Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

Infinite Eyes · Mar 28, 2019

I finally caught up!

Good liveblog, a lot of your speculations are really impressive.

blackarrow · Mar 30, 2019

Hello, my lovelies. Welcome to the last part of our adorable rogue "villain" Sabah alias Parian Interlude. Last time, Undersiders found out about Skitter's plan to make heroes successful once in a lifetime for capturing one of the most WANTED villains in Brockton Bay and each of them reacted almost as I imagined them to act. Except that Tattletale knew about Skitter betrayal beforehand but she didn't do anything to stop her because...she was curious how far she'll go with her plans

. Parian absolute SUCK at being a villain, but she tries her hardest to impress, our poor dear, dear Parian, and now Accord visits his allies to try to find out what the hell happened to Skitter "Accord stares at her, his metal mask shifting to express his boiling anger"...I mean, what's going on with Skitter? Sorry, Accord, I forgot you don't like when people are cursing

.
Btw, look at this cool Accord and his Ambassadors fanart

..."drolls over Citrine's dress" (credit to The Ambassadors) Accord looks so cool and menacing like he wants to say: BEWARE OF LITTLE PEOPLE. NEVER EVER MESS WITH THEM and his mask that can imitate his facial expressions reminds me of

Zeetha's headband with a face ornament that change expressions to imitate her own expressions

"continues to droll over Citrine's dress"...I must...I must..."takes a deep breath" START THE LIVEBLOG FOR THE REST OF THIS INTERLUDE BEFORE I'LL GO ALL MAD BECAUSE I CAN'T GET MY HANDS ON THAT FUCKING DRESS!!!!

Interlude 21

It was really easy to imagine him nonchalantly standing above her while she stood in a pit he'd had dug out, a cement truck slowly filling in the space around her. Or very politely eating someone's severed leg with a knife and fork held in the proper manner.

He was the kind of scary guy they made movies about, only he was real.

And that made her think about the Slaughterhouse Nine.

Well, I don't agree with Parian's opinion about Accord. While I find him dangerous enough, and even sociopathic in his behavior, I don't see him capable of cannibalistic acts (a severed leg or any other limb will be too messy for him no matter how proper will be the manner in which he'll eat them

. Besides, he doesn't seem like a cannibal type for me, yes, he's very capable of murdering people in some very imaginative ways but one is to kill someone and another one is to eat them). I also think that a parallel between Accord and S9 is total WRONG, Accord is light years MORE SAFE and MENTALLY OK than ANY of S9 members :lol. I can't even compare him with Coil; that bastard was infinitely more scary than Accord, he honestly enjoyed destroying people's lives while Accord makes huge mental efforts not to go into a killing spree at every 5 seconds of talking with people. Coil also looked downright creepy with his costume and attitude in comparison with Accord, who's more business type and...cute compared with the well-known devil snake

. Accord is a cruel and amoral sociopath villain, yes, but not an over the top psychopath who kill people faster than it takes me to explain why Parian is such a LAME villain

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Now lets see how Tattletale will manage to piss Accord off with her annoying habit to TALK waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. Poor Accord, I feel him, I really feel him.

It wasn't… it didn't seem like a smart way to talk to the perfectionist supervillain. Accord was dangerous, so why was Tattletale provoking him?

"Feeling a bit under the weather," Tattletale said. "Forgive my bad manners. I take it you caught the essentials on TV?"

"On the radio, while we drove," Accord said. "Did you know of this scheme?"

"Of course," Tattletale said. "Do you think we're crazy? Everything's golden."

"Golden," Accord said.

"Copacetic, peachy keen."

"I wasn't informed of any plans."

"You don't have to be," Tattletale said.

"We're allies."

"You're subordinate to us," Tattletale said. "If you have an issue with that, I urge you to submit a written complaint and formally declare war. Twenty four hours notice, if you please. I know you like rules and regulations."

"You're mocking me."

Man, I know Tattletale like the back of my hand so I wasn't wrong about her not even this time. I definitely agree with you this time, Parian, she's provoking him and I have no fucking idea why- I suspect that she wants to find out more about his plans by provoking him to open himself in front of her, because her power is pretty crippled now and she still need to find more information about someone so unpredictable as Accord so she can protect her team if this guy will ever turn against them- but this is very risky and she might start a freaking war between Undersiders and Ambassadors and given the fact that Ambassadors are pretty strong and Undersiders doesn't have Skitter anymore+ Tattletale's power is out of commission, I can honestly see Undersiders being the LOSING part of the war. Tattletale plays with fire and nobody seem to be in ACCORD with her

:
Accord, furiously thinking at hundreds of ways to kill Tattletale.
Tattletale bends down and looks like she's about to hug Accord, then wink to her team: Aww, isn't he cute? Yes, he's an obsessive compulsive maniac obsessed to kill me, kill us, but he looks so cute when he's small and harmless like this. Don't you all agree with me?
Accord proceeds to pierce Tattletale's heart with his cane sword faster than any Undersider can move a muscle.
FINALLY, everyone sans Tattletale can enjoy now a quiet and peaceful atmosphere.
Moral of the story: LITTLE MEN CAN AND WILL FUCK YOU UP

.

"Not so risky when you've done a read on the situation. I had all the notes on Butcher Fourteen. She couldn't teleport free, not into open water. She still can't, and I had a crew use a remote control device to lash a cable to Butcher Fifteen's pod. They've dropped her into a deeper area of the ocean, and the only thing she'll be likely to kill are fish. If we're lucky, maybe Leviathan will float that way and off himself."

"But I like it," Tattletale said. "And if your concern is about instability within this city, I can read your work, see the solutions you propose and consider implementing them. We would give you a hand in shaping policy beyond this group."

"You'd agree to a contract where you implement a set number of my plans?"

"Hellll no," Tattletale said.

Accord frowned. "You're not promising anything concrete."

"Please be more civil," Accord said. "I'd rather you didn't swear."

"And I'd rather you didn't storm in here and act like you were personallyoffended by our particular way of doing things," Tattletale said. "I've offered you a fucking nice deal. Are you fucking interested?"

"Tattletale," Grue said. "Enough. I think he gets the point."

The Bonesawed, Mannequinesawed and Butchered Cherish is fucked even more than she was already, always good news

. Please, someone, ANYONE, come and teach Tattletale that silence is GOLD. Even if you have to teach her in the hardest way then you have all my support if she'll finally learn how to keep her fucking mouth fucking shut. Jack, where the hell are you, Jack? You already made Tattletale shut up for a little while after you gave her that irresistible cheshire smile

. Can't you do the same thing again? Oh, I forgot that you're currently sleeping in a cryonic suspension along with your team, except for Bonesaw who's your supervisor and caretaker. So, Jack is out of discussion. Anyone else? ANYONE ELSE? I think I have the best idea EVER. Someone should convince Tattletale that provoking Simurgh is a very good idea because she'll get the title of the bitch of the century from Simurgh in this way. She'll talk so much that she'll make Simurgh go crazy and concede the title of the bitch of the century to her then fly into the fucking sun. Tattletale will see this provocation as something that she should do and will start to BABBLE the living daylights out of Simurgh

. Simurgh will listen for a while until she'll get tired by Tattletale's bullshit and will be like:
-Yo bitch, do you think for real that you can beat me at my own games? Sorry but...no human bitch can ever kill me. I'm gonna teach you few things about never provoking the biggest bitch of the century again - then she proceeds to sing a lullaby to Tattletale, forcing our Miss My Mouth is a Weapon of Mass Destruction to see with her mind eyes the moment when her brother died, over and over again until she'll snap and kill herself.
MORAL OF THE STORY: NOBODY CAN STEAL THE BITCH OF THE CENTURY FROM SIMURGH AND SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO TASTE THE VICTORY

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No wonder why Simurgh is my favorite Endbringer. Only a bitch of her caliber can stop Tattletale. FOREVER.
"hugs" Tattletale. I'm being so morbid towards my favorite character. Of course I don't want anything bad to ever happen to Tattletale, but a couple of small jokes doesn't hurt anyone, after all. But I still think that Tattletale should TRY to be a little more polite and respectful towards Accord, if she doesn't want to make him too angry and destroy the fragile peace and alliance between Undersiders and his team. A little diplomacy instead of open war is always WELCOMED

.

Grue took the hand and shook it. Parian could feel the blood pumping in her ears as she watched Accord and the Ambassadors for any sign of betrayal.

Trap, Parian thought.

"Migraines. I overused my power."

"Ah," Accord said. He extended his hand a fraction further, and Tattletale shook it. "I… suppose I can sympathize with that."

"I bet."

"I appreciate your willingness to meet, in light of your condition," he said. "That said, it would be best if we did not interact further. I'd rather not terminate our alliance by being forced to murder you. It wouldn't be polite to say how many times I came close, just tonight."

"I think we're on the same page there," Tattletale said. "I don't want you to kill me either. Just know that if you tried, succeed or fail, I have a lot of questions about your involvement with Cauldron that could start circulating specific channels."

"Ah, you're proposing mutually assured destruction?"

Ok, ok, so Tattletale had an ace upon her sleeves all this time. If Accord would have tried to kill her or her teammates, she could have exposed him to the whole world- his connections with Cauldron would have destroyed his reputation and would have attract the attention of heroes, something that Accord will never want to happen. Tattletale wasn't afraid of a war, she already knew that Undersiders will be the winners without pulling too much of a fight, with probably the only casualty being her (but she wasn't afraid of death as long as she knew that her death will trigger Accord's destruction

). Honestly, I wasn't expecting at this strategy of hers, Tattletale never cease to surprise me in always the most pleasant ways. NEVER. If you, my dear friends, still have questions about why I LOVE her so fucking much, then I will tell you that its going to take me a whole day to come up with tons of explanations and reasons and I don't have enough time for this. The list of reasons for loving this character so much is TOO DAMN...LONG (but after the end of Worm, I promise you that I'll work at a very detailed characterization of Lisa- her personality, her actions, the events she was involved into, her connections with other characters, etc- and you'll understand why her character stole my heart in such unexpected manner. Hell, every single one of my favorite characters/or other characters that I find interesting enough to deserve an analyze will have their own characterization but I think that Lisas will be the longest one

).
Looks like, indeed, all the Thinkers have the same problem if they use their powers too much. Intense migraines. Dinah, Tattletale, Accord...I wonder if Number Man shares their pain too. I mean, this guy seems to use his power all the fucking time. When he doesn't bullshit supercalculate how to successfully defeat an enemy in a fight, he bullshit supercalculate how to mess with other villains' finances/world's economy or save Cauldron's sorry ass. And viceversa. He's using his powers more than any other Thinker I've seen so far. He must feel like his head explodes in every second of his life, but maybe he found a way to cool down his burning brains. This must be the explanation of why he doesn't wear some GODDAMN PANTS

. But I'm not suggesting that Tattletale or Accord should use the same method, its still wrong and pervert no matter how useful may be. However I'm convinced that Citrine will not complain if Accord will take Number Man's example

.

