Sharks: Someone asked me if you want to give your Arc Thoughts before the interludes, because the interludes are, well. Interludes. Not connected. Just for after 11.8

I think this is a good idea, especially if the Interludes are disconnected. Honestly, when there’s this many of them, I don’t know why they’re not a separate Arc like Sentinel. Maybe that will become more clear once I’ve actually read them, though.

So then here’s the plan: I’ll do Arc Thoughts for Arc 11 after 11.8, read the Interludes and then do another round of Arc Thoughts, treating the Interludes as a sort of “Arc 11½”. I’ll still keep in mind the Interludes were supposed to be part of this Arc, though, and also discuss the impact the Interludes have on Arc 11 as a whole in the

Arc 11½ thoughts, if applicable.

The eight interludes are coming up soon. If it’s about the Slaughterhouse 9, what order do you think they’ll show up in? If it isn’t about them, which characters do you think they’ll be about? Or maybe all eight interludes are from one perspective?

All I’m really sure about is that if it is from the perspective of the Fellowship of the Meat, we’re probably saving Jack Slash for last, due to the mystery surrounding his role in the apocalypse. Either that or he’s first – either way, we’re probably not going to be following him in the middle.

If it isn’t from their perspective, I have no damn clue. I’ve always been shit at predicting which characters are coming up in Interludes, and now we’re getting eight? This ain’t gonna be a good series of chapters for predictions, methinks.

All eight of them being from one perspective is an idea I hadn’t considered. If that’s the case, there’s someone Wildbow wants us to really get to know, who’s got something plot-important to do that takes practically an entire Arc. I’m not sure who that would be – a new character, perhaps?

Well, you’re now ahead of Nick in Worm.

Nice! 😀

I love the symbol for Cauldron because it works in different orientations. Depending on which way it’s facing, it could be a C, an omega, or, well, a cauldron.

Hah, yeah! Or, as I ended up interpreting it – a Latin

Ʊpsilon 😉

Also, here comes a thought: What if the Endbringers are the result of Cauldron attempting to test on animals and it going horribly wrong?

It’s a bit out there as far as theories go, and I’m not sure how likely I think it is, but it’s crazy enough that it just might work.

Do you think anyone we know could’ve bought their powers from Cauldron?

Hm… it’s possible. It sounds like most Cauldron powers cause severe physical bodily changes, unless they managed to overcome that and that’s indeed what they mean by Deviations. Anyway, it’s the strongest clue I have to work with.

We only know a few people with that sort of thing going on, and the main ones that come to mind are confirmed to be either dropped off with amnesia in relation to Nemesis, or escapees like… hang on. Shamrock was a test subject, and she didn’t seem to be a “monster”. I guess, unless her bodily changes were things that wouldn’t be particularly visible, that’s evidence suggesting Cauldron is capable of non-monstrous powers. That may still have been what determined which 4/5 Subjects ended up released, too.

The contract made it sound like Deviations happen for psychological reasons, allowing them to test whether it’s likely to happen. So I guess due to their openness about this with their clients, Deviations would be less common in people who have bought the product than with test subjects.

Anyway, to get back to the speculation on who might’ve bought their powers: Maybe Siberian?

Ooh… or perhaps the Travelers. Maybe that’s what’s happening to Noelle, for that matter. Maybe a Deviation doesn’t necessarily happen immediately?

Then again, I already commented on Cauldron apparently being sort of upfront about Deviations, so if that were the case, wouldn’t Noelle and the Travelers know what the cause might be? Hm.

The redhead in Faultline’s Crew is Shamrock, mentioned in Gregor’s interlude.

Yep! As I mentioned, I had forgotten about her, but once her name was mentioned, it all came back to me. 🙂

You seem to have been confused a couple of times by Labyrinth’s teammates being exempted from her power, despite having stated at the beginning of the chapter when you were describing her power that she can exempt people from it?

Basically what happened was that Faultline not being exempt confused me because I would’ve expected her to be, and since I was already somewhat unsure about the specifics of Labyrinth’s power, it caused me to question whether that was actually a thing in the first place (then again, that much was pretty clear in Hive). Fortunately, Gregor helped set things right.

Relatedly, one of the other asks I just got provides a good explanation for why Faultline wasn’t exempt (besides what I eventually settled on, that being able to slice through Labyrinth’s constructs was more useful to her in combat than them not being real to her):

Most of Faultlines Crew slid down from the ceiling on columns labyrinth made. Their descent would have been a lot faster if the poles hadn’t existed for thrm

This is a very good point. And as for why Labyrinth didn’t just remotely exempt the Crew from her power after that:

In 5.7, Labyrinth doesn’t make her power unable to affect Skitter until she touches her, so presumably Labyrinth needs to be touching someone to make them immune.

Which I was probably in response to me suggesting Labyrinth might’ve been toggling it on and off for Oni to make him repeatedly fall. I guess he was just tripping because of the movement of the columns up and down.

And, uh, tripping in a different way because Labyrinth.