Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by JC McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Good morning, Brockton Bay. Things have changed. Indeed they have. We get a little bit of a, a little bit of a, uh, a cool down arc this episode, which is nice. And, uh, well, I guess, you know what, I'm jumping ahead of everything. Welcome everybody.
Speaker: to Arc 9 of Worm with the Brockton Bay Book Club. We've got a full cast of lovely people here today, and we're going to get into it pretty quickly. A little fun arc, a little bit shorter than what we've been reading recently, and not centered around our main character. So this is kind of fun, a little bit of a unique arc we have here focusing on the wards post -Leviathan.
Speaker: And I think like our characters, it was nice to get a bit of a break after that arc. I don't know how the rest of you felt. I appreciated a little bit of a break. Yeah, it was nice. Yeah, yeah, it was. So we're going to jump in here. I think we're just kind of kind of goes only got six chapters. So let's go chapter at a time. They're kind of all from a different wards perspective, which is kind of fun.
Speaker: So starting with the first chapter from Weld's perspective, a newcomer to the story, although seen in the Leviathan fight, although I don't think he was named. Am I correct on that? No, he was named. He was named, okay. He is who kind of ushers Taylor into the building at the very, very beginning of the arc. Oh, you're right. I thought he was just a giant metal guy. Okay. I'm pretty sure they named him, yeah.
Speaker: We'll get a fact checker on there. But either way, new to Brockton Bay, new to the scene. Kind of a fun character. What do we think? What do we think about Weld? Poor guy. Literally, immediately I thought of Band of Brothers, where one of the soldiers or airborne troopers had just gotten back from being injured.
Speaker: the rest of the airborne guys have lost a bunch of people in the Battle of Bastogne. And literally he's walking in like, hey guys, how are we doing? Everyone literally is just like, bro, shut the fuck up. Like literally, I felt for this guy. Yeah, he's similar, at least at this point. We don't know much about him yet, but he feels similar to legend where we were talking last arc about how legend kind of feels like a real hero. Um,
Speaker: you know, more so than arms master or any of the other heroes we've met. And I feel like, well, that's kind of a similar character where it's like, yeah, this guy feels like the real deal, you know? Um, like he, he's a good, he's just a genuinely good person, right? Yeah. Um, and yeah, I just think that that's, yeah, you do feel bad for him. Cause like, you have no idea what you're coming into, do you man? I also had the same touchstone references you Taylor.
Speaker: I immediately thought of band of brothers. Well, I mean, and you do, you get that, you get that just at a loss for the correct word here, but like just the depression really of, of the entire team, of the entire city. Like it's just there, nobody, nobody won. Like there was no, nobody won that fight.
Speaker: The wards get cut in half. Yeah. They're missing three members. So I was trying to remember that. I know that Aegis and Gallant die. Who's the member who... Who's the third? No, sorry, Aegis and Gallant and Browbeat. And Browbeat. Oh, Browbeat, that's right. Yeah, the intern got killed. Yeah, the guy who had just joined. He didn't have his picture taken yet.
Speaker: Um, but didn't they say that somebody else left as well? And I couldn't figure out who that was. I think they're talking about how, um, I think it was, it wasn't ages. Someone was preparing to like graduate from the wards. Um, uh, Gallant was a gallon. Yeah. He just was about to graduate because Gallant was going to take over his team. That's right. That's right. That's what it was ages because clock blocker was going to take over, but he was going to be there for like three months and then.
Speaker: graduate and then Dallas can take over, which is why he was headlining everything. Right, right. That makes sense. Yeah, I feel for Weld, you know, coming in, he's so optimistic too. Like he's handed this giant stack of papers from Piggott on the helicopter and he's like, don't worry, I'll have this memorized by Thursday, you know? And he's so optimistic about like, I'm going to take the team. He's super excited about like what they're going to do, how they're going to grow.
Speaker: And he just bombs that intro. It's like, Oh man, buddy. I felt that. I don't think there's any way for that to have gone well, just because he's literally coming in from the outside. He was not personally affected by anything that just happened with Leviathan. And he's replacing two very important people for their team that not only important, like
Speaker: powerful superheroes, but also their friends, right? Yeah, I think Vista said it. Yeah, exactly. When Vista says, turns in like, wow, you didn't even learn the names of the guys you're replacing. I was like, oh, yeah, that would have been a good place to start, buddy. But again, he's a kid. We forget about that sometimes. He's what? 17, I think? Yeah, 17.
Speaker: And I think this whole arc, I was more hyper aware of their age than any other art so far. Yeah. I don't know why, but it just was really like hitting me how they were like, these are teenagers. Why are they letting teenagers like be on patrol? And yeah. And they're, they're pulling 16 hour shifts. They're rotating between like going out and then running the computer. And I mean,
Speaker: And I felt for, cause it, even though this talks about, um, this gets discussed in like a couple of chapters in the future, it's still talking about weld. So I'll mention it here, but the fact that he only sleeps a couple hours, like that is in my mind, that has to be exhausting mentally. I can't imagine putting in like 22 hours of just life. Everything like, Oh my God. I think it's different for him though, because he just like is he's built different.
Speaker: Yeah. I was also really, uh, really hyper aware of that too, but I think mostly cause I mean, I think it's just brought up more here. I know Vista spends a good bit of time focusing on it and her inner monologue. Like the fact that she's not even the youngest one there and she's what?
Speaker: I think she, is she even 13 yet? 13. Yeah, I think she's 13. At one point in time, they talk about her being a pre -teen. Well, she was 11 when she started the war. Yes. Yeah. And then she's like, what is it, nine months older? Then kid win? And they send kid win out to do recruitment.
Speaker: Oh, no, no, no, no. She has been in the wards nine months more than kid. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll get into it. But she mentions, like, even though I've been in longer, they treat me in less than because I'm younger. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, and thank you to fact checker, Michael Weld appears in the Leviathan arc in chapters one, two and five, but it is not named. So my bad.
Speaker: But still, if he was part of the fight, he still was coming out of town. He doesn't have a personal tie to the fight, so it's just - Right. It's not his territory. It's not his neighbors' houses that are getting destroyed, and his family members that are getting killed, and friends. It's just different. Yeah, he doesn't have a personal investment in
Speaker: I would say we don't know that he didn't lose, because they were shipping in a lot of people to help out with this. So like there's chances that he lost someone. Potentially that he lost people who had gotten shipped in for the fight, but not necessarily like as in Brockton Bay. Yeah, I imagine just given his like study habits that he was told like, oh, you're taking over and all he did was study, you know, all the facts and then gets there with his like pre -planned speech. And of course nobody's having it. I think
Speaker: They're also being a bit unfair because it's not like he, it doesn't sound like he had much of a heads up. It's not like this was like, obviously, cuz Aegis and Gallant weren't planning on dying, but this wasn't planned. So it seems like they were like, we have to replace Aegis and Gallant. Let's bring Weldon from out of town, get him on a plane now. And I mean, they did that helicopter ride, that's when he was given the information on everything.
Speaker: was he supposed to do, you know? Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I think for the most part, his little intro speech to the wards was pretty good. He's staying optimistic. He's talking about what he wants to do. It's just that he missed his opener, which was mentioning Gallant and Aegis. And other than that, I do love how optimistic he is. He is very much excited about moving forward and not worrying so much about
Speaker: the past and like building the wards up more. And I do really love that. But it's just like an optimist in a room full of depressed people is just not helpful. Yeah. And going back to like, this just, I was just hyper aware of how young they are, this whole arc. The fact that like they bring Weld in from another
Speaker: From Boston? From Boston. Where in the fuck is Brockton Bay, first of all? Maryland area. Yeah, it's relatively close to Boston. Well, okay, Maryland's not close to Boston. So that's... Well, okay, in comparison to like... I think it's actually... I remember looking this up. It's supposed to be fictionally between New York and Boston. So like Connecticut, Rhode Island -ish. Okay, so not Maryland at all.
Speaker: Yankee territory, it's all Yankee territory. What we were getting at though, what I was trying to get at was like, he still has to go to school. Yeah. They're like, yeah, and we enrolled you in the high school. As a metal man. Yeah, and they're like, yeah, this is fine. You have to be the team lead, bringing this whole team together. And yeah, he only
Speaker: the rest of them are in school too. But it's just like, why do these kids basically have a full time job outside of also having to go to high school?
