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Arc 30: Speck
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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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Episode Description:
“Why… does it matter?”
“Because I think you have a chance to come back from this. Not much of a chance. Part of that rides on me. I could help you, or I could stop you from troubling anyone ever again. Part of that? It’s up to you to win the fight, to take control and keep the The Brockton Bay Book Club from claiming everything you have, leaving you a shell."
Check out all our links @brocktonbaybc
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Transcript
New Merchandise Launch
00:00:00
Speaker
Exciting announcement, we now have Brockton Bay Book Club merch. We've got our Brockton Bay Book Club t-shirt as well as the Brockton Bay's sweatshirt. They look sweet. Hannah designed them and they're amazing. So if you're interested in that, a link will be in the description and shout out to Hannah for all the sweet designs. Thanks so much for your guys' support and go check it out.
Introduction to Worm by J.C. McRae
00:00:25
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by J.C. McRae, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans dot.wordpress dot.com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot.com. slash wildbot 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.
Arc 30 Reflections and Emotional Reactions
00:01:35
Speaker
Good morning, Brockton Bay. Grab your spatial pile drivers and kill a God. It's arc 30 spec. Hey, we have made it. How are we all feeling? Oh, I cried for 30 minutes on my couch this afternoon. So that's how I'm doing. Maybe the first time I've understood.
00:02:00
Speaker
30% more of this arc than I did the previous couple of times I listened to this or read this. Yeah, there was a lot of that a lot. I would agree with that. Yeah. This is, um, so my, my first experience reading worm, I, I think I mentioned before you previously, I got to like arc 26 and then just stayed up to like four in the morning reading the rest of it because I had to know what happened. And so this is like, my eyes are blurry. I'm on my phone in the night, like.
00:02:32
Speaker
You're not sure if it's you or if it's the book. You're like, that didn't make sense. I don't know. I gotta keep going. yeah and So, you know, um, so that, that's where I was. So reading this again, I was like, Oh, Oh cool. I didn't know that happened. Yeah. I've been making fun of y'all for, uh, your worm Nisha and your worm Mencha. Um, yeah but yeah you man, in the last, like, I don't know, three arcs.
00:03:01
Speaker
Like this one included, you know, we've had the revelation that Noctis capes are in the book, you know, uh, that it's explicitly stated that the end bringers are a result of, uh, I don't, uh, and, uh, and now we have a lot of things that happened in this arc that I was very, I remember this very different, apparently.
Mandela Effect in Worm
00:03:27
Speaker
It's like the, the Mandela effect where you're like, Wait, wait, wait. When's the last time the wild boat edited this? Cause I swear this is, yeah which we know has happened. We know has happened. So I'm not unconvinced that I'm not crazy. You're crazy.
00:03:45
Speaker
It's always possible, right? Yeah. The Mandela effect. Amy cut the Mandela out of my brain when I went, you know, full cap. Got a South African president out of your brain.
00:04:03
Speaker
I don't know. I don't remember. but
00:04:07
Speaker
thats fair yeah oh Well, so glad to see all your faces for one of our last, uh, you know, arcs.
Merchandise Promotion and Face Reveals
00:04:16
Speaker
It's pretty awesome. go Special for you listeners, you audio listeners. You're missing out.
00:04:22
Speaker
Check out what YouTube? Yeah. posting Our faces. You can see our faces. YouTube people. You take one good look and then it's i wish you'd gone back. yeah Actually Spotify is doing video podcasts now. So we may be on Spotify. Look at us. guess We'll see. A little thank you for sticking with us for my face on every platform. Let's go. That's true. It's true. You can see, you can see all of our, you know, a little peek into our lives.
00:04:52
Speaker
Hannah and Alan recording from their house, Jacob from ah what appears to be backstage at a theater, Michael from a studio, and ah me while in witness protection.
00:05:03
Speaker
but
00:05:05
Speaker
As soon as we're done recording this, you have to leave immediately, right? Yeah, no, this is being recorded on a secure line. Thanks to our sponsor, just getting not a sponsor, NordVPN.
00:05:18
Speaker
Um, not a sponsoring we sponsor Good. You can sponsor us. Go ahead. We're not giving out three yeah free advertising here though. No, no, no. Oh, that was a great sponsor. andhow good sponsor What an excellent sponsor hot dog.
00:05:38
Speaker
And if you'd like to see more of our beautiful faces, we have a Patreon where our patrons have seen our faces before and likely will again. They will. So check us out. Absolutely. Also, ah fun fact, if you're a patron, you have access to some special fun stuff, ah not just videos and audios of us talking, and but actual physical stuff.
00:06:06
Speaker
music Keep an eye out. Exactly. Kenke. Thank you, Michael. We are so good at marketing ourselves.
00:06:23
Speaker
Well, now that everybody skipped 30 seconds until all the all the ads are done should be getting to the podcast. Actually, would this be a good time to to mention that we have merch? Oh, yeah. Very good time.
00:06:37
Speaker
We have merch. We have merch. um We have two things that you can buy to represent ah us and the Brockton Bay Book Club podcast. ah We have a t-shirt, not in hand at the moment or else I'd wear it. ah But it's just got our lovely logo that I designed on the front. ah with It's a ah white and black ringer tee, so it's got black bands around the neck and the cuffs on the sleeves. Very comfy, very soft.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, we'll totally have the picture in here. Us. There it is somewhere. is' somewhere It's somewhere. Oh, wow. It looks so good. Available for purchase. We also have a ah the Brockton Bayes sweatshirt, ah which is also very fun. So if you'd like to ah you know get something fun for the holidays or for other times of the year, feel free. And ah We'd love that. That'd be great. Michael, I think it's been a while. Can you, can you remind the people what the Brockton base theme song sounds like? Yeah, I sure can.
00:07:49
Speaker
Excellent. Thank you. mike i hi yeah So it's that vibe, but on a sweatshirt. Yes. Speaking of some Brockton base, we've got quite the clusterfuck gang bang in this arc, don't we? It's a real hoedown throw down. throwdown one Sure is a clusterfuck. That's for sure. One old giant orgy. oh The worst kind of mind meld. How about a quick soul bond?
00:08:20
Speaker
go We've been putting it off. Should we... Let's get into it. Should we get into it?
Taylor's Power Dynamics and Mind Control
00:08:26
Speaker
A lot of notes. Yeah, we got a lot of arcs. Yeah, I know these chapters are going to. They're going to blend, but they are. They what they will. Much like Taylor's mind. Yeah. Ooh. Let's go. Yeah. So.
00:08:43
Speaker
If you all remember the last time ah that we were here in R29, Taylor ah asked Panacea to get inside of her head and to remove a block that could potentially inhibit some of her control. And so that's what Panacea did. So we open up with chapter one. Taylor wakes up.
00:09:05
Speaker
comes to consciousness um and Tattletale berates her and Marquis pulls everyone away. So all of a sudden, everyone's backing up from Taylor. ah They try to escape, but Taylor comes through the portal ah before then leaving on her own ah by choice. ah There's a lot that happens here, but that's the basic, that's the basic of what happens.
00:09:33
Speaker
yeah wow yeah
00:09:37
Speaker
So. I'm going to, I'm going to recap some, a little bit more in detail, more so because not for our lovely listeners, cause they know what's going on more so because I want to clarify to make sure I understood what was happening. It's going to be a lot of that. Yeah. Yes. Most certainly. Um, okay. So, so there's this moment when Taylor wakes up and she's kind of like thinking and like mentally being aware of the things that are happening around her while panacea is like fingers in her brain. And.
00:10:09
Speaker
her one of the things that happens is that her you know her range starts diminishing by like a lot and it keeps going because before it was like a couple of blocks well it keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it's about 15 14 feet i believe and she kind of mentally thinks like oh no i don't want it to shrink anymore and that's kind of when everything kind of goes a little wonky and that's when marque steps in is what is happening is that Hannah Sia is close enough that she's being impacted by what Taylor wants to happen and is then modifying her brain to those impulses that Taylor is thinking.
00:10:51
Speaker
Does that question make any sense at all? I don't think it's an intentional thing. I believe that. Oh, I don't think it's intentional either. But like I got the assumption that while Taylor is thinking like, oh, not that or like, oh, do more of that or like, oh, I don't want to lose my bugs. She's unconscious.
00:11:09
Speaker
subconscious Subconsciously. Thank you. Subconsciously telling Panacea what to do in her own mind. And that's why Panacea is kind of like frozen there just doing Taylor's bidding basically because she's no longer in control of herself because Taylor's power has changed so much. Cause that's what I thought. I don't know that I read it that way. Actually. I just assumed that Taylor thought something was going wrong. When in fact, it was just unlocking her ability to control any living thing for people, especially. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I guess that's a question I don't remember.
00:11:50
Speaker
If it was deep enough for me to figure to see that, yeah that is because like, if that were true, that would mean that Amy knew the definition of stop. And I don't think that's in her vocabulary. So I mean, at least she got consent when she started. So that's improvements, I guess.
00:12:08
Speaker
Baby steps. That's what we call a big yikes. Well, there's, so there's, she has these moments. I'm trying to, I'm trying to find it. So she's saying, she's saying, um, while everything's happening, she's also like mentally talking and she's like, no focus on the swarm and the range is dwindling with every second below. I need control. I thought, uh, she pushes her focus out towards the swarm. She's aware of her body. She's aware of the other people.
00:12:36
Speaker
Things were normal. I need control, I thought. A moment passed and I could feel Panacea working to give me that control, changing what she was focusing on. And so I assume that that's her being like, this is what I need. And Panacea is in her range to be like, okay, I'll make sure that's what you have. Yeah, you least like know that but I actually like that interpretation a bit.
00:12:59
Speaker
Because then right afterwards, she gets she gets shoved back because her her range is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. ah And she's like, stop, Panacea. I thought, stop, stop, stop. And my swarm attacks her. ah It wasn't a conscious command. And she stops pulling back and falling backwards in a clumsy way, which later we hear that when Taylor is controlling people, they don't walk like normal. they like They're very clumsy.
00:13:28
Speaker
because it's like she's controlling the motor functions as well. And I just assumed that that was all part of her being, because right after that is when Tattletail like jumps in and it's like, everybody back the fuck up. Gotcha. So what what you're saying is ah that Taylor is in control of Amy working on her.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yes, which is why it makes me wonder if things went so wrong because if Amy had just done it, I think it probably would have been fine. Like Taylor wouldn't have even had as much power as she did, but she probably would have had more control of herself because Amy would have at least added more safeguards. She would have been more careful as opposed to Taylor, who's very much in a cut, snip, trim the fat mentality.
00:14:22
Speaker
Over the next arc. Yeah. and So that's kind of the mindset that I. but Yeah. Yeah. No, that's I like that. That's, I think, I think you're probably right there. That's something I hadn't even noticed. Um, I think it makes a lot of sense too with, so what, what's interesting here, right? Is there a speculation that Taylor has already had a second trigger, but it seems like what panacea reveals is that she always had the capacity to mind control people.
00:14:48
Speaker
It just was limited by the passenger or by her brain in some way, because probably, uh, you know, the passenger safeguards we've talked about those, right? Like if you get fire powers, you don't get burned by fire. So I imagine the idea is she's even talked about before, like she's had to adjust to being able to use her swarm to see through her swarm. So her passenger was probably protecting her from like, oh, if you could take in this information from a hundred different sentient life forms that are all human.
00:15:16
Speaker
your brain would explode. So we're going to keep you for like just bugs. Bugs are good. They're small. Um, and she even talked about, you know, she can control crabs and other small life forms. So, um, addict yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess she didn't want a little one to be look crabby. If we want a little bit of a look into her shard, uh, the administrator shard, I believe it is the shard Uh, it originally started as an evolutionary trait of controlling lesser creatures, like directly, but is the way that the entity or scion specifically reshuffles and configures and controls shards.
00:16:04
Speaker
So when they're doing like, Oh, which ones do I throw out? Which ones do I keep, you know, shuffling their giant shard bodies around the administrator is the one that picks the configuration and does all of that shuffling. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. um That makes sense. That makes sense. And cause it makes sense to just the way that Taylor thinks that makes a lot of sense. Um, yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Cool.
00:16:32
Speaker
Cause when she does go, this is getting a bit later when she does go into mind control mode, um, she is able to get an innate sense of what people's powers do. But she sort of isn't able to know well enough to control them. She's kind of like, okay, I get an idea of what you do. You do your thing. Um, you know, kind of like peeking into their shards almost. It also makes sense too, because from the entity's perspective, humans are a lesser, you know, being, whereas from a human perspective, a lesser being would be something on scale a lot smaller, like they are to us. Yeah. I imagine also that, and I don't have anything for this, but from the sound of it, when she's moving her own body, it's like having to puppet a different entity almost like she's inside it, but to get anything to happen, she has to literally do the whole, Oh, pick its arms up and move it around because it's separate from her. But I,
00:17:29
Speaker
The feeling I got was because of that shard, she is dragging all the other shards around. Like, and the person kind of goes with them. Um, there's some stuff that she does later on that, like, like we said, she's got a pretty good job of getting the people to use their powers, but like the motor functions of the body in which the shard is attached to is kind of whatever. Yeah.
00:17:58
Speaker
I think the biggest like weird thing for this is that she gets all of the tinkers to make an ultimate tinker weapon, which is a lot of brain power and like coordination that, you know, and small fine tuned motor function that you wouldn't really get unless you were essentially dragging the shard like towards the machine and being like, do your thing.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah. And then the shard is by then, you know, by proxy doing all of the motor function kind of. Yeah. She, she talks about it being kind of autopilot where she's like, yeah okay, you've got your power go power away. You know, I don't want to think about it. You know, I can't think about it too hard. Um, yeah, which is really interesting. That's part of the learning process of she like stops because she, when she starts, it really is like trying to get It feels like she's trying to get zombies moving, you know, puppet style. And then I get the, I get the impression that she is for, for going the bodies and focusing on the shard attached to the body to drag them around. Cause I mean, that's what's, that's what's important for her to like plan out her plan.
00:19:18
Speaker
She needs the shards and like what they can provide her, not the people that encompass the shards. Because those don't, the people don't matter. It's the shards. Like she even will leave certain people behind or drop them, not because of who they are, except if it's the Undersiders, not necessarily who they are, but because of their shard, like what they can do. And like she couples people together because of how their shards interact, not necessarily how the people interact. So that makes sense.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, specifically to here in this first area, it's interesting how quick tattletale and marquee pickup on what's going on. It makes me think, you know, obviously tattletales got her finger power. It makes me think marquee has seen some stuff probably with like mental control powers. He's been around teacher. So I guess he probably has a good sense of what somebody looks like when they're under some level of control.
