“I’m sure there have been written some really good fanfics about this.” Also a lot of shitty ones. Sturgeon’s Law is in full force here. I do have some recs for good fics where Taylor joins the Wards and encounters Sophia, but I’m guessing you’re going to want me to hold on to them until after you’ve finished Worm.
Yeah, Sturgeon’s Law is a given…
As for when I can read fics, I guess you’ll have to come back in like half a decade, yeah. 😛
Hi krix! Love following your read through, such fun. What do you hope happens next? I’m leaving the question purposefully vague to hear whatever comes to mind.
Well, the exact future is very uncertain at the moment, but Taylor has set herself a long-term goal and may have come up with a plan for how to accomplish it, so I’m interested in seeing exactly what she has in mind.
I hope what she has in mind does involve the Undersiders. Especially Lisa… you may have noticed me describing her as my favorite character a couple times over the last few chapters, so of course I want the plot to continue involving her.
Relatedly, I’m interested in the restoration of Brockton Bay. I guess that doesn’t really fall under “happening next”, but it’s something I do want to see gradually happening over the course of future Arcs, even if just in the background.
As for the more immediate “next”, Interlude 8 (*grumble grumble*), I have no clue what I want to happen. I do have a feeling we might be checking in with the heroes – Legend, maybe, or perhaps Weld? (I want to get to know Weld… primarily because I lowkey ship him with Taylor, based only on the smile he gave her in 8.1.) A look into how New Wave are handling their losses would also be nice.
Heck, if I remember correctly, Wildbow was /planning/ on Taylor dying and gave her a low chance of survival. However, not only did she beat the odds, but /the character he was planning on replacing her with/ died instead.
IIRC the plan was actually for Taylor to die and Aegis to be the new protagonist. Whoops!
To add on the “death by dice roll” reveal… characters actually had modifiers on it depending on their place in the fight and their powers. Taylor had very low odds. Wildbow expected her to die. He had the story planned for her dying. And then she didn’t. Near-Invincible Alexandria almost died. No-weakpoint Aegis died. Squishy bug girl survived.
Ahaha! That’s RNG for ya!
I was rather surprised when Aegis died, but man, I can’t help but imagine Wildbow’s reaction. Especially if he rolled Aegis before Taylor and had to worry about both of them dying. Though given what I’ve been told before about Wildbow going through several protagonists before settling on Taylor, I’m sure he’d think of something.
I suppose this means that Wildbow had to go through a similar process as the one Taylor did in 8.8. “Well then, Taylor survived and Aegis didn’t. What do I do with her character now?”
…hm, I wonder, would following Aegis mean leaving the wreck of Brockton Bay behind? I mean, would they still go through with the rearrangements of the Wards in the wake of an Endbringer attack?
If so, it seems like Wildbow intended to get rid of both the current protag and the specific setting, and got stuck with both… for now, at least. Not gonna lie, I hope it stays that way, especially now that Taylor seems to have come up with a long-term objective.
In any case, I respect that Wildbow didn’t take his artistic license to ignore the dice when they fell in ways that didn’t match his plans.
The ultimate seat-of-your-pants writing technique – making it random. Even for the focus character! Damn, Taylor dying would’ve been quite the development. As if it wasn’t already unclear where the story’s going from here. (I’ll be going over my death predictions from the end of 8.1 in the Arc Thoughts post, by the way.)
So, they waited almost a week after the battle before putting up that monument. I think you can take it as pretty much a given that they double checked everything pretty carefully. The armbands are good, but no one thinks they’re prefect.
Yeah, that’s fair.
Homestuck spoilers below
Since Coil can somehow control timelines, then what he’d be in Homestuck terms? A male witch of time (imagine Coil dressed in which outfit) or a Lord of Time? What do you say?
Closer to a Lord. Way I see it, a Witch changes, whereas a Lord decides and embodies. Coil doesn’t so much change time as decide which of two timelines continues as the alpha. Compare with Lord English seemingly being the main decider of what constitutes the alpha timeline on a broader scale in Homestuck.
Note how out of 8 Undersiders we lost 2, or exactly 25%, to Leviaphan
Cod dammit!
Wildbow bested me again…
I suppose the Interludes always were the unpredictable ones.
Where is Taylor going now?
This was a nice chapter. We got a glimpse into what the past two weeks have been like for Taylor, we finally learned how exactly Coil’s power works (and it’s really interesting), a lot of cool and new context was added to the first Lung battle and Taylor becoming an Undersider, and Taylor made an important decision and then quite rudely didn’t tell us whether the Undersiders were to be involved yet.
I am very intrigued right now, to see how Taylor decides to go about changing things. How she’ll go about making the world a bit better while not falling into the pitfalls of all the other people we’ve seen who were allegedly trying to make things better.
Next chapter… I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s a regular chapter 8.9 or Interlude 9 (yes it still bugs me that Wildbow seems to be breaking from the “Arc N -> Interlude N” format) or even chapter 9.1 (which would set that right again). Let’s take a look at the link.
Interlude… 8… what.
Oh my cod now I have to call the one with Tattletale “Interlude 8 (Bonus)” or “the Tattletale Interlude” to separate it from this one? And what do I do with my tags?!
…I’ll have to tag that bridge when I get to it, I guess. At least it seems we’re setting the numbering back to the old pattern. Hopefully Wildbow figures out how he wants to number the bonus Interludes soon. 😛
So, uh, see you in Interlude 8.2, I guess!
The wind blew hard from the north, cold, blowing my hair into disarray. I pushed my hair out of my face, tucked it behind my ear. When I gave Lisa a sidelong glance, she was putting her hood up.
Yeah, Taylor should’ve brought warmer clothes.
I wonder if Lisa saw the weather and had her power tell her how it was likely to develop.
She spoke without looking at me, “I’d go on, ask about whether you prioritize friends or morals, talk about how you’ve grown as a person in so many ways since joining us, except my power informs me that you just settled on a decision.”
I suppose so.
She was right. As I stared at the monument, a goal was crystallizing in my mind, a focus. I knew, now, what I wanted to do.
But what? Make the world better, not as a hero, not as a villain, but something in-between?
I had to change things. I had to be better than them. Than Armsmaster, Sophia, Coil, and all the others.
“Yeah,” I replied. She turned to glance my way.
Sounds like I’m at least somewhat on the right track.
“And does this plan feature the Undersiders?”
I gave her my answer.
…fucking hell what a cliffhanger.
I’m guessing “No”, unless Taylor’s found some kind of plan that could benefit the Undersiders enough that they’d be willing to leave Coil behind to help her out. Brian and Rachel in particular would be difficult to get on board with that, even if they weren’t currently disappointed in and/or pissed at Taylor.
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