Tag: chapter i12a

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Armsmaster and Regent were abrasive enough that they would likely prick Shatterbird’s pride.

…oh hell yes, I would actually love to see Regent and Shatterbird interacting.

Bitch would be a risk at first, but he trusted his ability to manage her and stop any fights from erupting.

Is Jack aware of Bitch’s doglike mind? At least he has experience from managing Siberian.

Siberian would become jealous of any growing relationship between Panacea and Bonesaw.

That’s an interesting notion. Also somewhat scary. We don’t want a green-eyed tiger.

The buried girl was only a candidate because Crawler hoped she was strong enough to fight him.  Either she would fail to hurt him and he would grow tired of her, or she would succeed and he would have no reason to stay in the group.

So far it seems like none of the candidates are particularly good for the group’s stability. The only one left is Hookwolf – I suspect he’ll be an exception. Notably, Bitch, the other candidate I think has any chance of actually ending up on the team, is the one that Jack seems to think will be the least trouble out of the ones he’s already mentioned.

That left him two candidates who might work.  He doubted either Hookwolf or Bitch had what it took to stay in the group long-term.

That may be the case, but these two have been my main suspects all along. Hell, even before Hookwolf’s Interlude confirmed he was a nominee.

They would soon be replaced, killed by an enemy or a member of the group, but they would not upset his carefully staged balance while they remained members.

Yeah, fair.

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And Cherish, who would not survive their stay in Brockton Bay… after a fashion.

What do you and Bonesaw have in mind? Making her part of another chimera?

Hope was her carrot, but she had only sticks waiting for her.  He met her eyes and knew she knew what he was thinking.

Well, sort of.

She was all too aware an ugly fate awaited her, but didn’t know what it was.  The fear helped curb her.  Still, he would have to watch his back.

I mean, yeah. You’ve basically taken away all reason for her to stay loyal to you and the team.

Carrots and sticks.  A game of constant balance.  A thousand factors.  Even now, he was taking notes on their candidates, deciding what would work and what wouldn’t.

Probably a good idea, getting an early start on that in case one of them becomes the new member.

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Burnscar was more sensitive, in many respects.  She had to be managed, provoked or set up to use her power so she remained in a more dangerous mindset.

We haven’t really heard much about Burnscar since Interlude 11c, but I still like the setup we’ve got with her power being addictive and her being stuck among the Nine. It’s quite tragic, for better or worse.

Too much one way, and she became depressed and scared, vulnerable.  Too much the other way, and she became reckless, potentially attacking him or one of the others and sparking disaster.

A careful balance, especially since she actually has a motivation to attack the others on the team.

Mannequin had his mission.  Few things bothered him as much as seeing someone try to help others and succeed where he had catastrophically failed.

Ahh, right. That would be why he was so interested in stopping the relief efforts.

To keep Mannequin in line, Jack could remind Mannequin of who he had once been.  A simple casual utterance of the name ‘Alan’ served as effectively as a slap in the face to someone else.

Yup, that’s about what I thought.

He rarely needed such considerations; Mannequin was predictable, manageable.

Would you say he’s easily manipulated, perhaps, like an action figure?

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Crawler wanted to be stronger, and remained with the group because it put him in constant danger.  His other motivation was more subtle.

Oh?

He was patiently awaiting the day Siberian might honestly and brutally attempt to take him apart.

Huh. I suppose that means he’d be interested in subtly antagonizing her, which might be a problem for group control.

The only stick Jack could wield was the possibility that the group might dissolve before that happened.  On the other side of the coin, the day Crawler decided there was no longer any threat that could evolve him further would be…

Bad?

troubling.  It was why Jack had ordered Siberian to let the boy with the glowing hair go.

Ahh, I see.

Finding the lad again would give Crawler something to do, and it would give Crawler a taste for what Siberian had to offer.

That makes sense.

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Siberian’s stick was Bonesaw, the possibility of losing the girl’s company in one way, shape, or form.  Threats against the girl would be met with a fury like no other.  Boredom, similarly, would see Siberian stalking off on her own to amuse herself, a scenario that grounded the group until Siberian’s return hours or days later.

In other words, neither stick is particularly helpful for Jack.

Such usually meant a hasty retreat as the heroes who had realized that they could not defeat Siberian came after the rest of the group.

…right, that’s a problem for them too. Siberian’s one of their strongest defenses against such attacks.

Bonesaw wanted a family.  Her stick was disapproval, a revoking of any ‘love’ from those closest to her.

Bonesaw continues to be the best.

She was far younger, emotionally, than her outward appearance suggested.  She had bad dreams at night if she didn’t sleep in the embrace of one of her older teammates, usually Siberian.

Aww, poor thing.

When she didn’t sleep, or when her mood otherwise soured, she was as intolerable as any of the others, and among the most dangerous.

Oh, she’s absolutely dangerous. I’m not denying that.

She’s downright adorabloodthirsty, to borrow a Homestuck term.

