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BBBC Reads Ward - Episode 1
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This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Complete list of potential triggers: here
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The Brockton Bay Book Club discusses J.C. McCrae's Ward live! The gang reads a portion of Ward and comes together to share our thoughts with each other and anyone who want's to participate.
This week we cover Glow-worm!
Read along here
Support us and connect with us @brocktonbaybc
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Transcript
Event Kickoff and Anticipation
00:00:35
Speaker
you
00:01:29
Speaker
I'll be ah be honest, I figured it would be us and Vic. Welcome, everybody.
00:01:41
Speaker
Welcome. It's here. It's happening. Oh, my gosh.
00:01:53
Speaker
We freaking did it. Oh, we're here. Can everyone see us and hear us and participate? Can you feel it now, Mr.
Realization of Success and Technical Concerns
00:02:04
Speaker
Krabs?
00:02:05
Speaker
It's happening. It's really happening. ah Wow. We did it, you guys. And I'm still waiting for the but like the tech issue to hit and everything goes dark. I know. i I was actually thinking the same thing. I'm waiting for something to go wrong. won't Don't speak it into existence. You want me to go ahead and kick this off?
00:02:29
Speaker
um Yeah. yeah Welcome, everyone. Thanks for being here. Alan's going to kick us off. Good evening, Megalopolis. Do you know where your kids are now?
00:02:42
Speaker
Are they online? Are they on the Parahumans online forum? Are they out talking to masterminds behind your back? Or even worse, are they interacting with the Brockton Bay Book Club tonight?
00:02:55
Speaker
Find out.
00:02:59
Speaker
and ya a little rough around the edge edges but we'll get there eventually it was good you can't rely on Michael to save us now yeah ah you can't censor me now oh no dangerous thing okay Vic says I sound a little muffled let me see if do I sound better now Vic
00:03:26
Speaker
It's a little bit quiet. Okay, let me just look at this real quick. then and There's always going to be ah couple things. let me just stand i all i love this into existence i know yeah I love that Jacob has the the the headset mic and is coming through the loudest and clearest in my opinion.
00:03:44
Speaker
And Michael has the best mic set up and is coming through the softest and most muffled. A little bit. Just a smidgen. My computer is not happy with me then.
00:03:57
Speaker
Oh, no. yeah Oh, no. Really? We knew it would happen. I mean, I think you sound all right. Okay. This is what this first episode is for.
Exploring "Glow Worm," "Ward," and "Worm"
00:04:06
Speaker
Okay. ah okay This is what we get at.
00:04:09
Speaker
Tonight on the Brockton Bay Book Club, we are going to be discussing Glow Worm. The interquil, if you will, between um warmr and Ward.
00:04:24
Speaker
ah Technically, i don't believe it is a part of Ward. ah Ward or Parahumans 2 begins after Glow Worm. Glow Worm is just a good intermediate prologue, if you will.
00:04:39
Speaker
ah good Like a Christmas special. yeah Yeah, a little bit like a Christmas special, but leading up to this. um yeah but i would not consider this the first chapter. I would consider this the prologue Ward.
00:04:53
Speaker
ward So that being the case, ah we finished Worm together. We've all read Worm before. However, some of us have not read Ward.
00:05:07
Speaker
So what has been your exposure to Ward in particular? Hmm. Well, I think by some of us, you mean everybody but you, right, Alan? I was about I think you're the only one.
00:05:20
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no. Because some of us have interacted a little bit with this. Let's not be so, let's not be hasty. Okay, okay. Fair enough. Interacted with, as opposed to like, read. Because... Yes.
00:05:33
Speaker
I've accidentally wickied things, but I've forgotten them on purpose. I've listened to Alan get really excited about whatever section was reading the time. Gave him the you I'm saying? It's true. I gave it the old Worminchi. I put it in the 2B Worminchi-ized file. Well, I was thinking it looked like the guy that we can never remember the name. I think it's the Slug is the guy that they keep to edit brains and powers and memories. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, it might be the Slug.
00:06:01
Speaker
Slug, can we clip that right out? Just out of my brain. um i I have interacted very little with Ward aside from I figured out who the or I found out who the protagonist is. Either it was mentioned maybe even by Alan or it just came up when I was looking her up one time.
00:06:20
Speaker
ah One or the other. um And i I've again, I've seen names on the wiki because we'll look up we'll use the wiki to reference like, okay, what are their exact powers?
00:06:31
Speaker
And it'll there will be a section, right? It'll be like Brockton Bay, Post-Goldmorning, Ward. And it's like, okay, so they're in Ward in some capacity. um But again, those names are lost to time and the smoothness of my brain.
Predictions on Characters and Narrative Arcs
00:06:45
Speaker
so yeah That's fair.
00:06:48
Speaker
yeah i ever Do we all know who the protagonist is? Yes. and we'll get that's this That's a question we'll get to in a second. Okay, all right. all right We'll let the game show host continue. Because I'm also assuming, not to interrupt you, game show host, I'm also assuming that we probably slash may have people who are joining us on this podcast ah in the capacity of maybe have also only read Worm and are excited to read Ward with us as well. So like, yeah.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Having just finished Glow Worm, we still technically don't know who the protagonist is. Yeah, no spoilies.
00:07:27
Speaker
No spoilies. True. That being said, I have read when Ward debuted like eight years ago-ish now? Seven, eight years ago? Something like that?
00:07:38
Speaker
um seven years ago yeah I did read the first like two arcs when it came out because I was all caught up and excited and then just lost to time and forgot to pick it back up again so yeah know who the protagonist is and that's about it so it's full ormentia yeah to get the full date on it September 11th 2017 is officially when ah Daybreak 1.1 was day I'll never forget here
00:08:09
Speaker
yes right ah but so um did we Should we introduce ourselves in case we have new viewers? I don't know that we do.
00:08:20
Speaker
that would be that would be I realize we didn't do that. we should though. Let's do it anyways. very if this is your first time seeing our faces for some reason, on maybe you're a podcast listener, um but just introduce us again. This is Nick. Then...
00:08:35
Speaker
then and Michael, maybe you should point to people because I don't see the screen like you do. you your point Michael, introduce us. It's probably easier just for us to introduce ourselves. I'm Alan, in case you couldn't tell by your ah antagonistic like fervor that welled up when you heard my voice. I'm Jacob.
00:08:59
Speaker
Jacob's over there. go ahead, Hannah. It's me. Hi, I'm Hannah, it's the only girl on the podcast. Happy to represent this group. Okay, hopefully you can hear me better now. um You represent so many different demographics, Anna.
00:09:14
Speaker
It's me, Michael, the editor and moderator and chat reader. And I'm not reading, but I'm making other things happen. So direct your comments to me.
00:09:26
Speaker
I'm trying not to look at the chat. We're having a blast. We're having a blast. Yeah. there For our audio listeners. The protagonist is actually so that's that's We're trying to figure this out.
00:09:37
Speaker
Jacob is the protagonist. Riveting content for audio listeners. Yeah. ah
00:09:44
Speaker
have to have All right. Now that we've got that figured out. Skip here. Get through everything. Let's see. Jacob. Hannah, what's your exposure to Ward? ah My exposure to Ward is when you were reading it, I don't know if it was for the first or the second time, you would like tell me about stuff. And i it's one of those, it's the same conversation we would have any time you've seen something and I haven't, or you've read something and I haven't. It's the, are you going to read this?
00:10:11
Speaker
And my answer was always, yes, but I will have forgotten whatever you tell me by the time i actually do read it. And so I specifically remember the protagonist and I remember some of the kind of like,
00:10:24
Speaker
overarching, ah a slight theme of the group. I know a little bit about that. smidgen of breadcrumb, perhaps. And then I know um about one other character.
00:10:38
Speaker
That is it. And I know about them in the, like, broadest sense of the word. so i did have to gush about it. And I did tell you in the confidence that you would completely forget about it by the time we would get here. Completely forgot about it. When we get to this one character that I can remember, I'll let you know.
00:11:02
Speaker
um But I don't like don't remember any names, have no idea about the plot, have no idea about most anything, really.
00:11:13
Speaker
You're just going to have a middle-of-the-night, like, Kronk-style revelation. Yes. Where you read something and be like, the man of the villagers. Yeah, absolutely.
00:11:24
Speaker
With that being said, we all know who the protagonist of Ward is. will not say it this time because not in Glow Worm. So...
00:11:35
Speaker
um But we did have that spoiled. And we did, I think we talked about it the end of our ah last podcast. We might have. For those of you are coming in fresh and have no clue, ah you shouldn't have listened to us then.
00:11:47
Speaker
You should just come in bright-eyed and bush-tailed of what we're about to run into. The issue is now is I think at some point we might talk about predictions. Most of my predictions have to do with the protagonist. It should become very apparent who the protagonist is if I mean, it is literally going to be the opening to the next chapter. We're not going to.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. who Do we just want to talk about it with the predictions? yeah so We might as well. Yeah. but Yeah. Okay. So my first three predictions are related to the protagonist.
Insights and Theories in "Ward"
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. hello We'll go with that. um So my exposure, I started reading it as well when it was coming out.
00:12:25
Speaker
Um, however, I also fell off for a while. was working a lot of jobs that, uh, you know, audio books were the best way to consume stuff. And of course, rain hadn't put out the audio book yet.
00:12:37
Speaker
Uh, and then he did. And I read it up to where they were putting it out. And then I listened to it and then I read it to finish it. And then I finished listening to it like in tandem.
00:12:48
Speaker
Um, so this will be my third time going through word once listening, once reading. And now again. Okay. Well, yeah we appreciate your dedication. And let me tell you, already at the start of this, and this was partly because I was listening to it the second time, already so much I missed.
00:13:08
Speaker
ah You know, that I'm excited. I'm excited. ah The patrons mentioned that this would probably be the most eye-opening arc for me because of how much content is jammed in there that is like retroactively important.
00:13:21
Speaker
And boy, howdy, they were right. They know this was so exciting. um but that going into this before glow worm before you read that ah what did you guys think was going to what you what did you think was going you know this was going to be about I so we I'm going to say the protagonist is at this point I think we've we dont around it long enough ah you've been warded even ah but ah the protagonist I'm pretty sure is Victoria Dallin glory girl
00:13:55
Speaker
Wait,
00:13:59
Speaker
are you serious?
00:14:03
Speaker
Don't do that. Okay. ah Alright. It's April Fool. Go on. Hannah, are you serious right or are you April Fooling us? Look, I had to slip one in. Yeah, no, I knew it was Victoria. I was about to say, Hannah, there's no way. Look at this, Cal. There's no way.
00:14:22
Speaker
im sorry. I couldn't keep... had a moment of like, wait. I had a moment more of like, am I wrong? no, no. I was prepped. I was ready for this. Good job. Well done. falls one Well there you go but you've watched like shows and you forgot da like from previous in that season as if it was just gone. And I was like, ah do you not remember that? They just talked. This is why can rewatch shows because I don't remember anything ever. Your ability to rewatch shows on a fresh slate. I wish I had that. You guys actually scared the patrons, by the way. They were like, oh, no. Oh, did I guys. love you all so much. I'm so glad I could bring that to you on this this fool of of April.
00:15:17
Speaker
You were all the fools. Ha ha.
00:15:24
Speaker
I'm so sorry. Fantastic. Please continue. Well done. No, was good. um So I wrote some predictions based on her family and just kind of what's going on with them.
00:15:35
Speaker
um my My guess is that we're going to have an Amy Marquis villain duo turned hero eventually.
00:15:46
Speaker
um i foresee a scenario where Marquis actually foresee a scenario where Marquis is the one who turns good first.
00:15:59
Speaker
ah He's just tired of being the bad guy and now that ah you know the world has ended maybe this is a chance for him to you know you know old old bad guys try to pull him back in but he realizes well maybe this is a chance to do something different with my life.
00:16:15
Speaker
um He's definitely got like coach vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Like he, I don't know. Cause he is, he was always that honorable villain already. And so I feel like, I don't know in a world where maybe crime doesn't pay as well as it used to. Maybe there's not as much of a point of being a villain. It's not as fun or it's not as interesting.
00:16:35
Speaker
And simply being a hero and surviving is the right thing to do. So I could see that happening. um I think Glory Girl's parents are probably going... i think her dad, ah sad dad, um is going to retire.
00:16:49
Speaker
um i think he's done with all of this stuff. Did he survive, actually? I'm not 100% sure they're alive, actually. now I'm not the one to to say if... yeah i i if he's alive um If he's alive, he's retiring. And her mom, ah if alive also, because i don't remember,
00:17:05
Speaker
um like is ah i don't remember I don't think they survived. don't think she is. Yeah, I'm not 100% sure on that. If the mom is a alive, Laser Dream?
00:17:17
Speaker
No. Laser Dream's the aunt. Laser Dream's the aunt. Nope. Laser Dream's the cousin. mom. Lady Photon. Lady Photon. Yeah. Brandish. photon mom challenge lady photo on lady photo on last my mom though go mom yeah yeah yeah yeah brandda
00:17:37
Speaker
Brandish, right, right. Listen, it's not my fault. They all have stupid ass names. Brandish and Flashbang, I believe, are Vicky's parents. And I believe number flat Lady Photon. And I can never remember his name.
00:17:55
Speaker
But anyway, I think um if assuming they're alive and I'm not 100% sure if they survived Gold Morning. um I think mom's going to go rogue. I think she's going to go like try to do her own solo hero thing.
