So here’s a thought: When Imp’s power is in effect, does Grue forget about Aisha? Does he no longer know why he became a villain while Imp is doing her thing?
To prevent my earlier ask from being blocked due to spoilers, I’ve split this into a second one. When Krix finishes this upcoming chapter, it may be a good time to remind him of Regent’s “secret weapon” mentioned in the Leviathan fight a couple of times (assuming he doesn’t remember it on his own). I missed that foreshadowing entirely on my first readthrough, and when reading through the blog I was really surprised to see WB dropping hints there.
Huh! I totally forgot about that.
Man, can you imagine if it had turned out Regent could take over Leviathan’s body…
Its NOT Imp who controls Shadow Stalker. Regent is the one who controls her. He’s the one who always calls Taylor dork and back at the fight with Leviathan, he asked Tattletale if he can use his “secret weapon”. So, his secret weapon was the ability to control a human being ENTIRELY. You still don’t know Imp’s power.
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*internally screaming* KRIX FOR FUCK’S SAKES
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I particularly find it insane how off the mark you got in this entire chapter. You are usually so aware of some character traits, that it flabbergasted me when you missed entire syntax and foreshadowing hints throughout this chapter and ones before it. Its Regent. He has a “secret weapon”. He is the “most dangerous Master in town” the only member of the Undersiders worth watching out for. A true son of Heartbreaker, going by a different identity ever since he left home. He’s a body snatcher.
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Sooo, Regent spent the last couple hours doing something to Sophia. Something that Sophia knew about from reading Regent’s file, and was completely terrified of, and something which Taylor was kind of uncomfortable with. Now at the end of the chapter we see Sophia acting exactly like Regent. Your conclusion from all of this is that IMP is controlling her???
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Between Regent saying his secret weapon takes a long time to use, Piggot telling Weld that only one of the Undersiders’ Masters is of any real concern, Sophia not knowing Imp was with the Undersiders despite having access to what Piggot told Weld, Sophia freaking out when she realizes she’s helpless in front of Regent, and Sophia calling Taylor by Regent’s nickname for her right after laughing in the same cadence as him, why do you think it’s Imp and not Regent controlling Sophia at the end?
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I know Shark is probably going to wait until you’ve figured it out before showing you this. Oh Krix… never change. Why would you even think it was Imp? I don’t know how Wildbow could have made things clearer. Shadow Stalker is mirroring Regent, same laugh, calling Taylor “dork”. It’s kinda nice to see you using that nogging of your to almost manage to figure out that you completely misinterpreted something though.
Okay so in my defense…
First of all, I did realize that it could be Regent controlling Sophia rather than Imp controlling both of them. It just took a little longer than it probably should – I caught on in the end of chapter post, which was literally the next post after “dork”.
Second, the chapter had been spending time on establishing Imp’s personality, and I was expecting to possibly find out her powers in that chapter, too. Mix that with my guess that the name reflected a penchant for mischief, and it’s not that far-fetched that if Imp’s power had been multiple-person body snatching, it could’ve been introduced in the form of Imp playing an ill-timed prank on everyone by taking control of Sophia. On top of all this, I had already suggested that body snatching could be a power of Imp’s.
Third, we’ve known Regent for a long time, and the only concrete thing I’m aware of that indicated he could be far more powerful than we knew was the whole “secret weapon” thing, which I had forgotten about.
Fourth, re: “most dangerous Master in town”, unless I’m missing something, that was first mentioned in 10.3, after we found out for sure that it was he who was controlling Shadow Stalker. Also, Piggot mentioned that only one of the Masters in the Undersiders was worth watching out for. At the time, it was entirely justified to think she was talking about Bitch or Skitter.
So yeah, I see how it might seem dumb in retrospect given the evidence that makes sense to you guys now, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see something unprecedented happen and attribute it to the one whose power we don’t know yet rather than the one we’ve been following around ever since the end of Arc 2 and never seen anywhere near this level of power from.
“Also, with that last bit about Wildbow commenting on a readthrough, I can’t help but wonder if he’s aware of my liveblog, or even reads it…” He has read other liveblogs of Worm, so it’s definitely not out of the question. He’s probably at least aware of it, since it’s been posted in the subreddit.
Yeah! I got another ask after that comment [here] that had a quote from Wildbow himself about my liveblog, so now I know for sure that he reads my liveblog, or at least did back when I was in Arc 3. 🙂
Undertale: Extermination. Aka a normal genocide run.
