speaker: i don't know I don't know if Wildo has ever commented on on anything more definitive. But yeah, it's fun thought. Yeah. um yeah Friendship. defeating ent The key to defeating Entropy was the friends we made along the way. It was. Maybe it was.

Speaker: That is why I still don't forgive Interstellar for its ending either. Yeah.

Speaker: ah Fran would also like to point out in terms of happy endings, we find out that Withdrawal has a crush on Tristan.

Speaker: Did miss that? Well, it's a little, I believe Vista is like bumping shoulders and like, look, look, look. Oh, that's funny. And apparently like Tristan's got like a, I think it's Tristan has like a really big smile and like actually happy to be there. But like Withdrawal is like,

Speaker: well there Aren't they like talking at one point? are. They're getting next to each other and talking. Withdrawal's just like... Yeah, and Withdrawal's just, you know, and it's clearly we really into it. Very cute. And Tristan's just like genuinely having a good time. And I think, yeah.

Speaker: Aw. Hell yeah. I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah. And then Fran also points out that ah they defeated the very concept of entropy before the machine army.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. Right. Still out there. Apparently. saints Saints got it under control now. It's fine. It's not a big deal. You had one job, and it's not Dragon anymore.

Speaker: i I was kind of cracking up that the one plot point we kept coming back to was the one that just is never getting resolved. It's the one that remains...

Speaker: ah Just keep fighting, man. it's I like to think that that's really on the only reason. Sorry. I like to imagine that it's really the only reason that the humans woke up the heroes because they were like, oh, that machine army is still coming, isn't it?

Speaker: Yeah. ah We need somebody to fight that. Like, we should wake them up just so much. So we're all in favor of letting them die, right? All in favor? All right. And then one guy in the back, um, out the window. about the machine army? Everyone's like, oh. And it's just the replicators from Stargate.

Speaker: yeah Yeah. Yeah. That's so funny. I love that, Hannah. that's Can we wake up like 10 of them? Yeah. yeah i just Just a couple of the best ones maybe. like Oh, all or nothing that actually reminds me that of the thing, though, because, oh my gosh, sorry, I'm bumping everything. ah Because the the thing with this is is that the sleeping death, you if you don't wake them up, they will die.

Speaker: It'll take a second, but then they'll die. And so there's no, like, stasis that you can put them in. And you can, like, be like, okay, cool, we're going to wake up a couple of them, and then the other ones we're going to wait and see. Because, like, if it was a sleeping death,

Speaker: that was not actually ending in death, dreaming death. Thank you so much. Dreaming death that didn't actually end in death. They were just kind of like in this stasis point. Then like, i think that the humans, non-parahumans probably would have been more chill with like not waking them up, but by not waking them up, you're actively choosing their death because like, and It's this idea of like, well, if we do nothing, they die. So we can't do nothing. yeah e

Speaker: and like, and by that definition, I was thinking about this, by that definition, it's not really a choice. Because that's the conscience, like, that's that's the death of a lot of people on your conscience if you decide that you're just going to let them die. Because there's a lot of capes out there.

Speaker: And 70% of them took it. Like, that's a lot of death on your hands. Like, morally, you almost have to decide to wake them up.

Speaker: Yeah. You're kind of stuck between the rock or a hard place. Like, even if you don't like the capes, you don't you don't want them dead. You don't want them in charge, maybe, but you don't want them all dead. Yeah. And it feels, it kind of feels like if like a cheat a little bit.

Speaker: To be like, sure, you're trusting them, but like,

Speaker: Oh, no. Yeah. As J-Man said, too, to add to Hannah's point, there's also the 30% that didn't take it, which are mostly going to be the v villains. villains.

Speaker: Oh, true. Yeah, good point. Villains. That is a good point. thing There's really no answer there. Like, it's... yeah You really don't... there is. Quill Sniper.

Speaker: Quill Sniper. Well... The army. The spinoff we deserve. Yeah. Also, I want to back up a sec. Oh, no, no. That's in the next chapter. We can talk about the next chapter I saw.

