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NecroMonster posted:Current theory going is that Taylor might not have to deal with any of the mental limits others have on their powers while controlling them, because many of those limits come not from the shard but from the mind of the controller of the shard, and Taylor probably doesn't have to directly control brains in order to control those powers. Hey, I totally claimed that as my theory this morning! <  >quote:Oh gosh, Taylor might be inadvertently teaching her shard how to be human. This, not so much. Maybe Taylor becomes a Worm at the end of the series instead of teaching the Worm to be human?
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Oct 16, 2013 04:15
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At what point does this series go from typical superhero fare to  ? I've been trying to get a friend to read it, and I know that by the Leviathan fight (chapter 8) I was totally hooked. I just can't remember where my particular point of no return was.
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Oct 17, 2013 14:52
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TOOT BOOT posted:I forget, did we ever find out what Amy realized about shards in the birdcage, that the Simurgh blocked? As far as I know, no. Not officially. Wildbow may have said something in the comments, though. He's been known to do that for minor things.
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Oct 21, 2013 01:26
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AAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Holy poo poo, this just keeps getting tenser. 30.5 I was wondering when the third entity would show up. Too bad it wasn't the third entity. And kudos to whoever called Taylor losing her humanity as she kept using the capes. I don't know how things can get worse from this point. Grundulum fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Oct 24, 2013 |
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Oct 24, 2013 05:28
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Okay, this is pretty cool. This reference is from the current chapter, but goes back to the Slaughterhouse Nine arcs:Wildbow posted:...I watched as Scion’s partner came to life. There was only one growth at first, like a stem, a human-sized body, pure white. From the comments section of the most recent chapter: Wildbow posted:
I don't know how much of that was intentional, versus Wildbow taking credit for coincidence, but hot drat.
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Oct 24, 2013 19:09
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Blinks77 posted:Or he's the big bad in the sequel. I see this as unlikely. We have several non-Endbringer S-class threats still wandering around: the Sleeper and the three Blasphemies. All of them have made cameo appearances at one point or another, and we know essentially nothing about any of them. And while the events of chapter 30 have shown that any sufficiently clever and resourceful Master can leverage themselves into an S-class threat, it'd feel weird if the sequel dealt with someone who's gotten comparatively more screen time than any of the ones I mentioned. Unrelated question: I'm still spoiler-tagging stuff from the last couple of arcs in case we get any new people wandering into the thread. At what point should we change over and make everything tag-free? Grundulum fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 09:38
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Doesn't Tattletale explain pretty early on her theory about the cops-and-robbers approach superheros take? I don't remember where exactly it came up, or what the finer (or any, really) details of it were, but I remember thinking it was pretty convincing at the time. And it didn't refer to Endbringers at all. Edit: found it. http://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/08/27/agitation-3-6/ Grundulum fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Nov 9, 2013 |
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Nov 9, 2013 05:45
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This chapter here is basically a microcosm of what made me like Worm in the first place. Great characters who have strong motivations and history together, and it shows in all their interactions. Also, the dividing line between hero and otherwise is razor-thin, and sometimes you just can't know which side of things your actions carry you. That, and the fact that in the middle of all this we have almost throwaway jokes about making kids. I would gladly read more about the Wormverse, because Wildbow does such a fantastic job with his characters. It doesn't need to be cosmically important like the main arc was. Even just dealing with the day-to-day kinds of things is fascinating now that we know all the players so well from the main arc.
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Nov 9, 2013 06:35
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Does this chapter suggest that we are actually seeing that the shards that Scion never intended for human use were distributed to humanity after his death? 'Cause if so, whoever gets the "auto victory" clap power is seriously going to ruin a lot of people's days.
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Nov 13, 2013 11:13
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Question about the current chapter: who was the body inside the Simurgh's tube? Did I miss a line somewhere?
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Nov 18, 2013 03:41
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Can you imagine trying to judge Worm by its first chapter alone?
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Nov 24, 2013 17:46
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thespaceinvader posted:I did - we all did, in the end. It was enough to get me reading the second one. This would be too. My point was more to question all the people (not just here) who are trying to make sweeping pronouncements about the story based on just the first section of the first arc. I've seen comments (again, not necessarily on SA) to the effect of "strike against Peer for having a male protagonist" or "the characters didn't have a lot of depth to them". No poo poo? We've had basically enough text to learn names, setting, and a few relationships and people are complaining that the characters don't have depth?
