I've Got a Twig (Twig Let's Read)

fabledFreeboota · May 10, 2018

Kefahuchi said:
The community quotes are appreciated. They can be quite something... It's a shame twig isn't as popular as worm so there's less to choose fro

I'm surprised it's less popular than Pact, artwise. I've looked and there's only art of one Twig villain, and that's the picture of Sub-Rosa I commished off lonsheep. They've not put it on DA yet. I don't know where they are, either. But yeah. Um. Sub -Rosa! Petal dress and gore.

Kefahuchi said:
Sy X Lil it's a good dynamic so far, but the undertones are one more portent of the inescapable dread in the setting.

Well, there's undertones and there's overtones, and Sy is very conscious of all the little power plays and manipulations he makes towards her. I think it's possibly worse that it would have been with Mary.

Kefahuchi · May 10, 2018

I saw a couple drawings but yeah there's not enough art for all the weird and evoking visuals in twig. A comic book/tv series of it woud be a real treat visually. Just the bleak cityscapes would be amazing to see realized.
I agree a relationship between Mary and Sylvester would be an abusive one pretty much, but as much as i like sy/lilian interaction, almost first love thing, it feels like a ray of hope that can't possibly exist in this world. The very nature of the experiment/"creator" love makes all the doom alarm bells ring.

fabledFreeboota · May 12, 2018

The cover is back....

fabledFreeboota · May 14, 2018

Though it was chilly, without even the sun for light, the man had his shirt off, the straps of his overalls tied around his waist. He had virtually no body fat on his frame, and more muscle in his forearm alone than I had in my entire body. Tattoos covered him, his arms and back an artist's doodle pad of fish tailed goats, mermaids, and other scantily-clad women.
I watched as he lifted a crate onto the bed of a cart. The crate was filled with metal, and rattled, the cart's end bobbing as it adjusted to the weight.
He was a 'Bruno'. While Bruno was slang for a brute, a guy that was more strong than smart, it also was the term used most often to describe the men and the exceedingly rare women who went to back alley clinics and walked out with more muscle than they'd had when they started. Sometimes it was drugs, sometimes it was a rewriting of their physical makeup, and sometimes it was grafts, from vat-grown sources or from animals.

OH NOOOOO the Academy is going to not be the sole controller of... something? I mean, steroids and Catacondas don't seem to take a book from Fray "I dedicate this book to my best friend and zombie, to the octopus in my knickers, and to the drugs that let me control my own brain"
I like this worldbuildy detail, but it certainly doesn't help get my head out of the Necromunda shaped gutter its been in all week.
Chapter Summary!
Jamie and Sy share a Sandwhich. Not a Bap, Baguette, roll, or bun. They talk to a Bruno who muses about life and talks about the themes of Twig before pointing them at yet another psychotic surgeon that screws around with the laws of nature and the people around them.
Character Beats
Sy's in mourning, Jamie's investigating, Bruno's basically Sy.... or a path that he could travel down... I've not really done literature analysis since GCSEs... they're a type of exam if you didn't know.... AND ASHTON ISN'T HERE....
End Quote

As I'd done with Adam, I now spoke to Cecil in Cecil's own language, reflecting the way he most likely saw the world, in terms of opportunity.
It wasn't pretty, there were loose ends and issues to cover, but it would get the job done fast and cut straight to the meat of things. We couldn't dig through a hundred different back-alley doctors and groups to find what we were looking for.
I couldn't do that, not like this. Not with moments and things catching me off guard.
We'd start at the top, with the most unscrupulous person who had the most money and power, then keep carving away until we found what we were looking for.

I like seeing the way Sy deals with this sort of thing. I think I can empathise with the "tailoring your language around other peoople" thing. Its one of the ways I hate him. Because he's relatable. Its an ok chapter end, one that's thankfully short. The crux of the chapter isn't the search or the quest, its JamII and Sy, and the weight of Jam1 that hangs over them.
Key Quotes

But the drugs meant dependency and tolerance. The rewriting of one's makeup always had other consequences in the long run. Grafts from animals meant possible rejection or having to take drugs, and grafts from vat-grown life didn't always last that long, meaning more surgeries and replacements.
It amounted to the same thing. A shortened lifespan. Maybe a halved one.

METAPHORS FOR THE TWIGS

Jamie had reminded me of something pretty dang close to actual heartbreak. I wondered if losing my best friend counted, or if it had to be romance.
If heartbreak by way of romance was worse, I wasn't sure how the species had survived this far. Just thinking about Jamie in passing was enough to knock the air out of me.

This is just sad. Also confusing. Lets call them Jam1 and JamII.

"Five months you've been with us, while we've been shuffling and restructuring teams for whatever missions we wind up doing. I don't think you've known me nearly long enough to be doing that kind of analysis of me."
"Bullshit identification, you mean."
"Whatever you want to call it."
"Uh huh," he said. "What's the real answer? You got on with him pretty well there."
I shrugged.
"You can distract the others, and they'll forget to keep a topic going. But I won't forget, Sy. I can keep bringing this up. The books have answers and filled me in on each of you, but if there's something I'm missing that makes me feel like I'd understand any of you better, you should know I'm going to go after it until I get answers."
"But see, there's a cost to doing that," I said. "If you're obnoxious, then you'll do irreparable harm to the relationship between yourself and whoever you're interrogating."

I get the sense that this is... damn. So Jamie's books have no clue to his love for Sy. Sy's giving no clue of this. This is freaking brilliant. JamII is getting this sense that things are missing, and he'll always have that until he gets what Jam1 told Sy. What Sy is living with.
Community Comment Highlight
The Warren Peace NFL Report | December 17, 2015 at 11:49 pm
I'm fascinated with what Wildbow is doing with Jamie. It's totally unique, as character studies go. I don't know at all what to feel about him. He'll start building sympathy, as I see him trying to fit in like the old Jamie did, but then he'll be too assertive, calling Sy out on something, and that sympathy starts to be replaced by unease and repulsion… Like, who are you to try and change how the Lambs operate?
I thought this one was neat, as it highlight's JamII's perspective on the Lambs and what his perspective must be. As someone at once familiar and different, I get the feeling he's settling in a lot worse than Ashton is. Or that other Lamb that got mentioned but I have no intention on speculating about.
Ooh! Free name for anyone that wants to write a Twig readthrough of their own. "Take that, you Twig!"

fabledFreeboota · May 15, 2018

I tried to avoid being shoved out of the way and lost as I worked my way through a jam of people. A counter stood before me, and I worked to hold on, periodically driving an elbow or shoulder into the side or hip of someone beside me. I smelled food, but it was nearly drowned out by the smell of smoke.
"Here," I heard. "For the little one."
Little.
I pushed forward, reaching up over the counter. The man at the counter handed me sacks, low quality cloth with steam pouring out through the weave.
"Get some money back if you bring the bags and plates on your next visit!" he called out, but I was already leaving, pushing to exit as the crowd pressed forward to the counter.
The agitation and frustration I'd felt earlier was lingering. I'd been acting on it as I made the plan with Ratface, but it hadn't helped. Instead, the knowledge that a situation was imminent was maintaining the feeling and feeding that fire.

Ratface is the least interesting side numpty in Twig. I cared about the mice more than him, and I have a heck of a lot of contempt for homeless waifs. I hope to high heck he's out of here by the arc's end because Fray's party is running out of room and Mauer's already started off the great antagonist purge.
This entire chapter is Sy and JamII talking. JamII knows how Jam1 felt. JamII hid it in coded messages that Sy could only have figured out if he'd somehow plugged himself into the Caterpillar.
It starts with an attempt to progress the plot and ends with one, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next chapter was another heart to heart between JamII and S1.
Character Beats
JamII isn't fitting in and Ashton is more popular than him.
End Quote

"The plan," I said. I immediately had the attention of the Lambs, minus Hubris, who was still keeping an eye on the meat. "It puts you at risk, Lillian, front and center."
"Is it a good plan?"
"Not a polished one, but it's the best one I can figure out to get results. If you don't want to, we'll figure something else out. This is your mission, you take point."
She nodded, giving my leg a pat. "Okay, Sy. How long do we have to figure it out?"
"'Til midnight," I said. "We're going to sell you into slavery, and I'm fairly sure the guy that's buying has a small army of thugs under his control. But he'll have answers we want."
"That'll do," Gordon said. He reached forward to tear off a bit of meat and throw it to his dog.

I mean, what's the worst that can happen. Not like they've burned down a city two arcs running.
Key Quotes

"You're saying that, but you can endure poisons that would put down a horse, your body is actively hostile to parasites, and most diseases won't get traction in you either. You could eat pretty much anything and not worry. Don't blame others if they're a little more picky."

THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER.

