Passing the Mannequin fight feels kind of like a landmark for you, given that, like the bank robbery and the Leviathan fight, it’s one of the more popular battles in the serial.

Whoo!

Makes sense – it’s quite a good one!

The Mannequin fight is, for me, one of the most iconic Worm moments, showcasing Taylor’s resourcefulness and supreme badassery as few others. It may be that Wildbow agrees, because in one of his later stories (not in a shared universe with Worm) he included as Easter Egg a reference to a cheap novel called “Doll Man and the Revenge of the Swarm Queen”.

Niice. And yeah, this was a really good one.

For me, Lung round 2 is another really strong showing of her resourcefulness and clever tactics. These two battles stand together among the top few on that front.

As for badassery? Fuck yes.

“gala” how about a rave? I sincerely hope there’s fanart of mannequin the raver.

Hah, yes!

“(But of course, neither is going to be the final boss.)” What makes you think that? And who are some other candidates?

I’m quite convinced the final boss of the story is going to be the apocalyptic threat Dinah predicted. Possibly a gargantuan worm of some kind?

I do suspect the remaining Endbringers might show up to make Brockton Bay (or wherever Skitter might move to if Brockton Bay is deemed unlivable) even more of a wreck before then, serving as bosses for the second and third parts of the story like Leviathan did for the first, though.

It’s just that I don’t think it will be over once the third boss (Behemoth, I think) is dealt with.

Now that the S9 is here and active, do you think any of our major characters are going to be killed and not just nameless civilians like the paramedics or the disapproving doctor/wrestling club founder? And to toss the question out further, do you have any characters that you don’t see making it to the end of the whole story?

Absolutely. Wildbow proved quite thoroughly with Extermination that he’s willing to kill off named characters – Kaiser being a good example of that. The difference now is just that they might be more isolated incidents (with the Shattering being an exception) rather than major characters getting killed in bulk like Leviathan did.

I think the Undersiders are mostly safe for now, though not guaranteed. Their collective protagonist armor has been weakened by the splitting into territories. Bitch is particularly in danger because she’s not a protagonist and only nominally an Undersider at this point, and she’s getting potentially in over her head by embracing the S9 nomination. I do suspect the remaining Undersiders will end up fighting her at some point, though, so maybe she will make it through the trials and become the ninth member.

Imp in particular is probably safe for a while unless Wildbow needs something to send Grue into a fury or depression. We still barely know her, and I’d like to think she’s more than a plot device.

Tattletale is currently in a bad spot, but I think she’ll survive it. I mean, Wildbow could kill her off here to put even more guilt and despair on Taylor, but at this point, that’s just excessive.

Beyond the Undersiders, though? Anything goes. Literally anyone could die, including people I would prefer didn’t, like Panacea or Sundancer. Hell, even Jack Slash’s plot armor may have been broken by his conversation with Theo.

Flechette, Parian and maybe Legend may be a little safer than most minor named characters. Wildbow seems like the type to avoid the Bury Your Gays trope, though he might also decide to keep it realistic by not making gay people straight up immortal to avert it. Maybe one of them (most likely Legend, despite his power and status) will die, but probably not all. This also applies to other gay characters that may pop up in the future.

Noelle is safe for now. She has plot armor due to the subplot with whatever is actually happening to her (more on that in the next post – I just thought of something), so I doubt she’ll die before we find out what that is unless we find out by her dying.

Coil’s probably safe for a while. He’s too critical to Skitter’s story and development to remove right now.

…it’s much easier to answer who I think won’t die than who will.

Let’s see, though… Skidmark’s probably not going to make it. Hookwolf might get pulled apart sometime soon, depending on how well things go for him with the Slaughterhouse Nine, though it might be too soon after the E88 split.

Maybe Dinah won’t make it. Maybe she’ll die down the line, after Skitter put all that effort into saving her?

Basically, it’s all a giant question mark at this point. Apart from a couple key features, the future’s very uncertain, and that’s a thing I kind of like about this story, even if it sometimes makes theorizing difficult.

“welcome to my parlor said the fly to the spider” is basically Skitter Situation on the end of 12.6

Heh, yeah. Quite poetic!