Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by JC McRae, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans .wordpress .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Hello and welcome. We are the Brockton Bay Book Club and we have but one goal and that is to get more people reading Worm. Now, if you're listening, there's a good chance you are already familiar with Worm and we are delighted to have you join us on this little adventure.
Speaker: But if you have no idea what we are talking about, here is a brief synopsis written by the author himself, John McCray, better known by his handle, Wildbo. Worm is a web serial about a teenager with a superpower that lets her control bugs. She is mistaken for a supervillain on an early outing and is thrust into a world where hero and villain and good and evil don't always match up.
Speaker: My name is Jacob and I will be serving as the unofficial MC of these episodes. Each episode will be broken into two parts. Part one being the formal book club where we break down several chapters each episode and discuss them. And part two being a fun dissection of the story and how we would adapt it for television.
Speaker: And of course, I'm not alone here. We have a diverse cast of readers, all with varying levels of experience with Wild Bo's library. For myself, this will be my second time reading through Worm, and I can't wait to get back into it. But let's meet the rest of the group, starting with Taylor, no relation to the protagonist of the series. Taylor, introduce yourself and your experience with Worm.
Speaker: All right. Well, hello everybody. Again, my name is Taylor. Uh, I've been friends with these guys, um, with Alan particularly for about 20 or so years. Um, and just with everyone else, just, I mean, we've had a great friendship going on and literally throughout the entire thing, people keep telling me, I need to read this worm series. Um, I do not have any experience with wild pose works, so I'll be going into this fresh.
Speaker: Um, basically be given just what I see as it happens. So for those of you that have read wild bow, you'll probably laugh at my predictions and whatnot and knowing what's going to be coming next. Um, but I'll be given the fresh perspective. All right. Fantastic. Uh, and jumping right over to Alan. Yeah. So my name's Alan, by the way. And I, this will be my third time rereading worm. Uh, read the sequel.
Speaker: begun reading his horror magic, finished that one, and now I'm reading Wild Bo's biopunk, which will leave me one more to catch up after I finish this one. Huge worm fan, really like it. To me, Wild Bo's kind of my favorite author, just because of his sheer consistency of writing, if nothing else. So I'll be coming into this with a lot. I originally heard about it from Jacob.
Speaker: mentioned it off -handedly at the end of a school semester. And then that kind of consumed my entire summer reading worm.
Speaker: Yeah, I found I should have mentioned I found worm reading who would win battles on Reddit on the subreddit who would win. And so many battles were pitting like Superman and powerful characters against these characters from this web serial worm that I had never heard of before. And I was like, all right, well, I guess I have to check this out. And that was a good decision. All right, Hannah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm Hannah and I heard about Worm because Jacob and Alan were roommates and I was dating Alan at the time. And so I was like, well, it's time I start reading it. So it took me two years to get through Worm. I did kind of a combo of reading it on the Kindle and listening to the audio book. And it was a lot, but I really, really enjoyed the story and the thing
Speaker: that kept bringing me back is like the characters. The characters are so complex and so beautiful. And the story is just amazing. And you never really know what's going to happen next. So that unpredictability was really fun for me. So I finished Worm about yeah, about what Jacob said about five years ago. And it's about time I sit down and read it again. So I'm I'm very excited. Awesome. And next we've got Nick.
Speaker: Hello, hello, I'm Nick. Um, yeah, so I heard about worm, uh, probably from Jacob or Alan. I don't actually remember. Um, but I just remember, uh, the, the year that I read it, I would be on my phone reading it on the website till like two or three in the morning, just
Speaker: just trying to, you know, crank my way through the arcs and I just had to know what happened. So for me, worm is kind of funny because it really is, um, it's sort of in my memory, like a dream where I have impressions and characters and ideas, but I don't know that I remember all the specifics, especially in the middle sections.
Speaker: So I'm looking forward to going back through the book, uh, going back through and meeting all the characters again, remembering the really cool scene. And for me, one of the things I love about worm is, uh, wild Bose unique take on superpowers.
Speaker: You know, we live in a world now where superhero stories are kind of becoming a dime a dozen, but I feel like Wild Bo really does a good job of making something distinct. Obviously, Worm's a bit older, but even so with newer things too that I've read of theirs.