00:20:13
Speaker
I also assume that like he gets, he's gotten to know Hannah Sia. Yeah. And so he knows when she's like acting weird. True, true. Yeah. So just, I do like, I just generally, I like Marquis in this arc because I feel like we get to see so much more of his power and just like.
00:20:31
Speaker
Just like the amount of things he can do is like, Oh, whoa, that's cool. ah Even this thing where he's like trying to stop Taylor from escaping. He's making these like interlocking trees of bone. yeahs like Yeah. So such a cool mental image. Um, there's a nerdy now for a second. There's a, it's a filler episode, I believe, but there's a Naruto arc where they meet somebody who has bone hours.
00:20:59
Speaker
And it's a very, very, it's a very cool fight scene. Um, but yeah, it just kind of reminds me of that, which was like trees of bone, throwing it out everywhere. He's pulling people back. He's got her pinned to the wall. Um, such a, such a cool scene. And they would have got, it was so close to just getting away with it.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they had her. They were so close. It's freaking canary. Canary's fault, right? Because because because so Taylor, ah not Taylor, a freaking tattletale is like, everybody back the fuck up. And canaries like Taylor, are you OK? And she's like, bitch, I told you. And then, of course, like walks right into it. And then Taylor can then use her singing to try and pull in more people. Yeah, yeah. hu Yeah, that Canary interlude paid off in dividends for this last arc. Yeah, we did. Again, forgot that Canary gets used so darn much. Yeah.
Key Character Interactions and Strategies
00:21:59
Speaker
She's just trying to... Poor Canary. She doesn't have the battle sense. She doesn't have the battle sense that everybody else does, right? No, that like danger sense that's like, you should run now. She's like, do you need help?
00:22:13
Speaker
No, Taylor Taylor. No, but speaking of other people that give themselves up the absolute trust that bitch has. Oh my gosh. She just is like, they pull her out of the, out of the range. And she's like, no, like I meant to do that. So yeah, she's got a good reason. I'm sure.
00:22:35
Speaker
Oh my gosh. so good It's the, I mean, it's the loyal dog thing. Like, I don't know why you're doing this, but I trust you. Oh my gosh. Okay. Again, again, I will say this is another instance. Like we've talked about Taylor is a narcissist, but it's almost justified because she keeps being freaking right.
00:22:55
Speaker
and I kinda hate it. my god This is like the ultimate, like, I know better than all of you. but Let me use you.
00:23:07
Speaker
Again, a lot it it's why everyone loves Taylor because Taylor is the character that we ah know that we would be in all of these books. You're like reading your story and you're like, no, you are so dumb. Just put me in charge. i will fix it let me Give me your brain. That's so funny because that's not how I read books at all. I'm like, man, I wouldn't want to be in her shoes. know Taylor is the better example of that because not only is Taylor the person who like, oh yeah, I would totally fix if the if if they would just listen.
00:23:38
Speaker
But also she does things that I wouldn't even think about because while I was that smart. content yeah Oh, move yeah. I would be the person that you would have to take over for because I'm not that bright. use me I got, I got no brain cells.
00:23:54
Speaker
but meog lady passed This pass is over. Uh, not this one. This one's useless. oh my god ah Not even as a meat shield. Come on. yeah she just like oh man I'd like to think that that's exactly what happened somewhere with trickster. Trickster was just like, use me, make me useful. And Taylor just passes right over him. but a trickster Trickster did get used. trickster using yeah you did write um He did. He did. Oh, I missed that. Did he get got? Oh, he got got. He got. Yeah. yeah Okay. Good. The, uh, at the very end, it's near the end. Yeah. yeah Okay. There's a couple of people, a couple of people who get got, it looks like there's a lot of people, a lot of people to get got. And there are quite a few that I'm sure God got. And I didn't realize it because at a certain point we stopped using people's names and I had like these moments where I was like, I don't remember their power enough to know who we're talking about. right Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure Alan will help us. There's only like two sections that matter for that. The rest of them are, you know, yeah, it's like the last more in their loss, whoever they were. Yeah. Um, no, uh, it's funny. We're talking about trickster because especially during this first sequence, I get a strong trickster in a kit and a vibe from this whole situation. We're like,
00:25:18
Speaker
trickster is aiding this, you know, monstrous strategist and this, you know, this big plan, uh, kind of betraying friends as well. Um, Letting everyone down. So real quick, now that we know about the entities and the shards, is there some, just kind of, this just reminded me of, because we were mentioning the kidney.
00:25:42
Speaker
And since we're wrapping this up now, um, is there some theory that echidna was like a burgeoning entity and was just trying to read because she wanted to eat people and stuff. Was she trying to like reabsorb shards? Maybe it's kind of, the feeling i yeah I know what Oliver's like balance does. Um,
00:26:09
Speaker
yeah oliver Oliver would have been the other half of the vial that she drank. His is the shard that helps the entity produce her avatar, which is why she stuck. Why she never produced that like the body. so it's this It's the same way Sion turned into, you know, the humanoid shaped Sion. Oliver is The the shard that produces that would have done that, but for right Eden to become Eve. Wait.
00:26:44
Speaker
wait
00:26:47
Speaker
Which we'll get to later at the end. Yeah, i was scaryre that's very important. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Okay. Well, we'll get there then. Nice. Good question. Interesting.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah eventually Taylor makes it through the door.
00:27:10
Speaker
Cause at least, at least visibly she gives off strong flesh garden vibes. Oh, for sure. She does. Um, I thought, I thought her distortion had more to do with the fact that she only got half a shark, half a half a ocean yeah file. Well, that is part of it. That is part of it. Yeah. She got all the power without the balance. Yeah.
00:27:33
Speaker
And Oliver got all the balance without the power without the power. Poor guy. I mean, it made him handsome. So you can't say it was too bad, but you know, it's true. Let's go be a model. That's the one detail I remember about Oliver is they're like, he's like weirdly good looking like likely in an uncanny valley way. now Just handsome squibbering all over the place.
00:27:56
Speaker
yeah
00:28:00
Speaker
I'm glad we're on the same mental track there. Love it. Um, uh, back to the chapter though. Uh, like you said, Nick, they do, they do try to escape. Uh, and they don't, well, I mean, they do, but Taylor also does. So there's no escaping. They just all yeah go through the portal. Yup.
00:28:20
Speaker
so It's just delightful. Um, I'm just going to go on to chapter two, uh, chapter two, Taylor gathers her capes form if we So that's called them, uh, from the battlefield and the fairy queen has a message for her, uh, reminding her to choose an anchor. Uh, Taylor gets more info than grabs door maker, uh, along with her, the other capes that she's got and heads off to teacher. Okay. Uh, as a side note, before we get too deep into this, cause this is where stuff gets to be interesting. I've got a fan casting for teacher.
00:29:03
Speaker
And, oh boy, is it yourself? No, no, no, no, no, no, hang on. I'm going to have to look up whoever this is because I don't know names of people. No, uh, my search bar.
00:29:15
Speaker
it vari rise The Rock could literally play any of these characters and I'd be, I'd be a fan. The Rock plays Canary. Fuck yeah. Uh, David, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, but David cost Costabile. or costabile up ah
00:29:34
Speaker
He is, possible yeah, he is, uh, he's in breaking bed. He's in a bunch of things. He's in ah suits. Oh yeah. this guy he Especially, especially just his voice and his mannerisms. Um, he, I think would be perfect for teacher. That's my, that's my fan casting for teacher. and That's a good one. Never seen him in anything. I don't know, but sure. Not seen breaking bed.
00:30:03
Speaker
No, I saw the first episode and hated it. Oh dang. Michael cut that out. Unfortunate. As I'm saying, we're gonna get rioted just for that. Yeah. yeah ah He's in in suits as well. Haven't seen suits. Okay. I'm looking through his list and I haven't seen any of these. Yeah. If you if you just look up a few scenes of him in suits, that's uh, or, or even a few scenes of him and breaking bad, uh, his, his characters and that those that's, I think you'll see the vibe I'm talking about. He's got this very like, Oh, hello. Like, Oh yes. they're Like kind of this high pitched voice, but he's got this, he can also have this really strong demeanor as well. Like still with that voice and kind of these like goofy ish mannerisms, but kind of that, like, I'm sorry, I don't remember asking you a question kind of vibes that I feel like teacher would have. And.
00:30:55
Speaker
I don't know. I think that's my fan casting. Just wanted to throw that to the universe. i'll them up Thank you. I'll i'll watch a clip later. It was a biker who and how the Grinch stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. He was the who? The who riding a bicycle. I mean, I know i know who you're talking about. His most memorable role. The who you're talking about. yeah I know the who you're talking about. but I've seen that movie way too many times.
00:31:23
Speaker
He's in a, he's in a green suit, isn't he? I don't know. I'm just reading his credits here on the bicycle. Probably nevermind. All right. Sorry. He also is in a one episode of robot chicken as the voice of Gandalf and for him and a couple seasons of house, I guess. Love obscure credits yeah back to 30.2. Yeah. yeah Did anybody else get really lost in this?
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah. This is where and i'm got more than just lost. I mean, like not for me, this, I had a really hard time paying attention because this felt really boring. that's I, the only, I'll tell you right now, the only part I remember from this chapter at all, which I read like three days ago is the conversation with the fairy queen. The rest I don't remember at all.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, I don't really remember who she grabs here. Like hero wise. I think they're, I don't even think she knows them actually. Now that I think about it. Well, she grabs, she grabs door maker and the, the precog that's like with, yeah, the clairvoyant clairvoyant. That's at the end though. I'm before that, she gets like a small group and starts testing out their powers to fight Zion. And that's when she has a conversation with Glycy Gwenier, but I don't remember who she grabs. I get, you know, Well, I thought that was the whole thing is she's like,
00:32:49
Speaker
Literally going from place to place grabbing powers. Well, that's later. That's like after this chapter, she gets a door maker and grabs. People from all over different universes even, but here she's like just on the battlefield comes into that old abandoned subway and is like.
00:33:05
Speaker
Okay, where am I? Let me grab you. What do you do? Who are you? And it it it is very vague. I feel like it's very ambiguous. And part of it maybe is just that she's, she's just testing out her powers. And of course, it's kind of similar to the interludes with the entities where you're like, what am I reading? Like who, whose perspective is this? What's going on? Because wild boat does a really good job of showing the degradation of her brain over time.
00:33:32
Speaker
throughout this whole arc, but it can make for difficult reading because Taylor's confused. And so you're like, I'm confused. but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of this, cause I'm just looking at it right now, a lot of this is like her recapping what's going on, uh, grabbing people oh that time yeah at one point she's, she's grabbed a couple of the people that were running and acid bath is like, Oh, use them as meat shields right on, which is like, Oh yeah.
00:34:00
Speaker
I do i remember acid bath. I do remember acid bath. I kind of like. um Yeah, and so there's there's. She's like she she's she's also like. Dealing with more, because with every chapter, there's more of a of that degradation of the mind, like where things are breaking down more and more so like here we're seeing a lot of this um like. ah Memories are kind of jutting in every now and again.
00:34:28
Speaker
um And she's one of the other people she grabs in her cape grab bag. is, um, the teleporter, the girl who does the circle and can teleport them. So she's, yeah she's collecting people and she's moving them kind of around the field, uh, in order to collect more people to her group. Um, she's mentioned the teleporter, she's mentioned the tree girl. I don't know who that is. Um, and in the meantime, she's, she has this half conversation, this non conversation with Glastig Wenye. Um, but it's,
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's short. It's one sided.
00:35:14
Speaker
And then it's basically if you fuck with me, I'll kill you. Yeah, yeah, yeah it's um pretty much. Yeah. Oh, she. OK, so so again, I'm so sorry. I'm I'm trying. I'm literally skimming through the chapter right now to try and remember what happens. So after her conversation with classic when she goes to the, uh, where, the, where dragon is to get the, some more information about
Taylor's Mental Degradation and Power Evolution
00:35:41
Speaker
teacher. And she has this like, again, another half conversation with dragon. ah Yeah. Where she's trying to, is this the one where she's trying to shut her off? No, not yet. That's later. That's in the bird. That's when they're fighting for the bird cage. Once again, this chapter seems so redundant to the once before and after it, it it it does a little bit, unfortunately, but this is when, this is when Taylor read realizes she can't read.
00:36:05
Speaker
right yeah um yeah yeah so she's so she and dragon are talking and it's like well she's not talking she's listening and she's trying to motion to like uh the picture tabs on the desktop to get dragon to give her specific information and like transport it under her phone so she can take it to go so she's trying to get all the information on on teacher is the point of this little lippy blappy bit Um, 30.3. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. But I will say there's a couple make couple of cool, small moments. Um, yeah Chevalier using his giant buster sword enhanced, enhanced by in bring your tech, we believe, um, based on the interlude, which is pretty cool. And, um, ingenue giving him a power booth. Um, and then, uh, acid bath. Yeah. yeah
00:36:59
Speaker
And then as a bath, I, I like, uh, just as a, he's very reminiscent of the merchants from early on, I think. So it was kind of a bit of nostalgia there yeah where he's, he's got to like, yo, rock on dude, you know, kind of vibe and like really greasy and like just a terrible person. You're like, I don't want to be close to you. I love that his criminal history is just like any time a girl like turns him down or he just gets a new boyfriend, just like,
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah like how dare that yeah yeah yeah how dare they have their face one and yeah but the the buster sword moments the one that. I really like in a black black cause a and acid bath are taking turns on sign which i thought i might visually i imagine that would be a really cool. Thing to watch you just got this like blob of acid jumping up and down and blasting all around mixed in with this like super precise you know dnd monk.
00:37:58
Speaker
type of fighting style so and black cause they're doing some damage. Yeah. Yeah. yeah they They're, they're with, with the, the blade and the black cause a and as about, they're, they're actually doing, I feel like they do pretty well. Like every once in a while we'll get a good collection of powers that like, when they're all clumped together, they work really well at first. I mean, until they start to not, but like when they do, when you do find a rhythm, it feels like things are working, which is nice.
00:38:28
Speaker
when things feel like they're working. because The rest of the time, everything just feels helpless. And there are there's a few moments like that because i mean they they know that Sion's not infinite. like He does have to, like when the Siberian is just moving in and out of him, eventually Sion has to be like, okay, I got to deal with you. That does hurt a little bit. Those moments are kind of cool.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, there is also a brief moment at the end where, um, marquee kind of warns Taylor of like, look, if you go through with this, you'll be public enemy number two. Like if we beat Zion, you're next, it won't go well for you. Yeah, you're going to be next. yeah And then she's like, I gotta do it though. So she, that's when she grabs joy maker and the clairvoyant and they pop away. They pop off.
