Fanfic / Inheritance (Worm)

Inheritance is a fanfiction of Worm by Pendragoon and Firstselector.

On Taylor's first night out, she stumbles across a fight between Lung, leader of the ABB, and Quarrel, Butcher XIV.

Interrupting their fight leaves both Lung and Quarrel unexpectedly dead, and Taylor as the newly-minted Butcher XV, with the screaming voices of her fourteen predecessors constantly hounding her and trying to drive her to evil and/or insanity. Thankfully, Taylor's bug-control power is uniquely suited to dealing with the situation, her infinite multitasking allowing her to selectively ignore them.

Taylor refuses to let this setback derail her plans to become a hero, but the PRT isn't buying that her continued sanity is anything more than temporary, and see this as an opportunity to rid themselves of the Butcher for good...

The fic is ongoing and has had has plenty of Omakes.

Can also be found on Archive of Our Own (here) and on Questionable Questing (here).

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This fanfic contains examples of the following:

A-D

• Accidental Truth: Alice jokes about Weaver listening in on her, Damien, and Elliot even though she's far outside her alleged range for controlling her bugs. As Alice and Elliot laugh, Taylor joins in via the bugs in the walls, causing all three to stop and stare in terror.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Gaining the Butcher's instincts changes Taylor's posture, making her stand taller and walk more confidently, but it draws attention she doesn't want at school, so she makes an effort to regain her old hunched-over trying-not-to-be-noticed gait. Which inadvertently results in her looking like she's scared and trying to act tough — a perfect cover for actually being the Butcher.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Taylor is willing to acknowledge that one of the Trio's taunts is actually worth a snicker. With the crowd in her head backing her, she's much less bothered by the insults and able to see the funny side.
  • Chrissie gets shot in the gut and Taylor is naturally worried, but then Chrissie complains (in an 'I'm going to die' tone) that the injury won't even leave a scar. The Butchers (and even Amy) think it's hilarious.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Taylor accidentally kills Quarrel during her confrontation with Lung, saddling her with fourteen voices and additional power sets.
  • Browbeat is a minor case. In addition to being able to change her physique on the fly, she can even change her appearance. Her Changer ability is also apparently much greater than in canon as well, as Madison is able to take on monstrous appearances, including one that resembles an honest-to-god Xenomorph. They have to sandbag when with the Wards, but when with the Teeth and don't need to hold back, their skills frighten some of the Butchers.
  • Emma not only is a ward with fire powers by the name of Meteor when she remained a normal human in canon, realising Taylor not only triggered in the locker, but then went on to become Weaver and Butcher XV makes her undergo a Second Trigger.
• Adaptational Name Change: Taylor goes by her post-warlord and Ward cape identity Weaver, rather than Skitter or the Butcher. While she's fine being called the latter, she insists on being called Weaver no matter what the PRT says.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • Fester, a previous Butcher, used to run with Lustrum before acquiring the mantle and actually dated Taylor's mother Annette for a while. Taylor is not pleased to learn this.
  • Vex, a powered Teeth Lieutenant, is one of Taylor's classmates in Winslow and later her girlfriend.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Inevitable given that previous Butchers are often male or LGBTQ+.
  • Taylor's eventual girlfriend is Chrissy, also known as the Teeth lieutenant Vex.
  • Also Lisa. In canon she's asexual and aromantic. Here she ends up in a relationship with Amy, though the author has confirmed that it's closer to If It's You, It's Okay on the romantic side and she's still asexual.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Downplayed. Much like Here Comes The New Boss, which has a similar premise, Taylor doesn't so much as get a different power as she does an additional powerset.
• Agony Beam: A power inherited from the first Butcher, even weakened by inheritance a single blast is enough to knock the fight out of most people.
• All Your Powers Combined: A staple of the Butcher. However, having Taylor as the Butcher's host massively increases their abilities, as Queen Administrator can integrate the different powers into a more cohesive and deadly skillset, even before taking into account the ability to No-Sell the main downside of the Butcher by allowing her to separate the different Butchers' minds (helping stabilize the gestalt) and selectively divide her attention between them, giving her additional insight into each's powers and memories without the risk of being overloaded like the others before her. While every now and then Taylor finds someone whose powers interest the other Butchers, they conclude that no matter how tempting adding flashier powersets to the collective might be, it's not worth it if it means losing or even diminishing Taylor's integration and administration abilities.
• And I Must Scream: The Butchers are initially quite unhappy to be in Taylor's head, but the threat of being pushed down into the dark, cut off from all Taylor's senses, is something they take seriously.
• Anti-Climax: Taylor's swarms, backed by Teeth and sometimes even her personal involvement, are so effective at clearing safehouses and drughouses that her passengers sometimes complain about the lack of drama. Taylor's response is that it's supposed to be anticlimactic.
• An Arm and a Leg: While Weaver succeeds in killing Hookwolf, she loses an arm in the fight. She can grow it back, though. Panacea reclaims it afterwards, stating that she intends to destroy it to prevent the Empire (or the PRT) from gleaning anything they can about Weaver from it.
• Arrow Catch: Weaver catches two of Shadow Stalker's crossbow bolts at once, and proceeds to throw them back (taking out both Clockblocker and Vista). When Shadow Stalker keeps firing, Weaver just starts sticking the extras into Browbeat.
• Ascended Meme: A common element of several omakes was that the Butchers were into Warhammer 40,000 due to its ridiculous over-the-top violence. Taylor's PHO AMA revealed that the first Butcher and Sanguine did play an unnamed tabletop game with expensive miniatures.
  • Another common omake element was the idea of one of the Butcher being one of Amy's unknown (to her) biological parents. In chapter 3.2, Amy ends up asking the members of the Teeth which of the Butchers was her parent, having come to the conclusion after her adoptive mother Carol refused to elaborate after worrying a sane Butcher would go after Amy for her parentage.
• Badass Normal:
  • Big Robbie has been a member of the Teeth since the first Butcher and is considered an absolute badass by the entire gang despite having no powers. New Butchers have to earn his respect, not the other way around. He demonstrates why this is the case when, using just a Tinkertech meat cleaver, he singlehandedly takes down Trainwreck.
    • Big Robbie's status as a Badass Normal has led some SpaceBattles.com readers to speculate that he could take on Jack Slash and win. He's later revealed to have fought him to a draw and managed to leave a scar on Jack.
  • To a comparatively lesser extent, Danny. Two examples stand out: him managing to (unknowingly) scare Vex and Weaver into submission with just words, and him standing up to Hookwolf for his employees and daring to punch Hookwolf in the jaw.
• Bad Powers, Good People: The Butcher powers are mostly fine individually, but as a package, the Butcher mantle is assumed to inevitably result in a deranged serial killer. Taylor is determined to do better things with it, either as an independent hero or by moving the Teeth away from nomadic senseless violence toward Pragmatic Villainy.
