Web Serial Thread: Wildbow Fanclub

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veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

The stated reason was to slow down the pacing a little now that we aren't in the thick of the action anymore.

# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:08

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# ? May 12, 2024 14:51

Fellwenner: Oct 21, 2005; Don't make me kill you.

Tollymain posted:

So I'm guessing that Wildbow has been moving away from Thursday updates because they are working on their next new thing in part? I thought I read it somewhere, but I can't remember so I'm not going to outright assume.

Something like that.

quote:

WyldCard4 on November 5, 2013 at 12:45 AM said:

This is a very random question.

Is this due to taking more of a general break after finishing the closing chapters of Worm, to make more time to complete different sample works, because the donations are going to epilogues which extend Worm�fs length instead of density now, or some other reason?

Reply ��

wildbow on November 5, 2013 at 12:48 AM said:

Yes.

Reply ��

# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:14

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

The best kind of answer :v:

# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:21

Virigoth: Apr 28, 2009; Corona rules everything around me
C.R.E.A.M. get the virus
In the ICU y'all......

I'd slow down also. That was an intense loving month.

# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:23

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

I would guess that a sequel would be a 1.5 megaword epic. I'd assume it would be on a smaller, more publishable scale.

# ? Nov 8, 2013 22:42

Oovee: Jun 21, 2007; No life king.

So I read this thing, it took a while.. But what a ride.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 01:43

thorf: Jun 26, 2013

thespaceinvader posted:

The overriding theory is that they're there (for some reason and created/directed by someone) to provide something for capes to fight in order for their shards to develop, but that theory is not without its problems (mostly that they killed a gently caress of a lot of capes).

Sure, but if the Endbringers didn't exist, then the Protectorate would fight in a totally different way. Think about the assault on the Protectorate after Leviathan's attack: The Undersiders kidnapped Shadow Stalker, and essentially used her as a hostage. Imagine what the response to that would be if these were non-capes, and they had kidnapped a police officer.

Because of the Endbringers, more villians stay on the streets.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 04:47

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

Doesn't Tattletale explain pretty early on her theory about the cops-and-robbers approach superheros take? I don't remember where exactly it came up, or what the finer (or any, really) details of it were, but I remember thinking it was pretty convincing at the time. And it didn't refer to Endbringers at all.

Edit: found it. http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/agitation-3-6/

Grundulum fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Nov 9, 2013

# ? Nov 9, 2013 05:45

OmniBeer: Jun 5, 2011; This is no time to
remain stagnant!

New update!

Man, I'm glad that Dragon gets a happy ending, even if it's bittersweet. She was always one of my favorite characters throughout the story.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:22

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

This chapter here is basically a microcosm of what made me like Worm in the first place. Great characters who have strong motivations and history together, and it shows in all their interactions. Also, the dividing line between hero and otherwise is razor-thin, and sometimes you just can't know which side of things your actions carry you.

That, and the fact that in the middle of all this we have almost throwaway jokes about making kids.

I would gladly read more about the Wormverse, because Wildbow does such a fantastic job with his characters. It doesn't need to be cosmically important like the main arc was. Even just dealing with the day-to-day kinds of things is fascinating now that we know all the players so well from the main arc.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:35

Einander: Sep 14, 2008; "Yeh've forged a magnificent sword."

"This one's only practice. The real sword I intend to forge will be three times longer."

"Can there really be a sword as monstrous as that in this world?"

"Yes. I can see that sword... Somewhere out there..."

I think that was probably the best chapter of Worm I've seen, and by a good margin... And I love the rest of the series. Wow. Colin and Dragon have come a hell of a long way since we first saw them.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:35

OneTwentySix: Nov 5, 2007; fun
FUN
FUN

I really liked that, mostly because I really, really like Dragon and I was so sure that Wildbow was setting us up for "Dragon has to die so Dragon can live" kinda thing, and while that happened, it was the new Dragon that died, which completely reinforced why I loving love Dragon so much. I also love how the best (in terms of awesomeness to the reader, and in-universe as a quality individual) character is a computer.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:42

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

I definitely think Wildbow has gotten stronger as a writer over the past 2 years.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:49

Skippy McPants: Mar 19, 2009

OneTwentySix posted:

I also love how the best (in terms of awesomeness to the reader, and in-universe as a quality individual) character is a computer.

It's definitely refreshing to have an A.I. character who isn't the stereotypical megalomaniac.

Edit: Also, whenever it might get around to happening, Teacher is now completely hosed. He's not even decent sequel fodder he's so throughly hosed.

Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Nov 9, 2013

# ? Nov 9, 2013 06:58

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Dragon is good because she's a person first and an AI second. Probably the same way you write a good minority character if you are not that minority.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 07:13

NecroMonster: Jan 4, 2009

Is Defiant dead? I'm really not clear on that.

Also, just to make a wild loving guess here; Teacher is being set up for a fall, but it's not going to happen. Everyone is going to come after him and he's either going to win or at least get away despite their best attempts. Then some time later he's going to show up, scared out of his loving mind and demanding to be locked up, and no one is going to know what the gently caress, that is of course until Lisa notices some tiny little detail, goes full Sherlock on it, and breaks into a huge grin. End Serial.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 07:24

Algid: Oct 10, 2007

NecroMonster posted:

Is Defiant dead? I'm really not clear on that.

