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BBBC Reads Ward - Arc 14.1 - 14.8 - Breaking
125 Plays9 days ago
This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. Complete list of potential triggers: here
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The Brockton Bay Book Club discusses J.C. McCrae's Ward live! The gang reads a portion of Ward and comes together to share our thoughts with each other and anyone who want's to participate.
This week we cover Arc 14.1 - 14.8 - Breaking
Read along here
Play along with this week's BBBC BINGO while you listen!
Support us and connect with us @brocktonbaybc
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Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast: This episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club is sponsored by Made Marion. Made Marion creates custom cottagecore and ren faire clothing designed for every body. Whether you’re looking for a lace up bodice, rustic apron and pinafores, or ethereal dresses, you’ll find items customized for every individual’s fit and design. All items are lovingly hand sewn with attention to detail and a touch of whimsy. Visit Made Marion today and transform your wardrobe with clothing that feels as enchanting as it looks. Find Made Marion on etsy, at https://www.etsy.com/shop/themademarion
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Transcript
Introductions and Humor about DoorDash
00:00:01
Speaker
And we're live. Welcome, everyone. ah Good evening, Mega City. Some of our own heroes taken hostage tonight on Earthshin during tense negotiations.
00:00:15
Speaker
Will they be released? And more importantly, will we get our food? Find out tonight on the Brockton Bay Book Club.
Introduction to Brockton Bay Book Club
00:00:25
Speaker
Starring your host, Alan.
00:00:28
Speaker
That's me, Hannah. Hannah. Oh, hello. Jacob. Hello. Nick. Hello, that was an apt intro because I ordered DoorDash like 45 minutes ago and it says your driver's currently on EarthBet and I'm like, well, he's fucked. Machine Army's got him. Yeah, for sure. but And on sports, politics, weather, and everything else we need, Michael.
00:00:57
Speaker
Hello. Welcome. We love the zoom in. yeah ah This is what I get for trying to order Fugly Bobs. Sorry. Oh, man. Is they still around? Shoot.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'd hit up some Fugly Bobs right now. they were They were spared. so Gosh, could I get the Big and Nasty? Big and Nasty? You mean the Big and Tasty, Ronald? No.
00:01:22
Speaker
I want the Big and Nasty. ah This is the to my Book Club, a podcast book club following along with Ward by
Encouraging Listener Interaction
00:01:33
Speaker
J.C. McRae, week by week, chapter by chapter, arc by arc. This week, we are doing arc 14.1.
00:01:40
Speaker
fourteen point one to 14.8, which is definitely something we all remembered and all knew 500 days ago when we lasted this podcast. No one had to remember. 100%.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yeah, sure. ah Well... Tonight we're having a fun time. ah If you'd like to play bingo along with us, there should be a link in the description. I need to pull mine up so I can play. ah And if you'd like to contribute to it, you could do that by being a Patreon member. Get exclusive access to ah Bother Us on Discord. um Just share memes, give suggestions.
00:02:24
Speaker
ah Talk with us there. It'd be a good time to have you there for as little as a dollar a month.
Daylight Saving Time Discussion
00:02:29
Speaker
Even just you being there lets us know that there are people out there listening, and we like to hear from you.
00:02:34
Speaker
um So please, if you're a listener, ah you know reach out and say, hey, i you know I'm here too. That's very fun to hear from you 100%. um one hundred percent Speaking of which, ah Jacob, you have a cool ah shirt on.
00:02:52
Speaker
Oh, yes. What are you wearing? What? Oh, is that a Brockton Bay merch? What? Remember Brockton Bay, never forget.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yes. Wild. Wild. Victory. Very good. um But as always, we are reading through, so no spoilers in chat because ah ah that many people remember. But other than that, ah let's start to get in. Catching up with a YouTube chat, as Rachel said, yes, Velocity would have been great at door dashing, and unfortunately he did die during the Leviathan
Superheroes and Corporate Names
00:03:29
Speaker
fight. So, you know, the that lot of good they do.
00:03:33
Speaker
A literal door dasher. yeah Do you think that after the fact, after the end of the world, because all the organizations are kind of like gone and out potentially, how many superheroes and supervillains would just nab up like popular m ah like names?
00:03:58
Speaker
like Like if somebody had the ability to teleport through like doorways, did could would they just straight up take DoorDash?
Superhero Names and Identity
00:04:06
Speaker
I mean, Uber obviously has to keep keep his name because he was predated. i mean, yeah. Jokes aside, they have talked about that, right? How it's like, we're pretty sure that cape is dead. It's up to you if you want to take their name, I guess. But like, kind of weird...
00:04:21
Speaker
you know Imagine if we did get like a like a a court procedural set in the Worm universe, but it's just oh god it's so hard Uber the cape versus Uber the company. the club It's just a trademark dispute. oh it's like It's like the old Sierra Mist debate, right? Yes. yes Uber lets the right laps, and so the hero Uber scoops it up. Which is exactly how he would have done it, too.
00:04:48
Speaker
yeah Just waiting. yeah
00:04:52
Speaker
The adaptation we deserve. um Bernard, why is there no announcement that time has changed? ah You know what? That's because we're not, ah we didn't think about it because we were just trying to recover from our own stupid time change.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah. We are saving together in the United States. Right. I'll be honest. I forget about our dumb daylight savings time until it happens. And I'm like, why am I so awake or so tired? Depending on the time. It screws me up every time. And it's just a dumb American thing, right? The rest of the world is... It's a farming thing. It's most of the rest of the world. I think there may be one other country that does it. But it's not even every state in the United States. No, it's not. it's Arizona's got it figured out. out ah Arizona did away with it. And I'm like, why why are they the only state to figure it out?
00:05:44
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah. you're trying to dox us, we do not live in Arizona. Oh, look If we did, we wouldn't be having this problem. You could tell by just how bad i would look like mental, you know, mentally. would just be like, oh, man, that's a man who lives in Arizona.
00:06:02
Speaker
Anybody who lives in Arizona, I'm sorry. I don't actually want to live in in Arizona. Same with Hawaii. Hawaii, too. Well, Hawaii has it on lock. They get to be in the middle. I'm not going to lie They get their easy sale in there. So, you know.
00:06:18
Speaker
Why do it? It's it's a farm thing. That's really what it is. It is a farm thing, yeah. It's a farm thing. Canada it does it as well. Once again, it's a big farmland. If you have just a middle of a country that's just all farmland across multiple time zones, you know, i i guess that's just what you do. I feel like it hasn't been needed since like 1980, though, surely. like Surely farms have adapted to mild darkness in the winter. I believe we have. light by now. Also, only but the only reason era that I understand like that benefits me in some way is back when I coached soccer and we didn't have lights for the kill little kids' field.
00:07:05
Speaker
It got dark really quickly and like your last 10 minutes of practice are like, all right, guys, everybody go out there and like find the soccer balls and none of you get lost. Even though we're on a flat field, we just can't, yeah you know, we're at that point. i mean we're like, we just pick the one, we pick the one that keeps the sun out the latest all the time and then just stick with it. I say, and then right. Good.
00:07:27
Speaker
you would they yeah know The problem is, Nick, that that sun be doing things crazy like be spinning on it. That sun be spinning on it. That sun do be spinning on that Milky Way, if you know what I mean. yeah I do know what mean. don't like it.
00:07:43
Speaker
Either way sorry, Bernard, we should have we should have made a more clear announcement last time, but we also totally forgot it was coming up like when we were off. yeah it's It's just an accident. I was i was up to like midnight the day of daylight savings time, and I was just like, oh, God, I got to go to bed. I'm losing an hour. Right.
00:08:04
Speaker
I woke up the next morning and was like, why do I hate myself?
Frustration with Daylight Saving Time
00:08:08
Speaker
So I didn't even know what happened. I didn't even know what happened until like a day after. Yeah. Time changes are stupid.
00:08:18
Speaker
But here we are. ah So sorry. Speaking of stupid things. We're our 14.1 to 14.8. Nope. eight no but
Discussion on Ward's Arc 14.1 to 14.8
00:08:31
Speaker
but He got there. I got there eventually.
00:08:33
Speaker
ah Initial thoughts. Nick, let's start with you. um
00:08:42
Speaker
There was some good and some interesting... it just it felt kind of bloated, maybe? um But it had some... some yeah It was kind of like a... kind of like a heartbeat, a heart monitor, right? Where it's like kind of a flat line and then like, Ooh, that's interesting.
00:08:58
Speaker
Ooh, that's interesting. And like stuff in between was kind of less interesting to me, if that makes sense.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Jacob. Yeah. I mean, I think i'm going to sound like a little bit of a broken record, but a lot of stuff that was, yeah, very interesting stuff. I like a lot of this.
00:09:18
Speaker
I think all of this could have fit into like two chapters. And would have been fine for the most part. I just got a little bit of a ah pacing issues here, which it seems to be a running theme for Ward. But I mean, I like the content a lot. We'll get into it, obviously, but there's some pretty cool stuff to talk about.
00:09:37
Speaker
Just a lot of time to talk about it. And again, ramping up towards obviously sort of the bigger climax at the end of the arc, I'm assuming is coming very soon. Yeah.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah. Hannah. Loved it. No notes, actually. ah For real. I loved it. was not sure I do have some notes. But, like, I just was really fun, and i was kind of on the edge of my seat, ready to click. I was listening to the audiobook, so ready to click to the next chapter and listen to the next bit, and I felt like my day kind of flew by, because I basically just listened to it all today while I was working, and...
00:10:18
Speaker
Really loved it. It was a lot of fun. i love the dynamics of being off-world and a whole new culture that has its own stuff. Like, oh, that was really fun. i i liked it a lot. ah Yeah, pacing was a little off, but, like, honestly, i enjoyed it quite a bit, actually. Okay.
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'm with J-Man and chat here. I really like this as well. I do agree i with most things when it comes to the writing of all of this in retrospect. This could have been three chapters.
00:10:55
Speaker
um You know, Earth's, you know, Earth Gimelside, um you know, the the great debate hall on Earth Shen and then prison.
00:11:08
Speaker
ah you know, an easy one, two, three. Um, but as it stands, I like, there was something interesting in about every chapter that I enjoyed. um I liked what they talked about. I liked what happened.
00:11:20
Speaker
Um, I like the tension that it kind of has. It's, and and it's very alien. Um, I really enjoy what's going on. So, uh, maybe not in my top three, but there's definitely like a, this is a consistently good, uh,
00:11:38
Speaker
work for me, and I knew I was going to look forward to it. And unlike some of the others, it did not disappoint me.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I i wouldn't say it disappointed necessarily. It's more just that... um I don't know. I think it is maybe just the slowness of it kind of throws me where I'm, there is some really interesting stuff in here. I did really like the earth, uh, Shin stuff was interesting, but it just, I think it just feels like it takes a while to get there.
00:12:07
Speaker
And then, because by the end of it, I was where Hannah was where I'm like, okay, 14.8, like there's some cool stuff happening.
Narrative Flow and Pacing
00:12:13
Speaker
and I want to know what happens next. Um, um, But it took me a little bit to get there, and I feel like the ramp up to it is a bit slow for me.
00:12:21
Speaker
But there's there's some really cool stuff here. I really liked a lot of the individual scenes. um Just maybe not all of it together, if that makes it like... a I don't know how to explain the feeling, but I was like, that's a cool scene, but like...
00:12:36
Speaker
the whole thing kind of slowed me down. don't know. Not bad though. Just kind of neutral. I'd say with some, yeah. When I said disappointing, I didn't mean that like you guys were disappointed. and I meant so that there are chapters that I definitely remember being better. The two times I've, you know, listened to read this before and this time around was like, eh, okay. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe it was because I went through it all at once, uh, which might be partly what's tainting me now. I'll say for the third,
00:13:06
Speaker
episode in a row having been but having to go through pale which is you know ah so much longer you know chapters we're talking like 15,000 word chapters dang um And to have these be like 6,000, 7,000. These are like 10-minute chapters. So this whole arc took me like two hours to read tops. 10-minute chapters. Ugh. He's a fast reader if y'all didn't pick up on that already. The man reads like fucking race car. feels like at light speed compared to pale. Where like one chapter of pale, you're just like this entire chapter means nothing. And it has no impact on the story. And I'm reading 20,000 words it.
00:13:52
Speaker
Now we've gotten to chapter two. And this one was like, chapter one, ooh, fun. Chapter two, ooh, fun. Chapter three, ooh, fun. like And we're done. Wow. yeah By comparison, may it makes sense. Also, I might i want say i saw that, Michael.
00:14:06
Speaker
I didn't miss it. I caught that.
00:14:11
Speaker
Well, um yeah
Character Development in Ward
00:14:14
Speaker
yeah. Well, shall we get into it? i can read the first summary. Let's get into it. I have a prediction. i forgot to put it in the thing. I think we'll be done with this pretty quickly.
00:14:24
Speaker
Hey, that's my line. We'll see. I was going to say, Jacob says that. right we'll say And I'm always wrong. Yep. yeah Three hours later. so Should we get on to 14.3 then? Exactly. do 14.1, arc 14, breaking.
00:14:48
Speaker
Victoria and Zveta endure physical therapy. Vic's mental therapist appears again, and Breakthrough acts as if the group is more damaged than it is while preparing for a raid on Teacher.
00:15:03
Speaker
Okay, so this first part I really did like. Physical therapy was great. I'm so happy for Sveta that her body worked out for her. yeah now Now she's getting to do crunches for the first time. There's a little... little ah Victoria has some needs that haven't been met in a while, it seems.
00:15:24
Speaker
Y'all know it's smut time, baby! Woo! I've been waiting for it. It came out of the blue. threw me for a loop. I thought we're not Victoria's head because we've never heard her think like this. I'm sorry, you want to lick sweat? Where? From where? Oh, my God. If I had pearls, I would clutch them. Victoria. Whoa, girl. I mean, approve entirely, but I didn't know. Also, I didn't know who this man was for a second.
00:15:56
Speaker
She's like, oh yeah, Ethan. I'm like, who the fuck is Ethan? yeah Unless you've got like a photographic memory of all the capes and their real names. was like, who's Ethan? Is she talking about her physical therapist? Because I feel like that crosses some lines. That's that's kind of where I was at. I was like, girl, can you calm down for a second? She's had a moment to breathe and think like, God, I have needs.
