Tag: chapter thoughts

End of Interlude 2.933 monme

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

What a wonderful family reunion!

Cherie, or Cherish, is a really fun character. A girl who is quite relatable when it comes to music, entertaining through her cheerful bluntness and super disproportionate revenge plots, and scary through her mix of cunning, ambition, mild crazedness and not least of all her power. Getting to know her and her relationship to Alec was quite entertaining. 🙂

In the process, we also got an update on Alec: He’s been provided with soldiers and has people he keeps under his control, like he used to in his past. That’s… morally questionable, but it’s not like we didn’t know that about him already.

And we got some pretty important further details on the nomination process:

  • Cherish is the reason the Slaughterhouse Nine knew about some of the nominees in the first place.
  • Everyone knew in advance who everyone would go for, regardless of how their attempts went. So no second chances.
  • Even if they didn’t successfully convince their nominees to join, the nominees will still be tested.
  • Burnscar, what the hell.

At this rate, Arc 12 will be quite intense. It seems likely to me that Arc 12 as a whole will be about the testing process, which ought to be interesting considering the Undersiders have two members being tested and one of them is at best on the fence about it.

So yeah, I enjoyed that quite a bit! Hopefully the next one will be just as good, as we either watch Bonesaw making contact with the scaredy cat or the crusader, or loop back to Interlude 11a. Prrrrobably the former 😛

See you then!

End of Interlude 11f

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Sundancer is a Good, and Coil’s a dick.

So! In this chapter, we watched as Dinah saved everyone, at great personal difficulty.

I think it’s worth thinking of this chapter as split in two: There’s talking tactics, and there’s the horror portion.

There was a lot of discussion of tactics in this one, which… kinda drew long, but was a pretty decent demonstration of Dinah’s power and an alright way to introduce us to Crawler’s power. It grew especially interesting once the final solution of having Dinah look into the future more thoroughly and find out what they were going to do came up, which was an aspect of her power I did not see coming. Uh, no pun intended.

I think I like the horror section better – trapped in the dark with a potentially dangerous person sniffing at you from inside, and a definitely dangerous monster banging at the door from the outside. It does feel like it didn’t quite pay off, though, somehow – Trickster calmed Noelle down with relative ease and a gentleness that didn’t match the horror tone surrounding it, and Crawler was quite effectively stopped by the vault door. (The latter isn’t quite as much of a problem as it could’ve been, because it’s previously been solidly established that it’s a really strong door intended to keep berserk!Noelle in check.)

Overall, it was a fairly decent setup and used the uncertainty surrounding Crawler and Noelle’s appearances effectively, but ultimately the ending felt kind of anticlimactic. It was certainly not bad, though.

And then there’s Dinah. It was nice to see Dinah’s perspective on her situation, and I’m very glad that she does not like Coil. She has learned to not cross him, and does have a heavy addiction to the drugs that will be especially hard to break due to her power, but she does not like him. His abuse hasn’t gotten to the point where she starts telling herself he’s good to her, that what he’s doing is okay, that she doesn’t want to go home.

Sundancer (civilian name Marissa, which is nice) was also very good in this chapter, being protective of Dinah, but admitting to Dinah – to Dinah, talking directly to her – that her hands were tied by her bonds to the Travelers. I would love to see Taylor and Sundancer discussing Dinah, though it’s very unlikely to happen.

Speaking of Taylor, I have a feeling she’s a big part of why the chance of Dinah’s release is ticking up.

So yeah! Not one of the solidest recent chapters, but I enjoyed it.

Next up is either Bonesaw, the newbie or Hatchet Face. Probably Bonesaw, I’m thinking. See you then!

End of Interlude 11e

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That was another good chapter!

I think Shatterbird is my least favorite Slaughterhouse member so far, but that’s not because of any real fault on her part, just because the others are so good in comparison. Shatterbird just isn’t quite as interesting in terms of personality – she’s got a commanding presence, a great willingness and eagerness to hurt and kill, and a bit of an ego, but that’s pretty much it, fairly standard stuff. She’s still neat, just not as neat as the others.

Powerwise, though, she’s fantastic. It’s as Hookwolf described – “Incredible range, fine control, devastating force, versatility…". She’s incredibly powerful, though not that greatly protected on the defensive side, making her an excellent glass cannon.

Hookwolf, on the other hand, we got to see from another perspective, namely his own. It turns out he is far less brutish than I thought, and actually a quite competent leader. It’s just a shame what he fights for. I came out of this chapter liking Hookwolf, but it’s best not to forget what he stands for.

We also got some insight into what the name Fenrir’s Chosen actually means (which I mostly caught onto a couple posts before it was spelled out, thanks to knowledge of Norse mythology), which was a fun sequence to liveblog.

