Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by J .C. McCray, 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: I love it. All right. Good morning, Brockton Bay. And welcome to our first full episode of the Brockton Bay Book Club. We had our little introduction episode, but now we're
Speaker: actually getting into the book itself, Worm. And we'll be discussing the first arc, gestation, which covers a bit. And so Hannah, do you want to break down really quickly the
Speaker: A short summary of Arc 1. Yeah, so Arc 1 is gestation and we open on Taylor, our protagonist. Her home and school life touch a little bit on her powers, her swarm, and her first night out as a hero ending with a lovely interlude at the end of the arc.
Speaker: told from her father Danny's perspective which gives us a little bit more exposition of kind of the history of the world as capes have been introduced to it kind of where he's coming from as a father worrying about Taylor and some a little bit more of an insight into her background and difficulties that she's had at school ending with Taylor returning home and that finishes up arc one gestation
Speaker: All right. Fantastic. Let's go ahead. We're not going to do anything too structured here, but just sort of, let's get some quick first thoughts on the arc. It's six chapters plus the interlude, but it's, it's pretty short, relatively speaking. So just sort of in general, kind of initial thoughts, start of the story, how invested in, are you already that kind of thing? Let's just go down my list here. So Taylor.
Speaker: All right, all right. So once again, just to reiterate, I am one of the two people that has not read this before. So I just want to make that very clear. So jumping right in, I definitely think that in -game is Mr. Gladly.
Speaker: I'm just going to go ahead and say it now. I'm pretty sure that he is behind everything. Um, so that's my, that's going to be my main prediction that we're going to find out. Mr. Glass, neither confirm nor deny. Yep. It was, it was Mr. G. Mr. G was behind it all.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, exactly. So that's, I'm just going to go ahead and throw that out there just to get things started. Um, definitely when I was introduced to Taylor, just based off description and whatnot, definitely got a violet vibes from the Incredibles, same personality and just same things going on. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can see it. Uh, Alan, what were, what were your thoughts rereading this now?
Speaker: rereading this, uh, just from a writing perspective, it reads very differently. Um, and it's a lot more rushed than I remember. Like we are jumping, you know, one chapter to next chapter. It's so fast, especially considering like, I don't know how things stretched out in my mind. I felt like they went on for a lot longer, even at the beginning, but you know, uh,
Speaker: biggest thing for me, I really, really love the introduction of Long, you know, right away. I freaking love Long. Yeah, great character.
Speaker: Hannah, same same type of question. We're reading this. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I so there there is a full cast audio like audio book version of of worm and they've only recorded a couple of the first arcs. So I decided I was going to listen to it. So listening to the full cast was super cool. That was I just love that. That was really fun. Yeah, I I'm not going to lie. I I forgot how tough
Speaker: it was to see Taylor get bullied, especially at school and kind of like just the specifics of like her backpack getting
Speaker: like stained by the grape juice is just like, ugh, kind of kills me. And like her riding on the bus, going home, like just trying to get back to what she sees as her safe space. And as someone who has arachnophobia, doesn't like spiders, that was not fun for me to hear about that. And like, it's very cool the way that she utilizes her swarm, but I, anytime we get into the specifics of like, ooh, these are the spiders I use, I'm like, oh,
Speaker: Oh, no. But but, yeah, no, it was it's a great first arc really throws you into the world, but I don't feel like it it throws too much at you all at once. So I feel like it's a it's a great place to be back in Taylor's head again. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Nick, your thoughts. Yeah. Just in general.
Speaker: One of the things that I appreciate about good writing is when the author draws you into the character immediately. And just with the way that Worm opens, we are immediately sympathetic to Taylor and just everything that's going on with her. And just the way that Wild Bo presents her from the beginning is
Speaker: It's just really touching. Um, and yet it's sort of this like duality of Taylor's strength as a hero. But when we first meet here, we see her as vulnerable. And I think that that's a really important, uh, contrast there. So I really like it. Yeah. Great, great first arc. Yeah. No, I agree. That's yeah. It's a really unique approach. You don't really see that a lot of a lot or you don't see it done well a lot, I should say.
Speaker: All right. All right. Kat, what are your initial thoughts of ArcOne also along with Taylor having not read the story before? Yeah. So initially, I would say like the first kind of chapter wasn't really much gripping for me. But as we started getting into the actual like starting to see the powers and especially like towards the end of ArcOne
Speaker: when we're really seeing the extent of her power. She's starting to interact with other people. I really found myself not wanting to put it down. And then the bullying at the beginning didn't fully take effect on me until we went into the interlude.
Speaker: I'm really excited to see where this goes. Oh yeah. Okay. Definitely coming back to both Kat and Taylor at the end here, just for some, uh, some future predictions. Curious to see what you guys think is coming next. Um, but just kind of going chronologically through the arc. So kind of at the start, I was really curious what you guys thought, because one thing that I really enjoyed about the way Wild Boast starts worm, uh, as opposed to not just
Speaker: superhero stories in general, but just kind of general storytelling, but it's more, uh, more applied to kind of the superhero genre is we don't get Taylor's like origin. We don't get her moment where she gets her powers, which kind of going off to what you said, Nick, I think it was Nick, Nick or Hannah said, I would kind of just get thrown into the world to start, uh, like a, like a, a world that's already thriving. Did that,
Speaker: I loved it. Did everyone else love it or did you guys wish we had an origin, like a traditional origin story that sort of start everything? I kind of love it. I loved just being able to, like I've read through 1 -1, I was a little confused, but then just being able to kind of just immediately jump into something.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not going to lie to you guys, but by like, by the next chapter, I already have in my notes here, I was already like, okay, we're planning for a heel turn. Like just like, I have that written down several times throughout where it's just like, okay, she's getting bullied. We're getting ready for a heel turn or okay. Okay. We got bad guys showing up and confusing her. We're going for a heel turn. What's a heel turn? Okay. So basically bad guy. She's just going to be a bad guy, but, um, that's a term for like wrestlers, like WWE.
Speaker: Um, I mean, not that I like or don't like WWE, you know, I'm not trying to, I would never, I would never give it up about myself. I'm curious in your mind then as a new reader, what is it that's making you feel like she's going to have a heel turn? Well, uh, definitely. I mean, we start off with the bullying and then it's funny cause you're immediately like, Oh, this is kind of like a carry reference. And in the book itself says, Oh no, this is like, I'm going to pull a carry.
Speaker: And I was like, okay. Um, but then, you know, she goes back to the house. She, uh, she kind of decompresses, takes a shower and is like, Nope, you know what? We're, we're still going to go after being a hero. And I, there was just something about it there to where I was like, okay, this is definitely someone who's trying to do good. Um, but possibly could get pulled in the other direction just based off of that. Um, but I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. Not to, not to jump too far ahead.
