This was a very interesting chapter. I hadn’t expected anything even remotely like this.

We learned a lot about the mysterious eldritch beings that appear to be the source of powers, which I’ve chosen to call tesseractids for now. They’re multidimensional, they can appear across multiple realities at once, and it seems they don’t always “die” like Karahindiba supposedly did when they bestow the powers. They are “like viruses, babies and gods at the same time”, suggesting they might reproduce via parahumans and don’t really know what they’re doing, but they’re also capable of planning and communication and may be aware of upcoming trigger events.

And apparently all existing parahumans can see them when a trigger event happens nearby, but not mundanes. The experience takes a psychic toll and often causes motion sickness, but those exposed to it quickly forget what happened unless their power helps them remember.

Very, very interesting revelations there. You may color me highly intrigued.

It’s also going to be interesting to see whether Lisa remembers anything.

At the end we also found out that Faultline’s Crew has arrived. Long time no see! I don’t think we’ve seen them since Interlude 5, actually, so I guess this is a very appropriate point for them to come back.

Taylor doesn’t know it, but they’re obviously after the vials of super juice. They’re gonna have to act fast to get ahold of the first one, though, before Doug drinks it.

And once they do act, using the element of surprise by the looks of it, things are not gonna be good. Especially considering they clearly don’t want any Merchants to escape the building and they’re currently counting Taylor and co. as Merchants.

Incidentally, Charlotte might think Taylor and Lisa are doing it at first.

So yeah! With this setup, next chapter looks like it’ll be interesting, but I highly doubt it’ll be as interesting as this one was, because damn.

See you next time!

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

There’s nothing really wrong with the chapter, but I personally didn’t really enjoy the in-depth exhibits of how awful the Merchants are all that much. It feels like… we get it. They’re awful people, horribly unsympathetic, rife with debauchery in every way. That had been fairly thoroughly established already. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be exhibits like this to be seen in this particular place, but

by the end of the second session, it ended up being grating. It felt like it was a bit much.

(I knew we were heading into this sort of territory, to some extent, ever since the idea of going to a Merchant arrangement first came up, but I thought Lisa would counterbalance it more than she has so far.)

But my third session with this chapter, this one, really salvaged it. There were three main scenes in that: talking to the rescued girl, talking to Bryce, and the beginning of the main event. All three were excellent: I loved Taylor’s outburst at the girl’s careless words and the juxtaposition of the girl’s bystanderism during Taylor’s trigger event with Taylor very pointedly overriding her group’s bystanderism to save the girl. I loved the twist that Bryce is a little, privileged shit who joined the Merchants without telling his sister. And I loved the way Upsilon and the Dealer are being brought into this by way of Skidmark having somehow gotten hold of super juice.

Huh, I suppose that’s why we established last chapter that Lisa knows about case 53.

So yeah: Bit of a mixed bag, markedly stronger in the latter half. My issues with the first half are highly subjective, though, so your mileage may vary.

Next chapter… I guess it’s in the Undersiders’ interests to get those vials before the brawl ends and the Merchants who win can drink them. Otherwise the Merchants, the Undersiders’ greatest enemy at the moment, become significantly stronger – plus five capes is nothing to scoff at.

It might be time for this to stop being a recon mission.

Wild idea: The escorts join the brawl (judging by how Skidmark’s power seems to work, it should be possible to enter willingly, though it might throw you into the air in the process) and fight for the price.

I don’t think that’s actually going to happen – a stealth mission to steal the prizes is probably better. Worth noting that they’ll presumably be guarded by the existing Merchant capes, though. Hmm, maybe a swarm of bugs could lift the vials or the cans?

However they choose to go about it, getting those vials away from the Merchants does seem like it should be top priority, at least. There’s also the matter of getting the rescued girl and maybe Bryce safely out of the building, though, which the two Undersiders might decide to do first.

See you next time!

That was a very interesting chapter. We got to see Tattletale’s hideout, which was rather… different than the Hive, we met their less-than-perfect escorts to the Merchant meeting (the country of Senegal does not deserve this blight upon its name), and we finally got an answer – probably a correct one – to what determines when the overdrive happens, if not explicitly what makes it happen in the first place.

I enjoyed it, though I do wish we’d gotten more private time between Taylor and Lisa. Maybe we’ll get some of that after the meeting.

Anyway, next chapter, it’s time to find out what a redband Merchant arrangement is like. It probably ain’t good. It’s entirely possible that Taylor will find it necessary to step in with her bugs, even though she’s out of costume and at risk of being figured out by one or more of the escorts.

Hell, maybe the Merchants intend to make a larger-scale attack on the construction sites, or something else that could harm Danny. That would be a neat way to motivate Taylor and tie everything together with his appearance in 11.1.

See you next time!

This was a pretty good chapter! We got Taylor being great framed by Taylor being cool.

She’s come a long way in combat, and finally made use of her power’s rather large (even when not in overdrive) range to fight from a distance while sipping her tea in a place of safety. And she wrecked her enemies, to the point that we skipped over her dealing with two thirds of them.

The highlight of the chapter, though, was the flashback to what happened between the end of last chapter and this fight. I really like Taylor’s compassionate side and her dynamic with Sierra, and I especially enjoyed this particular exchange:

“This is strangely domestic for a villain.”  I turned to look at her and she hurried to add, “I mean-”

“It’s fine.  I’m not offended, I am a villain.  But I’m also a person under this mask.  Someone who prefers tea to coffee, who enjoys reading, who…”  I floundered.  “…likes sweet and savory foods but dislikes anything spicy or sour.  Point being, I’m someone who wants to make sure you get taken care of.  Especially if you’re among the people I’m protecting in the territory I’m claiming.  Go.  Find a bed.”

I really do hope Sierra sticks around for a while.

