Leviathan, from the Bible: Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor? When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing. Arrows do not make it flee; slingstones are like chaff to it. It laughs at the rattling of the lance. It leaves a glistening wake behind it. It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud. Armmy never had a chance.

That’s all very accurate to the Leviathan in Worm… I’m kind of surprised to see that even the water echo reflects something from the original description.

I suppose it’s very fitting that the downfall of Armmaster, who practically embodies the sin of pride, would be tied to him pridefully attempting to kill an enemy based on a being specifically described as “king over all that are proud”.

Just to set the record straight, Flashbang, Narwhal and Night were all on the list of losses from 8.3, but were NOT on the monument. So it looks like they all made it. It’s hard to tell at this point for some of the others, because Taylor never looked at the A-E side of the monument. Also, if we assume that the first side also had 12 names, like the second and third sides, that puts the total death count at 46 capes plus 8 dogs (maybe 47 if Zigzag counts as two).

At least New Wave got to keep one of their men, I suppose.

Also, I didn’t think of the possibility of Zigzag possibly being one person with two civilian names until now. Besides other reasons why a cape may have had two civilian identities, maybe there were some multiple personality shenanigans going on there? It would kind of fit the name.

Fun fact: Chapter 7.9, the fight with Empire Eighty Eight where coil saved the undersiders hides in? Wildbow wasn’t satisfied with the chapter so he rewrote it. The original chapter is the other reality mentioned.

When 7.9 (the beginning of the Night/Fog fight) was originally published, Wildbow received negative feedback, agreed with it, and rewrote the chapter with substantial changes, taking down the old version after a few hours (essentially the only time he did that). He said in the comments after the update that “The previous chapter is canon in many respects.” In the comments of 8.8, Wildbow announced that the original 7.9 is, canonically, the alternate reality that Coil eventually scrapped.

Interesting backstory regarding Coil’s use of his power in Arc 7: There were two times during the writing of Worm where Wildbow was so unhappy how a chapter turned out that he deleted it a few hours after posting and re-wrote it from scratch. The first one of these was 7.9. At the time, Wildbow made some cryptic comment that the original version was still “canon in many respects.” 8.8 makes it clear what he meant by that.

Huh, that’s a really neat way to tie that in with the story!

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.

“Oh my cod she’s right they’re totally a bunch of drama royals” Yeah, pretty much. And that has affected the divide between a bunch of people dressing up and playing cops and robbers, and the more serious stuff like the endbringers is interesting. I think Armsmaster is an example of that balance and what happens when it is violated.

Absolutely. Tattletale’s theory seems to hold water, and it’s very interesting how it all works, and what happens when it doesn’t.

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.