00:16:20
Speaker
yeah yeah I just want to take a steamy shower right now. And you're like... i like saying I like the idea for mentally flipping through her Rolodex of like fantasies of like, no, too much. yes like No, too specific. ah That one. That's the one. It's a good one. It's a pro-level move.
00:16:44
Speaker
It is a pro-level move. It's
Speculation on Character Involvement
00:16:50
Speaker
fine. I just i have actually haven't read any smut books recently in like months now. And I'm like, I've been like gearing up to read another one. So reading this, I was like, a Victoria, look, I am here for it. I approve. i need you to get out of fucking prison so we can fuck this man, please. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I mean, Annalise is totally coming to to save the day in the next chapter, right?
00:17:14
Speaker
point Oh, I hope so. I really so. Immediately slice him. I was going to say, he shows up. Oh, you're here to rescue us? Oh, no, I got myself captured. Just want to see how you guys work. yeah I walked in, they were like, lock his ass up. Lock his ass
00:17:31
Speaker
yes Although, because his name is Annalise, I can't help but think of, like, in Padme's voice, you'd like, Annie? Little Annie? I'm all grown up now.
00:17:43
Speaker
All grown up, my, my, my. Also, there there is something to be said about a man who's like, oh, yeah, you know, whatever, and, like, the shirt rides up, and every woman in the near vicinity just goes, okay, can you please, can you stop, please?
00:17:59
Speaker
He probably has a cropped shirt. Not like a crop top, but a cropped shirt. um mouth is he Is he one of those gym bros who wears like the tank top that's got like the cut all the way down the... Oh, I hope so. I imagine him as like skinny fit, you know? Yeah, true. yeah or an year old it where he He doesn't have like, he looks like he's been carved out of granite because like you've whittled down to nothing but muscle.
00:18:30
Speaker
But he's given me I mean, he's he's a twink, but muscle strong is is it an otter. Is that the animal that that he would be an otter? Perhaps. yeah was Were he a gay man?
00:18:42
Speaker
Honor would be a little stubble on the face, like a little bit of hair. He gives strong just Jim Twink. Jim t Twink, sure. that's fair Love it. love it And I love that for her.
00:18:55
Speaker
For Victoria. yeah yeah hit a big You deserve it. It's time. and It time. It is time. It is time.
00:19:06
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Make him raise his shirt up immediately. he Yes. My God. Anyways. I do love Sveta's body working out for her. if She's like, I've never gotten to do you know have ab pain before. It's like a funny... you know i love that. Her learning how to use her human body while still having access to her powers, it seems, which is great. good yeah Seems like things are working out okay. um
00:19:37
Speaker
What's-his-name Orchard dude did his job but well enough. Yeah. yeah So, good. Hopefully he's living it up. and he's He's got his recliner chair and his TV on the other planet and he bag of Cheetos and he's like, well-earned. Exactly. i guess sited ah did good. but I'd like to think there's just an extension cable going into like nowhere in the middle of the air. It's just... It's just the size of the cord, so it just looks like it's like two feet up in the air just had dangling there out of nowhere. That's amazing.
00:20:17
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah, Sveta is best girl. oh Gosh, I'm so... It brings me indescribable amount of joy to see her have a body. Like, I just...
00:20:32
Speaker
Oh, it gives me such joy. Such joy. ah and we We talked about it last time, but just to have something go right for once that's that i was going to across both of these stories. It's taken a minute for somebody to get a win. um and where're just like i'll go We're so starved for it. It's the smallest thing.
00:20:53
Speaker
right She is the police chief who finally got to retire. Yeah. yeah yeah Which is why I'm so worried. Because I know Wildbell can't help himself. Stop!
00:21:06
Speaker
Stop! No! Don't put that out there. Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. Jacob we've already so already so i don't yeah and don't put that out there but you i yeah enough it does appear it does appear as we know though from later arcs her body is not perfect in the sense of healing weirdly or interacting with being cut weirdly.
00:21:30
Speaker
Right. Um, which makes sense because she's kind of all like just a massive flesh tentacles basically. Although in my mind, I'm like, could she not, this this will come up later, I guess, but just as a quick thing, like trying to figure out how her new body works. I'm like, could she have hidden things inside of her skin?
00:21:50
Speaker
Like that they could sneak into the prison? But I i don't know. um And then all I can think of is like the scarab scene from the mummy where it's like crawling underneath the skin and I'm like, that's creepy. but i'll move on I'll stop thinking about that now.
00:22:02
Speaker
I'll stop thinking about that now. i'm Don't think about that immediately. Yes. Um, Dr. Darnall appears once again, actually in a favorable way, I would say as a a positive therapy moment where he's like, I liked his thing of like, look, I want to help you and your homework's great.
00:22:23
Speaker
But much like with physical therapy, if you don't actually see your therapist, your homework can only take you so far. um I feel like he has grown on me as a side character. Not to the level of... Who's the lawyer guy from Worm? The scars. Oh my gosh.
00:22:48
Speaker
Mr. Kaye. Mr. Kaye. Kaye. Yippee Kaye. He hasn't quite grown on me in the same way that Kaye did, but i I feel that warmth towards him of like, I can see you're really trying to understand and help, and I can appreciate that. you know I can give you props for doing your best in a very confusing world as a human therapist.
00:23:10
Speaker
Right. Yeah. um Yeah. I don't know. Really? Not much? Oh, we did the whole thing about them acting more broken than they really are.
00:23:24
Speaker
Where they have the little foot signal, but then even so, Victoria's like, jeez, guys. I know it's pretend, but it's real things. It really hardened my feelings here, guys. I guess I'm making a lot of references tonight, but it reminds me of, you know the scene in The Road to El Dorado where they're play fighting, and they do their fake fighting thing, but that one time... Not the face, not the face, not the face! Yeah. But the one time in the climax of the movie where gets a bit too real. Oh, you really meant that. That didn't just come out. You had that loaded. You've just been holding back this whole time. You've got it loaded. damn.
00:24:04
Speaker
yeah That's the vibe I'm getting from this where they're like, No, I'm just saying it to pretend to be mean, but also these are things I've been thinking for months now and wanted to say to you but haven't had the balls to say it or have been too nice
Breakthrough's Mission Assignments
00:24:15
Speaker
to say it.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yeah, know. Our damaged little heroes. Ashley is merciless. She is. She is. Cutthroat.
00:24:26
Speaker
Oh my, yeah. Yeah. do we Yeah. um I don't know. I don't remember much else about Yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
um and Sorry, go ahead, Jacob. I was going to say, think that about sums it up. Just getting some of where everybody's at. i was thinking about the a journal, about her coloring her feelings.
00:24:52
Speaker
Um... And the this circle that she's drawing of, like, all black paint, and then slowly the tendrils kind of coming out, and then these eyes, and she realizes after, you know, doing it for a couple days, looking back, like, oh, I i just drew the wretch.
00:25:08
Speaker
Like, tendrils and rolllls in lots and lots of eyes. Like, ah. Yeah. biblically Biblically accurate wretch. Yeah. Biblically accurate Victoria. Yeah.
00:25:27
Speaker
It's true. 14.2? 14.2. Yeah.
00:25:32
Speaker
The hero teams who know of teachers' plan meet and get their assignments.
Societal Themes in Ward
00:25:37
Speaker
Breakthrough watches a bookstore. Swan Song decides they should step in. The group argues with Gary Nieves and friends. And Rain claims to agree with them.
00:25:49
Speaker
Ought
00:25:51
Speaker
Combine this with 14.3. I actually forgot the arc ended there. um I feel like 14.3 is good and like close enough in context to mix with it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. again Go for 14.3, the bookstore debate with Gary and Friends continues. Swan Song throws down her arm and backs it down.
00:26:09
Speaker
The conversation ends on relatively good terms, and Earth Shin wants to meet.
00:26:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm,
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah. I like Gary Nieves as a character. i feel like I feel like his type of character is a lot of where I was expecting Ward to go, just as like an extension of... Because Worm... I know we talked about this when Gary was first introduced, but like Worm did doesn't really give virtually any of the civilian life outside of Danny and his friends sometimes. um Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
But like you have to imagine that Gary is a very common voice that people would have had in the world, and that's really interesting to me. is like how you know we're We're surrounded by capes, but there's still only like...
00:27:00
Speaker
a fraction of the total population. And so I really like the conversations with him, even though I think Gary is an ass, but I really like the conversations here. I wish, I kind of wish this was a bigger element in ward overall. Cause I think it's in a neat dynamic that would be fun to explore a bit more of.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah, and it does kind of make sense it pops up here in Ward rather than Worm, because I think pre-Sion, there's probably enough of a vibe of like...
00:27:32
Speaker
Yes, parahumans are dangerous, but they're also our solutions to the big problems we have, right? Like, what would we do without the Endbringers? Or what would do we do without them about the Endbringers? But then as more becomes becomes unraveled, they're like, oh, parahumans, many of them were created by Cauldron. Oh, I don't know if it ever gets out that the Endbringers are the results of Eidolon, but if it did, like, that's a whole thing, right? And then obviously the concept that Scion...
00:27:58
Speaker
was a parahuman, nobody knew any better except he was a parahuman, cause it causes the end of the world. it's like, okay, well now, like, clearly this is a bigger problem. So those negative voices in times of crisis kind of rise up to the top. Whereas before, I bet there was sort of that veneer, kind of like that game that Tattletail talks about. There's that veneer of like,
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not really happy that parahumans probably have a shadow cabal to control most of the world governments, but at the same time, like they're keeping us safe from Leviathan, so who am I to judge? you know yeah Right.
00:28:30
Speaker
yeah um Makes sense. but yeah i do like who's his ah Who's his equivalent in the X-Men universe? I'm trying to remember that guy's name. oh um The Senator? The Senator who wanted to kill all the...
00:28:44
Speaker
X-Men. or all Yeah, I can't remember from the X-Men movies. He gets turned into the weird water blubber guy. Yeah, because there's a couple version there's a couple different political figures that take that place in the ah in the X-Men comics. One of them, I think, goes on to yeah Bastion. His last name is Bastion. he you know invents the invents the robots the sentinels
00:29:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah, the Peter Dinklage character from Days of Future Past. yeah Yeah. But there's a couple of those political figures because, you know. Yeah. Robert Kelly, there we go. Yep. Ah, thank you. Thank you, Terry. Yeah, because you've got that guy, and then later in the movies, you also have the dad who's, like, manufacturing the cure and is trying to get his son to, like, take it. Yeah, his son has the angel wings thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:35
Speaker
Angel. Yeah. Angel. Yeah. As the wing. Yeah. because yeah um Yeah, but it is it is that similar vibe where it's like... yeah I... More so even than the X-Men universe, because I don't know much about X-Men, although I do know that Dangerous Mutants exists, obviously, but...
00:29:53
Speaker
more so Maybe more so just in terms of power level. It feels like the Ward Worm universe is more deadly for the average citizen than... yeah ye um yeah And and so i I kind of... that's That's what makes Gary hard, right? is like Yes, he is a bigot.
00:30:15
Speaker
But it's it's it's understandable in a way, unlike other forms of bigotry. It's not like based on nothing or based on just pure prejudice. it's like, i kind of see where he's coming from. oh yeah yeah. You know, we were just talking about this actually with Zootopia, how it is.
00:30:33
Speaker
Alan pulled out his encyclopedia of X-Men stuff. Right after the ah the first live action X-Men movie. um but you know We were just talking about Zootopia previous to being on livestream and how Zootopia kind of tries to tackle themes of racism. And it does an okay job for a kid's movie, but the issue is in reality...
00:30:55
Speaker
The analogy falls apart because predators and prey are literally different, and predators do have actual claws and teeth that are harmful to the prey. right in In the same way here, it feels like, yes, I can see the themes of bigotry and all of that, just like with X-Men, but it's also...
00:31:12
Speaker
I kind of get it. It's like, yeah, no, the analogy falls apart because these are the most dangerous beings in the universe. And you're not one of them, like that's scary. Also, Trask, Bolivar Trask, who invented the Sentinels.
00:31:28
Speaker
um As J-Ban pointed it out, somewhere... I believe they said the Bastion's the robot man made by a Magic Portal. I'm going to looking back because there's a picture I can imagine my head of the character I'm looking for. We'll find it. Alan, your autism is showing. He's locked in right now. Yeah, he's so locked in. He's like, shut up about Warp. That should be one of our bingo things. It's just Alan locks in. Alan locks in. Not on Worm.
00:31:57
Speaker
Not on Worm or Warp. Now's your time. Yeah. what The pillow. Oh, yeah. ah to look Let Alan go off on a rant. I'll just take a little... Perfect. This is great.
00:32:17
Speaker
I'll find it eventually. no Something I thought about this time around with... ah with yeah I don't even remember which side I was arguing because i was probably playing devil's advocate the last time we had the Gary argument.
00:32:29
Speaker
um But this time around thinking about like, okay, well, we have a bunch of people that have ah sort of un barely controlled power now.
00:32:42
Speaker
And ah what what is the correct solution with them? And the answer is to basically chain the ever-living daylives out of them. Not like physically, but like...
00:32:56
Speaker
you tax the ever-living daylights out of them. And so for, like, heroes, people who you know like you know, have these powers, I imagine you would want to do something like that societally.
00:33:09
Speaker
ah Which, you know... In this case, once again, Gary's not necessarily wrong. He has a point. He is just an ass and is being funded much in the same, like, know, doesn't mirror anything here. It's taking potentially a small good point and making it a very...
00:33:33
Speaker
bad thing because it's being used to like package on other things and then funded by those people who want to do bad
Identity and Humanity of Parahumans
00:33:43
Speaker
things. Exactly. Yeah. And it's the, the methodology of the solution, right? Is it's, uh,
00:33:50
Speaker
It's much closer to what someone once called a final solution instead of a a true solution. Martin Luther. yeah Exactly. um But, you know, it is and it is that that vague anger, right, where it's like, well, what is this inspiring people to do? Well, it's going to inspire some mob of angry people to take baseball bats to their local parahumans house. You know, like it's not going to inspire positive behavior.