00:18:08
Speaker
Probably divorce sad dad sad dad's going to retire and be good dad. but i'll say It was the problem all along. still stand Somebody's got to play the Danny role.
00:18:21
Speaker
yeah he the sad but actually though But actually though, we do need a dad. His name's Mark, right? I remember that. His name's Mark. like Mark. yeah I gotta pause real quick because there's some hilariousness happening. No one's listening to a word you said, Nick, because we're all just talking about Marquis versus Marquis and how they get to make fun of our pronunciations live now.
00:18:43
Speaker
No.
00:18:45
Speaker
mark He is correct. Marquis is not correct. that is the mark this but but Just a dumb way to pronounce it. Marquis?
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's too close to like... ah gosh I don't know, it's giving me like Scarlet Pembernell vibes just a little bit. like Absolutely. Marquis. Marquis. yeah mu The Marquise of Devon. The Marquise Devon.
00:19:15
Speaker
actually had a friend in elementary school named Marquise. That's why you say it like that. how was it spelled though? Because that's the question. I'm pretty sure the same is Marquis, but they are different words. One is one is a name, one is it's it's a title.
00:19:31
Speaker
That's more of a southern problem than anything. yeah Spelling? Yeah, to quote two plus four times yeah five, Marquis would not choose a name that close to Marquis.
00:19:46
Speaker
Marquis? Marquis. Also, he's so like, he's so debonair, like he would know how to pronounce it. Yeah, Tattletail would have had a feel with him. yeah Oh my gosh. all Anyway, i just had a point that predictions. So that's just her family. Um,
00:20:02
Speaker
so that that's just her family um That was just her family. Otherwise, I really didn't have much. um i want Weld to come back. Please. um i i like Weld.
00:20:13
Speaker
He's the best. um I like Weld. um You know what? I'll buy him any tractor he wants. I just want him to come back.
00:20:24
Speaker
Oh, no. everyone Whatever it would be. but a great um For those who know, they know. You know.
00:20:34
Speaker
um Okay, so the Endbringers are not really threats anymore. They're more like natural wonders. They just kind of pick the spot and hang out. Just kind of thinking the same thing. They're kind of kind of like turned off, so to speak. Yeah. Except, I was going to say, the exception is the Simmer, who may still be... Who's always turned on.
00:20:54
Speaker
Who's always turned on. Yeah. um I was just going to say the main storyline threats. So, you know, we had like Slaughterhouse-Nine was a big one, the ABB.
00:21:07
Speaker
um I'll say that the main threats in this story are definitely going to come from other universes that have different priorities and powers. So the idea is that... ah What's his name? Big Goldie Scion. Has...
00:21:22
Speaker
Sion has opened up portals to other Earths. He's wrecked some. He's left some alone. But this is going to shift where the threats come from for our protagonists. They're not going to be on their own Earth. They're going to be external in that way. um I'm actually going to guess that powers start to fade due to the entities no longer being active. Sort of this, over time, people realize, sort of the Eidolon effect, where people are realizing...
00:21:52
Speaker
my power not doing like i don't feel 100 it's not very fast but it's like i'm always at 99 battery charge instead of 100 kind of feeling um and then i'm gonna suspect that there might be a new entity approaching um The entities in the last one. Because again, that multiversal, multiverse universe thing with multiple Earths, there's got to be another Earth that had an entity approach it at some point in some universe.
00:22:20
Speaker
I wouldn't, I'd be surprised if there wasn't. so Wait, what was the yeah what was the third entity that had the affair? Abaddon. Abaddon. Abaddon. It'd be cool if he were dead. Abaddon.
00:22:31
Speaker
a bad Abaddon. He certainly was Jacob. Predictions. Oh, man. ah bad meat he certainly was a bad one
00:22:43
Speaker
anyway ah jacob predictions oh man so I don't know. have no idea. ah Part of me was like, let me just do... So my one silly prediction is that Lung finds his true calling ah in musical theater and puts on a really successful one-man show called 1v1ing God.
00:23:08
Speaker
And he goes on tour ah across across the multiverse. um So we'll see. to be like a and I don't know if he's Korean, but could it be like a K-pop rap hip-hop show? Oh, no.
00:23:21
Speaker
like I'd be here for that. Yes. I'd be there for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. For sure. sure So that's my serious prediction. um No, I do think, I think we'll, we'll get a good bit of the Irregulars with Ward.
00:23:38
Speaker
Feels like a pretty solid group that we would see more of. I'd hope we see more of them. Like Nick said, definitely wants more of them. yeah, I'm really curious. This is less of a prediction. I'm just really curious how much of the the core worm group we're going to see.
00:23:56
Speaker
You know, Tattletail, Bitch, Aisha, etc. So... We get a little snippets of them in Glow Worm. little bit of stuff on Tattletail and Bitch here and there.
00:24:07
Speaker
So it's <unk>m curious. and not not much predict prediction. I don't think they're going to be the focus, but I hope they kind of pop up in fun ways, I guess. Yeah. like Yeah, for sure.
00:24:18
Speaker
What's it called when you have a random appearance of somebody like on a show? Cameo? Cameo, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like a little cameo of all of our favorite characters that we know and love. Yeah, a little guest appearance, guest star.
00:24:30
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, uh, Hannah, before reading glow worm, what were your predictions? Yeah. So going into it before I started reading, cause I had a couple of thoughts while reading, but before going into it, uh, my notes here, um,
00:24:48
Speaker
I think a lot of it is going to be like ah reconstruction, rate the rebuilding of society, a lot of that like post-apocalyptic vibes that you get where it's like we're trying to like make do now that everything's different. Like what is the new normal, which I always think is really fun with post-apocalyptic stuff.
00:25:04
Speaker
um And with that, I think i think with the was it like in some of the epilogues we saw that like you have these new shifts of societies where like these different groups are building you know their own little corners. And now there's we have access to all of these different worlds.
00:25:20
Speaker
So if you wanted to go pioneer you know a wasteland, you totally can. And I feel like we're going to see that a bit. um i also wrote These are all predictions you had before you read Glow Worm?
00:25:34
Speaker
Absolutely. Thank you very much. I wrote, there's a line in my notes from before and after. I also think, I also said thought that there was going to be, um after Gold Morning, there was going to be very much of a two sides to things, which was the ah pro-cape versus anti-cape so the people who were like oh my gosh the cape saved us with gold mourning like they're the reason we defeated Zion and then you were gonna have another side which was like no fuck them all they all got us into this mess like they can all go and die and so you're goingnna end up with like this two sides um
00:26:10
Speaker
uh oh um dealing with the aftermath of releasing birdcage members having to recatch people and I said think like criminal minds episodes where we spend a whole season chasing one serial killer and then three seasons later he's gotten out we have to chase him down again except he's a million times worse kind of like that but like some of our favorite maybe birdcage people that we see again where it's like We gave him a chance, but he squandered his chance of redemption back in the cage, he goes.
00:26:38
Speaker
Something like that, I think. It's going be really fun. And then I had another note here specifically about Victoria and some stuff, but that's some spoilers. um Including another character that I would like to see a lot more of, but I don't know.
00:26:54
Speaker
ah think I can say that without spoiling. um i Because of her involvement with younger capes, I really hope we see a lot more of Jessica Yamada.
00:27:07
Speaker
I think that her taking more of a central role in the story, like how Miss Militia did in Wyrm, kind of see that same thing with Miss Yamada. ah that I think that would be really fun.
00:27:20
Speaker
um And then I said, who's the new big bad? I don't know. ah Simmer baby. What happened to the end bringers after gold morning sleep mode. And then, um and then after that, I have some, some comments after I read glow worm.
00:27:36
Speaker
Nice. nice Alan, what are what are your predictions? alllan Yeah, what are your predictions? I'm predicting that we're going to have a blast with this. Yay! and Boy, howdy.
00:27:48
Speaker
I'm so excited. We're going to have so much fun. I was foaming at the mouth earlier. I had to wipe it off, get in here, do the podcast. And you know let me tell you, it's hard to keep it back.
00:28:00
Speaker
all right absolutely Hard to keep the foam behind the teeth, huh? I get that. Yeah. So, ah do we want to are we ready to get into it? think so. Let's do it. Let's go.
00:28:12
Speaker
All right. Glow Worm Part 1. I'm going be going off the summaries here from a good old Steamrick for the time being.
00:28:25
Speaker
um Wrote up the summaries for ah Worm. Also did the ones for Ward. Legend. ah So, Part 1.
Post-Gold Morning Discussions
00:28:33
Speaker
part one ah Two years after gold morning, Parahumans Online is back up and running.
00:28:41
Speaker
Username PointMeAtTheSky participates in online discussion, an update on what's going on in EarthBet, and the state of the multiverse.
00:28:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Right away. The word on the capevine
00:29:02
Speaker
And the grapevine, the capevine. Yeah. Capevine. Gold. um gold No. No, that's that's that's not a great one.
00:29:13
Speaker
ah That's a bad one. not going to give that one kudos. ah No, this is just silly. Silly, silly wild folk. I also have below there the word And I don't know why I read that as Shebang.
00:29:32
Speaker
um i Shebang. But I like the lesser known cousin of She-Hulk. Yeah. but
00:29:48
Speaker
I bet I know what her powers are. Shebang Hulk smash. Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
Oh, how quick we've fallen. I'm sorry. this was the We knew this was going to happen. Gosh. yes Yeah, are kind of in chaos.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah. How long has How much time has passed? I think it says it, but I totally forgot. Two years? yeah Golly. That is a long... That is a long fucking time when we think about like the first, i don't know how many up to the time skip in worm takes place over like what? Three months, two, three like i think barely three months, years later, like, holy macaroni. It's almost one time. stripp if you will
00:30:38
Speaker
Can I curse? I just realized I said the F word. It's fine. I can. We're good. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um I will say... we're not getting monetized. I already age-restricted the whole thing. so Excellent problem.
00:30:56
Speaker
Oh, Lord. I will say, um in terms of reading, this is both among the most and the hardest for the hardest and the worst like hardest thing for me to read and the most interesting.
00:31:11
Speaker
Most interesting because there's that part of me that really wants to be the detective trying to figure out who everybody is. Obviously, we find out Point Me at the Sky is a cape in civilian clothes. So we know it is a cape.
00:31:24
Speaker
um Seems like it was one of the former heroes, though we're not entirely sure. um And we get more hints of that throughout Glow Worm. But at the same time, the message board style, reading so much of it is also... i don't know. I had a hard time with it. Maybe it's just... I don't know.
00:31:41
Speaker
ah lack of attention thing where it's just so hard to stay with it. I'm with you. I will say i was listening. So I listened to the first three chapters, which was a mistake.
00:31:53
Speaker
yeah And then from from four onwards, I read them, which was obviously a lot better. um But i was trying to like I was trying to multitask and like work on some other stuff and listen at the same time.
00:32:07
Speaker
um it's It's hard enough to follow reading it, listening to it, because I feel like there's so much like the tags and the like, you've logged off and all of that extra ah like...
00:32:25
Speaker
you know, database-y kind of lingo. But, like, you if you're reading, you just skim past it because that doesn't matter. Like, well, some I mean, some of it does. But, like, most mostly, it doesn't matter. Like, the conversations, the comments, the articles, or whatever, like, those are the things that are really important. Yeah, and there's, like, a lot of purposeful spelling and grammatical mistakes. to It does a good job emulating a real message board, which I really appreciate. Unfortunately, that does make it a little hard to read at times.
00:32:54
Speaker
um But it was interesting in this first little bit here, just kind of getting an idea of like, okay, everybody's getting access to computers, people who don't need them are trading them in um Internet, obviously, you know, is a priority.
00:33:13
Speaker
It's a really clever way of disguising the exposition that Waldo needed to get in like cover a two-year gap. So like yeah props for that, because it's it's really unique in having characters...
00:33:25
Speaker
like just sort of spell it out for you without spelling it out works really well as you do you kind of catch up kind of figure out what's going on you get a you get a good clear picture of the chaos like anna like all the yeah mess and all this kind of stuff and what people are looking for what's what's going on yeah yeah some of the issues we're now facing as a society like yeah you know where where you know where are we now state of the world Yeah.
00:33:54
Speaker
And it's interesting, too, how because so many servers and computers have been lost, Parahumans Online has kind of become this hub and network of information. Yeah. It's more than just a fan forum messaging board. It's literally, okay, we're collecting articles, we're collecting data. If you have an article in paper, like please give it to an admin so they can transcribe it and put it into our website so we can have it um I don't know who's running these servers exactly, but it seems more secure than lots of others.
00:34:26
Speaker
um They mentioned Masamune early, um so I imagine they were involved a lot in it. um I remember Masamune from Wyrm, but I don't remember their powers. I just remember they're a tinker, and that's about it. don't remember. It was just near the end.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, Masamune comes in at Goldmorm. I believe a tinker that can copy ah other Tinker's technology, which is how they're able to produce... i want to say it's how they're able to produce the dragon teeth.
00:34:58
Speaker
Yes, that's right. Yeah, they help produce the dragon teeth because they can copy dragon's deck. It's sort of their thing, which is a pretty cool power, actually. Yeah. Very helpful. You don't have to do any of the work, but you can get all the stuff.
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. okay yeah It's like just 3D printing your own version because you have the template that you got online. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. But yeah, it's it's interesting. um
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, the the whole thing about refugees is interesting, too. Oh, yeah. Very interesting. like Basically, EarthBet is uninhabitable now um for tons of reasons.
