Tag: i12ap2

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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?

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His monsters returned to their carnage.

This is an… oddly cute sentence, actually. Just the way Jack refers to the Slaughterhouse Nine as his monsters. Sure, it’s probably just the fact that he’s in charge and can direct these people largely to his whim, but on some level it also feels like a term of endearment.

He watched them at their work and their play, noting all of the little things.  He knew all too well that Shatterbird pretended civility, but she got as restless as Siberian when things got quiet, and she would look up from whatever book she read every thirty, fifteen or ten seconds, as if waiting for something to happen, craving it.

Boredom is a powerful force.

Siberian would begin to look at her group members in a hungry way.  She didn’t need to eat, but she enjoyed the experience, wanted it the same way someone else might crave their morning coffee.  Stimulation.

That sounds very familiar.

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There were signs, nods and murmurs of agreement all around.

“Good.  Go.  Have fun.  Mop up the stragglers.  Don’t worry about leaving any alive.  They already know we’re here.  No more than five minutes before we leave.

But… what. Jack. Just about forty paragraphs ago you said, and I quote: 

“No. Let him go.  We need to leave some alive.”

…alright, fair enough, I guess in the time this meeting took, enough people – Scrub included – fled the area to satisfy that condition.

We can’t have our grand battle with the locals so soon.”

Hehe, that’s a good reason to leave, yeah. It’s not climactic battle time yet!

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“In any case, we’ve hashed this out enough.  I’ll think it over tonight and have something proper to present to you and the capes of this city who will be our… opposition.  I can add some rules, to cover loopholes and keep this little event manageable.

Oddly enough, this whole thing has me feeling a lot better about the challenge than I did when it was first introduced. That’s the opposite of what I was expecting to happen here.

I wonder how much of this Tattletale saw coming.

It’s still concerning that she incentivized the S9 to be more brutal with their tests, but at least it resulted in more restrictions on their side. The turn-taking is one of the better ones – the recruits will only have to deal with one member trying to test them at a time.

Panacea, Armsmaster, Bitch, Regent, the buried girl and Hookwolf.

It seems they haven’t managed to find out Noelle’s name yet.

So wait, who are we missing here? Labyrinth wasn’t a nominee… right, Oni Lee. Got it.

Six nominees, eight Slaughterhouse members, and a bunch of people invested in helping the nominees. The game is on.

Burnscar didn’t nominate one, and I’ve already dispatched mine.  That’s six candidates, we need to remove five.  And when we’re done and we’ve established our superiority, we can kill this Tattletale, her friends, and everyone else, just to make our point.  Good?”

The fact that Tattletale seems to have made herself and the rest of the Undertravelers into primary targets for the Slaughterhouse Nine is another concerning detail.

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“Cherish, you’ll go second.  Your last chance to impress us.”

I wonder how many of these turns we’ll get per Arc, if the idea doesn’t fall apart. Two, maybe? That would keep us busy for four more Arcs, though, which might be too much.

Cherish nodded, as mute as her headless teammate.

“Good.  Two days, Mannequin, then three for our Cherish.  To be fair, we should have a rule that says you cannot take out a candidate until they fail your test.

That seems reasonable, since there’s a rule that encourages taking out candidates.

So each prospective member must be informed about the test and what it requires, they must fail, and they must be eliminated or punished, until one remains.  For those of you who want to show how superior they are over their teammates…” he cast a sidelong glance at Shatterbird, “There are several paths to success.  Remove several candidates, conduct a full round of testing, see that your candidate succeeds above any of the others, or all of the above.”

Of course Shatterbird would care about that.

“I like it,” Bonesaw said, “It sounds fun!  But what about Siberian?  How is she supposed to tell them the rules?”

Oh yeah. She’s not fond of speaking, and as far as the Slaughterhouse Nine probably know, she can’t.

The same goes for Mannequin, but he at least can write. I would not be particularly surprised if Siberian can’t, or refuses to.

“We’ll help her out on that front.  Same test as usual, Siberian?”

I guess someone else could just write it down for her.

Siberian nodded.  She reached out to Bonesaw’s face and used her thumb to wipe away a spatter of blood before licking the digit clean.

Same procedure as every year, James.

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Crawler tilted his head one way, then the other.  He rumbled, “Fine.”

“Which only leaves you, Cherish, our errant rookie.  You’re dejected because you know Bonesaw has a punishment in the works.  But you mustn’t lose heart.

“We’ve got something awful planned for you, but stop worrying so much!”

You’ll still have a chance to redeem yourself, and maybe even escape reprisal for your juvenile stunt.  I think Mannequin should start us off, and he’ll be penalized one day from his time limit for his loss tonight.

Huh. Well that ought to help motivate her.

As for Mannequin, is it fair to penalize him retroactively like that? I’m not sure either way.

And you’ll have to deal with the bug girl, to make up for this embarrassment.   Make her suffer.”

Hm. Either this is a hell of a coincidence, or Jack knew where Mannequin was. Mannequin hasn’t done anything to indicate who defeated him.

Mannequin tapped once on the blade.

I know we established already that this means yes, but I suspect he would very much like to use it on Skitter.

So Mannequin is now officially Skitter’s assigned enemy. Fair enough! I’m not sure I’m interested in a one-on-one rematch between them, but Wildbow could make it work. He certainly did with Lung, though Lung’s power is unusually well-suited for scaled-up rematches.

Lung has been quite thoroughly removed from the main setting and overshadowed in terms of threat level, but there’s still a small part of me that says we’ll be seeing him at full power for a round three.