I'm expecting the Birdcage, with Regent and Imp for backup. We've gone too long with Skitter relying mostly on Tattletale and Grue for support in the big things, which was hinted at in the goodbye chapter. Now I see the three of them being separated from those two and Bitch, forced into an arena where most of their enemies are already settled and where we've already seen a few interludes of (Wildbow uses interludes to introduce new characters, so it makes sense that the Birdcage would play a large part in the story).

Regent already has a murder or two to his name so chances are he'd go down. Given that Imp is a Stranger class villain it would be likely impossible to put her on trial, so I expect a kangaroo court of some kind. If Grue is the one that died I can see that having a huge effect on her as well, which we'd get to see in detail if she went to the Birdcage with Skitter.

All in all, I'm liking the way this is going.

 

I wonder if neither Bitch nor Grue was killed. Maybe Tagg and Alexandria were just trying to push Taylor into retaliating and they knew if she thought one of her teammates had been killed, that she would flip a shit. They're both arrogant enough to think that Taylor couldn't really do anything in her position, not against Alexandria, and they knew that if she tried something, it would essentially seal her fate.

Never saw anyone in the black body bag after all.


Also, the image of skitter, head down, eyes closed, hand and and ankle cuffed to the seat, still disarming multiple people and potentially killing Tagg and Alexandria is probably the coolest thing I've read in forever.

 

Mhm. I'm inclined to disagree with that perspective. Tagg and Alexandria had no way of knowing how much coverage Skitter still has in the building. Tagg also reacts very, very subtly to the news. I think you're right that they're arrogant about her demands, but the quality of restraints she's in seem to suggest they do take her as a serious threat. Despite Tagg's needling.

Honestly, I would hate it if this was a fake character death. It's about time that one of the Undersiders was taken down based on their track record. Grue is the most likely candidate imo due to his Trump. Something needed to change and I think this is as good as we're going to get.

 

It's about arrogance. Alexandria is not used to people throwing her final offer in her face and then threatening her the way Taylor did it. So she decided to show her what happens if you do something like that. Either that or things with Grue escalated because she took out Imp. The point of this whole ''5-10 minutes per Undersider'' was to show Taylor how helpless she was against Alexandria. Yeah, that went well. I hope bitch ends up as a vegetable, due to lack of oxygen. I'm only curiousas as to why Alexandria returned after PRT van that last time?

All combined with the orange jumpsuit. An island of calm in the middle of absolute chaos. The most badass mental image I had in a while.

 

The more I think about it the more am thinking that this was all setup by Alexandria. She is clearly smart and like she said she never forgets something once she sees it and she knows about Taylor's bullying and she knows that Taylor is most dangerous when backed into a corner.

Now add the fact that she explicitly tells Skitter how people have tried to kill her(which is the most effective way) and that looks like she was dropping hints for Taylor and trusting she was smart enough to work with them.

Notice there was a time she grabbed Kid win's drones to prevent Taylor from spying, what stopped her from doing this all the time?

Or maybe the simplest solution is the correct one and she was arrogant and underestimated Skitter.

 

It could all have been a set up, but it sounds like a dumb plan to me. I also think the author will get a little reader backlash if he doesn't kill off an Undersider; it'll feel kind of cheap if it was all a ruse without a lot more foreshadowing. I think it's far more likely Brian is dead, as I don't see how his power would be all that useful against the Endbringers or S9 - he can't exert much control of the powers he steals and it's not like you can train yourself up to that.

 

Why would he go to all the trouble of giving Brian another trigger event if he was going to kill him off just like that. If anything Bitch's transformation into a decent person would make the death more meaningful and more impactful.

Makes a lot of sense to me. Especially when we consider that Alexander is at the very least a higher thinker than Skitter.

 

If that's what's really going on, I guess I could swallow it, but it just feels convenient for it just to be an elaborate ruse. So there's some kind of body double in the body bag? Or did they anticipate Skitter not looking inside it?

I can buy Alexandria setting up her own death, if it will really empower her, and I guess I could buy Alexandria doing what she did to give Taylor some kind of edge in court (I guess, but that seems rather farfetched). It does make sense that she would have a much grander plan in the works beyond, "get Taylor mad", considering that she is a thinker, but she has no reason not to kill Rachel. Maybe she wouldn't kill Brian, because she might think him useful in the future, but Rachel's dogs are worthless against the Endbringers, to her knowledge (though I suspect her wolfing might change that). So she might not be dead, but I think it's possible she did still kill somebody; why pull her punches even if it's for an end we're not anticipating as readers.

 

Also, we know through Accord that Cauldron wants the Undersiders in charge of Brockton Bay and that Coil, who was working for/with Cauldron, wanted to make sure Bitch was on the Undersiders. So I think that if anyone died it would be Grue.