Speaker: just because they had the trauma that caused themselves to have powers. I just don't think that people developing powers should automatically exclude them from child labor laws, I guess. I can't imagine that's the same people who are writing up contracts for collegiate football players are also the same people who are having to write up contracts for the wards. Yeah.
Speaker: It's literally the South Park episode. Because there's like merchandising and everything too around them. Yeah, right. How do you how do you bring in your slaves? So and he's like, they are collegiate athletes. Oh, so that's what we call them. So that's literally what this is. Like high school gymnasts in the Olympics. Jesus, right? And kid wouldn't even mentioned like, like, oh, you get this money that you'll get like later and go to school. Yeah.
Speaker: What? You're gonna risk your life every day. He's like, yeah, and by this time, next month, you can have $2 ,000 in your bank account. Excuse me. Really? That's not worth it. Sorry. No. Well, this was pre -Joe Biden, so $2 ,000. That's a lot of money. That's a lot more money back then.
Speaker: But I was, yeah, I was super excited though. We got introduced to Weld, like everything's going with him. And I'm like, all right, well, let's see how he does this. And then immediately it switches characters for chapter two. It took me a second to realize who the hell was next. Like it doesn't straight, it doesn't just go into, like with Weld's chapter was very obvious right away. This is not one of the characters we've met before. The next chapter, I was like, are we talking about this as Weld? Is this somebody else?
Speaker: Yeah, is this is this shadow soccer or is it something I was really confused on because the next one was a full shot. Yeah, that's what I was like I was really confused on who was whose perspective we were getting in their interaction. Yeah, I think this arc sentinel feels like
Speaker: It's just six interludes, like one after another, but there's no introductory to that. It's not like, hey, ARC 9 interlude 1, ARC 9 interlude 2, ARC 9 interlude 3, which I feel like that could be formatted as interludes and just like, here's a bunch of interludes together and it might make more sense. But yeah, getting a little bit of whiplash in between the chapters being like, yeah, I don't...
Speaker: It's been a while since I've listened to it, but man, the fluctuate, if I, if I remember right, the fluctuating voices is the thing that killed me here. Yeah. I did have to, uh, I have been listening to the, there's a couple audio books, um, which are, which are pretty good. They're pretty well done. But for this one, I did have, I did sit down and just, uh, I just read, read through it. That definitely helped. Shadow Stalker is so terrible.
Speaker: Yeah, I think she might be like a sociopath, I think. Yeah. This really felt like Wild Bo getting to go, okay.
Speaker: Now that everybody knows who Shadowstalker is, I can write them the same way so that that mystery isn't blown apart. Because like you get the idea like, oh, Shadowstalker is only in the wards because she's on probation and she's a little bit of a rebel. But you don't really get the sense that she's like a psychopath, you know, until now. We'll get back to that in chapter six.
Speaker: Yeah, no, we get there. But prior to Arc 9, you don't really get that. But now knowing, of course, that she is Sophia bridges that gap and you go, oh. I would have to disagree. At least not shadow. Sophia definitely got the vibe that she was a psychopath. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think what he's saying is that now that we know that it is Sophia, because we interacted with Shadowstalker and we're just like, oh, she's like Avril Lavigne.
Speaker: She just met a skater boy and she wants to see him later, boy. But now, like, literally, yeah. But now that we know that it is Sophia, we're like, oh, no. Well, she's a bitch. Okay, I guess this is the South Park episode. I'm just going to bring up every bit. But no, I definitely agree that that connection there is so good the way it's set up. And then getting to see this character that we've seen in so many different ways, again, from so many different perspectives, it's just kind of fun to be like, oh, yeah, no, that
Speaker: That is, that is who she is. You know, I can't tell you how many shadow stalkers I have played sports with like, I wouldn't even say that this is a sociopath. This is like, this is sports personality of like, there's winning and there's losing and you got to be a winner and you got to tear apart losers. Like, man.
Speaker: Yeah, it kind of feels like there's something a bit more going on there. Yeah, I would argue with that. It feels like with Shadowstalker, like sure, it's not just like the winners and the losers because I feel like Arms Master kind of falls into that space sometimes where it's like he's a fucking winner and he fucking knows it.
Speaker: And he acts like it, and he gives me much more of that energy than like Shadow Stalker, who straight up is, yeah, we keep saying it, a sociopath or a psychopath, I don't actually know the difference between them, but she's in that zone. And this perspective, and I think this is cool when you're writing a character, have them
Speaker: Take a puppy. So we all know that they're bad. Nothing like having Flechette be like, hey, now let's slow down and shadow be like bullshit. Let's just stand back and see what happens. Seeing it through Flechette's eyes, it feels all the more crazy and yeah. Because back to what I've said a few times was about
Speaker: Just because someone is a hero does not make them a good person, vice versa. Just because someone is a villain does not make them a bad person. It's relative, it's all gray. I did love, since they're both technology users, if you can say it like that, I really enjoyed this chapter listening to the gear. Oh, yeah. Because you have the backpack that just generates chain.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, I was like, that's kind of cool. I think one thing that I found really interesting this whole arc was the insight into how they classify the different. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we we glossed over that. That's true. Now, we didn't really like didn't like go into like how they determine if someone's like a five versus six, you know, in their respective fields. But I just thought that was like real
Speaker: I really enjoyed seeing them classify people and... I'm a mover. I'm a shaker. I'm a brute and breaker. Oh no. A master tinker, blaster thinker. So would you... I'll ask this because at that one, that's amazing. And I need the whole song done soon. Yeah. They really do.
Speaker: But actually, it doesn't really spoil anything if you want to know how they classify what the numbers mean. Because it's kind of a fun... I think it is, again, just kind of points to the way Wildbo frames and writes about powers. But I won't go into it because they didn't explain it a lot. But if you want to know, it's kind of interesting.
Speaker: I can't remember if they do. I was about to say, I feel like they do a venture. Everything gets explained eventually. I mean, everything does. It's 1 .6 million words. They're going to cover it at some point. Yeah. Okay. We'll let it go then. That was fair. Which chapter did they mention Arm of Master's retirement?
Speaker: Was it clock blockers or? Might have been one of these. Wait, it wasn't well, was it? No, it was. It was right at the beginning. You're right. Because I feel like with each of these chapters, like we've obviously gotten each perspective, but also there's like a different kind of info dump with each chapter. And like the first one with Weld is very much like the paperwork info drop. So like,
Speaker: here is what has happened since Leviathan. Here are the groups and gangs we have to worry about. Here's all the movers and shakers and breakers and bam, there it is. And then, like what Taylor said, with all of the gear, I feel like that is a heavy, like Flechette's chapter and chapter two.
Speaker: is a heavy like gear chapter. And so like, I mean, I love it. I'm here for it. But no, I think, I think Arms Master has dropped, Arms Master's retirement has dropped in Wells perspective in chapter one. I want to say my opinions on that. Bullshit. Please, please do. Bull fucking shit. They're covering up.
Speaker: they're covering their asses and they're calling it a retirement. And I'll just say.
Speaker: prediction wise, that he's in the birdcage. That's what I'm thinking, but. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was going to say, we'll definitely come back for predictions. I did love that. That was such, that was such the, the cop out that I was like, it's the, you know, Oh, a training exercise went wrong. And, uh, you know, that's why there's some crashed aircraft down on enemy lines. Like that's that whole thing. You know, it's like, does anybody actually believe those stories?
Speaker: Somebody does, somebody who's deep throat in the protectorate. I really want to hear more about what you think is going to happen, specifically like him in the birdcage. How does that go down? Is this like a Rorschach? We'll wait till the end. Predictions, make a note, make a note. We've got some predictions to discuss.
Speaker: But yeah, no, fun little Lord. Yeah, this whole arc was a lot of like, oh cool, we get to see the words and hear what their lives are like. And then also all this really important stuff about the world that we also need to know now. So yeah, a lot of different info dumps throughout.
Speaker: I loved specifically going back to Flechette's chapter, the fact that it is a little hand wavy, but also kind of cool how it's just like, oh, there's there's a tinker for everything. And the government just has tinker set aside making stuff like nonstop. I think Kidwin's chapter goes into it a bit too, where they're like, you know, yeah, like, oh, you can you can put in a word with the tinker over there and they'll get you what you need and just spec it out. And that's pretty handy.