00:34:19
Speaker
he might have a point, but on on top of it all is this angry rhetoric that's going to cause more violence than actual help. um You know? Yeah. it's it I appreciate the complicated nature of it in the story, and and that it it isn't Unlike Zootopia, it's not trying to force itself into being a one-on-one analogy. And the heroes, I think, kind of lean into that. ah Like, with Rain going like, yeah.
00:34:47
Speaker
No, it sucks. Like, I've seen parahumans in charge, and I don't want that either. Like, this this whole world's mess. We're all messed up. We're all just trying to figure things out. Um... And I appreciate the approach Ashley takes where she's just like, you you don't know what you're talking about. Like, we're all screwed up. We're all messed up. And here, let me show you. And she takes her arms off. Which, in this arc so far, Ashley ends up having very big roles in conversations that are very important. I appreciate. That's great.
00:35:16
Speaker
But yeah, just her taking the arms off and like dropping them on the ground is like, like what? what What do you think of this, Gary? You douche. Look what you've made me do. yeah Also, ah Bastion, this is the part I remembered is Bastion being somebody who was very anti-X-Man and part of the like political group that wanted to get rid of them and whatnot.
00:35:40
Speaker
And I remember it being a big thing that he finds out that he is, in fact, some sort of superpower being. He finds out that he's a sentinel from the future. That was the whole that's cool um i'm sure I believe there's another character that's like that, that is very anti-parahuman and of course finds out, or not parahuman, but you know finds out that they have ah that they are a mutant later on and they're like, no, no, they're like, and your mother was a mutant too. No! All I can think of is the scene from Boondocks where Uncle Ruckus gets his his DNA test back. Yes, that's exactly it.
00:36:18
Speaker
100% black. No, it can't be. there's like a hundred Where's Taylor with the wah? wow yeah god Yeah, yeah.
00:36:32
Speaker
um No, good conversation. i Definitely feel like this is the first time maybe we've seen Gary kind of seed ground on his point of like, okay, like maybe yeah we can actually find a way to work together.
00:36:46
Speaker
um You know, he's still butthurt about the election, too, with Citrine, apparently. For sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Which, like, he has a point. Like, I do get it, the whole thing of, like, well, you're trying to elect a mayor here that's going to, you know, represent the human population. And the mayor that wins isn't even human. Like, she's pretending to be. And, like, that...
00:37:14
Speaker
That's some, that's some, I fucking hate that shit. To go back to that chapter, right? It's like, Gary's like, so our options for mayor are, is a parahuman, is funded by parahuman gangs and me. Yeah. but yeah Regular guy.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah. Mr. Joe Schmo. Not that, once again. yeah it's, I think his biggest, his biggest thing, and it is a talking point that like, he has to make that divergence in order to sow hatred, which is they aren't human. The classic, you've got to dehu literally dehumanize them. right And,
00:37:53
Speaker
They do the correct thing, which is like, well, honestly, they should have done it harder than they did, but, you know, whatever. Which is, parahumans are not not humans. We are, they are very human.
00:38:07
Speaker
They just have problems. You wouldn't say that, like, any other... Yeah, you wouldn't say that ah somebody who is an Olympic athlete is not human just because they have. There are people out there that have those weird freak genes that like their muscles just do not tire and they could just run as long as somebody kept handing them sandwiches and they didn't need to sleep. Their muscles would just regenerate indefinitely.
00:38:33
Speaker
Those people exist. like But we don't call them inhuman like yeah in a meaningful sense. These are human people.
00:38:44
Speaker
that have been, you could say attacked by aliens. And that is now an essential part of them. And they need to figure that out. And, yeah And to your point, Bastion, when he first showed up as a Sentinel, he did not know he was a Sentinel. He does get redone like a couple times, but as far as I remember, he did not know he was a Sentinel the first time he was made because he was designed after Bolivar Trask's master mold ah that made him.
00:39:12
Speaker
And ah the sending him back in time thing I think happened again later, perhaps. um But I don't know anything about the 97 There you go.
00:39:25
Speaker
Well, to the point of of that, one of the most powerful weapons against weaponized hate has always been forced empathy and humanizing the humanization of, you know, counteracting that dehumanization because I think humans have that natural empathy within them and you have to work to turn it off.
00:39:45
Speaker
So fighting against that by forcibly turning it on or reminding people of what you are you know, what they are actually saying when you remind them, like, no, these are humans we're dealing with. We're not just dealing with, you know, animals or non-humans.
00:40:02
Speaker
So yeah, Ashley doing her thing was great. um I think it it was a good move, right? Revealing that humanity of like, look, I have a disability. Like I have no hands. The Slaughterhouse Nine took them from me.
00:40:15
Speaker
They, yeah you know, they made me this... you took this from me and made me inhuman. And... Yeah. I don't know. It's an interesting thing.
00:40:28
Speaker
And like, that hatred that's... that they're coming from, that Gary's coming from, and that a lot of the humans are coming from, is like a place of fear. Like, we lost everything because one parahuman went off the rails. And, yeah know, as far as they're concerned, one parahuman went off the rails. And it's like, of course you're afraid.
00:40:50
Speaker
and like, the natural instinct is to do what you feel like you have to do to protect yourself. And with that comes this... this bigotry and this hatred and this fear of, you know, pointing fingers on, oh, well, you were Slaughterhouse Nine. Like, you you were one of the worst. And, like, I i love, and Wildbo describes, ah well, Wildbo, the way he writes it, but Victoria sees this this glint in his eyes, this, like it's like, joy at being able to, like, he hears them say one word and he's grasped onto that word and he's going to use that against them. Oh, that's interesting that you would say that because actually, oh, the best of us? The best of us. Okay, let's talk about the best of you. And, you know, and like this, this...
00:41:40
Speaker
delight in like tricking them or tripping them up and the delight in that of winning the argument. Cause like in, in the end, like that is what it comes down to. Like even when he uses the slides, he's like, Oh yeah, this slide. Oh wait, no, it's, that's not it. It's the next one. Like all of that is, is measured out because he knows what he's doing and he's playing it up to the crowd because he can.
Depth of Debate Scenes
00:42:04
Speaker
And and that's the politics of it, which I mean, i hate because I hate the politics of things of like, oh, yeah, well, we're going to posture and we're goingnna we're going to twist these and we're going to make our statements. Like, bro, the world ended, basically.
00:42:22
Speaker
And we're starving. Like, we don't have many of us left and we're in this city and we're dealing with stuff that you have no fucking clue about, man.
00:42:32
Speaker
And you want to throw on us under the bus because you lost the election. Like, You're hurt. You're butthurt about it. And i I can't do anything about that.
00:42:43
Speaker
Sorry. But I can tell you that what you think about me, what you think we are, you don't know who we are. Like, you don't know who Ashley is, what she had to go through. And she doesn't have to explain it. She doesn't have to take her hands off, literally drop the gauntlet.
00:42:57
Speaker
mic drop moment with her hands. She doesn't have to do that, but it's a good move to show that, like, you can't just point at me and say, this is true about you when you don't even have all the facts in the whole story. And I, I know my own self and I know in a lot of other books that I've read where the conflict, it happens when And there's always a weird parting where someone gets to walk away and leave things unsaid. And there doesn't feel like there's any real resolution to it. But I really liked...
00:43:36
Speaker
And this is kind of, I'm disagreeing with what some of you said earlier about the whole, like, others this could have been two chapters, because I liked that this conversation with Gary went for so long. It wasn't just a quick little, oh, yeah, well, here's my hand. You know, it was like a, it was a longer conversation that happened, had to happen, that felt more realistic. And I really enjoyed that.
00:43:59
Speaker
I enjoyed this, like, back and forth in the conflict and rain stepping up and, you know, throwing a whole wrench and thing. Like, I'm on your side. I agree with you. like i I really enjoyed that a lot.
00:44:12
Speaker
And I enjoyed the chapter a while ago with them on the... on them What was it called? The egg drop soup, sunny side up, whatever the the egg show was called. What was the egg talk show they went on? oh yeah next show Was it not egg something? I think it did have egg in the name. The cracked yolk. The egg drop soup. Whatever it was. enjoyed that.
00:44:38
Speaker
whatever it was i doing that Yeah, crack of sunny hard boiled. Hard boiled. Hard boiled. Nailed Sorry. Oh, anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:51
Speaker
we got money oh anyways um yeah yeah yeah I really like that, too. But I love... i i I like that they got to stand up for themselves. ah i feel like they lost ground on the hard-boiled show.
Exploring Earth's Shin
00:45:04
Speaker
And this, they ended on ah on a note that felt like, oh, yes, there we go.
00:45:09
Speaker
you know? Like, we got to say what we wanted to say. And, oh, yeah. It felt good. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah, it also feels very... ah you know just coincidental perhaps that we just had this on the back of talking about the Nazi youth that were present in the warden's facility.
00:45:34
Speaker
no Right. Oh lord. Forgot about that.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yep. Yep. i think um It's also an interesting ah and we'll obviously get to it in the next couple of chapters but I feel like we're going to be about to step into Shin, which in a way kind of feels like Gary's dream world, right? A little bit, yeah.
00:45:59
Speaker
They kind of got a handle on the situation, it seems like, at least from the limited perspective we have. It's both his dream world in the sense of this is what he would like, but also the complete justification for it as well.
00:46:13
Speaker
right Right. Like you had just some underpowered, some powered rando come in take over the entire world, run rampant with their lieutenants, therefore justifying whatever you do to them, including the children. Right. And then... Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
yeah Like, which, you know, don't get me wrong, I'm sure for some of those things in the moment, it's one of those, like... Imagine you have one of the heart broken on you.
00:46:46
Speaker
Like, they're the little monsters. Yeah. You've got to take the shot. A lot of damage. A and lot of really horrible stuff. Taylor wouldn't need her. Right? Taylor wouldn't let that slide. No no hesitation.
00:47:02
Speaker
just Yeah. Yeah, she she even double taps the kids just to make sure she gets them. Yeah, yeah exactly. Yep.
00:47:12
Speaker
Hmm. Well, should we get there to 14.4, perhaps? Oh, i know I wanted to point out in 14.2 two things. One, going back to well, well, well, look who the Nazis buddy-buddy with.
00:47:32
Speaker
I hadn't talked about this before. I know we've gotten a lot of I'll just call it retroactive Moonsong hate. um Which Moonsong is shitty, don't get me wrong. But, moon narratively, Moonsong is slowly digging that that hole deeper.
00:47:57
Speaker
um Slowly, quickly, quickly. every Every time she appears, mostly. Every time she appears, you know? Yeah. ah And then on top of that, Vista fucking with Byron's outfit.
00:48:13
Speaker
That was fun. That was funny. It just keeps getting longer. then they look over it it's just like all the way on the floor when it should be something that's like this long.
00:48:25
Speaker
so That would be so funny just because it's it's the kind of motion you do unconsciously, I'm sure, without thinking about it. And you do it like two or three times. You're like, why am I still pulling this? at this Yeah.
00:48:36
Speaker
yeah Also, as Fran points out, ah is this the first instance of Scribe mean-mugging Victoria from across the room? um Yeah, eating it is, but I believe we've encountered these people. And I want to say even Moonsong at the time, all the way back when Victoria was trying out with the Shepherds. I think so.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah. and she got in trouble because... ah This was when the Shepherds were folding in with whatever group Moonsong was on. And of course the Shepherds being like the evangelical group has all of the...
00:49:15
Speaker
ex-Nazi youth because of course. Because of course they don't. You know, art imitating reality and all that. um And then ah but while she's there, it's one of those like, we can't let the fallen get away with this. And she's like, let the fallen get away with this. What about the Nazis in your camp getting away with this? And they're like, hey, just don't mess with them. we're like, bitch, you're the same person.
00:49:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, because it's it's what we see. Victor, right? Who was in Worm. um got captured briefly by the Undersiders and used for stuff don't remember or like hacking or something yeah some kind of hacking thing and Rune I remember as well because I remember thinking she had a cool power um now she's a good telekinesis yeah but in the in the same vibe as like um what's his name wizard guy
00:50:12
Speaker
What was his name? Myriden. Myriden. In the same way that he like had the wizard aesthetic, the rune being... It's like telepathic powers, but with the like wizard aesthetic, is it makes it like twice as cool.
00:50:27
Speaker
I feel like, you know. I love that. um I love a good like theme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shame she was a Nazi. As Rachel points out, you know, if I were a scribe and I knew Vicky's history with Nazis, I wouldn't mean mugger.
00:50:45
Speaker
and I'd be little bit more careful. yeah are You into a dumpster, a dumpster on you. but you in that duner interact selling through the air yeah You and that dumpster are going to interact somehow.
00:51:00
Speaker
It didn't call her a teenage Nazi. It's pretty good. ah That's pretty great. ah God, they bullied those kids so hard. oh I mean, deservedly so.
00:51:15
Speaker
Deservedly so. Yeah. I remember. who Just, you know. is Once again, funny that like all that bullying, like we were talking about earlier, is coming up in the same chapter with the people who we were bullying before. Maybe they just bring it out a Wild Bo. Maybe so. Yeah.
00:51:34
Speaker
Very good. 14.4? Yeah. Is end of.3 before we've gone through the portal? I can't remember. end of point three before we've gone through the portal i can't remember No, right before they go through the portal.
00:51:50
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Alrighty. 14.4. Breakthrough meets with the Wardens, is briefed on Shin, discusses cape names for Darlene, get their shots, and travel through the portal.
00:52:05
Speaker
Yeah. right What is a better name for Darlene? I don't know, but it's none of those. what What did they call her I know. What was the one she came in with?
00:52:17
Speaker
It was Kahoot. caho first one Very childlike, if not her. Yeah, and if... and For me, Kahoot, all I can think of... and is ah a classroom a board game.
00:52:30
Speaker
Kahoot is a classroom game. Kahoot with a K is a classroom trivia game that you can use to help your students learn. I used it quite a lot when I was a teacher. It's it's pretty fun um because you can like make your own questions and they're all multiple choice and they get points. of bing go Is this a bingo thing?
