About Barker, it’s worth noting that he was able to activate his power simply by coughing later in the chapter. The insult he used in the demonstration was nothing more than deliberate disrespect.
…alright, fair enough.
Though I kind of liked the implication that the power was directly tied to hurtful words, so that’s a shame.
Hi Krix, your devoted reader ShareDVI here.
First, sorry for confusing you with my ‘end of book 2’ ask – the wrap up of S9 arc is indeed what I meant, based on a one split of Worm into books proposed by a guy on reddit.
(how can you expect the consistent inter-book transitions from a guy who can’t number his interludes right? (jk, but the mess with bonus interludes is caused by Wildbow’s experiments with donation stretch goals, basically))
Hah, fair enough. 😛
Secondly, I updated the spoiler shield extension – it now disables comments completely, also works on all Wildbow’s web serials: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32012-worm-ward-pact-and-twig-web-serial-comments-spoiler-protector (tested on Maxthon)
At first I wasn’t sure about this, considering that the way it previously worked was pretty good as far as I knew – no chance of spoilers except from Word of God and comments based on Word of God when it blocks anything posted after the next chapter – but upon further consideration, I wasn’t reading the comments anyway (though I was tempted to after this last Interlude) and I think this will make the scroll bar a decent indicator of how much chapter is left again.
Extending it to the other serials is definitely pretty good, though! You should totally send that link to Kat and Quow (and Nick, for Worm) too, if you haven’t already. 🙂
(Maybe they’re why you made that change?)
Lastly – I once sent you an ask about this, but it got spamfiltered – i mirror your liveblog for personal use in Telegram at https://t.me/krixwell_worm, the quotes are a bit messed up, but at least I don’t have to use tumblr that way.
Huh, alright. No objections from me there!
the One Steve Limit was broken by the reveal that Mannequin’s name was Alan. There was already an Alan in the story before then, Emma’s dad, who is a divorce lawyer.
The One Steve Limit, as convenient as it is, is itself bad writing, and resisting it is a touch of realism. In any case, as you’ll find out before the end of the chapter, this Alan was actually introduced first.
Yeah, the one-steve limit being broken isn’t bad writing, especially in superhero stories where people go by Cape names for a decent chunk of the time, and when it’s quickly established that they’re not the same person (like being in a setting previous people of the same name physically couldn’t be). It being revealed that Alexandria, Lung, and Skitter are all named Taylor Hebert was probably the weirdest one-steve-limit break, though.
Yeah, I forgot all about the first Alan until his surname was brought up.
I disagree that the One Steve Limit is bad writing. Sure, it’s more realistic to break it, but even in a story like Worm, realism should sometimes make way for clarity. Lack of realism is not bad writing. Confusing the reader when you don’t intend to confuse the reader is.
Even as much as I’ve gotten into the habit of calling characters by their first civilian names when I know them, I don’t have a problem with the Limit being broken in Worm so much as with the timing. It wasn’t a problem that we got a second Alan with Mannequin’s introduction. It was a problem that the first Alan came back two chapters after the last mention of the second Alan by that name, and immediately after we’ve been dealing with the second Alan for 3.5 Arcs, and the first Alan’s precise identity was kept hidden for a sizable section of the chapter.
oh my god Krixwell you can’t just ask people why they’re named “Alan”
Ahaha!
Yeah, there are two Alans so far in Worm, even if the thought of Brandish casually chatting with Mannequin (who is supposed to be dead) is funny. Mr Barnes is better than him, but still a dick as we saw in the school scene with Taylor. He is not above using his knowledge and status as lawyer to protect Emma from the consequences of her crimes. As he is now back, when and how do you think will Taylor see Emma again?
Within a couple Arcs, but it’s the “how” that’s really interesting. They have no reason to cross paths at school anymore, and Taylor’s mostly in costume when she’s out nowadays. How could they cross paths in a way that actually makes a difference?
Hmm.
What if it turns out Alan and Emma have settled down in Taylor’s territory?
It’d also be pretty interesting if Emma somehow found out about Skitter’s identity.
I was curious about what you said, so I did a quick check, and the BBB apprehending Marquis using an all-female team was actually just an assumption that Amy (apparently mistakenly) made based on the stories her family told her.
Ohhh.
That would explain it. Thank you.
Marquis broke the scythe he was using so he wouldn’t accidentally kill Brandish, and that’s what Brandish was intending to happen when she threw her body in the path of the scythe.
Marquis was at a disadvantage because he didn’t ant to hurt women. Or did you think the extremely sharp bone scytte just dismatled itself by hitting Brandish? It was hitting Manpower before and he’s protected by a forcefield, it would ahve gone through Brandish. Marquis dismantled it on purpose to avoid hurting her.