00:39:19
Speaker
Which real quick on the clairvoyant and remind me if if she mentions this or is it just somebody's dying in my neighborhood again. Dying in our neighborhood. Oh no. Oh, there's just another one. Man, old people. It's an old people neighborhood. They drop in like leaves. You want to cross the street and drop in like once every other week.
00:39:47
Speaker
thanks I see, I see like babies is in front of Taylor, right? Like everyone. Oh my God. Yeah, no, back to the rest in peace after. I was saying, um, did they mention the fact that Taylor's, uh, ability to multitask helps her grab the clairvoyant without passing out? I,
00:40:15
Speaker
Do you have that noted, uh, but yeah, that's in 30.3. So it is. Okay. Is it the next chapter? All right. Let's go. 30.3. Okay. 30.3. Uh, Taylor attacks teacher and his group. Um, they have a ah little short conversation. Um, then gets the key to the young bonds world. She proceeds to just de demolish them and, uh, then moves on to the bird cage.
00:40:45
Speaker
and Again, a lot that happens here, but it's all mixed in with confusing one-sided conversations and a mental flow that makes zero sense to me. Yeah. Well, she's doing like this walkthrough every single place ever that she's ever been. Yeah. Which is really a great montage scene. As a quick aside, great montage scene, Jacob, for what do we do.
00:41:12
Speaker
Right. Yep. um back to Back to the other podcast. Real quick too. We didn't really talk much about her anchors either. Oh yes. Cause they don't matter like immediately. No, they anchors and then they do so quickly. No, on but no. Michael, where's not he gone?
00:41:30
Speaker
nine don No, her anchors. Well with clairvoyant, she gets a better view of them, right? Cause she's like yeah eventually, and I guess maybe that comes in 30.3. I don't remember.
00:41:41
Speaker
Um, but where she's like, okay, tattletale bitch, the cabin, the cabin and my house and her mom's grave area. Her mom's grave. That's what it was. Yeah. Her mom's grave. So she's got all of those big guys. Yeah. Those five. Um, and the only reason it's memorable is because she keeps repeating them, but she keeps losing them more and more over time. Right. She's like, yeah She's like the blonde girl, the dog girl, that house on the hill. yeah Like immediately she's like, I don't know where my house is. And I know I'm looking for my mom's grave, but I can't find it. Yeah. So when she, yeah when she first has her like anger moments, she actually, she digs in with her bugs around the grave to like clear some debris and like kind of like make it nice for a second.
00:42:36
Speaker
And yeah so she has on, it she has like, because of the, the um, Oh my gosh, help me out. What's doormaker's partner? Clairvoyant. Clairvoyant. Thank you. They just call them clairvoyant. What'd you say? They just call them clairvoyant. That's all. Yes. So because of clairvoyant, she can kind of keep a, keep track on all of these places and then use the portals to like, so she's got the grave, the house.
00:43:03
Speaker
the cabin bitch and tattletale. And I think, I think the grave is the first one to go. I think that's in 3.3. Yeah. Where she goes to look for it and she can't find it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Uh, that's her trying to hold onto those. And again, because it is from her perspective, right? Of her mind slipping into madness, uh, her losing the ability to speak and communicate clearly is really interesting. And then.
00:43:33
Speaker
She's losing reading and then the 30.3 we learned she can't even understand English anymore. Yeah. Like she's like teacher said something in a foreign language and then she realizes. I think that was English. Like I don't, I can't even understand what he's saying anymore. Yeah. Um, so it is interesting, uh, teacher being a selfish asshole as usual. Um,
00:43:55
Speaker
What is, what is he trying to do? I'm sure he's trying to like rebuild. He's like trying to rebuild civilization already, right? He's like, but but we give it up charge yeah, with himself in charge. Yeah. Yeah. He's like giving up on rescuing the world, saving the world. He's like, we're not going to beat Zion. I'm just going to go and start rebuilding. He's got like his compound or whatever. Yeah. Well, he just takes, he moves into cauldron. That's yeah.
00:44:18
Speaker
Oh, are they in cauldron? Is that where that is? That's all he does is he boots cauldron. That's all he's doing. I thought they were in New York. I thought they were in New York. No, no. No, no. Cause Contessa with a Contessa interlude before this talks about like, they just are moving in and setting up shop. He's like, put the fax machine over there. And she's like, what are you doing? There's no electricity, but put the fax machine. No, you can stay on or we'll give you a nice severance. You know, pick one.
00:44:47
Speaker
Um, yeah. So that's, that's what happens there. And also he's just doing the same thing. Taylor's doing, which we'll get you later. Yeah. Why he kind of defends her slash tries to take her over. Like yeah he's just doing the less agree. He's doing the passive version of what Taylor was doing. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Um, yeah. Also the one point in time, they're like, we've got to go deal with the young bond. You know, we've got to deal with.
00:45:18
Speaker
the C I U and I went, oh, not the C I U. It's the C is it the C U I. It is the C U I except it's misspelled. Oh, ah yeah. I didn't catch that. Like, so, you know, for us in the know, I was like, not C I U. No, take it down. Um, um Yeah. And then we have her grabbing the hands and talking about like her not getting overloaded.
Glastig Uaine's Resistance and Unique Abilities
00:45:52
Speaker
Like she still has trouble adjusting to clairvoyant, yeah but you're right. She doesn't just immediately go into shock, like some people because she's used to having her consciousness spread over at least some distance. What was that? Huh? Oh, nothing. I just had to tickle my throat. Was it a bug? Maybe.
00:46:16
Speaker
and a Okay, so I understand the reasoning so I mean I understand her whole reasoning it's it's take everyone but like with the young bond you can specifically get like Zero one and two which are like power enhancing powers to like help boost her first warm So that makes sense get the young bond Incorporate them in get the booster powers, whatever What is the point of going to get teacher? Well, she doesn't take teacher with her. No, she doesn't. So what is the point of going to teacher teacher? Teacher had the key to where the CUI was. Basically the teacher helped the CUI escape through a portal that was locked. Right. And teacher had the key. So ah she convinces, now she kind of extorts teacher into giving her the key so she can go to the CUI.
00:47:12
Speaker
Because they whatever portal technology they used i think it was um. It was similar to what ah the slaughterhouse nine used when they went to another dimension and we're kind of like pocket. Yeah like a pocket dimension yeah it was similar to that not exactly the same but similar enough where. Probably only sign on could have found them eventually right and so she's like i need the key to that portal and he's ah he gives it to her and that's why she goes so she doesn't want him because she knows that if she lets him.
00:47:41
Speaker
Use his powers on her. It might give him some control over her, which he doesn't want because she wants the control. She needs to be the one in charge because she knows how to do everything. Right. The only one who everybody else is wrong. The ego, prob i can think of and yeah but probably the only one to get this far. This is kind of like letting a stereo and ascend, but then still keeping the mind flayer worm in him. Yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
So that he's like, oh, I'll be free. Oh, it's only me in charge now. And you're like, yeah, yeah, sure. It is. but ear Yeah. You think that it's a Baldur's Gate three thing. I know that much, but that's about it. Yeah. No, I know Astarian, like the hottest vampire ever. Sexy Astarian. God, what a bottom.
00:48:31
Speaker
one
00:48:35
Speaker
and ah Also, Gru's cabin that she refuses to look inside. yeah yeah yeah there no but This is where I got my image, in my head. When we talked about previously the argument of whether or not Gru is alive or died.
00:48:53
Speaker
This is in my head where that came from. So she does sense multiple people inside. She can sense that there are those people inside, but she doesn't look at who they are. There's no confirmation. Has she sensed multiple people? Yes. There's at least two. Could be more, but at least two.
00:49:13
Speaker
No, I don't think it says anything about people in the cabin. Well, she talks about sensing them. No, no, no. She she says a scenario. I found people. I found Charlotte in Forest. That's immediately after the cabin, but she doesn't find like in the cabin. All she says is I watched it from a distance and fix this mind in my location or its location in my mind. There's a spot later. I don't think it's in three point three. I think it's in five. OK. She says I imagine them sitting there by a fireplace curled up.
00:49:42
Speaker
Like, but it's all her saying, I imagined them this, that. So later there's a section where Sion is too close to the cabin and she's freaking out. I thought there was a section there because the the ground breaks and she uses some, one of the teleporter thingies, like shielded off. I thought that there was a section there where she talks about them, but it's like, it's, it's not just like in her mind imagining them. I thought it was that she said,
00:50:09
Speaker
I mean, I could I could be wrong. That's how I read it as. But let's be honest. Yeah. There's a lot of confusing things. And she was out halfway out of her mind. So like, yeah. And that was one of the things that was specifically on the lookout for. Yeah. Because that's where I draw all my life. This is why I thought that he was alive. The wiki does confirm that Groos did.
00:50:28
Speaker
um But we've confirmed it. We've confirmed that on the oil rig. Yeah, we confirmed it on the wild back. We had this conversation before. We had the conversation a little while ago. I think I blocked that out. You didn't want to believe it? Yeah, no. um All the signs went to it. If you look at sign the wiki for Gru, it's like, and then Gru died on the oil rig. No!
00:50:54
Speaker
It's right there. It's clearly spelled out. So sad. yeah no i think um this is this is the This is why I thought he was alive. This is why I thought he was alive. This is where the cabin where your dog goes to when it gets away. It's it's the farm. No, i think i will know i should the same I think the same thing, Nick. like I think that yeah I just never picked up on that. And because Taylor is so blind to it that I also assumed that this was like it had to be proof.
00:51:23
Speaker
because, you know, again, again, mental image of like reading this at like three in the morning, like, you know, I wasn't like, I was Taylor in this moment of like it's barely reading English, hardly understanding. I can't read English. can I don't know where I am. I don't know where you are. Somebody tries to talk to me and I just go. out um Oh, the, the, the, the, the, the sleeper Ashby, then they use their thinker powers and then she doesn't, she doesn't touch. She leaves sleeper. No, no, no. I'm just saying words and that's how people hear you try to talk. It's like, Oh no, they've got, they've got where Mensha, we'll get you back to your room. Granddad. No, you don't understand. Sion. He's not.
00:52:18
Speaker
I need you to identify, is this your grandfather from the mid 2000s or your grandfather from 1960s? God damn it. oh anyway Okay. So we got to stay on topic here. yeah Um, okay. So, so after teacher, she goes to the young buns world and claims them before moving on to the bird cage. Young bun, um bond there's no need to be down. I said, young young bun.
00:52:46
Speaker
Let this go control your brains right now. That wasn't, that wasn't my best work. I'll admit ah you know it's late. It's fine. It's been a long day. and We encountered dragon. Yes. Are we getting into 30.4 now? Yeah, that's getting into four. Yeah. Oh, I guess. that's what for So, so 30.4 together.
00:53:12
Speaker
ah Dragon shows up on the mountaintop, basically where the birdcage is, to stop Taylor. They fight um the drones against the swarm. ah ah Taylor starts attacking all of the like data banks around the world, and Dragon fakes her death and breaks Taylor's control.
00:53:35
Speaker
um And Taylor's pretty convinced that dragon's dead because of it, which is just, i oh my gosh, I was sauce has i lost my shit. um But Taylor comes through, she gathers more capes from the birdcage, the goddess's world and others. um She comes back, fights the fairy queen and wins. Do they ever say goddess? I thought they said the woman in blue.
00:54:03
Speaker
That is correct. Uh, this is pulled straight from, uh, uh, uh, space battles, uh, summaries, because I can't remember half of the shit. And honestly, I count on the battles. So that is her name, but I don't, they don't call her that for sure. I hear that. No, no, no, no. I can tell you right now, they do not call her that they call her the woman. Okay. If I don't believe she gets that name till like later. Cool. I mean, sure. That's fine.
00:54:31
Speaker
I have warmed. I'm not going to remember. yeah yeah Um, well, what's going to happen is we'll be reading ward and like, three months three or four or five months from now, she'll come up again and Alan will be like, we talked about her. And you'll be like, we like we did? No, we didn't. No, we didn't. You can pull up this clip. and Who died? What? Yeah. Who was you talking about? He wasn't a cabin. Guys, we've been reading Ward for a while. I got a one question. taylor but Where's Where's Syon? No. Do you guys?
00:55:08
Speaker
like you That stupid, come on is where am I guys? I'm sorry. Cauldron. Where's coil? Yeah.
00:55:21
Speaker
look Kind of locked up, right? I did think, but if what if we just pulled, shifted dissecting worm. We pulled the the ah worst idea ever. And just at the very end of the final episode, it just pans back out to coil, like collapsing that reality, being like, no.
00:55:42
Speaker
ah ah Fantastic. Oh my God. yeah Yeah, so this is where ah it's the end of 30.3. She move moves to the birdcage, starts to talk to dragon. That's when she realizes she can't understand English. Then the real fight is in 30.4.
00:56:01
Speaker
um yeah This is again, one of those like confusing fights where I kind of get what's going on. but I started skimming a bit. Yeah. And then, and then dragon fakes her death. You know, the power banks dying. Taylor basically says the phrase clever girl. Um, it's close enough to a Jurassic park reference for me. Yeah. Um, and yeah, yeah. Really interesting. We'll fight here. She throws up.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. She's broken up about that. Yeah. She's, she's really upset. that'll be my Only time. I was going to say the only person, which is funny, right? Because her whole thing, yeah, person, quote unquote, which is, it is a funny irony where she's like literally the only person who ever tried to help me was not a person.
00:56:46
Speaker
yeah which is false again because everyone tried to help her all the time Taylor come on bitch god damn it's it's literally the the scene from um Oh, what's that Disney movie where the guy's walking down the hallway and he's like, everybody hated me. It's like, Hey man, you want to go play baseball? Like, Hey, you want to hang out later? Oh yeah. The freaking, uh, meet the Robinson. Yeah, meet the Robinson. She's like, nobody ever helps me. And everybody's like, Taylor, you need some help. Like, Hey, we can work together on this. No, I can't. I'm Batman. I mean, Taylor, I'm skitter. I'm Weaver. I don't know who I am. Freaking goop, right? It was goop. Yeah.
00:57:24
Speaker
yeah damnmit ka's such a go yeah so true um yeah But yeah, so she gets into the birdcage though and starts grabbing people from everywhere. She grabs, uh, ballistic and Sundancer here too, right? Yes. Yeah. yeah Right out of her at the left, right out that we get another just dissing how trash earth, the left's heroes are. These guys are barely C tier.