• Bad Samaritan: Alan Barnes goes to the PRT after Danny confides in him, leading to the heroes approaching Taylor and indirectly blowing her identity as Butcher.
• Becoming the Mask: Defied, as Taylor tries very hard to keep Taylor and the insane violence that is being the Butcher as separate as possible, even after she turns villain. She goes absolutely berserk when she finds out she's failing at that, but ultimately comes to terms that that is who she is now, playing it straight in the end.
• Berserk Button: Taylor has three:
  • Hurting kids is a big one, since it was her defending some "kids" (actually the Undersiders) from Lung that led to her becoming the Butcher, and Lisa pushes it by putting Coil in her crosshairs, revealing what he's been doing to Dinah.
  • The second is the PRT. She's fine with (most of) the Wards as she offers genuine criticism, possessing little to no animosity. Some heroes are also exempt, like Assault and Armsmaster. Piggot and the rest of the higher-ups, however, are effectively on her shit list when the former tried to have her sent to the Birdcage.
  • Breaking the Unwritten Rules is another good way to piss Taylor off, though this is mainly because the Rules are the only thing letting her keep her civilian identity and some semblance of normalcy. When the Empire breaks them by sending Cricket and Hookwolf after Danny explicitly because Taylor is known to be in the Teeth, she brutally kills the two villains and declares open war on the Nazis.
  • Miss Militia in particular is on both Butcher's and Panacea's shitlists after she accidentally shoots Amy with lethal ammo with minimal provocation, during an allegedly routine attempt to recruit someone into the Wards.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: Crusader blows his brains out rather than let the Butcher kill him.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Hookwolf is about to kill Danny, Weaver arrives just in the nick of time to kill both Hookwolf and Cricket.
• Big Eater: The Butchers, all of them. Taylor (b)eats the Challenger, and the Chorus uses their votes on what food to get as bets.
• Big Fancy Sword: The Butcher's ten-foot-long sword (or rather, Sword) is so heavy that their full strength, including Knockout's force fields, is needed to wield it. Thanks to Damascian's Tinkering, it's also sharp enough to cut through reinforced concrete in a single swing. Quarrel wasn't impressed by it, preferring her power to fight at range, but most of the Butchers love it.
  Damascian: While it might be too impractical to wield in a fight, it certainly does not lack presence or style!
• Black-and-White Morality: As per usual, Carol and her children refuse to acknowledge that a villain can be decent or reform, though Amy slowly starts to break out of this mindset when she realizes that Taylor is sane and is slowly turning the Teeth into Friendly Neighborhood Gangsters. Vicky starts breaking out of the mentality herself after meeting Taylor with the latter unmasked (realizing that the villain was a shy, bullied nerd) and drunkenly making out with Damsel of Distress (she wasn't aware that the other woman was a villain at the time, however), going as far to start calling her sister Amelia.
• Boom, Headshot!: Taylor is so angry upon skimming Sovereign's list of crimes that she shoots him in the head twice — but he's a tough enough Brute that it doesn't work. So she gives him to Regent.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Inverted. After gaining her initial powers, Taylor started regular exercise to build up her fitness, but then inheriting super strength and toughness and endurance and regeneration makes that moot.
  It was almost a slap in the face that all of my morning runs had amounted to nothing, but I was happy to grasp any silver-lined straws that I could get my hands on.
• Brain Bleach: Anything involving Annette's fling with previous Butcher Fester results in a demand for some by Taylor.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • Taylor's first intervention to stop Teeth members bullying someone at Winslow results in one of the bullies filling his pants. Sabertooth finds it hilarious and wants to make the other do the same, but Taylor points out that that doesn't mix well with Super-Senses.
  • Greg Veder makes the mistake of thinking he can convince Taylor to leave the Teeth and that Weaver's claim that she's always watching is a bluff. He pisses his pants when Taylor "summons" Weaver.
• Broken Pedestal: Becoming the Butcher and seeing how people treat her as a result quickly tarnishes Taylor's image of the city's heroes.
  It was totally natural and the correct response when facing a cape as dangerous as the Butcher, but it hurt. These were my childhood idols. I had their posters on my bedroom walls and t-shirts with their logos. I had looked up to them for as long as I could remember, modeled my own career after theirs, and now I was looking down the barrels of their weapons.
• Cassandra Truth: The Butcher being sane becomes one. Only the Teeth and later Lisa are willing to acknowledge it.
• Cast Full of Gay: It's getting easier to name only the straight characters at this point, as the vast majority are LGBTQ+.
• Chainsaw Good: Damascian once built a chainsword, but it was destroyed in a battle against Lung. She still considers it more on-theme than the possibility of a lightsaber.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Subverted; Taylor quickly realises that all her past efforts to get into shape are meaningless now that she has the Super-Strength and Super-Toughness of the Butcher.
• Cherry Tapping: Butcher vs the Wards. Taylor happily toys with them, up to and including having a scoreboard made of bugs spell out "WEAVER 3 WARDS 0".
• Composite Character: Madison Clements is Browbeat's civilian identity, which also makes this a case of Gender Bender as Browbeat in the web serial is explicitly stated to be male.
• Connected All Along: The first Butcher and Sanguine actually played tabletop war games together in their civilian lives. They only realized they knew each other personally after Sanguine inherited.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Unfortunately, Coil's attack killed Dinah's parents. Additionally, she's worked out the Teeth offer her a much better balance of safety versus happiness compared to being sent to the Wards and from there to a think tank, so she refuses to leave even when Triumph (her cousin) begs her to.
• Crack is Cheaper: Taylor's opinion on starting her own Warhammer habit. In a bit of Hypocritical Humor, she later visits a bookstore that offers a first edition autographed set of the Song of the Lioness books. While she agonizes over whether or not to blow $1400 on books that are meant more to be admired than read, Sabertooth comments he wasted more money on a single hit of coke. In the end, Chrissie buys her the set.
• Criminal Found Family: The Teeth for a lot of its members, powered or not.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: When Taylor's grudge against Max Anders/Kaiser becomes personal, she proceeds to out him on public TV, pain-blast him, rot his face off, throw him through a window onto a flagpole, and then have her bugs eat him down to the bone, after which she takes his skull as a Battle Trophy. And the next person who tries to break the rules and target family, she promises, will envy him.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Danny versus Hookwolf. One is a reasonably in shape man in his late 30s while the other is filled with metal and can turn into a giant wolf made of blades. The former only gets in a single punch because his opponent lets him make the first move.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon:
  • When someone on PHO speculates about the likelihood of Weaver raiding an ABB brothel and kidnapping the girls for the Teeth, Vex ridicules the idea by pointing out that several Butchers have been female and wouldn't take kindly to any such thing.