And then, at the end of the chapter, we got some Tattletale, which is always as good thing. And based on what she said, it’s pretty clear what the next chapter is going to be about: We’re going to be attending, or spying on, a Merchant get-together along with Tattle, which sounds like a lot of fun.

See you then!

So! This was a really cool chapter – Skitter has a theatrical side that shows once in a while, and she used it to good effect here. She’s now the Queen of Skitterville, and the fifth or so of the population that showed up to her announcement seems to be mostly fine with that, after she explained her good intentions, set an example of the Big Man despite all his best dunks stabs, and was sorta kinda publicly accepted by a Protectorate member.

I really enjoyed the forthright interaction between Battery and Skitter. I hope we’ll see more of Battery (with a speaking role) in not too long, because she seems interesting. Maybe we’ll even learn the true relationship between her and Assault someday! 😛

And finally, we met the dreadlock redhead whose brother Taylor will certainly be trying to save when she goes up against the Merchants. I’m pretty certain that we’re doing that in this Arc at this point, unless Wildbow decides to pull a bait-and-switch and go “SURPRISE IT’S THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE NINE” instead. We’ll have to see, but I’m fairly sure we’re sticking with the Merchants for now. (Though we’ll probably be getting to know the Fellowship with those Interludes at the end of the Arc, so they might be somewhat relevant nonetheless.)

Next chapter… maybe we’ll meet up with the other Undersiders and discuss how the claims went and how everyone’s adjusting? Or maybe Taylor intends to do some planning at the Hive before launching an attack on the Merchants on her own? Or, perhaps, we’ll dive straight into it.

It’s a little unclear to me still how much the Undersiders will work together when it comes to attacking enemies in their separate territories, but I’ll just have to see.

…huh. It’d be really fitting if Bitch’s territory just so happened to be frequented by Fenrir’s Chosen. Hookwolf is the perfect nemesis to her.

Anyway, yeah. See you then!

That was quite the chapter! We got a super vivid and creative nightmare sequence, a tour of Skitter’s base (which I have chosen to call the Hive

– not to be confused with Arc 5 – unless Skitter comes up with a better name), and last but certainly not least, we finally got to see Danny again!

The theming of guilt throughout this chapter was really thorough, as was the buildup to Taylor running into the subject of some of it. The nightmare was prompted by guilt in several ways – over Danny, over Dinah, over Shadow Stalker… Taylor doesn’t like being alone in the Hive because it leaves her thinking about that guilt… and, as mentioned, she managed to run right into one of those three, the one we haven’t seen since 6.9.

And damn am I glad to see him again. If it’s not clear enough yet, I really like Danny as a character – I’d go so far as to say that he’s my favorite mundane. And even on a list that included the parahumans too, I don’t think he’d fall that much lower than Tattletale. He’s not really the kind of character I usually find myself enjoying, but he’s so damn sympathetic. 

Interlude 1 did a really good job of showing us why we should feel for Danny, and with it, showed us how much he didn’t deserve any of what he had to deal with in later Arcs. I really don’t think 6.9 would’ve hit anywhere near as hard as it did without what Interlude 1 did for Danny’s character.

I suppose in a lot of ways I like Danny for the same reasons Joyce Byers made it to my favorite character spot in Stranger Things. Without getting into too many spoilers, Joyce is the mother of Will Byers, the latter being the kid who disappears in the first few minutes of the series. Over the course of the series, Joyce’s desperation and more importantly resolve to find out what happened to her son and get him back home if possible makes her an incredibly sympathetic character. I guess there’s something about parents who are desperate to help their children but don’t know how that really resonates with me.

Anyway, this was a chapter that’s been a long time coming. The reunion didn’t, ultimately, make me cry like I thought it might, largely because the two of them still remained sort of distant, but it was damn good nonetheless.

Next chapter… it’s time to claim some territory. Exactly how Skitter intends to do that, I’m not sure, but I don’t think the Merchants are going to like it. Judging by what was said about them in this chapter, I’ll think they’ll be the primary antagonists of the Arc, or at least the first ones. The Fellowship of the Meat can have their turn afterwards.

So yeah, see you next time!

Holy shit.

That’s the phrase I associate with this chapter, because it had two real holy shit moments: Vicious!Taylor making an appearance with what she said to Bitch (seriously, I was expecting Taylor to have some choice words for her, but I wasn’t expecting that), and Dinah telling us the end of the human species is on the way.

And as if that wasn’t enough, we also got a brief fight with Miss Militia, a rundown of the Slaughterhouse Nine, and Taylor trying to get Dinah released down the line. All in all a very content-rich chapter.

(Content-rich enough, in fact, that I think I made a mistake in not splitting it into two sessions. I think I’ve been liveblogging for about ten hours now. And here I was planning to celebrate a thing with a liveblog tomorrow, but now I think I need a break day, so we’ll have to settle for a post about that thing.)

Anyway, I just asked Sharks whether or not this was the end of the Arc, for the purposes of knowing whether I should do Arc Thoughts tomorrow, and got the answer that there are two Interludes coming up before that. So I know that the next chapter is an Interlude, but as usual with Interludes, I have no idea whose perspective we’ll be following. I’m guessing it’s someone relevant to this Arc… How about Emma, as she finds out what Sophia’s been up to? That’s a bit tenuous, but technically still relevant. Or perhaps one of the Undersiders? Imp would be very fitting to do right now.

I’m also curious about how these Interludes will be numbered (assuming Sharks isn’t just referring to regularly-numbered chapters as Interludes because they follow non-Taylor characters, like that one ask that referred to 9.1 as Weld’s Interlude). Will we skip 9 and number both Interludes as 10? That’s a legitimate possibility after what happened in Arc 8, where both Interludes were numbered the same as the Arc they were in.

I’ll just have to read and find out. See you then!