Speaker: Um, but did that, do you feel like, uh, you were justified in thinking that when, um, later in the arc, she was mistaken for a villain? Uh, a little bit. Um, that definitely, definitely what, whenever she was mistaken for a villain, I was like, Oh, okay. We're just going with this. We're just doing this early. Like she's, she's a villain already. But then, uh, definitely, um, definitely after she talked with arms master, which, um,
Speaker: Just to throw this out there, it is 2023. We definitely need to come up with a politically correct name for him. We can't have master in the name. Uh, but arms main. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, arms, big bedroom, but when we get to the, when we get to the script writing process of this, we'll, we'll discuss that, but, uh, but yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I'm still, I'm still on the fence. I don't know. Um, what are you thinking Kat?
Speaker: Um, I actually think that she's going to be like a bad, good guy. Where they're trying to do good, but they're just really bad at it where they do it in like the most unconventional way. So that's kind of how I see it where, you know, like.
Speaker: she was trying her best in this to like help like, Oh, he's going to kill kids. Oh my God. Like, you know, I'm going to, you know, she did a really good job fighting him, especially for obviously the amount of inexperience she has. Um, and considering how just overpoweringly, you know, impressive long was with his powers. And then she finds out that their villains and she's like,
Speaker: like, you know, like I did all that and it wasn't even for, you know, like saving people that were good. So I think she's just going to end up like kind of finding herself in that situation a lot. Like she's either just really bad at being a good guy or she just does it in a strange, unconventional way. All right. Interesting. Yeah. I'm going to be very interesting to see Taylor and Kat's predictions as the, as the arcs go on. Pretty fun.
Speaker: It is something I noticed this time round was Taylor is an overwhelmingly like good and positive person in spite of everything going on around her. Oh yeah. Yeah. Which I was not a, I kind of didn't remember, but now that I'm rereading, I'm like, wow, yeah, no, she puts up with a lot. And despite all that, she is still a good person.
Speaker: Well, it's sort of the Peter Parker theory of superheroes too, where part of what makes her such a good character is because you just feel bad for her from the beginning. You have this, like with Peter Parker, where it's like, man, this guy's life, it's not great. His uncle dies in the beginning. He's a superhero, sure, but his life's not great. And it kind of feels the same way with Taylor, where it's like,
Speaker: Yeah, she's a hero at what costs. Yeah. Um, and, and just opening on the bullying and all of that is just really, uh, really powerful. And it's not like she's perfect either. I feel like a lot of those like heroes, there's like no way I would ever misuse my powers. Like she's like, man, I could do this. I could send some bugs after them, but you know, they'd, they'd track me down. Like we know that superpowers exist. I wouldn't be able to get away with that shit. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, she's like realistic about it too, because too often I feel like in movies or in books, you're reading a lot and you're like, Oh, come on, don't go down into the dark basement, you dummy. Like obviously, that's where the killer is hiding. But like with this, she's very realistic with understanding like, Oh, if I do retaliate, it will come back.
Speaker: to hurt me in the long run and she's being smart about her decisions and the the choices that she's making everything from like oh I'm gonna you know I'm gonna respond this way to the bullies I'm going to respond this way in regards to you know her powers and even her swarm and how she responds to lung is all very like
Speaker: It's all very smart as opposed to what I feel like often gets used as the trope of like the characters that are stupid or make stupid decisions. And in your head you're thinking like, Oh, come on, man. Like don't do that. And so Taylor is very easy to put yourself in that space of understanding why she's making the choices that she's making. Like even there's a section when she's fighting lung where she's thinking to herself like, Oh man, I should have brought a burner phone and I didn't. And I brought,
Speaker: You know my little bottle of mace my dad gave me but I don't have a burner phone and she's already thinking about the next time she's out She's trying to plot out her actions and it's it's much more It's much more I guess understandable like Relatable. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely and speaking of realistic I wanted to get all y 'alls kind of ideas on this because I haven't seen any other superhero story or anything take this route and
Speaker: Um, I thought the idea of like all of these heroes having their own Reddit threads. I thought it was hilarious. Like the fact that literally she's going into battle having like Google these guys. Yeah. That definitely got me into the story a whole lot more than others. Cause I'm like, no, this is, this is definitely a real life thing. Yeah. Cause that's absolutely what people would do, right? Like if superheroes existed, people would absolutely fan boy, fan girl, however you want to say it.
Speaker: Um, or, you know, people would, you know, people would be like, Oh, watch out for that guy. Watch out for this guy, whatever it is. Um, yeah, that's absolutely what people would do. Uh, if superheroes really existed, which yeah, I really liked that little.
Speaker: that little tidbit of realism, like you said. Yeah. And it really helps lock it. I love the comparison you made to Peter Parker because everybody loves Peter because his whole little theme is he's just a kid from Queens. It just feels so real. It just feels like such a lived in world. And Taylor feels just like a girl from Rockin' Bay.
Speaker: you know, she's going through all the same, all the same stuff that everybody else is going through, dealing with all the same problems that we all dealt with. And then like Taylor said, like even the way she interacts with the element of the story, right? Superheroes and all that kind of stuff just felt so real. Just seeing like, yeah, chat boards and jokes and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. It was just a really unique approach. Yeah. I really like,
Speaker: Uh, the idea of, we talked about there's no origin story here. I really like that in this story. I also really like that there's no, like not training montage. Cause I don't like stories that don't have a training montage, but I also don't like ones that like, Oh my gosh, look at all of this. And then this one is just like, I'm jogging. Like I'm jogging. I get up in the morning. I jog. I need to be in shape. If I'm going to be a superhero.
Speaker: And like, no matter what you do, you're not going to out, you know, muscle. She's just the forest gump of superheroes. One day she just got up and started running.
Speaker: Well, it gets the realisticness of like, I know that I'm going to need to be able to have some cardio capabilities here. Like you're like when she's thinking about like, oh, I can't jump off this building. Like no matter how many flying insects I have, like I don't have those capabilities. Like she's realistic with herself knows like I need to be running. I need to be exercising. I need to be pushing myself. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's it's definitely a more realistic way of
Speaker: presenting it because I feel like oftentimes in fantasy and like movies that have women that are, you know, the protagonists, if they're like meant to be, you know, they're also, they're also small and neat and so tiny, but then they like, like three weeks training.
Speaker: I say that with like quotations around it. So they learn how to like spar a little bit and all of a sudden they're like the best fighter in the ring. And that's just like not how that shit works. So I think she's like, you know what, I'm going to start preparing for this before I start going out there. Like she's like thinking about, you know, how she's going to have to prepare and it's actually takes time. Not. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Yes, in a sparring ring. Yeah. And what does she carry around with her? Like she's got pepper spray and like, you know, it's just, well, she feels like she's like, I should probably have like a med pack or like a first aid kit and like a pepper spray. Like climbers. Oh my gosh.
Speaker: It was so random. I never would have thought that. I love that she's like, oh, I can't climb things, but maybe I can throw it at someone's face. Go, Taylor. Way to go. I saw this chat on discount. Let's do that. Let's add that to the collection for the utility. I definitely was laughing a little bit because I was like, oh, yeah, climber's chalk. That makes sense. And she's like, yeah, I'd use this pocket sand. And I was like, oh, damn it. Oh, my god. Yeah.