00:52:50
Speaker
i don't know if it counts as me going full teacher explaining. what I replaced it with full full parent. oh I'm not not parenting though. not parenting though you You hardly ever go full teacher mode anymore. so it'ss true It's true. it's true it's man i try to forget those days. They were dark times. to um What are her powers so I can help?
00:53:14
Speaker
so but So she enter she can intertwine everybody's senses. For those of you who remember Metal Gear Solid 4, that was the big thing with the nanites and having the squads run around that they were all synced up so that they could like literally travel as a pack.
00:53:31
Speaker
and all knew where everything was at all points in time. So you can, yeah, you can feel what they feel. Um, I guess kind of see what they see, right? A little bit or not. Uh, you get, I think, believe you get like a sensation and kind of where they they like tend to like overlap. Like, yeah, you can, so you can, they're like layered. so you can, you still are experiencing your own stuff, but you're also like feeling and experiencing theirs as well. What about like synergy? Yeah.
00:53:59
Speaker
Oh, I like synergy. Once again, here's the thing. It's gotta be very, like, I'll just say, like, gothic. Oh, God. no yeah Even... Yeah. thinking like the I'm thinking, I'm thinking... Personally, I just have Zoom meeting room.
00:54:18
Speaker
Zoom meeting room? Yeah, yeah. is ah is an name I was gonna say, is the name Syncopate taken? I was thinking about Syncopate, except, like, isn't Syncopate, like...
00:54:30
Speaker
Michael, correct me, especially with the drumming and stuff like that. It's they it's something in sync, but you're like also out of sync. It works. um Syncopated means you're on rhythm.
00:54:44
Speaker
and Is it her? Played together. Syndicate was good, but it's not quite her. Jacob, you're yeah close. I just had one when we were talking about this like a couple seconds ago. ah Interlace.
00:55:04
Speaker
Interlace is good. you like releases Yeah, that works. Because I think about with her, specifically. Yeah, with her. um Interlace or
00:55:17
Speaker
like Nexus is there with like Syndicate. where like I like Nexus. sounds too madical. Yeah, i was going to say Nexus sounds too sci-fi. I was going to say Nexus is it is a D&D big bad. yeah And she's okay with the villainy, but it just has to be more cutesy. I know that's Nexus. Like Dispatch.
00:55:44
Speaker
Maybe. Isn't that taken? I feel like that's taken already. Dispatch. Dispatch, I believe, is one of the heroes. Yeah, I'm not going to get better than Synergy. That's my... that's my Synergy is good.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah. There's probably... if if we were If we were doing... it We would pick something in, like, French for... yeah like French for yeah for Unity or Unison or...
00:56:11
Speaker
yeah go I'm just looking synonyms for the word harmony. like i like harmony.
00:56:19
Speaker
harmony's not... Yeah, harmony's probably... I'm sure it probably is. Yeah. ah Let's try. What's something along those lines? I mean, harmonize would not be a terrible one.
00:56:33
Speaker
I'm sure there are other words for like harmonizing. And why can't it be... Ensemble I like. Ensemble's not terrible. but Why does it have to be one word too? Because we've had like Lord of Loss. True.
00:56:48
Speaker
And Swan Song. can We can mash some shit up. and True, it says Just Dance or Affinity. Just Dance. Affinity is good. and I like Affinity too. I like Affinity too. That's good.
00:57:01
Speaker
Oh, Rachel said affinity. I mean, if it was a villain thing, like puppet master, i like, or something along the lines of like, that's more pulling the strings. Um, what's a, oh my gosh, Hannah.
00:57:14
Speaker
What's the person who does, who keeps the time for a conductor? Yeah. See, a which implies more manipulation and we're going. know. That's why I'm hearing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
Oh, well. ah Good ideas. Good ideas. Not oh well. i think yeah I'm sure she'll come up with a good one eventually. Yeah. Wildo. Synergy and in Hebrew, because Wildo loves his Hebrew, is just Synergy.
00:57:43
Speaker
It's kind of close enough. I like it. I was thinking like router. Wi-Fi. router yeah Wi-Fi router. i would You know, it's it's funny because i'm trying to look up I'm trying to look up French words and it's like, what's the French word for mirror? And Google just goes...
00:58:03
Speaker
mirror. French is a fake language. They're all fake. it is fake did None of those vowels matter. yeah um No, no. it's in me i have a lost Especially, here's the problem. If it would be so much easier if she was a boy because hear me out because of the French like, uh, uh, uh,
00:58:32
Speaker
liberal idea of fraternity.
00:58:36
Speaker
Right. You know? Yeah. You say you know like we know what you mean, but explain. ah through The colors, literally the colors of the flag and whatnot. like whatnot and Like the big things were like fraternity, what is it? Fraternity, freedom, and I forget what the other third one was. That's where you get hold of the blood of angry men, black people. Yeah, what the fuck? I didn't...
00:59:01
Speaker
Yeah, anyway. Then you could just be like fraternity. But I guess a sorority. But it sounds... i mean the Sorority is... If you spelled it, here there's a way to spell it in French. there Wi-Fi router in French. They literally just stick an extra U in there. See, told you, it doesn't... Router on the Wi-Fi. Router! Alright, we got it.
00:59:31
Speaker
Moving on. Yeah, yeah. So you just do sorority with an E at the end instead of a Y. Yeah, sorority. so That just means sisterhood. Yeah, I mean, I think that works. yeah Sorority is what Google just said to me.
00:59:46
Speaker
Sorority. Sorority. If we've proved anything, it's that none of us can do a French accent. Oh.
01:00:04
Speaker
And that's another one. Michael Burns is back.
01:00:10
Speaker
ah so um guys not not to you know it's been an hour and we're halfway done so you know we're a you we're still we're making great and that's another one like I'm also pointing out that Alan's probably wrong about us being short tonight, but who knows?
01:00:32
Speaker
Alan's always wrong what are you talking about? Wow. Look, sometimes things just pop out of my mouth before I can about it. Sorry, Alan.
01:00:45
Speaker
Don't apologize for the truth. ah J-Man disagreed with me. He said episode won't be long. 40 minutes in on one name. Not a compliment. ah know Not a complaint. I love this. yeah Also, just so we know for the tricolor of the French flag, blue, and liberty, white, peace, the French monarchy, Virgin Mary, red, fraternity.
01:01:12
Speaker
Thank you very much. Have a great night. Fraternization. I'll stick that away in my folder of random info in case I need it for a trivia night. Thank you. You'll never need it for trivia. Trivia always is like sports and random things that I don't know. i'm very I've had some very random things come
Cultural Trivia and Historical Context
01:01:33
Speaker
up. Like, for example, as a side note, um the one trivia question was who invented the word meme?
01:01:40
Speaker
And I knew that. Who invented the word meme, Nick? oh can Might surprise you. Alan, do you know? Yes, Alan. Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins, yes. Richard Dawkins invented the word meme.
01:01:52
Speaker
That's actually a neat piece of trivia. Yeah. was in then In the 80s. It's an older word than you thought it was. For an idea gene or a memetic gene. yeah A memetic gene or a mind virus, essentially. Mind virus, yeah.
01:02:07
Speaker
Mind virus. Yep. Yeah. So there you go. Fun fact of the day. Anyways. um Also to further on that. Yes. Bernard red blue, red and white. Also libertair egalitary fraternity, the national motto of France and the Republic of Haiti. Surprisingly enough, Liberty egalitary fraternity.
01:02:29
Speaker
Haiti was a French colony, right? Is that why it's their motto? It's got to be. probably it actually sure Everything's either a British or a French I'd be willing to bet that it was under multiple rules some point in time. I think it was. I think Haiti's had a rough history, but we don't have to get into that. Okay. Moving back to the thing. Vista makes Needle small. Funny. Yes. Love.
01:02:53
Speaker
I did like that of like the... Victoria explaining, like you tell the recruits like you can get 10 shots over the course of a few months or you can get one big shot at the end and they all think, well, I'll just get the big shot at the end. Not realizing it's like a horse trank. It'll knock you out for a week. ah so Would you rather have the 10 shots yeah or one big shot?
01:03:15
Speaker
oh yeah I'll take 10 shots. I can do 10 shots. ah yeah I can take 10 shots easy. and always like getting shots. I'm one of those weirdos who kind of enjoys the process of giving blood. Like, i think it's I've never been able to give blood! That's unfortunate for you.
01:03:31
Speaker
I would really love to. i really people. Is that because you live overseas? yeah yeah They're still afraid of mad cow disease here. And they were like, from what years? And i my hammer had and they're like, no. they so yeah ilthough i don't I don't know if now has been enough time that I might be able to give blood. It's indefinite, by the way.
01:03:55
Speaker
They're still afraid of mad cow disease. he well Unfortunate for you. I always take that to mean that they're actually doing okay with blood donations because if they weren't, I feel like they'd be more open to taking more people. Oh, yeah. I think so, too, yeah. Which is good. This is a good thing. It's a good thing. Yeah, have more blood. Fun, unethical diet hack. Giving blood burns like 500 calories. Don't share that. That's not even that much. That's so terrible. It's more than like, that's like a 10 mile run basically. 10 mile run? That's a load of potato griller.
01:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think I'd rather just eat a load of potato griller. Jacob's thinking right. I want to hear more about you enjoying giving blood.
01:04:49
Speaker
We skipped over that. Oh, I just think it's a fascinating process. the you know, like watching the blood come out of my vein, I think is just kind of interesting. Like, I like to watch the little bag fill up.
01:05:00
Speaker
I'm not going lie. I'm getting a little sick thinking about it. Kind of a nauseous sense. can like We can move on. Anyways. for
01:05:13
Speaker
Bernard, Hannah's not anemic. It's just that if you've lived over in Europe during the mad cow disease era, you were over there for more than, i think it's either three or five years.
Health and Safety in Dimensional Travel
01:05:25
Speaker
If you were more than five years over there, you were just under an indefinite ban in the United States from giving blood.
01:05:33
Speaker
I feel like I need to know more about it, but yeah, no, I didn't grow up in the U.S. s yeah and I grew up in Europe, and... i I've always wanted to give blood. I really have.
01:05:45
Speaker
I remember finding out because I walked in the bus with a friend of mine and they had like the sign of like, hey, just make sure you know these things I'm going down. I'm like, oh, oh. Oh, wait.
01:05:56
Speaker
i I can't do this. It's the same thing. I was like in the chair reading through the the the waiver that you have to like read through and then sign at the bottom. And I was like, oh, I can't do this.
01:06:06
Speaker
They were like, what? And I was like, so if I... And they were like, yeah, no, get out it. Get out. You diseased, filled European. Disgusting. Sorry.
01:06:21
Speaker
Fran is like, are you like Victoria where you're scared of giving blood because you're made of little animals? You know, with the amount of meat I've consumed over the course of my life. Fran is hilarious.
01:06:34
Speaker
Maybe. God, I can't. You guys kill me. and Oh my gosh. there Anyway, through the portal? Yeah, through the portal. Clearly 14.4 was not a compelling chapter. if The most of what we talked about was us giving blood. yeah um I mean, I thought that would part was the most fun. about Well, okay, well, they talked about the whole um if you're gonna poop while you're there, you have to poop into a bag and bring it back with you. to the bag Because potentially what you eat...
01:07:02
Speaker
may have seeds in it that then may go into the ground, which, like, see, I love thinking, like, that's so interesting. That's such good world building because it's like, I just saw a chat. Sorry, I'm distracted.
01:07:18
Speaker
What did they say? Made of little mad cows. Made of little mad cows. Roger Taylor said, I'm made of little mad cows. The cows have gone mad. um There are tiny mad cows in my blood. They're just really upset. yeah um No, no, no. but but But the whole thing about like thinking about that in terms of like pathogens and seeds and like the things that you eat and that can get into the system, like really fuck with the world, that you know is very different from EarthBet. And like i just think that that's so interesting. like you got to be Have you had all your shots? like Let's make sure you're all vaccinated and then like don't eat, I guess.
01:07:58
Speaker
you know, too much before you leave and then make it a short trip and then oopsie, actually, let's go to prison. Yeah. Yeah. mar Yeah. Which I'm curious how they are handling that then because it's like... Me too.
01:08:13
Speaker
are you going Is there going to be a quarantine when they come back? like what's the What's the plan there, I guess? Or is it going to be one of those cool in concept but too impractical for the story to really divulge? Maybe so. It's fixed it's like it when you play D&D, you don't think about bathroom breaks because no one's talking about bathroom breaks in your fantasy novel. you know My son asked me about that recently. He was he reads the Wings of Fire graphic novels. He's like,
01:08:41
Speaker
do dragons poop? Because they don't talk about it. and like you know I bet they do. But it's just not force. The fire in their belly burns everything. right you go god they was that well leave it Leave it to a kid to ask good questions. well how bad did eat that's true The burning questions that we all want to know.
01:08:59
Speaker
Exactly. He... he He is at that age where poop jokes are the funniest thing. So, you know. you know Well, i mean I, in fact, love him for it. oh That age and also our age. I was going to say what? I'd say it doesn't hasn't change. He's gotten to the age where poop jokes are permanently funny and it's irrevocable. Irreversible now.
01:09:21
Speaker
Irreversible. It's too late for him. That's great. Alrighty. Through the portal. Let's go. let's go All righty. 14.5. meeting and debate with Shin proceeds. Ashley takes the floor and is offered rulership.
01:09:40
Speaker
Breakthrough is sent away, has an awkward conversation with Chris Marquis and the Dallans. Carol asks for help. Hmm. Another bit that I liked. I really did enjoy. Yeah. Uh,
01:09:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, really, really good bit that I enjoyed here. um The debate, the way that Miss Militia is like, they have different ways of debating, know, sort of the the mirroring. um So grateful, of course, Ashley picked up on the fact that offering rulership was a trap. um Yes, my God.
01:10:20
Speaker
You know, like, wow, like just such a different it. I like the way Victoria describes it, not in her exact words, but in the sense of like, it's like playing a game, but you don't know the rules.