Nope. He just got shoved around a bit and Pandora downloaded herself into his computer bits for a while.

I'm also very much looking forward to teacher getting his poo poo kicked in.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 07:37

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

I'm really not seeing the Taylor thing happening. If she lived its a secret from everyone including Imp.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 07:39

NecroMonster: Jan 4, 2009

It'd have to be a secret, for Taylor to really get any peace she'd need to be separated from that life as much as possible. Best case scenario she'd have lost her powers AND all of her memories from before she was put into the locker, but I'm not actually expecting that easy an end for her, mostly because I don't think "everything is magically all better for Taylor" really fits. So, if she is alive (and I am reasonably sure she is) "sever ties" would likely be the best thing for her mental health.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 07:55

veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

NecroMonster posted:

Is Defiant dead? I'm really not clear on that.

Also, just to make a wild loving guess here; Teacher is being set up for a fall, but it's not going to happen. Everyone is going to come after him and he's either going to win or at least get away despite their best attempts. Then some time later he's going to show up, scared out of his loving mind and demanding to be locked up, and no one is going to know what the gently caress, that is of course until Lisa notices some tiny little detail, goes full Sherlock on it, and breaks into a huge grin. End Serial.

Defiant hugged Dragon at the end. He's very much alive.

As for Teacher, what he deserves might not be what he gets. He does have one of the few enclaves of people that are doing well, almost all his Thinkers and Tinkers survived the battle with Scion because they were the final surprise. In a sense, without Dragon as opposition, he'd likely win unless a group of heavy hitters went for a headshot at this point.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 08:34

SerSpook: Feb 13, 2012

veekie posted:

Defiant hugged Dragon at the end. He's very much alive.

As for Teacher, what he deserves might not be what he gets. He does have one of the few enclaves of people that are doing well, almost all his Thinkers and Tinkers survived the battle with Scion because they were the final surprise. In a sense, without Dragon as opposition, he'd likely win unless a group of heavy hitters went for a headshot at this point.

I'm pretty certain that last thing is exactly what's happening for what it's worth.

# ? Nov 9, 2013 08:49

Quincy80: Jul 3, 2012

veekie posted:

Defiant hugged Dragon at the end. He's very much alive.

As for Teacher, what he deserves might not be what he gets. He does have one of the few enclaves of people that are doing well, almost all his Thinkers and Tinkers survived the battle with Scion because they were the final surprise. In a sense, without Dragon as opposition, he'd likely win unless a group of heavy hitters went for a headshot at this point.

Teacher is going to get what he deserves. He held Dragon hostage with his program, It's one the main reasons nobody's killed him yet. Since he's still causing problems through proxies, somebody is going to whack him and no number of Thinker/Tinker 1 are going to stop the big guns. There doesn't need to be a head shot, someone like Valkyrie or Legend could just roll over the lot of them.

Quincy80 fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 11, 2013

# ? Nov 10, 2013 23:07

Thom Yorke raps: Nov 2, 2004

Finally worked out how to get this on to my Kindle. If he ever publishes I'll buy it, but for now I want to read in bed. It seems like Wildbow is ok with them existing but it is a bit of a grey area and I'd rather not just post mobi. I'm going by this:

quote:

Q2a: Can I have an ebook version for free? I�d like to read offline.

A2a: I have some, but I�d rather not distribute them. There�s unethical sorts who are taking others� work and claiming it as their own (often with a title/name change) and I�d rather not make it easier for them. I know there�s a few fanmade ebook versions circulating, I accept that it�ll happen, but I don�t want to help the process along.

I used this: http://www.httrack.com/ to grab the site, then a Python script to create an index page and copy all of the chapters to the same folder, and pull out all of the non storyline elements. Far from the best code I've ever written, but you should be able to get it running with some effort. You have to manually copy the toc.html file to the output folder because I'm too lazy to fix the script.

code:

import os
import re

outputDir = "output"
inputDir = "."

tocString = "<a href=\"$$fileName$$.html\">$$chapterName$$</a><br/>"
toc = [];
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(inputDir):
    for file in files:
        shouldContinue = False;
        isEpilogue = False
        splitRoot = root.split("\\");
        for dirName in splitRoot:
            isEpilogue = dirName.startswith("e-") ;
            if ("arc" in dirName and not "stories-arcs" in dirName) or isEpilogue:
                if isEpilogue or len(splitRoot) > 3:
                    shouldContinue = True;
            if "page" == dirName:
                shouldContinue = False;
                break;
        if file.endswith("index.html") and shouldContinue and not "feed" in root:
            fileNameLocation = 1 if isEpilogue else 2
            chapterName = splitRoot[fileNameLocation + 1];
            fileName = splitRoot[fileNameLocation] + "-" + chapterName;
            output = tocString.replace("$$fileName$$", fileName).replace("$$chapterName$$", chapterName)
            toc.append(output);
            
            inputFile = open(os.path.join(root, file), 'r')
            fileContents = inputFile.read();
            inputFile.close()
            fileContents = re.sub(r'<footer.*', "", fileContents, 0, re.DOTALL);
            fileContents = re.sub(r'<!DOCTYPE html>.*<div class="entry-content">', "", fileContents, 0, re.DOTALL);
            fileContents = "<html><body>" + fileContents + "</body></html>"
            
            outputFile = open(os.path.join(outputDir, fileName + ".html"), 'w');
            outputFile.write(fileContents)
            outputFile.close()
indexFile = open("toc.html", 'w')
indexFile.write("<html> <body> <h1>Table of Contents</h1> <p style=\"text-indent:0pt\">")
for href in toc:
    indexFile.write(href + "\n")
indexFile.write("</p></body></html>")
indexFile.close();