Speaker: Which is terrifying to think that like, how many different branches of that do they have? Do you know what I mean? Where it's like, if I got a power and all of a sudden I'm admin man. You know what I mean? It's just so good. And it's like, oh my God, my processing power is just so amazing. It's really good at paperwork, you know?
Speaker: They call me Mr. Microsoft. I mean, at least now we know where the Bad Dragon website came from. You know, clearly that's a tinker. Exactly. I think this is also the chapter where Flechette reaches out to, don't make me say her name wrong. Parian. Parian. Parian. Got it. We'll edit it out, don't worry. Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah, so yeah, she goes to talk to Perian, which I thought was really cool. Because it's basically like, you know, if you're an independent, if you're a hero, if you're a villain, we were all sharing trauma. And so we'll discuss the shared trauma later. And like at the very end as well. Well, not the very end, but whenever we encounter something coming up soon, but literally just like everyone's kind of like,
Speaker: Like, come on, man, like, cut me some slack, you know, I was fighting right next to you like a month ago, you know, come on and everyone's like, all right, all right. So I thought it was really cool that we're kind of keeping alliances, you know, we're talking with giant stuff, gorillas, you know, it's just great. I like how period is just like, I don't.
Speaker: like fighting. She's like, I hate this so much. Yeah. She's like, my neighbor could watch and I will pummel anyone that comes in this neighborhood. And it's just like, oh, I can respect it. You know, I can respect it. Paria just has one of my favorite. Yeah. Just one of my favorite powers in general. Like that's so terrifying. And in like the cutest way, like, yeah, is it specifically or is that just how she manifests it? It's just cloth. I think she has cloth.
Speaker: like cloth thread and like kind of material, um, manipulation sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Don't get into her power. I think in a later chapter, so they kind of explain, I think she, she won't even have an interlude if I remember right. Or she's in somebody else's. She's a reoccurring character. Yeah. She'll come back. Yeah. I love how that section with Lucia and Perian,
Speaker: is really shows what Brockton Bay has become for the regular people just trying to exist. And she mentions here, and then she also mentions a little bit later in Vista's chapter, but talking about how they're having to hoard their water and their food. And she set up a perimeter around this little neighborhood section of where her and her
Speaker: her mom and a bunch of other people are hiding out because they can't get clean drinking water. Everyone's fighting for food. She's using giant stuffed gorillas to keep everybody safe and that it's existing. It's fighting to exist in Brockton Bay. That's what it looks like right now. And if you're rich enough to go and stay with family and
Speaker: Connecticut or whatever, you can leave, then okay, great. But what about all the people who Broughton Bay has been their entire life? And they're existing where they don't have food and they don't have water and they're having to fight off anybody who wants to try and come and take their stuff. Right. Yeah, it is kind of a brutal look. Yeah, I just have, they're so cute and I ship them.
Speaker: I know I wasn't lying with me. They're all just a bunch of horny teenagers. But I do like that she was like, I gotta find a friend. Better find the hot one. Is that a thing? Is Flechette female attracted? I only ask because
Speaker: She spent a bit of time talking about Shadowstalker's body in her bodysuit. Yeah, she did. That was my only thinking there. And then whenever Ryan went to make herself more modest, like with the skirt, and Flechette was like... Totally noticed. I also forgot. Shadowstalker, the terrible, terrible person she is.
Speaker: I have, but damn that double reload and everything. It has like the cartridges of like bolts on her arms and she like mashes the two guns to do a double reload of the crossbows.
Speaker: I gotta say we're following it. I feel like it's so easy to fall into the like, well, I love this, you know, character like arms master, you know, like, Oh, he's so cool. He's got such cool gear. Like, Oh man, like he's such a fucking dick. But his gear is so cool. Like, yeah. Yeah. Shadow Stalker's gear is pretty fucking neat.
Speaker: We're talking about Flichette's powers or Shadowstalkers? No, Shadowstalkers. But we really should talk about Flichette's powers. Okay, so actually - Is this going to be one of those we talk about at the end with powers or are we just going to talk about it now? No, let's talk about it now because I legitimately don't think I completely understand what Flichette's powers are. So I need someone to mansplain it for me, please. I'd appreciate you to explain it, but not condescendingly.
Speaker: her power too, which I'm sorry. Well, I'm sure we will get into it in chapter six. I'll hold on my thoughts.
Speaker: Well, if you had read... No, no, I need the attitude. I need the attitude. So as far as I understand, Flechette has an array of abilities that comes from a group trigger, which they hint on, but part of it is angles. She's good at identifying and calculating, which is what gives her such
Speaker: great accuracy, but also she has the ability to take away physical forces such as friction and gravity and allows for passing between molecules and she can imbue it in objects for a short period of time. So when she fires, not only is her angle ability give her like a sight line to stuff, potentially even around corners, but she's also got nothing holding her bolts back.
Speaker: They're gravity -less, they're frictionless. They go right where she puts them. According to the Wiki, she has the ability to temporarily imbue non -living material with the ability to ignore select laws of physics. So she's ignoring laws of gravity, laws of friction, like Alan said. She can make her own costume frictionless. She can make it so that way her shoes can
Speaker: That's how she's able to have her shoes bite into surfaces and things like that. So she can basically walk up walls. That is pretty cool. Yeah. Cause I did like the description of like, yeah, this is how I was a little confused on the powers. Um, but when basically it said like, I use my powers to get around, but I'm running. And so literally it's just me running everywhere, but just.
Speaker: I don't know, like a queen, I guess. Oh yeah, basically. I mean, yeah, that's pretty much what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I spent so much time thinking about like having to walk up a building. Like even if your feet are there, you still have to like have the calf strength to like, you have to walk up the building. I think she does it with her gloves too. So she's more like cat crawling up the buildings and stuff, I think. I think she was just like straight out, like the core strength that would require
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Speaker: I loved, I forgot that they mentioned how he got his name until I reread it. Cause I think somebody, it might've been Taylor or Kat. One of you had said how like, what a classic like teenager immature name. How did they let him have that name?
Speaker: And he just gave it to himself in a press conference and was like, try taking it away from me. He pulled an I am Iron Man moment. Exactly. Oh, so good. And exactly what you'd expect.
Speaker: You guys know that meme that's like, stop making me like Mitt Romney. I don't wanna like Mitt Romney. That's how I felt this entire arc. I don't wanna like them, but like this one like clock blockers, I was like, man, I kinda like this kid. I'm like, no.
Speaker: I definitely felt for the dude, like literally your friend, your best friends die. You're next in the line of succession or succession. How do you say that? And then literally it's like, Oh, we're pulling in. Yeah. We're pulling in just metal man.
Speaker: you know, and now you got to listen to metal man, but metal man is talking about training with other squads while you're trying to pull 16 hour shifts and your friends are dead. And you're like metal man. I'm going to classes. Yeah. So it's just, let me talk about that. This, the class, I was like, I just want a whole arc with this professor. Yes. I'm like, wait a minute. I love this. I feel like that was my favorite part of the whole arc.
Speaker: was that professor's monologues. Yes. The reverse gladly. I want to be in this. The reverse gladly. I love it. Mr. Sadly. Oh man, missed opportunity. Really? All the talks that take place in the hallway, I cannot stress enough that
Speaker: Wild Bo is like the only person I read that does healthy, good dialogues like this. And I just love it. I love it every time. And it's like back to back to back talks with people too.
Speaker: Yeah. How many teenagers do you know who will make a biting comment and then immediately go and apologize and apologize in the most heartfelt way? I don't know if it's in the water, if it's in, I don't know what. I mean, I do know the answer. It's just wild though. But it's one of the reasons why I love reading Worm is that there
Speaker: I forget their children because they have such intelligent conversations with each other. And even here where he lashes out, and obviously it makes perfect sense. He's in a lot of pain. He is under a lot of stress. And then of course he finds out that his dad's in the hospital and it's just like all of these things have all compounded around him and he lashes out, but then it immediately goes and has a good conversation with Vista.
Speaker: Oh, it hits me in the heart in all the right ways. Yeah. Also, I loved his sort of hesitant request to glory girl. Yeah. Or panacea's help, which was so hard to read. Yeah. So hard to read. Like you know, she has rules. You know what the answer probably will be.
Speaker: But he's just so desperate to try anything. And then again, she's not in the chapter, but my God, I wish we had a chapter here for Panacea because I would have just loved to see her in this post -Leviathan environment. My goodness. Imagine what she's going through. What an exhausting role that she's probably had.
