This blog is starting to get big enough that it's a mild chore to navigate, so I'm gonna go ahead and make a little table of contents
Everything beginning to end is here
For individual arcs, check below. Bear in mind this will be under construction for basically the rest of the run.
Arc 1 (Gestation)
Arc 2 (Insinuation)
Arc 3 (Agitation)
Arc 4 (Shell)
Arc 5 (Hive)
Arc 6 (Tangle)
Arc 7 (Buzz)
End of Part 1: Overall Feelings and Character Impressions
Arc 8 (Extermination)
Arc 9 (Sentinel)
Arc 10 (Parasite) <- We're here rn
Every time I finish an arc I summarize my feelings on it in a post, which you can find in order here
Every time I finish a major section of Worm, I make two posts as a sort of checkpoint for how I feel generally and what I think about each character (that matters). That can be found here
For the posts where I talk about other things or else chat with people, check here
So winter has been a fuck and I’m losing my job next week bc every store in the county is shuttering, but I’m not dead yet. We’ll see what happens when there’s marginally more sunlight and all.
Welcome back Taylor, missed you, glad we come back to immediately find you waist-deep in moral sketchiness.
Never let it be said that Wildbow doesn't know how to establish a scene. You can feel the desperation and despair in the mounting heat and filth of the city streets, and of course Taylor's power means she can clock that better than a lot of other parahumans.
There's something very sad about the fact that Angelica is the last dog standing from the original three, and that even then she's still fucked up from the damage Fog did.
And of course Rachel probably puts a lot of blame for that on having saved Taylor's scrawny ass at the cost of Brutus and Judas, plus the other six dogs. Even if she would've made that attack on Leviathan without Taylor there, I'd be shocked if that association wasn't there.
I swear to god the official word for this liveblog is "bleak," but I'll stop calling things bleak when they stop being bleak, how about that.
Siblings!
Yeah, what I said earlier.
The fact that Shadow Stalker actually seems to respect the Undersiders more for being hardcore as fuck is. A little funny. Like okay, I guess her worldview has some consistency.
Also yeah, gotta be weird to realize you were going to school with a murderous vigilante. Can only imagine how Winslow students would feel about realizing Taylor was goddamn Skitter.
I'll admit it, this feels bad. Sophia deserves comeuppance for being a violent murderer but what she's about to be put through is beyond the pale. Genuinely one of the most fucked up things that has happened in this story so far.
But we'll get to that later.
Siblings!
Tattletale managing to be the peacemaker for once, which is a little funny.
Grue being exasperated by Imp is funny, but then it gets sad again when he looks over at Skitter because. Yeah. They'd actually gotten along okay for the most part, until the kiss and the Nazi attack, and then Armsmaster tried to ruin the relationship further and mostly succeeded.
The fascinating thing with Taylor is that she's also pretty uncomfortable with the moral lines she's crossing and how fast she's crossing them, it's just that she's really good at not letting that discomfort slow her down.
Quick overview of the Undersiders' current states, courtesy of Taylor's goddamn panopticon abilities. Also: puppies!
This was scary as fuck on the first read-through, and this time it's more... I think Alec has a bad sense of humor. Again, raised in a cult, so it's hard to know what's appropriate for comedy and what's, uhh, using your bodyjacking victim to falsely threaten the life of a teammate, but still.
Freaky as hell.
Current Thoughts
Regent's "secret weapon" turns out to be the scariest goddamn power of any Undersider, so that's. Something.
The group's tension with Taylor is palpable, even if it's just Brian and Rachel who seem to be feeling it with any heat. I dunno if Alec is one to forgive things easily (doubtful) or if he's enough of a pragmatist to let Taylor back in with relatively little complaint. Maybe it's a mild thing compared to the trust and loyalty he's used to with Heartbreaker's kids. I'll be curious to see whether Brian or Rachel relent first, because I think it could go either way.
Hoo boy. This arc. Thiiiis arc. I can't believe I'm feeling bad for Sophia goddamn Hess, but we've found a way to do it.
Remarkably, an entire arc where the POV isn't Taylor Hebert is still a pretty bad time for those involved.
I like the Brockton Wards, mostly. Vista is by far my favorite of the bunch because she's cooler than all of them and also a middle schooler, and honestly that's super fucked up. I like Clockblocker, Weld, Flechette, I got a little annoyed with Kid Win being so down on himself but he was basically fine, and Shadow Stalker.
I'm sure we're going to get more Shadow Stalker in the next arc or two, unless they just bury her in wet cement next chapter which I kind of doubt, but I want it now because I am desperate to find out what the fuck happened to make her the kind of person who legit buys into alpha/beta crap to the point of murdering people over it. Taylor hasn't killed anyone yet and this entire serial is about how she justifies ever-increasing acts of violence to respond to problems caused in no small part by her previous acts of violence; Vista getting first blood before her is a fucking tragedy and Shadow Stalker having multiple kills notched is a horror story. I need this to make sense, and also if we can avoid more weird racist connotations in making sense of this that would be great.
