worm
Gold Morning

"There was no long-term, and trying to cling to one would only spoil it all."

This article contains spoilers regarding the ending of Worm and plot of the sequel.

“ Because I did what I had to do, I helped you, and I still feel like the stupid, self-obsessed little child that let her big brother die. It wasn't conscious, but maybe I felt like I needed to up the stakes. Pull something dramatic. Show that, with these crazy smart capes like Alexandria and Faultline around, I could still be the smartest person in the room. ”

—Tattletale to Taylor, Scourge 19.7

“ I don’t know who to call, Rex. Ambulances are for people who are alive. Police are for investigating deaths, but it’s obvious who did it. I feel so stupid. If I’d been a bit sooner… I’m sorry. ”

—Sarah Livsey, From Within 16.8

“ You'd rather die. Than see people you love die.

My life is defined by regrets. [...] I don't trust the people who are pushing for status quo, and when people are taken from you… it's not noble or good or pretty. There's no heroism to fighting cancer or hurling yourself against an Endbringer and hoping it goes away. It's just an ending. 		”

—Victoria and Tattletale, Last 20.9

Lisa Wilbourn (born Sarah Livsey), known in her cape persona as Tattletale, was a member of the Undersiders.

Personality

Lisa was often perceived as an arrogant "know-it-all" by those around her. She valued her intelligence and perceived any threat to that as a challenge. She was reticent to admit she didn't know something.[17] She drew a large amount of entertainment from "messing" with people and being unnecessarily abrasive. Additionally, it served as a method to reveal more information about the target. In private, with people she cared about, she was a more mild person, which was related to her guilt over her brother's suicide. This was also what led her to reaching out to Taylor when initially meeting her.

Without her power, Lisa was only as smart as the average person.[18][19] She believed that she was nothing without her power.[20]

Like Victoria, the Lisa before Gold Morning bought into the unwritten rules; they both wished the rules were real/official because they recognized the danger of escalation[21] (though unlike the heroes, Lisa blamed the civilians if the civilians got hurt[22]). Sometime after Victoria's group rescued Lisa and the children from Cradle (who kidnapped and chopped them into pieces),[23] during their investigation of Ratcatcher's texts, Lisa realized and told Victoria that the unwritten rules before Gold Morning were always a charade, that they never were as strong as they pretended them to be.[24]

She described her role in the Undersiders as "Ops" (although she does a lot of intelligence work as well). She goes in the field rather than simply acting as mission control because, first, Bitch insisted that everyone fight when she originally joined the team, and second, first-hand observation enhances what she can do with her power.

Before writing Ward, Wildbow stated that Lisa would be straight without powers. She struggled with establishing intimate relationships because her power supplied turn-offs so fast that any possible attraction would be dismantled within five minutes, effectively killing the romance so that she was asexual for all intents and purposes.[25][26][27] However, Ward seemingly retconned Lisa's sexual orientation. By October 2015,[28] she viewed herself as aromantic and asexual; she accepted it was probably not because of a shard influence.[29] Lisa did speculate in the epilogue of Ward, though, that in a world where she did not trigger, her alternate self would only find "shit boyfriends".[20]

She hated being alone, making sure she was around people even when she was homeless.[30]

After seeing Lisa use her power to break someone, Taylor noted that she could have been a cult leader that would make Heartbreaker look amateurish.[31]

Tattletale was a manipulator type who was in her element with smaller scale situations (e.g., taking care of the Undersiders). According to her teammates, she stuck to Coil's setup as a warlord and then manipulated its parameters: she was much less effective at running a city the farther a situation strayed away from his setup.[32] Running and looking after a city brought out her worst traits and drained her,[33] leading to big screwups such as not knowing what her own mercenaries are doing.[34] Ironically for Tattletale, Cradle successfully bought out her mercenaries right under her nose.[35] Indeed, when Tattletale is out of her element and forced to invest more of herself into larger scale situations (e.g., running a city), she ignored things that were in her element.[36]

According to Taylor and Victoria, Lisa was awful at coming up with non-verbal hand signals.[37][38][39]

Reputation

In Ward, Victoria Dallon initially believed Tattletale was primarily responsible for taking over Brockton Bay as a mastermind.[40][41] However, the rest of the Undersiders strongly disagreed with this assessment. They do not believe Tattletale is a chessmaster or a real warlord: their overall belief is that it was mostly Coil (and partly Skitter after his death) who was responsible for taking over the city.[42]

Although Tattletale claimed she was a major player in New Brockton as a information broker,[43] the Wardens considered Tattletale a mid-tier power.[44] March's Megacluster forced her and the Undersiders to flee from New Brockton[45][46] and desperately seek refuge with Faultline's Crew.[47]

Relationships

Taylor

Thanks to Coil,[48] Lisa knew that Taylor wanted to be a hero before they met.[49] When she saw Taylor for the first time, she noticed that Taylor felt "trapped" and could potentially tailspin into self-destruction.[50][51] She reminded Lisa of the brother she failed to save.[52][53] After Grue mistook Taylor as a villain, Lisa quickly got the idea of manipulating Taylor into joining the Undersiders.[54]

Taylor became Lisa's first true friend, whom she clearly adored. However, Lisa also viewed Taylor as a project. She went out of her way to befriend and help her because she saw Taylor as her chance to "redeem" herself for her brother's suicide, to prove to herself that she could steer someone roughly analogous to Rex away from self-destruction.[55][53][52][56]

Lisa's efforts significantly helped Taylor blossom as a person and grow more confident.[57] At the same time, Lisa's toxic influence (e.g., civilians are to blame if they don't get out of our way fast enough[22][58]) and Taylor's immersion in the villain culture also helped shape Taylor for the worse. As her biggest enabler,[59] while she did humor some of Taylor's more moral impulses when her hand was forced (e.g., Taylor wanting to rescue Charlotte no matter what, who Lisa otherwise would not have helped[60][61]), Lisa also continuously condoned and enabled Taylor's worst impulses that contributed to Taylor's eventual self-destruction.[62] For example, these include Taylor's inability to judge others by intent/context,[63][64][65][66] brutal/inhumane tactics,[67][68] and "my way or the highway, no alternatives left" approach.[69][70] Lisa also had a tendency to condone/hide unpleasant facts from Taylor (e.g., Coil's pursuit of Dinah,[71] Regent[72] sexually assaulting Shadow Stalker[73][74][75] and forcing Shadow Stalker to almost commit suicide[76][77]).

For a period of time, Lisa somehow tricked herself into believing she successfully prevented Taylor from self-destructing after Taylor committed her first murder.[52]

Even at the height of their friendship, Lisa was still insecure enough that she did not 100% feel like she could fall back on Taylor when it counted. She was not surprised when Taylor cut ties with the Undersiders.[18] Because she wanted to protect Taylor's feelings and was afraid of driving her away, Lisa kept enabling Taylor's impulses and did not constrain or really push back against her. After their initial meeting with Director Tagg, when Lisa subtly called out Taylor's inability to judge others by intent/context by trying to nicely reason with her about the reality of the situation and how the PRT had valid points,[78][79][80] Taylor refused to confront the situation and left the scene.[81] It was only until Taylor willingly disregarded Lisa's feelings and self-destructively turned herself into Khepri behind Lisa's back[82] that a very upset Lisa[83] actually used her power to attack Taylor for the first time. She acknowledged how she was a huge enabler of Taylor, and called out how manipulative Taylor was in her "my way or the highway, no alternatives left" approach.[84]

Although she did not understand why Taylor turned into Khepri and failed to sway her into not becoming public enemy number two,[85] Lisa uncomfortably decided to assist Khepri[86] as an uncontrolled individual[87] in the fight against Scion.[88] After Gold Morning, Lisa blamed herself for enabling Taylor's downward spiral and considered it a personal failing that, just like Rex, she failed to help and save Taylor from self-destruction.[55] She tried to avoid talking about her because it hurt too much;[89] the topic of Taylor was an emotional weak spot that could upset her if brought up.[90] Indeed, Taylor is gone[91] with her fate unknown.[92][93][94][95][96] Believing that Taylor was dead and that she essentially killed herself, Lisa's grief broke her and left her furious, bitter, and resentful of Taylor.[97][98]

She did not talk about or draw attention to Khepri. Lisa believed it was her friend's lowest and most terrible point, and did not want to risk it overshadowing Taylor, Weaver, or Skitter.[99] Even without the Khepri factor, Taylor's legacy/reputation was already highly controversial;[100][101] Lisa and the Undersiders wanted to protect Taylor's legacy, not Khepri's.[102] Wildbow speculated that not only would spreading knowledge about Khepri's identity potentially spark massive manhunts to make sure Taylor is 100% dead, but it would also badly hurt the already poor reputation of capes to the point that people might want to harm the ones who spread this knowledge.[103]

Over the course of Ward and opening herself to friendship with Victoria, Lisa came to terms with who Taylor was as an individual and better understood why Taylor did what she did.[104][105] During her discussion about the dreaming death with Victoria, she stopped blaming herself for Taylor turning into Khepri. Lisa acknowledged to Victoria that Taylor was important to her, that she lost Taylor because Taylor wanted to make a stupid grand gesture at the end, and that Taylor chose to make that decision without communicating it with anyone but Amy.[106]

Aiden

“ Little guy is leaving the nest.

He is not leaving the nest. The nest keeps him safe. 		”

—Imp and Tattletale, Radiation 18.3

After Gold Morning, Lisa took Aiden under her personal patronage.[107][108] He reminded her of the friend she failed to save.[109][110] Like Taylor, she also viewed Aiden as a project: Lisa went out of her way to help and mentor him because she saw him as her chance to "redeem" herself for failing to save Rex and Taylor.[55][56] She regretted how she exposed Taylor to increasingly reckless operations[111][112] until Taylor was no longer careful; Lisa also blamed herself for enabling Taylor's downward spiral. Thus, she took a very different approach with Aiden in an attempt to do things right.[55]

Lisa acted like a helicopter mom and was extremely protective of Aiden, putting the safety of him[113][114][115][116] and the kids[117] above her own.[118][119] She would take a knife for him.[104] Lisa wanted them to stay out of danger and away from the front lines.[120][121] For training purposes, she tried to expose him to low-danger operations where she had many nearby allies and could carefully watch over him, such as fact-finding missions[122][123][124][125] and diplomatic cape meetings.[126][127]

Lisa was not afraid to push back against Aiden, belittle him, or constrain him.[128][129] She also tended to infantilize him.[130] Lisa signed him up for self defense and martial arts lessons,[116] tried to train him in presentation,[131] bought him clothes,[132] and made sure he used a booster seat when riding in a car.[133] She told him about the negative consequences of suicide on loved ones.[97][98] Lisa did not believe in corporal punishment of children.[134]

At the start of Ward, Lisa was closed off to others[135][136] and drained from running New Brockton,[137] which brought out the worst in her[34] and hampered her ability to take care of Aiden. She somehow forgot his birthday for four months[28] and regrettably mishandled an incident between him and the Heartbroken.[138] Lisa was overcontrolling at times[139] and so protective of him[140] that others thought she was going too far.[56][141][142] When he became friends with Lookout and visited her at the hospital, she grounded him and tried to teach Aiden that everyone is a potential enemy.[143][129] He promptly ignored this so-called lesson by sending Lookout some of Lisa's intel.[144][145]

After Victoria's group rescued her, Aiden, and the kids from Cradle's Army, Lisa was no longer running New Brockton.[146][147] Over the course of opening herself to friendship with Victoria, Lisa saw how toxic her prior actions were for Aiden and the kids.[148][149] This realization motivated her to start becoming a better example for them.[150][151][152] Now that she was in her element, balanced out by Victoria, and had a better headspace, Lisa shined when taking care of Aiden and the kids.[153][154][155] She paid good attention to them, set clear boundaries, and effectively handled tense conflicts.[156][157][158] On one occasion, she even cooked grilled cheese and tomato soup for them.[159] She also learned to be less of a helicopter mom, relaxing some of her control over Aiden and trusting him with others like Victoria.[160][161][162] Though much to Victoria's chagrin, she still liked to hand hold the kids.[150]

In the epilogue of Ward, Victoria speculated that in a world where Lisa did not trigger, the alternate Lisa might have been a social worker. However, Lisa disagreed because she believed she was only good at caring about Aiden and the kids.[163]

Epeios

Lisa contracted Epeios to create a virus that was used when the Undersiders attacked the PRT headquarters.[164]

After losing Taylor for good, Lisa wanted a friendship so badly that she befriended Epeios, or tricked herself into believing they were friends. He later betrayed her, which further worsened Lisa's mental state.[165]

Sierra

Since Gold Morning, Lisa had worked closely with Sierra.[166][167] In the final arc of Ward, Wildbow speculated that the one person without powers that Lisa cared about enough to make a sacrifice for[168] was Sierra.[167][169][170]

Brian

Lisa and Brian had a recurring argument over the fact that he lived separately from the team, leaving him nowhere to go when he was injured. Given that she can sometimes infer incorrect information with her power, Brian also took to calling her a 'dumbass' on occasion.[171][172]

Appearance

Lisa had a particular contrast between her costumed and civilian personas, with a number of details accumulating to throw people off.[173][11] That said, she was universally described as a Caucasian[174] girl with long and straight dirty blonde hair, "bottle-glass green" eyes, and a vulpine grin.[175][176][11][177][178] Her looks were somewhere in the middle between average and pretty;[11] Taylor thought Lisa was more pretty than plain.[179]

Lisa's build was lighter, skinnier, and less athletic than Victoria Dallon.[180] Note that Victoria had an athletic slim build[181] with a chest larger than average.[182][183]

She was noticeably shorter than Victoria: Lisa's height was roughly 5'6.5" or 168.84 cm.
(According to the trigger dream experienced by Lisa and Victoria when they entered the dream room layer of shardspace, Lisa was shorter than Victoria as the legs of a 15.5-year-old Lisa (i.e., born between April and July 1994,[*] triggered between September and December 2009[*]) was around the same height as the legs of a 14.5-year-old Victoria (i.e., born between November and December 1993,[*] dream depiction was 14 so scene happened between May and June 2008[*]).[180] The 14.5-year-old Victoria was notably shorter than the full-grown Victoria.[180] In the City, when Victoria was on the same rooftop surface as Lisa, wrapped her arms around Lisa, and then flew to save her from Titan Ophion's shockwave, Lisa was noticeably shorter than Victoria: her ear was close to Victoria's mouth.[184] Victoria was 174 cm or 5'8.5" at the time.[181] Suppose the height of an adult head is 2⁄15 of their total height and that the height between Victoria's mid-ear line and lip line is 2⁄9 of her head height (i.e., 4⁄135 of Victoria's total height). Thus, Lisa's height was roughly 1 - (4⁄135) = 131⁄135 of Victoria's total height, i.e., around 5'6.5" or 168.84 cm.

During Gold Morning, Taylor claimed that Lisa was taller than her in April 2011 when they had their first one-armed hug, and that Lisa was noticeably shorter than her in June 2013.[185][186] Taylor was approximately 5'8" in April 2011[187][188] and 5'10" in June 2013,[189] which would imply Lisa's height was between 5'8" and 5'9". However, Taylor was explicitly an unreliable narrator when describing people's heights; according to Wildbow, a reader could safely ignore nonsensical height specifics from her PoV.[190][191] Lisa cannot be taller than 5'8" as she was noticeably shorter than Victoria in Ward.

Sometime later during Gold Morning, Taylor stepped close to Lisa, grabbed her hand, and pulled her into a hug. The bridge of Lisa's nose hit Taylor's collarbone.[192] Suppose the height between Taylor's chin line and collarbone line is roughly ¼ of her head height (i.e., 1⁄30 of her total height). The height between Taylor's collarbone line and heel line would roughly be 1 - (2⁄15 + 1⁄30) = ⅚ of Taylor's total height, i.e., around 148.17 cm or 4'10.3". Assuming the height between Lisa's nose bridge line and the top of her head is roughly 5⁄9 of her head height (i.e., 2⁄27 of her total height), then the height between Lisa's nose bridge line and heel line would roughly be 1 - (2⁄27) = 25⁄27 of Lisa's total height. If Lisa's height was 5'6.5" as calculated earlier, then the height between her nose bridge line and heel line would roughly be 156.33 cm or 5'1.6". Note how she could plausibly hit Taylor's collarbone with her nose bridge by tilting her head down and/or leaning in a little. In comparison, it would be implausible for a Lisa with a total height between 5'8" and 5'9" to reasonably do the same.)


After being attacked by Jack Slash, she had major scarring ala a Glasgow Grin, severing facial muscles and damaging salivary glands.[193] However, after Grue went through a second trigger event, he copied Othala's ability to heal his teammates from the effects of Bonesaw's poisons. This also dealt with Lisa's scar: she was left with only faint scars and no damage to the interior of her mouth.[194] Most people don't even notice them.[195]

Civilian

In her civilian guise, Lisa's freckles over the bridge of her nose were visible.[175] She favored a more subdued or traditional style of dress; she had a habit of having her hair tied back, knotted or hidden in a bun.[173][11]

Tattletale

In her cape guise, she left her long hair down.[11][196] She also wore a black mask that hid her freckles and disguised the lines of her face.[173][11]

First Costume

She wore a simple black domino mask and a skintight black-and-lavender outfit.[176][173][196][197][198][199] Her outfit was primarily lavender with black lines; one horizontal stripe across the upper chest, a vertical stripe slashing down from that, another horizontal line jutting out from halfway down that vertical one, followed by another vertical line piercing that horizontal line. The whole formed a large, stylized "Tt", although it was in such broad strokes that many people missed it.[200] Other black lines were present on her arms and legs. There was a barely-visible emblem of a stylized eye on her chest, dark gray on black.[173]

She sported a compact "utility belt" diagonally across her hips[173] with a small handgun in one of the larger pouches.[201]

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

For improved protection, Taylor gave Tattletale a spider-silk costume that looked virtually identical to Tattletale's first costume.[202]

Timeskip

Before the Slaughterhouse Nine-Thousand's debut, Tattletale updated her spider-silk costume with more defined lines of black, a new mask that covered the entire upper half of her face, and small pads on her shoulders, elbows, and knees. Instead of a handgun, she had an extremely illegal PRT laser pistol.[203]

Ward

Sometime after Gold Morning and before the events of Ward, Tattletale lost her laser pistol and spider-silk costume; they did not show up as part of her identity in the dream room layer of shardspace.[204] Indeed, her new costume was not resistant to knives[205][104] or bullets.[206] She adopted a version of her first costume that used the same design but with inverted colours: primarily black with royal purple lines and insignia.[200] Her mask was still black;[207] she went back to her original handgun.[204]

In cold weather, she wore a long coat/jacket with pockets over her costume.[208][209][210][211] Wildbow speculated that this coat/jacket was fitted and black.[212]

Abilities and Powers

Lisa is best described as a "pericog",[213][214] or short-ranged clairvoyant,[215][15] having the ability to accurately infer and extrapolate an incredible wealth of information from the smallest piece of data. She needs to have some information about the target to begin with, and from there her enhanced intuition fills in the gaps in her knowledge, allowing her to (among other things) crack computer passwords, profile and "cold read" people around her, and make predictions about the most likely outcome of a given situation.[11] She's very accurate, although not infallible. She has to consciously direct her power, needing to refocus and starting again if she gets useless information.[216] She can become mentally overloaded if she tries to take in and analyze too much information all at once. Further overuse of her power (especially on people or living things) leads to severe migraines, a common issue for many thinkers.

At one point, Lisa claimed to Taylor that her power found it very difficult to extrapolate information about people.[217] However, Lisa lied to her about this detail:[218] Wildbow speculated that she saw straight through Taylor and was trying to convince her otherwise.[219]

Her power developed over the course of the story but she continued to struggle with headaches.[220] Following periods of intense headaches she was unable to use her powers.[221]

To Lisa, the knowledge granted by her power was built on supposition without proof or guarantee. If she made a wrong assumption somewhere, that could lead to incorrect extrapolations down the line. Thus, Sy from Twig was more flexible than her about if and when to backtrack or abort a particular line of thinking. Lisa had a tendency to build one comprehensive hypothetical. In contrast, Sy avoided a single point of failure by setting up and maintaining several hypotheticals to adapt on the fly, but he could let the long-term suffer by being preoccupied with all his mental juggling in the short-term.[18]

Like Taylor she has inexplicable finesse with a gun.[222][223] At a much later point she was even able to accurately read lips.[224]

Shard

Lisa's powers are the result of receiving a shard from Scion.[225] Glaistig Uaine called Lisa's shard the negotiator.[6] Still, her passenger drives her to try and reveal secrets.[226]

As a Thinker power, her shard was relatively power-hungry (i.e., does a lot of calculations behind the scenes). Lisa's thinker headaches were a safeguard to prevent her power from being overused to the point that they would exhaust her shard's power reserves.[227]

When Lisa visited the negotiator in shardspace, she was angry at it, calling it a "shitty bitch".[228] She had a very good reason for why she despised it.[229]

Chevalier saw her power as a spidery entity, that reached out to observe and pick up images from the environment around Lisa.[230]

Equipment

Lisa kept files and charts on many threats.[231]

After Epeios betrayed her and infiltrated her computer, she was forced to find a means to stop a computer tinker with resources from looking at her stuff.[165] She acquired a large emergency server at home that stored her computer files and obfuscated them (e.g., created millions of deceptive copies, randomly shuffled files into it): her power could intuit the correct information from it.[232]

History

Background

Sarah Livsey was born outside of Brockton Bay[20][233] between April 9, 1994 and July 8, 1994.[*] Her family was rich and had its own businesses; she had an element of relative privilege.[234][174] Sarah also had a brother named Reggie (Rex) who was two years older than her.[14][*]

Around the time that Sarah started high school in 2008, she noticed Rex only spent time with her because it was his duty. She stopped accepting his attempts and they drifted apart. She began to resent him for acting like a brother than not being a real brother, being the popular kid, and being the favorite child.[234]

Rex's Suicide and the Aftermath

Eventually, Sarah started to notice something going on with her brother. He appeared to be bottling something up inside and got increasingly distant until one day in the fall of 2009, he hanged himself.[235][*] While searching for her stuff at home, Sarah would later find Rex's body in his walk-in closet.[236] Absolutely distraught, she desperately scrambled in a futile effort to save her already-deceased brother.[237][238] Sarah was so overwhelmed with guilt and grief that she did not call anyone in the immediate aftermath: she stumbled out of the house completely lost and in a daze.[12] Wildbow speculated that her family would later find her wandering around in this state.[239]

Sarah blamed herself and felt stupid for missing the details that pointed to her brother's imminent suicide.[12][240][241][52] She was unable to figure out why he committed suicide;[13] she considered it a personal failing that she failed to help and save Rex from self-destruction.[55]

Sarah mentioned to her family that she had noticed something going on. Lisa would later tell Taylor that in grief, they started blaming her for this. She also told Taylor that it seemed like she was in a pressure cooker and that everyone knew that she had known something and hadn't spoken up to help.[13] However, Lisa did not tell Taylor about how she handled the immediate aftermath of finding Rex: Wildbow speculated that this was also a factor into why they started blaming her.[239]

A few days after Rex's suicide,[242] she triggered in her sleep, dreaming about it.[13] Wildbow speculated that her survivor's guilt after Rex's suicide was a key factor in her trigger event.[243][53] This event happened about a year and a half before the start of Worm.[10] Her father then caught on and started to use her power for the family's benefit.[13]

Running Away from Home

It eventually became too much for Sarah. Two months after her trigger,[10] she stole some of her parents' money, ran away from home, and changed her name to "Lisa Wilbourn". Although Lisa claimed to Taylor that she ran away because of her dad's controlling behavior and the ugliness she was seeing in people,[13] Wildbow speculated that the real reason was more her feelings of guilt over Rex.[244][12][238] In the epilogue of Ward, she admitted it to Victoria: Lisa believed her running away from home was inevitable, even in a world where she did not trigger.[20]

Later, Lisa traveled to Brockton Bay because she was a rookie and believed the city was cape friendly.[20] She used her power to drain the accounts of several rich men while making sure she covered her tracks. She then went to a clothes store and inspected some clothing. She sent an employee running after telling her that her boyfriend could be cheating on her. She was then apprehended by a Boardwalk "Enforcer" who took her to a nearby alley where Coil called her and said that he would like to "buy" her services.[245]

Lisa met with Grue, Bitch, and Regent at the Train-yards. She was told to get a costume by Grue after revealing she didn't have one before offering to serve as their contact. Bitch refused and told her that she would have to 'get her hands dirty' if she wanted an equal share. She agreed.[245]

Story Start

Lisa arrived with the other Undersiders and got off Bitch's dog. When Grue asked what happened to Lung, she told him what insects Skitter had bit Lung and said that he wouldn't feel so good tomorrow. She then told them that Skitter was shy before alerting her teammates to the fact that someone was coming. She got back onto one of Bitch's dogs, asked Skitter her name, and then told her that she should get out of there before they left.[246]

Later, a 'Tt' left a message in the Connections section of the PHO message board for Skitter saying that she owed her a favor and would like to meet.[247] When Skitter replied back, asking for proof of her identity, Lisa sent a reply a few minutes later and offered to meet with her.[248]

Lisa later went with Brian and Alec to meet Skitter. She made a bet with Alec on if Skitter would come in costume or not and won. Then, after Brian introduced himself, she did so as well before giving Skitter a lunchbox containing two thousand dollars. She said that Skitter could take it as a gift for saving them or the first installment in the monthly allowance as a member of the Undersiders. She then told Skitter what she had done to Lung before Brian stopped her.[249]

Once Skitter agreed to join the Undersiders, Lisa asked Brian what they were going to do. She suggested that they go to their place and, if Rachel was there, fill her in. She asked Skitter if she wanted to change in a normal alley before descending the fire escape. After Skitter came down and introduced herself as Taylor, Lisa pulled her into a one-armed hug before they left.

