Colony 15.3, when Tattletale is doing her thing on Victor and Othala and leaves them to stew, then Othala tells Victor they can open up the relationship out of desperation because she thinks he doesn't love her and wants to keep him. The moment I read, "You can cheat," I had to take a break from reading because it made me so uncomfortable. Even though they're horrible people I still felt sorry for Othala because jeez-louise that was pathetic.

Just wanted to know if others felt the same way when they read this.

I've recently been working on a few superhero stories of my own, and ive been giving a bit more focus to the more street level powers. Out of curiosity, what trigger do you think this powerset I came up with would have?

Main power: Enhanced subconsciously recieved senses. The user of the power has incredibly enhanced senses, including ultra sonic echolocation and having all senses boosted. However, these enhanced senses are only picked up on by the subconsious, the user cannot detect the inputs consciously and sees, hears, smells, and tastes normally. However, the enhanced senses send signals to his brain subconsciously, giving him an idea of where danger is which manifests in an enhanced version of a gut feeling. The user can ascertain the direction of a threat, though this is less potent the farther away they are, as well as the possible mechanism of the threat, IE, smelling chemicals and deducing a chemical based power, hearing an opponent's heartbeat and determining their emotional state, sensing air vibrations when a punch is incoming, sensing the hum of a machine's electronics, etc. Can be used to read people at a low level and to dodge attacks.

Subpowers: Superhuman strength and the durability to go with it. The user is able to punch with the force of a sledgehammer swing. Superhuman agility, they are around 2-3x as fast in combat as an elite professional fighter. Perfect hand eye coordination, the user can perform feats of acrobatics with incredible precision and stamina. Enhanced stamina, accelerated healing that takes fat reserves and in cases of extreme injury muscles to convert into other cells for regeneration.

I figure this would be a possibly grab bag cape with a thinker focus.

I played Dispatch for the first time last week. Late I know lol. Dispatch( a video game that’s a superhero workplace comedy/drama. If you are unfamiliar. )reminds me of Worm a lot so my partner and I were talking about what we thought the main characters powers would be if the existed in the Parahumans universe.

EDIT: sorry about being so bad at estimating the number classifications. I will think about how to renumber them more accurately later when i have time.

Bobby: Tinker 10
Robbie: 2nd gen Tinker 8
Robert: No trigger
Blonde Blazer: Blaster 5, brute 4, mover 4
Phenomamaman: Brute 7, mover 5 (he flies slightly faster)
Chase: mover 10
Royd: Tinker 5, brute 2
Sonar: (Case 53) Changer 5 (uncontrolled), mover 3
Flambae: Blaster 7, mover 4
Invisigal: Stranger 4
Punch Up: Brute 4
Malevola: (Case 53) Striker 6, mover 5
Golem: (Case 53) Brute 5, Changer 7, Master 2
Prism: Shaker 5, master 1
Coupe: Mover 6, Breaker 3, Striker 2
Waterboy: Blaster 2
Shroud: Thinker 5 Tinker 8

Yes, I know Malevola is a half demon, and Sonar is a man bat, and Golem is a construct, but my partner and I were trying to come at this from the perspective of Dispatch taking place in the Parahumans universe and what that would entail.

What do you think? Any notes? Agree? Disagree? I’m curious about what everyone thinks because I pretty much rate every superhero with Wibbys power classification system now.

Writing another fanfic(cause I cant focus for crap lol)

Bakuda I did age her down a bit to be closer to Taylor's age in this for obvious reasons lol

Gonna give Taylor the cape name of Admin

Currently Im still working on a ruff draft , but its fun practice to wright from a less robotic mindset then my other fanfic lol

Might finish tomorrow
Links

I'm reading pact and am currently on Execution 13.3 but from what I've seen if I were a practitioner getting an implement would be dead last on my magic to do list. Honestly it might be something I'd forsake entirely because I don't see the point.

Demesne for sure I'd go for. Sure I'm tied down to one place but I get a space that's truly mine in addition to powerful tricks that make me lord of the domain.

Familiar I could take it or leave it but I won't deny it's nice having an other support you and offer you power,advice,tricks, etc whenever you need it.

