[Worm] Pride

[Babblefish]

It was nine hours later Ihina rolled over to go to sleep.
She was 80% sure her circadian rhythm was entirely fucked.
Neon lights interfered with her ability to sleep, to track the passing of time. She hated them.
Rhythm was a good word because it had so few vowels in it.
She keeps her arms around the bowls, uses her jacket to cover her head, keep out the light.

Hackers and Admins are natural enemies.
Admins know the powers inside out. Can weave them into one another, into living things.
Hackers can call upon some of the gods powers if they yell loud enough, maybe glue those powers on to things, but have no understanding of when it would work and when it would fuck out.
It made sense. It explained the case 53's. Explained where she was now.

The deepest lore is only known,
to those who set the rules,
But hackers slip between the cracks,
find loopholes to abuse.

Frankenstein, he stitched a beast
for everyone to fear,
And there's a girl called Paige McAbee,
with feathers in her hair.

---

Turtle turtle turtle turtle turtle turtle turtle turtle.
Time had passed.
Ihina was laiden down with twenty five wooden bowls.
She didn't walk any more, she waddled.

Turtle turtle.

She rounded the corner and wooped.

Life is full of prizes,
For anyone who waits,
and punishes impatience,
with millions of mistakes.

She waddled closer, set her stack of bowls down (careful to keep one hand on the top of the stack), then picked her latest prize. She drank deeply, savoring the creamy orange broth, before flipping the bowl over, and placing it on the ground.
Collection Complete.
The Icon glowed above her head, its shell emerald green and pleasingly bowl shaped.

TURTLE QUEEN.

She laid out six bowls, meticulously keeping all bowls in vision. Six bowls, upside down, in a perfectly balanced hexagon. A circle perhaps.
Architect.
Architect now.
Pythagoras.

Balance all the lines and angles.
No room for error.

Another six bowls, another hexagon built atop of the previous one, 30 degrees out of sync, the rim of each new bowl balanced on the butt of two bowls from the layer below. Two rings of bowls, one on top of the other.

The Tower of Babel.
Genesis 11:1–9.
In which humanity is punished for the sin of finally getting their shit together.

Will I be punished now?
Ihina smiled.
That would be interesting.

Another layer, another six bowls, each bowl delicately placed, back in sync with the ground layer, out of synch with layer number two. Three layers of bowls, forming a stumpy little tower.

Like building a house of cards.
Any imperfection sure to ruin the structure.
The Architect.
The Architect.
I have been captured by the Hackers.
They want something. They want something.
The password is Swordfish. The password is always swordfish.

Ihina knelt in front of the structure. Breathing in, breathing out. Pulse hammering.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Another layer.
Another layer, six bowls, no room for error. Rims balanced against the layer below, every bowl matching, every bowl identical.
Don't tremble.
Don't breathe.

Don't fuck this up.

Hatred was a question, a property held by certain people.
Some people thought that Hatred was a relationship, an opinion from one person to another. Ihina had found it was more a matter of a weight.
People were either carrying it, or they weren't.

That's why she liked Michael. Michael never hated anyone.
Possibly he was a serial killer, which was cool, but hatred never came into the equation.

Two more bowls.


Four layers of bowls, with a little Parapet of two final bowls at the top- one on each side.

Ihina placed the final bowls and stepped back, admiring her construction.

I wonder what my husband is doing.
Is he sad to have missed me?
Does the failure taste bitter in his throat?
I hope it does.

Ihina carefully withdrew the knife lashed to her arm.
Crimson crackled and roared against her shoulder.
Various other icons watched on dubiously.

Fuck fuck fuck.

She did her best to act casual, as she shrugged off her coat, wrapped her coat around her hand, and took hold of the knife.

Eye on the prize.

The hallway stretched off into the distance in both directions. Ihina hadn't seen or spoken to any person in many days.
She had lost count of the exact number, but she suspected it was at least a week. Possibly two.

Are they just fucking with me?
Gotta change up the game.
Gotta change up the game.

Very carefully, balancing her hand against one wall, she stepped up on top of the stack.
Onto the parapet. 5 bowls high.

Second foot, second foot.

Her second foot followed, pressing down against the final bowl. Balanced on the opposite side of the tower.

Ihina crouched and trembling upon her tower. Like some oversized chicken. Or a Dinosaur, resurrected from the amber.

Nothing slid.
Nothing cracked.

Perhaps this hallway is a test.
Perhaps it is some form of torture device- a place to store me until I go mad.

Slowly. Tentatively, Ihina straightened her legs. Running fingers against the wall, praying to the goddess of her inner ear for balance.

Eventually she was standing up.
Her ankles and thighs were burning.
She resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder, up the hallway behind her.


Gotta change the game, gotta change the game.


Every lie I ever told,
was spoken from my mouth,
And every lie I ever told,
I surely told myself.

And the world is full of monsters,
for anyone with eyes,
And the world is full of monsters,
Who barely wear disguise.

And my heart is a blade,
and so is my tongue,
And my mind is a blade,
ever since I was young.

And the clock it is ticking,
we're burning through time,
And the clock-

She could feel it.
Crimson.
On her shoulder.
Reminding her not to hesitate, demanding movement. Action. Risk.

-Electricity follows currents. Electricity seeks to ground itself via-

Ihina Quinn lunged upward, striking, ramming the knife into the stupid fucking Neon lights.

Sparks flew. Ihina's pile of bowls collapsed.
And then she ran.

 

[Tascion]

Ihina is amazing. Well done, you crazy lady.

 

[FiNAL_0083]

Ihina may not be the a Thinker, but she is a very good thinker. Burn bright and burn long, you wacko bastard. You're the only sane one! I'd love to see a more dumbed down explanation of her whole mental system of categorization. Have I already said that in the past? Probably, but it still feels a bit beyond me. Not in a bad way! I recognize some of the terms and roles, but I want to really get it, so I can use it myself.

 

[Babblefish]

Ihina may not be the a Thinker, but she is a very good thinker. Burn bright and burn long, you wacko bastard. You're the only sane one! I'd love to see a more dumbed down explanation of her whole mental system of categorization. Have I already said that in the past? Probably, but it still feels a bit beyond me. Not in a bad way! I recognize some of the terms and roles, but I want to really get it, so I can use it myself.

Click to shrink...

Hey hey @FiNAL_0083 - this is good question.
I think I've mentioned the Icons before in passing, but never done a full write up of them, so sure, why not.

Ihina sees the world (and people in it) in terms of "Icons". Each Icon represents a particular thinking style, or perhaps a particular lens one could use while looking at a problem. Ihina likes to visualize the Icons floating around, hovering over people, etc.
Individual people can drift(or jump!) from icon to icon depending on the situation, and people who aren't ``really thinking'' (according to Ihina) have no Icon attached to them.


I use these same icons myself! I think of them more like a deck of Tarot cards- little pictures with associated stories/angles/views attached to them (I even have a bunch of them illustrated on little cue cards, with pictures on one side and words on the other).
I use these icons from time to time. Far less frequently than Ihina, but when I am faced with a creative obstacle, etc etc, I'll pull the cards out, thumb through it, see what I can get.


Below I've gone through as many icons as I could remember off the top of my head. I've started with the major ones/ones that *I personally* am most in tune with, and worked my way out from there. As a result, the entries get shorter and shorter towards the end (so please don't be disappointed).

With that said, the major Icons (to my mind) are...

Spoiler: The Salad bowl!

This is for brainstorming. Just throwing ideas into the bowl, tossing them around, not worrying about how they mix together, or weather they make sense. There is no structure, just a pile of different bits, and bright colours.

Proper salad bowling relies on NOT trying to be an editor, not testing things, not holding back.
It also relies on not holding on to ideas. Don't try to take an idea and build on it, just stick an idea down and move on.
In the story, we see Amelia and Co Salad bowling vs accord HERE.