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Nov 25, 2013 16:22
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(Talking about Peer 1.2) Dealing with intrigue in a story always seems like a risky move to me. Authors need to make sure their characters are smarter than the reader, lest characters make dumb moves that the reader is merely told are clever. Then the author needs to be smarter than the characters, since otherwise how could he/she write the smart characters and come up with their actions? The author gets an advantage, knowing what the characters and reader don't, but it still must be incredibly difficult to write convincing conniving. Either there's a trick I'm not aware of, or it really is that difficult to pull off well and those authors who do manage it deserve heaps of plaudits. Edit: I was going to mention the manga series Death Note as an example of this. Seems the people over at TV Tropes had a similar idea, given the leading picture. I should go back and reread that to see if it still seems clever. Grundulum fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Nov 26, 2013 18:33
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Blasphemeral posted:Chapter 1 of Face was definately better than Chapter 1 of Peer. I couldn't even get through that one. I'm really disappointed that Peer isn't going anywhere. I like Face's first chapter just as much as Peer, but there were definitely wheels-within-wheels plots going on in Peer that now we're never going to get to see  As to your first question, in medias res leads to a lot of telling rather than showing. Think of all the things that happened in the first chapter: newly orphaned long-lost siblings, strained relationship with them, Marlene's tantrum and destruction, friendly-with-benefits neighbor who may or may not be associated with the less-than-savory side job, omnipresence of technology, and so on. Now imagine that in addition to describing the fallout from a cliffhanger in the first chapter (only you, Wildbow  ), we have to learn everything from the that chapter in order to understand the actions the characters are taking in the second one. There would almost have to be a lot of paragraphs dedicated to explaining the needed background.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:48
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What am I missing by not reading the comments sections? Apparently there was Worm fanfiction being posted in the Worm comments; have things degenerated so quickly with these new stories?
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Dec 26, 2013 03:05
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Silver2195 posted:The bit about Others being gradually killed off by "a process of elimination two thousand and six hundred years in the making" has potentially interesting implications. Zoroastrianism became popular around that time (though it's hard to fix a date for Zoroaster himself) and Pliny the Elder claims Zoroaster invented magic. I'm going to assume this is about Pact 4, which I haven't had a chance to read yet.
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Dec 31, 2013 23:01
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A thought about familiars: in the first section of Pact, the cat that granny had was (in retrospect) obviously her familiar. In the third section Blake and Rose are told expressly not to choose a dog or a rat as their familiar. Cats do not traditionally get along with either dogs or rats -- I wonder what the in-Universe explanation is for the proscription.
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Jan 2, 2014 19:52
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Pact 1.5: hot drat, Wildbow continues to be a master at "things look like they can't get any worse (until they do)".
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Jan 7, 2014 15:13
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^ I don't get wizard humor. What's the joke? ^veekie posted:Got my suspicions on where he is, Rose only manifested at the approximate time that Barbatorem must have been released, and his form is malleable. If that's true, then someone must have ignored (intentionally, I suppose) the warnings about not bringing anything reflective into the room. There's also the question of how Rose can transfer from mirror to mirror with ease, as that doesn't fit with the quote you included.
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Jan 7, 2014 21:43
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Blasphemeral posted:Man, it is rough not having Thursday updates. I'm considering throwing some cash Wildbow's way to expedite matters. I was thinking something similar this morning. I got spoiled by the end of Worm.
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Jan 17, 2014 02:20
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Saith posted:Semi-related to the thread, but some of my friends want me to GM a game for them set in the Worm-verse at some point. I'm kind of at a loss as to what system I could use, though. Any thoughts? Mutants and Masterminds?
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Jan 18, 2014 04:41
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elmer fud posted:I just finished worm. That was one of the better things I've read. How long was it, because I read for almost a month straight before I finished it. It just kept building up. Like a constant Sanderson avalanche. I happen to have an exact count because I compiled all the chapters into a single multiple-MB epub file for offline browsing. It's just north of 1.6 million words. Longer than the first five Wheel of Time books together. Edit: The first six Dresden Files books total 624,000 words. I got bored then, but they seemed to average about 110,000 words or so each at that point, so that'd make Worm longer than the entirety of the series released to this point. Grundulum fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 18, 2014 22:27
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I'm pretty confident that Blake is underestimating the potency of the "nukes" Behaim referred to. Given how Worm escalated I would be very surprised if we didn't learn that Barbatorem is a small fish in a very large and dangerous pond. I'm looking forward to finding out what the actual power Granny Thorburn left behind is.
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Jan 21, 2014 15:07
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Silver2195 posted:It kind of reminds me of raksha from Exalted, but the implication that they're humans who have convinced themselves and the universe that they're something else is something I haven't seen before. My impression was that your spoilered implication was something Blake said just to get under the skin of the other person in the conversation. We didn't get any information suggesting he actually thinks that, or confirmation from others (or Others  ) that what he said is true/false.
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Feb 2, 2014 00:47
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Okay (Pact 2.6), I still don't know why Blake can't use ~~~Rose~~~ as his familiar. Am I missing something obvious?
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Feb 4, 2014 07:24
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SerSpook posted:At a guess, because Rose is probably drawing from Blake as a power-source, making her a terrible choice to use as a foundation of power. Vestiges in general seem like bad ideas due to their fragility, at least as familiars. The deal with familiars is that they gain a measure of mortality, according to Granny Thorburn's notes. This serves (I imagine) to increase the vulnerability of things like the Fae from earlier in the chapter, but why couldn't it go the other way -- serve to add a measure of permanence to something that would be otherwise ephemeral?
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Feb 4, 2014 21:08
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I don't think Rose can take an implement; didn't her awakening ceremony fail, meaning she isn't a true practitioner?
