Over and over. unbelievable luck. Encounters with enormously powerful enemies who are smarter, stronger, faster...

parahumans.wordpress.com/

>"Realistic superheroes."
It's not though. It's an attempt to have a setting realistically explain why superhero tropes exist.

>"Why are there so many more villains than heroes?"
Because you get powers from being fucked up and traumatically broken.

>"Why don't the villains just kill the heroes in their secret identities and vice versa?"
Unwritten rules. Also, no killing because Endbringer truce and you need them to help.

>"Why do the villains get out of jail so easy?"
Because they get broken out, and rarely go to the superjail that holds everyone in it forever. Also Endbringers.

>Why doesn't Reed Richards fix everything? Why doesn't everyone have an arc reactor powering their home?
Thinkers who could solve world hunger are unpersonable jackasses, who are shit at convincing people to follow their plans. Tinkertech is missing bits and is kudged together by idiot savants with ideas plugged into their brains. It fails if not maintained by the creator or a tinker with a similar specialization.

>Why is everything solved by punching each other in the face?
Powers want you to use them in combat. Just getting them will modify your brain to make you more likely to use them in conflict instead of to make a pile of money via manufacturing or somesuch.

TL:DR - it's the setting that tries for realism, not the story.

Skitter has a Thinker power. Like Jack, her shard fucks with other parahumans and throws them off their game.

It's literally her main power. Bug-control is just a side-effect.

But yeah, I seriously dislike her too. She's not an interesting MC - Golem, the Travellers or Dauntless would be more fun.

Also, don't forget that any Tinkers who have potential to cause real change (e.g. Mannequin) end up getting singled out by the Simurgh.

Check out Weaver Dice Lausanne, also by WB. A lot less plot armor, a lot more hilarious outcomes, including an incredibly mean-spirited retelling of Spider-man.

This, their bosses literal superpower is to allow them to have a fail safe universe where they don't lose. He probably sent the Undersiders on missions multiple times a day to do literally anything that was impressive or gained him anything, the sporatic nature of their missions also implies this shit. Later on he even gets a perfect human stat machine. Multiple times we see him look at the stat machine and say what are chances they can accomplish X down to the decimal point? He asks that little cunt about everything since he first got her and pulls the rug on anything that goes wrong. Skitter has probably died 100 times before she even realizes who she is working for saying that the writing is shit because of the crazy shit the Undersiders pull off is like saying the story is shit because there are people with super powers who can control bugs and see through their eyes.

Queen administrator is a SUE.

Beating mannequin: Nonsense.

Surviving in a closed room with Levi: Nonsense.

Endbringers into Friendbringers: Nonsense.

Not getting instagibbed by scion when ptv goes on: Nonsense.

ITT: MAIN CHARACTERS ARE MAY SUES, WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

They're main characters, not fucking PCs, you idiots.

I bet you all think Harry Dresden is also a Mary-Sue despite how much shit he gets and how fucked over he gets and how many huge mistakes he makes.

>Surviving in a closed room with Levi: Nonsense.
Fun fact: WB actually rolled dice to see who would survive and who would die at various stages of that fight. The initial plan was actually for her to die fighting Leviathan. Instead the dice said 'Skitter lives.' and WB had to figure out how to make that work like a surprised DM.

Are You autistic? Mary sue as a term allways referred to fiction more than to rpgs.
And YES of course Harry Dresden is a filthy sue: he's allways right and everybody love him.

Strange and fickle are the ways of RNGesus.

>Harry
>always right
>loved by everybody
So untrue it hurts.

>always right
>kills every red court vampire in the world
>huge power vacuum destroys the world stability
>has to have himself shot int eh head to avoid being the Winter Queens Bitch
>has fucked over every single friend and loved one he has by accident or because he didn't think shit through
>every person he's loved either leaves or is so fucked in the head they can't cope with him
Yeah, okay, you're a fucking retard.