01:10:31
Speaker
Yeah. And you're having to figure them out as you go. But so you feel like you're losing the whole time because you're like, I don't know what's happening. And should have sent Brennan Lee Mulligan. There you go. He would have figured it out real quick. Right. Just send in Brennan and Matt Mercer and they'd be fine. Oh, bless.
01:10:50
Speaker
But yeah, no, it's, it's fascinating. And I do like this power dynamic, the push, the pull um of the conversation of like, if you offer a bit about yourself, you're actually inviting them to offer a bit about themselves. And then it becomes like, like a measuring contest of who's had more trauma, you know?
Diplomacy in Earth's Shin
01:11:11
Speaker
Yeah. You know, or who has the better accolades, so to speak. Right. Yeah. But also, like, it takes some to get some. Like, if you want your opponent to be honest and truthful, you have to be honest and truthful. And if you want your opponent to have to give up part of something maybe that they're not so willing to give up, you give up something that maybe you're not so willing to give Like, I love that. I think that's really cool, actually. Mm-hmm.
01:11:38
Speaker
yeah Oh, and the handshake thing? I think the handshake thing is really cool. that you put your You shake hands with your hand out, but your other hand is behind your back, but it's not a closed fist. It's an open fist to like show you're not hiding anything.
01:11:50
Speaker
I think that's really cool. Tease in chat. Thank you. Oh, no. Y'all, I have chat up over here. a future reference, if you have to ask, is this the part where? Yeah, don't ask it. Look it up.
01:12:04
Speaker
Don't ask it. Just Google it really quick. Now I gotta not look at chat for like 30 freaking minutes. You're fine. Come on, you guys. I've been doing this for I don't know how many episodes.
01:12:16
Speaker
And the the idea of like a question is a challenge, I think is interesting. yes Yes! You're more giving statements back and forth, but when you ask a direct question, that is a direct challenge.
01:12:30
Speaker
I was like, that's interesting. like i i like this cultural set it's it's fascinating and i think he handles it well where it's like it hits that perfect uncanny valley of like this is a human culture but it's a different human culture that we don't understand and i i like that it it feels foreign and alien in a way that i think we haven't seen enough of in worm and ward even and i like that because even in ward like we've gone to a couple other planets but it's either our old planet or a new planet, but inhabited by people who we already know.
01:13:06
Speaker
And so it's not a different culture. So I, I appreciated this. It was good. Yeah. ah It's also, was say, cause it's been nice. We've been traveling to other dimensions in worlds and whatnot.
01:13:17
Speaker
Um, but those have always been, basically just the wilderness of the same world for all intents and purposes. Like all of these corner worlds might as well just been Gemmell. Yeah. Right.
01:13:34
Speaker
But this is one of the first ones where we've been to. And like you said, it's a different world. It's yeah the same thing as the travelers coming EarthBet and going, oh, this is not where we belong.
01:13:51
Speaker
yeah But even the travelers didn't feel that alien to EarthBet. They just felt like yeah they were in the more parallel dimension, so to speak, right? This feels like more alien, and I like that. I feel like the closest we've gotten to this is probably um the interlude with Valkyrie where she takes on that robot tower. That's probably the closest feeling I've gotten where I'm like, okay, this is an Earth, but it's an alien Earth, and it felt that way. Yep.
01:14:18
Speaker
yep So fun. I really love that. Like, good world building to me. And ah what world building that isn't just like, oh, things are different. Everyone has a third nostril. Like, no. But, like, the cultural stuff to me is so interesting. Like, good world building to me is that culture. It's that there's an understanding that, like, every choice that's made that feels weird, feels off, it feels different,
01:14:45
Speaker
has a root in something that we may never know because we're not reading it on the page because it's not necessary for us to know right now here in this scene. But that, like, Wild Bo, I'm sure, has an entire 100-page document just on Shin. And, like...
01:15:02
Speaker
What deviant, d deviations, there we go, not deviant, deviations happened in the culture and like even in the continents where they talk about like, oh yeah, well there's this random ridge that like popped up between North America and somewhere else. Like, well their world has this extra land mass that like ours doesn't have. And I just, oh, it's so much fun. i i love that because it feels so rich. It feels so much deeper. And that if you dug at it, it would just keep going down. It's not just like, oh, yeah, this is a bit a foot deep. Like, no, it's buried 100 feet deep. And if you keep digging at it, there's more yeah that you don't even see, that we don't even see. I love now
01:15:41
Speaker
I do really enjoy the world building there with the, ah like you said, body language, social, literally just where they stand when they talk.
01:15:52
Speaker
that's so cool only thing is I but i like my my mental theory is that Wild Bo doesn't have anything else written down he just sits down and writes and everything is in his mind and he's got he's just winging it the whole time but it's just working it's all just bullshit I mean I can see that too I can absolutely see that too but he's just got a yeah steel trap for a mind and it just all works ah If anyone could do it, it would be Wild Bo. God, man. like That boy, he knows what he's doing. Goddamn.
01:16:26
Speaker
Yeah. True. All right. How about that convo with the fam? Yeah, cheese. and yes And Chris.
Awkward Family Dynamics
01:16:38
Speaker
and mark Is this the scene where Kinsey goes off on Chris? that's the next. I think that's the next. That's in 14.7. It's in the summer.
01:16:49
Speaker
okay yeah Oh, good. ah Yeah. um A lot going on here. I don't even remember when stuff happens in these family conversations. I just remember it being like so awkward and just feeling the palpable awkwardness.
01:17:08
Speaker
Yeah. it start i mean It starts with they're all kind of on two separate sides of the room and and Victoria starts pushing to be like, well, what the fuck did you do, Amy?
01:17:22
Speaker
And they keep her dad and Chris um Marquis And Chris keeps stepping in and talking. And she's like, shut the fuck up. I need to hear from Amy. I need to hear Amy say it. I grew up with her. I know when she's lying. That's why I'm asking her. And she's a terrible goddamn liar.
01:17:45
Speaker
boof Yeah, and that's in more in the next arc, or next chapter a little bit, but... um But yeah, no, the setup too, though, of right prior to that conversation is Carol walking over and like writing the word help on the glasses on the window. oh wolfff no Yeah, that was a ah crazy little ending there. because i was and you You don't really get if it's like, who is who she asking help from? like is it yeah Is it Amy and Chris or is it Shin? like
01:18:17
Speaker
You know. All the above. All the above, probably. Yeah. Well, let me let me read 14.6, and that'll get more into that conversation Hannah just mentioned. um yeah I think that's where the meat of it all happens. 14.6, Victoria gets freaked out and finally talks to Amy, who claims to have things handled, but is still making the same mistakes.
01:18:38
Speaker
And Luis orders the team's arrest. um
01:18:45
Speaker
Yeah. But... but yeah Chris and Marquis Marquis Fuckquist, whatever his name is. They're just the worst. And I hate them both so much now. I have lost any love I had for Chris is gone. 100%.
01:19:07
Speaker
Gone and dead and buried. gone and dead and buried Yeah. I did love... It's somewhere in one of these chapters, like you said, kind the conversation kind of blur a little bit here, but where he you realize, Wadbo writes that, like, Chris thinks that they don't know who he is yet. Yeah, he doesn't know. Until Kenzie just drops it and his, like, facade just fades. He's like, aw. Yeah.
01:19:31
Speaker
of a... Dang it. yeah I did love, though, um the brief conversation between Marquis and Ashley where he's like, I could go for a nice cup of tea. And she's like, what kind of tea? And he's like, oh, anything at this point. She's like, I'm so disappointed in you, Marquis. Your standards really have fallen. i know So far from what they used to be. i i really... i cant appreciate That little bit, I was like, i yeah. I i still...
01:19:59
Speaker
I hate the Marquis connected to Amy, but I still like him as a character. Oh, he's a great character. Would be if he wasn't trying to enable... As Bernard asked, which of the three parents would be considered an enabler to the Red
Parental Failures and Redemption
01:20:13
Speaker
Queen? the answer's all three of them. All of them. yeah And right now, like in... Yeah, ah honestly...
01:20:24
Speaker
ah Carol and Marquis basically serve the same purpose in terms of their enabling. and ah Which is, I've been a bad parent in the past, I'm trying to make up for it now.
01:20:38
Speaker
Yes, 100%. They give the barest amount of pushback on them. Like, you need to rest. That's about it. um Her dad, just because of probably lack of us seeing anything, would probably put some better boundaries down if Carol wasn't there.
01:20:59
Speaker
Yeah. and Or if he had the energy for it. I feel like he still gets gets sidelined by like the... i don't know. I feel like Flashbang is a capable cape.
01:21:12
Speaker
ape But he's exhausted as a parent. He's just like, I don't know what to do at this point. like um yeah I mean, and you've got adult kids, right? You've got to let your adult kids make their own mistakes, so to speak. but so Do you? You're kind of past the point of boundaries, I guess, where it's like, now, now, Amy, go to your room.
01:21:31
Speaker
No more mutating, ladies. dinners to ah No more mutating blonde people. To borrow a sentiment from another discussion thread about the pit, also talking about ah a pair of bad parents. um But I think it applies equally here to, like, ah Mark and Carol, where it's like Mark's good cop to Carol's bad cop, if you will.
01:21:55
Speaker
But he's nicer, but he's still a cop. But he's still a cop? That's what I was going to say. Yeah, so like... and They're both responsible for the mess that everyone's in here. Even if you can be a little more sympathetic to his plight, he's he's still he's still got some you know blood on his hands.
01:22:17
Speaker
so Yeah, yeah, yeah. and Yeah, exactly. um As some people are saying in the chat, it's kind of like, you know, I think Maybe Carol's like, you know what? Maybe my daughter Amy is not in the healthiest place now. I was like, yeah, I think clearly like they think... Come on, Carol! Oh my gosh, Carol's dying. We need to take her to the best healer in the universe.
01:22:40
Speaker
And then you get there and you're like, oh... Oh, no. Yeah. we're we're we're We're doing, as somebody pointed out, we're all suffering in these times because Carol is learning about parenting at age 45. Wow. Yeah, for real. yeah it's It's interesting because, like, it makes me see, like, oh, Carol, do you see that there's a problem with with her now that you've spent an extended amount of time with her?
01:23:05
Speaker
Because all of your previous interactions with her were very peripheral. And yet it's easy to defend a person that you don't know very well. It's a lot harder to to defend them when you're around their constant bad choices and are seeing it firsthand. Like, no wonder Carol's like, oh, yeah, something's wrong with her. Like, Carol, you've been stuck on a planet with her since she fixed you.
01:23:30
Speaker
And you've seen it firsthand. And now, oh, yeah, something's wrong with her. yeah woman we know exactly I mean I'm glad you're getting there but geez I mean it it really is like um the avoidance of the problem is what Amy keeps getting away with right where it's like yeah when she did what she did to Victoria back in Worm she's like take me to the birdcage I can't be trusted instead of facing the problem and trying to fix it
01:24:03
Speaker
Here with Shin, it's kind of a similar thing where it's like Amy encrypted. Cryptid's like, let's go take over goddesses planet. And Amy's like, instead of dealing with the problem I've created, yes, I will go to this planet with you, Cryptid. Let's go to another planet. Yeah, know yeah it's it's the avoidance of the real problem. And of course, then Marquis and Carol end up being...
01:24:27
Speaker
The worst enablers, which is funny because i a lot of this for Carol, I feel like, comes from the place of, well, I was a bad mom to her, which is why she ended up this way. So now I'm trying to make it up to her by showing her a lot of grace and being thoughtful and you know trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. And it's like, it's a bit late for that. you got to You got to make some hard lines and some hard boundaries. And yeah it's not easy to do, but man, it's, yeah.
01:24:54
Speaker
I don't know. I still i still have and and this may shock some people, but I still have this little glimmer of sympathy for Amy because being the kid that was never wanted, i feel like is like this little grain in the back of her mind that is just still going to be there forever. You know, that interlude way back in Worm when we first realized how Carol and Mark became parents to Amy with all of that. I'm just like, oh my gosh.
01:25:27
Speaker
yeah pretty fucked up. oh yeah you can have i mean Sympathy for sure. She's a complex character and very well written. so like You can have you can have the you could feel bad and and all of that while still recognizing that she's worst person and to be in a prison cell. Exactly. that's That's what makes her a compelling villain. exactly In a foil to Victoria.
01:25:48
Speaker
Yeah. Why not both? don't know Spanish, Michael. yeah right why not both i don't know spanish michael Alan loved it a lot. That's why I said Alan says it all the time.
01:26:01
Speaker
Rachel, yes, I have seen the Am I the Asshole post as Carol. I didn't really... I didn't believe that Wild Bo wrote it himself. I thought it just a... Oh, that's random person.
01:26:13
Speaker
um i do I do like... Go ahead, Anna. i was just going to say, i'm I'm a very big believer in the fact that like when you're in therapy...
01:26:25
Speaker
Therapy should be ah a good way to see yourself clearer. should be a good mirror your own problems and, like, recognizing, like, yeah, you're right, I do have this issue, and this is a pattern of behavior. And I think that, like, ah big thing for me in my own personal development is recognizing certain problems that I have, and I can see where they started from my past, from my childhood, right?
01:26:53
Speaker
You know, tell me about your childhood. Well, I can, and it explains a lot about who I am today. But it's my personal responsibility as a functional adult who has a partner and friends and life and interacts with other people on the daily that it is on me to make sure that I'm aware of the the the faults that I have, the issues that have tripped me up from my childhood that are of no fault of my own.
01:27:20
Speaker
ah you know, of circumstances that were outside of my control. It's on me to now change my own behavior or change my thinking in order to function as a human being on this planet. And like, I think the one of the greatest things about therapy is being able to see what those things are in yourself, recognize what they are, and then have coping mechanisms and ways to like work on them. yeah And Amy... is Amy, obviously, really unfortunate background. Really unfortunate the way that things happen for her, of course. But she has one of the best, most helpful superpowers and is in a position to have a lot of really good things. And it's like, um my frustration my biggest frustration with her is that she cannot see herself clearly.
01:28:13
Speaker
Even though countless times things have gone wrong that have been her fault, that are tied back to the same problems, and she's just like unable to see it. And I think that's what annoys me the most about her is like her own inability to see herself. Yeah.
