groupthinkgamer:

one big reason I voted “after the interlude” is that there are a few arcs with interludes sprinkled throughout and it would be bad if you got confused by those

I’ve gotten a few asks with similar concerns before… I guess it makes sense if those Interludes get full numbers (which would be a little annoying because it’d break the nice pattern of Arc N -> Interlude N) instead of following the example of Interlude 3½.

(Don’t tell me if they do.)

This interlude just… It shuffles my ventricles around every time. A fucking hypocrisy spelled out loud by the judge himself: “we want to encourage rogues”, and then they throw a person in literal hell on Earth for having a human and understandable reaction. If it wasn’t for Dragon, the Birdcage would’ve been an ASSURED death sentence instead of a mere probable one. (Sorry if I sent a similar message twice, but the first had an error, I don’t know if it went through)

Yeaah, the penalty was incredibly harsh. I mean, the logic used to excuse it did make some sense (given the court’s impression of Paige and her power making her a high flight risk), but… they kind of need something in-between. A similarly high-security parahuman prison that doesn’t require the stay to be for life. That would unfortunately be quite difficult to pull off, though.

Here’s the quote from wildbow about where the term rogue came from: “It was a term that first would’ve come up when superheroes were fresh & being a superhero was assumed to be the norm for powered individuals, with anyone not being a superhero being seen in a negative light, but not so negative as to warrant the title ‘villain’. In short, it predated the realization of the societal ramifications & dangers of large numbers of superpowered individuals duking it out on the streets.”

Interesting! Wildbow once again shows how much he’s thought through these things.

The judge isn’t part of the PRT, he’s employed by the government. It’s in the interest of the government to see Parahumans become Rogues.

Hm, I suppose that makes sense. Let’s take another look at what he said:

“(…) This state, in which an individual does not identify as hero or villain, is what the PRT classifies as a ‘rogue’.”It is in our interests to promote the existence of rogues, as the proportion of parahumans in our society slowly increases. (…)”

So yeah, he doesn’t actually say that “our” refers to the PRT, but you can see how I came to that conclusion, right?

That said, judges specifically acting to serve the interests of the government isn’t actually that much better, especially as the PRT are also working for the government.

Alternatively, I could see “our” referring to the justice system, which would be better, but it still strikes me as not their job to have and act on an agenda for how to make there be less parahuman conflict. That’s the government’s job.

No matter how you spin it, there seems to be something fucky going on with the division of power here. It might be based in reality, but still.

half-man-half-lime:

Bakuda is severely underrated as a character, she’s amazing. She’s a horrible sadistic monster, but she’s amazing.

I know, right?

What about Bakuda makes you like her so much?

I think it’s a large part her cheerful and proud, yet deranged attitude. Her actions in Shell, especially 4.8, are also a big part of it – she came across as a highly threatening villain who loves what she does, knows how to do it well, and is, well, the effective brand of crazy.

Simply put, she’s very entertaining while at the same time raising the stakes, and… if this is the last we see of her, I’m going to be a little disappointed. She had the potential to be the big bad of the entire story, and I would’ve loved that.

Interlude 3 was the longest chapter you’ve read so far at 4,762 words, until Interlude 5 which was 5,186 words, until 6.6 which was 6,114 words, until Interlude 6 which was 7,656 words. So yeah, the chapter lengths suddenly started getting longer, with word count records being broken 3 times in a relatively short span of time.

+

Just to put things in perspective, Interlude 6 is long, but not ridiculously so. It’s about 25% longer than 6.6 (the previous longest chapter). That’s a little less than twice as long as a typical Arc 6 chapter. Fun fact: you actually read more in your one session for 6.9 than you have in your two sessions for Interlude 6 combined.

(different anons, as far as I know)

There seems to be a pattern here of Interludes being especially long. Which makes sense, because they focus on non-Taylor characters. If Wildbow wanted to do something with Taylor’s POV, he could just split it across two chapters, but with other POVs, he might need to cram it all into one Interlude.

Which I suppose might be the reason for those Arcs that were mentioned to have multiple mid-Arc Interludes.

As for that fun fact: Ah, yeah, some days I’m just significantly more effective than others, I guess.

After this interlude, I just wanted to see Worm’s whole damn world burn.

It’s a pretty shitty place in some ways, yeah. I feel like my reluctance to immediately be against Coil’s plans might say a lot about that.

Villains aren’t just blindly thrown in the birdcage. If they had a power that would make escape trivial and/or compromise the safety measures (like technology control), then they wouldn’t send them here. Also most teleporters are limited by line of sight.

+

If there’s a teleporter powerful enough to teleport straight out of the birdcage, they would’ve already teleported out of jail. The Birdcage doesn’t have to hold every possible type of cape, just every possible one they’d be able to capture and hold on to long enough.

(again: different anons, as far as I know)

Yeah, these are fair points. But what do they do with the villains that would compromise Birdcage security measures, then?

Incidentally, the line of sight thing is exactly why I specified a powerful teleporter. I was aware of this limitation with Oni Lee, and it made a lot of sense for that to apply to most teleporters, but the thing about powers in this verse is that for every general limitation we know of, there’s someone who breaks it.

Mind readers don’t exist, except some do. The Manton effect keeps people from affecting the other side of the living/non-living border from what their power is supposed to affect, except some people can.

With this kind of thing going on, it seems very likely to me that teleporters are limited by line of sight, except some teleporters aren’t.

I think someone voiced this before, but I’m finding more and more that theories should be left for AFTER a chapter has ended. Knowing the time you must spend on posts, it gets kinda cringe-y seeing you write paragraphs on something you are NOT sure about, when it gets clarified or shown in that exact same chapter, the author’s choice of when something began and ended. If that offends too much of your formula, fine; I just think sometimes it is a waste of everyone’s time

I get why you feel this way, but the thing is, this is a huge part of the format. I’m a liveblogger, not a reviewer – the point of this blog is to record my thoughts as they happen (thus “live”), for the entertainment of both myself and my audience.

These mid-chapter theories and speculations are not only required for this blog to stay what it is, but they’re also a big part of why I’m doing this in the first place. I have a natural tendency to read too quickly, but by stopping to comment on everything, I’m making myself take things in better and enjoy the story more. And if I’m to not theorize until after the chapter is over, what is even the point of my commentary?

I feel like even when I theorize about something and Wildbow immediately stamps a “NOPE.” all over my face, it adds something to the experience.

I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same, but this is just how it’s going to be.

*read Krixwell’s mid-interlude prediction, clear throat, point at him* HaHa! HaHa! HaHa! *Repeat until it stops being funny*

Man, the dramatic irony must’ve been delicious. 😛