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I'm so glad there's somewhere goony to talk about web serials (well, Worm, anyway) now. I've been thinking about starting up a discussion of it, but never been sure whether any goons actually like it. The thing that really impresses me I have to say is the inventiveness. So many of the powers are so simple and straightforward-sounding, and yet they manage to become so much more with a little thought. Especially Golem. Love Golem. And yeah, Saint comes off as a complete cock, but wasn't it very heavily implied in the scene where he took down Dragon that it significantly improved the numbers on the end of the world by doing so? I can't help but wonder what it would have looked like had it been one of Dragon trapped in the time-loop listening to Jack persuading her to gently caress the stupid humans and go all skynet...
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Aug 18, 2013 10:37
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Cytokinesis posted:no one knew how to break the loops till Foil came in with her power. I'm not actually sure Foil's power DOES penetrate Gray Boy's loops - he's shown to be able to freeze her darts in midair when he knows they're coming. It was only because she got the drop on him that she was able to kill him (apparently) permanently, due to the *wormnobabbly* nature of her powers, as far as I could tell. She essentially severed his brain from his shard before he could react, and stopped him being able to control it, even reflexively, or they'd still be just as screwed. If Foil CAN shoot through his time-loops though, the people in them will be very grateful, if they ever get the chance to be saved. Just imagine what it must be like for them now, watching Scion *shudder*. Extinction 27.1 confirmed that Foil was never actually trapped, she was faking it until she could get the drop. One is forced to wonder how the gently caress they ever took down the original Gray Boy. I'd wonder the same about Harbinger, except presumably they used Contessa for that one; her powers are like his on steroids.
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Aug 18, 2013 23:05
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Cytokinesis posted:They didn't bring the original Harbringer down. The Number Man is the original Harbringer, and he decided to go straight after he teamed up with Jack to kill King. I know. I guess I just assumed that there was some sort of Cauldron-delivered beatdown involved in his turn from... well, evil to a slightly less absolute evil... much like with the clones... E: and as regards Gray Boy, I think the implication is that his power can loop him back basically as far as when he first triggered, hence his agelessness and always appearing in his original clothes, which is a result of his power resisting any change from his trigger state. It would be VERY difficult to kill him effectively enough that he couldn't get out of it, because even if you nuked him, or whatever, he could rewind to before the nuke, walk a little way, it would go off, he would rewind, walk a little further, repeat until he's out of the danger zone (or more accurately, was never even in it in the first place). Even trapping him wouldn't work, as we saw with the hand crushing him against the wall. His power works instantaneously and entirely involuntarily when protecting him, it's only because Foil's darts cheat that they worked. E again: perhaps more to the point: if Foil's darts can pop through Gray boy's bubbles and kill those inside permanently, wouldn't she have just shot Jack whilst they had the chance, before he talked Scion into loving the world up? thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Aug 18, 2013 |
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Aug 18, 2013 23:30
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Is it just me, or are those two basically the most tragic characters in the whole thing? Either or both of those powers, used judiciously and sensibly, could have basically fixed most of the worst problems in the world. Instead, they're a serial killer and a disturbed mind-rapist. Only Wildbow. On a more spoilery note, did it strike anyone else that the Simurgh's long-distance assassination of Accord by Cody/Perdition another of the really bad things for the setting? It's implied that his power actually works, and he could do things like solve world hunger if given the purse strings, and he'd just got into a position where someone would listen equitably to him, and had enough power to make others do the same in the long run. Bang, lasered. loving inscrutable ENdbringers. I've been wondering whether they're actually naked Shard/Passengers, without the humanising influence...
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Aug 20, 2013 18:43
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I don't think it's been mentioned where the new Endbringers kip. One would imagine that Bohu ought to be obvious, at least. I'd be fine with anything not from the latest arc being non-spoilery myself. It's a pain in the arse typing spoiler tags. I'd imagine most people who get to this stage in the thread and aren't already pissed that this is the only story being discussed (I must pick up some other ones...) would be up-to-date by now.