(in response to this [also here])
Hehe, yep!
whoever said smugbug is the best Lisa/Taylor shipname needs to perish upon the wrath of skittertale. Also, Skitterpan is the worst ship.
Looks like we have a civil ship war on our hands, folks. Shippers fighting other shippers of the same ship, over the name of it…
Also apparently against Skitterpan. I’m not sure who that is supposed to be (Skitter x Weld, maybe?), so I’m gonna choose to imagine Skitter x Peter Pan for now.
Hey krix, what do you think the PRT ratings and classifications of some of the other characters would be? The ones that haven’t been given so far, like the Protectorate or New Wave.
Let’s see… Ratings are a bit too abstract and dependent on the power and all the other powers out there for me to really get much of an idea, but classifications I can do:
- Miss Militia: Changer, technically, since the weapon energy is a part of her. That’s not really practical information for a battle, so you’re probably better off calling her a Blaster, since her power can provide her with ranged weaponry. Maybe both.
- Legend: Mover/Blaster/(Brute?).
- Alexandria: Mover/Blaster/Brute.
- Eidolon: Stranger, maybe? How else do you classify the power to have whatever powers you like? In practice it’s probably better to just classify him as “variable”.
- Velocity: Mover/Breaker.
- Dauntless: Striker, with the power to infuse items with power on touch, much like Flechette’s more temporary ability to infuse items with Breaker properties. Flechette mentioned energy weapons while explaining the classification, too.
- Assault: Striker? His power appears to have very limited range. In practice also a Mover.
- Battery: Mover.
- Triumph: Dragonborn. Uh, I mean, Blaster.
- Photon family: Mover/Blaster/Brute of various ratings. Not entirely sure where shields that protect others end up.
- Glory Girl: Mover/Brute/Stranger. The latter by analogy with Imp, since Glory Girl’s aura of intimidation seems to work a lot like Imp’s aura of oblivion.
- Grue: Shaker? I’ve talked about this before, but it seems like this category covers those who change up the battlefield in some way, and while Labyrinth and Vista mess with reality itself, covering the battlefield in darkness can shake things up a bit too.
- Dragon: We already know she’s a Tinker, but she probably counts as a Mover and Blaster as well, at least if the mechs count. Even if they don’t, she’s probably listed as if they do, since the fact that they don’t have her inside seems to be a secret, possibly even to the PRT. See also Chariot, whom I seem to recall was given a Mover rating because his suits made him speedy.
Hey, I think you must have skipped the Sentinel arc interlude.
Sharks: (I’d just like to point out for redunancy that this is a joke, and you didn’t miss a secret chapter.)
Hehe. Yeah, guess I’d better go back and read the entire Arc again and try not to miss the Interlude this time. See you tomorrow for Sentinel 9.1!
Would it be spoilers to specify the dates? If not, Gestation 1.1 was on April 8th, and Parasite 10.1 is on June 3rd, according to the timeline
Huh, nice. Looks like I was right with “2-3 months”, then. Well, give or take a few days.
(For after Imp’s power is revealed) Um, Krix? Imp’s been here the whole time. Did you… what were we talking about?
I keep rereading this ask and I can’t for the life of me remember who you’re talking about.
Sitting here wondering how long it will take Krix to realize who Imp is (as of “it sounds like Imp is a little younger than the others”)
Who who is?
(Imp jokes aside, sorry to disappoint you by not realizing it until Aisha showed up out of costume.)
Haha, Krix, wrong Unforgiveable Curse. >:)
Heh, yeah… Though it’s a bit of both, really. Combine that with Regent’s backstory and you’ve got a triple whammy.
My Little Undersiders: Wildbow is Magic by ChromaCurves, submitted by defectivealtruist 😀
This is really cu– OH SHIT THEY HAVE PARASPRITES BROCKTON BAY IS DOOMED QUICK WHERE’S A TRUMPET
*ahem*
As I was saying, this is really cute! I love the little touches, like Taylor apparently controlling the parasprites, trying to put one on whoever that is in the bottom right, but the parasprite having forgotten about or had trouble finding the target.
Another nice touch (that might be subtle to non-fans of MLP?) is that Rachel is built like a stallion, and the somewhat feminine-looking (compared to Grue, anyway) Alec is built like a mare. 🙂
Bitch frowning at her nap being interrupted but not doing anything further somehow makes me more sure than anything else that she’d get along splendidly with Zoro from One Piece.