00:57:51
Speaker
Yes, I would not even compare. Well, tricksters tricksters in like a penthouse. Well, no, no, no, ballistic ballistic. ballistic is Yeah. Tricksters tricksters with tricksters with teacher tricksters with teacher. Yeah. Remember, he's dumb, dumb, but say she took trickster from teacher. Yeah. It seems like. Yeah. she had Yeah. No. Yeah. She grabs she goes sick and sun dancer.
00:58:16
Speaker
She makes her way through all of them. She's like, ah, Earth Olaf, Earth Bet, Earth Gimel. And then she's like the Earth of attractive people. Got to get some of them. And then Earth of the woman in blue. Yeah. Wait, is the attractive people in the woman in blue world not the exact same one? Because I thought... No, they are not. As far as I know. Look, I'm barely hanging on. It could be. Yeah. You want? Trying to think.
00:58:44
Speaker
And then she goes to sleepers world where we finally get a glimpse at sleeper. He's just to health he's just fan hosting it out. Yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
I like to imagine it's a really simple like children's book that he's reading, like Dr. Seastuff. One fish, a two fish, a red fish, a blue fish. He's doing all the work. You know what I imagine too is he's got this like really nice two-story bungalow with a great green grass yard.
00:59:18
Speaker
And it's just like a square. And then everything else is just as like warped, blasted landscape of nothing. hannah Can you pull up, uh, that, that Star Trek episode where they go to the one house that's perfect on the scorched earth planet? it ah yes no That's exactly the that's weird. Why are you guys all right? Okay. Yeah. So he's in it's like season one.
00:59:43
Speaker
So yeah. So going through it, I'm looking back at the arc too, while you're finding that with the bird cage, she gets 743 individuals added to her army. Damn. Holy shit. I can't believe they left that many still in the bird cage. Like I i know the reason why obviously, but like, Holy shit. That's a lot of, a lot of heavy hitters. Sion is tearing into Alexandria. So I think pretender probably dies. <unk> No, no, no, no. She yoinks pretender.
01:00:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. She wants pretender. Yep. She wants pretender. Well, she uses pretender all the way up. Um, bitterend she gets, uh, she goes for a bunch of insane people. Um, old capes wounded, retired. She gets glory girl. Oh yes oh my God. We have to talk about that. Okay. Hold on. I got to pause my Star Trek thing here. Alan, you find it. Uh, the, the, um, pulling her out of that is such a, like,
01:00:39
Speaker
This is blah. You just pulled blob girl out of her retirement and dumped her in the middle. Can she do anything? Like, can she function? I'm sorry. Look, we haven't, I haven't seen her in a while. I don't know if Victoria is alive in there still. She hasn't just like, fact all she is alive and she's still in love with Amy.
01:01:08
Speaker
ah they I think it it's briefly mentioned later when she like, yeah, Amy and panacea or panacea and glory girl meet again. Yeah. So she grabs glory girl, uh, glad grabs some members of bonehos bone, bone, saw slaughterhouse nine clones who had escaped, who'd been left behind mannequin damsels.
01:01:26
Speaker
night hag nicks hybrid crawler, bleed hybrid, and grab Sundancer forgot Genesis as well. Genesis and ballistic. So Sundancer and Genesis gave up on the hero life ballistic is a hero in a penthouse. Yes. house yeah Fully done up in costume. i He's use the best thing since pre-sliced bread there. Yeah. Um,
01:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, whole worlds with only 10 capes, half of which were case 53s. A mixture of capes, all incredibly beautiful people, all in what was obviously a global position of power. Every flag that flew in their world was the same flag. so get that it is the say And then a blue costume. with one the same as her Yeah, a blue costume. Yeah. The woman in blue resisted me. Um, so she's there. Uh, got Canary back. Um,
01:02:20
Speaker
trying to think gave her the benefit of the young. one I'm trying to see if there's any other world survivors is the episode you're thinking of. Okay. Uh, sleeper. I could see him sitting on a lawn chair, reading a book out loud to himself, which again, all we know about him more trouble than he was worth. I let him be.
01:02:38
Speaker
Because again, all we know is that earlier they said we gave sleeper one of the earths and he's just going to have that one. That's his now. is this is ah Are we going to meet sleeper? Like, okay. Is this one of those things where I can look up sleeper and find out stuff or is this like sleeper is going to take a huge, you know, heart in ward or some shit. I have, I will warn you, Hannah, I have looked it up. There's a lot more about him in ward. I don't know how big of a role he plays, but he is in ward.
01:03:06
Speaker
I didn't, i i i went to because I went to his Wiki page to look up something and I saw like involvement in Ward and I'm like, oh, nope, scroll up. I'm not going to read that. So yeah he's in Ward. He's so interesting.
01:03:23
Speaker
yeah Okay. Well, I'm just going to close all four of those tabs. Sleeper rule 34. No, save that one for later. for a lab book That one. Yeah, she does. Uh, yeah, she does start losing her mind a little bit here. She remembers, so yeah you know, names, but one of the things that's interesting is that she talks about how it seems like her, her shard is trying to reinterpret the feelings of other people she's controlling.
01:03:58
Speaker
And so, like, she gets this wave of like, oh, my grandmother. And she's like, well, not my grandmother, but I'm reminded of the concept of ah grandmothers. You know, the grandmother is in the abstract, as it were. Right. ah right um And then, yeah, eventually she gets glycic wind here at the end. Yeah. I, I'll tell you right now, I don't think I mentally realized that she did.
01:04:27
Speaker
Because classic when a breaks. OK, so she gets classic when a after this kind of kerfuffle scuffle moment. But classic when a breaks through the control by utilizing her ghosts. Is that right? Yeah. So basically, Taylor Kepri can now instead of like latching on to the classic when a shard as I I'm, I don't know what classic when you shard is, but I imagine it's kind of in the, in a vein of an administrator, uh, like about that later or now, if you'd like, we could talk about that in a second. Uh, so basically she, but classic when he is able to shift that controller, that focus, like to slide past her to the ghosts. And then can exist within that bubble that kept rate Taylor's created that 14 foot radius.
01:05:24
Speaker
and not be enthralled as. Yeah. At least not as easily at first. She has to, and I think this kind of lines up with what you're saying, Alan, about, um, Capri being able to latch onto shards, but not people, because what Glycy Gwenye does is she collects shards, I would assume to an extent. Um, and then.
01:05:50
Speaker
She's able to kind of shunt Taylor's control power to the shards that she's using at the time until finally, she finally does grab her. And this is also where she gets Alexandria legend and more nog as well. Yes. Oh my God. More nog. Oh boy. Let's get a glass one yard real quick. Cause that does seem like it would be, yeah let's talk about classic when you hear, she's got basically the opposite shard of Taylor Taylor is science shard that did like controls and shuffles shards around, you know, could be say that it's the one that like, yeah, it's the one that controls and configures them. The administrator. The administrator. ah Glass digs is the collector. So when you go to a planet, you have the administrator shuffle the shards around and throw them out. And then the collector grabs them all when you're done and compiles them. The Hoover and the librarian.
01:06:51
Speaker
Is that what you're going to call them? Why not? yeah So she they are literally the beginning and the end of a cycle. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. I, I do. I, I've got a, I've got a pretty.
01:07:07
Speaker
I was going to say a hard-on for a glass of guinea, but I don't like that. I really like glass of guinea a lot. Have you seen the depiction of her like cool ass outfit? She is very cool. I mean, so not in the sexual capacity, even though I did ah initially say hard. I just, I just love her. I think she's so cool. I love the way that she sees them all as fairies. Like the ghost is fairies. I love the way that she talks to Taylor. And like, even in this moment where, you know, she had, her she gave her a little bit of advice earlier about the anchors, like staying in control, whatever. And now Taylor is like,
01:07:37
Speaker
turned her eye and glass like when he is like, well, I will end you. And I like, Oh, I love that so much. It's like that dark sorceress vibe, which is just um it's funny. We talk about the parallels between them again, you know, at the end where, you know, they are sort of the beginning and ending of a cycle in a sense. Uh, but also.
01:08:05
Speaker
Glastig is a para human who has essentially let the shard control her. Um, she has, uh, she has very, very closely mirrored what Taylor, um, had to artificially produce. Um, and then as later on as like trying to give control to the shard sometimes, uh, that is what Glastig has like fed felt, I guess, pretty early on.
01:08:34
Speaker
that like the shard is there and has ceded a lot of control of herself to the shard, which is why she's so weird. yeah and and And also why she like they talk about killed a bunch of people and was like collecting them because she was like, ah, yes, they've reached like max power level. It's now time to reap them, compile them. That's great. um they they ah Yeah. Contessa kind of talks about that in the last chapter in this arc where she's like,
01:09:01
Speaker
You awoke and not to, we'll go to that more later, but just saying the part where she's like, you awoke something human in her that she hadn't felt in a long time. Kind of like Taylor did something that reminded classic when you have her humanity instead of her, her entity. yes Interesting. Cause she's scared or straight.
01:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, basically. Um, because there's a moment where like contested myths, like everything kind of hinge, not just on you, but on classic when you're not doing something. Yeah. Um, cause she could have stopped you basically. Um, but whatever, basically her saying like, whatever you did, you convinced her not to, and you awoke something in her. So that is kind of cool. Yeah. She's a, she's a really cool character. Um,
01:09:50
Speaker
Definitely one of the interesting ones. Yeah. One of the very interesting ones for sure. And then that line at the end of the, uh, the chapter, finally, everyone was working together. Oh,
01:10:07
Speaker
ah sha yeah oh good. And so ominous. Do you remember back in like. a long time ago when Regent was controlling people and was controlling Shadowstalker and we were all like, yeah, this is icky. This is gross. We don't like this, not just because he was being creepy, but also just like you controlling people and them not having individuality anymore and control over their bodies or how they move or how their powers work. Like it's really gross. Like it was so, I think when I, when that like clicked in my head,
01:10:42
Speaker
that This the line with like oh and everything's working perfectly like a clock like that all of a sudden This isn't these aren't people anymore. This is like part of the machine you've built in your head like yeah, I think this whole arc Just gives me this like sense of like yawning disappointment in Taylor that like We've come so far We've done so much and like this is Everything, everything is finally in place for Taylor and finally the most out of place for everything else. And it's like, might even say in the end, it doesn't even matter.
01:11:29
Speaker
I will say the region in there from the grave. Yeah. Regent's like, yeah. Are you kidding me? I read the controls one person. That's bad. You can mean know, as Taylor turns around, controls a billion people. Oh, oh, oh. So we're just going to let her do that. Oh, that's fine. Well, doesn't she end up having like a couple thousand in her control?
01:11:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah. We're like 2000 or something. According to the wiki, 5,400 max. She had Lord have mercy. God, about to bust. Yeah. 100 people. Yeah. Holy shit. I mean, not to spoil the next chapter. Well, I was going to say also not to spoil the next chapter, but I wonder door maker's power went out like.
01:12:21
Speaker
God damn man had every door open in the universe. yeah Poor guy. Oh my gosh. Found the bottom of the well with that one. Cal, leave. I don't know what we're giving Taylor. She ah like, I would absolutely do the same thing in this case. It is the end of the end of humanity. now Yeah.
01:12:41
Speaker
No bra thing right again you are on satirical side you're the reason humanity deserves to die. I will drag you in. Yeah i mean that's the thing right is again it's like ah icky taylor controlling everybody.
01:12:58
Speaker
But again, she's right. Like that's the thing. It's like everybody doesn't need to coordinate for them to ever have a chance of beating Sion. And there's no way humans can think fast enough and talk fast enough and overcome their own dumb prejudices enough to do it.
01:13:13
Speaker
She's like, I have to make you work together. I will say though, this, this ominous last line, finally, everyone was working together really gets undercut by the first line of the next chapter where she says now for the Glenn, the clincher. yeah but like The are going at this point. This is one of those moments for life. You just know.
01:13:36
Speaker
the wrong people are going to get the wrong message about these types of characters where they're like, see, this is what I'm saying. You just got to give one person all the power in the world. i don't see here's why you see it Here's why it works this time. And that's because she seeds power when she's done. You're right. Well, yeah nobody it is in real life. Nobody else is doing that. I mean, it is to to bring it to a real world thing. It is kind of like how Um, you know, if you go back to the system of like a monarchy, right? If you have a good, like a king who's a genuinely good person or a queen, man, they could make their country a great place, like amazing, like, you know, doing all sorts of great things for the common folk. But then the next guy is just an asshole. Then it all goes into the shitter and it's like, yeah you know, it's that the amount of power you give is relative to the amount of damage and or good a person can do. And unfortunately, you know, the reality is you give
01:14:36
Speaker
power to people and they end up using it for selfish reasons. so Yeah. There's a conversation in the legend of galactic heroes, uh, between young Wen Lee and, uh, I forget if it's not, it's not Reinhardt. Legend of galactic Reinhardt and, uh, young Wen Lee who are like the two opposing main characters. You know who they are.
01:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, young one Lee comes from a democratic rebel group. No, it's a show. Oh, I don't know. 250 episode anime from like the early nineties. Um, and so he comes from the, yeah. remember So young one Lee comes from a democratic rebel group and Reinhard is, uh, eventually the leader of a very fascist, um, you know, empire.
01:15:30
Speaker
uh, they're both really good people, you know, good main characters. And at some point in time, they finally get to sit down and talk their ideologies. And young, you know, young one Lee says, you know, like, I could never give up, you know, the freedom that people have to elect their people. And he's like, look at all the good I can do now that I'm in charge though, this Reinhardt now that I'm in charge, to have total control of the empire. Like I can.
01:15:57
Speaker
you know, make things incredibly good, yada, yada. And young one Lee goes, yeah, yeah.
Leadership and Power Corruption Themes
01:16:01
Speaker
But what about like your son or the next person in line or whatnot? Like you can't make that promise that the next person is going to be as good as you. Like your word doesn't count for that much, but I can make the promise, you know, as an elected leader that the next person will also be elected. Like,
01:16:23
Speaker
that, right you know, that even if they're not good or bad, like there is a time limit for them that there is, you know, that they, the people still have the power to make sure that the next person is what they want them to be. You know, I mean, unless you have a split population and half the populace makes bad life decisions.
01:16:47
Speaker
Well, you know, there's a little lot lot of politics that has to deal with that kind of stuff. So maybe y'all should go watch it. Um, yeah. Really, really freaking good anime with a lot of, uh, talking about, um, governmental and politics, political decision-making and, uh, a lot of yeah.
