A reminder that, as Lisa analyzed, Regent is a sociopath.
I’m guessing you sent this in before I posted this post [here, search “sociopath”]. 🙂
But yeah, Interlude 10a really puts that fact into context. Sheesh.
So I don’t really get why you’re doing the tw thing cause anyone who’s finished Worm probably doesn’t have any left (jk lol), but with that said, if you’re doing them you might want to give post #169967097234 (the one about Regent having sex with bodies he’s controlling) a tw: rape cause that’s one of the more horrific forms of rape out there, even if fictional :p
Yeah, good point. I kind of glossed over that fact when I learned about that, though it did occur to me.
It does cross my mind from time to time that people who would read this blog would generally be well aware of, and usually okay with, the upcoming triggers. I think the main reason I’m still doing trigger warnings nonetheless is that the posts might end up getting shown to someone outside the fandom by accident, such as by them showing up in a sitewide search for a phrase that shows up in the post.
Interlude 10a is one of the most infamously controversial chapters among the fandom, with reactions to it going all the way from “Bully for Regent! Finally that bitch got what she deserved” to “Regent is the most horrifingly evil monster in all of fiction and I wish he dies in a nuclear fire”. Either way it is often considered one of Wildbow’s finest pieces of writing. Your bolded “holy shit” response did not disappoint, but could you expand a bit more on your emotional reaction to the chapter?
I can absolutely see how this would be a true base breaker. I’m closer to the “horrifyingly evil” side, I think, though not quite that extreme – he’s not the most horrifyingly evil, nor do I necessarily wish death on him (that takes a lot).
But it’s hard to ignore the fact that what he did was supremely fucked up (even if he was bluffing about actually going through with it if Sophia stayed in town), and if there’s anyone who deserves the treatment Sophia got, it’s not her. She’s a horrible person, sure, but she’s a petty one – she deserved retribution, but the one Regent gave her was disproportionate, especially if it was only for the specific crime of fucking with his teammate.
I think one of the primary emotions I had during the climactic scene was one of disbelief. Not in the story, but in Regent, shock that he actually seemed to be going this far, that kind of thing. Wildbow really did a good job with revealing the true extent to which Heartbreaker fucked up Regent’s morals.
So for some reason, a browser reboot put my Worm tab back to Interlude 8b. As I hovered over the “next chapter” link to start working my way forward to the chapters I’m supposed to be at, I noticed that the url for Sentinel 9.1 says “cell-9-1” instead – I guess Arc 9 got renamed at some point? (The url for Sentinel 9.2 says “sentinel-9-2”, so it probably happened early.)
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