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Tollymain posted:I missed that part. How does the Simurgh miss? I assume it was the Simurgh, it said the many-winged woman aimed her gun at Taylor when she was in the sky but Taylor got out of the way. I changed my course, and I saw the woman with countless wings standing, the wings spreading, a weapon at her side. My pursuers were backing off, keeping a certain distance or circling around, giving her a wide berth. Was this a way through? If I leveraged enough strength, could I force my way past her? I was scared, but it wasn’t the usual kind of fear. Almost the opposite. I was used to being able to hold things together, with only the outward signs. To channel fear into concrete purpose. This was different, the outward signs limited at best, the underlying fear simultaneously affecting me more. Like so many things, it felt alien, like I wasn’t certain of what I was doing, and it threatened to throw me off course. That fear reached a crescendo as I closed the distance. She aimed the little gun, and I changed course at the last second. That's part of the difficulty of figuring out what's happening during these final chapters, people are being described instead of named. TOOT BOOT fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 05:49
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The Simurgh would only miss if she wanted to, Taylor has nothing that would gently caress with her senses. And the gun still isn't the important part, it's the glass tube inside of it. So she must have "fired" it at Taylor to alter her course, towards Glaistig probably.
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Oct 29, 2013 05:59
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So it looks like Taylor got one final name in the end: Khepri, the Scarab, the Rising Sun. Kinda fitting, really. But holy hell that was an ending. Not often a piece of writing gets me to tear up. berenzen fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 06:01
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I do think, 100% Taylor is gone. I think it would be kinda cheap to write the end with that level of finality and then walk it back in one of the epilogues. I don't think Wildbow would do things that way.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:01
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We still aren't 100% on what the Endbringers' role in all this was working towards.  Wonder if that will come to light in the epilogue.What is the Simurgh's deal?
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Oct 29, 2013 06:08
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TOOT BOOT posted:I do think, 100% Taylor is gone. I think it would be kinda cheap to write the end with that level of finality and then walk it back in one of the epilogues. I don't think Wildbow would do things that way. Contessa wouldn't need two bullets to kill Taylor. So why did she use two?
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Oct 29, 2013 06:11
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So taylor could have a painless, merciful death.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:14
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berenzen posted:So taylor could have a painless, merciful death. Contessa could communicate with someone, as well as if by words, who was unable to communicate at all. Do you really think it'd take her two bullets to give Taylor a painless death?
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Oct 29, 2013 06:19
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NecroMonster posted:Contessa wouldn't need two bullets to kill Taylor. So why did she use two? For the same reason you don't write the happy ending where everyone sees she's recovering and lets her be. She just killed Scion, she's as big of a threat as he is, nothing can be left to chance. She was dead before she hit the ground.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:19
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Tollymain posted:We still aren't 100% on what the Endbringers' role in all this was working towards. Not sure what the Simurgh is trying to do though. edit: I mean, I sort of get what she was doing by helping to kill Scion, the future sight shard didn't parse the questions right so maximizing conflict ends up killing the thinker and Scion, but what's she going to do now? Algid fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 06:31
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Apparently nothing because her big plan to shoot Taylor with a gun that shoots air with a surpurflous glass "people" tube inside failed, because the being who can perfectly see the future and past of nearly anyone she observes missed the definitely dead bug girl with said blow-dryer.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:43
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What a ride. What an ending. Can't wait for the epilogues. I'm hoping for a Tattletale one.
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Oct 29, 2013 06:54
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NecroMonster posted:Contessa wouldn't need two bullets to kill Taylor. So why did she use two? One for Taylor, one for the passenger
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Oct 29, 2013 13:45
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I was hoping for some sort of happy ending. The epilogues will change the tone, but as it stands it's just sad and kind of tragic.
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Oct 29, 2013 14:13
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NecroMonster posted:Apparently nothing because her big plan to shoot Taylor with a gun that shoots air with a surpurflous glass "people" tube inside failed, because the being who can perfectly see the future and past of nearly anyone she observes missed the definitely dead bug girl with said blow-dryer. We might find out in the epilogue that it blew people who were chasing her away, But who knows.