01:17:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Similar to, uh, the villain of the first misborn book, um, was a hero before he became a villain with a similar ideology. Not to spoil too much there. It doesn't, that doesn't spoil much, but yeah, very similar of like, well, if I just have all the power, then I can save everybody. But ultimately that power leads you to doing bad things. We're going to die a hero. you live long Long enough.
01:17:41
Speaker
I was thinking, um, close to the Star Trek, uh, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. right Yeah. Classic, classic. Also in, in practical matters, like when it comes to, uh, giving people, you know, authoritarian control, like you do that for more intense scenarios. If you are in a, you know, in a, uh, E E R, you know, in the hospital, you don't, are you with people or.
01:18:09
Speaker
you know, ask questions about stuff. Somebody says, grab that thing. You better grab that thing. Like lives depend on it. Like there's a reason the military is the military for a lot of reasons. It's because you need people to ah exert a strong amount of authoritarian control in a situation that demands that level of response and non questioning obedience. Um, and in this case, I would, are you,
01:18:38
Speaker
It is the end of the human race. It demands that level of authoritarianism, perhaps, which of course should be dispensed for a short amount of time and then then dispense and and and then done away with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's only, it should, the power should be distributed according to the scenario. Makes sense. 30.5.
01:19:08
Speaker
30.5.
Ash Beast and Character Losses
01:19:11
Speaker
Final battle against Sion. Taylor gathers her all, striking, losing herself, finds a weakness to foil, bastard becomes the false entity, and the doormaker's power dies.
01:19:31
Speaker
So I figured out why you thought there were people in the cabin, I think. Um, at one point Taylor's taking stock of maybe this might not be it Taylor's taking stock of the capes she has and doesn't have. And at one point she says, she thinks to herself and says, well okay, I don't have Contessa can't find her. Don't have the blasphemies. They're not really human. Even if they had powers, I don't have sleeper. And then she says the ones in the cabin. Yeah. I decided to leave them be. I was having trouble remembering why, but I trust my older self on that score.
01:20:04
Speaker
Maybe that's what it was. So I think, I think it's that feeling of like, Oh, there's somebody in the cabin. Yeah. But it's just like in her mind, it's like she's locked in. There's somebody in the cabin, but she's going to leave them alone. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And she protects it too. Yeah. Yeah. She protects it later too. Uh, this is where she grabs Ash beast as well. Um, who yeah is an S glass threat, but is actually just a person inside of a giant firestorm.
01:20:32
Speaker
That's cool. Yeah. This is mean things I forgot. Ash ideas had an explanation. I forgot that sleeper like gets it shows shows up. Like I thought those were things left a mystery and I yeah completely toss this out of my head. I guess at three in the morning when I'm rushing through.
01:20:52
Speaker
This is really where the utilitarian part of Taylor comes in though. Cause again, it's that I'd use him referring to Ashby's first. If he died, the world wasn't worse off for it. If he lived well, I could discard him leaving him on a foreign earth. just like And she uses trickster specifically to get him. So yeah, over right that's part of where, and then it has like the little bubble inside right next to him. So that yeah have the portal there. Yeah. Smart, smart.
01:21:21
Speaker
And then also in terms of memorable losses, ah we lose Lady Photon. Yes. at all We lose Lady Photon and we lose somebody else with Lady Photon. Who is it? I don't know. They're not as important. No, she said she specifically remembers them because of Lady Photon and because of. Would it have been brandish? Like what is it? Both of them? No, it don no, no. It's just her Sarah Pelham. Photon mommy.
01:21:51
Speaker
I know. Photon mommy be gone. Revel as well. Revel, that's who it was. Because she has this moment where she's like, oh shit, like I like i i knew Revel, like Revel was good to me. And Lady Photon was familiar.
01:22:07
Speaker
Oh, she grabs the number man at some point as well. Yes, she does. Because she uses him. She finds a world that has thousands of nukes and she uses them to aim them at Sion. I assume it was just Earth to laugh. Fantastic. I assume it was just Earth to laugh. Yeah. It's just ours. It is Damn it. That would sense. Oh, man.
01:22:35
Speaker
ah That's funny. well and you know And that brings up that good question of like, why don't you just nuke Sion to oblivion? And guess what? She did. And it wasn't enough. ah The scale of this fight is just mass. I know. Uh, but it becomes a little bit too much for people. and They start stroking out. Oh my God. Yeah. Um, more dog has a stroke and Taylor is shocked. And I'm like,
01:23:05
Speaker
How, how are you surprised you're pushing these people to their ultimate limit? And their mental state, they're trapped in their own bodies, forced to do a bunch of shit that they don't want to do. And also that is like physically pushing them. And then you're surprised when one of the heavy hitters has a stroke, like, yeah, this is what I asked a question.
Escalating Power Dynamics in Battles
01:23:32
Speaker
I think last one, which is how many power steep can we get this to go? Uh, and the answer is Taylor controlling tow who, well, tow who being there and tow who puts on, uh, puts on Glastic Wednesday and I told him, yeah. That's a lot of hours. That's a lot of powers. It gets.
01:24:02
Speaker
intense up in here. Um, yeah. But I have a note that just says this fight is going on five ever. yeah it is does of the board and for Couple of, couple of name mentions Sephara is a, an Indian Cape, part of the, uh, the Thanda. Um, he's the one who creates like a, uh, a, a connection to spatial elements. Uh, he's the one who helped fight the fight against Kansu.
01:24:32
Speaker
Yeah. Pull them away from console. No, no, no. It's to take them with console. Oh yes. To take them with console. Yeah. Yeah. So they can stay with console when he teleports. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Um, labyrinth and scrub begin making portals. Um, and Alexandria slash pretender dies. Um,
01:24:52
Speaker
Which is another big one. Ripped to shred fragment. This is the most, one of the most brutal descriptions is yeah fragments of Alexandria's body tumbled to the ground, more like a statue than flesh. He had to flex his hand and use his power to free it of the left side of her skull. ah him It's, it's the imagery. Brutal. Yeah. ah Damn.
01:25:17
Speaker
We need to talk to about the fact that we know from interludes and things like that, that the shards have enough like energy reserves to use their powers consistently for thousands of years. Like it's estimated like, I forget what the number is. It's several thousand years they can use their powers. And Keppri burns through door maker and what is essentially ah hour tops yeah meditat but but But they explained why because Doormaker's power only opens a stationary portal and she has to make them move. So she's like infinitely creating portals every nanosecond. so um yeah like move them or ah ah As it like shifts over one millimeter, you know, shifts over another millimeter, except it's going like zoop as she's
01:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. i Crazy. Or Dormaker. Yeah. And then Dormaker dies because. Yeah. I don't know. Dormaker does. Gliscid when he kills him and takes his power. I was like, I didn't think he died immediately. I thought immediately. No, he doesn't die. He doesn't die immediately. Gliscid when he just kills him eventually. Yeah, because teacher gives him the ability to talk.
01:26:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's able to tell tattletale what. ah What? kept What the plan was basically. Yeah. What the plan is. Yeah. So I. So ok so if if we're talking about the tapping into the well thing. So doormaker runs out of juice, basically. And so then they give him the thing ability to talk and he's like having his little conversation, then glassing when you kills him and can use his shard.
01:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so it's so basically she takes the shard and taps into new juice. I think that's the application because the application I always assumed was that like the entities when they're on a world anticipated going on for thousands of years, but then they recoup their shards and move on to the next world so like.
01:27:35
Speaker
At some point in the process, they can re-energize the shards or something to that effect, I would assume, since they can go from. take him in a wall charger Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um,
01:27:52
Speaker
cigarette later yeah go yeah
01:27:56
Speaker
um yeah. Uh, she, this is also, you know, like you noted in the summary, she notes that Sion is afraid of foil, which is pretty unique.
Sion's Vulnerabilities and Strategic Exploits
01:28:08
Speaker
ah you I don't either. I didn't pick up on that or I don't understand it. So I need someone to explain it to me. We'll get to the explanation in a bit because it's going to take some backtracking. Okay. Basically, um, Yeah.
01:28:26
Speaker
yeah
01:28:30
Speaker
FOIL raises her arbalest Adam at one point, she puts it down, but Sion has a reaction to it, even though she puts it down where it's like he, he goes to kill them. Taylor saves them. Yeah. It says, uh, FOIL started to raise her weapon slowly. Sion blasted at the smithereens. Yeah. Um, cause it's very unusual as well for him to be so focused on one.
01:28:56
Speaker
Like weapon and power. So there is a, there's a moment of emotion that I have a step by step explanation for this. If you want, when we get to the death of scion, that's fine. I'm looking up something else. So, yeah. Oh, it's getting, we're getting good. It's good. Yeah. Luschetta and foil. I always think they're two separate people. So we're talking about foil. We're talking about foil and I'm like,
01:29:25
Speaker
Flichette is not the one with Parian. So that's what I was looking up, by the way, for Alan's information. They are the same person. Lily is her name. Yeah. Okay. I did like the idea of them turning bastard into looking like the other entity as a distraction. I was like, that was cool. yeah Also was bastard, bastard's alive. As far as I know. I think so. Because, so, okay. So at one point Taylor looks over and it's so hard because we can't understand anything. She looks over and Tattletale is talking, Tattletale's doing her phone thing. Um,
01:30:18
Speaker
And bitch is like hugging bastard who's laying on his side. And I didn't know if he was like dead and bitch is like hugging him because she's sad or, and then all of a sudden he's like the big, you know, garden. And I was like, okay, well, is he deadzo? And we just like amped up his dead zoness.
01:30:47
Speaker
I think they just transformed the extra shell around him. Okay. Cause that's like all this excess bio material because they use that as a mold. Right. Because we've talked, but we talked before it's not lab rat because we talked before about how lab rats juice doesn't work on the dogs. Correct. Uh, did it not, or we don't know if it does. Lab rats, probably. Lab rats dead though. He died on the oil rig. Pretty sure.
01:31:15
Speaker
I'm getting more and more confused. I don't believe it's confirmed, but also. But bastard, but it's not. So bastard is not dead is the point here. That's what I'm going with. Okay. If he is, I can't forgive Taylor. Yeah. Grown large by the bizarre interaction of lab rats formula and then cosmetically altered by panacea. Yeah. Wait.
01:31:44
Speaker
Okay, wait, wait, hold on. But we've talked before about how lab rats formula didn't work on the dog. No, they just didn't try it because, uh, Taylor advised. They don't try X. They didn't know what it would do. Yeah. I could have stuck it. up But no, they have a whole, well, no, there's one point in time where there's a conversation about like trying to get the dog to like, yeah, I forget if like one of the vials breaks or something. And it's one of those like.
01:32:09
Speaker
sort of with, um, doctor mother. yeah It's like, do we even want to try licking it off the floor or getting the while? Well, that's, that's the whole thing about looking at off the floor is, uh, is a doctor mother thing. Yeah. But it's one of those types of scenarios where I think it broke and they're like, thinking wrote is it even worth applying? I mean, that makes sense. If they just, they were just like, we're not even going to try it because we don't know what it's going to do. Cause I don't think, I don't think.
01:32:39
Speaker
Oh Lord. Okay. You know what? Yeah, we're making it. We're, we're, we're getting through it. Yeah. Some cool, some cool moments. Uh, she gathers a bunch of capes, like Sundancer, Chevalier has them make their weapons big and then grabs vista and is like, make it bigger.
01:32:58
Speaker
um taylorer realize you Real answer. Wasn't just that people weren't working together. It's that they weren't. nuking Sion hard enough, they weren't hitting him with big enough weapons. That was the real secret because dropping stuff from space didn't count. It's true. Uh, then, uh, the end bringers come in here one more time. Simmer, Leviathan, Boho and Tohu. So Boho does, or Tohu doesn't just have glycygwenae and idol on. She also has a meredin who also had an assortment of powers. Right. Like Tohu has literally picked, and you know, we don't know how intelligent the Inbringers are, but she's, Tohu has literally picked every Swiss army knife hero yeah like from the the big ones that we know. Yeah. One of these is going to work, you know, just sort of hear me out. She, she picks Eidolon and then she brings more Inbringers.
01:33:54
Speaker
yeah
01:33:58
Speaker
Uh, see that's when, that is when it goes like, how deep can it go? Right? Where you do, you summon a Gleistig Winye who can summon a Gleistig Winye who can summon a Gleistig Winye. Yeah. Nick, I know you have that magic deck on for like on file. That'll be the end of my first turn.
01:34:18
Speaker
yeah and ah You fool. You've fallen into my trap card. It's more of a, the same idea. Isn't that just the new, the, the Cal. Yes. It is that it is the cheese, which turns into the the dairy farmer. I can't tell you how much I want to play that game.
01:34:40
Speaker
It's a pro CD for those who don't know. ed Yes. Thank you. Uh, we get to see the theories and how their power work. Like part of their power works, I guess.
01:34:53
Speaker
They're up there with literally sleeper and Ash beast. It's like, Oh, and the furies, like they're also an S class threat. And I think they're European based. And, uh, they say, you know, like they're not worth bringing in. And then I think at one point in time, Coltrin has them up in one of the little booths. Um, but I guess, uh, if you don't get all of them, the other two can always regenerate.
01:35:22
Speaker
So you have to kill all three of the furies. Otherwise they're never ending. Oh, interesting. I, I do love like little name mentions, right? Cause I'm scrolling through the arc to find where you mentioned the furies. And I just come across a line that says, uh, she finds a Vietnamese Cape with a tinker ability that makes formulas to boost strength. She leaves Chevalier alone, leaves crawler alone, but doses lung and Menya. Menya gets randomly mentioned once, never mentioned again. Well, Fenja, Fenja died, right? So it's just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah yeah
01:35:56
Speaker
And just but but just again that like one minute I was just scrolling through I saw mania and I'm like oh there she is and she's gone yeah Once again Taylor just thinking did dots but she just never mentioned no no I I don't think she's mentioned again is all I mean I don't know if she dies or not but ah
01:36:14
Speaker
Sorry. I'm getting a little salty now at the fact that we've approached the section in the arc where nothing makes sense. I don't know where we are. I don't know what's happening. I don't know who's alive and who's dead. We've gotten to the part where Hannah might as well have not just even read it at all because I don't know what's happening.
01:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. we We'll get to the end of this and I'll tell you how I like what I remember the first time I read this and it's drastically different from the actual story. Okay. Okay. T O D R of what happened to now. It'll be real quick but because it'll, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's Taylor takes control. Everybody. She realizes she needs to use the alternate powers, not the main ones, like the passive abilities. She,
01:36:59
Speaker
does something to sigh on that involves summoning. Are you doing the recap right now? Or are you telling me what actually happened? Don't do it now. And then a lynch mob comes after her and she fights them off and dies. That's what I remember. Except that's not how that happened. That's enough. Like I remember her being on a stage and like the mob like literally being like, what do we do with her?