00:35:38
Speaker
um Everybody's trying to get to Gimel, right? Because Gimel is the that one that was settled through Rockland Bay. That's for the Megalopolis. Yeah, the Megalopolis.
00:35:50
Speaker
yeah um Earth Aleph is the one where we left Taylor, right? but they They're shut off. they're they're kind of They don't want to be part of any of this. They're closed off to this.
00:36:07
Speaker
And then there's one more. that's like There's a few others that are mentioned briefly. Zayim is mentioned. that they've closed their borders as it were.
00:36:18
Speaker
Yeah. Off the top of my head, it's Earth Aleph, Bet, Wuron, Gemmell. There's Shin. um And
00:36:35
Speaker
there's one other big one that has a name, but those are the those are the named ones. It doesn't matter too much. How many other unnamed ones? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
00:36:46
Speaker
Little pocket world. yeah Yeah. And then there's people that are on bet that are just like holding on, trying to hang on to some old semblance of, you know, their life that they had before everything happened. And it's like, we've encouraged those people not to stay here.
00:37:02
Speaker
But... And it seems like there are some people some people who have maybe gone back to EarthBet. This might have been mentioned later, but isn't... think so. like Like Nilbog is still on EarthBet as well, and now...
00:37:15
Speaker
Or is he not? I'm trying to... um They said that Nilbog has... Yeah, they said that Nilbog is like under... He's in custody, his children are. Yes, exactly. Which means like that's another danger in Earthbett, right? as there's just yeah oh yeah no I was convinced Nilbog died like three different times. We were all hoping.
00:37:37
Speaker
Still kicking it. I mean, i mean and I'm a rinky-dinky-dink, am I right? Yeah. What? what and he's a legend i love this because his name's rinky rink is his name rinky r-i-n-k-e his last name oh oh is it really what's this oh i did not you know listen we need to have all the information you know not to expect it make jokes ah if some people would just get tattoos and permanently imbue this on their body maybe it would take part in their head and their heart you know You know what, Alan? If you get a tattoo with Nilbog's name on your arm, then yeah I will consider it.
00:38:20
Speaker
but I'm not forgetting who Nilbog is. Who the cares about his ass name? First of all. i mean we really i know I don't care about his normie name. yeah No one gives a he shit about his normie name. He abandoned that long ago. Nobody cared who I was until I started pooping out people.
00:38:40
Speaker
know my god ah Do you guys remember his first name? Because I just looked it up. Alan? Is it Alan? No, it's not Alan.
00:38:53
Speaker
Maybe Alan should tattoo it on himself because then he'll remember. i i am My gut said like Jeremy, but it's not. It's close. I am this version of this name for this podcast and you'll get why I'm saying that if you get the name.
00:39:09
Speaker
Look that up. I don't. You're going make Google stuff? Look that up, Jamie. Jamie, his name's Jamie. Oh, Jamie. His name's Jamie. Oh, okay. knew it was a There was a couple of threads. Yeah, okay. His name is Jamie Rinky.
00:39:24
Speaker
Jamie Rinky. Jamie Rinky. I would also... do i also would have gone close. life of solitude. so It's terrible. that ist a It is an unfortunate pairing. Nothing wrong with either, but the pair together is not great.
00:39:41
Speaker
Speaking of names, do we want to go down a small rabbit hole in terms of a username here? 100%. Definitely.
00:39:51
Speaker
Alrighty.
Identity Speculations
00:39:52
Speaker
So, uh, hope in pithos stood out to me because I'm thinking pithos that's mythological in my head. It's probably dragon, you know, cause pithos sounds dragon.
00:40:04
Speaker
I'm like, isn't that like a Greek sword or where where are we going? You know? Uh, well, I looked it up and I was wrong. Nothing to do with dragon. Uh, even though we do know that maybe dragon created parahumans online in order to collect information from, we knew that from worm.
00:40:20
Speaker
Um, What I found out that pithos is ah perhaps a mistaken Greek word for pyxis, which would be a box. A pyxis is a jar that holds stuff.
00:40:34
Speaker
Pyxis would be box. And sometimes it gets mislabeled to that maybe in the translation. But ah it is what Pandora held everything in. Gotcha.
00:40:47
Speaker
Gotcha, gotcha. Going around about way it is, dragon. ah Okay. Yeah. so Well, I mean, yeah. Hope in Pandora, like Hope in Pandora's box. Like that's the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. That sounds about right. well i thought That was my fun little, like, it's gotta be dragon. Right. And then like, look it up. I'm like, it's not dragon. And then wait, no, it's dragon dragon. Yeah. Is point me at the sky, Victoria. I'm like 90%.
00:41:13
Speaker
That's what I think. but I feel like. That might be a guess. Yeah. maybe right I didn't and i didn't like think that until the very last chapter, though. We've seen that name before, though, haven't we? like It was in Wyrm and some of the Parahuman Online stuff. I'm pretty sure we've seen Point Me at the Sky before. The only thing that threw me was, didn't they imply that they were part of the wards?
00:41:35
Speaker
And I didn't think... I didn't think Victoria considered herself a ward, but maybe she did. Well, I mean, wasn't she a ward before she was in the ward? They said that they were at a photo shoot with the wards. Gotcha.
00:41:48
Speaker
That was part of what tipped me off to later. was I was like, I'm pretty sure that's Victoria. Also, I feel like the... the The reason that I felt like it was Victoria is because the final chapter is like her talking to this girl that was part of the group that bullied Taylor.
00:42:03
Speaker
That like, I'm sorry, I'm getting out of order chapter wise, but my to to talk about this, ah that it feels like very much like tying the two stories together of like, this girl who, you know, is the reason everything, well, not the only reason, but part of the reason why Taylor is who Taylor is and then everything happening.
00:42:22
Speaker
And then it's like her trying to find some sort of absolution or answers. And then she happens to connect with Victoria or who we could possibly be Victoria.
00:42:36
Speaker
and and then Victoria basically has, you know, Point Me at the Sky has the big speech at the end of like basically like we did shit and we have to live with it.
00:42:47
Speaker
And you have to decide what you're going to do with the knowing the shit that you know and like knowing what you've done, knowing the, you know. all the yeah all the things being connected that they are like, what he what the fuck are you going to about it afterwards, basically? Which I feel like is such a good like speech coming into you know ah story from Victoria's standpoint. It feels like it should be her.
00:43:15
Speaker
Not confirmed, but feel like it should be. Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. All the signs are pointing. Peroni points out ah that Victoria was a member of the wards after Leviathan because they did, New Wave did fall apart.
00:43:29
Speaker
And 2 Plus points out, yeah, for like a few weeks, which as we know is 90% of the worm story. That's probably going to It's a mess. That's like 10 arcs, really. Good point. At least.
00:43:42
Speaker
ah but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Yeah, so some interesting interesting world building. I do appreciate too. Yeah, this like Jacob said, this is a great way to get that exposition done.
00:43:54
Speaker
We should probably move to the next one though considering there are nine of these. I don't know if we'll have as much to say. We always have so much to say at the first one and then... Every time. but Most of mine have two notes and that's... Okay.
00:44:09
Speaker
There you go. Alright, number two. Capricorn reminisces with old teammates and then hires a hitman.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um yeah Let's talk about that. ah Let's talk about that. Also, I'll just open with, because my dumbass didn't get that that was a hit, man, because I'm just blazing through this the first you know couple times I read this.
00:44:39
Speaker
Oh, really? I just, you know... That was about the only thing I understood. gone, you know, mentally just cruised right by that fact was like, ah, you know, really loves cape stuff, trying to get some stuff.
00:44:54
Speaker
Those action bits, those commemorative plates, am I right? So I thought this was a thing where like, we go get it And if you know, and they're like doing some weird thing, like we can go get it, but it might end up scuffed up.
00:45:08
Speaker
You know, you got to pay extra to make sure that's in pristine condition. And then I like, wasn't getting how that was working in reverse. And because I was, because I'm just going through text chains, essentially. I'm you reading it. Like I would read it.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, um, I'll be honest until you just said that. I don't think I realized it was a hit, man. Um, Really? Well, because my so here's my thinking, right? Like I'm also.
00:45:34
Speaker
i wasn't 100% sure because there was a break that this was cap still, I thought it might be a separate user just using an encrypted identity. It doesn't say it's cap, although I'm going to guess it is cap based on what we're learning now.
00:45:49
Speaker
So the reason my reason thinking is like, okay, everything's gone to crap, but there's a lot of valuable cape stuff out there. Literally a lot of valuable cape stuff out there still left maybe an earth bet.
00:46:03
Speaker
And so he's saying he wants the memorabilia of what he used to have. Maybe he's collecting tinker gear, made like kind of a saint thing, like collecting tinker gear, collecting... yeah you know, cauldron stuff, right? Like, I thought it was genuinely, okay, like, if you want this really hard-to-get stuff, we can get it for you. It'll just cost more. It's commemorative plates.
00:46:28
Speaker
It's commemorative plates, exactly. Plates make me think of my abuela, you know? I wasn't thinking. That's right. I wasn't thinking. He wanted to kill somebody. Yeah.
00:46:43
Speaker
That was not the vibe I got. right Right there with you, Nick. That's funny. Okay, so... ah fascinating. So, and what's interesting, though, now um now that I know that, is the hitman seems nervous about this particular one. He's like... Only after he sees the picture. Yes, he sees the picture, and he's like, perfect, no wait, you got the instructions wrong. And he's like, it's fine.
00:47:06
Speaker
So, it makes me wonder what the picture is. I think it's a kid. You think it's a kid? think it's a kid. I think, okay, so like... It's what Taylor would have wanted. Yeah.
00:47:20
Speaker
That man is Taylor. No. no no But like, okay, think about it. Like, unless it's it's an it's an old person or a child or someone like, think about like... It's a gift.
00:47:37
Speaker
It's a gift. She's like, I can't kill... The guy in the GIF, he's like, no, that's exactly who the target is. I'm sick and tired of watching the the like, I'm not a rapper react guy yeah on my feed. It gets used too much. We got to off him.
00:47:53
Speaker
Also, they pointed out real quick, like, hey, well, I guess since you guys were confused, their coded speak was effective. Yeah. You know what? i'm Listen, I'm too innocent for the dark web.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah, we're the mods, like, scrolling through. We're like, oh, that's nice. We're talking about collaborative plates. That's so nice. No problems here. We're have a tough time in a court of law proving that one. yeah I will say...
00:48:18
Speaker
The way I read it, and I don't think I read it right, obviously, but it reads like he they hired the hitman on themselves. And that's what the confusion was, was the hitman being like, um you, you, like you, this is, are you sure?
00:48:36
Speaker
Am I looking at this right? Only because of the way the it ends with the conversation between... um just had to pull up because find it. Where ah Cap says, ask you not to come after me or anything.
00:48:48
Speaker
Moonsong nods. Moonsong, so long as the professional you hired has it covered. Yeah, covered. Was like... Are you... Okay, so... Did I read that? want to assassinate myself. Moonsong pulled yeah And then they did. And then they did. I'm going to pay this man good money to kill me.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah. yet Providing jobs. You know. I felt like that was. Make sure you handle this well. And if you don't I'll kill you. like that's That was the vibe I got. That's probably a better reading. Probably. yeah Like hey we need somebody to handle this person. Yeah.
00:49:30
Speaker
you be that guy. And you handle That makes more sense. I'm still going with mine until proven wrong, but yours is probably right. we do know that I love that his real name is Tristan. don't know if that matters, but we know his name is Tristan. Whose real name Tristan? Yeah, his real name is Tristan.
00:49:45
Speaker
Yeah, we got a couple name drops. um Kelsey for heart-shaped pupils.
Villains in Society Post-Gold Morning
00:49:57
Speaker
ah I love that Moonsong and her big speech. Oh, yes. Mentions the villains and was like, you know, they're real pieces of shit, but, you know, they were our pieces of shit.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah. And then also Jesus fuck Moonsong. What the hell?
00:50:22
Speaker
ah section no um wait no no no no ah back wait wait wait I'm trying to remember one section where I listened to it and I remember being like and then later was like no I think I must have heard that wrong it's hard to know if you heard something wrong right well what you're looking it up unless anybody else says something else we'll move to part yeah yeah all
00:50:52
Speaker
all right Part three, Mangled Wings, a supervillain, browses Parahumans online, discussing the post-Gold Morning Amnesty. ah Mangled Wings receives account advice from Point Me at the Sky.
00:51:07
Speaker
Malek oozes in. Mangled Wings says hi to chatroom group and discusses mysterious project with them.
00:51:18
Speaker
We want to do... and we names we think who any new characters guesses mango these broken wings yeah learn to fly again my thought was canary yeah my thought was canary immediately just from the name i was so off but that makes so much sense I want it to be the Simmer. Oh my gosh, that's what I wrote!
00:51:44
Speaker
What did you say? did in my know I wrote that in my notes. I totally want it to be the Simmer. The Simmer? Yeah, okay, but listen though. She doesn't know how to use a computer, but she's figured it out really fast. Also, the way that she talks about humans is very much like you two walk on your hind leg ape.
00:52:04
Speaker
yeah It's like, ah you're also human, I assume, unless you're not. like I feel like we've seen the Endbringers grow and change, right?
00:52:15
Speaker
So why wouldn't the Simmer, who literally tried to grow a baby, maybe trying to get connected, get reintegrated, you know? i do like that.
