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I find it interesting how (Twig Arc 11 spoilers) thanks to having Jamie #2 with him Sy actually recovered really fast and became happier than I've ever seen him within a short time of escaping the Academy. I was expecting him to be all depressed over Lilian and what have you, but it was nice to instead see how happy freedom made Sy, and it's also nice to get more characterization from Jamie #2. Knowing how things "could have been" kind of rubs some salt in the wound given that things will inevitably become worse for him later (Jamie is definitely not gonna survive, for one).
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May 16, 2017 03:16
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Sampatrick posted:Worm had plenty of happy moments in it, though. The victory over the Slaughterhouse, her getting together with Brian, the actual ending to it, taking out the ABB, killing Coil, etc. The idea that Worm is some grimdark work where everything was always miserable doesn't really reflect the actual text. There was a cost attached to most of her victories but that doesn't invalidate that they were victories. A lot of those weren't really portrayed as happy victories, though. If I recall correctly, Brian was ruined with PTSD either before or shortly after she got together with him (I don't recall her ever getting to enjoy the relationship much), and killing Coil was definitely not portrayed as a good thing (heck, it was pretty much the big "Taylor has completely lost her innocence" event). The characters succeed at things, but in general the plot heads in an increasingly depressing direction post-Leviation (before Leviathan I think it had a good balance of good to bad). I feel like Taylor becoming a hero was a missed opportunity to have her regain some of her "humanity" (for lack of a better word), and it always bugged me how she never really made a genuine attempt to get to know her fellow heroes, despite spending far more time with them than she did the Undersiders. I mean, it's kind of consistent with her character, but still. I mean, I agree it isn't grimdark in the sense of everything being 100% bad, but the tone is definitely pretty negative and many of the victories are pyrrhic in nature. All this being said, that doesn't really bother me at all and I don't think Worm is overly negative. My only significant gripe about Worm (and Wildbow's writing in general) is the repeated "super tense how is Taylor going to get out of this almost inescapable dilemma?!?!?" situations. Like, you can always expect things to go to poo poo and for some solution to be found. edit: As another Twig comment, I really wish that I had more time to get to know Gordon. He was a really interesting character, and I think Sy was correct when he said he probably would have left the Academy with him and Jamie #2. Jamie #2 is also a really interesting guy. In general I feel like one of Twig's biggest improvements over Worm is that the core characters are a lot more interesting. In Worm, most of the Undersiders weren't that interesting, aside from maybe Tattletale. edit2: Oh, I have a question. Where in the US do the Twig characters live? Is it the equivalent of California or something? Also, how old are the kids by the Arc 11 (where I currently am)? Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:56 on May 16, 2017 |
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May 16, 2017 05:22
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Neurosis posted:I don't remember anything good about the Brian/Taylor relationship at all. It felt like he wasn't really into it but Taylor was the stronger personality and made it happen. Yeah I felt like Brian's interest in Taylor wasn't really sold well. I forget, did he get with her before or after he got PTSD? I want to say the latter, and I always got the impression he went along with the Taylor relationship just because she was closest to him and he was in a bad place emotionally.
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May 16, 2017 19:12
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NinjaDebugger posted:That's literally what happened, he was super badly traumatized and she just kinda made it happen. And then abandoned them all, because there are 0 characters with agency. Hey, at least "woman taking advantage of a man's emotional trauma in the interests of romance" is an interesting inversion of the more common situation with genders reversed! I'm willing to overlook most of Taylor's actions, since it is made explicit through her own regret that she actually had a choice and wasn't forced into doing the various morally ambiguous things she does. Most other stories would implicitly condone her various actions, if not outright portray them as being good in some "badass" sense.
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May 17, 2017 00:44
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Vateke posted:Personally, I wasn't talking about Worm. Worm mostly worked. Pact was the problem. Also, I don't really mean "happy" moments as much as "peaceful moments". Things don't need to be optimistic, you just need time to breath. On a basic level, you get tense while reading a story. You can't just keep up that intensity for 20 chapters. It's emotionally exhausting. You need a break where the threat relents a bit, and things are going better at least relatively speaking. Otherwise the emotional shocks start to dull. Honestly, it was even a bit of a problem in Worm. The closest thing to a peaceful part post-Leviathan was the timeskip, and that was, well, a timeskip. Thinking on it, I think part of the issue with Worm was that its particular plot/character progression wasn't that well suited to a super-long serial format. A story where a character gradually becomes jaded and a bunch of bad things happen isn't inherently a problem, but it becomes a problem when it happens over the course of (the equivalent of) many books. It's like reading a novel series of ten 300+ page books that continue to get more and more depressing. Once there gets to be that much content, I think stories need to be structured different. I can't really think of many, if any, really positive/funny segments in Worm post-Leviathan (or at least post-Slaughterhouse 9). Taylor becomes a character who's really serious/dour and isn't very fun to read. Twig has been much better about this. Sy is a very entertaining and interesting character, and even though things are moving in a negative direction, there are still funny, happy parts (though I kinda have my doubts they'll continue once Jamie #2 almost certainly dies (he's not dead yet but I would bet a large sum of money he's not going to last).