01:37:28
Speaker
That didn't happen. Stage. I don't know. what is Alan read a different book. Yeah. Once again, this was the first time I read this first couple of times. I read this, I guess we're all at three o'clock in the morning.
01:37:45
Speaker
yeah I got, I got worms timers. That's fair. Yeah. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm going to go on to chapter six because I'm losing, I'm losing my mind like Taylor is. And also I'm getting tired, which is making me grumpy. Uh, chapter six, Taylor despairs as all are gathered. That's right. They're all stranded in New York. Um, she then sees the light and hope.
01:38:14
Speaker
She gathers a few, taunts Sion with, it says Eve. Is it Eve or Eden? I think we said it was Eden. Eden, yeah. Yeah, okay, it says Eve here. She taunts Sion with Eden because they're turning the whole city into Eden. ah And then finishes him with foil's power. Oh yeah. We come full circle. Yeah. So I had to look up For the first time, how they did this, because even after having read this for like the fourth time, I didn't understand what the hell was going on in, in, in. Relation to like the the final fight it or in relation to like the middle bits, how they killed Sion. Okay, good. Cause I'm going to need that. I think I, I think I got it. I think I remember getting it.
01:39:11
Speaker
early on or the first time I read it at least vaguely. We'll get there in a second. I just wanted to mention before we get to how Sion dies. Yes. Um, Leviathan dies. I mean, yeah his eyering yeah we don't care too much about him. Cause he's not a person, but almost all the Unbringer style. Yeah. A lot of them do. Well, except for the important one, the one for the important one. Yeah. The one that we, the, she fakes her own death, which I love too. Uh, you little, little rascal. I don't know. Yeah. I think it's ho who and which ones.
01:39:45
Speaker
Which one's the tall one? Tohu or Bo-Hoo? Bo-Hoo, I believe. So Bo-Hoo is dying, but is okay. Tohu is gone, missing. And then Kansu is still around. It's just like healing somewhere in a time bubble. Yeah. Yeah. He's like secluded himself off. Yeah. So I don't think most of them die though. I think it might just be Leviathan, it seems like. And maybe Tohu and Bo-Hoo.
01:40:09
Speaker
He does go out with a bang though, because he uses his, his, his scary fin to do like one good slash and then like plummets to earth. um The old mano fin. Yeah.
01:40:21
Speaker
yeah Way to go out. Yep. Yep. There is this moment right at the beginning of six. So after doormaker's power dies, uh, a bunch of the, uh, portals obviously stop working.
Taylor's Misinterpretations and Final Realizations
01:40:39
Speaker
And now there's like a mob, the first mob, as opposed to the second mob. The first of many mobs. The first mob. And Taylor's like deposited herself up on top of a building and is trying to like coordinate from there. Oh, another thing here that I hadn't realized and the and it's not in in here, but I'm saying it now. Um, Imp is with her.
01:41:07
Speaker
Imp is like talking to her in her ear this whole entire time. Yeah. She's with her for a while. A long time. Yeah, I love that so much. It's really nice because i Imp has proven herself in these last couple of arcs, like has really proven herself to be a character that I like a lot. Well, I love that at the end, at the end of the story, it's still the undersiders together. Yeah. And just with her to the end, you know. okay we're not don't say jacob don't say that i can't start crying no not yet i'm with you to the end of the line
01:41:49
Speaker
i was just
01:41:52
Speaker
undersiders of Rohan. okay look yeah just ah Nick, do you want to go? Cause I have a, I have, it it's funny. I'm not going to say that like I got it outside on died, but I, I got it thematically and I'm curious what Nick. Yeah. So.
01:42:19
Speaker
So my sense of what happened, and I think I got this the first time vaguely, but the second time it was a bit more clear to me. The whole problem with killing Sion is that they don't have access to the world where his flesh garden is. They didn't have access to the true entity. They just had access to the body and eventually if enough damage had been done to the body, it would have killed the entity.
01:42:42
Speaker
but they would never have gotten there because of how much time it takes. So my understanding is the reason why foils power was so powerful. In conjunction with some other powers is because it essentially broke reality. I remember foils power flesh its power has the ability to basically defy the laws of physics and bolt into anything so when it hit sion.
01:43:08
Speaker
It bolted into where his real body was. And that opened enough of a doorway for the giant gun. The tinkers had been making to shoot into scion to hit his real body, not his projection. Massive laser beam into where his real body is, blows up everything. Projection dies, scion dies. That was my understanding of what happened. That makes sense.
01:43:38
Speaker
Once again, Nick, this is the fourth time I've read this. I don't remember this weapon at all. I don't remember foil being here at all. I remember i literally remember that the like Taylor bullying Sion to death.
01:43:55
Speaker
He could have committed suicide. As far as I know, in my head, that's what happened. Yeah. That's funny. They do emotionally abuse him first. They do you emotional abuse they emotionally. scar i need I need some genius made that one that's like,
01:44:11
Speaker
Taylor bullying him. And it's like, first off, your shoes are whack. Second, you have no bitches. She's dead. She's dead. Also, we're going to make a giant version of her corpse for you to look at. Yeah. So so that's what they kind of realized, right? Is that although the entities were powerful on one level, they had never actually suffered. They caused people to suffer to make their shards stronger.
01:44:39
Speaker
But they themselves never suffered. So encountering suffering, that's why Sion was so easily tilted. It was because he'd never suffered before. He didn't know what anger felt like. And so, yeah, that that distraction, I do love that strategy. And, you know, let's be honest, we're coming full circle. Taylor started off the story being bullied, ends the story as bullying God. and Hey, it worked. Classic anime story yeah it yeah ah Listen like Alan has said many times sometimes bullying is needed and good. No I'm glad you remembered that lesson Nick. That's it's true. I tell that to Charlie my son every day He's such a good boy
01:45:31
Speaker
like such a jack Michael's gone. Michael's just vanished. oh Michael who? Oh, imp your back. ah Okay, wait. Hold on. Clarifying question about the end of the end. So I thought that they did a ton of damage, enough damage that Sion was basically like, nah, I'm gone and then blew himself and the planet that they were on up. And that's why they were like, we gotta get the fuck out of here. So that, that does happen, right? They switched planets because they emotionally abused Sion so much. He just, he hits the fuck it nuke button, um but he doesn't die. He doesn't die from that. He just.
01:46:21
Speaker
nukes everything in the planet they're on, which kills a bunch of them, but Taylor's able to use, she uses, like they have different portal makers basically who are like, even though door maker's down, they have other ways to get to other earths and they're like, oh shit. And everybody eats themselves away from Sion as he goes. just And then Sion comes to the the new world that they're on. And then that's where the final battle happens where they kill him.
01:46:47
Speaker
Um, but I believe, so, so, wait, first off, I think every time I've thought that that explosion did kill him in the past, that like you did, I'm a hundred percent. of heum sepo Wait, no, I got it. He didn't kill himself. He didn't kill. him I know that now, but only because I had to take very detailed notes and look up some stuff. Um,
01:47:11
Speaker
Would you like the breakdown finally? Wait, hold on. No, I want to let me just let me just think about those. Yeah. So they're on they're on one earth. And then Taylor says we need to they're in they're in New York. And Taylor says we need to get back to our original earth. So they open an earth, a portal back to the original earth. Sion goes nuclear, destroys everything. And then in the original. Yeah.
01:47:38
Speaker
yeah The one that run they go back to earth earth bet, basically. Yeah. Um, and then, let me see. She does her little pinball through the portals. Yeah. I saw Sion just barely recovering. Uh, period. Yeah. Uh, opened a doorway to Sion capturing people made a bunch of portals.
01:47:59
Speaker
I did it. She grabs a bunch of people because what she realizes is it's not the people who like the big powers right it's not going to be sundance or it's not going to be more nog is going to be the small powers. So she grabs number man she grabs a shape shifter. She grabs foil um and yeah those rods became projectiles in another's hands that's foil. Is hope was gone he was bewildered he was scared he didn't try to dodge he couldn't or wouldn't.
01:48:29
Speaker
They impaled him one in the head, one in the chest, and then, uh, basically, yeah. So I discovered why he was concerned about the power, uh, foils power. It kept things from being contained. So he's like contained himself in this one universe foils power rips that open. So this interdimensional gun with a portal can shoot into the earth where his real body is.
01:48:54
Speaker
So he doesn't commit suicide. But he also kind of allows it to happen. in a way yeah he yeah he's like yeah so Yeah. He gives it up basically. Yeah. But the, the, the new kit button he pulls that destroys a bunch of like a whole world doesn't, that's not what kills him. Ultimately, he basically is idle on at the end. Yeah. Yeah. And then Taylor said you needed worthy of you needed worthy opponents.
01:49:21
Speaker
e I do love that. So you needed a worthy partner. Yeah. All the remaining travelers have a pretty big role to play here, which is kind of fun. Yeah. Because Genesis and Oliver, and then I'm under the assumption, I guess I might be making this assumption. I read it as it was ballistic that actually fires foils bolts. Like she powers the rods. Yes. Yes. And he fires them. She puts her power on them and he shoots them. Yeah. Okay.
01:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, so all of our travelers get a little bit of fun in the end. And trick I'm dead, which is what we wanted. say Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the end, they swapped out trickster for Oliver, don't they? At the last moment and blow them to smithereens. Maybe, maybe I can't remember. I thought she didn't. I thought she. Or did she seal off the world with Oliver in it? Yeah, I didn't think she took Oliver. She switches trickster out with somebody at the last moment. Yes. I just can't remember which character because she's like a trickster, you know? Yeah. fuck why not yeah Yeah. Um, yeah. She let go of control of trickster right at the last second. If she was cut off the portal, then yeah, it's what he did.
01:50:33
Speaker
well so quick Too quick for him, but now if you want to go, if you want to go into detail, uh, this is a whole section in my notes.
01:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, go for it. Um, so first off, we got a bully with the changer powers. She picks, you know, ah all the people labyrinth, all of them who can, they are manipulating the, uh, the, the landscape, just general images, trying to make it look as Eden as possible. Yeah. Um, Simmerg actually gets in on it and does the, all the clouds. Yes. Um, you know, once again, why she's best mommy. Uh,
01:51:14
Speaker
So to cap it all off, she throws Oliver through. Oliver, on his own, wait has been adapting. So the Simmerg pulls Oliver through? No, no. Simmerg's doing the thing with the rest of them. OK, when you say she, you're going to have to be more specific. Taylor, sorry. OK.
01:51:36
Speaker
Taylor's our main she in this case. So everybody is under her control except for Simmerg and they're all manipulating everything to look like Eden, which is making a sad boy real sad. So he's so Depresso espresso to cap it off. Uh, she puts Oliver through whose face has been changing on its own to look like Eden or I guess specifically Eve.
01:52:04
Speaker
Right. The avatar she was making. Oh. Because his shard is the power of what she was using to become Eve, the, you know, the singular humanoid unit. The projection. So he, during this time, I guess his face is just automatically shifting towards that. So when she throws him out, his face is essentially a, you know, well, maybe not a perfect replica. She said it was changing to look like Eve and Sion might not even have to look like recognize that because he sees her shard, specifically the Eve shard, right which is what she was becoming. And it's dead. It's a dead shard. And so like, it is the most her shard and it is dead. it's so And she rubbed his face in it.
01:53:00
Speaker
Um, so that is when older. Okay. Yeah. So question. Yes. When she first saw Oliver and she left him behind, was this like a, I'm waiting for the moment to pull him out and use him or was this just like, he's not important. I'm gonna leave him over there. And then later was like, Oh shit. No, that's actually important. I need to bring him through. I'm trying to remember all the different, cause there's so many things happen over and over again in this.
01:53:27
Speaker
Like, yeah, as far as I know, she could have gone back to them like three or four times. I don't remember. There is, there is one funny moment here too, where before all of that happens, she's trying to like recollect people and she gets to the, uh, two fault lines crew.
01:53:42
Speaker
with Dinah. And I don't know if it is the paper that says like, I'm sorry on it, but she hands Dinah a piece of paper and I'm like, okay, if it is that paper, how did you keep that on you? First of all, but like, like that's some, that's some like anime magic moment of like, cause she says she has it in her belt. And I'm like, you got blown in half on the oil rig. She kept in her belt this whole time.
01:54:07
Speaker
yeah like Didn't you get a new outfit since then too? now and know the same ball it's all the same accessor same bell a da It's it's our attached to her flying jet pack, right? I mean, if she had the jet pack the whole fucking time and and you got to keep the matching belt. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember all of her causes him to go nuclear.
01:54:32
Speaker
uh, signed to go nuclear. They try to close as many portals and get as many people out as they can. Some of them are left open and the like the explosion comes through, which is why they got to throw up like shields and it like goes over them. Um, but you know, they seal eventually seal them all off. Then they pop them back open to where he is. And he's like, you know, in the fetal position being a little bitch. oh yeah that's right And That is where they use foil's ability to imbue two iron rods with the sting shard. um a Sting, I guess, is something that gets mentioned when Sion in his interlude points out like, whoa, like she starts to pick up her arbalest and he's like, whoa, that's the sting. Gotta not touch that.
01:55:22
Speaker
Um, and he mentions a little bit there, which is it's an, like, essentially it's an old weapon, an ability used on, on us. Uh, he says like it's old weapon from the gray planet, you know, from our home world used on us, used by us. So it is an old shard. It is like an OG shard that they essentially like killed each other with. Um,
01:55:52
Speaker
So he knows that that is, you know, like that is something that has been killing us that we use from the way, way back when we were little worms. You go, man, I'm sure the tamper with that one. about Yeah. So it's got some, we shouldn't have carried it with you. yeah um bitch You know what? You never know when you're going to have to shank a bitch. That a, that a bad one came by and like rubbed up on your girl. Like maybe he whips out sting.
01:56:22
Speaker
You know, yeah. sh singing know glows Should Stung freaking, uh, a baton or whatever. That's what I'm saying. You know, all I'm saying when are baddens nearby is a baton stung first. Yeah.