Speaker: Right yeah being who she is wanting to be that good person like we've talked about. Wanting you know hating hating that she is that good person but wanting to do it nonetheless. In just. Just the amount of pain that she must be going through losing family but on top of that is the exhaustion of probably working crazy hours. Yeah yeah she probably still hasn't processed.
Speaker: And not overexerting herself because we already know that if you overexert your powers, you can have some really bad after effects. In that same way, she's probably having to monitor how much she can actually help. Cuz I picture that she has still just been healing and sleeping and healing and sleeping this whole time. Whereas Glory Girl has kind of been meeting with the rest of the family and she's like, yeah, it looks like we're disbanding.
Speaker: It's like we lost, we lost a couple of us. We're disbanding our group and that's why I'm here kind of like interviewing with you guys to see if I want to do it, you know? Whereas Panacea is still probably just at a hospital, just or at multiple hospitals, just bang, boom, bang. I like to think that her costume is a candy striper. I'm sorry, what? I'd like to think that her costume is like a candy striper costume. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker: like the hospital helpers. Yeah, no, I think that you're probably, probably right on the money. It's just, it's just a pair of like surgical scrubs, but she's got like 50 pagers instead of one. Just like shit and just like runs.
Speaker: One of them, or two of them are dedicated to Glory Girl and her accidentally almost killing people. Like, Glory Girl, I have a lot to do. Can you please just chill? Yeah, I just got a tinker to set an alarm to concussions around Glory Girl every time a concussion goes off. I don't know. I might be the only one that has bothered a little bit, but like, I know that we'll talk about this in a little bit too. You know, we kept, we kept saying over and over again, like, oh, like,
Speaker: Vista had a crush on Gallant like, Oh, like you later on it mentions it as puppy love or like, yeah, like you just had a crush. You're just like this, that and the other. And I'm like, these are teenagers. Literally glory girl and Gallant are just a high school romance.
Speaker: Like literally, you know what I mean? I'm like, you can't judge the 13 year old when the 16 year old is literally doing the same thing three years later. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was just, it was really weird to me how it's really downplaying loss. Yeah. Because like, regardless of like, how old you, like you're, it just, it's real to them.
Speaker: Yeah. Like literally for Clockbocker, it's like, are you serious? Like you really said that in front of Vista? Like I can take it because I'm 16, but like, but she, she can't take it. And I'm like, none of y 'all can take it.
Speaker: I'm like, yo, they're children. Isn't that such a high school mindset though? It is. You're like, oh my God, these 13 -year -olds. You're like 16 and 17. You're like, I can't believe these children. That's true.
Speaker: And in a way, it plays into how the group views Vista as the kid, which Vista later tells us she hates, but to them, she's like the little kid that we got to keep an eye on and we got to protect. And in this moment, that's coming out again of like, oh, well, this is going to run off. And yeah, you should go talk to her, even though it was my boyfriend who died. Yeah, you should go talk to her.
Speaker: you know, the little kid who had a crush on him. Yeah. I mean, I mean us adults can take it, but like, yeah, but you, you gotta go talk to her. Meanwhile, the PRT guard in the corner is like, man, how am I going to file my taxes? I lost my home. 36 year old man. I don't know what I'm going to do.
Speaker: I did like the little subtle... They don't really get into it too much because in the first ward interlude, Gallant pulls Panacea aside and it's like, hey, listen, I know how you feel about me. It's okay. I have this sneaky suspicion that maybe just as a byproduct of Gallant's power, everybody was a little in love with him.
Speaker: But it builds in, and I guess I'll just probably go more into Vista's chapter here in a little bit, but when Weld mentioned that he was the heart of the group, you really get that sense that not just because of his power, although that probably factored in, that they did lose the beating heart of the group and they have no emotion left after that.
Speaker: Which is, Oh, it seems like from the previous interactions we've had the very brief ones we've had, we've had with Gallant panacea basically asked him like, Hey, can you not like use your power on me right now to try to make me feel better? Which is just such an interesting insight that probably without even realizing it, like he's just trying to be nice. And he's just this whole time, like slowly exerting his power on people. Right.
Speaker: Yeah. I need a little bit of that. Yeah. I can use some gallant therapy. Thank you very much. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, we've seen it before with Skitter during the whole bomb thing. And she got knocked out. All of her bugs continued there.
Speaker: their, you know, her last command, basically. So the thought of like, you could potentially be impacting the group that you're in, especially, you know, because Gallant's, you know, Gallant's power is what it is. But like, he could potentially have been impacting the group in ways that he didn't even necessarily know or was aware of that, you know, of course, now that that's gone, it just drops everybody into like an even deeper depression.
Speaker: Oh, you've hurt me now. Because now I'm thinking like, what was Gallant's last emotion as he died was probably the sadness. Like what if it was just like a burst of... That's what hit everybody. Oh, I'm mad at you. Sorry. I love the idea that powers have more of an impact than just
Speaker: doing something, it's not just, okay, I'm going to send my bugs out or whatever. Your power affects you in ways that you don't know and you affect your powers in ways that you don't necessarily know. And with that, if you were to constantly be getting dose, minor doses every day of serotonin by just being around somebody for years, you're training, you're going on patrol, you're sleeping in
Speaker: little cubicles, spaces across from each other. Exactly, exactly. Which are only boosted because they're all teenagers. But having a constant drip of serotonin and now all of a sudden it's gone. You'll feel it even more so. This is me going off on a tangent here a little bit. What happens when you get serotonin every day that you're not aware of and now all of a sudden that drip is gone? Do you go into withdrawal?
Speaker: Right. Probably. I mean, I just, Oh my gosh. And then right after this class, we, is it right after the class that we roll out to the, uh, happy, the happy fun time. Yeah. And I'll kind of, I'll kind of start it off cause this is what I was referencing earlier, but they roll out, you know, the travelers are there and they're like, come on, man. Like I just fought with you last month. Like with you alongside you, you know, this isn't my MO.
Speaker: why don't you get busy with this? We'll just pop on out. And then literally I feel like if, um, why do I keep forgetting that dude's name? It's like, no, no, no. Um, well, thank you. I don't know why I just keep getting a welds name, but literally it's because he's like new, but because if weld hadn't been there, I think the rest of them would have been like, like, all right, go fuck off, you know, and they would have left, but welds just like,
Speaker: That is not protocol. And then literally it creates just an ass whooping.
Speaker: I like to think Welt has like the protocol book, like in like a miniature version, like the little mini bibles. A hundred percent. Absolutely. Absolutely. It does. To make the, continue the comparisons, both in power and personality, but he makes, he reminds me so much of the version of Colossus that's in the Deadpool movies. I was thinking the same thing. As by the book as you can get. That is not protocol.
Speaker: A lot of these characters are analogs for, you know, the DC or Marvel characters. And like he has to be, right? And then Shadow Stalker is just Huntress. Constantly trying to get to stop killing people with a crossbow. Hey, and if that sounds like a great idea and y 'all want to hear more on that, hit us up on Patreon. We will compare and kind of see where Wildboat got his inspirations. Just let us know.
Speaker: There we go. Not right now. So bodies mutilated dead. Yeah. So I, I think, um, when it, when it, when I first read it, um, I was just like, Oh God, like we've got, uh, like, uh, I don't know, I guess Ted Bundy or like a Jeffrey, like Jeffrey Dahmer man. And I'm like, Oh God, like now, yeah, someone's just coming in and doing something. Um,
Speaker: But then later, it was later on in this chapter, correct? Yeah, it was plot blocker. Yes, yeah. Later on in this chapter, they discussed the slaughterhouse nine. And I think we'll definitely talk about that in the predictions, but definitely sounds like a boy band. No, I'm kidding. I would listen to them absolutely. Yeah, actually, I think they mentioned it in Kid Win at the end of
Speaker: the beginning of Kid Wind's chapter, but yeah, this fight with the travelers kind of moment here and looking at the three corpses. So one of them is limbs attached to chain like a puppet. The other one is what, scorched? Yeah, it's an obese woman. And I just remember that because I was just like, obese woman. It just hit me for some reason. I was just like, okay, obese woman scorched.
