Sundancer is a Good, and Coil’s a dick.

So! In this chapter, we watched as Dinah saved everyone, at great personal difficulty.

I think it’s worth thinking of this chapter as split in two: There’s talking tactics, and there’s the horror portion.

There was a lot of discussion of tactics in this one, which… kinda drew long, but was a pretty decent demonstration of Dinah’s power and an alright way to introduce us to Crawler’s power. It grew especially interesting once the final solution of having Dinah look into the future more thoroughly and find out what they were going to do came up, which was an aspect of her power I did not see coming. Uh, no pun intended.

I think I like the horror section better – trapped in the dark with a potentially dangerous person sniffing at you from inside, and a definitely dangerous monster banging at the door from the outside. It does feel like it didn’t quite pay off, though, somehow – Trickster calmed Noelle down with relative ease and a gentleness that didn’t match the horror tone surrounding it, and Crawler was quite effectively stopped by the vault door. (The latter isn’t quite as much of a problem as it could’ve been, because it’s previously been solidly established that it’s a really strong door intended to keep berserk!Noelle in check.)

Overall, it was a fairly decent setup and used the uncertainty surrounding Crawler and Noelle’s appearances effectively, but ultimately the ending felt kind of anticlimactic. It was certainly not bad, though.

And then there’s Dinah. It was nice to see Dinah’s perspective on her situation, and I’m very glad that she does not like Coil. She has learned to not cross him, and does have a heavy addiction to the drugs that will be especially hard to break due to her power, but she does not like him. His abuse hasn’t gotten to the point where she starts telling herself he’s good to her, that what he’s doing is okay, that she doesn’t want to go home.

Sundancer (civilian name Marissa, which is nice) was also very good in this chapter, being protective of Dinah, but admitting to Dinah – to Dinah, talking directly to her – that her hands were tied by her bonds to the Travelers. I would love to see Taylor and Sundancer discussing Dinah, though it’s very unlikely to happen.

Speaking of Taylor, I have a feeling she’s a big part of why the chance of Dinah’s release is ticking up.

So yeah! Not one of the solidest recent chapters, but I enjoyed it.

Next up is either Bonesaw, the newbie or Hatchet Face. Probably Bonesaw, I’m thinking. See you then!