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May 17, 2017 23:04
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For some reason when I marathon a bunch of Wildbow chapters I start to involuntarily mentally narrate everything in his style of prose. It's sort of like when you play too much Tetris and start to imagine blocks falling constantly. One thing that sort of stands out is this thing he does where italicized thoughts of the narrator will appear between paragraphs or lines of dialogue. edit: As a Twig update, I'm not sure if this is intended, but it seems like Syvester's skills are changing now that he's away from the lambs and using this inferior Wyvern formula. He seems slightly worse are manipulation (I don't think he would have made so many mistakes during his attempt to recruit these Mice in the past) and somewhat better at physical things, like doing impromptu surgery on Jamie or stitching himself up. And his memory is obviously getting much worse, which is clearly intended. I find it funny how Sy keeps referring to drug/substance abuse like he isn't totally a user himself. There seems to be no practical difference between his use of Wyvern and anyone else's use of a recreational drug. If anything, it's a little worse, since Wyvern doesn't seem to cause withdrawal and he's using it solely because he likes its effects. Not that I think he's wrong to be using Wyvern, but it just comes off as a little hypocritical when he speaks of others' drug use. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:40 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 00:34
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Neurosis posted:the problem i had was that there was insufficient recognition of what a sack of poo poo taylor could be if she thought her cause was good. it's THERE if you look hard enough, but i can remember all of two people - cockblocker and miss militia - who ever have sufficient perspective that a reader might be forced to pause when they call her on it. too much deck-stacking in her favour, not just plot-wise but also morally. Yeah, I agree that the story conveniently has most, if not all, of her actions work out in the end. Even though Taylor says that she has regrets, the narrative makes it seems like if she had acted differently she would have ultimately failed much earlier. I can't remember when Brian/Taylor got together. I tried googling it but it's not specified on the Wiki and it would be a big pain in the rear end to search through the story itself. I feel like Brian was already emotionally compromised by that point, but I could be wrong. edit: I always felt like Taylor and Clockblocker should have gotten together. I feel like she could have really used someone with a sense of humor and little attachment to her past experiences/trauma in her life. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:00 on May 19, 2017 |
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May 19, 2017 16:40
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Sampatrick posted:Honestly the entire Echidna arc is kind of dumb but eh. In retrospect, what was even the point of that arc (in the context of the greater story)? The only thing I really remember as being relevant was the whole deal with Eidolon's clone revealing info on Cauldron. I did kind of like how the Traveler's plot ended up just being a complete tragedy; Noelle is never saved and no one really has a good ending (except for very arguably the remaining Travelers who hopefully manage to put things behind them). Another part I feel could be excised or greatly shortened is the part where Skitter is fighting multiple Dragon mechs. That's the only part of the story where I straight-up skipped chapters, because I knew she would end up beating them and just wanted the story to continue. I think what annoyed me about the whole time skip and "Skitter becomes a hero" plot element is that it was such a lost opportunity. Up until that point I had constantly been thinking "man, Skitter's reasoning for staying a villain is looking awfully dumb", so when she decided to become a hero I was excited that she was growing as a character and learning from her mistakes, but then there's just a time skip and her personality barely changed at all. edit: Oh, another thing that kind of bugged me was the reveals regarding the Endbringers. From what I understand, it's basically confirmed Eidolon unknowingly used some power to create them, right? But if that's the case, why did they also show up in Eden's view of a possible future (where both her and Zion survive)? I guess you could argue that Eidolon borrowed the same power the Entities would have used to create the Endbringers, but it still kinda felt anticlimactic. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:46 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 01:43
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The whole S9000 stuff was pretty weird in general. Like, S9 by themselves were this huge problem that no one could deal with, and somehow we're supposed to buy 10 copies of almost every current and past S9 member being defeated by some heroes without the help of the big guns (Triumvirute, etc)? I understand that a big reason the S9 was such a problem was Jack's weird parahuman intuition, but wouldn't that also apply with the S9000?
