Susan and Victoria could bond over their shared hobby: hitting people who anger them very hard with large blunt objects. (Not to mention, depending on the point in the timeline, the parallels with Ellen re: cute girl with an aura that may or may not make you bisexual …)
Hah, nice!
We don’t know anything about Iceland or New Orleans, but I can confirm (thanks to a single offhand reference later in the story) that Hawaii did get hit by Behemoth at some point in the probably-somewhat-recent past, though we don’t know the exact date. (Not quite sure where the spoiler line is, sorry if this crosses it.)
I’ve now made clear to Sharks that I would prefer not to know about info from future offhand references in advance. No worries, though, this is a fairly minor one as far as I can tell.
Honestly, though, spoiler or no spoiler, learning right now that Hawaii was indeed hit by what I’m 95% sure is the volcano Endbringer is quite appropriate.
Pretty sure it was Slartibartfast who carved the coastlines of Norway, thank you very much. Though that’s not discounting the possibility that Andrew Hussie is a secret mouse.
“Maybe he carved away a bunch of the Norwegian coastline with a spoon.” And he managed to do it without disturbing those lovely crinkly edges that won an award for Slartibartfast.
Ahaha, that’s a good point!
Honestly, Andrew Hussie secretly being Slartibartfast isn’t all that far-fetched.
“Thank you all for being here, whether you’re among these 500 or not! I hope to make it worth it. :)” You’re welcome! And so far so good.
😀
So what happened to doing the asks on Tuesday?
A communication mishap caused me to get the asks a bit later than intended, too late to start answering them. I should’ve said something, sorry.
Menja, Ginormica, Mt. Lady and Opal. Giant woman free-for-all battle. Who would win?
I think my money is on Opal, since she has a bunch of other powers and a seriously powerful bow, with Menja in second (a.k.a. the winner if the extra powers disqualify Opal) because her power also reduces the effective size of incoming attacks, making her even more defended than your average giant woman.
This was a better chapter than I expected, honestly.
I was expecting a lot more moping than we got, and I think it’s a good thing that I was wrong. There’s only so much wallowing in guilt we can get before it gets stale.
The chapter still noticeably touched on the issue of Taylor not viewing the Mannequin fight as a success and more heavily on the subject of Dinah, but in a better way. Skitter finally opened up about the latter to someone whose perspective might help her to deal with this more healthily if she’ll just listen to him, and she’s seeing positive consequences of the former.
Regarding the latter, I think it’s nice to see that the swarm is growing now. I really like that Wildbow brought in some former ABB members for this, and Taylor’s plan to make the territory more livable for more people is very good.
Next chapter… is Interlude 12. That was the end of the Arc! As usual with Interludes, it’s very difficult for me to speculate on what we’ll be getting, but I’m hoping for either Sierra or Charlotte’s perspective.
So yeah! See you soon!
“Can’t afford slow and steady,” I said.
“Why? You were telling me earlier, but we got interrupted.”
I’d been glad for the interruption, and I was profoundly disappointed the subject had come up again.
Why, though. Is it that you don’t want to tell Grue your answer, or that you don’t have an answer?
I folded my arms and looked away, down the road to where it gradually sloped to the shattered Boardwalk and the ocean beyond.
Here was the leap of faith. The test of my trust in him. “Because if I don’t amaze Coil, if I don’t force his hand and give him absolutely no reason to say I failed… he’s going to keep Dinah. If he does, the only way to free her is going to be if Tattletale and I take Coil down. And I don’t think we’d succeed.”
Taylor.
It’s not going to work. He’ll find a way, and if he doesn’t, well… he’s an “honorable” man who’s been true to his word so far, but I still think he’d go back on the deal if he had to.
“Seems like you started something,” Grue said, when the last of them were out of earshot.
I shook my head. “I don’t even understand how.”
Sierra seems to get it, at least.
“Still think you’re moving too fast. Like I said earlier, there’s no good reason for it.”
“Dinah’s a good enough reason for me.”
I’m mostly with Grue, thinking Taylor is focusing too hard on Dinah, but I get where she’s coming from. She feels responsible for the whole thing, so she feels she has to correct it at any cost to her own well-being.
“Maybe. But you’ve got to find time to relax, get some sleep, maybe have some fun. Or you’re going to make mistakes, and you’ll set yourself back days or weeks in your plan. Slow and steady wins this race.”
Yes.
It took the one in the lead a bit of courage before he could approach me.
Hello!
“Yes?” I asked, when he didn’t speak.
“We were remembering how some girl was saying you were recruiting, the other day.”
Nice, looks like we’ve got more people who want to join after what just happened.
“I was and I am.” My heart was pounding. Why was this happening now, when it had met with only resistance earlier?
I mean, Sierra basically spelled it out just about a dozen paragraphs ago.
“Don’t want to do anything illegal.”
“Not asking you to. You okay with starting with some clean-up?”
That’s reasonable. Not all her employees are going to be okay with the more legally dubious parts.
He looked at his buddies -or were they brothers?- and nodded.
“Sierra here will tell you what needs to be done. Put in a good effort and I’ll pay you at the end of the day.” My thoughts were on the small safe that I was using as a bedside table.
The swarm is expanding rapidly now!
His eyes widened slightly at that. “Mind if I go and get my cousin? He’ll be interested too.”
Oh wow, it seems like he didn’t realize he’d get paid. I suppose she didn’t say anything explicitly about monetary payment back at the announcement of her takeover.
“Go.” I ordered, and Sierra led two of them inside while the leader of the newest group ran off at a half-jog.
Excellent.
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