YMMV / Twig

• Complete Monster:
  • The Baron Richmond is the pinnacle of the Crown's depravity. Infamous for regularly unleashing his psychotic twin sisters to cause indiscriminate slaughter, the Baron is introduced gleefully participating in the complete extermination of the city of Lugh, only relenting with the promise of immortality from marrying Candida "Emily" Gage and Mauer's vow to assassinate his political enemies. In his spare time, the Baron rules tyrannically over the city of Warrick, killing whomever he pleases and filling churches with nailed-down and starved corpses of the faithful. When families are formed, the Baron takes their firstborn children to be auctioned off on the Block, replacing them with monstrous overseers whom he tells the parents are the firstborn transformed; said "Firstborn" are designed to fly into a rage and attack everyone in sight at the slightest hint of a conflict. To celebrate his marriage to his tortured bride, the Baron invites several upper-class families to Warrick, intentionally putting them and all of his subjects in danger of the Hair-Trigger Temper of the Firstborn should minor conflicts inevitably arise. Taking pride in his spiteful cruelty, the Baron happily throws away countless lives and backstabs anyone he can to attain the true power he craves.
  • The Lord Infante is introduced late in the series as the face of the Crown's atrocities in the Big Bad Ensemble. Fully complicit in the Block, where children are trafficked to either be used for experiments or be painfully transformed into the next generation of amoral Nobles, the Infante is also responsible for laying judgment on regions the Crown cannot control, having condemned a half-dozen other territories to genocide so that Crown loyalists can reclaim and repopulate them centuries later. When the rebel and plague-filled Crown States become too troublesome to manage, the Infante begins efforts to abandon the continent by directing the spread of the Ravage plague; using Black Wood to wipe out all organic matter; and releasing Tender Mercies to hunt down survivors. Falling in love with the taste of "total abandon" caused by the war, the Infante plots to wipe out the Lambs and their allies by forcing the Duke of Francis and his professors to march to their deaths on the threat of sending everyone they love to the Crown's pits, before personally infecting the loyal Crown armies duped by Sylvester with the plague for their unwitting betrayal. A monstrous antithesis to God, the Infante unflinchingly embraces his destructive purpose, madly seeking to prove the superiority of the Crown overall.
  • Dyed in the Wool & Black Sheep arcs: John Colby, aka "The Devil of Corinth", is the premier crime lord of Corinth. A warmonger who sold chemicals to both sides of conflicts, the Devil carved a bloody niche into the criminal underworld by visiting wildly disproportionate torture and murder onto any perceived disrespect or failure. Colby's signature business is peddling a drug that causes long-term damage to its users' bodies and polarizes their personalities, leaving them subdued one moment and magnifying their worst traits into bloodthirsty violence the next. When Sylvester demands recompense for the countless lives he's ruined—especially from the children he preys on and regularly traffics—the Devil responds by organizing mass attacks against the city's children and leaving bombs at a train station for the other Lambs. When faced with defeat, the Devil reveals he's bought entire wagons full of children from other cities to be "creatively" disposed of and has bounty hunters ready to wipe out all his enemies and associates, happily intending to take everyone else down with him.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Sylvester's casual joke to Jamie about wishing to be a girl, and Jamie's disturbed reaction, can come across much harsher in light of the later revelation that Jamie is transgender and eventually adopts the female identity of Jessie.
• Ho Yay: Everything about Sy and Jamie's relationship. Sylvester puts Jamie's wellbeing and comfort ahead of his own, overcomes his leaking memory to be sure he's always able to keep watch so Jamie can sleep safely, thinks better of telling Jamie that Lillian stole his First Kiss, and Helen comments that the two of them are "going to make a girl very miserable" because they can't put anyone else before the other.
  • 6.9 outright confirmed Jamie is indeed in love with Sy, who doesn't return it (with Jamie being fine with it).
• Iron Woobie: In spades. Sylvester arguably suffers more than any other Wildbow character, and that's saying a lot. How many times does Sylvester ruminate and complain about his Cosmic Plaything status? Zero. Instead he continues to follow his path and is the only one who makes saving children a priority.
  • As of chapter 15, he's only complained about it once, as part of a rant to Fray about how he's had it with everything the Academy's put him and his through, and how he doesn't care to listen to any doctor ever again.
  Sy: You don't get to tell me to heel, Fray. You're no different from the ones who made me and the ones who condoned me, so you don't get any more say than they do.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • The Duke of Francis is the noblest of his twisted family. Making his entrance as an eccentric yet dangerously clever madman that has taken over Radham Academy, one of the Duke's first acts is to root out the rebel spy Avis and effortlessly overcome her various traps, all while taking time to evaluate the members of the Lambsbridge Project. The Duke later orders the complete extermination of the city of Lugh upon learning of it being home to primordials, matching wits with Mauer throughout the battle and even usurping control of the monsters to turn them on the rebels. Although rendered brain-damaged from the fight, the Duke quietly recovers while posing as comatose and makes plans to stop the Infante's genocidal ambitions, providing aid to the Lambs in return for them retrieving the resources needed to further heal his mind. An honorable Noble Demon beloved by his subjects yet dreaded by his enemies, the Duke gives his life in the end to save Sylvester from the Infante's wrath, deeming his own death to be worth ensuring the rise of the next generation and a better world.
  • Esprit de Corpse & Cut to the Quick: Sanguine is the most levelheaded of the Humors. Working as Cynthia's key operatives during the Battle of Whitney, Sanguine's enhanced eyesight makes him one of the Lambs' most dangerous enemies as he expertly snipes down his foes, and his quick wits allow him to discover the Lambs' second infiltration of the city after the rest of his team has been whittled down. Upon learning that Sylvester and Jessie have become fugitives, Sanguine hires a group of bounty hunters to track them down, recruiting one of the rival Dog and Catcher's own mercenaries to betray them and aid his team. Sanguine once again uses his expert marksmanship to keep the duo on their toes and track their movements from extreme distances, constantly repositioning himself to keep an eye over the entire city and initiate sneak attacks on Dog and Catcher so his allies can capture their targets alive. Ultimately, Sanguine decides to let Sylvester go after Jessie is infected by the Ravage plague, viewing his despair as vengeance enough for his compatriots.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • Twig's universe is bleak, and the story focuses on Black-and-Gray Morality, with the gray sometimes being so dark as to approach Evil vs. Evil. Every single faction of any significance commits constant atrocities, and the way Twig's science works means that this is Inherent in the System because all the best stuff is Powered by a Forsaken Child - any faction unwilling to use orphaned children as Human Resources would rapidly get crushed by those who do. At absolutely no point in the story is there any hint of a suggestion that it is even possible for the world to be better, with the Academy portrayed as completely awful and everyone fighting against them unambiguously headed towards a Full-Circle Revolution at best.
    • It's so bleak that the discovery that one of the factions was experimenting with potentially global-extinction-causing primordials as a backup blackmail plan is treated as an extremely high-risk plan, rather than a completely insane one; the world is so bleak that risking a situation where the world is either forced to improve or be wiped out completely is the action of one of the less evil/insane factions.
  • That said, it is generally considered to still not be quite as dark as Pact; while the larger setting is even more grim, the individual relationships between characters allow for more points of human warmth on a small scale even if the larger setting relentlessly works to snuff this out.

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