I'm not sure I really like the idea of Skitter changing her name; she'd be so much more effective almost as a liaison between the PRT and villains, someone who understands there's much more at play here. Going from Skitter to Weaver feels like it's spitting in the face of her former allies or people who thought she was on "their side"

 

I agree that it seems to serve no apparent purpose. The PRT has worked with villains before; why does she need to join them to fight the good fight? I don't mind the name change so much as what it implies. Skitter didn't really change in any way worthy of a namechange, furthermore, how little she did change recently suggests that she trusts heroes even less now... not sure why she'd jump onto their ship.

Also, I've been thinking about the S9. First of all - their clone plot. You can't clone passengers, right? So clones wouldn't have powers. So if they clone "everyone" they're going to use them for espionage, not fighting? That's the only reasonable conclusion I cam come up with, unless Bonesaw can determine a way to clone passengers, too. Also, I think I've identified why I don't like the S9 - it's pretty simple. Skitter vs the Heroes is a multidimensional conflict. Heroes consider themselves always right; they do the right thing sometimes. Villains are considered always wrong; but Skitter does the righter things sometimes. It's a conflict which has some uncertainty to it. But the S9 are just...shallow. Jack wants the world to end because he's a crazy sicko; there's no depth to that. The S9 don't represent anything to me that's interesting. Honestly, I wonder if wildbow can just kill those assholes off and leave the Endbringers as the lone existential threat? I don't mind the Endbringers so much because they're definitively non-human forces. Someone start convincing him pls

 

I kind of don't want the S9 to show up again until it's time to resolve Theo's plotline (which my guess is the End of the World); they had their time to shine and the whole "building up clone army" part is kind of bland

 

You seem to forget, Skitter never actually chose her name that was something the wards came up with, maybe she saw this as an opportunity to finally declare her name to the world. Plus weaver is good since she's been weaving silk like all the time now.

 

It's still her "villain" name (and way better than Bug). If you were a rogue or villain and you saw her changing her name, doesn't that reek of jumping ship?

 

Isn't that, you know, the point? She's been purposefully cutting her ties with the Underaiders, changing her name is just another part of that.

 

I'm not really talking about the Undersiders, I'm talking about the overall goal of getting hero and villain to sit down and work together to stop the world from ending. You've just thrown away a lot of your cred in the villain community, especially when your killing of Alexandria is outted as being an inside job. I just feel like there's a significant different between cutting ties and burning bridges.

 

Well, it'll be interesting to see how future villains react to her. Any future villains she meets, even if she doesn't want to fight them, she may have to.

 

Yeah. The speech really seemed to suggest that Skitter was jumping ship and had been working with the PRT/ Protectorate to take down internal threats. I think part of the problem I'm having is that I don't especially like any of the heroes...but I like the undersiders.

There are so many people who should be dead but aren't.

 

Thinking it over, the moment with Dragon gave me the idea she might join up with Dragon's nominal "team", the Guild in Canada. I wouldn't be too surprised if Dragon (and Defiant?) were working with the Guild on a more regular basis now too, with the threat of the Nine temporarily gone. If Weaver ended on up their Wards analogue, it would ease the transition with some characters we already know in prominent roles at her new location.

Also, among a lot of Capes Weaver/Skitter's reputation is probably a little larger than life at this point. It's hard to predict how a group of starry eyed kids (think the Brockton Bay Wards from early in the series as opposed to now) would react to her being dropped into their midst. I mean, she's a wealthy (former) crimelord who's taken on three S-class threats and Alexandria. She even has her own thread on parahumans.net and it was like 30 pages long before this whole fiasco!

 

Maybe I'm the only one, but I really like this turn of events. I think it's very fitting, especially the Armsmaster: Defiant -- Skitter:Weaver dynamic.

Also, what I wouldn't give for an interlude of Emma watching the news.

 

I kind of want a Taylor's dad interlude

 

The first interlude in the story was his, and I don't think Wildbow plans on doing it more than once from a perspective.

 

I still feel like we could use more view from a non-powered, non directly involved viewpoint that's close to Taylor, you know? I'm just not sure who could be used without just making a new character for it.

 

When I first finished this chapter I was a little disappointed that Skitter went full in with the Protectorate, but now that I've thought about it, this creates a ton of awesome potential.

No longer will Skitter be on the back foot, trying to defend her little corner of the world from a bunch of scumsucking asshole villains trying to knock her off her pedestal. I mean let's be real, most of the people Skitter has faced down have been villains, most of the real dangers came from them, and that's not changing now that she's a hero. When I see people talking about her losing her cred in the villain community, I can only say "what the fuck are you talking about?" Outside of the Undersiders, villains never came to her aid or ever really made things easier on her with the possible exception of the Ambassadors (short lived as their alliance was).

Fuck the villains, and fuck trying to protect a bunch of people who at times didn't show a shred of thanks to her. She did what she needed to do, and those people are safe. Weaver is off the chain now, a brilliant villain-crushing monster of a parahuman who can now actually dispatch her enemies with a real sense of permanence since the Birdcage is an option. She doesn't have to choose between hurting/humiliating and killing and she doesn't have to worry about retaliation.

Sticking her in juvie? A waste. Sticking her with the Wards? A laughable waste. Weaver has heroes and villains across North America and the world shitting their pants, and the PRT would be ridiculous not to use that. Weaver can make the Protectorate sexy again. Why would any young parahuman turn to crime when they can avoid the risk and fight along side the most successful super-villain in memory? No more stuffy goody-two-shoes stereotypes here, the Protectorate is kicking ass and taking names.

I want Weaver to begin a Join or Die campaign against the villains in anticipation of the end of the world. I want her to head south and decimate the Elite.

And I finally want to see what the rest of the world thinks of Skitter.

 

I don't know why all of you think that because Skitter:Weaver has apparently joined the Protectorate, she no longer has any say with the Undersiders, or Accord etc. As far as I can tell, she just got the Undersiders immunity too the law. I expect she'll be on the phone with Tattletale relatively often, co-ordinating between the groups and so on.

Accord will be interesting though, I don't think anything has to change in their deal... The plans he still comes up with could be used to greatly benefit society, and Tattletale is in a good position to accomplish that. They have him on a pretty tight leash anyway.

What I think's going to be interesting, is the ownership of the Portal. I don't think Skitter:Weaver's apparent 'defection' will hand the government the Portal. It'll be leveraged for some sort of monetary gain by the Undersiders as a main way of funding their organisation. Revenue always seems to be the major problem for them, as they don't do drugs/prostitution/major crime etc.

If you can't already tell, I really like this progression of events. Since the start, I've always expected Skitter to join with the Protectorate at some point, and this was pretty much the perfect time for it to happen.

It's definitely a bit jarring, as it pretty much completely disestablishes the status quo, but that needed to happen considering just how global things seem to be getting. Frankly, I'm looking forward to seeing Weaver conducting some business in a rain forest. I mean, you think her power's terrifying in a city? She'd be pretty unstoppable in the Amazon Rain Forest.

 

What part of "break ties" are you not understanding?

 

I must've missed something. How did Taylor get a new costume so quickly?

 

Tinkers. Plus it seems it was always DDM's plan so maybe they had prepared it before hand

 

@yak: Maybe that was what was in Dragon's drawer? The reactions to what was inside would fit.