Oh! Brandish’s move makes a lot more sense now.
Canon detail here but they didnt want to arrest Amy, even when she volunteered to the Birdcage. She basically had to underliningly threathen to unleash a world wide apocalyptic plague to convince Dragon.
Oh wow.
And Amy probably thought she might end up doing that someday, too, if she wasn’t confined.
“Sometimes we don’t realize things can change while we’re not looking at them. I suppose that’s the other edge of object permanence.” No EGS comment on this one, Krixwell?
Oh right, that is what fuels change blindness too, isn’t it. :p
So, now might be a good time to mention the main reason why Wildbow gave up on his Guts & Glory drafts: they were just too dark. Imagine if this had been the main plotline of Worm, instead of just a subplot.
too dark
for Wildbow
(Okay but seriously, it’s true that the main plot is a lot less dark than some of the… adjacent plots. With the Undersiders there’s hope even in the darkest of situations. Most of the time.)
“We beat Marquis by taking advantage of his weakness to girl power” makes for a better news story than “we beat Marquis because he sacrificed himself for his daughter”. PR is very important in the parahumans world, as Piggot has proven. Dragon was probably just going by the official story, since she wasn’t established yet when Marquis was captured. And as far as I remember, the only difference between the BBB and New Wave is that NW are unmasked.
Fair enough!
What do you think about the fact that one apparently can just ask to go to the Birdcage? And that Dragon is “mastered” into following the law and did it anyway? Amy’s thoughts probably went like this: I did horrible things -> I am a villain -> I go to the Birdcage, because that’s where villains go, like my father. I think she does it in part to lessen her guilt, somehow atone for her fuckups. Do you think she will be happier, or regret it and feel trapped? Will Marquis’s presence help?
Yeah, that’s absolutely how her thought process went. I don’t think I ever actually questioned why she’d do it, knowing her.
The only real question I have about her thought process is whether or not she wanted to meet Marquis in the Birdcage or went “well, that’s gonna suck, but I deserve that fate. we’re both horrible people so I guess we belong together”.
I do think that she’ll find herself happier than she thought she’d be with Marquis. He’s a good guy, for all his villainy.
The other people around them aren’t that great, perhaps, but I feel like they might want to avoid messing with Marquis’ daughter unless they can take him on too.
Feeling trapped? Sure, that might happen. And she might regret giving up the outside world. But she might be happy nonetheless.
Besides, feeling trapped is really nothing new for her.
Welp, there goes Vicky. I don’t think what would be worse: Either forcibly happy and in love with Amy, or living the “And I must scream”-trope trapped in her body. Now her only hope is probably Bonesaw, and I think she now prefers death over being touched by Amy ever again. Will Taylor blame herself when she hears of this?
Yeeah, Victoria’s situation really sucks. It’d be a mercy to be truly insane in there.
Let’s be real, the answer to “will Taylor blame herself” is rarely ever “no”. In this case, I think she’ll put a lot of the blame on Amy, but she’s not going to ignore the fact that she’s the one who put Victoria in Amy’s grasp.
Fanart for Krix – Icktoria
There’s some Icktoria fanart you can send Krix now.
Icktoria pfft
Abyranss: I like the contrast between this and the other piece below. This one depicts a complete mess of limbs and faces and necks and hair, showing how Icktoria looks to everyone else…
lonsheep: …whereas this shows what she looks like to Amy. Twisted, broken, but beautiful.
They’re both really good pieces, in different ways. 🙂
Hey Krix, sorry this is kinda late (I just kinda assumed somebody else would say it), but Dinah’s interlude revealed a limitation on her power that you’ve apparently forgotten about. Ctrl+F the word ‘configuration’ for the relevant paragraph.
Hmm?
*goes a-searching*
[Worm, Interlude 11f]
She thought, and felt the mosaic shift into a new configuration. Coil’s face predominated each tiny scene, active, speaking and alive in some, unmoving or dead in the others. “Forty two point seven zero nine percent for the worlds where I don’t die. Don’t know about the worlds where I’d die first.”
Ohh, right. She needs to live to see the timeline.
That’s actually really big. The apocalypse can’t be stopped in any timeline Dinah can see, but it might be possible that the threat could be stopped before killing a third of the world’s population in some timeline or other where Dinah dies.
I am officially predicting that Dinah will die before this story ends and it might be critical to victory somehow.