Speaker: So I'm excited to get back into it. Um, it's a super fun story and I'm a teacher, I'm an English teacher, so I love discussing stories and themes and characters. So, uh, you can probably expect that I'll, I'll be pulling on that aspect of myself as we go. Fantastic. And lastly, we have Kat.
Speaker: Hey, I'm Kat. I also, like Taylor, have never read this series. My first, you know, hearing about it was from Alan, who knows, like two years ago probably, just chatting about, you know, books and whatnot he had mentioned. And I thought about reading it, but kind of intimidated by the sheer length and
Speaker: inaccessibility of it, but luckily I have a lot of people here that have read it and can give me the Kindle link. I'm pretty excited because I do like some superheroes and yeah, hopefully I'll be able to bring a good fresh perspective just like Taylor. All right, fantastic. So that's everybody we have here. We also have our resident
Speaker: Audio editor slash moderator, Michael Scott. Hello. There he is. We will be popping in on occasion to tell us where you need to speak up or share a cool fact, look something up for us. So he'll be around.
Speaker: All right, let's go ahead and open this up now kind of just to everyone getting into expectations of kind of what we're going to be reading. Actually, let me back up real quick. So the format of this podcast is going to be broken into two parts primarily. The first is more of a general sort of book club vibe as we're reading arcs and chapters of the story at a time and just sort of discussing
Speaker: what we were enjoying about it and kind of that more traditional fashion. And in the second half, the kind of, I guess you could say nerdier half, although this whole thing is pretty nerdy, but we'll be kind of approaching worm. Yeah. Yeah. Approaching worm from the perspective of trying to adapt it or long form visual storytelling television, primarily.
Speaker: and kind of what that would look like, because I think we can all agree there is a ripe story here for a visual adaptation of some kind, despite, as Nick said, a somewhat oversaturation of the superhero genre. But we do see stories within that genre that do break out. The Boy is on Amazon, Invincible recently on Amazon as well. So there's a lot of room for unique stories to be told in this genre. But yeah, let's go ahead and open it up.
Speaker: What are some of your general expectations as we dive back into or into for the first time, Morm? I think just to jump in here, I think it'd be really interesting to hear from Taylor and Kat just because you guys haven't read it yet, if I'm understanding that right. And so it'd be fun to hear just from what you've heard of us talking about it. What do you think of the story? What comes to mind?
Speaker: Well, just from all the hype, y 'all guys have been hyping this up for years. I mean literal years. I definitely know that this is like
Speaker: not your Marvel superhero story. I know there's death, there's just sadness, there's creepiness. And what amazes me is the fact that he was essentially making this a D &D type deal, which I'm also
Speaker: fairly new to um as well but literally rolling for these characters and not knowing what was coming next himself so i think that's what i'm most excited for is to try and pick and see like oh where did he have to add live where did he have to do this um so i'm super excited for that yeah actually um that's news to me what taylor just said about this being kind of a dnd led story with rolling for things so i'm actually really interested to hear more about that um
Speaker: I guess, you know, I'm going into this, I mean like completely blind because I go into movies, I go into books without reading synopses, without watching trailers. It's the exact same thing here for me. So honestly, there's gonna be a lot of no spoilers completely. Like the only thing I've done is I've listened to the first like 40 minutes of arc one. So I have nothing other than, you know,
Speaker: that very beginning. So yeah, kind of interested to see where you guys take us and where this book takes us. Yeah, I know for me.
Speaker: I talk in with you guys after it was like seven and a half years ago that I read it, um, and finally finished it. And so now still trying to talk about it. Um, like you, Alan and you Jacob, you guys have a much better grasp of who the characters are. And so for me, the image, you know, Alan will mention a character and the image it'll play in my mind is that, you know, just the meme from guardians of the galaxy, the who, you know, just every time he's like, you know, so -and -so, and they do, they can do this. And I'm just like,
Speaker: So for me, there's a lot that I've forgotten in the middle. And I'm just excited to see all that again and to talk about it.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree with that. I feel like because it's been so long since I've read through the series, I have forgotten so much. And Alan recently got some tattoos based off of Worm and I'm like, I honestly, I can't always remember when he's referencing characters and that kind of kills me a little bit because I feel like Worm is a weird, like,
Speaker: like a weird members club like if you finished the book congratulations you get to join this elite club of like people who have actually completed it and i'm like yay i'm part of the club but i can't i can't remember anything that happened so uh i'm just i'm just very excited to go back and read the
Speaker: read this again and like knowing some, you know, some big plot points that, you know, will be coming. It's like when you watch a movie for the second time and they're like, Oh my gosh, Oh, I noticed this. I noticed this. So like, Oh, I see they're setting this up. I'm excited to see those things get set up knowing some of like the bigger plot points that are, that are coming. I'm a social media consumer in the sense that like, I enjoy things the most with other people. Um,
Speaker: If I'm introducing somebody to a piece of media, like I could sit there and watch their reaction to an entire movie and just feed off the energy of that. So for me, while things are fun to read alone, and I do enjoy that, uh, I think of like one of my favorite experiences of all time with media was watching Westworld season one.