Hah! Yeah, I haven’t seen or read all that much of One Piece, but from what I have, this sounds about right. 😛
…oh right, “The inside of the building didn’t match the exterior.” right at the top of the paragraph.(See, this is one reason why I don’t usually liveblog while slightly sleepy. If that keeps up I’m gonna have to split the session.) <– Don’t worry Krix, you do plenty of mistakes when you’re awake too, those who mind have probably left by now, those who’re still here understand.
Hah, that’s fair.
I think the baseball bat/club Weld forms is a Tetsubo/Kanabo, a Japanese warclub perhaps best known for its association with Oni (I found the name by googling “oni club”). It was designed to smash bones, armour, and the legs of horses.
Huh, neat!
I wonder if that says anything about Weld’s own heritage? It doesn’t necessarily, but there’s a precedent for Wildbow making characters reflect their heritage as a cape. Though to be fair, most of that precedent is from characters who care more than average about it.
Not fanart, exactly, but this mashup would work excellently as a Taylor training montage. :3
Hehe, yeah. That mashup works a lot better than I had expected, too. 😀
Hextrudedcubes: Now that you’ve met Imp, I can finally send you this most excellent of fanarts by kingdaume, featuring the Undersiders who are a boyband for some reason but they can’t decide on a theme
Ahaha, I love it!
Heh, of course Aisha is the one making devil horns. Also, speaking of Aisha, Brian doesn’t seem to approve of Aisha putting her arm around Alec’s neck… which I suppose makes a lot of sense – the two of them have some things in common personality-wise, I could see them getting along rather well. Possibly even more than get along.
Anyway, I really like the sheer amount of personality and joy that oozes out of this piece. Nice work!
Imp’s power means that the Worm fandom says Imp’d instead of Ninja’d.
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As a sidenote, know how the verb ‘ninjaed’ is used in forums to indicate someone posting something just before you did? In the Worm fandom the same thing is called “Imped” 🙂
Hah, nice.
Also it seems one of you got imped. 😉
“Also I know it wasn’t officially approved when we first saw it, but are you telling me the Tiro Finale / Alternator Cannon wasn’t potentially lethal?” Kid Win had made it explicitly for class A and S threats, like the Endbringers… and now you know why Kid win was in hot water when he deployed it against normal villains.
Ohh, right. That and it not having been approved first.
That makes a lot more sense, especially given that I was also thinking that using nonlethal weaponry against an Endbringer seemed a bit stupid.
I don’t know if you noticed, but the Undersiders have the theme of common fears: bugs, large vicious animals, darkness, having your secrets revealed, losing control of your body, and Imp’s power is perfect for gaslighting.
Huh, so they are. That’s neat!
(If I did ever notice that, or get told about it in an ask while I was still using images for the asks, blog search doesn’t find it and I don’t recall it.)
Ward isn’t an alternate perspective of Worm, it’s a sequel (so I guess you now know that sentient life remains in the universe after Worm for Wibblywobbles to write about). Pact and Twig are both stories unrelated to Worm – they’re urban fantasy, sorta, no superheroes.
Ah, so Ward is Worm 2, then. I guess since I received this ask, Sharks decided there was no point in keeping that from me now that I’d seen the title.
And yeah, I already knew Worm 2 – Ward – was a thing, just not what it was called. I also know it has a sort of prologue called Glow-Worm.
I’d like to suggest that Piggot’s first name is in fact Jerry. 😛
Heh, perhaps 😛
Sorry to disappoint, but I think the ‘J’ in Piggot’s username is just a first-draft typo, accidentally left in before Wildbow finished giving Piggot her real name.
I see… I guess that just frees it up for headcanons as to what the J really stands for. Maybe it stands for a “Jirector”, which is like a Director, but blue and made of denim.
I like how your table of contents fails to distinguish between 9.3 and 9.6
…whoops.
Wait, why did I name 9.3 “Shell Game”? Or did I accidentally change the name of 9.3 to match 9.6, somehow, at some point?
Oh right, Trickster. That’s why, Trickster was shuffling the Wards around like the shells of a shell game.
I guess I’ll have to change the title for 9.3 (how about… “Talk on the Clock”?), but at least it’s fitting that this would happen with a title that evokes the image of different contents under similar cups.
“Tick Talk”. That’s better, although it loses the reference to Clockblocker’s talks with his mom, Glory Girl and Vista being “on the clock” in the sense that he was supposed to be in the classroom.