00:52:27
Speaker
i hope that's correct, because that would be great. I well i want to be correct so much. Yeah, i think I think the issue is that um because strange some of the other people, Cap and Strange Mammal, seem to know who Mangled Wings is, I'd be surprised if it was the Simmerf.
00:52:45
Speaker
yeah Unless we've just got a group chat with Tohu and Bohu and Leviathan. and And then somehow the Simrf, the techie one, is the last one to log on. ah do want that now. And I hope that there's an interlude, a group chat of all the Inbringers.
00:53:04
Speaker
There you go. The Travelers get back together on Earth Aleph and start playing games and realize that they're in a tournament against the Inbringers. Yeah.
00:53:15
Speaker
um No, Mangled Wings read kind of like Canary, except she's a lot more snappy than I would think Canary would be. um So it makes me think it's probably not Canary. That might be a red herring name. Yeah, it was the only bird name I could think of that was still alive. so Yeah, yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
don't know. I don't think who else it could be. Mlek is, I like Mlek. Mlek. Mlek oozes in.
00:53:48
Speaker
Talks in third person. ah I don't think he has access. Yeah, refuses to elaborate. I don't think he'd have access to a computer, but like Neil Bogg vibes is kind of like, yeah like he's taking on a new mindset. He's like, i'm going to roleplay and ooze on Parahumans Online.
00:54:11
Speaker
But no. Yes, Hannah. Okay, so I found the thing that I was talking about in chapter two. So Cap and Moonsong get into it.
00:54:22
Speaker
And then he talks to his hitman. And then he comes in and literally Moonsong is like, Boo, how you doing? to cap To Cap. Like, all of a sudden they're on good terms.
00:54:37
Speaker
Yeah, that was odd. Did you... So, like, the last time they're talking, she's like, yeah, I kind of hope you died. And he's like, really? Wow. And she's like... And then the next part is, like, there she's she's like, oh, my gosh, hi, that's so good to hear.
00:54:54
Speaker
he's like, oh, hey, I miss you guys, too. I've missed you so much. We should catch up.
00:55:01
Speaker
What happened? Like, felt like Moonsong is giving... Like, either doesn't remember, like, brain wipe, or, like, dual personality vibes, or, like, maybe an immense amount of time has passed. Although, i get hold on, eye let me look at the timestamp.
00:55:26
Speaker
Maybe. it It could be sort of... There's no timestamp. therere They're faking for the more public chat, maybe. That they're still on good terms. But like the other chat was also a group chat. It was just the two of them were in at the time.
00:55:40
Speaker
so I'm like, is this the same? I kind of read it sarcastically, actually, if I'm honest, just because of that prior interaction of like, how's it going, boo? Yeah, I hate you. You know, kind of that like...
00:55:53
Speaker
you know Okay, I guess I guess i am a little biased just because the audio narrator was like, read it as though, like, oh my gosh, like it's so good, like very genuinely. yeah And so I think I just assumed that, but.
00:56:08
Speaker
Skomar is happy that this has come up. That's all I can say. so It's a good thing you talked about it. they Okay, so Moonsong is, I guess, Moonsong cap interaction is important to keep an eye on.
00:56:25
Speaker
Okay. I don't know who Moonsong is, though. I assume they were talking about Simurg, Inhuman Simurg, but... Oh, possible. Maybe so. I personally loved that Wildbow came up with an OS system that is circular. I'm talking about how to navigate it.
00:56:47
Speaker
It sounds like ah a you know remade a the like wheel and ah for the old iPods, but for your computer, you got to like do the circle with your mouse to open the camera. and yeah and what that's right thought that was so cool.
00:57:07
Speaker
Accidentally takes a photo. It's fine. Just use that one. that's funny ah Anything else before we move to four? ah We get a cameo from Bitch um just in the mention of um Miss Militia and Vista occasionally in the company of Rachel Lent, also known as Hellhounder Bitch.
00:57:29
Speaker
Basically sort of showing, you know, it's confirming that what they discussed in Bitch's interlude at the end of Worm is still happening, right? That there's a sort of an amnesty between them, an understanding where sometimes they help each other out, but for the, you know. Yeah.
00:57:45
Speaker
um they're helping each other in this terrible time. um There's also... It's interesting. um there There are more heroes now than villains, which seems to be a bit of a change.
00:57:59
Speaker
um Lots of villains are kind of turning in the black cape for the white one, is what's said. um Which I think... I think is interesting because there is this sense of...
00:58:10
Speaker
After the ABB and the war with Empire 88 and then Leviathan and then Slaughterhouse-9, there is sort of this sense where there are moments where chaos causes the fighting to increase.
00:58:26
Speaker
But then with moments like Leviathan, right, the bad guys and good guys set down their petty squabbles and come together. And it seems like this is the same thing, but on a bigger scale where people are realizing, kind of like I said in my prediction, oh, being ah villain...
00:58:41
Speaker
is not profitable. There's no one to steal from. There's no drugs to, you know, market and everybody's suffering. i can choose to do this a terrible way or I can, you know, maybe I, maybe they became a villain kind of like Taylor did sort of outside of their own circumstances. They didn't really want to be a villain, but that's just what they needed to do to survive.
00:59:01
Speaker
Right. And now they can be a hero to survive. So yeah, it's kind of interesting. Yeah. I was also thinking about that. Oh, sorry, Alan. Go ahead. i was going to say, I think when, you know, the end of the world happens and you are faced with like, ah being a villain is almost a luxury. um yeah Yeah. You know, yeah ah you get to, you rob banks, you, you know, you fight the heroes, but when the heroes are digging people, yeah, heroes are digging people out of rubble.
00:59:34
Speaker
Like, yeah you you don't get to be the charming villain, and you know, because you're, robbing them behind their back while they're digging people out of you know holes.
00:59:45
Speaker
You don't get to be... ah Nobody likes you. Nobody likes you if you're doing that at the end of the world. like And were they're still not really past that point. like Luxury is kind of a thing.
01:00:04
Speaker
Some places, maybe. yeah Otherwise, like... you know who who Who are you being a you know a villain to? People on the outskirts stealing stuff from them, leaving them to starve? like Yeah. yeah And we did see in Ims Interlude... Yeah, we did see an ms in Ims Interlude there are some people who are who are trying to start up sort of warlord camps, but if Earthbett is falling apart completely and everybody's moving to the megalopolis... like And you know you have a dwindling camp of people you're trying to keep. like At some point, you just realize, this is stupid. What am I doing?
01:00:41
Speaker
i could just go to the megalopolis. And especially if if word gets out that the new reorganized, not PRT, but SPRT group is saying, hey if you want amnesty and you're a villain, you've done bad things, but you want to help now, you can you know we'll erase your crimes essentially and you can join us.
01:01:02
Speaker
That's kind of a good deal if you're, you know, king of nothing in Arthur Bell. Right. And if you're interested in actually, like, helping people again. Because, like, I was thinking about in the terms of, like, Marquis or if you're, we'll even say higher-end villain ah this idea of, like, well...
01:01:19
Speaker
Like, everything is broken. So, like you said, like, what are you the king of? Nothing. Like, and I feel like the villains now are going to be villainous. Like, being able to sit in that middle space, like Taylor and the Undersiders did, of just kind of like this and sort of warlord, but not really. Like, at this point in where we are in society, you don't need to call yourself a warlord.
01:01:45
Speaker
You can just say you're the mayor. And people will go, cool, and they'll follow you because... the Our options are limited, but if you're gonna be a villain, you're gonna be like an actual villain. You're gonna be scummy. You're gonna be manipulating people and taking advantage of people in the bad state that the worlds world's ah are in.
01:02:05
Speaker
and like the idea of the gentleman villain like Marquis not really existing because we don't have the luxury of gentlemanly anything anymore. Like, we have Megalopolis. I have no idea what that looks like.
01:02:21
Speaker
i mean, after two years, it could be a thriving, functional city, but, like, I assume it's still just a lot of tents and log cabins. Like, we don't have, I assume, after two years, sure, we might have something built, but, like, everyone's still trying to scrape by. It's like, the line... Would you like me to tell you how big the Megalopolis city is?
01:02:45
Speaker
It sounded pretty big from what they were saying. It's huge. It is very big. It's huge, yeah. um It is, I believe they said... let me see if I can look at the numbers. um I believe they said it's, what, 60 million people big?
01:03:02
Speaker
um And for reference, just have larger than Tokyo. yeah which is the biggest city population city Crazy.
01:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. so Which makes sense, right? Like it's basically the surviving percentage of the population that Dinah predicted moving to an entirely new earth. But, you know, nobody wants to, everybody's going to settle in the same spot at first. Nobody's going to want to venture out or most people wouldn't want to venture out into the unknown.
01:03:36
Speaker
Yeah. And in this case, there is nothing preventing, there are no laws preventing heroes and stuff from doing like construction and things. So, true you know, imagine that you're a metal bender and you're just going yeah absolutely apeshit on some apartment buildings, you know.
01:03:52
Speaker
True ham. ah um The other thing to think about with the end of the world, talking about villains, is ah your most powerful villains probably got killed off because they were the first, and heroes too, but like they were probably the first line. They were morning.
01:04:12
Speaker
real and of of offense against Scion, and that's who they kept throwing was the most powerful. So all of those got whittled down until you had the second string.
01:04:25
Speaker
And those guys that are second string aren't like Mordnog, who's, you know, just killing thousands of people with the deadliest smoke beast in the world. Like, you're getting and Leitz now.
01:04:39
Speaker
And those guys are, like, looking around going... I'm not that big of a villain. I'm not going to try anything because yeah like, you know, there's just, mean don't there's no powerhouses like there used to be necessarily. And enough of the powerful heroes did survive to keep those at bay, I would say probably, right? Like we still have, ah we still have legend. Yeah.
01:05:05
Speaker
I believe. And I think Pretender is still Alexandria, right? Like he survived the whole thing. if No, he didn't. No, he didn't. I don't think so. Chevalier, I believe, is still around. Yeah, Chevalier survived.
01:05:18
Speaker
and Weren't there Alexandria chimps raining down from the sky? Pretender got young. Are Glastig Wenye's converted? Glastig Wenye's converted to become a hero. right like um um right yeah I love the fairy queen, man! I know she's not the fairy queen anymore. I fucking love her! yeah yeah so The heroes have some pretty powerful people who survived, and the villains, it's not like they were a unified front like the heroes were anyway, right? They were all individuals.
01:05:46
Speaker
I mean, it seems like based on the ending of one, the biggest threat from the villains is teacher at this point. I was going to say, right. Going back to production. I forgot about the prediction for teacher. Yeah. Very curious. I forgot about him altogether.
01:05:58
Speaker
Mostly because I don't, I don't, I don't, I've never liked him and I don't care about him. And if we never saw him again, I wouldn't care. Nope. Chapter four. Yeah. Chapter four.
01:06:09
Speaker
He was still around. Lung, right? luy to Lung is, but he doesn't seem like he really wants to be a gang leader anymore. I don't know that he ever really wanted to be a gang leader. Wasn't he getting into theater, I think?
01:06:21
Speaker
That's right. He was getting into the theater. Yeah, absolutely. Lung was literally in it. Didn't he say he was just in it for food and sex? Food and sex. Which is what everybody on Broadway says. like I mean, you know. Yeah. ah Wine and the women. That's what they say. It's just true Dionysus at this point.
01:06:41
Speaker
He should just change his name. Part four. Parahuman online user of five and yeah friend investigate multi-triggers.
Multi-Trigger Clusters and Dynamics
01:06:54
Speaker
Questionable mammal offers to help him find the rest of his cluster. And we learn about the kiss-kill dynamic. Yes. Identified by a mysterious benefactor.
01:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, the kiss-kill thing is really interesting to me. I i love that i idea. And, like, I feel like we saw some of that cluster, um the the cluster trigger thing happening in Bitches episode, Bitches chapter. i feel like you were seeing a broken trigger.
01:07:32
Speaker
okay Yeah, that that was that's what I thought, too. More of a broken trigger. but like I think that's so interesting, the idea of like having a trigger happen that is like a grenade. like It hits the people...
01:07:48
Speaker
and it's like yes and it's cluster in its cluster and like they all kind of benefit from each other's power and have like versions of each other's power and then each one also has like the main one or whatever that's you know to them.
01:08:03
Speaker
I think that's so interesting that the kiss-kill response comes from that thing that either you fucking love each other as in like really love each other or you want to murder each other. i think that's so interesting. Or both. and And both. And or both, yeah. Like, when she, never, no, never mind. When that kiss kill hits differently, though. No, we're live.
01:08:32
Speaker
We're live. I got this to myself. Not so certain. Um, we I don't think we have a confirmation that Circus is a multi, although they definitely feel like that because they're a grab bag.
01:08:47
Speaker
We do know of one person who is multi-trigger, although i I don't believe it's ever explicitly said and um from Worm. But we do know them very well.
01:09:00
Speaker
Let me think on that. I want to think about who it might be Is it one of the Case 53s?
01:09:09
Speaker
Oh, no, duh. I'm not going to say anything else. No, that's okay. We can think we can think about it. The only one I can think of is maybe Gru.
01:09:21
Speaker
Interesting. So a multi-trigger is somebody who has multiple triggers at once and thus gets kind of a grab bag of powers. Is that the idea? You're thinking of successive triggers, which that is like what potentially have that that could happen to anybody. it probably They estimate it probably happened to Taylor that she had multiple successive triggers and couldn't tell.