When Taylor expressed that she was jealous of their place, she told her that it was her space too and then showed her the rooms. She suggested cleaning out the storage closet and turning it into a room for Taylor and groused about how Brian had ruined their nine hundred dollar couch by bleeding all over it. When Brian joked about her 'knowing everything', she said that she did and told Taylor about her power.[250]

Post-Leviathan

Like all of the Undersiders, Lisa took over a territory, and helped plot against Coil. She setup her territory in a shelter. Essentially hidden in plain sight, this allowed for better information gathering and a place for her mercenaries to operate.

Tattletale assisted Skitter in locating a runaway that was part of the merchants.

Post-Echidna

With the removal of Coil she was effectively the power behind the throne that Skitter sat on. With the abdication of Skitter to join the Protectorate she would take her orders from Grue at least nominally.

Sent a letter to her former boss and current friend while they were in prison.

Survived being targeted by the Simurgh.

Post-Timeskip

Took care of Brockton bay. Welcomed Weaver when she came to visit.

Provided ops support when fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine-Thousand.

She realized the source of superpowers just before the End of the World.

Gold Morning

At the meeting about the event she fills in the rest of the gathered parahuman leaders about what they faced.

She and her team were instrumental in the ending if the event, though not in the way that other parahumans were instrumental.

Early Ward

In the two years since Gold Morning Tattletale secured her position as a power player. She even lent favors to certain groups to gauge their potential. She convinced the Wardens to leave 'Hollow' Point alone when the villains moved in.[251]

When the restored Victoria Dallon came to 'Hollow' Point for a visit, the villains there contacted Tattletale, who passed on a note saying 'Turn around and fly home, Glory Hole'.[4]

Later on, she met with her in New Brockton. Tattletale tried to encourage Vicky not to interfere with 'Hollow' Point. As it meant she would be tapped as a resource. When Glory Girl asked if she regretted her role in Amy Dallon's fall from grace Tattletale tried to avoid the question.[252] Later Tattletale and the Undersiders came to Hollow Point to discussed a proposed offensive option against the Fallen, she discovered the surveillance Victorias team had and told them to leave while they could since she was about to share their location with her clients.[253]

She was later part of this concentrated attack on the Fallen during the Mathers Compound Assault. Strangely she seemed to have ducked out during the attack,[254]likely because of Looksee's attentions.[255]

Post-Goddess' Takeover

Lisa and the Undersiders went on the run as they were being targeted by March.

Lisa assisted Breakthrough in tracking down Cradle. Unfortunately, she had her body dismembered by him and her head was taken as a hostage.

She was rescued from Earth N.

Post-Time Bubble Pop

Victoria went to Lisa for help when she discovered an incriminating diary that had been written in her name. The two went on a detective mission, and ultimately figured out that Teacher was behind it.

She was present during the assembly of the second team aiming for Teacher's stronghold.[256] Through Kenzie, she got a look at all the raw data Teacher had been collecting on everyone.[257] Lisa consoled Kenzie immediately after Swansong's death.[153]

Post-Attack on Teacher

Tattletale agreed to Antares' deal with Deathchester. She gets accidentally pulled into the dream room of Rain's Cluster together with Breakthrough.[258] She was able to snipe the initial devices of tinker-guardian,[259] successfully bluffed it to reach Cradle, and took some knife-wounds from him to protect her wards.[260]

Seeked out the Negotiator in Shardspace.[228] Agrees to cooperate with the Wardens after the incident[261] and is left in supervision of Lookout.[262]

She was overseeing the second Shin crisis alongside the Wardens and helped to control the situation.[263]

The Ice Breaks

Lisa was alongside the Undersiders and Breakthrough during the oversight duty of Titan Oberon and Eve. During the battle of titans she stayed with the rear group and made some guesses about the inevitability and fatality of this kind of situation.[264] She stayed at the Wardens' camp for the remainder of the battle. Once the majority of capes had withdrawn from the fight she insisted on another, last push to cover for Eve's retreat, saying that it will be a "draw" option, that will minimize the losses.[265]

Tattletale continued to assist the Wardens during the continuation of the crisis.

Lisa directed Breakthrough to the Contessa's seat of power inside the Shardrealm.[266]

Faced with Lookout's mental breakdown Tattletale decided to put Kenzie to sleep with her medication.[267]

Tattletale stayed in the Wardens' HQ and skipped the initial engagement with the Simurgh together with the majority of Undersiders.[268] However, they were dragged into the battle after Simurgh captured the Mathers Giant and went after Dinah Alcott.[269]

After Simurgh was driven out of the Wardens' Complex, Tattletale confronted Victoria Dallon about her mass murder plan. She also brought in Semiramis to remove Victoria's recent wounds.[270]

Lisa had not infected herself with the parahuman plague.

She welcomed Victoria back at the Wardens' Complex.[271]

Ward Epilogue

Tattletale continued working with the Wardens' in an attempt to differentiate herself from more troublesome villains.[272]

Chapter Appearances

Worm Chapter Appearances
Gestation
1. Gestation 1.1 Absent
2. Gestation 1.2 Absent
3. Gestation 1.3 Absent
4. Gestation 1.4 Absent
5. Gestation 1.5 Debut
6. Gestation 1.6 Mentioned
x. Interlude 1.x Absent
Insinuation
1. Insinuation 2.1 Absent
2. Insinuation 2.2 Mentioned
3. Insinuation 2.3 Mentioned
4. Insinuation 2.4 Absent
5. Insinuation 2.5 Appears
6. Insinuation 2.6 Appears
7. Insinuation 2.7 Appears
8. Insinuation 2.8 Appears
9. Insinuation 2.9 Appears
x. Interlude 2 Absent
Agitation
1. Agitation 3.1 Mentioned
2. Agitation 3.2 Mentioned
3. Agitation 3.3 Appears
4. Agitation 3.4 Mentioned
5. Agitation 3.5 Mentioned
6. Agitation 3.6 Appears
7. Agitation 3.7 Appears
8. Agitation 3.8 Appears
9. Agitation 3.9 Appears
10. Agitation 3.10 Appears
11. Agitation 3.11 Appears
12. Agitation 3.12 Appears
x. Interlude 3 Mentioned
Shell
1. Shell 4.1 Appears
2. Shell 4.2 Appears
3. Shell 4.3 Appears
4. Shell 4.4 Appears
5. Shell 4.5 Appears
6. Shell 4.6 Appears
x. Interlude 3.5 (Bonus) Absent
7. Shell 4.7 Appears
8. Shell 4.8 Appears
9. Shell 4.9 Appears
10. Shell 4.10 Mentioned
11. Shell 4.11 Appears
x. Interlude 4 Absent
Hive
1. Hive 5.1 Appears
2. Hive 5.2 Appears
3. Hive 5.3 Mentioned
4. Hive 5.4 Appears
5. Hive 5.5 Appears
6. Hive 5.6 Mentioned
7. Hive 5.7 Absent
8. Hive 5.8 Mentioned
9. Hive 5.9 Appears
10. Hive 5.10 Appears
x. Interlude 5 Absent
Tangle
1. Tangle 6.1 Appears
2. Tangle 6.2 Appears
3. Tangle 6.3 Appears
4. Tangle 6.4 Appears
5. Tangle 6.5 Appears
6. Tangle 6.6 Appears
7. Tangle 6.7 Appears
8. Tangle 6.8 Appears
9. Tangle 6.9 Appears
x. Interlude 6 Absent
Buzz
1. Buzz 7.1 Appears
2. Buzz 7.2 Absent
3. Buzz 7.3 Mentioned
4. Buzz 7.4 Appears
5. Buzz 7.5 Appears
6. Buzz 7.6 Mentioned
7. Buzz 7.7 Appears
8. Buzz 7.8 Appears
9. Buzz 7.9 Appears
10. Buzz 7.10 Appears
11. Buzz 7.11 Appears
12. Buzz 7.12 Appears
x. Interlude 7 Absent
Extermination
1. Extermination 8.1 Appears
2. Extermination 8.2 Appears
y. Interlude 8.y Point of View
3. Extermination 8.3 Mentioned
4. Extermination 8.4 Absent
5. Extermination 8.5 Mentioned
6. Extermination 8.6 Mentioned
7. Extermination 8.7 Appears
8. Extermination 8.8 Appears
z. Interlude 8.z Mentioned
Sentinel
1. Sentinel 9.1 Absent
2. Sentinel 9.2 Absent
3. Sentinel 9.3 Absent
4. Sentinel 9.4 Absent
5. Sentinel 9.5 Absent
6. Sentinel 9.6 Appears
Parasite
1. Parasite 10.1 Appears
2. Parasite 10.2 Appears
3. Parasite 10.3 Appears
4. Parasite 10.4 Appears
5. Parasite 10.5 Appears
6. Parasite 10.6 Appears
x. Interlude 10 Appears
x. Interlude 10.5 Mentioned
Infestation
1. Infestation 11.1 Absent
2. Infestation 11.2 Absent
3. Infestation 11.3 Appears
4. Infestation 11.4 Appears
5. Infestation 11.5 Appears
6. Infestation 11.6 Appears
7. Infestation 11.7 Appears
8. Infestation 11.8 Appears
a. Interlude 11a Mentioned
b. Interlude 11b Absent
c. Interlude 11c Absent
d. Interlude 11d Absent
e. Interlude 11e Absent
f. Interlude 11f Absent
g. Interlude 11g Absent
h. Interlude 11h Mentioned
Plague
1. Plague 12.1 Mentioned
2. Plague 12.2 Appears
3. Plague 12.3 Appears
4. Plague 12.4 Appears
5. Plague 12.5 Mentioned
6. Plague 12.6 Mentioned
7. Plague 12.7 Mentioned
8. Plague 12.8 Mentioned
x. Interlude 12 Mentioned
y. Interlude 12.5 Absent
Snare
1. Snare 13.1 Appears
2. Snare 13.2 Appears
x. Interlude 13.5 (Donation Bonus) Mentioned
3. Snare 13.3 Absent
4. Snare 13.4 Absent
5. Snare 13.5 Appears
6. Snare 13.6 Appears
7. Snare 13.7 Appears
8. Snare 13.8 Appears
9. Snare 13.9 Appears
10. Snare 13.10 Mentioned
y. Interlude 13 Mentioned
Prey
1. Prey 14.1 Appears
2. Prey 14.2 Appears
3. Prey 14.3 Appears
4. Prey 14.4 Appears
5. Prey 14.5 Appears
6. Prey 14.6 Appears
7. Prey 14.7 Appears
8. Prey 14.8 Appears
9. Prey 14.9 Mentioned
10. Prey 14.10 Mentioned
11. Prey 14.11 Appears
x. Interlude 14.x Mentioned
y. Interlude 14.y Absent
Colony
1. Colony 15.1 Appears
x. Interlude 15.x Mentioned
2. Colony 15.2 Appears
3. Colony 15.3 Appears
y. Interlude 15.y Mentioned
4. Colony 15.4 Appears
5. Colony 15.5 Appears
6. Colony 15.6 Mentioned
7. Colony 15.7 Appears
z. Interlude 15.z Absent
8. Colony 15.8 Mentioned
9. Colony 15.9 Absent
10. Colony 15.10 Appears
i. Interlude 15 Appears
Monarch
1. Monarch 16.1 Appears
2. Monarch 16.2 Appears
x. Interlude 16.x Absent
3. Monarch 16.3 Appears
4. Monarch 16.4 Appears
5. Monarch 16.5 Appears
6. Monarch 16.6 Mentioned
y. Interlude 16.y Mentioned
7. Monarch 16.7 Mentioned
8. Monarch 16.8 Mentioned
9. Monarch 16.9 Appears
10. Monarch 16.10 Appears
z. Interlude 16.z Absent
11. Monarch 16.11 Absent
12. Monarch 16.12 Mentioned
13. Monarch 16.13 Appears
Queen
1. Queen 18.1 Appears
2. Queen 18.2 Appears
x. Interlude 18.x Absent
3. Queen 18.3 Appears
4. Queen 18.4 Appears
y. Interlude 18.y Absent
5. Queen 18.5 Appears
6. Queen 18.6 Appears
z. Interlude 18.z Mentioned
7. Queen 18.7 Appears
8. Queen 18.8 Appears
f. Interlude 18.f Appears
i. Interlude 18 Appears
Scourge
1. Scourge 19.1 Appears
2. Scourge 19.2 Appears
3. Scourge 19.3 Appears
x. Interlude 19.x Absent
4. Scourge 19.4 Appears
5. Scourge 19.5 Appears
6. Scourge 19.6 Mentioned
7. Scourge 19.7 Appears
y. Interlude 19.y Mentioned
z. Interlude 19.z Absent
Chrysalis
1. Chrysalis 20.1 Mentioned
2. Chrysalis 20.2 Mentioned
3. Chrysalis 20.3 Mentioned
4. Chrysalis 20.4 Mentioned
5. Chrysalis 20.5 Absent
x. Interlude 20.x Absent
y. Interlude 20.y Appears
Imago
1. Imago 21.1 Appears
2. Imago 21.2 Appears
3. Imago 21.3 Mentioned
4. Imago 21.4 Mentioned
5. Imago 21.5 Mentioned
6. Imago 21.6 Mentioned
7. Imago 21.7 Appears
x. Interlude 21.x Mentioned
y. Interlude 21.y Mentioned
Cell
1. Cell 22.1 Mentioned
2. Cell 22.2 Mentioned
3. Cell 22.3 Mentioned
4. Cell 22.4 Mentioned
5. Cell 22.5 Absent
6. Cell 22.6 Appears
x. Interlude 22.x Appears
y. Interlude 22.y Absent
Drone
1. Drone 23.1 Mentioned
2. Drone 23.2 Absent
3. Drone 23.3 Mentioned
4. Drone 23.4 Absent
5. Drone 23.5 Appears
x. Interlude 23 Appears
Crushed
1. Crushed 24.1 Mentioned
2. Crushed 24.2 Mentioned
3. Crushed 24.3 Appears
4. Crushed 24.4 Absent
5. Crushed 24.5 Appears
x. Interlude 24.x Appears
y. Interlude 24.y Mentioned
Scarab
1. Scarab 25.1 Absent
2. Scarab 25.2 Absent
3. Scarab 25.3 Mentioned
4. Scarab 25.4 Absent
5. Scarab 25.5 Appears
6. Scarab 25.6 Appears
x. Interlude 25 Absent
Sting
1. Sting 26.1 Appears
2. Sting 26.2 Appears
3. Sting 26.3 Appears
x. Interlude 26.x Appears
4. Sting 26.4 Absent
5. Sting 26.5 Appears
6. Sting 26.6 Mentioned
a. Interlude 26a Mentioned
b. Interlude 26b Appears
y. Interlude 26 Appears
Extinction
1. Extinction 27.1 Appears
2. Extinction 27.2 Appears
3. Extinction 27.3 Appears
4. Extinction 27.4 Appears
5. Extinction 27.5 Absent
x. Interlude 27.x Appears
y. Interlude 27.y Absent
Cockroaches
1. Cockroaches 28.1 Appears
2. Cockroaches 28.2 Appears
3. Cockroaches 28.3 Appears
4. Cockroaches 28.4 Appears
5. Cockroaches 28.5 Appears
6. Cockroaches 28.6 Appears
x. Interlude 28 Appears
Venom
1. Venom 29.1 Appears
2. Venom 29.2 Appears
3. Venom 29.3 Appears
4. Venom 29.4 Appears
5. Venom 29.5 Appears
6. Venom 29.6 Mentioned
7. Venom 29.7 Mentioned
8. Venom 29.8 Mentioned
9. Venom 29.9 Appears
x. Interlude 29 Absent
Speck
1. Speck 30.1 Appears
2. Speck 30.2 Appears
3. Speck 30.3 Appears
4. Speck 30.4 Appears
5. Speck 30.5 Appears
6. Speck 30.6 Appears
7. Speck 30.7 Appears
Teneral
1. Teneral e.1 Absent
2. Teneral e.2 Mentioned
3. Teneral e.3 Absent
4. Teneral e.4 Mentioned
5. Teneral e.5 Absent
x. Interlude: End Point of View
Ward Chapter Appearances
Flare
1. Flare 2.1 Absent
2. Flare 2.2 Absent
3. Flare 2.3 Absent
4. Flare 2.4 Absent
5. Flare 2.5 Absent
6. Flare 2.6 Absent
7. Flare 2.7 Mentioned
x. Interlude 2 II Absent

Quotes

Fanart Gallery

References

  1. ↑ "I apologize for the manner of our meeting, I hope my soldiers were not too rough on you, Lisa Wilbourn," the voice on the other end was smooth, calm, unruffled, "Or is it Sarah Livsey?"

    "Either or," she replied, "Lisa these days." - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  2. ↑ “You’re a jerk, Lise,” Brian frowned, “Hogging the new girl to yourself.”

    “You get your morning meetings with her, I want to go shopping, cope,” Lisa stuck out her tongue at Brian.

    “Alright,” Brian shrugged, “Fugly Bob’s for dinner?”

    “Sounds good,” Lisa agreed. She turned to me, eyebrows quirked.

    “I’m down for Fugly Bob’s,” I conceded.

    “Don’t spend so much you draw attention,” Brian warned.

    We parted ways with the boys, Lisa wrapping her arm around my shoulders and going on about what she wanted to get. Her enthusiasm was catching, and I found myself smiling. - Excerpt from Shell 4.1
  3. ↑ The message was titled, simply, "Bug"

    I clicked it and waited impatiently for the outdated system and overloaded school modem to load up the page. What I got was brief.
    Subject: Bug

    Owe you one. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?

    Send a message,

    Tt.
    The post was followed by two pages of people commenting. Three people suggested it was something important, while a half dozen more people decried them as tinfoil hats, Parahumans.net's term for conspiracy theorists.

    It was meaningful, though. I couldn't interpret it any other way; Tattletale had found a way to get in contact with me. - Excerpt from Insinuation 2.2
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 With all that in mind, I still stopped in my tracks when I read the note.
    Turn around and fly home, Glory Hole
    -TT
    They'd asked around, huh? - Excerpt from Flare 2.7
  5. ↑ "Well that's really fucking inconvenient," Tattletale said.

    "Really fucking sorry to inconvenience you, Tats," he retorted. - Excerpt from Last 20.6
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 “Testing. Testing.” It was a young woman.

    “I’m here, Tattletale,” he spoke, letting his power alter his voice.
    [...]
    "You're talking to the negotiator," Glaistig Uaine observed. Eidolon nodded. - Excerpt from Interlude 27.x
  7. ↑ “And finally, a bag of rubber bands for some of the hand exercises and-” she paused, raising a bag filled with colorful stress balls. “Stress helpers! We have a variety!”

    There was a part of me that wanted to groan at the forced cheer, and at the even more forced use of ‘helper’. I went with it, maintaining a smile and peering at the bag. It wasn’t worth making her an adversary.

    “We have the faces, Grimace Gus, Dopey Dan, Pinhead Pam, and a few others. I have a few of these myself. You can pick one to represent someone you hate and channel that emotion into getting better.”

    No blonde Smug Susans. Too bad.

    Hearing Anne Lynn get so excited over little toys helped me put my finger on her image and way of presenting herself. She made me think of a kindergarten teacher. I could imagine her hyping up a class of munchkins with the same attitude she’d shown around me. - Excerpt from Torch 7.1
  8. ↑ “I went there. Last night. To the place the powers come from. One of them, apparently. Breakthrough, Damsel of Distress, Tattletale.”

    “What the hell are you doing, associating with Tattletale?”

    “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “Focus, Amy.”

    “I’ve wondered where you get some weird ideas in your head about me, and now I find out you’ve been associating with the queen of head-screws? It kind of really does matter.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.5
  9. ↑ “The world’s going to end!” the jabbering cape screamed. His hand moved, and the point caught on . She twisted her head to follow the knife, then the point dragged through skin sideways, returning to her throat.

    I turned my attention away from Rain.

    “Hey, Zugzwang,” Tattletale said.

    “Fuck you! I know you’re the Undersiders’ head fucker! Open your mouth and I’ll open her throat!”

    He cut Dinah, along the jawline. As Grue started forward, Zugzwang returned the knife to her throat.

    “You’re being awfully stupid for a mastermind,” Sveta said.

    “I know what you do too, Sveta Karelia,” Zugzwang said. “I bet my hand’s faster than yours. I also know you all need her.”

    Tattletale looked back at me. - Excerpt from Last 20.5
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Tattletale is a year older than Taylor, 16. tested out to claim her GED. Counting backward, before 1.1, she had one year with the Undersiders, maybe four or so months living on/around the Boardwalk, and two months existing at home post-trigger. Triggered 1.5 years prior. - Private email conversation with Wildbow, archived with permission on Spacebattles
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 Tattletale, Lisa Wilbourn (Also Sarah Livsey) – Controls central Downtown, though she doesn't show much presence. Seventeen years old, Tattletale possesses enhanced intuition, with the ability to close gaps in her knowledge or draw natural conclusions from related areas of knowledge. This renders her a master at obtaining information, cracking encryption and playing head games with her enemies.

    Lisa (Tattletale's civilian guise) favors a more subdued or traditional style of dress, and makes a habit of having her hair tied back, knotted or hidden in a bun. Described as fitting somewhere in the middle of the scale between average and pretty, Lisa has straight blond hair, a smattering of freckles across her nose and a perpetual vulpine grin.

    Tattletale wears a black mask around her eyes, covering her freckles and leaves her long blond hair down, in contrast to her civilian self. Wears a lavender and black costume with thick vertical and horizontal bars of black, with the emblem of a stylized eye on her chest. Sports a belt with a holstered gun. - Cast (In-Depth)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 The scene shifted, the path from her brother’s bedroom to the phone not even committed to memory. She reached the phone, and she held her hand over the list of numbers. Parents, names that might have been family friends, emergency services.

    "I don't know who to call, Rex," she mumbled, and her voice was small, timid. "Ambulances are for people who are alive. Police are for investigating deaths, but it's obvious who did it. I feel so stupid."

    Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked to clarify it, looking at the names: 'June Livsey'. 'Fred Livsey'.

    She didn't press the button. Quietly, she hung up the phone, and headed out the door, head hanging.

    “If I’d been a bit sooner…”
    [...]
    [...] Lost, dazed, [...] not even glancing either way to check for traffic.

    “I’m sorry.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 "I'm sorry," I said.

    "So am I," Lisa sighed. "I've spent so long trying to figure it out, but I couldn't. You'd think the star athlete might be gay, but it wasn't that. Something else. I let on to my family that I'd noticed something, after, and they started blaming me. They were grieving, but that doesn't excuse it, does it?"

    I shook my head.

    "Calling me stupid, an idiot," Lisa looked away. "It got to be too much, like I was in a pressure cooker, everywhere I went, it was about him, and there was always this feeling, like everyone was aware that I'd known something and hadn't spoken up, hadn't done something to help. I think I had my trigger event while I was asleep, tossing and turning and dreaming about it all. And then, boom, I wake up and I start figuring stuff out, with killer migraines on the side. Maybe if I'd caught on that it was powers sooner, I might have been more secretive, but my dad caught on. Did a complete turnaround. Faked affection, hid the real feelings, all to get me to use my power for the family's benefit."

    Lisa shrugged. “I was already seeing too much ugly, even before the powers. Seeing more of it? Seeing when people were being fake, when everything else was still screwy because of Rex’s suicide? It was too much. I took more money than I should have from my parents and I ran.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 “Rex,” Tattletale said.

    “Hm?”

    "His name was Reggie, but he got into sports in high school. They started calling him Rex, until everyone used the name. I don't mean this to be insulting, but you were kind of opposites in a lot of ways. He was this popular guy, charming."

    "Your boyfriend?"

    She laughed, a short sound. "My brother." - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "The one that is speaking is Tattletale, member of the Undersiders," Armsmaster spoke, his voice a hair away from being a growl, "A master manipulator, penchant for head games, likes to pretend she's psychic but she isn't. We don't know her power, possibly clairvoyance, psychometry, or some combination thereof, but we've got her pegged as a Thinker 7."

    "Seven? I'm flattered," Tattletale replied, grinning. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.7
  16. ↑ "She could be full of shit," Sveta said.

    "She could be," I admitted. "Trouble of dealing with masterminds is you can't ever know." - Excerpt from Glare 3.4
  17. ↑ "Coil sent the Travelers to me for help. She's had some physical changes," Tattletale said. She traced one of the creases in the crumpled vault door with her gloved fingers. "They wanted to get a better idea of what was going on, so they could maybe change her back."

    "And when I asked about her before, you brushed me off."

    "Don't like admitting I don't know something," she said. "And I don't know the full story. They were working on the assumption that she's turning into an Endbringer."

    That gave us all a moment's pause. - Excerpt from Queen 18.1
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 I think that a key difference between Tattletale and Sylvester is that Tattletale is driven more by personal insecurity. This is partially just her character (even peri-trigger Sarah) but also her power. Her knowledge gives her a position of power, but it's a flimsy one, all built on supposition without proof.

    She's playing Sudoku and her power is saying "Put a five there". There are no guarantees. If she continues playing that Sudoku game on the assumption that five is accurate, she's potentially building on a foundation that isn't there. If she doesn't use her power at all, she's really no smarter than your average person, and she really doesn't like being in that place.

    Sy can set up a premise and work out what happens if that five is there, but it's strictly by choice, and he's more flexible in how he can adapt and weigh where things stand if and when he needs to backtrack or abort that particular line of thinking. He is, very frequently, setting up more than one of these hypotheticals and measuring against them/reinforcing them. He's better at the mental juggling (maintaining several of these structures where Tattletale tends to build one comprehensive one), but sometimes gets so preoccupied with it in the short term that yes, he lets the long-term suffer.

