Imagine Lethe apparating into Gully's PRT master stranger tank, disabling everything but the cameras to show off, slice out cell door, release Gully, teleport out.
What a flex!
I loved that gully got treated, and that Joe basically used "Weld is a swell guy" as a reason for a tinker contract.
Huh, is this the canon explanation for case 53s, that they happened when someone being watched by a shard takes a vial? I thought they were mostly the result of badly mixed vials, though I think I've just gotten that from fanfic.
Also, even the smallest gift from Apeiron seems to radically empower whoever receives it. The PRT may find him giving out gifts nearly as terrifying as him going on the warpath 😄
(Piggot would definitely find it more terrifying, and possibly seek to move him back to a more comfortable antagonism. We've established in this fic that Piggot isn't very smart.)
Regarding this, I think people are jumping ahead. Considering the pace of the story, we're likely not going to see a reaction from the PRT to this for several chapters.
I don't think Cauldron will be that beat up about him fixing C53's - if he's able to 'fix' them, and as a result they become more malleable/useful to them, Cauldron will let that slide. They might try to obtain info on 'how' he's doing it, but it's already clear that his understanding of powers far exceeds their own, even from what little he has said about powers. Especially once Armstrong reports everything that happened at the camp.
Where Cauldron will start to panic is if Gully reveals that they weren't able to fix her memory issues, yet. Implying they fully expect to be able to do so in a few weeks. That's a terrifying thing to Cauldron because it means the C53's (new C69's) might be able reveal info about Cauldron. That more than anything else is going to have them panicking.
Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Gully's toned down explanation of powers that Apeiron gave her makes its way to Eidolon's ears, and he gets the idea of "Maybe he can fix MY powers." How many times have we seen a story where Eidolon shows up in the Bay? And it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing considering how delicate the situation is there. The PRT would basically be saying, "Look, all you criminals trying to make things difficult for recovery - calm the fuck down, or one of our biggest sticks is going to start getting twitchy. You wouldn't like him when he's twitchy."
One of the reasons they make C53s is that it disgusts Scion so he doesn't look deeply at anything allowing them to move around more. C53s crowding around a single area would actually be a disadvantage to them as now Scion might be more willing to pay attention to what is going on.
As for memory, Shamrock is an outright escapee who never lost her memory who actively hunted for Cauldron with the rest of Faultline's crew and while they got thrashed and threatened directly by the hat connoisseur, she did not kill or kidnap any of them. After all, when you have Contessa on side you can confidently plug holes without lethal force.
Apeiron: "Now that you know please be sure to not spread this to others. My thinker power says it would be a bad idea for now, because of some very scary people."
...
Monkey shard: "We cool?" Thinker genie PTV "... Yeah, we cool."
Sea Snail Shells (Splatoon) 300:
You have a small breeding population of around 10 Super Sea Snails, large snails with crystalline, conical shells. The snails are hermaphroditic but and they live for around 15 years. They're more than they seem, though they provide an invaluable service- Their shells can be used to imbue hats, shirts, and pairs of shoes with extra Ability Slots, or reroll the abilities of a clothing item with 3 full slots. This kills the Sea Snail, but if you're careful to keep up the population then eventually you might have an entire wardrobe of 3-slot clothing. Also, they're delicious when cooked right.
Basically Joe can harvest the snails for materials but it would kill the snail so he doesn't. I think in story Joe said he would either let them die of old age or you could harvest them after a while without killing the snail.
The centerpiece of the room was an addition I only half remembered, understandable considering what was happening at the time. The room was built around a massive saltwater aquarium inside of which frolicked a set of ten super sea snails.
Well, as much as snails could be said to frolic. These were odd creatures, having only the vaguest connection to actual sea snails. They had elaborate crystalline shells that spiraled upwards and sported small, glimmering protrusions. The actual bodies of the snails were teal in color and sported a pair of big, expressive eyes. They displayed significantly more engagement than any mollusk had a right to, clearly relishing their newly constructed habitat.
The actual value of the snails was in their shells. Said shells could be used to imbue clothing with extra abilities. The selection was random, but a significant number of them affected use or recovery of internal energy sources, or provided other physical or situational boosts. With recent developments in my power that had become more important than it would have been at an earlier time.
The only problem was the shells couldn't be replicated or cloned. They needed to be harvested from a mature snail, which would obviously be lethal. The prospect would have been a lot more palatable if not for the aforesaid expressiveness and frolicking. Really, the only answer was to let the population increase and harvest at the end of life. Or maybe work something out with prosthetics? Either way, it was something I could deal with later. Right now, I had a crisis I had been avoiding thinking about.
Huh, is this the canon explanation for case 53s, that they happened when someone being watched by a shard takes a vial? I thought they were mostly the result of badly mixed vials, though I think I've just gotten that from fanfic.
There's a lot of factors that can lead to Case 53 / Monsterfication with the Cauldron Vial. Like, a LOT of them.
If you already have a power and drink a Cauldron Vial, typically nothing happens. Eidolon gets special vials to give him booster shots to his failing power supply.
People who already have the potential to Trigger have Shards watching them in the wings, which means getting an artificial trigger from a vial can go wrong real quick. And since the potential to trigger is a 1 in 4 thing for the people of Earth Bet, this makes the base risk pretty alarming if the Shard can't adapt or is taken off guard because it's watching multiple potential hosts rather than focusing just one.