01:09:44
Speaker
yeah um yeah And then ah for multi-triggers would be ah ah mass shooting happens. Multiple people have traumatic events, but it's the same location.
01:10:00
Speaker
They're all triggering at once. So, yes. um Scrub?
01:10:08
Speaker
Uh... I was actually going to say Regent, I think. Oh, Regent's actually an excellent thought. I don't believe so. Remember, Scrub only has one power. Scrub is very singular. um'm I'm sorry. I was just thinking of that in the sense of like, you had an event where a ton of people triggered all at the same thing at the same Although wasn't Scrub the only one who triggered? and Yeah. He was the only one that triggered.
01:10:32
Speaker
All of the parahumans had the worm dream. the the the dream you know the worm dream That's what they were experiencing. But it did incite Orion. Scrub got the vial. and Scrub got the vial from... Didn't he? Maybe?
01:10:47
Speaker
Someone else. Yeah. Yeah. mean, I think so. That would have been a great time for like a you know ah big stampede in a big crowd, people getting run over.
01:10:58
Speaker
That's an excellent time for a um you know a big multi-trigger. Yeah. But that is not... Okay, I want us to be very clear here about terminology. So when you say multi-trigger, we're not talking about cluster trigger, right?
01:11:14
Speaker
No, no, no. A cluster is a group of people that multi-triggered together. Yes, yes. Successive triggers are one person triggering back to back at one time. Like Taylor, right. Yes.
01:11:29
Speaker
A second trigger is a second trigger at a later time, like Gru. Yes. Right? You still haven't explained multi-trigger, but go ahead. Hmm.
01:11:40
Speaker
<unk> putting I think he triggered ah before he got the vial when he won it in the brawl. oh That is true. I think he did win it in the fight. It was the whole brawl and then the flash because Scrub used his power. as right That's right. yeah yeah right andla He was the only one who triggered. but no what elses and Clusters and multi-triggers are the same thing, I think, in this context. is A cluster trigger and a multi-trigger and multiple people all trigger at the same time from one cause.
01:12:07
Speaker
Got it. I just want to make sure we're using... Consistent terminology for my sake. Yeah. I don't even know who has a cluster trigger. My big note here is new glossary of terms and then would study parahumans.
01:12:24
Speaker
My dream yeah one day if I had a the energy and the time is I've got a whiteboard right there. there and yeah and I would love to capitalize on that by teaching a fake parahuman study course that would be so much fun to dress up like faster right out of that put a put the camera up here like oh hey Beckford put the camera all the way up there so it looks like you're looking down in an auditorium and then like you know yeah Have the audio kind of be echoey.
01:12:57
Speaker
and yeah Oh, yeah. Do that whole bit. i yeah Pretend like I'm answering questions. I'd audit i'd audit that class. You bet. Maybe we would do that as a bonus Patreon episode. I would love to do that as a consistent channel.
01:13:10
Speaker
i would do that. Parahumans 101s with the patrons. too fun yeah yeah that would be legit who's our cluster trigger person that we know that we think is a cluster i'm not gonna say because it's a part of the story i was gonna say yeah i want to think about it as well i would love i would love to be smart enough to figure it out before we actually get to it but i no probably not oh i have a guess no okay you have a guess Wait, I want to hear your guess. but I'm not going to confirm. My guess was Aisha because Aisha triggered during Leviathan, right? Which feels like would be a pretty... ah I don't believe it confirmed, but also she only has one power.
01:13:56
Speaker
so Yeah, because clusters share the powers with the other people. So let's say five people. right Which, by the way, my thought is of five in the in the chat thingy, of five is the cluster. is one of the cluster ah the Yeah. Yeah. same last there Yeah.
01:14:14
Speaker
i ah yeah so like you have a, you have a thing, you know, traumatic event, five people trigger. So they're part of a cluster and then they each have pieces of each other's power with their own, with also each having main.
01:14:30
Speaker
And then they either want to murder each other or want to bone each other to death. well you know. Or both. yeah but um Not always necessarily in the order you'd expect.
01:14:45
Speaker
Unfortunately. my thought is that like, so who, so like my first thought, okay, so the Travelers maybe, but we know they all took vials. Let's not think about this for too long. It is 922. You think about on your own time. What you do need to think about is Circus would be the closest to that.
01:15:03
Speaker
Circus has a grab bag of powers. Be thinking about heroes like or villains like that. Moving on ah to anything in this chapter since we didn't really talk about anything about the the actual narrative of this chapter. ah wast this What was this one again?
01:15:23
Speaker
This was L5. It was god and well the crust of research and everything, right? Yeah. yeah I feel like a lot of it was research. um and then talking Wasn't Tattletail mentioned in this chapter as well?
01:15:41
Speaker
i believe Tattletail was being hired by one of the other cluster members to the other um get him. find yeah Yeah, to get information to come after him. And so he's partnering, potentially partnering up with Cap and heart-shaped pupils and other people, mangled wings, and mammal,
01:16:04
Speaker
ah potentially grouping up with them. Is that the vibe we're getting here?
01:16:11
Speaker
and getting help from them because that was kind of yeah with the vibe that I got yeah that was that was kind of where where I was ah picturing it as well also I'd like to correct help something I said I'm looking at ah this comment from Wildbo on Reddit a couple things here but I'll read the quick one circus isn't trans circus is just a complicated identity and gender is a notable factor in that Things got complicated further because the multi-trigger involved facets which linked to male personalities and female personalities.
01:16:48
Speaker
And Circus could tap into that to legitimately confound questions of identity. When they talk about the bleeding effect between personalities in this chapter, um that really ah shows up in Circus. so I guess Circus is a trigger.
01:17:05
Speaker
a multi-trigger I did not realize that. Interesting. A cluster trigger. Without looking too far back ah you know whoever commented on that you were absolutely right.
01:17:16
Speaker
Okay. Solid. Excellent. Love that. Cool. Okay. Cool. Yeah. It seems like somebody's trying to come after of five. um Yeah. Which is interesting.
01:17:27
Speaker
but it's But of five claims, it's not the kiss-kill effect. like There's another motivation for why the people want to kill him or her. Yeah. um so I don't know, but like yeah at that point, are you just blind to the fact that it's a kiss-kill response?
01:17:44
Speaker
Sure, right. like It could be. yeah you know you know Too much kiss going on to not realize they're trying to kill you. yeah They would never come after me.
01:17:55
Speaker
So it's it's interesting. We kind of have um you know ah Cap and Moonsong, I think, were villains. We've talked about that. But it seems like they're also willing to help out this of five person. and So there you know it might be that sort of gray area where they were villains. They're willing to do villainous things now still to get what they need. But ye maybe not the worst people.
01:18:20
Speaker
We don't know yet. yeah We don't know. So 0.5. point five
01:18:26
Speaker
point five 25. Yep.
Victoria's Academic Challenges
01:18:28
Speaker
All right. ah Point me at the sky is rejected from grad school. Their cousin Glitz Glam gets in contact and comforts point me at the sky. Glitz Glam.
01:18:42
Speaker
but That just seems another reason why I think it might be Victoria because it just feeds into that like. and Yeah, the whole family was sparkly. Thank you. Yes, that's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking. It kind of fits that vibe. Her cousin would have been Laser Dream, right?
01:19:03
Speaker
That is correct. Yeah. yeah so That would have been crystal film, I believe. Yep. Yeah, yeah and and I think there's kind of a...
01:19:14
Speaker
um There's kind of a hint of that, right? Where pointing at this guy is like, I think they're rejecting me from college, not just because of the limited numbers, but because they know who I am. Yeah, which is unfortunate. Kind of, you know, and again, we know it's a cape and ah cape in a civilian account, so we know it is a cape.
01:19:33
Speaker
And there aren't many, i mean, I'm sure a lot of data got out after Gold Mourning, but I still would imagine a decent number of real names and identities wouldn't have been known.
01:19:45
Speaker
Just because the data would have lost. ah yeah If it is Victoria... was to people knew who Victoria was. No, that's what I meant. New Wave didn't wear masks. No, that's what I meant, is that New Wave was the one group that even if information about other heroes... Even about information about them was lost, everybody would still know who New Wave is.
01:20:04
Speaker
yeah Because they didn't wear masks, they just used their real names. You're right, you're right. That's part of... That was what I was trying to say, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Oh, you're Victoria Dallin. We... probably shouldn't have you at our grad school for whatever reason. Oh, that's so upsetting. Although I thought that was interesting. I think they talked about it in this one, that there's so many people who are interested in like re-upping or, you know, getting higher education. There's only one and there's more in the world. um but and no, no, no.
01:20:35
Speaker
There's only three. Three. That's right. Millis University is one of three ah universities but that are doing this. 20k people are 20k out of 1.5 million are being accepted.
01:20:56
Speaker
Gosh. Holy macaroni. ah Only one out of three of the you know universities. And on top of that, that is 1.3 acceptance rate.
01:21:08
Speaker
one point three The lowest acceptance rate ah in the U.S. at the very least, ignoring the fake one, there is there is a, I forget what if it's Minerva University that basically just does it to pad numbers.
01:21:22
Speaker
um Caltech and Harvard are 3%, and they are the lowest. So it's less than half. Half as likely. Well, I mean, I'm not surprised.
01:21:36
Speaker
And like the idea of like, well, I mean, even if they do know who Victoria is, if this is Victoria, like, Victoria, not to say that they're that I know the reason why, but like, feel Victoria had a lot of good things going for her. She was in the public eye She was a pretty big hero for New Wave. A lot of people knew her. She had a lot of...
01:22:01
Speaker
um the phrase I want to look for? ah she had a lot of opportunities to her that a lot of other people probably didn't have. And if you know that, you know who she is, because obviously she's submitting her application under Victoria Dallin.
01:22:17
Speaker
Like, maybe you look at her and you go, yeah. Yeah. No, I think you've been... like Didn't she trigger playing tennis? It's one of those... Allegedly playing basketball. Definitely not true.
01:22:31
Speaker
That's what I'm saying, though. She did get folded into a flesh swan for a minute, though. That's true. yeah That's true. but like We don't want to build the disability ramps to let you in here, so that's a hard pass from us. No ADA in the metropolis.
01:22:49
Speaker
Megalopolis, yeah. you just can't afford to build those ramps right now. That's that's basically what they said. and Also, it's the so it's the second year in a row she's been rejected.
01:23:01
Speaker
yeah pretty Yeah. That's rough. She's not getting it. But she still also sounds like she's trying to finish high school too. So it's also like... andrio Yeah, wait few years. Was that what that...
01:23:14
Speaker
Well, she said have to do some work before H school semester starts. Maybe it's like her senior year or something, right? I was going to say, but because she graduated like a while or ago. yeah but Maybe she's helping with high school then.
01:23:28
Speaker
Maybe she's a tutor. She's a minimum a year older than Taylor was. so That is true. that good like That's Remember, this is grad school.
01:23:39
Speaker
Oh, that's right. It is grad school. You're right. You're right. You're right. don't know. Who knows? ah Maybe point me at this guy as in Victoria. probably She was probably clepping classes and taking dual credit, too, because we see her at the Parahuman Studies with you know the rest of the wards.
01:23:55
Speaker
post-Leviathan. I'm sorry, Alan. I forgot to tattoo Victoria's ah high school career. what um Wait, is it confirmed who Point Me Out This Guy is? Because it could be backwards. No, we don't know. And Glitzklam is Glory Girl. Glitzklam is Girl. Glitzklam is Glory Girl.
01:24:14
Speaker
you know a but Was Laser Dream older? gloryri glo publish dream I thought Laser Dream was older. but maybe Now I'm taking guessing myself. I don't actually know.
01:24:25
Speaker
you are making me say this go you know You know how cousins be. They're just your age. and um Just cousins. true. ah yeah i mean I'm less convinced now that it's Victoria, but I'm still... I don't know. i
01:24:45
Speaker
right yeah yeah Is older, yeah. Nothing else? Not at this point. We'll move on. I wanted to point out 2 Plus. I wanted to add there's a Chicago mercenary that they encounter in the parking garage, I assume.
01:25:01
Speaker
ah Was it Watch? It's Watch. Yeah, remember Watch? The Chicago mercenary ah goes up against Weaver. Has like the sight, can see, and also can reach inside of people and do stuff. um was a multi-trigger cape. So I guess there was one.
01:25:15
Speaker
And Scomar says Crystal is older. yeah we go Confirmed. And that's why we keep y'all around. That's why we need a live stream. This is great. Y'all are the real. Autocorrect on the fly.
01:25:29
Speaker
parties in ah Hurrying this up because both my earbuds and our timer is running out. um Part six. Curious Cephalopod.
01:25:41
Speaker
Explains the reason for their ever-changing nicknames to a curious admin. That was weird. Later, he researches the state of travel through the multiverse. Capricorn questions Curious Cephalopod's introversion.
01:25:53
Speaker
Then a heart-shaped pupil asks him out, but tips her hand. And my earbuds are dead. Don't you he gay here discuss amongst yourself?
01:26:07
Speaker
yeah can't hear we can say We can say all kinds of things about Alan now. Alan's a villain name. Alan spells his name weird. all spells his name where a He does.
01:26:18
Speaker
um we do find out based to all you who even is We do find out here that Cap used to be a corporate cape, which I thought was interesting.
01:26:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So Capricorn, my guess for them is that it might be Seder. I mean, that would track. That would absolutely be.