Didn't love the Travelers fight, like I mentioned. The investment wasn't really there for me, there weren't really any stakes to it so the whole thing was just kind of a space filler.
Shocked that the Slaughterhouse Nine are being signposted as early as this, too. Not that I'd put it past them to be in the Bay within a month of Leviathan, but I continue to be surprised at Worm's pacing. I don't think I'm gonna love that part of the story but if I can hold my nose through every interaction with Coil, I can probably handle the Nine.
Vista is. Okay for real though, what the fuck is happening with the Protectorate/PRT and throwing this middle schooler into constant life-or-death situations. She was at Leviathan, which, okay sure, pull out all the stops when the alternative is complete annihilation, make the birthday girl kill a man to put fifteen seconds on the game clock while we're at it. She was at the Empire's murderous tantrum alongside other Wards and New Wave, which I guess is because she's one of the only heroes whose powers can keep up with all the flyers in the Empire? Still wild choice there. She was instrumental in the disarmament of Bakuda's magnum opus mega-EMP along with Clockblocker, and I know he's the big name for the team but why didn't they just put Armsmaster on that to tinker the problem away? I feel like putting EOD duty on the teenaged public figures is an incorrect call someone made. I'd love to find out who, and maybe throw pieces of brickwork at them while they have to hold still. Can somebody stop throwing this girl into horrific combat scenarios as a government-employed child?
I'm going to keep pointing and laughing at Coil though, because the man is literally only succeeding at his infiltration of the PRT because they're letting him, and now he's only going to have a Ward as his own personal mole because they're letting him. Man wants to control an entire city and the whole thing would collapse if a single government organization stopped letting him take Ws he thought he earned.
I want to read those summaries of the studies done on that Dallon-Pelham clan though. Desperate to know if whatever insane WASP nuclear family nightmare goes on in those homes leaked into the research papers.
And then yeah, looking back at the ambush with Sophia. I was really glad to see the squad again, honestly, and it's great to see them working together, especially to take down a killer gunning for their own. A little funny that Sophia prides herself so highly for being a hunter of men and she fell for a classic ambush without even blinking.
Guess we get to find out what that's all building up to in the next arc, eh?
Also, armsmaster/dragon is pretty healthy? Maybe? If you squint.
I mean. Rachel did command her dogs to bite the shit out of Taylor the first time they interacted. I like Wolfspider well enough but that's not exactly a meet-cute.
I don't have enough data on Armsmaster and Dragon to really comment on that ship, but knowing Colin I'm automatically a little suspicious.
Is there a non-problematic ship in this series? I’m pretty decently fond of a lot of pairings so far, but I feel like it’s hard to have a romantic pairing with any of these characters where some combination of parahuman abilities, past interactions, and individual neuroses aren’t going to make things at least a little fucked up.
(I’m a firm believer in ships where you can ask “what is wrong with them” in varying tones of confusion, resignation, and admiration. They’re good for you.)
"Ugh, how dare crime be prevented so I can't beat the shit out of the people doing the crimes for my own catharsis" - sentiments of the utterly normal
This glimpse into the inner workings of these two has not endeared me to them any further, tbh. I think the time in which they can actually turn these impressions around is starting to dwindle.
So. Here's Sophia's worldview laid plain, and it's about what I expected. Might makes right, violence and desperation and greed are the true nature of humanity, everyone can be divided between sheep and wolves and she refuses to be a sheep.
Mostly I think I'm just curious as to what, exactly, shaped her to be this way. Like obviously whatever caused her to trigger is a factor, but I don't know if any parahuman has had a complete overhaul of their personality brought about by their power coming online; I suspect that she'd followed some version of this mentality before the worst day of her life (so far) proved her right.
I can't imagine Piggot would be thrilled that Shadow Stalker thinks so highly of her, or at least the why of it.
This is cool, though. Give Wildbow credit, he can make just about any sensation of using a power sound rad as hell.
*sighs* Fucking Nazis
At least Sophia is sensible about what to do with them
Another neat fight scene, this one is a bit quicker than the Travelers tussle so I kinda like it more. That and it involves beating the shit out of Nazis.
Ruh roh Raggy
hiimdaisy_adachi_murder.mp3
Oh yeah, why eliminate the villain who you know is a particular threat to you, specifically, when you can try to torment her first?
This isn't even me saying that Sophia should try to murder Skitter, bc obviously I prefer the latter to the former, but taking the whole thing of seeing her secret identity into consideration, the response to crossing paths should be "take her down fast and hard," not "put her back against the wall and make her panic"
It's gonna fucking break her brain when she realizes Taylor is Skitter, huh?
There's something really funny about how basically every outsider POV we've gotten on Skitter involves hating her ass. Truly cursed to be unpopular.