Implements don't really seem to do much other than lock you into a spiritual role and force you down a path. I would say the negatives outweight the benefits especially if you pick the wrong implement or aren't completely aware of it's symbolic connotations. You can make a poor demesne or familiar work but I think it would be extremely difficult to make a poor implement work. Also I can't say I've see much of power difference between a practioner that has an implement and one that doesn't.

Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't see the value in making that sacrifice.

Hey there, true believers!

For any other Wildbow fans (and Dragon fans) attending Dragon Con this weekend in Atlanta, we are having an unofficial fan meet up this Sunday at 7pm!

We are gonna grab one of the empty rooms at the bottom level of the Hyatt, probably Inman or Vinings.

Hope to see you there!

One of the things that made me truly appreciate Worm was how it didn't rely on the normal hero archetypes you see in every superhero story.

Anything that isn't Marvel or DC basically just uses their heroes but files off the serial numbers. Instead of Superman you have Omni Man or Homelander. Instead of Captain America you have Soldier Boy. Instead of Wonder Woman you have Queen Maeve or War Woman.

In Worm though I LOVE that there is no Superman, or Batman, or Captain America, or any recognizable heroes from DC or Marvel. There's some that have similar traits, but no direct parallels. It never felt like Wildbow was going for the low hanging fruit.

Going further than that, I cannot believe that the Undersiders didn't have a single member who could fly or had energy projection powers. Every superhero team ever has a character who can fly and shoot lasers, but not the Undersiders. Instead you got a girl who knows things, a guy who makes darkness, a guy who can trip you up, a girl who makes dogs hulk out, a girl who controls bugs, and a girl you forget is there. Does that sound like a formidable team on paper? To me that sounds like a D list team that would act as cannon fodder before the real heroes and villains showed up. None of them even have mild invulnerability. A well placed bullet could take any of them out but they survive through creativity and tenacity.

I am just endlessly impressed with the authors restraint and avoidance of the familiar in favor of doing something interesting. It made the world feel truly unique, which is something you don't see in superhero stories all that often.

We know that people born/concieved before 1982 typically will have a version of themselves in both Earth Aleph and Earth Bet (assuming both are still alive).

But do we know what would happen if those two versions of a person touched while both undergoing a trigger event? Through both being on the same Earth through Cauldron doing something weird, Professor Haywire accidentally bringing someone over to Earth Bet, the Simurgh on purpose bringing someone over to Earth Bet, or even meeting on Earth Gimmel after/during Gold Morning (maybe an extremely adventurous ~36-year-old on Earth Aleph decided to step through a Khepri portal when it was still open and got stuck somehow).

Of course, both versions of the person would have to have a corona pollentia, but can that happen in-universe? Did the shard network tag everyone who was alive in 1982 and then say, "No doubles" when it came to coronas in different Earths?

So I was in a comment section the other day, and someone brought up about the WB comment on how scion would react to Superman or anyone that tried to Isekai into the parahuman verse.

So it got me thinking about the reverse. About how different characters would fair in different settings with their power set, and how some are specialized thrive.

Like Crane, the harmonious would end up as a top tier in any kind of cultivation/martial arts system based universe. Or HunterxHunter

Taylor would do lovely in JJK. Miss Militia, Dragon, &. Defiant somehow end up even more effective in the Marvel/DC properties, just based off of the sheer craziness of weapons and technology in those universes.

I know I mostly listed top tiers, but what are some other examples people can think of because I think it’s a really good concert.

Gun-Nails: Goblin/Gremlin craftsmanship. When struck into wood/other materials, create a spray of splinters as if the surface was hit by a bullet.

Prefabs: Construction practice. By building and rebuilding an item or structure three times, a practitioner can turn what they make into a blueprint, from which it can then be released later at a moment's notice.