Just saying, we’ve never actually seen Alan Barnes and Mannequin in the same room before. And he did rather suspiciously leave the city right before the S9 showed up, and then come back right after they left…
You do have a point there…
So, what do you think about Amy’s decision to go to the bird cage? Ignoring your obvious disappointment at her taking herself out of the story (at least for the time being, I’m not saying whether or not she’ll re-appear later). What do you think her main reasons for doing it were? Atonement for Victoria? Preventing herself from possibly doing something worse sometime in the future? Just wanting to give up? Intentionally going to Marquis? Something else?
All of the above.
I am disappointed that we’ll be deprived of Amy, but it’s a really solid ending (for now) for her, one that makes a ton of sense for her character. I can’t complain.
Do you think it was the right choice? Did she have any better options? What would you have done in her situation?
I don’t think she should’ve done it, but I very much understand why she did. She didn’t really need to do it if you ask me, but from her perspective, there wasn’t much else she could do.
If I were in her situation… I don’t know. I mean, it’s a situation brought on largely by her own compromised state of mind. Would I have a similar state of mind? If so, I have no idea what I might do, really. If not, how did I end up in the situation?
“You guys were just waiting for me to get to this, weren’t you. I know how liveblog readers work.” Yeah, I think it’s safe to say this is one of those big moments people have been waiting for pretty much since you started this liveblog.
Niice. I’m glad to hear that because it means people appreciate the punch of this chapter, looking forward to reactions to it even before finding out that the reactor in question really likes Amy.
Oh, and by the way, if it wasn’t clear? I was talking from experience there, as a fellow liveblog and reaction video fan. :p
From the comments to the interlude, after seeing what Glory Girl become, this seems fitting. (Genoscythe later became a meme in the comment section)
[Worm comments]
Psycho Gecko:
Yep. I’m more confident than ever that the next major villain will be Genoscythe the Eye Raper. Somewhat like Panacea, he can affect people’s bodies, but by way of making them living weapons. Like he picks up a guy, fleshcrafts the guy’s body into a fully conscious sword, and uses it to kill the guy’s wife and kids. Except for the the baby, that one he probably fleshcrafts into a helmet that is forced to feel the pain of stopping bullets fired by police wanting to stop Genoscythe the Eye Raper. And don’t let him catch you alive and not turn you into a weapon. He gets hard for a good socket.
He’d fit right in, don’t you think?
TheAnt:
It says something about how scary and freaky some of the villains of this setting are, that yes, I think he would.
Pfft, nice.
He does sound like he’d fit right in, though I’m not sure he’d add much. He’s too similar to Bonesaw and Amy.
[Reddit]
u/Lorix_In_Oz on r/WritingPrompts:
[WP] Earth is doomed in a matter of years, but you are bestowed with a mystical dagger that causes anyone killed by it to instantly resurrect on an alternate Earth that does not share the same fate. In one world you are revered as a hero, on the other the most notorious serial killer of all time.
Jack Slash…?
(#i haven’t looked at the comments
#just in case this really is inspired by worm or someone else decided to take inspiration from it in their response)
[Discord]
god:
[Reddit screenshot]
[username censored] on r/Neverbrokeabone:
I’ve broken my fists 20 times
that’s because I PUNCH EVERYTHING
BAN ME IF YOU WANT, YOU FUCKING GOBLINS
I’LL BREAK ME BONES AND SHANK YOU WITH EM
[another censored user]:
FUCK YOU MODS BAN HIM
[original poster]:
i’m gonna steal your FUCKING CALCIUM
Krixxx:
“I’LL BREAK ME BONES AND SHANK YOU WITH EM”
*glances at the latest Worm chapter he finished*
I’ve just seen two separate people, on separate platforms, describe YouTube as a “behemoth” of a website.
There’s only one conclusion I can make here: Behemoth, Endbringer of Fire and Earth, destroys cities and more by way of storing and displaying millions of videos.
He incapacitates the heroes, rogues and heroic villains that oppose him by showing them cute animals learning to use staircases, then directs the dankest of memes and YTPs at whatever and whoever he wishes to destroy (including the incapacitated defenders).
He can also record anything he sees. Whenever he kills someone, their death shows on one of the many screens on his body, captioned as “Saddest Anime Deaths”.
Jeez, guys, way to spoil me.
Oh hey, there’s a new liveblog in town, this time of El Goonish Shive. If you like that comic as much as I do, go check out @lisa-liveblogs!
[As of the migration, this liveblog has been canceled during the early parts of the Sister arc.]
Krixwell Liveblogs 
[…] and the edgier Worm villains, and it’s that Genoscythe, from the description that was given [here], would just be edgy for the sake of edgy. I know it was a joke, but it says something about Psycho […]
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