"I know about Lillian, I've read the books," he said. "Why even say that? Are you implying I'm not a Lamb? That I haven't gone through similar experiences, or that I'm somehow less?"
"That's not what I'm saying," I said. "Not in the slightest."
"From what I've seen, in how the group interacts with Ashton and how the group interacts with me, in how you interact with Ashton and how you interact with me, there are a hell of a lot more accommodations being made for him than for me, Sy."
My mind was on five tracks at once, playing into the conversation from various angles, figuring out what I needed to say to get through to him, and four of those five tracks were dangerous ones. Ones where I'd say something and immediately regret saying it. No sooner did I banish one than the next popped up.
I was practically speaking through grit teeth now, as I tried to stay diplomatic, "There's an adjustment period, Jamie. Yes, it's a bigger adjustment with you than with Ashton. He's still a puppy. You're-"
"Whatever the dog equivalent of spoiled goods are?" Jamie asked. "A bad memory?"
"No," I said. "Yes, but not- that's not the problem, Jamie. The problem- the times when it's hardest to accommodate, it's when you act like you know us."
"When I know you, you mean."
"Yes," I said.
"I've read the books, Sy. I've read about the Lambs, I've read about the past jobs. I'm in a weird, freaky place where I'm new but not new. I'm like him but not like him. I rationally know what it is I'm supposed to be and do and the role I'm supposed to fill, and somehow that ends up being wrong. It's as if it's impossible to do anything right in your eyes."

EY! This beat is fun!
Poor sy. Poor JamII.

I looked down at my hands, and moved the ring around my thumb. More resistance than there used to be. "Jamie used to always, I think of it as dancing. Sometimes in step, sometimes not, but complimentary. He would keep me in check, and he would back me up when I needed it. I get the feeling you're trying to do the same things, following the cues from your books."
"Sometimes. But I get the feeling you're imagining me trying to do that when I'm just trying to be a member of this team."
"I don't need you to be my conscience, Jamie. I don't need you to challenge me or check me or question me, okay?"
"What am I supposed to do, then? When it looks like you're charging into a bad situation, or treating a teammate wrong, I can't speak up? I have to keep my mouth closed, when everyone else is free to do what they want? I can't be a shadow, Sy."
"Not be a shadow, but shadow us. Get to know me before you make assumptions about what I'm doing or how I'm operating. I've changed from the person that appears in the books, and some of the stuff in there isn't as accurate as you think it might be, okay? There are gaps. I know there are gaps, events he didn't write down."
Now I was thinking about the day I'd lost Jamie. Our last conversation. My face tried to screw itself up in emotion, I managed to fight it off. Deep breath.

Oh this one just has me cackling madly.
Community Comment Highlight
Spider8itch | December 19, 2015 at 5:40 pm
I'm the most careless reader…every one of Wildbow's reveals almost always catches me off guard. But in retrospect, a few of them are a bit more obvious than I thought.
I think Wildbow has a lot of readers like this, myself included. Also I've been reading Homestuck again. Watching. Listening. Whatever. The Let's Read is great. I think there's something magical about getting a story read to you, and even more magical when it's fans doing it. Point is, I think you can sit back and enjoy the ride on a lot of material, and I reckon Twig is cool enough for that, and the Worm fandom is evidence enough people can skim read Bow's work.

fabledFreeboota · May 16, 2018

CHAPTER LINK. THESE WEREN'T HERE BEFORE.
Bleeding Edge – 8.6

We approached the meeting place. It was down by the water. The 'head' of the mummified sea monster of Lugh loomed over us as we made our way down to the warehouses. A short bridge allowed easier passage over a tendril that lay across, between, and through buildings. The smell of the ocean that filled Lugh was overpowered by a smell of rotting seaweed and fish. I'd made the mistake of opening my mouth, and the smell became a taste, clinging to my tongue. I wasn't alone; Hubris kept snorting, as if trying to clear his airways.
Lanterns lit up a warehouse and a cast of figures. Ratface was there with his bodyguards, standing off to one side, ostensibly the mediator, middleman and negotiating official.

Zog off you Skaven numpty. I want to see more of JamII's drama.
So yeah. They're gonna sell Lil to a ridiculous supervillain lurking atop a fortress atop LUGH named the Fishmonger.
The Fishmonger recruits Lilian by sitting her in front of a man being eaten alive by a brain worm.
She removes the brain worm.
He threatens her with the brain worm.
Get back here, JamII.
Its not a bad chapter. Wait. Its a "bad" chapter. I don't think I'd care much about it in rereads, but this is as bad as a Bow chapter gets. Its functional. I don't think I've read a chapter that makes me surly or angry. The worst things get is that element of... filler, almost. Or episode of the week. This is the arc after all the villains met up, so it has to be setting something up, right? Or is this a harbinger of things to come, Twig effectively restarting every six arcs as the team of Lambs gets two big, splits by mytosis, and Sy meets JamIII, or Jamie the Revenge. Jamie takes Manhattan.

I can remember a bad Bow arc. Toronto. And then I remember all the little bits of Toronto, where I was loving it in detail.
I guess I just don't care about the stakes right now. Fishmonger is a villain the Twigs would be fighting in arc 1 or 2, or 3. By arc 4 we're in a war. But that's the point of this. This is going back to a low stakes villain to test JamII, and give Lili a chance to prove herself.
Character Beats
End Quote

Head a matter of a foot from the parasite.
It was a still tableau. The parasite writhed in place, the Fishmonger held Lillian where she was. I'd already ceased struggling, feeling how futile it was. The Fishmonger panted.
Then the parasite flipped itself over. It began to crawl in Lillian's direction.
For his own enjoyment, or perhaps to see the look on my face, the Fishmonger loosened his grip enough to let Lillian voice that scream that had haunted my imagination just moments ago.

Ok. So its a parasite he's using to torture his employees? Something he'll be implanting.
Key Quotes

From a tactical standpoint, the little bit of information we'd been able to pick up told us that Giles was known to the local underworld as the Fishmonger. He had a small army of thugs, and a set of modified humans as his elite soldiers. One sixth of Lugh belonged to him, which wasn't as much as some, but his sixth included the harbor. Ships that didn't pay the price to the men on the docks ran the risk of expensive collisions and complications.

The Fishmonger is the most British sounding of villains. The next arc of twig will of course add an experiment that Ate all the Pies. Joking aside, this arc is setting up to be just another backdrop, and I doubt we'll be seeing the Skaven, the Fishmonger, the Pie Eater, or Ashton ever again, in favour of more of JamII and Jam1.

Six regular thugs, four altered ones, and the Fishmonger himself. Ratface was watching from outside, but he and his two bodyguards were more assets arrayed against us.
This isn't your first dance, Fishmonger. You're experienced, and you've preemptively handled more situations than this one with this heavy handed brutality and a total lack of humanity.
Lillian had tools. Some were sharp. But with all the eyes on us, it would be difficult to get my hands on them. If I messed up in the slightest, I was betting the thugs would be faster to get to their guns than I would be to get to a scalpel.
While I surveyed the situation, I caught a glimpse of the Fishmonger.
There was a look on his face. It was a smile in the technical sense, but there was no happiness to it. I had trouble pinning it down.
Because of Lillian?
Because of the trap? The idea that Lillian might as well be shackled already, being wrist-deep in her patient?
I glanced at the door. The men who'd been on either side of it were now standing with their backs to it, blocking my view. I looked between their legs for a glimpse of Gordon and Jamie's feet, and didn't see them.
If Gordon and Jamie had made a move, then the men wouldn't be nearly that relaxed, blocking the door as they were.
Gordon and Jamie had been dealt with.
In saving this one man, we might have been doomed.

Dum dum dum. I just like Sy's deductiony bits and melodramatic narration.
Community Comment Highlight
wildbow | December 22, 2015 at 1:17 am
The tears of my fans are my Christmas present to myself.
Some things never seem to change.

Kefahuchi · May 16, 2018

Love those character-heavy chapters in this serial and i'm with you in that sometimes i just want more of that, forget the pesky stuff like actual plot moving forward.
On the scale of things it's certainly a bit dissonant to move from a war party to a petty criminal, but i can appreciate the need to stop a neverending escalation, and shows the lambs as continuing to be academy tools, bound by real and metaphorical chains, still not choosing their battlefields.

Indivisible · May 16, 2018

I feel your pain about waiting for more Ashton.

fabledFreeboota · May 17, 2018

CHAPTER LINK.
Bleeding Edge – 8.7

Being in a dangerous situation was rarely something that scared me, in itself. It had been the case, once upon a time, when the Lambs were new and we didn't even have a medic as part of the team, that a young Sylvester had felt his knees go wobbly and his hands shake, his thoughts falling to pieces as emotion took over.
The problem was that that kind of thinking was antithetical to efficient thinking. It clogged things up, drove one to run away, escape, do the simplest thing possible to get out of that bad situation. An artifact of our ancestors' functioning, before higher thinking had been a thing, according to Wallace.
Faced with any number of monsters, thrust into bad situations, I'd adjusted. All of us had, really, with the exception of Helen, who had never experienced true horror and panic as we did. That said, the Wyvern formula had helped me make the adjustment more quickly. I'd helped Gordon and Jamie figure it out, more the latter than the former. Gordon, more than any of us, had always been more comfortable doing things on his own. Even if it was figuring out how to face life or death situations, or how to create those situations for others and follow through at the end of the day. I'd figured it out, counseled, and offered the help I could, a push here and there.