Speaker: I could say she does. She does say in like her fight with lung, she's like, you know what? I should probably have a burner phone and I should probably have a knife of some kind, like some sort of weapon to defend myself with so that, you know, otherwise. Yeah. But that girl, she's going in with her her spiders and that's it.
Speaker: Yeah. I kind of like how she was like, why the hell did I bring chalk? Like, I don't mean it because she is like her initial thought was like, Oh, like I could throw it at someone or like, if there's someone that's invisible, I could throw it and I'll be able to see him. That was like, I can do that with my bugs. Like, why am I thinking about that? It's such a great moment. I love it. In the middle of getting like attacked by a horrendous monster. I mean, the image in my head was just like,
Speaker: Terrified did what did long stop getting powers at one point during that battle cuz it's it just kept it just Yeah, let's talk about lung for a second because I want to rant about long for a moment because like
Speaker: One thing, I think I said this before, one thing I absolutely love and obsessed with when it comes to wild bow and with worm is the powers that these capes have. They are so unique and so interesting. I'll say lung isn't even the most interesting, but he's the first big cape we run into, and he's like, oh yeah, well,
Speaker: you know, as Taylor says, like, oh, normally you would expect people to get weaker, but lung only gets stronger. Oh, such a, such a great introduction to not just the world, but to like, like you're saying the types of powers immediately were hit with one Taylor's power of controlling insects, not the first time we've seen it, but definitely not the first time we've seen it in any sort of like,
Speaker: protagonist type of character, but then to jumping into a character like lung, like immediately this world feels so different from any other superhero story we've read because we haven't met anyone who can fly. We haven't met anyone who's just like, you know, super strong, like Superman or fast or anything like that. It's, it's, he jumps right in too. Nope. These are going to be some different types of powers that you haven't seen before, which I loved. Yeah. Wild though also does this thing.
Speaker: that both I love and also irritates me, which is he will not call the thing what it is. Just like they're not superheroes. Their case, which is good for like his thing, you know, making it unique, but he like will go out of his way sometimes to not say certain words long.
Speaker: is a dragon and he refuses to ever use the word dragon to describe him. That's not true because Taylor does reference him as a dragon at one point, but it's very early on and it's only done once. Cause I remember that being something before it just irritated me to no end. I'm like, okay, the fire, the scales,
Speaker: the wing things that allegedly come out of his back that she was reading about. She becomes a dragon the more he goes on. And he just refuses to say that or acknowledge it, I feel like.
Speaker: And which is so such a dichotomy because he's like, you know, there's these people with powers, you know, we call them capes, you know, definitely not superheroes. So anyway, here's a member of the Asian bad boys. And I was like, Oh, okay. So gangs are a problem there too.
Speaker: I just wanted to say I went back and I did a quick word search. Alan is 100 percent correct about the dragon thing. I just pulled up the chapters really quick and did a quick little word search, control F, whatever. The only reference to a dragon at all is the reference to the fact that Lung has oriental style dragon tattoos. That's it. All right. I'm telling you. Alan was 100 percent correct.
Speaker: This is this is like reading World War Z or watching the movies and they refuse to call them zombies. Just they just absolutely refuse. I mean, Walking Dead is the same thing. That's why they're going to drive me up a wall. It's like we we had zombie literature before the, you know, walkers showed up. You can call them zombies. We're going to call them zombies.
Speaker: I mean, you're trying to be unique, though, and and, you know, trying to set yourself apart. And like, I understand that being like, well, everyone's calling them zombies, so we don't want to call them zombies. We're going to call them walkers or like like World War Z. They go out of their way to call them zeds like. Yeah, I do. I do actually kind of like like a little bit of something different, though, with, you know, like capes as an as a different name for superheroes.
Speaker: Yeah, because they're not all heroes. I guess you could call them supers, but I like the capes.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Ed, Edna mode would be pissed, but besides that, you know, I mean, yeah, referring back to super is probably trying to avoid being too similar to the incredible. True. True. They really call him super. Yeah, they call him super. I do have a question though. Isn't it the official and that's just me trying to make sure I'm understanding. So officially they're parahumans and the slang like is. Yeah, correct. Yes. Yes. Okay.
Speaker: And with the capes thing, I like that it's not, because like superhero is very, or like super villain, it's a very like black or white option as opposed to cape, which could be anything. Which I kind of like, because I feel like that. It sounds like it's so common that calling them super, like there's gonna be people, parahumans that are for,
Speaker: Powerful than others right like I mean Just the way that they explained it so far and that very quick you know where he was the dad was watching the doctor documentary and the interlude we got that first, you know kind of Explanation of yeah explain to the world what the world is like and how this like started and it sounds like there's a lot of people It's not uncommon like there
Speaker: And, um, some people are obviously going to have like the most minute hours and then some people are going to be, you know, so it's calling them every one of them. It's like, well, now it's like normal, you know, it's normal enough to have some sort of power. So to call them super would be kind of a, like all of them are not necessarily. I had never thought of that, but that is a really good point.
Speaker: as if everyone's super no one will be okay enough Incredibles references okay so besides long we have a night on Brockton Bay Book Club how many other superhero media can we reference and actually Taylor before before you jump in because I do want to get off along but I do want to make a one comparison that I wanted to get your thoughts on between
Speaker: Taylor's Interactions with the bullies in the first arc to her fight with lung because there's a lot of really unique similarities between those fights and the way she approaches them both being One thing I loved about the fight with lung is that she is 100 % Outclassed in every way is immune to the bites is immune to the venom He's got fire for the bugs and he's stronger and bigger than her In much the same way that she felt incredibly out classed fighting against her bullies. I
Speaker: And in both cases, she really couldn't fight them. But in one instance, she chose to anyway and shows virtually no fear, although she does sort of talk about being a little afraid for her life, but not really, as opposed to her fight with the bullies where she is very much on the back foot, very much hiding and in fear for them. And I loved the dynamic of two pretty similar interactions in her life, but one in which she eagerly
Speaker: pursues and one she avoids which I thought was was a unique way of framing the first arc in terms of how she approaches this world and Additionally to to tag on to that to something I like about that now that you mentioned that I like that it in the first instance like you said It's similar but in that instance nobody comes to help her Whereas in the
Speaker: fight with lung, you have people who do come to help her. So I kind of like that subtle difference there too, where you can see her, you know, and in the interlude with her dad, we get to see that he's worried because she's lonely and she doesn't seem to have many friends. And so we can already see, even though we find out that that group are villains, we can already see like, oh, there are people who are willing to help her just have to find them.