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Aug 20, 2013 20:31
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Tohu/Bohu showed up onscreen (briefly) in one of the interludes during the timeskip between Behemoth's death and now. Very briefly - i.e. not even a whole interlude IIRC. I think it was one of Golem's chapters.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:20
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Fellwenner posted:So next update is an interlude ... who have we not gotten yet? Perhaps a Glaistig one? I'm fairly sure I heard mention somewhere that there aren't going to be any more interludes until the epilogue, but that any donation-extras will instead simply be extra chapters - which is borne out by Thursday. I'm also pretty tickled that Wildbow commented that readership is up a lot just recently, which I'm fairly sure coincides with this thread existing. I dunno if there's a causal effect, but it's kinda cool if there is.
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Aug 25, 2013 22:56
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Yeah, Bonesaw can do basically anything she needs to (remember, she pulled Grue entirely apart and strung his innards out through a freezer. She could pull of basically anything given time. However given the current situation, time is a luxury they CANNOT afford. I wouldn't be surprised to see Taylor's head/upper body stapled to someone else's (lower)body at this point.
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Aug 26, 2013 08:25
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What's bugging me about this one: didn't Eidolon specifically say that he was a hole in Contessa's powers, and therefore, she had to specifically create scenarios including an analogue of him in order to work on him? Has Scion actually shown that kind of insight into people like, EVER? I'm not convinced Eidolon's done for here. However, hooboy what a chapter.
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Aug 27, 2013 18:26
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On that note, gently caress drat hurry up and release Steelheart, Brandon Sanderson writing capes is gonna be GOOD.
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Aug 27, 2013 22:34
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No, I'm pretty sure Taylor was already gone at that point. I'm a little bugged by this development - whether it's Scion or Eidolon creating the endbringers, it's kind of an overdone plotline I think - it's Sentry from Marvel, it's Red Son, it's kind of... not what I'd expected from Worm. I hope it's actually a double bluff, and Eidolon's fine.
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Aug 29, 2013 22:09
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I like the idea that the Simurgh only needs to appear to lend despair and destruction. That it's enough for her to arrive and act like everything's so hosed she doesn't need to do anything, and THAT is enough to accomplish her goals. Masterfully bleak. I also still wonder whether Eidolon was actually KILLED. Tattletale? says they 'lost' him, but I know authors like Wildbow; that'll actually mean he turned his coat and joined Scion or something... I guess we'll find out when we get some input on what happened in GU's video feed - Rachel mentions that she made it back with the vid intact.
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Aug 31, 2013 11:19
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Indeed - it's black-on-white, for one thing, rather than white-on-black which is hideous to read for long periods.
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Sep 2, 2013 18:37
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SerSpook posted:Well that was a chapter. The Endbringers are freaking the gently caress out it looks like. The question is whether the theories on Eidolon creating them are right and no one control's them now, or if it's a signal from the group that controls them. I think the latter, and I think they're going to be used against Scion. Also, 5 Endbringers and 5 groups mentioned by Dinah? 5 endbringers is obvious. 5 groups, I don't think we actually know yet, but... Undersiders, PRT/Protectorate/Wards, Cauldron, Thanda, Yangban? There are a lot of groups...
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Sep 3, 2013 23:00
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Oh, holy poo poo this is a bad idea.
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Sep 7, 2013 08:39
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I'm still finding it's most likely Scion created them. The implications to me are that basically Eidolon has the counterpart Worm's core shard, the one that would be used to gather them all before the pair went 'gently caress the world, we're off' - but it's difficult to use, and Scion needed Eidolon to use it in order to have a chance at reconstructing his partner. So he gave Eidolon challenges. Once Eidolon fully activated the shard, Scion no longer needed his input, and extracted the mature shard.
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Sep 7, 2013 19:07
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Whichever of Tohu and Bohu is the giant one is the third one on the Undersiders... payroll? They have Levi, Simmy and Bohu, Teacher sold Khonsu to Cauldron, and I don't think it's been revealed what happened to Tohu yet. On another note, thinking about the mist thing... is anyone else slightly worried, even now, that Crawler might be able to regenerate from red mist status back into crawler status? Even more so if he would regenerate into multiple Crawlers... More to the point, was it ever mentioned whether anyone had managed to cut him in half, and if so, what happened?
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Sep 10, 2013 23:10
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Mm, I know, but I keep going back to that bit and thinking how lovely it would be if those crawlers worked like Itchy did in the Simpsons pisstake of Fantasia... I can just imagine someone having breathed a single particle of mistified Crawler suddenly exploding...
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Sep 11, 2013 00:34
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hollylolly posted:A physical copy would probably take up a whole shelf of my bookcase. I think there was a comment from Wildbow on the latest chapter, saying that the word count is over 1 495 000 words. Assuming it's not finished yet, that's a big-rear end book, probably multiple volumes, actually. WIldbow posted a long thing about how it might be published.
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Sep 13, 2013 19:49
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IIRC there's one particular commenter (Psycho Gecko) infamous for this sort of thing.
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Sep 13, 2013 20:01
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Well, 1.4 million words seems to make a drat loving good writer. And yes, MIGHTILY creeped out by Simurgh singing Tattletale a lullaby *shudder* I do wonder, with the Simurgh, whether she can help the singing when she's actively using her TK to build and move things other than herself. I kind of feel like it might be a side-effect of her powers that she uses anyway, rather than something she does on purpose. Same with Levi's water-shadow.
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Sep 14, 2013 08:34
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Per the agreed spoiler policy, you don't need to spoiler that. But yes, the ante does keep going up from there...
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Sep 15, 2013 09:13
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I don't think it's ever been made explicit what Eidolon's power was - my interpretation is that he actually had the part of Scion's dead partner that was intended to gather all the shards back together (and could access a smaller version of what Scion could do - basically anything any shard can - so that the two could reproduce and literally gently caress the Earths out of existence before they moved on. Up until Eidolon's interlude it was powered by injections of dead shards from the counterpart, but Eidolon finally worked out how to use the power properly - draining living shards from people and collecting their power into himself - which was what Scion needed him to learn in order to stand a chance to fix the counterpart. Once Eidolon had learned to do that, for which he needed worthy opponents, he was no longer of use to Scion, his shard was mature, and Scion said what he needed to to stop Eidolon fighting, so that he could harvest Eidolon's mature shard. Or something.
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Sep 18, 2013 23:08
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Does anyone else wonder how long Foil's power's effects last? Woudln't it be sensible for her just to magic multiple weapons for as many people as possible? We know she can apply the effect for other people from this update and from the behemoth leg-sawing.
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Sep 20, 2013 21:40
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I think you might be confusing Foil with Shadow Stalker - Foil's effect isn't making them unreal and becoming real in the target, it's making them, basically, sharp enough to cut every reality all at once, and kill people no other power has ever been shown to be able to kill, like Grey Boy, and, you know, punching holes in Leviathan etc etc etc. Speaking of Shadow Stalker, why do I get the feeling she's going to somehow be key to the resolution? Not sure how, but it would be fitting...
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Sep 21, 2013 00:31
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Probably GU, yeah. I'd still probably have put her and Eidolon tied - they seem to have very, very similar powers, similar enough that I wonder whether they have the same shard from two different entities. Once GU figures out how to access shards from living capes... The drat shame of the whole thing is that ifr things were more PLANNED, they might have worked. Having Gavel and Lung double-team Scion, for instance. But the whole problem with starting in one place, is that Scion can bug out trivially if you do any damage at all - as we saw with Eidolon. The only possible solutions are to cut him off from his power base (which seems like waht Taylor's planning) or to be able to follow him (which worked for Eidolon and GU, at least until Scion Contessa'd him... thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 08:33
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SerSpook posted:She literally harvested Eidolon. That was one of the ones she used against Scion. And Eidolon could have done exactly the same to her, at the end of his life... I know she, now, is likely the single most powerful, but she wasn't always. But yeah, she's scary as hell, if you think she probably now has Gavel's power, Eidolon's power, various of the power-combining things... Yowsa. I do wonder if she's related to the third entity rather than either of the first two. E: This series is REALLY telling as to the benefits of co-operation and teamwork, though. Just imagine what could have happened if you'd combined the Yangban cape who lets them all share powers, the Yangban cape who lets them all amplify each other's powers, and Gavel, Eidolon, GU, etc etc. Integrating the most powerful into teams, rather than having them work in small groups/individually... thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 11:10
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There is worse to come.