    While Sy does have his insecurities, I don't think they exist to nearly the same extent that Tattletale's insecurities do. He knows he can fall back on his comrades when it counts. I think Tattletale, even at the height of her friendship with Taylor or any of the other Undersiders, doesn't 100% feel that. Perhaps that's why she's so stable when Taylor cuts ties. It's very much not a surprise. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  19. ↑ It is worth stating that thinker powers do not make individuals smarter as a rule, though they can. In fact, if one doesn’t count those who had their intelligence or wits augmented by their power, thinkers might well be less intelligent on average, given they’re drawn from the subset of the population that got themselves into the stressful situations in the first place. - THINKERS, document by Wildbow
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 “Come on,” Victoria said. “Engage with me here. If you don’t, I’ll come up with worse and worse answers. Cop.”

    “I don’t know. Waitress. Happy?”

    “Really. What’s the logic there?”

    “What am I good for, without powers? You know where I come from. My family went to shit. I was going to run away no matter what happened. And when you’re down on your luck, it’s hard to get back on your feet. Case in point, this whole damn city. So I would’ve gone to some town that wasn’t Brockton Bay, because my entire reason for going was that it was cape friendly and I was a rookie cape. And I would have found a shit job, found shit boyfriends, and if my parents happened to die, I might get a wad of cash, which I’d promptly blow.”

    “That’s morbid,” Victoria said, her chin resting on the heel of her hand, elbow on the table. - Excerpt from Last 20.e1
  21. ↑ “I don’t need to ask you why you helped both Cradle and us,” I said. “I think I get it.”

    “Do you now?” Tattletale asked. Her attention was on Rain’s spectre. Damsel’s spectre moved around the group, standing beside Looksee.

    “I get it because you want the same thing I want. You were managing the battle and hoping and praying that people would see the light and play nice. You want the old rules and the old ‘game’, and you’re apparently not that stellar when it comes to reading multi-triggers like my teammate, Cradle, or March. You underestimated the bloodlust and you overestimated how much my teammate deserved it. He got the cleaver, and you felt so darn awful about it, you volunteered help.”

    “Oh my god, Tattletale,” Parian said.

    “There’s a good bit more to it,” Tattletale said, before turning to tell Parian, “so don’t buy too heavily into the theatrics. We’re capes. We should be used to this.”

    “If you want to deal with people like Cradle, you should at least look at the consequences,” Sveta said.

    “I’m aware of the consequences. I’m aware of a ton of stuff. The reality is, Garotte, there’s bigger picture stuff. There’re a half-dozen people who are only seeing one or two dimensions of the greater structure and we’re each trying to keep it from toppling without being able to talk to the others. I’m trying to hold up my end and simultaneously open the channels of communication. Kind of important.”

    So she said, but she didn’t like looking at Rain as she said it. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.7
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 “Which is where we come in,” I figured out where she was going.

    “Exactly. At the end of the day? We’re not doing much harm. Property damage, theft. A few civilians get hurt if they don’t move out of the way fast enough. But insurance payouts cover that stuff, and people aren’t that much worse off. The property damage is covered and the injured bystander has a great story to tell at the water cooler. The city gets revenue in an indirect way, from merchandise, tourism and the rising property that come with being an exciting city.

    “Compared to the psychos and the monsters out there, it’s almost in the city’s interests to keep us in circulation. Far as I see it, we’re not that much better or worse than the so called good guys. We face more risk at the end of the day, with the possibility of jail time and physical danger, but we get a better payoff. We just took the path that was higher risk, higher reward.”

    “I’m not sure,” I said, carefully, “That I buy all that.” - Excerpt from Agitation 3.6
  23. ↑ “Glory Hole,” Tattletale muttered.

    There wasn’t any ongoing conversation, and the only noise was the distant slosh of Capricorn’s water swamping the road and trees. The words hung in the air, and I was tempted to leave them there.

    “Wanted to say-” she started.

    “What?” I asked.

    “This sucks. This hurts. Fair’s fair. If you want to lord it over me, you can.”

    Lord it over her? That she was hurt?

    I couldn’t even connect to what she meant until I remembered past jabs at my time in the hospital.

    I shook my head. “Focus on the mission. The kids are hurt, our teammates.”

    She went silent. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.7
  24. ↑ Tattletale shook her head. “I’m pretty darn sure.”

    I looked over at Ratcatcher. I tapped her phone at the hinge. “This wasn’t you.”

    “Hm,” She made a sound. Her nose dropped. “I’m not thure that maketh me feel better.”

    “I get it,” I said. “It’s invasive. Violating.”

    “No,” she said. “I don’t care about that. That’th the game we play.”

    “It shouldn’t be,” I said. “I prefer the good old days, when cape against cape fights wouldn’t dig any deeper than the surface level. Costume against costume, no wounds that went beyond cuts, scrapes and bruises, unless they upped the ante first.”

    “That’s stupid,” Tattletale said. “Nothing’s surface level. Our powers are intertwined with us, and we’re bringing all of our shit to the table when we go toe to toe with someone. Pit your powers against their powers, and you’re digging into your own shit while they’re doing the same, going back to what used to be the worst day of your life, you’re flinging that shit. To win your fights you need to know your enemy, but to do that you can’t stop at the surface.”

    “We used to be able to.”

    “We used to keep up a charade.” - Excerpt from Black 13.6
  25. ↑ Brain_Caster: Is that entirely due to her power's side effects, or is she just asexual independently of it?

    Wildbow: If you stripped away Lisa's powers, she'd be straight. With them, she's basically like someone in Seinfeld, only she finds out that turn-off quirk in the first 30 seconds to five minutes.

    He eats his peas one by one.
    That guy likes you because you subconsciously remind him of his mother.
    He has a fetish for diapers.
    This one has zero confidence beneath the surface, and is going to fold like a house of cards the moment the going gets rough.
    Except the stuff keeps piling on, and it comes in fast enough that it cancels out the good. - Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles
  26. ↑ Skye: @Fact Checkers What exactly did TT's power make her squick about in a relationship? Is it TMI on the sex part, or hidden facts about the other person that are hard to overlook? or maybe the answer is "yes"

    Wildbow: @ Skye - It's like seinfeld. Just knowing all the irritating quirks & ugly truths. Doesn't brush his teeth enough and has a toothache because of it / really just wants you for the sex and he's not good at sex / is horrendously bad with money / hasn't gotten over his last ex / is a feeder.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Oh well. Eats his peas one by one / has a thing for jeggings - it's just like the world is filled with overly honest & offputting dating profiles. The romance is gone.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Boy wants to make tats gain a few hundred pounds so she'll be cuddly
    [...]
    Wildbow: Roll with that, tats. - Comment by Wildbow on Cauldron Discord, 08-23-2017
  27. ↑ I sighed. “Yeah, I think he’s a very good looking guy,” I pulled some of the shirts and skirts I’d bought with Lisa out of my closet and arranged them on the bed, “Don’t you?”

    “Sure. Maybe not totally my type, but I definitely wouldn’t turn someone like him away, if I was doing the relationship thing.”

    “You’re not? How come?”

    “My power kind of takes the mystery out of things. Relationships are hard to get off the ground unless you can get the ball rolling with a healthy dose of self delusion and lies.”

    “So you’re not going to date ever?”

    “Give me a few years, maybe I’ll lower my standards enough to be able to overlook what my power’s telling me about the guys’ more disgusting and degrading character quirks and habits.”
    [...]
    “But the key distinction between you and I, here, is that Brian and I would kill each other before a relationship got anywhere. You two, though? I can see you working.” - Excerpt from Tangle 6.2
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 “Are you bullshitting me?”

    “I could tell you now, or I could offer you a trade, my little chicken.”

    “What trade?” he asked. At least he sounded suspicious.

    “If you agree to think on it and then give me your best answer, I’ll open the back of this truck now and show you my birthday present to you.”

    “You forgot my birthday.”

    “Four month belated birthday.”

    “Isn’t it six months?” He started counting on his fingers. “September, August…”

    She pulled her hand back away from the handle at the back of, the truck, moving it in fits and starts as he went from August to July, July to June…

    He stopped, looking up at her with the mask in one hand. She smiled down at him.

    “Four months, yeah,” he said.

    At least he was learning wit and a good poker face. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  29. ↑ Snuff made his way to her side. She was paying him, but he had other motivations. He was after her, and not in the romantic sense. No, he knew her too well for that. She’d come to terms with the fact that her lack of interest in the romance or the physical stuff wasn’t because of one excuse or the other. She was pretty sure it wasn’t because her power preferred her this way. It was just her.

    No, Snuff wanted her for the status. She had a place in the city and in the cape dynamic, and he was cementing a role as her enforcer and bodyguard.

    She had him, but there would be no long chats, no exchange of birthday presents, ironic or otherwise. He was with her only in a sense. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  30. ↑ She'd never been able to stand being isolated, had always had her family, with roommates, friends and fellow squatters living with her after she'd run away. Taylor, though, seemed to gravitate towards solitude. She pushed people away, and when it came down to the nitty-gritty, when their group had found out the details with the kidnapped girl, Taylor had left. Tattletale couldn't imagine doing the same thing, and she had strong suspicions Taylor was closer to the others than she was. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  31. ↑ The look was utterly defenseless. I was put in mind, for just an instant, of just who Tattletale could have been. I had a mental image of her as a cult leader, tearing people down with an almost surgical precision, then molding them into who she wanted them to be when they were emotionally and mentally unable to mount a defense. - Excerpt from Prey 14.3
  32. ↑ "She's a manipulator!" Foil called out, raising her voice in response.

    "She's an idiot, but if you start talking shit about her-"

    "I'm not, Bitch! It's not shit," Foil said, the latter half of what she said was a normal speaking volume. "She took over what Coil started and she steered that. She's good at that, but the farther we get from that setup of his, the harder it is. She steered the group, helped Skitter, helped Imp!"

    "And Rachel?" I asked, looking at Rachel.

    "You don't manipulate her, or you get your head torn off!"
    [...]
    "She was always at her best dealing with the smaller scale and the biggest, most abstract stuff," Foil called out. "Fights and powers, conspiracies, not running cities! That was always her sticking to someone else's game plan, manipulating the parameters. She was best when she was taking care of the Undersiders. When she had to look after herself, because not being at her best meant she might not be able to manipulate and steer her friends." - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  33. ↑ "I don't know if you can relate," Foil said, "But sometimes you get stuck in a place that isn't you. Where everything you do is a drain on you. It brings out your worst traits."
    [...]
    "Tattletale's in that place, trying to help the city," Foil raised her voice. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 "She has no purpose?" I asked. My hand was cold where it was holding my hood up. I pulled it down, using my other, and drew closer so I wouldn't have to strain my throat yelling. "How does that lead to a screwup like not knowing what her own mercenaries are doing?"

    "She has a purpose, but it's killing her," Foil said. "She looks after the city. It's that thing that drains her and brings out the worst in her. It doesn't fill that need she has, but she does it because she has to."

    "She did it, past tense," I gritted out the words. I'd have to bail in a second to throw the Wretch up. "She keeps talking about how she's bailing, she's out, she doesn't want to get involved."

    "Yeah. What's she doing instead?"

    "Looking after Chicken Little. Do you mean he's her project now? Like the Undersiders were before?" - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  35. ↑ The wall fell away, and Cradle advanced, head low, passing between the four segments of Tattletale,

    "Cradle- the most intact part of Tattletale said. "You have a mole. Someone who tipped you off."

    "Learn your own lessons. Mercenaries follow the highest bidder," Cradle said. - Excerpt from Interlude 11.c II
  36. ↑ "She looks like she's in her element but she's not. So she puts more of herself into it-"

    "And ignores the things that are in her element?" I asked.

    "Yeah. Just so you know, I don't have the most charitable view of her, though I'm really trying here, I'm glossing over a lot of general bitchiness," Foil said. "Take what I say with a heaping of salt."

    "I don't-" I winced at the cold air that rushed its way to my sore throat, colder than most of the air I was intentionally taking in. "I don't have the best view of her either, I don't know if that means there's no need for any added salt, or if I need an extra heaping. But it makes sense. What you say makes sense." - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  37. ↑ Through my swarm, I could feel Tattletale waving. Grue hadn’t swamped her in darkness, so there was nothing hampering her progress. What did she want?

    More to the point, how the hell were we supposed to communicate? I reached a block ahead of her and formed my bugs into a word. ‘WHAT?’

    She tapped her hand to her eye, then to the top of her head.

    Again, I formed my bugs into a word. ‘WHAT?’

    She tapped her head a few more times.

    I was disappointed that a girl with superpowered intuition couldn’t come up with a better signal. What did she want? Eyes could mean see, head could be about thinking? Her power?

    She reached back over Trickster’s shoulder with one hand while holding the reins with the other. My bugs had to settle on her finger to follow her gesture. Pointing? She was pointing behind him. At Sundancer.

    Eyes, brain, Sundancer.

    She wanted to see, to use her power, to use Sundancer?

    Tattletale was waving now. The opposite of a beckoning gesture. A scooping motion, as if to push us away.

    She wanted us to go away? To get back? She wanted to deploy Sundancer’s power. That made sense. And she wanted to be sure we were out of the line of fire? She could only do that if she saw us, and she could only use her power if she could follow what was going on. - Excerpt from Prey 14.3
  38. ↑ Tattletale leaned back, looking at me. Her hand went from fist to flat, as if to indicate something. Like a hand signal for a fucking dog.

    Whatever. - Excerpt from Black 13.9
  39. ↑ Kyakan: I love how few people actually get Tattletale's hand signals

    syb.7518: right, wasn't there a point when taylor also didn't understand tt's hand signal?

    Wildbow: Yeah, this is 75% a Tattletale thing, not 100% a Vicky thing, as some people seem to be taking it - Comment by Wildbow on Discord
  40. ↑ "The Undersiders took over Brockton Bay, and they did it with Tattletale on point for most of it. I'm not a hundred percent sure on any of this, but you can look at the events in the city starting with her taking power. Bank robbery, Undersiders succeed, they run into the Wards, me, and my sister. Tattletale insinuates knowledge of my sister's deepest secrets, and mine. My sister goes off the deep end. ABB are provoked following an arrest of their leader and an interaction with the Undersiders, with Tattletale. They're toppled with a concerted effort on the part of the villains, with intel passed to the heroes by the villains."

    "By Tattletale," Tristan said.

    "In large part. Empire Eighty-Eight get outed, secret identities revealed. Undersiders are the focus of the blame, and a number of people die in the ensuing rampage. Weeks and months of violence and chaos in Brockton Bay feed into the Endbringer attack on the city. Half of my family died because of that." - Excerpt from Glare 3.4
  41. ↑ "Okay," I said. "It's just one data point in a series. The last remaining mastermind of the city falls, Coil. The PRT directors die. Twice, in quick succession. Weaknesses are targeted and capitalized on. Alexandria dies in Brockton Bay, at the hands of a girl who had apparently wanted to be a hero, but who was converted to the villains' side. Flechette, a hero, a minor friend of mine? Apparently converted. Accord edges into the Undersiders' turf. He dies when the Behemoth fight happens. What do you think happens with his resources and power? Because I'm betting it's the same as what happened with Coil's."

    "And now she runs one of the major settlement points," Rain said. He still sounded spooked.

    "Yeah," I said. "I don't have all of the information, but she got to that point by being one of the masterminds and playing the game well. She was aggressive when the city was vulnerable and she was passive when it wasn't. The moment Gold Morning came around, I get the impression she mobilized hard, she was ready to expand and capitalize on the situation with more of that aggression. Again, I'm not 100% on all of that. But I can say with reasonable confidence that she's one of the most dangerous, capable people on Gimel." - Excerpt from Glare 3.4
  42. ↑ "She took over Brockton Bay!" I had to half-shout to be heard over the rush of wind.

    "She didn't! Not like you're thinking! Coil took most of it over, set most of that stuff in motion! Skitter did a lot of the rest of the work when it came to the taking over part! Tattletale isn't a warlord! She isn't a chessmaster!"

    Eerie to hear one of her allies say it. More uncomfortable to have to recontextualize my mental picture of her.

    "What the hell is she, then?"

    "She's an idiot!" Rachel shouted.

    I was surprised she could hear. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  43. ↑ "I'm one of the major players now. The other major players call me for a hint when they're stuck on something. I'm wealthy, well-positioned, and safe. I'm now sharing the love and bringing some of that security, stability, and safety to others, in my very, very roundabout way. It's part of why I'm having this conversation with you." - Excerpt from Glare 3.1
  44. ↑ "It makes sense. But you can't avoid seeing her forever, Foil. Lily."

    Foil looked surprised at the mention of her name.

    Narwhal gave her a sympathetic look. "We thought about recruiting you. We looked you up. It was determined it would be too antagonistic with a mid-tier power."

    "Tattletale?" Foil asked. She sounded angry.

    "We can talk about options after if you want. Don't hold it against Tattletale. Please don't hold it against us. I'm distracting you from what you were talking about. You're avoiding Parian?" - Excerpt from Heavens 12.x
  45. ↑ "Heartbroken," I said. "And luggage. They've left the New Brockton area."

    "Were they driven out?"

    I had trouble imagining another reason for them to be gone. New Brockton was their territory. They'd put everything into it for years and now they'd left it? What had happened there, or what was happening here that was pulling them together?

    Worrying to imagine, that my old enemies might be cornered or desperate. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.3
  46. ↑ Tattletale had fled Brockton Bay with the other Brockton-Bay Undersiders, namely Imp and Imp's gang, they'd stopped at one place to regroup and wait for the stragglers, and then had immediately set to getting themselves prepared. Hired mercenaries, bought not with cash, but with a store of weapons. From there, they'd met up with Parian and Foil, retiring for the night, all packing up together in a manufacturing area for Parian's clothing line. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.4
  47. ↑ How desperate were you, that you went to her? I thought, looking at the image of a retreating Tattletale. The Undersiders had met with the Palanquin mercenaries, despite the fact that Tattletale's feud with Faultline was common knowledge. I'd heard it had something to do with Tattletale getting beaten out by Faultline on an early job, and then never really getting an opportunity to even the score after. I wasn't sure if that had been pure speculation from Crystal. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.4
  48. ↑ “We go, we take out a contingent of ABB gangbangers and scare off Oni Lee. Then I get a call back from Coil. The other reality? We left earlier, went a different route. Got in a fight with Lung before you showed. You decided to attack both our groups while we were occupied fighting each other, worn out, only Lung was stronger at that time, too strong for you to do too much. By the time you realized you’d have to work with us to stop him, which wasn’t long, it was too late. Lung was too tough.”

    I tried to picture that scenario.

    “I got away, managed to call Coil, let him know what had happened. Coil, in turn, informed me in this reality, the one you remember. Told me to watch out for a junior hero in the area.”

    I nodded.

    “So I told the group to hold up, fibbed a bit about needing to use my power, get a sense of things, like Lung’s location. I was hoping that you were a new member of the Wards, that you’d call in help and deal with Lung without our involvement, that you’d leave, or even start the fight on your own. You attacked him on your own.”

    She shrugged, smiled a little, gave me an apologetic look with a tilt of her head, “And my plan worked out. Of course.”

    “Of course,” I replied, dryly. - Excerpt from Extermination 8.8
  49. ↑ Instead, I guessed, “So. You knew?”

    “Yeah,” Lisa replied, bobbing her head in a nod. “I’m so sorry.”

    “You’re apologizing?” I asked, caught by surprise, “I’m the one who planned on screwing you guys over.”

    “But you didn’t. You changed your mind. Me? I had an idea of what you were up to, I lied to you, misled you. Manipulated you. Kept it all a big secret. And I’m sorry for that. Really.”

    “How long did you know? When I was lying on my cot in the shelter, wondering whether you did know, thinking back to your expression and the things you’ve said in the past, I thought maybe it was when I decided to leave the group over…” I paused, looked at the people nearby, who might or might not be in earshot. “…you know. But no. You’ve known from the start.”

    “Since before we met.” - Excerpt from Extermination 8.8
  50. ↑ Wildbow: People keep saying suicide, but that isn't quite it.

    Taylor likely would have stopped going to school. She was already on that road.

    lordgreyii: Well, I feel silly. Did I misunderstand Tattletale's motivation for helping Taylor then? I guess it wasn't a sure thing. Lisa can be wrong, after all...

    Wildbow: She saw that Taylor was in the same state, but not necessarily that Taylor was suicidal. Just that Taylor was trapped. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  51. ↑ Depends on your definition of suicidal. I've fairly sure I've dropped WoG (That's noted in the archives) that states Taylor would not live in a lot of AUs because she was liable to tailspin into self destruction (the thought 'I want to die' not crossing her mind even as she put herself into dangerous situations) in a lot of scenarios where she didn't have the same outside influence. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  52. ↑ 52.0 52.1 52.2 52.3 “And Coil eventually found you.”

    She nodded. “And I eventually found you. I took one look at you, and I had a grasp of what was going on. Didn’t take too long for me to notice that you had that same air around you that Rex did. Maybe I did what I could to save you because I couldn’t save him.”

    “Earlier, you said that you couldn’t talk to me about the problem because I was the problem.”

    “I saw it when you pulled the trigger, offed Coil. You saved Dinah, and you described how you felt adrift in the aftermath of it. But you found a new focus. You could fight Echidna. Save the city. Me? When you shot Coil, I realized I was done. I’d helped you out of the same trap of despair Rex had been in. Don’t know if the road I helped you down was a good one or a bad, but I’d finished.”

    “But why be reckless? Why take the risks?”

    “Because I did what I had to do, I helped you, and I still feel like the stupid, self-obsessed little child that let her big brother die. It wasn’t conscious, but maybe I felt like I needed to up the stakes. Pull something dramatic. Show that, with these crazy smart capes like Alexandria and Faultline around, I could still be the smartest person in the room.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  53. ↑ 53.0 53.1 53.2 Wildbow: In the past, I've outlined how each Undersider is based on one of Erikson's psychosocial stages. These get mentioned briefly in Interlude: End.
    [...]
    Wildbow: [...] Lisa is Peace vs. Regret. The 'old person' one. Her emphasis is on legacy vs. regret over her brother's suicide. It colors her interactions with Taylor, who she sees as somewhat analogous, and how she contributes to extending past the portal (legacy). She stays in the bay for that and because it's a tie to Taylor. - Comment by Wildbow on Cauldron Discord
  54. ↑ “It might have ended there, but then Grue mistook you for a villain, and you didn’t correct him. It was interesting enough that I played along. The idea of recruiting you came when he was finishing his introductions.”

    “So everything I’ve been through, all of this, it’s-”

    “My fault, pretty much. That’s why I’m saying I’m sorry. I mean it, too.”

    I sighed.

    “It’s okay,” I told her. “I think… I think if it happened again, I’d still want to be part of the group, want to have met you guys. I’d want some stuff to go down differently. Dinah, my dad, having things come out like they did after the battle with Leviathan.” - Excerpt from Extermination 8.8
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 55.4 “Imp says I’m nothing like Taylor was. Foil and Parian said something similar.”

    “I wouldn’t say nothing like. You’re careful.”

    Aiden looked up at her, one gloved hand still rubbing the tissue in circles on the mask. “Didn’t she… never ever act careful? Whenever they tell me stories it’s always Taylor got hurt or Taylor threw herself into a crazy situation.”

    “You caught me,” she said. She smiled. “No. Not that kind of careful.”

    “I don’t get it.”

    She smiled.
    [...]
    She looked back at Chicken Little.

    When she had brought him under her wing, she’d told herself she would do it right. She would help him, save him and save him from himself, if she had to.

    She was zero for two. If she couldn’t get it right and save him, at least, then what?

    A hard thing to say to his face. In some ways, he was doing so well. In others, she worried. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 56.2 “Looking after Chicken Little. Do you mean he’s her project now? Like the Undersiders were before?”

    “Except he’s okay too,” Foil said. “Most of the way to okay. And she’s trying to steer him when he’s already on course to being a good- whatever he ends up being. And that drains her, I think it surprises her how much. She doesn’t accept input, not from me, most of all, not from Imp, Rachel doesn’t give input, and I think everyone that’s paying attention is pretty sure she’s going to either get him hurt, drive him away, or get herself hurt.”

    I thought of the little man I’d felt so much like I’d wanted to coach and guide. The boy with the birds. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.10
  57. ↑ Tattletale couldn’t imagine doing the same thing, and she had strong suspicions Taylor was closer to the others than she was. It was a damn shame that things had gone that way, because she been blossoming as a person, lately, actually connecting to others. To Bitch, even, of all people. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  58. ↑ “Bitch, Regent, go!” He shouted, as he stepped my way, grabbed my hand and practically pulled me from where I sat on Judas’ back. Tattletale hopped down, following a pace or two behind us.

    The three of us ran for the front of the room, while Bitch whistled for her dogs and ran for the back. I sensed it when Regent unhitched the two boxes that were strapped to Angelica. The boxes were heavy and hit the ground hard, splitting at the seams. Better than I’d hoped. I had my bugs flow out from the top of the box and the split sides, and ordered them into the crowd.

    If a few more of the biting and stinging sort headed in Emma’s general direction, it wasn’t due to a conscious choice on my part. - Excerpt from Tangle 6.5
  59. ↑ “Okay,” I said. “Tattletale? Grue?”