Oh! Also, we learned that Shatterbird’s power has been sold to some men. Whether that means Shatterbird sold her power or bought it, it almost certainly implies that Cauldron has access to this incredibly powerful ability, which is a terrifying prospect.

So yeah! This was entertaining. Hopefully the next one will be just as good. 🙂

See you then!

End of Interlude 11d

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

Oh, Colin.

That was another fun ride! We got to meet Mannequin, who has an interesting backstory and a kind of whimsical body that… actually doesn’t have anything to do with the main focus of his tinker power. It seems like, in theory, almost any tinker might be able to do something like what he did, if they were mad enough to do it.

Honestly more interesting than Mannequin himself, though, was Vriska, our POV character for the day. We didn’t really learn much new about him, really, though we got reinforcement of the idea that he isn’t all about his reputation. He does try to help people. Maybe the focus on reputation came second, after some time as a bigshot hero?

On top of an awesome but insanely stupid display of his reckless, wrathful side against an enemy who claimed they were alike, we also got some delicious development for the Dragonmaster ship. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see Vriska’s reaction to Dragon revealing her true nature, but I recognize that ending the chapter like that is good writing. For now, I’ll trust Vriska to be good enough that it went over better than Dragon had feared.

So yeah! That was fun. See you next time!

…

…

…potential romantic relationship with a character associated with drAGONS MISTER COLIN SERKET YOU COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF–

End of Interlude 11d

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

Well. That was disturbing.

Pinkie Pie is a fantastic villain, a crazed psychopath who turns people into cupcakes while acting like nothing’s wrong and she’s just having a fun time with the victim. That’s horror gold right there, and a character whose return in Worm is going to be interesting.

Not least of all because next time we see her, she presumably won’t be a pink pony. This whole Interlude seems to be set in an alternate world where everyone’s a magical pony, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Couldn’t we just have had this plot with the human counterparts to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash in the main Wormverse? Was this meant to show us the sort of variety there can be between the multiverse’s worlds?

I feel like ultimately, the chapter suffers from that decision, mainly because we have no true guarantee that the human Pinkie Pie won’t be significantly different from the pony Pinkie Pie in ways other than just species. On top of that, what little details we got about the pony world seem very out of place for the tone of Worm.

This chapter was also way more graphic than anything else we’ve seen in Worm before in terms of gore. Mixed with the tonal dissonance of the pony world, this somehow seems both more childish and more adult than the average Worm chapter.

So overall, this chapter feels weird and rather out of place, much like Interlude 2 did when I read that exacty one year ago.

There’s probably a reason for that. April Fool’s! ;D

End of Interlude 11c

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This was a really solid chapter. We got to learn a little more about Elle/Labyrinth and to a much lesser extent Spitfire and Shamrock, Gregor got to be the MVP putting up a strong but losing fight alongside his allies, and perhaps most importantly, we were introduced to two new characters: High and sober Burnscar.

Burnscar, Mimi, is a victim of circumstance and addiction who believes that to survive, she needs to continue hurting people, to keep herself in the fiery high that comes with her power. (I don’t even know if I mean that last thing as a reason or as another thing she thinks she needs to do, but I think it might be both.) In her intoxicated state, she becomes, well… evil, by some definitions, dropping her moral and empathetic inhibitions and losing herself in the swirling inferno of her power. But when she’s sober, she’s a pretty decent person, really, one wracked with guilt that she goes back to the fire to avoid.

Anyway, point is: She’s a fantastic character, and far more sympathetic than I expected any of the Fellowship to be… Hey, Slaughterhouse, how ‘bout we trade? Rachel for Mimi?

No? Fair enough.

Another interesting detail we’ve learned: Hatchet Face has been replaced, though he’s still “kinda” around. So we’ve got someone in the mix who wasn’t on the list, with a power that helps her “find” people. Maybe we’ll meet her in one of the upcoming Interludes.

So yeah. This was a good time, up to and including the sad final part. 🙂

I think it’s time to give up the idea that we’ll be learning who the nominees are just yet, by the way, since neither Jack’s nor Mimi’s chapters ended up actually telling us. Other than that, though, we are definitely keeping up this pattern of meeting Slaughterhouse members one by one, and it’s working very well so far.

Next time… another POV character, another Slaughterhouse member.

See you then!

End of Interlude 11b

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

That was fun.

Jack Slash is a loveable (as a character) psychopath who kills because the impact he can have on the world by doing so is interesting to him. He likes to not know outcomes, likes seeing how things turn out if he flips this switch instead of that one…

Jack Slash would probably love having Coil’s power.

And then we have Theo, the other character we focused on here – a son of Kaiser who wants to use his eventual powers for good rather than evil, one who’d challenge Jack Slash when faced with seemingly inevitable death, one who is now forced to hurry up and become a cape powerful and skilled enough to take down Jack himself, or face Jack going out of his way to kill a thousand people explicitly as punishment for Theo’s failure.