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May 24, 2017 08:27
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It would have been funny if that homeless guy who Scion talked to told him "play MMORPGs" instead of "save people."Milky Moor posted:The S9000 also had to deal with the Defiant/Dragon Azazel suits which were extremely good at taking out the S9000. Yeah, I think the Dragon Teeth or whatever (plus the suits) made a big difference, since each of the Dragon Teeth seemed like a low rent Defiant. But even then the whole idea for the arc just felt really goofy and contrived. Like, using that technology you could also make 1000 Eidolons or whatever, which would be loving ridiculous and could probably even defeat Scion. In general I don't like the idea that you can make clones of parahumans that retain their powers, and this also applies to Echidna to a lesser extent (though I like that the Echidna clones at least had altered versions of the original's power). As a non-Worm note, Lara and Nora in Twig are adorable. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:12 on May 24, 2017 |
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May 24, 2017 18:10
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Worm 2 will involve an Entity colony of like 1000 Entities attacking Earth. Panacea will have to unlock everyones' ~true powers~ to address this grave threat. edit: Taylor, who regains her powers through undergoing a third trigger or something, controls entire galactic civilizations in the ensuing war. edit2: Aliens from various nerd intellectual properties make cameos in this riveting sequence. edit3: I was rereading some earlier chapters recently, and I was just wondering about something: Why didn't Tattletale's powers clue her into Coil's long-term plans? In 7.1 she says "I don't think he's trying to deceive us, because my powers probably would have picked up on it." Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 00:29
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Milky Moor posted:No, it's not even that complex. I get the impression she can be wrong with specific judgments made under limited circumstances, but with time and repeated exposure to a person she would inevitably figure something like that out. I mean, she knew about Taylor's early betrayal plans, which is almost a direct comparison to Coil's situation (in terms of being a situation where someone you work with has other secret plans). I think the other limitation is that she has to know the "right questions to ask" so to speak, but "does Coil have ulterior motives" is a pretty obvious thing to wonder about and the exact sort of question where her power would probably fill in the blanks. Even if her power couldn't tell her exactly what ulterior motives he might have, it seems like it should at least be able to tell her "he's not being honest with you." Put another way, Tattletale should be able to find out pretty much anything given a reasonable amount of time. Most of her mistakes were due to being forced to come up with some plan in a short period of time and not having the opportunities to really investigate different angles. sunken fleet posted:Also presumably if she ever did pick up on it Coil would just throw away that instance of reality. Unless she specifically tells him, there wouldn't be any way for Coil to know (and it would be too late if he had already split reality instances again at some point after Tattletale figured things out). Coil's power is actually quite limited and requires intelligent use to be powerful (and Coil even mentioned at some point how it took him a while to learn how to proper leverage his abilities). Over an extended period of time he can repeatedly attempt things with different permutations, but during any specific period of time he only gets two tries. If he tries to play things defensively he can more or less ensure his own safety (i.e. have one reality where he acts as Coil and another where he is in a different place doing something unrelated), but if he wants to try two options during the same period of time that require him to be in the same place, he's still very vulnerable. For example, if both realities involve him staying at his hideout and someone suddenly successfully attacks him, there's not much he can do). He's also very vulnerable if he's ever caught off-guard during a time soon after diverging realities (i.e. before he's managed to make conditions significantly different between each reality). Basically, his power is only powerful because Coil is both patient and very skilled at using it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:56 on May 25, 2017 |
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May 25, 2017 08:54
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Namarrgon posted:In reality, I suspect the vast majority of people would only use Coil's power to flirt with people (and disband that reality on rejection) or do things like ask for a promotion only in one reality so they would never have to deal with any social blowout of anything. Making mega-bucks in the stock market is also an obvious choice and one that Coil took* (since you could basically do day trading where you buy a bunch of some really volatile stock in one reality and short it in the other reality and select whichever one ends up being true). His power can be used most easily for situations that have binary outcomes, particularly if there's a specific action he can take to capitalize on each potential outcome. *I'm kinda wondering how he managed to do this without the authorities noticing. I'm sure that Thinkers using their abilities to make money like this is pretty common, and it should be entirely possible to detect if someone is being successful far more than they normally should be (especially since there's a good chance Tinker tech can be put to use analyzing such data). I guess he could do something where he somehow divides his trading activity among several accounts.
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May 25, 2017 18:06
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Lone Goat posted:If The Big Short has taught me anything, this is true in real life too. I had this one interesting course in college that was taught by this guy who had a ton of industry experience acting as a technology consultant for various financial firms (so stuff like algorithmic trading, etc), and the course just consisted of him lecturing us on how the industry works and giving us an easy exam at the end. The general takeaway was that the most powerful financial institutions have basically arranged things such that they can almost literally print money through acquiring advantages that other traders and institutions don't have access to (like locating their servers closer to the exchanges so they can make transactions just a couple milliseconds faster than their competition). Interestingly, I took this course right before the financial crisis. It's a really toxic and harmful industry for various reasons, not the least of which that it effectively poaches a huge portion of the most talented math/statistics PhDs, since academia can't offer nearly the the same financial incentives. So all these talented people that could be helping to solve countless important problems aren't really accomplishing much other than enriching the institutions they work for and providing a little more market liquidity. I now work as a programmer for a web application used by biologists/geneticists, and it's a field that would benefit immensely from that sort of expertise, but instead is forced to rely on the small number of people truly passionate about the subject who are willing to forgo making 10x as much money working in either Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
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May 25, 2017 22:59
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Speaking of The Number Man, his power (or rather the way it was applied) always kinda bugged me. Like, it seemed really vaguely defined, and I never really understood how understanding all this info like speed/trajectory/etc would somehow make you capable of moving your body in a way that lets you take advantage of that information. I could see it being useful for things like avoiding bullets (since presumably he could see the expected trajectory and potential range of possible places guns could shoot), but I don't see how his powers lets him fall 3 stories and contort his body such that he can avoid injury. I was re-reading some of the chapters before Taylor turns herself in, and it's kind of disturbing how many commentators think that Taylor and Brian are perfect for each other and have a wonderful relationship. Like, it is very clearly not a good relationship, and even the characters themselves realize that. As a random side note, Worm uses the word "headspace" too much. At first I thought it was just a word Taylor liked to use, but then other characters also use it. Like, I'm not sure if wildbow realizes there are other words that mean the same thing, like "mindset".