When writing the story, I did some serious Salad Bowling with my brother around the time Marquis got attacked by Coil on the Favvy Sham (Because like... how the hell was he supposed to get out of that one? Shits impoosible).

The Salad bowl is an important when you are early in the creative process, but bad for acctually *solving* anything.
The Saladbowl is a useful DEFAULT state to return to if you hit a dead end, because it doesn't really require external assistance to work.

I am generally pretty good at Salad bowling.

Spoiler: The Scholar

The other useful icon to pull early in a process is the scholar.
The Scholar tries to pull in all relevant information available. This involves reading books, scouring the internet, remembering things you have been told, etc etc.
If you have a friend who EATS non-fiction, or whose first instinct is to check things on wikipedia, this person is probably a natural scholar.

The goal of the scholar is NOT to invent things. It DOES involve a bit of curation- hence you might want to dump or at least flag any information which you suspect is incorrect.
The Scholar is valuable, because they can quickly find a solution if a solution already exists. They can also lay the foundations and check that you actually know what you are talking about, draw a picture of the space you are working in, and will help steer you away from bad solutions later on.

Tattletale and Amelia HERE ([Worm] Pride ) are acting as scholars.

The Scholar is the 2nd Icon which I would recommend falling back to as a default.

I am generally pretty bad at playing the Scholar. This is unfortunate and from time to time costs me pretty badly.

Spoiler: The Crows nest

The Crows nest takes what you can see, your current pool of ideas, and extrapolates, looks for other ideas which are SIMILAR but not the same.

This is a useful thinking style to use midway through solving a problem- for example when you have a number of potential solutions which you suspect are close to being good, but none of them are particularly pleasing.

When using the Crows nest, you are still not meant to be evaluating ideas, or digging too deeply into them, so potentially the best way to think about it is "brainstorming around an anchor point".

One case where you might use The Crows nest is when you are short on time and need to navigate to a solution quickly. Following the crows nest repeatedly won't find you THE BEST solutions, but is generally reasonably fast.

Spoiler: Lego

Problems are most often made up of many tiny sub-problems. Sometimes these can be attacked one by one- and being able to explicitly break a problem up into its sub-problems is useful.
This is useful reasonably early on, as it is a means of transforming the problem you have.

Ihina invokes Lego multiple times- in particular, when she is first introduced to the pinch she asks Miss Militia to bash the problem into multiple sub-problems ([Worm] Pride) . Miss Mitilia points out that the problem of the pinch can be broken down into "Survival of injured", "Retrieval of personal", "Removal of pinch", and that solving the problem of "find a healer" is more urgent, and potentially easier than solving the problem of Shaker effect problem.

The Legos is a powerful Icon when working on teams, because you can then hand each sub-problem out to different people. On an emotional level, when dealing with a problem which seems insurmountable (Climate change, Economics, coming up with and entire setting for a story etc etc), breaking it up into managable sub-problems can be a useful defence mechanism, and allow you to make SOME progress without being overwhelmed by the total problem. (So, for a story, don't create a full story, just imagine one individual character... then do that again... and again).

The Legos are a dangerous Icon because often problems are complex and interconnected. Atomozing your problems (and solutions!) can lead to unintended interference between different plans. If you are a doctor or urban planner, you might end up treating many individual symptoms of an underlying problem while ignoring the underlying problem itself.

Spoiler: The Space Plane

The idea of the Space plane is to take an idea you have and pushing it to its natural extreme.
"Can we go bigger? Can we go better? Faster? Stronger?"
"Can we have more cake? Louder music? A longer holiday? Could I just quit my job?"
"Could we make this character older? No, wait, they are immortal and have existed for ALL time."

The idea isn't to create a workable plan, but instead to take an existing plan and push it as far as it will go.

Hence, if you have a plan like "Can we distract the big bad?", you might escalate it to "Can we completely overwhelm all their senses with like 5 hours of fireworks and loud music?"

During Game design for No Port Called Home , I was at one point trying to build the "Scientist" class, and couldn't find any mechanic that felt Sciency.
We already had several classes which gained "Checkbox feats", where you gains Specialist skills from a list by ticking them off (For example, the Pilot could gain specialist expertise in Dodging gunfire, crash landings, stealth flight or driving unusual vehicles, about a dozen possible "checkboxes" to tick off). Checkbox feats let you check off one specialty with each level. These played well, and felt like learning, but didn't really feel big enough to be "science".
Applying the Space plane icon we ended up asking the question "Okay, but what if there was like 100 different specialties? And you ranked up in a dozens of them, instead of just three or four? What happens if we build the entire class around this? A class which CARES about which specialities you have checked off". We took an existing mechanic , and then just pushed it as far as we could make it go, and ended up with something really fun.

The game of No Port Called Home itself was created by very strong Spaceplane thinking, based on one of my brother's asking me "what if we could mix and match ALL classes?" (Originally the class combinations were pre-prescribed)

Like the crows nest, the Space plane is a good Icon to call on Midway through a creative process.

Spoiler: The Sculptor

The Job of the sculptor is to take a great big block of ideas and chip away at it until only the essentials remain.
The Sculptor asks such questions as "Which bits of this are necessary?" "What can be removed while still keeping the core elements?" "How do we implement this idea in the simplest possible manner?"
The Sculptor is the icon which will kill unessisary characters or pointless story arc. The Sculptor will remove unnecessary rules from the game.

This is less of an icon for problem solving, and more an icon appropriate for story writing and design (hence, it doesn't show up so much in story, but is still very useful).
The Sculptor is a tool for refining ideas, and as such, usually occurs fairly late in your design/problem solving process. It is a tool for making a workable idea into a better idea. As such, it is seldom NEEDED... but at the same time, misuse of The Sculptor is often what seperates a half-good idea from an Excellent execution.


A few examples include:
* in magic the gathering, you used to be able to damage yourself by tapping for mana and then not spending it. This rule was removed from the game, because 99.9% of players literally never found any use for it. It made no difference to the game, and only provided extra confusion/weight.
* In Worm, probably some of the extra Endbringers should have been slapped down by this.
* In pride, I spent a long time trying to figure out how Theo fit into the story. At some point I realized "Theo is an amazing character in Worm, but that doesn't mean he needs to be part of Pride."
* [SPOILERS]
* [MORE SPOILERS]
* The Game "Project Kat", along with its sequel "Paperlily", appear to have had exceptionally good use of "the sculptor" applied to them.

Spoiler: The Broken Idol

The Broken idol looks at your current situation/approach and asks "What assumptions are we making? What are we assuming about the solution which we shouldn't be assuming?"

Examples of using the Broken Idol might be such situations trying to plan a party, and feeling like you can't find an activity which will please everyone. Maybe you shouldn't find an activity which will please everyone- maybe you should just have two activities going concurrently. Maybe people should just put up with something which isn't their favourite. Maybe you've assumed the party will be late at night, but actually having a noon time BBQ would be better. Maybe you should just have fewer guests?

In game design, you might just be automatically assuming that people should have HP, and deal damage, but what if they didn't? What if Hit points just weren't a thing.

The Broken idol is a good Icon to reach for if you ever get stuck. If you feel like North south east and west lead to a dead end, then maybe you need to consider Up or down, or different times of day, or visiting tunnels in a particular order. You've seen the walls at the end of each corridor, but have you tried pressing on them.

Most Riddles are broken via some sort of Broken Idol thinking. The riddle sets up a challenge, and also suggests (but does not STATE) some implied rule. Once you realize which rules are false, solving the problem becomes much easier.
Examples include the Wolf-goat-cabbage problem and the nine dots problem.