Speaker: ah that the We're on the last chapter. I don't think there is. was going to say, there's only this is the last one, baby. ah Talking about... End? End? Oh, yeah, yeah, Sorry. I was like, did I miss the chapter? was thinking of a conversation that happened. ah That ah when Vista and Vicky are talking about back to ah the major malfunctions because we had them actively doing something, but then we also have a follow-up that they've straight up take out Lord of Loss.

Speaker: Yeah. Oh, yeah. He just kicked his ass. I love it. We've seen a lot of fights, thought it'd take longer. It was like, boom, five minutes and done. Love it. That was great. Wow, they clowned on him.

Speaker: clowned on him. That's awesome.

Speaker: and it you know, because it's all radio because that's the only, you know, technology they have, you know, it's consistent. They're like, yeah, and then this send dumb, big dumb centaur looking motherfucker got clowned on by these smiling kids. It's like, yeah, let's imagine what every Scooby-Doo gang looks like. What would you call him? As Fran pointed out, he calls him a loser. Loser. Loser. Yep.

Speaker: Love it. Got him.

Speaker: Yeah. Oh, no, no. It wasn't Vicky and Vista. It was Sveta sent that. ah Yeah. something that's okay Yeah. I did love, though, the the comments on it on Parahumans online where they're like, ah, I don't know what Limerick does. i don't know how to put him in my fantasy hero draft.

Speaker: what him what was it i like him I want at me and not care. And not care. Like, no. Fabulous. chi Fabulous.

Speaker: It's like the most classic online comments you've ever seen in your life. yeah like Which is just, oh, feral and a mess and good lord. you it's Good.

Speaker: ah Black. Black indeed. cheese who well

Speaker: is Is that it? That's it. I think. Wow. 1045. think this is a good time for us to call it here. We'll be back. the other thoughts we can have. Yeah. We can talk the next time with our big roundup. so bring your thoughts.

Speaker: Yep. um You know, ah looking at the whole of. All of it. Next yeah week. we're We're on for next Monday. So you guys have been waiting a while and now you don't have to wait at all. We'll be back on Monday the 28th. Yep.

Speaker: yep Which is exciting. Still at 8 o'clock. Yep. um Regular time. With our wrap-up episode. Yep.

Speaker: The big announcement we have for tonight is Before we head out. ah We have gone through all of Worm. We've gone through all of Ward. It has been quite a journey. And it has been.

Speaker: ah Really fun. But it's also been a lot of. Reading and time. um So. ah After. Doing.

Speaker: The wrap up. Maybe a couple Patreon stuff. um I think. the Brockton Bay book club is going to go on indefinite hiatus.

Speaker: Um, I don't know if we're going to pick up, uh, another book or even what a format it's going to look like, but, uh, we're going to be putting up pause on doing another wild bow, uh, work or anything in general.

Speaker: Um, can still talk with us on discord. We'll still be interacting there. Like I said, we'll still be putting stuff out for, ah probably another month.

Speaker: Uh, but yeah, but, um, don't know what it's going to look like after that. Um, talked about it. Uh, if it does continue, we'll probably be doing it.

Speaker: ah You know, ah it'll it'll look very... It'll look different if we do anything else. So... we need a We need a little bit of a break.

Speaker: just Yeah. um I think much like everybody else's reaction to finishing Ward, think...

Speaker: i think

Speaker: LaserDream asks, would the Black Hand podcast arise from the ashes of the Brockton Bay Book Club? The Black Hand Bay Book Club?

Speaker: That's a good question. Probably not. The kind of questions to... Well, yeah, like Alan said, the best way to reach us will always be Discord. And and if you're not part of the Patreon...

Speaker: maybe pay a dollar to get the discord link and then, you know, cancel next month or whatever. We have whatever you line but we out of social accounts that we don't do anything with. ah Those still get notifications though. Yeah, true. But I'm saying biggest where we best way to find us.

