Leet

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Leet</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

Deceased

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Leet is a supervillain who is part of a videogame-themed duo with Über.<ref name="Cast2">Über and Leet (Missing) – A thinker with the ability to be a master at anything he tries, and a tinker with the ability to build anything, the two only barely managed to be b-list supervillains with a video game theme. Disappeared after working with Coil. - Cast (in depth)</ref>

Personality

Both Über and Leet are demonstrated to be despicable human beings, having no problems with beating prostitutes on the street to gain online viewers.<ref name=":1" /> Leet himself owns several t-shirts that are deliberately shocking, examples being one mocking Endbringer victims and another depicting obscene sexual imagery.<ref name=":3">Leet Quest</ref> He is annoying and generally unpleasant; many people do not tend to like him.<ref name="Reddit Personality">To top it all off, yeah, he's annoying, generally unpleasant, and people don't tend to like him. Except for Über. Such is the life of Leet. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

He considers Über to be his friend and trusts him as such.<ref>“Shut up!” Leet spat the words, glancing over his shoulder at his teammate, “I trust Über.” - Excerpt from Shell 4.6</ref> This feeling is reciprocated by Über, which is likely the reason he continues to work with Leet despite continual failures.<ref>“Why are you even with this guy, Über?” Regent asked, “I mean, you’re kind of lame, but you could at least accomplish something if he wasn’t fucking up half your jobs.”

“He’s my friend,” Über replied, like it was the simplest thing in the world. - Excerpt from Shell 4.6</ref>

Ostensibly, Leet is a fan of videogames. He and Über made it a "mission" to spread the artform of videogames.<ref>“Our mission is worth it,” Leet raised his chin – inasmuch as he had one – a notch.

“Right,” Tattletale said, “Spreading the word about the noble and underrated art form that is video games. That's from your website, word for word. People don't watch your show because they think you're righteous. They watch because you're so lame it's funny.” - Excerpt from Shell 4.6</ref>

Appearance

Leet is described as scrawny, with a weak chin and a bad slouch.<ref>Other than their costumes, though, they couldn’t have been more different. One of the figures was scrawny, with a weak chin and a bad slouch. The other had a sculpted physique, broad shouldered and tall, the lines of his muscles clearly visible through his skintight costume. - Excerpt from Shell 4.5</ref> His voice isn't particularly deep, causing him to sound like he's screeching when he yells.<ref>“Shut up!” Leet roared. Except he didn’t have a very deep voice, so it was probably closer to a screech. - Excerpt from Shell 4.6</ref> In his villain persona, he's usually dressed in a costume based around a video game theme. This theme normally matches with Über's costume.<ref name=":1" />

Abilities and Powers

Leet is a Free Tinker<ref name=Doc /> with access to all tinker technology trees,<ref name="Reddit Chance" /> allowing him to theoretically<ref>Method tinkers are unique in how they tinker. They might have manton-derived limitations or just approach tinkering from a unique approach. These tinkers tend to fall into the wide scope and narrow scope categories, in turn. Wide-scopes are like Leet. They can theoretically build anything, but ____. (Can't use own gear, have to scan those with shards/remove shard-affected brains to get readings, have to finish projects within 3 hours, require a specific, expensive material like uranium, passenger takes over yet-to-be-made decisions for mid/late stage of a given device's design, only ever have one device and continually mod it). Narrow scopes are limited in what they can make (often to variations on typical equipment, like armor, guns, melee) but might have other benefits (like Armsmaster's hyperefficient gear, super durable gear, can build stuff within a matter of minutes). - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> create basically anything<ref name="Cast2" /> with sufficient blueprinting, resources, and time.<ref name="SB CreateTinkers">8 - World - Tinker can build anything their mind desires, but there's an inherent, massive drawback. Blueprinting, build time, cost and variable quality still pace out their power level. Requires a flexible GM, but the challenge is less with the gear and more with the management of the drawback. Think of Leet (misfire chances accumulate) and String Theory (items all activate at a set time, determined during blueprinting phase). - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref> However, Wildbow commented that people out-of-universe tend to overestimate his power.<ref>Über and Leet are really problematic in that they're two characters that people tend to overinflate, powerwise.