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Oct 29, 2013 14:51
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Virigoth posted:One for Taylor, one for the passenger Or she shot her in the perfect spot to disable her powers but not kill her, and the second shot broke her spine so she couldn't do anything til they fixed her... I hope at least 
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Oct 29, 2013 18:16
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I would really prefer it if she were dead. It makes her whole story of sacrifice for the greater good that much more powerful. And I'm tired of every single media I consume being set up for sequels.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:23
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Well, gently caress. Given the format and the size and scope of the story it's really pretty incredible how well everything fits together. Here's Skitter at Regent's grave - “Then I think about how you went out, and I think… you know, it doesn’t balance out. One selfless deed, after all the poo poo you did? No. But that’s your cross to bear, not mine. I don’t believe in an afterlife or anything like that, but, well, I guess that’s the mark you left. When we die, all that’s left are the memories, the place we take in people’s hearts.” Kind of uncanny how well that works as Taylor's eulogy.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:40
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Dietrich posted:I would really prefer it if she were dead. It makes her whole story of sacrifice for the greater good that much more powerful. And I'm tired of every single media I consume being set up for sequels. There's already stuff seeded for a sequel that isn't necessarily about Taylor. The Sleeper is the most obvious one. But I agree, I don't think Taylor needs to be rehabbed and brought back to normalcy, it works better as her making that one last sacrifice to save the world.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:43
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Dietrich posted:I would really prefer it if she were dead. It makes her whole story of sacrifice for the greater good that much more powerful. And I'm tired of every single media I consume being set up for sequels. Well, wild bow has already stated there will be a sequel, though I think it's just set in the wormverse and not Taylor's pov. I don't think that's been expressly stated, but I think we all assumed she was going to die so wouldn't be the star. I hope the interlude for this arc is Taylor (as opposed to the shard who has been narrating). I think this was the appropriate ending but I feel like I missed out on Taylor digesting everything she's done. I wonder if there's enough left of her to narrate but from the revelation that it's the shard that's been losing language and facial recognition, and the fact that real-Taylor was kind of able to say goodbye to her friends in her own private kind of way, I wonder if she is still there and is just unable to control herself. I don't know.I think Contessa really did kill her and the question she asked her power was not "is taylor savable" but "how does humanity best rebuild from here." And maybe Taylor could have been rehabilitated, but it would have put a strain on the remnants of humanity. But I also think that Simurgh's secret weapon IS for Taylor...Contessa shot to kill but Simurgh hosed up her predictor power by being the Simurgh. Contessa goes off and does something else and Simurgh scoops up Taylor, who is dead or near dead, and the sequel makes reference to Simurgh having Khepri hibernating in stasis and everyone's terrified of when she will wake up and wreak havoc again. Taylor becomes an end boss on the level of Echidna for the sequel's main character and we witness the most heart wrenching battle ever as we hope against hope that the main character can somehow learn that not-shard-Taylor is still in there and alive and reachable...but the new main character does not know her or the details of her story so just kills her and as she is dying she apologizes or somehow otherwise shows real Taylor is in control and it's just soul-crushing. I am a big softie and would actually be delighted if the next chapter were Tattletale inexplicably reviving Taylor to go live happily with her dad and Grue but somehow I think something like the former is more likely.
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Oct 29, 2013 18:52
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One small thing that may give a bit of hope for Taylor is that the Wikipedia picture of Khepri is labeled 'god of rebirth and sunrise.'
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Oct 29, 2013 19:32
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Well, poo poo. That was good.
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Oct 29, 2013 19:54
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Interestingly, it seems that the last we saw of the 'real' Taylor, was the thought that everything went wrong. Everything after that was Administrator, growing increasingly out of touch with Taylor, who became the 'passenger' the invisible impulses that led her to irrationally spare friends. Administrator, who was so incredibly skilled at managing multiple powers and coordinating them to a combined effort. Administrator, who never was human to begin with, and had no use for human concepts like language or empathy. All the ability to communicate derived from Taylor, who, like how Administrator normally supplied her with intuitive knowledge of how to control insects, supplied intuitive language ability to the extent of gross symbols. Except, when her body grew tired and her mind started cracking from the stress, Administrator didn't feel it anymore than the combined pair felt the discomfort of the capes under their control. So Taylor grew weaker and no longer could support Administrator's decision making, she likely collapsed after Scion's defeat, and was only moving by dint of her power controlling her unconscious body. Even when finally knocked unconscious, we know the shard can still operate(see Alexandria), and it held on control, though the Taylor side of the combination recuperated sufficiently to resume some degree of human comprehension and communication. Contessa was thus, trying to verify if there was any way out. A solution which might have the shard release control over Taylor's body, and after that, to restore Taylor's own control. Funny that the unarmored part of her costume, mentioned very much early on, became relevant here.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:00
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Dietrich posted:I would really prefer it if she were dead. It makes her whole story of sacrifice for the greater good that much more powerful. And I'm tired of every single media I consume being set up for sequels.