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Feb 6, 2014 15:24
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SystemLogoff posted:So, I stopped right after Dragon Died, what chapter do I need to start from to continue? I don't remember that happening. Can you give us more info about what was going on in Worm around that?
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Feb 7, 2014 14:56
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Silver2195 posted:We finally get an explanation for the overuse of the word copacetic. I'm not very aware of comics or other superhero stories -- which superhero spawned this particular phrase?
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Feb 9, 2014 16:23
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We'll agree to disagree, then. I really really enjoyed almost every single one of the interludes in Worm once I figured out what they were. It was only the epilogue interludes that I felt dragged to any great degree, and those only because they came right after the very emotional climax. So far I'm liking the two (three?) kinds of interludes we're getting in Pact, and the option to change things from chapter to chapter should keep them from getting stale.
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Feb 13, 2014 19:34
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To the guy above me: posting Worm answers under the "Pact Questions" heading is not very effective. Regarding the Worm questions asked, unless Wildbow said something in a comments thread I don't think we ever got a definitive answer. We have strong implications, including claims from Tattletale and others. But Tattletale's power isn't guaranteed to give her correct information, IIRC, and those other characters could have been lying for an advantage in whatever exchange the topic came up in. As to Pact question #2, any time Rose does something that would require power it leaves her weaker. We saw that with the mirror breaking in the first couple of chapters, didn't we? I imagine that swearing an oath, as she did in this latest chapter, involves a bit of power shifting around. No clue on the other two questions, but I guess we'll get answers eventually.
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Feb 16, 2014 17:25
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SerSpook posted:I like the idea that this will backfire due to the glamour. Unfortunately Blake isn't the target. Well, we do know what this arc's title is. I agree that the house is the target, not Blake.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:17
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Wow, that last chapter was incredible. I was actually breathing faster and feeling nervous during the phone call paragraphs and their followup. I don't know what Wildbow can do from here, but between Worm's awesome rampup in tension and the drama here I can't wait.
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Feb 22, 2014 23:53
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Elyv posted:Things can't ever go quite right for Blake, can they? There's a very good in-universe explanation for that. His family has so much karmic debt that it's the work of lifetimes to pay it off, and when you're in karmic debt Murphy's Law applies double or triple. It's no surprise that he can't catch a break.
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Feb 25, 2014 07:40
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I've kind of been wondering when Blake will make the argument that he is only a threat because people perceive him as such. Laird and the Duchamps are removing every one of his non-evil resources and then complaining that he's going to use the demons. No poo poo, Blake's going to use unsavory powers, but only because (1) he needs to defend himself at all, and (2) you've taken away all of the opportunity to use "good" powers. This argument wouldn't work within Jacob's Bell because the two major factions both want the house, the land, or whatever's inside the house. They don't care that they are causing the situation they're using as an excuse to remove Blake, though you'd think there'd be some bad karma generated by such a plan. Outside of Jacob's Bell, where actors might be more neutral, if Blake claimed that he wants nothing to do with the diabolists' materials/methods it might carry a little more weight. Maybe this will come up eventually. Or maybe Blake can't make that claim truthfully.  (Man, this all seemed really familiar as I typed it. Apologies if this has been proposed upthread somewhere.)
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Mar 4, 2014 19:08
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Blake has some weird instincts, that turn out to be completely correct. Example? Nothing really stood out to me when I read the latest chapter.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:17
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Why is there less discussion for Pact than there was for Worm? Are there just fewer readers or does it have to do with the material leaving less open to discuss?
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Mar 20, 2014 05:47
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The ending to this chapter is so Wildbow it's ridiculous. Like others have posted, I have no clue what Blake could do with Evan as a familiar, but he's already shown himself to be much more aware than a typical ghost. Might be able to play to Blake's advantage, having an incorporeal familiar who is capable of independent planning, scouting, and also reporting back on what he saw, among other things.
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Apr 3, 2014 16:00
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NecroMonster posted:The key thing you are forgetting is that even that would be "Karma". This seems up there with ta'veren for sheer convenience of the in-Universe deus ex machina.
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Apr 4, 2014 05:46
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Scorpion 3-2 posted:I might have missed it but was this interview ever posted? Thanks for this. I feel like I've seen it before, but I don't remember it being posted in this thread. Some choice tidbits: quote:I believe in consistency, and haven’t missed a scheduled update yet. Two hundred and sixty-seven updates in two years and a little bit. [This continued to the end of the series!] quote:Worm started off as a way for me to break a bad habit in my writing. I’d spent ten years writing recreationally and never finishing anything I wrote. I’d try to polish and edit the early parts of the work and lose all momentum. I’d burn out, get frustrated with the text and disinterested in the concept, and I’d abandon that particular story or story idea. quote:If I had advice for anyone doing a serial, beyond the idea of consistency and frequency, it’s about backlogs. Writing a serial and taking the time every week isn’t easy. I put in about fifty hours a week just writing, and that’s not always easy. Real life interferes.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:27
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