Now now, before you cuss me out for tossing in some random new characters just to resolve everything quickly, remember when Ichabod radioed for help back in Page 190? …no, you probably don’t, because it was an insignificant background event, and that was ages ago anyway. Well what about the two mysterious figures we glimpsed in Page 271? That totally… um… didn’t establish much beyond the fact that two people… somewhere… existed. Um, OH! I know! This isn’t even the first time we’ve seen Sophia! Ichabod talked to her way back in Page 47! …way before anyone was even reading this thing on a regular basis.

Yeah, in retrospect, I would have liked to foreshadow the arrival of Sophia and Claire more than I did, but the plot was severely overstuffed as it was (I actually had to drop whole characters and subplots to keep this story from getting even more out of control than it already was) and there just weren’t enough opportunities. Oh well, at least all the characters besides Ichabod (and maybe Avatar) are just as surprised by this as you.

Oh, by the way, Sophia’s last name is borrowed from Dominic Deegan creator Michael “Mookie” Terracciano. There’s no real significance to that, I just wanted a name that was long and unwieldy but still recognizably real, and that’s the first thing that came to mind. My brain exchanged originality for shout-outs and in-jokes a LONG time ago.

(Historical Notes: Claire has gone through… I think THREE glasses shapes since this?  I keep struggling to find a design that doesn’t look too much like someone else’s)