    “I’ve already said my bit,” Tattletale said. “You call the shots in the field, and act as the face of the group, I do the behind the scenes stuff. That’s how we worked it out. I’m kosher with that.” - Excerpt from Imago 21.1
  60. ↑ That meant the teenage girl’s situation was especially grim. She couldn’t run, and if she didn’t give the crowd a show, they’d lose patience with her and treat her just as they had the other guy, or worse. If she did give them a show? With the way emotions were running high, I expected things would turn ugly right around the moment the crowd started to get bored. Exhibitionism would only buy her time.

    “Let’s go.” Lisa pulled on my arm.

    “We should help her.”

    Lisa glanced at the girl, “There’s at least a hundred people here that need help. We can’t save them all.”

    “We should help her,” I growled the words, “I won’t fucking sleep tonight if I walk away from this.”

    “You’ve got a little superhero showing through, there,” she whispered right into my ear.

    “I am going to help her, with or without you,” I hissed, “Even if that means using my powers and throwing subtlety to the winds.”

    “Okay, okay. Probably don’t have to go that far. Hold on.”

    Lisa pulled on Minor’s arm, and he bent down so she could speak in his ear.
    [...]
    The insults hurled his way were impossible to make out over the noise of the music and the larger crowd. He ignored them as he stepped behind the girl, caught her around the waist, and then threw her over one shoulder. She screamed.

    I’m buying this one!” he hollered, “Whoever brought her, here’s your fucking money!”
    [...]
    “Don’t thank him. Thank her.” Lisa looked my way. “We wouldn’t have gone out of our way to help if she hadn’t been stubborn.” - Excerpt from Infestation 11.5
  61. ↑ Wildbow: Altruistic is the wrong word to be looking for, I think. Lisa doesn't have much capacity for such, but she can still do the things you're talking about her doing (reaching out, helping) for other reasons - Comment by Wildbow on Cauldron Discord
  62. ↑ But Taylor's idea of reasonable tends to assert 'reasonable' from a position and place very close to her own take on things. It's her way or the highway, and the highway tends to be things like kidnapping and body snatching, siccing bugs on you, threatening your loved ones with asphyxiation, biting you with bullet ants, and her terms for when she turns herself in, which breaks down to 'villains are the true power in this town, you put the person those villains want in charge, or we and our superpowered mercenaries are going to raise hell.'

    It's the same when it comes to compromise. She has a black and white mentality except when gray would favor her, but this black and white isn't so much hero and villain as it is 'right and wrong'; she's very 'we judge ourselves by our intents and others by their actions'. Her quickness to condemn extends all the way back to how she judges her teachers, forward through how brutally she deals with just about anyone during her time as Skitter, her 'my way or the high way, the world's at stake' time as Weaver, wiping out other groups peri-GM...

    ...And caps off with her moment of glory as Khepri, where she shows just how much she compromises and how unoppressive she is by sacrificing sanity and self to take over the bodies of everyone possible to assert her vision of how things should be done. This is the culmination of a character arc in the works from the early points of the story, not a sudden turn in her character. Her compassion or empathy, such as it is, is to identify the same weakness in Scion that she had or has in herself, and to brutally attack it in even what she describes as being bully-like.

    She rationalizes and comes up with justifications that work every step along the way, and she's good at it, but to be truly compassionate, unoppressive, reasonable and principled requires one to be able to look past the justifications, find ways through the 'I had no choice but to' perspective, to judge others by intent and context (or the harm they're doing to you and your agenda), and to hold back from what for Taylor is an endless series of 'oops, I used a bit too much force and I:'
    • Rotted off his dick
    • Kicked her in the head
    • Might kill him if he comes out of time stop and he tries to move while a time-stopped bug is in his throat
    • Cut a kid's forehead open
    • Nearly asphyxiated him
    • Played my part in wiping out an entire settlement of Elite
    • Gave people strokes from the stress of being mind controlled while I used them as pawns - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  63. ↑ “Just about. The only ones who get off easy are the second generation capes. The kids of people who have powers.”

    Lisa [who is near Alec, a second generation cape who triggered because of Heartbreaker] leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, “So if you needed another reason to think Glory Girl is a privileged bitch, look no further.”
    [...]
    “But people who have parents with powers?”

    “They don’t need nearly as intense an event to make their powers show up. Glory Girl got her powers by getting fouled while playing basketball in gym class. She mentioned it in a few interviews she gave.” - Excerpt from Shell 4.3
  64. ↑ Wendy: Is there a word from god about the trigger event from Regent?
    [...]
    Wildbow: I don't remember giving anything firm. Mainly, I think I put Alec's history with his dad & family (being made to kill) in the 'trigger event' bucket and didn't feel the need to follow up.
    On a level, I don't think it matters, overmuch? (Ward) That's something of a trend with inherited powers; the prior generation's inability to cope gets handed down to the next generation, and is circumstantial/life, so it seems like something minor, but the shittiness/circumstances of your cape parent really just prime things to happen. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord
  65. ↑ “My entire life leading up to that basketball game, I wanted so horribly badly to be a hero, you know? It felt like I thought about it every ten minutes. My parents were heroes, my cousin was, my aunt and uncle were, and everything revolved around it. I wanted it all so badly it hurt, and I didn’t have it for years. Then that basketball game, and I wanted to have something where I was the hero, where I got to stand out. Because sometimes it felt like my parents didn’t see me.”

    “That’s been a recurring idea. You talked about their missed visits.”

    “They came a lot,” I said. “I know that. My dad more than my mom. But every missed visit was a horrible thing, and the little things mattered so much when I had nothing else. Um. And this basketball game, I know I’ve talked about this before. But this one girl kicked my freaking ass. In my face, knocking me over, intercepting every pass, blocking every shot. She didn’t have any powers or anything, she was just… good. Better.”

    “A lot of things came into focus in that moment.”

    “Every time she or one of her teammates beat me, I could see the look of disappointment on my parent’s faces. In the other moments, they looked so bored. And it was boring, you know. No parent wants to go sit through amateurs doing badly at a high school sport.”

    “Some do.”

    “Anyway, she hit me hard, she said something about me being overrated, and it was the last straw. Realizing I stood so far from family, that I didn’t want to be there, but I had no other choice, my sternum was hurting where she’d driven her elbow into me. I got my powers.”

    “Years of wanting, leading up to that.” - Excerpt from Daybreak 1.8
  66. ↑ Where?
    [...]
    “Just one game?” I asked, my attention divided.

    He looked so tired, so disinterested, but he smiled. My mom, beside him, managed to feign interest, but didn’t smile. Amy sat off to the side, cheering loud enough to make up for both of them.

    “I’m good at this,” I murmured. Emotions were unsteady, unsure, and small, as they found their places in my chest. “I’ve practiced.”
    [...]
    She was bigger, square-chinned, naturally strong.

    Naturally good at the game, I soon found.

    I could have matched her, maybe. I had my own strengths, I’d studied, I’d put in the hours, and as my mom had said, it wasn’t enough to have natural talents, you had to put in the effort too. I wanted to think I had both.

    I stole a glance, and I could see how they were barely holding on. Some people had approached them, talking to them because they were heroes, everyone knew about them, they were cool. Even as they fielded questions from the crowd of parents and friends off to the side, they forced smiles, feigned interest, kept watching. My mom pointed, indicating for me to focus on the game.
    [...]
    [...] I chanced a look back, and saw Amy there, cheering, pumping a fist. My dad mimicked her. My mom hadn’t even seen.
    [...]
    [...] She took the ball. She scored.

    I stole another glance. Of course it was a moment like this that both of my parents were looking.
    [...]
    Fail here, I could continue until I failed. For the other girl, it might have been the same, but it couldn’t have felt half as important. I wanted to show off, I wanted to show that even if I wasn’t on the same stage as my parents, I could use what I’d learned, be excellent in my own way.
    [...]
    I got the ball. I got my shot, everything on the line, chance to be a hero.

    And the girl casually shoved me.
    [...]
    The silence and the stares felt damning. As if this girl wasn’t the one in the wrong. I was. Because I was the daughter of superheroes. I was supposed to be better.

    I didn’t want to look, this time, but I did. Amy had her eyes downcast, like she couldn’t even look at me. She would later tell me she knew how much this had mattered to me. My mom, though, she stared at me. It was a look of condemnation and disappointment, followed by a glance away. I could almost understand that.

    My dad, though, arms folded, was talking to a man beside him, idly chatting. He glanced back over his shoulder at a man with a heavy beard and dense tattoos. Too disinterested to notice my efforts or failure when a hundred other people nearby had seen and heard every last bit of it.
    [...]
    [...] I made myself get up.

    Free shot, for a chance to continue. One shot wouldn’t win this, it was just a stupid fucking game. My arm hurt.
    [...]
    I missed the shot, with everyone except for three people still watching. Their love was conditional. - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  67. ↑ “I’ll come,” she [Lisa] repeated herself. No argument, no manipulation. Only the statement.
    [...]
    I felt calm, which was odd, given the scene. Bugs swarmed every employee, from the official heroes to the kids who might have been interns. Some howled in pain, others screamed more out of fear, or yelped as bugs periodically bit them.
    [...]
    I picked up the gun from the edge of the desk, joining Tattletale. We marched for the exit together, moving at a speed between a walk and a jog, passing by twenty or so PRT employees, each covered in bugs, roaring and squealing their pain and fear to the world as they stumbled blindly and thrashed in futile attempts to fight the bugs off.
    [...]
    Atlas returned to me, and I took to the air, flying just above Lisa and Rachel and the dogs as we fled the scene. I made a point of leaving every single bug inside the PRT headquarters, to infest it until they had the place exterminated, which would only be another photo opportunity for the media, or to serve as a perpetual reminder as it took weeks and months for all of the bugs to be cleared out. - Excerpt from Imago 21.1
  68. ↑ “Whatever you’re going to do, do it soon,” Tattletale said.
    [...]
    One pass. A lazy swoop with the swarm, the knife suspended by threads.

    I couldn’t see, even with the camera, but I was aware of Mantellum stopping in his tracks. The boundaries of the circle stopped drifting in the general direction of the stairwell.

    I waited, willed the lights to flicker. Time passed.

    People were reacting, outside the circle. How much damage had I done?

    The lights went out.

    Another pass.

    Mantellum’s effect dissipated. The blind spot filled in, a crowd, capes, blood spraying. My bugs could sense them all.
    [...]
    In the stairwell at the far end of the hallway, the one that mirrored our escape route, the main group, with the beautiful man, the spiky boy and a badly injured Gully were making their way down the stairs.

    I was ready. I already had thread attached to a rivet in the ceiling, thread attached to the knife I’d dropped to the floor below. It swung into the stairwell, an easy, casual swing.

    The disintegration effect carved into the people at the front of the group, into heads, shoulders, necks, and body parts unique to case fifty-threes.

    I used the swarm to control the swing, to swing it into the crowd that was hurrying down the stairs.

    More struck. Devastation, people falling over each other as they collapsed on the stairs.

    Someone, no doubt someone with a sensory power, reached for the knife, tried to grab it.

    I cut the thread with the mandibles of my bugs. It plunged down into the group, paused as the handle came to rest on writhing bodies.

    Then slid off to one side as the blade continued to eat through everything near it. - Excerpt from Venom 29.5
  69. ↑ “The only instruction I gave was to Tattletale, to hold the others back until sunset, and to give them direction when they do act. They’ll have time to get angry in the meantime. They’ll be mad at me, but they’ll take it out on you. You have to understand, even at my worst, even when I’m as mad as I was the other night, when you’d outed me, I was sensible, reasonable in terms of how I dealt with you and held back. Now you get to see how unreasonable the rest of the Undersiders can be, without me to rein them in.”
    [...]
    “It’s a time limit. You saw what we were willing to do to Butcher, to Valefor. Even with that, even there, we were holding back as a group. Trust me when I say that I know my friends. If you stand between them and me? If you hurt me? They’re going to go thermonuclear on you. On the PRT as a whole. Tattletale will make sure of it. She’ll keep them on target, guide them, and maximize the damage. She’ll do most of the damage.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.1
  70. ↑ “Tattletale,” I said, raising my voice a notch. “Time’s short. Call off the hounds, literal or otherwise. Delay.”

    “Delay?”

    “They’re making temporary offers,” I said, eyeing the heroes, “We can make some temporary concessions.”

    “Okay. But I can’t hold back some of the bastards we put into play. I can stop them, but that’s it. They’ll leave, and we’re that much weaker.”

    “That’s fine,” I told her. “These guys are at a bit of a disadvantage too.”

    “Okay… let’s see… alright. Holding off for… half an hour? Adding fifteen minutes to the clock?” Tattletale asked.

    “Longer?” I asked.

    “Any longer and more mercenaries start walking away, deciding to take the half we paid up front.”

    “That’ll do, then, I guess.” I said, giving the heroes a thumbs up. - Excerpt from Cell 22.6
  71. ↑ “Because we were complacent, not paying attention. Because of that, and because we assisted Coil in distracting the capes, Dinah has been held captive for what, three weeks? Almost a month?”

    “Almost a month,” Tattletale echoed me.

    I looked at Tattletale, noted how she was refusing to look anyone in the eye, and I had an uncomfortable thought. “Did you know about this?”

    “I-” She stopped to give a little sigh and briefly make eye contact with me before staring back down at the ground. “I had an idea, sort of. I didn’t think it would be this ugly. It’s hard to explain.”

    “Try,” I spoke, my voice hard.

    “She disappeared from the middle school near Arcadia the same day we robbed the bank. Obviously, Coil wanted to ensure the Wards weren’t close enough to interfere, probably why he was so keen on us doing the bank job, after I suggested it. I made the connection, after. I just didn’t think – Nothing he said or did led me to think it would be a serious kidnapping.”

    “Her uncle’s one of the mayoral candidates in the election this Summer, you know that? I knew Coil was putting a lot of value on getting hold of her, I thought maybe he was kidnapping her to use her to ransom for the uncle’s campaign funds, or to get the uncle to drop out of the race in a more direct play. I had a suspicion he got her to cooperate with some sort of incentive. Figure out she’s unhappy at home, give her a place to stay and some sort of bribe. Either way, it’s more fitting with his methods to date, and it would have been short term or more benign. Not so bad.”

    “Kind of off there,” I said, bitterly.

    “I’m aware,” Tattletale answered, with just as much emotion in her voice. “I don’t like it either. He’s been around me enough, communicated with me enough, to have an idea of stuff that I won’t necessarily know or think to look for. I didn’t even know she had powers, or how Coil would have found this out or found her. This is out of character for him. Ruthless, power hungry.” - Excerpt from Buzz 7.12
  72. ↑ “I don’t think so,” Director Piggot replied, turning to level a glare at him. She looked almost feral, even as her voice was controlled. “See, I know you might try to kill me if these others weren’t around. But the others won’t let you. There’s Regent too: little to no compunctions, as we saw with Shadow Stalker.”

    Her eye darted to Tattletale, then to Grue, and finally to me.

    “Do they know the full story?” the Director asked.

    “No,” Tattletale replied. She sighed a little.

    “Tell us what?” I asked.

    “I’m interested, too,” Grue added.

    The Director only smiled.

    “Do you trust me?” Lisa asked.

    “Pretty much,” I replied. “A little bit less right now than I did a minute ago.” - Excerpt from Monarch 16.3
  73. ↑ He leaped straight up into the air, then activated the shadow state. When she was as high as she would get, he had her grip her cloak in her hands and use it to guide her descent so she could land atop the roof of the gas station. He stopped, stretched her arms. She was breathing hard, but not as much as his Alec-self would be after even half as much running. He could feel the endorphins being pumped into her body from the hard exercise, and he was all the more aware of it because he had his other body to compare to. She was an athlete.

    He ran her hands down her chest, felt her breasts, the muscles of her stomach. Stretching once more, he clenched her hands, felt the muscles in her arms flex. He felt her shudder in revulsion.

    “Almost forgot you were in there,” he murmured, barely loud enough for her to catch. Not that it mattered. She was as aware of the movements of her mouth as he was. He could mouth the words and she would probably understand. He smirked for her benefit as much as his own. - Excerpt from Interlude 10
  74. ↑ I think one thing that doesn't get quite enough credit is that 'by the time he was a teenager' -- he was in his father's control, raised in the worst sort of environment, with terrible pressures, and was a kid.

    He does some awful stuff later (hands on Sophia's body stand out), but the early-life stuff is more 'kid needs all the therapy in the universe' than 'awful person'. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  75. ↑ Ridtom: Again, I do not, feel like putting a “Did Regent Got Too Far?” post would end with people saying “Yes, he did”.

    I’ve seen people, in this very server who think Sophia deserved it.

    And I’m 99% sure the same goes for the subreddit and elsewhere.

    When it comes to topics like abuse, rape, or racism, you have to hammer that shit in like you are Thor Odinson smacking Loki in the face
    Because otherwise it attracts the worst of the worst
    And they take control

    Wildbow: There's room for some stuff to be clarified and highlighted, for sure. The Regent/Sophia thing ties into the Amy thing as... 'it's ultimately a violation of the body'. You can take the scene out and ultimately that feeling of it being wrong should remain. That was in part my intention in including it, a decade ago. Ultimately Regent gets treated too lightly for what he is. It'd be better if the heroes were heavier-hitting with him & if Alexandria highlighted it in Cell. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  76. ↑ Terror surged through her body like ice water. When he laughed in reaction, it came out shaky. He littered the burned photographs around the piece of paper, with Emma’s face missing from each, then drew an arrow from the crossbow’s cartridge and laid it across the bottom edge of the paper. It was overdramatic enough to work.

    He stood on the chair and began wrapping the extension cord around the base of the light fixture. He grabbed the cord and hung off it for a few seconds to verify it could hold her weight. The light fixture itself was flimsy , but the frame it was attached to was bolted securely into the wooden beams of the ceiling.

    He found moisturizers and soaps on top of the vanity. Using them, he rubbed the end of the extension cord, making it slick. Holding the end, he began tying it into a crude hangman’s knot. When he failed to do it right, he used the smart phone to find a video of how to tie one, then turned the volume all the way down.
    [...]
    “Any last words?” He slid the noose around her neck. It was slimy with the soaps and other shit he’d poured on it.

    He gave her enough control to speak, but retained control of her arms, legs so she couldn’t escape, and held her diaphragm so she couldn’t draw in enough air to scream for help.

    “Why?” she breathed.

    “You fucked with my teammate,” he shrugged her shoulder. - Excerpt from Interlude 10
  77. ↑ “Shady?”

    Man, it was eerie to recognize Sophia’s voice over the earbud.

    “I’ll take that as a yes. Regent told me about his stunt. Controlling you.”

    Canary passed through my swarm. She was silent, and the glances to the side when Imp was speaking suggested she didn’t want to interrupt.

    “He took you home. Gave you a hard time, messing with your mom. The whole thing with you nearly committing suicide afterwards.”

    I was very still. The lights flickered, the ground rumbled, and I didn’t so much as flinch. - Excerpt from Venom 29.5
  78. ↑ “The titan who bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. Apropos.”

    I shrugged.

    “And like his master, he’s having trouble with his burden?”

    “I’m really not in the mood for the Tattletale psychoanalysis.” I climbed onto the dog’s back. It wasn’t one I knew well, and moved away from me as I climbed up its side, making the process more awkward. Rachel made sound that was almost a bark, almost an ‘ah!’, and the animal went still.

    “Maybe it’s not exactly what you want, but what if it can help?” Tattletale asked.

    “My issues aren’t ones that can be fixed with words,” I said. “Unless you have any insights to offer about Tagg, a way to make this world suddenly make sense, or a way to make people stop being such assholes, such morons, then I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

    “He got to you.”

    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Nothing he said-”

    “But he got to you, even if you ignore everything he said.”

    “Armsmaster,” I said. “Kaiser. Purity. Miss Militia. Piggot. Dragon… a bunch of others I can’t even be bothered to think of. Why is it so hard to find someone who’s willing to cooperate? To find someone that’s on the same page as me? They keep making these calls I just can’t understand, sometimes unfathomable, stupid calls, and things keep falling apart.”

    “They probably look at you and wonder why you can’t fall in line with their perception of the way things should go.”

    I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”

    Tattletale didn’t interject or argue. - Excerpt from Imago 21.2
  79. ↑ I struggled to find the words. “…What I’m talking about, ideas like keeping the peace, keeping people safe, making sure that everyone’s safe, it’s… they’re not complicated. This is basic stuff. If we can’t get the fundamentals right, then how are we supposed to handle the more complicated stuff, like keeping this city running, or stopping war from breaking out?”

    “If we could all handle the fundamental stuff, the larger issues wouldn’t exist.”

    “No, he… there’s no way it makes any sense, whether you’re talking fundamentals or larger scale. He attacked a school to, how did he say it, to give me a bloody nose?”

    “It’s probably more complicated than that. You know as well as anyone that we put on a mask and play a role when dealing with our enemies. He was playing up a certain attitude because he knew it was the only way to get to you.”

    “Why did he have to ‘get to me’?”

    “You attacked him.”

    “I mean, why did it even have to get to that point? They weren’t as aggressive with Kaiser and Purity, when unpowered members of Empire Eighty-Eight were dragging people from their homes. They didn’t act on this scale when the ABB was dealing in hard drugs and ambushing people on the street to tell them that because of where their parents were born, that they had to be soldiers, prostitutes or pay money every month in tribute. They were doing that to middle schoolers.”

    “You took over a city.” - Excerpt from Imago 21.2
  80. ↑ “And in doing that, they fuck with the rules, and they attack a high school.”

    “Are you really surprised that they broke the rules? We have, Piggot did, when she wanted to drop bombs on us while letting us act as decoys for bigger threats. The rules are only useful so long as they protect the status quo, and Brockton Bay bent the status quo over backwards and fucked it a long time ago.”

    “And the school?”

    “Dinah,” she said. “They had some basic, hard numbers saying that you wouldn’t do something disastrous, and they have PR to clean up the mess afterwards. I suspect there’ll be something in the news early tomorrow. They’ll say you were an undeniable threat, they’ll twist things around, fudge the truth or outright lie, and they’ll suppress anything that contradicts that line. After that, they’ll have Tagg and the local heroes keep looking to take a bite out of us, do some damage they can put on camera, for the benefit of the hundreds of millions of watching eyes, and they’ll keep at us until they do. He was being honest about that much.”

    I clenched my fist. I didn’t want to think about Dinah. - Excerpt from Imago 21.2
  81. ↑ “Sorry,” she said. “But it’s better you know this in advance, so it doesn’t blindside you when the news-”

    “Rachel,” I interrupted Tattletale.

    “What?” Rachel asked. Her eyes hadn’t left me.

    “Can I borrow this dog? I’ll look after him.”

    “He needs to eat. Can you get him back to me by tomorrow morning?”
    [...]
    Tattletale frowned, “Skitter, we need to talk about-”

    “I got the gist of it,” I said. “Did you ship the food?”
    [...]
    No questions, no pressure, no explanations. It was just Rachel, stepping outside of her comfort zone and trusting one of her dogs to someone. It helped more than everything Tattletale had said put together.

    Not that that was saying much.

    “Let’s go, Radley.” - Excerpt from Imago 21.2
  82. ↑ “Give me a minute and I’ll try,” Bonesaw said. She was patching up a cape that had been disemboweled. She looked over her shoulder at Tattletale, who had set up in a far corner. “But I gotta say, I’m giving you a ninety-nine percent chance of coming out of this with regrets. Maybe you should run it by Tattletale, there?”

    I looked back at Tattletale.

    “You’re going to lose your mind. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Maybe all at once, maybe in pieces. Depends on how it all reconnects in the end,” Bonesaw said.

    “Tattletale would stop me,” I said. “She’d…”

    See it as something self-destructive, suicidal.

    I shook my head a little. “…No. Keep her in the dark, for the time being. Let her focus on what she’s doing.”

    “Okay,” Bonesaw said. “She’s going to figure it out pretty fast, though.”
    [...]
    “I’m inexperienced, yeah,” Panacea said. “But even inexperienced, I think I can do a cleaner job than you. And Tattletale’s less likely to catch on if you aren’t sawing Taylor’s skull open.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.9
  83. ↑ “Shit, shit, shit, fuck,” a young woman’s voice, from a distance away. Not Panacea.

    Tattletale.

    I raised my head, and Tattletale startled a little. Why had she startled? The way I’d moved?

    “What did you do, Taylor?” Tattletale asked. - Excerpt from Speck 30.1
  84. ↑ “You never learned to ask for help when you needed it,” Tattletale said. Her voice was almost accusatory. “I mean, you ask when you approach other groups, and it’s like you’re holding a gun to their heads as you ask, or you ask at a time when it’s hard for them to say no, because all hell’s about to break loose.”
    [...]
    “Yeah, you asked Panacea. You asked me to play along and arrange stuff, when you went to go turn yourself in. Your handling of the school thing… well, I don’t want to get into a pattern and start cutting too deep. Let’s just say you make a decision by yourself, and then you use others to get help carrying it out. That’s not really you asking for help, is it?”
    [...]
    “While I’m saying all this, kiddo, you gotta know I love you. I adore you, warts and all. You saved me, as much as I like to think I saved you. All this stuff I’m bitching about, it’s the same stuff that got us through some pretty hairy shit, and I love you for it as much as I groan about it. You’re brilliant and you’re reckless and you care too much about people in general when I really wish you’d leave things well enough alone and be selfish. But this?”

    This?

    “Shit,” Tattletale said. “You gotta forgive me, just this once. Because seeing this and knowing what you pulled hurts enough that I gotta say this. This makes me feel really sorry for your dad, because I’m starting to get a sense of what you put him through.”

    She might as well have slapped me full-force. Worse, I deserved it.

    So this is what it’s like to be on the opposite end of a Tattletale attack. - Excerpt from Speck 30.1
  85. ↑ “Taylor-” Tattletale said.

    I ignored her too.

