#max anders

E88, I think, would absolutely be written differently if Wildbow was writing Worm today, but it is still done very interestingly, regardless.

The gang having more extensive linkages beyond just Brockton Bay, and presumably to the Gelleschaft (is that canon? WoG? Just a common fan thing?) to explain where some of the recruits he gets goes.

I do feel like it's a bit of a missed opportunity to not have E88 be bigger than just Brockton Bay - the degree to which Kaiser is monofocused on the city is a bit weird, but it does also fit with classic superhero tropes, which have a tendency to treat cities as islands unto themselves half the time (Most of the the rest of the time it's worldwide stuff. There doesn't seem to be a lot in between for the average comic book superhero story, from what I can tell. Regional/multicity narratives seem uncommon.

Then again, they seem uncommon in general. If you're going to spend any serious time in a given city for the story... you're gonna keep spending time in that city, I guess.

White Supremacy is a coherent (for a given value of the word) ideology that can serve as a motivating and rallying factor across the board for people well beyond the local area.

Technically the ABB sorta have a similar operating ideology, but in practice, it's mostly just Lung's self-aggrandizement, and recruiting for that, especially on a broader scale beyond just your local city, has got to be hard.

Probably one of the reasons E88 is such a big deal is just that it has what most villain cape gangs don't have - something to pull people in beyond the opportunity to make money as a criminal and have some cape cover and stuff.

I'm sure there's tons of that too, people who just join up for the money and the chance to be a brute, but if you believe in the ideals of E88, you can tell yourself you' re making the city a better place and all that.

Kayden/Purity certainly told herself that, and is telling herself that, now that she's rejoined.

TAYLOR HEBERT’S HAREM SERIES (RARE PAIR AND POLY SHIPS)

AO3 LINK:https://archiveofourown.org/series/2417602 

MY PARAHUMANS (WORM WEB NOVEL) AESTHETICS COMPILATION

1. TAYLOR HEBERT

2. KENTA / LUNG

3. MAX ANDERS / KAISER

4. SCION / ZION

5. THE BUTCHER

6. THOMAS CALVERT / COIL

7. UBER 

8. JACOB / JACK SLASH

9. CARLOS / AEGIS

10. THE BASTARD SON 

11. NIKOS VASIL / HEARTBREAKER 

12. ALABASTER 

13. ASH BEAST

14. THE SLEEPER 

I was working on expressions and using Soupery’s chart, and I wanted to draw my children. 

One thing that Worm did that I think a lot of people weren't really remembering at the time of writing it is that for all that (then, and even now) our popular image of Neo-Nazis is of skinhead tattooed gangster brutes, akin to what this knife-brained shit has going for him -

Neo Nazis always did have the more 'respectable' seeming sorts, like Max Anders (even if I gather he doesn't really believe in those ideas).

2015 and 2016 and 2017 sort of helped remind everyone that Neo Nazis can, on the surface, look like any normal dude wearing a suit and tie or whatever. That you need to be wary even if they don't have the swastika tattoo and the confederate flag bumper sticker and the shaved head and so forth.

But yeah, you also need to be wary of them if they do have all that shit, and Fuckwolf over here is why.

“Not something I’d pay attention to.  I’m more of a cat person.”  The sardonic comment elicited a few chuckles from the room.

Is this Wildbow engaging in heinous anti-cat propaganda, or just riffing on the whole 'villainous mastermind with a big fluffy pet cat' meme?

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

In an odd way, Kayden supposed, she took refuge in Aster.  She found succor in the company of her child, in the midst of a world she had little hope for.

One thing I find interesting in the fanfic I've read is that older fic tend to be a great deal more... willing to give Kayden/Purity a chance? Like, they don't generally just give her a pass, and rightly so, but older fic were more willing to sympathize with her situation, or give her chances in canon to move on from being Purity/etc.

More recent fics tend to not give her that - they tend to have her get taken down with the rest of E88, or rejoin the organization (even if not super willingly) or the like, or at least don't give her the chances to improve and change older fics did.

And I can guess a big part of that has been the rise of Alt-right and Neo-Nazi movements in the world in more recent years, as well as a backlash against the earlier trends.

When she saw pudgy fifteen year old Theo sitting in front of the television, she was momentarily disoriented. Then she felt a stab of guilt.  She’d forgotten about the boy, in the midst of caring for Aster and her preparations for the night.

Oof. Poor Theo.

The times when Theo let a glimmer of emotion show were few and far between.  A smile, genuine, touched Theo’s face, and almost broke Kayden’s heart in the process. “I’d love to,” Theo replied, meaning it.

I suspect that despite this interlude introducing Purity, it's actually much more about showing us Theo, in terms of the long-term picture of the story. He ends up being one of the Chicago Wards, right?

 All she could offer were small kindnesses, little gestures of love and affection, and hope they helped. 

And that's the question. Do they help at all?

Kayden didn’t wear a mask, but it wasn’t necessary.  With her powers active, her brown hair and eyes became a radiant white, emanating a light so brilliant it was impossible to look straight at her.  The fabric of her alabaster costume, too, radiated with a soft glow that rippled like light on the surface of the water.