"Okay," Grue said. "What was that?"

"Me doing the best I could," Tattletale said. "And speak quieter, please. My head's throbbing… I feel like someone's hitting my eyeballs with hammers."

"I… I think I understand what she's doing," Parian said.

"She's a lot like me," Parian said. "She wants to protect people. She's willing to make sacrifices for the people she cares about."

Accord is one of the few characters who have too much self-control compared with his sick and twisted mind. He's crazy and easily angered and want nothing else but to kill, kill, kill people who piss him off but he controls himself because he knows that if he'll lose his control, he'll destroy everything he created/build: his connections, his plans, his reputation, the ORDER that he values so much itself will crash and burn if he'll make mistakes. He doesn't control himself because he cares for people that he works with (he doesn't give a shit about people in general, not even about his own Ambassadors- except for Citrine, but only because she's a very good Ambassador and nothing more

) but because he cares so much about his own RULES and REPUTATIONS and PLANS to bring ORDER in the world, this is all that matters for him. He's a mad selfish asshole, but a mad selfish asshole with some big plans who can still act like a reasonable person if it serves to his interests. I have a very special like/dislike relationship with Accord and I want it to remain like that (I hope I'll never find out that he was involved in Dinah's kidnapping because the "LIKE" in my relationship with him will be gone forever and I'll feel betrayed for half liking a CHILD ABUSER

).
Parian is right, Skitters cares a lot for her people, her friends, even for her dad and she's willing to sacrifice even her own life to protect them. Yes, Parian, you're both so similar, BUT there are still some BIG differences between you and her. You'll never be capable to do awful things to good people like Skitter did. And you'll never be an effective scary villain like Skitter is. You have Skitter's heroic heart but you don't have her dark and cruel side as well. Skitter is a sympathetic villain/vigilante but she can be so damn DARK and SCARY when she wants to be. You are a sympathetic failure of a villain wanna be, Parian, and you have no idea how to be dark and scary even when you want to be

.
This Interlude made me love Parian more than I loved her already. She's not only kind and caring but she's also smart, good observer and a very understanding person

.

Parian stopped in her tracks. Lily leaned beside the front door, in full costume as Flechette. The stainless steel shoulder-rest of her arbalest sat on the ground, and she used a single fingertip to keep the weapon upright, unloaded and pointed at the sky.

With a flick of a finger, Lily made the thing spin, stopped it, spun it the other way around.

"You know where I live," Parian said.

She felt so conspicuous. She knew Lily hated the black costume, with the black hair, the black dress.

Lily, who'd been maybe the only person to give her support without being asked. Lily, who was… chivalrous. Gallant. Stubborn. So very stubborn.

"God, I hate this city," Lily said.

"It's… a hard city to like," Parian said. "But it's not a city that lets you throw it away. It's tenacious, both in the big picture, and in how it attaches itself to you."

"Yeah," Lily murmured. "Before I came here, everything was on track. I could see my future ahead of me, straight as an arrow. Career path, eventual Flechette action figures. Every single one of my teachers and superiors seemed to know I had potential. One of the only people who could hurt an Endbringer…"

Lily raised her unloaded arbalest, aimed it, "Pow. Critical damage every time, and I don't miss."

Aww, we have a cute moment between our lovely Voodoo Dolls girls

. They're like my favorite canon romantic couple in this whole story (my non-canon OTP will always remain Taylor/Lisa but, sadly, will also remain non-canon). Don't tell me that Lily is ready to leave Wards in order to become a villain just to be near her lover, as I predicted that is going to happen even since I learned more about her personality and I saw a drawing with her as a villain during Accord/Undersiders/Fallen/Teeth meeting. Couldn't be just an accident, even if she wasn't present there. That would be so freaking cool, I'm all for Lily becoming a sympathetic villain

. Yes, Lily is gallant, stubborn, protective, so damn protective towards Sabah, just like Sabah is towards her people. Lily is also brave, fearless, an excellent fighter, one of the most powerful parahumans (seriously, she's able to penetrate and kill everything with her darts, even an Endbringer's impossible skin. I can see Lily being one of the few people able to ever kill an Endbringer, if she can reach their core). She's going to make a very good addition to Undersiders if she'll become one of them; as long as she have a weapon in her hands- ANY weapon, because her power works with any weapon, she's a NIGHTMARE for any of Undersiders' enemies to fight against

. She also have a pretty violent and reckless side, helpful for her to become a good and scary villain, unlike our poor Sabah. Yes, I WANT Lily to become an Undersiders' ally. She's made to be a villain, more than a hero. Plus, then she can be together with Sabah

.
Lily is my spiritual animal. We BOTH hate Brockton Bay, Lily, my dear. What is not to hate at this city? WHAT IS NOT TO HATE AT THE CAPITAL OF HELL

?

"I've already had someone try to claim me, you know," Parian said. "They thought that I was something that was owed to them, because of what they'd done. That being nice meant I was obligated to accept a date. And that line of thinking goes one step further. They think flowers and a few dates mean I'm obligated to come over to his apartment to spend the night."

"Your people?" Lily started to glance around, then stopped. "Not thesepeople. Your family, friends. From Dolltown."

Sabah nodded. Her heart was heavy with the thought alone. "And because I need to be a part of the Undersiders if they're going to listen to me, and I need them to listen to me if I'm going to influence them, keep them on a straighter path. To protect people from them, and to protect them from themselves."

"And that's all worth giving up the life you want to lead?"

Parian thought of Skitter. Of the motivations that could be driving the girl to turn on her friends.

"I think it is."

"Then… would you take me along for the ride?"

"They're falling apart anyways. I'd… I'd have to give up my arbalest. Without tinker maintenance, it won't keep working. But I always liked the idea of the rapier, been meaning to go back to it. And I have darts."

Needle and thread. Somehow it felt more right, more solid, than any of the paths she'd started on, only to later abandon. Maybe because she wasn't doing it alone.

She put two fingers to Lily's chin, raising it, and then she kissed her lieutenant.

Ok, from now on I'll stop calling them Voodoo Dolls, even if I liked this ship name and I'll call them Needle and Thread if Sabah likes this idea more.
Lily is officially a villain now and Undersiders' ally, all of my predictions and wishes became true, I feel so good about myself. Undersiders just got a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE power boost

. They lost Skitter (but not forever, I'm absolute sure) but they got Flachette. On the other side, heroes "captured" Skitter, but lost Flachette. I still think that Undersiders won more than the heroes. They have Parian and Flachette. Maybe Skitter will become a hero but her heart will be always in Undersiders' domain so they didn't complete lost Skitter either

.
Sabah doesn't want to suffer again because of the people who only want to possess her, claiming that they're doing it in the name of love and Lily understood perfectly her inner fears and accepted to let herself being dominated by Sabah (both in love and professional) instead of dominating her, even if Lily have a more dominant personality, is more like a tomboy compared with girly Sabah and have a power much more destructive than Sabah. But she accepts to be Sabah's lieutenant and allow Sabah dominate their relationship because she LOVES Sabah too much to hurt her in any way (even if she probably doesn't like this double position of subordination). This is what I call TRUE LOVE. To do whatever your partner is comfortable and ok with, even if sometimes, you don't like it too much. To be entirely selfless for your partner's well being and happiness. To give parts of your soul to your partner and never ask to receive anything in exchange. Lily, you GREW a lot in my eyes in this Interlude, you're a wonderful character and person and now you're in my top 10 favorite characters. Hat's off to you, you beautiful badass ex heroine turned villain

.
Woe, this interlude was so much more better than the previous Interlude. Only because in this Interlude I loved/liked every single character, something that I can't say about the characters in Number Man's Interlude, 99% of them making me scream in my head: FUCK YOU :lol. But Parian Interlude was such an incredible warm Interlude, filled with lovely people.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.

blackarrow · Mar 30, 2019

AmbarGriss said:
Also I think its interisting that you gave names to the Passagers of Skitter and Jack. Because they actually have their own cannonical names in the story.

They have their own names? Cool, this means that they have their own personalities, as I believe they have and some of them are good and helpful and the others are evil and destructive, just like humans. Yay, can't wait for a Passengers Interlude, if this thing exists its going to kick ass. But, until their real names will be revealed, I'll still call Skitter's Passenger as Scarab and Jack's Passenger as Bloody. Number Man's Passenger is Lemniscate, another name for the infinity symbol (which I believe to be the shape of his Passenger). Tattletale's Passenger must be All Seeing Eye, shaped like the Eye of Providence and..I'm gonna think at others' Passengers, right now I have too many ideas but not all of them are so great.

blackarrow · Mar 30, 2019

Infinite Eyes said:
I finally caught up!

Good liveblog, a lot of your speculations are really impressive.

Thank you

.

blackarrow · Mar 30, 2019

legendshoelaces said:
AmbarGriss - this is a violation of the spoiler policy. Yes, I know it doesn't seem like a spoiler to you, but there's a reason the spoiler policy is as strict as it is - to prevent this kind of semi-spoily hinting. Please stop.

Aw, don't be so harsh with AmbarGriss, he only wanted to help

. I personally don't consider knowing that Passengers have names to be a spoiler so I'm not bothered at all. I'll make a list with things I consider being spoilers so everyone would know what I personally consider being spoiler and what not. Thank you for "protecting" me from spoilers anyway

.

fabledFreeboota · Mar 31, 2019

blackarrow said:
Btw, look at this cool Accord and his Ambassadors fanart

Lonsheep art is great, shame about what happened to her.

blackarrow · Apr 1, 2019

WHAT I CONSIDER TO BE SPOILERS: -If someone tells me that everything will straight to hell soon and the next Arcs will be worse in terms of drama/tragedy/violence than the previous ones.
-If someone tells me that all the Passengers have names and their own personalities.
-If someone tells me that Lisa is the BEST character in the story.
-If someone tells me that Taylor can do more with her power than just control bugs.
-If someone tells me that this story is pretty dark for a superhero story.
-If someone tells me that Brockton Bay is one of the worst fictional cities to live in.
-If someone tells me that Danny is the best father in the story.
-If someone tells me that 90% of characters (parahumans and humans) suffer from a certain mental health disorder (or more) and only a few are perfectly mentally fine.
-If someone will tell me that FUCKING MANNEQUIN WILL APPEAR AGAIN (as a clone/more clones) and he/they'll terrorize my poor heart again.
-If someone will tell me that Worm is one of the best stories I've ever read.
DON'T YOU DARE TO SPOIL ME LIKE THIS OR I'LL GET MAD AND STOP LIVEBLOGGING WORM.

