So someone just forgot they were talking to a Worm liveblogger and briefly brought up a potential Homestuck-Worm parallel in Minda’s main chat.

(I’d normally have a screenshot for this kind of thing, but I had to immediately delete it because it was spoilers for Minda too.)

What I learned amounts to that there’s some kind of giant “worm thingy” that may or may not have space/time powers and be indestructible.

As usual, I’ll try to avoid speculating on too much on spoilers, but my immediate thoughts are a) that this might be Behemoth, though the space/time powers are probably not relevant to him, and/or b) that this could be relevant enough to be the real reason the story is called Worm.

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I’m sorry to say that the crack was widened a bit: A well-meaning fan began to complain at me over Discord about people who are careless with spoilers, but wound up indicating things about how important this spoiler and the one about shards were and when in the story they become relevant.

Apparently the worm thingy doesn’t become relevant until late in the story, but some people had started correctly theorizing about it not that long after the point I’m at. Similarly, the shards are a late thing.

On a more humorous note: After sharing screenshots of this person’s rant with Sharks, she told me that someone had just sent him an ask reminding her to not pass on any asks about, well, that. Irony at its finest and most frustrating. 😛

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Chances I’m going to stop calling it a “worm thingy” when I do find out what its deal is, provided I remember the spoilage: Low.

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Hello Krix! I was just wondering if you think it might be better to officially do asks on different days to the liveblogs rather than before, considering the number of asks you seem to be getting?

Yeah, at this point, it’s looking like that’s going to be a necessity. Some of my recent ask sessions have wound up almost as long as the liveblog sessions, though less work-intensive.

That said, that will lead to a reduction of liveblog frequency. I still need my off-days, and asks are becoming less of a thing that I can do on those off-days, so we’re looking at going from “liveblog every two days most of the time” to “liveblog every three days most of the time, with an ask day on the second day”.

Also, in January, I’m probably starting a sort of work training job, which might also reduce the frequency. How that shakes out is something we’ll have to see when the time comes.

I should note that I don’t want you guys to stop sending me asks to lighen the load, though!

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thesetinykeyholes:

Dammit Krix, I’ve been looking forward to the Sophia/Shadow Stalker reveal for weeks, and you had to go and ruin it by figuring it out. So unsatisfying! But seriously though, I’ve read Worm three times and I’m really enjoying the reread through your eyes. You’re coming up on some of my favorite arcs of the series, so have fun and keep up the good work.

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potentialpizza:

Not gonna lie, I was hoping for an emotional, catharsis-driven reaction to Sophia being Shadow Stalker. A very “fuck this unfair world” like the one I had at the time. Still, very fun to see you call it! This is one of the points I’ve been waiting for you to get to since you started Worm, along with the rest of Arc 8.

Hehe. Sorry to have disappointed the two of you, but I’m glad you’re enjoying the liveblog in general!

Also, to be fair, figuring it out moments before the confirmation isn’t that impressive in this case, I think. It’s not like Taylor knows all that many girls that are relevant enough to her to make her break down like that over finding in that room.

“fuck this unfair world” is a decent tagline for the Arc, though, or maybe the entire setting. 😉

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You’ve mentioned in the past that you read Homestuck, and you’ve been posting a lot of music you found fitting lately. I don’t know if you ever saw the fan video [S] Resume, but it might interest you to know that the soundtrack to that seems to have originally been made as music for worm, specifically this arc actually, since it’s literally named Extermination.

Huh, nice.

I’ve seen the video around in recommendations from other videos I’ve watched, but I haven’t watched it because I figured I might read Act Omega at some point and should start from the very beginning, but never got around to it.

Let’s take a look…

(…jeez, MSPFA is slow to load images today… *looks at log* Ah, it’s a little bit into it. If I keep going through the pages at this slow rate it’s gonna drive me mad before I get there. Let’s skip ahead, it’s not like I actually care about spoilers for this.)

Huh, that was pretty good, both the animation and the music. Those kids are in some real trouble now. 🙂

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About Panacea antagonizing Taylor: I think it’s important to remember how shitty Amy’s day has been. Taylor is afraid Tattletale and Danny are dead? For Amy, her cousin and uncle are dead, Aegis is dead. Perhaps other BB Wards or family members are dead or injured as well. They didn’t survive long enough for Panacea to save them. But the villain who took Amy hostage and helped to emotionally attack her is alive. And now Panacea has to heal her. Not a surprise Amy’s in a bad mood.