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May 26, 2017 17:40
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Nettle Soup posted:I think that was just a Worm problem though, I don't think he uses it at all in Twig, although it would be appropriate sometimes... I'm at 13.9 right now (Lambs + Sylvester fighting the Devil). I feel like Sylvester would be many times better off if he just spoke honestly with the Lambs instead of trying to be a suave puppet-master constantly, but I also understand that's just how he is (or rather how he's learned to be). He's kinda being a pretentious douchebag with all the "ah I want to ~dance~ with you again" stuff. I also feel like the Lambs are kinda being dicks to him, though. Like, he's supposed to be your friend, let him be free and do what he wants. He even created a clear avenue for them to make a failed attempt, so it's not like their own well being is riding on successfully capturing him. Lara and Nora continue to be the best. I'm not sure what Emmett or Abby's deals are. Emmett seems to be strong, and Abby is...good at empathizing? Not sure how the latter would be that useful, and I'm not sure about the former. Jamie has not died (unless Sy is hallucinating him or something), but I already had it spoiled that he was going to die (thanks to the Twig page automatically loading the most recent chapter), and it's also something that seemed inevitable due to Jamie's unique issues. edit: Duncan is also a pretty interesting guy. Even if he doesn't fit in as well and is kind of a pretentious dweeb, he's clearly really talented and seems to be changing. The characters in general are so much better in Twig than in Worm. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:05 on May 26, 2017 |
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May 26, 2017 19:41
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You know, I actually hope Twig has a good ending, even though I seriously doubt it will happen. Worm was already a huge bummer with a mostly bad ending for the protagonist (who kinda deserved some sort of bad ending), while Twig is about literal child soldiers who aren't really that culpable for their own actions and have been forced to do a bunch of bad stuff just to survive. It would be kind of nice for Sy to have an unabashedly good ending (given the circumstances of already having lost some of his closest friends, at least).
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May 26, 2017 23:53
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I think I may have said this before, but rereading parts of Worm Taylor is really not a good protagonist. She's a good character, but not someone I want to spent thousands of pages with. Like, there's a in-story reason why she gradually becomes a stick in the mud who is Serious Business all the time (the Queen Administrator shard's influence) but it doesn't make it any less unpleasant to read. She was so much more interesting pre-Leviathan, when she actually cared about things other than achieving important key objectives. Sy is such a breath of fresh air in terms of actually being an interesting, entertaining person. I'm looking forward to wildbow also having an interesting protagonist in this supposed Worm sequel. edit: Another thing I noticed is that Taylor seems to almost always assume that she's the only one who can be trusted to be in charge of various situations (it's basically her whole rationale for staying in charge of her territory*), and while this makes sense in story (again, the Queen Administrator shard) it's a little annoying how no one ever raises the obvious counter-argument to her justifications. Like, Clockblocker and Miss Militia bring up the harm caused to civilians by her actions, but I don't recall them ever bringing up some of the more obvious long-term problems associated with having unelected people suddenly seize power. *Like, just to use this as an example, if she had joined the Wards from the beginning she would have also been capable of working to keep the peace. While she wouldn't have the same set of tools available to her (keeping people in line through fear/intimidation), she could have dramatically helped keep peoples' faith in the official power structures. For example, her power is remarkable well suited to completely stopping non-powered crime over wide areas, which would ease up pressure on the other heroes to go after bigger threats. Maybe she could have even found Coil's base using her power and defeated him with the help of the heroes. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 7, 2017 03:07
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Wittgen posted:It's not that Taylor has control issues because of Queen Administrator. She got Queen Administrator because she has control issues. The shards definitely influence people to behave in a certain way. One of the best examples is Bonesaw, who went from a crazy homicidal person to a not-crazy person upon recognizing the influence her shard was having over her. If I recall correctly they do choose people based upon who is suited to the "personality" of the shard, but the shard still exercise influence beyond that. It's part of why capes are almost always drawn into some sort of conflict; the shards want them to fight each other to stress test the powers.
