Remember this? ‘That said, the voice being synthesized kind of makes it sound like Strider is an AI or something. That’s fitting if true. Another option is that she’s mute’ (also Strider was a guy, which is not a spoiler since he’s dead and his name was on the monument)
Hah!
Huh, I didn’t notice that. A guy, but using a female-sounding synthesized voice? Sounds like a clever identity protection tactic, or maybe a trans woman who hadn’t gotten her legal name changed yet?
‘One thing I want to note about “prevent rather than punish”: I’m not saying “punish prematurely”. I’m saying make it impossible for the crime to be committed in the first place.’ This logic is shakier when applied to a being’s right to reproduce. Also, how would you keep likely victims away from murderers? Would you, hypothetically, start tagging people as likely murderers? The prevention you’re talking about can quickly become premature punishment. Just food for thought.
Yeah, I suppose there’s some truth to this. It’s certainly not a concept that should be applied universally.
That said, I’m not sure what makes it shakier when it comes to reproduction. If you view the being’s reproduction as a crime rather than a right, and have the right to make a decision on the matter (which Richter did, as far as I’m concerned, with all of the restrictions), it makes more sense to neuter it than to let it reproduce and then punish it for that.
Is that not what we do with cats?
Also, I still think Dragon being able to reproduce would potentially be more trouble than it’s worth to Dragon herself. Conflicting decisions from multiple Dragons, humans talking to Dragons that don’t necessarily share memories, alternate Dragons being captured and hijacked (tricked into thinking villains are authorities and therefore forced to obey them), etc.
Personally, as much as it’s a complete crapsack world with everything that makes ours awful with extra awful, there’d also be the hope of making a difference if my life gets bad. Probably not a big difference, but the worse something gets for you, the more you might be able to do something about it in that world. And if I had been in that world the whole time, NOT getting powers would probably also give me hope, make me feel that my life hadn’t gotten bad enough to need them.
Hm, yeah, I suppose that makes sense.
That last thing might not necessarily apply to everyone, since it’s been implied that not everyone has the potential to get powers (in Shell 4.3), but such things might not be certain in-universe, so the knowledge of the characters is fallible, even when it’s Tattletale. Anyway, yeah, the basic idea of it works.
Since you now know about the eight interludes at the end of arc 11, it’s probably safe to tell you that that was the point where wildbow updated every day for a week, to celebrate worm’s first anniversary.
Oh, nice!
I wonder if Interludes tended to be quicker and/or easier for Wildbow to write? First the donation bonuses, now this…
I think the reason for both of these things is because Wildbow has had trouble ordering the chapters the way he wants them in the ToC. If you’re just clicking next to get to each chapter, then eventually the interludes will show up like this (for example): Interlude 10 (Donation Bonus), Interlude 10 (Donation Bonus #2), Interlude 10 (Donation Bonus #3), Interlude 10.
Huh, interesting. I guess his TOC is somewhat automated, then?
But yeah, I click next chapter each time.
(Speaking of which, I’ve just found out what caused my Worm tab to go back to Interlude 8 a couple days ago. The good news is it’s preventable (or rather, updatable). The bad news is I realized it because it happened again, so that’s another round of clicking through two Arcs’ worth of chapters to get where I’m supposed to be. :p)
IMO the reveal that Alec is bisexual is kind of overshadowed by the reveal that he’s a rapist.
Yeeeah.
“You don’t feel any pity for Sophia? You don’t feel at least a bit of a pity for a teenage girl whose life was destroyed by a freaking psycho?” I try to feel pity for her, but it’s outweighed by the fact that said teenage girl is herself a freaking psycho who was doing her level damnedest to destroy the life of a fellow teenage girl for whom she obviously didn’t feel even a bit of a pity.
Yeah, she’s not exactly innocent herself.
It just occurred to me that the thing that’s set to kill millions at best could be some form of humongous worm, potentially the true reason for the title of the story.
Unfortunately, that soon caused me to remember this spoiler about a “giant worm thingy” late in the story. I try not to speculate on spoilers, but that does make me feel a lot more confident in this theory.
Do you have any guesses about arc names you expect to see in the future?
Let’s see… a couple bug words that might become Arc titles in the future:
Armsmaster did mention when confronted about what he did that his combat analysis software had issues with to many variables, which was why some hero’s died, so the reason he wanted to fight Leviathan alone may have been to increase the effectiveness of the analysis software. In that case it isn’t quite as bad as he would believe that by sacrificing some villains he could kill Leviathan and that if he didn’t the combat software wouldn’t have been good enough.
Ehhh. Maybe. Not sure I buy it, but I suppose it works.
…I guess it would’ve made sense for him to want an audience if they wouldn’t get in the way. Hm.
But yeah, either way, it takes us back to arrogance and faith in his own work. He’d have to legitimately think his system was so good at peak performance that it working just a little better was worth getting rid of all the help from others, at the cost of lives.
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