Author: Krixwell Jace

A doofus.
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At least there were no people making the same old jokes about the metal detectors.

Heh. Silver lining, huh?

Baggage claim had three carousels, which should have been in operation, delivering a regular supply of people’s luggage onto the conveyor belts, crowds gathered around them in anticipation.  Instead, there was a single man in uniform with three large bags already piled onto a cart.

It definitely seems like mystery dude’s arrival is being treated as a special case. Were there even any other people who arrived with him? Did he fly in on a private jet?

“I can take my bags, I’m stronger than I look.”

Why do I feel like this is a hint that mystery dude is a parahuman with super strength?

“It’s alright, son,” the man replied, “It’s good to have something to do that isn’t cleaning up.”

Son.  That bothered him more than he cared to admit.  Not that he had any ideas about his own ethnicity, but it was vaguely condescending.  A reminder that people didn’t know how to act around him.

Hm.

Sounds like there’s either something visible about him that makes people unsure, or he wants people to treat him differently because of something they don’t see.

I’m inclined to go with the former.

I think I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this is Weld, coming back to take the role as leader of the Brockton Bay Wards. Although… didn’t he have a leader position in the Boston Wards too? Then why would this be getting in over his head?

I don’t know, maybe it’s not him. It’s just a working guess until things get a little clearer.

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Hm, but lack of traffic doesn’t singlehandedly explain why stuff’s closed and half-lit. Is there some major arrangement going on in the city right now, or something? Or is it just that the airport was damaged in the Endbringer attack…?

In short, I don’t know what’s going on here.

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It was seven-thirty in the evening in a medium sized airport.  Weren’t there supposed to be people?

Uh, yes, usually.

What’cha doing at the airport?

There had been staff, for sure.  The odd staff member to greet him as he got off the plane, another to see him past the gates.

Okay, so it seems we’ve got another POV character for this chapter. Interesting.

I vaguely felt like that might be the case – with how much Arc 8 felt like a game changing climax to a hypothetical “part 1″, Arc 9 is an excellent point to start changing some constants up, such as Taylor being the POV character in every non-Interlude chapter.

Although that kind of defeats the apparent purpose of mid-Arc Interludes, which I know for a fact are going to continue being a thing.

I’m going to wait on speculating on who this “he” is for now, considering I have literally nothing to go off of except “he” and “got off a plane somewhere at around 7:30 PM”.

Still, the terminals were empty, there were no crowds, the shops and restaurants were all closed.  Only half the lights were on.  For the first time, he was wondering if he was getting in over his head.

I don’t even know for sure which airport this is. The obvious guess is Brockton Bay, but could be Boston, Vancouver or even Calcutta for all I know.

That said, it being Brockton Bay might explain the emptiness. I doubt Brockton Bay gets much tourism in its current state, and lots of the people who wanted to leave have done so already, apparently primarily by bus.

Sentinel 9.1

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Howdy! Who’s ready to dive into Arc 9 with me? Well, if you aren’t, you’d better tune out now, because I’m going in!

I haven’t turned the page, so I don’t know what this Arc is called yet… let’s have a look, shall we?

Sentinel?

Does that have anything to do with bugs? I mean, I know what a sentinel is, I think – a sort of protective warrior or guard, right? – but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in the context of insects.

Wait, is there a species called sentinel crab, or am I making that up? We did learn back in 3.1 that Taylor’s power also covers crabs (and we were recently reminded of that fact), so I guess it’s possible that the Arc titles might relate to those too. In which case the Arc itself might to some extent have to do with crabs, literally or metaphorically (though the protective warrior thing is more likely the main reason for the title).

Let’s do a little lookup.

Sounds like I wasn’t off the mark on the main meaning of the word. And sentinel crabs do exist. Good.

So, what does this mean for this Arc? Well, I think Taylor (or someone else?) will take on the role of a guardian of the city, or something like that. That does sound a lot like the heroes’ job, but maybe she’s going to be more of a neutral party, protecting the city from both villains and heroes? Also, Taylor’s ability to control crabs will possibly get involved somehow.

As for this chapter, I guess we’ll finally find out whether the Undersiders are going to be part of Taylor’s plan or not (coddamn cliffhanger… :p), not to mention what the plan actually is. Hopefully.

So, without further ado, let’s jump in and see how wrong I am this time! 😀

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Merry Christmas Krix! Hope you have a great rest of the year!

Thank you, and the same to all of you! 😀

(Or happy whichever other holiday you prefer to celebrate around this time, or even happy no-holiday if there is none!)

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Aaron submitted an updated map of Brockton Bay as of Arc 8, presumably still by Ridprime! I’ve included the previous map on the left for comparison. I really appreciate that the destruction caused by Leviathan is visible not only in the forms of the Leviathan Crater (or Lake Heroic, as I’ve dubbed it for now) and a […]

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Just thought I’d jump in to correct the other asker, Taylor’s odd were no better or worse than anyone elses. Aegis was indeed a likely second protagonist, but there was nothing to guarantee they wouldn’t both die. Wildbow did not plan for Taylor to die, but he was prepared for the possibility.

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting/misunderstanding WoG on the die rolls. Wildbow definitely didn’t *plan* to have Taylor die there. A lot of people miss the fact that very little of Worm was planned out in advance. I think the “seat of your pants” writer thing has been pointed out in the past, which ties in really well with the die rolls. Wildbow has given various descriptions of how the story might have played out if different sets of characters had died (including Taylor). Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to misinterpret that and think that those descriptions were his original plan for the story. They weren’t, because he didn’t have one! I think he’s said that he didn’t bias things *in favor* of Taylor surviving, but that’s very from saying he biased them towards her dying. Assuming the death rate did end up around ¼, that means she probably had better than even odds of surviving.

I see. I do think it makes sense that he would give the characters modifiers, and that Taylor’s modifier would be low because she is, as someone described her, a “squishy bug girl”, but yeah, this all makes a lot of sense too.

(Incidentally, re: “seat of your pants” tying in with the dice rolls, recall that when I first learned of this, I called it “the ultimate seat-of-your-pants writing technique”.)

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Hopefully this doesn’t count as spoilery, but your guess as to what’s up with Zigzag is as good as ours. As far as I know, Wildbow has never commented on that. Whoever they were, they’re dead now, so it’s not really relevant to the story.

Yeah, that’s fair enough.

I kinda like this, honestly. The fact that Wildbow puts in things like these that are intriguing, but not relevant and not promising to be relevant (which would make them an annoying violation of Chekhov’s gun and conservation of detail)… details that indicate that there’s a story here, a story we might not ever learn, much like how we see traces of strangers’ stories all the time in real life. It makes the world feel more real.