#i11gp1

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Hang on.

What’s one thing we know about parents and children with powers? Their powers are often similar.

And what’s one thing we know about Heartbreaker? He’s got lots of children.

I think we might have a half-sister of Alec here.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“Oh, we’re visiting because it’s a time like this,” she smiled.

Yep. Almost definitely a Slaughterhouse member.

And that “almost” is only there because while we haven’t heard of any other villain groups coming to town to take advantage of the situation, it’s still plausible that some would, and this could be an elaborate misdirection. I really don’t think it is, though.

“Thrill seeking?” his voice hardened.  “That’s not only stupid, it’s disrespectful.”

Hm, yeah, I suppose it is. It’s like looking at a poor nation’s suffering and going “that sounds fun, I should try that”.

But hey, wasn’t thrill seeking part of how Bonesaw was described in 10.6?

“The people I’m staying with?  They’re the Slaughterhouse Nine.  I’m one of them.”

Woah, way to be super honest all of a sudden!

I kinda love that. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I’m one of the country’s most feared villains.”

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Interlude 11g (Anniversary Bonus)

F I N A L L Y

Now we can move on from this madness and get ready to meet, most likely, Bonesaw!

As far as predictions goes for that, I pretty much covered everything in the intro for the previous chapter:

As for who Bonesaw might want to recruit… Panacea sounds like a weird but plausible option, if I’m right about Bonesaw having a specialty in medical equipment and thus probably also a medical background. We’ve established that Panacea’s power can be used offensively, too, and she is the daughter of a known bigshot criminal - those things might appeal to the Slaughterhouse as well.

But yeah, if Panacea is an attempted recruit, I don’t think it’ll work, unless she is forced like Hookwolf was (and I doubt that’s happening in two chapters in a row). Panacea has a spiteful, slightly darker side, and might be tempted by the prospect of dropping the exhaustion that comes with her responsibilities, but I think at the core, she’s a very good person who cares about fulfilling those responsibilities at the expense of her own health.

Incidentally, if Amy is Bonesaw’s attempted nominee, she’s likely to be the POV character for whichever one of these Interludes is about Bonesaw. Perhaps we’ll learn something about those secrets of hers that would wreck her relationships if they came out.

Nothing about my predictions re: Bonesaw has changed since then, and the Newbie (who could take this spot instead) is too mysterious at the moment to speculate much on.

So without further ado or nonsense about measurements, I’m going to go make myself a bowl of popcorn and then we’ll get this party started!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

He pulled the gun away, dropped it into his lap.  He crumpled over, his hands to his head, then moaned, “No.”

Is that a “no” of “no, I can’t shoot you”, or “no, please stop messing with my head”? Or maybe “no, this can’t be happening”?

She was close to her destination.  She pulled the jeep to a stop and hopped out, the other jeep pulling up just a ten or so yards away.  Two soldiers got out.

“Hey, fellas! How’d you like becoming my thralls along with your comrade? :)”

“Hey!” someone shouted at her.

She turned her back to them, slipping her ear buds in.  The music had looped back to the first track.

Looks like she doesn’t give a shit.

Also that’s a short playlist, how long have you been deleting stuff from it?

She got her phone out and skipped forward a few times, pausing to delete one song.  She sang along, “Love me, love me, you know you wanna love me…”

Just like at the beginning of the chapter. This would make a fantastic bookend with that, but... this doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the end of the chapter.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Not much time to do it.  She searched through the feelings of her passenger, found the networks of brotherly love, trust, camaraderie, and adjusted each until the music was one of tension, suspicion, paranoia.

Welp. Suddenly they’ll all be like, “You’re working with the bad guys, aren’t you?”, and “You’re not taking my glory!”, or maybe “Why do you want to catch up with them?”

Then she set his fight or flight reflexes into high gear.

Oh wait, I misread, she was doing that to the guy in her jeep (essentially stolen, like everything else she uses), not the guys in pursuit. I suppose there’s probably a shorter range on the manipulation, otherwise it’d be quite overpowered.

“Get the gun.”

She’ll make him shoot his own comrades.

He fished for it between the seats, picked it up.

Then he pointed the gun at her.

Well, apparently he’s still present enough to know who his target should be.

“No, stop,” she said.  Too unspecific.  Fuck.  Still need to work on that.  She hit him with as much doubt and indecision as she could manage to keep him from shooting her.

I suppose this is her weakness, for now - until she gets better at it, the manipulated emotions will be a little too unspecific about certain things, such as whom to be paranoid about.

Then she stalled all of the ‘music’ that flowed to and from that one point in the very front of his brain.  She knew the music was her way of understanding and interpreting the biological processes that drove people’s emotions.  By listening for it, she knew what they felt, knew what the emotions were tied to, vaguely.

This is why I call the music semi-metaphorical. I don’t think it actually manifests as sound that only the Newbie can hear and mentally “wrangle”, but when faced with a sense the brain isn’t normally designed to handle, it can find ways to treat these things as if they came from the basic senses. Similarly, I don’t think Dinah actually sees the branching timelines in any real sense, but because she has overview over a large number of them at once, presenting it as a “visual” in her mind is the best way for her brain to handle that sense.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“I have a daughter about your age,” he replied, smiling tightly.

Heh, yeeah, he might be a bit too old for you.

“That doesn’t answer my question.  Do you think I’m pretty?”  She stepped even closer, ran her finger down his chest.

My mostly unfounded wariness is growing.

“Yes, but-” he paused, gripping both sides of her jacket.  He pulled the jacket together, then did up her zipper all the way to the top, around the heavy box that dangled around her neck.

“Get that cleavage outta my face, temptress.”

Also, this “heavy box” sounds interesting.

“That’s all the more reason for you to be careful, understand?  Do you have a home or a shelter you’re staying at?”

This poor man is just trying to do his job and make sure this teenager he just met gets home safely.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

She twisted other parts of his emotional makeup until he was compliant, adrift in apathy, obedient.  “Stay.”

Aaand we’ve got a thrall.

He stopped retreating.  He was still breathing hard from his momentary panic, but that would pass.

The body does its own thing until it catches up with the brain’s new orders.

She leaned towards him and ran her hand along the top of his head.  It was like rubbing a toothbrush, spraying minuscule bits of water onto the wheel and dashboard.

There is nothing dry in this city.

The rain is doing its part in ensuring that, catching spots like the Palanquin hill, where the usual flooding doesn’t reach.

“Good.”

He stared at her.  There was fear in the look, and she didn’t have the heart to erase all of it.  A little was good.

...from a victim’s perspective, is a little bad emotion better than no emotion?

I think a lot of people would say yes to that. It’s like how humans hate boredom so much they’ll rather do a thing they know will hurt, just to get some stimulus, any stimulus.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“Well, I’m not about to deny someone their coping mechanisms.  Where do you live, or where did you live, before the attack?”

I have a feeling she didn’t live here in Brockton Bay. If she says that, though, he’s bound to get confused about why she would come here.

“Out of town.”

He raised one eyebrow, but he kept looking out the windows for possible trouble.

Bingo.

I feel like that’s a big point in favor of this being either a surprisingly coherent Bonesaw, or the Newbie (which is a possibility I didn’t think of until now, but also one that seems less likely because of the lyrics). Moving to Brockton Bay right now is pretty worthy of a raised eyebrow from me to if she’s not here to take advantage of the situation like the Slaughterhouse Nine.

He put the key in the ignition and started the car so he could use the windshield wipers.  “Sounds like there’s a story there.  People don’t just come into town at a time like this, and if you were just visiting, you would have evacuated already.”

Oh yeah, I’m sure there’s quite the story here, alright.