[sounds of cicada screams]

One, the twelve power categories have no exclusivity because they’re theme-based, so any given cape can dip into multiple categories based on the specific fucked-up thing that happened to them, with no pigeonholing. Taylor’s got Master elements (betrayal and abandonment) AND shaker elements (whole school turned against her) AND thinker elements (Doesn’t know why everyone is turning against her or what they’re planning to do next) and she gets a power that falls into all three categories. Grue gets Shaker (mother’s abusive boyfriend) AND stranger (focus on concealing himself and his allies.) Lung gets Brute (head caved in with brick of cocaine) AND changer (longstanding identity issues from mixed heritage and low status) AND Trump (combat thinker caved in his head.)

Two, the system is contentious in-universe, with the twelve categories having been pared down over the years from thirty. There are characters who think the terminology in use ( =e.g. “brute,”) is demeaning and outdated, there are characters who mistakenly use “shifter” instead of the more up-to-date “changer,” or they use outdated-but-still-useful terms like “nuker” that got dropped from the official classification chart for the sake of having an even twelve categories. Only about 40 percent of the superhero population actually understands what the difference between changer and breaker is, and pinning down what makes a power a “breaker” power is something that leads to fistfights at academic conferences. At these same conferences, there have been parking-lot duels over whether Master should be two separate categories, one for Masters that control human behavior and one for Minion summoners. The fact that “Thinker” sounds indistinguishable from “Tinker” when screamed in a panic has gotten at least three PRT squads killed and you can’t change my mind. This is, in-universe, something that got kludged together because they needed something to categorize these bastards but it’s super messy!

Yes, everything about me is fucked up, but what if that was secretly awesome?

I got the idea from cowcatchers old locomotives used to have.

Anyways, yesterday I uploaded the model to Thingiverse, and just hours after uploading it, the Community Relationship Manager of the whole website left a comment suggesting I enter the model into a competition that's currently being held on the site.

So I did... and now it's in third place not even a day later. First place is $500, but the competition still has a month to go.

Then the Community Manager contacted me again, telling me they want to feature my model in an upcoming design promotion.

Just, what is happening? I mostly made this thing for myself in, like, an hour, and now it's suddenly super popular? This is all a little bit overwhelming 😵‍💫

Other models I worked on for weeks didn't get nearly as popular. I swear, it's impossible to predict what people will like.

Anyways, if you want to print the wheel guards yourself, you can get the model here or here.

I also made a quiet version you can stick furniture felt pads on.

Victoria is clicking with me waaaay more than she did in attempts past, probably due to life experience stuff. Kenzie always endeared me but knowing just a smidge more about computer science really made me feel for her during her Glowworm chapter. In my past reads I didn't get far enough to have good reads on the other main characters. I'm over all really liking having a more emotional or I guess emotionally mature and aware character especially with where I think this story is going wrt cluster triggers and broken triggers.

Personally I don't find Rain an immensely compelling character in it of himself, he's reading to me as a "kind of a Nazi but working on it" (quoth Innuendo Studios) guy, and his whump isn't really enough to make me root for him. He's compelling broadly narratively, but I don't like him. Which I'm kind of hoping is intentional?

Really liking the bits and pieces we're seeing of Chris, Tristan, Byron, and Ashley and I can't wait to dig into them more. Chris to me is the one who feels the most monkey's-paw like for his powers, giving a teenage boy the power that requires emotional introspection is very good.

Just finished the Eclipse interlude and I was already compelled by Ashley and I'm glad we're picking back up that whole concept of the cloning that was present but not touched on too much in Worm. I figured that other Ashleys were around and I'm glad we get to see one and especially her interactions with another self. I've very much enjoyed the play with perspectives that's been happening here, and enjoyed seeing Victoria from someone else's point of view.