01:56:36
Speaker
yeah Um, yeah. So foil uses her ability to imbue the rods with the sting, which specifically it's not just ah that it breaks containment but her her power when it pins stuff it pins it in every universe like it is and when she shoots something it is not just there it is everywhere like you cannot escape that through like trying to do some plane or travel um it is an all-consuming shot so she imbues it ballistic of course fires it um which
01:57:16
Speaker
pins the opening, which is, you know, Sion. Yeah. Yeah. So he has opened in every universe as well, technically speaking. Uh, and then they fire the giant tinker gun, which they fired once before and it failed. didn't work Yeah. And I couldn't get a lock on this in my head, but Did they like, did she leave them to make it a second time? like Are they uncontrolled when they make it the second time? In 30.5 and four, one of those two, she talks about setting the different groups to different tasks. yeah And she gives Defiant the right to shoot it the first time when it fails. But when she leaves it, she realizes, oh, they finished that on their own.
01:58:10
Speaker
Which is sort of a sign of like maybe humans can cooperate when they realize what the real goal is, which i'm gonna give tattletale some credit we don't know. But i would guess that tattletale may be called people is like hey this is what we need do this and we can win like a bunch of tinker's working on it all at once.
01:58:29
Speaker
um And then, yeah, and then not only does it get fired into science well, but Taylor then moves portals around basically to bounce the beam back and forth through the entity to make sure that it just completely wrecks it. literate yeah Okay. I didn't, I didn't get that part. I got that. Like it's a giant beam and it was only going through the one portal. And so she opened more portals next to it. So the whole beam could fit through essentially patchwork style, but.
Sion's Defeat and Collaborative Effort
01:59:01
Speaker
yeah They were like, you know, overlapping portals so that the whole of the beam would come through rather than yeah based like based on the way and rear a tiny hole. Yeah, based on the way it reads, it says the beam tore into him and into the well. I moved the portals and the beam turned to scour more of the landscape beyond Sion. Kind of gives me a sense of like using the portals basically to extend it into where the entity's body is. Um, because then in the end, it's just like this, like massive. Flesh and wasteland, yeah of the dead remains of it. Um, yeah, all the tinker's week, the internet dimensional Ram, which defiant fires into the opening. Um, but yeah, that is, yeah. Also the fact that it's called an interdimensional Ram, a battering Ram into his dimension.
01:59:53
Speaker
Because it's not that it's not necessarily that that, uh, the sting is what's opening it. It's what's like pinning it there in reality so that the interdimensional Ram can blow through reality right into that world and destroy it. Yep. Um, nice. And that is how they killed cyan. And I feel like I've read this for the first time.
02:00:24
Speaker
Yeah, somehow I, yeah, it's pretty epic. Somehow I got the, I got that idea from the, the idea of like, oh, they shoot it into Sion and it goes through into where his real body is. yeah I think, I think maybe the reason I have the mental image of it pinging too is because I can, for some reason, i I feel like there is something like that where. I don't know. I'd have to think more about it, but yeah, it's cool. It's cool, man. What a, what a way to end.
02:00:53
Speaker
the greatest enemy to humanity. Oh, beautiful ah we have one more chapter, one more chapter. We're not done yet. Um, chapter seven. Uh, the world doesn't make sense. Taylor's completely out of it. Uh, the strangers stare, they shout.
02:01:16
Speaker
Another stranger approaches, another appears. The fighting has no blood. This is, again, this is straight from space battle, so I don't actually know what that means. She flees, they chase, there is a door, she walks through. Contessa has a chat with a girl.
02:01:31
Speaker
ah Yeah, so they're not. From what I got, they're not fighting, but she can't figure that out because she got like dog brain now. Yeah. Yeah. Celebrating, right? Like they're shooting. They're like going, yeah, they're all celebrating the lasers. Fireballs. My assumption is that. And jumping up and down. Oh yeah. My, my assumption is that, um, they get that at all.
02:01:58
Speaker
Taylor's mind like reverts back to like base animal instinct and all that's there is, and maybe even it's a bit of the influence of the shard too, because it's like taking over her mind. Yeah. They just kill an entity. So the shards thinking, Oh my God, they all want to kill me. um I don't know. Yeah. Um, and, and she probably still does have in her mind what Marquis said, which is like, you know, a sort of mental trigger of, Oh, we killed big, bad number one. I'm big, bad number two.
02:02:26
Speaker
yeah So maybe there's that too, where it's like, that's all her mind reverts. She was like, Oh, I gotta survive. I gotta fight. I gotta keep myself alive. That base instinct. So yeah, she doesn't recognize that she thinks to herself, Oh no, everybody's killing each other. Humanity. They're so dumb. When in reality, they're, they're celebrating, they're grabbing each other. They're like hugging. Oh my gosh. They're like shooting fireworks into the sky. They're not fighting each other. They're like, Oh my God, we did it.
02:02:57
Speaker
because Because it talks about the separate art of it groups and they're like, Oh my gosh, this must be some like long grudges that they'd like instantly turn to combat with these people that they've known for so long. No, I must, they must have planned this for granted.
02:03:13
Speaker
for granted I, it's so much sadder knowing that. No, it's it's totally this is where I mean this whole arc and we've talked about it for all of warm where Taylor is a bit of an unreliable narrator. This one flip like turns that unreliability dial up to 1000% basically where.
02:03:36
Speaker
Her mind has just gotten so devolved. She doesn't even see that because you have to remember too, at the end of when they actually kill Sion, she's not even controlling everybody and forcing them to kill him. Like she's just done the base level of what she needed to do to tell everybody how to kill him. And for the most part, like they do it themselves. I don't think it's, it's unclear how much control Taylor actually has over like defiant and foil and ballistic.
02:04:05
Speaker
Doesn't seem like she's even controlling them. They're just doing it because that's the plan. Um, she doesn't have the portals. Classic one year has the portals. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. She has some portals cause she had labyrinth and, uh, and scrub scrub. Yeah. But yeah, not. Um, I mean, yeah, I think again, the tinkers completed the weapon on their own.
02:04:30
Speaker
Basically she did enough to get them to cooperate to where they could finish the fight is what it came down to. Yeah. Yeah. and See, this is where I thought, like, I see I'm in Taylor's head. Yeah. According to me, wild though, did the perfect thing, which is in my head, they instantly turn on her.
02:04:53
Speaker
yeah Like some people are speaking up for her being like, whoa, she did what she has to. She's not a complete monster and everybody else has pitchforks and torches. Yeah. And that's how I read it. Like at the last possible moment, she runs away. Yeah. But that doesn't really happen. It doesn't like seem like it.
02:05:15
Speaker
So correct me if I'm wrong real quick, but essentially what happens is some people around recognize her and that she's kind of dangerous and they all keep trying to coax her to like calm down. Yeah. yeah And she sees all of them as a threat. So she runs through the crowd, picking up whoever's nearest by to like shield for her as she's like booking it.
02:05:40
Speaker
And they're all trying to just stop her from freaking out and taking control and doing weird stuff. yeah And eventually she just sees the portal and well and is like, I'm safe.
02:05:51
Speaker
Imp at one point like reveals herself to basically be like, calm down. It's okay. Cause she keeps reaching for the knife and then not, and then reaching for the knife and then not. And it's imp basically in her head being like, you don't need it. It's okay. You don't need it. Like everything's fine. She literally like putting her hand on the knife, right like putting like something stopped me from pulling the knife out. Right. And then then all of a sudden imp is visual and she takes the knife and she puts it like pins it to the roof of Imp's mouth. And now that Imp is visual, she can control her now and she like pins her in place. Yeah. Gosh, Imp babysitting Taylor to have a modicum of self control. What is wrong? What is going wrong with this world? Yeah. yeah What do you mean? So this is where like she realizes what she's been seen isn't completely real either.
02:06:49
Speaker
yeah Because she thought that she was seeing people kill each other, but then she says like, wait a second. In that riot, that mob, there was no blood. The girl I'd cut wasn't bleeding. The people in the crowd were dying. Only the hands and arm held out for the knife to slash were weeping with blood. Only the older injuries from a short time ago. So basically the only, like she tries to slash out at somebody. I don't know exactly who it is. Who's trying to talk to her. Um, I assumed it was tattletale. I think it was a guy though. Okay. Pretty sure it was a guy.
02:07:19
Speaker
Um, I mean, it could have been, um, golem because she uses golem. It was him. It might've been one point in time. She goes back to, I think fault lines crew is back there again. Oh, we see, um, what's his name? Yeah. With the orange skin. No neuter. Yeah. Neuter. Yeah. Neuter. And Shamrock. Shamrock. Not Shamrock. Who's the big guy? Gregor the Gregor. Yeah. Um,
02:07:45
Speaker
i know Yeah. Yeah. So, so she grabs, she tries to grab a bunch of people. I'm even convinced here. She thinks she's controlling people, but she's really not like her power now has like shut down essentially and isn't really working because people get close to her, but she can't influence them. Like if, if they're close enough for her to swipe with her knife, but she can't control them, then clearly something's gone wrong. Cause it's supposed to be 14 foot radius. Yeah. Yeah.
02:08:14
Speaker
So I don't know. I think, I think she's kind of, and I think she's like running away yeah and everybody's like, wait, Taylor, no, yeah yeah
Taylor's Mental Breakdown and Emotional Reunions
02:08:24
Speaker
come back. do We get to see, yeah, we get to see, um, marquee flying as well. That was something we didn't talk about earlier. I've never been in the wings of bone. Holy cow. Also what the fuck?
02:08:38
Speaker
<unk> cool a days. Yeah. Great skeletal bat wings. I'm like, oh, yeah. oh Well, here's the thing. Legend and the woman in blue are also both trying to hunt her down. Yeah. Yeah. Because there's something. No, no, no. She takes over. ah She takes over. Narwhal, maybe. Narwhal. Narwhal comes down together yeah and she takes over Narwhal and puts up shields everywhere and the legend blasts through that like immediately. Yeah. Right. um
02:09:12
Speaker
Cause a narwhals like climbing up and over to try and get to her. And then she uses another guy to like, basically pull her down. And then she's within her influence. Yeah. like lands on the thats right Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Doesn't she use someone specific though, to pull narwhal in, I felt like it was someone we recognize, but maybe it wasn't, i kind it's all, it's all, yeah, it's very blurry.
02:09:41
Speaker
and um And then she has, does she have an interaction with, she has one interaction with Glastik Wenye before she goes through the portal. She also has one with Teacher, where Teacher and his minions show up. He tries to offer her the ability to speak, you know, if- Oh, he steps in, that's right. Well, he's under disguise.
02:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, he sends a, that's who, read who she cuts is the person he sends in disguise. That's what it is. Right. No, no, no, but the person in disguise is him. because Uh, he's outside the portal and it's like the bearded glasses fellow. Yeah. But then he sends the minion in and the minion is teacher in disguise and underneath that is underneath the like, okay. Yeah. loaking to device Like a whole half of a taller and he's got absolutely covered in devices. Yeah. He's got stuff all over him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's when he like gets on the ground and is like, you just, you know, take my hand. I'll give you the powers. You just gotta,
02:10:44
Speaker
And she doesn't do it. Just sign the devil's contract and all I'll fix your brain. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We get the, uh, the brief mention of glory girl in panacea. I just want to read this because it's great. please do The girl with healing powers had been placed deliberately next to a, and I quote, living pool of flesh with multiple heads of golden hair. The healer's hands were covering her face, but she didn't step away.
02:11:11
Speaker
ah Her hands slowly lowered and she laid her eyes on the monster, which was actively, ineffectually reaching out for her. And all I can think of is, ah for all you fans out there of this show, Edward. You had to do that. Big brother.
02:11:32
Speaker
ah
02:11:37
Speaker
no a me no a quick aside on my flight back from Thanksgiving. You can cut this out, Michael. On the airplane, I'm scrolling through the movies to watch and it has full monogamous. It only has like eight episodes, but that was one of them. That was like Why 60 episodes to choose from. It's like episode three or something that happens. Yeah. just All right. Like, okay. I'll watch it depending on ah with which episode, you know, first episode for brotherhood is like fine, but then the second episode opens up with the demonic summoning ritual that goes horribly wrong. Third episode is also a terrible melding ritual that goes hurt horribly wrong. Fantastic. Good.
02:12:25
Speaker
and Yeah. Taylor's passenger. Stupid. Yes. I was going to say, is it taking her back to her trigger event? Well, like everybody's out to get her and she's feeling very like almost claustrophobic with like how tight of space she's like conscious of. I hadn't thought of it that way, but i I like that. I think that I think that works. Well, because it does seem like she is reverting back to that state of primal fear.
02:12:55
Speaker
um Which she would have experienced. Yeah, which you would have experienced being trapped in a locker. Feeling like the world's against you. Remember when they open the locker, she came out swinging. Mm hmm. Remember, right? Yeah, I get that vibe of like her when like people are trying to get at her and like she cuts ah or thinks she cuts or does cut that's teacher teacher twice. Yeah. Once in the palm and once in the forearm because he's under her power. Uh,
02:13:26
Speaker
And she essentially like holds them still while she cuts them. Yeah. But then they yoink him out with, you know, probably a rope or something. who Yeah. No, I think, I think that might be a good, a good assessment of what's happening, which is why all she wants to do is escape. But, you know, Taylor's always been a fighter to escape, right? She's not just going to run away. She's going to punch her way through it if she can. Yeah. So ah yeah. Yeah. see but Poison. And then.
02:13:55
Speaker
She meets Contessa. Okay. Wait, hold on. She has a moment with glass egg. When you, before she goes through, right? And glass egg, when you like, let her go or has like this kind of like quiet, smiling moment with her. Yeah. Cause glass egg, when he is the one who opens the portal that sends her. left us so Yeah. Yeah. Well, to send her to Contessa to let her go as you know. Yeah. It's a different kind of letting go. It's like letting go of Lemmy at the end of of Mice and Men. yeah I didn't.
02:14:31
Speaker
That's okay. you get Jacob knows. That's all that matters. It's brutal.
Taylor's Journey from Hero to Villain
02:14:36
Speaker
Broke me. Those core childhood memories were like, oh, well, I guess I'm an adult now. I know.
02:14:46
Speaker
Uh, I was watching the iron giant for me when I was 10. Yeah. Same vibes. Same vibes. you know You stay. I go. Yeah. No following. Oh, you got it. Hannah. Look, we we talk about we've talked about this every, like every five episodes. It hurts me how every time. Hannah. Look, Alan and I have talked about watching it. Like we have had an active discussion about it. We just haven't.
02:15:14
Speaker
All right. That off podcasts. We're going to have a movie night. We're going to watch the iron giant. I would love that. And it's going to be so happy. That'd be amazing for any, for any listeners who have not seen the iron giant. Could we have a that's, that's your homework. We have a watch party. Like, could we have a, maybe we could have a watch party. That's iffy legally, but we can talk about it later. As long as it's less than 11 people. That's right. That's right.