WHAT I DON'T CONSIDER BEING SPOILERS:
-If someone will tell me how this story will end.
-If someone will tell me who will die, how and when.
-If someone will tell me if Scion will become the ultimate evil or not and how he'll be defeated if he'll become evil.
-If someone will tell me who created Endbringers or what they actually are if they weren't created by anyone.
-If someone will tell me about certain characters' sexuality (for example: Number Man is gay and he doesn't actually like Jack as a former friend and teammate but he likes him romantically) or which other characters end up together (apart from the already official ships) .
-If someone tells me that a good character will turn evil and viceversa.
-If someone tells/confirms me that a certain character have more -hidden- powers than just one (ex: Jack being a Thinker too).
-If someone tells me the backstories of all the important characters who still didn't have their Interludes as far as I'm with reading.
-If someone will explain me- in details- the real nature/role of the Passengers and their parents.
-If someone will tell me how FUCKING MANNEQUINS FUTURE CLONES will disappear from this story FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREVEEEEEEEEEER.
YOU CAN TELL ME ABOUT ANY OF THE THINGS MENTIONED ABOVE, I WON'T MIND, THERE AREN'T SPOILERS AFTER ALL.

APRIL FOOLS DAY, MY LOVELY BASTARDS...AND LADIES

EXACTLY VICEVERSA WHEN IT COMES TO WHAT IS A SPOILER AND WHAT IS NOT.

blackarrow · Apr 1, 2019

fabledFreeboota said:
Lonsheep art is great, shame about what happened to her.

What happened to her?

rafuki22 · Apr 1, 2019

Same,what happened to her?

fabledFreeboota · Apr 2, 2019

blackarrow said:
What happened to her?

Fandom drama. Kept getting sarcastic replies when she asked Wildbow for elabor ation on costume details, or for colours of stuff, her art would be criticised for not having details that weren't in the text that she'd only know from asking Wildbow, the People running the Worm quarterly fanart contest were going to stop her from entering the next one so it'd be fair on other contestants, and after people complained some of her art was removed from the parahumans reddi t for being low effort content.

She disappeared, with a number o f people waiting on commissions. Showed up writing Harry Potter fic months later.

blackarrow · Apr 8, 2019

Hello, my friends. Last time we had this lovely Parian Interlude where we learned more about Sabah's life, about her personality, dreams, ideals, ambitions, connections with her people and allies, and all I can say that she's a great person and an equally charming character, one of those characters that I don't want to see them suffer again in the future, or at least not as much as they already suffered (but knowing Wildbow and how much he likes to torment his characters, especially when they're GOOD people

), she'll continue to suffer and will never be entirely happy as long as she's still a character in this story. Another character that I find enjoyable is Lily, and I think that Needle and Thread is a ship BETTER and more NATURAL than any other canon ship. However, I have a small suspicion (yes, me with my exaggerated suspicions about everything that moves and breathe) that Lily, despite being in love with Sabah, she also have some additional reasons for becoming a villain. What if she doesn't really want to be a villain, but she's a mole planted by heroes inside Undersiders's allies, since Parian is now an Undersiders' ally, and her mission is to work undercover and help heroes capture them especially now when their most important member surrendered? The heroes probably see Undersiders as being more vulnerable now than ever and are using Flechette to give them the final blow. That would be a nice parallel with Taylor wanting to be a hero and becoming an Undercoversider until she went full Undersider

. Maybe Lily, as a hero, is undercover, but she'll change her mind and become full villain because she's (not so) slowly influenced by the scariest and most OP power in the world: THE POWER OF LOVE

. Or maybe she's honest with her intention to switch sides. Who knows? We'll wait and see.
This new Arc is called...CELL. So, for the rest of the story, Skitter is going to rot in a prison cell, most probably a Birdcage one. I'm going to be so ok with this development, so very ok, as long as I get to see more of Birdcage. Sorry, Skitter, I like you, girl, but my selfish desire for more Birdcage is bigger and stronger than any pity I have for you. Go to fucking jail while I'm staying here and learn more about the crazy people behind Birdcage's bars

Cell 22.1

I had to twist my head to look up at Clockblocker. For his part, he stared down at me, his expression hidden by the featureless white pane of his mask.

"This is a trick," he said.

"Yeah," I admitted. "But not the way you're thinking."

I moved slowly, so I wouldn't provoke any rash actions from the uniforms, climbing to my knees, then extending my arms behind me.

He reached out and touched the top of my head.

What felt like an instant later, my arms were weighed down. Clockblocker was behind me, his hand on the heavy metal restraints to keep them from slamming into my tailbone. Everyone else in the lobby had moved.

I'd lost control of my bugs while I'd been timed out. In many cases, it wasn't a problem. Still, I'd lost the ability to track most of those who were present, as mosquitoes, flies and ants went about their merry way.

"Stand," Miss Militia told me.

Well, Skitter, I can't condemn heroes for treating you like this. Yes, you're a minor and yes, you did 65% good stuff and 35% bad stuff, but you're a dangerous element in heroes' eyes, you injured and scared for life plenty of heroes, you're a Warlady holding a territory, you threatened Tagg and his wife in his own office and you recently turned heroes' day by day job into a nightmare with open eyes when you decided to contaminate the entire Protectorate building with bugs

. They have reasons to keep you in heavy chains and have Clockblocker immobilize you even if it isn't really useful because of you power. Besides, I'm sure that they don't trust you, they must think that you have some evil plans behind your capitulation (I'd have think and done the same in Miss Militia's place, so I really have no problem with Miss Militia's decision to treat Skitter like a perilous enemy). I wonder how Skitter will react when they'll strip search her or even worse -cavity search her- for concealed weapons; I have a feeling that she'll not like this. She'll either get violent making her situation worse or she'll feel humiliated as hell. Or, if everything is part of a convoluted plan, she'll probably endure in silence all the stuff she'll be exposed at as long as she's sure that her plan will work accordingly.
I also think the they should call her dad if they want to interrogate her because she's a minor and according to international law, a minor cannot be interrogated in the absence of their parents. I think...or rather I HOPE that this law applies to minor parahumans too, so its necessary for Danny to be present during Skitter's interrogatory. Yes, will be painful for him to see his daughter like this but he already know the truth about her and maybe he'll feel a little much better if he'll know that she's in heroes' custody, not killed by them or by other villains

. On the other side, if she'll go to Birdcage, that would be like a death sentence for her, because Birdcage represents the personal hell for many of its criminals and only the most badass and crazy of them can (and will) survive. Skitter is enough badass to survive for years but Danny doesn't know this

. Anyway, Danny+ a lawyer SHOULD BE present during the interrogatory (as much as I agree with harsh restraints, I'll not be very happy if Skitter's rights at a lawyer and her parent presence will be violated. She's not such a big menace for heroes to be ok with violating her rights, besides she helped the heroes frequently to fight against worse criminals than her, she saved lives and her good actions should count and balance the bad ones).
Tagg, dude, parahumans ARE still human beings, you know?
Piggot mumbles in the distance: No, they're not, they're monsters.
Shut up, Piggotler.

I had no friends here.

Director Tagg was lighting up a cigarette, despite the prominent 'no smoking' signs nearby. As I passed, he gave me a hard stare, heavily lined eyes glaring beneath thick black eyebrows, his face otherwise expressionless. He pointed, and a PRT uniform joined our group.

"This is an E-type containment cell. Countermeasures include containment foam and these beauties," Triumph said.

"Touch the door, make too much noise or use your power, and the room gets flooded with an electric charge," Triumph explained. "Calculated so it's only alittle less powerful than it'd need to be to do permanent damage. Push it any further and the room is flooded with containment foam. The same measures are packed into this whole hallway."

I felt a moment's trepidation. Was this the point where the PRT officer beat me within an inch of my life, while everyone else turned a blind eye?

The officer stepped into the cell with me, and the door shut behind her. "Clothes off."

Oh. Worse than a beating, then.

A little inhumane, I thought. Would that be more psychological pressure? Regular visits? Interrupting my sleep? Unreliable privacy?

I like the CELL design. This is what I call an excellent Tinker made cell. If Skitter tries to evade, she'll either be non-lethal electrocuted or buried under containment foam. She can't even use her power without being fucked, so no escape for her. I bet that all Skitter can think now is: FUCKING DRAGON, FUCKING TINKERS

. Ha ha ha ha, her hate for Tinkers always make me laugh despite my undying love and fascination for Tinkers. But I can understand her, her hate for Tinkers is similar with my hate for Masters with powers over humans. Fucking Masters, they're the biggest rapists of parahumans world because they always violate human bodies and emotions and minds and usually they don't feel any regret for what they're doing (they're good Masters too, ok, but their powers still creep me out). I'd rather prefer to be Bonesawed into the most disgusting monster possible than to have Regent play as ventriloquist with his dummy with me

.
Depends of what Tagg will decide, Skitter. If he wants to torture you, he'll go all Guantanamo Bay on you, and there's nothing you can do about. Now I realized that Skitter's fate depends of Tagg's orders. If he'll consider that her rights should be violated, the heroes will have no other choice but to violate her rights. If he'll order for her to be tortured, they'll torture her without any hesitation. He's the big boss and even if Miss Militia and Triumph will be disgusted (despite Skitter did what she did to Rory, he doesn't see like a vengeful and unnecessary sadistic guy for me so I don't see him being happy with torturing her if he'll receive his orders). On the other side, Assault...yes, I can see Assault hurting Skitter even without being ordered to do it. He'll actually LOVE to hurt her. Not because he was an ex-villain or he's a sadistic person, but because he still see her as the responsible person for his Battery's death and he's convinced that he'll avenge her death by making her criminal pay. And sometimes, even the most peaceful people become monsters towards the ones who hurt their loved ones

.

"I'm allergic to bee stings," I said, trying to inject some levity into the proceedings. I couldn't see her expression.

"Two ways we can do this. You cooperate, takes five to ten minutes to do a full search. You fail to cooperate, if you fight me, bite or struggle, I step outside and we turn on the countermeasure, and then do a search while you're incapacitated."

"Mrs. Yamada?" Tagg asked one of the people in suits at the far end of the table.

"I've read up on her, studied the records you have of her, talked to the students that knew her best, for better or worse. Greg Veder, Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, Madison Clements… her teachers, her father… I'm not so convinced."

"You disagree with Miss Militia?"

"I can't say for sure without talking to the girl, but actual surrender isn't impossible, given my understanding of her."