What else can go wrong? Improper vial mixing, purposefully testing extremes (leaving out Balance results in powers that are less human-like but are typically stronger in certain ways), experimental vials (mapping new areas of the flesh garden to get new power types), the shard itself being fucked up, the shard being connected to having a poor understanding of what a 'human being' is and needs, a shard fucking up power expression due to damage, the shard being damaged, the shard being improperly calibrated in other ways, client asks for a vial which offers a lot but is thus unstable and gets a bad roll, drinking a vial that has gone bad (not quite 'bad' but the liquids unmix quickly like oil and water layers), something going wrong with the trigger itself, poor connection due to environmental factors (certain exotic stuff like active portals), power responding poorly to people drinking the vial to try and get the Cauldron offered full heals (drinking a vial has a chance to give you a full heal from injuries and illnesses), the circumstances / background / stresses of the drinker themselves.
Even increased heart rate, not taking the vial on an empty stomach, or drinking it too slowly is enough to throw off the vials, they're that fucking twitchy. And then there's power vial stuff where Cauldron has got not Eden or Zion Shard Goo but Abbadon Shard mixed in there, which is really valuable to them because of how it's even less restricted than typical Eden Shards, which leads to them prioritizing exploring its mysteries with extreme deviant vials (a lot of whom Cauldron will outright kill afterwards. Even the prisoners Case 53s in in their prison are comparatively moderate compared to some of the 'extreme deviant' vial results).
There's a whole fucking lot that can go wrong with the vials. That's the reason why Cauldron needs to go through so many people to improve their science and understanding of power mixology. Cauldron used to bring their customers in and give them extreme psych tests and stuff, work out exactly what they wanted and measure risks; before Madison resulted in the Simurgh breaching into their dimension and killing all their non-powered staff and a bunch of other members, leaving Cauldron as the tiny group it is by the start of canon. Nowadays it's just Doctor Mother and Numberman left to make their vials and while they make reliable stuff it's crippled Cauldron's experimental ventures because they need to focus on reliability by the time we see Skidmark with the 'found' vial box that Faultline goes after for the user manual notes in the days after the Leviathan attack in canon. It's notable in-universe that the rate of 'heroic triggers' and new Case 53's slowed down by a lot before canon started.
In 1986, two-sevenths of Cauldron subjects died from taking the formula, while four-sevenths experienced unwanted physical changes. Only one-seventh became normal parahumans. However, over time they were able to improve the success rate enormously.[13]
As of 2011, Cauldron vials produced physical or mental alterations akin to the more extreme natural trigger events 0.125% of the time.[17]
Most Case 53's get added to the Cauldron Prison and many of them are never slated to be released, ever, with the extreme deviants just being outright killed a lot of the time. Cauldron keeps the prison for two reasons, the presence of Case 53's is observed Scion repellent (Canon, and helps save the world during Golden Morning since he takes the time to individually kill every single Case 53 in the prison) and for study / rehabilitation into hopefully releasable Case 53's. The idea that Aperion could salvage potentially valuable powers is probably enough to get Cauldron to carefully go through their list of hopeless permanent inmates and consider who might be useful, actually, so long as Aperion is basically getting them dropped off on his doorstep in Brockton to perform his superior after-market mods.
We don't know, unless some thinker or other non-parahuman test determined her physical and mental age; she's a case 53, so she has imposed memory loss/suppression.
Until we get more detail from Roustabout, in-storyand out the assumption is that she's younger than eighteen.
In Mauling Snarks there's a Thinker who can specifically tell how old someone is. Which is a bit of a weird one but a good example of how all thinkers are absolutely not Tattletale, or even close. Taylor, specifically, gives him a headache, because of the uncertainty around her birthdate.
Anyway, it seems plausible at least that there's someone like that in canon, even if they upset a lot of celebrities. And archaeologists.
Clockblocker's dad has cancer IIRC, and one related to the brain so Panacea won't do anything about it. However, he knows that Apeiron very much can and has figured out why Gully is in BB, so he approached her during the Gala and asked her to pass along his own request if she were to meet him.
Not necessarily the protectorate as a whole might not know how old she is and picked an educated guess based on what ever factors they chose ... which doesn't mean they're right but their guesses become her legal age on earth bet despite it being possible that she's an adult possibly either one that never matured mentally for what ever reason ... of course she could also be younger than they guessed as well... guesses are like that after all
It's about Gully I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure if Wildbow ever cared to cover it, but a common take I've seen is that C53s who join the Protectorate have to go through the Wards program first, as their amnesia and deviations make it essentially impossible to truly determine their age. I suppose a specific Thinker power could serve to determine ages, but that honestly sounds way too progressive for Cauldron's dog and pony show. Easier to just class them all as legal minors.
Given the overall inconsistent knowledge bases between C53s due to their otherworldly origins, it isn't even strictly the wrong way to go about it, but you just know the PRT's cutting corners somewhere. Roust has already established their take that the Protectorate's work culture is rather unfriendly to C53s unluckier than Weld.
Given all of that, Gully's age is more or less whatever Roust says it is in their take. It's not something canon established, so it can be whatever is wanted or needed. It would certainly be complicated for Everett if Gully's original body was a preteen, and some of the posts would take a very sorry tone, but it hasn't been said either way yet. We know her original body is four foot eleven and incredibly dainty, nothing more. She could be a tween, a teen, or just a petite adult.
Now, other than Gully, it's time for my friendly reminder that Taylor is 15, Lisa is 16, Aisha is 13, and all the other young parahumans hover somewhere around those marks. Everett is the Chicago Ward Leader, and thus actually no older than 17. So, control the horny people, it leads nowhere good.
Eh I'd wait until we find out more about what specifically she's squealing over given worm in general there's decent odds it's over the Apeiron contact or shovel.
It's FaceTime; it's about all of those things - she can multitask like that. Well, not the shovel, Gully would probably be wearing it as a bracelet if she's in smol form.
Actually, this was a specific rule for writing Bugs' cartoons - he never starts a fight. His catchphrase 'you realize this means war' is a direct result.
