How much you want to bet that stabbing was bad enough to hurt some of Skitter’s internal organs, piercing her costume or not? She doesn’t think about these things sometimes. (also I assume it’s a matter of time before you find an excuse to reference the penis ouija, if you haven’t already)

Hm, that’s a good point. It was still a pointy thing pushing her costume in towards her body.

I don’t really know what the chances of it causing internal damage are. Anatomy isn’t my strong suit. But it does sound more likely than Taylor thought.

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I read Homestuck… well part of it. On an old computer that didn’t have flash so I missed all the interactive parts. And then I stopped reading for a while and I lost my place. And now that I have a new computer I’m really not feeling like rereading the whole thing to get where I was and see everything that I missed. It was entertaining on the first read but I have my doubt on the second one… I’ve been considering Hiveswap though, can one enjoy it even if one didn’t finish the story?

Absolutely!

I do personally think it’s better to read Homestuck before playing Hiveswap if you’re going to do both (Homestuck knowledge does put a few details and jokes in Hiveswap into perspective, and Hiveswap introduces some concepts from the second quarter and middle of Homestuck which one might consider spoilers), but Hiveswap is still very much designed to be enjoyable and understandable even if you don’t know a damn thing about Homestuck. Anything you really need to know, the game will introduce for itself.

I don’t have that perspective myself, but as far as I can tell from playing it myself and watching Jacksepticeye (who did have that perspective) play it, it does a very good job at being accessible and fun to people on both sides of the divide. It’s a slightly different experience depending on whether you know what Xefros is talking about from the start or you’re as clueless as Joey, but a good one either way.

Just an idea, but one really crude way you could use to semi-solve the issue of constantly jumping back to interlude 8 is to create a bookmark called current chapter which you update whenever you remember to do so. Even if you forget to do so for a month or more.. it’s still faster than clicking next all the way from interlude 8.

Ah, yeah, that would work. Although the issue seems to have resolved itself – it seems it might’ve been caused by the browser being closed improperly by the computer deciding to update, that kind of thing.

Did you or anyone you know watch or care about the Super Bowl or it’s halftime show?

Only people I know online. The Super Bowl, or American football in general, aren’t really things people care much about in Norway.

(I did end up muting a liveblogger’s Discord server’s general channel as it transformed into football chat, though.)

Now if the players had been parahumans, that would’ve been a different story. 😛

On the topic of controlling all the bugs in the world: just how strong do you think her power is? Right now, she apparently has absolute control of everything in range that she can control. If her range extended to the entire world, she would be insanely powerful. There’s an estimated 10 quintillion insects in the world, and she can control arachnids and crabs and who knows what else too.

To be clear, I was exaggerating to make a point – I doubt it’s anywhere near that strong. All I’m saying is that it could potentially be a lot stronger than it already is, and we really shouldn’t scoff at the 2-3 block range (4-6 when in overdrive) she has now either.

The faster you get through Worm, the faster you can get to the mspaintadventures-style quest that someone did for a certain Worm character on the spacebattles forum. It’s hilarious and you would love it.

Ooh, that sounds like fun!

What do you think of the dichotomy of Taylor fighting groups of enemies while noticing her tea is bitter. It’s one of my favorite sentences in the whole story, wonder if it caught your attention?

It didn’t, really, but when you put it like that, I suppose it could symbolize Taylor still feeling

on some level

that this is wrong. That this is not what she should be doing.

If applied specifically to fighting the Merchants, I disagree, but I think if this is a thing, it goes further than that. Out to taking control of the area, to working with Coil, to being a villain.

It could be a seed of doubt for Dragon to work with.

Because the “We’ve Got Worm” podcast was mentioned a while ago, I was reminded of something that happened there: the guy reading Worm for the first time guessed Tt’s trigger event with 95% accuracy the moment the relation between trigger events and powers was properly explained (Arc 4? Dunno). So, all the necessary information on that relation is present in the story already. You seemed to have difficulty seeing the connections between events and powers, but do you feel like speculating a bit?

My problem was that I originally, back when trigger events were introduced in Arc 4, hypothesized the connection to be far more concrete. For instance, I speculated that Taylor gained her bug power because in a moment of vulnerability and isolation, her brain reached out past itself to find company in the form of the bugs.

But when I started speculating further from there, I quickly turned out wrong with regards to Grue. I don’t see a concrete connection between his fight with his mom’s boyfriend and his power – in fact, Grue standing up for someone and fighting the threat head on was pretty much the opposite of my speculated trigger event for him, which involved him having to hide. Though I guess maybe he and Aisha had to hide from their mom’s boyfriend after that, and Karahindiba (or its like) decided to help in its own way?

So if I were to speculate on Tattletale based on my initial impression, it would involve a moment of intense uncertainty and lack of knowledge about something. I don’t quite think this is how it works anymore, but we do know from 9.3 that it would’ve involved psychological stress rather than physical. We also know that Tattletale hates being called stupid…

Maybe we’re talking verbal abuse? Maybe Lisa went through early life with someone who constantly, unfairly derided her as unintelligent, ignorant and worthless, to the point that one of the harshest incidents led to her getting her power? I don’t know.