#8.8p1

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Sham / Shielder / Eric Pelham

Oh, never mind. It’s just too long for one side.

Smackdown / Jennie Ryan Snowflake / Charlotte Tom Strider / Craig McNish Uglymug / Velocity / Robin Swoyer Vitiator / WCM / Zigzag / Bennie Debold and Geoff Schearn

But they did catch themselves.

Also, interesting that Zigzag is given as two people. Were they a duo and the people in charge of this decided that since both of them died, they might as well just put the duo’s name rather than their individual ones? Or did they maybe not have individual cape names in the first place?

It was shorter than the other lists, the last list of names, so there was space at the bottom.  Someone had used the empty space to etch words into the marble.

This could go different ways, primarily along the axis of respectfulness.

Also, I only now looked back and noted Taylor walking around the monument with each portion of the list. The division makes more sense now.

It was crude work, with scuff marks around each notch where the tool had been off target.  The letters were all in capital letters, all straight lines – the ‘o’s were squares, the ‘B’s two triangles joined at one corner.

...

Yeah, either Wildbow’s pulling a bait-and-switch or it’s pretty clear where this falls on the respectfulness axis.

KOOROW   BULLIT

Bait-and-switch it is, whether intentional or not. :P

MILK                   STUMPY BROOTUS  JOODUS AXIL         GINGIR

Curious names, these. Civilians with nicknames, I guess--- wait shit

RACHEL

oh no poor sad doggo :’(

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Exterwination 8.8

HelloooooooooooOOOOOooooOOOooOOooooOo

It’s tiwe to liveblog some wore Morw!

Last tiwe mas awazing. Me learned that Tattletale is alive and Arwwaster mas even wore of a dick than me thought, as revealed by Tattletale mhile she mas being fucking amesowe.

And then shit ment south for Taylor as Arwwaster, in a last ditch effort to discredit Taylor, revealed to the Undersiders, everyone present and the viemers of Trickster’s video/streaw the true nature of Taylor’s first fem meeks as an Undersider.

Nom she’s leaving the hospital, mith nomhere to go. This chapter... pretty wuch anthyding could hadplen, but I’w thinking we might go looking for Danny and/or his house.

So mithout further ado or any sort of explanation for mhy I’w smapping Ms and Ws, let’s juwp into it!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“Right.”

“What if you could choose both?  Choose both A and B, so your A self knows what your B self knows and vice versa.

Intriguing... go on...

When you know path B is the right choice, you can make it so.  The world where you chose to go down path A is gone, vanished, so when you comes to the next choice, you can do it again.”

This sounds a lot like how future vision works in Steven Universe.

“Sounds pretty useful.”

“Trick being that you can only have two realities running in parallel at a time, and the only differences between those realities hinge on the choices and calls you make.

Hm.

Is she describing Coil’s power here? Because this sounds a lot like Coil’s power, except with more of a bent towards knowledge.

The choices in question here wouldn’t affect the flip of a coin, though, unless you’re parahumanly good at physics.

So you delegate.  You find people who will follow orders.  Sometimes you send them out to do something in only one world, so that if things don’t go the way you want, you can default to the reality where you didn’t send them.

Okay yeah, this is absolutely sounding like Coil now.

What does he have to do with any of this, though?

Or, in simpler terms, in one world, you flip a coin.  In the other, you hold on a second, delay, say something.”

...the character I was talking about in the previous post also does a thing involving a coin flip and parallel timelines.

“Until every coin you’re flipping gives you a heads.  You’re talking about Coil,” I realized.

I see... so that’s how it works. Thank you! I’ve been really wanting to know the particulars of his power.

But again, what does this have to do with you knowing about Taylor’s secret since before you met her? Did you (or Coil) know something about the other reality’s Taylor, or something?

[krixwell-liveblogs]

I nodded, not sure where this was going.

“That’s everyone’s situation, day-to-day, making choices.  Through resourcefulness, like using a cell phone to call for directions in our hypothetical situation, or talent, like me using my power, we can make it more likely we find the right paths, but we inevitably come to a choice between A or B at some time, right?”

This is making me think of Homestuck. Homestuck spoilers ahead:

There’s a character whose thing is the impact of people’s perceptions of reality and the choices they make, and predicting the consequences of those choices. Tattletale is currently reminding me of that character.

I may have mentioned previously that I thought Tattle might be a hero of Light in Homestuck terms, possibly a Thief of Light or Rogue of Light, but based on the elaboration we’ve seen in this Arc on how exactly Tattle’s power works and what we’re seeing right here, as well as her proficiency in mind games, I’m inclined to say she’s a hero of Mind instead.