    “I’m sort of getting what you’re doing. I don’t get why, but I think I get what you’re about to do. Don’t.”

    I closed my eyes, concentrating. I needed to figure this out before I made any moves, or I’d be putting myself in danger. Problem was… there was so much.

    “Taylor, if you go ahead with this, and people start to catch on, you become public enemy number two.”

    “Catch on?” Marquis asked.

    Tattletale didn’t answer him.

    I was pretty sure I had it.

    With my power, I seized control of Doormaker and the Clairvoyant. The pair stood, holding hands. - Excerpt from Speck 30.2
  86. ↑ “Taylor,” Tattletale said. “You’re putting me in a pretty shitty spot, here.”
    [...]
    “I’m not getting enough details here to paint a picture. I trust the hell out of you, but I’m not sure this is you, Taylor.”

    I pocketed my phone, then reached into my belt. I hesitated for an instant, then pressed my hand to my chest for long seconds. I knew I didn’t have time to spare, but… no. I didn’t have time to spare.

    I opened a portal twenty feet above Tattletale, then opened my hand. The little tube of pepper spray dropped through the portal. Tattletale caught it.

    “You couldn’t have made it easy?” Tattletale asked, looking down at it. “Because standing by while you do this… that’s fucking hard. It’s honestly easier if I’m on their side and I’m helping them stop you. If I can blame the fuck-up job Panacea did to your head.”

    I didn’t have a response to that. I used Marquis’ power to withdraw the bone cage and free my own legs.

    I opened a doorway and passed through. - Excerpt from Speck 30.2
  87. ↑ I had a large army. I was powerful. I could move on to the next big step, but I wasn’t sure how. It was like playing chess, the moves I could make had enough gravity and nuance that I could only make one move at a time. What to do first? What wouldn’t open me up for retaliation?

    It was better if I wasn’t here. I turned to leave, backing through a portal.

    Tattletale, in that same moment, stepped outside. She gazed over at my army, then turned and looked straight at me.

    Her eyes were wide. She looked just a little freaked out.
    [...]
    I breathed with five thousand mouths.

    I was adrift in a sea.

    My eyes fell on Tattletale. Panacea was behind her.

    She shook her head, putting herself between me and Panacea.

    I reached out, my hand trembling.

    It flopped down at my side.

    I need her as an anchor more than I need her power. - Excerpt from Speck 30.4
  88. ↑ I realized it at the same moment Scion did. Our emotions at our simultaneous realizations couldn’t have been more different.

    I had to wrack my brain, struggling to find the word in the muddle.

    B-bastard.

    Scion howled. Not a scream of rage this time. Something else.

    It wasn’t an epithet. The third entity was Bastard, the wolf cub. Grown large by the bizarre interaction of Lab Rat’s formula and then cosmetically altered by Panacea, given a handful of special effects. No doubt coordinated by Tattletale.

    Scion’s mad sorrow was so thick on the air I could almost taste it. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  89. ↑ Ben Jammin: And especially if she [Taylor] were dead I would wish Lisa talked about her a little more
    [...]
    Wildbow: How much does Lisa talk about her brother?
    It's a similar thing to her. One she doesn't directly dwell on or touch. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  90. ↑ “I’m here on pure goodwill,” she said. “And while I’m here, enjoying the chance to get a deeper look behind the veil. Bonus is, I’m guilt-free this time, and I get to be a bit smug that my kid didn’t make this mess.”

    She motioned toward Kenzie and Chicken Little.

    “Oh fuck off, Tattletale,” I said. “This isn’t a competition and we really don’t need to be dwelling on this stuff when there’s a deadline.”

    “Not dwelling,” she said. “Briefly commenting.”

    “Um,” Chicken Little said. He raised his hand like he was in class. All heads turned his way. “Didn’t you kind of mentor Skitter? Wasn’t she your ‘kid’, kind of like this?”

    “No,” Tattletale said.

    “She kind of was,” I folded my arms. “By just about every objective account we have.”

    “Including stuff you’ve told me,” Chicken Little said, to Tattletale.

    “No,” Tattletale said. “You’re way off base, bud. Skitter was her own woman.”

    “But Imp said you taught Skitter about the cops and robbers game, and we all know how that went.”

    “Alright,” Tattletale said. “I might have to put a new rule in place, where you’re grounded every time you bring her up.”

    “Why? That’s not fair!” Chicken protested.

    “It’s not fair,” Darlene echoed, in a tone reminiscent of the ‘don’t hurt the Chicken’ chant from earlier.

    “It’s an opsec thing,” Tattletale said.

    “I don’t even know what that means,” Chicken Little protested.

    “If I ground you enough times, maybe you’ll learn, hm?” Tattletale asked, sounding way too pleased with herself over browbeating an eleven year old in an argument.

    “I bet it’s ’cause you keep beating her in arguments whenever you do it, Chicken,” Candy said. “What are the unwritten rules again? You don’t attack innocents, we know Skitter did that, you don’t use guns, we know she did that. You don’t kill, well, we have to remember Alexandria…”

    “Okay,” Tattletale said. “I think it’s time to head back to Aunt Rachel’s. I’m sure there are some stables to muck out, as punishment for the whole debacle earlier tonight. If Breakthrough wants the rest of my Tattletale insights, I’ll have to ask for my standard fee.”

    The kids protested loudly, voices overlapping, with Kenzie adding her voice to the outcry without looking away from her work.

    “You’re more of a child than any of the children in the room,” I told Tattletale, incredulous. - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  91. ↑ ViVaVl29: Dropped ward a couple months ago. Just want to know do we ever definitively find out Taylor’s situation?

    Wildbow: In Glow-Worm, it's stated outright that she's gone. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  92. ↑ Wildbow: The conclusion is Taylor in a coma, trapped in her own head, with no voluntary control over her body. This is what Contessa meant when she said that Taylor would decide whether she found peace or didn't.

    It's why Tattletale said she'd look after Taylor, and why she wanted to drive the point home for relative strangers who were there as guests. It's why Alec was there, and why her dad was alive, when he had every reason to be dead.

    Brain surgery with a bullet isn't really possible, come on. The real ending is that Taylor is effectively dead but not dead, and has to live with the consequences of her decisions, in a pseudo-afterlife. This ties into the themes of the story. Powerlessness and consequences.

    Intending to make this clearer in the rewrite. Floored me that it didn't come across for most.
    [...]
    /just kidding. Or am I?
    [...]
    The ending is what you want/need it to be. I meant it to be ambiguous, it missed the mark.

    Wildbow: I personally find it rather amusing that some people have gotten on Worm's case for having a 'happy ending', when the main character died.

    Done. Gone from this world. Mourned. Finally getting to meet the loved ones she lost. Left to deliberations over her actions in her former life, and the suffering or peace she's due, depending on the final decisions.

    Maybe it says something about the tone of the story that the main character getting taken out of action is a happy ending.
    [...]
    AKA: finished, gone from the world, mourned, reuniting with lost loved ones, facing a final judgement that will see if she finds peace or torment waiting for her there.

    Some readers interpret it as literal death (and Tattletale was saying Dinah needed to be convinced that she was responsible or partially responsible), with Taylor in the literal afterlife. Some see it as a metaphorical death. But it's a kind of death nonetheless. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit / on OG Myth-Weavers, archived on Spacebattles
  93. ↑ agenderGorgon: Taylor can't come to the phone right now.
    Because she's allegorically dead.Key

    Wildbow: She's as dead as Schroedinger's cat.
    However you interpret that, she ain't getting out of the box alive. She isn't coming back. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, 02-16-2018
  94. ↑ Blonk: Isn't Taylor living on Earth Alphe? She went to meet her alt-mom and everything.

    Wildbow: Afterlife
    [...]
    Wildbow: Or coma.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Or alive but severely brain damaged and hallucinating.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Or alive but on Aleph.
    [...]
    Kite: and here I thought this whole time Contessa was just super nice and fixed it for her
    [...]
    but she was talking her out back and shooting her old yeller style and...
    is it fair to assume Wildbow is trolling us

    Wildbow: It's intentionally vague, and is whichever option you're least happy with, Kite. - Conversation with Wildbow on Parahumans Discord, 09-24-2019
  95. ↑ iamnotokaywitthis: If, say, Taylor Hebert popped up in the City post-GM, how would the world react?

    On one hand, she forcefully subverted thousands of parahumans to combat Scion. She's a Master, and Canary got sent to the Birdcage just for being one. She sacrificed lives like chess pieces for the greater good. On the other hand, it's fucking Scion, and Taylor managed to beat him, saving countless lives.

    If Taylor were to show up in the City, would the Wardens consider her hero or villain?

    Wildbow: "Look at this corpse, two bullets in the head. How tragic. Too bad the face is unrecognizable with the exit wounds. Crime's getting so bad in the city these days. I'll call the coroner, you want to order lunch?" - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  96. ↑ Wildbow: Her dad was dead. She's in the afterlife in the epilogue.

    JackOfStaves: WHAT
    I didn't even know that was an option!

    Wildbow: Technically (Ward) She's in shard space.
    It's why she sees Alec.

    Lilith, Queen of Darkness: thats such a reveal ngl

    Wildbow: More obliquely it's meant to be ambiguous- and the ongoing joke is that whatever people are comfortable assuming, it's the opposite. - Conversation with Wildbow on Parahumans Discord, 04-21-2024
  97. ↑ 97.0 97.1 “Tattletale says that when you kill yourself, or you act so recklessly you die so you essentially killed yourself, then it kind of means people won’t care about you.”

    “Is that what she did?” I asked. Heavy topic for a car full of eleven and twelve year olds.

    “Yeah. Tattletale says the people who love and appreciate you will be hurt or angry and that hurt and anger makes it so they won’t be able to hold onto the memories in the same way. And your enemies will forget you and move on and grow, while you just fade away.”

    “She makes sense sometimes,” I said. - Excerpt from From Within 16.7
  98. ↑ 98.0 98.1 “I think about her once in a while. Skitter, I mean. Weaver. Taylor. I go a month without thinking about her at all and then I’ll get really curious because-”

    Candy cleared her throat.

    “-she was there not long after my parents died. But I think about her less and less. You can only ask the same questions so many times, you know?”

    “Yeah,” I said. “I think that happens with any loss, eventually.”

    “But with losses like we’re talking about, when someone basically kills themselves, it happens more.”

    “Except for the hurt and pain, which will stick around for those that cared, yeah. They fade.”

    “I think Tattletale probably isn’t the same person she used to be. She’s carrying a lot of that with her.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.7
  99. ↑ TheSmallLeviathan: Why dont people in ward really refer to Khepri or any of her previous aliases?

    I know since GM she was a taboo topic, but even then I don't see why she's never mentioned by anyone. I would expect it less if the Victoria wasn't the main character considering she had direct confrontation with her for a while.

    Also I get that Victoria mentioned in the early parts of ward briefly explaining how the topic was taboo. Also, I'm catching up and only on arc 5, so forgive me if she becomes news in the later arcs.

    Wildbow: Have Eidolon, Alexandria, or the Endbringers come up that much either?

    It's easy to conflate Khepri as a thing when we had a firsthand view of her, but she was one big threat among many at a time there were a lot of big threats and a lot of things going on - most don't connect Khepri to Skitter, and the ones who can (Legend, Chevalier) aren't necessarily touting her praises or wanting to spread awareness of just how close parahumans came to being entirely out of [humanity's] control, or they (Tattletale et al) don't really want to draw attention to a friend's lowest, greatest, and most terrible point- to get people talking about Khepri would risk that Taylor, Weaver, and Skitter were overshadowed by this bigger, more sinister name and identity.

    People's focus lies elsewhere, if they have any idea what happened. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  100. ↑ Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Draw your own conclusions. Look at who she was and extrapolate. She did good she did bad. As time passed yes the bad things might have faded some but the controversial stuff she did might have gotten worse. Extrapolate.

    FlippinMad: You’re saying that’s what happened? At the end. She did some good and she did some bad but she did something super controversial?

    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: I am saying *nothing*. I am suggesting that if you are wondering what happened when you couldn’t see then you can make some educated guesses.
    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She killed people. She hurt people. She may have played a part in a war over the city. She threatened innocents with bugs and choked more than one person to death or nearly to death by shoving spiders and centipedes down their throats. She killed Alexandria at a time when we needed Alexandria most.
    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She consorted with rapists terrorists and monsters.
    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: And because it eneds to be said yes she became a hero. That counts for something maybe. Maybe she had to. Maybe not.
    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She was there at the end and whatever she did, nobody will speak of it, at least for now. Fill in the blank
    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: Now she’s gone and you’re still here.

    FlippinMad: Gone?
    FlippinMad: she retired? Or she’s dead? Gone gone?

    Point_Me_@_The_Sky: She is *gone*. - Excerpt from Glow-worm P.9
  101. ↑ Screams: Yeah I was always confused at people mentioning the alabaster interlude [in Pale] as something that would likely get edited, there is nothing inconsistent with her characterisation in there. She just has a lot of (bad) internal justifications for the bad stuff she does.

    Wildbow: Maybe edits are warranted, but it's more that I think, like, 10% of readers read it and take her at her word/take her as something sympathetic, instead of seeing the inherent contradictions. And that could be adjusted.
    [...]
    The 'world forgot what mercy is' is one good case of that.
    And I think if you take that read and then hold firmly onto it through the chapters where the Trio are confronting her, it jars.
    It's like reading Worm and taking Taylor as wholly right, and then getting angry when she's condemned for her stances (Ward) or not hailed as a hero in the sequel.
    [...]
    And again, like, I could've written Worm a lot better. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  102. ↑ Imp looked down at the armored man. “You’re fucking with an old friend, using her schtick, taking it ugly places. So it looks like I have a bit of a hobby, now. If you get in touch with Teach, or vice versa, then let him know I’m not cool with it, and I’ll stop being a thorn in his side the day he stops cribbing from someone else’s game plan. Capiche?”

    Nero couldn’t bring himself to answer.

    “It’s about legacies,” Imp said. “Kind of important. She’s gone, so it’s up to us to protect her legacy. Now here’s another. Desk drawer, bottom right.” - Excerpt from Teneral e.2
  103. ↑ Wildbow: Not many people actually know it was Khepri. It's pretty limited to the people who knew her, and for a lot of those, they don't have a reason to spread it around. Like, what's going to happen? "Our friend Taylor controlled everyone to coordinate the fight at one point"
    Okay, then... now they've got some notoriety and remembrance for Taylor, and also hundreds of parahumans who may want to find Taylor to take that power or kill Taylor to prevent anyone from taking it/for revenge.
    And in a tense post-Gold Morning situation, you badly hurt the rep of capes in general, who are already in a bad place and are barely holding on by the merit of "At least we stopped him." -- so people may want to hurt you for that.
    [...]
    Wildbow: They were largely free for most of the ending. What Taylor did was get them coordinated when things were breaking down and people were fighting with one another. She lost control, they kept fighting. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  104. ↑ 104.0 104.1 104.2 “I heard that one. What were you doing charging in like that? You reckless idiot.”

    “Had to distract it. Stick to the game plan.”

    “Brute mentality, no brute powers. See where it gets you?” Tattletale asked. “You-”
    [...]
    When he had a moment, he aimed for Chicken Little, knife out, and lunged.

    Tattletale threw herself in the way. She’d dropped her gun, so she only had her hands.

    He sliced her, again and again. Back, back, shoulder, arm- she looked up, trying to get a sense of him, and he caught her above the ear and near the eye.
    [...]
    Knife fights were ugly, and Cradle seemed to know that. There weren’t good moves to defend oneself from a knife user who was aware of the full potential of the weapon, and any move that was anything less than good meant horrific damage, often going past skin and into muscle, if not organs.

    Tattletale took the brunt of it, because the alternative was that the kids would do the same. - Excerpt from From Within 16.10
  105. ↑ “We’re out of time, Tattletale,” I said, quiet. “What they’re doing isn’t working, and you’re here, trying to vet my plan.”

    “Trying to fathom it, when it’s the one action you could take that’s furthest from my ability to understanding. It’s reckless.”

    “It is, a bit.”

    “There’s nothing noble about putting lives on the line, Victoria. It’s even less noble when thousands do it.”

    “You say that even when… you knew Khepri?” I asked her.

    “No comment.”
    [...]
    “Is there a point, Tattletale? If that’s where you draw your personal line in the sand, given your past experiences, I’m not going to fight you on that. The feelings are valid and I think we’d only fuck up our fragile truce here if I tried.”

    “Not my past experiences. Current experience,” she said, meeting my eyes. “As a person left behind.”
    [...]
    Tattletale stood strong. “You haven’t convinced me. You’d take Rachel from me? Grue? Again? Imp? Chicken fucking Little? The Heartbroken kids?”

    “Potentially. People will die no matter what happens, Tattletale. It’s a question of whether it’s one hundred percent or sixty or twenty five percent. If we do nothing it’s one hundred percent.”

    “If we do nothing the Simurgh might win. We live.”

    “We won’t be us and you fucking know it, Tattletale,” I told her.

    She was silent. There wasn’t a hint of a grin on her face. - Excerpt from Last 20.9
  106. ↑ “Now we’ve got forces worse and stronger than a single Endbringer lined up. It requires us to commit more, with a higher proportion of death.”

    “One hundred percent.”

    “Maybe,” I said. I used flight to get to a sitting position, holding the paper dress in front of me and the bandage to my shoulder. “Does it matter? We don’t have what we need. The Simurgh got out ahead of us.”

    “It matters to me,” Tattletale said. “I’ve tolerated a lot, spending time with you, helping out your teammate…”

    I laughed, one note, then winced with pain.

    “…But I have to draw the line here,” Tattletale said. “I lost someone important to me because she wanted to make a stupid, grand gesture at the end. She made the gesture without communicating with anyone… except your sister. Then she carried it out. You, I hate to break it to you, aren’t important to me.”

    “Good. I’m glad.”

    “But I have no tolerance for this shit. Zero.” - Excerpt from Last 20.9
  107. ↑ “And they’re kids who hang out with supervillains,” I pointed out. “Heartbroken and Tattletale’s protege. Playing in the snow while the adults talk is probably as kid-like as things get for them. I don’t think fishnets are even on their radar.”

    “The one with the bird mask is the protege?” Littlejohn asked me. I nodded my confirmation. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.5
  108. ↑ “I’d rather not hurt people’s pets, and I did this because you were rushing me and telling me I had to do it now, I had to learn to think on the fly, and so I did, but now I’m doubting myself.”

    “Don’t,” Tattletale said. “You’re better than you think.”

    Ratcatcher wrung her hands while Tattletale talked to her protege. - Excerpt from Black 13.6
  109. ↑ “It reminded me of a friend, believe it or not. He needed a mentor, and it seemed natural.”

    “Naturally,” I said.

    “Trying to do right by him,” Tattletale said, “Letting him pick his own name, which you should never let a pre-teen do-”
    [...]
    “-Teaching him what he needs to know to get by as a cape in this crazy world of ours, and, you know, not making him stand there while you parade around a projection of a horribly maimed teenager. The little things.”
    [...]
    “You said you’d help Cradle, but you didn’t want to know what happened to the kid,” I said. “We thought you needed to see the consequences of your actions.” - Excerpt from Pitch 6.8
  110. ↑ “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

    “Why?”

    “Why look after me? You don’t seem to like anyone, you’re busy, but you make the time for me. You- in this truck?” He pointed down at the truck parked near the end. A slightly different make than the longer trucks with storage containers in the backs. Most of the storage containers were set up as armories and quarters. A moving base, so they could relocate whenever March drew near. After, it would be a way to set up her mercenaries in any location.
    [...]
    “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Also, I don’t know how to clean this. I don’t want to smudge my sleeve with lipstick.”

    She drew a tissue from her inner jacket pocket and handed it over.

    “Thank you. Please answer my question.”

    “Why you?”

    “Yeah.”

    “I could say you remind me of Taylor.” - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  111. ↑ “Come on,” Lisa wheedled, “It’s a rite of passage for dastardly criminals like us.”

    “Robbing a bank is moronic. We’ve been over this,” Brian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, “You know what the average haul is for hitting a bank?”
    [...]
    I’d almost forgotten I was a part of the discussion. The last thing I wanted was to rob a bank. Hostages could get hurt. The fact that it would potentially put me on the front page of the paper wasn’t a high point, either, if I ever wanted to drop the supervillain ruse and become a hero in good standing. I ventured, “I think Brian makes a good case. It seems reckless.”
    [...]
    “Ok, so Brian said similar stuff before, before we hit that casino a few weeks ago. So I was kind of expecting this. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. The boss wants us to do a job at a very specific time. I got the sense he was willing to offer a fair bit if we went the extra mile, and I negotiated a pretty good deal.

    “The bank robbery was my idea, and he liked it. According to him, the Protectorate is busy with an event on Thursday, just outside of town. That’s part of the reason the timing is so important. If we act then, there’s almost no chance we’ll have to deal with them. If we hit the Bay Central, downtown-”

    “That’s the biggest bank in Brockton Bay,” I interrupted her, half-disbelieving.

    “So everything I said about them having security and being careful is doubly true,” Brian added. - Excerpt from Agitation 3.3
  112. ↑ “I’m not liking the direction this is going, here,” I told her.

    She picked up her laptop and set it on the back of the couch, facing me and Brian. The page showed details on the celebration, had links to ticket vendors and sported an image of a bunch of people in tuxedos and gowns. “The Protectorate and some of the Wards are going to be there with the upper crust of Brockton Bay, their friends and family, and anyone else willing to shell out the cash for a ticket. The boss wants us to, quote, ’embarrass them’, unquote.”
    [...]
    I didn’t wait for him to finish before I said my piece, “Are you insane? You want us to, what, crash a party, fuck with the people there and then scram before we get ourselves arrested by the-” I struggled to find the words, “By half the fucking heroes in Brockton Bay?!”

    “Basically.” Lisa said, raising her hands as if to get me to calm down, “Though it’s probably more like a third of the city’s heroes.”

    “Right,” I said, “No offense, Lisa, I’m fond of you and everything, but you kind of underestimated the number of heroes that would show up to the bank robbery, too. Don’t forget that a bunch of heroes came from out of town to help with the ABB situation, and they might stick around for the after-party.”

    “True,” she admitted, “But still-”

    “And the plan is to piss them off?” I asked, incredulous, “Not just them, either, but that party’s probably going to be attended by the mayor, the DA, the police chief… You’re aware that if we tried this and any of us got caught, it would pretty much be a first class trip to the Birdcage?”
    [...]
    Brian asked her, “Can we turn this down? I mean, he’s never forced us to take a job.”

    “We could,” she didn’t look happy. - Excerpt from Tangle 6.4
  113. ↑ “It doesn’t mean you’re not going to get hurt if you get into a fight,” Tattletale said.

    “If someone’s going to get hurt, and my friends are there, I have to be there,” Aiden said. “I have to.” - Excerpt from Interlude 11.c II
  114. ↑ “The fact we’re being watched means I want to keep a better eye on Chicken,” Tattletale said. “Any questions you want to ask that you can’t ask in front of him? Please tell me I don’t need to tell you what’s on and off the table.”

    “I’m pretty sure I get it,” I said. “We protect people besides Chicken, you know.”

    “Yes,” Tattletale said, and I had a hard time identifying if she was being sincere. “We’ll take steps.” - Excerpt from Black 13.6
  115. ↑ “I’m a mastermind supervillain with limited hours and mental resources. I’m being nice, offering my insights, but I am one hundred percent willing to take the cheap-shot shortcuts if it means conserving those resources or keeping my mentee safe.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  116. ↑ 116.0 116.1 “We’ve got a Precipice,” Chicken Little said. “Right, Precipice? You have any ideas? If you don’t, Tattletale might.”

    “I’m coming in second to him,” Tattletale noted.

    “Only for this! He lived here, like he said,” Darlene protested.

    “I buy you cool clothes, get you self defense and martial arts lessons…”

    “You know martial arts?” Kenzie asked. “That’s so cool, Chicken!”

    “I’m only a yellow belt.”

    “…I get you rides, get you equipment, support your new team, even acquire prehistoric birds for you. And you rank him higher than me.”

    “For this!” Chicken Little exclaimed.

    “Little guy is leaving the nest,” Imp said, wiping away a fake tear from her mask.

    “He is not leaving the nest. The nest keeps him safe,” Tattletale said. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.3
  117. ↑ Rain, Tattletale, and Love Lost passed beneath the granite slabs, guiding and shielding the kids. Cradle loomed above, unmolested, still watching. - Excerpt from From Within 16.9
  118. ↑ “Are you okay?” Chicken Little asked her.

    “Uh huh. Gettin’ by. But March is going to realize I bounced back fairly quickly. She’ll realize the resources I have and she’ll hurt me worse next time. Be ready for that.”

    “I’ll protect you.”

    Tattletale smiled. “No you fucking won’t. You get somewhere safe. Just don’t panic. Be ready for it to happen.”

    “Uh huh.” - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  119. ↑ “It isn’t avoiding just Cradle!” I called out, with every bit of volume I could manage. “It’s avoiding killing anyone that’s in their own room!”

    Meaning if they could get to their own rooms, they’d be safe. By leaving our boundaries, we invited attack. And here- in the room with the empty shelves and displays-

    It kept hesitating. Avoiding striking home. Waiting.
    [...]
    His expression twisting, Cradle started forward- and his shirt snagged on the shelving.

    “Go,” Tattletale said, talking to the kids. “Back to your rooms until we come for you. Go.”

    They went.

    And the others came. The cavalry was there.

    And the many-armed thing had more targets it could attack, all in close proximity. - Excerpt from From Within 16.10
  120. ↑ “Right. We’re doing important work,” Kenzie added.

    “You are,” Chicken Little added. “Not that I’m complaining.”