I like the logical weaknesses of Sophia's power so far. Things getting into her shadow form, like bugs, fuck with her ability to remanifest because she has to "shove" them out of where she's going to solidify. The electricity I'm less clear on, maybe just some quirk of what she's "made" of in her altered state, but it's a good way to explain why she can't just leap through buildings willy nilly. The thing with the gas/vapor absorption that gets mentioned in a second also makes sense and is pretty neat.
Hey Sophia do you maybe regret playing with your food a little bit
Also still cool to see Skitter's powers from the outside POV
God that's so cool
...Y'know, if these two could get over their bullshit for like, a minute, they could probably have some very cathartic hate-makeouts. More blood than normal for kissing but less blood than normal for their usual interactions.
Lol
Lmao
Nuts that what threw her off in this moment was looking for a secondary murder weapon to cover up her power's tell.
Also: get fucked Sophia.
And you fell for it hook line and sinker, because you're a petty tunnel-visioned sadist.
Got the whole crew doing the group pose, love to see it
Also: hi Aisha, glad you get to join the team, sorry you had a trigger event, hope the future scenes with you are less uncomfortable than your first one
Skitter is so fucking good at playing up the villain role, she really should be proud of the work she puts into it.
Not entirely sure why they're kidnapping Shadow Stalker, but I'm sure it's going to be another photo album moment for the Undersiders and their rise to prominence.
Concluding Thoughts
Y'know, a lot of trouble could've been avoided if Sophia just ignored that impulse to play with her prey. I'm not gonna be like "oh why can't she just rein in the violence" because every parahuman we've met so far is either a participant or facilitator of violence, but the cruelty is what's gotten her in trouble here. Not only did she only get baited into this trap because she refused to make an earlier attempt at the killing blow, not only did she take the bait of hunting down a lone villain while a PRT convoy was under attack by fucking Nazis, but the hostility might have been avoided if she hadn't gotten her kicks from tormenting and assaulting Taylor. If Sophia was just Emma's friend who hung back and watched as she tormented Taylor, things might've differently all the way back in the medical tent, but alas, she was a willing and gleeful participant.
Little concerned about what the fuck they're going to do to her, but there's nothing to do but wait and see.
Also, cautiously glad that Imp has arrived, she seems fun from what I've picked up via osmosis, again fingers crossed that her continued presence in this story doesn't involve nearly as much wincing as Tangle 6.3 because holy shit.
Every thirteen year old in this story is going through hell
Dear Parian, how do you puppet cloth dolls with boxing gloves on their hands?
Nah but this is nice to see them getting along with each other, and I'm glad that Vista gets to see something cute in such a blighted fucking time.
The background levels of desperation and fear in this setting remain very strong and evocative.
Gayyyyyy
Vista like "hey I'm not young enough to actually enjoy this, but I'm old enough to act polite about it"
God that's so fucking cool
Oh man who could have possibly predicted that putting a thirteen year old in constant life-or-death situations with people dying around her could possibly result in a warped perspective on death and dying, that's so weird
Oh man, who could have possibly predicted that enlisting a thirteen year old in a quasi-military policing organization where she's legitimately got seniority over high schoolers could possibly result in feeling distanced from her own age, that's so weird
So like, is there truly nowhere else to put the team portrait gallery than right where everyone sees them every time they enter? Just put them in another hallway or wing or something, especially if you're dropping bodies.
Still a little darkly funny that Browbeat doesn't even get a portrait, guy was straight up too new to even put in front of a camera
The idea that Coil has only managed to infiltrate the PRT at all because they're letting him infiltrate the PRT is. Oh my fucking God he's so bad at this. So far every win we've seen him take against other players is because they feel bad enough to let him have it. Coil, you have got to fucking hang it up my man, the minute someone decides to actually deal with you you're cooked
(It's almost certainly gonna be Taylor, on account of that child you kidnapped and forcibly addicted to drugs)
Okay so like. Hwoo. I keep talking about the expectations being put on the Wards in this fucking story but this is a really steep one. Let this fucking mole into your midst and let him do what he does. Let a tinker, a goddamn superpowered tech specialist, hang out where your stuff is.
I know they all agree to do it but they already all agreed to fight fucking Leviathan, Vista agreed to kill a man for seconds on the clock, we're waaaaay past the point where any boundaries might still be crossed
Hey you know what, self-awareness is good, it's healthy, I wish someone would let Taylor have some but that's fine
Okay, well, at least Piggot is willing to treat these kids a little like kids. And address some of the concerns that they have. And promise that she'll find some kind of compensation for the fact that these kids are going above and fucking beyond in their role as junior heroes.
Glad Kid Win gets a... win
and while I don't love Clockblocker making fun of Piggot, I get it. She's the authority figure in their lives, she consistently plays the role of bad cop with them. That's how it goes.
Okay so Vista turned thirteen on the day that Leviathan hit Brockton Bay, which means she's been at this since she was eleven, maybe younger. This now puts her pretty firmly in the same age bracket as Alec, and that might put her at silver or bronze for youngest known trigger event depending on how old Miss Militia was at the time.
