INCHWORM

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.x.5 (bonus).

Episode Notes:

It’s 10 minutes in before we tell you whose interlude this is

We deliver our verdict on this instance of enemies-to-lovers(?)

Jenny thinks that if Cauldron needs to call on reinforcements that fate has a loss in store for the Nine (and an ironic mission in store for Battery)

Battery’s cop brain and total lack of commitment to her stated values

A cautionary Tayl-or, if only she could read it

Was either leap of faith taken here worthwhile? As annoying as it is, maybe

Seems like the integrity problem extends all the way up to the top of the Protectorate, Legend

Heroes without HR are just eoes

Letting the sitcom trope play out does such a good job of riling up the reader

Did Battery gift of the magi herself here? Get the power to beat Madcap at the cost of letting him get away?

Ted really tried to give the ship the benefit of the doubt but then he remembered the likely age difference

Wouldn’t it be nice to fly? Too bad we can’t afford it!

We haven’t met any idle rich capes or business tycoon capes

Where are all the business tinkers?

Cauldron’s reach and aesthetics

What’s Cauldron for?

You can't be morally gray when you're creating Case 53s

We want the Case 53 backstories

The slippery slope of anonymity

Who is this Doctor, really?

We go on a vision quest with Battery… but was it a trigger event?

Cauldron powers vs. "real" powers

Samples and siblings

Cauldron capes have a mindfulness advantage

Does every voluntary Cauldron client make it out?

Battery's battery of reasons for being a battery

A long, slow self-kidnapping

Batteries and magnets

Worm getting global at last

Where are all the nemeses we're hearing about?

We contemplate our own enrollment as Cauldron clients

Coil's Cauldron favor could be a tidy opportunity

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.x.

Episode Notes:

Jack missed his calling as a normal non-murderous manager, or maybe as a middle school teacher

The best we can say about Jack is that maybe he's indifferent to murder

What if Jack's deepest desire is just to play a lot of Mafia

Or...to be a novelist?

This interlude was really the Nine's, not Jack's

Did Jack make the deal harder for himself before telling the NIne?

The nuances of the tests

Jack's fallen into the narrative trap of being too dangerous to our villain-heroes

The narrative expendability of our various candidates

The surreality of watching overwhelming violence against people you don't care about

Imagine the Nine without Jack's control...

The discomfort of having Mannequin up first

Cherish could become their person on the inside

Jenny's looking forward to Noelle being turned loose on these people

Who wins in a battle of Jack vs. Tattletale?

We digest some carrots

Cherish might have enough emotional intelligence to threaten Jack

Labyrinth = one blorbo spared

Uh-oh...Regent lifts out...

Scrub is Jenny's blorbo now

I guess we can admit that Bonesaw is pretty cool

We identify the classic Wildbow combat move of sudden violence

RIP Trainwreck

Jack might be a tiiiiny bit pretentious

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.8.

Episode Notes:

Now that Jenny knows that Taylor knows that Plan A is bad, she’s a lot more forgiving

Taylor needs to be stronger, or maybe just have a stronger stomach

Lisa appears to be all in, too

Sadly we won’t get to immediately her Brian complaining about Plan B… or will we?

Will Alec and Rachel come along?

Taylor just wants to be honest with Brian

People skills

She’s trapped by Coil the same way she was trapped by the Trio

It can be frustrating when your protagonist is in realistic denial or your close friend hasn’t processed their obvious baggage yet

The skitizens believe in her now!

She can’t begin to see herself as intimidating

Why are people starting to follow Skitter?

Sierra hides from Battery in the background of a The Pitt episode

Lisa’s scar and Brian’s confusion

Is Brian playing a structural role in Book 2 that Lisa played in Book 1?

The Little Bug Girl That Couldn’t

Taylor’s mental state is poor

How Taylor spins the difference between heroes and villains to Sierra

Look, we’d all be a Brian if our colleague/sister/best friend/crush was doing risky stuff like this

https://youtu.be/ytmXBHm1FeI?si=vI2vtzYBLJSO9a_X

Just remembered it while listening and wanted to share!

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.7.

Episode Notes:

Taylor totally would've won that fight

In the world of Worm, all Alans are terrible

Hurrah for the skitizens

The vindication of art supplies

Ah, the joys of being underestimated

Mannequin and emotional buttons, including his own

Taylor's delegation is only improving

Taylor's good at theater, actually

Spider silk is a metaphor. Surprise!

Hipster Guy is our hero

You know you're getting to a tinker when they start using someone else's stuff

Skitter is the person Taylor wanted to have show up for her a year and a half ago

Has Skitter finally started to win the devotion of her people?

The isolation of not having cellphones 

Taylor's costume is the real superpower

Perfectionism is tough on everybody

We just want her to find the other Undersiders and get a hug and also some backup

The Slaughterhouse Nine probably don't like this chapter as much as we do

Did Skitter beat Dinah's odds here?