Speaker: Yeah. Great point. I'm interested to see if we continue to see like that. First of all, I predict that group, they spent a lot of time describing who they are. This is not the last time we're seeing them. That's my prediction there. I honestly think that the way that they were the first ones to show up helped her
Speaker: And then arms mastered and show up until the fight was over kind of feels like that's going to be a trend to me. That's a prediction that I'm going to throw out there. Like she's, you know, how she was like, so back to Taylor, our Taylor Taylor in the podcast. Um, when he said that he predicted that she was going to be a bad guy, I feel like that would be something that would like push her towards
Speaker: quote on quote, being a villain. And I, again, I don't think she's going to be a villain in the sense that she wants to do bad things, but more so that she doesn't necessarily agree with the, um, what are the, the protectorate people. Um, yeah. I feel like she's going to have some sort of like discourse with the protectorate and that's going to push her more towards
Speaker: those kind of people, those other teenage, quote unquote villains, but I'm like, are they really villains? Like it depends on what they're doing. You know, are they being teenagers that are rebellious kind of villains or are they actually like murdering and trying to, you know, create chaos in the world? Which brings up what Jacob was saying, where the first instance she is getting juice poured on her, she's getting bullied, does not reveal herself.
Speaker: Is that because whenever they find out you have a certain level of powers, you're immediately brought into the wards. Is she trying to kind of keep it under wraps? Like, does she know?
Speaker: Um, just by looking into Emma's eyes, I think it was either Emma or Madison, but she's like, if only they knew, which makes me think that she kind of knows what her power level is. Um, I don't know. It's going to be really interesting to see it, to see it unfold. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. With the kind of the two scenes mirroring themselves, the idea that like, she is so confident when she's wearing the mask, she is so confident when she is in her
Speaker: her power persona as opposed to when she's Taylor in the stall getting juice poured on her head, feeling so small and feeling like I can't show who I actually am or what's going on inside of me.
Speaker: the two playing off of each other is just like it makes me wonder how much of that because I mean I don't I don't remember if they touch on it later or not but like how much of that is her feeling the safety of the mask as opposed to her feeling disembodied almost from herself as you know going about her daily life because of these bullies because of how they've made her life hell how they've made her life so difficult
Speaker: And like we, we hear it a little bit more, but like her dad, he doesn't know that her best friend has become her tormentor. Like he doesn't know that, which means he's so disconnected from Taylor's life because she hasn't shared that with him. Like how much is she closing herself off from her own life? He does suspect though. He talked about that, the fact that like Emma, I think is her name.
Speaker: Um, that Emma no longer hung out with Taylor and that was really shocking because they were best friends. And that's also when the bullying started, but he knows about the incidents, but he doesn't know it from her. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, he says that specifically with Emma, I'm pretty sure it's Emma, specifically with Emma, he makes his internal thought processes that like, oh, probably because of the bullying, she's distanced herself from Taylor when in actuality, she is the cause of bullying. So his musing of her is much more in the sense of like, oh, she's abandoned my daughter because of the bullying, as opposed to she is the one bullying my daughter.
Speaker: Can we talk about the interlude and her dad? I, first of all, I don't think I have ever seen the perspective of a parent and the torment that it causes to see your child suffering in this way. Yeah.
Speaker: in media. I have not seen that. I know that like sometimes they'll like touch on it and movies and shows and stuff. I'm sad that my kids being bullied, but this was such a more personal and deep look at how that feels to watch your child be
Speaker: tormented on a daily basis to the point of being institutionalized. It's it was very, very heartbreaking to me. And I was I really enjoyed that piece. I enjoyed listening to how
Speaker: deep the bullying was going, but I enjoyed getting that perspective. I just feel like I don't, you don't get that a lot. You usually get teens being bullied in school. That's a common trope, but you don't get their parents inter monologue about that. Yeah, absolute helplessness that he, he
Speaker: is feeling and like even the, the, you know, the contrast of like wanting to, you know, bust out of the door and like yell at her for, you know, worrying him and being gone so late and everything, but like contrast with the fact that like, he just doesn't know what to do about Taylor. Like, should I give her the space and that like conflict in himself and like he is tying himself up in knots. Yeah. And, and just the fact that he is a single dad too. I think that.
Speaker: Not only is that an unusual person to have in a story period, but especially as the parent of your protagonist. Um, but the fact that he himself is grieving and he's, you know, we, we feel that grief where he's like, I just want to talk to her mom, but I can't, you know, the, oh, it just hurts like that, especially, um,
Speaker: you know, if you've been in any kind of long -term relationship like that, that like imagining losing your significant other and having to raise a kid, it's just, that part in particular always hurts me because I've, you know, I've, I've imagined losing my wife and what that might feel like and how horrible that would be. And so it's like, just, it's very well written, very full of pathos to use an English teacher word. Um, go off.
Speaker: But yeah, no, that, that scene in particular, I was just like, Oh, that hurt. I didn't remember him coming out of the gate swinging so hard with his interludes. What a great first interlude. If I have to recommend worm, one of the highlights I talk about his writing style is not even like it's that great of pros because we're reading and it's like, okay, this is clearly something that's published on the web. Like.
Speaker: It feels like it, but then you get to the interludes and the interludes are so alien in thought that they have to be another person. And you can, for a lot of them, especially later on, I remember you don't even need to give me who the person is. I can tell by the way they think which character it is because it's so unique.
Speaker: of thought and perspective of how they see the world and what they're concerned with, like where their focus is on. And, you know, of course with Danny, his focus is on Taylor. You could, you know, you never had to have told me who he was. And I could pick up just by, like we talked about, like, you know, just the, the, the agony he's going through watching Taylor
Speaker: have all this struggle, um, that it could only be her dad. Like that's the only person that could have been. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you, I'm glad you brought that up because it's so true. Like I love, I love everything in worm and I love the first person perspective we get from Taylor throughout the entire story, but the interludes are on a different level for me and this, we're not going to spoil anything of course, but, but going through the rest of the story, the interludes are,
Speaker: in terms of just writing style, like you said, on sort of another tier. And I don't know if it's just the, you know, being able to alternate between first person narrative and the more third person omniscient style. And that's maybe that's what just so fresh about it. So you, they're more enjoyable that way, but you hit the nail on the head with the way that Wild Bo gets into these characters motivations in the interludes opens up the world beyond
Speaker: anything else. And it's such a unique take on storytelling and I just absolutely love it. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, can you teach a writing class? Cause I would love to know how to do this. I feel like any writing I do, the characters are, are very singular. Like it's hard for me to switch between the, you know, the mindset of my character. So like, please just, just do just a writing class. We love it. We'd all participate. I can't wait to get to it later because there is, I introduced somebody else to worm pretty recently. And, uh, you know, they started off with, you know, this girl getting bullied in high school.
Speaker: And he was like, Oh my gosh, this is somebody who clearly has been bullied. Cause I got bullied in high school and this is exactly what it felt like. And then, you know, it went to, uh, the, you know, the, the interlude and he went, Oh my gosh, I'm a father. And this is exactly who, how it felt like this person had to have been a father as well. And you can only take that so far cause he's going to have a lot of perspectives that aren't possible for him to have.