    Vex: Sex crimes are a great way to find out how many bees fit into your lungs. The answer is: 'more than you think!'
  • A hungover Amy threatens that if anyone touches her coffee, she will turn them inside out.
• Dartboard of Hate: After joining the Teeth, Taylor starts using an Armsmaster poster for throwing knife target practice.
• Deadly Euphemism: The Teeth don't often recruit Thinkers, possibly because thinking isn't really their forte. Stratego did make an attempt, picking one up in New York, but Crackpot apparently couldn't keep his mouth shut, and died two weeks later from "lead poisoning".
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Skidmark was one of the casualties of the Teeth's return to the Bay.
  • Most of the Empire 88 roster (save only for Rune, Othala, Purity and Krieg) die after Kaiser decides to break the Unwritten Rules and Taylor leads the Teeth to retaliate in kind.
• Declaration of Protection: Weaver has openly declared that Panacea is sacrosanct and that anyone who messes with her will envy Kaiser's fate.
• Decoy Getaway: Weaver's intervention at Winslow leads to the PRT coming and fumigating the place — but Taylor is on site before they get started, and divides up her bugs, moving the really dangerous and valuable ones away while letting the more generic species be easily found (thus lowering the fumigators' suspicions).
• Devoured by the Horde: What finally kills Kaiser after Weaver beats him and impales him on a flagpole. Her swarm reduces him to a skeleton in mere seconds.
• Didn't See That Coming: Taylor didn't expect Quarrel to have a fatal allergy to bee stings; she did have epipens on hand, but fumbles the injection out of shock. Quarrel, for her part, thought the Healing Factor from a previous Butcher would negate it.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • The very first lines of the fic are Taylor deciding she didn't plan out enough before getting in over her head.
    My plan had seemed perfect at the time: use my bugs so Lung and his gang didn’t kill kids.
    Now that I was caught in a three way battle with an enraged Lung and a swarm of bloodthirsty Teeth, I could only wonder if I skipped a few steps in there.
  • Piggot, twofold. She tries to have Weaver put in the Birdcage, citing that if she really is in full control of herself, she presents a unique opportunity in nipping a huge problem in the bud. Not only does she fail to take into account how Weaver herself might feel or that, no, she would definitely not want to spend the rest of her life inside The Alcatraz, but Ethan also points out how utterly stupid the plan was, citing that if Weaver died in the Birdcage, any of the inmates would become Butcher XVI, up to and including DRAGON, who is in charge of the prison. She effectively throws away one of the strongest Ward candidates in recent history out of paranoia, when just letting Taylor do her thing as a hero cape could have kept the Butcher problem off of the board for her entire lifespan.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Quarrel dies in Taylor's arms, setting off the plot.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Teeth are big fans of all kinds of cruel and unusual punishment. For example, Knockout suggests dealing with Taylor's bullies by peeling their skin off and throwing them into the Bay.
  Taylor: That's disgusting!
  Knockout: See, the Bay is salty —
  Taylor: I know!
• Distress Call:
  • Once Weaver has established herself at Winslow, she starts crafting origami squares with bugs trapped inside them, and attaching them to necklaces that she hands out to the Teeth recruits. Crushing the bug is a signal for Weaver to intervene. Naturally, Sophia is the first "volunteer" to test it, promptly getting stung on the nose by a wasp.
  • With Amy in a stressful and volatile situation, Taylor lands two bugs on her leg, under a table and out of sight, one of them a particularly vicious wasp, and the other a fuzzy moth. Amy recognises the offer immediately and pats the moth — but doesn't allow the wasp to leave, either.
• The Dog Bites Back: Coil's recruitment of Lisa with threats and intimidation eventually results in her selling him out to Weaver. Weaver later makes it clear that she has no intention of compelling anyone to work for her, since she doesn't want a repeat occurrence.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Part of Amy's Character Development involves wanting to go by her birth name, Amelia. Carol is loudly opposed to such a thing.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • When Danny is reading the Union's files on the Teeth, he's terrified of the idea of Taylor working for Weaver.
  • He also threatens Chrissie, to the point where both her and Taylor are legitimately terrified of him, that if she and Weaver dragged Taylor into the gang further than wearing Teeth colors, they would be having "problems".
• The Dreaded: Weaver more than any previous Butcher is feared for being smart, vicious, and sane, the last of which no other Butcher was. Even before she becomes willing to kill anyone, she still does things like having one of Menja's legs devoured by her swarm down to the bone. Then she later attacks Kaiser on national television after revealing his identity, beating him, throwing him out a window to be impaled on a flagpole, and eating him alive with her swarm. Afterwards, pretty much anyone who isn't associated with the Teeth goes from fearing Weaver to being outright terrified of her.
• Dude, Not Funny!: At one point, Taylor asks Reflex, the only hero to inherit the Butcher mantle, for his opinion on dealing with Kaiser. When he agrees it's the best course of action, the original Butcher finds it funny enough to say "Sound the Endbringer sirens!". At least six others immediately tell him not to joke about that.
• Duel to the Death:
  • Dannychallenges Hookwolf to one in exchange for stopping the rest of the Empire forces from engaging the Union workers. Weaver's arrival saves him.
  • Animos challenges Taylor for the Butcher mantle. Taylor breaks tradition and mildly upsets the past Butchers by sparing him when she wins, stating that it's valuable to have someone willing to question her decisions.

E-N

• Easier Than Easy: Usually becoming the Butcher involves slowly going insane by having over a dozen screaming voices in your head, driving you mad until you become just as depraved as your predecessors. But Taylor can just shrug off their voices as easily as most people breathe by pushing them into her bugs. Thus, the Butcher's many powers come without any of the usual downsides (other than her current cape ID being known as the latest Butcher).
• Easily Forgiven: Vex is among the most enthusiastic of the Teeth to welcome the new Butcher's return, but she also quickly realises that she let Taylor's bullying happen and stepped back, which now haunts her. Taylor doesn't hold it against her, though; Vex is loyal to her now, and that's what she cares about.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • In 3.2, almost everyone notices how attentive Amy is to Lisa's "flaunting retreat".
  • Lily, during her entire interlude, can't stop remarking on the attractive girls around her.
• Embarrassing Hobby: Quarrel was one of the most brutal and psychotic Butchers after inheriting the mantle. As such she's humiliated when Taylor reveals in an AMA that she was into pop music and collected Funko Pops.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The Butchers initially agree to help Taylor take down the other gangs if she leaves the Teeth alone.
  • Madison and Amy help the Teeth in a raid against the Empire 88.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Amy, not knowing her father is Marquis, concludes she's the daughter of one of the previous Butchers based on her adoptive mother's reaction to Weaver.