    “It’s your job to protect us when trouble comes calling,” Kenzie said. She looked to the side, where Candy was slumped down, headphones on, sleeping or trying to sleep. Darlene just past her, by the car door.

    “It is absolutely not his job to do that,” Tattletale cut in. “His job, all of your jobs are to run. Get out of trouble, if you find yourselves in any. Understand?”

    “Yes,” three of the kids said in chorus. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.7
  121. ↑ “Two ways we could go about that,” Tattletale told me. “I’ve got stuff to handle, and I’m putting it off while I’m on the phone. I can handle the Contessa talk later, or you can handle it now.”

    “I could use the cred. If it’s even that,” I said. “And I could use an excuse to go.”

    “Go then. I’ll wrangle kids and puppies, deal with a crampy, cranky kid who’s feeling very worried and out of place right now, and get my team prepared.”

    Meanwhile, my own team is scattered and on the front lines.

    “Thanks for looking after her.”

    But Tattletale was already gone.

    I looked down at the loading dock and the signs of battle. Repaired, subtle, or glaring in how they’d been highlighted, so workers wouldn’t cut themselves on sharp edges.

    “I feel like you’d know exactly what to do for that kid at a time like this,” I said, to the empty air.

    I gave the part of the railing with the handprint a pat, then stepped away. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.10
  122. ↑ I had a projector disc with me. I brought it up, tapping on the side. A group of small holographic figures appeared above the disc, tinted yellow from head to toe. An arrow at the disc’s edge indicated the direction to them, with a number showing distance. They were gathered in vehicles, but the vehicles weren’t drawn as thoroughly as the people who sat in them, much like the mercenaries that accompanied them. Three heartbroken, Chicken Little, Sveta, and Capricorn, with Tattletale along to gather some intel and make sure the kids were alright. They were tracking down Cradle.
    [...]
    I checked the disc with representations of each team. Tattletale’s team was hunkered down, apparently working on tracking down Cradle. Tattletale was also supposed to be able to keep an eye out for any pointed dangers or incoming attacks, which meant Capricorn and Sveta should be safe or safer for as long as that activity took. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.5
  123. ↑ “The job is to accompany us. Might use your birds. Strict fact-finding mission,” Tattletale told him. “Talk to your team to get answers once or twice. Low intensity. Darlene can take a fifteen minute bathroom break to fuss over herself if she wants, it’s that mild a job.”

    “That’s- don’t go and say that,” Darlene said.

    “One of us on desk duty to go and get the other if we need it, if we’re not using microphones?” Kenzie asked. Her legs kicked where they dangled over the edge of the desk.

    “Yes. Low danger,” Tattletale said. “I hope it’s low danger. Tools? Bring two raptors.”

    “And the Haast Eagle?” Chicken Little asked.

    “That you called Chicken Large, told all the other kids about, and expected I wouldn’t hear about? Too big, too dramatic for what we’re doing.”

    “I’ll have him fly with, give him a chance to stretch his wings, if that’s okay,” Chicken Little said, getting a short nod in response. “Okay. That’s good.” - Excerpt from Black 13.5
  124. ↑ “Get your birds,” Tattletale told Chicken Little. “If and when we use them, they should be used nonlethally.”

    “They’re hawks. And an eagle-”

    “Don’t use the eagle. That will kill.”

    “So will the hawks! They’re awesome killing machines! They have feet like fistfuls of knives!”

    “And this is practice and training,” Tattletale said. “Nonlethal. Hang back with Snuff. If I whistle, cross the street, come to me, obey.”

    “But-”

    “I’m the customer, right?”

    “Half the customer,” Chicken Little said. He turned to me, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I could tell he was hopeful.

    Like the divorced parent thing again. When one parent said no…

    “What she says.”

    His shoulders drooped. - Excerpt from Black 13.5
  125. ↑ She’d put some distance between us. She’d exited the chute and the dumpster at the bottom of it, and I saw her entering a building.

    Two hawks swooped down, snatching up the rats that followed behind her.

    There was a pause, with her holding the door open, the door blocking my view. Then the crooked nose of her mask extended out and up, as she tracked the disappearance of her pets.

    I landed.

    About two seconds later, while I approached with arms up to show I wasn’t a threat, the thought connected.

    Tattletale had invited Chicken Little for a reason. This reason. She’d guessed Ratcatcher was one of the fringe candidates, and she’d brought the bird master to go after the rats.

    Non-lethally, she’d stressed.

    She was going to be so insufferably pleased with herself, that it all came together like it did. - Excerpt from Black 13.5
  126. ↑ “I’m going to bring you along,” she said.

    She saw his eyes widen.

    “But-”

    “Tell me now if you’re not ready.”

    “I failed my test. I got scared and I was too slow.”

    “You lost to the Heartbroken. Samuel wanted to see what you were made of, I didn’t say no. Maybe that’s not fair, maybe his idea of a good test is screwed up because the asshole that spawned him was flinging him into situations against capes and cops before he could even read. Most of the rest of them are like that. They were cannon fodder, they were punching bags, they were slaves to make and bring food… nothing about that was healthy or good for anything except making them very, very dangerous.”

    “I like some of them,” Chicken Little said, pronouncing ‘some of them’ with a mumble that turned it into ‘sumblum’.

    “And some of them like you. Which makes them more dangerous, if anything.”
    [...]
    This wasn’t a moot. It wasn’t a Somer’s Rock, and it wasn’t a gathering of world powers in the dark room.

    Chaos. Concern.

    No. She had to give the white hats more credit than that. There was a note of fear here. Fear of heroes and fear of the expanded Undersiders. She’d wanted to show strength and in doing so, she’d made a mistake. Too much strength.

    Villains had assembled in Sherwood Span. The area was sparse, spread out. Some buildings were in construction, but it looked like that had stopped. Mostly it was scattered houses.

    The major players were notably absent, though Tattletale was keeping an eye on the spies. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  127. ↑ Once we’d figured out where we were going, deciding on a route that avoided the settled areas and roads, Vista had shortened the distance as much as she could. We’d left Kenzie’s projector cube behind, in favor of the faster trip. Even with the shortcut, we’d had to hitch a ride to get ourselves here. Concord Station.

    The Undersiders were waiting for us. They sat on tables and chairs, or lounged with stuffed animals and mutant dogs giving them something to lean on or sit on. Foil and Imp stood, while others sat or leaned back. Foil was stock still, on guard, and Imp was restless.

    There were others. I recognized Snuff. There was the boy with the birds. Two people were dressed to match Rachel in general style, with heavy clothes that seemed more utilitarian, except for bits and pieces, like a collar here or a spiked belt wrapped around the arm there. The guy wore a bear trap decoration around his lower face.

    Maybe those were utilitarian too, with ‘intimidation’ being the sought-after utility.

    They would have outnumbered us without the mutant dogs and the giant stuffed animals with the black cloth. With them, though? Three to one.

    Similar to Snag’s numbers, now that I thought about it. - Excerpt from Pitch 6.7
  128. ↑ “You had a migraine and wanted to be left alone in the dark, Imp is trying to catch the people who are after us.”

    “We aren’t supervising you enough, is what you’re saying.”

    “I don’t need supervision,” Aiden said, setting his jaw. “I’m an Undersider.”

    “Junior.”

    “You said you would be pretending to be in a coma for the next ten hours. Imp was gone for the day. We took precautiouns. I’m doing my best and we ended up fine. Lookout doesn’t get flack.”

    “Lookout got shot twice. Bad example, kiddo.”

    “I’m working with the Heartbroken-”

    “Playing with fire.”

    “I had protection!”

    “A twelve year old was your best protection.” - Excerpt from Interlude 10.z II
  129. ↑ 129.0 129.1 He felt a small measure of satisfaction as he saw her lurch to her feet, heading to the door where mercenaries were standing guard.

    “You’re grounded, by the way,” she said.

    He spun around, “You can’t ground me. I’m not your kid.”

    “You’re grounded,” she said, again, rubbing at her temples. “I’ll tell Charlotte and Forrest. They’ll agree with me.”

    Was it because he’d been smug? Had she sensed it and decided to get back at him? It was hard to tell sometimes.

    He rankled. He’d done nothing wrong.

    “She wouldn’t have wanted you to do this,” he said.

    “Cute, but no cigar,” Tattletale said, half-turning.

    “She would have agreed with me. She would have been disappointed you fought me on this.”

    She didn’t respond, opening the door and then closing it behind her. He could see through the bulletproof glass where she was talking to the mercenary.

    He felt frustrated in a way he couldn’t articulate, which was probably by her design. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.z II
  130. ↑ “A group of people are trying to be sneaky,” Tattletale said. “Framing others, planting really convincing evidence. Possibly for a bigger play further down the line. Possibly to sow discord or create divisions within groups. It would be like if someone pretended to be you and sent nasty messages to the Heartbroken, so you’d never get invited to Aunt Rachel’s again, or if they were planting evidence on your computers now so they could mess up your team and allll the other teams a year from now.”

    “Okay,” Chicken Little said.

    The discourse was interesting from a certain angle. That it felt like Tattletale talked down to Chicken Little, except she had a tone like she was talking down to anyone, normally. Just… more here.

    I felt like I approached Kenzie as more of an adult and expected her to keep up, and she was sharp enough to do that, with only occasional steering. Based on what she’d told me and shown me, she’d been clever even before triggering. It wasn’t a tinker thing. - Excerpt from Black 13.5
  131. ↑ Chicken Little continued trying to make himself look presentable, not aware of the lipstick am. He shook himself off and threw his hands out to the side as part of the end of the motion. The birds that circled in the air above squawked, cried out, and scattered.

    Presentation and flourish were one of the safest things Tattletale could train him in. But he did need other lessons. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  132. ↑ Aiden wasn’t sure he looked that nice. He’d gelled his hair up into a small fauxhawk because it looked dumb however he parted it and it never looked right if he spiked it. He had a nice ankle-length jacket that Lisa had given him, jeans, boots, and a sweatshirt, which he wore with the hood nestled into the jacket’s. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.z II
  133. ↑ “Warm up the car,” Tattletale said, over the phone. “Plug in the booster seat and cage.”

    “Booster seat?” I asked. “Who?”
    [...]
    The hawks went into a cage that was apparently built across the middle section of the backseat, dividing the two sides. Tattletale took the passenger seat, and Snuff got behind the wheel. I ended up sitting behind him, because of how the door of the cage opened behind Tattletale’s and where the booster seat was fit into the car.

    “What are we fact-finding?” Chicken Little asked, as he strapped in. - Excerpt from Black 13.5
  134. ↑ “Any ideas?”

    I turned my head.

    Tattletale had come from the little kitchen area with a cup of coffee in her hands. She wore civilian clothes, and her hair was tied up in a ponytail.

    “Ideas for?”

    “I feel like saying they’re grounded literally for life, and that I will hire people to ensure it sticks… it still lacks impact.”

    I smiled.

    “I can’t take a belt to their asses because, well, illegal. And shitty. But how do you punish a gang of idiots like this?”

    “I dunno,” I said. I looked over the sleeping kids. “Are they coming to wake them up?” - Excerpt from Last 20.11
  135. ↑ “I won’t say a word,” I said.

    “Thank you. I can’t really talk to Rachel about stuff like this. She’s great. She’s the very best. But not for talking. Tattletale used to be someone we could go to, but she got worn out, and it became a not-this-week thing, and then a not-this-month thing. I was going to ask Imp for help, but she’s hurt now, and she’s not here.” - Excerpt from Heavens 12.5
  136. ↑ No, nothing to do but go to sleep. The other issues could be tackled later.

    She climbed into the bed that Faultline had offered her. A luxurious bed with fine blankets in a shitty apartment. The bed was wide enough for three people to sleep in comfortably.

    Her head pounded as she lay her head down.

    Her hands and feet weren’t even that warm, but in the core of her chest, she felt numb.

    She was so tired, so tired. But as the hours ticked on, all she could do was digest the information she’d collected, plan, and remain aware of how dark and cold the room was. - Excerpt from Heavens 12.5
  137. ↑ In this situation, she worried. A careful retreat might be needed, to avoid being at the fringes of a firefight or any violence.

    She was so tired.

    Tired of fighting her shard. Tired of managing.

    She kept an eye out for Chicken Little, and an eye out for some of the Heartbroken. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  138. ↑ The feral under-twelves were fanning out, and Chicken Little was in their sights. He looked back at Tattletale, nervous.

    “Don’t look at me,” Tattletale told him. There was a part of the sidewalk that dipped, causing her foot to have to travel a short distance further, which meant her legs had to adjust her weight. She winced at the adjustment, the pain driving through each of her legs like a phantom movement of the bullet through the tissues. “You wanted to go out in the field, Chicken Little? Show us what you’re made of.”

    “We could take him apart,” Juliette said. “Drumstick, thigh, gizzard, the gross leftover bits that get processed and put in chicken nugs.”

    “I’d rather keep my gross leftover bits where they belong,” Chicken Little said.

    “You’re showing weakness, Chicken Little,” Samuel called out. “I told you not to do that if you want to hang around these guys.”
    [...]
    “You, soldier,” Samuel said. “For the kid’s sake, you’re going to need to draw your gun. If I give the signal, shoot the kid I point at. Only if I give the signal. If you fuck this up, all the rest of us will come after you.”
    [...]
    “You could have backed out, called it off,” Samuel said. “You knew it was kissing tag?”

    “Yeh,” Chicken Little answered.

    “You know Tattletale set rules. No powers-”

    “Only the mask, only if I’m game, I can call it off any time-”

    “And you didn’t? And here I thought I scared you. Are you tougher than you pretend to be, Chicken L?”
    [...]
    “That was a game?” the soldier that had been tasked with killing a child asked. He looked between Samuel and Tattletale.

    “Test,” Samuel said, sounding dismissive.

    “No, I didn’t figure it out,” Chicken Little admitted. “You did scare me.”

    “Not badly enough that you backed off.”

    “I thought I wasn’t supposed to show weakness,” Chicken Little said, defensive.

    Defensive, as if it was all his fault. But Tattletale met Samuel’s eyes, and she saw Chastity’s smirk.

    Yeah, it wasn’t on him. They were sending mixed messages.

    Mixed messages weren’t the worst thing in the world. If push came to shove and that kid found himself in a serious fight, there’d be more mixed messages than this. The trick was making sure that they were teaching him to deal with them, not putting those mixed messages in his head.

    It left a sour taste in her mouth, all the same.

    She could see moments, expressions, and recall feelings that reminded her of Alec. Here and there, there were ones that annoyed her, made her cringe as she thought of them. Times Alec had embarrassed her, preyed on her pride, or mocked her and made her lose her cool.

    This bad feeling was similar to that. But it wasn’t Alec she thought of, as she looked at Chicken Little and regretted how she’d done this. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  139. ↑ From there, it was a series of rules and complicating factors. Tattletale was insistent that Chicken Little was grounded and shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy hanging out with his new friend Lookout. That meant Lookout was assigned to another team. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.5
  140. ↑ “Hi,” he said, quiet.

    “You asked to go out with the others. When I said yes, so long as you were careful-”

    “We were careful.”

    “-I didn’t think you meant a three hour round trip, with barely any firepower.”

    “We had five capes and a mercenary. And my eagle.”

    “Not enough,” she said. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.z II
  141. ↑ “If we’re going to deal, the feathers first. They’re important.”

    “Fine. I’ll agree to that. But Chicken Little is still grounded. He can’t talk to his friends on the phone.”

    “Some conversation.”

    “I’ll cut twenty percent off his sentence of being grounded forever,” Tattletale said. She glanced back at Chicken Little, who ducked his head.

    “Seriously,” I said. “At limited times per day. Or a limited number of messages,” I suggested.

    I heard Kenzie groan behind me.

    “That would be workable,” Chicken Little muttered, barely audible.

    “Feathers and chat. Some meetings allowed if they’re both on good behavior. I’ve read her rap sheet, and I want to make sure he’s protected.”

    I looked at Tristan, then at Rain.

    They looked so exhausted I doubted they were processing.

    I looked at Kenzie, who nodded.

    “Sure.”

    “We’ll negotiate. You want in bed with us, you’re in bed with us. Congratulations. We’ll share resources.”

    I nodded.

    “Fine,” Tattletale said. “Let it be known I’m immensely unhappy with this.”

    “That’s allowed,” I said. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.3
  142. ↑ Can’t be simple with Tattletale either, Darlene thought. Tattletale had wanted to separate her and Aiden like she was separating Aiden and Lookout, until Darlene had made her argument in the car. Her power made Aiden safer. If Candy was the only one with Aiden then that would be bad in its own way, because Candy egged him on. If none of the young Heartbroken were with Aiden, then the older Heartbroken would be, and very few of them were good role models… and Aiden would be worse off in the future, because there wasn’t going to be a time anytime soon where he wasn’t surrounded by the Vasils.

    Tattletale had agreed, points for that. But she’d wanted to separate them and Darlene would remember that for a while. - Excerpt from Interlude 11.c II
  143. ↑ “And a mercenary. I’m making alliances!”

    She winced at the volume.

    “Sorry,” he muttered.

    “Alliances like that are not helping. If we receive a job to go after Breakthrough, and you’ve made a deal with them, what happens?”

    “We shouldn’t go after them.”

    He was heated enough that Darlene and Candy roused a bit, paying attention. He waved a hand in their general direction, and the half-asleep Darlene cut the connection.

    “Did she cut it?” Tattletale asked. “Yes. Okay. Listen, we can’t rule out any options. We may have to go after Breakthrough or these other allies you’re purporting to make.”

    “Why?”

    “That, buddy, is a topic for when my head isn’t pounding.”

    “I think you’re avoiding the question.”

    “Because my head is pounding. Please. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. For now, can you put your bird in its cage?”

    “Already done.”

    “Then get changed and go to sleep.” - Excerpt from Interlude 10.z II
  144. ↑ I didn’t trust myself to approach any of them, so I turned toward the screen that Kenzie had left live.

    The images were there on the monitor. Bulletin boards with notecards stuck to them. Not so different from what we had in our hideout.

    I pretty quickly realized what they were.

    Tattletale’s notes.

    Scary notes. They had some starting points on the people who’d attacked us, notes on the portal, and some theorizing on the greater threats in play.

    Almost casually, figures like the Bogeyman were name-dropped and discarded. Amy and Chris were a footnote.

    Fucking dangerous information for us to so casually have, and dangerous information to be sending out. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.2
  145. ↑ Kenzie’s source had given us some information. Photos of bulletin boards, with some more photos of notecards, all with Tattletale as the dubious source, I had the PRT data from Dragon, I had my notes from the Patrol, and I had my own notes. - Excerpt from Blinding 11.3
  146. ↑ Ninety-nine percent of the conversation was Kenzie talking about her new team, that she was updating her costume, Amias went to her school and she’d talked to him, and Aiden might, might, might be attending since the Undersiders weren’t in New Brockton anymore and he had to go somewhere and, and and…

    “Don’t let Chicken Little name the team,” I said.

    “He’s got good taste, Victoria!” Lookout protested. I couldn’t see her.

    “He thinks you’re neat,” Ashley said. “Proof enough.”

    “Aww, but it’s not just me. He likes a lot of us. Especially Rain, he really looks up to Rain-”

    I met Ashley’s eyes, and she met mine at that same moment.

    “I saw that! The ‘knowing mom’ look. I’m disappointed in you. Rain is badass!”

    “He is badass,” I conceded. - Excerpt from Black 13.1
  147. ↑ “If it is, that’s fine. As I see it, the goal has shifted. We know seventy-five percent of what’s up. We have a pretty good idea about who, when, where, how much and how broad, we can guess about the how and why. Right now, we’re looking for two things.”

    “A way to stop it, deny him what he wants,” I said.

    “Well, in a manner of speaking. I would say we need to find a chink in the armor. That’s one thing. The other thing we want is standing. Authority.”

    “This isn’t because you lost a lot of yours when you lost New Brockton?” Sveta asked. “Or because of what Midas said about you having lost it all? Because I can’t help but notice the first thing you did after hearing that-”

    “Sveta,” I said.

    “-was talk to your team. Sorry. I’m done.”

    “You see what I have to put up with, Snuff?”

    “No comment. I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

    “I’m paying you.”

    “That you are.”

    Tattletale turned around. Sveta moved her head closer to mine to make the face to face interaction easier.

    “You’re kind of right,” Tattletale told Sveta. “Him mentioning that got me thinking about the team and about where we stand. But I don’t think it’s wrong to think about leverage and reputation. The more we know, the more power we have when the diarrhea hits the fan. It means they’re more likely to listen to us, instead of telling us to fuck off and then fumbling around for a week to figure out what we already know.”

    “I don’t disagree,” I said. “We might have seventy-five percent of the answers, as you put it, but having eighty percent is better.” - Excerpt from Black 13.10
  148. ↑ “If this gets out, or if it’s a long-term play, the end result is going to be bad. It affects Lookout, among others, and that affects your kids.”

    “I’m getting the gist of it. But maybe that’s a good thing,” Tattletale said. “Because I worry about your kid in that room more than I worry about any of the Heartbroken. I’d be happier if she wasn’t here. If things are that fragile, it could be better if we rip off that overly attached bandage now.”

    “I’ve given your kids a benefit of a doubt.”

    “Good! They kind of deserve one. When I say Lookout scares me, that’s not me taking a side or being wary because she’s unfamiliar. That’s me saying she’s kinda messed up, and as neat as it would be to have access to her stuff, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

    I put my hand on the back of the armchair she was sitting on, and I tilted it back a bit as I leaned in closer. “Don’t.”

    “It’s the truth,” Tattletale said, sitting back with her feet no longer touching the ground. If I let go of the armchair, it would crash to the floor.

    “You’re talking about her that way in her place. Her territory, when she’s a few rooms away. That’s shitty. You’ve got to be a better person than that.”

    Tattletale brought her feet up even higher, than reached up to chop at my arm where my scar was. As I let go, she swung her feet down and her center of gravity forward, so the armchair would thunk to a proper sitting position instead of falling back.

    “Huh?” Darlene asked, peering around the corner. “What was that?”

    “Antares is bullying me,” Tattletale said.

    Darlene stared, looking at each of us in turn, studying posture and context.

    “Keep at it,” Darlene said. “She needs someone to remind her to act nice once in a while.”

    “Traitor,” Tattletale said. - Excerpt from Black 13.4
  149. ↑ “She spent the last twenty minutes reading through pages and pages of data about herself, her new team, her old team. Records of how annoyed people were about her, how concerned, how thin tolerances were getting…”

    “Okay,” I said. I had a sinking feeling.

    I’d been on the sidelines, with only hints, and the hints had been a lot.

    “Two weeks ago, Chicken Little asked Candy and Darlene if they ever thought about kicking Lookout from the team and what would happen if they did. Nine days ago, he brought up some things with me, asked me if it was why I was always saying stuff about Lookout. I remember that conversation.”

    This wasn’t what Kenzie needed right now.

    “Three days ago, four different times five days ago, I could go back further… mean jokes and comments from her team. Mean might be understating it. Gutting.”

    I nodded, though I was unsure if Tattletale could see. Probably. Kenzie stuck cameras on a lot of her stuff even when there wasn’t an explicit need for it.

    “They’re kids, you know,” Tattletale said. “They love her and she… she’s so head over heels for them she doesn’t know where her head or heels are. I’m not going to pretend my kids are saints or their coping mechanisms are all great. Darlene’s a mess romantically. Candy’s a ticking time bomb. But that’s beside the point. They’re kids. When they get uncomfortable and they don’t know how to process it, they push back, they band together, they can act a little shitty, poke fun, say things that would devastate someone if they heard it out loud. It’s part of the process of figuring things out. Even for good kids like Chicken and messed up kids like Darlene and Candy.”

    “I don’t think Kenzie’s the type to be especially mean to anyone behind their backs.”

    “Maybe not. Maybe it’s because Imp and I have our shittier sides and we rub off on them.”

    “Or Heartbreaker. Or trauma. I don’t know. I meant that she wouldn’t understand it like you describe it.”

    “Yeah.”

    There was a pause. - Excerpt from Dying 15.4
  150. ↑ 150.0 150.1 “Stick with the Wardens?” Tristan asked.

    I nodded. Communication and cooperation are too important.

    “Warning for the kids. Lookout in particular,” Tattletale spoke up. She hadn’t budged from where she sat. “They’re going to take your stuff.”
    [...]
    “If both Breakthrough and the Tenders cooperate, they’re taking your things. All tech, including what you have at the institution and Victoria’s apartment. Confiscated until further notice.”
    [...]
    “They kind of are!” Kenzie answered. “My stuff is everything I can do, it’s months of work, and scans, and it’s my contact with everyone, and it’s my everything! It could make the difference between us saving thousands or thousands dying, couldn’t it?”

    “Theoretically,” I said.

    “You can cheat your way around it,” Tattletale said. “Say the Tenders won’t cooperate. They act outside the law, life gets harder, but you can keep tech at your place.”

    Kenzie nodded, looking at the others.

    I almost said something to her, then stopped myself. Best to let Kenzie find her own way to the answer.

    “But you shouldn’t,” Tattletale said.

    Damn it, I thought. Tattletale liked to hold the kids’ hands. Giving them a fish instead of teaching them how to fish.

    Frustrating.

    “We shouldn’t,” Chicken Little said.

    Kenzie looked crestfallen.

    “It doesn’t make sense to make enemies,” Darlene said, before walking over to give Kenzie a half-hug. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.1
  151. ↑ “Listen to your teammate, listen to me, and don’t mock someone for having a healthy fling,” I growled. “You found a button to press, whatever, fine. But I’ve been dealing with Cryptid and I’m all out of patience. Don’t press this button.”

