A lot of back and forth on why Joe should trust Aisha more than he should Taylor and I don't feel I need to add anymore to that.
In regards to the chapter, eh, it felt like a whole lot of nothing to be honest. Granted, we got a little bit of the knowledge about the gym's status and the setup for Brian finally finding out about Aisha and Joe, but it feels like we could have gotten there much simplier. Especially with it leaving off when we were finally expecting the payoff.
In regards to Jack and the 9, I think Joe is actively overcomplicating how things need to be with Jack and the 9. He talks about wanted to reveal just how badly Jack had been affecting people, but his power
only works on parahumans, and to his knowledge, Parahumans aren't running the government. That a lot of his arguments don't really hold up under close scrutiny - they only do if you're aware of parahuman influence in government policy. And even revealing that... does what? Reveal to the world that one of the biggest serial killers in recent history had a worldwide master power? In what way does that help
anyone other than cause people to even shit more bricks because who else clearly has a power like that? That's right,
The Enigmatic Artificer.
Again
, I think he's drastically overcomplicating things on the S9 front, and they should have been dealt with far before they came close to the city, but that's a tired and old argument at this point.
Prediction: the next time Mrs. Gartenberg approaches Joe it will be with the intent of having him meet her granddaughter (or a close analog. For the lolz I'd love to see her trying to hook Joe up with Faultline. 😁)
Disregarding the whole 'her grandaughter being Faultline' thing, I do thing this would be a hilarious omake/sidestory. Not even just Mrs. G, but just anyone else from the gym - maybe trying to hook up a sister or cousin or something like that. Maybe Vince's and Casey's significant others who have met Joe and are just like, "You know, he's cute. I should hook him up with one of my girlfriends."
And Joe just smiling and using his time slowdown trick to simply think of a way to decline politely.
Except that second trigger broke him kind of hollowing him out and leaving him as a doormat shell of a person who was also somewhat clingy and Taylor pushed the relationship all the way to sleeping with him and while canon Aisha was fine with it it always seemed kind of rapey to me.
While I wouldn't put it exactly like that, I do admit that his 2nd trigger broke Brian and I never felt particularly clean about Brian and Taylor's 'relationship'. And despite it's origins, it
did keep Brian grounded in the aftermath of that trauma, although I will admit that it felt like it went on longer than it should have.