  • Danny realized that his daughter is one of the Teeth's capes, but not that she's actually the Butcher until the PRT heroes are surrounding her at home.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Teeth don't care about race, gender, or sexuality as long as you can fight. Taylor is trying to nudge them into accepting non-combatants and civilians in their territory as well.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Danny has one at the worst possible moment, realizing Taylor is Weaver as the heroes are needling her to join the PRT.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The previous Butchers, having stabilized under Taylor's influence, decide to write letters to family members they left behind. Including one Ashley Stillons.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • While previous Butchers are monsters and villains down to the bone, even they feel the Locker Incident was too much. Trigger Events are never a laughing matter, even among villains.
  • One of the rules they've always imposed among the Teeth is "don't attack children".
  • Several of the Butchers also consider sexual slavery one of their Berserk Buttons, and one of Taylor's first heroic actions is to bring down the ABB's brothels.
    Vex: Sex crimes are a great way to find out how many bees fit into your lungs. The answer is: 'more than you think!'
  • Both they and the Teeth are similarly not happy with the PRT's (specifically Piggot's) unprovoked attempts to lock Taylor in the Birdcage.
  • The Butchers aren't keen on the idea of stealing from a music shop or anyone or anyplace that has Warhammer miniatures. Some advocate supporting music shops because they struggle as it is, but this is less because it's the "right thing to do" and having standards and more because, as they put it:
    "It’s a delicate balance, but if you smash up your local pub or game store, where are you going to unwind?"
  • Whatever the Elite cape Sovereign has done, it's bad enough that pretty much everyone in the Teeth is disgusted with the guy and has no problem in either killing him or let Regent use him for experimentation.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Very few of the heroes are happy with Piggot after her bull-headed decision to try and lock up Weaver in the Birdcage. Armsmaster begrudgingly goes along with it, but he laments that the PRT didn't give Weaver enough time to prove them wrong and that she is a legitimate hero in full control of herself whereas Assault lambasts them and points out how stupid they were.
  • Giving someone a hard time over their Trigger Event is considered a major faux pas among capes with "Trigger Trauma" being reason enough to immediately drop any subject. Continuing to pry past that is usually the quickest way to the hospital or a grave.
• Evil Laugh: When Emma tries to tell Taylor that the Teeth won't be able to protect her, Taylor bursts out laughing in a way that impresses Knockout.
  It was loud, arrogant, and — if I was being honest — a bit unhinged. It was a laugh better suited to mowing down Spree clones than chatting in an early morning school hallway; it crashed on Emma and her flunkies in a wave of trepidation. Even Sophia couldn’t quite maintain her bored air of faux-superiority in the face of my laugh.
• Evil Power Vacuum: Despite Taylor's hopes, breaking the other gangs isn't the end of problems; the Elite see it as an opportunity to move in.
• Exact Words:
  • During a PHO Q&A session, Weaver mentions that she "always wanted to be Alexandria". Someone else asks if she meant she wanted to be like Alexandria, only for the others to realize it's the Butcher speaking and that they wanted to be killed by Alexandria in order to take her over.
  • Danny asks Taylor to answer him honestly, no wordplay, about her association with the Teeth, and she admits to joining, but she still resorts to a technical-truth when she tells him that they haven't given her a single order.
• The Exile: For Aster's sake, Taylor allows Purity to leave the city... "so long as it's permanently."
• Eye Scream: Taylor duels with Oni Lee, but they're basically stalemated, since both can teleport around and take hits without being killed. However, she has realised that his teleport relies on line of sight. So she gradually builds up a swarm on his costume, then has them eat his eyes.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Hookwolf comes to the docks, Danny admits he isn't ready to die, but he nonetheless sends his daughter a farewell text and keeps his head high as he goes to meet the villain.
• Fainting:
  • Taylor faints in a panic attack during her near-Birdcaging.
  • Upon learning that not only did Taylor actually Trigger in the Locker, she's also Butcher XV, Madison promptly faints on the spot.
• False Flag Operation:
  • Chrissie loudly talks about a rumour that the Empire 88 brought bags of bugs to school to give the Teeth a bad name. In reality, of course, the bug attacks really are coming from the Teeth, specifically from Weaver (and anyone else bringing in bugs from outside would be pointless, since they would all become hers).
  • The Empire later really does try to frame the Teeth, by massacring dozens of civilians in a place that the Teeth were about to attack, then anonymously calling the PRT to claim that the Teeth kidnapped Panacea.
• Flipping the Bird: While the Wards become increasingly frantic about Weaver's presence in the building, Amy manages to persuade herself that there is probably no direct danger. So when Weaver teleports into the room and raises a phone camera, Amy has just enough time to raise her middle finger before the flash goes off. PHO is quite impressed by her audacity.
• Foil: How Amy unexpectedly befriends Taylor after she learns the latter is Weaver. Amy was adopted by a family of superheroes, but got treated like crap by Carol because her father is apparently a villain and suffered some severe pressure because she was expected to use her power for good, even though said power is actually very, very dangerous and likely to set off some serious alarms if people knew she was a bio-tinker. Taylor, on the other hand, was a rookie hero who got the short end of the stick by having her first night out end with her becoming Butcher XV and people automatically assuming the worst while refusing to believe she was still sane, eventually being driven back to the Teeth because of Piggot's paranoia.
• Forgot About His Powers: When Taylor's arm is trapped under a sleeping Vex, stopping her from reaching her phone, it takes a reminder from Sanguine that she can just have her bugs retrieve it. Taylor wants to facepalm upon realising that, but her arm is still trapped.
• Frame-Up: The Empire kill thirty-three people and leave the bodies in a dog fighting ring, sending an anonymous tip to the PRT and New Wave so they will find the corpses just as the Teeth start attacking the place.
• Friendly Enemy: Assault remains with the PRT, not wanting to give up his second chance after a previous Heel–Face Turn, but he has a lot of sympathy for Taylor's position, arguing in her favour and giving her what advice he can. As a result, Taylor isn't thrilled with him, but she maintains a degree of respect and trust for him.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks Meteor AKA Emma Barnes is a good Ward. At best, the other Wards barely tolerate her. Not surprising, given how she's friends with Shadow Stalker.
• Gargle Blaster: Talisker Super Reserve is a glowing Tinkertech whiskey brewed in Scotland and only barely legal there. Most alcohol can barely make a Butcher tipsy, but this stuff is so powerful it can get them outright wasted. The only reason normal people can drink it safely is that the Tinker's ability prevents outright alcohol poisoning.
• Gone Horribly Right: All of Emma's actions and part in the bullying campaign was so she could give Taylor some Tough Love and stop being such a doormat, possibly even getting her to Trigger and join her in crimefighting. She's initially elated when her former friend stands up for herself and fights back, only to later react in horror when she learns Taylor is Weaver AKA Butcher XV. The revelation hits her so badly she ends up going through a Second Trigger Event.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Literally using your enemies against each other is standard procedure when the Teeth fight, which can be quite demoralising when fighting less crazy opponents.