    “I’m not- no. Lemme explain-”

    “You were laughing about me and Swansong,” Kenzie said, quiet.

    “Oh, kid,” Imp said, and I could hear her sobering up. “No, I really wasn’t. really.”

    “But you are, and I don’t get why it’s funny. I don’t know why that would fit.”

    “Tattletale, babe, help me out, use your power, figure out what I’m thinking and why that’s so funny, and bail me out.”

    “You dug your own grave. If you tick off Lookout that’s going to bode ill for you while you’re babysitting tonight.”

    I folded my arms. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.7
  152. ↑ “I thought my big bro was doing that. He’s so good with kids.”

    “I’m what?” Brian asked. The suggestion had kicked him into fight or flight mode- not just the idea that he might be forced to interact with more kids, but the idea that he had been good with kids, that it might even have been a big part of his identity, and he no longer had that.

    “Look at that. Cracked his big stoic tough guy facade. One point to me.”

    “Jesus, Aisha,” he grumbled.

    “Don’t encourage the Heartbroken,” Tattletale said. “If they think they can get points, they’ll push things too far.” - Excerpt from Infrared 19.g
  153. ↑ 153.0 153.1 It had been Candy who had given me the data stick. I’d plugged it into my phone while waiting for Kenzie to get her things together.

    I had no idea how Candy had even got it, but it was surveillance footage from the Warden’s HQ. Kenzie stricken. Kenzie pushing things off of the desk she’d set up at. A faltering attempt at smiling had given way to tears, sobbing. She’d started shouting and pushing more things to the ground when her teammates had tried to reassure her. In the end, it had been Tattletale who had caught her in a hug, pinning her arms at her sides, and held her there. Tattletale who, despite the video not having audio, had apparently told Chicken Little, Darlene, and Candy to go.

    When Kenzie had been released from the hug, she’d gone back to her computer. To keep updating us.
    [...]
    “I miss her,” I said. “Enough it hurts, and that it surprises me a little.”

    Kenzie looked up from her food, chewing.

    “She was really good company. Maybe the best kind of roommate to have. We had a good sense of each other’s rhythm and boundaries. I feel like she forced me to grow up a lot about some stuff. About the faces we put on and the roles we play, and… it sucks so much.”

    “Sucks,” Kenzie muttered. She smiled, eyes downcast. “You know it sucks for me. You saw that video Candy gave you.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.1
  154. ↑ “No,” Kenzie smiled back. “We’re ok, right?”

    “We’re okay. We’re teammates. Nothing changes that,” Chicken Little said.

    “Good, let’s refocus for now,” Tattletale said. “Lookout, go to your workshop, get what you need, build what you need. Everyone else, pack. I’m going to make something to eat, depending on what’s in the fridge.”

    “I’ve got ten different kinds of egg, probably,” Chicken Little said.

    “Throw those out so they don’t go bad, in case we come back here. Or store them to bring them with us if you really think you can eat them,” Tattletale told him. “But pack. No procrastinating.”

    Chicken Little groaned.

    “Speaking of procrastinating, there’s a blanket in the medical room,” Candy said. “Cold hands are awful to tinker with. Let’s bundle you up.”

    “The heat should kick in soon,” Tattletale said. “I’ll remind you lot, the operative part of the word refocus is focus.”

    “‘Soon’ isn’t now. I’ll get the blanket anyway.”

    “Thank you,” Kenzie said. “I’m going to go get some water, then I’ll get to work.”

    “It’s like herding cats,” Tattletale said, as the two kids ran off. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.8
  155. ↑ Tattletale’s voice came through the mic, presumably for me alone. “Hot chocolate, extra cookies, and whatever treats Imp brings for your kid? It won’t make her unbearable or messy?”

    She’d be holding the phone to her ear while talking to me, so it wouldn’t be too suspicious.

    I typed: The messiness comes from social stuff, not really sugar. She’d appreciate the extra care.

    “Alright. Anything to watch for? I’m conserving some strength for what’s to come.”

    I typed my reply: She hit a life milestone and she’s probably missing the fact she doesn’t have a mom or dad to give her that extra bit of care. When Undersiders arrive, she’ll be the odd one out.

    “Yeah.”
    SO EMBARRASING
    Fuck, this was hard. Juggling, remembering who was aware of what. Of Course Kenzie was seeing my interactions with Tattletale.

    I typed: We’re all coming at this from a place of caring. Tats wants to help. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.8
  156. ↑ “I say yes,” Tattletale said. She was just joining the group from behind Natalie’s car. One of the other buildings. “At least for now, the kids should get in the car and make up. Bring Chicken back, have them talk. It does more damage if they don’t at least say sorry to each other and get on the same page.”

    Rachel heaved out a sigh, staring Tattletale down.

    “Really,” Tattletale said. “I have the impression this is important. Let’s get someone to get the tinker stuff while we wait.” - Excerpt from From Within 16.6
  157. ↑ “Hey, your kid has a tummyache, F.Y.I. You know why, right?”

    The sudden comment from Tattletale made my head spin for a second. Too much of a change from where we were.

    I know. She and I talked about it this morning.

    “Just making sure. You have to warn people. Case in point, check your feed. Look at what your kid is doing.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.8
  158. ↑ I switched, getting an uncomfortably close view of Chicken Little’s face. He leaned back and she leaned in. She was talking, “-and get your bird cameras going, for more targeted strikes. And there’s the topological stuff, in case the topology topples, and this city thing happens-”
    [...]
    I typed out a message to her as she went on. She didn’t seem to get it.

    I looked up and over at Eric. “Can I call Kenzie? Strictly non-cape stuff.”

    “You’d need to outline what you want from us.”

    “Stopping a fight from breaking out between kids. Possibly a serious one.”

    “Again, tell us what you want to communicate, and we’ll review it quickly.”

    I clenched my fist. “I-”

    “Red light, Lookout,” Tattletale barked, on the microphone. It was something that would be picked up by anyone watching any of the kids. I was safe to stop and listen.

    “Huh?” Kenzie twisted around.

    “Means freeze. Stop. Freeze.”

    “Oh.” Kenzie stopped. Chicken Little backed off, and from the view of the other kids, I could see Kenzie deflate a bit. “Why?”

    “Proxemics,” Tattletale said. “Personal space.”

    “Tattletale’s got it,” I muttered.

    “Good,” Eric said, sounding happy.

    “I know what proxemics are. Is,” Kenzie replied, sounding as annoyed as I’d heard her.

    “You’re bad at it. For right now, don’t get in so close to your buddies. Don’t get any closer than you’d need to to reach out and put your hand on their shoulder.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.8
  159. ↑ Darlene fidgeted. “She’s in a weird mood. Lookout.”

    “You’re not wrong, kiddo. Do me a favor, you know where the medical boxes are. Spare me having to use my power to find them and dig up some ibuprofen, then help me make… grilled cheese and tomato soup? Hot chocolate and cookies a bit after?”

    Darlene nodded, smiling. She got up out of her chair. “You used your power to work out what’s in our pantry.”

    “Mm hmm. Come on. Extra cookie for you, for not stabbing Lookout with a pen. And you’re not grounded anymore.”

    “Knife,” Darlene said. “I try to always keep a knife now.”

    “I would have shot you if it came to that.”

    “You would have tried.”

    Tattletale put her hand on the back of Darlene’s head or her shoulder, guiding her. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.8
  160. ↑ “You’re taking my kids and you’re taking my Chicken Little?”

    “Lookout seems to think it’ll matter.”

    “And she’s… really the one you want to be leaning on, in this specific moment?”

    I sighed.

    She looked out over the area where the skirmish had been happening. Most of the kids had cleared out.

    “This is my mess that boiled over. I’ll babysit your Damsel for one day. After that, I suspect she’ll either lose interest, or we’ll have other distractions. In return, you keep my kids safe, and whatever you end up doing, you don’t point it at me or my people. If you can fuck Teacher front-on with a nail-studded baseball bat while you’re at it, I’d consider it a favor.”

    “I’ll look into that,” I said. - Excerpt from From Within 16.6
  161. ↑ “It was a good almost-memory for him, I think, which is nice. But it got a bunch of mischievous Heartbroken brains into a particular mode and mindset. I recommend no sleepovers at Aunt Rachel’s for a while. If they do happen, it’s at your place instead, and you deal with the aftermath. I recommend extra hands on deck.”

    I missed my team.

    “No sleepovers, then, I don’t think I’m jumping on top of that particular grenade,” I said. “Good warning, that. Though I have to wonder how Rachel would even handle that kind of mess.”

    “Stable duty,” Tattletale said. “You should see the way Amias and Nicholas stopped dead in their tracks when I said those two words.” - Excerpt from Sundown 17.9
  162. ↑ Rachel called in the two dogs who were in the way, then hauled hard on the sliding door at the front of the stable, leaning into the motion with her whole body. She was more muscular a build than ninety-five percent of people I knew, more than Tristan or my dad, even, and the effect of her using every major muscle in her body to slam a massive wooden door was pretty dramatic. It rattled after closing.

    Tattletale stared at the closed door, then looked over at me. “Maybe take the kids into town? Get them some food?”

    “You sure?”

    “I really don’t know,” she said. “But get them fed and taken care of, keep them from getting too mad at Lookout, and maybe we’ll just have the one person who’s having a crisis, instead of a whole gaggle of them.”

    “Two people having a crisis, at least. Lookout’s going to have a tough time with this.”

    “All the more reason. Let me handle my teammate, you handle the kids.”

    “Thanks, Tattletale.”

    She nodded.

    I led the kids away, though they were periodically protesting, questioning me, or turning to try to go back or look at what was happening. Not that there was anything except Tattletale talking to a door. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.8
  163. ↑ “Social worker?”

    “Good god, Antares, you don’t know me at all.”

    “I can’t help but notice you have these graduated stages for what you refer to me as. I thought maybe social worker because you seem to care about those kids. Maybe you’d want to look after others.”

    “I’m utter shit at caring about others. I care about my kids.” - Excerpt from Last 20.e1
  164. ↑ “You tried to steal official data, and you put a virus on my system. Epeios’ work, I believe. I’m more insulted by the fact that you went to that hack than I am about the virus.”

    “Had to slow you guys down somehow,” Tattletale called out. She motioned to me, and I hurried toward her. Imp let go of the axe to rub and shake her hand. Regent grabbed the weapon to take over the job of hacking at the door. - Excerpt from Parasite 10.4
  165. ↑ 165.0 165.1 She’d been on the opposite side of too many hackers and tinkers to not have taken precautions. Some of those precautions were at home, like the emergency server.

    Epeios had been the reason for the emergency server. He’d been a friend once, or he had pretended to be, and she had let him pretend. He’d found a way onto her computer, forcing her to find a means of stopping a computer tinker with resources from looking at her stuff. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x II
  166. ↑ The book was the last thing Sierra picked up. She looked at the cover.

    “Want another copy to give to Tattletale?” Jeanne asked.

    “Sure.” - Excerpt from Interlude 5.x II
  167. ↑ 167.0 167.1 the6thratio: yeah, who is that referring to? natalie? paisley?
    or am i missing someone else obvious

    Wildbow: Sierra

    the6thratio: oh, it was from tattletale
    my bad, i was reading it as from vicky

    Wildbow: I've never and would never name a character Paisley.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Tats has worked closely with Sierra since Gold Morning so... - Conversation with Wildbow on Parahumans Discord, 03-25-2020
  168. ↑ “Do you have anyone you care about?” I asked her. “That you’d make a sacrifice for?”

    “Most of the people I care about to that degree are people with powers, and they’d be getting the touch of death.”

    “It would be a dreaming death,” I said. “Slow but inevitable. Gotta pollute the cycle. It’s critical that it take a little while. Makes the rest of it easier.”

    “Uh huh.”

    “You said ‘most’, when you said most were capes. Are there any that aren’t?”

    “One person who doesn’t have powers, who’s far, far away right now,” she said. “You haven’t really convinced me.” - Excerpt from Last 20.9
  169. ↑ Swizardo: So. Is that Taylor? Do we finally have confirmation of her fate, powerless but alive on Earth Aleph?

    Wildbow: Sierra. :| - Deleted comment by Wildbow on Reddit, 03-25-2020
  170. ↑ Jess Zendrex:
    “One person who doesn’t have powers, who’s far, far away right now,” she said.
    It's Taylor
    [..]
    Only 6 chapters left
    I'm gonna sleep. Might just be a power nap. Might be 10 hours. I shall return

    Wildbow: o/
    (Also, Sierra) - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, 04-16-2020
  171. ↑ Insinuation 2.7
  172. ↑ Agitation 3.8
  173. ↑ 173.0 173.1 173.2 173.3 173.4 173.5 I admired the sheer change she was capable of pulling off when donning her costume. Rather, I should say, I admired the effort she'd gone into as Lisa, that made her so different from her Tattletale persona. Her mask was narrow, only really surrounding her eye sockets, covering her eyebrows, some of her nose and some of her cheekbones, but it hid the freckles on the bridge of her nose and changed the apparent lines of her face. Her hair was down and loose, damp from the rain, in contrast to how it was always in a ponytail or braided when she was 'Lisa'. Her costume was skintight, beaded with droplets of water, lavender with bands of black across the chest and down the sides of her arms, legs and body. An image of a stylized eye, only visible in the right light, given it was dark gray on black, was worked into the costume's design. A compact 'utility belt' sat diagonally across her hips, sporting a variety of compact pockets and pouches. - Excerpt from Agitation 3.7
  174. ↑ 174.0 174.1 With Tattletale, changing her race changes the tone of the idea that runs through her character, where she's not as smart as she pretends to be. I think it would also fundamentally change her character if she were a visible minority; there's a natural aloofness to her that draws a bit on her relative privilege. I'm guessing that's why you left her off your list of possibilities. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  175. ↑ 175.0 175.1 It was them, no doubt. I recognized them even without their costumes. Two guys and a girl. The girl had dirty blonde hair tied back into a loose braid, a smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose and the same vulpine grin I recognized from the night prior. She wore a black long sleeved t-shirt with a grafitti-style design on it and a knee length denim skirt. I was surprised by the bottle-glass green of her eyes. - Excerpt from Insinuation 2.6
  176. ↑ 176.0 176.1 “Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they’re not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here,” She said. She flashed me a smile. She had one of those vulpine grins that turned up at the corners. Behind her simple black domino style mask, her eyes were glittering with mischief. If she had red hair, she would have made me think of a fox. She kind of did, anyways. - Excerpt from Gestation 1.5
  177. ↑ As the saleswoman left the store, the door banging closed behind her, Daniella stared first at the door her coworker had just escaped through, then at the ratty little girl.

    The girl turned her head, pretending to examine a jacket, so she could hide a vulpine smile that spread across her face. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  178. ↑ The girl beside him smiled, and brilliant green eyes settled on Cody, stark contrasts to her pale purple costume. - Excerpt from Interlude 23
  179. ↑ I felt a stab of regret at not having chosen better clothes to wear than a loose fitting sweatshirt and jeans that were too big for me. That regret quickly turned to a pang of anxiety. What would they think when they saw the real me? Brian and Alec were good looking guys, in very different ways. Lisa was, on the sliding scale between plain and pretty, more pretty than not. My own scale of attractiveness, by contrast, put me somewhere on a scale that ranged from ‘nerd’ to ‘plain’. My opinion of where I fit on that scale changed depending on the mood I was in when I was looking in the mirror. They were cool, confident, assured people. I was… me. - Excerpt from Insinuation 2.7
  180. ↑ 180.0 180.1 180.2 Where?

    I took a step forward, and I realized I wasn’t in control. The motion happened on its own, which was a good thing, because if I had been in control, I might have stumbled or fallen. My legs were shorter.
    [...]
    “Owww,” I mewled, cradling my arm, and belatedly, I realized that this particular stage had gone quiet, just in time for me to sound like a girl closer to four than to fourteen, my voice overly loud with the acoustics of the space.
    [...]
    Who is this?

    The legs could have belonged to the same person, but the sensations and the subtleties were different. The body wasn’t as athletic, but it was lighter, skinnier. - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  181. ↑ 181.0 181.1 Victoria
    Age: 21/19
    Ethnicity: Caucasian (UK-area) - Blonde
    Height: 5’7” / 174cm
    Build: Athletic slim
    Face shape: Heart - Visual notes: Team Therapy, archived on Cauldron Discord
  182. ↑ The mask wasn’t the quality sort I was used to, more of a Halloween costume. The top I wore was a men’s small, a little too big in the shoulder, while it simultaneously squashed my chest.

    From the ages of the patients in the pediatric wing, I wasn’t sure they would pay much mind to my chest, squashed or not. Most were twelve or younger. A few heads turned, people paying cursory attention.
    [...]
    The t-shirt I wore was styled after Legend’s costume. The mask was the same. Something the staff had kept on hand from the past Halloween.

    “The nurses pointed me your way,” I said. - Excerpt from Flare 2.2
  183. ↑ “A bit of a warrior angel,” Weld said, turning one picture around so it was right-side-up for him.

    “Without the wings. Yeah, maybe,” I said.

    “Sweetie, no,” Crystal said. “You’re one of the very few capes who can get away with a breastplate that shows off the assets, because you have the forcefield. You don’t want to be pervy about it, because that’s a whole different kind of cape, but a costume should make more of what you are.”

    I rolled my eyes at her.

    “It would be utterly criminal if I let you do that,” she said.

    I shook my head. “If any kids end up looking up to me, or if any became heroes, I don’t want them thinking that kind of armor is okay. It’s asking to get hurt.” - Excerpt from Shadow 5.6
  184. ↑ The initial shockwave made buildings rock back, surfaces cracking or crumbling, and it nearly tossed us off of the roof.

    I wrapped my arms around Tattletale, one arm at her back, the other hand at her belt, and flew as the energy cascaded out to envelop the building. Twisting in mid-air, I watched to see if I could make out our teams, even as I felt them scrabbling for holds, jumping, or rising precariously up.
    [...]
    I flew closer to them, putting a hand over Tattletale’s ear that was closer to my mouth before calling out, “Do you guys need help!?”
    [...]
    “For a team as huggy as yours is,” Tattletale said, “That breastplate of yours is really uncomfortable when you get mashed into it. You bruised me.”

    “You mean when I was saving your life?” - Excerpt from Radiation 18.5
  185. ↑ “Your call,” Tattletale said, her voice quiet. “I’d like you to have my back, but I understand if-”

    I shook my head, my hair flying out to either side. I turned around and floated over to the doorway that hung in the air.

    I set foot on solid ground, and felt weirdly heavy when I did. It took me a moment to find my balance.

    Tattletale caught me as the door closed beside us. Then she wrapped her arms around me in a hug. Odd, that she was shorter than me. When did that happen? I could remember her giving me a one-armed hug once, a long time ago. She’d been just a little taller than me then. Just the right height for a hug. Now we were like Foil and Parian. I was taller, receiving comfort from someone shorter than me.

    I’d underestimated her. She didn’t ask any questions or offer any sympathy. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.1
  186. ↑ Alec offered the slightest roll of his eyes as I introduced myself, while Brian just grinned. Lisa, though, put one of her arms around my shoulders and gave me a one-armed squeeze of a hug. She was a little older than I was, so she was just tall enough to be at the perfect height to do it. What caught me off guard was how nice the gesture felt. Like I had been needing a hug from someone who wasn’t my dad for a long time. - Excerpt from Insinuation 2.7
  187. ↑ How tall exactly is Taylor? in comparison to the Wards ENE?

    I think I mention it in the story, but you wouldn't be too wrong if you said she's 5'7" or 5'8" (corrected from 5'6") at the story's outset, taller than Battery, who's maybe 5'3" or 5'4". The only one who'd be taller than her would be Browbeat (using his power) or Aegis (who's a tallish male about to turn 18). - Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles, 07-14-2014 12:27 PM
  188. ↑ I posted on the WOG thread and got corrected - she's 5'8" or 5'9" at the story's outset and grows to 5'10" by the end/her 18th birthday. - Private email conversation with Wildbow, 07-14-2014 11:04 PM, archived with permission on Spacebattles
  189. ↑ Then again, I was only a hundred and thirty pounds at five feet, ten inches in height, and Defiant must have weighed six hundred pounds, with all that armor. - Excerpt from Sting 26.2
  190. ↑ Taylor is an unreliable narrator, and this is never more the case than when she's describing people's heights. Brian is taller than average for a 17 year old, Coil is a bit taller. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  191. ↑ Risgini: Lung isn't actually that big by Brute standards, until he transforms. Shorter than Brian, for instance.
    [...]
    Risgini: Specific numbered heights are kinda fake in Worm, otherwise you end up with 7'8" Coil
    [...]
    Risgini: Taylor says that Brian is a foot taller than her[5'8" Taylor] (which is ludicrous) and that Coil is a foot taller than Brian (even more ridiculous, somehow)
    [...]
    Wildbow: You can safely ignore anything specific relating to height in Worm. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  192. ↑ She shook her head, a little too forcefully. Strands of her blonde hair fell across her face. “They’ve caused as many problems as they’ve fixed.”

    Something in that, in the way she was almost too preoccupied to fix her hair, it flicked a switch in my head. A warning bell. I was already stepping forward in response.

    “Tattletale,” I said, interrupting her before she could speak again. I grabbed her hand with both of mine. “Stop.”

    She froze, like a deer in the headlights.

    “Stop,” I said, again. I pulled her into a hug.

    The negativity mingled with the bravado… I hadn’t picked up on it. Hadn’t truly understood my friend. She was scared, and she’d been hiding it.

    She stood there, the bridge of her nose hard against my collarbone, and I was reminded again of how she was shorter than me. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.6
  193. ↑ I got my first good look at Lisa since I’d left her bleeding in Ballistic’s headquarters. The scar ran from the corner of her mouth to the corner of her jaw, and dark stitches ran down the length of it. The slang term for this kind of injury was a Glasgow smile or a Chelsea smile, but the term seemed ill-fitting. Where Lisa often had a grin on her face, the cut pulled the corner of her mouth down into a perpetual lopsided-frown rather than a smile.
    [...]
    “No,” Lisa said, her voice quiet. She couldn’t really move one corner of her mouth when talking, so her words came out slightly slurred.

    I saw her work her tongue in her mouth and then take a sip of water, wincing. Brian had updated me: the cut had probably damaged one or more of her salivary glands, and she’d have dry mouth until it healed. Maybe forever. The really scary part was that she might have suffered some nerve damage as well. How much of that half-frown was because of the direction of the cut and the way the stitches pulled, and how much was because her nerves were damaged enough that her face was drooping? - Excerpt from Snare 13.1
  194. ↑ Tattletale still had faint scars at the corners of her mouth, regenerated by Brian after his second trigger event, but she'd mended almost to full. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  195. ↑ So there were huge subsets of readers who believe the sequel is going to be Worm 2, Taylor Harder. Subsets who think Victoria deserved it. Subsets who think Amy smokes, Fortress Construction is canon, and Tattletale has a scar at her cheek at endgame. Subsets who think Worm was rationalist fiction done badly and the sequel will do it right. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  196. ↑ 196.0 196.1 “Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites,” the second of the girls said, answering the question for me. She was dressed in a skintight outfit that combined black with a pale shade of blue or purple – I couldn’t tell in the dark – and her dark blond hair was long and windblown. The girl grinned as she added, “He’s not holding up too well. Gonna feel a helluvalot worse tomorrow.” - Excerpt from Gestation 1.5
  197. ↑ Turning my attention to Tattletale, I searched the wiki. The result I got was disappointingly short, starting with a header reading "This article is a stub. Be a hero and help us expand it." There was a one sentence blurb on how she was a alleged villain active in Brockton Bay, with a single blurry picture. The only new information for me was that her costume was lavender. A search of the message boards turned up absolutely nothing. There wasn't even a hint as to what her power was. - Excerpt from Insinuation 2.1
  198. ↑ “Teenage girl, dirty blond, costume of black and light purple. She would’ve been with a short man wearing a suit.” - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  199. ↑ Tattletale – Gifted with superhuman intuition, the ability to fill in gaps in her knowledge, Tattletale is a member of the Undersiders, their information specialist and one of their better tactical thinkers. Wears her blond hair straight, and has a lavender and black costume with a stylized eye on the chest. - Cast (spoiler free)
  200. ↑ 200.0 200.1 Tattletale had reversed her costume colors from black on lavender to a more royal purple on black. The same pattern of lines slashing across her costume remained- horizontal line across the upper chest, vertical line slashing down from that, to form a stylized ‘T’. Another horizontal line jutted out from halfway down, followed by another vertical line piercing that line, a smaller ‘t’ nestled under the right arm of its big brother. She wasn’t the type to get photographed or caught clearly on video, and it was painted in such broad strokes that I suspected many people missed it.

    It kind of smacked of narcissism, I felt, to wear one’s initials. The more black costume, at least, looked more distinguished. Her hair needed a bit of combing, like it had been tousled by the wind and it hadn’t been fixed.
    [...]
    She turned. With the way the light came through the tunnel, I could see the eye symbol on her chest in a slightly different shade of purple, hidden where the vertical bar met the horizontal, and the shadows meant I could no longer see her eyes or expression. - Excerpt from Glare 3.1
  201. ↑ Tattletale used her good arm to prop herself up, groaning, “First of all, I warned you about calling me stupid. Second, no, you’re not invincible. Not exactly.”

    Then she raised her good hand from her belt and trained a small handgun on Glory Girl.
    [...]
    I grabbed her good hand and helped her up. With one of her arms around my shoulders, we hurried out of the bank, together. She shoved the gun into one of the largest pouches of her belt. - Excerpt from Agitation 3.12
  202. ↑ With everyone gathered in my headquarters, I handed out the costumes. Like Bitch’s, the other costumes were in various stages of completion, primarily with minor details missing or askew. I ate while the others tried it all on.