01:28:29
Speaker
And that drives me bonkers. As Rachel just said in the chat, she said, During my first session of therapy, my therapist told me change is going to have to come from me. Amy's biggest problem is she wants change to come from everyone else.
01:28:44
Speaker
Literally, Rachel, we are of the same mind. How did you... I wasn't even looking at chat. and We are the same. We're having the same thoughts. Yeah. And once again... Go ahead. No, no, no. Go for it.
01:28:57
Speaker
was going to say, once again, Wild Bo does what he does best, where he sort of reconstructs tropes. and Because there's like there's a really underutilized trope that I really like a lot, but you don't see it too often, which is the like ah the the eternal redemption that a villain or anti-hero has to dedicate their life to because of what they've done. Where, oh, I fucked up for so long.
01:29:21
Speaker
I have to, you know, just repent for the rest of my life and do good deeds forever, that kind of thing. um And like, it's not a justification for the bad, but it's like the only thing they could do, you know, other than...
01:29:36
Speaker
go back in time, right? um Yeah. You don't see it too often, but I like that trope a lot. It's an interesting character direction. And here I feel like, again, we sort of half get that with Amy, right? She's like, like you said, she's she she she wants to do the right thing. She wants to do good, but her motivation behind it and her sort sort of so Like you said, the therapy, the self-healing is just backwards. So it's not complete. It's not correct. She's just never going to get there the way she's going.
01:30:12
Speaker
Right. and And there's this, you know, I'll get a little bit Christian-ese on this. There's this concept of metanoia, the changing of mind. ah not in just a very like simple sense of like, Oh, I think this and now I think that it's like a, a think change of the mode of thinking completely. Cause oftentimes when people deconstruct from like a faith, all they do is go into whatever the next thing is with the exact same mindset. If they were a fanatical Christian, they usually become a fanatical atheist when they deconstruct yeah um the, the,
01:30:50
Speaker
The method does not change whatsoever, just what the subject was. right And to that end Like if Amy started doing things differently, um if she had better habits, which she talks about, like, hey, I've stepped away. I have people support system that tells like, keeps me in check and yada yada.
01:31:15
Speaker
And like, if I get tired, I start making, going to make mistakes. I have all these things in place. Like I i have a better habitual lifestyle. Yeah. However, the methods by which she's going kind of don't matter because her mindset is still so absolutely goddamn terrible.
01:31:37
Speaker
It would take a Amy touching herself on the back of the neck to change her mind. level of metanoia going on to switch her around.
01:31:49
Speaker
Like this is more than just like Amy has to want to change her, her habits. Amy has to want to change who she is. And there are, I mean, Chris is one of those people were like,
01:32:04
Speaker
you can get Chris to be nice. You can get Chris to want to do all those things, but until you get Chris to want to change who he is fundamentally as a person, which is an asshole, nothing's going to take.
01:32:19
Speaker
And Amy is like the worst case of that. um And you know what? Everybody else near, near to ah Amy does need therapy and also Amy.
01:32:30
Speaker
Right, exactly. For sure. yeah Everyone needs therapy. Everyone needs therapy. I'm a but very big proponent of therapy. Everyone should be in therapy. You learn so much about yourself and the people around you. It's good thing.
01:32:47
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's one of the things that makes Rain... Rain, I don't really think changes up how he thought. When we talk about like, oh, I was one of those people who was super racist and homophobic.
01:33:00
Speaker
From the sounds of it, he just kind of felt like he was going with the flow. Like, it really... Like, his mindset never really seemed to be one of hatred.
01:33:14
Speaker
it just seemed to be one of... Survival? Survival. And guess what? Now that he's out of it, it really doesn't seem like, I said, yeah like his mindset in terms of who he is as a person has changed. But it also didn't seem like it needed to change. I mean, not to a terrible degree. Like, maybe a little more self-confidence would not be terrible. but Yeah, there was ah with Rain, there was kind of that base level of...
01:33:46
Speaker
seemingly this base level of like sympathy it seemed where like they talk about how he was uncomfortable around Tristan because of what he'd been taught about yeah yeah homosexuality and but how he was able to kind of quickly get over it when he realized like oh you're not what I've been told you are right you know kind of a parallel to many real world experiences right yeah And so, yeah, so there is that kind of base level. Whereas with Amy, it is that, that woe is me mindset that needs, that is inherent to her that needs to change.
01:34:26
Speaker
Um, as I didn't want to miss it, Fran pointed out a while ago that in the chat that, um, And Amy didn't even really fix Victoria until Capri literally mind dropped her. Like you will fix her right next to yeah Victoria. yeah yeah yeah Amy making up for her mistakes is literally like kind of a gun pointed to her head of like, fix your mistakes. And then she's like, all right, fine. Jeez.
01:34:53
Speaker
Yeah. um And so it's a, don't know. Yeah. There's, there's that kind of base. Yeah. um Who knows? and don't know. It's a lot. um And we see, unfortunately, at the end of this section, you know, kind of as I think J-Man said it sarcastically, it's like, it's sad the world won't allow Amy to change. Is that like, yeah you know, some people the world won't allow you to change. And I'm like, well. It just sounds like a 13-year-old petulant child yeah like running yeah from the room so they can listen to Evanescence again.
01:35:26
Speaker
but but you so hear me mom Evanescence is slaps. But other than that, yeah. Once again, Evanescence is great. That's what everybody was listening to. Also, doubly so. You weren't wrong. I just had to point it out.
01:35:41
Speaker
Just had to make sure. it's um Oh, so J-Man, her altering criminal minds ah for the for the really evil super-powered people. um o You know... ah I agree.
01:35:59
Speaker
Really uncomfortable. I'll make, let let's play devil's advocate here for a second and say, just to make an argument, um, is the going through the process of an extensive amount of rehabilitation, ah to various degrees.
01:36:16
Speaker
Um, we've got one being the prison system in which they literally like physically torture them and break them down. And then like, you know,
01:36:28
Speaker
build them back up into the person that's good for society. ah and, um, or just like outright, just touching them on the back of the head and saving all that time and trouble and taxpayer dollars.
01:36:41
Speaker
Um, you know, yeah I'm, I'm sure Gary could make a a shitty case. It's a shitty case for, it's still horrible.
01:36:53
Speaker
it is It is horrible. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It makes me think of Alan and I are watching through the second season of Fallout right now. And I won't say anything because no spoilers. But if you've seen the second season of Fallout, I feel like this is kind of a question.
01:37:07
Speaker
Like, well, if you could just magically change your behavior...
01:37:13
Speaker
Wouldn't you? could just take all of these villains and Amy could just little' do a little tippy-tap and that fixes them and now they're helpful people of society. Wouldn't we want to do that? And it's like...
01:37:27
Speaker
um And I'll be honest, it always comes back down to, I think for a lot of people, who's making the decision on what's helpful for society. Because I think a lot of people would be very okay with being like, yeah, if we could fix all that, then I don't see why. And, you know, there's a lot of people that are in the prison system now that have a lot of mental problems. Yeah.
01:37:55
Speaker
And if yeah that's, and partly that's why they're there because we're bad at addressing both. Um, what if you had an Amy that could go in and just be like, and they don't need to be in prison anymore.
01:38:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's... That's kind of a good deal to make, it feels like. Yeah. feels like. Because again, yeah. It feels like that's a quick solution deeper, systematic problem. Exactly, yeah. It's ah it's kind of a band-aid on a bigger problem in a way. oh yeah. Free will and all that. Who needs free will if you can just follow the law? True. but It's hard, though, because, um you know, like like you alluded to, there are...
01:38:38
Speaker
ah mental illnesses that are true illnesses, right? Like, they're not just... They're nigh-equivalent to a physical illness. There's a case for those, Apple.
01:38:50
Speaker
Yeah, like, if you could... Like, you can take an antibiotic to cure your strep. Like, if you could take an... and a literal antidepressant. is like, take this twice a day for seven days and you'll no longer be depressed ever. it's like God, if we can start putting lithium back in the water, I think we could cure some some political parties. and Yeah. Wow. what Oh, my God.
01:39:14
Speaker
Jesus. Okay. come We gotta keep keep you moving. we're almost to It's almost 10 o'clock. and must We can't fix all of society's issues. We gotta talk about the prison. so Speaking of society. Once again, were we're torn. Do we go over?
01:39:32
Speaker
Or do we let Alan be right again? are you right Right, exactly. yeah yeah yeah We're trying our best for it. We can't let Alan be right. That's true. 14 boys 7 go ahead Nick in in that vein let's just let's just put 7 and 8 together yeah yeah i mean they did they work together yeah they're both before we before we finish ah do we want to talk about just mention ah ah quick show of hands who remembers who Hunter is I was trying so hard to remember okay
01:40:04
Speaker
Good, good, good. That's another point. ah Nick, do you know? You look like you know. got us idea okay Hunter is... Vicky is way back at the hospital. She's doing the crisis points where she's going through the children. my gosh!
01:40:24
Speaker
Yes. And yeah she's and there's the one boy she meets at the end right before she goes flying with that other that other kid. And the boy says, hey, not me, but I have a friend who who may have had something happen. So she Vicky reaches out and gets, I believe, tempera and ah ah somebody else to the know wardens or somebody to reach out and talk to her.
01:40:51
Speaker
um Eventually, that girl does go to an asylum. I forget where exactly ah because it's really, really rough. um But apparently she came here to to get treated by Amy. And guess what? She's blonde, fuck her and athletic build.
01:41:09
Speaker
And, you know, ah Amy has a bad history with that phenotype. is I did like that moment where that was kind of the moment where where Mark and Carol sort of clued in for a minute where she was like, okay, so who was your problem? Was she also a a young blonde woman? Yeah, it was like, yeah, please tell me she wasn't a young blonde. Yeah, that's what it was. And in the room, like, u and Amy, like, um ah that has nothing to do with it. And everyone's like,
01:41:37
Speaker
Oh, shit. my God. And then she said, that's where she has the confrontation of, like, who was it? And then she was like, this girl named Hunter. And she's like, I know Hunter, you bitch. Like, yeah yeah tell me you didn't know that I knew her. well that makes you so Yeah, that you didn't use the knowledge of our relationship as a way to gain her trust. Because fuck you if you did. And Amy's like, i didn't. And no one believes her. Amy's a liar. She's a bitch.
01:42:07
Speaker
and sure be That's another point right there. More reasons why I loved these chapters. So good. Let's go. Amy is such a... like we We always talk about world-ending villains you know in in every story, that they're the big bads. And to all have somebody like Amy who you know could she in the world probably. But like Her evilness is just, she's so irredeemably shitty.
01:42:39
Speaker
And, but it's, it's not from a person that you consider shitty. She's not like an abusive boyfriend where there's like a, a violent angle to it. Like, or like a feel that you would normally have. This is the younger, more vulnerable, less strong sister Who's just so much having a pity party that she is the ultimate evil. like Right. Yeah.
01:43:09
Speaker
Like she's the the person. Yeah. Jack slash yeah has no real arguments about him. And, you know, is kind of, you know, some people stand him, but whatever. Like, but Amy is such a, he is the villain.
01:43:25
Speaker
Like all the time. Yeah. Regularly. yeah Interesting. hey Nick?
01:43:36
Speaker
Well, on to 14, 7, and 8. Oh my gosh, but we have a bingo already. oh snapskies. Rachel, horny Vista is horny. carrie ah Carol has really outdone herself. Someone forgets who Hunter is, and Nick goes full parent.
01:43:52
Speaker
I'll allow it. Fair enough. Well done. Excellent work. well Well done, well done. Since I've gone full parent, I'll say to you, job, buddy.
01:44:06
Speaker
Proud you. to go, champ. yeah Way to go, champ. Good one, slugger. Slugger.
01:44:18
Speaker
Where are you going, cowboy? I love that. Yeah, what's the, from Iron Giant? For the rest of my life. The, like, montage of... Hey, camp slugger. Where are you going, cowboy? Where are you going? I'm going out. Yeah, that... either ah Exactly. That's a great... ah Best animated movie of all time. Anyways, 14, 7, and 8, I'll throw together. it.
01:44:43
Speaker
As Rachel said, thanks, Dad. You're welcome. All right. The heroes cooperate with their remits. Thanks to the father to all of us. yes Yeah, you know, if I can be a positive father figure in your life, I'm happy to be. Aw. 14.7. The heroes cooperate with their arrest. Shin plans to humiliate and possibly torture them. Kinsey swears at Chris and sends out some messages.
01:45:09
Speaker
Hell yeah. 14-8. The group rests in prison. Kinsey hacks the cameras. Vista hits on Byron. Ka-chow. The group gets attacked at breakfast and Citrine arrives on Shin.
01:45:23
Speaker
Ka-chow. ah cha this is the ah I feel like we were talking about it recently but speaking of the road to Eldorado the road Eldorado the meme of where it's like you will be taken and flogged and then when we arrive at land by god you will be flogged some more more willing you will be flogged again that's the vibe I'm getting from Shin Prison it's so good Yeah, that's gotta be like one of my favorite lines. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. i You will be repurposed, civilian. Exactly. Love it. Love it. Oh, man.
01:46:04
Speaker
And it's it's an interesting idea for prison and punishment, right? Where it's like, we don't really have many rules, but if you screw up... Is that Beckford? That's Beckford. He's just in the palm my hand right now. He's the loudest purr. I'm sorry for anybody who not expecting all of that sound to happen. Yeah, that's a purr.
01:46:28
Speaker
Dang. So question to the gang from J man, speaking of prison, would you rather decades of us prison or two to three years of the extreme torture prison?
01:46:40
Speaker
um I, I feel like here's the thing. If you're, if we're talking like two decades of American prison versus two years of extreme shin torture prison, I have not been to prison.
01:46:53
Speaker
yeah However, yet, you know, still time, still time if I want to go. um you know We'll see what the next few years hold career-wise for me. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. You almost got put your last podcast for showing your feet, bro.
01:47:09
Speaker
That's true. That's true. I almost got put morning jail for showing feet. Yeah, almost did. I've got a nasty blister on the bottom of one of them now. No, stop. You can't just be giving away that for free. Please. um eight I don't know. I know I've heard prison is bad, but I've also heard the quality of prison life in ah in the United States varies wildly. varies well you know Because, like everything, we run it like a corporation. So if you get...