Speaker: and yet he I feel like nails them he nails all of them yeah oh my gosh yeah just with the somberness um that we get from mr hebert is it hebert or herbert
Speaker: Mr. Herbert. Oh, I wrote, yeah, I wrote Hebrew down. Is it Herbert? But, uh, just, yeah, just the, um, okay. So basically it was really, I wouldn't say cool. Um, but it was just really interesting to me cause I'm so far off from having teenage, like I don't even have kids. So the fact that I would like have to deal with teenagers right now, but literally having like a human that also has their own consciousness and basically like,
Speaker: him having to deal with the fact like, okay, she doesn't want to tell me what the problem is. And I have to try and be a parent, but I also can't order her to do something, especially with her having dealt with like, having to go to the, the, the mental holding place, I'm at the hospital, which I
Speaker: not personally been with, but personally deal with with my job. It's a very, um, just terrible thing. And then, uh, just having him literally have to know that, um, that she's okay just because of the snack where he's like, Oh, like obviously somebody who was, you know, assaulted or had something bad happened to him, they wouldn't make a snack.
Speaker: It was just so heartbreaking. It was an insight that I don't normally get to see, that I definitely appreciated. And just completely, as y 'all said, the writing style changed and I was like, okay, this must be how he just fills us in with world building and just different information and different points of view.
Speaker: Yeah, that snack comment killed me, really killed me. It pauses everything that he does. He just stops and can smell the toast. Is it toast? Smells the toast and is like, oh man, she's okay. And that weird sense of flooding relief, but also anger. Yeah, the way he was describing his anger issues
Speaker: It was very self fair and like he's almost afraid of his own anger. And it almost makes me wonder if there are, for our perspective, unknown parahuman qualities that he has that maybe are not manifest, at least from what we know, I obviously I've only read thus far, but, um,
Speaker: if like he has some sort of like power that's related to emotions, feeling them stronger and like maybe them coming out in a different way. But his anger seemed like it has been like a frequent issue in his life to the point of like driving his wife away. And I just, I don't know, I'm interested to see how that evolves throughout the
Speaker: the story. Yeah, it's interesting to me when he's talking about how Taylor has seen his anger specifically, like how she has seen that come out specifically, like when he lashes out against the school principal when she gets put in the hospital, kind of like this. I mean, this is his kid, like he will fight tooth and nail for her as best as he knows how and then he loses his control
Speaker: Absolutely tears into this principle and teacher and Taylor seeing that. Having maybe not normally seen that anger come out as often cuz he even mentions like he tries to hide it as much as possible is like very aware of it and like you said guys like very.
Speaker: Yeah, he's aware of it. He knows it's an issue. He talked about it was something his dad was a very angry person. He tries his best to keep a lid on it or keep control of it. And it makes me wonder what he does to deal with. Because when you're angry like that, you can't just keep it in. There's going to be an outlet that you need to have at some point. And having that outlet, it makes me wonder
Speaker: Like how he copes, how Danny copes, especially now that Taylor is like gone all the time and like she mentions that he gives her the pepper spray. Like he's worried about her. He wants to make sure she's okay.
Speaker: Yeah, just like not knowing where to put his anger and being worried that it's going to come out at Taylor, just like it came out at her mother. And just a quick note on the pepper spray. I love that it did get used. And it was... And I love that. Exactly. But reading about the pepper spray in the interlude after seeing it get used was kind of special too.
Speaker: get some, some little vindication, even though, even though Danny doesn't feel that himself, we, as the readers can feel it like, uh, good on you, dad. You got it right. She did need that. I like that. Oh, do we have anything else to talk about? I think it's real quick. I forgot that I was muted real quick before predictions. So, um, I'm the only parent in the podcast. Um, but it was that we know of, right?
Speaker: Um, you never know. Um, but, uh, you know, I've, I've struggled as a parent with dealing with trying not to be like my dad or my stepdad in certain ways. And, and that's really hard. And so just the, again, it's just impressive. I just want to say it's impressive. The insight that wild bow has, um, into that feeling of.
Speaker: I don't want to be like my dad. I don't want to be like this person in my life. I want to do better, but it is really a tough issue. Um, and yeah, just that, I don't know. I just thought that was really good, really good insight, really good. Um, really good way of illustrating that feeling. I thought they did a good job of that. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
Speaker: Do we think it's weird that one of his assumptions wasn't that she was a cape? I mean, he's thinking about all these options of why she might be out, what's going on with her life, but never once does he think that she's out cape -galivanting or whatever. Does that seem weird to you guys? Because I kind of felt like that to me, but I didn't know if that was because I've been reading it through Taylor's eyes and I've been
Speaker: seeing her you know put her swarm together and fight lung whatever but it felt like and maybe this is me as an overthinker but like my I would my you know my brain's going a mile a minute I'm up for hours waiting for my kid to help come home like one of the thoughts that crosses my mind would be she got into it with capes or she is a cape or something like that like when you live in a world where capes exist like why wouldn't that be
Speaker: I, I could, um, I think that while that is possible, it is, um, possible that that should have crossed his mind. I get the feeling that as a parent, there are certain things that as a parent, you think to yourself, that'll never be my kid. Like sure. Other people struggle with X, but surely my kid would tell me if they, you know, and you, you kind of deceive, you can kind of have this, uh, too close to it. So close to it that you're blind to it kind of feeling.
Speaker: Um, and, and I think that might be part of what's going on there with her dad is that he just doesn't even think about it because he's like, Oh, Taylor, uh, a cape. No, that's crazy. You know, like that kind of, you know, I don't know. That's just my, my, uh, my thought on it.
Speaker: I'm actually really curious. I'm going to look it up really quick. Um, or Michael, if you could look it up, but the percentage of like capes to or parahumans to regular people in the population, like, I know they haven't talked about it yet and they might eventually, but like I'm, I don't know. I don't remember. I remember the number off the top of my head. If you want me to tell you, yes, go for it. Alan, I believe it's 30 ,000 to one 30 ,000. So it is rare. It is rare. Even though it's.
Speaker: It's only, it's kind of like, kind of like celebrities, like only so many people win the lottery or are Taylor Swift, but we all know who they are. Okay. Yes, he is correct. And so that basically means that it's less than 1 % of the population. So it's kind of like assuming
Speaker: your kid doesn't feel good, so therefore they have cancer, it's probably like that same kind of. I would immediately assume my child has cancer. I'm the only thinker that's like, oh my gosh, we have to get this child checked out immediately. Not like a normal, like, oh, I have a belly ache. Oh my God, it's cancer. It's so rare.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. One pair of human for every 8 ,000. One pair for every 8 ,000 in urban areas specifically. Okay. There's a distinction there between pair of humans and capes because this isn't a major thing, but it is revealed later that there are people with very minor powers who just kind of exist in the world and sometimes have weird little things happen. Yeah.
Speaker: But they aren't superheroes. They're not capes. Right. Right. All right. With all of that being said, I think let's get into, uh, our kind of final chapter of the, of the session. Uh, let's do some predictions. We didn't get into a few things in the chapter. We didn't get into arms master and the undersiders, but there's going to be room for that in the, in the following arcs for sure.
Speaker: Ooh, boy do I have some hot predictions. You ready for this? No, Alan gets zero predictions. Alan gets zero predictions. I think it'd be fun to do two predictions. One immediate prediction. What do you think we're going to see in the next arc?