    Lisa’s costume was virtually the same. The complicated aspect had been maintaining the crisp differences in color without any bleeding of black into lavender or vice versa. There’d also been the issue of getting the mask to fit her face well. I’d accomplished the former by making the black and lavender pieces separately and attaching them to a gossamer-thin sub-layer when I was done. We had the boys and Shatterbird turn away while Lisa and Aisha changed at one end of the room. The mask was a failure, it didn’t sit right around the eyes, but I was left with an idea of what to do.
    [..]
    When we’d been fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine, I’d lamented the fact that I hadn’t better outfitted the team, and people had been hurt where the costumes would have otherwise protected them. In the days I’d had to wind down, focusing on getting people organized and working on cleaning up the area, I’d been in range to get a serious effort going on the costumes.

    I was satisfied with this.

    By all appearances, they were too. - Excerpt from Colony 15.1
  203. ↑ We’d participated in more than half of those fights. My eyes fell on the clock in the top right hand corner of the screen.
    8:04am, June 19th, 2013
    [...]
    Of everyone, I was least surprised at the changes with her. Her hair had been cut shorter, and she wore a mask that covered the entire upper half of her face, coming to a point at the nose. Her shoulders, elbows and knees had small shoulderpads on them, and there was a definition to the horizontal and vertical lines of black that marked her lavender costume. She wore a laser pistol at her hip, which bounced against her leg as she ran. PRT issue. Extremely illegal to own. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.6
  204. ↑ 204.0 204.1 She reached to her hip and drew a handgun. She still wore an expression like she hadn’t quite left the dream behind. Sad, a little lost, not looking at us or the many-handed thing. “I’ll do what I can.”

    “Ah. Okay.”

    “How?” Rain asked. “How’d you bring the gun?”

    “Every day since I started working for Coil, back in Brockton Bay. Even before Leviathan, I had it with me.”

    “She shot me with it once,” I remarked.

    “If I’d known you’d be dragging me into this, I would have shot you with it twice. I thought the worst thing I’d have to deal with was maybe consoling your tinker if none of you came back. No, I get dragged into this.”

    “Power didn’t predict this?”

    “My power didn’t,” she said, her voice tense. “That niggling little voice in the back of my head did, but I ignored it.”

    I looked back at her, studying her. Costume, gun, all was cohesive, complete.
    [...]
    This is us, I thought. - Excerpt from From Within 16.9
  205. ↑ Cradle started forward, marching her way. She swung the pistol, aiming to pistol-whip him, but he had the knife, and the knife gave him more effective range.

    The cuts were deep, the slashes painting sprayed arcs of blood momentarily into the air. Forehand and backhead swing, into Tattletale’s forearms. - Excerpt from From Within 16.10
  206. ↑ I pointed at that, then spun around to point at the other end. The headlights of March’s vehicle were sweeping into the lot as it pulled in, but March wasn’t waiting that long. She sat in the open window of the car, leaning over the hood with a rifle in her hands. The frozen scene had captured the muzzle flash. Even from a distance, there was something in March’s eye- she wore her mask so it covered half of her face, her left eye peering through the right eyehole of the mask. The adjustment of the mask freed her to look down the rifle’s scope.

    “Page us through slowly?” I asked Lookout. No need to raise my voice now that we were closer.

    A matter of ten feet from us, the image of Tattletale had shifted, and was mid-reaction, the bullet having connected. A bullet to the back of the thigh. The other thigh had a fresh wound on it. The reason there hadn’t been more blood on the snow was that most of the gore had hit the side and interior of the car. The only thing that kept Tattletale from going straight to the ground was Snuff’s grip on her arm.

    “Eliminating the competition?”

    “Honestly? Probably not. But depending on how this works out, she might as well be. It’s just going to be someone crazier and more dangerous than the one who dresses up as a march hare and shoots with kids in the line of fire.” - Excerpt from Polarize 10.5
  207. ↑ “Have you seen any Undersiders?” I asked a group from the Girls at Bat. I saw only confused stares.

    “Blonde, purple and black costume, eye on the chest, black mask?” I tried. - Excerpt from Radiation 18.8
  208. ↑ “I’ve got some data on the Undersiders already,” Kenzie said. “We can narrow this down. I’ll pick some images to lock down by the points in space.”

    Tattletale was first. At the Southwestern end of the clearing. Ducking down. She was wearing a coat and earmuffs, alongside her mask and costume. Slowly, the figure right behind her began to fill in. Snuff, standing right behind her, shielding her with his body, one hand extended toward the source of whatever he was shielding her from.

    The car was next, filling in. Door open, as Tattletale ducked inside. - Excerpt from Polarize 10.4
  209. ↑ Tattletale opened the door, and Ratcatcher rocked back, at the cold air. Tattletale whistled and motioned.

    Ratcatcher bent down to scoop up the rat that came bouncing along the floor, running up to her. It shivered, possibly from shock as much as cold.

    Tattletale let the door shut. She leaned against the frame, arms in her coat pockets. - Excerpt from Black 13.6
  210. ↑ “Curious,” Tattletale said, walking with her gloved hands clasped behind her. Her coat flapped around her legs as she ascended. “You say we’re ‘going in’, but then she brings up the lobby. Another code, but I didn’t get this one.”

    “You’re being annoying,” I told her. “Surprisingly annoying.”

    “Very,” Sveta echoed.

    “I’m just being me,” Tattletale said.

    “Is it a thing where you get cranky and ramp it up?”

    “No. On a day this lousy, we need to find joy in the little things. This is interesting. The heart of the heroes.”

    “I can’t help but wonder if you revel in these lousy sorts of days,” I observed. “I remember the Undersiders doing quite well when Brockton Bay was at its worst.”

    “Ah,” Tattletale said. There was a gleam in her eyes as I glanced back. “I sense a teeny tiny bit of resentment there.”

    “A bit.”

    “You’re not wrong. I like picking up the pieces and puzzling them back together. Is that the dark line of thought that’s been eating at you for the past fifteen minutes? Resentment? Thinking about how the troubles in Brockton Bay started with Coil doing something similar?”

    “No,” I said.

    “Can’t puzzle you out right now.” - Excerpt from Black 13.11
  211. ↑ I flew over, crossing a field, a large yard, and stopping at the door. I knocked.

    Tattletale opened it. From the looks of it, she might have been napping or sleeping off a thinker headache.

    “Rachel,” I said. “Lookout.”

    She was immediately alert, turning to pick up her coat. “Take me.”

    Imp’s follow-up comment was cut off, as I immediately took flight, carrying Tattletale into the dark settlement, illuminated by patches of orange and yellow from fires and lamps, all so small that I could block out my view of them with my hand stuck out.

    “Could have waited until I had my jacket on.”

    I adjusted my grip on her. Looking a little nervous, phantom hands gripping her by the waist and hips, she pulled on the jacket.

    “Kenzie took a puppy,” I explained.

    “Fuck. Okay. Should be fixable.” - Excerpt from Radiation 18.8
  212. ↑ Wildbow: Canonically she has a jacket 90% of the time now.
    [...]
    Wildbow: Jacket would be fitted, just black - Comment by Wildbow on Discord
  213. ↑ wildbow: Tattletale isn't a precog, but a pericog.

    Toast: "Pericognition:" the ability to know around things. I like that. She builds a framework of inference around the subject at hand, and her power fills in the gaps, working inward towards complete understanding. Except when she misses her target from the start and the circle forms in the wrong place, resulting in bad times for Lisa. - Comment by Wildbow on Cockroaches 28.5
  214. ↑ What does peri mean?
  215. ↑ As there's myriad types & conventions of, say, invincibility, there's a number of subcategories and focuses of precognition or clairvoyance. Tattletale, for example, could theoretically be classified as a subtype of clairvoyance.

    So I'd recommend one not jump to any conclusions about what the thinkers out there could do to monitor the use of powers in relation to economic manipulation.

    That said, it's noted in this chapter that precogs tend to be somewhat unreliable. I don't think it would be too ridiculous a notion to imagine them working in small groups, supporting one another's weaknesses and expanding on one another's leads. All it takes is for one to notice an anomaly and then the others can expand on that. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 14.y
  216. ↑ - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  217. ↑ “That your power talking? You’re saying he actually likes me?”

    “Sorry, hon. Reading people with my power is hard, reading into their motivations or emotions is harder, and to top it off, I don’t think even Brian knows what he’s feeling, romantically. You might have to jar him from his comfort zone before either of you get to find out.” - Excerpt from Tangle 6.2
  218. ↑ “With my power, I can usually figure people out. With March, I can’t. When that happens, it’s because there is no answer, or I’m asking the wrong question.”

    That was more information than I’d ever had about Tattletale’s power and its limitations.

    “You should know I’m baring my throat and showing you some weaknesses as a gesture of good faith,” Tattletale said.

    Or as a manipulation tactic.
    [...]
    I drew out the thrust of Tattletale’s explanation, something that I seemed to have to do with regularity. “You think you can’t figure out if March is one or the other because she’s both?”

    “Or neither, but saying it’s neither would mean it’s so far afield it’s not sensible. Which would fit her. Either way, if she really likes someone, that isn’t a good thing.”

    “You’re saying not to rely on her, then?”

    “Know what you’re getting into. She’d be useful to have if you pick this fight. It’s a lot of Fallen and they’ll be going to somewhere there are friends.” - Excerpt from Pitch 6.6
  219. ↑ Wildbow: "Tat's power doesn't work on people" came up above
    Keep in mind that she says that to Taylor, who she's trying to convince she can't totally see through. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans (Unofficial) Discord
  220. ↑ A thinker can take several forms:
    Endeavor Thinker
    Domain Thinker
    Complex Thinker
    [...]
    The lines between these cases may be blurred as the thinker develops their power. Tattletale is a case of someone who can push, but who also taps into several upgrades. - THINKERS, document by Wildbow.
  221. ↑ Interlude 11.a II
  222. ↑ Buzz 7.10
  223. ↑ Scourge 19.1
  224. ↑ Interlude 10.x II
  225. ↑ Peanuckle: What I'd like to know is what sorts of abilities the shards can perform without limiters. Judging by QA and Khepri, shards are pretty much bullshit. But what about shards like Grue's, or Tattletale's, or Grey Boy's, acting outside a host to defend their Entity-body? Is there any comparison, or are "unshackled" powers so far beyond what we see that it's laughable?

    Wildbow: Tattletale's power would just scale up constantly in power, reach, and intensity of detail. The shard might not have broken 100% clean - Scion might have given it some tools somewhere in there, so I can imagine a Tattletale-sub-entity scaling up to a breaker state or tapping into a tinker ability to network/develop more hardware/brainware to process it all. Scale up to processing multiple dimensions at once, and develop/manifest/obtain a weapon. Going back to the tools Scion gave, a simple blaster power with a clean, possibly invisble terrain-penetrating laser, with Full-bore-tattletale focus at work to discern the best possible weak point? Or even just a Tattletale in the middle of it, holding a gun? Picture her systematically picking off threats one after another, from highest priority to lowest, from the center of the incident sites, maximum range.

    Basically, you unshackle, the power scales up, the mind/body start to break down, and if the host is lucky, the shard can provide some means of housing the new data and form.

    Standalone, without a host, the manifestation for the shard itself confronted in its own world, would be very similar in execution. - Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles
  226. ↑ A Tattletale who's inclined to pick at people's issues says just the wrong thing. - Wildbow on SpaceBattles
  227. ↑ There are safeguards to keep some powers from being overused to the point that they exhaust the power reserves of the shard that provides the power. Thinker powers are some of the most power hungry (often needing to do a lot of simulations and calculations behind the scenes), and thus thinker headaches are a thing. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  228. ↑ 228.0 228.1 We emerged from the worst of the thicket to a spot where a tear across the landscape had felled most of the crystals and sent them somewhere else. And to our left, head the size of a house, was the thin, tall woman, with spikes radiating from her head to infinity in each direction, empty eye sockets staring us down.
    [...]
    "Hello there, you shitty bitch," Tattletale said, her voice low, angry.

    I looked over, and I could see that past the tear in the landscape, Tattletale's agent was an extension of the landscape, built almost like a cone poised on another cone, except it was a person's body in a toga-cut dress, twisting and rotating in jerks, like every movement snapped its own spine. - Excerpt from From Within 16.12
  229. ↑ This wasn’t some crystal ball I could rub, ask my question, and get a happy answer. Not with the names and questions I wanted to bring up.
    [...]
    I thought of the different names I could invoke.
    [...]
    “It always gives the worst details,” Tattletale told me. “Stuff that cuts right to what’s most important, what’s most visceral. Hard details, weaknesses, the key elements that make us us, that would be hardest to uncover otherwise. Stuff you’d never want to admit or let out of the box.”

    I had a chance to get answers, as ugly as those answers were, to face down those people who were most incomprehensible and get that key insight.

    “You could ask it a million questions and understand everything, I bet. There are less filters while we’re in here, probably,” Tattletale told me.

    “I always thought of myself as an answer-seeker,” I said.

    “Yeah, sure. Absolutely,” Tattletale said, quiet. “Here’s the deal, though. By the time you’re done asking a million questions, I guarantee you that you’re going to hate everyone and everything. You’ll abhor them, despise them, be afraid of them.”

    I looked away from the crystals, which had gone dim. Tattletale’s expression was sad.

    “Sometimes you gotta just pick a few promising runts out of the litter, and just plug in that one big assumption,” she told me. “Start with the assumption they’re good people and build on that belief. Sometimes they step it up and live up to what you think of them.”

    “What if I did that, and they disappointed me, and I need to know why?”

    For every fucking name I’d brought up so far.

    Tattletale shot me an apologetic look. “Kiddo, you could go down that rabbit hole forever. Do you want to go there, or do you want to do what you came here to do? Help us find a way down.”

    “I have an idea,” I said. - Excerpt from From Within 16.12
  230. ↑ Two young women were sitting. He recognized one on sight as Victoria, another from a file he’d seen circulated, years ago, at a meeting where they had been discussing what to do about New Brockton.

    He could see their shadows. Victoria’s was in alignment with her. Overlapping her, like an outline tracing her body, only millimeters off target. Tattletale’s power was there too, spidery, reaching out to observe, pick up images from the environment around her. To touch a salt shaker and pick up the image of that shaker. Exploring other data, other research.

    They paid him little mind. - Excerpt from Last 20.e1
  231. ↑ Imago 21.7
  232. ↑ The emergency server was four feet tall and four feet deep, only two feet wide. Too large to pack, too niche in use. It was where she stored her notes too comprehensive for the regular systems and too complex for her own brain to wrestle with on a long-term basis. It worked by creating millions of deceptive copies, forgeries, and variations on documents, and then randomly shuffling her files into it.

    Epeios had been baffled, had hired thinkers to try and decode, predict, or surveil her means of picking the true files from the false ones. There wasn’t one. The only means was to use her power. To intuit her way through a thousand haystacks. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.x
  233. ↑ Wildbow: It's worth stressing that past a certain point, having a certain number of outstanding or weird cape will draw in more.
    [...]
    Wildbow: If you follow the pattern, Foil, Tattletale, Echidna, Labyrinth, Amy, Armsmaster, and a few others wouldn't necessarily be in BBay if it wasn't a cape city to begin with, or if they hadn't been invited. - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  234. ↑ 234.0 234.1 “My family was well-to-do, I think that’s come up.”

    “Yeah.”

    “When you’re that rich, when you have people working under you who do the chores and handle the stuff that you’d normally do with your family, sometimes it’s hard to stay a family, you know?”

    Not really, I thought, but I nodded.

    She gave me a funny look, but she didn’t call me on it. “It gets to this point where, you know, your cool older brother only spends time with you because it’s his duty as a sibling. And when you realize that, it sort of hurts. Makes it insulting. I think I caught on to that around the time I started high school. I stopped accepting those token offers of siblinghood. We were brother and sister, we lived in the same house, went to the same school. Our paths crossed, but we didn’t interact. We were strangers. He was caught up being the popular senior, and I kind of resented him for it.”

    “For not being a brother?”

    Lisa shrugged. “Don’t know. More for acting like a brother than not being a real brother. For being the popular kid, being the favorite child, heir to the family businesses.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  235. ↑ “What happened?”

    “I started noticing, he was in rough shape. The smiles seemed fake, he’d get angry easier. Was bottling something up inside.”

    “What was it?”

    Lisa shrugged. “I’ve dwelled on it so long I’ve imagined possibilities and derailed my train of thought. Even with my power, I can’t guess.”

    “And something happened?”

    “He slowly got more and more distant. He’d fake more smiles, get a little more angry, a little more reckless. And then one day he offed himself.” - Excerpt from Scourge 19.7
  236. ↑ The room she went into had posters on every inch of every wall, with some tacked to the ceiling. It smelled like sweat, with a faint bathroom smell, making her wrinkle her nose.

    “Gross,” she said.

    I felt a stab of fear and concern, hearing that child’s voice.

    She went straight to the bedside table, hauling it open, and poked her way past magazines of women wearing swimsuits. She found a digital music player with a cracked screen and the cover for the batteries missing, batteries exposed at the back. She had her headphones on, cord dangling, and she plugged it into the player. The music sounded muted, not as sharp as a modern digital player might be.

    “Stop stealing my stuff, loser,” she said, clipping the music player to her pocket. She fished through more of the drawer’s contents, rolling her eyes as she turned the page of the swimsuit magazine, revealing it to be a cover stapled over a much more lewd kind of mag.

    She backed away, continuing her search through the room, but the bathroom smell swelled, and she turned her head.

    In the walk-in closet, gym stuff on the floor, more fancy clothes to the right and out-of-season winter clothes to the left, a teenage boy dangled from the central railing, toes touching the ground. Urine and shit ran down his legs to his nice white sneakers, and onto the floor below. Blond, but with face purple-blue, his features already distorted. - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  237. ↑ She made an incoherent sound, lunging forward to wrap her arms around him, to try to lift him up, as if she could. He was almost twice her size. The damp from his pants leg pressed through her shirt and to her stomach, and she flinched away, aware of how cold it was.

    She turned to the side, and the movement of her head brought another involuntary sound past her throat and lips. Her eyes traced the path, the plan, the route of climbing up onto clothes, getting to the rope he hung from.

    The clothes and the hangers weren’t strong enough to support her, and she only managed to tear clothes off the rod.

    The actions were frantic, senseless, and each one seemed to punctuate the cold, grim reality. He didn’t move, he didn’t struggle. His skin was cold.

    She hit him, scratched him, as if somehow that could rouse him, wordless, her throat choked, pain gripping every part of her chest and throat.

    Her fists balled up, and a strange sensation at her fingertips made her startle. She looked down, then startled again, her eyes going from the underside of her fingernails to the gouges she’d left in his arm. Skin, balled up under her nails.

    She almost tripped over his things, as she backed up, hand held out between them as if she could somehow back away from it, too. Vision and breathing were incoherent, and there was a dazed, lost sensation as she stepped out of his room into the hallway, and didn’t even seem to know where she was. The hurt was constant, pressure on her chest, her head pounding, the bathroom smell lingering because her efforts to grab him had gotten some on her.

    I’m sorry, Tattletale. - Excerpt from From Within 16.8
  238. ↑ 238.0 238.1 I thought of Tattletale in the trigger dream. Scrambling to save her brother.

    I knew that all of us tended to have hangups about our trigger visions. It had been part of the reason I’d asked Dean about his. I knew I would maybe forever have a pet peeve about being ignored, trampled. Movers would feel restless, tinkers would deal with anxiety. It was the way things went.

    So I could extrapolate, think of that scene, and think of Tattletale and her every interaction with anyone she seemed to care about being an extension, in some small way, of that desperate and helpless struggle to save her already-deceased brother. Too late, wrestling with the blanks and question marks in the aftermath. - Excerpt from Sundown 17.6
  239. ↑ 239.0 239.1 Ellardy: In the latest chapter, we see the actual moment when she finds the body. She doesn't call anyone, including her parents because there's nothing to be done. Instead, she just walks out the door and doesn't turn back
    A few people here said that perhaps this had been caused by the triggers being warped by the "mall" context
    I immediately assumed that Tt had lied back in Worm
    Her description both tones down the severity of the trigger (making it easier to talk about; remember, the context is one in which she's talking to Skitter while she's still deciding whether or not to join the team) and increases the level of blame on the parents
    If we assume Tt lied and the vision told the truth, then she had no reason to run away from home and become a villain other than her own guilt. When she says her parents would have wanted to use her power for business, she's just guessing or making that up entirely

    Zuberlein: She might have gone out of the house in the vision on the day he hanged himself, but in the context of the visions from the dreams she chooses to go to the mall
    While it might be that in the real event she just went out to call for help
    I can't really see Lisa just choosing to run away from home the second she sees her brother hanging

    Wildbow: Yeah, isn't intended to be her running away from home. More of a parallel to her stumbling off in a daze, which later becomes a "Wait, you found out, what were you thinking/what were you doing!?" thing, driving in that personal issue.
    Trigger happens later but we're not going to sit with it long-term

    Ellardy: Ah, right

    The White Duke: Yeah - the parents finding her later, just walking around the neighbourhood with blood/skin under her fingernails, doubles down on why they might have turned blame on her. Not only did she maybe know something was up and not act on it, but when she did discover what had happened she just scratched him and left? - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  240. ↑ Generally speaking, a power has a twist to it, something that takes it one half-step beyond the norm for superheroes. There also tends to be an irony to them, an integral factor or element that loops back to point to the character, typically their traumas or weaknesses.
    [...]
    Tattletale was destroyed when she missed the details pointing to her brother's imminent suicide. Her power leaves her constantly grasping for more information and never quite having it all, teetering on that same brink. Give her powers to Taylor and Taylor's to Tattletale and it doesn't quite fit. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  241. ↑ In Worm, powers are something of a metaphor for trauma. They're the events we carry with us that shape us in the future. The negative event becomes a part of our toolkit for how we face the world going forward.

    The ironic twists of many powers mean that if you were beaten up by a mob due to an understanding and left for dead, then your power may end up being a striker one that's good at fighting mobs... and if you're using your power effectively you'll constantly find yourself in situations that echo that original situation.

    Similarly, if you have body image or identity issues, then you may end up becoming a changer, and changing your body or identity becomes something that you're wrestling with for the rest of your life, and you can never truly put it away.

    Taylor is treated like she's lesser, disgusting, and is lonely... and surrounds herself with lesser, disgusting insect life that drives your average person away. Tattletale failed to connect the dots on what was going on with her brother, feeling stupid, and is left with a power that gives her information and connects dots in an unreliable way... forever unsure if the information is truly accurate and having her lack of real concrete knowledge exposed over and over again. For both it shapes their demeanor and the courses they take in life. This is the 'twist of the knife' referenced.

    If the event isn't a 'worst day of your life' sort of thing that sticks with you in this way, tied to a power, it's probably not high impact enough. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  242. ↑ Thinker triggers involve a component of mental or emotional stress. The stress arises and culminates in a relatively short period of time compared to tinker triggers, in a moment or in the course of hours or a few days. Crushing revelations, moments of mental or emotional anguish, great fear, anger, self-loathing and the like are frequent causes of Thinker triggers, but the mind is a complex thing and there are a great many other causes that can factor in. - THINKERS, document by Wildbow
  243. ↑ Wildbow: Tattletale was kind of a survivor's guilt trigger - Comment by Wildbow on Parahumans (Unofficial) Discord
  244. ↑ Wildbow: Lisa's character arc is about guilt vs. peace. Primarily around Rex. She says she was fleeing her dad's control and the ugliness she was seeing in people, but the subtext is more guilt over Rex.
    Tellingly, (Ward) details change between what she tells Taylor and the mini-scenario Victoria sees (where a lot of details shift, to be clear), but the guilt remains consistent. - Comment by Wildbow on Cauldron Discord
  245. ↑ 245.0 245.1 Interlude 8.y
  246. ↑ Gestation 1.5
  247. ↑ Insinuation 2.3
  248. ↑ Insinuation 2.5
  249. ↑ Insinuation 2.6
  250. ↑ Insinuation 2.7
  251. ↑ Glare 3.6
  252. ↑ Glare 3.1
  253. ↑ Shadow 5.5
  254. ↑ More deaths. Tattletale had broken away while the other Undersiders had ventured into the fight, and Jeanne had no idea why. What was Tattletale doing? - Excerpt from Interlude 5x II
  255. ↑ Pitch 6.8
  256. ↑ Dying 15.1
  257. ↑ Tattletale broke the silence. "The last time you connected to Teacher's systems, you were close to the gallery. She got a look at files and what they were keeping track of." - Dying 15.4
  258. ↑ From Within 16.8
  259. ↑ From Within 16.9
  260. ↑ From Within 16.10
  261. ↑ Sundown 17.1
  262. ↑ Sundown 17.7
  263. ↑ Sundown 17.8
  264. ↑ Radiation 18.4
  265. ↑ Radiation 18.6
  266. ↑ Infrared 19.7
  267. ↑ Infrared 19.f
  268. ↑ Last 20.2
  269. ↑ Last 20.6
  270. ↑ Last 20.9
  271. ↑ Last 20.11
  272. ↑ Tattletale snorted. "I didn't take the dreaming death, and I've got a deep hole of bad reputation to dig myself out of, as a result. This helps. Too many villains who didn't take the dreaming death have proven uncooperative for what they're trying to do, now. The blunt ones like Lord of Loss, who jumped straight back into bad habits. Then the ones like Marquis, who schemed and made a plan before doing stuff. Him, Bitter Pill, Midas. They're having trouble getting traction, which makes them desperate and dangerous. I can't get lumped in with them." - Excerpt from Last 20.end

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The Undersiders
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