I’m not quite settled on a class yet, though. Mage, perhaps? Classpect speculation is varied, but I’d define a Mage of Mind as someone who understands/knows the mind and choices, or understands/knows through the mind and choices, and (unlike a Seer of Mind) uses this understanding/knowledge herself rather than spreading it to the team.

Yeah, I think that fits Tattletale to a T.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

The wind blew hard from the north, cold, blowing my hair into disarray.  I pushed my hair out of my face, tucked it behind my ear.  When I gave Lisa a sidelong glance, she was putting her hood up.

Yeah, Taylor should’ve brought warmer clothes.

I wonder if Lisa saw the weather and had her power tell her how it was likely to develop.

She spoke without looking at me, “I’d go on, ask about whether you prioritize friends or morals, talk about how you’ve grown as a person in so many ways since joining us, except my power informs me that you just settled on a decision.”

I suppose so.

She was right.  As I stared at the monument, a goal was crystallizing in my mind, a focus.  I knew, now, what I wanted to do.

But what? Make the world better, not as a hero, not as a villain, but something in-between?

I had to change things.  I had to be better than them.  Than Armsmaster, Sophia, Coil, and all the others.

“Yeah,” I replied.  She turned to glance my way.

Sounds like I’m at least somewhat on the right track.

“And does this plan feature the Undersiders?”

I gave her my answer.

...fucking hell what a cliffhanger.

I’m guessing “No”, unless Taylor’s found some kind of plan that could benefit the Undersiders enough that they’d be willing to leave Coil behind to help her out. Brian and Rachel in particular would be difficult to get on board with that, even if they weren’t currently disappointed in and/or pissed at Taylor.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

So the funeral services became less frequent.  Then they stopped altogether.

At this point, that’s fair.

So uh, what do they do with the bodies, then? Mass cremation?

Also do powers linger after death? Can you cremate someone with an immunity to fire?

A memorial was simpler.  All who had joined the fight could be treated equally.  There could be no snubs, really, nor could there be insults, dramatic oaths, taunts or speaking ill of dead rivals and nemeses before cameras or audiences of capes.

I feel like this would result in a few of the same issues, but at least not allowing extensive coverage of each person gets rid of the problems surrounding that specific part of it.

It was simply a dedication to the dead, a list of names, sometimes with a statue, if the groups involved could decide on something that didn’t too closely resemble a particular hero or villain.  Ever a difficult, delicate balancing act.

Everything to do with these truces would be, I suppose.

Brockton Bay’s memorial had no statue.

It’s become more apparent to me towards the end of this whole expository section that it seems like we’re skipping ahead a bit. There’s no way the memorial happened immediately after Taylor left the hospital. We’ve probably skipped to at least a few days later.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

I tried to picture that scenario.

“I got away, managed to call Coil, let him know what had happened.  Coil, in turn, informed me in this reality, the one you remember.  Told me to watch out for a junior hero in the area.”

Daamn, this is nice.

When I figured Lisa might already know, I was expecting it to be because of her power. This is so much better.

Look, I’m a Homestuck - of course I love circuitous timeline stuff like this! :P

I nodded.

“So I told the group to hold up, fibbed a bit about needing to use my power, get a sense of things, like Lung’s location.  I was hoping that you were a new member of the Wards, that you’d call in help and deal with Lung without our involvement, that you’d leave, or even start the fight on your own.  You attacked him on your own.”

I love how this is shining an all-new light on the events of Arc 1.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Tattletale nodded.

“He’s been doing that from the start?”

“Some.  The bank robbery, he had our back.  But timing was sensitive, and I guess he wanted to maximize the chances that he’d get Dinah, so he didn’t have a concurrent reality where he kept us out of action.

Makes sense, although I suppose he could’ve opted for a secondary reality where he sent someone else. Another team, or maybe some of his soldiers (though that would make the crime traceable back to him).

And, according to him, we succeeded in both cases, though Bitch got hurt in a fight with Glory Girl in the other one.  Lucky for us, I suppose, that the world where she didn’t get hurt was the same one where Coil got his captive.”

Ouch, yeah.

I winced.  Even an offhand mention of the role I’d played in what happened to Dinah elicited a painful stab of guilt.

Yeeah, Taylor’s not quite over that yet.

“We didn’t have him for the fight with Bakuda, but we did have him for the fundraiser.  He had the other version of us in reserve.”

In other words, they were guaranteed to win because if they didn’t, he would’ve chosen the reality where he didn’t ask them to try.

This is a really cool concept, and can act as a very good device to explain plot armor while throwing the characters into incredibly risky scenarios.