Tag: arc thoughts

Arc Thoughts: Parasite

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Parasite, Arc 10, was Regent’s time to show us what he’s actually capable of, for better and for worse. It tells the story of Regent’s control over Shadow Stalker and what the Undersiders were up to then.

It was also the beginning of the heroes’ efforts to pull Taylor out of the dark side getting stepped up, after Armmaster revealed the secret that she could be. The Arc was about Regent, but it was just as much about Dragon – the terrifying sysadmin, the bargainer, the watcher, the restricted intelligence. The Arc ended with Dragon successfully figuring out some critical information about Taylor that’s probably going to be quite important going forward.

Hang on, are we doing a stages of grief thing on a large scale with this story? We had plenty of denial in part 1 of the story, and now Dragon is trying to reason with Taylor, which could count as bargaining. We’ve also got Taylor trying to bargain with Coil instead of running off.

On top of everything, we learned that something – which may be a titular Worm of proportions far exceeding those of the Endbringers or your average giant worms in fiction – is due to appear and kill millions in fifteen years… or two to eight with the aid, intentional or otherwise, of Jack the Ripper Slash. I think this might be the climactic threat for the story as a whole.

The Arc title

Ideas from the intro to 10.1:

  • Shadow Stalker, being a parasite to the Wards
  • Kaiser, being a parasite to his subordinates (discounted due to his death)
  • Chariot, intending to become a different kind of parasite to the Wards
  • something to do with Imp

I was totally wrong about all of those, though Shadow Stalker was relevant.

The meaning of the Arc title became pretty clear once Regent’s true power was revealed: He (or Imp, until I finally discarded that idea with certainty) was the Parasite, sharing a body with Shadow Stalker at his benefit and Sophia’s expense.

It became even more fitting with the revelation in Interlude 10a that part of why he does it is that it allows him to feel. He’s parasitically “feeding” on the host’s emotions.

Prediction review

From Arc Thoughts: Sentinel:

First and foremost, tagging is going to get just a little bit more annoying now that I’ll have double-digit Arc numbers to write three times per post. :p

Yep, at least early on, before I got used to it :p

Other than that, we’re presumably going to finally learn what Taylor’s planning to do. It kind of seems like her plan involves personally setting right the specific wrongs she sees, but I doubt it stops there. I think she intends to try to fix the systems and social dynamics in play, to the extent she can… but how?

It seems Taylor’s goal is a lot more… specific than I had imagined. She seems to be aiming to secure Dinah’s freedom and happiness as her whole idea of what she’s supposed to do now.

We’re also going to get to know Imp. My prediction for her power amounts to it being “something mischievious”, but I’m honestly more interested in who she is as a person and how she became part of the Undersiders. Maybe she’ll be a bit mischievious to match the name herself? I’d appreciate that, I like mischievious characters.

Imp was more irrelevant than I had expected in this Arc. Her involvement pretty much amounted to us finding out who she was and what her powers were – I mean, those are the main things I predicted, but I’m pretty sure I expected her to be more central to the Arc than she ended up being.

She does seem to be a little mischievious, though not as overtly as I was expecting. Similarly, her power isn’t something mischievious directly, but damn does it have prank potential. You can’t start to suspect that someone’s pranking you if you don’t remember they exist.

I’m also curious about whether Chariot has anything to do with them, or if Piggot’s right about him working directly for Coil – or, the third option, someone entirely different. If him working for the Undersiders (or working for Coil and being planted in the Wards at the Undersiders’ request) isn’t addressed relatively early in the next Arc, I’m prepared to dismiss the hypothesis.

Yeah, it seems Chariot is separate. He might still be working under Coil, like Piggot suspects, but he doesn’t seem to be working more specifically under the Undersiders.

Predictions for Arc 11 (and a bit of long-term)

So what do we have coming up?

As mentioned earlier in the post, this Arc ended with Dragon finding out Taylor’s identity and starting a search for her. I don’t think that’s a plot that’s going to be left dormant for too long, so there’s a good chance Dragon will play a role in Arc 11, or maybe Arc 12.

Meanwhile, the Undersiders will need to try to stay away from the Slaughterhouse Nine. They will fail, that much I’m certain of, but whether they’ll fail in the next Arc or later remains to be seen. When it happens, though… well, there’s little reason to hold back against Jack Slash in particular. But even if someone does try to kill him, I think they’ll fail. I could see the story’s climax happening in two years, but I highly doubt we’ll be skipping ahead enough for it to happen in fifteen.

We might also learn more about Imp/Aisha (though with the reveal that Imp was Aisha, that’s become less of pressing matter since we’ve had a chapter getting to know Aisha as a civilian before) and how she ended up on the team… I wish I could see Brian’s face the moment Aisha probably told him straight that she has powers now and she knows about the Undersiders. 😛

And… that’s pretty much it! See you in the next Arc!