HI Sy's Narration. Hello again, Wallace the inventor of all hell that has been unleashed on this Earth. I kinda wanna know how ordinary he was, or if he was some Ibott-like nutter, or a Cataconda maker.
In any, back to the action-

Learning to deal with the other Lambs being in imminent danger had been harder. But I'd more or less learned. Seeing them hone their abilities, I'd told myself and taught myself that, even when situations looked as bad as they could get, that we would see it through.
Years of experience, a full third of my life, teaching myself and my training my brain an almost careless disregard for the rules of self preservation that gripped ordinary people, and the ability to look past the threat to my loved ones to see the solutions to those threats.
Years of experience, and yet it was proving awfully hard to do in the midst of this, hearing Lillian's screaming.
I was caught, Lillian was pinned to the ground, and the others were lying on the ground over by the entrance. We were outnumbered and we were weaker than our adversaries in general physical strength. The parasite was inches from her face, covering an inch every few seconds, periodically stopping, twisting up like a snake in pain, blood spitting out of the wound. The twisting and rolling over moved it horizontally, but not enough to move it away from Lillian.

Yep, straight back into... Yeah. Its a long intro with Sy stuck on the ground NOT succeeding in struggling out of them. Until he tosses the parasite at one of the henchmen holding him. After a rather silly fight where parasites are used as flails and lili fakes being annoyed at Sy always abusing her honesty and integrity, the entire room is plunged into darkness.
GORDON'S ALIVE!

Character Beats
Sy's been stabbed, Lili stabbed Sy, Jam1's dead, JamII's unconscious, GORDON'S ALIVE and Ashton isn't here.
End Quote

Might as well make the most of it. Bleeding, beaten, stabbed, I managed a chuckle. Then I laughed. Wide eyes to sell the crazed aspect of the laugh. Eyes turned my way.
"You're right, Fishmonger. There is no way out."
Then, as if to echo my statement, likely because Gordon heard and was playing along -I'd have to buy him a treat later as thanks- the lights went out. We were plunged into almost absolute darkness, the only light being that which came from lamps outside the building and across the street.
Good boy, I thought, still grinning, but for my own benefit this time.

Good. Now for another chapter of fight, with a good.... 12 chapters still to the arc. I'm guessing we swap the Fishmonger for the Fishmonger's equally odious wife.
Key Quotes

He'd had no reaction to what amounted to one of the most solid blows I was physically able to deliver to his pride, joy, and joy. Or would it be pride, pride and joy? I only had limited hands-on experience with that.
It was all academic at this point. Though he wasn't so severely changed as the four I'd seen earlier, he had been altered. Protected, possibly with everything vital tucked up inside or some measure taken.

What is it with Bow and "TOO ADVANCED FOR THAT"

I was supposed to be screaming, fighting the man who held my arms.
It probed my lips with its head, and tiny mandibles or thorny bits cut as it searched the aperture. It pushed into the space, and I could taste it. It tasted like something that had, minutes ago, been inside someone's midsection. Blood, feces, and bile. I could keep from screaming, but I couldn't keep from screwing up my face in disgust.

Bow's second grossest line, besides Green Eye's backstory, and possibly some Goblins.

She was a wild animal, entirely on autopilot, not thinking, only acting. She stabbed me again and again, the same four or five syringe points penetrating flesh over and over again. Shoulder, shoulder, side, abdomen, arm, chest.
The last hit was delivered with both hands. The needles went in as far as they could go. She pressed, and leaned forward in the doing. Her forehead rested against mine.
"I liked you," she said, quiet but not so quiet the Fishmonger couldn't hear. "I trusted you."
"That's your own fault," I said, my voice soft.
"Enough," the Fishmonger said. He grabbed the back of Lillian's collar and pulled her away. She took one step back and sank to her knees.
I still had the needles buried in my shoulder.
Lillian's hands formed gestures.
Poison. Bad. Drug.
She'd dug deep and found something, and she'd gone wholly against what her entire purpose in the Lambs was, on paper, to keep us healthy and safe. She'd torn into me, presumably avoiding vital areas, to arm me.

The Twigs are all nuts.
Community Comment Highlight
Just some guy that liked Sy.
Soadreqm | December 26, 2015 at 12:52 am
Sy's analytical narration feels just a bit incongruous when things get really nasty. How he calmly describes how difficult it is to keep calm with Lillian about to be horribly tortured. Or his casual mentions of how much pain he's in. I like it.

REPLIES TO THE THREAD!

Kefahuchi said:
Love those character-heavy chapters in this serial and i'm with you in that sometimes i just want more of that, forget the pesky stuff like actual plot moving forward.
On the scale of things it's certainly a bit dissonant to move from a war party to a petty criminal, but i can appreciate the need to stop a neverending escalation, and shows the lambs as continuing to be academy tools, bound by real and metaphorical chains, still not choosing their battlefields.

Its just a little annoying after an arc that pulled EVERYTHING that happened in Twig together.

Indivisible said:
I feel your pain about waiting for more Ashton.

Its just a joke at this point.

fabledFreeboota · May 18, 2018

CHAPTER LINK.
Bleeding Edge – 8.8

The light that filtered in from outside the warehouse was only barely enough to let me see the Fishmonger's movement. A flash of his arm, raised, catching the light, moving-
I moved my head in response, just in time to absorb the worst of the hit.
The Fishmonger's fingers were strong as he gripped my throat and chin, fingertips digging in.
"Who are you?" he asked. Then he amended his question. "What are you?"
"We're mercenaries," I said. "You cornered a bit too much of the local market, threw your weight around, and some of your enemies banded together to pay our price."
"Bullshit," the Fishmonger spoke into the darkness. "Business has been good. We've been cooperating more than ever before."

Sy's great at lying on his feet.
The chapter opens with Sy pretending to have stingers. Which is funny, given he described himself as the serpent with a poisoned sting a while back. Which is funny, because I always thought Wyvern's were just dragons without arms. Which is funny, because try saying that about Smaug.
With the lights out, everyone gets skronked by the Twigs.
Character Beats
Gordon looks dead, joke about Jamie, Helen's mentioned an awful lot this arc, Duncan doesn't matter, this section is a reference to a musical version of War and Peace, and Ashton isn't here...
End Quote

"It's not worth it," Gordon said. "You're going to give us some information, answer some questions, you'll give us the Fishmonger, and you can carry on doing what you do. We'll disappear in a day or two, after picking off a few of your enemies."
"This is about the damn books, isn't it?" the eel-black man asked. He relented, his gun pointing skyward. Gordon eased up in turn.
"Yeah," Gordon said. He looked like death, like he'd been the one to get beaten, stabbed, scratched and beaten some more. "Yeah, in a roundabout way, this is about the books."

Honestly I'd be more happy with an awesome and visceral fight but I've just been conditioned to expect something nice and character building. Wait. What about Lilian?
DAMNIT! I forgot! This was HER arc. Gah. Oh I'm sure nothing happened in this chapter.
Lilian, in the last few chapters, has acted as viscerally and skillfully as another Lamb. She deceives, fights, and Sy admits his feelings about her feelings for him.

She was someone who liked being teased, but what she really craved, deep down, was someone to cling to. Every night that she slept in my bed, she held herself tight against me, clutching me as if she'd fall into a chasm if she didn't. Aside from lengthy sessions of kissing, that was all it ever was, to the point that I suspected she needed it more than I did. Someone to be close.

And its scary to see stuff like that. If anyone has a prompt or a point or a question, please, cos I'm still figuring this one out. There's something about Sy's teasing, and testing, and taunting. Anyway, I'm now updating the "Twig Interestingometer"
TWIG INTERESTOMETER - Ranking the characters by interest!
Sy, JamII, Helen, Jam1, Lilian, Hubris, Ashton, Mary, Gordon, Duncan.
Key Quotes

With barely a sound, I rolled over onto my back, and took a second to pull the bits of syringe out of my shoulder. I collected the needles and broken syringe-ends, holding them between my fingers, the broken glass against the heel of my palm.
That done, I brought my arms over my head, wincing at the pull against the damage in my shoulder, lifted my butt up off the ground, and rolled forward into a crouching position.
I was as blind as any of them, but they were big, I was small, and my footsteps were comparatively quiet in contrast to the big man's. I closed the distance, and slammed the needles out in his direction, slamming them into his side and his back, before dancing back and away of the retaliatory strike.
"Motherfucking fuck fuck fuck! Little fuckspittle!"
"Stop doing that!" the Fishmonger barked. "Say why you're swearing, you moron, or it doesn't help!"

Ok, this was me realising what I loved about Twig. Its got humour. Everyone has humour. But not the bad kind of everyone has humour. Its the pulpy kind. Which is great, because this is very much what Twig resembles in plot and time setting.