Speaker: And then two, your long -term prediction, just something wild that you think is going to happen down the line in the story that you think is going to happen. And this is exclusively just for Taylor and Kat as the two who are new to the story. So Taylor, let's start with you. Okay.
Speaker: All right, we'll all start us off. So the prediction of how many capes for Capita I can just cross out because now we know. Thanks, guys. Don't get to look forward to that anymore. Sure, glad no one ruined it for y 'all. I'm so sorry.
Speaker: I'm so sorry, Taylor. Well, this podcast was fun. I just want to... No, I'm just kidding. Okay. So immediate predictions for this week specifically, what is her name going to be? So for a serious name, I'll put out
Speaker: maybe her cape name might be the carapace because that's pretty bug like or just based off the sheer amount of bugs and insects that she gets killed the exterminator because she just gets them all killed and then of course a funny one because you got to throw a funny one out there
Speaker: Uh, the women that typically chase, uh, firefighters and policemen are called badge bunnies. So I'll call her the bug bunny. Oh my God. Yeah. Not to be confused with bugs. It's amazing. Um, and then this, my long -term prediction is it's not necessarily a prediction, but this is something that I'm interested about. So the golden man appeared on May 20th, 1982. Um, that was like the first pair of human that appeared. He first, um, donned his suit in 1999.
Speaker: And then we had the first suit that was killed in 1989. So the reason I'm bringing that up is, do I need to worry about 9 -11? Is 9 -11 relevant to this universe? Do I need to forget it? And that is going to be my... I want you... No one say anything. No one say anything. No way, the whole... Can I tell him to circle it, to underline it? Yeah.
Speaker: That's what I want. I want you to circle and underline that, because I want to come back to that one day. So basically, as far as world building goes, are we in Iraq? Did Afghanistan happen? 9 -11. Okay. So what are we thinking yet? All right. Okay. Yeah, I want to hear Kat's predictions. Okay. So I guess for immediate predictions,
Speaker: I'll be honest, I already accidentally spoiled her name for me, so I'm not going to spoil that for Taylor. It was an accident. It was an accident. It was a whoopsies. So for immediate predictions, I think that it won't take very long for her dad to figure it out. I also think that she is going to see those same teens very soon.
Speaker: I don't know if this is a long -term or short -term prediction, but I think that she's going to make like a final decision. Like she is not joining the wards. And then for long -term, I really do think that there is going to be like the protectorate has some overarching like flaw that is, they're just going to become, I feel like they are going to become her like,
Speaker: enemies and she's going to be more an anti -hero than a true hero. I will tackle onto that. I definitely am skeptical of the wards. I definitely don't think that that's a good thing. Sounds like a way for the government to control them. Yeah, it sounds like just getting people and concentrating them in a certain area
Speaker: never worked in a good way. All right. Well, thank you panel of esteemed readers. And thanks to anyone else who's listening. This has been a lot of fun. We're definitely going to keep this going. I'm pretty much going to be, I think, attempting an arc, an episode here. So look forward to discussing arc two next time with the Rockton Bay Book Club, which I think is what we're calling ourselves. I like it. I think it's got a good ring to it.
Speaker: So Michael, you want to play us out?
Speaker: All right. Arc one and gestation. Oh man. Okay. This is, this is what I'm getting excited about. I love book club. Book club is great, but now we're getting into, uh, honestly, what started this podcast was you and I having this idea of, of trying to dissect worm in terms of adapting it for
Speaker: a visual medium of some kind yet to be determined. And so just so everyone else, I was going to say just so anyone, because we haven't really introduced this segment in particular yet, we're going to be sticking with the book, the same reading order that we're doing the book club portion in.
Speaker: pretty much just talking about arc 1 here. We're not going to be spoiling anything. We're doing our best not to, and this is more just for you and I to remind ourselves not to spoil things, although we probably won't be a little careful since we're definitely going to be thinking a bit long -term with some of these characters.
Speaker: But anyway, all that to say, this is going to be a more detailed dive into the adaptation process, uh, for the, for, for the story. So didn't mean to cut you off. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no, no. I was just going to say we started with you hearing about adapting, uh, was it mass effect or visual medium?
Speaker: Yeah, I watched a great video by Lessons from the Screenplay, that YouTube channel, fantastic channel. They do a really good job of just sort of talking about movies in general and different techniques and things like that. And there was a great video they did a couple of years ago where they talked about
Speaker: why the Mass Effect video game franchise, why Mass Effect would make such a great television show. And they compared it to Game of Thrones in that regard. But in that, they talked about how they were already working on it and their process for it and all these different outlines that made me think like,
Speaker: This is exactly what we need to do with Worm because there's so much in Worm that is just ripe for visual storytelling. We're kind of in a bit of a golden age for superhero -esque settings right now. We might be past it. It's kind of hard to tell. But obviously, if Worm ever was adapted, we'd be years away from it at this point. So I feel like at that point, we'd be fresh again. But yeah.
Speaker: Um, I think, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's a great series that, uh, you and I have talked about, like, it could be adapted to any number of things. It could be, you know, we'd be looking forward to it being adapted into something animated, which it would allow you to do all of the over the top stuff. And also would just, I don't know, personally, I would love to see it in the Castlevania or the arcane animation style. Yeah, very much so. Yeah.
Speaker: but also I mentioned before that I think for live action, there's enough of a human element and a non -supernatural fantastical part to it. Like the majority of the show could just be people in rooms talking to each other and occasionally, you know, having to CG some, some effects for superpowers. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. And we're not going to get too bogged down into actual storyboarding scenes and animation versus live action. Well, not yet. I won't limit us to that. But I think it is going to be really fun, too, as we talk through specific arcs and scenes individually, like where we think they would thrive when trying to adapt them.
Speaker: So let's let's start off with the big question, because this is a very short arc. Yeah. Is arc one just the pilot episode?
Speaker: Yeah, I wrestled with this a bit because on the surface, I say yes. It feels like a very complete episode if you're looking at it from, say, television. You're introduced to your main character. You're introduced to her initial struggle and conflict. You have sympathy for her and she gets a bit of a confrontation action showdown and sort of sets up this future
Speaker: character arc, which is how does she sort of interject herself into this world that she's now a part of. That being said, it is very short. I'm really against writing anything into the story at this point because
Speaker: worm is like 1 .2 million words. We really shouldn't have to write anything into it. I think it's 1 ,650 ,000. I'm sure I was short. So I don't think we're at the point where we want to try to write anything in. Like maybe you can give a few more lines to Mr. Gladly and the classroom scene or things like that. But
Speaker: but really we're not, it's not really necessary. So I think, and this is where I want to get your thoughts. I think we have two options. One, well, three options, I guess. The first option is we just drag this out for a full episode and try to make that work. Option two is we, this is like the first half of the episode and then maybe arc two and beyond, we'll fill that in. Or option three is
Speaker: the show would open with a bit of exposition in some fashion, pulling mainly from that first interlude where we sort of are introduced to Scion and this world of capes. I was thinking like, if you were to go that route, opening on the cruise liner,
Speaker: In The Interlude, there's a couple of stories that people that first met Sion and I thought it'd be really interesting to start on the character who, I forget her name in The Interlude, but she is being interviewed because she had cancer, she was contemplating just ending her life, and then touches Sion, meets Sion, is rejuvenated,
Speaker: her. She's cancer free now. It's just like this, like, uh, like a miracle moment. And I thought it'd be really interesting to start with that and sort of do a bit of exposition with all of that and then jump into the story afterwards. But I don't know, kind of want to get your thoughts on if you think that'd be too much. Okay. I do think that's a lot because there's so many, there's so many, uh, hero stories, superhero stories that start off with that moment, um, of like introducing
Speaker: you know, the, the first hero or the, you know, the larger than life Superman type character. Like that is the opening to the story, you know, that you circle back to later or that it's just like, Oh, this is the origin of heroes. Kind of, I, I don't know about the opener, but I know 100 % where you throw worm. Okay. The title.