>he's allways right and everybody love him.

You haven't read any of the books, have you?

Wrong.

He was shot through the heart.

Okay, you're right.

I kinda liked how Skitter wins through horrific means. Even the other villains are kind of freaked out by her. She beat Superman by FILLING HER MOUTH WITH SO MANY BUGS SHE SUFFOCATED. Jesus fucking christ

Didn't she actually shove bugs all the way down into her lungs?

Given how often we see these threads on first page, and how many people answer o it, I guess that worm is getting pretty popular here.
Is it worth a read, Veeky Forums ? I'm not really into superheroes, but the last case of similar spamming was K6BD and it turned out to be a wonderful surprise, so I'm shared.

I know my tism is showing but that's a trump power desu

How does she beat superman by suffocating herself?

Superman was a Supergal

I would say give it a shot. Worm isn't really standard superhero stuff. Not in the sense that it's better than standard superhero stuff, but just not the same.

It's the author's first work though, and it's in dire need of editing. That said, it has some stuff going for it, like the worldbuilding, action scenes, and interesting characters. It has a weak start but give it up until the first cape fight.

>Is it worth a read, Veeky Forums
Yes
Weaver ark falls short though, but power through it to reach more awesome on the other side.

Oh I see.

The setting's Superman is a woman. She's not the strongest hero but she has the strongest flying brick package.

Except when Eidolon decides to take a flying brick package too.

It's worth a look, but give it a pass if it doesn't grab you. It's in dire need of a good editing pass, but keep in mind Wildbow put out a 6000 word chapter twice a week for not quite 3 years. It's actually better than I'd expect a work written under those conditions to be.

Ok, that's surprisingly unanimous. I''ll give my first impression if the thread s still up

>Downplaying Wildbow's talent

Explaining bits to friends is like half the enjoyment. When my roommate and I would have our daily smoke together I'd tell him the crazy bullshit that just happened in the story

It's not surprising that there are at least three Worm fans in a Worm thread.

Mild warning, worm tends towards the depressing. I feel it was worth it but a world full of mentally fucked people with superpowers is exactly as grim as it sounds a lot of the time.

All of Wildbow's works are like that.

I like his writing but that shit gets old, fast.

I never got trump classification.

Wait, Wildbow actually fucking rolled dice to determine outcomes?

Are there any other examples of this?

Also, what would he have done if Skitter had lived?

Trump is just any power that fucks with powers

Skitter did live in that case so 'write the series'

Shit. Meant died, sorry.

>including an incredibly mean-spirited retelling of Spider-man

Which one was that?

I guess continue on with maybe Tattletale or Grue as the main protag trying to cope with her being gone now.

Iirc he had Aegis waiting in the wings to takeover as protagonist.

Personally my least favorite part of Worm was the YA elements, mostly because I'm tired of that stuff. I feel like the best part was the whole Overlord of the Docks arc, then it declined significantly after S9 happened. Though I did love Calvert's death and how he was just straight outplayed

Also, Panacea was just insufferable. I hated her from her first scene. She acted too much like a Wheel of Time character

I get hating Panacea, but from her first scene?

All she did was call Glory Girl out on her shit and heal a nazi while giving him a harmless case of psychosomatic ED. I always thought that that scene was meant to sour the reader towards Glory Girl while setting her up as a violent hero antagonist.

Well that explains the Brockton Bay Wards Arc.

Yeah. Although Aegis died too, so who would have been next in line? Clockblocker? Or maybe Amy and Victoria, they were the protagonists for one of the proto-Worms, Guts and Glory.

Not to mention
the desperate plan to sacrifice everything for power, to be used only if shtf at mach speed?
He has to follow thu with it.

I'll be honest, I'd have followed Clockblocker.

Or Vista, I always found her interesting.

I can't see Amy and Victoria really working from that point in the story.