A gunshot sounded from among the shelves at the back of the warehouse. The eyes that had looked my way looked between the source of the sound and the destination – a hole in the wall just beside the lantern-holding man's head.
Gordon's aim was better on the second shot. The man fell, and the lantern crashed to the floor.
It wasn't like the dime-store novels. The container didn't shatter and it didn't ignite into a nice distracting fire.
I moved, dashing between the table and the Fishmonger to get to Lillian's bag.
"Mutt!" I hollered. "Get rid of the lantern!"

But at the same time Sy, don't all Dime Store novels feel the urge to say this isn't a dime story novel? No? That's just a thing that books and films tend to do? Fair enough.

It was the same principle I'd espoused earlier. People had needs. Take away something they needed, and their behavior could be controlled. The light was gone. Safety in question. Two men worried they might be dying, and one was so convinced of it that he was imagining symptoms where they didn't exist.

KEY THEMES

I wasn't sure what to call it, there wasn't a good word for it. She had confronted the dark side of academy science when she'd stared down that parasite. In the aftermath of it, she'd been like a different Lillian.
She'd been harrowed, if I had to give a name to the process. It was a good word, it was close to the word hollow, and it made me think of a person's very being getting raked over.
Was the old Lillian still there, past it all?

Yo! Readers! All two of you! Is it ok if I say people are being harrowed in future chapters?

Community Comment Highlight: Shipper on deck!

Aaron | December 29, 2015 at 2:07 am
Lillian and Gordon are fantastic here; if the story were from either of their perspectives, Sy would be a sideshow. All of the feels for Sylian, incidentally; she gives him purpose and motivation, in a way, and he keeps her together even more than she does the same for him.

REPLY TO COMMENTS

Phigment · May 18, 2018

Harrowed works fine.

Indivisible · May 20, 2018

I like harrowed as a word.

Kefahuchi · May 20, 2018

Harrow them at your leisure!!!

Sy and Lilian have a good, heartfelt dynamic but i still don't trust Sy feelings...

fabledFreeboota · May 24, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.9
OPENING LINES

The Fishmonger didn't really have a body type, in the conventional sense. He was shaped like a hump to begin with. Now, with his legs bent at odd angles, belly sticking skyward, in clothing that rendered him even more shapeless, he was something else. He groaned and moaned as he flopped on the floor to the best of his impaired ability. It momentarily interrupted the dialogue.
I glanced at Lillian, who didn't move a muscle to rush to the man's aid.
Instead, both hands on the borrowed rifle, she walked over to the table with the patient she'd been tending to earlier. She spoke to him in a low voice, laying the gun down so it was still pointing in the general direction of the thugs, before picking up tools.
They didn't jump to reach for their guns or give any sign they saw that as an opportunity. That was fine.
This was a dominance game, a vicious dogfight followed by the survivors circling one another, teeth bared but with no desire to fight. Each side was obligated to attack if the other showed weakness or a reluctance to play fair, by the rules of this particular arena. They had reputations to maintain, even among one another, and in the eyes of their boss. We had to hold on to the illusion of competence we'd created.

They save the Fishmonger, poison the Fishmonger, have a few thousand words of INCREMENTAL CHARACTER PROGRESSION and guess that Mauer is behind things.
CHARACTER BEATS
Gordon's dying slightly more than usual, JamII was poisoned, and Gordon can tear his arm off for party tricks.
CLOSING LINES

I wasn't sure if this thing between Lillian and I was a good thing, but this, this gesture, I was sure about. I could read people and I could read Lillian. Nevermind concerns about manipulation or whatever else. Nevermind that a nice day might forever be out of reach. Forget that until tomorrow.
She needed a hug, she needed to rest, after all of that. I was supposed to take care of her and she was supposed to take care of me. That much I could understand.
"Thank you," she whispered in my ear. "Thank you."

Yep. Still very much controlling.
KEY QUOTES

He was saying what he was saying without making any promises or guarantees. It had always bothered me a little that Gordon had such an easy time of it, while I came under ready suspicion, even when I was being honest.
It wasn't even with the important stuff. I could think back and I couldn't remember a time when I'd been legitimately listened to by someone who wasn't a Lamb, where I didn't have to try. To logic my way to a listening ear or to manipulate to keep that listening ear.
Even with Lillian, I wasn't sure it was ever easy. Natural, perhaps, but I could imagine a world where I could spend an entire day with her, from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to sleep, no obligations, no other people. In that world I envisioned, the most common scenario was one where I said or did the wrong thing and made Lillian genuinely upset. The next most likely scenario was one where I got tired from having to censor myself and pick my words, and fail to find time to enjoy myself, end up tired and miserable, or end up sabotaging it, leaving Lillian genuinely upset.

There we go. None of that riveting action.

The human side of Lillian was there, there was no doubt of that. Her fear, the shake of her hand, the expressions that crossed her face as she worked.
But I could also see the big picture. How she was throwing herself into her work, in a way that she had to have done countless times throughout the years. An escape, a concrete, real thing that she could control, excel in and remedy. Ordered.
I could see how the other emotions gave way to the problem she was solving, the order of steps, the careful measurement of fluid for syringes, her words as she explained each step to the Fishmonger, showed him the bottles.
Everyday Lillian was cute, but it was a leap to say she was a beauty in the way Mary was. She was a girl, where Mary was a young woman or even a young lady, even if Lillian was older than her friend.
But this Lillian, she was beautiful. In the tension of the moment, focused wholly on her task, face still and fingers working her craft, the girl wasn't there. It was a glimpse of what Lillian might look like if Lillian was an experiment. Or if Lillian was a professor, wearing the black coat she wanted so very badly.

Righteo. Sorry, its just I thought this arc was about JamII is all.

But this Lillian, she was beautiful. In the tension of the moment, focused wholly on her task, face still and fingers working her craft, the girl wasn't there. It was a glimpse of what Lillian might look like if Lillian was an experiment. Or if Lillian was a professor, wearing the black coat she wanted so very badly.
Or perhaps the distinction between the two wasn't so fine, between the man-made monster and the man made monster.

What a poignant question Sy, to which I reply that the Twigs are monstrous because they do monstrous things AND because they are all monsters.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Goes today to some chap with a quote they've applied to a line in this chapter, the third KEY QUOTE. Its also a novel one because I'm fairly certain that only tits care about whether ou are referring to Victor Frankenstein or Frankenstein's Frankenstein.
Veldorn | January 2, 2016 at 10:00 am
"Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein is not the monster. Wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster."
REPLY TO COMMENTS
Good. Harrow to you too.

fabledFreeboota · May 25, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.10
OPENING LINES

"Coast clear?" Gordon asked.
"Coast clear," Jamie reported. His breath fogged up in the cool morning air.
Gordon nodded. He withdrew a set of picks from his pocket, and began working on the lock in the front door, while the rest of us gathered around.
"If I'd seen this lock up close, I'd know there was something going on," Gordon said. "It's better than the usual."
"Huh," I said. "You can't do it?"
"There's a locking bar and a rotating disc. It's the kind of lock you'd find on the front door of the Gage's mansion, not a warehouse like this. This will take a minute," he said.

"A" chapter start. Nothing to write home about. Well, it turns into banter and Sy mentioning himself being poisonous again. THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER.
The Twigs muck about making their way into the labs of Lugh, and find organs that are... ALIVE. The immortal girl replicated part by part.
They have a look around, only for Candy the Immortal (An Everlasting Gobstopper?) to arrive, bite a friend's shoulder, and begin some hanky with him. Sy takes a moment to cop a feel with Lil, before confronting Candy.
Candy reckon's she's new technology, Lil reckons she isn't, and Candy shows off The Blob.
CHARACTER BEATS
Gordon's dying, Sy's poisonous, Lilian's smart, Jamii's here and Ashton isn't.
CLOSING LINES

It looked like it was made of tumorous flesh, nodules, or a coral reef. Parts fit together and clutched to one another, giving the entirety of it a surface like a human brain, all bumps and valleys. It moved only slightly, without purpose, like a newborn baby, lacking the strength to even raise a heavy limb more than an inch or two.
"Primordial life," Lillian said.
"Oh," Jamie said, "Oh wow."
"What the heck is that supposed to even be?" Gordon asked.
"Sy has talked about the Lamb's project, right?" Lillian asked. "About what we're meant for, in the long run? What he hopes for? A great mind?"
Gordon nodded. Candy continued to give us wary looks.
A better brain, capable of pioneering better brains than their own.
"If that mind had a body to suit, this would be that body," she said.

This is not life. This is sickness. This is 28 feet squared of flesh. This is the sort of thing you use as a goalkeeper.
KEY QUOTES

"I know you like to say so, Sy, but you're not that poisonous," Lillian said. "It's not like you spit nightshade and pee cyanide."
"That would be nifty," I said.

Heh.