I'm exaggerating, but man, am I tired of reading, "Why doesn't Leet just make a machine that turns him into a god!?" - Wildbow on Sufficient Velocity, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

Unfortunately for Leet, his inspiration method (i.e. how he manages and works with his ideas) comes with inherent<ref name="SB CreateTinkers" /> and heavy drawbacks:<ref>Inspiration determines how the tinker manages and works with their ideas. This can include...
[...]
Weigh the power level of the inspiration type, narrow or broaden the specialty as needed. Every tinker varies in how they manage ideas & the scope/focus of what they build. Leet has super-broad specialties and sits at an extreme in this regard, but his inspiration method comes with heavy drawbacks (failure, misfiring), while Trainwreck is fairly narrow in his scope but has advantages garnered via. his inspiration method (super durable, cheap materials, fast crafting). - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

• He is only able to create something once.<ref name=Doc />
• The more similar a creation is to something he has made before, the higher the chances of a spectacular misfire or failure.<ref name="Cast1">Leet - Partner to Über, is a tinker without limits, except that the more similar an object is to something he's created before, the more likely it is to misfire. - Cast Page</ref><ref>A guy who's good at everything yet still manages to fuck up half the time, and a Tinker who can only make stuff that breaks comically.”
  
  “I can make anything,” Leet boasted.
  
  “Once. You can make anything once. But the closer something you invent is to something you’ve made before, the more likely it is to blow up in your face or misfire. Real impressive.” - Excerpt from Shell 4.6</ref>
• The chance of a creation misfiring increases the more he worked on the idea or in that field.<ref>Leet Tinker with no limits, except that creations have chance to misfire respective to how much he's worked on the idea/in the field. Independent - Parahuman List, bolded edit by Wildbow.</ref>

For any new project, he has to cross-check against everything he ever made, such as components, tinker-derived power sources, overall design and goal, mechanisms, and so on, to judge if they are all sufficiently different and if he should move forward.<ref name="Reddit Crosscheck">Now, any time he sits down for a project, he has to cross-check against all the other things he ever made. This isn't end-product related, but works out to components. Example? Power source. He either uses something mundane, or he uses something tinker derived. But if he uses something tinker derived to power his newest project, then he has to think of all the other power sources he's used, make sure that this one is sufficiently different, gauge the risk, and then move forward. Same goes for the mechanisms, the overall design & goal, and so on. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref> All throughout his tinker technology trees are entire sections where using a specific technology has a X% chance to fail. If he gets further away from one design, the chance drops, but it is still there.<ref name="Reddit Chance">Defiant has the 'tinker up efficiency/hybrid/minimized technology' skill tree. Stinger has the 'missile' skill tree. Tecton has the 'Seismic and Architecture' skill trees. Leet has all of them, but all throughout those trees are entire sections with 'Use of this technology has a X% chance to fail'. You get further away from one design, that chance drops, but it's still there. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref> If he makes a bridge between two tinker's works into a single one, the result would probably affect his misfire chances in both of the fields he was bridging, though maybe not as much as usual.<ref>Raviollius - Yesterday at 2:35 PM
@WB: I've considered this for a while. Leet can access any tree, but his tech might fail based on what he has built before, which was a problem with power sources, etc. Could he make a bridge between two tinker's works into a single one? Would the entire result count in the "previously done" list, or only the ones he personally worked in?

Wildbow - Yesterday at 2:37 PM
@ Ravioli - it'd probably affect his misfire chance in both of the fields he was bridging.
Maybe not as much as usual - Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles</ref>

By the time Leet figured these drawbacks out, he had burned many bridges during his experimentation, limiting his options and leading him to fail very often. He explicitly burnt himself out on biotinkering, robotics, and hard light holograms fairly early on.<ref name="dev" /> All together, this led to Leet becoming a laughingstock among other parahumans, though his technology could still be quite versatile when working correctly.<ref name=":0">Leet's biggest problem is that it took him time to figure out the 'rule' to his power. He tried a variety of things in attempts to work out what his specialty was, and he burned a lot of bridges. That's not a 'Leet' problem so much as a trap that a lot of people (including many here) would fall into. Word of God - he caught on faster than your average geek might.
[...]
The video game thing was partially personal passion and partially a means of 'categorizing' what he did. On top of a wealth of notes and reference documents, he can think back through the various games he's been inspired by and use that as a mnemonic device to recall what he did for each project.