Also, please add a single line to the following to make a true equation:
IX = X - IV

In story, the broken idol is primarily used by Tattletale during early brainstorming sessions.
Rey uses it more recently when he suggests "Dinah doesn't have the juice in her TODAY, but what about tomorrow, and the next day", dispelling an asusmption Tattletale implicitly set up when she stated that Dinah didn't have enough questions left.

Spoiler: The Chair

The Job of the chair is to decide which icons should be used at which times. Similar to the Broken Idol, the chair is also a good icon to fall back on when stuck.

If you are by yourself, "The chair" takes the form of asking "what thinking style should I be using at the moment?"
Often there will not be one good answer, but instead two or three icons that seem relevant. The important part is figuring out which Icons won't help you.

In group discussion, the Chair plays the role of asking both "which icons should apply now?" but also "Who should be wielding them?"
Different people have affinity for different icons, so passing them out to the correct people can be helpful.
Alternatively, figuring out which icon is needed and then put focus on whichever person is most likely to be naturally wielding that icon.

Whenever you see Ihina. spinning her wheels and jumping to "which icon should I use? Fuck fuck fuck," this is The Chair thinking. She is not especially good at it, and mostly just grabs on to icons at random when this happens, but the fact that she is aware "I am stuck, time to pick a new icon" is a good habit she has.

Ihina uses the chair successfully during initial brainstorming sessions about the Pinch.
Amelia uses the chair (very briefly) when plotting vs Mirage, in that she realizes that both her and Tattletale are playing scholar, and no one is getting anywhere. She realizes a chair is needed, but rather than taking the role herself she nominates Dinah Alcott as The Chair. This puts Alcott in a position with a lot of power to steer the discussion without putting to much strain on her to actually think of anything (thus protecting her power).

Spoiler: The Critic

The job of the critic is to taken an idea you have and tell you that it is stupid, explain why it won't work, poke holes in it, etc etc etc.

The Critic is intended as the first, second, third and final gatekeeper between an idea and execution. The critic is not "fun" or "nice". As an Icon, the critic is a good friend, and a poor master.
It is critical to keep the critic OUT of your business at the early stages, but also critical to listen to them well before putting a plan into action.

In Pride, Tattletale often fills the role of the critic. She tells Amelia that her plan of taking on the Simurgh is doomed to fail, and forces her to answer critical questions.

In real life, Her majesties loyal opposition play the role of a critic. In a healthy and functioning democracy, it is the role of the Opposition to take the Governments ideas, claw at them, tell the government why they are stupid, and then help the government implement them better.
Occasionally a proposed law will be overturned, or delayed for eternity, but most of the time the goal should be looking for ways to amelerote any harmful side effects of a law, patch any ambiguity and then implement the law in closer to its ideal form.
A Libertarian political party which questions wasteful government spending, and gives specific examples of needless expenditure is playing the role of The Critic well.
A Libertarian Political party which claims all government spending is stupid and wishes to minimize ALL government (while giving tax breaks and incentives only to certain lobby groups/donors) is playing the well of a The Critic poorly.

When using The Critic yourself, you have two main options:
One option is to get a second pair of eyes, someone you trust, and are willing to listen to.
The second option is to put the project in a draw, step away from it, stop thinking about it for a week, a day, a month, and then come back to it with fresh eyes. (Large time periods are most crucial for big projects which you are more invested in, such as writing a book).


One important detail to note about The Critic: When the critic (either external or internal) tells you that something is wrong, it is worth listening to that criticism. ("Character X is annoying" for example)
If the Critic starts suggesting solutions to problems, you should be very wary. ("Character X is annoying. You should remove them from the story!" for example).
As an Icon, the Critic is almost universally bad at giving constructive solutions.
Once again: The Critic is a good friend, and a poor master.

Spoiler: CRIMSON

Crimson represents Ihina's survival instinct. Her ruthlessness, her willingness to destroy ones enemies. Crimson desires action, violence and urgency.
She visualizes it as a roiling mass of red lightning or fire perched upon her shoulder, a dragon of sorts.

Of all the Icons, Crimson is probably the most well developed in the story, and least used by myself out in real life.

Crimson is not about fear. It doesn't believe in self defense as such, it believes in lashing out and harming that which would harm you, and harming it enough that it is DEAD.

Crimson is... Generally not a thinking style I recommend using in real life, in all but the most dire circumstances. It is destructive.
With that said- yeah, there are circumstances where Crimson is justified. I don't encounter them, but also, yes, some people are dangerous, and the correct response to those people is to seek every possible avenue to destroy them.

In terms of Pride: Ihina tends to wield it fairly well- throughout the story she is canny enough to deploy Crimson where it is appropriate and fold it away when it isn't.
I would say that one of Michael's main character flaws is that for him Crimson is always low-key active in the background. There is a part of Michael that is never not in survival mode, never not looking for ways of destroying the other people around him.
The other character who leans in on Crimson a chunk is Bad Apple.


Other characters in fiction this applies to would be.... in the Webnovel Pale, we have both Verona and Alexander Belanger.
Verona pulls for Crimson from time to time when dealing with her Dad, and generally in these circumstances the use is appropriate. Fortunately/unfortunately, her Crimson is pretty weaksauce, so she doesn't like... actually WIN when she pulls it out. (she also doesn't kill anybody).

In contrast, Alexander Belanger is VERY good at pulling Crimson out, and using it to destroy people... but unfortunately is a bad judge of when such a response is reasonable.. Honestly, I would say this was his central character flaw, and why he needed to die. He could have been a manipulative predatory bastard and survived the story (Florin Pesch seems to be doing fine). The problem was, once Alexander pulled out Crimson, once he decided to take Ray sunshine, the girls, an half of the supporting cast a ENEMIES, as people he was planning to destroy, there was no reasoning with him. There was no way he could co-exist with the other characters in the story.


In real life... Crimson is not really an icon that I touch. I don't have much of a killer instinct, and I don't have need of one.
Some of my friends occasionally jump to Crimson in conversation, and its almost always pointless and destructive- some small conflict being treated as an existential threat, them taking people as enemies and trying to destroy those people.
With that said, those instincts they have learned in other contexts, and presumably that survival instinct which is out of place now served them well in some other context, so like... I ain't going to give crap to peoples hard earned survival instincts.

I find that thinking about Crimson as an Icon can be useful, because it gives people the chance to look at the circumstances around them, and genuinely decide weather or not the icon is appropriate.
Perhaps gaining the reassurance of having that attack dog on hand when needed, while also having the oportunity to put it back in the box when it is not needed. (I make no claims this last step is easy, but realizing when folding Crimson back into the box is something you can and should do is a critical first step)

Spoiler: Pythagorus and Fermi

Pythagorus and Fermi are two icons. They like to measure things. Pythagorus like precise amounts, exact figures, and is all about calculating the exact number of iron beams needed to construct a building, the precise distance, angle, time, etc etc etc.
Fermi is similar, but happy with estimation. Fermi wants to know if you will be travelling at 10 kilometers per hour or 100 km/hr.

Generally speaking, Fermi is likely to be invoked mid-early in the design process. Pythagorus is likely to be invoked later process.
Fermi estimation is a good way to figure out early on if a given approach actually makes sense, and everyone should get good at it.

Pythagorus (that is to say, exact calculation) is an incredibly powerful technique that let's you do the impossible.... in context where exact calculation is actually what is needed. Not everyon needs to be good at this, but many ventures will work significantly better if you have access to someone with good precision.

In story, you can see Ihina leaning towards Pythagorus when she coded up the GravLens package, and used it to calculate Michael's position for extraction.
You can see her using Fermi when she tried to estimate how fast a cell phone would need to be travelling to escape the pinch in time to give a useful warning to the PRT.

Spoiler: The Golden Compass

The Compass is the sensation of pure intuition. Of something twinging at your mind, of almost having a solution, an understanding a... something. It's a sensation of confusion, but also the confusion meaning something.
The Compass is the feeling of two ideas belonging together, but you can't quiet say how. It's the sensation of not wanting to move too quickly in case you knock an idea loose.