The Skitizens are the strands of spider silk

Ironically, it's not that hard to get under Mannequin's skin

Taylor can live with an unsolved mystery

What's up with Mannequin's human manne-risms?

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.6.

Episode Notes:

Skitter is never cooler than when she’s irrationally determined

Mannequin put Skitter in a corner and will reap the consequences…

… if she can even do anything on her own??

Was Skitter targeted just for what she’s doing now, or did Mannequin come here to teach her a lesson?

Couldn’t the government be doing better against the Nine? The status is not quo!

The Nine as a plague

Coil was right!

Taylor doesn’t have to show us what lines she was willing to cross

She’s just a little intimidating

The potential for a Skitter fandom

The wonderful women of Skitterland

Taylor judges those that can’t keep up with her but resents those who demand more from her

If you liked Jenny’s Scholomance recommendation, why not try her astolat Cyclonus fic recommendation?

Ultimately she does navigate this situation really well and invent some sweet new bug moves at the same time

She didn’t act on it, but she was definitely feeling insecure like a bully

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.5.

Episode Notes:

Skitter does her best yet

Loved ones can provide collateral aid

The chapter avoids a simple moral lesson about Danny’s fate

What Taylor’s missing about what makes her effective

To slash Jack, or not to slash?

WWCD?

Wait Colin and Coil are one letter away from each other omg

Have we ever seen them in the same room at the same time

Wait yup we did and Colin ate pavement lol

More importantly, how dumb do you have to be to try it?

Is Taylor insecure about whether she has a killer instinct? Will she have regrets?

Can Taylor multitask the story?

Well, she’s made great use of her first two minions already

As Colin becomes more cyborg, Taylor becomes more arthrorg. Anthrarth? Ok we can workshop it

Taylor thinks back to all the times she saw “Rachel will remember that” cross her screen

Coil reminds Taylor to be useful

Stay with an injured loved one? Our protagonist would never!

The parent child role reversal

Taylor’s finally forced to look at Danny, but he can’t see her until she’s leaving

Should she stay or should she go now? Lisa and Danny weigh in

How Taylor feels (or doesn’t) when she reaches Danny

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.4.

Episode Notes:

Jenny hates the Nine and Ted loves the chapter

We stop trying to make “Undlers” happen

Shout-out to biomechanimagical for the new team name!

How deep into the bench of Worm characters do you have to go to find a certified Tumblr Sexyman?

The “deal” gambit will unite our herovillains if not all of Brockton Bay

Taylor and Jenny are sus-Bitch-ous

Lisa will live to sass another day

Ted does a close reading on how quickly Taylor can rationalize her emotions

Taylor gives up control

Lisa and Taylor push each other around in the best way

Maybe Taylor’s bugs will be enough to avoid the thing where there’s no way she runs six miles in thirty minutes

The title drops and we talk a lot about worms and the controlling thereof

Ok for this segment just imagine if our logo didn’t have eyes

We don’t exactly feel bad for Cherish but wow, what an ordeal

Do Cherish and Taylor’s villain gang initiations only vary by extremeness?

These tests effectively show us how the Nine, and especially Jack, operate

We consider how Cherish’s situation might be different from the average recruit’s

The Nine are incredibly acceptable targets

Jack isn’t optimizing for power, but he did have Bonesaw cook up an artificial brain to punk Cherish

Don’t bring up that study about how spoilers don’t ruin stories in front of Jack if you value your face

Powers work as a metaphor for narrative, too

Jenny bonesees right through Bonesaw

Don’t bet on Amy

Faced with the Nine, some people would just choose death

Alec’s knack for chatting up villains

Siberian-based tinker-tech

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.3.

Episode Notes:

We loved hanging out with the Travelers

Jenny's off-by-two error

We're pessimistic about Bitch

The Slaughterhouse Nine are winning at shogi

Taylor and her hold-out secret identity

We're so invested in Noelle now (unfortunately...)

Ted would've been friends with Trickster in high school

Oops the Travelers are the Animorphs

The Undlers are so good at planning. Sucks that it doesn't matter!

Who's going to take part in the evil hunger games?

Imagining a Regent vs. Bitch fight

Kind of fun to know ahead of time this is a fight they'd lose

Ted apologizes to Brian

Potential fallout from the Dinah revelation

Regent the lancer

Theories about Taylor's listening ears

Powers are short-sighted in how they protect you from themselves

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.2.

Episode Notes:

There’s a special frustration when someone gets in our protagonist’s way

A bright clear red line for Taylor: no bugs on naked people, ew

Hookwolf knows his audience (dumdums)

What’s changed since Somer’s Rock? A lot of turnover and little institutional memory

Is Coil’s alternate timeline on the island with us right now?

Taylor’s big no-ment

Save the girl; don’t save the world

Taylor could get used to this

Well, actually, she’s just saying no to a bully!

They’re all hypocrites

Ok while I’m editing this episode I just keep thinking more about the game of mafia analogy. It really works for the social dynamics in this scene.