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Oct 29, 2013 20:01
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Hawkgirl posted:...I hope the interlude for this arc is [spoiler]Taylor (as opposed to the shard who has been narrating). ... but from the revelation that it's the shard that's been losing language and facial recognition, ... As far as I understood things, when Panacea tinkered with Taylor's Power-Having-Brain-Lobe (don't have access to Worm right now to look up the name) it started overwriting stuff elsewhere in her brain as it took up more space and formed new connections. [Edit] Addendum: I'm intrigued at the Worm community's general willingness to give the shards some kind of malevolent anthropomorphism when nothing of the sort is ever really supported. Blasphemeral fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 20:13
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The shards, as part of the process of binding to hosts, are designed to make changes to those hosts that promote conflict seeking behavior. I'm not sure if this is enough to call the shards "evil", but the process of binding to hosts is definitely not a completely positive one. The more I try to convince myself that Taylor is dead the less and less I am able to. Contessa can as good as read Taylor's mind "Didn’t deserve to, either way." is the answer that she got, and it's at least to Taylor, an honest one. It's also very indicative of Taylor's self doubt and self questioning. Then you have the two bullets, and The Simurgh. If the Simurgh wanted Taylor dead, she wouldn't have fired a blow-dryer at Taylor, let alone a blow-dryer that Taylor dodged, she could have easily used her Telekinetic abilities and her amazingly powerful senses to kill Taylor then and there, but she didn't. Instead she seems to have altered Taylor's course to point her toward Glaistig. So either Taylor is alive, or the meeting with Taylor was used as a method of effecting Contessa somehow. But I am pretty drat sure at this point that Eidolon didn't create the Endbringers, unknowingly or otherwise. The claim that Contessa's power wouldn't work on Eidolon is probably complete bullshit, after all, Zion's sure did, yet Contessa never seemed to think Eidolon was the source. No, the only thing that Contessa's powers have ever failed to work on are Worms, and Endbringers. And the Endbringers didn't really work as "powerful foes" for Eidolon anyway, they didn't target him, they where simply way to impersonal for that. On top of all of that the Simurgh probably has Dinah's power, or at least a form of it, and may well have "the path to vitory" as well. But maybe the most telling thing here is the reaction that the Endbringers actually caused from capes, and people in general. Co-operation. Which was very counter to the Worms goals, and to Eidolon's personality as well.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:37
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veekie posted:Interestingly, it seems that the last we saw of the 'real' Taylor, was the thought that everything went wrong. Everything after that was Administrator, growing increasingly out of touch with Taylor, who became the 'passenger' the invisible impulses that led her to irrationally spare friends. Administrator, who was so incredibly skilled at managing multiple powers and coordinating them to a combined effort. Administrator, who never was human to begin with, and had no use for human concepts like language or empathy. That's pretty much my understanding, yeah, and I'm extremely impressed with how well it comes across when read that way. It's a good job Wildbow got this much practice getting to this point because drat he got good at this.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:41
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veekie posted:Interestingly, it seems that the last we saw of the 'real' Taylor, was the thought that everything went wrong. Everything after that was Administrator, growing increasingly out of touch with Taylor, who became the 'passenger' the invisible impulses that led her to irrationally spare friends. Administrator, who was so incredibly skilled at managing multiple powers and coordinating them to a combined effort. Administrator, who never was human to begin with, and had no use for human concepts like language or empathy. This is great and I'm glad you posted it because it makes so much sense.