  Trained mercenaries his men might be, they still broke when the Teeth used their fallen comrades as impromptu shields and their limbs as clubs. Some were even lobbing severed heads as projectiles.
• Harem Seeker: While Taylor is happy being in a relationship with only Chrissie/Vex, the previous Butchers are very overt in their attraction to Lisa as well and try to get her into their bed.
• Head Desk: As the Butchers continue to heckle Taylor about her attraction to Chrissie, she feels the urge to slam her head on a literal desk, but she knows she'd just break the desk.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Ironsides' initial reaction to Taylor's bug control is "She'll get offed in no time," but they soon learn better. Even beyond the various uses Taylor has for her swarms, the Butchers all admit her ability to focus on dozens of different tasks at once is remarkably useful, especially when she's commanding the Teeth in battle. It also has synergy with several other powers, such as feeding reconnaissance data into Stratego's planning, or providing targeting for Pyro's teleports, and in turn, the pain nullification power reduces the headaches that she gets for sharing her swarm's senses.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam:
  • If Butcher can't be a Hero without getting thrown in the Birdcage, then the Butcher can at least be an ethical villain.
  • Madison attempts to apologize to Taylor for all the shit she put the latter through when she learns Taylor's joined the Teeth, feeling responsible and ashamed. Not only does Taylor refuse to forgive her, but she also goes so far as to reveal herself as Butcher XV just to prove how massively Madison fucked up.
    • Ultimately, downplayed in a sense. Taylor lets Madison moonlight with the Teeth while taking down the E88 and continue to hang out after that job is done.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Taylor gets hit with this hard as Weaver. She's doing her best to live with the burden of being Butcher XV and has to deal with Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with some of the more difficult heroes such as Brandish, who is the first to demand that the PRT lock her in a cage cell. She did have some fans at first... until Piggot tried to have her Birdcaged. After that, everyone was convinced Taylor was just as crazy as her predecessors, though this opinion seems to have lessened some as of Arc 3.
• Hey, You!: Vex gets pissed at Butchers I to XIV because even after she'd joined the Teeth for months, none of them bothered to learn her actual name.
• Hiding in Plain Sight: After her near-Birdcage experience and joining the Teeth, Taylor decides to maintain her civilian identity and continue going to Winslow, though this time she gets the Teeth as a support network.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Part of Taylor's Cherry Tapping against the Wards involves grabbing Shadow Stalker's bolts mid-air and throws them at the Wards, hitting Clockblocker in the ass and Vista in the thigh.
• Iconic Item: As soon as she hears that the PRT's guard is down, Taylor knows she needs to make a move on retrieving her signature minigun from their storage. The past Butchers enthusiastically approve.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Deconstructed when Director Piggot decides that sending Weaver to the Birdcage, despite her heroic desires, is a regrettable necessity to take any future Butchers off the board. Not only does it traumatize those involved and damage the morale of her capes, including twelve-year-old Vista. Not only does it undermine the trust between heroes and villains that enables Enemy Mine cooperation like the Endbringer Truce. Not only does it fail and alienate Taylor from the PRT, pushing her into the arms of the gang that she knows will have her back. In a canonized omake, Assault points out that even if it had succeeded, the likely end result would be a string of new Butchers within the Birdcage followed by an escape attempt that could potentially pass the mantle to Dragon. It's a major factor in Director Piggot being politely fired once the Triumvirate gets involved.
  • Played straight for Taylor (as is typical for Taylor). She eventually accepts being the Butcher, leading the Teeth, and plotting to take over Brockton Bay, rather than the alternatives.
    The worst part? It was still the best course of action I could see going forward.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Miss Militia, who really should know better, keeps her finger on the trigger of the gun she manifests when confronting Taylor at the Hebert home, causing her to reflexively pull it when she gets blasted with Butcher's Agony Beam — and shoots Panacea.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Part of Weaver's revenge on Kaiser involves throwing him out a window and using Quarrel's power to impale him on a flagpole.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Alec drops one so bad that the Chorus suggests killing him, and Taylor threatens him with the Wards.
• In Love with Your Carnage:
  • Chrissy, AKA Vex, keeps drooling whenever she sees Taylor doing something Butcher-like.
  • The previous Butchers are also impressed with Dinah Alcott murdering Coil with a grenade attack.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Taylor prefers to be called Weaver, not Butcher.
  • After learning more about her origin, Panacea starts to insist on being called by her birth name of Amelia Lavere.
• Irony: Taylor is amused to have bugs removing cobwebs and dust from her new base.
• It Makes Sense in Context: In 3.2, when Taylor mentions her name, Lisa picks that moment to come crawling out of her room and asks for any talks with her to wait until she's had coffee since Amy kept her up for most of the night, much to the latter's embarrassment. She's talking about Amy asking her questions regarding her father, though Amy's embarrassment with the misconception that they were up all night doing something raunchier amuses her.
• It's Personal:
  • Taylor's hatred of Director Piggot, Protectorate ENE and New Wave after her near-Birdcage experience, the former for trying to have her sent to the Birdcage despite doing her best to be a hero and Carol Dallon for being so insistent that she be arrested on the grounds that she can't be a hero since she is the Butcher.
  • When Dinah Alcott is rescued from Coil, she almost promptly murders him with a grenade attack, complete with a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner, then explains she had to kill him to prevent him from hurting her again.
  • Kaiser sends Hookwolf and Cricket to attack the Dockworkers Union, after figuring that Taylor is part of the Teeth. Taylor returns the favor by destroying the Empire 88.
• Jumping on a Grenade: Taylor doing a non-lethal variant of this (using her power as a shield), saving Big Robbie's life, is more than enough to earn his respect.
• Just Toying with Them: Facing off with the entire Wards team, Weaver gives them the chance to leave only for Shadow Stalker to jump the gun. What follows is a humiliating one-sided beatdown as Weaver toys with the Wards, holding back to ensure she doesn't really hurt any of them.
• Killed By The Adaptation: The Merchants were wiped out by the Teeth before the start of the story, with Skidmark notably being blended by Vex's razor fields and putting an end to the gang.
• Laugh Themselves Sick: Tattletale gets access to security camera footage so she can watch Weaver confronting the Wards, and would have fallen off her chair laughing if Grue hadn't caught her.
• Legacy Character: A key aspect of the Butcher, to the point Damascian, a Tinker specializing in blades, became the Butcher two months after selling a Tinkertech blade that went on to be used to kill the then-Butcher by an unpowered human.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: The Teeth under Taylor are still a gang of violent murderers and drug dealers, but they're better than the Empire 88, who are all neo-nazis, and the ABB who kidnap women off the street and sell them into sexual slavery. They're also the only ones actively enforcing the unwritten rules about not using a Cape's secret identity against them.