Arc Thoughts: Sentinel

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

Arc 9, Sentinel. Interlude: The Arc.

This was a nice diversion from the perspective we’ve been following, much like the singular Interludes it so much resembles. We got to know the Wards a lot better than we already did, including a couple new ones, and they’re all great, except for Sophia.

Maybe the story as a whole mirrors the Arc-Interlude structure on a larger level (don’t tell me). I’ve commented on Arc 8 feeling like a climax, an “End of Part 1” – maybe we’re going back to Taylor’s POV for the duration of Part 2, this was an interlude between the parts, and we’ll have another Arc like this one after whatever constitutes the climax of Part 2?

On top of allowing us to get to know the Wards – who may have a larger role in the story after this, perhaps – this gave us some time away from Taylor and the Undersiders, during which they could put their plan together, recruit a new member, and get ready to start fucking around in a constructive direction. I’m looking forward to learning what they’ve been up to, and who Imp is.

The Arc title

For once this was pretty obvious. Sentinel is a word that describes exactly what the heroes do, and this was an Arc all about the heroes.

We ultimately didn’t see any crabs, but I still think sentinel crabs are the way this title continues the theme of the Arc titles having to do with things Taylor can control, which is kind of clever.

Prediction review

From Arc Thoughts: Extermination:

Arc 9 is largely a mystery for now, due to the cliffhanger in 8.8, but it’ll presumably deal with Taylor setting the first parts of her plan into motion. If Taylor decided to involve the Undersiders in it, we’ll also be dealing with her trying to regain their trust.

There’s also a chance we’ll learn more about Noelle’s situation towards the end of the Arc, given the tendency of Interludes to cover content relevant to the Arcs on both sides.

Nooope.

Well, we did get back to Taylor setting the first part of her plan into motion eventually, but from a very different perspective than I had expected when I wrote this.

I do want to note that once I figured out the gimmick of the Arc – which was easy given the title and the first chapter or two – I was able to make some fairly accurate predictions about the structure of the rest of it. For the last three chapters, I successfully predicted specifically who was the next POV in line, which is something I’ve never really been able to do for the Interludes due to their much larger number of characters to pick from.

Predictions for Arc 10

First and foremost, tagging is going to get just a little bit more annoying now that I’ll have double-digit Arc numbers to write three times per post. :p

Other than that, we’re presumably going to finally learn what Taylor’s planning to do. It kind of seems like her plan involves personally setting right the specific wrongs she sees, but I doubt it stops there. I think she intends to try to fix the systems and social dynamics in play, to the extent she can… but how?

We’re also going to get to know Imp. My prediction for her power amounts to it being “something mischievious”, but I’m honestly more interested in who she is as a person and how she became part of the Undersiders. Maybe she’ll be a bit mischievious to match the name herself? I’d appreciate that, I like mischievious characters.

I’m also curious about whether Chariot has anything to do with them, or if Piggot’s right about him working directly for Coil – or, the third option, someone entirely different. If him working for the Undersiders (or working for Coil and being planted in the Wards at the Undersiders’ request) isn’t addressed relatively early in the next Arc, I’m prepared to dismiss the hypothesis.

So yeah, I guess that’s it for Sentinel! See you next time!

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

Extermination is the arc where Worm changes as a whole. It goes from being about a conflict between superheroes and villians to a hopeless battle with a kaiju. Were you surprised by the tonal shift? How would you rate it compared to previous arcs?

It’s a bit of a shift, but it’s not really unprecedented or out of left field. Arc 8 has a lot in common with Arc 5 when it comes to this, and both of them tie back into a concept that was introduced all the way back in 3.6. Through this and other things, the story has been setting this Arc up for a while, which is one of the reasons why this feels like a larger subclimax, an “end of part 1” point.

As to whether I was surprised by the shift in tone… I’m not sure how much there really was one. I did know this story was pretty dark already. The bleakness did reach an all-time high in 8.3, but fortunately, it mostly went back to levels I was used to after that, although still with significantly more death than usual. That said, the aforementioned bleakness high in 8.3 did get to me, being quite a bit more than I had expected even from this story.

In retrospect, Arc 8 was a masterpiece. Though I still think Arc 4 is my favorite so far, it’s definitely one of the better ones.

Arc Thoughts: Extermination

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Hoo boy, what an Arc.

Where I felt that Arc 7 lacked a true climax, Arc 8 feels like a climax as a whole. This genuinely feels like a point where you could believably say “End of Part 1”.

Pretty much everything was really well written. Yes, that includes 8.3 – a chapter that was so thoroughly hopeless that I started talking about potentially quitting down the line if that became the norm. Now, looking back, I see reason to the hopelessness: They were legitimately fighting a hopeless battle, so Wildbow started establishing that feeling from the beginning. Is it not good writing to be able to put the reader into a state of mind that matches the situation like that?