‘You say as if the Protectorate wasn’t using Bakuda’s bombs against Leviathan and isn’t constantly providing plenty of PRT soldiers and capes with equipment made by tinkers other than themselves’ As we all know, bombs are perfectly safe. Also, emphasis on the ‘verify’ part.
Dragon did mention verifying the devices, but she specifically said that only the tinker who made it could verify it as safe, and I highly doubt they had Bakuda verify her devices.
That said, I’m not so much calling the PRT out for hypocrisy as I am calling her out on a poor bluff. She was clearly saying that mostly because she saw the truth in what Tattle was saying, that Kid’s stuff could help them get out of there before the Protectorate reinforcements arrived. Tattle, on her part, decided to call her out on it in a more personally hurtful way.
I’m honestly annoyed that Dragon WAS affected by Tattletale. You’d think people would learn not to talk to the thinker whose file says not to talk to her.
Hehe, yeah. Though we saw how well that turned out in Extermination! 😛
Krix… Have you been peeking? You mention then Dragonslayers by name in post 169740378939, but you’ve never mentioned them before—their name is first given in the post AFTER that one…
Nope – they were first introduced in Interlude 5 [here].
I didn’t peek, I just remembered something for once. 😛
Two chapters in one night. Good work. You are now only two chapters behind Nick.
Nice!
Sounds like it’s a good time to be a fan of this part of the story, eh?
Since Krix has mentioned interest in wormfic, maybe you could give him just a little taste of it whilst also letting him know what to expect. Yet Another Worm Fanfic is what I have in mind, and he’s far enough into canon that it contains no spoilers or hints he hasn’t gotten already. It should be easy to find if you just google the name, and its barely a few paragraphs long.
It seems Sharks disagrees on this specific fic being spoiler free (“It’s kinda massive fucking spoilers.”), but in general, I’m open to the idea of reading some shorter fics if Sharks is okay with screening them. Ideally ones posted / last updated around the same time as the chapters I’m at, to minimize spoiler potential even before screening.
Can you send krix some of the Skitter Facts? At least the ones that wont spoil stuff?
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Skitter Facts:
Skitter doesn’t run from danger. Danger runs from her, gets tripped up, and has its crotch melted off by spiderbites. (1.5)
Skitter has never gotten a cold. She once had a concussion, but the city never recovered. (5.1)
A supervillain once looked at Skitter funny. She cut out his eyes. (5.9)
Unlike Clockblocker, time doesn’t stop for Skitter. Instead, it waits for her permission before moving. Skitter once decided to distract a tidal wave. She succeeded. (8.4)
Normal rodeo is for wusses. Skitter rodeo-rides Endbringers. While stabbing them with a halberd. (8.5)
Skitter once tore a living storm a new asshole. Literally. (8.5)
Skitter started her villain career as an undercover hero. She was so skilled that when the villains she’d set out to betray found out, they offered her her job back. (8.8)
If you can’t see Skitter, she can still see you. If you can see Skitter, you’re about to get dogpiled by a swarm of bugs that weigh more than you do.
Actually, Skitter does have eyes on the back of her head. And on the wall. And around the corner. And on your head.
In Brockton Bay, arachnophobia is no longer a recognized medical condition. Instead there are several new conditions for people who are not yet deathly afraid of bugs.
Ahaha, I love this. 😛
Where can i read worm?
Right here: https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/1-1/
Maybe I should stick that in my blog description?
[reblogging the ask about Dragon and Tattletale]
Also: I suppose it ties in with how certain Dragon was that she wouldn’t be needled by Tattletale. Dragon underestimated Tattletale and overestimated herself, like so many others.
That said, Tattletale’s needling of Dragon was kinda limited. She didn’t even really need her power to do it, except maybe to say “she’s sore about this”.
[The emote in question is :imp:.]
Angelica is still hurt from fog inhalation, that’s why she can’t move very well
Yeah, I was reminded of that eventually by the narration. 🙂
re: not realizing it was regent controlling SS at first, I hope you’re not taking it too hard. It was one of the more amusing parts of reading your take on the chapter. Missing things is just as much fun as getting them (for us, anyway), and in a story as long and dense as worm, you’re bound to miss a few.