CB was honestly one of the most interesting Ward, especially watching his growth from a happy-go-lucky jokester to a serious and responsible hero and leader

Clockblocker was definitely one of my favorite characters. He felt real and fleshed out, and he was way more likable than any of the Undersiders. He actually had some nuance to his character, his joker act hiding a sense of anger and frustration that starts to leak out after the attack.

The scene where he called Skitter out on the shit she had a hand in despite being ordered by his superior to shut up is one of my favorite scenes in that whole part of the story.

Dune, the boy with the power to create fast-moving, abrasive surfaces that could rip targets to shreds. He could also travel on them via sandboarding.

He's actually an extremely powerful cape, and he can canonically defeat Grue - His power shuts down all Shaker abilities in the area. But he tries to flee his first do-or-die confrontation, and he gets crushed by several tonnes of rock.

You need to link, or no-one will have any idea what you're talking about. It's actually really funny how most of the players died as a result of bad tactical planning or shit luck. Like the guy who tried to fight a murderous cape despite having no combat skills and no social skills.

The odds were stacked against Archival, he had a poor start.

How do you have no combat skills AND no social skills? What DID he have?

He had 4 (Out of 5 highest) points in Investigate, 3 in Thievery, 1 in Streetwise.

His powers were basically clairvoyance and a minor Tinker ability to counter enemy capes. So he tried fighting a teleporter (with a cloak made of SWORDS) with a handful of knives.

>look at the chapter length
>look at the number of chapters

It's also getting published as a book.

And also any power that becomes President.

>enormously powerful enemies who are smarter, stronger, faster, better equipped, with better teams...
>lol she'always comes out on better end of it.

Almost like real life

He died because he was being an idiot. don't feel sorry for him.

On a mostly unrelated note i found that paranoia's general freeform use of mutant abilities is a perfect match for most worm powers.

There were no less than 4 precogs manipulating everything from behind the scenes.

One of them had a power that was literally "I win."

And a big book it'll be. Worm has a bigger wordcount than the entire Harry Potter series plus the Hobbit combined.

Just what precisely is the defining element of skub? Why do some topics incite this level of controversity? Of course, people will argue about everything but there are some things where it's just getting ridicilous.

Especially since there can't be more than like 5 people who know worm in the first place.

I sometimes wonder if wildbow hangs around these threads.

Yes. She even fills her trachea and lungs with silk and spiders. It's one of the less disgusting things that happen in the story.

Any word on when that'll happen?

Amy and Victoria were also originally intented to be the protagonists, it would have been called "guts and glory". There is also a horrible Uber and Leet Christmas Story flying around somewhere.

>Golem, the Travellers or Dauntless would be more fun.
Literally the worst characters

It's interesting to note that, Weaver Dice-wise, Clockblocker is the most playable character. Amy and Victoria aren't - Victoria can demolish literally any PC in the history of Weaver Dice. Amy's obviously broken, too, given what she can do.

The Travelers are also good examples of starting-level PC characters, but Perdition is arguably the most powerful because his ability can be parlayed into invincibility.

it's a really long(but complete) web novel.

the story is pretty hit or miss, cause the plot was partially written by rolling dice to see who dies. BUT the setting is god-tier

I'd say flip a coin to read it or not if you don't like supers then maybe not, but if you like it when a world is well-constructed and consistent while offering a broad array of adventure possibilities then go for it.

the first 2 or 3 chapters are kind of shitty, but that's a tiny distance to power through.

>and it's in dire need of editing.
supposedly, he has been working on that albeit slowly.

and even then that is temporary.

I look forward to it.

the more surprising thing is that there aren't that many disparaging comments.

>we need an "understatement of the thread" award meme/reaction image...

all the deaths you hear in every end-bringer fight, rolling past on the communication watches. each one was a character he created that might have reappeared later(some of the survivors DID reappear) and each one was the result of a die-roll for death or critical injury or survival.