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Jun 7, 2017 06:29
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So in my re-read I've just finished the Behemoth fight, of course including the stuff where she starts being a hero before that. Taylor is such an un-fun person. Every time someone makes any sort of attempt to add levity to a situation she either gets internally (or externally) annoyed at them or reluctantly plays along. I've also noticed that she tends to always think she's right and doesn't really give serious consideration to the things other people say if they disagree with her. This is definitely realistic for a teenager, and the story seems to acknowledge these character flaws to an extent, but in terms of the actual events that transpire, the narrative seems to ultimately vindicate her ideas and behavior.
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Jun 9, 2017 17:52
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Now I'm to the part where Taylor and the Chicago Wards are being interviewed on TV and Taylor is internally thinking about how disappointed she is in Cuff and Tecton and how everyone else just isn't as ~real~ as her old edgy friends. She also does a bunch of stuff that is definitely not okay, like when her plan against Topsy starts to go off the rails and she's like "no Cuff don't call for reinforcements, instead let me carry you off this building with my jetpack...oh whoops looks like the jetpack couldn't support your weight but you survived the fall so all's well that ends well!" Like I sympathize with her perspective of needing to make a good impression with that mission, but she ends up putting other people in danger just because she feels like only she has what it takes to adequately prepare for the end of the world scenario. I find myself consistently sympathizing with the other heroes and PRT who are frustrated with her, whereas I get the impression we're supposed to be sympathizing with Taylor's concerns about the bureaucracy not being competent enough instead. I also feel like her attachment to the Undersiders (and inability to become attached to the heroes) was never really sold well. The only Undersiders that Taylor both 1. becomes attached to and 2. have any sort of personality are Tattletale and maybe Bitch. Grue is very boring post-Leviathan and Taylor never really gets close to Regent or Imp. I feel like a reader can definitely infer that Taylor has huge control issues and is a dumb teenager who always thinks she's right, but from what I can recall the narrative never brings it up directly or has any other characters really articulate why her worldview is so wrong and dumb. The closest thing is the scene with Clockblocker in the PRT van before the Echidna fight, and even that is mostly just Clockblocker saying "so about that time you almost killed Triumph" which is one of the relatively few things Taylor is explicitly remorseful about (in general she is willing to apologize for using excessive force in specific situations, but she never apologizes for her overall courses of action). And I'm also pretty sure that the Khepri stuff (which was basically treated as her Ultimate Evil Action) was entirely vindicated in the end and ended up being necessary to defeat Scion (I'm ignoring all the "Contessa/Simurgh set all events into action" stuff because it's confusing). It's very unlikely she could have fully coordinated everyone to do the "imitate Scion's dead partner" plan without having direct control over people. Plorkyeran posted:Worm is a story of Taylor making terrible decisions and loving up at every turn. Her victory at the end wasn't the culmination of everything she'd done up to that point, and in fact was sort of the opposite. The army she amassed as Khepri was useless, and nothing she did before that was important for defeating Scion other than by coincidence. While not related to Scion specifically, I got the impression that the Undersiders taking over Brockton Bay was portrayed as a positive thing that overall greatly improved life for people. What always bugged me about that is that most of the reason they were able to help so much is by spending all of Coil's ill-gotten crime money. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 10, 2017 |
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Jun 10, 2017 06:00
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I did not get the impression Eden was anything near the size/mass of a galaxy, given its dead corpse seems to be sitting around on Earth somewhere being harvested by Cauldron (or rather split across a number of alternate Earth's or whatever).
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Jun 10, 2017 20:32
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So I just finished Bonesaw's interlude before the Slaughterhouse 9000 stuff in my Worm reread, and I'm wondering why she didn't just kill all of them while they were in stasis. She seems to have become solidly against them at least several months before releasing them, and it seems a lot more straightforward than letting them out and then hoping to have an opportunity to betray them later.
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Jun 21, 2017 02:05
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NinjaDebugger posted:I hate to say this, but it's 100% because Cauldron wanted the clones and wanted Jack to survive to set off the end, and Contessa did her thing to make that happen. Everything else is just rationalization. What was Bonesaw's internal justification for not killing all the rest of the S9 in their sleep, then? I can understand that Contessa took the precise actions to lead to an outcome where Bonesaw would betray them while still allowing the clones to be created, but Bonesaw seemed to have pretty solidly decided she didn't want to stay with them before they woke up*, so it's not like she was internally debating the issue anymore. Cauldron wants Jack to survive and set off the end because there would be fewer parahumans around to fight Scion in 14 years (presumably due to repreated Endbringer attacks), right? edit: Also, I'm wondering how the gently caress Golem and the Chicago Wards (and whoever else was with them) managed to beat 3 Shatterbirds, 3 Burnscars, 2 Winters, 1 Skinslip, and 1 Psychosoma. *Not that she had a choice, since staying with the S9 stopped being an option from the moment she started to have doubts (since Jack would end up noticing at some point) Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 21:07
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You know, I like to think that Grue's silence around Taylor after the time-skip isn't so much due to awkwardness and is instead because, after so long apart, he realized in hindsight that Taylor is a huge tool and not a fun person to be around. Also, I apparently had forgotten about the part where Taylor guns down Purity's baby for literally no reason.