Similarly, Wildbow pulled off one of the most effective false deaths I’ve ever seen in a work of fiction. I think the key was that Interlude 8a was written like a real death chapter, an effective one at that, to the extent that even though we didn’t see the “body”, I was far more sold on her death than Taylor was once we actually had the armbands reporting her name. (Incidentally, the armbands getting DDoSed was a fantastic way to preserve the ambiguity.) Taylor’s uncertainty also helped to make it not feel like a cop-out when Tattletale turned out to be alive.

Honestly, I should probably have known Taylor was right. She tends to be. 😛

And then there’s Armmaster’s shenanigans. Pride goeth before the fall, and Armmaster fell hard. Featuring a fantastic parlor scene run beautifully by Tattletale.

The Arc title

Usually these are too obtuse for me to figure out without help (”Shell” being a notable exception), but I think this time it’s pretty obvious. Lots of people just got exterminated by the Daleks Leviathan. What more is there to say?

I guess there could still be more layers to it, like to Leviathan, but I don’t have a nanotech Halberd.

Prediction review

Alright, so we’ve got two sets of predictions to go through here.

Let’s start with the predictions from the previous Arc Thoughts post:

The obvious one: Much of the city’s honorable cape population will band together to take down the Endbringer.

Check.

There will probably be a lot of death and destruction before they succeed, possibly including already named characters. 

Check as fuck.

In particular, I’m a bit worried for Danny’s safety – Wildbow could get a lot of angst mileage from killing him off right now.

This one’s still up in the air. That fact leads me to believe he’s alright, besides the psychological results of still not having seen Taylor two weeks after a fucking Endbringer attack.

On a brighter note, I think the experience will cause Taylor to ultimately change her mind about leaving the Undersiders. We’ll also likely find out what the Undersiders ultimately decide to do regarding Coil’s offer and their existing arrangement. I’m no longer certain what they’ll decide, though I’m slightly leaning towards them accepting the offer.

That damn cliffhanger!

So yeah! Just bring it, Endbringer… wait, bad wor–

Oh, he brought it, alright.

And now for the closing post of 8.1. You may remember this as the time I bummed myself out by trying to speculate on who would die. Let’s see how wrong I was, shall we?

Armsmaster, for one, has a huge death flag. As far as Brockton Bay is concerned, he’s practically retiring in dishonor anyway, most likely exiting the story for good (except maybe a very occasional guest appearance). As such, there’s no reason for him to not end up dying in this battle, possibly heroically to make up for his dishonor.

Ahahaha! This must’ve been rich to read, knowing what was ahead.

I mean he’s still most likely exiting the story, but he’s retiring in far more dishonor, and probably a one-way elevator.

There’s also a risk of something similar with Aegis.

I can’t believe I predicted Aegis’ death. I think I must’ve forgotten about his power for a second back when I was writing this, because I was certainly surprised when he died.

Taylor, obviously, needs to survive if she’s going to keep being the POV character and narrator,

Which apparently wasn’t the plan!

but I’m not sure I’d assume the same plot armor for all of the Undersiders. One in four is a scary ratio when we’ve got exactly four of the main protagonists here.

Oh yeah, that’s another reason why I was so sold on Tattle’s death. And then after 8.7 brought her back, all of a sudden there was Brutus and Judas on the monument in 8.8, bringing us back up to 2/8 Undersiders… dammit.

(Not gonna lie, though, I’d much rather lose Brutus and Judas than Tattletale.)

Anyway, I think if anyone’s going to die among them, Brian is particularly vulnerable, being someone Taylor has built up a strong emotional attachment to (that attachment having been ripped to pieces in the last Arc only makes it worse). Alec is unlikely because he needs more fleshing out. Lisa has some of the same issue as Alec, though not as intensely – we know her a bit better, but I still feel like there’s a lot more to know about Lisa before she gets killed off.

I was wrong about Brian, though I suppose 8.8 helps to confirm that last point about Lisa.

As for the rest, Sundancer is at some risk, though I think Wildbow might want to delve more into the issues in the Travelers at a later date, and Sundancer seems to be his main conduit for doing so.

I really thought she was about to die at one point, but she just went “down” instead.

I’m also thinking at least one of the big shots might go down, to show even more how powerful Leviathan is. Legend and Alexandria are at a fair bit of risk due to their idolization by Taylor, though their status as Triumvirate members ought to protect them somewhat.

One of the asks did mention that Alexandria almost died, though like pretty much every other death here, that was more a quirk of RNG than anything else.

Maybe Myrddin or Chevalier will go down instead – as team leaders, they’re still fairly big shots, just not that big shots.

Nope.

