Wildbow does not write the chapters well in advance. I understand why you would think so, given how well-written, thematically consistent and thought out they are, but it turns out he’s just ridiculously fast and talented.
Huh, wow.
Tag: i12a bet
In retrospect, I’m torn between being surprised it took you, an actual Norwegian, so long to quote “Dinner for One” and being surprised there wound up being an appropriate place to do so.
Hehe, yeah, and I ended up doing it almost as far from Christmas as I could get, timewise. :p
Honestly, when I wrote it, I could’ve sworn I’d referenced it earlier, but I can’t find anything, so I guess not. Maybe I just considered it at some point.
…a bit of context for those who have no idea what we’re talking about:
Dinner for One is a sketch (British script, German TV production in English) about a duchess hosting her 90th birthday party with four guests… who are all deceased. The butler, James, has to pretend to serve and then be each guest as he circles the table repeatedly. This includes drinking for everyone in the frequent toasts, so as the sketch continues, he gets more and more drunk (amusingly, the actor never drank a drop of alcohol in his life). Add in a tiger rug for James to keep stumbling over and some memorable catchphrases, and it becomes a hilarious classic – though it’s largely unknown in most English-speaking countries.
In a fair number of countries, including Germany, Sweden and Denmark, it’s a New Year’s Eve tradition to air Dinner For One. In Norway, we do it on December 23rd, “Little Christmas Eve”. Thanks to this treatment, the sketch is (or at least used to be) the world’s most repeated TV program ever.
In other words, by airing Dinner For One in December, we follow the same procedure as every year, James.
(More that Cherish maybe remarked “Huh, that’s probably one of your lower kill counts, Shatterbird.”
“Why?”
“The Worm,” Cherish replies, pointing in a direction.
Jack looks to Mannequin, who leaves without a word.)
– Wildbow, explaining why Mannequin attacked.
That makes sense. I like the ambiguity on whether Jack looking at Mannequin was a wordless order, or an acknowledgement of the fact that Mannequin would want to go do something about that anyway.
Speaking of wordless, I love that Wildbow used “leaves without a word” about a guy who can’t speak anyway. :p
Isnt it possible that the men bought the power for her?
“Guess the men who bought my power should ask for a refund.” I interpreted this as meaning a group of men paid Cauldron to give Shatterbird her powers. She can’t get a refund because she didn’t pay. I think the papers with the power bottles the the Undersides found described a similar situation.
Hm, I suppose that works too. That would raise some questions about Shatterbird’s background and why exactly a group of men would pay loads of money to give her one of the most powerful abilities we’ve seen in the story.
The Crystal Gems may or may not be protected from Shatterbird by the Manton effect. Hard to say for sure.
Maybe, if they’re lucky. Unfortunately for them it’s quite unclear at this point how exactly the Manton effect works, not to mention whether it’s even a thing in the first place. The strongest hypothesis has it depending on the power, which adds another layer of uncertainty as to how the effect works specifically for Shatterbird.
Notably, the Gems are not protected if the Manton effect prevents Shatterbird from controlling silicates in organic beings, but are protected if it operates on the distinction between living vs non-living instead.
I think whoever’s saying that Hawaii canonically got Behemoth’d is mistaken. They are working off of information from later in the story, which is a no-no, but they’re also wrong about it.
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what the story says about it for myself!
“By the sound of it, she’s either sold her power, most likely via Cauldron, or she bought the power from them herself. In the latter case, it’d be odd that she suggested other buyers should ask for a refund and not she herself, so I’m leaning towards the former.” Remember the Merchant party with stolen powers in a bottle? It’s possible she stole it before it reached the intended buyer.
That’s a good point. It’s not the vibe I got from it, but this could very well be the case.
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