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Siberian watched as Bonesaw began excising and stitching together groups of muscle and collections of organs she and her mechanical spiders were harvesting from the fallen.

Just gonna make a new creation right here on the spot? Fair enough, I suppose they probably don’t have any particularly better places to go do it.

It was taking on a vaguely human shape.

Siberian was tricky.  He doubted anyone else in the group was even aware, but their most feral member harbored a fondness for Bonesaw.

Huh. The tiger’s got a softer side, it seems.

Siberian had little imagination, and was perfectly comfortable rehashing the same violent and visceral scenarios time and again, but she nonetheless enjoyed Bonesaw’s work.  She saw a kind of beauty in it.  Even more than that, he sometimes wondered if Siberian didn’t reciprocate Bonesaw’s desire for family.

D’aw.

Bonesaw alternately referred to Siberian as an older sister or the family pet, but Siberian’s fondness for Bonesaw bordered on the maternal, like a mother bear for her cub.

“My Big Sister is Our Pet Tiger” sounds like the title of an anime.

I mean, just the other day I found one called “My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering With My School Romantic Comedy”.

…by Fall Out Boy.

Did anyone else in the group note how Siberian seemed to keep Bonesaw’s company, to assume she would accompany the young girl when she went out, and carefully kept Bonesaw in sight at all times?

Cherish is probably aware of it, at least.

Also I know Jack sees it as maternal, and it may very well be, but these sound like the exact same symptoms you’d see in someone with a crush. I would not be surprised to find a pedophile among the Nine. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now, though.

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…hey, maybe that’s why Shatterbird looks kind of like a peacock, with her colorful garb and all. After all, what does a peacock use his colorful feathers for?

Looking tough.

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Shatterbird, who had deigned to observe for the moment, hovering over the scene, was an individual who craved validation.  She would be insulted to hear it spoken aloud, but she needed to be powerful in the eyes of others, civilian or teammate.

She’s lucky she’s got such a ridiculously powerful power, then.

Or maybe there’s a causation here in one or both directions.

She could tolerate much, but an insult or a joke at her expense could push her over the edge.

So she’s… fragile.

As carrots went, a simple word of praise could satisfy her for a week, and an opportunity to shine could sate her for a month.  It was why he allowed her to ‘sing’ each time they arrived somewhere new, even as he found it repetitive and boring, brooking the same scenarios time after time.

I suppose it would get repetitive after a while, but you gotta admit it’s a really good dramatic entrance.

“Hi, we’re here, fuck you and your city!”

Her stick was easy enough: the threat of physical harm, or the embarrassment of being made to lose control.  Were she to attack a member of the group, Siberian or Crawler would retaliate, and they would hurt or kill her.  It would be inevitable, unequivocal.

Yeah, no way she’s winning against either of those, especially if she’s physically fragile on top of being emotionally so, which seems likely.

The idea of the shame she’d feel in that ignoble defeat held her back as much as anything.

Huh.

I’m beginning to see the connection between her and Hookwolf (every Slaughterhouse member went for someone with something in common with them, but it was less clear – no pun intended – between Shatterbird and Hookwolf). This is very much warlord-like behavior.

It also heavily reminds me of Armmaster, but there’s a crucial difference: Armmaster cared about how everyone else saw him. Shatterbird seems to care more about how she sees herself, something that is affected by how everyone else sees her.

Armmaster was, is, confident in his own abilities and worth and just wanted people to recognize that, while Shatterbird seems to be less confident and wants people to see her be powerful so that her worth can be reflected (oh hey, mirrors, looks like we’re back to glass again) back at her from others. She’s a fragile person who acts tough to make herself believe that she is.

Recognition versus validation.

At least that’s what I’m getting from this. For all I really know I might be totally off the mark here.

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Crawler, he knew, wouldn’t show any signs of boredom or restlessness.  When he lost patience with things, it was an explosive affair, almost unmanageable.

Oh jeez.

Keeping this group in line was a matter of balancing carrots against sticks.  A constant, delicate process.

I can certainly believe that. And that’s all while making sure no one’s unhappy with the balance of carrots and sticks someone else is getting compared to the balance they’re getting, unless they deserve to be.

Every member sought something from the others, however solitary they might strive to appear, carrots that Jack could use to keep them as part of the group and entice them to stay, to cooperate.

Like how Cherish sought total control and adoration, how Bonesaw seeks a sense of family and steady access to victims volunteers for her experiments, etcetera…

I know I’ve said some things that might have made it sound like I thought they don’t have individual motivations beyond “having fun without restrictions”, but that’s not really the case. I just haven’t been aware of what those motivations were for all of them, and thus had to fall back on that general one.

It was not easy: what served as a stick to one might easily be a carrot to another.

Crawler is a good example of that in a more general sense, with his whole thing about wanting to get hurt.

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Following from tagging practices on my personal blog, I tag posts involving #food, mainly for the sake of people with eating disorders.

But… now that we have a confirmed cannibal in the cast, does that mean I should start using that tag on any post involving humans?