Hehe, yeah. I know how it is, as a fellow liveblog fan – sometimes it’s more fun to see the livebloggers be wildly off the mark. 😀
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t sometimes make me feel like an idiot, but I’m fine with that. 😉
SkitterPan = Skitter + Panacea
Ahh, I see. I’m not inclined to ship that in the traditional sense (though I’m sure there’s plenty of Enemies (to Friends) to Lovers of them out there), but add a touch of Homestuck to it and there’s a pretty solid potential for a kismesissitude there.
For the non-Homestucks among you, that essentially means romantic rivalry, hate romance, though a healthy kismesissitude also requires an element of appreciation – even when a relationship is founded on mutual disgust, there’s gotta be something to make them enjoy it enough to pursue it. Also, if this weren’t the case, many kismeses would just end up killing each other.
Taylortale is clearly the superior shipname, notice how well it fits. Also I agree that your line of guesswork regarding Imp the body-snatcher was reasonable given the format of live-reading, the multistep process and how shortly you held it before realizing the possibility of Regent. The mention of only one of the undersiders masters being worth mentioning was from Weld’s interlude (you guessed the refereed to Bitch).
Hah, yeah, Taylortale works well with the T…tale, though it also blends civilian and cape names, which is a minus in my book.
That bias probably has something to do with me being in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom, where there’s considered to be four ships between the two main characters – Marinette is Ladybug and Adrien is Chat Noir, but Adri(e)nette, Ladrien, Marichat and Ladynoir are all treated separately. Though to be fair, that’s partly because the two of them don’t know each other’s identities in canon and thus each of them treat each iteration of the other as a separate person (much like Sophia and Taylor before Extermination).
Skitterpan is Skitter/Panacea, a common ship in various fics where Taylor becomes a hero. Skitter/Weld has been done, but I don’t know if it has a name.
Ah, yeah, I suppose flushed Skitterpan works a lot better in hero!Taylor AUs.
On ratings: Glory Girl’s aura is by WoG a Shaker effect, not Stranger, and the Photon family’s shields are also Shaker.
Huh, interesting. I can see how the shields, especially Shielder’s variety, would be Shaker according to my working definition of it – putting up barriers changes the battlefield.
The intimidation aura is a little stranger – no pun intended. I’m not sure what’s different between Glory Girl and Imp other than the effect… but maybe that’s it. Besides, we don’t know for sure that Imp is a Stranger – we were told that by someone who was experiencing her power in a battle, not someone who actually knew how it functioned. I’ve suggested before that Stranger may be a sort of miscellaneous category, and Imp’s power doesn’t really fit into anything else as far as I can tell… except maybe Shaker??
I’m not quite sure how the intimidation aura fits into Shaker either, though. I guess you could argue that placing a source of fear on the battlefield changes it up because people will want to avoid that? It seems a bit tenuous, though, so I might have to review my definition of a Shaker instead. We’ll have to see.
Headcanon: Imp has been with Undersiders the whole time starting from Arc 1, but made Taylor completely forget her after she left the group
Who?
Wouldn’t Imp be fear of the unknown? She is literally unknown.
Ah, yeah, that works. Every time you see her while her power’s running, she’s an unknown cape appearing out of nowhere.
And given how much knowledge is power in Worm, something like that is incredibly powerful for taking away someone’s control of a battle.
You should definitely NOT read ANY fanfics unless they’ve been screened word for word and frankly not even then. Even if they don’t spoil you, they’ll fill your head with bad fanon. And yeah whoever suggested that specific fic, they did a very bad thing, it would have MASSIVELY spoiled you.
Yeah, that’s a fair point. I should probably hold off on all sorts of fanfic until I finish Worm – and probably Ward too – like I intended from the start.
Hang on to your favorite fics, folks, it’s gonna be a while!
I’ve been wondering for a while (created a Tumblr account to ask this lol) if Krix would be interested in listening to the We’ve Got Worm podcast? It’s an arc by arc, spoiler-free discussion between a guy who’s read Worm and a guy who is new to it, and it gave me an entirely new appreciation for the story.
If a Steven Universe liveblog I know of that follows a similar format is any indication, that seems like something I should wait with until I’ve finished the story. When that time comes, though, you should definitely remind me of this!
Krixwell Liveblogs 
[…] remember this one [here]! I had some fun pretending to be freaking out about the parasprites at the time. […]
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[…] like how she’s calling a bit of attention to the whole “common fears” [here] theme of the […]
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[…] with “JPIGGOT”, back in Parasite? Back then, I was informed that the J was likely an error [here] born from Wildbow not having finished naming her yet (which also told me that we would be finding […]
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