So by the time you/he figure(s) out the 'catch' to the power, the list of options is riddled with fail chances. You know there are a few trees you've not explored yet, but you have to progress carefully. How? You weigh the odds, estimate your chances of failure, trust your one really reliable buddy/sidekick to cover your ass if something blows up, and you do lots of little jobs you can afford to fail until you have the resources to do one big job well with something you're ninety-five percent sure won't blow up in your face. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

Tinker Creations

Solid Hologram Generator - Could create fake bombs that exploded with concussive force. Could also create an imitation of Link's sword.<ref name=":2" /> Snitch - Camera mounted in a small, golden sphere that could fly like a hummingbird. Used to record Über and Leet's activities and stream them online.<ref name="4.5" /> Ray Gun - Used by Leet during Coil's attack on the town hall. Highly concussive.<ref name=":4">Monarch 16.8</ref> Unspecified Tracking Device - Used by Leet to track the heroes during Coil's attack on the town hall.<ref name=":4" /> Metal Power Armor - Worn by Über during Coil's attack on the town hall. Was meant to lift heavy objects. Was able to sustain damage from Kid Win's electricity and concussion shots.<ref name=":4" /> Temperamental Teleportation Tech - Used to switch Skitter out with a body double during Coil's betrayal among other feats, had a high chance of malfunctioning.<ref name=":5">“Why didn’t you drop me on top of a bomb?” “An unfortunate side effect of Leet’s power. Leet believes it was the proximity to the bomb or the particular signature of the vat of acid that made it so likely to occur, but with my power I observed that it wasn’t merely a chance that the teleportation would fail and your well-trained body double would be caught instead, but a surety. No less than twelve tries with the variables changed slightly. Leet’s power sabotages him, it seems.” “Is that Leet’s passenger at work?” “Passenger? Ah, that’s what Bonesaw calls the agents. Yes, I suppose that might be the case. In any event, we nearly ran out of time before verifying that guns, fire and alcohol wouldn’t skew his power. Whatever the cause of the errors was.” - Excerpt from Monarch 16.13</ref> Possibly made by scanning Trickster's ability. Famine Engine - Overrode Skitter's powers, commanding bugs around it to swarm and attack.<ref>Did he clone me? No. I could sense the movements of the bugs throughout my range, even if I couldn’t control them. They were moving in a massive, slow spiral, drifting counterclockwise and attacking anyone they came in contact with, and the center of the effect, where they were settling and gathering in piles? A box in the center of one building. - Excerpt from Monarch 16.12</ref> Was used to convince the Undersiders that Skitter had betrayed them. In order to be built, first required Trickster to carry devices designed by Leet to record the particular signals Skitter used to command her bugs.<ref name="FE">"When you went to convince the Mayor of our way of thinking, Trickster carried the devices Leet designed to record the particular signals you use to command your bugs.” “Which is how you built the swarm box.” “The Famine Engine,” Leet said. “Whatever.” - Excerpt from Monarch 16.13</ref> Yeti Fister - Cryogenesis gauntlet/snowball charge blaster. Only works on the left hand.<ref name="LeetQuest e1">YETI FISTER. Left hand only. Cryogenesis gauntlet/snowball charge blaster. - Leet Quest</ref> Warp Signal Shooter - Destroys anything/everything. Has a very limited number of shots.<ref name="LeetQuest e2">WARP SIGNAL SHOOTER. 2 shots remaining. Destroys anything/everything. - Leet Quest</ref> Combo Cutter - A sword that grows more effective with successive slashes.<ref name=":3" /> Combo Cutter Extender - Plugs into the Combo Cutter, letting the sword grow longer with successive slashes.<ref name=":3" /> Wire mesh shirt and pants - Meant for protection.<ref name=":3" /> Polyphemus Mask - One-eyed mask that allows for x-ray vision and "tech vision."<ref name=":3" /> Blight Powered Battery - Destroys 300 pounds of organic matter to generate 3 hours of charge for other inventions.<ref name=":3" /> Reality Hacker - Does virtually anything to physics, geometry, or physical layout within a 100’ x 300’ x 100’ space. Oneshot, not finished, and may misfire badly.<ref name=":3" />