Speaker: with Jacob when we were roommates week to week and getting on Reddit and talking about all the theories and you're coming up with the ideas. And that's an experience I never really had. Cause I typically didn't watch week to week and I certainly didn't engage with communities like that. And now having been in a couple of book clubs, um, I really, I really dig.
Speaker: the community aspect of consuming media and then discussing it. So I am most excited about all of us, like hearing people's thoughts, hearing, you know, what they hate, what they love at week to week. That just fills my heart with joy. And then finally, at the end of all of this, when we
Speaker: Go out and get the tattoos together. We'll be the best part. I knew you were going to say that. I knew it. It's the club. It's the club. You know, we're all in the country. I said it now. Our goal is to make enough money off of this that we can afford the tattoos. Since I have absolutely no earthly idea what the tattoo could possibly be, I'm just imagining this all getting worms.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to figuring out what the fuck we are getting on our bodies. So, yeah. Well, there's a lot of options. Um, and Alan knows all of them. I know none of them. Yeah. It seems some good art, good tattoo art over the years. Well, as someone that doesn't have any tattoos on their body, I'm a little scared because I mean, I don't want a Superman logo across my ass, but another thing is
Speaker: this is what I'm most excited about is trying to figure out different predictions and whatnot and just where this book is going to go because I mean, Kat and I don't know anything. So this is going to be very interesting just to kind of see what goes on there. Yeah. And it's that's, it's going to be really interesting going, going through the story because the way Wild Bo writes characters in these stories, he,
Speaker: It's such a fun and unique approach to writing that I really haven't seen or at least I'm aware of any other authors really doing in terms of how he chose while writing because this was serialized. So he was writing chapters kind of as they came week after week. And so his approach to character arcs and character progression is incredibly natural in a really fun kind of way.
Speaker: I read that he would write himself into corners on purpose, like purposefully put his characters in impossible situations for the sole purpose of like challenging himself to write them out of those corners, which I just love. Like I'm, I love that. I love that so much. Yeah. I, I, it's that part. I love that part. And the fact that, and I'm not going to get maybe the exact details, right. But I am pretty sure there is a point.
Speaker: in the book or a major event happens. And at that point on until the end of the book, he is rolling dice to see if characters live or die. And that is based on, of course, like their power levels and stuff like that. But nobody is exempt from those roles. Um, and we'll get back into that later at some points where I will talk about, uh, when people make it or don't, uh, what the,
Speaker: what that looked like. And of course, in addition to just reading through worm as a little book club here, the sort of second half of the podcast that we're going to be focusing on is how we would adapt worm for some form of television or serialization in live action.
Speaker: This has been more me and Alan's pet project that we've been focusing on. It's honestly how we started the conversation for a podcast in the first place. But we love just how ripe Worm is as a story and as a property. There's just so much in it that just feels like it demands exploration in other mediums. As much as I love the written work,
Speaker: I'm a huge film buff and I just I would love to see worm on the silver screen in some capacity or some fashion. And I should clarify, I don't think that this could be condensed for a movie. I think it would have to be televised in some way, some sort of some sort of episodic adventure. Yeah, definitely feel like this would make I don't think you could just turn this into a movie. This would have to be a television show. Yeah.
Speaker: long form, for sure, because there's so there's so much. There's just there's oh, my gosh, there's so much. You talked a little bit earlier about animation probably being. The ideal form, you know, seeing Castlevania or the team that did Arkane. Oh, my God, even cyberpunk animation, like a little bit weirder. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, but the beauty of worm, I think is also, it's very human centric in the fact that like a lot of it isn't crazy wild for superior show. And you could, you have a lot of the best moments being two people in a room. Um, so, you know, CW really could pull off that. And even with hokey graphics, it could still be really good as long as the writing was good.