The heroes aren’t super invested in villain drama

Is Coil right about Jack being the top priority?

Other capes and teen moments

Danny and Annette, huge nerds, unlike this teenage girl

Would the Slaughterhouse Nine have tried to recruit Arc 1 Taylor?

Jenny and Ted discuss Plague 12.1.

Episode Notes:

The Slaughterhouse Nine are just waiting for everyone to mass against them

Taylor needs to catch up with our level of information already

The possibility of heroes crashing the villain meeting

Let's do arc 5 again against the Slaughterhouse Nine

Taylor the Tailor: we love to see it

Taylor's a good person to give your resources to

Grue's thinking too small. And feeling too small, maybe

Taylor and the challenge of middle management

Is loyalty to Skitter transferable to Coil?

The dual problems of sustainability and presentation

Taylor's continued failure to realize how terrifying she is

Maybe a less Skitter Skitter would be more effective

Urgency is not Taylor's friend

We want fly necklace merch

Taylor's sense of triage and sense of heroism are in conflict

Bugs are basically AI

Threats don't hurt anyone if you don't mean them, right?

Where's the Taylor-Sundancer-Dragon team-up of our dreams

Superhuman multitasking

Brian, your gender essentialism is showing

The minions are settling in

Taylor vs. the antivaxxers

Taylor's strengths and weaknesses as a leader: unfortunately, she has both

The challenges of being a civil servant

Jenny and Ted discuss Infestation 11.h.

Episode Notes:

Jenny didn’t see it coming but Ted brought receipts

Look, I know you weren’t asking, but the incest math checks out

Amy got her “resenting an unwanted burden” from her mom I guess

Intrusive romantic feelings are deeply tragic

Jenny and Ted do what Assault and Battery simply refuse to do

Amy’s fantasies and fatalism

The category of “healing” never really cohered

Bonesaw kicks Amy across a series of red lines and Amy’s like “guess it’s purge rules for me now YOLO”

Reading between the lines, Amy’s just making excuses

Ted makes a pretty bad analogy to Canary but give him a second he explains it better

Amy’s power is so dangerous to herself and others that the Protectorate really fucked up by not getting to her before Bonesaw

Victoria, sowing: Just use your fucking power on brains already! Victoria, reaping: Well this fucking sucks, I love you, what the fuck

So… would you really handle it any better than Victoria, listeners?

Ted speculates that this was really triggering for Victoria

Calling back to the “bus kiss”

At least we met a more functional lesbian first

“Evil” feelings don’t make you evil, and isn’t everybody kind of fucked up anyway?

Amy craves novelty and lacks empathy… but for pretty okay reasons!!!

What Amy can learn from Bonesaw: the power of a growth mindset

Is Amy’s power a threat to her sense of self in an existential way?

Bonesaw pushes Amy down the slippery slope and it all feels so easy

Is Amy gettable? Nah, but partly because she doesn’t believe in herself

Morality and fellowship seem completely alien to Bonesaw

Wait, how old exactly was Bonesaw when she triggered?

You can be a good scientist without being a good person

Bonesaw would not approve of this podcast’s explicit rating

Are the powers parasites? Tools? Agents?

If the who and what of powers are accidents, is there a why?

Bonesaw scoops Faultline’s thesis project

Yeah, of course all of the bio-manipulators will have major issues!

Ted reveals his pro-Bonesaw bias and Jenny pitches the best Worm adaptation yet

Did Carol leave that letter for Amy to find?

Parenting is necessarily coercive

Ted celebrates a well-constructed tragic plot

Amy’s not learning very good lessons from her no good terrible very bad day

Thinking back to Victoria in Dennis’ chapter

Is Panacea a rogue?

We might be harder on Mark if Carol wasn’t right there in comparison

Ted’s worst date

Fates worse than death

Bonesaw reminds us that the hero / villain arms race is ongoing

Hatchet Face is Michael Myers

Jenny looks in the mirror

Maybe part of Amy’s curse is that her power is too easy to use

The arachnid system

As much as Amy needs a therapist you can’t lead with that, Victoria

Jenny and Ted discuss Infestation 11.g.

Episode Notes:

Jenny ALMOST got this one right

Content warming for murder set up as suicide??

Cherish is in a tangle

Some very strong symbolism

Thrill-seeking is a family trait

We're not happy about these thralls, Regent

We're happy about his friends, though

Cherish is powerful, but it's a Wildbow power, so she has to work for it

Playing with point of view

Cherish's damage is that no one will like her without her power

S9 social dynamics

We decode some epithets

Jenny's hoping the S9 get taken down a few pegs

RIP soldier from the start of the chapter

When the interludes are good, they're good like this one is

Parallels to Glory Girl and to Skitter

There's a reason Cherish and Regent both go for fear

Our book two theme of a traumatized city

What kind of consent did Regent's thralls give?

Heartbreaker failed on optics

A potential Regent tell?