Speaker: Best way to find us. We have an email. We have an email. I do check that. I believe it's BrocktonBayBC at gmail.com. Correct? right Yeah. about it yeah yeah Yeah, but to Michael's point, if you want to reach out to any of us specifically, Discord will be the best way.

Speaker: um So we'll still be online there. Oh, yeah. We're always on Discord. um Too much. yeah because i'm Some of us were on it too much.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. yeah Certainly not me. I was about to say, don't look at me. Y'all are the ones who are always on. Don't be too sad. We'll talk about this more. We will talk about it more, exactly. Overall, this always started as a book club in which we were going to read...

Speaker: ah together and um you know almost four years of our time yeah yeah and the engagement we were going to receive outside of literally a book club we decided to post uh for others to also read along with yeah um you know was just like an added bonus that uh ah did better than we ever expected. um Yeah.

Speaker: I have since, you know, podcasts first existed, always said if I did a podcast, the goal is to be able to afford a pizza with the earnings.

Speaker: um We have, we, we did buy a pizza each. So ah honestly, yeah we've gone farther than my wildest dreams. Yeah.

Speaker: The community has been really cool that you guys have made and it wouldn't be at all the same without you. We'd still be doing it, but this is much more fun. So thank you so much.

Speaker: Yeah. um But with that in mind, we will see you next week on the 28th. Correct? What? Bingo. Oh, Bing, of course, just making sure we'll see you on the 28th for our big wrap up. um Bingo. i I sadly did not get.

Speaker: Well, no, I do have a bingo down here. I also technically said it, but um ah we have ah what we did get was Chris is a bitch. Michael has to reel them in disappointment in the machine army cat on screen. Alan rants, Byron, Byron, fuck Amy. Jacob's a cinephile and chat gets Nick to say the name of his favorite villain.

Speaker: got they got um they did what they missed was someone gets lost satisfied with the ending ah fuck carol hannah cries nick goes full teacher slash parent milk and ah the chat can convince the gang that they missed an epilogue ah They could have. i feel like they could have. I will say i will say i didn't cry until J-Man posted in the chat. I'll miss y'all so much.

Speaker: oh that's too big That got me right at the end. so Yeah. ah well we yeah I'll cry next time.

Speaker: Don't cry. We got more coming. There's a great way, like I said, we'll we'll all buy our merch. We'll all meet up in Shard Heaven. And by Shard Heaven, I mean the Dragon Con. Dragon Con meetup. The Dragon Con meetup.

Speaker: And I'll have a lot of people who can spit on me and my opinions in person instead of to the internet. There you go. Which I'm more than happy to do Gosh, I love arguments.

Speaker: Especially the more worthless the argument. and the That means the more impassioned I can become and obstinate about something that just does not matter. yeah you know yeah Say shit like, no, you guys don't understand. like the The entire time Chris was right.

Speaker: Oh my gosh. Not Chris. That'd be a good one. Two plus four times five. Haven't tuned in since arc 10. What I miss, bro. Oh my God. man Like this. This is what this one I'm talking about. This is fun.

Speaker: We appreciate you're here, but we're working. finishing up the stream right now. We'll see you all next week on the 28th at 8 p.m. That's next Monday for the big wrap-up of Ward.

Speaker: We love you all those of you who are listening, we love you too. Just slightly not monetarily as much. And... ah And of course to our Discord patrons, we love you the financially as the most. The most that we can, yes. will We'll see you all in the Discord.

Speaker: Yep. Yep. Love you all. ah Michael, do you have a song? Do you want to play song? We can play a song. ah i mean, it's tradition at this point. We gotta play a We have to. You know what? I'll take another shot.

Speaker: Oh, God. Join the Patreon. Please come on in. Join the Patreon. Why don't you just join the Patreon? Become supporters and join the Patreon.

Speaker: Please help us and join the Patreon.

Speaker: Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come on, come on. Say there, big boy. You look like a big spender. So spend all that bulging trash on the Patreon for exclusive content.

Speaker: Okay. All right. I'm glad y'all here. Okay. Well, here's another aster for you all. There we go. Jeez. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week.

Speaker: Yep. you next week, guys. Bye.