I can remember encountering the Golden compass... once.
I woke up, and an idea was poking at me, and I spent an hour just sitting there trying to picture the idea, trying to balance it, follow it and when it did come together, the idea ended up cracking open my PhD thesis problem (an extra year or so of work was actually needed to implement that idea.)

The Golden compass is not something that can be called on, or rather, its not something which I know how to call upon easily.
In stories it can be useful, if used sparingly (Ihina has used it twice, one major discovery , and couple minor times when dealing with the pinch).
Amelia also skirts around using the Golden compass while talking to Blasto's homunculi.
The Compass can be used to find big important things, but don't be afraid to have it apply in smaller situations (for example, Galant, here)

For other fiction containing it, Bina from All Night Laundry invokes the golden compass AMAZINGLY HERE (warning, major spoilers for ANL! Read up to 1393 to see the full "Golden compass" Womp.
Note such lines as "It never made any sense!", or the way the character withdraws from other people's thinking IMMEDIATELY, the need to process, the need to... yeah, this sequence is just really well done.)

In real life, my advice for summoning the Glowing compass is this:
Work on a problem, puzzle, story, game or riddle. Day and night.
Don't try to break the problem, but instead just keep looking at it, studying it from every different angle. Think about it. Drench yourself in it.
Study other things too, mix in neighbouring fields, unrelated fields... but always with a mind to the problem you are focused on.
Pour ideas into your brain, and swirl them around until the point where you can not dream without getting bits of bifurcation analysis and post-structural theory. Once you hit the point where your dreams consistantly circle around the problem you are trying to study, around then you are in the right headspace for trying to catch the Compass.

If you miss it the first time, don't get upset, just keep stirring the ideas around, and you'll probably be able to hook the idea again some time in the next few days.

Spoiler: Machivalli/the spider in violet.

What are the politics of the situation? Who benefits? What are the power dynamics?
This is the Icon Messerene default's too.

This is a useful icon, but not one I am particularly in tune with, hence I have little to offer in terms of advice here.

Spoiler: The Microscope:

This Icon wishes to examine some aspect of your system in intense detail.

The Microscope serves two main roles:
The first is taking a piece that works and just polishing it till it glows, getting every little detail in alignment, etc etc,

In writing a story, this would mean zooming in on a particular sentence, or even a word.
When doing Ihina's rhyme scheme, I frequently go back and double check the sylable count. This kind of thing would be "Microscope" behaviour.

In game design, "Microscope" would apply to the idea of looking at the stats of one monster, and trying to decided if they should cost 58 gold, or 55. It's deciding the particular colour of the health and mana bars.
If you play a game and it has polish, probably someone has gone over the damn thing with a microscope (shout out to Necrochess).

The second role the Microscope fills is taking something that should be working (but isn't), and figuring out where the problem is coming from.
The Microscope is incredibly good at debugging.

When programming, the Microscope involves zooming in on a particular line of code and going "What are my variables doing right here on line 23? What are they doing on line 24?"
When fixing a machine, you take it apart and check every individual piece.


In Pride, the experiments which Ihina and Amelia perform at the Candlelight institute, examining individual powers in intense detail, would be considered Microscope work.

Spoiler: The Globe

The legos tried to break the problem into individual pieces, and the Microscope zooms in on one detail in intense detail.
The goal of the globe is to zoom out. Think about Context. Think about where things fall on the world stage.

Of all the characters in Pride, probably Verity is the best at making use of the Globe, of seeing where a particular action falls within the overall picture of things.

The Globe is an Icon which I am particularly weak on, so I will not say much more on the matter.
It's a thing, and full respect to people who are able to hold onto the thing, but personally, I find this Icon hard to get to grips with, (the mental equivalent of holding onto a smooth 3 meter wide ball, ironically enough).

Spoiler: The Dreamcatcher

The dream catcher, like the Global, pulls in the opposite direction to the Legos or Microscope. Unlike the Globe (which tries to understand ALL the context), the dream catcher just looks for individual connections. As many individual connections as you can come up with- It's a bit like the Salad Bowl, except instead of ALL ideas, we are only focused on all possible connections, relations.
How do these two people relate?
What do these countries have in common?
Etc. etc.

In some sense, while Tattletale herself may be adept at Critic and Broken idol, Tattletales *POWER* might be described as a exceptionally powerful version of the Dreamcatcher.

Spoiler: The Lake:

Calmness, tranquility, inner peace, etc etc.
This is not an icon for solving problems in the world, but instead just a useful default state to have available. Especially in a stressful situation, being able to zoop back to the lake as needed will make it easier to deploy the other icons. Or (just as importantly) NOT deploy them.

Ihina Quinn is hideously bad at it.

Spoiler: Turtle Queen

Ihina's inherent desire to hoard resources (Preferably bowls). The Turtle queen cares not how these resources will be used, but instead hoards them for their own sake.

Turtle Queen is included in the story in order to demonstrate that Ihina's "Icon schema" is not a static object, but instead constantly evolving, new Icons being created as circumstances demand.

Weirdly enough, Michael's has some elements of Turtle Queen, in that resource acquisition is just part of his default behaviour.

Spoiler: The Tower

The Castle, the fortress. A Defensive icon, in some sense the flip side of Crimson. Crimson desires to strike outwards at a known enemy, while the tower prepares to defend, and keeps watch for threats.

In Pride, the character most in tune with The Tower was Faultline.
Another character who frequently leans in on the tower is Rey, in that his default assumption is that he is responsible for protecting other people. Unfortunately he isn't a very effective tower, he just knows that he is supposed to be doing it. (Having people attuned to an icon, but not very effective at it can be interesting. For example, someone could be attuned to "the Scholar", but not very knowledgeable. This leads to a hunger for more details and information, with an inability to actually capitalize on it)

It is worth noting: Ihina DOES NOT HAVE the tower icon. She is pretty much utterly devoid of self preservation skills.
When chasing Contessa, this is the point where the tower would say "this is a trap" (as Michael quiet rightly notices, because he DOES have a rather functional Tower icon).
Ihina does not notice. Ihina believes that EVERY SINGLE ICON is urging her forward.
This is because Ihina has no Tower, and no chill.

This is useful in that, when thinking of characters, characterization is not just based on what icons people have, but also (rather strongly), on which icons they are missing.

Spoiler: The Artist

This icon wants to Interpret things as pictures. Visualize. Sketch shit down. Communicate with diagrams, colours, etc etc.

As might be gleaned from its position on the list, not an icon I am personally close to... but often good when you are wanting to communicate between people.

EDIT:

Spoiler: The Architect

How do individual plans and pieces FIT TOGETHER.

If you've used the Lego early in your process, then you'll often need to use the Architect at the end in order to bring all the pieces together, and connect them in to one another.

This is probably one of the icons I use most... to the point where I barely even remember it and had to come back and edit it in.

When writing a story, this Icon asks such questions as "How are these two plot threads going to interlace or fold into one another?"

In story... probably the closest anyone gets to "Architect" thinking is Michael's initial conversation with the undersiders. They give him information about Coil and their own powers (acting as scholars) along with the general state of Brockton bay. Michael then has to pull togeather all the threads they've given him, all the little pieces of plan, in order to make something coherent.

The Architect. Putting plans togeather. Combining things.
Honestly, this one is really hard for me to write about, because its one of the skills that I do most subconsciously.

These are the Icons I think of (which I can remember), but if you were thinking of using similar system in your own characters and/or scheming, then probably you will have half a dozen icons that I haven't even *thought* of- potentially several that I can't even imagine.
The general schema is still pretty useful though.

 

[FiNAL_0083]

Thank you for that wonderful writeup!

Edit: oh snap, you're one of the creators of No Port Called Home? My Lancer group was looking at that a while back, we might run a game of it in the future.