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Jun 24, 2017 04:38
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I thought that she killed Purity's baby because she was worried the baby might manifest some quirk that ended up being the cause of the end of the world (which obviously ended up not being the case)?
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Jun 25, 2017 06:49
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You know, one minor gripe I always had with Taylor's "make bugs fill a person's nose and throat" strategy is that it seems like, in practice, a bunch of those bugs would get killed while the person struggled to cough them up, resulting in a high risk of choking/asphyxiation since Taylor would no longer be able to control the dead bugs. I guess you could argue that she had nearby live bugs remove the dead ones, but it seems a bit of a stretch.
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Jun 28, 2017 19:12
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bewilderment posted:Twig is totally the best of wildbow's work so far, since he's actually grown somewhat as a writer and is able to do more quieter scenes instead of trying to escalate everything. I'm not 100% caught up on Twig yet, just pretty close, but while there is plenty of escalation, it's escalation that seems properly foreshadowed and built up in the right way, rather than it being "boom here's another giant threat". I think it helps some that the characters have powers/abilities that are relatively set in stone and mundane in nature. It's consistently emphasized that even the more combat oriented Lambs, like Gordon, Mary, and sorta Helen, can't reliably handle more than a couple normal adults at once (unless they have time to set up an ambush or something). While Taylor technically uses the same ability throughout Worm, she definitely "levels it up" (probably the biggest "level up" is when she starts using silk, effectively granting her a sort of weak telekinesis within a several block radius), in addition to having access to a variety of other people with super powers to coordinate. Speaking of weak telekinesis, I remember reading somewhere that Wildbow said something about Parian not using her ability in the most effective way. I'm kinda wondering how her ability is supposed to optimally be used. Maybe she's supposed to just control swarms of light objects? Make needles fly into peoples' eyes? It seems like there's gotta be a lot of flexibility to "highly coordinated and detailed telekinesis over light objects", though in practice it seems like most applications would just end up being somewhat inferior versions of what Taylor does with her bugs. edit: I wonder if she could wrap up someone in cloth and then inflate the cloth with her telekinesis to capture them.
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Jul 3, 2017 07:34
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Hey, I have a question. What do yall think is the shittiest power in Worm? I'm gonna say Felix Swoop. His power is literally just to set birds on fire and program them with movements. Like, some random dude wearing a fire-proof suit (or, uh, a gun) could defeat him. He doesn't even sense what his birds sense, so he doesn't have the option of staying out of sight like Taylor does. The most unexpectedly bad power would probably be Glory Girl's. Most powers in Worm seem like they would, either directly or indirectly, make it very difficult for a group of normal humans with modern weapons to defeat, but a single person with an automatic weapon could defeat Glory Girl (since the first bullet would knock down her shields). Most other people can either shrug off that sort of damage or avoid it through not needing to expose themselves in the first place (like Taylor). Or they have some other ability that at least brings something uniquely useful to the table (like Vista or something).
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Jul 19, 2017 21:11
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q_k posted:The big problem with Glory Girl's power is that Glory Girl has it. Give it to someone like Grace and she could probably rock it. Grace also has "kickass fighting skills" as one of her powers, so I don't think it's really fair to say "well what if she had Glory Girl's powers in addition to her own." Though I do think that Glory Girl's particular type of force field would be much more effective if it were a secondary power for someone who has some way to reliably avoid getting hit (which Glory Girl doesn't, really; as I mentioned, anyone with a gun that can fire reasonably fast could take her down). To make things worse, apparently Glory Girl can't make full use of her super strength while her shield is down, and punching things makes her shield go down from the impact (it's just that people don't notice). Pussy Quipped posted:Leet got stuck with a lovely power only because by the time you figure out what the "rule" is you've probably exhausted half of your possible designs. Regarding someone like Victor, it seems like it would be much more lucrative for someone with such a power to just live as a regular human. Same goes for Uber. Scapegoat's power falls under the general category of "has a lot of utility, so it's okay that it isn't that useful in combat."