The interior of the place was improvised. We'd seen many a makeshift laboratory, and there was a tendency for them to try to hold to a kind of convention. The Snake Charmer, for example, had maintained a small library, equipment, tools, all bought or found elsewhere and brought to his lab. He'd had a chalkboard, texts, a proper desk, beakers, and what he couldn't find he'd built. It had been ramshackle, but it had been a lab.
This was different. Every piece of equipment seemed to be the wrong sort of thing, bent to scholarly ends. Old crates had been stacked to either side of the desk with open faces out towards us, a makeshift bookcase. The 'books', however, were disorganized reams of paper, many bound into sections with twine. An old door had been laid out on its side, propped up on stacks of crates, with more papers strewn on top. The hole where the doorknob was meant to be inserted served to hold a cup, presumably serving as an inkwell, if I could draw conclusions from the dark spatter surrounding it. Candles and lanterns were set atop virtually every horizontal surface on that end of the room, the candles melted to stay firmly in place.

This is the problem when every man and his dog is smart enough to make monsters.

Unlike her parents, Candy looked like she was fit for the aristocracy. A long neck, paler skin, and platinum hair that had been artificially lightened, cut short like a boy's. Everything else about her screamed of an attempt to rebel. She wore a man's overalls and shirt, though the shirt was tied short, so it knotted at her solar plexus, allowing a glimpse of her belly. Tattoos marked her arms, small thorns or horns sprouted from her skin at the one cheekbone I could see, and two curving horns rose from her forehead. I could tell that her eyes had been altered, but not how, not at this distance, in this lighting.
The one accessory she had with her, however, that screamed of her rebellion against her parents, was a boy. He was tall, lanky, and probably had as much muscle on his frame as I did, after adjusting for height and proportions. Artificial scales decorated him, mingling with dark, swirling tattoos of indeterminate subject. It was a lot less dramatic and haphazard than what Candy had done to herself. It was as if she'd decorated herself with whatever came at hand, spur of the moment, while he'd done the work on himself with an artist's eye and a goal in mind.

Surprise! Its a platinum blonde in a wildbow story. Your guess is as good as mine whether they're actually meant to be platinum or if they're meant to be blonde.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Goes to the best name of a commentor, and their insane proclamations of "It's alive", which only make me wonder why a 28feet squared blob of flesh is scarier than a fifty foot squared blob of flesh that eats people. Immortality isn't that interesting in a society where big guns are already a thing.
warycassowary | January 5, 2016 at 1:52 am
(Getting Beholder vibes of all things from this, for some reason. Damn you Critical Role.)
This is it. This is the Modern Prometheus. Everything you've read about how man shouldn't play God, how dinosaurs will only ruin your theme park, how the creation of something smarter than you will only lead to the immortal Keanu Reeves becoming the Messiah in the Machine in the future, this is where it begins.
REPLY TO COMMENTS
Why really does the prospect of an immortal blob monster make this Primordial thing scarier than Sub Rosa?

Indivisible · May 25, 2018

I didn't comment on it before, but I liked that the Fishmonger, despite being a minor villain, still managed to injure the Lambs quite a bit.

fabledFreeboota · May 26, 2018

I might as well advertise it here. Seems it gets all of 0 likes a chapter on SV. I do a sorta in universe radio show thing for Ward called Vermont Stretch Radio, if anyone cares.

Kefahuchi · May 26, 2018

I'm not much into fanfiction (yeah strange being on SV despite that) but i'll give it a go

Immortal blob monsters are just wrong...

fabledFreeboota · May 27, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.11
OPENING LINES

"Can you please put it back?" Lillian asked.

"It's not viable," Candy said. "Even if it was, we have metal hooks going through its limbs."

"Please?" Lillian asked.

Candy nodded. She let the chain slide through her grip, and the primordial thing descended, disappearing into the hole, with the hatch finally settling down, slightly ajar.

Candy walked over and toed at the hatch, until it fell into the space that had been carved out for it.

"Thank you," Lillian said.

"It's not viable," Candy said, not for the first or second time. "It can't move of its own volition, it isn't strong enough to break good chains."

An easy way to tell me that "Yes, the 28 feet squared blob of flesh is scary"

Welcome to what lilian as mission leader looks like. She befriends Candy, who has chosen to name herself Emily now in addition to all the changes to her body. They sort stuff out, and it able to articulate exactly why the fuck I should be scared of 28 feet squared of flesh. Because its 28 feet squared of self replicating self advancing nightmare meat that will grow and evolve until it outpaces humanity.

They wisely elect to burn it to the ground, and stay in touch via letters after this all blows over.

CHARACTER BEATS
Candy is Emily. She's pretty chill. Sy is just sorta the camera here. Lil is reasonable. Jamie is JamII and he's kinda here. Ashton wasn't.

CLOSING LINES

"Yeah," I said. I looked back at Lillian. "I know you've been advocating telling the truth, but if time really is of the essence…"

"If she draws the conclusion on her own, we won't lie to her," Gordon said, firmly. "If she doesn't realize that we'd be setting the Academy on their heels, we don't tell her."

I nodded. She would resist, or even if she didn't, it would poison things.

"I don't like it," I said. "We can hope they get enough of a head start, and maybe make them harder to find, but… I don't like it."

"Yeah," Gordon said, "Me either."

I knew it was too much to hope they'd actually be nice. I hope Emily gets out.
KEY QUOTES

"They're using the wrong word. Immortal isn't right."

"It's the word your parents used," Gordon said.

"It's not accurate!" Candy raised her voice. She looked more wild animal than person for an instant, in the flare of anger. She appeared to try and visibly calm herself down. "No. They hired doctors to experiment on me, they extended my lifespan, made me more susceptible to some problems and resistant to others. They're trying to pass it off as something it isn't."

"Extended it how much?" Drake asked. "Ten years? Twenty-five? Fifty? A hundred?"

"I don't know!" Candy shouted, wheeling on him. "I won't know until I get there! If I get there. The doctor said I might become ugly and said I might lose my mind to a kind of treatment-related dementia before I'm forty and then in the next breath he said I might live three-"

All the Twig side characters are in a Victorian horror novel in their own right. Emily gets to be on that list. An immortal dementia.

Lillian nodded. "It's already off to the races, like Sy said. It's got a kind of nervous system or communication system running through its body, it's developing parts with individual, coherent purpose. It might be inspired on some level by what it's been fed or given…"

I saw a glimpse of the Lillian I'd seen the night prior, as she worked it out in her head.

"When you say it isn't viable, what do you mean?" Lillian asked, very suddenly, turning to Candy. At this stage, we were collectively standing in a loose circle around the hatch.

"It can't stand on its own. It's not coordinated. It's weaker than I am," Candy said.

"Okay," Lillian said. "Well, right now, it can't even walk on its own. Maybe. In a week or two, it might be as strong as a warbeast from yesteryear. That's bad enough, because you can't be sure how far along it is or what it's capable of. How would you know? You'd have to dissect it, take it to pieces, and research the individual parts. So it might be weaker than a modern warbeast, but it'd still be a mystery. Maybe it gives off toxic fumes. Maybe it's just strong and flexible, capable of escaping those chains. Give it another week or two, and it's still a mystery, but it might be scarier than a modern warbeast of equivalent size. Give it another month, and it could double in size, or maintain the same size and get more efficient, or it could develop capabilities we haven't yet invented."

Is there ANYTHING the academies can't do? They've got bootsrapping biological AI's and immortal cannibalising flesh, and the cure for being gay if Sy's right on that front. This setting just gets more abhorrent by the arc.

COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
It's Zim the fox again. They're always good for a laugh.
Zim the Fox | January 9, 2016 at 1:54 am
Jeez, Lil. Not even half of the wars against the Academy were started by it, right. But don't you wonder whether there was a reason people started a war with the Academy?

REPLY TO COMMENTS

Kefahuchi said:
Immortal blob monsters are just wrong...

Immortal blobs are fine. Seems its everything else about it that's the problem.

Indivisible said:
I didn't comment on it before, but I liked that the Fishmonger, despite being a minor villain, still managed to injure the Lambs quite a bit.

Eh. I mean, its a bit of a diversion. I just found that sort of side thing a bit distracting on another mission that already seems like a minor side thing, up until they stumble onto the conspiracy to make the thing from another world.

fabledFreeboota · May 29, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.12
OPENING LINES

Ratface Cecil was busy eating. Another bowl of ambiguous slop. He'd tripled down on the bodyguards, but half of those bodyguards were now eating.

The rain continued to pour, and even though the sun was supposed to be high in the sky, the intermittent cloud cover and the wind blowing across Lugh meant that the water that collected in the darker folds of our clothing was freezing or partially freezing.

The lack of light, however, helped to conceal us as we crept along a rooftop, across the street from the man.

"Lillian," Gordon said, holding out a hand. Lillian fished in her bag, and produced a metal tube. She handed it to me. Rather than hand it to Gordon, I held it up and looked down the length of it, peering at the back of Ratface's head. There were grooves spiraling down the interior.

Gordon reached out to take it from me, and the end of the thing poked at my eye socket.