01:26:42
Speaker
Not sure. Yeah. My guess for Cephalopod is... think it's Sveta?
01:26:52
Speaker
i don't know why, but like in my... There's something about some of the wording that I was like, is this Sveta? Maybe? Also, Capricorn, because i don't I don't know Zodiac stuff, is the seagoat.
01:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Cedar. That makes no sense. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
01:27:13
Speaker
yeah but but that tracks yeah for sure yeah i couldn't I didn't have a guess on cephalopod, but that's that's a good one. That's a good one, yeah. I don't know why, though. like There's just something, obviously, you know cephalopod with that all the arms and stuff that Sveta has, but yeah I don't know why. There's just something something there that just made me think, is that could that be Sveta? Wait, doesn't cephalopod talk at some point in a caption, ah not a caption, a comment under an article or something, talk about like Like insect or bug related something.
01:27:50
Speaker
There was something with that. Yeah, there was something. I think that was the thing that tipped me off. Maybe that's what made me think it wasn't Sveta though, because she's not a bug. She's like the ribbons.
01:28:02
Speaker
But who else? Who is a bug? Unless it's our boy from the dead who learned how to talk online. Wait, who? Atlas. I will neither confirm nor deny.
01:28:20
Speaker
Confused cephalopod because he doesn't know why he's alive again. i'm Confused cephalopod. How about aroused anthropod? Alan, we're live.
01:28:33
Speaker
well i mean This could also be a Cape 53. A different 53, yeah. Okay, so we do get a rundown on Earths, though. um Different Earths. I was trying to kind of scroll through this quickly.
01:28:53
Speaker
There's currently 47 Earths that are accessible. Six have been blocked off due to threats. Alif has been blocked off as well. um at the request of their denizens.
01:29:05
Speaker
um Where is it? ah Don't travel to inhabited worlds. is like There's an incident where Earth Chamesh happened across the settlement and things went bad.
01:29:19
Speaker
yes, yes, yes. One ex-Bet government, which shall remain unnamed, sent one exposition to Earth, Achat. The Europe of that world was home to an invasive species, and everybody died. Yeah. So, you know, careful there. Earth Gimel is the main one. Earth Mim, though, also has some settlers from Bet and is a relatively safe one.
Parahuman Challenges and Personal Struggles
01:29:41
Speaker
um Earth Bet has been deemed uninhabitable. ah There's a lot of reasons why. And that's about that, which I thought was interesting. Just kind of going through some of those things of like, here's some tips for traveling the multiverse.
01:29:54
Speaker
Don't. yeah Which one is the mold one? ah a chat or a chat. Yeah. I believe. Because that was terrifying.
01:30:06
Speaker
Is it this chapter? Yeah. It's this chapter. Yeah. That's, that's, that's fucking terrifying. and I've got it. The Europe of that world was home to an invasive species which grew as a tubular mold in dark shadowed spaces.
01:30:18
Speaker
Eating food exposed to the spores created ah causes stomach cramps that progress to reflexive vomiting. The vomiting and then lasts another two to five days causing death by dehydration for any who don't receive care.
01:30:29
Speaker
Excuse me a second.
01:30:34
Speaker
I was waiting for the sound. It must have clicked. My old audio. It's okay. You can do it live for us, Nick. my own audio clips out it's okay you can do it live for a stick
01:30:49
Speaker
oh did all it clips out Discord is clipping it out because we're using Discord. ah Wait, are you actually doing it right now, Nick? I did one. Hang on. let me um yeahll i'll write it down Wait for it. and for now I'm just going to turn off my clipping.
01:31:04
Speaker
um ah i I can do this faster. here you go Excuse me a second.
01:31:11
Speaker
I just hit the excuse me a second and then that's it that's so upsetting we'll work on off stream we'll move on we'll fix it alas oh gosh alright what's next any other any other thoughts on six no other than the size uh Oh, and just, my gosh, Heart Shaped Pupal outed herself so quickly.
01:31:44
Speaker
Did she? Out herself in what way? Yeah, I don't... So so the end of it is like, oh, a Heart Shaped Pupal basically reveals that she was listening to the admin conversation that Cephalopod was having with a person in a private chat.
01:32:03
Speaker
And then... says something like, oh, like, yeah, because you were talking to so-and-so about that and they were like, oh, yeah, I was because I wanted to see if you would tip your hand. And you did. I didn't even catch that. Yeah, yeah. So heart-shaped people realized, oh, you were, I was listening in on your admin conversation. Interesting. Interesting. I didn't catch that.
01:32:23
Speaker
Clever. Clever. Clever girl. um okay Is that the last chapter? all right There's three more. okay three more at it At the end, if we have time, they want to know what we think the future themes will be after reading. oh I've got ah i've got all a couple questions to there if we can make it. okay ah We make all right we i don't have to end at 10, but we are trying to.
01:32:50
Speaker
We want to be respectful. so sorry you guys We'll go a little longer. ah but but Let's go. Kenzie hangs out in a chat room for kids before hitting up two old teammates who aren't very happy to see her.
01:33:05
Speaker
Graham from IT uncovers Kenzie's chat room deception and learns that she has her own server. He asks her to shut that down. Kenzie and Mangled Wings consider each other's perceptions of them and then discuss a deal.
01:33:21
Speaker
Also, is this where she murders all of her bots? Yeah, all of her bots, I think. Yeah. That was really sad. I'm not going to lie. That was really the only... The two parts were the mold, the weird mold control thing in which, chat, I see you, and this, her murdering all of her bots.
01:33:40
Speaker
That's... My little heart was really upset at that. Yeah. like it hurt Some of those names. One was like Target Mom. and your um And like the Hugbot. The Hugbot. So upsetting.
01:33:57
Speaker
and upsetting. Alright, so we've got two of them, Aven and Houndstooth. She reaches out to Aven. Aven's like, nah.
01:34:08
Speaker
Fuck off. no Reaches out to Houndstooth. Houndstooth is a little bit more receptive. At least nice. you know, cordial. At least cordial, yeah.
01:34:21
Speaker
ah You're a smart guy and you were a good a good leader, she says to Houndstooth. And with the assumption this is a younger user now, right? Because she created this fake chat room, this fake server for people 16 and under.
01:34:34
Speaker
yeah My assumption is that she's also a younger person. I'm really curious who she is. my
01:34:43
Speaker
I don't know what it is. My vibe...
01:34:48
Speaker
Heart-shaped pupil mentions being kidnapped for her power. The only person I think of with that is Dinah, right? Yeah. Yeah. And ah my feeling is like Houndstooth could be fault line or something. she says you're a smart guy, so I'm not going to say it wouldn't be fault line.
01:35:07
Speaker
So the only other group that she was really with even briefly might have been some of the wards, but was she ever really with the wards? I can't remember. feel like she was. ah Because she was obviously she was kidnapped. She was freelance. then pretty She was freelance. That's right. she yeah She was briefly with the wards actually before she left the wards to go freelance.
01:35:28
Speaker
Or no, she was just freelance hired by the people. yeah They hired him and pulled him off and was like, I'll charge you extra money and then still not give you that. And we know her name is Kenzie. We know her name is Kenzie. Never mind.
01:35:39
Speaker
yeah but Yeah. Ina Kenzie Alcott. Yeah. yeah As we all know. Yeah. No, umm I'm going to assume it's a character maybe we haven't met yet then. Yeah. I mean, i did for a brief second think because of the heart-shaped ah heart-shaped eyes And because of the clinginess, I kind of thought um any of Heartbreaker's children.
01:36:07
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It could be Heartbreaker's children for sure. um But then I was like, I don't know if we necessarily know... Like, I feel like the only Heartbreaker children we really interacted with was during Imp's little chapter. And even then, like, it was very limited.
01:36:28
Speaker
so and this could, of course, be a new a new character, but, like, i don't know. Yeah, I think it could be a new character. um Also, i'm I'm going to take back that I think Sater is Cap because Cap is being asked to go to church and that sounds like something they'd ask of a kid and not an adult.
01:36:46
Speaker
So... um Or or adjust just a ah good boy whose grandmother asked him to go to church. does it visit the Maybe. maybe remind him of The plates reminded him of too much of for his grandmother. Is that right? um His abuela, he says. His abuela was like, sweetie, you want to church? And he's like, yeah, grandma. Maybe. If my grandma asked me to go to church, would go with her. Yep.
01:37:09
Speaker
but be my grandma asked you to go in church i would go with her ye And then, yeah, she has to shut down her server. Goodbye to everyone, which is... The fact that it's a kill command, too, is... It's not just, like, delete or end. It's like... What was the alternative? Terminate?
01:37:30
Speaker
Like, that would have been anything. And, like, remove. Could be, like, remove, you know? It doesn't have to... She's clearly, like... She clearly goes here for ah for support, for help, and...
01:37:44
Speaker
yeah For friends. and It's like murdering her friends. Get stabbed! You're right in the heart! Right in the heart! I love how the the admin's like, these aren't AI, are they? And she's like, no, they're just bots. And he's like, are you sure? like Are you okay? She's like, I'm good.
01:38:05
Speaker
It's fine. ale of like On a snail to drag and how intelligent is this thing? yeah She's like pretty close to a snail, honestly.
01:38:16
Speaker
I made a bot just to give me hugs when I say I need it. so She said dumbest dog farts is what she called them. Dumbest dog farts. Dumbest dog farts.
01:38:28
Speaker
I do love that. The idea of a bot, like it sees you online. It's like, hey, how you doing? You need a hug? like Every time you log on. love that. So more hugs. excepting that hug so far i everyone needs more hugs right We find out a little bit more about Mangled Wings. She says, I've been called Queen Dark twice and King Dark once.
01:38:50
Speaker
Queen Dark is a mean joke. Can someone explain? They're calling them Edgelord. Edgelordia.
01:39:03
Speaker
Although, the funny thing is, okay this now, I'm like, okay, who could Mangled Wings be? Is it Shadowstalker, maybe?
01:39:15
Speaker
Like, just the way the way HeartShaped Pupil talks about her is like, I think you're beautiful and stunning and terrifying in person. I'm like, you know
01:39:27
Speaker
you know. And it says your voice doesn't translate well. I think you're intimidating and you want to be intimidating on the internet and that doesn't work at all. And so it's like, it could be shadow stalker kind of vibes of like, she's like, I'm trying to, you know, talk in my short intimidating sentences, but on the internet, I just sound stupid.
01:39:47
Speaker
I love that so much. Isn't that just the way you try to be cool and the internet's like, fuck off, fucking edgelord, get the fuck out of here. Yeah.
01:39:58
Speaker
We've all been there. Yeah. Anyways. Well, okay. and Reason why it's not, Shadowstalker. So, apparently, Mangled Wings hasn't spent that much time on the internet.
01:40:13
Speaker
ah And Shadowstalker did a lot of bullying on the internet. That's true. Exactly. A lot cyberbullying. Cyberbullying always comes to get you in the end. This time, we know it's you know not, because...
01:40:31
Speaker
yeah I like this. puts This puts Tattletail and Bitch on the opposing side. We're talking about them talking about and they're discussing um in the group, I believe. Let's see.
01:40:49
Speaker
Yeah, talking about in the group. um What's going on with I think that's this chapter. Am I not wrong? Hmm. yeah i not I believe it's this chapter where they talk about or maybe this is just a thought I had at this chapter.
01:41:06
Speaker
but So far we've put Tattletail and Bitch on the opposing side of things. um Bitch has been, you know, and the kind of people been railing against Miss Militia and Bitch being out there and kind of being a nuisance and like working with the you know the anti-hero sentiment is going towards them.
01:41:27
Speaker
And then also we have Tattletail coming to attack one of our perspective people. Right. No, it says, uh, her shaped pupil says tattletales out of town. They probably won't attack without her around the act. Yeah. Yeah. So there, it does seem like tattletale may still be on the, um, opposing side of the megalopolis heroes.
01:41:49
Speaker
Um, and even of these villains to whoever they are or tattletales here. Ah, next. Okay. Okay. yeah but we'll get More info in the next chapter. Speaking of which... ah We didn't... you know ah Speaking of which, Graham approves of the name change of ah Space Squid, and then she and Capricorn defend Weld's actions during Gold Morning. Space Squid offers some kind words to the new Monstrous Trigger, then is harassed by a former irregular, and then has to make a new account, and then joins the chatroom group.
01:42:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
01:42:30
Speaker
So Lung didn't do acting. Weld did acting. Weld did, yeah. That was kind of so super cool. First monstrous kiss on on screen, right? screen, yeah.
01:42:45
Speaker
I love that. and Breaking down barriers. Way to go, Weld. Well, I was just going No, never mind. And we're live. I know, I'm sorry. I stopped myself. I stopped myself.
01:42:58
Speaker
yeah yeah Oh, we get this... ah Oh, there's this um really weird post from a yeah the Monstrous Cape, Casey Forks, who is... Basically, he he becomes like the hub for The Last of Us monster like mushrooms. like...
01:43:15
Speaker
it's like I am growing mold everywhere and the mold is letting me control my family's body. I'm not even typing this. This is my sister. my was the terrifying mold thing I was talking about. I didn't okay yeah and Real quick.
01:43:30
Speaker
I don't know about you guys, but for chat, ah I'll just say in case one of these others do glance over at chat for some strange reason, ah we'll just keep spoilers.
01:43:43
Speaker
ah off right now. Spoilering? have enough, but I haven't been looking at it. For shame! I'm not looking at that anyway.