 

[Babblefish]

oh snap, you're one of the creators of No Port Called Home? My Lancer group was looking at that a while back, we might run a game of it in the future.

Click to shrink...

Nice!
You should do it. NPCH is really fun (I may be biased).
If you give it a try I'ld love to hear some of your campaign tales, either via DM, or over on the forum thread here on SV (Slight preference for the thread, as it gets more attention to the game, but also campaign tales can be pretty personal, so no pressure)

 

[Babblefish]

Ihina sat, slumped in a shitty office chair, in a bland grey meeting room.

The Doctor and The Woman In The Hat stood in front of her.
She recognized The Doctor based on being a black woman with low expressivity, shit curves, and a doctor outfit, as described by Faultline's crew.
She recognized The Woman In The Hat based on the hat.

"What precisely," asked the doctor "Did you expect to happen upon stabbing the light fittings?"

Ihina shrugged. "I dunno." She scratched the side of her head. Shit didn't really make sense. These were the hackers, the presumable `masters' of the universe, and they seemed really lame.
The Woman In The Hat didn't make eye contact, starred off into the distance. She seemed relaxed. Limp even. A sort of damp noodle kind of person.
For some reason, Ihina suspected Michael would enjoy dating her.
That irked more that it should.

"I thought maybe if I stabbed hard enough it would short out all the lights" she continued "figured maybe I could escape in the darkness."

The Doctor was nothing but eye contact.
Dark skinned, hair buzzed short, a white labcoat, worn over a black shirt and black dress pants. Copper earrings, and just an overall demeanor of a woman who had never learned the concept of fun.
A woman who had been introduced to the idea of fun, but declined on multiple occasions.

I bet she doesn't even use the labcoat.
I bet she doesn't even have a PhD.

The Lady of the moon,
her face so bland and grey,
looking down upon us,
each and every day.

"That's not how electricity works," The doctor says.
Ihina shrugs. "Kind of is."
"That's not how proper wiring works, Professor."
Once again, Ihina shrugs. "Was worth a shot."
"Your scheme was utterly moronic, and you could have died."
"Good investment then."

She felt self conscious, dealing with interdimensional conspiracies having not had a bath or shower in twenty something days. She felt annoyed too, because the conspiracy seemed intensely boring, and kind of stuck up.

A pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies, given enough time, would tidally lock, orbital and rotational time frames syncing up, so as to minimize relative motion. The moon is tidally locked to the Earth, always presenting the Earth with the same face. The Time taken to tidally lock is proportional to-

People tidally locked too. People caught in the orbits of larger, more interesting people. That's what it felt like here.
Ihina's gazed drifted to the other person. The woman in the suit and hat. Dark hair, clear blue eyes.
Curious.
And she kicked Michael's ass, which was funny.

Not tidally locked that one.
More…
Adrift.
Ihina wasn't sure where the description came from, but she trusted it.
"What's your power?"
"That's confidential." It was the doctor that answered.
The woman in the hat looked away.
"Why are you answering for her?"
"Also confidential."
"She's a fucking human being, she has the right to speak."
The Doctor pointedly waited. Didn't reply, leaving a silence for the woman in the hat to speak into.
Nothing was said.

Ihina looked around the room. The walls, the grey floor, the table in the middle, crappy fibreboard. The table was wooden, screwed together, except all the screws had triangular heads, which was unusual.
She leaned forward, trying to examine the triangular heads, trying to figure out a way to jimmy the draws open. Her two hosts watched her, silent, pensive.

Something was wrong.
Something didn't line up.
Alarm bells were ringing.

"You made the Case 53's didn't you?"
Ihina continued to poke and prod at the table.

"Correct."
"You make the rest of the powers?"
"We did not."
But you're not hackers.
Hackers are meant to be fun.

Fuck, she had got high with the Hackers back when she was working for Tārakāsura.
This lot aren't hackers.
The thought was insidious.
Threatening.

Hackers were driven by curiosity. They couldn't stop talking, couldn't stop explaining things. These two were….
Too much was being covered up. Reserved.

Ihina managed to jimmy open one of the desk draws. It had been locked, but not very well, and she still had her knife.
Inside were a number of pens, ruby red, turquoise, white, along various paper pads.
Not aligned to any standard America or international paper size dimensions.
Details like that were interesting, but none of it did anything to quell the sense of alarm, unease.


She stood, and as she did the woman in the hat moved to interpose herself between Ihina and the doctor.
Calm your toots lady.
You know I'm no threat.
Saw you bring down Michael and all of Faulty's crew.

Ihina walked to the door, opened it. On the opposite side was a five meter long hallway, followed by a dead end.
She checked either side of the wall, around the door, looking for anything out of place, seams.
It took her a minute or so to find them.

Violation, indication, evidence, emancipation.

The doctor and the woman in the hat continued to watch her.

Waiting for something.
Reactive.

Waiting for a password or something.

"What is this?"
"A job interview."
"You fucking suck. I thought you'd be cool and shit, but instead you're just..." She indicated the woman.
"I'm sorry we do not live up to your preconceptions, Professor."
Deliberately fucking needling me.
"Why'd you leave me in fucking hallway for twenty six days?"
"That's-"
"-Confidential?"

The doctor looked for a moment at the woman in the hat, who only shrugged.

They don't know.
The stupid fucks don't know why they left me there for twenty six days.

Following the recipe will always have a price,
You don't pick the ingredients, it turns out twice as nice,
But whatever will you do, what replacement will suffice,
If half way through you find, that you're short one cup of rice?

"Precog, huh? Carmine Sandiago is a Precog."

Has to be.
Anyone else would know the implications of their own actions.

And of course, it was a job interview, with the implication being that failure lead to death.
That was always the way things went with fucks like this.

Implications, condemnations,
Isosceles and concentration.
Madness, muppet, murk, frustration-
"You wanna know what?" Ihina continued to talk, continued to prowl around the edge of the room, looking for seams, edges, lighting out of place.
"You wanna know why I stabbed the fucking lighting fittings."

She wandered back to the desk, pulled the notepad out, the ballpoint pens, rifled round at the back of the drawer, trying to find anything else.
"Because I hate you," she explained.
There was nothing more in the drawer, so she set about disassembling the pens.
"Because I hate you, and I'm a prisoner, and you have more power than me, and the only tools I have are the ones you give me."
She cracked a couple of pens in half, smeared their ink out directly onto the clean fucking table. White and turquoise. Ruby red, just like blood.
Crimson.
"So I'll take those tools you give me, and I'll use whatever other shitty tools I can find, and I'll destroy you."

She looked up at the pair.
The Woman in The Hat continued to be a limp noodle person.
The Doctor was watching her now. Paying attention even.

"You'll die," The Doctor said "It's an impossible task. We have more power than you. More power than you can possibly imagine."
"Then I better not hold back. I better not flinch."

The woman smiled, her gaze slipping past Ihina for a moment, and then returning.
"Welcome to Cauldron."

 

[SolipsistSerpent]

Cauldron has never been afraid to play with fire, even when they really should be.

 

[BurningSaiyan]

Wow that's the most bullshit interview ever holy shit. I feel for you Ihina. Plus it's acknowledged to be a super toxic work environment where everyone hates one another and themselves.

 

[Zampano]

> Carmine Sandiago

This chapter was incredible. I've found Ihina to be a difficult viewpoint in the past but there was so much payoff here that it made the entire struggle worth it.

 

[Tascion]

bath or show in twenty something days. She felt annoyed too, because the conspiracy seemed

Click to shrink...

Shower, not show

Ihina remains as enjoyable as ever.

This chapter felt off though, compared to the average. I'd generally describe this story as intended for a reader that might not have read Worm. This chapter felt more like moving through the minimum necessary paces perfunctory introduce Cauldron. Maybe it's fine and it just rubbed me the wrong way, I don't know.