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Jul 19, 2017 23:30
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Milky Moor posted:Swoop's got a dumb power but lol if you seriously think the majority of Worm's characters wouldn't get murdered by people with firearms. A lot of characters have some sort of ability that would allow them to handle reasonable numbers of people with guns. Taylor doesn't need to be physically present, same sorta goes for Bitch, and Grue and Imp both have ways to avoid them. It seems like most Brute parahumans are also more or less capable of withstanding small arms fire as well. But yeah, there is a big plot hole of sorts in the fact that human militaries don't participate in Endbringer fights, since modern weaponry is capable of doing more raw damage/destruction than all but the absolute top tier capes. Like, Purity is supposed to be near the top in terms of being flying artillery, and she's not much stronger than, well, regular artillery. I mean, they won't be able to kill them either, but the same is true for parahumans. They could at least help with first aid and what have you. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 07:00
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Milky Moor posted:For example, Taylor doesn't need to be physically present -- but a lot of the time she is, particularly when she's just starting out. Bitch, too. Imp might be the hardest, sure, but isn't her ability defeated by cameras and such? Dragon sees right through it. Grue is solved by 'firing into the big smoky cloud'. Regent and TT can't do a thing against it. Grue is a lot harder to deal with than you're implying, and his mere presence can cover for anyone he's working with as well. If he covers his opponents with his darkness (which he can do pretty easily, since he can cover very large areas that include himself) they'd be basically helpless, regardless of how many guns they had. Taylor revealing herself is largely due to facing enemies that her bugs can't handle, which isn't true most regular humans unless they have some sort of suit specifically designed to completely prevent any bugs from getting inside (and even then she can cover their eyes and poo poo or tie them up). Under normal circumstances Taylor can quickly murder every single human within a several block radius and detect anyone long before they reach her. Her power is actually one of the strongest "anti-regular people" powers. It also seems like most Brutes (like Manpower, Browbeat, Aegis, Weld, etc) as well as Tinkers with power armor are capable of handling small arms fire. Other randoms examples of people that would be very difficult for normal humans to deal with are Oni Lee, Cherish, and that one villain who can command people after making eye contact with them. Folks like Tattletale and Regent have abilities that have other unique purposes (TT because she's a Thinker of course, and Regent mainly because of his "Take over a person's body" ability), so their ability to directly fight against humans with guns isn't as relevant. Same goes for people like Flechette, who are specifically geared towards fighting other parahumans, particularly if they have high endurance. In fact, most people who can't handle humans with guns have some ability that is a Thinker sort of thing or something specifically geared towards fighting other parahumans. This isn't to say that a modern military couldn't kill most parahumans if they put significant effort into it (for example tracking someone down and waiting until they have to sleep or something), but most combat-oriented parahumans, particularly if they work in teams, are more than capable of handling normal police or small squads of armed humans. edit: The handful of parahumans who are almost impossible to deal with (like the Triumvirate) also serve as a deterrent to any sort of wide-scale crack down. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 22, 2017 |
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Jul 22, 2017 05:25
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As someone else mentioned, I think the key point is that humans have little to gain from upping the ante. There exist parahumans like Panacea (or Skitter, Cherish, Bonesaw, etc) who can kill a huge number of people in a short period of time without even revealing themselves, and any sort of full-power attempt to eliminate parahumans would result in a massive amount of casualties. It would also probably cause parahumans to band together, which eliminates many of their weaknesses because you'd have one side with a bunch of precogs, superhuman thinkers, and futuristic technology at their disposal. I have little doubt humans would probably win in the end (though there are some parahumans that I think are literally impossible to kill with normal weapons), but it wouldn't be pretty. Then there's the issue of the Endbringers. Another reason capes are tolerated is because they act as some sort of resistance against Endbringers. Even if they can't defeat them, they can at least make the difference between causing a big disaster and wiping an area off the map.
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Jul 23, 2017 03:14
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Lone Goat posted:I stopped reading at the end of 18 because it just wasn't fun anymore. Twig lacks the same "I gotta find out what happens next!" element Worm had, but overall it's far better written. That being said, even though I think it's better I wouldn't say I enjoy it more than Worm, though that's mainly just because Worm's genre/setting is fun and I've never been a fan of Steampunk (or in this case "Biopunk") as a genre. I definitely like Sy a million times more than Taylor, though. I will never stop complaining about how obnoxious Taylor is. In general I liked the Wards a lot more than the Undersiders (with the possible exception of Lisa), and would rather read a series with Clockblocker or Weld as the protagonist. Neurosis posted:ugh. contessa is such a crutch. Contessa makes sense (she has a shard humans were never meant to be given due to the mishap with the Entities), but I'm also not a big fan of her power. That being said, it seems like killing her would actually be entirely possible as long as you catch her by surprise. Like if you give her a poisoned drink or snipe her, she isn't going to have time to think "avoid this attack." I guess she could just start every day by adding an "ensure I don't die today" condition, but that still relies on her being smart enough to account for things ahead of time. Speaking of her power, if I were Contessa I would just ask myself to "write a book I will enjoy more than any other book I've read" and then read along as my hands automatically type it out.