Speaker: Oh, okay. And that is after the bullying in the bathroom. Yeah. She's like head pounding. You know, you do the classic ringing in the ears with a big, you know, the thump, the thump, the zoom in on the head where you know, blurry at the edges of the screen, her staring at the mirror eyes close and then open and everything but the mirror, like the whole wall is covered in insects except for like right around her.
Speaker: And that's where you throw worm right above the mirror. I like that. And then she just waves her hand and they all disperse and she walks out. Yeah. I have, I see nothing wrong with that. Where's that? I need that gift from Brooklyn 99. Chills, chills, literal chills. Yeah. No, that's perfect. I do like that a lot.
Speaker: I think part of... Because you can obviously draw out the fight scene with Long. There's a lot of time in there that we read over when you're reading it as a book, but you can dwell on moments that can really stretch that time.
Speaker: But I think, and this kind of goes back to something we mentioned with the first arc, is it's both rushed when reading it. It's sort of rushed a little bit. And it is just a tad ironically slow in sort of how it introduces things. And I wanted to get kind of thinking about
Speaker: the way we would adapt this. I was trying to think of other pilot episodes of television shows that I've really respected and appreciated, and what they did right, and how we can take that and apply it to worm. So the first one, which I thought was hilarious, but I absolutely love it, is the pilot episode for Arrested Development.
Speaker: because it so perfectly introduces every character and immediately you know who they are
Speaker: what they act like and like just their overall vibe. And you get that in like a line or two of dialogue, like very, very quick. And obviously rest of element is like 20, 30 characters you would get introduced to immediately where we're only dealing with a handful, but still being able to immediately sell the audience on who your character is, I think is really, really important. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking just like, you know,
Speaker: Uh, you know, at least an order of things. Like I think, I think, you know, chapters one, two, you know, one, two, I guess it is just one and two of the whole, the whole classroom sequence, the whole coming home. You know, because the big thing you have to eliminate from this is you, you know, which is most of this will be scrubbing and erasing down to the stuff that, you know, you can use.
Speaker: is all the internal monologue. You still need to convey that. It's not a film noir detective style narration. So maybe that's where we end up adding stuff. But I think you can speed through chapters one and two before the like, you know how you have credits rolling on the bottom of the screen as show starts up?
Speaker: I think you could end. I think you could end those credits finally with her going out at night. Yeah, you can kind of get through all of that. You know, you open with her getting her.
Speaker: uh, you know, in class going, getting bullied, you have the worm after she's done there, her going home, the credits are rolling at the bottom while she's jogging while she walks through like the basement and like is waving her hands and you know, all the spiders come out and start making the costume, her browsing forums just really quick. Um, you know, looking up heroes and stuff. And then, uh, and then
Speaker: the credits stop and she's, you know, out doing her first night in costume. And the majority of the episode ends up being the lung fight. Yeah. And I think. Yeah, I think the majority of the episode, of course, is the lung fight, and it's a great because you're introducing such a wild over the top character like long. And. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a, that's a great place to have it. Um, I think my, the question would be, where do you put the interlude? Yeah. Um, is that a closer or do you put that in the middle? Maybe of like Taylor get seen by long cut to maybe a little two minute.
Speaker: thing of the dad at home, not really saying anything, but walking around the house, you know, laying in bed, you know, the clenched fist and then, you know, him being worried and then cut back to, you know, poor girl on fire.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And this is honestly probably something we're going to come back to a good bit in terms of... Because I think anytime you're adapting books to television or film, you run into the exposition problem. Because books, you can literally just write and spell out the exposition. And for the most part, we overlook that or read past it or through it, because it just is part of the story.
Speaker: We're just kind of internal monologue, whatever the case may be. We're just sort of reading it and it's needed and necessary. But in film, you can't just sit down and expose your whole plot to the audience. You're going to lose everybody. So we're going to come back to it, I think, pretty frequently, but I definitely think it's right off the bat. I mean, you've got to establish
Speaker: the setting, you've got to establish the dynamic here. And I think you could do a lot of that throughout this episode. It doesn't have to be all in one place. Like you said, having the title crawl or the title
Speaker: of big worm thing that you had there right when she's kind of getting all the bugs around her. I think that's brilliant. I think that's really good. I think you can throw in little bits of info when she is assembling her suit as we would want a scene of that of some kind. So whether we can see what's on her computer or something like that, just having little bits here and there, posters on the wall of the garage of other heroes.
Speaker: Things like that to just sort of help add to the world sort of that everybody feels a really obvious one Obviously isn't in the background in the water, right? We can see the the protectorate HQ in the force field that she talks about so like little things like that. Yes, that are just running you could give a feel for the city right away because yeah, that's what she does she runs by the
Speaker: Like right by the you know the train tracks essentially like there's the bad side and here's the like good side and cross the water is the protectorate headquarters and absolutely.
Speaker: I mean, you could even do like, you don't have to get this cheesy, but I mean, you could even have like a cape flying over, right? You can just, there's a lot of little ways that you can sort of set the scene without having to just sit down and, and like the audiences aren't dumb. We've seen a dozen and two superhero stories at this point. So like we know how to, how to put ourselves in those worlds very quickly.
Speaker: Yeah. And there's merchandising everywhere. Like these people are essentially the local sports team, but I, I like the idea of like the more subtle things of like you start with class where, you know, the teacher's doing the mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, as she's like focused on her book of ideas. And he's talking about some, I mean, in stories, talking about something with heroes. So like, you just have that in the background. She gets up.
Speaker: She is ignoring it because that's just her life, but it is there. Like if you're an audio, if you're a, you know, watching it, you're like, Oh, like, are they talking about superheroes? Like, and then, you know, you have that, you have the dad watching TV, like maybe all of the stuff that we talked about, you know, that's in the interlude talked about the origin of heroes is mentioned, but while he's walking around the house.