"Jerk," I said.

"Let's not waste time," he said. "I want to get back."

"Do you even have the lung capacity to do anything with that?" I asked. I looked at Lillian, who had a bottle out, placed on the top of her bag, a syringe already filled with fluid, which she was now packing into a small feathered projectile. "Does he?"

Good show Sy. Then again, everyone jokes when you're in pain so its something of the norm here.

Using a blowpipe and the same usual trickery, the lambs engage Ratface, getting some info on who else is making 28ft^2 balls of meat.

Its the whole darn town. They all have a few yards of space they need to fill with insane meat. And to deal with it, the Academy will most likely burn it all down.

CHARACTER BEATS
Gordon's whining about dying, Lill's responsible for Atrocities, Sy's our POV, JamII's just kinda here, and Ashton isn't.
CLOSING LINES

The city was so dark, considering it was midday. The frost seemed to stubbornly cling to the edges and the shadows. I could see beyond the low, sloping buildings and make out structures that could be the targets we were going after. In another light, they were all homes of stubborn, stupid people who'd decided to live in a barren, ugly little city like this. People who would probably die to plague and fire, or to the monsters Lillian had described.

"Wanting Mary, if she's available, wanting the kids and adults, it's my roundabout way of saying we need help," I admitted.

Sy admitting he needs help isn't really that unusual.

KEY QUOTES

"The Academy will handle it," I said. "I believe you."

"Then-"

"They'll bring an army. They'll surround Lugh, and they'll hit the city with plague or something equivalent. Soldiers with masks on will march through, scour areas for clues, evidence, and the 'cats and cockroaches' survivors. A place this large, they could spend days or weeks doing it, picking through the bodies. All the while, they'll place gunpowder charges or oil or whatever else. When all is done, they'll torch Lugh, burning it down. Then they'll wrap it up by sending in war-hounds and warbeasts to find the survivors of that particular purge, and to knock down the buildings that are still standing."

Rule Brittania and all that.

"Why can't it be easy?" Lillian asked. "I… this was supposed to be a nice little reference on my record. A favor owed from people with money and connections to higher society. I gave up on that, and in my head I know it was the right thing to do, and Emily and Drake can have a good future together, but in my heart, I feel… nasty."

Lil still not getting what she does for a living.

COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Hah. Warhammer comparisons. That's silly. Nobody actually invents anything in Warhammer.
guy | January 17, 2016 at 2:32 pm
Honestly, even as brutal as the Academy is, I don't think they'd do something like this unless the situation really did call for it. It's like how in Warhammer 40k they only rarely invoke Exterminatus because planets are expensive. I doubt the Academy would destroy a major city unless they were reasonably confident they'd lose it anyway.

REPLY TO COMMENTS

fabledFreeboota · May 29, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.13
OPENING LINES

"And there we go," Gordon said. "Third patrol coming home."

I raised my head up to watch as two men in black coats made their way down the street. One had a bag slung over one shoulder, the other had a gun on either side of his hip, and a knife in his tall boots. Both seemed to be roughly the same age, both were of similar builds, and both had their hair cut short beneath brimmed hats. If it weren't for the one having a gun and the other having the bag, I would have considered them interchangeable.

Everything about their demeanor suggested a military background, or ex-military. Mauer's sort, if not his brothers in arms.

Gordon and I ducked our heads back behind cover as the pair looked around, searching for trouble. We'd chosen to hunker down behind a short fence surrounding a pen. It had once served as a home for an animal, very possibly a stitched creature, considering the lack of mess. Our choice had essentially been 'warm, dry, out of the rain, choose one.' We had a little roof, but the water was doing its best to puddle beneath us, and it wasn't very warm either.

It was just us three boys, four if we counted the mutt. Lillian was with the hired help.

They take a stakeout, and the story spends its time making absolutely sure we know how professional the soldiers around here are being... until we find out they've got something a lot bigger than 28 feet squared. Something that's alive enough to move. Developed limbs. And a catlike appearance.... its... a Cataconda.

CHARACTER BEATS
Gordon's dying, Jam1 died, Sy's fantasising about Mauer, and Mauer is here.
CLOSING LINES

The man they were protecting was walking at the center of the group, armed, but with no weapon held at the ready. He had coppery red hair, and wore a heavier coat, one meant to conceal his overlarge, mutated arm.

Mauer.

Mauer being here meant something. The plan I'd expected, to draw fire for the creation of the primordials, it didn't make sense if the man was here, in the midst of the city as it was cleansed.

All of the possibilities that did spring to mind were far, far worse than a city erased with plague and fire.

Queue the toccata and fugue in D minor. Someone has fashioned a weapon. Also, Sy might have been wrong. Hmm.

KEY QUOTES

The thought of Lillian and the thought of Mauer touched together, spurred by Gordon's remarks and Jamie's question. I saw Mauer as a girl, roughly our age. Coppery red hair, a little firebrand, attractive, but despite the sharp nose and fine features. She'd have to have the arm. Her voice would be younger, but she'd still have the skill with it, the rhetoric and the vocal range, the ability to address a proper crowd–

"You're actually thinking about it," Gordon said, in disbelief. "As if it's actually a consideration."

"What? Huh? No," I lied, ineffectually. He'd been watching me, and something in my expression must have tipped him off.

"You're bent in the head," he said. "The smallest push, and you go right there to fantasizing-"

"I was not fantasizing, stitched-dick."

"Mauer wanted to shoot Helen, he wanted to hurt us, but nooo, switch around a few variables, leave the personality intact, you'd actually think about it. You've got your wires crossed in your head, and you enjoy a challenge enough that you can't even distinguish between the people who challenge you and the people you enjoy being around. Hating him, disliking him, it doesn't even cross your mind?"

Oh but that Twig actually had a fanbase to push this out to sea.

The growths were more uniform. The colors fit together more, as did the textures. The shape of the thing was more streamlined, a solid build, not unlike a leopard or another great cat, quadrupedal, with a distinct head instead of a lump. It looked more sleek than clumsy. The design was more apparent.

Chains to bind it, to the point it might look ludicrous. Explosive charges were set near it. Panels of what looked to be treated glass surrounded it, with stairs built so handlers could walk up and access a point over the box, which lacked a top.

Weapons, equipment, gas masks, and other munitions lay on nearby shelves and tables, waiting for an excuse to be used, but the creature didn't seem to be putting up a fight, it didn't struggle against its bonds.

Soldiers who might have specialized in dealing with the worst monsters and biological weapons, now turned toward creating one.

My god. The Cataconda to end all Catacondas.

COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Hey look! Its the utterly abhorrent again! Not quite as bad as Dog and... anyone... but still pretty disturbing.
namorsol | January 16, 2016 at 12:50 am
Hmm, y'know Sy. With the technology available to you these days, I'm sure Mauer can be aged down and turned into a girl just for you.

Or you could just take him as he is, haha.

REPLY TO COMMENTS

fabledFreeboota · Jun 1, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.14
OPENING LINES

Frigid water ran down the wall, over my hands, and into my sleeves. The rainwater that the fabric of my sleeves and coat lining didn't absorb ran down my arms to my chest, trickling down back, stomach, and sides, seeking out new and inventive paths.
Climbing down was harder than climbing up. If it were me alone, I could have managed it, but I had Jamie with me. We clung to the exterior wall, twenty feet over the ground.
Reverend Mauer made his way down the street, accompanied by his retinue. I clung closer to the building, and the rainwater touched my face, using the contact to work its way down my collar.
"This would be it, then," I heard his voice. They were just outside the door, a matter of twenty or so feet away from me.

The most brooding and sinister of monster handed preachers. Funny story, Sy cares about it so little and its described so little that I don't even remember the monster arm any time until its brought up again.
Sy and co observe Mauer as he observes his captive experiment. He wants repeatable Primordial messes to drop on the Academy's doorstep, and he's goign to loose Lugh's Primordial's sooner rather than later. Armed with a cartful of explosives, the gang manage to take out Mauer's base in classic "Push the Payload" fashion.
CHARACTER BEATS
Everyone is everyone. They act perfectly in character and I make a joke about wanting to see Ashton you've already heard 14 times. Mauer isn't a girl Sy's age, unfortunately.
CLOSING LINES

"They're going to get out," Lillian said. "Unless we can stop them?"
"No," I said. "But we can screw up his plans. We already got one primordial, I think, and it wasn't that dangerous anyway. If we're lucky, fire and the explosives in this building will get the other, if not Mauer's whole group. I'm not willing to gamble, and I'm not willing to pick this particular fight."
"If we can't stop the enemy, we stop their plan," Gordon said.
"Go with Lillian and Hubris," I told him. "Old Crusty Asshole's place. Get the lay of the land, see what you can do. Jamie and I go to Drake and Emily and make sure they buried their project, make sure they get out alive. Then we rendezvous with you."
Gordon nodded.
And we were off.