And on top of all that, she’s probably been running back and forth healing for a couple hours. That’s probably been quite exhausting, though judging by Interlude 3, that part’s not that different from business as usual.

Also, I’m fairly sure her dad’s dead too, for that matter. [Flashbang appeared in the list of “losses” after the first wave, and past me still thinks that list was all deaths at this point.]

So yeah, you’re right, it’s not exactly the best day she’s having.

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thats-rough-buddy:

Taylor’s mask doesn’t cover her entire head like a helmet. It’s just a mask, her hair flows freely. And Taylor was actually wrong on that guess, you already know why Amy wouldn’t use her powers while touching on someone’s scalp.

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Taylor’s suit has a hole in the back of the head for her hair to come out. A dumb decision, but everyone has their blind spots.

Oh yeah! I forgot about that. The question makes a lot more sense now.

Re: already knowing the real reason, I don’t remember that either, but I suppose it has to do with the proximity to the brain and her hangups around manipulating someone’s brain or putting them at risk of brain damage?

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I think you may be misremembering/misunderstanding what Amy did to Taylor in Arc 3. She was NOT using her power to give Taylor a headache, at least not directly. She modified the spiders that Taylor had put on her so that they were interfering with Taylor’s power. That’s why her headache went away when she killed those spiders. There’s been no indication that Amy’s powers can do anything to things she isn’t directly touching. Also, Taylor’s costume doesn’t cover her scalp, just her face.

Ohhh, right. That’s also how she was able to sneak up on Taylor to whack her.

…it’s been a while. It’s been over six months since Panacea knocked Taylor out at the bank robbery.

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Supernatural intimidation is unambiguously against the rules as either a flagrant act of aggression or a so-called “technical foul” (the catch-all and non-exhaustive category for actions not in the spirit of good sportsmanship) just like non-supernaturally threatening your opponent. Flying on the other hand is less clear and might need an obvious-rules patch though there are a lot of wording related to “the spirit of the game” which could perhaps be used. Source: FIBA 2017 rulebook.

Ahh, “the spirit of the game”, what a wonderful phrase to avoid having to specify exactly what you mean while writing the rules. 😉

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(It’s not like I’m innocent of that kind of avoidance myself. I haven’t made a clear-cut spoiler policy for Minda, which gives me a freer range to make decisions based on more than what’s “technically a spoiler” or “technically not a spoiler” without people complaining. I don’t know if Sharks has made a public spoiler policy, but she has the same freedom as far as I’m concerned.)

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mrcatfishing:

Opinions on Taylor literally tearing Leviathan a new asshole?

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Things Skitter has done: rotted a dude’s nuts off; drugged the same dude and cut out his eyes; literally tore a kaiju a new asshole.

Tsk, tsk… some people have no respect for others’ sensitive body parts…

Also all three of these things were fucking awesome. ;D

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I’m not qualified to say this with any kind of authority, but tidal waves have the word ‘tidal’ in their name for good reason. Not because they have anything to do with the moon, but because of their behavior. The ocean will recede beforehand and then move forward, like a tide but magnified in speed and effect.

Huh. I guess the bottom peak of the enormous wave comes first, then. Interesting!

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The default start page for the Android Google Chrome browser has links to the six pages I visit the most. Right now, it’s moved your liveblog all the way up to the number two shot, behind the Reddit homepage.

I’m honored! 😀

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Scion seems to be pretty arrogant, but he did save their asses so I think we can tolerate/excuse his behavior.

Yeah, he’s been saving people non-stop for almost 30 years and he’s known as the most powerful cape. I come from a culture that despises arrogance over most else, but even I can recognize that at this point, he’s kind of earned it.

Besides… are you going to go up to a guy like him and say “I don’t like your ‘tude, dude”?

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Re: “he’s known as the most powerful cape” from the previous post: I specifically worded it like this because being known as the most powerful parahuman doesn’t mean you necessarily are, much like how there could easily be someone out there who runs faster than Usain Bolt, but never made a big enough deal of it for the world at large to know about it.

Besides, parahuman powers are so varied that it’s hard to tell what “most powerful” even means.

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Dude, you’re the only one who can make Worm a little less depressing and creepy than it is. Your humor is one of the reasons I started to read again this story.

I’m glad I can help you enjoy the story better!

It’s kind of what I’m doing for myself, too – my inclination is generally to joke about things and try to entertain myself and others. Liveblogging gives me more of an opportunity to do so, and an audience to do it for. That allows me to enjoy the experience more myself. 🙂

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I’m sure you HATE Leviathan with the force of 1000 burning suns for everything he did in this arc, isn’t right? I think he’s (so far) at the top of the characters that you want to die a slow, painful death.