Even in this, ihina remains hilariously and bizarrely insightful.

 

[Babblefish]

Lots of good feedback, glad to hear people enjoy (or hate) Cauldron (as appropriate)

This chapter felt off though, compared to the average. I'd generally describe this story as intended for a reader that might not have read Worm. This chapter felt more like moving through the minimum necessary paces perfunctory introduce Cauldron. Maybe it's fine and it just rubbed me the wrong way, I don't know.

Click to shrink...

Huh... I can't say I've ever conciously thought about this. I've always written under the assumption that people are familiar with Worm, and taken shortcuts willy nilly. The fact that it doesn't *feel* like I'm taking shortcuts is great.
Hmmmm...
Probably a large chunk of that is me normally being pretty far off the beaten track (Blasto is not a main Worm character, so I had to build up his characterization. Ihina and Verity literally did not exist, hence were entirely built up here.).
In contrast, Cauldron IS central to Worm and so... maybe I'm assuming more than I should be (for good story telling).

But will take this feedback onboard, and potentially include a touch more of "Ihina gets introduced to Cauldron" later on.
For the time being, I feel like your experience as a reader matches Ihina's experience fairly well.

 

[Dark Lord Bob]

I love the idea of a Cauldron interview which is them setting themselves up in the Entity role and seeing if the interviewee spontaneously decides to take the Cauldron role. I'm pretty sure I've never seen that done before, and it's an awesome idea.

 

[BurningSaiyan]

I love the idea of a Cauldron interview which is them setting themselves up in the Entity role and seeing if the interviewee spontaneously decides to take the Cauldron role. I'm pretty sure I've never seen that done before, and it's an awesome idea.

Click to shrink...

Yeah Babblefish I hard agree. Still a bullshit interview process but it made sense, was exactly the style of bullshit that is Cauldron and is a little sad how hopeless they feel. It's very cauldron in a meta-sense. There's frustration at their absurd actions, yet it sorta makes sense and ultimately shows the broken nature of the organization. Everyone's given up but they don't know it.

 

[Aldorel]

Maybe walk out wearing her skin.
Not like her actual skin, but a rendition of it. Prosthetic.

Click to shrink...

Oh good, cuz Amelia has a record here.

The following are bits of Ihina POV that I particularly like. (Also, ditto on digging the interview.)

but then again, Ihina dated supervillians, so she kind of dug the aesthetic

Click to shrink...

She had attempted jogging, walking backwards, singing badly

Click to shrink...

The light fittings remained stubbornly unfucked.

Click to shrink...

Well fuck you too, wizard-janitor!

Click to shrink...

The Tower of Babel.
Genesis 11:1–9.
In which humanity is punished for the sin of finally getting their shit together.

Click to shrink...

So, much as I like Ihina's perspective, there's a really interesting take on that based on the original Hebrew: https://twitter.com/AriLamm/status/1560611614226882560

Conclusion starts here: https://twitter.com/AriLamm/status/1560611666076831745

"Babel seems wonderful on the surface—a society in which everyone comes together to build something.
But beneath the surface, it's a dystopia. It's Egypt. It's Shechem. It's Canaan.
Why is it so bad?
Well, because what Genesis 11 is narrating for us is...the birth of empire."

 

[Babblefish]

Earlier.

8:26am. May 18, 2011.
Two days after Leviathan attack on Brockton bay.

Michael Lavere, the Marquis of Brockton bay, bends over the kitchen sink, and vomits.
Bones shift beneath skin, pulsing, grinding. There's acid in his throat. Bits of rice from the night before.
And Amelia has gone to Boston.

"-The PRT has issued an official press statement-"

Michael is a man of flesh and bone.
Michael is a failure.
He watches the body from distance, unable to stop it from moving.

"-recent lock of communications in and out of Boston."

Amelia had gone to Boston.
There was a note on the table of the safehouse to that effect.
Amelia's cheerful calm handwriting.

Amelia had gone to Boston, and Michael-

-I. I failed-

-and Michael was a man of flesh and blood and-

"-Claims of Simurgh intervention have-"

The radio continues to talk. Michael vomits again. Watches his body retching even when there is nothing left. Needles spasm through flesh, puncture skin. Blood dribbles down from this bodies hands, from its arms, its face.
The body moves like a clumsy marionette and on impulse Michael slaps the back of its hand against a wooden cabinet.
Blinding pain, Needlesharp bones shatter and it doesn't matter, the body doesn't even respond to pain any more, doesn't even flinch. Instead its useless hands continue to tremble, and bleed more profusely. On impulse, Michael pushes the hand into the sink, into the shallow puddle of acid and blood and half digested meat.

Michael needs to get a grip.
Michael needs to get moving.
The radio continues to speak, and Amelia has gone to Boston. "-Relevant journalists have commented that-"
Michael's power itches to extend bone, slice through eye balls, breathing light, shallow lungs trapped within a bramble of marrow and cartilage, and we watch the useless fucking bastard bleed himself to death, except we can't do that, because this body was a critical tool, without it there were no more options, without it-

There's already no more options.
You already failed you fuck.

There is the sensation of Mother lying at the bottom of the stair case. Hands still, hair washed out around her like a halo. Skin cold.
Something hollow. Weightless.
The image being pressed into his mind, and utterly useless.
When Michael looks up to the top of the staircase, it is Amelia standing there, staring down at him.

Bones continue to move. Muscles and bones and cartilage and none of it feels like its moving in time. Actions occurring without choices. Michael's body responding to some form of command. Some impulse coming from somewhere else causing it to move.

Amelia has gone to Boston, and Boston has been hit by the Simurgh, and there's the sensation of being trapped, the sensation that all of this has already happened, nothing but a bug crawling, trying to escape the from ice, from the black glass of history, scratching against the inside of a history book and-
The benchtop is black marble. The sink is filled with vomit and blood. Bones shift and move, and the awareness of them presses inwards, and Amelia has gone to Boston.

The Marquis of Brockton bay looks up, stares at himself in the reflection of the window.

I.
Me.
I am Michael Lavere.
The Marquis of Brockton Bay.

I am Amelia's father.
That last thought is bitter, tinged with disgust.

Cold hands turn on taps. Michael scoops up water to wash his face, rinse off residual bloodstains. I can't parse- can't perceive the temperature of the water, but at some point the the hands are bright pink, still trembling, and steam billows up from the sink, condensing on the window, and Michael moves the hands, contorts them around the metal faucets, twisting.

There's some sort of impulse. Michael starts moving towards the dining room table, and I try to understand it.
The body sits, slumps into the seat, picks up Amelia's note.

Amelia went to Boston.
Boston was attacked by the Simurgh.

The house is dead. Michael's body moves without reasons, and there is no sense of weight, no sense of temperature.

The professor would be good for this.
The professor would not fear the impossible.

Michael had sent the professor away.
I sent her away.

The immediate instinct was to head to Boston himself.
But this was the Simurgh. That was a trap. Everything else was a trap too.
Motion on Michael's part would be accounted for. As would lack of motion.

My presence would be manipulated.
Used as a tool to engineer tragedy.
Killing his own daughter, getting killed in turn.

Amelia is a weapon.
Amelia is an S-class threat.
It was hard to imagine the upper limit on the scale of ruin Amelia was capable of.

At some point, the calculation should change.
At some point, I should value the rest of the world over her.
The thought occurs, but doesn't catch on anything.
There was no comprehensible circumstances where the calculus changed.
I will protect my daughter.

My hands are trembling, there's water on my face. tears dribbling down, not blood this time.
Salt.

None of this matters.
I'll find a solution.