I didn’t care much for Theo back in Interlude 3½, but this made me like him quite a bit. Jack turned out to be quite enjoyable too, and together they made this a chapter I really like.

Next time… another place, another face. Maybe a Hatchet one? I don’t know, and I don’t have much to go on to make an educated guess about who’s next, but I do know that this seems to have confirmed my suspicion that the Anniversary Bonus Interludes would be about each Slaughterhouse member. Just, not from their POVs.

So yeah, see you then!

End of Interlude 11a

Krixwell JaceLeave a comment

That was a good time. A very interesting chapter with… way more talk of My Little Pony on my part than one might’ve expected regarding a chapter about Rachel and Siberian. 😛

In order, this chapter gave us:

  • Seemingly happy Rachel
  • Seemingly happy Rachel questioning why she’s less happy than the other Undersiders
  • A look at Rachel’s feelings about Taylor and the events of Parasite
  • A look into Rachel’s backstory and why family isn’t among her top values (fuck Rachel’s third foster mom)
  • Bitch dealing with a civilian thinking he could get off with shooting at Angelica (what’s gonna happen to that guy anyway? is he dead? or is he just going to be lying there until someone dares go get him and take him to a hospital and/or Panacea?)
  • A short but entertaining fight between Brandish & Glory Girl and Bitch
  • Cut short by our first meeting with a Slaughterhouse Nine member
  • Siberian, who is great, freaky, and freakily great (and I love the angle of Rachel finding someone she can relate to in a Slaughterhouse member)
  • Rachel choosing to fail her challenge of loyalty and go see what the Slaughterhouse’s test is all about
  • wolf pupy

So basically, lots of really good stuff.

Next up… maybe more Rachel? If she’s going to the Slaughterhouse’s test, then she might act as our POV to get to know the rest of the members as well, allowing us to have a Slaughterhouse Nine Interlude half-Arc without actually looking through the eyes of the members we’re examining.

Then again, maybe Wildbow has done pretty much all he wanted to do from Rachel’s perspective for now and we’ll have another POV next time. I do feel like we’ll still be checking out Fellowship members, though, so it’s just a matter of who we’ll be following and whose perspective we’ll see them from.

I guess I should throw a wild guess out there… maybe we’ll find out about Hatchet Face next?

So yeah! This was fun. See you next time!

End of Infestation 11.8

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This was a decent wind-down chapter.

We got to talk to Charlotte and Sierra about how to continue from here, and I correctly predicted that they would both end up as Skitter’s drones, minions, employees, whatever you want to call them. Granted, I also predicted the same would happen with Bryce, just because I expected it to happen with Sierra and didn’t think they’d be separated, but I’m much more pleased with the actual outcome.

Then we had a nice little chat with Brian, in which he and Taylor agreed to let their tension be water under the bridge and move on as friends. I’m glad we got to see that.

This wasn’t the most exciting chapter, but I’m overall happy with it and its outcomes, and the high note of a cautiously optimistic Taylor capping off an Arc in which her mood has been characterized by anxiety and guilt.

Next chapter, we’re heading into a sequence of eight consecutive Interludes, which, due to the number of them and the fact that they are apparently “not connected” to Arc 11 proper, I’ll be treating as basically an Arc 11½

for the purposes of Arc Thoughts. This means I’ll be doing Arc Thoughts for Arc 11 before I move on to the next chapter, and then another round of Arc Thoughts for the Interludes when I’m done with them (but still keeping in mind they were supposed to be part of this Arc rather than their own thing like Sentinel was).

Since my predictions for all of the Interludes are pretty much the same at this point, I think I’ll leave recapping my predictions about the next chapter for the Arc Thoughts post.

So yeah, see you next time!

End of Infestation 11.7

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That was a pretty good one. As expected, it was not quite as interesting as the last one, but that said more about last chapter than this one, and this one was certainly not bad. Faultline’s Crew were pretty great in this, especially Newter, Gregor and Labyrinth. We also got to meet Shamrock, who was very cool.

In the end, things resolved peacefully between Lisa’s group and Newter, with every side except the Merchants pleased with the outcome. I quite liked that scene. It also provided us with a bunch more information about Upsilon, which I now know to be called Cauldron. It seems to be far more mercantile than I was expecting.

Judging by the cliff we ended on, next chapter will be about Taylor dealing with Charlotte knowing her identity, and bringing Bryce back to Sierra. That last part means more Skitter and Sierra interaction, which I’m looking forward to, but it also presumably means informing Sierra about what Bryce did to her (I consider Sierra a victim of Bryce’s actions)… Honestly, the only way to go about it that won’t get Sierra upset, however briefly, at Skitter is probably to have Bryce tell her himself, but I doubt he wants to.

No matter what, I expect upset Sierra.

So yeah. That’s all for tonight – see you next time!