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Moved entry to YMMV.
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* BrokenAesop:
** Ward is initially presented as a story about overcoming the hardships of the past in order to pursue a better tomorrow, exemplified both through the initial setting being a city being constructed in the aftermath of the end of the world and the main cast all being members of a therapy group all wrestling with their own mental issues. What seems like a strong foundation for these themes however gradually crumbles away further and further as arcs progress. The heroes rarely outright win, the City collapses into starvation and anarchy and is eventually abandoned entirely while the main cast either die or backslide mentally until they're even ''less'' in control of their mental issues than they were at the start. This comes to a head in the Last arc, wherein a final act of desperation against Titan Fortuna and the Simurgh, the superpowered cast intentionally infects themselves with a virus that is guaranteed to ''kill them'' while giving them twisted and unpleasant dreams, in order to screw up the data that the entities are collecting and irreparably damage the cycle. What was ostensibly a story about overcoming trauma ended up looking like "sometimes you simply can't change yourself or your situation for the better, and then the next best thing you can do for the world and everyone you know is give up and die". Many readers did not take it well, risking a BrokenBase...
** ...However, it was later revealed that all the capes could be revived should the unpowered citizens of the world choose to revive them in time, which everyone appears to have known going in, meaning that the actual intended lesson was something more like "sometimes in order to change yourself or your situation for the better, you have to place your faith and hope in others and rely on their help and support". Indeed, the epilogues support this: the characters who have reached out for help and support are the best off mentally and physically by the end (e.g. Victoria), while those who push others away are doing the worst (e.g. Chris). This is much closer to a standard [[AnAesop family-friendly Aesop]]...
** ...But it's also clear that there was a real risk that the unpowered would choose to let them die anyway and many of the more cynical capes believed that this would happen, but accepted the virus anyway, so for them, it may as well have been suicide. Not helped by the fact a large part of the story portrayed the overall relationship between normal people and parahumans as decidedly distrustful and negative; as well as all the characters themselves going about things as if it were suicide. So between the ending flying in the face of how people as a whole were largely portrayed throughout the story, combined with the author having characters avoid mentioning or reacting to the finer details of the plan, there's some argument about whether the original message of recovery stands strong, or if the "they always knew they would be revived" argument is an AuthorsSavingThrow.
** A number of plot points were dropped by the wayside either to speed the plot up or due to the author's real life unhappiness with writing the story and wanting it finished, and do so in a way that is worse than if they weren't raised in the first place.
*** The anti-parahuman's very legitimate criticism of parahumans receiving blatant favoritism and disproportionate power are brushed aside at the end and the group mocked and marginalized before being strawmanned by a literal child, which unintentionally proved them right on almost every count.
*** The central theme of becoming a better person is side-stepped when the protagonists help the Wardens set up an interdimensional gulag with inhumane conditions, with the specific intention of 'disappearing' troublesome villains into it, to make the other villains more afraid of stepping out of line. Beyond some initial doubts, the morality of this is never questioned, and it is ultimately abandoned for being impractical. In particular, Sveta's journey to self-actualization never made as much progress through her own efforts or bonds as it did when Victoria got frustrated and made a DealWithTheDevil with a villain to solve her problems for her in exchange for better conditions in the gulag.
** Ward is initially presented as a story about overcoming the hardships of the past in order to pursue a better tomorrow, exemplified both through the initial setting being a city being constructed in the aftermath of the end of the world and the main cast all being members of a therapy group all wrestling with their own mental issues. What seems like a strong foundation for these themes however gradually crumbles away further and further as arcs progress. The heroes rarely outright win, the City collapses into starvation and anarchy and is eventually abandoned entirely while the main cast either die or backslide mentally until they're even ''less'' in control of their mental issues than they were at the start. This comes to a head in the Last arc, wherein a final act of desperation against Titan Fortuna and the Simurgh, the superpowered cast intentionally infects themselves with a virus that is guaranteed to ''kill them'' while giving them twisted and unpleasant dreams, in order to screw up the data that the entities are collecting and irreparably damage the cycle. What was ostensibly a story about overcoming trauma ended up looking like "sometimes you simply can't change yourself or your situation for the better, and then the next best thing you can do for the world and everyone you know is give up and die". Many readers did not take it well, risking a BrokenBase...
** ...However, it was later revealed that all the capes could be revived should the unpowered citizens of the world choose to revive them in time, which everyone appears to have known going in, meaning that the actual intended lesson was something more like "sometimes in order to change yourself or your situation for the better, you have to place your faith and hope in others and rely on their help and support". Indeed, the epilogues support this: the characters who have reached out for help and support are the best off mentally and physically by the end (e.g. Victoria), while those who push others away are doing the worst (e.g. Chris). This is much closer to a standard [[AnAesop family-friendly Aesop]]...