I don't know how some chapters of Twig can feel hectic and rushed at the same time as rather slow. I suppose its all the doubling back and retreating and dealing with existing problems. Twig doesn't lose track of existing messes, and it rarely deals with them.
KEY QUOTES

"You know, we've been sitting here for almost an hour," one of the adults said, harsh, lecturing.

"Shut up," I said.

"Sy!" Lillian admonished me.

"Just- damn it," I said.

The woman spoke, "the children are cold, they're confused. The men back there had guns, they said. You threw that rock-"

"My friend did."

"You all threw that rock and you knew it would stir up trouble. These children could have been shot!"

"I know," I said. Things were too time-critical here for me to be having this conversation. "My friend here was with them. I knew the risk, I knew they'd be safe. More important things are happening."

"You're acting high and mighty and telling us what to do because you say you're going to free us from the debtors' chains, but-"

"People are going to die!" I raised my voice. "An army is marching on the city. Another army is gathering inside it. Plague, monsters like you've never imagined, and worse things are coming. We have barely a minute to try and stop those things from happening. We're spending that minute talking to you."

He's frustrated because he's an adultish child... but we're still expected to cut him slack like a child. Not doing it. He's toxic. Everyone whose life he touches he changes for the worse.

I turned my back from the scene, my finger touching the ring at my thumb, and saw that Jamie and Lillian had handled the other soldier. Gordon had emerged from cover, moving very slowly.

Mauer's men were banging on the window with the closed shutters. They'd already broken the glass at the other one, only to find a kind of net in their way. One was hacking at it with a long knife. He stopped as Gordon emptied his gun in his direction. Either he'd seen the danger or he'd been hit.

Gordon seems downright accepting at this point.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
This chap with a rather odd example.
bloodKnight | January 19, 2016 at 1:11 pm
In Medieval Total War 1 video game – when you send assasin to do shady things about a general figure – and assasin fails – general picks one of special traits (it assigns randomly). it sometimes happens that general picks trait which make essentially means that he became more paranoid and started to practice to selfdefense. It is nice trait + to fighting skills on battlefield or protection against assasins… something like that. But If you send another assasin – and that one fails too – his trait will mutate – general becomes TOO paranoid. It starts to affect his ability to govern his land.
Ex-Reverend neglected importance of one single broken window and a lingering shadow of little kids. Will it scar him?
REPLY TO COMMENTS

fabledFreeboota · Jun 1, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.15

OPENING LINES

The sun was already setting, and the clouds that hung on the horizon meant that it was getting dark especially early, as a result. From dawn to dusk without the kindness of a sunset. Not that Lugh was a bright city on even the best of days. The freezing rain was coming down harder, and the clouds were massing, the spots of open sky between them shrinking.

Jamie was out of breath, and for once, I wasn't doing much better than him. We stopped where we were, and I turned, taking in the crowds on the road, people keeping to the very edges of the road, where overhanging rooftops provided some shelter from the rain and the cold, the middle of the streets left mostly empty.

One of the initial experiments I'd done with Professor Hayle had been to focus my mental clarity. I'd had to sit down, and imagine a perfect white rectangle, and draw it as sharply in my mind's eye as if it were real and I was looking at it with my eyes. As the lessons had progressed, I'd had to hold multiple images in my mind, add details, add movement, and more. It was only one of a long and varied series of tests, one that the others had had to try their hands at, and I'd suffered for my lack of short- and long-term recall as the images had gotten more complex.

That lack of ability to hold things in my mind meant I had to pick and choose what I kept. Certain talents, such as climbing and manipulating people , were things I kept myself up to date on. Keeping clear images in my mind's eye wasn't so important as keeping more than one thought process running at the same time, without the individual trains of thoughts colliding.

The gang run off to try and save people from the Academy. Fat Chance. The Academy release the Krakens. Do note, that giant monster in Lugh indicates they can make monsters that big, and reminds me that Scott Westerfield's Leviathan series is a thing. A mess of a thing that gives Engineers a little more credit than Twig, but then again accredited Engineers in Twig are all steam powered cyborgs, so I'd probably still go for an apprenticeship than a career in biology.
CHARACTER BEATS
Andre, Pierre, and the great comet of 1812. Ashton isn't here.
CLOSING LINES

"The biggest ship on the water," Ermine said. On the docks, people were ringing bells, small ones, a shrill clatter, intent on getting the attention of just about everyone in earshot. She went on to add, "Something pulled it under."

My eyes traveled to the great sea beast of Lugh, the corpse of the experiment that now sprawled over a third of the city.

Too soon. Too early. Had to be lying in wait already, listening for some signal none of the rest of us can hear.

They're coming, and we're already running out of escape routes.

"Change of plans," I said. "Warn as many people as you can. The Academy is coming, and they don't plan for anyone in this city to be alive by the time they leave."

Well I sure hope the Academy is the safest place for you lot to be now eh Sy.
KEY QUOTES

There wasn't a single one of them that hadn't stepped beyond the constraints of the human form. Candy's horns, tattoos, and sharp nails, Drake's scales, and now a large man, a Bruno, who either had large patches of scarring or something inserted beneath the skin, and three others with heavy tattoos and modification. One had eyes that flashed like an animal's did in the dark.

Charactery descriptions.

I shook my head. I turned to Emily, "In a matter of hours, the Academy is going to storm Lugh like nothing you've ever believed possible. The guy you were working for? He wanted to let the primordials loose and cross his fingers the things do more damage to the Academy than to all of the innocents and the guilty in this dumpy city. I warned you out of good conscience. Please listen. You listened to the girl I was with earlier, you know she cared. I'm doing this for her, and you should too. Take my word on this, let me get you all as far as Tynewear, and everything will be okay."

Don't listen to him. He's probably right but it really annoys him if you don't.

He reminded me of Rick from Lambsbridge. Someone who had a particular view of reality, where everything had its place where it belonged, and he fought tooth and nail against anything that challenged that carefully arranged image. There was no use fighting, because any argument I made to paint a different picture would only lead to more resistance.

I really could care less about Rick. Maybe if we spent more than a minute in Lambsbridge, but as it is you'd be forgiven for forgetting the woman in charge of it.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
This chap with a Verne reference!
Someguy | January 21, 2016 at 2:55 am
Ah… This is going to go 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea where Ned Land just gets eaten.
REPLY TO COMMENTS

fabledFreeboota · Jun 1, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Bleeding Edge – 8.16
OPENING LINES

The city had awoken. Lugh had been, from the time we arrived, a city in torpor. There hadn't been a person we'd seen yet, with the exception of the Fishmonger's group, perhaps, who had been bringing their full strength or energy to bear. It was a brutish city, rough-edged and worn thin, but it was one that had been holding back its full strength, fist drawn back but not thrown as a punch, ready for a fight.
The alert at the dock was reaching out across the city. Where lanterns had been points of light in the darkness of a stormy evening, more lanterns and candles were lit, now, a false fire spreading across the harbor, first, then along forked streets.
The corpse of the sea monster that was draped over a lesser section of the city came alive, too. Not in reality, but the empty eye sockets flared with an orange-red light that caught the mist. A moment later, that flare tripled in intensity, a searchlight mounted within the creature's head passing over us, then turning out toward the water.

It'd be a bit of a dick move to make a joke about Bow not bringing his full energy to bare here either, wouldn't it?
Sorry. Candy, Fishmonger, Primordial et all have et up a lot of screentime that coulda been spent on JamII or, heaven forbid, Ashton. The arc's been frightfully lacking in Snake hipped monsters and twigs.
Well. With the academy drawin in, Sy and JamII flee, Emily and her friends getting shot as they follow. They watch as Mauer drags out not one but four Primordials, with the rest left behind in the lab. Honestly, that just sounds disturbing. I wouldn't leave them alive, alone, and that close to each other. If people are making bootstrapping AI references for these things, that's the equivalent of letting the AI's from "I have no Mouth so this title's really hard for me to say out loud isn't it?" chat with each other.
That done, Mauer gets his speech going, and tells everyone there's a fight coming. Sy points out all these details like spotlights to give him a faux halo, or him showing off his modified arm, and frames them as manipulations. Which is how you make n inspiring speach after all.
The arc comes to its not yet end. Seeing as how the last time the Lambs were going to get in a fight we wrapped up the whole arc with an interlude, the prospect seems pretty likely here.
CHARACTER BEATS
Mauer's pretty cool, Sy's pretty evil, Emily's stuck here, and JamII's kinda just here. We got all his obvious character stuff out of the way at the start of the arc so there's not really much to joke about here.
CLOSING LINES

I continued to move through the crowd. I stopped as I saw Horace and Emily, less enthused as they added their cheers to that of the crowd, but they still did it.
What other options did they have at this point? They'd probably rationalized it as necessary, to get medical attention for their friends. It wasn't like they could hide and hope that the Academy wouldn't annihilate them like it planned to annihilate everything else in Lugh.
A hand settled on my shoulder. A part of me thought it was a soldier. But it was too gentle.
Jamie, dusted with a smattering of snow. I'd gotten ahead of him in my efforts to take it all in.
He didn't have to speak, not that it would have done any good with the cheering around us. No need for gestures either.
I nodded agreement. I joined him in making our way out of the mob.
As heated as the crowd was, I was cold, and the emotion in the core of me was cold, too.
We had work to do.