Cavity search. Ok, at least is not beating within an inch of her life. YET. Skitter normally feels ashamed but she can have her attention distracted by spying with her little thousands of eyes on what Tagg and the heroes and talking about. Hello, Jessica, long time no see you

. I'm so glad she's back and I kind of want to see Skitter having some therapy sessions with her. She NEEDS therapy, lots and lots of therapy because she's not exactly mentally sane, well, she's a little more sane than 80% of characters in this universe, but...she still need Jessica's help, especially with her constant depression, self-loathing and suicide intentions. I'm surprised that Jessica doesn't see her surrender as an intelligent plan, as everyone else see it (myself including; well, 70%- I think that she must have a plan, 30% -I see her surrender as something genuinely honest and without any backup plan), and she believes that she knows Skitter good enough to trust her. She also wants therapy session with her because she'd like to understand her better. Hmm, I should trust Jessica's professional judgement but my own paranoiac judgement tells me that there's not a single moment in Skitter's life when she doesn't have a plan, not even when she's "captured" and locked in an impossible to escape from CELL (between us, if she wants, Skitter CAN and WILL find a way to escape from her CELL

).

"I'm not saying she's not surrendering," Miss Militia said. "I'm saying she'splotting something. The two things aren't mutually exclusive."

"She could be attempting to bring down the PRT," Assault said. "Do it from within. With the charges we have lined up against her, she can request a jury trial. She uses that as a platform to dish out dirty secrets. Confidential data on Armsmaster, details from records they stole from the database, the Echidna event and the fallout therein…"

"Given how that's gone," Dovetail said, "She'd be digging her own grave. We all thought the details would leak, but Cauldron's cleanup is efficient. Anyone who tries to leak details gets… censored."

"Killed," Adamant clarified. "Or disappeared."

"I don't know, but I had a conversation with her a few days ago, and she said she had something in mind that she could use against you. I didn't know what it was before now."

"…Alcott girl," Tagg was saying. "Is she here?"

"Arthropodokinesis, arthropodovoyance," the Deputy Director said. "She's on record as a master eight, thinker one. The thinker classification is key here: ex-Director Piggot noted Skitter can see through her bugs' eyes."

Ah. So the psychological pressure extended another step. A strip search, a claustrophobic cell, stripping away my possessions, and now he planned to keep me cooped up in here until my composure cracked. Not so effective if I was being put on pause, with only a fraction of the time passing.

"We can seal off the stairwell access with containment foam," Kid Win spoke up. "Seize the elevator, to prevent access to the cells. If there's an attack, we shut down the elevator. In the worst case scenario, they can't get her out before reinforcements arrived from other cities."

Cauldron kills people who are trying to expose them. AN USUAL PRACTICE for them, nothing new here. I see Cauldron as having as many victims as S9 on their tally, if not more (both super-villain organisations have many years behind them but I think that Cauldron is older than S9). The so-called "saviors of humankind" prefer to hunt down and kill innocents who want to expose them (despite the fact that they should not be afraid of being exposed since nobody can actually arrest them as long as they have a parahumans as Doormaker and Number Man by their side) INSTEAD of looking after S9, try to find them (won't be really hard for them to find a bunch of psychos hidden and cryogenically frozen into a secret lab) then kill them all and stop the end of the world (Dinah said that the end of the world will still happen if Jack will die but she didn't specified in which way and when Jack should die in order for the end of the world to happen. I mean, if he'll be killed while being frozen and unable to defend himself- a pretty coward method, but nothing is unacceptable when it comes to stopping Jack FOREVER

- then he can't trigger the end of the world anymore. But if he'll die on the battlefield, right after he'll kill Lissette and take control over Scion, for example, then the end of the world will happen right after his death because Scion will start to burn the hell out of Earth Bet, following Jack's precious advises. Depends only when and how Jack will be killed if the end of the world will still be possible or not, but Cauldron are too busy with really unimportant and unnecessary stuff to care for these...small details). I'm absolute sure that Cauldron can find S9 secret lab in no time if they're REALLY interested and Number Man and Contessa will have no problem dealing with Bonesaw but...well, maybe after they'll finish killing INNOCENTS and kidnapping more INNOCENTS, they'll start doing some pretty useful things too, you know, like localizing S9 and capturing Jack alive, with the NOBLE intention to turn him into their new partner. Because this is how they roll

. I'm going to be poisoned by my own sarcasm if I'll continue like this

.
Skitter belongs to every single Classification. Well, I noticed that she's also a Thinker (but not because she can can see through her bugs but because she's so good with her strategies, better than many non-powered strategists) and...sorry to disappoint you and make you hate yourself even more, Skitter, but you're also a Tinker (with her ability to use her bugs to build the most complex costumes and traps and alarm systems). She's a Shaker and a Blaster and a Changer (during her fight with the non-powered nazis thugs, around Bitch's dog shelter Chapters, Skitter covered herself with bugs, looking more like a monster created from bugs and less like a human being so I can see her almost like a Changer 1) so on...except for Trump. I can't see being in Trump category not even as 1. She hates authority too much to be a dedicated Republican (or Democrat for the matter)

.
Tagg called Dinah? He didn't called Danny (breaking the law for not allowing a minor to have contact with her parent) but he called Dinah? For what? To question her about Skitter? Don't you DARE to try to recruit Dinah, you bastard, she went through too much already. She barely survived Thomas Cowardly Calvert, she doesn't need a second PRT Director to treat her as his pet :rage:

.

"Crime lord," Clockblocker said, "It's easier."

Vista spun around in her chair to face Crucible, "She's probably planning something like getting put in jail, then breaking out and showing us there's no point in trying to catch her, because we can't keep her. And she'll do it with teeny-weeny bugs, make Tagg look bad, maybe get him fired."

"Again with the Echidna thing," Crucible said. "Can't you tell-"

"Classified," Clockblocker, Kid Win and Vista said, at the same time. Kid Win didn't even look up from the containment foam dispenser he was tinkering with.

"Fuck you guys."

Dinah had cut her hair short.

Reinventing herself? Distancing herself from being Coil's 'pet'?

Tagg met them at the end of the lobby, then ushered them upstairs to the conference room. They were joined by Mrs. Yamada, her cousin Triumph, and Miss Militia.

"I'm saying your daughter was helping Skitter, not us. That everything seems to suggest she was aiding and abetting a known criminal."

"Are you insane?" Mr. Alcott asked. The volume of his voice rose. "Those thoughts don't even connect!"

"Good. If she does a lot of damage, then good."

"No. Yes. Both. I'm working for everyone. I don't think Skitter's very happy with me, really. But she's still here, because I told her to be."

"No," Dinah said. "I'm done."

"Done."

"Yes. I'm busy. It's only because my cousin works here that I even came."

"You seem to be playing a dangerous game," Tagg said, "Testing our goodwill, manipulating us for your own ends."

"When I said I was done, I meant it," Dinah said. She pushed her chair back. Her parents joined her, standing. "You want more answers, get in contact with my dad, he'll let you know my rates. They change every day."

"The last thing I want is another arrogant dickface telling me what to do," Dinah said. "You want answers, Director? Fine. Twenty two point eight one three percent chance you die painfully, over long, slow minutes or hours. Maybe soon, maybe in twenty years, but it'll bring you to tears, and you'll wail in pain. That's a freebie. Want more details?"

Gosh, Tagg is one of the BIGGEST DICKS in this story. One of the BIGGEST DICKS from all powered and non-powered dicks in this story :rage:

. I can barely tolerate to read about this asshole, I think I'll avoid his Interlude if he'll have one, unfortunately (no, I won't really do that because my curiosity to find more about his life and his personality will prove to be stronger than any personal dislike for him. Just like I read everything about Cauldron despite disliking them- with all my honesty

). He is everything that both Skitter and I hate in authority, he's an ex-military extremist asshole, arrogant and obsessed with his personal fame, he thinks that he's always right, he doesn't have any qualms to abuse children/minors or even to expose them at dangers- what he's doing right now to Skitter in her CELL, the planned attack on the school and the psychological pressure he tried (and FAILED because Dinah is too smart and awesome for him

) to apply on Dinah; and to think that he have his own daughters despite being an absolute jerk towards other people's children.... he's stupid but he sees himself as being smart and righteous, he's impulsive, aggressive and have a really abrasive personality. Tagg is TAGGED as being one of the people that I'll not feel any kind of sorry for if Skitter will end up killing him, as Dinah's predicted. Wow, his death will be pretty awful, just like he's as a human being. Well, I predict that he'll make a really dick move soon: he'll bring Danny there and use him to blackmail Skitter into cooperating with him. Seeing her father being used like this by Tagg, Skitter will snap and attack Tagg, giving him a taste of her delicious bugs. That will be the only reason for Skitter to snap and kill him, thus validating Dinah's prediction.
Dinah is someone impossible to not LOVE. She gave KO to Tagg with just a couple of words. She's nobody's pet. Not anymore. I'm so proud of my smart, little girl "wipes few tears"

.

"She's watching," Tagg said.

"Watching what? There's nothing to look at," Miss Militia said. "Think about it. What this is to her."

"She hears," Mrs. Yamada finished the thought.

"I'm gone," Dinah said. "I can't communicate with her or the numbers change. I'll be letting the PRT know you pissed me off. They can expect prices to go up five percent from here on out."

Kid Win was making more, too. He was joined by one of the heroes that had just arrived. Another tinker. I caught a snippet of what they were talking about before the next drone kicked to life and killed the bugs I had on the new arrival. Workshop talk. Improving designs.

Damn tinkers.

Damn Masters, Skitter, damn Masters

. Kid Win is great. No more bugs for you, no more possibility of escape, you're going to stay in that CELL until Tagg will get bored and think at other ways to torture you. Kid Win is fantastic, he's the quintessence of the superpowered half mad scientist working for heroes and trying his best to do good and become better and better, despite having so many personal issues and never thinking high about himself. Skitter is just pissed because she knows that she can't escape (despite being the one who allowed the heroes to "capture" her) but in a different situation I think she'd admire Kid Win's fine and smart work

. I'd love to sit all day long in Kid Win's workshop and watch him building stuff and have him trying to explain me how he's doing what he's doing. Even teach me to build stuff with him. I'm sure his response will be: -Fuck off, miss, you're not super-intelligent neither you don't have instant knowledge so even if I'll explain you you'll never understand not even 10%- Well, I'm sure he'll never say something like this, he's too humble and nice to be impolite with someone but he'll not be very willing to lose his precious time with me, a non-Tinker, explaining me stuff that I'll never understand because its basically ALIEN SCIENCE. This or he'll quickly get bored with a project and start making a new one

.
DINAH ROCKS in this Chapter

. She proved that Wildbow is very good at writing children who are strong, brave and sometimes smarter than the adults. His kids are not entirely defenseless or eternal victims to the adults, they can and will protect themselves/their team and fight with incredible badassery (Vista), they're fearless fighters loyal to a fault to people they love (Imp), they confront adults and beat them at their own games (Dinah), they make their team entirely dependent of them by being its scariest and resourceful member (Bonesaw). Wildbow's children are not always victims, they're also winners, heroes or tormentors, depends of which side they work for

. I admire so much these children, including the evil ones, for how awesome and badass they're in a world of adults. My first impression, before getting to know him, is that Gray Boy is also a little boy and judging by how Jack and Bonesaw are talking about him, he's one damn little scary motherfucker that everyone should be afraid of (including his teammates) because of how badass he's. I'm very ok with another badass child too

.