Speaker: That must smell amazing. We don't do live readings with Taylor. What is the third body? I can't remember what the third one is. Oh, it's been slayed? I think so. Yeah, I think you're right. The look again. Yeah, it's like lens on change, blade. Yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so good. Specifically, the limbs are reattached. Reattached by chains. Yeah, like a puppet. Not just hanging. Yeah. Delightful, just such a... Yeah, it's a beautiful image, right? And I think wealth says it, but like the idea of like, oh,
Speaker: this serial killer popping up right after a Leviathan fight. It makes sense. If there were to be a time for a serial killer to act out and not necessarily worry so much about being caught, the whole city is kind of in panic. And they even mentioned, yeah, it's going to take the PRT a while to get here because the roads are so fucked up. They're not going to be able to drive out here
Speaker: as fast as they would have otherwise. So like, I mean, now's the time if, you know, we're going to get a crazy person murdering people like, well, okay. I mean, a bunch of the, you know, capes have been removed from the chessboard, if you will. And it's a pattern that shows up in this world that they talk about where like, Oh, what draws end bringers? Oh, like big conflict, like consistently. Oh.
Speaker: what brings the slaughterhouse nine. Oh, the end bringers. Like if you get hit with an end bringer attack, it's just like, you're just getting slammed and then slammed again, like guaranteed. It's not a good time. It's not a good time. And you're getting your ass kicked and halfway through you realize that they are pulling punches. Oh yes. That sucks. With the travelers. Yeah. Hot damn.
Speaker: It felt like such a game. It felt so much like a game. We're just play acting. We're not trying to hurt you guys. We're not trying to make this difficult. But we want you to understand that we could go all out. But we're not. Because we all just fought Leviathan. And it seems kind of pointless.
Speaker: Yeah, the Travelers are such a fun group. They walk that same sort of unknown gray line that the Undersiders walk and things like that. So they're fun to sort of cheer for because they're not murderous psychopaths yet that we know of.
Speaker: But the way their power is like, they're all sort of that definition of glass cannon where they're so powerful, but not like crazy durable by any means. Genesis, I guess, kind of depending on what you're doing. Have we seen the real Genesis yet? I don't think we have, right? I don't think so. Yeah. Because Genesis isn't a shape shifter like they keep saying, right? Genesis is like mind projection of
Speaker: Yeah, they talked about it in one of the earlier arcs where Genesis rode in. It's after the Baccala fight, I believe, and they're dealing with the Oney Lee. It's the fight with Oney Lee, I believe. So they're trying to take out the ABB, and she's kind of in that fight. And they mentioned that she
Speaker: Keep saying she but I don't actually know Genesis basically like rides in like a knight on a Rhinoceros or something gets blown to smithereens because of a bucket of bomb and then shows back up again and it's like so it's not Genesis, it's Genesis Like What I think they said a line that made me think it's similar to Ben 10 where Genesis only has a certain amount of form
Speaker: Like they cycle through forms, because I could have sworn it said something like that, where it's like, oh, like they have like a certain amount of forms. So Genesis sleeps and when they're dreaming, they create the creatures, but they can only maintain the creatures while they're asleep. And there's some other limitation there that I don't remember, but that's why like, it's a different creature every time. Interesting.
Speaker: whatever they're sleeping and dreaming about. But yeah, it was interesting though seeing ballistic and Sundancer both being like, we're not trying to kill you guys. You can just let us go at any time. We could, especially ballistic I feel like is one where it's like, there's something about his power that just is like,
Speaker: It's just ridiculous. He's like touches it and it turns into a bullet basically. It's wild. Just fires at a speed of a bullet. Like that is such a powerful ability. Glory girl. Amazing. Amazing move. Then he's big too. He's like built like a football player, they say. So he's like this big guy with this great, like just so intimidating. I love them all.
Speaker: I just love people just getting teleported everywhere. Oh, yeah. Just Kid Win shooting himself in the back multiple times in a row. It's got to be so frustrating. That is absolutely how I would use that power. It makes me so happy.
Speaker: Yeah, I like how they mentioned it in earlier arcs with Trickster, but how it's kind of a limiting power that he can only, I think Kidwin notices that he can only teleport what he sees, gotta be similar mass, like that kind of thing. But he makes it work so well. Yes. And he completely knows how to just ruin the entire battlefield by moving people around, which is pretty cool. Which, I mean, it's a good thing that they're pulling their punches then, because if they weren't, it could really cause some
Speaker: Damage. Yeah, which just kind of shows that this they aren't like these aren't villains. These are just like Bank robbers or something like that's how I look at them. You know what I mean? Like they're just a crew because not villains just bank robbers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because truly the ocean's 11. Yeah. Like this isn't like somebody that is out to like hurt people. Like they're literally like, look, y 'all just lost three people. If we sit here and kill
Speaker: Like if we kill more of you guys, then the public is going to suffer. They're just like, yeah, Hey bro, just let us go. We just want to rob an ice cream truck. Well, the fight does conclude eventually. Yeah. And we get the remaining of that and kid wins arc. Oh my God. Yes.
Speaker: I immediately knew that I would empathize with him when I read the first line and it's just like, I'm a tinker. I'm supposed to be smart. So how can I have been so stupid? Like literally immediately I was like, wow, my dude. I'm like looking in a mirror just like, am I kid win? But yeah, he definitely loved his art.
Speaker: I loved, I really appreciated because up until now, a lot of the Tinkers, they have like specializations or limitations, things like that. And kid wins, limitation is himself. He's got ADD or something like that. He's sort of on the spectrum a little bit. Now he's got super ADD. Yeah, ADD and he has, I don't know how to pronounce the other thing.
Speaker: Yes, discount. Thank you. Yeah, I also didn't know how to pronounce that.
Speaker: Yeah. And I love that. I mean, it's, it's such a unique perspective and getting to see it from him where he knows that he has the, the, the ability to be this crazy strong tinker, but cannot help it. Like he is, his limitation isn't like he's lazy or something like that. It's, it's literally mental. Like he just can't, he can't overcome that literally, which is such a unique limitation in this world, I think.
Speaker: What a terrible combo. He's a science guy and he can't do math good and be like being a writer and also illiterate. Like that's your power. You're the world's greatest writer. Oh, cool. I can't read. Yeah, figure it out. Yep. Literally when he talks about like the, whatever Adderall they try to give him and he's just like, yeah, whenever I get the Adderall, I get massive headache seizures and like, you know, and nauseous. And so I can't really do that.
Speaker: Yeah, literally. It's like I took my hoverboard apart because I wanted to build something else, but then I got distracted. And the only reason I was able to focus on the hoverboard, which is he doesn't want to fly just his scatterbrainness. I was like, I get it, man. Like, holy cow. Like I completely get it.
Speaker: Literally me with Legos every time. Seriously, yeah. Or me with video games. It's easy and fun to start new projects, but halfway through, it's like, shit, I want to do something else now. Yeah. But he does get a cool moment. He gets selected to go meet Chariot, which was interesting. Yeah. A fun little scene there. Yeah. Doesn't Piget make a statement too about him?
Speaker: like she's proud of him or something before she sends him off. She says something to him. I can't quite remember. Yeah, I'm trying to remember what she says. You're right. I think that I think that might be at the end whenever he briefs them after chariot. Oh, maybe so. Maybe that's right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Meets chariot meets another tinker. Looks like also in part of the part of the town, part of the city that got hit pretty hard trying to find them and everything like that. I thought that was an interesting
Speaker: dynamic shift from PRT headquarters to the slums essentially to find out where Chariot was. And things don't go too well. Chariot's mom is a little
Speaker: Mean. Again, thinking about inspirations now, that scene was so similar to the scene in X -Men 2 where Bobby comes out to his parents as Iceman. Do you remember that scene? Very, very similar scene. And it's still, it made me mad in that scene and it made me mad reading at this.
Speaker: You live in a world of superheroes. This is the norm. This is everybody knows they exist. They're on TV all the time. There's merch. Why are you acting like your son can't be this thing? It's happening everywhere. Made me mad. So obnoxious. And her just like him wanting her to leave because she is
Speaker: talking and he's the comment of like, Oh, this would be so much easier if she wasn't here and she would just go. Yeah. I love the strategizing where he's like, Oh, mom likes that. And he's like, if he sees that mom likes it, then he won't like it. And he's like, Oh, mom dislikes that. Okay. Perfect. And just like the back and forth. And I just loved how literally for him, it was him looking in a mirror. He's like, Oh, this reminds me of when I was like reached out to from the protectorate. And I was like, Oh, this is just so cool.