Oh look. Parallels to the way Sy justifies his actions in order to keep his friends alive and supplied with medical attention.
KEY QUOTES

It wasn't as bright here, but more crowded, equally as alive, and it seemed doubly so with how narrow the street was. Barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast. People were talking, almost negotiating, in the heat of the moment, trying to figure out what they were doing, how, what they needed. A group of boys were pissing on piles of hand-towel-sized rags. A group of men were tying similar, wet rags around the bottom halves of their faces. All were already armed.

That improvised gas mask thing.

The reason I could make out the building as easily as I did was that Mauer was already there. His soldiers had gathered around the place in force, and they had artificial lights as well as lanterns. I could see the balding old man with a shaggy beard and lab coat who had to be Old Crusty Asshole. I could see the ragtag band of nobodies standing around Crustybutt who had to be his employees. Mauer stood back, his soldiers all around him. The overall number of soldiers was significant – easily thirty or forty, and the number didn't include the ones he'd sent out to recruit and gather up an army from among the people of Lugh. The number of apparent lieutenants, however, was lower than before. I didn't believe that we'd killed any, but smoke or light burns had to have taken the fight out of them.
I motioned for Jamie to get down as we drew closer. The rain was lighter than it had been, but it seemed twice as cold, pattering down on corrugated shingles.
Mauer wore his coat more like a cape, over the shoulders and buckled at the collar, but no longer covering his monstrous arm. The arm was partially visible, and a fair portion of it was wrapped in bandages. I could see where bandages were soaked through with blood and clear bodily fluids, burns. I could also see the dark red lines soaking through the bandages where he'd been cut.
Glass, perhaps, or razor wire. He'd used the arm to club his way through.
He wore no hood or hat, and the light rain ran down his face and through his hair, which caught the ambient light from lanterns and torches. An artificial light gave him an equally artificial halo.

Twig's villains continue to interest me more than Sy, for the simple fact that they have a goal beyond survival at the cost of others, and that they dress better.

The pair was hooked up to the wagons as the first two had been. I'd seen the wagons from multiple angles, now, and from what I could gather, there were iron bars running along the sides of the wagons, just requiring a twist and a pull to be slid free. With the bars pulled free, likely from a safe distance, there would be nothing binding chain to wagon, and the things would be loosed.
Stop, I thought. You lunatic. Just stop with this. Tell me you didn't make more than four.
Mauer's head turned back in the direction of the building. The soldiers with guns at the ready didn't take their attention wholly off of the building's interior. I felt chilled. Mauer spoke, and Old Asshole responded.
I could read the tone, even if I couldn't hear much of what they were saying. I could tell that they were referring to something.
They made more than the four.
At Mauer's word, soldiers exited the building. They slammed the door on their way out.
"There's more, but the others aren't viable," I said. "Holy fuck, how? Four?"

Lil made it ver clear that these things can be deceitful about their viability. Its too hard to be able to be certain with something that's designing itself.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Some chap willing to be very hopeful about Lil sticking around. I seem to recall Shatterbird having her characterisation lopped off for the sake of a marker pen, and feel confident her descent into being the exact monster she's afraid of can be equally ended. Heck, her being made into fodder for an experiment like the Lambs, for example.
taelor | January 24, 2016 at 9:38 am
Lillian dying would leave too many dangling plot threads, as well as an incomplete character arc. I'm pretty sure she's safe, at least for now. I maintain that Gordon is currently the most expendable member of the Lambs.
REPLY TO COMMENTS

fabledFreeboota · Jun 1, 2018

CHAPTER LINK
Enemy (Arc 8)
OPENING LINES

"I move for transplants of parts A, B, and D between steps twenty-seven and thirty."
"On what basis?"
"Temperature of the transplanted parts is deviating by point four percent high while they're sitting in the cold rigging. I'm putting it down as risk level three. Nobody marked anything below thirty with higher risk than that."
"Convenient."
"Thanks for the reminder. Putting down step thirty-four as risk level two."
"We can argue about that in a second, you sneaky bastard. Cameron, justify risk level three?"
"The latest version of Wollstone's recordings, cilia in the trachea are down on Ian's global vulnerability scale as a thirty-three nine, damage to the cilia now would increase maintenance further down the road, and could lead to post-operative infection."

We open enemy with ANOTHER victim of the academy's love of operating on the conscious. It turns very sureal, very quick, with the doctors joking amongst each other. This is why mad scientists get less consistent results than regular ones.
We quickly learn that this is the Duke. Whose father, the Archduke, went through a similar assortment of nightmares, and does a full "When I was your age." about the whole thing. The doctors cut off his painkillers, and swear him fealty.
Then, we cut to the present day, with Baron Richmond von Evil and the Baronets meeting with the Duke. The Duke, who has danger sensing hairs. He takes a little time to try and needle them, before making a few batlefield decisions, finding that the idea of it all is as exciting to him as actually killing.
He flashes back again, showing that the last time someone made a Primordial it managed to kill the Archduke, and the entirety of Warrick(sic) castle, and presumably steal the second w from Warwick castle while he was at it.
He also discovers the Lamb's letter, and elects to let the Baron et Baronettes loose on them, to pick up one boy in particular. BUT WHICH ONE? Well. I mean. Sy did take liberties with him. Paid him disrespect. So its more than likel that its someone else, or else he'd have been named.
CHARACTER BEATS
Duke's evil and his family are conniving gits.
CLOSING LINES

The Lambs, and an enemy named in the letter that one group of Lambs had sent another, Mauer, who had some talent at battlefield strategy. He'd dealt with Mauer's forces before, and it never failed to be interesting.
But the primordial was what lingered in his mind. An enemy that gun and sword couldn't necessarily kill. One that had killed his uncle. He'd taken away a lesson from that day, as intended. He couldn't hold back or underestimate it in the slightest. He had soldiers supposedly prepared for the task, but that might not be enough.
He turned to his doctor. "Professor Berger, Adams, Cameron. A checkup, if you please. I want to make sure my weapons and body are prepared, if it comes down to it."
The loyal professors wasted no time in attending to the task.

Call me mad but did he just use the singular to adress a group of medical professionals? Call me Krixwell, but does this mean they're some sort of mad hybrid?
KEY QUOTES

"Enough with the bickering. You're children, all of you. We can't follow the spirit of the Archduke's expectations, but we can follow the letter of them. Disconnect the nerve controls, let the remaining painkillers wear out. It'll be worse with the backswing."
"Not quite worse. By Wollstone's third ratio, we can expect-"
"Enough bickering, Adams. If anyone asks, the backswing adds to the agony, and compensates for the fact that he's feeling almost nothing right now. He'll get that lifetime's worth of agony."
"If anyone asks, the fact they're asking means our goose is cooked and we're as good as dead."
"Yes, well, say what you will, but I think we're in this together from here on out. I don't know about you lads, but I was told that if I bollocksed this up in any way shape or form, they would search out every person I cared about, snuff them, and then erase any and every record of us from history. I do have people I care about."

Dear gog they really do let just anyone operate on these bloody nobles. There's got to be at least one case of some scientist hijacking one, right?

When he was three years old, his mind had been altered, to allow him to better control how fast he thought, and how he perceived the passage of time. He had only mastered it a few years ago, and controlling it took effort that often left him exhausted at the day's end. Still, he kept up the practice, and his control improved.
In this moment, he let his awareness speed up, to better survey things from all of the angles. A part of his thoughts were dedicated to making sure he maintained the same speed and pace. Slowing his pace by a fraction would signal to others that something was wrong.
He contemplated how he might go about this, if this prison was indeed intended for him, if he needed to run, or else face imprisonment for the rest of his days, bereft of the doctors who were supposed to tend him, slowly going to pieces over decades.
In the end, he decided that he couldn't beat his mother and aunt in a fight. At least, not like this, with his body so new and untested.

I get that it takes a few years to make nobles, but really? No mad doctors that have brewed up one or else stolen the body and mind of one?

"The people infected, they were from Warrick castle?"

This had better not be for the sake of people that can't pronounce Worcestershire. I happen to live in Warwickshire, and while its pronounced Warrick its certainly not spelt that way.
COMMUNITY COMMENT HIGHLIGHT
Some chap with some thoughts on the duke.
Dainpdf | January 26, 2016 at 10:50 pm
I think the Duke, at least, sees them like we see "dumb" animals or plants – obviously not worth as much as one of our own, but not worth *nothing*. He even envies them their simple thought processes sometimes.
That makes me think he may want that one Lamb (sy is my bet, although I can see Lil or Jamie too) as a pet.
REPLY TO COMMENTS

I've Got a Twig (Twig Let's Read)

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.

Sometimes frustrated.