Nifty

A year ago, she had made the ABB a priority target.  Three to five times a week, she had carried out surgical strikes against the low level operations of the gang, interrupting shipments, beating up dealers and thugs, attacking their places of business and all the while, she had been gathering information.  That information had paid off from time to time; she had clashed directly with Lung on no less than four occasions, had encountered Oni Lee on two.  In all but one of those encounters, she had successfully forced them to retreat, to abandon whatever it was they were doing at the time.  Those were the good days.

Again, how many low-level operatives do they have?

Five of her seven vacation days had passed, and she’d accomplished nothing.  Less than nothing.  They were getting stronger.

It does suck, that feeling of putting all that time in, and feeling like you've achieved nothing. But I'd say part of the problem is that she views it as a thing that has an 'end', that she can just eliminate the ABB if she puts enough into it. You need to really be careful about that Mindset.

Even broken arms and legs hadn’t hurt or scared the thugs enough to get them talking about what was going on.

Hey! Something she has in common with Vicky! /s

(genuinely, not actually comparing the two)

Now most of the gang was gone, quite possibly on a big job, and she had no idea where.  She had no idea where to find out.  Kayden grit her teeth.  This wasn’t working.  If she was going to make any headway before her vacation days were up, she had to act now.  Make a deal with the devil.

No, Kayden, please don't.

Twice, she circled around the top floors of the wrong buildings, looking for the logo set on the side of the building would mark Max’s building apart from the others. The black crown against a red and yellow background.  

The Medhall Logo, or does he just spraypaint his own Logo like he's Hydra spamming their symbol everywhere?

He waited, his hands clasped over his stomach, the faintest expression of amusement on his face.  She knew he was capable of opening the window to his office.  He was waiting for her to ask to come inside.  It was the sort of little power game he was so fond of.

That's gotta be exhausting to deal with. That kind of shit alone should have led to a divorce :rofl:

“Kayden.  It’s been a little while,” he managed to greet her and make it sound like a criticism in the same breath.  He half-turned to type on his computer, and the lights in the office adjusted to a halogen glare.  She shut her eyes briefly and basked in the glow, feeling her internal supply of energy recharge.

Kayden, Kayden, Kayden - I want to feel like you deserve a chance. I feel like most people should deserve a chance to become better people in some form, and in this kind of media, that should include being able to turn from being a villain.

But you can't do this if you want that chance.

He was making it clear he was doing her a favor, and he’d expect recompense at some point, tonight or a week from now. 

Yeah, but you don't actually have to agree to owe him that favor.

I do accept that Aster and Theo do make it hard to disentangle from him though.

Though, it would be interesting to imagine a co-parenting supervillain and superhero where both are able to fight eachother as capes and yet still manage their shared kid without breaking the unwritten rules. Not with these two, Kaisar would never do that, but.

 You’d double check with me on anything you did, but other than that, you’d be completely autonomous.

That's like... the opposite of autonomy?

“And you’ll be working against that impression for decades, to no effect, I guarantee you.”

In theory, I think she could do it, if she really did have decades to pull it off. People often have short memories. But she's still going about this the wrong way.

Max smiled, “It’s ugly on the surface, but it’s more money, more power, and it gives me the leverage to really affect things.  The only people I hurt are the same people who cause the problems in the first place.”

Fucker, you run an incredibly wealthy pharma company. Does the chump change E88's drug running give you matter?

(Okay, it's probably not really chump change, but Pharma companies sure make more fucking money than drug dealers)

Kayden frowned, “Hard to avoid, when the only notable gang of whites is yours.  Some old friends and allies of mine still work for you… I can’t go around attacking them, can I?  I’m working to improve our city, but I’m not going to beat up people I’ve been out to drinks with.”

I mean, maybe that's your problem? And this is where it really, really gets hard to want to give her that chance. Like, it would be nice, if she could get her opening to unpack all of her racism and her 'some Nazis are very fine people' mindset, and one would like to believe that given the time, the resources, the support, she could (because I'd like to believe that, in theory, anyone could unlearn that kind of shit) but...

She's not really putting in that effort, is she?

Kayden didn’t have an answer to that.  It was his fault, really.  The high school baseball player she’d had a crush on when she’d been in middle school had wound up being the same person that first approached her when she started going out in costume.  Blinded by his good looks and his way with words, she’d been swayed, convinced of his way of thinking.  She’d tried to change her outlook since the divorce, but she had seen a great deal in her ten years as a member of his team.  It was impossible to look at the city now and ignore the fact that too much of what made it an uglier place to live and raise a child in could be traced back to the same kinds of people.  Sure, the whites had criminals too, but at least they were fucking civilized about it.

I mean, she is a victim of having been radicalized. But she's still not doing enough.

He extended a gauntlet, left it there for her to take.  It was the smallest gesture, he never made a move where someone could refuse him, leave him hanging, and it meant the world to her, even as she suspected it was calculated for just that effect. Forgive me, Aster, she thought.  I’m doing this for you.

And there you go, eroding your chance.