Worm

I wouldn't know. I stopped reading after the Echidna arc ended and The Interlude That Wasn't was removed. For pretty much the same reason I don't watch non-episodic television series anymore. I can't stand the serial format.

My recollection of it has me complaining a lot in the last few chapters I read as they were going live, figured out it wasn't a problem with the story but with how I dealt with the waiting between chapters, decided to stop following weekly and wait for the grand finale to Archive Binge the whole shebang once again. I'm vaguely aware that Dragon shows up after that point and there's a timeskip, but not much beyond that.

You probably won't have much longer to wait, then. I think we're about to start the final arc, epilogue interludes aside.

I wish there was more superhero literature even though comics makes it largely redundant. I'd read comics myself, but I have very very low vision so can't. It doesn't help that a lot of superhero web novels start off creative and with good ideas before getting into petty teenager problems and cranking up the slice of life elements until it slows to a crawl.

That'd unexpected. I don't have much experience with the genre outside of Worm (I keep meaning to read Legion of Nothing, but I never got around to it), but I would have assumed more ended up going down the increasingly-massive-stakes route.

edited 14th Oct '13 10:34:39 PM by gaunt88

I'll be watching this thread to know when spring has arrived and I can leave my den.

That's one other, slightly unrelated problem with serials. As time goes on and you need to keep finding more credible threats for the characters to face. At first glance a villain that can tip over skyscrapers isn't as intimidating as the sun-devouring eldritch horror that the heroes defeated just last week. Inexperienced writers feel the need to make the threats bigger and bigger in order to make the threat seem credible against the protagonist.

And that is simply not how it works. Making the new threat credible is merely a matter of taking the time to examine how the last big guy was defeated and how that won't work on this newer, smaller guy. Sun-devouring eldritch horror? Yeah, we had to use our full power on that thing, but we would destroy the planet if we tried it on the Office Tilter. Or we beat it with a MacGuffin that only works on sun-devouring eldritch horrors and would only be useful for coking the Tilter on the head as a blunt object. While he may work on a smaller scale, the Office Tilter is still as much of a credible threat that as Yummy Sunny. He's causing mass property damage and probably more than a few deaths, so he obviously needs to be stopped. But either the same amount of force would kill even more people than his antics or the mystic artifact doesn't work on him, so our heroes need to find a new way to deal with him. Pulling back on the force applied through punches seems like a good idea, but this guy topples buildings so he's no lightweight; plus the fact that he doesn't care about collateral damage (given his moniker) means that a fistfight would end up a lot like Man Of Steel and realistically a lot of civilians dead or angry about the destruction wrought by the heroes, necessitating yet another new plan.

In my mind constantly escalating threat is the mark of a beginner in writing. If the only way you can think of to make this week's villain threatening is make them even more powerful then you're not thinking broadly enough. Alter your villains enough so that the heroes need to constantly seek new solutions and confront their weaknesses. /rant

I wouldn't exactly go that far, ever-increasing villains in threat and power is a common literary device, the Dresdn Files for instance does this all the time.

I wouldn't exactly hold up those as a flawless piece of writing, though, and the Dragonballification is a problem for that series, so the point still stands.

I'd say that it's only a problem if the one and only way the author appears to "raise the stakes" throughout the series is by making the scale of the threat larger but leaving the protagonist's answer more or less the same. Typically by just hitting it HARDER. Dragonball is pretty much THE archetype. New enemy is even more powerful, so time to bust out a new technique or transformation and punch through their insane regeneration. If you need to focus so much on conflict you could at least put some more effort into making each conflict different and memorable in its own right.

Speaking of insane regeneration in the Worm thread, Trickster screwing with Crawler is one of the series' high points for me. For a guy to keep messing with one of the most dangerous and nigh immortal monstrosities on the planet... I just loved that so much. Sad that he worked so hard later on to make me desperate to see him killed.

Dat foreshadowing.

Jack Slash is up for a rewrite in the CM cleanup thread, so if anyone has something to say, they can.

edited 24th Oct '13 8:37:01 PM by rmctagg09

So... this is probably a stupid question but it's been bothering me. Given that part of Eidolon's powerset was (unbeknownst to him for almost the entirety of the story) the ability to harvest the shards of living capes... what would have happened if Taylor had forced Glaistig Uaine to use the Eidolon-ghost to harvest her own shard? Er, Glaistig Uaine's own shard, that is. Would it bring Eidolon back to life, or at least undeath, accomplish nothing, or just make the universe divide by zero?

