aberrant-eyes:

I have good news or bad news, but I’m not sure which. Either way, the news is that, on Saturday, October 21, Wildbow started posting chapters of the continuation, so far titled “Glow-worm”. He’ll probably be well into it by the time you finish the original, and you’ll be able to jump right in, for good or ill.

I’m considering it good news – I’m happy for the fandom! And assuming I’m still going and willing to continue when the time comes, it sounds like an excellent opportunity. 🙂

Gotta say, though, I’m not sure about that title, especially with the hyphen in there. But last I heard before this ask, it was as yet untitled, and you’re saying it’s titled that “so far”, so I guess that might change in the near future if Wildbow comes up with something better.

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The main connotation of alabaster is that it’s extremely white. Why an E88 cape might choose that name is left as an exercise for the reader.

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What you missed from the definition of alabaster is that it’s smooth and white. I’ve also seen alabaster used to describe pale white skin.

Ahh, right, “alabaster white” – that’s where I’ve heard it before!

The name makes a lot more sense now… Though it makes me even less sure about the power. I guess it could still have some connection to the material, like I theorized, but with this alternate explanation for the name, it could be just about anything.

It’s not like real narwhals are known for making forcefields… right?

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About some of empire’s 88 capes names, Othala is a rune, and “Grille”, cricket in german, was a tank model along with the sturmtiger

Interesting!

I suppose there’s a good chance Othala works with (or more than works with) Rune, then.

Stormtiger and Cricket being tank models… Tanks are known for being tough, to the point of the word being borrowed for the tough damage sponge in an RPG party. I’m guessing these two are both hard to damage, or even invulnerable, but have different offensive powers. Like with Alabaster, my existing theories are somewhat compatible with this, but I’m not confident in them at all.

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vegetalss4:

So about the Old Bookstore Guy and his personal racism: I have been wondering for some time now, whether he watched the E88 Revealed! news broadcast on his TV before his show came on. If so how much did that reminder, that a large long-lasting and sadly quite wealthy and successful neo-nazi gang lives in Brockton Bay, influence his willingness to believe Sophia when she told him that the white girl in his store was a criminal and/or his willingness to let her take some vigilante “justice”.

Now that doesn’t mean that he isn’t acting on prejudice. If nothing else a beating is so disproportionate for pickpocketing that him being okay with that speaks poorly about him. Of-course even that might be slightly mitigated if Brockton Bay is one of those places where the police would be more likely to shoot him if they arrived while he was keeping the door locked with Taylor inside than to force her to return what she had stolen.

That’s actually a really good point. It doesn’t make it okay, but it does help to explain why his anti-white feelings might be especially strong that day.

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[submission] Sablonus:

Never really done this before, but the artist just came out with another piece of new fan art, and I just finished reading every post in this blog yesterday, so…

(Art by Lonsheep)

The outfit sounds ridiculous when described, but as this cool piece shows, it looks awesome! I’m loving the details. 🙂

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thats-rough-buddy:

Surprised no one asked you to theorize on the other big amalgamation of looming threats in the Wormverse. What do you think of the objectives or anything really of others like the aforementioned Slaughterhouse 9, Nilbog, the power dealer/experimentation, the people on the Birdcage, or maybe something more locally, like, what do you think will happen with the plot when and if Coil succeeds?

Slaughterhouse Nine and Nilbog:

I have even less to go on here than with the Endbringers. All I know besides the names is that they fall into the same category of “the monsters. The real dangerous motherfuckers, who are barely human any more, if at all.”

As such, I can only theorize based on the names, and at least two thirds of what I can think to draw from those are jokes. For instance, what I said when the names first showed up about Nilbog being goblins and/or people who want to get rid of bogs.

That said, the goal of the Slaughterhouse Nine is pretty clear: They want to throw a magical slab of beef into a volcano.

Upsilon:

I’m thinking Upsilon’s goal might be to make an army of custom, mass producable parahumans. Newter and Gregor, among other amnesiac test subjects, are technically successes, but probably don’t quite fit what Upsilon or their leader/customer was looking for, causing them to get mindwiped and dumped.

Obviously the idea of such an army is terrifying and whoever is behind it probably has grand designs.

The Birdcage:

I’ve been pretty clear on this front, I think – I have a theory that at some point the extreme security of the Birdcage will be breached, causing a mass escape. That’s just kind of what tends to happen with fictional prisons that are supposed to be inescapable.

Hell, just take a look at Harry Potter – we learn of Azkaban’s supposed inescapability in a book that runs on the premise that someone escaped, and a couple years later, there’s a mass breakout that doesn’t even involve the same method.

Coil:

Coil’s plan succeeding could go one of two main ways: The Undersiders are happy, or the Undersiders are not happy. In the former case, I guess the plot would carry on much like it has already, somewhat episodically but with a clear continuity, as the Undersiders work alongside Coil to actually implement his changes. In the latter case, the Undersiders would realize they’d been tricked into creating something worse than what was already there, and Coil would become the final boss of the story as the Undersiders work to take down what they helped create.

Of course, that’s assuming Rachel comes around and they do actually join Coil in this. If they don’t, well… I guess the second option is more likely, just with less irony of the “we helped create this” type.