"Did you plan this?" Miss Militia asked.

"You're admitting you planned her defection, then?"

Defection? I thought of Parian.

"Interrogation room B."

Flechette isn't an undercover mole, she genuinely left the heroes to become a bad girl

. I just got the confirmation here, Miss Militia and others had no idea about Flechette's plan. Ok, told you that I'm pretty paranoiac and I'll always have suspicions about a character/their actions until I'll be proved right/wrong. I never believe when someone is dead even if I'll see their dead body until other characters will confirm me that they're indeed dead (like I was suspicious about Coil's death even after he took a bullet in his brains). I'm also not sure that Dragon (despite all my love for her and Defiant's protection) will remain good until the very end and never become a corrupted AI working against humanity (one of my theories about the end of the world involve Evil Dragon being manipulated by a malevolent force (Jack? Someone else influenced/triggred by Jack? Someone close to Jack?). Well, I'm glad that Flechette will never break Parian's heart and Undersiders got indeed a powerful ally

.

"You planned something for eight-thirty?"

"The only instruction I gave was to Tattletale, to hold the others back until sunset, and to give them direction when they do act. They'll have time to get angry in the meantime. They'll be mad at me, but they'll take it out on you. You have to understand, even at my worst, even when I'm as mad as I was the other night, when you'd outed me, I was sensible, reasonable in terms of how I dealt with you and held back. Now you get to see how unreasonablethe rest of the Undersiders can be, without me to rein them in."

"It's a time limit. You saw what we were willing to do to Butcher, to Valefor. Even with that, even there, we were holding back as a group. Trust me when I say that I know my friends. If you stand between them and me? If you hurt me? They're going to go thermonuclear on you. On the PRT as a whole. Tattletale will make sure of it. She'll keep them on target, guide them, and maximize the damage. She'll do most of the damage."

"It's your choice. You won't like my demands. They call for big changes. But the alternative is an all-out war. I think Miss Militia will agree with me here, if the PRT doesn't hear me out, it deserves what it gets."

Skitter HAD a backup plan, as I expected from her. If the heroes will not work with her, Undersiders will destroy PRT and she will not stop them, despite having the possibility. If the heroes will accept her requests, she'll make sure that Undersiders will not try to obliterate the few remains of the heroes' reputation. BLACKMAIL. Obey me and I'll assure the peace. Disobey me and prepare for war

. She never wanted to escape, she's ok with being held in a CELL, all she wanted was for heroes to FINALLY LISTEN HER. This was her plan from the beginning. Smart, Skitter, fucking smart. I like this plan and I pray that Miss Militia will go with PEACE, instead of war (and somehow convince Tagg that the war will not always solve everything

). Its not like Skitter will ask them to make her the XX US President, I'm sure that her demands will be pretty reasonable.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.
Sorry for such a long gap between posts, I had a pretty busy week.

blackarrow · Apr 8, 2019

fabledFreeboota said:
Fandom drama. Kept getting sarcastic replies when she asked Wildbow for elabor ation on costume details, or for colours of stuff, her art would be criticised for not having details that weren't in the text that she'd only know from asking Wildbow, the People running the Worm quarterly fanart contest were going to stop her from entering the next one so it'd be fair on other contestants, and after people complained some of her art was removed from the parahumans reddi t for being low effort content.

She disappeared, with a number o f people waiting on commissions. Showed up writing Harry Potter fic months later.

Can you give me a link to her Harry Potter fanfic? I love reading HP fanfic and I'm interested to see how such a talented artist will write about something so complex and spectacular as the universe imagined by Rowling. Thank you.

blackarrow · Apr 8, 2019

LOOK AT THIS MARVELOUS ART OF MY OTP

Skitter

THEY'RE SO FREAKING ADORABLE!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

MY FAVORITE CANON PAIRING

villains

AND SOME WEIRD ASS PAIRING, BUT IF THEY'RE MUTUALLY OK WITH THEIR UNUSUAL RELATIONSHIP THEN...ITS THEIR BUSINESS. JUST NOT MY CUP OF TEA.

dangerous duo

AmbarGriss · Apr 8, 2019

I keep forgeting thar Lily is asian.

Random Lurker · Apr 8, 2019

blackarrow said:
CELL 22.1

The first appearance of Manipulative Bitch Dinah. I'm curious about your opinion on how Dinah purposefully made a misleading prediction that caused the confrontation at Arcadia; it really did come true, but just not how the PRT/P anticipated.

AmbarGriss said:
I keep forgeting thar Lily is asian.

Remember: Lily is Japanese American, and is a lesbian. The word "lily" in Japanese is "yuri".

blackarrow · Apr 8, 2019

AmbarGriss said:
I keep forgeting thar Lily is asian.

She and Jessica are japanese (or half japanese) and so far are the only GOOD asian people in this story. There's also an asian heroine carrying a lantern in Travelers Act but she wasn't named and she had only a minor appearance.

blackarrow · Apr 8, 2019

Random Lurker said:
The first appearance of Manipulative Bitch Dinah. I'm curious about your opinion on how Dinah purposefully made a misleading prediction that caused the confrontation at Arcadia; it really did come true, but just not how the PRT/P anticipated.

Remember: Lily is Japanese American, and is a lesbian. The word "lily" in Japanese is "yuri".

Dinah is NOT a manipulative bitch, far away from being like this. She's one of the most well-meaning (without being an extremist) and she actually want the good for everyone, including Skitter. I trust her judgement (and I don't usually trust characters so easy) and I freaking loved how she screwed Tagg big time. Tagg tried to manipulate her and he was the one responsible for Arcadia Incident, Dinah only hoped that Taylor would have peacefully surrender back then, not ran away surrounded by students. Taylor and Tagg's actions were the ones who betrayed her expectations of solving everything in a peaceful manner. Remember, Dinah can see only the outcomes of the biggest scenes, not every small details of smaller scenes. She can't see people actions and decisions, she can see only the results of their decisions so she can't stop them from doing something wrong or dangerous.
Well, maybe she's a bit manipulative, but in a good way

. We need people like Dinah in this ocean of selfish and destructive individuals.

fabledFreeboota · Apr 9, 2019

blackarrow said:
Can you give me a link to her Harry Potter fanfic? I love reading HP fanfic and I'm interested to see how such a talented artist will write about something so complex and spectacular as the universe imagined by Rowling. Thank you.

babylonsheep - Works | Archive of Our Own

Boop.

blackarrow said:
We need people like Dinah in this ocean of selfish and destructive individuals.

It's easy to see it as kinda spooky. And alien. Robbing people of choice on like, a spiritual level.

blackarrow · Apr 9, 2019

fabledFreeboota said:
babylonsheep - Works | Archive of Our Own

Boop.

It's easy to see it as kinda spooky. And alien. Robbing people of choice on like, a spiritual level.

Thank you.

Yes, if I think better, what Dinah did was partially wrong. Her best option was to talk with Taylor and convince her that being a hero is a better option for her (and for the rest of the world) than a villain (I'm sure Taylor would have been perfectly fine to leave the Undersiders and become a hero if Dinah would have explained her that this is what she should do, because Taylor genuinely want to save people, even going so far to sacrifice parts of her- physically, emotionally, mentally parts- if she'll be assured that she can save lives in this way. Hell, she'll even choose totally WRONG ways like torturing and causing the death of good people just to save other good people. This is how she rolls, we can like her, be angry at her, admire her or blame her, she'll never be veered from her path) But, instead of going with the best option, Dinah decided to destroy Taylor's secret about her second identity, to indirectly hurt her father, to manipulate the heroes into breaking so many unwritten parahuman rules. As someone who's total opposed to the idea of doing the wrong things (wrong from my POV, of course, because different people have different opinions about what is wrong and what is right) for the right thing, I think that what Dinah is doing is partially wrong. She ruined Taylor's life but the truth is that Taylor ALWAYS wanted to be a hero, deep down inside of her soul. She's a villain ONLY because: she got emotionally attached by Undersiders and she hates authority (heroes should respect the authority, they don't have so much freedom like villains), but at her core, she was always a hero. A dark and violent hero, but still a hero. Basically, Dinah offered her what her heart always desired, a chance to finally become a hero and see how the world looks like through the eyes of a hero. Dinah created a perfect occasion for Taylor and now I'm more and more convinced that Taylor will become a Ward on probation until she'll be older (and trusty) enough to become a full member of the Protectorate rather than a prisoner in Birdcage. Dinah made sure of that.
An evil Dinah could have used her power to help Jack destroy the world. A well meaning extremist Dinah could have been accomplice to Cauldron's crimes for the greatest good (note: I find well-meaning extremists nothing more than hypocrite villains who only see themselves as heroes but the truth is that they're NOT heroes and they'll never be heroes. Any kind of extremist is just an hypocrite asshole). But a truly good Dinah choose to HELP the world not through deplorable crimes, but by CREATING a new hero- now we don't know how much of a good hero Taylor will be, but at least Dinah TRIED. She can be blamed for the wrong path she choose in order to create this hero but she can also be admired because she tries to give the world a second chance, without hurting too many people in the process.
The more I think, Dinah is such a complicated mess, but she's my complicated mess.

blackarrow · Apr 13, 2019

Hello, my dear friends. Last time, we had a Skitter locked in a CELL build by those FUCKING TINKERS :lol, a super-nervous and exasperated ex-soldier Tagg, who was KO's in the first round by a sassy, smart and cunning Dinah, a neutral but surprised Miss Militia, some worried Wards, the always welcomed dr Jessica and the possibility of an open war between PRT and Undersiders, something that PRT SHOULD NOT want because we know that each time when they fought Undersiders always were the clear winners, with or without Skitter at their helm

. PRT will be -again- useless against Undersiders, unless they'll use Skitter somehow to convince Undersiders to surrender without any fight. But in order to use her like this, they have to listen and follow her demands. I'm sure that Miss Militia will not have too many problems to choose peace (even with some concessions) over war anytime. On the other hand, Tagg...he's the kind of an asshole who'd rather see the world burn than to humiliate himself in front of a 16 years old villain

. So, he'll choose war with Undersiders, I have no doubt, and this is sad knowing that people like him are in the position of authority instead of people like Miss Militia. This is why we can't have nice things,Tagg. You're one of the reasons.