Also, the fact that Vista has thrown herself into her career as a cape, at age thirteen, as a means to not have to spend time with her parents? That's bleak. I continue to maintain that she should be allowed to commit any misdemeanor she wants to and get away with it forever
So Hookwolf almost murdered an 11-12 year old and they truly can't just commit to having a single Triumvirate member sit on his Birdcage transport the entire way along just to make sure he actually gets gone? At least until they're out of the Empire's reach, surely, like what the fuck
Do the unspoken rules not kick in on attempted murder? Do you need a corpse to make it stick?
Jesus God, Sophia, I am trying to keep an open mind about you but so far you have just been such a jerk in so many directions.
Like obviously she's not doing well but what's the alternative for her at this point
Just gotta pick up the slack left by two older, more experienced(?) teammates who had a lot of hopes and emotional bonds riding on them. And Browbeat.
Does anybody on this team like Sophia?
Weld is good people. Also I think "empathetic" is technically the correct word unless the ability to warp space like putty also comes with emotion reading.
This is sweet.
Also, yeah, cry. It's good for you.
Godddddddd fucking dammit Sophia.
This is so unreasonably cruel to do to a teammate, never mind to a kid
"Bluh bluh life is pain, the real world is all about what's hard, suffering builds character" shut the fuck up Sophia, Vista put up bigger numbers against Leviathan and doesn't have a rusty knife in place of a personality.
Also "kids" girl you have at most three years on her
Big bad Shadow Stalker can't handle being the one under the microscope
Yeah no for real, the moment she gets provoked in a way even kind of resembling the way she provokes others, she resorts to acts of physical violence. Thin-skinned hypocrite, thy name is Sophia Hess.
Guess Vista's lucky she's not taller and more gangly or else Sophia would've tried to rip her ear off.
Current Thoughts
Vista is the PRT's strongest soldier and she is out there fighting their hardest battles. She also has not reached high school yet and possibly wasn't even in middle school when she first donned the costume. This whole system is a scam.
Cool to see Weld better settling into the leadership role, at least.
And then Sophia. Sophia, Sophia, Sophia. I don't know what the Undersiders have planned for you but right now I'm having a hard time feeling sympathy. Do unto others, you little maniac.
You know, I'm not sure if tinkers actually are "supposed" to be smart. The other examples we have to work off of besides Kid Win are Bakuda (constant state of fucking around and finding out until it killed her), Armsmaster (he of the dumbfuck raid boss solo plot), and Dragon (actually no notes on Dragon's relative intelligence), plus Chariot in just a minute here who literally only succeeds at being a mole because the Protectorate allows him to succeed as a ploy
I'll concede that they're adept engineers and scientists, sure, but you can know how to build a nuclear reactor and still be dumb enough to build it in your backyard. There's no single measure of intelligence that everyone measures high on, that's just not how it goes.
Then again like two-thirds of this chapter are lowkey about Kid having self-esteem issues so like, I get that he's being hard on himself. I feel like half the cape POVs we've gotten so far have self-esteem issues, never mind Taylor Hebert Queen of Self-Image Problems
I'm gonna skim over a lot of this fight like I had in 9.3, but while this can't feel good for one's confidence, honestly I'd mostly just be relieved. Like, yes, let the villains whose powers are Railgun and The Fucking Sun take it easy on me, that's fine, I like my body parts staying in the configuration they have.
Thank God he actually has a chance to feel like he's contributing, without the horror of accidentally killing someone
Wow, Trickster sucks. Why do they put up with this guy?
So, somehow I doubt he's somehow lacking in a specialty, but from the description of his apparent focus issues (plus the fact that taking medication to help with focus nearly took him out) I wonder if the way his tinker stuff goes involves having a bunch of little things, if the lack of focus is somehow a sign of what his specialty actually is.
Oh fucking boy
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (sarcastic)
Also I don't know why they specifically would go to cities that have already been Endbringered but there's a real "kick them while they're down" energy to it that I do not care for. Goddamn jackals.
Is it the "another tinker" thing or the "that wasn't Armsmaster" thing that he's more excited about lmao
Weld's adapting a little better to his role, and Clockblocker is able to keep his mouth shut and play along, so things are improving.
I dunno man, it's a citywide apocalypse, does bedtime matter anymore?
Hey what the
Fuck
is going on here
Tinker-to-tinker communication
Y'know, now I'm curious what the wages are for a non-Tinker Protectorate member. Obviously Tinkers can have it made if they've got something the higher-ups want, but is Miss Militia making enough to own a house? Is your income tied to merch sales?
Think this is the first time someone has outright said triggering as a parahuman rewires your brain to some extent. Curious to see further elaboration on that.
I think if you're gonna hire a mole, you should make sure they can lie convincingly. That feels like step two.
(Step one is "make sure you can trust this person to be a mole for you")
Fucking gottem
Well hey Kid, looks like you're pulling your weight after all
Current Thoughts
I do think Sentinel is a neat arc but I'll admit, in recounting and rereading this it lost me a little bit. That might just be the Travelers fight though, I could feel the lack of stakes to the fight like a gap between my teeth.