01:43:54
Speaker
I know Michael and I are at the very least are lucky at um now we're not looking. my heart well We'll figure out the the what we're what we're doing spoiler-wise for the rest of the party. We haven't really discussed it, so no worries. but yeah i think For now, let's just not do any spoilers and we'll we'll discuss whether that's something y'all talk about um I think chat um should have the ability to talk about it because like... i See, if we're going to discuss this here, but I don't think we do because what if some people are... i I mean, I doubt it, but what if some people are reading this along with us for the first time? I like...
01:44:31
Speaker
ah yeah true yeah The best alternative is everyone comes and you know joins our Discord. I agree. I think the best alternative is if everyone comes. $1 a month gets you spoilers chat on our Discord. That's true. We do have a special spoilers chat. I have it i have it muted yeah on my Discord because i don't want to see that.
01:44:55
Speaker
We also have a packed spoilers chat and we're basically... Everybody just goes in that chat and just talks about what we're what we're in for and how we are going to be so wrong or right. sure that chat is going to be blowing up tonight after the stream. I've got imagine.
01:45:13
Speaker
We got the link the description. so but no no Bernard, don't feel bad. or about We did not establish the rules. nope That's true. you know We didn't explicitly say it. you know, we appreciate you being here and we appreciate you interacting. Absolutely. 100%. How dare we to be honest? I mean, true. No, see, Jacob's right. How dare we? Yeah. This is this is a space for you guys as much as it is for us. That's why we do a live. Exactly.
01:45:37
Speaker
Yeah. ah right I'm actually going to close my tab. I'm not even going have it open anymore. i yeah know i i haven't Mostly because of technological limitations, I haven't had chat open.
01:45:49
Speaker
Doesn't mean I don't care about you guys. I think I just really wanted to be part of i want to be part of part of the fan group as well. The chat will is getting hard encoded into this video, so it's going to be on the screen permanently. It's going to be there forever.
01:46:07
Speaker
so Okay, maybe... You know what it is, actually? I was wrong. I was wrong with what I said before. Curious Cephalopod is not who I thought was Sveta. Space Squid is who I thought was Sveta.
01:46:19
Speaker
Oh, okay. which because Because Whippersnap, their private conversation where Whippersnap's like, you stopped us from getting our justice. This is all about Case 53 stuff and Monstrous Case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They add Casey to a list of names, which sounds like maybe Casey died. It's unconfirmed.
01:46:36
Speaker
They use past tense to describe Casey, so i'm going tonna assume they may have died. Um... But she's like, you should know i killed her, the one who did this. Wasn't Sveta pretty responsible for killing Dr. Mother? Dr. Mother?
01:46:51
Speaker
and then and that she changes her name to Kraken in a jar, and I'm just like, okay, well, that looks good. Oh, like And I don't know if she, like, expense you know, i don't know, that's just, is she, like, yeah I imagine...
01:47:09
Speaker
All I saw was Alan leaning back and near the first part of what you were and like singing clipped out for a second there. yeah For those of you who know not young to know, genie in a bottle.
01:47:20
Speaker
ah Yeah. oh no. But um but what what made me think of it, too, was Kraken in a jar does the emote, hugs Kenzie to get her to stop willing wiggling, and Kenzie responds with, dies.
01:47:30
Speaker
Dies.
01:47:33
Speaker
Okay, that makes sense. to weird insec Weird Insect says, geez, K, that's not funny. We're using short form names, by the way, S. So it's like, that was one where I'm like, okay, that's who I thought. I got my names mixed up because they were both underwater. No, that's good. Space Squid is better, though.
01:47:52
Speaker
When she said dies, thought, I totally read that as like, like, swoons. Like, dies. No, like, actually dies.
01:48:04
Speaker
Like, actually dies. Crushed to them. Oh, my gosh. I'll hug you guys. Yeah. And then they talk about Weld, too. So it's like, you know, that one's pretty obvious. I feel like it's better. That's who it was.
01:48:15
Speaker
Yeah. Also, did the last we see of Weld was him walking across the ocean floor after the oil rig? Or like him being like, well... we did Yeah, I think that sounds about right. yeah He was like, well, I'm going fall into the ocean and then I'm just going to walk for a while. Wish I had some music. Like, that's one of his final things.
01:48:36
Speaker
I wonder if he ever found a tractor down there. Yeah. no I did have a whole oil rig. He has horns and spikes A whole oil rig? lord That's a lot of moves.
01:48:49
Speaker
No! We're live, Alan! Is that our new t-shirt, by the way? like No, we're live. Attractor? Oh. Attractor. Shit.
01:49:02
Speaker
ah
01:49:07
Speaker
I'm just thinking like ah like a... Never mind. Please go on. so I just imagine it's like one of it's like a picture of just a John Deere tractor, but with... Oh yeah, the They went to the cauldron base with him, so he he had to have gotten...
01:49:25
Speaker
Dang it. It's fine. It's fine. <unk> It happened around the same time. How far we are in the episode.
01:49:38
Speaker
since all right all right anything else anything else forgot We're good. All right. I have oh horns and spikes. That's all. Yes. I got horns and spikes. My other my banger line from this is ah C ah K and C R and B T and a banger comedy right there. Never go changing.
01:50:01
Speaker
Hilarious. um There's nine. He was rescued by the way. They said they rescued him from the cauldron base. They took him up in the the pillar. I'm guessing. Bye, Kevin. Okay, nice.
01:50:17
Speaker
Maybe jumped back in there. I ill honestly don't remember. ah Let's see. that was That was eight. So nine. ah nine Is this the last yeah one? Yep. We have a girl confessing to bullying Taylor and then pointing at the sky has some choice words for her.
01:50:36
Speaker
oh Some excellent words. i thought it was a good speech. I was here for it. i the The rest of it, great. There's a first part where they're talking and they're waxing poetic on Taylor and it gets way too esoteric for the rest of this.
01:50:54
Speaker
And Wildbo loves to do that sometimes and am like, nobody knows what you're talking about, bro This is just very abstract and not something they would be actually saying.
01:51:06
Speaker
Point me at the sky was being was waxing. Yes. it's It's like their first big paragraph where like the rest of it is fine, but that I'm pretty sure it's like the first paragraph where I'm just like, oh my gosh, like this is I would, I would, it would be hard to not hit somebody if they were toss started talking like that. Like, oh, I can kind of see what you mean. it was the like,
01:51:32
Speaker
I can only theorize. I read a thread on PHO a few days ago and it made me think. I said I think she's someone who is looking hard for an answer. I think she was wounded and lost and for this reason and probably... yes yes I can kind of see what you're talking about. Honestly, that doesn't even sound like the bad part. but what' all aboutish you like She's wounded and lost and for this reason and probably because of other factors.
01:51:54
Speaker
She did a lot of damage while looking. The people she was with, things being primed for everything. It it is a little bit like... Yeah, yeah, no, it is that one. I don't know. Well, here's the thing, though. It's like anybody... Anytime someone dies... Like, we see this even earlier with... um fucking moon, whatever name is, that like the when when somebody dies, if you know them or if you don't, you get really emotionally and emotional and poetic about things. Like you put meaning into stuff that doesn't necessarily exist there.
01:52:26
Speaker
Like, in this case, like, Victoria and Taylor didn't really, like, they interacted, sure, if they fought each other a couple of times, but, like, they weren't friends, they didn't really talk, like, and so Victoria is operating, again, if this, if, point me at the skies, Victoria, is operating on this space of, like, well,
01:52:47
Speaker
you she has this legacy. Like, Kepri has this legacy. Taylor has this legacy now. And so, like, we want to put meaning behind how things ended or the choices that she made.
01:53:00
Speaker
And so it's like, it makes sense that she would wax poetic. You know? Like, it would make sense for her to do that. So, like, yeah i especially talking to somebody who bullied Taylor, like,
01:53:17
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, I'm good with the rest
Legacy of Taylor and Gold Morning
01:53:19
Speaker
of the writing here. just And you are right, Nick. It is that one paragraph talked about that ends with like things being primed where I'm just like... Yeah. I didn't have a problem with it.
01:53:29
Speaker
I liked it. I didn't notice it in the in the moment, but I can kind of see what you mean. So do we know the name of this girl, Flippin' Mad? Because we... At one point, Taylor named them all, right?
01:53:40
Speaker
She does name them all. Do you remember the names without looking them up? Okay, it's so... So there's Emma, Sophia, and Julia. Those are the ones that she names here. She names. yeah that's three that she names But ah Julia, I'm pretty sure, was not the the third in the posse now and when we are bullying her in the bathroom.
01:54:01
Speaker
and And I'll give you a hint. It's in the username. Yeah, it's the it's the one who I thought when remember originally reading Worm was like, oh, this is going to be the main... Yeah.
01:54:13
Speaker
It is Madison Clemens. yeah doesn't matter Pretty sure that's her last name. It's who Taylor initially, like is when she's talking about her bullies, Madison's the one she names first. yeah just that so And then never again. Yeah, I know.
01:54:26
Speaker
just One and done at her time. yeah because so emma Emma's the former friend turned bully. Madison and Sophia were kind of the ones who brought Emma in. um yeah And I like our whole story here kind of follows that same thing where she's like, I just kind of tag along and m I'm not really part of anything and I'm just kind of here Don't forget me.
01:54:50
Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting. a couple of months ago, Alan and I were on a road trip and we were talking about kind of the the the bullies, basically. And like, did they...
01:55:04
Speaker
fall into it was it? Were they always bullies to begin with? Did they just kind of stumble into this position? we just It was a long, very long conversation. I really enjoyed it. But like, motivation basically behind the bullies. And so it's interesting to get another on yet another version of the story ah from Madison basically being like,
01:55:27
Speaker
It just it felt nice and I kept doing it and we just kind of... We did it. And I feel bad. that stop me from doing it in the moment. and so I just think it's really interesting.
01:55:41
Speaker
I enjoyed this chapter a lot. Yeah, it was interesting too because you have this this feeling of this person who is
01:55:52
Speaker
trying to reconcile with what they've done but at the same time basically wanting somebody else to tell them, Hey, it's not your fault. Yeah, absolutely. And I like that.
01:56:09
Speaker
This could be your fault. This could be my fault. Like we both could have a part in this. You got to live with it. Like that's part of your life now. Part of your story. Right. If you did a lot of good stuff, she did a lot of bad stuff. Taylor's a mixed bag and that's who you are too.
01:56:25
Speaker
And I love how Flippin' Matt is like, well, I'm hoping to be a teacher someday and point me this guy and I'm like, God damn. Yeah. Be better. So you want to keep bullying kids is what I'm hearing from you, Matt. Yeah. Nick, tell us all about bullying kids. How was that for you?
01:56:41
Speaker
As a teacher. Listen, I think I got bullied more often than I bullied, if I'm being honest. ah No cap? No cap. Oh, no. no but okay oh yeah like i This moment where... like what was victor you know what was We assume Victoria, but you know I just... ah Point me.
01:57:03
Speaker
i will What was you this character like in Warden time? ah The answer is, called them a bunch of bitches and...
01:57:15
Speaker
ah like, yeah, called them a bunch of bitches. And Madison's like, nah, what you called us was a bunch of cunts. Yeah. Yeah. That was funny. yeah Also, I love, oh like, as as Madison's going through all the things that they did to her, like, putting her backpack in the toilet, and point this guy just says, fucking why?
01:57:39
Speaker
She's like, I don't know. And Madison's like, I don't know. I never thought about it. I mean, look, i like I was not a popular kid at school and there was a very popular football player. And I'll tell you, I look back, I'm like, I kind of low-key bullied him in math class, but his best friend was also the one helping me do it.
01:57:55
Speaker
Oh my gosh. We used to take his bag and flip it inside out, but then we'd put all the books back in and like zip it back up. So we'd like go to reach his stuff and his bag is completely inside out, but with all the things back in it.
01:58:08
Speaker
and we were so smooth at it like his friend would like grab it with his foot because he sat behind him throw it to me i would punch the bag out like real quick with all the stuff and put it back in and hit about we can do it in like 10 seconds um and then and then we also that's not bullying that's flirting well hold on we're gonna also also real i'll just tell you right now it's it was the son of somebody that we've all listened to in chapel many times so yeah um yeah
01:58:39
Speaker
um Then we yeah ah would go down to... ah Sorry. I'll talk more about what I used to do to his other stuff. I thought you said we were trying to finish up. You're right. you're right I'm just trying to add content. ah Let's see. Alan just wants to brag about all the bullying he did in high school.
01:58:59
Speaker
All right. ah Yeah. Anything else with that last chapter? It's interesting that what Taylor did is not public knowledge.
01:59:11
Speaker
That is a big thing that I thought was important. A lot of gold mourning is not public knowledge. A lot of gold mourning not public knowledge. And I wouldn't be surprised if there's even heroes who don't fully comprehend exactly what happened at the end.
01:59:27
Speaker
They just know foot try something something took hold of them. Suddenly Sion was dead. It really ah makes makes you wonder because Worm, you don't really get any sort of insight into people that Taylor controlled. like What that was like, did they remember it, were they conscious? like It was just, yeah, ah the whole thing is really interesting.
01:59:50
Speaker
And she's like, well, stuff will probably come out slowly over time as stuff is revealed, but like I'm not talking about it, and good luck finding anyone who is. really yeah it's It's clear that there's you know the immediate moment of the the grief of victory that we kind of saw at the end of Wyrm, where Taylor thinks everybody's coming to kill her, but they're not. They're just celebrating the fact that Scion has actually been beaten. And so there's that...