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Oct 29, 2013 21:58
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NecroMonster posted:The more I try to convince myself that Taylor is dead the less and less I am able to. Contessa can as good as read Taylor's mind "Didn’t deserve to, either way." is the answer that she got, and it's at least to Taylor, an honest one. It's also very indicative of Taylor's self doubt and self questioning. Then you have the two bullets, and The Simurgh. If the Simurgh wanted Taylor dead, she wouldn't have fired a blow-dryer at Taylor, let alone a blow-dryer that Taylor dodged, she could have easily used her Telekinetic abilities and her amazingly powerful senses to kill Taylor then and there, but she didn't. Instead she seems to have altered Taylor's course to point her toward Glaistig. So either Taylor is alive, or the meeting with Taylor was used as a method of effecting Contessa somehow. The thing that 100% sealed the deal for me, other than the stupidity of writing a poignant ending and then walking it back in the epilogue, was some of the textual evidence that was brought up in the comments. The first part being that Contessa is described as double tapping the s9 clones to kill them, and Bonesaw describing how removing the Corona doesn't remove your powers. I guess theoretically there could be something involving the Simurgh where she survives but I doubt that too.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:26
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I wouldn't call a victim, who longed for salvation and protection, and did everything in her power to give those things she had been denied to others, dieing a victim, having never been saved, poignant. I'd call it fatalistic and depressing.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:53
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NecroMonster posted:Fatalistic and depressing. Worm, boiled down to 3 words.
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Oct 29, 2013 22:55
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NecroMonster posted:I wouldn't call a victim, who longed for salvation and protection, and did everything in her power to give those things she had been denied to others, dieing a victim, having never been saved, poignant. I'd call it fatalistic and depressing. You don't think Taylor giving up everything to save humanity is good on its own? What would the point be if she got to walk away in the end?. We're just going to have to agree to disagree there. Good stories don't require happy endings. On some level I agree with you, that's what 'should' have happened but life doesn't work that way most of the time. TOOT BOOT fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 23:03
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Why save humanity if humanity cannot save one abused girl? What is humanities value if the only thing that can save it is it's own victims? And why create so drat much ambiguity at Taylor's fate at the end if there is no chance that she actually survived. We've still got one more official chapter of the story to go, an epilogue, before the bonus epilogues. For the record I don't believe this is a "bad" ending, or that stories need to have happy endings in order to be good stories. I just don't feel like all of the details, and the overall story itself, completely meshes with the idea that Taylor is dead. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 23:15
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She's made many sacrifices all the way getting to this point, and sacrificed people and things of value. She's crossed lines, done the unforgivable and finally became a monster. All that was to do the right thing, in the end. She already chose to sacrifice herself at the end of the last arc, and while painful, it'd quite cheapen her decision if she got out of it 'free'. There is a happy(ish) ending for humanity, but really, what she could hope for in the end was just to have an ending at all.
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Oct 29, 2013 23:16
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Blasphemeral posted:Wait, what? Where is this coming from? Did you scrape through all the horrible crap in the comments section and find this tidbit, or is this your own personal WAG on what's going on? Sorry, that was just my take, I shouldn't have stated it so unequivocally. Like I said I am terribly soft and would in fact be overjoyed if Worm managed to have a happy ending. Therefore the last few chapters being a narration by the shard, who is simply losing connection to realTaylor through Panacea's changes, is much preferable to me to Panacea's changes causing the shard to overwrite her brain. I think it is plausible that my theory is correct but I probably shouldn't have said it like it was word of god. If the chapters since "everything went wrong" are shard-narrated though, I think I am correct. quote:[Edit] Addendum: That's not quite how I feel. I think the shard, when it molded with Taylor's brain, just kind of became part of her. Then Panacea basically released it from its bond with Taylor (but this is where our reads differ I think. Sounds like you think that Panacea was able to release it by destroying Taylor. I think (hope) that it's more like releasing a grip on something). I think once that happened the shard had to create its own identity to be able to act. That's why it kept thinking about finding a conflict. It was making its own anchors on reality. I really do think my 'revelation' is correct, because otherwise the autopilot is the shard, and why would the shard give any craps about saying goodbye or letting people go? I don't think the shards were ever their own identities until Panacea separated this one in particular. What's a WAG, by the way? Edit: I forgot to add that I extra think I am right and Taylor still existed in there, mostly intact because the narrator let the autopilot talk to Contessa. And it wasn't just Contessa's power letting the shard communicate because Contessa even noted that Taylor was more lucid than before. To me that means that the shard was allowing Taylor to talk to Contessa; before, all that stuttering was the shard trying to use words like it was used to doing while fused with Taylor. The shard is definitely only recently self-aware because it thinks of Taylor's memories as its own (like when she mourns her reading ability) but as it became more and more independent, it couldn't access those memories anymore. It couldn't access her powers of speech and comprehension either. But I think Taylor still has them because she could talk to Contessa. Even if I'm right I still think this ends tragically. I just hope that Taylor gets to have one last chapter where she looks at everything she's done, truly owns her status as monster, and says goodbye to the Undersiders. Even if it's just silently in her own head as she talks to Contessa and is then killed. Hawkperson fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 00:27
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The shards do have minds of a sort, if not quite actual personalities. The Worms are basically gestalt entities formed from shards which have either managed to cooperate with other shards or obtain dominance and an overarching will. Each shard has the capacity to remember(we have two forms of this, the flashbacks and Tinker skills are both shard memories), learn and adapt. They have a directive which is consistent through to their earlier stage of evolution, they are driven by conflict in the long ago past, conflicts of resources, knowledge and dominance. We know all that from their point of view interlude.