Speaker: Yeah. And, and I think too, that the, the character focus aspect of worm is part of what's really compelling about it. So, um, yeah, like even not that we're getting into the first arc yet, but even just the very opening scene is just such a compelling and human scene that you are immediately drawn into the character, um, of Taylor. So, uh, super, super cool.
Speaker: Yeah. So that's basically going to be the podcast, both, both halves of that first half book club, second half, uh, writing a screenplay and talking about adaptations. So any studio executives listening in right now, uh, thanks for listening and, uh, give us a call. Uh, we'd love to, we'd love to, we'd love to chat. And while though, if he wants to allow the rights to somebody, cause let's be honest, like,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, we're at this point now where he, like, none of his stuff has been published officially. And it's, to me, that just says a lot about him wanting as much author controls he can possibly get, which he should, he absolutely should have as much author controls as you get, because he is gonna be told by, you know, producers, whether it's for a show, animated or otherwise, or publishing that, oh, you're gonna have to trim this, you're gonna have to cut this down, and he doesn't want to, which is good, he shouldn't,
Speaker: and cut things unless he wants to cut them or, you know, change aspects of the story. Yeah, and great point, Hannah. And just to clarify, of course, that the screenplay aspect of what we're doing is a total hobby. We don't own the rights in any way to worm. Everything belongs completely to Wild Bo. This is just a fun little passion project for us. And I do want to kind of bring up because of
Speaker: But culturally right now, there's the strikes that are happening for the writers and the actors. So I think for something like this, I feel like it kind of highlights how important it is that the writers and the actors do receive the proper compensation for their work because this is not a small
Speaker: thing. You know, like this isn't like, I haven't even read it, but I know that like the amount of time and work that has gone into it. And even if it was not Wild Bo that was doing the screenwriting, there's people that have to go and do the research and sift through just the sheer amount of content and piece together how this would be on screen and the
Speaker: know, his dialogue and stuff, it doesn't translate the exact same to screen as it does in a book. So, you know, these screenwriters, even when they already have a source material, they have to put in so much work. And so much creativity goes into this that they just deserve way more than what they've been, you know,
Speaker: given like pennies from the majority of screenwriters, majority of actors are not making millions. They're not the famous people that we recognize on a daily basis, you know, and they deserve to be compensated for their work. Yeah, absolutely. We, we should probably also say at some point that
Speaker: If you plan to read worm along with us as we go through the arcs, a wild boat puts a warning at the beginning, but we probably should too for our podcast. Uh, the story does talk about some pretty serious themes and, uh, it's just good to have that content warning out there. So that way, uh, you know, it's not unexpected. Uh, we, and we like to dive into the nitty gritty of things, I think as a group. So we might spend longer than as comfortable on the uncomfortable scenes because that's where the big stuff happens.
Speaker: Um, so just thought I'd put that out there too, into the ether. No, I think that's a great idea because the web serial is named worm. How in God's name are you supposed to know that there's going to be a terrifyingly horrific graphic superhero novel coming out of this? He's like, wait, this isn't a sequel to how to eat fried worms.
Speaker: Spoilers. So disappointed. So disappointed. When I left you, I was but the fried worm. Now I am the master. OK, dad, joke alert. I'm laughing, but I have no idea what you're referencing. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my gosh. Jesus. So we're going to stop this podcast. Shut up.
Speaker: We're going to stop this podcast and start watching the original Star Wars trilogy over again. Oh, okay. Sorry. All right. Before we go completely off the rails here, we'll go ahead and call our first episode, sort of an introduction we did here and pick up in our next episode as we begin reading through worm.
Speaker: And if you want to read along with us, our first episode will cover arc one of the web serial, which I believe is eight chapters plus an interlude chapter. So if you want to read along, that's what we're going to be discussing in our next episode. We hope you enjoy it. Again, we'll be doing both a sort of a book club portion and then also a section where we talk about our thoughts and ideas in terms of adapting it for visual media. Anyways, stick around. It's going to be a lot of fun.
Speaker: Thanks for joining and Michael, want to play us out?