>Clockblocker
best character.
his secret super-power was snark

>The scene where he called Skitter out on the shit she had a hand in despite being ordered by his superior to shut up is one of my favorite scenes in that whole part of the story.
can you be more specific?
I want to remember the scene but it's a long story.

yeah...1.56 million words isn't something you knock out over a long weekend. it took me a month reading in every spare moment I wasn't working or eating or sleeping...

>a slow, sad, clapping sound

>more than like 5 people who know worm in the first place.
and I know 3 of them...
more people know than that or Capes of Rain City couldn't happen

That makes the endbringer fights so much cooler now.

I'd have liked to see golem try harder to give some dick to skitter. not succeed mind you, just try.

yup.
thats why the behemoth fight ended up the way it did.

I went in knowing that every encounter with a high body-count was partially randomized. made it a roller-coaster of a read.

the first Mannequin fight was won because Forest(was that his name?) got some crits IIRC

You know, I was nearly 100% sure that Regent had been slowly prepping Imp to be ready for him to transfer his mind into. I thought that was what happened during the behemoth fight and spent the rest of Worm waiting for a reveal that never came.

nope

he rolled too poorly for that to happen
QUIT THE SPOILERS DAMMIT

Wait, so he actually made an attempt? This is important to me.

no, I'm using obfuscating language for the people in-thread that have expressed that they have not read that far.

Everyone talks about how Leviathan and Behemoth are the best end bringers but holy shit the idea of the Simurgh is just fucking terrifying. If she decided she was gunning for you, the only way to survive would be on a desert island, but even then that's a hard sell because she'll just fucking find you.

Between her, Vista, and Glaistig Uaine I dunno who has my favorite power set.

Mannequin was best fight though. Genuine suspense the whole time.

How do we know he didn't though? She got awfully sympathetic about his plight, and very, very good at killing. Hertbreaker's best still running shit.

Grue could have been done so much better, and I really wish he had held Tattletale in check, undersiders did have some good characters though.

'cause we got an epilogue featuring her, and nothing showed up in that, so it's a conspiracy theory and nothing more.

The Undersiders really are a mixed bag, but then so is most of Worm.

they're the better fights to read.

the simurgh is very hard to fight and the threat inherent in her presence it not clear, apparent, or consistent.

she is the most horrifying, but least interesting to observe fights for.

I'm fine with her just having a change of heart after the battle in India.

The other three Endbringers after Behemoth died were criminally underused.

I find the time/teleporting one more terrifying than the Simurgh tbqh.

Konshu did have one of the most horrorfying abilities.

simurgh was insidious
behemoth the most destructive
and Leviathan had his objectives

worst endbringer-death available I think...

Why did bonesaw not attach other capes to herself so she could gain their powers? Why couldn't she have just put several other cape's coronas in a life support device which she would then wear and control with something in her brain/control pad of some sort.

If Skitter had died, Wildbow said he would have continued the story from Grue's perspective

Lots of people think he's lying when he rolled dice, but I'm inclined to believe him. Otherwise, he wouldn't have killed of Kaiser and Gallant before their character arcs could take place.

Because those hybrid capes were fucked up?

I don't think Bonesaw had the tech to control a mind with the brain still being intact enough to keep access to the coronas

she might have, eventually.

I got the impression that she was working on it, but never had a lot of time in a dedicated and stable laboratory.

the shard would have supplied the basics BUT for something involving the Worms and their interactions...that would have still taken effort and time.

>My board needs to be nothing but catgirl builds!

Sorry for the delay buddy. We're back in on the 5th of May.

It's criminal to me that Worm focused so much on the Undersiders. They just aren't interesting.

Uh, yes she did. Murder Rat could both nullify powers and teleport to previously striker'd points.

But was she controlling the brain, or did she just reprogram it or something?

Maybe her shard blocked her from being able to, hence why she was so interested in trigger events, because they were one of the few aspects of biology she didn't understand.