02:00:17
Speaker
and so there's that after you imagine like after that initial moment of like, oh my God, we did it. There is that now what kind of fallout moment of what do we do now?
02:00:29
Speaker
And it makes me wonder if there was some kind of pact or like gold morning treaty where they were like, we don't need to talk about this. Like people don't need to know what happened here and what Taylor did. um Like I wouldn't, they all just gave the nod.
02:00:42
Speaker
They're just all like, they're just like, yeah, i' I'm not going to say anything. If you're not saying, and you're not saying anything. I'm not saying anything. think We're not, we can move on. um Yeah. So, and obviously that still is in effect because who we assume is Victoria Dallin is who, you know, maybe is aware of what happened is like, I'm,
02:00:59
Speaker
I'm not going to be the one to tell you. You may find out someday, but it's not my response like not my story to tell. So, very interesting. Very, very interesting. who that's that.
02:01:12
Speaker
yeah um I'm excited to see if we we see more of the other side. You know, as we go in into Borg, you know, that we see some of the the, what's it called? The the out, the the the backlash. No, the... the the After an atomic bomb.
02:01:36
Speaker
Thank you, the fallout. I love you. We basically see more of the fallout and see more of like how her controlling all these people affected them, affected them as capes, their mental status. like What are we dealing with now?
02:01:53
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. yeah At the end of all those, i have a little thought about this, reading for this sort the second time. um As a prologue, I love this setup.
02:02:08
Speaker
I love the in-world exposition. It is a lot of lore dumping, and I think it's done so well because it's in-character intrigue, it's inner, ah you know, it's it's the survival of the world. Like it's so integral into the narrative that it's not just lore dumping, even though that's bad. There's so much lore being dumped.
02:02:31
Speaker
Uh, it's the introduction of characters. It's the introduction of their problems. It's the introduction of the relationships that they have. Um, it's, it's everything is familiar but at the same time, not there's so many new things that build on old things and twist things that we know, or we're seeing from different perspectives.
02:02:53
Speaker
There is so much lore and so little time. And at the end of it all, Taylor is this weird case that we just don't, it's the scene that we don't talk about, um both in universe and sort of, uh,
02:03:13
Speaker
out of it. I, you know, this is something we'll explore more, but I'm just reading up to this point. The setup for it feels like it released in this chapter. As as I'm reading Victoria, it sounds almost like wild boat writing. Like we're not going to talk about Taylor.
02:03:31
Speaker
This story isn't about Taylor. Yeah. So we're not going to talk about it, you know? Um, so it is both it works in universe and meta.
02:03:43
Speaker
as like, uh, you guys want avatar, the last airbender. You were not doing the same story over again, you know, um, and, and that's, and that, and that in itself, even if the sequel is good, is just controversial.
02:04:03
Speaker
Um, saying that you're not going to get the same old, same old, um, And I think that's, I think it's a really, really cool statement as a whole. I've really liked that being the last chapter.
02:04:15
Speaker
um And then, you know, and then you start Ward proper. And I think that's a really good, that conversation is a good tone setter for what's going on. and Very cool. um i don't know if you had any thoughts about the thing as a whole book before ask you some simple questions and then we'll close it up.
02:04:34
Speaker
Go ahead, guys.
02:04:37
Speaker
ahead guys
02:04:40
Speaker
I was just going to say, aside from my earlier difficulties statement about the difficulties of reading it, it it was interesting getting back into it. um So, yeah. Definitely build some excitement for Ward. I'm interested to see where the story goes, as well as ah how things have changed in this new world in Gimel.
02:05:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it gets me hyped. i' I'm excited to see what what the world looks like now. Worlds. Yeah. right Alongside of that, so far, what has been your favorite character?
02:05:19
Speaker
of the Heart-shaped pupil.
02:05:24
Speaker
yeah um who's hiring Who's hiring the hitman? cappricorn yeah like Capricorn. going to say Capricorn. I have a favorite character to explore or maybe like that intrigues you. Capricorn. One of them.
02:05:38
Speaker
one one of them
02:05:42
Speaker
Probably most curious about of five because I think we didn't find out that much about them or the curious cephalopod, the cephalopod cycle. um I mean, I'm i'm curious if Kraken in a jar is Sveta, which I'm like 99% sure it is.
02:06:01
Speaker
How is she doing? Like, is she controlling herself better now? Like to where she can type on a computer and not try to kill people? And not strangle the laptops. I don't know.
02:06:14
Speaker
um and i hope she's doing well. I like Sveta. Me too. And I like Weld a lot as well. yeah i hope I'm looking forward. I hope Weld comes back. and I mean, he is going to be back, I'm sure, but I i just want to... I like Weld.
02:06:28
Speaker
yeah He's such a good boy. He's such a boy scout. What a peach.
02:06:33
Speaker
Metal homeboy. but yeah
02:06:38
Speaker
How's everybody? Yeah, Mlek for sure. Thank you, Skomar. Oh, true. Mlek. Forgot about Mlek. Mlek. You know, I'm to say it now.
02:06:49
Speaker
I think Mlek... Scion? Thoughts? What? No. Everyone's saying Colton and Leck. Colton and Leck. Did you see the question from J-Man, Alan?
02:07:07
Speaker
Because it goes right along the same lines. I got it for you. um it's Are you more excited for new characters or reoccurring characters that you've seen before?
02:07:17
Speaker
Ooh.
02:07:21
Speaker
I think... It's tough. There's so many characters already. Yeah. I feel like... I'm excited for both, but I'm more attached to the old characters, so I'd like to... Yeah....pre-suit them in new ways.
02:07:36
Speaker
think if I can split it into two categories, I'll say story-wise, I'm more interested in recurring characters because I want to know how the new world has affected them. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. ah interested in like powers and world building wise, new characters 100%. Because I'm curious of what new powers is what you know Wild Bo going to come up with that we haven't seen yet?
02:07:58
Speaker
What you know powers from other Earths may be that I'm even interested in? So you know that's definitely new character. But in terms of story and Just, you know, attachment, like Jacob said, yeah, definitely recurring characters, for sure.
02:08:11
Speaker
Hard. Both. yes all. Both, please. Great question. Smash. i I think because there's such a large cast, though, like, if we're gonna have reoccurring characters, I really want them to be the characters I care about, as opposed to, like...
02:08:28
Speaker
Bringing back characters that, you know, were brought up a couple of times that I don't remember. Like, if you're going to bring back somebody into the story, reintegrate them into Ward, let them be people I know and care about. Like, having Victoria be the main character, love that.
02:08:43
Speaker
So here for it. Her whole life basically gets destroyed and warm, and I'm I so want to see how that pans out in a new story. And like her new team or like her new group of people she's hanging with or, you know, what the world looks like now. Like I'm so interested in seeing the all of the new, basically.
02:09:04
Speaker
And if we're going to get glimpses of old people, like we have in these chapters with Tattletail, like I love that of like, we know about Tattletail. We see what's happening with her.
02:09:16
Speaker
You know, she's, she's trying to track somebody down, like classic Tattletail. Like I love, so I love stuff like that. Like, let's see more of that. Like Weld, yeah like Weld, how is he now? You know, I don't need to know about everybody.
02:09:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. and And to your point, Hannah, what I like about this as an idea is that because we're getting a new protagonist with Victoria, who will be closer to other people, we're going to have a shift in Tattletail being a main character or a, you know, a deutero protagonist to now being...
02:09:48
Speaker
a side character or an antagonist. And so having that, like those are some of the most interesting interludes where you see the characters, you know, from different perspectives. So I'm interested to see, to see that as well, for sure.
02:10:00
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, it's going to be good. and And in that, what are some of the, you know, asked this kind of already, but what is the mystery, or what mystery do you want solved?
02:10:16
Speaker
Sleeper. Yeah, we need to talk about Sleeper. That's a big one. don't want you to talk about Sleeper. I need to know about the Simmer. Oh, okay. Yeah.
02:10:28
Speaker
ah Simmer. Shebang. Shebang. Shebang. ah yeah any golden and driser yeah timmmerf
02:10:39
Speaker
bang you mets
02:10:43
Speaker
you and she what else you got out ah finally ah what are your predictions for the conflicts for the differences that you'll think you'll see ah how do you think it's going stray from worm what do you think it's where what do you think the conflicts are going to be I'm sticking with my with my initial ah prediction about the some of the pro-cape versus anti-cape.
02:11:15
Speaker
And i but I think I'm absolutely dead on about the reconstruction, rebuilding of society, that post-apocalyptic vibe. um But i'm i'm after reading Glow Worm, I'm even more interested to hear how, not just how society has changed, but how powers have changed.
02:11:32
Speaker
which with the clusters happening more often and just like what like everything's different including powers and after everything that we know with Scion and how powers came to be like what does that mean now for powers?
02:11:49
Speaker
And I'm really interested in that. And I'm really curious to see who the next big bad is. Because we're going need something to match Scion or Endbringer level threats. So like who is it?
02:12:06
Speaker
Who it'd Yeah, for sure. She's bringing our end. Yeah.
02:12:13
Speaker
yeah that's Yeah, I'm very curious to see the shift, I think, probably in tone and focus of conflict. Because with Wyrm, it's very grandeur.
02:12:23
Speaker
end of the world and prophecies and all this kind of stuff. and And Ward already feels like it's going to be a lot more personal, which is going to be interesting. so Oh, that makes me so excited. More interpersonal stuff. Let's go Ideological differences and things.
02:12:40
Speaker
yeah Yeah, for sure. I don't know. I think, and think yeah, that's pretty much... I'd pretty much agree with all that. I think like ah other Earth threats will be interesting to see if that pans out at all.
02:12:53
Speaker
And, of course, you know, Sleeper. ah so yeah Do he sleep? he like We don't know. Do he purr? um last couple things in the nice chat we do we we know who the protagonist is because of some spoilers that we let ourselves on of Red Worm ah but we are at this time pretending and taking shots in the dark ah yeah and we'll completely say it outright confirm next time um how are we going to split this up every other week
02:13:28
Speaker
So, you know, starting this Tuesday, every other Tuesday, we will be doing... So the 15th is the next stream. The 15th. The 15th is the next stream. ah We'll be doing our episode. The episode will be covering one full arc.
02:13:43
Speaker
um So next will be arc one. um In the meantime, in between, ah if you're a patron on Discord, we might do ah something there. I forget if we're reading more fanfic or just if any of us are free, ah goofing off over there, ah we'll come up with something.
02:14:02
Speaker
Gives us all time to read and gives me time to make sure everything is up for the podcast listeners and a little bit of editing that needs to happen gets done.
02:14:13
Speaker
Um, but yeah, and also gives you guys time to read if you're reading along with us. Please read along with us. That would be really fun. That would be really, really fun. Um, it's gonna be blast. Yeah.
02:14:26
Speaker
It's going to be a blast. I'm very excited. I'm glad, you know, you've all come. i This is more people. I'm not going to lie. i thought it was going to be us and Vic.
02:14:37
Speaker
And you all have shown up and shown out. um We really appreciate it. We really appreciate all the ah questions and all the comments. And we're really excited to continue this.
02:14:49
Speaker
um So, it' ah patrons, ah we we you will continue to see with you and ah talk with you during the week. um And if you aren't a patron, $1, I think, is the minimum.
02:15:02
Speaker
You should be coming. So you should just become one, you know? ah We've got a Discord, and it's really fun. We've got We've got spoilers chats for all the ones that we've needed so far.
02:15:13
Speaker
Yeah. And a meme chat, and occasionally we hang out in the lounge. And our bonus videos for just our Patreon. And our bonus videos. I don't know if you know, the last one we did, we wrote a worm fan fiction, and it's some of the funniest shit I've ever read. Yeah. It's great. It comes out on Monday. It was amazing, actually. Now's the like perfect time to join because it's about to come out.
02:15:35
Speaker
um In fact, I made i wrote a song for for the patrons um that I'm going to play right now. I made it like half an hour ago. Okay. What? did you make this while we were in?
02:15:46
Speaker
Join the Patreon. Please come on in. Join the Patreon. Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come support us and join the Patreon. Please help us and join the patreon.
02:15:58
Speaker
We have fun. Join the patreon. It's great you join the patreon. Why don't you just join the patreon?
02:16:12
Speaker
It's like clipping out half. It's a little hard to hear, but but I got the idea after it this. You know, the third joined the Patreon. That probably makes it even funnier. It's really scuffed already. I loved it.
02:16:27
Speaker
That was fantastic. so my god I'm trying to think of what else I was going to say. I'll think this time i'll take this time to just put a little shout out out there.
02:16:39
Speaker
If you guys don't know, we do have merch. We have t-shirts. This has our logo, Brockton Bay Book Club logo on it. It's a ringer tee. I cropped mine because I wanted to. And we also have the Brockton Bay's sweatshirt.
02:16:52
Speaker
ah Both of them are available for purchase. And consider supporting us. we I think we make like two whole dollars on every sale. So really, it's it's more for you guys than it is for us. But, you know.
02:17:06
Speaker
um Yeah. go I remember what it is. i'm I'm sure I'll say it. But this has been great. All the links in the description, guys, um at our our link tree.
02:17:17
Speaker
And this has been awesome. Thanks so much, guys. We'll see you on the 15th. Yeah. See you guys soon. Read up. Bye. you later. Bye, love. All right, back to Pokemon.