Speaker: But yeah, then he intercepts heat NSA's and intercepts some email traffic. Oh, that made me laugh because the one line from the mom that I hated was her, this is where my tax dollars are going. It's like a little gadget. I was like, excuse me, but then turn it around. And it was like, yeah, your tax dollars are going to the spy software. Let's watch you this whole time. Just like real life.
Speaker: We got some interesting insight there. Yeah. Oh, and then we find out that, uh, cause Piget, when he goes back and talks to Piget, Piget knows that coil has moles in the PRT. Like we're aware of at least two because Dragon like figured it out. And you know what? Let's add another one. Let's add Chariot. Sure. Why not? Like, Oh my God.
Speaker: It's just immediately made me, I immediately just pictured Piget. It's just, this is the most British thing ever. Like literally, I don't know if y 'all have seen like the imitation game about like them trying to crack the Nazi code in World War II. Literally, this is just British spy craft where it's like, okay, we know who the Soviet spy is, but instead of arresting him, we're just going to give him whatever information we want to.
Speaker: Like this whole thing made me so happy to where it's just like, oh yeah, Coyle thinks that he's like super smart, but we're actually feeding him whatever we want to feed him. And also we're going to bring Speedy Gonzales over and we're going to give him whatever information we want to give him. And I'm like, okay, this is hilarious. All I can think of is like these guys, you know, I've had so much happen to them already. And then we're going to add somebody to intentionally not trust to live with them. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: And then it's like, Oh, we'll be, we'll be tapping everything. Not your phone. Yeah. Not your internet search history. Yeah. We'll be, we'll be, uh, we'll be tapping everything. Not your stuff, of course. So be careful, but we'll be tapping everything else. And you're like, right. Right. As if you weren't already, you know. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: But to your point from earlier, they really are just like government property. It felt very much like Pickett wasn't really asking for permission as much as asking for your blessing, right? If you guys play nice, this will go a lot easier, but we're gonna use them as a spy. They are just pawns.
Speaker: are for whatever purpose they need to be used for. Although we also got another little bit of insight because Weld was like, guys, it really doesn't affect me because I don't have a secret identity. Why is he even going to school? I know that they're trying to push them to the college route as quickly as possible.
Speaker: Damn, man. Like don't even make him go to school. Like he doesn't sleep. He can stay there. He can work. Like. Can you take his online classes? Like don't make him go to high school. Jesus. If I'm honest, it's my guess would be it's because of appearances. And my reasoning for that is because.
Speaker: Um, they don't want it to look like the words are just a delinquent program for people. Right. It's like, Hey, you joined the words. You don't got to go to school anymore, bud. You know, um, and, and get the wrong kind of people. I could totally see somebody giving that as their reason as to why, well, you know, we have to have you go to school or else people will assume bad things about you. Which they might make assumptions.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. I mean, which of course kind of BS, but, um, I can at least get the idea. I don't, even if it's not the best one. Yeah. I did feel bad for a weld in that regard because they even have that special bridge program, but they're like, yeah. So since you will literally be a hero wearing pants and a t -shirt, uh, we can't put you in that program or we'll expose everyone else in that program. So you just have to just be a student. And he's like, okay.
Speaker: All right, fine I guess. Poor guy. I really do like Weld quite a bit. He's just so, he's just a sweetie. He's a big cuddly metal teddy bear. Absolutely. Which we'll discuss next chapter.
Speaker: I like this segue. Oh, Vista's chapter is maybe my favorite of the six. I don't remember liking Vista this much the first couple of times I read it, but man, Vista's been a winner every time she comes up. The maturity, but also like the vulnerability in the character. Yes. Her conversation with Weld, like it's just, this whole chapter is really good. Really good. It's like really good cheese. Just eat it up.
Speaker: I wasn't expecting you to say that, but yeah. I'm sorry. I just, it was there in my mind. I had to share it with you guys. This is a safe place. Yeah. What a little bad -ass though. She's literally like, all right, let me go take a shower. Oh yeah. Here's that massive scar when I sewed up myself because I didn't want people to think I was a baby. Right. And I was just like, damn, that's, that's a bad -ass way to go Vista. And she's just like, yeah, I got a scar here, scar here, this here. It's really going to suck whenever like,
Speaker: I actually go through puberty and then I remember and I'm like, my God, like she's 13 and she's a late bloomer. Like my goodness. Girl flat as a pancake. And she got stabbed by hook wolf of all people too. She's like, yeah, here's my injury from maybe the most dangerous villain in the city. This is a literal child still. Yes. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Another weird thing about her, she doesn't even,
Speaker: She's in costume so much and in character so much, she doesn't even associate with her real name anymore. Yeah. I noticed that for her and for Shadow Stonkers chapter, they refer to themselves as Shadow Stonkers. And that's when it gave me Batman vibes to where it's like, I knew you were in my head because I don't call myself Bruce. And I'm just like, oh Jesus. They're so indoctrinated. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's kind of hard to read. Yeah, I mean, induction, I think is a good word, but it's very much... I get a lot of flashbacks to... We sort of gloss over this sometimes where you get Ahsoka from the animated Star Wars to Clone Wars show, where it's like, oh, here's a child soldier just running around, killing people and doing soldier things. And it's like, you don't really
Speaker: think about that too much until you get to these moments. You're like, oh, they're children and they're soldiers. It's a literal child. And she's like, yeah, I try not to think about like five years in the future. Cause I'm probably not going to be there. And you're like, which is why I thought, which is why I thought weld just handled that like a, like a champ. Yes. Redemption, redemption for weld.
Speaker: in that moment. Absolutely. What are my orders, sir? Right. Yeah. Oh, God. Sleep and cry. Yeah. Oh, go to therapy. Go to therapy and cry. Go to therapy and cry.
Speaker: I just need inspirational quotes from Weld that I can just put up on my wall and it's literally just sleep, shower, go to therapy, have a good cry. Like, okay. Okay, Daddy Weld. Remember not to give yourself a concussion when you hug him. Don't bonk. Make sure you don't have any regs or jewelry on.
Speaker: Yeah, I do love how, um, how she describes it though, as even though she can feel his body is made of metal. Um, he's like, no, it's weirdly, um, weirdly comforting.
Speaker: And I just thought that was really sweet. That like, Oh yeah. Like he, he might be made of made of metal, but he's a, he's a softy guy. He's a great guy. He's, he's a great guy. He's made of metal than his heart is of gold. But who isn't great is the psychopath down the hall. And literally it, it, it made me kind of, I won't say I felt less for like,
Speaker: her Taylor. Um, but literally I was like, Oh, this is just who she is. Like if it wasn't Taylor, it would be somebody else or, um, or who are our not Uber and lead, but who are our freaking autistic brothers in the class.
Speaker: Greg and Daryl, whoever it was, you know? Yeah. It's just like every time you think she can't get worse, it's just, she just does. She just does. It's brutal. Like, my God, she didn't even have to start anything. Right. And she did. It's the little things too.
Speaker: you know, cries, Sophia, are you fucking crying? I thought we got over this. Jesus. Oh my God. Like even the way she ruffles her hair in the bathroom is so condescending. Like, Oh my God, like leave her the fuck alone. Like, and honestly, because it, you know, this is our first perspective from shadow soccer. Like I, I just, cause my, my, my natural assumption is just to always think that like,
Speaker: Oh, you're being a bitch because you're hiding something inside of you. Like, no, you're just a fucking bitch. You're just a jerk. And you're pissed off because Vista's crying. Like, why aren't you? Oh, she's so, I hate her so much. And then of course, and then of course, like, you know, absolutely in character when, when Vista responds and it's like cool, calm and collected, she can't fucking take it. So she tackles Vista to the ground, bangs a girl's head on the, on the floor.
Speaker: And a bully. Such a, yeah, such a bully, like short fused, total. Yeah. Yeah. Well, piss me off so much as she's sitting there talking about like, she's like, I loved him. And that's just like a calm response. And she's like, you don't know what love is. I'm like, you do? Let me tell you right now. Nobody's ever loved you. Oh, that's why I mean, I don't know if you've loved anybody.
Speaker: Yeah, her her little I pity you. I was like, yes. So good. So good. It felt so good. Yeah. Because she's like, you don't feel sorry for me. And she's like, but I do. But I do. And she's like, go get help. Just not letting go. The two the two things you could say, like on one hand, it's like, I care for you. Get therapy. On the other hand, go fuck yourself.