• Little Miss Badass: Omen, aka Dinah Alcott willingly joins the Teeth at the age of 12 and personally kills Coil with a grenade.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Danny knows that Taylor and Emma had a falling-out, but not how bad it actually is.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Skidmark was killed before the story started, when he attempted to use his skid fields to escape, only to find that Vex had placed her razor fields in the way. Several characters mention that ever since seeing the footage, they haven't been able to face eating salsa.
• Make an Example of Them: The death of Max Anders is intended to send a message, which is why Taylor carries it out on live television and makes it spectacularly gruesome.
  Weaver: Let this be a warning to those who break the Rules — he got off lightly.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe, Panacea gains the "Verified Badass" tag on PHO after Flipping the Bird on a selfie taken by Butcher.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Exploited and subverted; upon properly meeting Tattletale, Weaver quickly figures out that the rumours of her being a mind-reader aren't true, because, "If you were, you would have recoiled in disgust and likely need years of therapy to get over what the chorus just ran through my head."
• Mistaken Identity:
  • The first chapter of Arc 3 has Amy ask which one of the Butchers is her father, going by Carol's unwillingness to speak of him and worry about how the Butchers have taken an interest in her. This leaves Taylor and the Butchers in Stunned Silence whereas Lisa is cackling her ass off at the misconception.
  • Danny knows Taylor is a parahuman who has recently joined the Teeth. He thinks she's Omen, and even asks for information on the Wards hoping to convince her to leave the gang.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Taylor offers to help remove unwanted wasp infestations in her AMA. Another poster is disturbed by her phrasing, though; she doesn't say she'll eradicate the wasps, but rather collect them.
  • She also has bugs clean up (ie eat) blood spills.
  • Vex uses her force field blades to help blend the ingredients for French toast. Taylor has flies watch the bacon.
• My Eyes Are Up Here: Fester mocks Assault for looking at Taylor's chest — although what drew Assault's attention wasn't her bust, it was her shirt, emblazoned with clear references to her allegiance to the Teeth.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Emma completely breaks down once she learns her efforts to make Taylor "strong" led to her becoming the Butcher. It's so bad she Second Triggers.
• My Greatest Failure: Ms. Knotts visibly sheds tears when she sees Taylor dressed in Teeth colors, apologizing to Taylor for not doing enough to help her.
• Mystery Meat: The first time Chrissie has dinner with the Heberts, she brings extra takeout to have leftovers, because the school lunch the following day is scheduled to be chicken alfredo — or as she puts it, "chicken I'm afraid of."
• Mythology Gag: Taylor knows not to bother Alice when she's cooking.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Violating truce and almost Birdcaging the Butcher gives the Teeth a vengeful and competent leader. As far as Taylor and the Teeth are concerned, it's Nice Job Fixing It, Villain instead.
  • In addition to Shadow Stalker, who is an Anti-Hero at best, Madison and Emma are the Wards Browbeat and Meteor respectively, and all three had a hand in Taylor's Trigger Event, and therefore indirectly responsible for her becoming Butcher XV. The revelation hits Emma so hard she goes through a Second Trigger.
  • Brandish and Myrddin contrive to have Vicky and Amelia join the Chicago Wards, in order to keep them away from the Teeth, with the added implication that Carol wants Vicky to return with Dean. This angers both girls so much that they choose to openly join the Teeth.
• Noodle Incident: Invoked by Taylor when Vista causes her to Spit Take and choke while eating actual noodles. Big Robbie falls off his stool laughing.
  Weaver: Really? Really? You're trying to wind up XVI via a noodle incident?
• No One Gets Left Behind:
  • Taylor expresses this sentiment to Big Robbie after Dinah's use of a grenade to murder Coil, which Taylor had to put her power between Robbie and the explosion to protect him.
  • When the heroes confront Taylor at home, they initially refuse to leave without Amy and Dinah. Unfortunately for them, neither is interested in leaving, and to add insult to injury, they themselves are left behind by the retreating PRT troopers. (Vex slashing their tyres doesn't help.)
• No-Sell: Sophia punches Taylor in the face. Taylor doesn't even flinch, and tanks it with only a sore nose.
• Not Afraid to Die:
  • Taylor is thoroughly unimpressed by the prospect of Purity killing her, and merely points out that the Chorus would love to add her powers.
    Weaver: They've always wanted to fly and shoot lasers.
  • Carol threatens to call in the Protectorate if Glory Girl and Panacea aren't returned. Weaver laughs.
    Weaver: Oh yes, please call the Triumvirate. You’ll make it all that much easier for me to go as Alexandria for Halloween.

O-Z

• Obstructive Code of Conduct: Browbeat is forced into one for PR reasons. In the Wards, they have a frontline Brute role, which they aren't bad at, but their true abilities lay with covert infiltration, with them nearly single handedly taking down the unpowered members of the E88 at the dog fighting ring.
• Oh, Crap!: There's plenty of moments where either the villains or heroes shit a brick or two, but some of the most poignant ones are:
  • Taylor's reaction to Quarrel dying. While Lung was also involved in the fight that cost the Butcher her life, Taylor had a hand in it, and is therefore one of the two candidates — and with Lung dying at the same time, she knows what's going to happen. She has the enviable honor of becoming Butcher XV.
  • The PRT attempting to Birdcage Taylor causes the poor girl to faint in the midst of a panic attack, and when she recovers, she quickly bolts the hell out of there.
  • The Undersiders' bank robbery goes awry when Weaver unexpectedly shows up and hijacks the heist. While Lisa is terrified out of her mind, Amy has it the worst when Weaver lets her and the rest of the hostages go.
  • An enraged Panacea realizes the Wards Meteor, Browbeat and Shadow Stalker are responsible for Triggering Weaver. Furious, she flatly refuses to ever heal them again.
  • A Running Gag in several Omakes is one or more Butchers having been a fan of Warhammer 40,000 and Taylor and the other Teeth taking up the hobby, up to and including hosting tournaments. It ended up becoming an Ascended Meme in Taylor's PHO AMA when Taylor reveals the first Butcher and Sanguine played an unnamed tabletop game with expensive miniatures. Yep, that's right; The Butcher is hosting a game tournament.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • A lot of people "know" that the Butcher and the teeth are cannibals. In reality, only Marauder ever ate anyone and he was high on bath salts at the time. (It doesn't help that Taylor's bugs are seen to eat Menja's leg down to the bone.)
  • The past Butchers will never stop needling Sabertooth about trying to hire Jack Slash. Even after one of them literally killed him for doing it, they're not letting it go.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: It turns out that although Vex had been with the Teeth for months before Taylor came along, none of the past Butchers remembers her real name (Chrissie). She is not amused.
• Open and Shut: Butchers often use Chisel's matter-reshaping power to unlock doors — or lock them in ways that no key can open.
