In the case of ethnicity/cultural background we had WoG from Interlude 10 that “Regent’s dad was European & later Anglophone Quebecois. Upbringing/background.” So Alec and Cherie are Canadian. We also had an earlier in-text bit that Heartbreaker was based in Montreal.

It was mentioned earlier that Heartbreaker is Canadian. You may not be aware but certain parts of Canada have VERY heavy French influence. French Canadian is one of the largest ethnic groups in the country, and as many people speak french as english.

You do know there is such a thing as ‘french canadian’, yes? IRL they’re a huge part of the population.

Regent and Cherish are Quebecois, so French is their first language-Quebec has French as the official language due to having been a French colony in the past.

French is a main language in some parts of Canada.

I was aware of the impact of France in Canada, even down to Quebec being one of the more French-influenced provinces, but I wasn’t aware that Alec was Canadian – which apparently had already been stated in the text? I guess I missed or forgot that.

I couldn’t find any previous mentions of Montreal specifically with blog search, but it wouldn’t be the first time blog search has been somewhat unreliable.

But yeah, once Montreal was brought up in the Interlude, the pieces fell into place.

Just a heads up, dunno if that counts as a spoiler, but Heartbreaker comes from Montreal, a city in Canada that is situated in Quebec, a french speaking province. It is highly probable that they speak french, especially since Jean-Paul is a somewhat common name up here. Niko isn’t and Vasil is definitely not french, but there has been historically a pretty big immigration from greece to Montreal. (history major who lives in Montreal, so you can trust me). 

Interesting!

During Dinah’s interlude, you got a little more insight to the Travelers. Do you have any new thoughts about them or theories about their backstory?

It’s clear that they’ve been through a lot together. The question is just what.

Maybe they’ve been pursued by some sinister group or entity, that they’ve been fleeing from under the guise of being “nomadic”. Perhaps Coil, besides helping them with Noelle, offers them protection?

Or maybe they’ve had trouble with an Endbringer or something, sticking together during such a situation? I’m not sure, an Endbringer attack sounds a bit too… singular and isolated. Not the sort of situation that would cause people to promise to stick together forever. …although maybe I’m looking at the wrong point in time. Maybe it’s more that they were having trouble after an Endbringer attack, barely surviving together in a wrecked city much like Brockton Bay (except I doubt it’d be Leviathan’s work, so perhaps more characterized by lava than water, or by insanity and/or aggression).

I don’t think their past troubles were with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Crawler coming to Coil’s base would probably have prompted more of a reaction from the Travelers before Noelle turned out to be at the core of it.

Must be horrifying to be one of the four caught up in Regent and Cherish’s tug of war. One’s got you by the emotions, one’s taken control of your body, and you’re just left to scream in your own head as two superpowered criminals fight over control of you.

(Three; one of the four non-soldiers Cherish sensed was Alec himself.)

Yeah, that’s pretty hellish. On top of that, one of the villains eventually admitted to be carrying a bomb that would go off in a few minutes unless she called it… and that her phone was out of battery.

I kind of glossed over the awfulness of their situation – having been under Alec’s control for who knows how many days – in general. Largely because we’ve been over most of what’s worth saying about that in Interlude 10a, and because more immediately important things were going on. But yeah, their situation sucks a lot.

I do wonder, though – where did they come from? Did Coil provide some non-soldier subordinates of his for Alec to control, or did Alec just steal some random civilians from the street or something?

“One of the scariest things you could give the Slaughterhouse Nine is a goal-oriented brain at the head of the operation.” Probably worth mentioning she’s not the best at strategy, by her own admission.

That was Alec talking, actually, though I’m not surprised at the confusion. With the way that particular quote slotted into the conversation, it’s not quite clear that it’s Alec rather than Cherish until more than halfway through it, because it’s surrounded by Cherish’s body movements without dialogue.

“Ah.  I sort of remember that bit about your power.  The part that sticks in my head is that you don’t have long-term benefits.  It wears off, and your targets build immunity pretty quickly.” 

Cherie shrugged.

“I’m not the best when it comes to strategy, but I’m thinking… I’m going to win here. Eventually.  You can’t run without me getting control over my people and sending them after you, you can’t use them to attack me, and if you stay, I can try doing this.”

Her arm jerked involuntarily.

“Remember me practicing my power on you when it was new?”

I’m honestly kinda surprised I didn’t make that same mistake.

Not all of Cherish’s nicknames were for people who were being nominated. Remember when Jack went to speak with (and fuck with) Purity?

Just to be clear, Cherish’s list was not all official nominees. They’re just persons of interest she was tracking for the other members of the Nine. Most of the tracked individuals did become nominees, but as you already know, Labyrinth wasn’t picked as a nominee and won’t be tested.

Hmm, I suppose that’s fair. That helps explain why there isn’t a ninth Interlude, leaving out either the scaredy cat or the crusader (unless they’re both in the next one), too.