As far as I can tell, somehow nobody ever sent you this – by sandara: Bitch, Bastard, and Bentley. I think Bentley is left & Bastard is right. Linking to DA because I think if I submit it as an image it’ll get shrunk really tiny.

I have received this at some point, but I can’t seem to find it either. Weird…

In any case, Sandara is one of the best artists I’ve been sent the works of, so I really don’t mind repeats. Pieces like this deserve it. 😛

Fun fact, in the character tags at the end of the interlude, Wildedict Cumberbow accidentally put “Armsmaster” and forgot to include the completely new & original character Defiant.

Wow, what a blatant error!

“…Bonesaw would probably like the idea of merging Grue and Purity, if she couldn’t get her hands on Night instead.” Dear cog, a Night/Grue hybrid would be terrifying, especially if it was pre-second-trigger Grue. Remember how he used to cover whole blocks in darkness in an instant before?

I wish I could say that was my idea, because it’s a really good one, but no, I got that concept from an ask. 🙂

And yeah, pre-ST Grue’s darkness generation would be ridiculously powerful for someone with Night’ s… condition… even after becoming part of an amalgamation reduced its potency.

About the visceral reaction people had to Defiant’s body modifications: Remember that the world’s most renowned cyborg is Mannequin.

…fair point.

The UnderTravelers are lucky that the heroes and especially Dragon are limited to nonlethal options. In a death-match against these Dragon-mecha, developed to fight against the Endbringers and the S9, there is only one possible outcome.

Yeah, sheesh. Dragon packs a lot of firepower.

Remember that Taylor feels the bugs position like we do our fingers. 2 bugs on the head and feet gives you height, 8 on shoulders, elbows, wrist and knees gives you a wire frame model that combined with texture (skin vs armor vs normal clothing) lets you identify almost anybody (especially people she knows). Totally reasonable to sneak that many bugs on everyone. From 30 bugs onward Taylor should give a good showing in hand-to-hand while blindfolded.

Hm, I guess so.

“(Maximum irony: The Undertravelers cleverly disable the mechs, and then an Endbringer attacks. Whoops…)” Now he’s thinking like Wildbow, lmao. The idea that it’s okay to take two steps back if it means getting one step forward. More importantly, Wildbow’s writing is dominated by the idea that everything is a logical consequence of the things before it. I’d recommend reading the “What if Leviathan didn’t hit Brockton Bay” WoG when it’s no longer a spoiler for insight into the thought process.

Hehe, yeah…

I mean, even Leviathan’s attack, one of the most random-looking developments in the story thus far, was successfully framed as a logical consequence back in Interlude 7 – the Endbringers target high-conflict areas, and the events of previous Arcs had turned Brockton Bay into one of those. It was presented as logical enough that the Protectorate could, though just barely, predict it.

I still love the idea of Leviathan picking his targets based on TV news stories, by the way. Turns out you can get a lot of channels down in the Mariana Trench.

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I’m pretty sure I had a thought I wanted to put here, but I forgot what it was…

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So the subject of bee fucking came up somehow on altgen…

[Discord]

Krixxx:
It really wouldn’t surprise me if there’s Worm porn involving bee fucking.

Liz, Known Anarchist:
oh god dude

Krixxx:
I mean what do you expect when the main character sends bugs at people’s dicks in canon

Liz, Known Anarchist:
NOT IN A SEXUAL WAY
IN A ROT-THEIR-DICK OFF VIA NECROSIS WAY

Krixxx:
I know but still 😄
And then there’s Atlas
Not a bee, but
With that one it’s worth noting that Taylor has to control almost everything he does manually, so Taylor x Atlas wouldn’t be too different in practice from Regent x Regent. Y’know, besides the whole “giant beetle who may or may not have reproductive organs” thing.

Liz, Known Anarchist:
I despise you.

Krixxx:
Entirely deserved. 😛

[some time of dead chat passes]

Shin God:
the birds and the bees

Krixxx:
Sounds like an indirect Regent x Skitter fic

It’s somewhat ironic how out of “Skitter x Atlas” and “Regent x Regent”, the former is the one that’s most arguably masturbation and the latter is usually one of the most horrifying kinds of rape there are.

(Which I do admit I have a nasty habit of glossing over when it comes up in the story.)

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Concept: Worm / Bee Movie crossover.

Barry B. Benson and Carol Dallon work together to sue Skitter for the thousands of bee lives lost as unwilling soldiers caught up in her villainous antics.

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Y’know, I’d actually be really surprised if I were to learn that there wasn’t at least one Worm fic by the title “The Birds and the Bees”.

On a related note, the Miraculous Ladybug fic “The Ladybugs and the Bees” is… well, it’s lewd, and gets lewder the deeper you get into the slow burn, but it’s really great for reasons that go way beyond that aspect. For one thing, it’s downright hilarious when it wants to be, which is often. 😛

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[Discord]

Songbird:
Regent was able to operate both Shadow Stalker and Shatterbird’s powers, right? Would he be able to use Skitter’s?
Shatterbird’s requires some physical input via song, right? I guess Shadow Stalker doesn’t, so nevermind.

I actually found myself thinking about that a bit too, before coming back to Discord to see these messages.

Regent mentioned in Prey that because Shatterbird’s power isn’t physical, being a form of telekinesis, he has some trouble with fine control (in context, he was talking about flight, but we’ve seen it apply elsewhere too).

Skitter’s is even more mind-based, but also in tune with his own power since it’s focused on controlling other beings’ bodies. She can even look through their senses if she tries, though she has trouble handling that input with her human brain – their powers are actually quite similar in some ways. But it’s hard to say how much such similarities may help him.

I think the closest analogue I’ve seen may be Victor. His power is fully mind-based, and Regent describes him as driving “like a Mercedes with an invisible stick shift” and says he can’t tell what he’s stealing or from whom. Grue has a similar experience trying to use Victor’s power without his passenger.

So I’m thinking Regent might have a similar experience trying to control Skitter’s power as Brian did, except he might not even be able to sense the bugs. The end result would be that he could control bugs but not sense them, and he’d have none of the fine control that Skitter has.

In other words, we’re talking more of a “wave a hand and the whole swarm moves” kind of control than the “hey, you there, bug #252844, move your antenna a little to the right, okay now all of you do the macarena in sync” that Skitter gets.