Kid seems like a solid character, classic impulsive inventor with an actual exploration of what that impulsiveness does to his work ethic and self-worth. I'm glad he gets a chance to shine here and I hope he figures out his exact specialization so he can stop being so down on himself
The Wards do seem to be coalescing into more of a team as things progress, sure would be a shame if the resident lone wolf was to fall for obvious bait and disrupt that or something.
Am I picking up on some frustration here, bc I think I’m picking up on some frustration here
Which, hey, fair, if character growth is contained largely or entirely in outside materials that feels not great
…Real talk, the extent of WoG and outside-canon notes for this series seems monumental and borderline impenetrable, not to mention kinda too-little-too-late. I’m not going to fault Wildbow for not being able to cram every possible detail into one story, like there’s no reasonable way to lay out every trigger event for every canon character, because that would make for an extremely clunky story. To some extent though, you gotta make peace with the fact that the blanks in your story are gonna be filled by other people and that they’re gonna come up with answers you think are wrong, or stupid, or contradict your notes, trying to fill them all in yourself seems like a good way to go insane.
Eh it's not even frustration, I just find it funny. He hasn't been granted blorbo status in my mind but he lives rent free just because of how funny I find his situation.
You know, I'm not sure if tinkers actually are "supposed" to be smart. The other examples we have to work off of besides Kid Win are Bakuda (constant state of fucking around and finding out until it killed her), Armsmaster (he of the dumbfuck raid boss solo plot), and Dragon (actually no notes on Dragon's relative intelligence), plus Chariot in just a minute here who literally only succeeds at being a mole because the Protectorate allows him to succeed as a ploy
I'll concede that they're adept engineers and scientists, sure, but you can know how to build a nuclear reactor and still be dumb enough to build it in your backyard. There's no single measure of intelligence that everyone measures high on, that's just not how it goes.
Then again like two-thirds of this chapter are lowkey about Kid having self-esteem issues so like, I get that he's being hard on himself. I feel like half the cape POVs we've gotten so far have self-esteem issues, never mind Taylor Hebert Queen of Self-Image Problems
I'm gonna skim over a lot of this fight like I had in 9.3, but while this can't feel good for one's confidence, honestly I'd mostly just be relieved. Like, yes, let the villains whose powers are Railgun and The Fucking Sun take it easy on me, that's fine, I like my body parts staying in the configuration they have.
Thank God he actually has a chance to feel like he's contributing, without the horror of accidentally killing someone
Wow, Trickster sucks. Why do they put up with this guy?
So, somehow I doubt he's somehow lacking in a specialty, but from the description of his apparent focus issues (plus the fact that taking medication to help with focus nearly took him out) I wonder if the way his tinker stuff goes involves having a bunch of little things, if the lack of focus is somehow a sign of what his specialty actually is.
Oh fucking boy
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (sarcastic)
Also I don't know why they specifically would go to cities that have already been Endbringered but there's a real "kick them while they're down" energy to it that I do not care for. Goddamn jackals.
Is it the "another tinker" thing or the "that wasn't Armsmaster" thing that he's more excited about lmao
Weld's adapting a little better to his role, and Clockblocker is able to keep his mouth shut and play along, so things are improving.
I dunno man, it's a citywide apocalypse, does bedtime matter anymore?
Hey what the
Fuck
is going on here
Tinker-to-tinker communication
Y'know, now I'm curious what the wages are for a non-Tinker Protectorate member. Obviously Tinkers can have it made if they've got something the higher-ups want, but is Miss Militia making enough to own a house? Is your income tied to merch sales?
Think this is the first time someone has outright said triggering as a parahuman rewires your brain to some extent. Curious to see further elaboration on that.
I think if you're gonna hire a mole, you should make sure they can lie convincingly. That feels like step two.
(Step one is "make sure you can trust this person to be a mole for you")
Fucking gottem
Well hey Kid, looks like you're pulling your weight after all
Current Thoughts
I do think Sentinel is a neat arc but I'll admit, in recounting and rereading this it lost me a little bit. That might just be the Travelers fight though, I could feel the lack of stakes to the fight like a gap between my teeth.
Kid seems like a solid character, classic impulsive inventor with an actual exploration of what that impulsiveness does to his work ethic and self-worth. I'm glad he gets a chance to shine here and I hope he figures out his exact specialization so he can stop being so down on himself
The Wards do seem to be coalescing into more of a team as things progress, sure would be a shame if the resident lone wolf was to fall for obvious bait and disrupt that or something.