 

No, Coil was not working for Cauldron at all. There's no indication that he was aware of their greater plans for him - he was hoping to oppose them if they ever called in their "favour". I think he owed a week of service.

Cauldron were hoping that Coil did something in Brockton Bay, and then after he passed they hoped that the Undersiders would do it in Coil's place - but Cauldron had to be very "hands off", with no direct involvement or communication with either group. It's all very nebulous though, and I'm not sure if it was explained in the text any better than that.

tl;dr: Maybe it is Grue, but the logic you used to reach that conclusion is wrong.

 

So was the latest chapter in line with Cauldron's plans for the Undersiders? Alexandria is ever the Cauldron stooge, and she certainly wasn't "hands-off," escalating things to that point.

 

Doesn't make that much sense to me. Not only is Alexandria a known arrogant quantity, but in a meta perspective having neither Grue nor Bitch dying, but ALSO not having Alexandria dying is very much 'keeping the status quo'.

Yeah, sure, the author has always been one to be afraid of killing anyone in the undersiders and VERY afraid when it comes to hurting Skitter too much, but the whole "nothing happened retcon" is more than just "and things somehow goes well" that the author constantly does.

Now, if i could see a Alexandria plan, it was one to motivate Skitter to escape, possibly bust out her teammate out of jail too. After all, Cauldron DIDN'T like her handing herself in, so she might have been 'pushing' Skitter to try to escape.

If you go by 'knowing Skitter', she has a M.O in those situation: Kidnap Tagg, escape, make sure her team escape too. Possibly make enough Damage to keep her rep.

Skitter just killing Alexandria and Tagg while neither defending herself nor trying to help her teammates escape? that's not her M.O

As for all those "hints" Alexandria gave, i see them as the usual "i know everything, you can't touch me" warning: she wanted Skitter to escape, not to do anything dumb like trying to fight her.

 

Can anyone explain to me what I just read? Seriously, I have no clue what just happened.

 

All I can fathom is that Alexandria meant to put Skitter into a corner and force her to do her flip-out, but didn't expect her to be able to kill her.

As in, Alexandria, Defiant, and Dragon were all in on it. Maybe MM as well.

They were going to give her a Get Out of Jail Free card.

 

Short form? Im pretty sure Alexandria meant for all of this to happen.

She just miscalculated something about how Skitter was going to react. Could be Tagg's death, her own (especially if she only wanted to fake it), or Grue/ Bitch's. I think we'll figure that out next chapter. I'm also getting the uncanny valley feeling due to the evacuation. No way they'd leave her behind...unless there was a bigger threat somewhere else.

I have to commend Wildbow, all the little idiosyncratic moments here have come together in a pretty twisted way. Tagg was one dimensional because that was his job, Alexandria wasn't arrogant - she was purposefully manipulating Skitter to flip out.

 

Let's take a moment here to consider that Skitter basically killed Superman by drowning with bugs. Awesome.

 

Skitter = Wormverse's Squirrel Girl.

Fairly confused as well. Maybe everyone was running a different game, and it resulted in bug drownings?

 

So Skitter's bugs act on their own now. There are three explanations that come immediately to mind:

1. Skitter is so used to controlling bugs that her subconscious can do it now.
2. Skitter's "passenger" was controlling the bugs.
3. Skitter was awake to give orders, and her memory was later erased.

Option three seems to be ruled out by the rest of the chapter. What are the odds that her believed death of a teammate caused her to have a second trigger event, and this is the first noticeable difference?

- -- ----

Also, I don't get what happened with D&D. Glad I'm not alone in that.

>Tagg is dead!
>>Alexandria is dead!!

 

The plan may have been for her to kill Tagg and incapacitate Alexandria with bug-drowning, but they didn't figure on how fast and effective Skitter would be with the silk in her airway? It still doesn't quite make sense, but I think having Skitter kill Tagg was probably part of the plan.

The evacuation would make sense if Behemoth attacked, but in that case Dragon and Defiant probably wouldn't be free. The remaining Undersiders should be somewhere, as they still have Tattletale, Bitch/Grue, Parian, Fletchette, and whatever mercs they found available and Alexandria obviously can't disrupt them anymore. The mass absence of bugs is a weird note too. And all the silk cords (maybe her subconscious was using them for something?)

On a lighter note, despite how annoyed Skitter is with Tinker powers and how adaptable they are, I get the sense that everyone else is completely fed up with how adaptable Skitter is. I can just picture Defiant shouting "What is this I don't even..." as Skitter tried to push him off the roof.

EDIT: Maybe Taylor triggered again and it has something to do with all the unconscious bug-activity and why all the bugs are gone, and also how entirely ridiculously effective she was with her power in this most recent section.