01:47:42
Speaker
You know, if if you get, like, the, you know, the Harris Teeter of prisons, maybe it's not so bad. But if you're in the Dollar General prison, like, you know, it might be wrong. Jeez Louise. You're not wrong. That's exactly how it works. It's like... Yeah. you ah yeah Privately owned, publicly funded. Just something like a California Beach tax evasion prison. I'll be fine for... a couple of days Yeah, exactly. you know I mean, it's so again, it really just depends because it it does feel like, OK, you go to prison for 20 years.
01:48:13
Speaker
That's most of your life. That is pretty rough. So I probably would still take the two intense years. But man, is it going to think I probably would as well? Like, oh, yeah, shit. if I can be guaranteed life in all my limbs when I would get out.
01:48:27
Speaker
yeah I would say two intense years and there's no like lasting consequences after. Unlike if you went to prison here and then you can't get an apartment anywhere. Yeah, exactly. exactly that That's an issue too, right?
01:48:41
Speaker
is um Yeah, this prison, but the the idea of Shen of being this like world of like This feels like, speaking of like people's dreams, this is like the end goal of libertarianism, right? It's like this idea of like, we don't really have laws, but man, if you screw up, we're going to, we will repurpose you. Failure to the wall. Yeah. Jeez.
01:49:03
Speaker
You will be a responsible citizen by the end of your term. yeah see See, the end goal here would be that they're not in a prison of any kind to rehabilitate. They just get put on the work farm.
01:49:14
Speaker
Well, you lost your right to vote and to do anything, so you are just going to make money for other people now. Yeah, exactly. As John Locke intended. um Oh, boy.
01:49:27
Speaker
Yeah. um It's a rough-seeming go of it. There's some clever things that I like here. i like the hiding of the cameras from Kinsey. I like yeah you know the switching out with the armor. Yes. I was just about to say that. I love the Capricorn switch-off. That's so much Capricorn switch-off is clever. Very cool.
Kenzie and Capricorn's Collaboration
01:49:50
Speaker
The scene, of course, in 14.7 where Kinsey yells at Chris and it's just like finally reveals like we know who you are and you're just a sad little man who will never will never be happy.
01:50:05
Speaker
oh What's the, how's it go from Toy Story? That you are a sad, strange little little man. And you No, Kenzie gets props. but I think, honestly, this whole these these eight chapters are like the Kenzie and Ashley show.
01:50:22
Speaker
And with like a with like a side appearance of Vista, gets some shout-outs as well. Yeah. but yeah Yes. Yeah. they have They had the highlight moments for sure. That's great. They really did.
01:50:35
Speaker
Oh, something we didn't talk about, too, with Capricorn and Kenzie is Kenzie finally finished her tech show. to let Inside Blackboard talk. youre right Holy shit! I just remembered that. She was like, oh, hey!
01:50:50
Speaker
Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. No, I'm just going to say, I'm like, I really hope it's like that Microsoft text-to-speech voice, a though. Whereas...
01:50:59
Speaker
and So the the way I read it at first, i got I want to reread it again. It sounded like Kenzie was just repeating what Tristan was saying. Yes, um mean it's like text on a screen, and he was just reading out what he was saying, basically. She was she was doing like her his voice. he was She was trying to mimic. Oh, I was going to say, I didn't think that that's what he was saying. i thought that that was just them going like, oh, look, my thing. oh look, it's totally working. I'm Tristan. Like that thing. like I didn't think it actually worked.
01:51:31
Speaker
Isn't that what... Because Sveta does that earlier, where she's like, oh yeah, my phone, and then she like puts it up to his head, and she's like... She does the whole thing where... And he swaps out, and Tristan's like, don't you fucking ever speak for me again. And everyone's like, whoa! You nailed it Yeah. That's hilarious. I forgot if Kenzie actually got it working or not. I don't think...
01:51:55
Speaker
I didn't think that she got it working. I thought she was like, hey, by the way, I i have something that works. And he's like, oh my god, really? And she's like, yeah. And they're like, okay, cool. Let's go to Shin real quick. yeah yeah i think We haven't gotten to use it yet. Yeah, I think we we got the text version of it, but not the full version of it where you can see them, right? Because she said, like, I got the one where you can transmit thoughts, but just we can't see them yet.
01:52:17
Speaker
ah Which she said she finished, but we just haven't seen it activated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, good times. Hmm. Coming soon to theaters near you. Tristan and Byron also talking at the same time. god That would be great.
01:52:31
Speaker
um I did also love, you know speaking of shoutouts, Vista hitting on Byron. But in the most... like forced way of like, hey, look, it was like we don't have much time.
01:52:42
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Hitting on in the sense of like blunt force trauma hitting on. Yeah. Look, I think Vista did nothing wrong. I think that is. No, no, this is the right way. No, I think it was good. Vista, 10 out of 10 best pickup lines.
01:52:57
Speaker
Honestly, I wish more people were this straightforward. don't have it raw. Just be honest. Be like, hey, I really like you. And I know that this is complicated, but I'd really like to try and make it work. And if you don't want to make it work, tell me. And then we can move on from that. like yes the words that come out of your mouth. And the more you talk, the more I like it.
01:53:16
Speaker
That was great. I might even say I find you attractive like a dark knight. He's like, oh oh, that was that was cute. The what a casually explained guy to show up like, is she into you?
01:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, you really can't tell here. it's It's kind of, you know, she could just be really nice. It's it's hard to say. Yeah. yeah a Compliments are hard to interpret coming from women.
01:53:42
Speaker
No, i do I do. There is something to be said, though. Like, i any point at this point in the cape dating scene, I have to feel like at some point you're just like, listen, we know we're all a little loopy in the head.
01:53:54
Speaker
ah Nothing's working quite right. Life is short. ah There's no such thing as an old cape, as we talked about last time. So yeah this is all we got. Let's just ah yeah get busy banging or get busy dying. Right. Exactly. Basically. Jeez.
01:54:12
Speaker
No, Fran, to answer your thought, if I thought that scene was arcs ago, honestly, I think it was 14.2. 14.1 or is when we saw it. um which is but yeah Yeah, it was earlier on. It was earlier on. We just forgot about that monumental moment. That's huge important thing. yeah ah We can talk about the breakfast attack, though, because that involves one of the most viscerally painful descriptions of an injury I think I've heard in a long time.
01:54:39
Speaker
Oh god. With Victoria getting a wire wrapped around three of her fingers and the skin The de-gloving. Yeah, if you've been watching The Pit lately, you know what that is. Yeah, I've been watching The Pit, but I know what it is. That's two Pit references. That is two Pit references. It's because it's a really good film. I can experience real life de-gloving depending on the career I choose in life.
01:55:04
Speaker
Where i if I'm, why would you choose that? Well, if I move into like workers comp or general liability, oh i mean I would get to witness injuries. I thought you were going to experience it. I was like, what are you doing? I mean, depending on the career I get into, I could experience that as well. but i thought you were very Like I said recently, my career options are open in the future. Could be in prison. Could get degloved. You never never know. You never know. i hope Michael, I just like to keep my options open, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just really a aim for the stars.
01:55:38
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Oh, boy. You know, if you if you shoot for the stars, then maybe at least your fingertips will make it to the moon. You never know.
01:55:48
Speaker
That's the old saying. That's the old saying. ah My God. Yeah. Yeah. oh hes louis yeah Yeah.
01:56:01
Speaker
Gross. Gross. Yeah. Not much more to say except they're like having to reread this the first time I read this and do like a ah like a double take of i say one yeah yeah say what? Because it's like, they're like, we need to get medical attention. Yes. Good. We need, you know, Theo, especially poor boy fell into a wire. um Like we're like, we need to get medical attention.
01:56:29
Speaker
Amy's job is to keep us healthy. Do we trust her enough to touch us? Like, no. yes So I'm sorry. Speaking of my own things. oh I think this came up the last time that Theo got it mentioned, but just to bring it back again, because i just can't see it until they say it every time, but our boy is freaking huge.
01:56:48
Speaker
Yeah, apparently. He's a he's a fucking brick. is kaiser involved like Was Kaiser big? I don't feel like they ever described Kaiser as being not it's not a large man. I mean, i I think they do say he's... Should ask you, Nick. What do you mean? what Like 6'2". But he's just like...
01:57:04
Speaker
I mean, used to use in the fan art I have of him, but that's just a fantasy, Michael. I He is the fridge. That is correct. He is a fridge. he is afraid Throughout all of Worm, I only picture him as this tiny, scrawny little dude trying to survive. And then by the time we get to Ward, he's just, he's jacked to the point where it literally says they're scared of him because he's so big. yeah yeah because they They even said when he's like 15, when he's first babysitting, that he's kind of like this chubby, you know, over, like slightly overweight. When Taylor's like starring with him.
01:57:37
Speaker
well And then we get to Taylor sparring with him, what, two years later or whatever? Yeah. That's not even the two years later. That's, you know, but two months later because of how quickly everything moves. yeah And then she just whips his ass into shape. And he doesn't thin out.
01:57:55
Speaker
yeah All he does is get bigger. Yeah. it's like the it's like It's like the joke from Parks and Rec when Chris Pratt, between seasons, got hired by Marvel, so he had to do the whole workout routine. Between seasons of Parks and Rec, he goes from like super fat and flabby to like just this fit model. right And the throwaway line is like, what happened? He's like, I just stoped i just stopped drinking beer. That's all it was. It's like how they justify it in-universe. Which makes it hilarious because had be drinking so much beer.
01:58:27
Speaker
for it to that much. Yeah. yeah just says Kaiser was fit. It doesn't say he was thick AF. Yeah. It's probably a lot of supplements too.
01:58:40
Speaker
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. um But yeah, that is I do appreciate a good... i do I do stand Theo. I like him a lot. He's a good boy. he's so good He's a good boy. He's got a new costume.
01:58:54
Speaker
we he doesn't have costume we he talk We didn't talk about that. He has a new doesn't have the weird fins anymore. He's got the black obsidian armor. Victoria compliments it. it's like That's a good look for him. yeah Yeah. Which, you know, you get a compliment from Victoria.
01:59:07
Speaker
that's a That's a big deal. She knows costumes. She knows costumes. I want to go back to just one second because J-Man mentioned it. The description of the fucking fingernail being how the skin is hanging on.
01:59:21
Speaker
Yeah. Like she loses to and it's hanging on at the fingernail. We had moved on. Sorry, I yeah had to read that because, you know, just to get well. Yeah.
01:59:36
Speaker
Fair enough. Also, Bernard said, doesn't feel as bad as the Gru fridge Slaughterhouse Nine description. And I have to say, obviously, that was horrible. The de-gloving.
01:59:48
Speaker
i think a i think the difference is, right? Like, I i can't imagine what happened to Gru happening to me. Yeah, I can't picture it. I mean, i can imagine what happened to Victoria happened in my hand. Like, I've yeah definitely been in circumstances where, like, I had something tied around my fingers too tight, and I'm like, hmm, that's dangerous. oh It's not the reason I don't wear anything. I've shut my finger in a car door before. I know how much that fucking hurts. oh yeah Yeah, I... ah
02:00:22
Speaker
yeah like my alls have been aching This whole this was the passage when I first read it that made me go, I've never heard that term degloving before.
02:00:33
Speaker
And I don't need an explanation because it just no exactly is exactly what it sounds like. Yeah. no
02:00:44
Speaker
and Horses are apparently really good at it, I've heard. if you What did you say? said Horses are really good at it, I've heard, apparently. If they catch your hand.
02:00:56
Speaker
and oh Also, the blurred background yeah also made it really funny. Your fingers are just gone. We've got a horse farm down the road. Oops.
02:01:09
Speaker
ah yeah Bonnie took the carrot a little bit too hard. Flap home! Flap home! no no i like I like to give it to him. like I want to want to just go.
02:01:23
Speaker
I like to tickle the inside of their noses. no so you yep That's how you lose your fingies. Once again, he's going to prison soon. Don't worry, guys. the they have it i'll be on the pipe do we think there's going to be a fight in the next chapter?
02:01:40
Speaker
Oh, yeah. it's It's coming. I mean, Citrine's here now. I hope there's a fight. Citrine's here. power Wherever Citrine is, that's your Number Man is nearby. Number Man follows. ah Which I do love. as a As another throwaway bit from Gary, he he's like, Citrine's got money. We don't know from what. And i'm like, well, the Number Man's the husband. He's just good at investing. We know from what. We know from what.
02:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. oh which But I still love that he's kind of a secret. Like he's her secret weapon. yeah and this like Everybody's like, we know Citrine's a cape, but we don't know how she's getting her money and Number Man's just cackling in the corner.
02:02:17
Speaker
yeah ah All six of them. Just typing vigorously, adjusting glasses. He's got the classic anime thing where like he looks down and the glasses turn white. that yeah yeah yeah That's because he's Kyo-ya-senpai, first off.
02:02:33
Speaker
He is Kyo-ya! It's a Citrine's Toma key. But it's the over in the corner like they don't even know I'm number man. Just making investments in the corner. And the clones too. Don't forget there are also a couple of the clones too. so you got a bunch of number man harbingers running around. They're all just piles and piles of money. The Harbinis.
02:02:58
Speaker
her The Harbinis. All five of them. They're a package deal. yeah As J-Man said, I really like the little prison fight. I like how they had to be subtle in the flexion of power, which I did appreciate. you It was like that the thoughtfulness of, you know, can I do this without being seen? was good. Good usage of it. the yeah or The Theo doing the fingernails through the the wire.
02:03:25
Speaker
Yeah. Woof.
02:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, um, no, that... What did he do to the wire? I was trying to follow what he did to it. i was, like, really impressed with it, but I was like, what did he actually do? Did he just control it for a second with his his powers? How did he... What did he do? I'm trying to remember. Yeah, he puts his his hand, is like, his fingers on the wire, and then his fingernails come out over where she's holding the wire on the other side, and, like, scratch that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
02:03:57
Speaker
Genius. Genius boy. Um...