Speaker: get therapy. And this is, this is what really led me down the like, okay, I think there might be like, I meant like disassociative, disassociative identity disorder, psychopathy. Like I was like, it has to be something like that. Whenever she leaves this is like, I just need to go beat something up. She was like, I've just got to go and flick some violence on people because of what she did to me. And I was like, okay, something's something. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I'll recant my previous day, but you're probably right. She's probably a sociopath, which only makes me question all the people I played soccer with. Where are they now? I know. I mean, one of them's like one of the best refs in, you know, in the state, an award winner for refing soccer. Oh, definitely a sociopath. Sociopaths make the best refs.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, that actually checks out. No, I'm talking about it. But leading into Shadowstalker's chapter, final chapter. That bitch called Emma. Oh my God.
Speaker: You gotta love it. Oh my goodness. Before what I said about like, oh yeah, classic rich people leaving Brockton Bay, like Emma's not fucking here. She's off. I don't even remember where she said Portland, Portland, Oregon, hanging out. Yeah, Jesus. And my house got a little flooded on the big mansion. Hail is my
Speaker: Stupid fucking lawyer dad of Joe. I'm gonna go to Texas was falling apart and Emma flew to Cancun. I was just about to say that We'll get through this together as he's on the beach Yeah, no their their conversation on the phone is so It just makes me like sick like Emma is so Enabling her and like
Speaker: It feels like they clearly do have a friendship going because otherwise shadow soccer wouldn't have called her. Other than like maybe just having someone on her side that is going to back her no matter what. Like well boys stick together I guess. I don't know which one of y 'all said this last time but one of y 'all was like I think that Emma's dad might be the lawyer that kind of got
Speaker: Sophia or some things. This really could work for me. Yeah. I got squashed when someone mentioned that he was a divorce attorney. But I still stand that he used his connections. Yeah. No, it really feels like, yeah, they might be friends, but they're both clearly using each other. Yes. Within this friendship, it's not a standard healthy friendship. Right.
Speaker: like Emma gets to live vicariously through shadow stalker because of the whole, you know, Cape thing. And then also like shadow stalker isn't going to have anybody to talk to and like, sure, sociopath. Yes. But also like sometimes you need somebody to just back you up and to be like, yeah, absolutely. You're totally right. Like, yeah, I am exactly. Yeah. And she needs an Emma once Sophia wants that ego boost. Yeah. We're like somebody who's as a
Speaker: not necessarily as aggressive as her, but like, we'll take her side when it's like, this bitch needs to die. And she's like, yeah, that bitch needs to die. It's like, thank you. Yeah. Who can appreciate her aggression and rage and like be on her side regardless of that. Exactly. Who's not going to question it? In getting into her whole mindset of predator versus prey. That's the way she views the world. And it does. So that, that line that, um, this ask her where she's like, what happened to you?
Speaker: I think that hits harder because we see now this mindset of somebody who can only view the world through the lens of people who take advantage of others and people who are taken advantage of. And that's really sad and depressing to be like, I'm with Vissa on that, just like, man, what happened to you? Like you were not okay.
Speaker: Yeah. And if we want to psychoanalyze her a little bit more, like how does that bleed over into, you know, what caused her power and like how that shows her mental state that she is incorporeal, like is kind of her bit. Oh, true. Oh, I like that actually. I didn't, that didn't cross my mind, but I do like that. Yeah. She was like giving a bullet. She was giving like a little nerd a swirly so hard.
Speaker: that it caused her to just get powers up the hunter. Yeah. She, she got a drop of toilet water on her face while giving the nerd a swirly. Yeah. It's going to handle it. And was like, it does also, that does make you think wonder though, and not to in any way try to sympathize or understand her, but like, what was her trigger? You know, yeah, if she's this fully family,
Speaker: like her daughter, her mom or something, you know, because bullies make bullies, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much so. And, and we have to remember too, that she came to that school meeting without family there. Right. Yeah. It was just her.
Speaker: Well, it's hilarious that I literally watched a video last night just trying to go to sleep. And when I was reading this, I was like, oh my God, this correlates, if that makes sense. So I want to shout out Nick Robinson on YouTube. And he has a video called, this is what a second person video game would look like.
Speaker: So you have like your first person shooters, you have your third person. He's like, what would a second person be? And I don't want to spoil in his video what that is. Go watch it. Give him a like and follow. But for this, this resonated with me because we, for, um, you know, the sake of reading the story has been tailored. And so literally all of a sudden skitter
Speaker: is the target. And we are outside of Skitter's mind and we are in Shadowstalker's mind. But I still feel like I'm Skitter. Yeah. And this whole battle scene or like stalking scene felt second person to me because I felt like I was the one getting chased the whole time. I like that. This was really what cemented me. When I was texting you guys saying it felt icky.
Speaker: Ooh, yeah, yeah. Like you were like, oh, it's like a cleansing after Leviathan. I'm like, no, I don't feel cleansed. I do not feel cleansed. I feel like a traitor. She's coming for my booty. That's what I felt like. I feel like we were just hunting down Skitter and I just did not. I did not like it felt icky. Like I can get behind the others a little bit better, not shadow stalker. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that perspective, Taylor. Yeah, I like that a lot. It was really getting to me. But I did love... Skitter is definitely evolving as far as how she's using her powers, which I thought was really cool. She's constantly shooting bug people. And then she's like, oh, this bitch probably knows where I am because her bugs keep flying through me. And I'm like, oh, this is just...
Speaker: you know, awesome or like, Oh, let me go slit her throat white right quick. And I'm like, bitch, what the fuck? But anyways, she's like, Oh, I can't because her costume's too tough. That's right. You're goddamn right. You bitch. Skitters back with the undersiders. Yeah.
Speaker: As soon as, as soon as shadow stalker goes, Oh God. Oh no. When the darkness hits, I was just like, Oh my God. If I was like, I knew it. Yeah. Not to spoil, uh, Jacob and Alan's thing, but if they don't have hello darkness, my old friend play every time grew comes on screen. Well, we found out shadow stalkers.
Speaker: Bitch ass weakness. Oh my gosh, I thought that was so cool. Thank God there's not electricity in every building. What's the point of having that ability if you can't actually walk through walls? Well, she even talks about she can't do it. Because of the wiring, yeah. She's like, I can't walk through walls. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker: I wanted her to walk into that fence so fucking loud. It would have been so satisfying to have her like electrically just like stuck to this fence like. I wanted to I wanted to piss off Kid Nguyen and he's like, hey, here's those new goggles you ordered.
Speaker: Yes, that is also a terrifying thought is like don't don't mess with tinkers like just don't It makes us go like all the way back to like when they're complaining about arms master and all of his gadgets They're like god. I fucking hate tinkers Like when when Alec tries to steal kid wins gun at the bank ice He's like drop that don't you dare? You don't want to do not take that back with us. Yeah, same thing
Speaker: What's the first thing they do? Well, probably a self -destruct and probably a, you know, a tracker. The 101 for tankers. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm so ready, even after all of these, I've really enjoyed this arc because of the wards and all the interludes and whatnot. But I am like, after this run -in at the end with the Undersiders and Shadow Stalker, I am so ready to get back to the Undersiders. I want to know how they're doing after everything. I want to know who the fuck
Speaker: is the new team member. Yeah. Are we, are we ready for predictions? Well, hang on. Wait, let me, let me look and see. Yeah. Okay. Michael Scott is actually poking out of the vent and he is saying we need to wrap this shit up. He's like, it's only been six chapters and y 'all have been talking for like an hour and a half. So, uh, why not? Why not get some predictions in, uh, do you want to go first cat or do you want me to go? Yeah. So, um, I think arms masters in the bird cage, like I said earlier, um,
Speaker: And the thing is, I know that his little thing on trying to kill
Speaker: skitter wasn't as big a deal as like a lot of other people, but I just feel like they just cannot have a superhero that is doing shit like that. And they're like, we gotta get rid of this guy. Bad publicity, they can't have that, especially after this - How's he doing in the birdcage? He's getting fucked up the ass for sure. Is it long? Is that who's doing it?