Hmmm, Director Emily Piggot: A non-powered anti-parahumans bigot.
Director Thomas Calvert: A parahuman power-hungry psychopath.
Director Rebecca Costa Brown: A parahuman corrupted "heroine" who broke every single golden rule of heroes.
Director Tagg (I don't know his first name but I don't care): A non-powered violent and abrasive ex-soldier.
Parahumans or non-powered humans, these people in the position of authority sucked/still suck big time while people who could do something useful and beneficial with the power of authority are not allowed to hold it (Miss Militia) or they're too honest and virtuous to ever want it/keep it when they notice how much it can corrupt them (Legend). Skitter is so damn right about authority. The authority either corrupt people who can be easily corrupted or turn the already corrupt people into even worse individuals

Cell 22.2

"Getting a sense of who you are as a person and a personality. There's a number of people here who are very concerned for your welfare. They don't quite believe me when I say I'm looking out for your interests."

"Okay," I said. "Big guy? Beard?"

"A young lady, dark-haired."

I thought for a second. "Tell her 'fly in a paper box.'"

He didn't cover the mouthpiece of his phone as he spoke the phrase. There was a pause, then Mr. Calle spoke into the phone once again, "That did it."

"I'm a fast driver. No need to worry, but… maybe don't mention it to the law enforcement officials that are looking over your shoulder. Do you have any preferences for donuts? Coffee?"

The big guy with beard must be Forrest, the brave bystander who "decapitated" Mannequin, and the dark-haired lady is Charlotte. Great, Calle, Skitter's lawyer, already met some of of Skitter's close people and he seems like an easy-going guy. I think I like him already. Not all the lawyers are insufferable assholes like Alan Barnes, after all (well, we still have Carol, a pretty decent lawyer and human being, despite always making differences between her girls. Great, now I made myself sad remembering Broken Victoria and Amelia. My poor, poor, unlucky girls

) . So, Skitter will have her lawyer here with her anytime soon but...Danny should be present too, he's her father, she's a minor who need her parent and Tagg will broke the international law if he'll refuse to call Danny to assist Skitter during her interrogation. My soul will CRY for Danny but he needs to be there to support his daughter. So, I'll prefer to cry over a fictional character (for an infinite number of times) than to see Tagg systematically violating Skitter's fundamental rights.

"Very casual," he mused. He took the phone, gripped my wrist in his hand and set the handcuff back into place.

"I'm trying to figure you out," Tagg said.

"My aims aren't very high. I'm not a psychologist, like Mrs. Yamada, I'm not experienced in the ins and outs of the traumas you capes go through or the damage that shit causes. You and I haven't really squared off yet, like you have with Miss Militia. Those two understand you on levels I never could."

"Maybe you don't really get what the Birdcage is. See, I hate it. I was in Lausanne in two-thousand two through oh-three. Fought a whole mess of ugly. People that couldn't be reasoned with, people who were hopeless, in the grand scheme of it. Victims, as much as anyone else."

"We shot them, the people who heard too much of the Simurgh's song, who weren't just walking disaster areas, but who'd listened long enough that they lost something. Men, women and children missing that moral center that people like Miss Militia and I have. Hell, even you've got morals. They didn't. I'm sure you heard about it, you're not that young. Suicide bombers, dirty bombs. Terrorism, if you will. Eleven year olds and old men making their way to Amsterdam or London and opening fire in a crowded area. Just like that."

"Once we realized what was happening, we had to act, contain the damage. Containfamilies. Had to act against people who went home from a day of trying to kill the rest of us and cooked a nice dinner, oblivious to just how fucked they were in the head. People who were otherwise good, who got warped on a fundamental level, left open to the preaching and the incitement of their angrier neighbors. Two years of fighting before we got the word down from on high, that they couldn't rehabilitate the ones they'd captured, the ones who'd listened too long. The poor assholes would play nice until they saw an opportunity, then they'd take it, do as much damage as they could. Two years fighting good people who'd been convinced they had to throw their lives away fighting an enemy that didn't exist. So we closed the perimeter, bombed them out, herded them and gunned them down."

"I'd rather do what we did in Lausanne than use the Birdcage. End result's the same. You're gone from this world. It's more merciful, understand? If it was legal, if I got the okay from on high, I'd make you kneel in the center of this very room and end you with one well placed bullet. Better than you getting in a van and gettingdisappeared, dropped into a pit that some of the scariest, meanest capes around haven't figured out how to escape, a literal hell on earth."

.............Tagg is a monster with a strong but twisted sense of justice. He wants to do what he can to protect civilians, even going so far to kill other civilians who lost their minds and morals due to Simurgh's influence

, but he's another monster indirectly created by Simurgh (by forcing his hand - making him kill so many crazy murderous civilians, Simurgh indirectly turned him into this violent and brutal law enforcer. He's another victim of Simurgh, who twisted his sense of justice into his own personal madness- he sees all the villains, even the ones who did so much good like Skitter despite being "evil", as dangerous evil people who should be annihilated as soon as possible, with a bullet in their heads). If he had his way, he would have shoot and kill Skitter in cold blood, without a single moment of hesitation. I kind of feel a tiny bit of pity for him, he had good intentions and was obvious concerned for the well being of the people in his care, but now he's nothing but an egoistical mad prick whose only response to the presence of the villains in the City is to indiscriminately kill everyone. No jail, no Birdcage, just a single bullet in their heads (while I agree with this method of getting rid in a more efficient way of villains, I'm opposed to the idea that all of them should be killed or even send to Birdcage. S9, Heartbreaker, Nilbog, yes, they deserve the bullet or even worse, but Skitter, Undersiders or Faultline's Crew....no, they don't deserve to die neither to rot in Birdcage. Not a single one of them. Yes, they should be stopped from hurting civilians, their villainous activities should be heavily limited, but not such harsh punishments. Undersiders did plenty of good things and Faultline's Crew helped in the fight against ABB and Echidna. Their good deeds should count too, according to my (not so) objective opinion

. As for Skitter, her list of good deeds is greater than all the bad things she did).
WTF, Simurgh, what the humanity ever did to you to deserve your wrath? You ruined so many lives who could have done WONDERS for humanity if it wasn't for your meddling. A sincere FUCK YOU, you monster good only to rip in pieces the last hopes of humanity in a better future

.
I think that a lot of you, my dears, are surprised that I don't rage over the fact that Tagg killed psycho killer children. Yes, those kids were innocent, they're turned evil by Simurgh, but they had to die because they couldn't be rehabilitated or stopped in any other way possible from committing murders. It was a necessity and Tagg only did what it was necessary- sacrifice corrupted and twisted lives in order to protect still innocent lives. This is one of the few circumstances where I agree that children should be killed. If they're crazy murderers who know only to kill. The other circumstances: children- zombie, evil clones and mercy killing (if a child is subjected to indescribable horrors and nobody can't do anything to stop the endless suffering, despite trying everything in their power, then a painless mercy killing is the good choice. Sadly, but you're a monster if you prefer to let the child suffer rather than put an end to their suffering. Of course, mercy killing should be the last resort, after every single available solution will fail

).
I'll never judge Tagg for what he did (if he tells the truth in integrity, of course), I'm judging him for what he's DOING and what he'll DO.

"My lawyer's here," I said. I could sense him, striding through the lobby to talk to a receptionist at the front desk. "Mr. Calle. He's upstairs."

"Good afternoon," he said, putting his briefcase down before extending a hand to Miss Militia, smiling in a way that showed off his very white teeth. I'd assumed that his prim appearance in the pictures had been because he'd been anticipating having his photos taken, or because he'd been appearing in public.

His black hair hadn't just been cut, it had been styled, his eyebrows shaped. He had long eyelashes, I noted, and a small cleft in his chin. He was an exceptionally handsome Latino guy, in a light gray suit with a white vest beneath, and a red tie. He had a folder and a paper bag under one arm, in addition to the briefcase he'd put down.

Mr. Calle pointed at the one-way mirror at one side of the interrogation room. "This is a confidential meeting with my client. I would never imply that anyone in the PRT would be so crass as to listen in, but… let's leave that room empty until further notice, okay?"

Tagg visibly bristled at the implication. Wordless, he turned to leave.

"And cameras stay off!" Mr. Calle called out at the Director's back.

Tagg shut the door with a little more force than necessary.

"Ms. Hebert," Mr. Calle said, without looking at me. He set the folder on the table and began sorting out the contents. He waited until the paperwork was all arranged in front of him before he turned his attention to the paper bag, retrieving my sandwich, a small carton of six donuts, and a small thermos. He met my eyes and spoke, "We finally meet."

Calle is a neat person, judging by the first impression, I think he might become one of my new favorite non-parahuman character

. If he's not a secret parahuman, which would be even cooler. I like how he made Tagg silently rage by reminding him that Skitter have RIGHTS and PRT should respect them. He doesn't take any shit from a Director obsessed so much with his own idea of justice that is more blind of whats going on around him than Lady Justice herself.
Ok, Calle, lets listen together Skitter's demands, but i think that you already know what she wants.

"Very well. Let's get moving. First off, I want to get some things clear. I'm an excellent lawyer, I've worked with more than a few big-name villains, as well as heroes who went astray. I have the rest of my firm backing me, and their talents are but a phone call away. But." He paused in a very deliberate way.

"You should know that I'm not the lawyer you want at a jury trial. We've run simulations, and I don't sell when it comes to juries. This little mark is a good part of that."

He touched his face, where the scar was.

"Lung," I said, "I attacked him and his gang. They're seriously charging me for attacking Lung's henchmen?"

"The bank robbery. I didn't damage any property."

"An… Emma Barnes. She appeared-"

"Moving on, then. Incidents taking place at the… Forsberg Gallery, May fifth. Five cases of assaulting a law enforcement officer. Five cases of battering a law enforcement officer, three performed with a parahuman ability."

"Skipping ahead a month to June third, we've got… complicity towards one count of kidnapping using a parahuman ability. This was-"

"Sophia Hess."

"June fifth. Treason."

"Treason."

"That would be, in effect, declaring war against the government of the United States of America."

"Attacking the mayor," I said, almost relieved to be able to pinpoint the crime in question.

"And his family, it seems." Mr. Calle paused, then paged through the rest of the pad.