Am I picking up on some frustration here, bc I think I’m picking up on some frustration here
Which, hey, fair, if character growth is contained largely or entirely in outside materials that feels not great
…Real talk, the extent of WoG and outside-canon notes for this series seems monumental and borderline impenetrable, not to mention kinda too-little-too-late. I’m not going to fault Wildbow for not being able to cram every possible detail into one story, like there’s no reasonable way to lay out every trigger event for every canon character, because that would make for an extremely clunky story. To some extent though, you gotta make peace with the fact that the blanks in your story are gonna be filled by other people and that they’re gonna come up with answers you think are wrong, or stupid, or contradict your notes, trying to fill them all in yourself seems like a good way to go insane.
You know, I'm not sure if tinkers actually are "supposed" to be smart. The other examples we have to work off of besides Kid Win are Bakuda (constant state of fucking around and finding out until it killed her), Armsmaster (he of the dumbfuck raid boss solo plot), and Dragon (actually no notes on Dragon's relative intelligence), plus Chariot in just a minute here who literally only succeeds at being a mole because the Protectorate allows him to succeed as a ploy
I'll concede that they're adept engineers and scientists, sure, but you can know how to build a nuclear reactor and still be dumb enough to build it in your backyard. There's no single measure of intelligence that everyone measures high on, that's just not how it goes.
Then again like two-thirds of this chapter are lowkey about Kid having self-esteem issues so like, I get that he's being hard on himself. I feel like half the cape POVs we've gotten so far have self-esteem issues, never mind Taylor Hebert Queen of Self-Image Problems
I'm gonna skim over a lot of this fight like I had in 9.3, but while this can't feel good for one's confidence, honestly I'd mostly just be relieved. Like, yes, let the villains whose powers are Railgun and The Fucking Sun take it easy on me, that's fine, I like my body parts staying in the configuration they have.
Thank God he actually has a chance to feel like he's contributing, without the horror of accidentally killing someone
Wow, Trickster sucks. Why do they put up with this guy?
So, somehow I doubt he's somehow lacking in a specialty, but from the description of his apparent focus issues (plus the fact that taking medication to help with focus nearly took him out) I wonder if the way his tinker stuff goes involves having a bunch of little things, if the lack of focus is somehow a sign of what his specialty actually is.
Oh fucking boy
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (sarcastic)
Also I don't know why they specifically would go to cities that have already been Endbringered but there's a real "kick them while they're down" energy to it that I do not care for. Goddamn jackals.
Is it the "another tinker" thing or the "that wasn't Armsmaster" thing that he's more excited about lmao
Weld's adapting a little better to his role, and Clockblocker is able to keep his mouth shut and play along, so things are improving.
I dunno man, it's a citywide apocalypse, does bedtime matter anymore?
Hey what the
Fuck
is going on here
Tinker-to-tinker communication
Y'know, now I'm curious what the wages are for a non-Tinker Protectorate member. Obviously Tinkers can have it made if they've got something the higher-ups want, but is Miss Militia making enough to own a house? Is your income tied to merch sales?
Think this is the first time someone has outright said triggering as a parahuman rewires your brain to some extent. Curious to see further elaboration on that.
I think if you're gonna hire a mole, you should make sure they can lie convincingly. That feels like step two.
(Step one is "make sure you can trust this person to be a mole for you")
Fucking gottem
Well hey Kid, looks like you're pulling your weight after all
Current Thoughts
I do think Sentinel is a neat arc but I'll admit, in recounting and rereading this it lost me a little bit. That might just be the Travelers fight though, I could feel the lack of stakes to the fight like a gap between my teeth.
Kid seems like a solid character, classic impulsive inventor with an actual exploration of what that impulsiveness does to his work ethic and self-worth. I'm glad he gets a chance to shine here and I hope he figures out his exact specialization so he can stop being so down on himself
The Wards do seem to be coalescing into more of a team as things progress, sure would be a shame if the resident lone wolf was to fall for obvious bait and disrupt that or something.
I'll acknowledge that it might be a little unfair of me to pick on the dead kid, but I dunno, it's something that stands out against the vast, bland landscape of him just being a really nice guy.
At this point here's the full list of things I know about Gallant
Nice
Wealthy parents
Apparently had an on-again-off-again thing going on with his girlfriend
One of those is longer and more interesting than the other two imo
Y'know, the irony here is that as I'm writing this post I've just started an online course with video lectures.
Solid bit of establishing characterization, an easy display of people's emotional ties and states.
Parahuman science must be so fucking hard to work with, honestly. Your subject matter is made up of a bunch of people with trauma-activated abilities that actively defy physics or other laws of reality, combination of psychology and whatever the hell you call studying outliers in how the fucking universe works.
Also glad people aren't just content to let the matter of parahuman origins end at "they just started happening." I know they haven't cracked the how or why of it in thirty years but I also know they crack it some time in the next two-ish years of canon, which should be interesting.
Also also, the inclination towards combat and conflict is... I know it's not going to be a long time until we talk about the "why" of that one either, but when we do I have notes for the designer(s) on these things
Oh, okay, so trigger events are talked about in a 100-level course, and Taylor straight up didn't know about them. Interesting? She really didn't give that much of a shit about cape stuff before stumbling into the life of a supervillain, huh.