• Open Secret: Within a month, everyone who matters in Brockton Bay is fully aware Taylor Hebert is Weaver aka Butcher XV, and in many cases she deliberately informed them. They're also aware that she'll brutally murder anyone who violates the unwritten rules. Since the heroes would much rather have her spending time peacefully at school, than leading the Teeth full time with a grudge, they stay hands-off.
• Papa Wolf: Danny's less than enthusiastic about Taylor joining the Teeth, but admits it would be horrendously hypocritical of him to censure her for doing so, remembering Annette's own association with Lustrum. That said, his acceptance entirely depends on knowing Taylor is only wearing the colors for protection and not being ordered to actually join in the gang's nastier activities, and makes it clear to Chrissie that if that changes, he's marching to the Butcher and having words. Chrissie and Taylor, aka Vex and the Butcher, are both immediately cowed into keeping up the charade.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Turns out that Fester was in a relationship with Annette Hebert at one point, and now Taylor has the memories of that happening. Any of the Butchers bringing it up get an immediate timeout.
• Plot Allergy: Taylor inadvertently kills Butcher XIV due to an allergy to beestings. Taylor was actually using bees because they're less deadly than other options like black widow spiders, and she even carried an Epipen, but she learned about the allergy too late.
• Pragmatic Hero: Assault, having previously been the villain Madcap, is sympathetic to Taylor's position, making the best of violent powers and a bad situation. His ability to help is limited, however, by Director Piggot being much less flexible.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Taylor's approach to leading the Teeth is to not be assholes, specifically not running around their own territory killing people and destroying businesses. If all the stuff in their territory is broken and nobody lives there, they're not going to make any money off selling drugs and protection rackets.
  • The Butchers consider music stores and game shops off-limits because that's where they go to relax when not killing people.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Dinah gives one to Coil right as she throws a grenade at him.
  Dinah: 100% chance you get fucked!
• Pyromaniac: Pyro tends to break out in cackling when Taylor sets things on fire, not even bothered by Taylor destroying drugs that the others would have liked to keep and sell. She also suggests burning down Emma's house as a minor revenge.
• The Quiet One: Reflex, the only hero to be incorporated into the Butcher, very rarely speaks to the others.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Taylor would never stand for rape (and even the ghosts of past Butchers agree), but after hitting Empire drughouses, her Teeth simultaneously pour gasoline throughout the building and steal all the electronics (followed by the goons' car keys).
  Knockout: Everything that's not nailed down —
  Sabertooth: And then we pull up the nails and take that stuff too!
• A Rare Sentence:
  • When Damascian reminds Taylor not to let her breakfast burn, she replies that, "I've got a few flies keeping an eye on it, don't worry." Knockout comments on how strange it is to hear that.
  • When Amelia tells Victoria to fly to the Teeth's arena for safety, Victoria comments that “Flying to the Butcher for safety,” was something she thought she'd never say.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Two major examples:
  • Taylor compared to the prior Butchers.
  • Armsmaster on the hero side:
    • He was opposed to the Birdcage attempt, but subverted in that ultimately went along with it.
    • After that though, he's aware of who is behind the mask of the Butcher but is quite clear about leaving her alone unless she's actually masked up. He breaks up the recruitment attempt and manages to get things calmed down without further injury.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Taylor's plan to continue living her civilian life even after taking over the Teeth relies on a mixture of the idea of the Butcher going to school being so ridiculous the PRT will hesitate to break the Unwritten Rules, and later, the certainty that if they do break the Rules, they will regret it. This even extends to the PHO interlude, where she gives out some small details about her civilian life, but not enough for anyone who doesn't know her very well to make a solid connection.
  • She also decides to wear a hoodie with her last name and XV on the back. Chrissie suggests to start selling hoodies saying "Future Butcher XVI". And then offer all the "civilians" at her house hoodies with their villain personas on them as a gift after the recruitment attempt.
  • Big Robbie initially joined the Teeth because he "wanted to fuck the Butcher". While Butcher didn't swing that way, he respected the man's audacity enough to make him one of the Teeth.
• Rite of Passage: If you're a villain in New England, you have to rob a Dunkin' Donuts at some point.
• Sacred Hospitality: When the Elite comes to Brockton Bay to take advantage of the sudden vacuum of power, Weaver is willing to offer a truce to negotiate how much she's willing to tolerate them. When the Elite takes advantage of the offer to ship in even more capes and supplies, and send people that could counter Weaver's power to the negotiation, Weaver promptly sends the Teeth to raid their forward bases and tells the heroes about others.
• Sanity Has Advantages: As Vex notes, the Butcher XIV was nearly feral to the point of being unable to string complete sentences. Taylor, as Butcher XV, proves to be far more dangerous than her predecessors by being able to combine her own bug control with everyone else's powers to maximum effect, and furthermore, being able to plan and co-ordinate with the Teeth.
• Sarcastic Confession: After Amy and Lisa have a long talk about Amy's history and issues, and Amy crashes at the Teeth HQ overnight, Carol calls in the morning to find out where she is. Lisa answers and pretends that Amy spent the night with her for other reasons, but Carol is still unsatisfied, pointing out that for all knew, the Butcher could have kidnapped Amy, so Amy snarkily tells her the truth.
  Amy: Yes Carol, I’m currently having coffee and donuts with Weaver and the Teeth, would you like to speak to her?
• Scared of What's Behind You: Tattletale opens the Brockton Bay Bank central vault, and takes a bow, as there's a beat of silence. After a moment, however, she realises that Regent isn't quiet because of her awesome security-cracking prowess; Weaver is in the vault.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In 3.4, after the Empire assaults the Teeth at their home base, Madison decides to help Taylor and the others. Not because they want to join the Teeth, but because they're going after well-known villains.
• Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: The conflict between the Teeth and the Empire starts out with the Teeth raiding Empire assets and Taylor limiting her involvement to deliberately non-lethal maiming. When Cricket and Hookwolf nearly kill her father Taylor decides that the Unwritten Rules have been very clearly breached. She then goes on a very lethal campaign against the Empire's capes and kills most of the remaining ones within a day, even killing Kaiser live on TV and warning others that his fate is the direct consequence of this trope.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • After recovering from her panic attack-induced faint, Taylor immediately books it out of the PRT's grasp before they can lock her in the Birdcage.
  • Taylor, while still in civilian clothes and with her identity not well known, sees a blonde haired girl at the Boardwalk, who glances at her, then goes into a wide eyed panic and runs away. Much later, they meet in costume; the blonde was Tattletale, whose power worked out who she was looking at and freaked her out.
  • Rather than stay and maybe wait for an opportunity to incapacitate Weaver, Amy leaves the bank along with the rest of the hostages.
  • After seeing Dinah execute Coil with a grenade, Grue leaves the Teeth for the PRT.