And then imported that into Calibre, converted to Mobi, and it works! With a table of contents

# ? Nov 11, 2013 00:17

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

New update, from Bitch's perspective. How many are left after this, one or two?

# ? Nov 12, 2013 07:23

SerSpook: Feb 13, 2012

TOOT BOOT posted:

New update, from Bitch's perspective. How many are left after this, one or two?

Two.

And more stuff on Tattletale planning something. Teacher is so incredibly dead.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 07:44

I Am Fowl: Mar 8, 2008; nononononono

I'm going to be optimistic and say that the bad triggers are due to Scion's shards getting loose and not because the whole process is broken or something.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 07:57

Algid: Oct 10, 2007

That seems like the most likely explanation.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 08:01

veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

Zion chunks should work like Eden chunks.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 08:05

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

So, what ultimately happens now that Zion is dead? Do shards find new owners as capes die, or this is going to be the last generation of superheroes?

# ? Nov 12, 2013 08:18

veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

Shards spawn child shards anyway, so it won't dead end like that.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 08:28

berenzen: Jan 23, 2012

Shards still mature and splinter. So I don't see superheroes going anywhere any time soon.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 08:28

I Am Fowl: Mar 8, 2008; nononononono

I suppose it all depends on how many shards the Fairy Queen nabbed--I wonder if they still mature and split off while she uses them?

But nevertheless, the plan still had them basically releasing all the shards and just waiting for a few centuries. They would manipulate events (as per Eden's vision) but it seems that the shard maturation process largely maintains itself.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 09:06

Vateke: Jun 29, 2010

Did we ever actually find out what Dragon's tinker knack is? Taylor made a lot of guesses, but I don't think she ever figured it out.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 20:30

Xemloth: Mar 27, 2011; Wait, what?

Vateke posted:

Did we ever actually find out what Dragon's tinker knack is? Taylor made a lot of guesses, but I don't think she ever figured it out.

I thought it was that she could understand and effectively combine other tinkers tech?

# ? Nov 12, 2013 20:35

veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

Yeah, Dragon's ability was the skill to adapt and combine technology, though the stuff she makes usually wound up huge until she started collaborating with Colin, with his miniaturization skills.

# ? Nov 12, 2013 20:40

Cryophage: Jan 14, 2012; what the hell is that creepy cartoon thing in your avatar?

Mr. Fowl posted:

I'm going to be optimistic and say that the bad triggers are due to Scion's shards getting loose and not because the whole process is broken or something.

Zion's remaining shards were never intended for human use, and so were never crippled with the Manton effect to keep them from killing their host.

At least that's how I read it.

# ? Nov 13, 2013 01:38

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

Does this chapter suggest that we are actually seeing that the shards that Scion never intended for human use were distributed to humanity after his death? 'Cause if so, whoever gets the "auto victory" clap power is seriously going to ruin a lot of people's days.

# ? Nov 13, 2013 11:13

veekie: Dec 25, 2007; Dice of Chaos

Grundulum posted:

Does this chapter suggest that we are actually seeing that the shards that Scion never intended for human use were distributed to humanity after his death? 'Cause if so, whoever gets the "auto victory" clap power is seriously going to ruin a lot of people's days.

Scion's body itself is made of powers, just like Eden was. It's less distributed, more scattered and splattered all over the place.

# ? Nov 13, 2013 11:19

Algid: Oct 10, 2007

Grundulum posted:

Does this chapter suggest that we are actually seeing that the shards that Scion never intended for human use were distributed to humanity after his death? 'Cause if so, whoever gets the "auto victory" clap power is seriously going to ruin a lot of people's days.

The clap power isn't auto-victory future vision, it's some sort of effect where he bends physics and makes everything sort of stop moving/working. It pretty much breaks all of Newton's laws simultaneously.

He used it before without the clap too, I think against Leviathan he was shooting it out as energy balls or somethings.

# ? Nov 13, 2013 17:16

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# ? May 12, 2024 14:51

Cryophage: Jan 14, 2012; what the hell is that creepy cartoon thing in your avatar?

Algid posted:

The clap power isn't auto-victory future vision, it's some sort of effect where he bends physics and makes everything sort of stop moving/working. It pretty much breaks all of Newton's laws simultaneously.

He used it before without the clap too, I think against Leviathan he was shooting it out as energy balls or somethings.

It sounds a lot like Winter's power, to be honest.

# ? Nov 13, 2013 20:55

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