On the other end of the scale, there’s likely cannon fodder such as a whole bunch of thus far unnamed Wards and Protectorate members, Parian, Bambina… Laserdream and/or Shielder might go down too so we’ve got some from New Wave…

Well, one of those, and his dad, I got right, as well as the at the time unnamed cannon fodder.

Basically, lots of people are gonna die and this is getting morbid. I’m beginning to understand Lisa’s reaction in Agitation 3.6.

I had no idea.

Predictions for Arc 9

Arc 9 is largely a mystery for now, due to the cliffhanger in 8.8, but it’ll presumably deal with Taylor setting the first parts of her plan into motion. If Taylor decided to involve the Undersiders in it, we’ll also be dealing with her trying to regain their trust.

There’s also a chance we’ll learn more about Noelle’s situation towards the end of the Arc, given the tendency of Interludes to cover content relevant to the Arcs on both sides.

There’s not much more I can say. Extermination was a good’un. See you soon for the next one!

Arc Thoughts: Buzz

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

It’s once again time for the most awkward type of post I write on this blog: Arc thoughts!

Arc 7, Buzz, was… varied. Between Alec’s backstory, socializing with Rachel, scaring off Bottle Man and his mooks, the Braylor kiss, Taylor’s confession and Brian’s unfortunate rejection, roughing it with Sophia, a couple decent fights, dealing with Purity’s rampage, the splintering of the team over how to deal with Coil’s actions, and the news that there’s an Endbringer coming to town, I feel like Buzz had something for everyone.

What I personally feel like it lacked, though, is a climax. Unlike, say, the feeling of triumph as the Undersiders dash out through the balcony door past a swarm of bugs that spell out “LETS GO”, or as Circus, Roadblock and the Travelers help the Undersiders kick their pursuers’ asses, the resolution of the Purity section of the Arc amounted to “oh, huh. well, that worked out.” It was a decent way to resolve the issue, but it wasn’t satisfying to me as a reader.

I suppose the true red thread of this Arc was not the Empire, but rather Coil. Alec’s backstory came out because of what Coil said, Rachel withdrew to the doghouse in part to avoid the others pressuring her on the matter of Coil’s offer (and the chapters could function, among other things, to show the readers what it’s like without Coil’s assistance), the Empire were targetting the Undersiders for something Coil did, the trip to the mall happened because of that, Purity’s rampage was an indirect result of Coil’s actions, then the Undersiders confronted Coil about it, and finally Taylor’s planning to leave the Undersiders because of their stance on more of Coil’s actions. Pretty much everything that happened in this Arc ties back to Coil somehow, though some things more indirectly than others.

And in Interlude 7, we learn that the Endbringers are attracted to conflict. Who’s the cause of one of the main ongoing conflicts in the last few Arcs? Turns out even the incoming Endbringer can be traced back to Coil.

The Arc title

Buzz… yeah, no, I’m sorry but I still have no clue what the title is getting at this time. Suggestions would be appreciated.

Prediction review

From my previous Arc thoughts post:

I’m really curious to see what Taylor does from here. Will she tell the Undersiders what she used to be planning, and come clean about her deception? How would they respond to that? Did Lisa know all along?

She’s been keeping quiet about it so far, something she doesn’t seem conflicted about. Yet, anyway.

And then there’s Taylor’s stated goal of becoming actual friends with the Undersiders – to stop keeping herself at arm’s length. I think Arc 7, Buzz, might contain a lot of bonding. And it has not slipped my mind that she wants to pursue a relationship with Brian in particular, even if it’s not necessarily romantic in nature. Ohh no, it hasn’t. :3

She did make active efforts to pursue this goal, specifically mentioning in the narration that she wanted to join Rachel at the doghouse in an effort to get to know her better, and though it led to a rejection, she took a much bigger step in pursuing Brian than I had expected.

Another thing Arc 7 might deal with is the offer from Coil. I think it’s reasonable to expect the Undersiders to accept it, but we might get to see them discuss it. Alternatively, they might accept it early in the Arc and then the narrative can go on to show what changes that amounts to in their work.

Well, they haven’t decided just yet, but we’ve seen some discussion of it, and the Arc (as detailed extensively above) revolved around Coil and how his actions affected the Undersiders and their decision.

Predictions for Arc 8

The obvious one: Much of the city’s honorable cape population will band together to take down the Endbringer. 

There will probably be a lot of death and destruction before they succeed, possibly including already named characters. In particular, I’m a bit worried for Danny’s safety – Wildbow could get a lot of angst mileage from killing him off right now.

On a brighter note, I think the experience will cause Taylor to ultimately change her mind about leaving the Undersiders. We’ll also likely find out what the Undersiders ultimately decide to do regarding Coil’s offer and their existing arrangement. I’m no longer certain what they’ll decide, though I’m slightly leaning towards them accepting the offer.

So yeah! Just bring it, Endbringer… wait, bad wor–