Correlation between physical trauma -> physical powers and psychological trauma -> mental powers is interesting as well, although that leaves plenty of room for the edge cases. Glory Girl is actually the prime example there, too, brute and mover seem like the obvious tags but that doesn't cover the aura, which is I guess master? I'm less and less convinced that it was really just a foul in basketball that made her trigger tbh.
Also: I cannot even fucking imagine what the studies must be like about the New Wave families. Imagine writing your fucking thesis on the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus. Imagine being Victoria, Amy, Crystal, or Eric, and your family is being taught about in classes because of how "good" it is at inflicting superpowers on you. No I will not entertain the idea that either family is normal, parahuman psychology has so far shown zero signs of being healthy for anybody and it's not going to start holding back when it comes to child-rearing.
I'm not unsympathetic to what Clockblocker is stewing over, but the PRT can't let these kids dedicate every waking hour to crisis management; there will be a day where they're not dealing with a drowned city, and they might as well get ready for it now, and take time off from trudging through muck and mayhem as they do it.
Narrowing my eyes at the witch burning thing but I'm not going to harp on whatever the hell's going on there.
I think the gender divide makes sense but I don't know if it holds totally consistent in-story; the pre-Leviathan Wards and Protectorate ENE definitely leaned more male than female in its numbers, Merchants and ABB are two men to one woman, Empire is... eight men to seven women I think? I think as of right now the only teams we have that even have more women than men are Undersiders, Travelers, Faultline, and New Wave.
This is probably more math than I should be doing but whatever, don't use math in your story if you don't want someone checking it.
That's the same thing as Circus, right? Interesting that it's a known phenomenon.
He's doing his best, be nice.
Bunch of people are gonna be really annoyed when it turns out where powers come from because there's no way they could predict it from where they're standing.
Hwoof.
Oh, so that's Clockblocker's trigger event and power explained all at once, isn't it? I don't know if it's stated explicitly but "buying time in every way except for the one that matters the most to you" sounds like the kind of monkey's paw shit that powers love to do.
Now see, there's an interesting dilemma, isn't it. Family teams are all well and good (allegedly, given how parahumans work) but the moment one or more members die all of a sudden it's that much more fucked up for everybody. Even if the team persists past losing Manpower and Shielder there's no way they're gonna hold together after Amy & Vicky's Nightmare Extravaganza. One of the most notable independent teams in the setting with over a decade of experience, and in the span of a few months they're going from apex to nonexistence. I don't really have it in me to weep for the adults, see above suspicions about Torment Nexus, but I feel awful for the kids. Crystal is gonna be the last one standing until, what, Ward? That's gotta fuck you up good. Poor fucking girl.
And then the portraits. Hoo boy.
The portraits thing feels. I dunno. Do you have to put them right next to the other members? That feels like a really good way to get your underage parahumans even more fucked up about mortality if I'm being honest.
This is touching. Also fuck cancer.
Exactly what the Wards need, less open communication.
This is a hard conversation to have in a lot of ways. Weld is fumbling but he's trying, and the rest of the team needs to meet him in the middle for things to work out.
And. Ugh. I see an unfortunate side of myself in Clockblocker here. I've got an awful habit of going for low blows in an argument if I'm feeling low enough. I get mean, I say things just to make it hurt. I haven't done it in a long time, but it's still a thing I have done and can do if I don't watch it. With this at least it's an accident, or at least the extent of harm Clockblocker is doing is way beyond what he intended.
Clockblocker has the sense to fear Glory Girl in this moment, and she has the grace to forgive him.
And that's proof of who Clockblocker is when he's not at his worst. When he's not lashing out because of the active fucking wringer he's being shoved through, he's obviously thoughtful and kind; the lashing out is, uhh, understandable, but still a problem.
She's just a kid...
I talked about this with some folks on Discord, it's kind of remarkable to me that a guy with literal empathy powers couldn't hold a steady relationship with a single girl. I'm sure parahuman romance is its own special kind of fraught, but that's a little silly.
That said, it sounds like Gallant was good people.
This is very funny though
Oh hey, we have anger and futility coming back together again, haven't seen that for a minute.
Honestly I feel like the ones who try to be funny are usually the ones who've got so much shit going on in the background, anger is the least surprising thing to come from the team's designated funny one.
Good on Dennis for realizing how easy it is to use anger and how hard it can be to let go of it. Shit sucks.
Wuh oh.
This is gruesome, and a harbinger of things to come. Oh boy.
Fuck were the Travelers even doing here, anyhow?
Also crazy bold of the Wards to try and pick this fight. The Travelers have such outrageous firepower, I don't think there'd be much sense in picking this fight.
Skimming back through the fight, not a whole lot for me to say? I'm not super invested in it, I guess, it feels like there's exceptionally little actually riding on this fight. The Travelers want to fuck off and the Wards want to stop them from fucking off, the gallery fight had more meat than this.