Shard

Behind the scenes, Leet is completely out of tune with his Shard as he tends to play it a little too safe because he is hedging bets as often as not. His Shard is unsatisfied, causing it to punish him by being harsher with its restrictions and making his power malfunction. In essence, it is actively trying to kill Leet so that it can move on to another host.<ref name="Reddit Shard">Except he can't really seem to catch a break. He doesn't know it, but he's basically doing the opposite of Jack Slash and Taylor. He's explicitly out of tune with his power, he doesn't nurture it the way others do, even by general conflict - he's a little too cowardly, a little too safe, in large part, because he's hedging bets as often as not, and it's an unsatisfied shard, more prone to cause chaos for him rather than set him up to pursue it. It's trying to actively disrupt or kill its host so it can move on to greener pastures. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

As Leet tends to hang out in his workshop and actively avoid confrontation, he is not going to find ideas coming hard and fast compared with a tinker that frequently gets into fights.<ref>What really drives tinkers, in a lot of cases, is the inspiration aspect. We don't really see this, because we mostly see tinkers who are doing their thing with what they've already built.

But tinkers vary a great deal in how they get their ideas. How fast, how many, how varied. In many cases, tinkers can find their way to new ideas by studying powers or studying the work of other tinkers.
[...]
From the shard's perspective, this drives competition and puts one tinker against another. Stealing another tinker's stuff to study both hurts the tinker and is a fast route to upping the quality of your own stuff. On a similar level, a tinker that's getting in fights is going to find ideas coming hard and fast (Bakuda), compared to a tinker that just hangs out in their workshop and actively avoids confrontation (Leet). - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

History

Background

Formed a criminal partnership with Über, performing various videogame-themed crimes. They streamed their activities online, gaining notoriety for being both incompetent and despicable.<ref name=":1">Leet and Über glared at him. Their entire schtick was a video game theme. With every escapade, they picked a different video game or series, designing their costumes and crimes around it. One day it would be Leet in a Mario costume throwing fireballs while Über was dressed up as Bowser, the two of them breaking into a mint to collect ‘coins’. Then a week later, they would have a Grand Theft Auto theme, and they would be driving through the city in a souped up car, ripping off the ABB and beating up hookers. - Excerpt from Shell 4.5</ref> During this period, Leet used up many of his potential options trying to figure out his tinker specialty, burning himself out on tinker trees such as biotinkering, robotics, and hard light holograms. After that, things began going downhill for Leet.<ref name="dev" />

Story Start

Über and Leet ambushed the Undersiders at the storage facility where the gang had stashed their money from the bank robbery in. Dressed up in Bomberman costumes, they revealed that they had found and stolen the money by following Bitch, capturing her in the process. At that, they engaged the Undersiders in battle, with Über taking them on while Leet threw fake bomb holograms at them. Despite their preparation, they were quickly and brutally dispatched by the Undersiders.<ref name="4.5">Shell 4.5</ref><ref name=":2">Shell 4.6</ref>

After their defeat, Bakuda showed up, revealing that she had hired Über and Leet to soften the Undersiders up. She then initiated the true ambush, signaling for members of the ABB to step out of their hiding places to assist her.<ref name=":2" />

Post-Slaughterhouse Nine

Über and Leet were contracted by Coil in his operations to take over the city. During the mayoral debates, Leet participated in the attack that would lead to the faking of Coil's death. During this attack, Über used a heavy metal suit constructed by Leet. Leet's technology would later be used to facilitate Coil's betrayal of Skitter, using a form of teleportation to swap her out with a body double without the other Undersiders noticing. Leet also created the Famine Engine for this purpose, which imitated and overrode Skitter's power, commanding nearby bugs to attack everything around them.