Speaker: Like you can hear it on the TV in the background. It's all said and you see the images of it, you know, in the, you know, when he's walking past the TV, but otherwise like it's, it's not focused on the focuses him worrying about Taylor coming home.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cause I know for a lot of people who they, there's a lot of people that their pet peeve with movies is television in the world, giving all the exposition. And I, you know, I agree with that. I don't want to, I don't want to do that. Um, and I also love a world where you're like, you part of the mystery.
Speaker: is figuring out the world. Like it's not just the mysteries that happen in the story. The mystery is the world itself. Yeah. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. And, uh, to build off of that, that's probably, man, this is such a dangerous thing to say, cause I don't want to say it, but like of places where we would rewrite elements of the story. Um, the television exposition is a very clear one. And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there where
Speaker: We're not, we wouldn't, that just doesn't work in film. The television exposition scenes just don't work. Like we're already watching a screen. We don't need another screen telling us things about our story, right? So you'd have to do that a bit differently, whether it's just sort of rewritten a bit or condensed or like you said, just kind of off in the side, not a big deal, but just sort of adding to the ambiance of the setting, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, stuff like that, that would kind of make that work a bit. Let's go. I want to talk about that lung fight a bit. Because I think like you said, I think regardless of where we choose to stake the beginning and end of the pilot episode,
Speaker: The Long Fight is, most of that is going to be the big thing of that first episode that sort of grabs a reader's attention. And I think it works so well because the way it's written, the way Wild Boat writes long, like we were talking about in our previous section, is so unique and it's such a fun visual element. I mean, there's so much to work with there.
Speaker: the scales on his back, his slow transformation, his voice sort of changing in terms of how he growls. Obviously the pyrotechnics, the swarm, the bug, it's a mastery of just like so much to pull from. And then of course at the end too, you got bitches dogs that come in, right? We get to see those for the first time. Oh, hell hand.
Speaker: My apologies, right? Yeah, we got to use the Protectorate terminology. Hellhounds dogs that come in, we get to see those for the first time and the rest of the other setters as well. Yeah, so a lot to work with, a lot that kind of gets thrown out at the end, which sort of does contrast the slower, I would say, start just in terms of action pacing.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, so yeah, where do you, where do you see, I guess let's, let's look at this way. After the fight ends, where do you see the episode ending post fight? I think, I think when she comes home, you know, after all of this, she sneaks to the door, she makes herself, you know, the, the, the toast, the dad hears her eating in there.
Speaker: knows that she's okay. He takes like a sigh of relief, but you can tell that he's still tense. And she, meanwhile, she goes upstairs and despite having like singed hair, clearly beaten up, dirty, she sits there with her toast, like in her mouth, like laying on her bed or whatever and fucking just like smiles and like maybe even like laughs a little. Yeah. It's like, yeah.
Speaker: And that's where you cut it. I'm going to add something to that, but I'm going to save it for next time because it does incorporate a little bit of just the very next chapter. But I love that imagery that you have there, the way to end it. Yeah. But we'll come back to that. Yeah. I think I know what you're talking about because I know what a great, an ellipsis, if you will, from where we started, where you end.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. Okay. We're on the same page. All right. We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that. All right. Well, now, okay. We've got a little bit of a beginning, a little bit of an end. Like I said, I definitely think pilot episodes in particular are pretty tricky because they really need to grab
Speaker: the audience. So I have a feeling we're going to come back to this a little bit, probably in terms of like, maybe we have ideas of, of things you want to kind of foreshadow in the beginning or things like that, you know, uh, so we'll probably kind of revisit that. Um, one thing formatting wise was, uh, you know, is this, is this the way we're passing? Is this for 30 minute cut or is this for 50 minute cut?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question. I think the best way to go about screenwriting is to abandon any idea of episode length and instead make sure that each episode is containing individual
Speaker: arcs within them so that you are telling the story that needs to be told and not one that's confined to any amount of time. So a lot of stage plays are often directed from what are called French scenes, which are a French scene is when the scene is not divided between when like the lights come down or go up, but when a character enters and then leaves the scene, it's called a French scene.
Speaker: And I love that way of visualizing stories because it breaks the story down, not in terms of the actual scene you're looking at, but the character in that scene, which I think
Speaker: is the most important element of a story. And Wildboat does that so well. So as opposed to thinking about like, okay, we need to do like a 30 minute episode or a 50 minute episode or one hour episode or whatever the case may be, instead thinking about like, okay, do we tell this character's story in this episode effectively? So like,
Speaker: I think ending the way you said to end Taylor's little arc in that story, a little smirk, a little something like that, a little bit of satisfaction, is a fantastic arc for her character given from where she starts at the beginning of the episode, where she's on the opposite end of that.
Speaker: And in the same way the, we can get a little bit of like lungs character, right? So lung has a bit of an arc too. He starts from position of power and, and, uh, captured. So, right. So you telling these little, these little mini complete stories. So whatever that episode length ends up being, once you've told that story, now you're good. You're done. So then you move on from there. Yeah. Cause I'm one for efficiency. So I would like, Oh yeah. Honestly, 30 minutes. Easy for this. Like,
Speaker: There's not a whole lot of complexity of this. I love visual storytelling rather than like the exposition being set out loud. So like I would do all the expositing while they're walking from like scene to scene. Right. And then they're done. Like, right. Which for some of this is like, Oh, that's an entire arc or not an entire arc. That's like entirety of chapter two. Like you can, I can do the entirety of chapter two 20 seconds.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we're going to get a lot of that too, as we go on, like we were talking arc one pretty short, maybe the shortest arc. I think they only get longer. Oh yeah. But then, and as they do get longer, we're going to, we're going to have those issues where we can't fit entire arcs into an episode and then we're going to have it. We're going to have moments where probably like, all right, this entire arc.
Speaker: can probably cut it. Like we just need to cut this entire arc. My future prediction, I think there are only going to be like two arcs that we can cut entirely. And I think there's going to be the odd episode that is just a full episode. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Which makes things tough. Yeah. Yeah, it does. But also exciting. And that's why we're here.
Speaker: Um, also I think we'll probably, we'll probably work on this a bit off podcast, uh, and maybe kind of update podcast as we go. But we're not really talking about like actually writing the dialogue out, but I would love to do that. But, but that's way too tedious for, uh, an audio podcast, but definitely something I think that'd be fun to work on. And then sort of you and me, you and me will, that's what I say.
Speaker: We're going to, after this, like we have like a Google doc or something. Yeah. Most of it isn't adding dialogue. It's scrubbing all the description.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. That's going to be the majority of it. And then what we're left with is our story pretty much. And hats off to Wildbo for writing such one such good dialogue. I think we didn't really mention that, but his dialogue really doesn't need to be adjusted at all. And it's going to be really easy to sort of just translate to film.
Speaker: And then two, the first person narrative does give us a really great way to just like set scenes. It does a really good job of sorting, setting the scene. So it's, it's really not too difficult. He made that, he made it, I'm not going to say easy, but, but he made it exciting. Well, that's all I've got. Did you have any, any final thoughts?
Speaker: Well, if that's it, I can close this out here. Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, BC, or click the link in the description.