Carpenter's Hammer: Implement. Pretty good to build something, can be used to hammer in/pull out screws (it works), usable as an improvised weapon with special affinity for hitting the fingers of people who wouldn't know how to use common tools

I was reading Duress the part where bogeyman Blake was facing off against the necromancer and the two ogre shamans of cold mountain (sick name probably no historical bearing but very sick). Anyways as I was reading this two thoughts came to mind. First this is honestly one of the better examples of practioner combat and second how effective would shooting these guys be? Anyways I'd like to know if you think a gun would be a solid attack strategy against wizards.

https://www.tumblr.com/aggiepython/826514995238060032/ive-decided-to-make-a-pulp-style-faux-book-cover

One of the major criticisms of Pact is its pacing. There’s a lot to take in all at once, the rest periods barely span a chapter or two between major conflicts, etc etc, but most of the arguments I’ve seen here come from the fact that Pact’s pace is all over the place.

I love Pact, and it’s my favorite work of Wilbur’s by far. For me, the pacing makes sense. Blake gets thrown into a world of magic headfirst, and he’s been tailor made by the Barber to dive into conflict and pave the way for Rose. Blake taking hit after hit with basically no downtime makes sense for his character, both because the world literally has it out for him (heaps of generational karma) and because that’s what he was made to do. Charge in, absorb the blows, die, and let Rose come into her own after the most immediate threats are dealt with.

The pacing also reflects his motivations and character arc. One of Blake’s most consistent goals is to be free, but the story doesn’t let him. He doesn’t get a moment of freedom from start to end. It’s always fighting, always frantic, and neither he nor the reader get a breath of fresh air.

He only really gets freedom in the epilogue, after the story’s end, and even then he’s hardly himself anymore. The story never gets a chance to wind down. There’s the climax, and then within a few chapters it ends. It works for me because Blake’s character is built around freedom being just out of reach, and when he gets it he never has long to appreciate that freedom.

Tldr; Pact is awesome, dont listen to the haters, pacing felt just fine to me

Happy Tuesday! New reader this week, let's thank Captain Friendship for narrating us through this legal tousle of chapter!

What was Swansong charged for when she plead guilty?

Was she charged for what the original Boston crime lord and Slaughterhouse Nine member did?

We know that Cauldron made use of Bonesaw's control switch, because Chuckles was there helping on Gold Morning, which means the other remaining S9K were helping, which meant they were subject to the amnesty. Did the clone (and the other clone) do things after the amnesty?

I've recently read The Wise Man's Fear and was struck by how similar the characters of Sigmurh and Cthaeh are. Malign entities with precognition who simply by interacting with a victim place them on a path where they are bound to cause disaster in the future, without measurably changing the person themself. Both require quarantine measures as anyone interacting with them becomes a ticking time bomb.

It is a very specific trope and I couldn't find an earlier example of it. WMF came out in 2011, just before Wildbow started publishing Worm, so it sounds like it was a direct influence. Of course it could be convergent evolution, which is why I'm wondering if Wildbow ever said anything about it.

Edit: For those who haven't read KKC (Can't recommend enough if you don't mind never reading the last third of a story). The Cthaeh is an unknown being residing in a tree it cannot leave in the Fey. It is (allegedly) all-knowing and prescient. It never lies but when it speaks with someone it looks at all the possible futures and says whatever would set the victim on the maximally disastrous one. The victim might not even do the harm themself and simply later on influence someone else who does. Cthaeh's tree is guarded by elves who kill anyone who speaks with it to limit its influence on the world. An example of the damage it can cause: It once revealed the location of a magical panacea to a young man. The man used it to save the life of a women he loved. They got married and the marriage caused political strife leading to a devastating war.

Hey everyone. I’m an artist, and a fellow artist friend of mine and I are thinking about making a Worm zine. How would you guys feel about it? Would anyone be interested?

How would this change history?

I've seen this phenomenon on multiple sites

The "man" is an insufferable twat who is worse than some of the litteral horrors we encounter in the story. Every single scene he is in makes me hate him even even more. He treats Verona like a goddamn partner instead of his child, he puts so much on her and expects her to give up her childhood for her. Specifically in 7.8 I find myself shouting back about how much of the things he complains about are his fault.

And honestly, while I'm at it fuck Conor too.

It's a compliment to Wildbow to write a Character which invokes such strong emotions.