I nodded. Dragon and fighting in the debate. Given Dragon's response in the cafeteria, I'd almost expected her to drop any charges involved in the destruction of the suits she'd sent against me. Maybe people higher up than her had charged me anyways. Then there was the manslaughter. "Apparently the murders were staged."

"It was Coil. Director Thomas Calvert was Coil."

"Now let's talk about our goals. For the record, if we took this to trial, I think we could knock off most of these charges on a lack of evidence and degrees of amnesty surrounding your participation against the various class-S threats. They're going to want to put together a jury that hasn't heard of you, which would be difficult. To those people, it's going to sound downright preposterous that a sixteen year old girl is being charged with treason and terrorism, especially after we reduce the number of assault and battery charges to single digits."

"I don't want a jury trial," I said. "I've said this twice now."

I'm drinking juice and I almost ruined my keyboard by spitting on it after I read that Skitter is framed for declaring war against US government

lol:lol. Gosh, I had to clean it up before typing the replay. Seriously, Tagg, are you framing Skitter for declaring war against US only because she holds a little territory in a small City? Then, accordingly to Tagg's (I)llogic, all the gangs in US who are holding territories must be working against the government, right? I hate assholes who frame people for something they didn't do but I hate more stupid assholes who frame people for stupid crimes. No, but seriously, what Tagg is trying to do? Turn Skitter into a parahuman version of ISIS and Al-Qaida combined? I'm surprised he didn't claimed that she tried to kill the President with bombs carried by flying bugs :lol. Tagg, GTFO from PRT, you're destroying their image more than it was already destroyed by Director Rebecca.
I agree with the other accusations: bank robbery, Forsberg Gallery and especially the attack over Mayor's family (her most unforgivable crime). Skitter have no excuses for these crimes (undercover job doesn't count) but I can notice that Tagg didn't included the good things that Skitter did, he only focused on every bad stuff she's guilty of. Good things like: helping heroes capture Lung two times, protecting people from Leviathan, fighting nazis and trying to stop Purity's rampage, fighting Merchants, fighting S9, figuring out Siberian's weakness and creating a huge opportunity for the heroes to get rid of this world menace, saving a lot of people who were unlucky to listen Shatterbird's song, taking care of the people in her territory, killing Coil, the man who would have turned the City into his personal dictatorship, fighting against Echidna and helping the heroes kill her, depowering (temporary?) Fallen's leader, making Teeth's leader kill herself. Did I forgot something? Comparatively, Skitter did more good things than bad things but apparently Tagg doesn't care or rather doesn't want to care about. Tagg, you're such a big fucker. A BIG FUCKER :rage:

.

"I know," Mr. Calle said. "Hear me out. I'm wanting to make sure our expectations are realistic. Theoretically speaking, I think we could get you charged as a minor. Paint a picture of a bullied teenager pushed to the limit, caught out of her depth and, following the Leviathan attack, ensnared in an ugly situation where she's trying to protect people and the heroes are being unreasonable in how they interact with her. We could use the unwarranted unmasking to indicate just how aggressive and ruthless the PRT has been in regards to you."

I thought of Tattletale. "I think I have some ideas."

It took one and a half hours, roughly, to get everything worked out and organized. After that, I had to put up with twenty minutes of waiting while Mr. Calle's law firm typed it and emailed it to us. It took ten more minutes for my lawyer to run to a nearby print shop and get the paperwork we'd put together. Mr. Calle then insisted on reading the entire thing through. The wait was almost intolerable.

Fifteen more minutes passed as he went through it page by page, with agonizing slowness. I winced a little every time he stopped and went back to check earlier details against whatever it was he was reading.

"My client, Taylor Hebert, is offering official surrender to the PRT, for a select handful of crimes. This surrender and an admission of guilt would be televised locally, nationally and possibly internationally, dependent on which outlets were prepared to cooperate. In exchange, my client, Taylor Hebert, known by the alias 'Skitter', requests some concessions from the Protectorate, PRT and Wards."

"Televised?" Tagg asked.

"To begin with, the remaining members of the Undersiders will be given leniency for past crimes. With the understanding that the Undersiders are serving to police this city's underworld where the Protectorate is unable, the group would cease to be the target of any aggression or harassment on the part of the PRT, Protectorate or Wards. This fact would not be disclosed to the public, but would serve as a truce to allow both sides to carry out their respective duties in the service of Brockton Bay."

"You want to neuter us," Director Tagg said. "Stop us from policing the criminals who run this city."

"Quite alright," my lawyer responded. He flashed a smile, "I expect that's why Ms. Hebert has asked that you retire, Director Tagg. Her colleague, known by the alias Tattletale, has apparently confirmed that you've put in the requisite number of years. You could collect your pension without issue."

"That can change," I said. "Nearly a week ago, you and I had a conversation. We talked about the issues within the PRT, the fact that you had to kowtow to non-capes and all the problems that posed. I think the non-capes who tend to find powerful positions in the PRT are getting there by dangerous roads. They tend to have backgrounds with the police, military, and anti-parahuman strike teams. It sets up a combative mindset, where we don't need one. With a cape in charge of the local team, at the very least, I could hope that there'd be a shared perspective."

Skitter's demands are perfectly reasonable and I can see Miss Militia agreeing with them and Tagg being total against out of spite. Plus he doesn't want to resign because he truly believe that what he's doing is the PERFECTLY RIGHT thing to do and he can't see any error in all his decisions. Ok, let's comment a bit over each demand.
-Skitter's surrender to be televised: Skitter wants to give people an example that a villain can be redeemed and become a hero and to clean up Protectorate's image a bit (just how some of their heroes can be corrupted people, the reverse can be possible too- they can turn villains into heroes).
Leniency for Undersiders' past crimes: exactly what I said about not being necessary for Undersiders to receive harsh punishments when they did so much good for the City. But further crimes should be severely penalized because Protectorate can't let even sympathetic villains like Undersiders to continue steal or terrorize/maim people. That won't be fair towards innocent civilians and no matter how much good deeds this group of villains would do, if they also continue with their crimes, they should not be excluded from being treated like any other villain and answer to the law, if is necessary.
-Tagg SHOULD RESIGN. This is the most rationale and salutary thing to do, but he'll not do it because Tagg is not exactly the most rationale and honorable person around. He'll do exactly what Rebecca did. NOTHING AT ALL.
-A parahuman being in control of PRT. Depends of which one, my dear Skitter, because while I agree that parahumans should policy themselves without the meddling of the non-powered people, not all the parahumans are saints, neither the most sane and safe people. Just look at Rebecca. She was an idealistic parahuman who tried to make the world a better place for mundane people and parahumans alike, but with time, the corruption ate her idealistic heart like cancer (what a good allegory I just made!), leaving behind only a DARK SHAME of the former good heroine she was

. Lets not talk now about Thomas because I'm already sick and tired mentioning this snake of a man. Parahumans like these two are just as bad as Tagg, if not worse. If you want a parahuman in a position of power, you have to make sure that you're making the better choice. Otherwise, you'll create only a bigger mess. Miss Militia is the best choice but someone should ask her if she's prepared for such a complicated and big duty. Its up to her decision if she wants to be such a responsible person, to policy other parahumans and be a positive example of an acceptable sane (because she suffers from PTDS but in comparison with other parahumans her mentally health is much more better

) and non-corrupted parahuman. Nobody should take this decision in her place

.

"I guess I have a higher estimation of them than you do. Don't tell your people to stop underestimating me, only to slip up and expect to win wholesale against the rest of the Undersiders. I think they'd surprise you. Surprise all of you."

"You said you need compromise," Miss Militia said. "But you won't budge on this point? A figurehead leader would keep the public content and give you what you're asking for."

"What I want," I said, "Is to set a precedent. Fixing Brockton Bay doesn't do a thing, if we don't leave doors open to fix things elsewhere. If one cape becomes head of the local PRT, then it could happen elsewhere."

All eyes turned to me. I straightened. "I recognize that I'm asking for some big things. I'm hoping that the… scale of some of what I'm asking for is tempered by the fact that this is all constructive. It puts us in a better place and leaves us prepared to face down the real threats: the impending apocalypse, the Endbringers, the forces who'd want to move into this city and abuse the portal. I'm going to ask for one more thing in that vein. Don't send me to the Birdcage. Don't send me to juvie, or hang me for treason. It's… not constructive."

"Use me. I get that it wouldn't work, having me join the Wards. Too much baggage. But… the end of the world hinges on Jack Slash doing something within the next two years. You absolved Armsmaster of his crimes and sent him out to hunt them down. Do the same with me. I can cover a lot of ground in a search, I have experience fighting them, and if you needed it, nobody would even have to know I was doing it. I'd be one more body on the ground, relatively discreet, and maybe that gives us all a slightly better chance of keeping Dinah's prediction from coming to pass."

"Yes," she said. "And they struck one target after Boston. Toybox."

I remembered seeing the name on Tattletale's bulletin board. "Who or where is Toybox?"

"What's Toybox, you mean," the Director said.

"What's Toybox?" I asked.

"Toybox is a black market organization," Miss Militia said. "Tinkers who operate solo find life rather difficult, due to a lack of resources and the fact that gangs and government organizations are very, very persistent when it comes to recruiting them. Faced with the prospect of spending their lives on the run, trying to avoid being forcibly recruited into one organization or another, most turn to the Protectorate or the Wards. For those few who don't, Toybox is… was a refuge of sorts. Tinkers would join, share technology, stay in the enclave as long as they needed to build up a reputation and whatever tools they needed, they would share thirty-three percent of any proceeds with the rest of the group, helping to keep others afloat. Toybox sustained itself with barter, by moving frequently, operating between the scope of heroes and villains, and by selling less-than-legal goods to criminal groups."

"The Slaughterhouse Nine attacked them at the end of June," Miss Militia said. "In doing so, they appropriated all of the tinker technology and all of the tinkers that were staying with the group. See page thirty-six and on."

Pyrotechnical. A tinker focusing on flame manipulation, special effects, guns.

Cranial. A tinker specializing in neurology. Brain scans, draining thoughts, recording thoughts.

Big Rig. A tinker who built drones that built things in turn, particularly buildings.

Bauble. A girl who specialized in glassworking and glassworking tools, including tools that could turn inorganic matter into glass.

Dodge. A boy, twelve, who made access devices for pocket dimensions.

Toy Soldier. A powersuit user with a suit the size of a small building.

Glace. A tinker specializing in cryogenics and stasis.