Good question.

So, Worm's finally over. It's been a good ride.

And what an ending it was, although we still have epilogues that may or may not change things.

I'm still trying to decide if I like the ending or not. This may take a while.

edited 28th Oct '13 11:15:44 PM by gaunt88

Well there's certainly wiggle room for a sequel if wildbow decides to go that route. There's still other Worms traipsing across reality, Teacher's still alive, and I doubt things will ever return to how they were before.

Yeah, definitely - don't forget all those tantalising references to the Sleeper. I think Wildbow has stated that he may show up in the sequel.

On a different note, this is basically amazing.

Yeah, that was a good final chapter. The subtle perspective flip was great.

While it works well as a final chapter though, it's not a good ending. It needs a proper epilogue to work as one. Luckily we're getting that too.

Hello. I started reading this story recently after Eliezer Yudkowsky mentioned it on his Facebook page as a story where people are smart about using their powers, and suspense is breathless.

And he was right.

It's suspenseful, and I'm in the middle of the Leviathan arc, and... it's too fucking suspenseful. I'm growing sick of it. It keeps demanding that I continue reading, lays one cliffhanger after another, and does not give any proper respite, any solid breathers, any time to just relax and reflect and make sense of stuff. Just as you're in the middle of solving a crisis, another is being foreshadowed and waiting right around the corner, when they don't just drop on you out of nowhere. It feels like freaking Chandler's Law rather than anything planned. Drama upon tension upon drama. And all very Dark Age Of Comic Books ish, in that we get a lot of graphic violence, a lot of cynicism, and very little in terms of genuinely heartwarming or happy or funny moments. It's Empowered without the fun. It's Animal Man without the philosophy. It's Kafka Komedy without the comedy. It's pure plot, pure torment, pure problem-solving. It's exhausting! Saturating! I find myself falling asleep while reading! And yet I can't stop reading! It's pissing me off so much!

You know the two bits that really frustrated me? These Yank the Dog's Chain moments:

• Taylor being unable to use her acquired skills to defeat Sophia, with a gratuitously unhelpful bookstore owner, and
• Taylor being turned down by Brian in the most stereotypically thoughtless, hurtful way.

These really strained Willing Suspension of Disbelief, make you shout "Aw come on! Throw us a goddmaned bone here! And don't you Literal Genie me on that expression, you grim, graphic depictor of brutality and violence!"

Cough. And you know the worst part? He might be right. The school parts felt like Nineteen Eighty Four, like walking through mud...

...

Has someone ever written a Nineteen Eighty Four High School AU?

Seriously, though, the leader of the bullies' father is a wealthy lawyer, the school is a low-budget run-down place, understaffed with jaded cynical teachers who made their choice between doing what was right and what was easy, and the protagonist is orphan by mother and her father is a poor underdog who represents workers in one of the suckiest jobs of suck? Even Peter Parker didn't have to put up wih that much shit in his personal life!

edited 30th Oct '13 1:28:01 PM by TheHandle

I read through it a few weeks ago, from what I've seen people say on other sites most people generally say Leviathan and after is where the writing and story starts getting a lot better writing wise.

As for Sophia... it's ultimately resolved in Taylor's favor.

edited 30th Oct '13 3:42:16 PM by doineedaname

It's over? Good. I'll binge the archives in December.

Technically it's over but we've got an epilogue and six Interludes to go.

Wildbow also left a comment on the most recent chapter about planning on adding two arcs into the timeskip to improve on it, as well as possibly adding another arc between Imago/Chrysalis and Coil/Echidna

Oh, I hadn't heard that. The Scarab timeskip is probably the only part of Worm that I think wasn't handled well, so that sounds good.

When I saw what Regent had actually done with Sophia... I couldn't help but chuckle. I thought I should feel bad for her. But I didn't. I didn't even feel bad about not feeling bad. Etc.

That was a masterful execution of Kick The Son Of A Bitch.

edited 2nd Nov '13 1:34:48 AM by TheHandle

Do you mean Regent? I don't think Grue ever does anything to Sophia.

First epilogue chapter's up, with Glaistig Uaine as the focus character.

Yes, Regent, indeed. Grue is such a Standardized Leader, I wonder what he's doing being a Supervillain.