After Coil's death, Leet was captured by Echidna along with Über and Circus during her search for independent capes. Echidna would go on to create multiple clones of all three of them. Later in the battle, the real Leet escaped in one of Echidna's vomit streams.<ref>A dozen bodies began climbing free of the vomit. Ten or so clones had been deposited on the street, along with a real Leet in civilian clothes. One of the clones was a Circus, folding herself into her pocket dimension. - Excerpt from Queen 18.8</ref>

Post-Echidna

After the Echidna battle, he left Brockton Bay along with Über and Circus.

Timeskip

Retaining their videogame theme, the newly formed trio briefly passed through Tijuana, Mexico, where they evaded authorities and caused property damage after detonating a device.<ref>Since the opening of the Tijuana PRT, there have been three incidents involving capes; the forcefield labyrinth, a raid by an American gang, and a trio of capes with a video game theme evading authorities and causing some property damage with the detonation of a device. - Tijuana PRT Struggles, Announces Split, PHO Sunday</ref> They eventually traveled to South America and tried to stay under the radar. However, after getting into trouble and crossing the wrong people, Leet was killed.<ref>Quest Premise: In South America, Über, Circus and Leet are making their way through the city after having left Brockton Bay. It’s a situation as simple as flying under the radar, playing nice, and being cool, calm and efficient, so as not to stir up trouble with the locals.

Spoiler: Leet is bad at this.

Spoiler: Things get worse when his luggage is looted, and his laptop with notes on what inventions are mostly okay for him to make is taken, along with the reality hacker.

Spoiler: Leet dies. - Leet Quest</ref><ref>“Something happened to Leet,” I concluded. “Only way he’d be that… rudderless.”
“Crossed the wrong people, got offed,” Glenn told me. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.6</ref>

Legacy

After his death, Über and Circus would split up. Über became rudderless, eventually getting arrested for attempted murder and put into a secure prison facility.<ref name="28.6e1">Mr. Calle answered for Glenn. “Attempted murder. Bit of a loose cannon, but not so loose they’d stick him in the Birdcage. Shacked up with Circus for a while, but it didn’t take. Relationship-wise or as a partnership. They stood to lose more than they could ever gain if he got loose again, so they made it a secure facility. He hasn’t escaped.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.6</ref>

Trivia

• The name Leet is a reference to leetspeak, a system of spelling and grammar commonly used in gaming communities. The word Leet in particular is an alternative spelling for "elite."
  • Clones of Leet created by Echidna are given the name Pwn. In leetspeak, the term pwn is a variation on own. It means "to utterly defeat (an opponent or rival)."
• Though Leet is often referred to by fans as "L33t," this spelling does not occur anywhere in the text of Worm.<ref>Proof that 'L33t' does not appear in Worm</ref>
• Leet was one of the earliest tinkers to show up in Wildbow's drafts. He primarily appeared as an antagonist.<ref name="dev">Leet did come up when I was figuring out how tinkers worked, but I think he was an antagonist in the snippets more than a protagonist. Probably a reason why he didn't get an interlude at any point - a lot of the time I went to write interludes, I tapped snippets for details and ideas.
  
  Keep in mind that Leet is a video game theme tinker. Video games have lots of enemies. So he burned himself out on biotinkering, robotics, and hard light holograms fairly early on. He wanted to do them, he found it easy (and not a thing a lot of other tinkers do well) and it made sense to him, then it all started going wrong. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• Wildbow had plans to write a "Quest" centered around Leet, which would feature his adventures and eventual death in South America. It was never written, though an outline of Leet Quest can be found here.

References

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Site Navigation

Über and Leet
Members	Leet {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Über
Associates	Circus

Coil's Organization
Leader	Coil {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Tattletale
Members	Dinah Alcott {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Chariot • Creep • Leah • Pitter • Trainwreck {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • The Travelers {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • The Undersiders
Associates	Accord {{#switch: deceased	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Circus {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Faultline’s Crew • Leet {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }} • Über {{#switch: former	deceased=†	noncanon=≠	former=‡	unknown=*	#DEFAULT= }}