** ...But it's also clear that there was a real risk that the unpowered would choose to let them die anyway and many of the more cynical capes believed that this would happen, but accepted the virus anyway, so for them, it may as well have been suicide. Not helped by the fact a large part of the story portrayed the overall relationship between normal people and parahumans as decidedly distrustful and negative; as well as all the characters themselves going about things as if it were suicide. So between the ending flying in the face of how people as a whole were largely portrayed throughout the story, combined with the author having characters avoid mentioning or reacting to the finer details of the plan, there's some argument about whether the original message of recovery stands strong, or if the "they always knew they would be revived" argument is an AuthorsSavingThrow.
** A number of plot points were dropped by the wayside either to speed the plot up or due to the author's real life unhappiness with writing the story and wanting it finished, and do so in a way that is worse than if they weren't raised in the first place.
*** The anti-parahuman's very legitimate criticism of parahumans receiving blatant favoritism and disproportionate power are brushed aside at the end and the group mocked and marginalized before being strawmanned by a literal child, which unintentionally proved them right on almost every count.
*** The central theme of becoming a better person is side-stepped when the protagonists help the Wardens set up an interdimensional gulag with inhumane conditions, with the specific intention of 'disappearing' troublesome villains into it, to make the other villains more afraid of stepping out of line. Beyond some initial doubts, the morality of this is never questioned, and it is ultimately abandoned for being impractical. In particular, Sveta's journey to self-actualization never made as much progress through her own efforts or bonds as it did when Victoria got frustrated and made a DealWithTheDevil with a villain to solve her problems for her in exchange for better conditions in the gulag.
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Misplaced, moving to the correct tab
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* IKnewIt:
** After Glow-worm 0.3 came out, fans quickly deduced that the viewpoint character was one of the Damsel Of Distress clones.
** Fans also figured out that [[spoiler:Chris is Lab Rat's clone]] long before it was revealed.
** Contessa's shard being a shard from the third entity (aka "[[FanNickname Abaddon]]") was an extremely common theory, before it was confirmed late in ''Ward''.
** After Glow-worm 0.3 came out, fans quickly deduced that the viewpoint character was one of the Damsel Of Distress clones.
** Fans also figured out that [[spoiler:Chris is Lab Rat's clone]] long before it was revealed.
** Contessa's shard being a shard from the third entity (aka "[[FanNickname Abaddon]]") was an extremely common theory, before it was confirmed late in ''Ward''.
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None
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** There's also a contingent of fans who feel that ''Worm'''s ending tied up all the loose ends they were interested in and didn't feel the need for a sequel.
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Editing to be less one-sided.
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* EnsembleDarkhorse: mlekk in Glow-worm, thanks to their unique typing style.
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* EnsembleDarkhorse: EnsembleDarkhorse:
** mlekk in Glow-worm, thanks to their unique typing style.
** mlekk in Glow-worm, thanks to their unique typing style.
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* FanonDiscontinuity: A significant portion of the fandom for ''Worm'' likes to pretend this story doesn't exist. There are several reasons for this.
to:
* FanonDiscontinuity: A significant portion of the fandom for ''Worm'' likes to pretend this story doesn't exist. There are several reasons for this.this:
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** Antares' team has weaker dynamics than the Undersiders, and isn't quite as memorable.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
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** They feel Antares' team has weaker dynamics than the Undersiders, and isn't aren't quite as memorable.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had in their eyes soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had in their eyes soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
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None
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* FanonDiscontinuity: A significant portion of the fandom for ''Worm'' likes to pretend this story doesn't exist. There are several reasons for this.
** While both stories are dark, ''Ward'' being set AfterTheEnd (and an especially brutal end, at that) makes it easy for the story to slip into TooBleakStoppedCaring territory.
** Antares' team has weaker dynamics than the Undersiders, and isn't quite as memorable.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
** While both stories are dark, ''Ward'' being set AfterTheEnd (and an especially brutal end, at that) makes it easy for the story to slip into TooBleakStoppedCaring territory.
** Antares' team has weaker dynamics than the Undersiders, and isn't quite as memorable.
** Some fans simply wrote off the story once it became apparent that the protagonist would be an OlderAndWiser Glory Girl, as Victoria's characterization in the original ''Worm'' had soured any attempts to portray her sympathetically.
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Rereading the chapter, I don't see that happening. They're talking about changing the way the Wardens operate. There's no mention of taking away civilian power
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** A fair number of readers found Victoria to be an unsympathetic protagonist, given her increasing brutality (reminiscent of her days as Glory Girl), judgmental nature and tendency to ignore the (entirely justified) critical opinions of regular humans and the anti-parahuman faction. The story ends with Victoria and her colleagues discussing the best ways to undermine the way that regular, unpowered humans were supposedly given a greater degree of power and control.
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** A fair number of readers found Victoria to be an unsympathetic protagonist, given her increasing brutality (reminiscent of her days as Glory Girl), judgmental nature and tendency to ignore the (entirely justified) critical opinions of regular humans and the anti-parahuman faction. The story ends with Victoria and her colleagues discussing the best ways to undermine the way that regular, unpowered humans were supposedly given a greater degree of power and control.