02:04:05
Speaker
And then Vista just making the floor like, you know, not have traction or, word you know, however, she decided to like make an infinite amount of space between the bottom of the person's soul on the floor. So they essentially take that last step down the stairs they didn't expect.
02:04:20
Speaker
And like a slips immediately falls over. She just steps on them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was good. It felt like a a Vista. Can you, kid like, we're all getting stabbed over here. Fine. Ends fight immediately. yeah Yeah. Are you not entertained? Slashes the hand. or Are you not entertained? this is not what you want? The blood.
02:04:41
Speaker
yeah at least You know what I appreciate though? She was smart enough to slash the back of her hand because that's the thing that always bothers me in movies is people slashing the front of their hand. like that's right but That's terrible. Don't do that. you'll know You can't use that hand for weeks.
02:04:54
Speaker
Here's the thing. All I can think of is I've got fat old fucking veins on the back of my hand yeah and this is meat. ah meat I'm going to tell you all now as your resident witch, if you need to do a blood sacrifice of some kind, a blood ritual, or slashing of any hands, here is going to be your best bet in terms of don't go crazy now. Don't slash the middle of your palm. That's really not going to be a good time for you. Back of the hand, also not great.
02:05:23
Speaker
ah Right below the thumb is your media section on your hand. That's where I recommend doing any slashing if you must. and Not to say that you should Yeah. yeah yeah Just don't don't don't go crazy. they need you You need your hands. Just a quick chunk.
02:05:39
Speaker
Don't. yes i'm okay We'll all move on Back to our blood sacrifices. i think I think I'm good. I like giving blood in other ways. Thank you very much. I've got a couple vials. Some people are you know all about that piercing damage and not about that slashing. okay what it's true It's true. Pierce me anytime.
02:05:58
Speaker
yeah for blood. and All right yeah right. Drain my veins, Red Cross Daddy. Anyways. is that I think we're right at about Alan wrong time. so ah excellent. yeah So we can wrap it up now.
02:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, i was going to say. so i draft ah Alan didn't have that much to say, so he was right about that, but we've been... rest of us and We had a lot to say. and i had a lot i mean now In defense, we we got off topic bad for a few minutes. i mean this This episode in particular has been 50% ward content, 50% whatever comes into our heads with our collective ADHD brain. Blood and X-Men and what a time.
02:06:44
Speaker
Therapy. You know what? My DoorDash still isn't here. think the Machine Army got him. Oh, yeah. He gone. Oh, He gone. All right.
02:06:55
Speaker
Well, right yeah of course, ah prepping for next week, we will... Well, two weeks, my bad, which is the... 30th. 30th. We finishing
02:07:14
Speaker
a fourteen Yep. So beautiful. um We'll see what stunning conclusion we come to after this. But before we leave, was there any, I guess we didn't really see any cool powers or anything shown out.
02:07:32
Speaker
ah no new powers. um Yeah, just some same old, same old. um ah That answer might change next time. yeah so Any predictions for next time?
02:07:45
Speaker
We have suspicions Lewis has powers. yeah yeah I really want him to get outed as a parahuman just because I think that would be very interesting Shin government. um You think he has powers?
02:07:58
Speaker
I've been on team Shin government has had a Trump cape somewhere. yeah Some sort of power. Vicky thinks he has powers. yeah It would make sense if somebody does. Yeah, if he says something about it.
02:08:11
Speaker
It would make sense that somebody, a survivor from Goddess's government, had powers and hid them after the fall of god Goddess, or had subtle enough powers that they weren't noticed and could blend in with the other victims. Well, we've yeah we've talked about it before, how how with how ah clumsily Goddess handled everything at towards her end, that like a whole world takeover...
02:08:36
Speaker
is kind of crazy so it would make sense that there was some little card in her back pocket some some cape with a trump power or something like that that yeah made it easier for her that's now in the hands of the so government either in the hands of the government or they are manipulating the government to their own ends still right yeah exactly exactly right First off, y'all playing a dangerous game, but I appreciate the subtlety ah in chat. Second... It's not that subtle. I saw it. It's not that subtle. I have my own opinions, but whatever. Yeah. Y'all drive me
02:09:12
Speaker
You don't know. Congratulations, Truett, with the... ah with the bingo. We got someone who forgets who Hunter is cat on screen. Amy has really outdone herself and Alan rants.
02:09:24
Speaker
um The ones that we didn't get this round was milk. Poor Kenzie, Jacob access cinephile. um What is going on? Someone forgets who Victor is and Hannah cries.
02:09:37
Speaker
Oh, I did cry. The very beginning. The very, very beginning. When we were talking about Sveta and her new body working out, I definitely... The other ones we got is Hornovus. Michael always clocks it. He's like... i know. I can just tell. is D-gloves squick.
02:09:57
Speaker
um Is Gary w right? um And Michael has to wrangle the gangle. going yu Good ones. Good ones. Tombstone.
02:10:10
Speaker
Yep. Boy, he really wrangled that gangle. He's a gangle wrangler. yeah know I don't like that. yeaham As always, ah oh one last guess. ah Who do you think is going to get the interlude at the end of the arc?
02:10:26
Speaker
Yeah. we're gonna have you know We always have a good interlude in these. Maybe there's more. An Amy Lude. Ooh. I could see an I want another Dot Lude.
02:10:38
Speaker
Give me another Dot Lude. Oh, that would be interesting. I'd like that. I do like Dot. What about, okay, before, did we get a Citrine or a Numberman interlude when we had it earlier during the election? It was both. Was it both? No, think. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
02:10:54
Speaker
it But I wouldn't mind another Citrine one. would be I wouldn't mind a Citrine. i will say and Boy howdy, would I love an Ethan interlude? Or an Annalise interlude. That would certainly be fun. I i could foresee a Louise interlude as well. yeah getting a good on one That be interesting. Um...
02:11:14
Speaker
And then ah but as far as the prediction goes, Victoria's all worried about them doing the teacher raid without them there. And my goodness, if Wild Boat did write the teacher raid without Breakthrough there, I feel like that'd be the biggest disappointment. So I know that's not going to happen anytime soon.
02:11:31
Speaker
i mean, would it be a disappointment? I mean, it feels like we've been building up to that, even if like... You know, Teacher's not the best villain. I feel like it's... but Unless i don't hate it happens off-screen goes horribly, and then Breakthrough's gotta redo it correctly. Sure, yeah, like, that would be fine. That would be fine. And they're dealing with the aftermath of it, but I just, I feel like there have been enough times in Ward where the heroes have been sidelined. Our heroes, in particular, have been sidelined. i just hope that doesn't happen.
02:12:02
Speaker
um Yeah, Taylor put herself at the front of every conflict in work. And it feels like I've been put to the side more than once, and I'm just like, yeah wait for them to get there for this, please. For a breakthrough, it's like late to the party constantly. They're like, we're here, and like, oh, we already cut the cake. Like, we already we already hit the pinata. And they're like, oh, but I brought my my pinata stick. And it's like, too bad.
02:12:27
Speaker
ah To fill out the last minutes before, you know, our average 1030, I do have something I've been sitting on. I forgot to do last week. So, um in Worm, there, you know, the name Worm, we have ah the, i like, the physical controlling bugs, but, like, also the like the worm being like the shard creatures, but also the way the shards worm their way into humanity and like starting at nothing, being a worm and working your way up to being this, you know, you know, like the entities with the worm, know, that's our scale, if you will.
02:13:09
Speaker
um you've got multiple meanings of the word worm going on. um And I hadn't really thought terribly much. I've thought a little bit about that for warm worm, but never much for ward.
02:13:21
Speaker
um But I saw a post um ah from ah about... Specifically the chapters we were talking about with Sveta, her interlude, going back to her, um the show she draws on herself and how that is something that she did back when she was human, that they drew, you know, like penises and stuff on the wall. But it was like sort of this weird, you know, ah it was a ward, if you will. Yeah.
02:13:52
Speaker
Warding. And they, you know, they talk about this and they post just another example of the meaning of the word ward present.
02:14:03
Speaker
And it made me think of like, I've always thought of the different meanings of the word ward for this, never in like a really diving into it. Beckford, I need you to move.
02:14:15
Speaker
Okay. get up there um But I'm to go over a few of them and you tell them you just kind of take in and what you think of this.
02:14:27
Speaker
um So, Ward, the action or process of guarding. um Other parts, a body of guards.
02:14:39
Speaker
A division in a hospital, much like the asylum in which... are like you have a Like a pregnancy ward? Yeah. yeah yeah um ah Or a large room in a hospital where a number of patients often requiring similar treatment are accommodated.
02:14:59
Speaker
Like the therapy group. The state of being under guard or in custody. which we have with like Kenzie and also being like watched all the time by a lot of people, including Victoria being kind of put in charge of the test you know custody of this little group.
02:15:22
Speaker
um The inner court of a castle or fortress. Where are we right now? But a little fortress. In fact, a castle and a skyscraper. Which under that 3B, a division such as a cell block or a prison, which has come up a couple times.
02:15:40
Speaker
um Four, a division of a city for representative, electoral, or administrative purposes.
02:15:50
Speaker
Peace. I'll move down for the local congregation of the Latter-day Saints, Division of English or Scottish Counties. um Five, this is a more interesting one. a projection a projecting ridge of metal in a lock casing or a keyhole permitting only the insertion of a key with a corresponding notch.
02:16:16
Speaker
Which, I mean, I guess we could talk about the ah The ward in that case, the like frequency that required them to like unscramble the people's body parts being separated.
02:16:29
Speaker
That was a whole sequence of like trying to get them to use that ward, that notch in the key to find to unlock the everybody else. um Six, a person or a thing under guard, protection, or surveillance. much Again, Kenzie is like all of those things all at once. A minor subject to wardship.
02:16:48
Speaker
We have literally the wardens as a group. um A person by reason of incapacity is under the protection of a court, either directly or through a guardian appointed by the court, ah which kind of makes me think about both Amy and Vicky, um where they went after Worm. Yeah.
02:17:13
Speaker
ah and then a person or but for body of persons under the protection of tutelage of a government. um And then finally, a means of defense or protection.
02:17:24
Speaker
um You've got some others to to move, tend, face, direct in a direction, um spatially or temporarily, and then ah to turn aside or to watch over.
02:17:38
Speaker
um I think there's a lot of big moments in this that you can just circle ward kind of overlapping throughout the entire thing. Everything from the one prison to another prison to the asylum to what they're trying to do in this city. Every fight they have is a warding.
02:17:58
Speaker
know, you know the the like yeah I just thought it was a really interesting idea to start going through this and think about cool the concept of the word ward in the story.
02:18:17
Speaker
ah You're right, Bernard. We don't typically talk about the Ark names um when we start or end the Ark. And, you know, I'm sure we should go into them more.
02:18:31
Speaker
But, ah like, for Wyrm, I actually don't think they were that important. Like, they do theme, like, gestation and what all that, but I feel like they're they're generally very straightforward with what they meant.
02:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, I thought with Wyrm, they were just bug words, but then if there was a time when it could be a little thematic, he was like, oh, I'll use that word. yeah I mean, all of the Ward ones have been light-related.
02:19:03
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and i would i would argue for Ward, they are also... While they are cool enough that we should spend probably 60 seconds talking about them, you know, two minutes, I've never found them that interesting to talk about because they are...
02:19:24
Speaker
I think so straightforward. I think going up like breaking. We're at a breaking point. Yeah. Yeah. If any of them stand out to us, we'll make sure to address them. Yeah. But so far, none of of them.
02:19:37
Speaker
really have been super yeah compelling to talk all comes back to eggs, like you said. It's back to the eggs, yeah, for real. um Fran, if you want me to rate the Pale Trio, I will do that some other time. I will even jump over into the Community Hangout and the Patreon for an exclusive to give my two minutes of quick notes yeah right after this ends.
02:19:58
Speaker
but We can do it right now. Yeah, that's true. I'll do it right now after this.
02:20:05
Speaker
I really am trying to get you to that 1030 mark. You got to give the patrons their, you know, yeah exactly what we promised. Four minutes of outro music. All right. i mean, do we have any any thoughts on what what we're about to walk into for the second half of this arc?
02:20:25
Speaker
i I'm anticipating no fight, honestly. I think it's going to be a little bit of the rug pull there. We'll just kind of see. o So Train will calm things down, get him out of there. That's kind of what I was thinking as well. I don't think there's going to be a big fight.
02:20:38
Speaker
I'd like for there to be one, like some big heroic rescue, but I i don't think, I think it's going to be more diplomatic than anything else. We'll see. Yeah, we tried to do favorite powers, but there weren't really. There's something really new here. No new powers.
02:20:55
Speaker
Yeah. Can't favor what we don't have. Just being awesome, pretty much. This is awesome. Prison time skip. you know This would be the time to do it. Somebody gets an eye patch. you know This is a Ward Gaiden. Things have changed. right yeah yeah Exactly. Kenzie kense gets the eye patch.
02:21:15
Speaker
Yeah. day ah She would. ah Got to cover up the eye needle somehow. yeah She gets the imp treatment. Yep. Oh, man. all right All right. Let me play this music. Thank y'all. You guys have music guys have been hilarious and amazing in the chat today. So glad all of you could make it.
02:21:37
Speaker
And let's go. Patreon. Please come on and join the Patreon. Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come support us and join the Patreon.
02:21:49
Speaker
Please help us and join the Patreon. We have
02:21:56
Speaker
Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come on, come on Join that Patreon for the time of your life
02:22:15
Speaker
Hey, i love the lights, Alan. um All right. So we're going to finish the rest of 14. So nine through the end on the 30th in two weeks.
02:22:26
Speaker
And we'll be at this time, Bernard. is the new normal time, whatever it is for you. Still eight o'clock for us. But yeah, six months, next six months. We'll try and keep you posted when it changes back. yeah she's Sorry about that. You guys are the best. Thanks for all the fun chatting. Please come on and join the Patreon.
02:22:50
Speaker
Why don't you just join the Patreon? Come support us and join the Patreon. Please help us and join the Patreon.
02:23:01
Speaker
It's great. Join the Patreon. Why don't you just find a Patreon?