K6BD patron comments

Image loading seems to be drastically faster on this post (basically instantaneous) so WordPress might have changed something, although it doesn’t seem to be retroactive to previous posts. I can fully reload this new post 5 times in the time it takes to load the previous post just once. Fewer pages in this post but I don’t think that’s enough to account for the drastic difference. Not sure of the cause but it’s nice.

This sounds good! Are the rest of you experiencing the same sort of improvement? It’s not something I did that I’m aware of — at the patron’s request I did switch my screenshots from png to jpg for loading speed reasons, but that was long ago and shouldn’t make a difference between recent posts.

1. 5-50 alt text poem is an excerpt from “The Conqueror Worm” (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe.

I’ve been getting enough asks about this that it seems I really should read that Poe-em.

2. The redhead you called out appears to be Layla Brimstone (Gun Witch) hatless & with a slightly different outfit. You can see that hat on her back as well as the rifle she had in book 3.

I probably would have recognized her if she had been wearing the hat, but for some reason I misremembered her hair as black. Probably the hat’s fault.

3. I found Waldo but I cheated by cycling between the images.

Cheating?! How heinous!

4. That YouTube link was working until very recently. Alternate link: youtube.com/watch?v=y5mRiEdxh1E

Deltarune OST! Jevil and Gog-Agog would probably get along.

5. On the last page, regarding the “rankings” (C/B/SS+ for Allison and A/B/B for Eris Lo-Kai*), this may not be 100% serious but this is what Abaddon said on the subject:’

ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD (@Orbitaldropkick):
[link to the page in question]

Mammal (@HornyGiraffe):
Rankings? Am confused ;3;

ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD (@Orbitaldropkick):
juice/horniness/dumb bitch energy

…you know what, sure, that works. I’m going to assume that any future rankings mean this regardless of their accuracy.

*also, his hyphen shifted at some point because he was “Eris-Lo Kai” in book 1. (And the original fan submission was “Eris-Lo-Kai”)

They’re actually triplets who like to switch places from time to time to mess with people.

K6BD asks

On the subject of who Incubus usurped, you might want to re-read Seeker of Thrones 4-29.

Ooohh, right, I forgot about this. “She’s a fat, washed up drunk!” who at some point had an army of her own that now belongs to Incubus.

That’s a description that sounds a lot like Meti, but that makes little to no sense with the additional context we’ve gained since this page. Is he talking about Maya?

Solomon did call the Council. He said in 1-2 that he was going to do so after talking with his sons about the Mammon/Mottom conflict. The Conquering Worm is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, with some real dark meaning, such as how human life is mad folly ending in hideous death with any “angels” being unable to do anything but agree that it is terrible. Being a hero in a tragedy is not something laudable, think Oedipus murdering his father and marrying his mother rather than Superman saving the day.

You’ve probably already been told but that “Conqueror Worm” poem is actually pretty famous and I don’t think Edgar Allan Poe had Gog-Agog in mind when he wrote it.

I believe the usual interpretation of The Conqueror Worm is that every man dies and the only ones to always profit are maggots.

It certainly sounds on-brand for K6BD to reference in direct relation to one of the Demiurges, from these descriptions.

“I like the redhead’s design. Does she have pupils?” Isn’t that the Gun Witch we saw several times but with her hat off her head now? I like her design both ways. I’m surprised you didn’t care about her as much as Sumo Baby.

The hat was the most memorable part of the design until now, I suppose.

See, the thing about Eris-Lo-Questionable-Hyphenation and Layla Brim-of-the-Hat is they were introduced as these super badass characters early on, with names and everything… and then nothing. I have literally no reason to care about them except that they look badass and fought once.

I will likely care more about them later, when I learn what their deal is (likely to happen soon for Eris Hyphens-For-Days), but for now they’re just generic badasses who want the key. Meanwhile the Sumo Baby is just kind of hilarious and that engages me more for now.

(Though I’ve recently found reason to believe giant babies might actually be a Thing in East Asian mythology?)

Worm / general asks

Ancient Cat is an interesting character. What are its powers, trigger event, and PRT category / rating? Wait no, it’s probably a case 53, not a natural trigger, right? Disregard that part, just powers and classification then.

Wait, did I actually share that on the blog? I don’t remember doing that, and I can’t find it, so I guess this is someone from one of the places I did share it, bringing it here because of the Worm context of the ask.

So to catch everyone else up before I answer it, this is Ancient Cat:

ancient cat. it is a knife collector. it has human legs.

The first version was drawn in December 2015, based on this output from a silly fursona generator. It took until after making the 2020 pixel art version about a month ago for me to realize that the generator was prrrobably expecting people to make anthro characters.

Honestly, I’ve been thinking of them more as a species than a character ever since the people in one of the Discord servers I shared the pixel version in pointed out the differences and ascribed them to sexual dimorphism. The male (2015) has heels to attract a mate, while the female (2020) has eyes so she can see the males’ wonderful heels.