My predictions are right again. Well, I usually follow the logical progression of the events+ the characters' evolution so is not hard for me make pretty decent and close to canon reality prediction. This or I'm a Thinker precog parahuman (but my power only work for fictional stories) who just love to mess with my readers' minds

. Skitter wants to be a Ward and later a full Protectorate member to: fulfilling her eternal dream of becoming a hero, to fix the image of the Protectorate, to help heroes to stop the Jackapocalypse from the position of a hero. I'm so very ok with Hero Skitter and I'm very curious to see how the whole transformation will work (I'm sure she won't change too much- or she won't change at all, but she'll try her best to PRETEND that she wants to change until there will be an opportunity for her to demonstrate her fellow heroes that her methods are better than their methods and they should be the ones who need to change, not her

).
RIP Toybox members. I don't think that they survived to S9 attack. Dodge was just a child

. I feel bad for them. And now S9 is more powerful than ever, especially Bonesaw, who probably copied every single Toybox's member specialty. Now she knows how to create a portal to a pocket dimension, she used Glace's knowledge to keep the clones cryopreserved, Blasto's specialty to create clones, she'll probably dress the clones in powersuits the size of small buildings, she can probably turn everything non-human into glass, create flame guns, more sophisticated drones than her spider-robots (now I understand how she was able to build her spider-robots without being her specialty. She copied another Tinker's specialty) and work with people's brains better than she did until now. Gooooooosh, Tinkers are the most OP Classification and nobody can't say otherwise. Basically, Bonesaw represents the strength and mind of S9, Jack being almost a zero without her. Even with all his ability to control his people, he won't survive more than a week (if I'm being generous) without her or Manton. Yes, he survived long before recruiting them, but he wasn't so reckless and eager to speed the end of the world like he's now (he spend his time running from city to city from the heroes who wanted to kill him rather than directly fighting them). Eliminate Bonesaw or have her turning against S9 and sabotaging them, no more S9, no more Jack. Bonesaw is the key to S9's absolute success or absolute destruction. She's the one who can help Jack becoming a God of Death or can reduce him to Nothing

.
Wildbow, I hope you'll have a Bonesaw Interlude waiting for me right around the corner. A single Bonesaw Interlude will compensate quite a lot my boredom and annoyance of reading so many Cauldron Interludes. A single Bonesaw Interlude will be like I just found the Ali Baba's Cave

.

"The Nine have access to all of their work?" I felt an inarticulate feeling of horror creep over me. I couldn't imagine anything particular, but anything that enhanced the capabilities and options that Slaughterhouse Nine had at their disposal?

"And access to the work of Blasto, a cloning specialist they assaulted and kidnapped in Boston," Miss Militia said.

"The Slaughterhouse Nine attacked Toybox, taking the group's devices for themselves, and they disappeared. We suspect they used Dodge's devices to exit into a pocket dimension, and by the time we'd found a way to follow, they'd exited elsewhere."

"They're dimension hopping?"

"Dodge's devices only exit from Bet to pocket worlds he creates with his devices, back to Bet. We believe they exited somewhere on Bet, possibly in another state, then used another device to hide. Which would be where they are now. Without knowing where they entered that particular pocket, we can't hope to find them," Miss Militia said. "We know their patterns. They tend to cut a swathe of destruction across North America, and it's rare for even a handful of days to pass without them taking any action at all. Between the PRT's past experience with the group, our thinkers, and the fact that they haven't made an appearance in nearly ten days, we believe we've worked out what they're doing."

"…her father."

You know who can find them very easy, if they truly want? Cauldron. Despite their access to their pocket dimension, S9 can't stop Clairvoyant from finding them, Doormaker from opening a portal in their dimension and Number and Contessa from visiting them with not very peaceful intentions. Finding S9 must be piece of cake for Cauldron. Now lets see if Cauldron are just as interested as heroes and Dinah to stop S9 or they have their own different interests (but for the greatest goooooooooooood, we know

).
Danny is allowed to assist his daughter during interrogatory. Glad that Tagg respected the law but I still have the suspicion that he's going to use her father in order to make her give up at her "unreasonable" demands. She'll then snap and based on Dinah's prediction, Tagg's wife will become a new widow after only a couple of hours since Skitter's surrender. Not that I'll feel sorry for him. If he'll do something so STUPID and RECKLESS and MEAN to blackmail a daughter with her own father, then he deserves whatever he'll get

.

Good night and sleep well, my friends.
FOR MY FELLOW HOMESTUCK FANS: HAPPY 413. HOMESTUCK UPDATED WITH EPILOGUES AFTER 3 YEARS. READ THE FIRST EPILOGUE. I WAS SO EXCITED WHEN I DISCOVERED THAT ONE OF MY FAVORITE WEBCOMICS OF ALL TIME IS NOT DEAD YET. CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT EPILOGUE. HUSSIE, BLESS YOUR TALENTED AND IMAGINATIVE BUT SOMETIMES SO CRUEL MIND.

AmbarGriss · Apr 13, 2019

Oh is Homestuck day? How could I forg8t? :::: )

ImperatorV · Apr 13, 2019

I remembered it was 4-13, but I wasn't expecting an actual Homestuck update after all these years. Thanks for pointing that out to me, I might not have checked.

blackarrow · Apr 14, 2019

Ok, my friend challenged me to an exercise of imagination: what if I'll be stuck on a deserted island with one of S9 members (including ex-members)? Which one I'll consider more safe (for me) an useful enough to get us off the island and back in the civilization??
Awesome: I have to choose between dying in the first minutes I'll step on the island and dying much more later :lol. Fine...I'll try only because I can't really resist to challenges.
I have only 3 options when it comes to the most safe (as safe as an S9 member can be) and useful members: Number Man, Shatterbird and Bonesaw. They'll be the ones who will me me feel slightly ok being in the company, even if I'll still have to take good care not to piss them off.
-Why Number Man? Because while he's still insane and a big jerk, he isn't such an uncontrollable obsessed with killings psycho like all others. He'll not hurt me if I'll not provoke him in any way (I don't know how to keep him calm and cool but I'll try my best. I noticed that he likes when people listen him so if I'll listen to him and not make bad math puns all the times then the things between us will be fine

). He's also very good at finding solutions in such a short time, better than Accord, so I think he'll bullshit supercalculate every single way available for us to be back in the civilization starting with the first minute spent on the island. He'll assure my survival and my escape. The only problem: if he'll still be pantless like he usually is, I think I'll be like: screw my survival and kick his sorry ass into the ocean. Better trying to survive alone than with a creep walking around half naked :lol.
-Why Shatterbird? Because she'll fly us off the island (she can lift me up using the sand- especially if the island is largely made of sand then won't be any problem for her to improvise something that will help me fly by her side). She's a psycho killer but she also likes to be praised a lot. If I'll praise her all the time for her beauty, skills, intelligence, innovative killings, power, glass dress, she'll be so delighted that she'll not kill me. She'll not kill the only person who admire her so much, right? She likes admiration and validation more than anything and I can be very convincing with my words

.
-Why Bonesaw? Because she's OP skilled enough to make us immune to every disease and heal us of any injury that we might get, won't be a problem for her to create a sailing craft from dozens of fish or animals that she'll catch and stick together into solid blobs of flesh strengthened with bones and give them the shape of a boat. The problem is to convince her to work with me without killing me or turning ME into her boat. If my theory that Bonesaw without Jack's influence is actually not such an evil person and can work with someone who isn't a S9 member without feeling the uncontrollable need to hurt them is true then Bonesaw will not hurt me, especially when I'll convince her that if she'll help me she'll be such a good girl and I'll be so proud of her. Yes, I'll manipulate this child, but only long enough for us to get off the island

.
-Now, the most useful member will be Mannequin (he'll turn the whole island into a very comfortable and secure ecosystem where we can survive for the rest of our lives or he'll create a very complex sailing craft that will serve us both as a way to escape and floating house) BUT: if I'll not die of heart attack in the first minute spent in his company, then he'll kill me in the next couple of minutes and use my bones as additional material for his floating house/boat

. And there'a no way to convince him to spare my life, he's far too gone to listen me or to see me in other way than resources for his work.
-The most useless: Cherish (she'll get bored and start torturing me with her emotion controlling power, making me kill myself after a while. Then, she'll get bored again being all alone and will end up either being eaten by animals, getting very sick or trying to sail the ocean with a badly improvised raft and getting drowned in the process. As usual, too stupid to live :lol).
So, these are my answers. Anyone have other opinions?

legendshoelaces · Apr 16, 2019

While I don't disagree that Tagg is a problematic and arguably bad person, I feel obliged to defend him on a few of these points.

blackarrow said:
I think...or rather I HOPE that this law applies to minor parahumans too,

It likely doesn't, since that would require exposing their secret identity.

blackarrow said:
I can notice that Tagg didn't included the good things that Skitter did, he only focused on every bad stuff she's guilty of. Good things like: helping heroes capture Lung two times, protecting people from Leviathan, fighting nazis and trying to stop Purity's rampage, fighting Merchants, fighting S9, figuring out Siberian's weakness and creating a huge opportunity for the heroes to get rid of this world menace, saving a lot of people who were unlucky to listen Shatterbird's song, taking care of the people in her territory, killing Coil, the man who would have turned the City into his personal dictatorship, fighting against Echidna and helping the heroes kill her, depowering (temporary?) Fallen's leader, making Teeth's leader kill herself. Did I forgot something? Comparatively, Skitter did more good things than bad things but apparently Tagg doesn't care or rather doesn't want to care about. Tagg, you're such a big fucker. A BIG FUCKER

This is just how the US criminal justice system works - the good things someone does aren't crimes they're being charged with, so they aren't relevant to her discussion with her lawyer.

blackarrow said:
Seriously, Tagg, are you framing Skitter for declaring war against US only because she holds a little territory in a small City?

No - he's charging her with treason because she has clearly attempted to overthrow the existing government of Brockton Bay and install herself and the Undersiders as the new authority. Most gangs don't get that far, and the ones that do (ISIS, drug cartels, etc.) exist in places where the existing government is powerless to stop them. What she has done definitely meets the legal definition of treason.

Xexilf · Apr 16, 2019

legendshoelaces said:
No - he's charging her with treason because she has clearly attempted to overthrow the existing government of Brockton Bay and install herself and the Undersiders as the new authority. Most gangs don't get that far, and the ones that do (ISIS, drug cartels, etc.) exist in places where the existing government is powerless to stop them. What she has done definitely meets the legal definition of treason.

To nitpick you back, it might not. Legally Treason has some very specific definition, and IIRC includes being at war, so unless they aknowledge the Undersiders as a foreign nation or something, she may not be guilty of that. It does defnitely hit some rather extremely punishable things, but im not sure how open rebellion, attempted secession, trying to oppress 300.000 people or whatever you call it would be legally handled, but some very serious charges, i imagine. Its just probably not technically treason.

Let's read Worm and its sequel Ward by Wildbow (One chapter/every day)

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