Honestly?

I’m really unsure on just how intelligent Leviathan actually is, besides battle intelligence. I mean, can we hold him accountable to human morals or should we treat him more like a wild animal with a strong tendency towards murder?

That said, he does seem to be quite aware of the science of geology, and Interlude 7 seemed to imply that the Endbringers might watch the news??

But yeah, Leviathan honestly feels more like a wild animal or a force of nature than a character, so even though he has by far the largest killcount out of any character in the story so far other than possibly the other two Endbringers, I have a hard time truly holding him fully accountable.

That said, it would be nice to see him dead, if not because “sweet revenge” as much as “finally he’ll stop killing people”.

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I think Kaiser not believing his ideology is fanon.

Ah, alright. It does sound like the kind of thing fans of a character might come up with to validate their support of a character with bad views. “Oh he didn’t really mean all that, he was just using it to control the team and keep up appearances…”

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“You’d think a door would be better at containing water when it’s ajar” I did a double-take. Then I groaned.

Mwahaha >;)

This kind of thing is why “Krix pls” practically became a catchphrase of someone I know for a while. :p

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[Discord]

Krixle Wells:
Oh hey, Mo, you’re already here. Nice, I was about to @ you with this
[link to the previous post]

the tiredest gay:
KRIX P L S

Case in point.

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mkaiww:

Why do you screenshot questions and then post your answers underneath and could you please stop doing that because I’m severely dyslexic and the solution a use for digital text involves copying it into another window which doesn’t work with photos of text if that makes sense

Ah! Sorry about that.

The reason I’ve been doing it like this is that I don’t get the asks sent directly to this blog. The asks go to my screener, Sharks, who then screenshots the non-spoilery asks and sends the screenshots to me over Discord.

Sharks says she’d be happy to help with this by sending me copyable transcripts of the asks that I can put in the posts like I’ve done here, and I’m perfectly willing to do so from now on. I want my blog to be accessible to everyone. 🙂

[This ask is why I have been transcribing asks and other screenshots of text in the WordPress migration. It’s also a milestone of the migration I have been looking forward to, because it should significantly increase the speed at which I can mirror ask posts.

For the rest of this ask session, I transcribed the asks in addition to posting the screenshots I had been sent, and since then I have been quoting the text directly. The drawback of this is that I stopped receiving the names of the askers, making every ask effectively anonymous.]

AUGH SO MANY SPOILERS ALL I WANTED WAS SOMEONE TO READ WORM AS INNOCENTLY AS I DID

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sharedvi:

You should probably change your Discord username to Krix “Hide your Worm spoilers” Well at this point

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krix do we have to make a human motorcade around you wherever you go holding signs saying “THIS PERSON IS A BLIND WORM LIVEBLOGGER. DO NOT SPOIL HIM EVEN IF HE ASKS.”?

Heh, I guess. Unfortunately spoilers in the wild are a risk every liveblogger faces. I’m honestly lucky this fandom is on the smaller side in the communities

Also I do believe Krix “Hide your Worm spoilers” Well is too long for Discord’s nickname character limit… Krix “no Worm spoilers” Well should work though.

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I’d like to say that it’s really neat how this liveblog seems to have gotten other people in to the story. I’ve been a fan of Worm for a couple years now, and it’s always a bit of a hard sell, because not only is it reading, but that it is A LOT of reading. The fact that you’re doing this in digestible chunks, on a forum that Worm fans don’t seem to be very common on, seems to be a large factor. Fun fact: at this point you’ve read more words of Worm than there are in The Order of the Phoenix!

I am really happy to hear this! I’m glad I can help share the story with new people, who hopefully enjoy it as much as, or even more than, I do. 😀

(The only downsides I see are that anyone who reads for the first time alongside or on the blog will also get spoiled whenever I do, unless they blacklist the “#spoiled” tag, and that I accidentally skipped a paragraph or so in 1.1.)

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Actually Kaiser not actually buying the ideology is NOT fanon, there is a WoG on it. And it’s certainly not used as an excuse to say “Oh Kaiser isn’t that bad”, just the opposite. Kaiser is so bad he has no qualms against using the racist ideology in order to manipulate people for his own ends. He spread just as much misery as any other leader of an hate group and he doesn’t even do it because he believes in it. He just straight up doesn’t care about all of the victims.

Ah, fair enough.

Either way, I think my stance on him is pretty clear: