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TOOT BOOT posted:And again the stakes get higher, using the capes that were too dangerous to let loose even in the face of extinction.... I'm not absolutely convinced she's not going there purely to call out Dragon. There'll be something about Dragon not being able to fight with maximal effect without bringing her core to which the shard is attached, cue Taylor taking over and becoming legitimately the scariest loving thing in the world. Scion can only kill you. Taylor can take over.
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Oct 19, 2013 10:39
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Tollymain posted:E: So what's the deal with Sleeper? I've seen him referenced a few times, but I don't think I've noticed them all. Anybody got the sum total of information we've received so far? Basically: is really loving scary, no-one wants to gently caress with him, implied to generally be asleep. When awake, the first thing he did was go through a portal and subsume an entire world. And then, what's in this chapter. Basically, super-mysterious, super-scary, no real details as yet.
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Oct 22, 2013 21:27
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Tollymain posted:Was he a Cauldron result? Not stated to the best of my knowledge, but knowing the story, probably. NecroMonster: that's basically my guess - I'd assume that he has some sort of wide-scale dream-manipulation schtick.
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Oct 23, 2013 19:52
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Hrm, is it just me or is her command of language getting better the more of her army dies? I'm so looking forward to Saturday.
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Oct 24, 2013 19:01
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I wouldn't be surprised if that was completely intentional - there's a LONG game at work here. But conversely, good writers of things like this tend to drop in bits and pieces that sound cool at the time, and hang plot on them later, so it could go either way.
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Oct 24, 2013 20:12
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Hawkgirl posted:I kind of get it but I need someone to walk me through it. Oliver was important because he drank half a potion, right? Did he drink the other half of Noelle's thing? I forget. Anyhow, he drank the "balance" half, and that makes him like the entity because...I can't quite put it together. Because his appearance and identity changes on some variable that I can't decipher? That made him seem like the partner entity to Scion? Fuuuuck, that is so  the first few chapters REALLY got to me because of the bullying, and that makes me depressed D:Astonishingly good chapter, though.
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Oct 26, 2013 09:53
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Well, poo poo. That was good.
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Oct 29, 2013 19:54
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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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They did want to help. That's why they didn't just loving kill her whilst she was spark out. Contessa psychoanalysing her was the attempt to see if she COULD be saved, and barring any bullet-based-brain-surgery shenanigans, it seems the conclusion was 'no'. Taylor felt she didn't deserve it, also, I'd guess, that she wouldn't be able to take back control from the shard. Also, it really fits Taylor's whole thing of doing bad things for the greater good - killing Taylor is bad, sure, but the greater good is served by not having humanity entirely controlled by an alien intelligence hell bent on order and peace at all costs.
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Oct 30, 2013 21:29
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You're at Clockblocker and you think the body count is staggering. Just you wait, it gets worse.
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Oct 31, 2013 20:24
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I'm reasonably sure Wildbow's writing rate is CURRENTLY outstripping bransan, but I'd assume WIldbow won't keep this rate up past the end of Worm. Though, he does say he's planning to start a new series afterwards, so...
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Nov 1, 2013 00:03
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>1.5 megawords in 2 years - I'm just not sure. I'd be interested to find out, though.
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Nov 1, 2013 09:49
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Well, as I said, it's over 1.5 megawords already - for comparison, I believe an individual mistborn book is around 300 kilowords. So, you're talking 5 or 6 volumes the size of an individual Mistborn book. And it's not over yet. Fakedit: Fellwenner: only including Way of Kings under Sanderson is like only including Fellowship of the Ring under Tolkein... Way of Kings is a big book, but even within that universe, there's probably 5 or 6 times that much material already. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Nov 1, 2013 |
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Nov 1, 2013 14:10
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NecroMonster posted:I'm going to spell this out because a lot of people miss it anyway, it is subtle as hell, so it's ok to not really get it. Eh? I thought she got the shard from and neutered/braindeaded (but not killed) the second entity.
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Nov 4, 2013 20:30
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ConfusedUs posted:I went back to re-read the Leviathan attack on Brockton Bay. It's still good, and there's a lot of tension, but drat has wildbow improved his writing skills since that time. It's a question that's specifically asked (and hasn't been explicitly answered, but there are a lot of theories) in-world. Taylor, in particular, once she *realises* that the Endbringers are targetted (Behemoth in his on-screen appearance was shooting for Phir Se), straight up asks the question, in almost exactly those words.
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Nov 7, 2013 19:33
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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). Scion implied that they were created specifically to give Eidolon a challenge - and again there's been much theorising about whether Eidolon created them or Scion did in some way because he needed Eidolon to develop, or whether the second entity did for the same reason, or who knows... One of the things we're all desperately hoping for is that we'll actually get a canon answer on WTF they are before the sequel...
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Nov 8, 2013 00:45
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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.
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Nov 8, 2013 22:42
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I have to agree that this wasn't my favourite of the bonus epilogue chapters - that was probably Imp's. I thought there were supposed to be 8 coming though - we're only on 5 right now.
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Nov 17, 2013 11:01
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Grundulum posted:Can you imagine trying to judge Worm by its first chapter alone? I did - we all did, in the end. It was enough to get me reading the second one. This would be too.
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Nov 24, 2013 23:07
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Pact really isn't clicking with me. I think possibly it's just poor editing, I'm getting really confused with who's which character; I can't even work out what gender the main character's supposed to be. Boil was probably my favourite so far, and I like detective stories in fantasy settings, so if it does turn out to be that it'll be fun. Needs a proper noir intro though. thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Dec 21, 2013 |
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Dec 21, 2013 10:01
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See, I thought that, but then there's lines where mirror-girl says she IS the main character and is female and named Rose. I guess she's an alternate version or something, but the whole thing comes across a bit confused to me.
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Dec 21, 2013 15:51
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Ah, that makes sense - and the girls-only thing also makes sense given the conceit of witchcraft of some kind, but nonetheless - if feel like there's a lot less to make Pact stand out, thus far, even than Peer.
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Dec 21, 2013 18:16
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Pact 3 I found a lot more interesting that pact 2 - I just couldn't get my head round the action in 2 I think. I'd read Pact, but I think I'd prefer Boil.
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Dec 24, 2013 12:38
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Not officially and the author prefers people not to, but a goon will be along in a sec to explain how to scrape the database and sideload it anyway. This probably ought to be in the OP if it's not already.
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Dec 27, 2013 19:11
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I'm pretty sure a lot of people did die against Echidna, but her goal was slightly different to most of the Endbringers, in that she wanted to capture and clone powerful people rather than kill everything. The proto-worm stuff I read last night in a fit of insomnia; it was good but cut off in weird places unless reading it on my mobile meant I couldn't turn pages or something.
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Dec 31, 2013 12:51
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rear end Catchcum posted:Just getting into Wildow. Can someone kind of sum up his deal? Is Pact and stuff related to Worm? I'd really appreciate an author summary and what works are related to each other and what is separate and what it means when you say "they are going with..." Worm is his main story, at Parahumans.wordpress.com. It is complete as of around a month and a half ago. It is around 1.5 million words long, and awesome. You should read it. Wildbow.wordpress.com is the author's personal blog, and the area where he has recently been posting some previews of potential new serials to follow Worm, which are entirely unrelated to it. A sequel to Worm is likely (and the final chapters leave plenty of questions unanswered for it), but will not appear until at least one other story has been completed.
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Dec 31, 2013 20:19
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Apocalypse World might fit. Someone should make a superheroes PBTA hack.
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Jan 18, 2014 12:46
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Anyone else getting the feeling that Blake's going to wind up turning into Rose, either via glamour or actually? He's really messing with forces he doesn't understand here, and they're doing things well out of his apparent control.
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Feb 15, 2014 13:39
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There's an awful lot of Taylor there, to be honest - she was most famous for taking difficult situations, ignoring the conventional approach and loving people up with extreme prejudice. I like the 'pigeon approach', I will have to remember that one...
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Feb 15, 2014 23:30
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Has Jeremy just hosed up? He specified carefully that Conquest was not to harm the Duchamps, but a LOT of that family have been married off and aren't Duchamps any longer, technically...
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Mar 6, 2014 23:57
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Hrrm. Why do I get the impression this is going to go a bit sideways soon? It seems to me like Conquest might be what you perceive him to be. He's powerful, yes, but if you can persuade yourself to see him, despite his power, as the conquest, rather than the conqueror, I suspect you can basically ignore him, or indeed dominate him. It wouldn't surprise me if some members of his group of underlings are, actually, more in charge than he or they let on. Basically, there's two sides to Conquest - and the other side is... well, when you talk about the Romans' conquests, you're talking about the nations they defeated. If you see Conquest as one of YOUR conquests... Plus, I kind of get the impression that he's massively bloviating about torturing them. Not once did he actually demonstrate it, and you'd think that someone that (apparently) powerful and uncaring would have done. Lopped off a finger, maybe. The only thing he did that was significantly more powerful than anything else we've seen was pull Rose into being, but I'm assuming that's more a function of his control over his locale than of major power. I wouldn't be surprised if Blake develops the ability to do that in his eventual demesne, or indeed if any other practitioner could do it if they both knew about Rose and she came into a mirror near their demesne or whatever I feel like he's heavily inspired by Pterry's anthropomorphic personifications. Which is a good thing.
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Mar 8, 2014 10:20
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Could go either way, really.
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Mar 9, 2014 10:55
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That one's also been brought up before, and is a much better idea.
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Mar 22, 2014 09:54
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It *could have gone worse*.
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Mar 30, 2014 11:31
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I have to say, I was disappointed that that was a chapter end, and Black Lamb's Blood kind of bored me.
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Apr 5, 2014 09:20
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Well, you fight like with like in Pactworld, maybe being worn down to almost nothing will help! Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if that's where Wildbow's going with this - of the Knights, maybe only the weakest and least impressive survived - maybe it's like catch-and-release - it ate the strong ones and left the weak ones alive to get strong and come after it again...
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Apr 21, 2014 08:51
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Fetucine posted:Also, they did try the neon magic circle idea Where are you getting this bit from? I must have missed it.
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Apr 27, 2014 00:30
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None, as far as I know. But then, I don't think the Behaims are really the big antagonists; they're the act 1 hurdle. The Duchamps are still out there, and Johannes the sorcerer certainly seems much worse than both. And, let's be honest, we've still not seen much of what the world is like, what the lawyers are like... probably the ultimate big bad IS the lawyers, in the end.
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May 3, 2014 17:56
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hollylolly posted:Out of the frying pan, into another frying pan. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, out of the fire into the furnace, out of the furnace into the plasma arc welder, out of the plasma arc welder into the sun... Genuinely, it's worse all the way down. But so good for all that.
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May 19, 2014 22:48
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I'm kind of attached to a pet theory that says she's not Alternate Universe Blake, she's actually Grandma Rose's ghost or vestige or whatever, and she's angling to take back her old life.
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May 24, 2014 21:09
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