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Oct 30, 2013 01:03
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Hawkgirl posted:What's a WAG, by the way? Wild-Assed Guess
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Oct 30, 2013 02:16
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NecroMonster posted:But I am pretty drat sure at this point that Eidolon didn't create the Endbringers, unknowingly or otherwise. The claim that Contessa's power wouldn't work on Eidolon is probably complete bullshit, after all, Zion's sure did, yet Contessa never seemed to think Eidolon was the source. No, the only thing that Contessa's powers have ever failed to work on are Worms, and Endbringers. And the Endbringers didn't really work as "powerful foes" for Eidolon anyway, they didn't target him, they where simply way to impersonal for that. On top of all of that the Simurgh probably has Dinah's power, or at least a form of it, and may well have "the path to vitory" as well. But maybe the most telling thing here is the reaction that the Endbringers actually caused from capes, and people in general. Co-operation. Which was very counter to the Worms goals, and to Eidolon's personality as well. Algid fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 02:52
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Algid posted:Eidolon got the collection of shards that wasn't broken up, the part that would have controlled the main base of power for the thinker. The thinker's early simulation involved Scion granting shards to humans with her molding shards into endbringers. Contessa's power definitely works on Eidolon, we know that from Eidolon's interlude, that doesn't mean she ever found the need to direct her power against him and completely crush him. It's also not clear that Scion even knows what's going on, using the power just directs him to output a response that causes him to win. That also doesn't mean the statement was completely true, it was just what was needed to allow Scion to win in the easiest way. Eidolon wanted a challenge for the same reason all capes did, the shards promoted conflict seeking behavior, but it's also true that endbringer shards were planned from the start by the thinker. As for cooperation, that's actually a change prompted by the defective future sight shard. The thinker sought to maximize conflict, without filtering the question, maximizing conflict means the death of the thinker and the eventual battle with Scion, which obviously requires cooperation and even direct help from the endbringers. Honestly, I just though the four words were pointing out to Eidolon that he was completely right, he just needed a powerful enough enemy to bring out his full potential, and the sheer number of implications that can be read into that statement paralyzed him for long enough for Scion to wreck his poo poo. The dude was clearly already feeling guilty about his little quest at times, as seen in the Echidna fight.
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Oct 30, 2013 03:08
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Contessa's power tells her everything there is to know about someones power. If Eidolon was making the Endbringers, she would have known. Hell just being capable of creating the Endbringers would have been clue enough to tip Contessa off. Wild rear end theory time. What would be a better way for the Worms to solve their problems of stagnant evolution and inevitable overpopulation than the borrowed adaptation that Eden and Zion went with? How about Competition? How about you create a new race (or alter an existing one), that can compete with your own (you being a Worm in this case) for space and resources, and not just compete, but compete directly. Would that work, creating a worthy foe? You'd introduce evolutionary pressure, and assuming neither species can completely gain the upper hand on the other, or that they would choose to not compete, you'd have a method of keeping both groups populations in check. But how would one jump-start this process? the Worms are so very much more powerful than (as far as we know) anything else in all of existence, actually getting to the point that your creation could compete without getting eliminated would be a long shot. Unless of course, if you find a method of granting this species power to compare to the Worms own. NecroMonster fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Oct 30, 2013 |
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Oct 30, 2013 03:15
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