02:15:40
Speaker
That's true. That would be fun to do with the reserved your spots. That'd be fun to do with the patrons. Yeah. And probably not everyone could make it anyways. Talk about it. It's a good idea. Anyways, back to the last, we're on the last chapter. Yeah. Well, we're on the last bit. Last half of the last chapter. Tessa. More than my girl.
02:16:08
Speaker
ah You know, ah you know it's funny. I liked her more in rock in this section. hey I liked her more in this section than I've ever liked her ever before. I feel like this is the first time theory that Contessa doesn't have like survive the end of the world as her path. So she's past that point now. So she's on whatever her next objective and path is, but we get to see like a, an additional side of her at this point. She's, I wonder cause she's like the only person that we know of with a living Eden shard. Yeah. So I wonder,
02:17:05
Speaker
As opposed to like the cauldron ones, which are dead ones. Right. Yeah. They're all dead ones, so which I don't know if we ever talked about. We go all the way back to the Leviathan fight when it's Sion sees, uh, I think it's legend or maybe idol on doing his like laser beam. No, it's legend doing the laser beam to like push, uh, Leviathan and Sion like looks at him with disgust. Yeah.
02:17:31
Speaker
I remember that ah something Taylor was like, huh, that's weird. That's weird. How um shows no emotion can somehow display disgust. Yeah. It's like, it's not a big thing, but that looks like disgust and it's because it's a dead eaten shard that they're using because they're cauldron capes. Right. Right. That's interesting. Oh, wild bow. You clever bastard dog.
02:17:52
Speaker
you
02:17:55
Speaker
I, I actually think here we see, potentially a little bit of disappointment in Contessa here. Because one of the things that Contessa could never figure out is how exactly they beat Sion. Yeah. Right. And so I think, I wonder if she'd got it in her mind that she played a key role, that somehow she would be the one to kill Sion like, like she helped told Dr. Mother how to kill Eden yeah or Eve.
02:18:29
Speaker
And because it the line that gets me is where she says, the person who played the biggest role in stopping him doesn't give him a second thought. There's a note of emotion in her voice. She was gripping the gun handle tightly enough that her knuckles turned white, but her expression wasn't an angry one. So it makes me, and Taylor refers to it as like, we all have our demons, our burdens, and this is hers. So I think it's almost like part of it is this realization of.
02:18:54
Speaker
This was what needed to happen to win. This is what the plan was leading me towards all along. But I wasn't part of it because she has literally sat out the whole scion fight in this other universe and wasn't even there to see him die. Yeah. see I mean, it seems like it. Yeah. I mean, she's, she's also been there from the beginning. Like she's been trying to coordinate all of this since the base showed up. And now exactly she, she could, she wasn't even there.
02:19:22
Speaker
And I mean, I mean, just imagine it too. Like she sees it's all it's happening. Capri's controlling everybody. Sion's getting weak. And then her power is like, okay, you need to go, uh, sit over there for the next hour and don't move. just like And just think about what you've done. Yeah. Cause like arguably while Taylor has sacrificed her, you know, her sanity and her, you know, her life at the end, all for kind of defeat Sion.
02:19:51
Speaker
That's in a relatively short span of time. Uh, Contessa has essentially dedicated slash sacrificed yeah her life since she was a child. Yeah. Every, so every day is essentially what steps do I take next? Yeah. Yeah. To ins ensure that we make it. It's all checklists. It's all checklists her entire life. Yeah. I think part of it too is that, oh, go ahead, Jacob.
02:20:19
Speaker
I was just going to say, there's this like kind of not so subtle theme throughout all of worm where we're introduced constantly to all of these characters that all think they are how earth survives. Coyle, Contessa, Teacher, Eidolon, Saint, Dragon, Defiant, like all of these characters think that they have the answer, that they will be the one to say you know save the girl. happy you know right yeah like And it's it's it's great because it's it's just such a common trope in these types of stories to that hero's journey, if you you know if you will. And the fact that this is a hero's journey story, essentially, but
02:21:09
Speaker
it told and in in opposition to the traditional journeys we're expecting to follow is really cool and just seeing how Taylor ends up being that hero as opposed to everybody else.
02:21:27
Speaker
in the most villain way possible. Yeah, exactly. Right. It's so counterintuitive. Like all those other all those other heroes have way more, you know, like literary, legitimate claims to this end. Right. But Taylor is the one that gets it. It's cool. Also get a Capri name drop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Capri name. What does Capri mean? I didn't trouble to look it up. I believe it's the dung beetle, like symbolized by the dung beetle, but it's a Egyptian God. And the whole, like the dung beetle pushing is like the symbology of like pushing the sun. Oh yeah. So it's like an integral to like new beginnings, like the cycle yeah new, you know, the new day. Is that why it's called cold morning? day I believe it's called cold morning because of Sion as well.
02:22:26
Speaker
Well, I imagine that the idea is that they're kind of entwined a bit. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With him blowing up the UK is essentially considered the but beginning of gold warning. It's the shot heard, literally the shot heard around the world. yeah um Yeah. Yeah. So England involved in both. I know. Right. I was trying to think of some way to tie that together, but there you go. Yeah. Um,
02:22:57
Speaker
This is where as well, uh, we find out that Glyce Gwenier, this is where Taylor like did something that influenced her. Cause she says, Contessa says, where are, uh, were you really a hero? Do the good intentions went out? Was it Glyce Gwenier strength or yours that held her back from saving Sion in those final moments? So there was that moment where Glyce Gwenier could have stopped Taylor stopped.
02:23:24
Speaker
Cause she's even talked about that, like in this weird way, Glycyg Winye saw herself and it's probably because of her shard, but she saw herself as a counterpart to Sion. And I think that maybe in giving herself to her shard, Glycyg Winye unbeknown to her had kind of begun to think of herself as the replacement for Eden or like as a potential replacement for Eden.
02:23:47
Speaker
Um, you know, if she, say if she and yeah on the oil rig, something similar to it, something to that effect, not quite that specific, but to that effect. Yeah. She collects enough of these shards. Yeah. Yeah. If she collected everybody, every shard, then she would be essentially Eden. So, you know, and she either merges, you know, she as a shard merges back into Sion.
02:24:17
Speaker
And he is once again, complete, you know, because that's her purpose of her shard. Um, or she just, you know, keeps the separateness and becomes a new partner. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Cause they even talk about that as a potential like way they got out of things was. Sion was just sad for a while, but then a new entity showed up and he partnered with the new entity and everything was fine again.
02:24:47
Speaker
Fine. All, you know, not knowing that, you know, in the end the entities will destroy everything anyway. He's a simple entity. Yeah. He's a, he's a, so you know, it's just a simple little guy. Um, but so yeah, it's, it's, I, and I think really that does, um, these questions that Contessa asks at the end is really kind of like sums up the story, right?
02:25:14
Speaker
Were you really a monster in the end, a warlord, an alien administrator, a vicious killer, a bully, or were you really a hero? Do the good intentions went out? And then Taylor just kind of says, uh, she says, why does it matter? And I think ultimately that's kind of sums up Taylor too, if like, yeah, does it really matter if I was a hero or a villain? Yeah. ah You know? Yeah.
02:25:42
Speaker
crazy and Then she gets capped. Well, she but like there's this moment where potentially she could not and like she could choose to like help her. Like I think you have a chance to come back from this. Not much of a chance. Part of that rides on me. I could help you. Yeah, like ideally she could see the path to victory and see that like OK, so if we follow this.
02:26:12
Speaker
14,000 step plan. We can rehabilitate you. Yeah. Or I could just end this right now. And she's like, I've got my answer. Yeah. And I think, I think to this line, this one line just kind of kills me with Taylor self. Like belief film Taylor too. I killed her too. But just, she says, I opened my mouth to reply and I couldn't, didn't deserve to either way. Yeah. Basically her saying like, like, I don't, I don't deserve.
02:26:41
Speaker
I don't deserve this. Like just, I've done what I needed to do. I saved humanity. That was enough for me. Whatever you decide to do, Contessa is what you decide to do. I mean, there's some, it gotta be insane guilt there. I mean, even, even with saving the day, billions die. I think so. yeah So like, you know, you know, good for you. It was saved something, but it was still, you know, worlds were destroyed. There's, you can't live with that, and you know? yeah
02:27:12
Speaker
For sure.
02:27:17
Speaker
What an ending. Yeah. An ending of of worm proper. Gosh. We will do the interludes or the ah epilogues. We will do an episode for those. But yeah, the story is over. What a ride.
02:27:43
Speaker
ah That is the right reaction, Michael. I will say um this afternoon after I had my initial 30 minute crying session on the couch.
02:27:55
Speaker
I was talking to Ellen a little bit and I was just kind of like saying that the the worst part of it was this idea that like she used everybody in the end and like turned everyone against her. And that was when I was thinking of that mob mindset of like everyone's coming after her now. And so my thought process was very much that like, even in the end of like, how do people remember you? Oh, man. Okay.
02:28:22
Speaker
um
02:28:25
Speaker
Sorry. That how people how people remember you is like the the people that knew you and that like your you live on because of people's memory of like who loved you and like.
02:28:43
Speaker
Tattletale and bitch and imp loving her. And like trying to save her from herself and the idea that like.
02:28:56
Speaker
even if she was the villain in the end, that like they loved her. And that was like so sad. And I was crying about it and thinking about it and being like, Oh my gosh, like to everyone, she was the villain. And now to think about it in the sense that she like misunderstood the whole situation and all these people like yep maybe we're looking at her being like, yeah, I didn't like my body being controlled, but we fucking did it. And they're celebrating and she's just like, so gone. And kind of this like, like it makes it sadder.
02:29:34
Speaker
But like, Taylor will be remembered as like, a villain maybe, but also as like the one who ended everything. And that maybe, but maybe she won't be remembered as a villain. You know, and that idea that like, there is a little bit of hope to it of like, maybe history will look fondly on Taylor, you know?
02:30:06
Speaker
We'll put a yep we'll put a pin in that because I want to come back to that. I want to come back to that after. and but No, no, this is like a good pin. Come back to that in the epilogues because I honestly forget all of the epilogue except for literally like two lines and one conversation that I think sort of is the central theme of the whole story. But i will we'll touch on it when we get to the epilogue. But it's right in line with what you're talking about, Anna. I'm more to look forward to, folks. Yeah. and It's the only thing I remember from those next six chapters. I don't yeah remember anything ever. All the way back and all the way back in Ark 1, all Taylor ever wanted to be was a hero. I know. And what's her last? It's such a great final line, too, her like her final words.
02:30:55
Speaker
We're so very small in the end, looking up at the universe.
02:31:03
Speaker
ah yeah Well done, Taylor. I'm very upset. Good story. Yeah, it's a good one.
02:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, we'll save final reactions, full final reactions for the epilogues just because there's some your final thoughts there and we'll kind of get a chance to review everything again, touch on on characters and moments. I was going to say, do we want to do favorite powers from this arc? I don't know.
02:31:47
Speaker
Like acid bath rock on man. No, um, I don't know. It's, it's hard because it's all interpreted through Taylor. Yeah. Taylor's eyes. So there's a part of me that's like, whose power was that? What was happening?
02:32:04
Speaker
Ash Beast was pretty fun to see. Ash Beast was pretty cool. Ash Beast was amazing. i I mostly just like seeing Sundancer and Ballistic and Genesis again. I thought that was super cool. Do you like seeing Sundancer be useful for once? Yeah, for once. Yeah. Finally.
02:32:27
Speaker
actually using her powers to their fullest potential. Seeing Vista again briefly was great. yeah Defiant getting to pull the trigger. Dinah, yeah, Defiant getting to pull the trigger that kills Sion, feels appropriate too. Yeah, that was great. I love that. Because he couldn't do it with Leviathan, so. Yeah, he finally gets to do it. This one's for you, Defiant. He's like, Colin. I just imagine him being, yeah, Dragon Faker death. I do imagine Defiant being like,
02:32:55
Speaker
I lost to Leviathan. Sion beat Leviathan and I killed Sion. So but therefore I am better than Leviathan. I imagine it in like one final pan in some little final montage of our, of our worm show, by the way, where it's like going through all the characters, what they're finally doing at the end of their lives.
02:33:18
Speaker
Defiance, just like in the middle of the ocean, taken a piss. Just like one last, one last, fuck you. No, man. He's so mechanical now. So we can go full robot. Yeah.
02:33:40
Speaker
yeah yeah It's been a journey. We've got one, one little section left, but it's been a good one. Any final thoughts on, on the arc, save it, save it for the epilogues. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. We'll save, save a big wrap up for the epilogues probably. Sounds good. In that case, we'll go ahead and wrap up this episode. That's a long one. Thanks for sticking with us. We knew this one was going to be.
02:34:13
Speaker
A bit intense, a bit emotional. The end of the journey. longest Not our longest. Arcus 16 or whatever that was that we just couldn't finish, but, but hey.
Community Engagement and Future Plans
02:34:29
Speaker
It's been an absolute blast to get to read through the story again. oh fun All of you ah and all of our listeners been reading along with us or listening along. All of it's been great. We've super enjoyed the small community we've built over on our Patreon. We've had a lot of fun talking about worm and sharing memes and additional insights. So if you don't want to stop talking about it, because we certainly don't, head on over to our Patreon and consider Consider joining. We will keep the party going and we're going to continue past this. We're definitely reading Ward at some point. We'll work on a timeline for that, but we're going to get to Ward eventually as well. And special Patreon only content that will feature some special stuff. ah Exactly. Patreon special content, which we've got a lot planned for that too. And of course, stick around. it Oh, go ahead, Nick. I was just going to say just as a teaser for an idea that we had um ja between Jacob and I, we came up with the idea of what if
02:35:27
Speaker
bitch. Uh, got a handle on the Paw Patrol. Yes. Yes. I like that as a teaser. Yeah. other still no the it a nice of jo showdown yeah fictional dark showdown there you go This is the kind of stuff that we talk about over on. ah va goodness we have a Worm and non-worm content. Oh yes. We have a blast.
02:35:57
Speaker
Next week, Alan and I will conclude ARC 30 for our dissecting worm portion of this journey and try to figure out how to tie a bow on this. For those who stuck around with that, and it's ah not easy. It's a lot of fun.
02:36:15
Speaker
So we're going to try to figure that one out. That'll be next week. And then we'll do a full episode for the epilogues. So that'll be fun. We'll kind of probably do that as our like wrap up episode for worm. Yeah. So yeah. Stick around for that. And I think that takes care of everything. So without further ado, Michael, would you be so kind as to play us out?
02:36:40
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans.wordpress dot.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find