Anyway, I’m thinking if some case 53 got a power that turned them into an Ancient Cat, they’d likely have a knife-related power. (If it were a canon Worm character’s fursona, there’s no question whose it’d be.) Given the transformation, it’d likely also be cat themed, which of course bring to mind mixing knives and claws. Only problem with that is that Ancient Cats don’t appear to have claws. At least, not visible ones. Just toenails.

The power to summon clawlike throwing knives between their toes??? Mixed with cat agility and dexterity, giving new meaning to cats always landing on their feet… So we’re looking at a low rating in each of Blaster and Mover, I think.

I wonder if I could convince some DM to let me play a really weird variant Tabaxi rogue.

PRT Classification Guide by Ughzubat

Danny DeVito is all the definition anything needs.

I think this interlude would work really well as a stand-alone short story. Thoughts? I’ve not yet found a suitable guinea pig to test this on.

A number of the Interludes are like that, but yes, this one is particularly strong on that front. It contains just enough of the context to stand on its own.

I’ve got friends who haven’t read Worm who might be willing to be guinea pigs for this…

That interlude is my favorite chapter in all of Worm, partly because it would work as a short story with minimal editing. btw I’m making a formal request for next year’s april fools post to be a Scion/Kevin Norton slashfic

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

“I think this means Spiderman comics probably exist in the Wormverse.” I believe Worm-verse is supposed to follow our real world history until Scion showed up in 1982. Spider-Man’s first comic appearance was 1962, almost exactly 20 years previous. That’s also why the original Star Wars movies are the same but the prequels are a bit different, as mentioned in Agitation 3.4.

True, that does largely seem to be the case.

As I understand it, the “good people” singular slang is actually particularly a Britishism.

That’s interesting, considering several American characters (Dennis, Krouse, Lacey, possibly Elle) have been known to use it. On a Doylist level, it’s probably just something Wildbow picked up somewhere, and on a Watsonian level it’s completely justifiable that it’d show up there too.

(Turns out Taylor isn’t actually in that list. I was misremembering Krouse’s “good people” as hers. “They seem like good people” doesn’t count because that’s a standard use of the phrase.)

So how would people react if at the next Endbringer fight, Scion kills one of them? Or all of them? Also think that the unwritten rules and the general softness of the heroes are in part consequences of the need for villian assistance in Endbringer fights. What would happen if the villians are no longer a necessity? Would the gloves come off? What would that mean for people like the Undersiders?

That’s an interesting point.

I suppose it depends a lot on who’s in charge. Piggot, for instance, would probably rip those gloves off if given the chance. But a lot of this stuff is codified in law by this point (at least in the U.S.), meaning it would take a little time for things to change on an official basis, and a fair number of people would be involved in that decision.

Off the books, however, it might indeed lead to more aggressive heroes, especially against villains who genuinely cause more damage than benefits (Tattletale mentioned other reasons for the heroes to keep the villains around too, after all).

Also worth noting is that Alexandria is in charge of the PRT. That means Cauldron has its grubby fingers in the North American mix too, along with all their ambiguous goals. The Doctor and/or Contessa likely have a lot to gain from the heroes keeping the villains around even if the Endbringers go away.

(Which I don’t think they will until near the end of the story. Not all of them, at least. If they do, Leviathan is probably first on the chopping block.)

Kevin Norton’s interlude is definitely one of the most beloved interludes in Worm, and I really appreciate your point that it’s a good thing to have now when we’re all stuck in Twenty Motherfucking Twenty. Here’s hoping for another chapter before the next Kill!

Let’s all follow Kevin’s example and stick it to the Endbringers.

‘Maybe if she could get a camera and ask him to pose with a note that says “I’m buddies with Lisette”?’ ‘They can’t follow him with cameras or satellite, I heard. Have to rely on eye witnesses’

Yes, except…

“Is he (and the bodysuit) straight up invisible to cameras?” You know he’s not, as referenced a few paragraphs down.

…I briefly forgot that they had him saying “Zion” on tape (I remembered it when it was referenced, but didn’t think it necessary to explicitly acknowledge that it disproved the “invisible to cameras” comment at the time), which suggests that the issue is speed. So unless his “pose” would be flying away at top speed, it shouldn’t be an issue.

abandoned comic adaption by JeffShoemake. From https://www.deviantart.com/jeffshoemake/gallery/52405850/interlude-18 but mirror to imgur for convenience & spoiler safety

(If you are unable to read this because of the slideshow format, please click one of the links in the ask. It’s too long for me to post the images individually.)

This is very, very good. I definitely get the sense that this Interlude was practically made for the jump into comic format, and JeffShoemake pulled it off excellently.

LazyTown Vista by sweaterregrets

Ahahahaha

Let Vista know you overheard her singing Bing Bang in her room and you will learn why they call her Draconia Blaze, the Spine Twister.

(Skitter: “Why does this feel so familiar?”)