Way back in post 166793990799 (after 7.5) you gave some thoughts as to what the long term story might look like. Has anything that happened in the past arc and a half changed your opinions on any of this? Care to give us some new long term predictions? Also how do you feel about making these sort of long term story prediction posts be a regular thing you do every few arcs?

Looking back at that post… wow. Let’s look through it a bit:

For all I’ve been through, it’s still rather difficult to tell the narrative scale of many of the subplots. For instance, the War of the Docks could just as easily last the whole story out as just for a few more Arcs.

The War of the Docks seems to be more of a background thing than I expected when it was first introduced, but it does seem to be ongoing. The Merchants of all people have the upper hand at the moment.

Coil’s master plan having been revealed now does give something of a long-term goal for the protagonists, if they ultimately accept his terms – they can work towards taking control over the city and helping it improve. There’s also the possibility that they can’t trust Coil after all, and after he takes over the city with their help, it’s up to the Undersiders to topple his brutal regime, which could take anywhere from a few Arcs to two thirds of the story.

I feel like we’re leaning towards the latter outcome here, but I’m not sure it’s going to be as climactic for the story as a whole as I was thinking back then. The Endbringer attack really emphasized the issue of judging the scale of the subplots.

A greater threat might come to Brockton Bay late in the story. For instance, I still think there are decent odds there will eventually be a mass breakout from the Birdcage (if Lung survived Interlude 6 and gets out somehow, I pretty much guarantee a round three against Taylor with Lung in his fully draconic stage).

Just look at this. Leviathan definitely fell under the category of “a greater threat” and wasn’t anywhere near the end of the story as a whole. And look at those examples I gave! Those are way smaller issues.

Incidentally, this is why I feel like the other two Endbringers (which I’m 95% certain will show up later) will be even bigger threats than Leviathan was. I think we’ll likely see the Simurgh second, explore exactly why the problems with her visits tend to be worst afterwards, and then later have a visit from Behemoth, the one it’s probably hardest for a city to recover from physically.

If not Lung, Coil or Bakuda, then maybe the Endbringers, or some parahumans with powers that makes them essentially Lovecraftian horrors (there might be overlap), will be the final bosses? I really don’t know.

Behemoth as the final boss is a possibility. Also possible, though unlikely, is that the Endbringers get sick of Brockton Bay surviving and decide to break their usual patterns and attack all at once. That would really be something, jeez.

Whatever the story and its ending becomes, at least I know that it’s something you can make a sequel to, so I’m going to tentatively rule out the permanent destruction of the Earth for now. 😛

(I can’t say the same about Taylor dying at the end, though. I have no guarantee that the sequel is told from her perspective.)

Well, the Earth isn’t gone yet, but I’ve learned some information that really undermines the idea of Taylor having any more plot armor than anyone else, so it’s now even more believable that she won’t necessarily survive to the end.

On a lighter note, I expect Brian x Taylor to become a couple. That, again, is a subplot that could either get tied up in this Arc, or last for pretty much as long as Wildbow wants, but I do think they will end up together eventually. And they’ll be adorable together. :3

Ahahahaha

This was written right before the rejection

But yeah, I’m not thinking this anymore. If this were a different story, then maybe, but this story and this author seem the type to respect Brian’s rejection of Taylor rather than go “just give it time”. And on top of that, their relation has only gotten worse since then, both ways, for reasons mostly unrelated to the rejection.

And hey, let’s throw a random crack ship in here for good measure, and see how that goes. Hmm… how about… Greg… and… Lisa. Sure. Let’s see if Greg x Lisa happens somehow. 🙂

There’s… still time.

Anyway, let’s move on to new predictions!

Currently, the only long term hook we really have is Taylor’s decision to make things better, but I really don’t know how she intends to go about that yet, making it very difficult to theorize on. I think and hope we’ll see how that goes.

On the other hand, it also feels like this is where we start focusing less on Taylor and more on how things develop in society as a whole through whatever happens from here.

Also, I do think we’ll learn more about the origin of parahumans (something involving “shards”, though I try not to speculate on that yet). Discovering the origin might also have something to do with a potential final threat even bigger than the Endbringers (which, as mentioned, I’m sure we’ll see all of over time).

And yeah, you’re right, I should probably do this kind of thing more regularly. 🙂