"Oh thank god, a conflict I can throw myself into to feel useful and offset all the negative feelings that not fighting has left me stricken with."
That's not a criticism of Clockblocker by the way, if anything I'm just staring at the thing brought up earlier this chapter where most parahumans are driven into fighting each other and suspecting something of a connection.
Current Thoughts
I see some of my younger self in Clockblocker, which is ironic bc I actually had a superhero OC back in high school named Clockblock (his powers were a lot broader and his thing was more about struggling with overwhelming ennui in the face of his own significance in the grand scale of Time Itself). I hope he manages to get over that anger and hurt, but he's a parahuman, so I kinda doubt it.
Parian dressing up white is probably on account of her being incredibly conflict-avoidant and living in the same city as, y'know. a bunch of supernazis.
You know what, that’s a kind of unassailable argument, for one blissful second I’d forgotten that Brockton Bay was infested with Nazis
I don't think they were making fun of Kid Win for knowing so much about dolls cuz he's a guy. I think they were weirded out because he knows so much about historical dolls at all. That's some obscure knowledge.
Maybe. For me it just reads as like, Kid Win got curious upon hearing about Parian and decided to look up what the name means. Maybe ended up in a Wikipedia rabbit hole, or discussion on PHO, something like that. It doesn't strike me as uniquely strange to know if it's something that's come up before.
Hey Flechette, glad to have you aboard, please mind the bloodthirsty coworker
Interesting way of greeting people, Sophia. At least she has the decency to apologize, eventually.
Also crazy good reflexes on Flechette, holy shit.
Somehow I doubt she's going to only be stuck here for a month
Also God, Sophia is such a tryhard, it's kinda funny when she's not trying to kill somebody about it
Fascinated by the idea that you can tell whether a cape is the type to run across rooftops by vibes.
More exposition, this one to explain Flechette's power and the associated power ratings. With this, I get how she was able to wreck Leviathan's shit better than basically anyone else, "borks physics on projectiles" is a massive benefit. Girl's busted.
Describing Brockton Bay as jerky, awkward, and demanding feels appropriate lmao
Also oh no why do the out of towners keep thinking they should connect with Shadow Stalker, she's like the least friendly one
"Gotta wait for them to obviously commit a crime so we can swing in and kick them in the teeth" - definitely not a cop
Oh yeah, no threat from tranquilizer bolts, except I guess the fucking broken glass that can get embedded in the flesh, Jesus Christ
This fight feels harsh, swift, these guys are going down fast and hard and there's already two nasty blows to the neck.
Speaking of harsh and brutal, Jesus. Sophia really likes to make people hurt, huh?
The restraint thing is cool, very Spider-Man, although hanging people upside-down for an extended period of time feels... dangerous.
Also yeah no kidding Sophia is too comfortable with violence
So, I'm going to sidestep the ethical dilemma of "should someone who was very nearly victimized be allowed to kick the shit out of the people who almost did awful things to them" because I think that's a pretty delicate and complicated topic
What I'm going to focus on instead is "should government-employed superheroes deliberately allow the above to happen," and I'm pretty sure the answer is no? This is an interesting glimmer of sympathy from Shadow Stalker but it's coming at the cost of the physical health of people she's responsible for taking down; even if they're shitheads, even if they were going to try to rape that woman, it doesn't look any better for Shadow Stalker that they're brutalized any further than what it took to incapacitate them
So how's it going trying to make a friend out of the girl that's your age
Shadow Stalker literally calls herself a cop! She says it! And then she throws on "judge, jury, and executioner" just to really drive the point home! Protectorate heroes and Wards have the room to treat themselves as goddamn Judge Dredd in times of emergency, either because of tacit approval by their superiors or because of insufficient oversight! Both options are bad!
Flechette is smart enough to distance herself at least
The only real rebuke against Shadow Stalker's whole deal is that nobody who knows her especially likes her
Let's not shame a man for knowing things about dolls, hmm? We can do better than that
The detail about what a parian doll is is kinda neat though
Also very neat that she's a fashion student using her superpowers to make herself stand apart from her peers
That could've gone really poorly, holy shit
Goddamn, Parian takes this seriously.
Well, glad she's finding someone to connect with at least, for all that Shadow Stalker was a bust.
Being a conflict-avoidant parahuman has to fucking suck, good lord. No wonder Parian's on edge, she's acting as muscle for an entire group of survivors and probably on call the entire day, and she hates every second of it.
And so a spark is struck.
Wonder why Parian is dressing up to look white. Further obfuscation of her identity? Makes as much sense as anything.
At least Flechette is wringing some kind of benefit out of this ass assignment
Current Thoughts
Nice to more officially meet the both of these characters. Flechette seems nice and has a neat power, Parian seems nice and has a neat power. Wild to me that they're gonna be like, the token wlw couple in this story, there's already so much tension involving Taylor and other girls.
Shadow Stalker basically told on herself this chapter and will continue to tell on herself for the rest of the arc