Speaker: I don't know, but I'll be honest, I didn't think that far ahead. Because Colin's not making it. Or Colin, you're right. Or leave Colin. Don't go to prison with a name like Colin and come out unchanged. My prediction, second prediction is that Imp is actually a character we've met before, but did not meet them as a superhero.
Speaker: Do you have any predictions on who you think that might be? No. I don't have any predictions on imp just because that was like a side thought to me. There was something that has been soaking up my mind and I'll save that for the end.
Speaker: But I think that I'm going to go since Kat thinks that Arms Master is in the birdcage. I think that Arms Master got whoever that new guy was that tried to be Captain America, I think he got his treatment. So it's like you were the face of the company. Now instead of Captain America, you're like agent or like whatever his name is.
Speaker: Oh, you're thinking a US agent. Thank you. He's basically the guy that's like, okay, this is our off the books, dude. We can send Arms Master out with his fake anime arm to go and just do whatever we need him to do. He got a rebrand. Yes, but there is something that has been taking up my mind. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker: it has been taking up my mind. So when we meet Weld, right? Okay, I got it. Okay, perfect. Sorry, I was trying to think of it from memory. I'm going to get your name right, Weld, because I love you so much. But in the first chapter, Weld is like, oh man, I can't wait to take over this team, this, that, and the other. Oh man, but I really want to do this thing
Speaker: And I don't know if they're going to let me do this thing, but I really need to do this thing because I love doing this thing. And I was like, what is, what does Weld get off to? I was like, what is he, what is this thing? And so later on in the arc, he's like, oh yeah, send the adolescent in my chamber. And I'm like, no, but then he turned out to be a softie. And I was like, okay, okay, good, good. It's not what I thought it was.
Speaker: So just more reasons to love weld. Yeah. Yeah. It's more reasons to love. I was like, okay, cool. I was like, then what, what gets off weld? Cause immediately I thought like, Oh, like my dude is like owning prostitutes as a metal man. You know, you know what I mean? But I was like, but, but he probably kills people because I mean, he's just rocks out. Yeah. He's like, just, but like what gets weld off?
Speaker: What gets hell pipes? Yeah. Yeah. So that's my thing. Is he, is, is he like, is he like the humping robot from that? Look at that Honda robot check -in where he's just like, he's watching robots porn. No, no, seriously. He's like, Oh man. Like,
Speaker: So you've been around and it's like a washing machine. He's like, Oh yeah. The problem is he gets stuck to it. They're like, well, he's like, it's not what it looks like a tailpipe. Just make his dick silicone. You understand now. Yeah. So that's my thing. I am super, that is my new nine 11.
Speaker: I want to know what is my boy do. Maybe he's into the bug girls. I still think that her and Brian have a future together. They didn't get it. They didn't get the relationship. And I think it's coming. I think it's coming. I think that we'll see who comes.
Speaker: But I think that he still has the opportunity to
Speaker: I see you as a sister. Oh, thanks. But I'm a Targaryen. Oh, Jesus Christ. Well, this is delved into very odd spaces. Can we return to favorite superpowers, please?
Speaker: i thought it was funny i thought it was funny that weld like when he accidentally gets metal on his face and he's like oh fuck not this again i thought that was absolutely amazing i will say as far as new superpowers um the flit the flechettes explanation i just thought was interesting because i still didn't understand it
Speaker: Um, but I'm interested to see like how weld is going to shape, like, is he going to get more metal? Is he going to like get rid of himself and make him like, I don't know. It's just, that's an interesting power. And what's he doing? No. Or what is he doing? Not a new power. I was going to say, he's a teenager.
Speaker: I did enjoy getting to see Trickster in action more often. We've seen him use his powers, but not really in intense combat. I had a lot of fun reading that
Speaker: that part of the fight with him just swapping everything around and moving people. And like you said, Kidwin shooting himself in the back. Just a really fun few paragraphs. So that's my submission. Yeah, I'd agree with that. It really felt like in a way, we see Trickster come into his own here. We've seen him rescue people. We've seen him inconvenience Armsmaster, which is hilarious and we love it.
Speaker: But yeah, we haven't really seen him in a fight like this. And I thought that I did think that was really cool as well. Um, yeah, yeah, great, great fight. Um, great powers all around. I think trickster is still one of my favorites. So I do have to give him a shout out as well. Jacob, I agree with you there. Um, but I'm, this this power is so mind blowing.
Speaker: Oh, it's so cool. It's just, well, it's not new. So I'll say Vista shout out to her as well. Um, actually, I don't think any of these powers, technically none of these are new. Yeah. Well, they're the only new ones that we see. I'll tell you my favorite that like, uh, just a moment with a power was shadow stalker, uh, being, you know, gaseous and then like coming down and like landing on a rooftop or on the, on the ground.
Speaker: Just something about the idea, you know, almost dream -like, if you've ever had like one of those dreams where you like are running and you jump and you kind of like float, like moon jumping almost. It felt like that. You're descending, but not at full speed and you can kind of bound as far as you want. And I was just really, really feeling that running and jumping motion. Something about that just really tickled me.
Speaker: I was going to say Weld also because Weld is just... I just love him so much. The optimist, he's a great leader. His power is a little unfortunate at times, specifically in regard to forks, as we saw in the Leviathan Bite. But yeah, no, I'm such a sucker for Weld and he's just so
Speaker: He's just so cool. And I love the idea of all the different metals that kind of make up his skin, that kind of marbleize together and have different, they tie into different parts of his features. And I love that. That's so cool. But I really, really enjoyed the insight into Kid Nguyen and his tinker brain and kind of how he was thinking about projects and kind of what he's dealing with with ADD and feeling like he can't quite finish a project. But I just love the
Speaker: the creative brain of Kidwin and even him like putting together, I don't know if that was whatever it was in Chariot's apartment, the little drone thing. That was so fun. That was so cool. I really, I really enjoyed that. I really liked the tinkers. Agreed. Yeah, it was great. And before we end it, I would just like to end on this passage.
Speaker: Given that his tongue was made of an alloy and the pleasures of food were a shadow of what they should be, it was only fair that he enjoy himself in some other way. He knew that some staff back in Boston had caught on, but they hadn't said anything. Director Pigott here gave him the vibe that maybe she wouldn't be so cool with it. He'd be more careful until he knew for sure.
Speaker: I think it's flower arrangement. I think he enjoys flower arrangement and he doesn't want people to think he's weird and that's what I'm that's what I think it is or butterfly collecting. He likes butterflies. The problem is if everybody else knows things that Taylor and I don't so
Speaker: It's probably something lame. I have absolutely no clue what it is. No, I'll be totally honest. I completely forgot all of that. So I remember very little about Weld's character, so I truly don't remember. I know. I'm hoping it's not something lame where he's like, I just want to go to the Uber Elite meetup. And we're like, God damn it. I have an Uber Elite fan. Honestly, that would be more shameful than anything. He's a furry.
Speaker: Oh God. He's a furry. It's the texture that he gets to wear the suit and he doesn't stick to anything. Oh my God. And he doesn't sweat. That's awesome. Jesus. All right. Well, thanks everybody for coming out today and listening to another arc with the gang.
Speaker: If you have stuck around this long, just bless your heart. Yeah. Thank you. Just thank you. Hannah, tell Jacob to tell Michael to play us out. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker: Stick around. We'll end with some parting words. Thanks. Truly, truly thank you. It's been a lot of fun. We're having a blast. And we'll be back with Arc 10 in the next episode. So read along with us. Stay tuned. Or I shouldn't say stay tuned anymore. I should say make sure you check out the companion podcast if we have no split it up. Dissecting Worm with myself and Alan as we break down Arc 9 as well. And talk about adapting that. It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker: And until next time, don't think too hard about what welds fetish is. Jesus. Please. He's fucking tractor. No! Michael, play us out, please. Please, please. Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate?
Speaker: anything you think we missed, etc., as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit, at Brockton Bay, BC, or click the link in the description.
Speaker: We have a very exciting announcement. We now have a voicemail, 980 -999 -0438. You can call us and your voicemail might be featured on one of our episodes.
Speaker: Do you still have bitter feelings about your ex and no way to get it out? Well, perhaps you could consider hiding it inside a worm -related rant. Tell us all about how legend broke your heart or just how skitter won't call you back. We'll listen and air your grievances at 980 -999 -0438 on the podcast. That's right. Leave us a voicemail about your sad life at 980 -999 -0438.
Speaker: What triggered you?