I can feel my breathing again. The motion is slow. Deep. With conscious effort, I force needles of bone to recede. My skin seals behind them, but there are still tears in my clothes, droplets of blood caught on the hairs of my arm, like honeydew.
Atmosphere filtering in and out, keeping this body alive, and this body is a tool, but it is my tool, and decisions are being made again, even if I don't know how and the radio continues to spool out information, and even if the information is my worst fears, it is still information.

---

Choices start being made.
That is the essential quality of it.
I am a machine that can't stop walking, so every time I reach a branch in the path, I will choose either this way or that.

I have flipped over Amelia's note, used the back to brainstorm. Considering options, considering possibilities.

I attempt to contact Amelia, but receive no reply.
I attempt to contact Mirage, but receive no reply.

Amelia was in the presence of Assault, Andrea Verity, and presumably the Alcott Parents.
I consider contacting Global Broadcasts, asking to be put in touch with Verity.
But I am currently being hunted.
I can not afford to give away my position.

There is still the sensation of weightlessness. Temperatureless. Distance. Michael being a man sitting at a chair.
Ideas form on paper and the externality of it acts as an anchor, and Amelia is in Boston.

I consider making my way to Boston. Breaking through the blockade, fighting my way to Blasto's territory, taking hold of the man and breaking him until he tells me where to find my daughter.

I consider returning to Brockton bay, going after Battery, taking her hostage and waiting with her until Assault shows up or gets in contact with me.
Demanding answers. Destroying the man if he has failed me; extending serrated bone into his muscle tissues, so that every time he moved his flesh would be sawn and cut, necrosis setting in and poisoning the mans blood if he dared to move.
Force him to remain stationary, under tension, every change, every motion associated with a tearing sensation, with muscles no longer being functional afterwards.

The Radio continues to speak. The PRT continue to equivocate, downplaying the attack. They Avoid confirming that it is a Simurgh attack, but do not deny the claim directly either.
Two Endbringer attacks in three days.
The population would panic.

The population already is panicking. There are reports of riots. Shootings. Terrorist attacks by individuals with family in Boston.
The Military blockade around the boundary of the city has already put down numerous people.

There are claims online of them executing Boston Residents who try to flee. Sniper fire.
My daughter went to Boston.

Retreating to be close to her Allies. A sensible decision, and right now I want to execute Rey Andino.
Stand over him, watch the man bleed, a problem solved, an obstacle erased. Everything simple.

I stand. Walk. Pace.
The decour, originally a little joke between Amelia and myself, grates on me now. It's too busy. Rainforest animals on the curtains seem overwhelming. Distracting at a time when I need my focus, when I need-

I get back online, searching, trying to pin down any form of confirmation, indication of a path forward. There's chatter on PHO – coordinated missile attacks in Riverbelle. Nackawic, Bellington, a couple other locations including the valley containing the Candlelight institute.
The Audience on PHO speculate wildly about what the attacks could mean, and I recognize them as a comprehensive list of all our Safehouses.
All except this one.

Betrayal?
Thinker interference?
The additional information is theoretically useful, and I have no way of parsing it, no way of acting on it, no way of-


What is the probability of a Behemoth attack within the next forty eight hours?
Is this the endgame?
Ihina always said the Endbringers had the capability of increasing pressure. Hitting harder. More frequently.

Behemoth isn't here. The thought is irrelevant. I push it aside.
Amelia has gone to Boston.
Bones move beneath my skin, cutting, slicing at things, and it takes effort to remind them to stop. That's not normal.

I need to be at my best. The time in 8:55 am.
Every minute feels like a reminder of failure, a -

---

I go back online.
There is an email from Mirage.

Pictures of Amelia standing docile next to Heartbreaker. Empty eyed.
Pictures of her being vivisected by Bonesaw. Naked, with her rib cage open, and machines replacing her inner organs.
A video from the institute of her laughing, walking along the path, chatting to friends, and then there's a sharp crack, and her head is caved in by sniper fire. Her Body slumps to the ground.
A recording of Mirage laughing and laughing and laughing. The file appears to last for ninety minutes.

I reach down to the watch at my wrist, twist the dial, left, left. right. left, right right.
Sending the signal to destroy Mirage, setting off triply redundant explosives deep beneath the Candlelight Institute, right inside Mirage's server.

Even as I send it, I know the act is meaningless.
Mirage would not have sent these images if they were still vulnerable.
Either they are dead, or have already slipped the chains I placed around them.
There's more files. More photos. More Videos.
Satyrical taking my place and pretending to be be Amelia's father. Smiling at her. Hurting her while wearing my face.

Valefor. Amelia amongst the fallen. Wide eyed and panic stricken as her body obeys Valefor's words.

My_Goddess.png: A painting of the Simurgh draped across the roofline of the Candlelight institute. Mirage stands beside her smiling, and Amelia is cradled in her arms.

I shut the image, delete the file, delete the email, step away from the phone.
That would do it.
That would do it….
The image doesn't make sense, but it doesn't need to.
My research into Joseph Kavan was meticulous, careful, no indication of Simurgh interference.
The man was, by all accounts, weak willed, but harmless – actively benevolent if anything.
Discussion with Cranial prior to capturing Mirage didn't suggest any particular threat, and Mirage was never in the vicinity of the Simurgh as a cape.

And yet…
And yet….

The cause doesn't matter. The theory matches observations. Mirage is an Endbringer Cultist, an enemy, and I have placed them in the vicinity of my daughter for… upwards of eight years.
Mistake.
Probably a fatal one, and yet there is no taking it back, only the opportunity to keep moving.

I pick up the cell phone gingerly, bash the screen in against the marble bench top, place the device inside the microwave and set the machine to run for nine minutes, watching warily to ensure that the house does not burn down.

This is the fifth cell phone I have destroyed in the last three days.

After six minutes and forty five seconds of sparking and sputtering, I open the microwave, take the microwave plate, and pour the whole twisted smoking mass into the sink, to which I add bleach and boiling water.

There.
Done.

The important thing is to keep moving.

I don't have a plan, so I walk down to the local shops, find an electronics store with plastic display cabinets full of cell phones next to an aisle of resistors, wires and soldering equipment.
I ask an attendant about buying a phone, pick the cheapest one I can find, and buy a sim card.

It takes twenty minutes for the sim card to get set up and online, and then I type in a number from memory, a number I have not called in years.

Please… please… please still be the right number.
I sit at a bus stop while the phone rings. Sit at a bus stop, ignoring passers by.
I should purchase a vehicle.

The phone rings, once… twice… three times.
Someone picks up, there's the sound of movement, someone trying to pull themselves together.
"Who is it?"
"Morning Genevieve."

There's a long pause down the other end of the line.
I can feel… the fear of it, the sensation of my stomach half way up my ribcage.
Don't hang up, please, please don't hang up. Please-

"Michael?"
"Yeah." The silence continues. Genevieve doesn't hang up, and slowly the feeling of raw panic subsides. A lady with a pram walks past the bus stop. "I need your help Genevieve. I… I need to win, and I can't do this on my own, and...."
You're the only one I have left.
You're the only one I trust.


"I thought we were done with this Michael."

 

[Babblefish]

So, its a three and a half year call back, so for those of you who don't remember: Genevive is one of Michael's girls from back in the day. Last seen around here.

Spoiler: Some other stuff from behind the curtain

First off: yes, I know that use of 3rd person is screwy. Is not typo, is me experimenting with things, but not exactly sure how I feel about it. This is Michael *without* his sense of control and its... kind of messy.


Overall, not sure how I feel about this chapter. The POV feels chaotic and screwy, and also this is a case where the needs of the story (pacing) and the needs of the character (Consistent characterization) pulled in very different directions.

Character-wise, Michael freaking out here makes sense. The Simurgh is fucking terrifying, and the only intel he has is that Amelia is in Boston, where Zizzy hit. Pacing wise... having this scene AFTER all you readers already know the result of Amelia's contest with the Simurgh is... a little weird.
Maybe if I was smarter I could have spliced it in earlier?
This is a case of Dramatic Irony (Readers knowing things characters don't), and that dramatic irony causing a headache for the writing.