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Sep 25, 2013 23:55
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So, just what the everloving crap is up with Imp? Is she perma-regented? He never showed any implication that he could entirely leave his original body that I recall, but he always was pretty secretive about his powers. Or is she Pretendered? Or was it actually a dose of Teacher all along? It's presumably not Satyrical, given that she still seems to have use of her powers and I don't think Satyrical copies things. But she doesn't seem to be on the earbuds, which you would have expected her to be. Heck knows.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:24
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I dunno - enough has been made of it that I'm pretty sure it's more of a plot point than just character development, particularly in light of the ear buds...
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Sep 26, 2013 22:12
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So, Cuff, how would you feel about supercharging your metal manipulation powers right now?
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Sep 29, 2013 16:51
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I'm a mess of wild-rear end guesses at this point, but the though which stuck with me today was this: could Foil charge Weld with her power? Because that would be cool.
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Oct 2, 2013 18:29
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Bit late for that really. And yeah, holy crap doctor, get a loving clue. Oh wait, you're dead. Welp.
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Oct 3, 2013 18:22
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I must have missed the discussion of Doctor Mother's remains, but it serves her the gently caress right. I also WISH I'd written it down at the time, but I totally called that the giant column of steel would get dropped on Scion the minute he showed up in the facility. It was too good a gun not to go off. Did Sveta make it?
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Oct 5, 2013 09:31
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To be fair, she seems to be more-or-less invulnerable; she can probably survive having a massive steel column dropped on her.
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Oct 5, 2013 14:40
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It's worth noting that some of the danglers are sequel hooks - in particular, the Sleeper has been revealed to be included specifically as a sequel hook IIRC.
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Oct 7, 2013 18:51
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So... Second Entity and Contessa interlude. It transpires the second entity hosed up and accidentally dropped the 'see the path to victory' shard. And I still can't figure out what the everloving gently caress is up with Doctor Mother.
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Oct 12, 2013 11:56
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I don't know, I may have misread something. Or it's possible I just misinterpreted the line about 'her skin being the strangest black colour' as being unnaturally black, rather than just the reaction of a kid who's never seen a black person before.
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Oct 12, 2013 14:11
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Fellwenner posted:It was reflected on by Taylor at some point that her hyper-awareness of everything around her through the fine control of her bugs gave her an advantage. Minute detail stuff like bits of airflow, trajectory, etc. I assume, in retrospect, she was able to shoot him precisely because she was shooting him. Not using her powers. If she'd been throwing bugs at him he'd have known, and avoided it, but she was doing something basically mundane, so he couldn't so easily.
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Oct 16, 2013 19:55
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veekie posted:But in that case a Tinker using a hypertech gun should work just fine. I don't think we've seen this case in order to test it out, to be honest, unless memory fails me. Tinker hypertech has been attempted, but usually Siberian saved him. And let's face it, tinker hypertech was what took him down towards the end. The PRT suits aren't earth-normal tech. Jack could probably tell when she's using her power, and what she's doing with it (directing bugs, feeling their feedback, being more aware of her surroundings), but it doesn't make it any easier to tell that she's going to entirely mundanely pull the trigger of her gun, or where she's entirely mundanely aiming. Thing is, Taylor's power is worrying, mostly because of Wildbow's writing. I'm pretty sure Wildbow would make more-or-less any power terrifying if pushed. Wasn;t there something in one of the comment threads about him taking something super-innocuous as a power and turning it into a super-powered hitman?
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Oct 16, 2013 22:57
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