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Jul 24, 2017 18:58
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Namarrgon posted:I kind of like her power though because of how utterly destroying it is to the individual. Imagine living like that; yeah you can do whatever you want, but it will never be _you_. In many ways Contessa is just a passenger (ha!) and passive observer of her own body for the events she sets in motion and the the goals she sets. It is somewhat hinted at near the end, where she muses something like "maybe I'll do something for myself now". Ever since she was a child the individual Fortuna essentially ceased to exist and Contessa is little more than a very (very) efficient tool. Yeah, but that's only if she chooses to use it constantly. Its a hell of a better deal than the parahumans who are permanently altered mentally in some negative way.
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Jul 24, 2017 23:34
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Brofessor Slayton posted:The problem with that is that she must use her power constantly, as any action she takes while not using it (no matter how minor) could throw off the main Path she's working towards. That is a good point. I wonder if it also forces her to function on minimal sleep, since it can basically use her body as a puppet as long as she's physically capable of moving around.
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Jul 29, 2017 00:23
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boxen posted:I've read up to Chapter 219 in Kumoko and it's gtten weird and I'm starting to lose interest, does it pick back up again? I like the side characters, but the whole thing with Kumo not actually being a person but a spider who was in the class room but has a person's memories, and the real person being the 'administrator' of the world put me off and now the story just seems rambling and unfocused to me. I'm in the minority who like post-dungeon crawling Kumoko the most and didn't like the beginning stretch of her leveling up and fighting things. Watching someone play an RPG that doesn't even exist isn't that interesting, since the narrative can arbitrarily choose when she levels up and what skills she gets; it's like some bizarre form of wish fulfillment aimed at people who spend all their time playing MMOs. I prefer when the other characters are involved, because I don't like Kumoko as a narrator.
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Jul 31, 2017 18:39
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For some reason I find the story of this girl trying to get this Inn started in Wandering Inn more interesting than the monster fighting you normally see in stories like this. I'm liking the story so far, though the main character is a bit too "nerd pseudo-witty" (for lack of a better description) for my taste. I mean, it's not unrealistic given her age and hobbies, but I get the impression the reader is supposed to find her funny/interesting. That's a relatively minor gripe, though. edit: Like, the idea of someone leveling up making them better at cleaning and cooking and stuff is somehow more interesting than just being able to hit harder with a sword/magic. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Aug 4, 2017 23:55
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I like how they're pointing out Taylor's (pretty major) flaws. From what they've said during the podcast (I'm up to arc 14 now) it sounds like they got some backlash from readers due to criticizing Taylor, which doesn't surprise me since a LOT of readers seem to have come away from Worm with the impression Taylor is super correct and good and everyone in the story is just dumb for not agreeing with her all the time. I'll be curious about what they say in the next few arcs, since I seem to remember some of my least favorite parts coming up (like the arc where all the Dragon suits come).
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Aug 10, 2017 05:37
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BENGHAZI 2 posted:Yeah pretty much everything they said from minute one is something where I went "....huh yeah I never noticed that before" See, I kinda disagree about not noticing this stuff the first time through, at least with regards to Taylor. Like, my first time reading it I definitely thought "Taylor is such a dumb rear end in a top hat" constantly. I feel like Wildbow intended for Taylor's flaws to be visible*, but I don't think he did a good job selling them as flaws. Like, we know Taylor did bad stuff, but we're not really shown many situations where she had some clear, superior alternative course of action. Take, for example, the time she almost kills Triumph (which is pushed pretty heavily as a big moral challenge); in the end Triumph still lives and her goal of staying with Coil in order to free Dinah ultimately ends up working, even if it hits some snags along the way. She was pushed into a corner where she didn't have any obvious alternative to doing what she did during the fight at the Mayor's house, so it's hard for the reader to say "yeah, Taylor should have done _____ instead!" Another example is the way she uses what amounts to extreme vigilante physical punishment in order to keep the peace in her territory. From what we're shown, there wasn't any other clear way for her to have accomplished the same goals. Actually, regarding Taylor's territory in general (which is probably the biggest long-term morally debatable course of action she takes), she's only able to do the stuff she does due to having access to Coil's ill-gotten funds. But, again, we aren't really shown some alternative she could have taken that would have also helped/protected the people of her territory. The reader can speculate how Taylor may have been able to accomplish all this same stuff without as much moral dubiousness if she had just become a hero from the start, but at the end of the day that's just speculation and we're not given any clear indication that this was an alternate path that would have allowed her to accomplish the same amount of good (and the story makes it pretty clear how she has had a net positive impact on her part of the city, etc; take for example the scene at school where all the students support her). * A good example is the scene where Clockblocker talks with Taylor before the Echidna fight and Taylor ends up feeling less certain about her past decisions afterwards (because Clockblocker is basically totally correct).
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Aug 12, 2017 08:10
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