Not sure. But also, the story needs to continue, and I *think* this mostly works.
Thank you all for reading.

 

[Heliotrope]

Holy hell. That hit me hard. Excellent stuff. Mirage is FUCKED.

 

[PanzerJaheger]

Why has Mirage gone full Joker again?

 

[LoserThree]

I read that as disassociation, and I thought it expressed that well.

 

[FiNAL_0083]

This is a fantastic chapter. We know what Michael looks like when he's in control, and now, we know what happens when he completely loses it.

 

[Tascion]

Mirage is an Endbringer Cultists, an enemy

Click to shrink...

Cultists should be singular, I think

I also enjoyed the chapter. Getting into the first/third person was hard, but I think worthwhile. I found this arrangement of chapters appropriate as an introduction to what everybody outside of the direct conflict is thinking and doing.

Also interesting to see how Michael's parahuman trauma expresses itself, and it nearly explains why Shaper had a purer expression in Amelia.

 

[Babblefish]

I tell her. Confess.
"I failed."

I don't know.
Maybe we've done this before? Back when I first arrived in Brockton bay, after leaving Diana, before I knew about Amelia.
It's been over a decade and none of those details seemed important at the time. It was just a time in my life, I was living it. Genevieve was there. She appreciated have a cape in her corner who could beat the shit out of Kaiser and Übermensch from time to time. I appreciated her mind, her professionalism.
Other things.

I pace, mostly avoid other pedestrians, do my best to avoid saying anything too explicitly incriminating, trust Genevieve to read between the lines.
Just lay out the evidence.
Lay out the situation, paint a picture.
A clear picture will make her suggestions more actionable.
I bat around ideas, try to describe the situation, Genevieve continues to listen, asking occasional questions, until all the words are poured out and I'm sitting in the front lawn of the safe house and the sky about is very blue and it feels like it shouldn't be.

Amelia has gone to Boston.
Boston was attacked by the Simurgh.

"I don't know what to do." You sound so weak. Weakness is a sin. Unacceptable.
There's a long pause down the other end of the line. A long pause, leaving me trapped with my thoughts. Trying not to imagine where Amelia is right now, what might be happening to her.
Her body on the ground, being pecked at by crows, eaten by worms.
Blood. Shattered bits of skull with flecks of brain on them. Eyes with worms growing in them, breeding, and-

"You're an idiot," Genevieve replies.
"I know."
I put Mirage next to her.
I prioritized securing the Alcott girl over reconvening in Brockton Bay.
I selected Accord as a useful ally, leading her to Boston, leading her to-

"It's such a man's way of thinking. Something bad happens and you gotta pretend like you're still in control or something."
"I need to-"
"You don't need to do anything."
"…"
"You're twelve hours too late Michael. What makes you think that you can do anything? She's either safe now or she ain't."
You don't understand.
You don't understand.
She's a tool. A resource. A weapon.
There's so many people who would-
"This is the thing women learn early on; sometimes shit just happens. The world shits on you and you got to deal with it."

Bone and sinew move beneath my skin, clawing at one another, slicing, eager to crush, annihilate the phone I am holding.
No. Stop.
"You've gotta live with it and keep on moving forward..."


Listen.
Listen.
Jen is in a better headspace than you at the moment. This is important.

Beside me, sitting on the lawn is the garden gnome me and Amelia use to signal each other. The house across the road has blue trimming around the windows.

"Who knew about all these safehouses?" Genevieve asks.
Distraction. You're missing the point. I need to-
"Me, Amelia. The treacherous bodyguard I alluded to. The Bodyguard new about most of them, and one or two people knew about some of the others..." but not all, not all...
"So if the Protectorate has made strikes against all of these safehouses, the obvious candidates for the leak are Yourself, your daughter, or her treacherous bodyguard."

Thinkers. Tattletale. Precogs. Espionage. "Those are not the only possibilities."
"But they are the most likely ones."

And if it wasn't me…

Would Mirage call an Airstrike against the Candlelight institute? Against their own location?
Possibly. If they had escaped. Uploaded to another server.
A little piece of spite.
Annihilating something Amelia found precious.
But if that were the case, the obvious thing to do would be to attack the safehouse after one of us had retreated there, not pre-emptively.

Would Amelia call an Airstrike against the Candlelight institute? Her own home?
Every possible safehouse, including many places she has a personal connection to?
Possibly.
If Mirage had attacked her, and she didn't know exactly where they were located?
I should have told her Mirage's location.
I should have given her more powerful safegaurds against them.

I'm still wearing the watch. Mirage's killswitch, and in the end it had likely proven useless to me.
It still had value in the intervening years.
Mirage was still a critical asset for allowing Amelia to survive Panama.
The Elites.
Other things.

"Michael…"
I still have the phone to my ear. Half forgotten. Busy processing the evidence, mapping out probabilities, possibilities.
"It's possible," I concede.

"It is possible. It's a possibility you didn't even consider, because you were too busy trying to figure out what to do."

But it doesn't matter.
My daughter has gone to Boston.
Boston was attacked by the Simurgh.

The sky up above is blue. The grass is green, and wet, and out on the street a silver car cruises by.
I imagine Amelia being tortured by Simurgh technology. Wires beneath her skin. Bad Apple being tricked into murdering her. Soldat mercenaries gunning her down, smiling, laughing.
Blood.
Blood and sinew and bits of bone and skull, and the light going out of her eyes.
Me and Amelia lowering Diana into the ground.
Brockton Bay.
The rain.

"Here's what you are going to do Michael. First of all, you are a parent, with a missing daughter. You are going to message around your daughter's friends and ask if they know anything-"
Dangerous.
Threat.
Leaves me open to Protectorate attack. Protectorate manipulation.
"-Then you are going to drive over and meet me here in Waverly."

Threat.
Threat.
Is Genevieve working with the Protectorate? Is she Manipulating me?
Did Carol manage to track Genevieve down somehow? Perhaps via Valerie? One of the other girls?

Did-
"I don't think I can do that Jen,"
"Because you don't trust me?"
No. Yes. "I need to get this right, I need to do something," They could be using you as a trap. You could be a willing accomplice. Or an unwilling accomplice. The effect is the same. Do I really trust you? Do I really know you? Are you-
"Michael"
I can't afford to get arrested. Not now. Not yet.
There are people walking by, some Dad in cargo shorts and his kid running along the footpath. Are they looking at me? Are they watching me? An unfamiliar face in the neighborhood.
Will they report it to local-

I should go inside. stop sitting outside the safehouse, looking obvious, looking-

My daughter went to Boston.

"Michael"

I press fingers against my eyes. There's salt on my face. Tears.
Focus on your breathing.
Get centered.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Do I believe you?
Do I believe you?
It's been so long.
People change.
We were close once, but what does that count for ten years later?

Across the street, some old lady is talking to her neighbor. A cat walks along a fence.
No one is angry.
No one is afraid.
Because no one understands the kind of world we live in.

"I want to believe you."
"You can"
"I want to trust you."
"You can."

It costs so much.
It costs so much if I'm wrong.
Amelia needs me.
"Okay."

 

[BurningSaiyan]

Damn, there's something so sad about seeing Michael spiral like this. Especially the whole rationalizing the use of Mirage. It's such a strange dichtomy how he's such an awful person but genuinely tries (and sometimes succeeds) at being a good parent. I mean this has existed since the beginning but it's always highlighted when the pov switches from Amelia to him and vice versa.

 

[Heliotrope]

Wow. Michael is really not okay. And that paranoia getting on Jen is where he doesn't come back, and he knows that, and he stopped. I'm proud of him.

Or DID he...dun dun dunnnn...