• Sense Freak: The past Butchers, being limited to feeling what their host does, are very attached to sensations and pleasures. Voting privileges on which food Taylor eats are a major form of currency between them.
• Serious Business: Listening to the chorus argue and trade votes over the next week's meals makes Taylor momentarily wish for the old simplicity of just eating a fast food burrito — at which the voices all unite in horror.
  Fast food burritos were a sin against nature and all she stood for.
• Shot in the Ass: Clockblocker when the Butcher throws Shadow Stalker's bolts back at him and Vista.
• Shout-Out:
  • Taylor, Chrissie, Lisa and Dinah watch Blazing Saddles during a girls' night.
  • Taylor splashes blood in an Empire goon's face, and Marauder starts singing, "Blood on your face, you big disgrace!" and the chorus takes up the song as she continues the beatdown. To show off for her minions in the aftermath, Taylor shouts "Crucio!" before unleashing a pain blast on the downed goons.
  • The suggestion of Taylor building a skull throne immediately prompts internal cries of "Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!"
  • Taylor is thrilled to discover a first-edition signed set of the Song of the Lioness books. The price tag is more than she feels she can justify, but upon hearing her gush about them, Chrissie promptly buys them for her.
  • Taylor addresses a group of recent recruits with, "So, it has come to my attention that I don't know half of you half as well as I should like."
  • Victoria protests, "That's not true!" and the chorus immediately chimes in with "That's impossible!" "Search your heart, you know-!" "I am your fa-"
  • Chrissy won't answer Lisa's questions about her nap, unless Lisa can confirm that Pandemic is not currently on her lap.
    Lisa: Then we are at an impasse.
  • In Missy's interlude, she describes turning to the Butcher as "The Weaver Option".
  • Before the meeting with the Elite representatives, Damascian paraphrases Obi-Wan by saying "the negotiations should be short".
  • When Taylor sees through Aisha's power, they mirror dialogue from the third episode of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. Aisha complains, "that just ain’t fair at all," to which Taylor replies, "I’m sorry, we don’t give a fuck."
    • In fact, many lines from the series pop up from time to time, mostly as commentary from the Butcher Choir.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Not exactly Evil if Taylor has anything to say about it, but Panacea has started preferring working with the Teeth rather than New Wave, up to outright giving the Teeth members permission to rough up New Wave members, since she can just heal them afterwards. It doesn't help that Miss Militia ends up shooting her by accident when the PRT forces approach the Hebert house.
• Spit Take: Taylor laughs off the idea that her dad should run for mayor, assuring everyone that he wouldn't want the job, but then Amy suggests that Weaver could run.
  I spit beer across the room.
• Stepford Smiler: Dinah is the depressed variety, acting tough or cheerful when Taylor can tell she's just putting up a facade to deal with her kidnapping and her parents' death.
• Success as Revenge: Part of what sends Taylor back to her dad, instead of living with the Teeth full time, is knowing that the heroes don't believe she's capable of staying sane and living a normal life — and after what they pulled, she doesn't want to let them win.
  They didn't believe me about much of anything as far as I could tell, and while I hoped they would never be in a position to know my secret identity, every day that Taylor Hebert was still under cover was another day I proved them wrong.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Judging by the clearly visible Nazi imagery, and the waiter's reaction to two girls kissing, Taylor fully expects the restaurant to spike their drinks in some way. Honestly, she was counting on it.
  Sure enough, the waiter wasted no time grabbing dirty glasses for us before filling them with tea and cola respectively. Then he added something to each glass and I couldn't help but sigh since the show part of the date was going to come well before dinner. Pity, the steak they had grilling in the back smelled amazing to my bugs.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Taylor joins the Teeth after nearly getting Birdcaged just for being the Butcher. If the heroes won't work with her, she'll go back to the people whom she knows will have her back.
• Token Good Teammate: Browbeat is this to the rapport they have going on with Meteor and Shadow Stalker. Unlike Emma or Sophia, Madison genuinely becomes remorseful of her part in the bullying campaign and goes to apologize to Taylor. She also joins the Teeth's retaliation of the Empire after the latter attacks their home base.
• Tough Love: In Emma's distorted mind, the hell she's been putting Taylor through was solely to make her trigger; once that happened, they would go back to being friends, though Taylor would remain bottom of the totem pole.
• Tranquil Fury: The Butchers' usual enthusiasm for violence goes quiet and cold when Emma taunts Taylor by mocking her mother's death.
  "Taylor…" Fester said very carefully. "She's talking about Annette."
  She is.
  "I see. Would you kindly end her sad excuse of an existence?"
• Trigger-Happy: Miss Militia comes across as this when she shoots Panacea on accident with basically no provocation.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: After being rescued, Dinah has no qualms with casually murdering Coil with a grenade and claiming his skull as a trophy.
• Two Aliases, One Character: When Panacea and Browbeat slip out to help the Teeth against the Empire, they receive the codenames Pandemic and Ripley to avoid linking New Wave and the Wards to the operation.
• Villain Respect:
  • Even before Taylor returns to the Teeth, Stratego encourages her not to throw her life away, because he appreciates how effective she has been and doesn't want "another meathead or bloodlust driven neanderthal" as Butcher XVI.
  • Robbie respects Dinah more for nearly killing him in her effort to kill Coil because it shows a "proper Teeth attitude".
  • Hookwolf offers some respect to Danny, including quietly sharing his real name, for being willing to face him in a Duel to the Death to spare his men's lives.
• Wham Line: Taylor issues one to Emma, causing the latter to second trigger.
  Taylor: I'm not the Teeth's new whore. I'm their boss.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After Emma Second-Triggers, she has no subsequent on-screen time, leaving her personality change and new powers a mystery.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Kid Win is chewed out for his actions after he unthinkingly uses lethal force against Weaver, despite knowing she's the current Butcher.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame:
  • If all the Butchers are congratulating Taylor, there's a good chance she's upset with herself for slipping closer to their level of violence. At one point, when she realises that she's leading the Teeth even without the Chorus' direct input in a way that Butcher says he's proud of, she wants to throw up.
    I really did not want their praise right now.
    I did not want to hear about how well I controlled the Teeth, or how scared the others were of me, or how great I was at being a supervillain.
  • Shadow Stalker is actually complimentary, in a very backhanded way, about Taylor's initial takedowns of the ABB (which were effective but rather violent). Neither Taylor nor even the Butchers are pleased, to the point where the Butchers suggest remaining a hero just to spite her.
  • Emma is disturbed when told that the Locker Incident would make her a good member of the Teeth. She later reflects that it was the closest the Teeth ever came to breaking her since her implied Trigger Event.
  • Panacea is clearly disturbed when the Butcher shows her sympathy and lets her go.
  • Missy reacts similarly when Butcher gives her a compliment.

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