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 ah .wordpress dot .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot .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: Welcome back to Dissecting Worm, first episode of season four. Take that you worms. You said it couldn't be done. The worms said it couldn't be done. You take that. You worms. Welcome Alan, welcome Michael, as always. and Thank you my lovely listeners. And all of our all of our lovely listeners.
Speaker: Most lovely. I was going to say, most lovely listeners are beautiful patrons on Patreon. That's how you do it. Thank you so much. All of you are lovely, but some of you are more lovely than us. What's the rest of the development of meme? I love all my children equally. And earlier that day, I don't and don't care for joe I don't care much much for that Joe. I love all my ah of all our listeners equally. I don't care for the non patrons. Thank you for listening. We believe it's season three, season, season four. Thank you very much. I yeah we believe it's season four. Fixed that in post editing magic.
Speaker: movie back ah but Yeah, 20 episodes of this. and lot ro one If we're counting 20 arcs that we've been doing, yeah a lot more than 20 episodes. Yeah, we're in arc 20. Short arc, going to be a short episode most likely ah because it's pretty good.
Speaker: and Alan and I, we haven't really talked too much about it, but i I feel like this works pretty well as is as a pilot or not a pilot, but a a first episode season opener. I think it has a nice build. It's got and i a few things to tweak perhaps, but overall, I really like the pacing. It sets the tone. It sets the conflict of the season right off the bat is Taylor being outed as ah as a ah her identity.
Speaker: um You've got, you you're bringing back the fan favorites. You've got Armist -Master and Dragon back in the fold. Hey. Wards are present. You got a new Angry Director. ah Yeah, all sorts of stuff. So let's dive into it a bit, but it's pretty cut and dry. I like this one. Yeah. ah Overall, I i had ah keep everything and then maybe bump the core to interlude to the opening Maybe not the cold open, but just the beginning scene of the next episode. Yeah, I think that could think that could work. um The couple of things that would need to be slightly tweaked. ah One is I think we rework
Speaker: ah Greg and his him being the reason Taylor goes back to the school. Um, that's the only thing I think you could slightly reword rework that so that it's a bit more believable just because the audience hasn't seen Greg since literally episode two or one, you know, the whole show. yeah Um, so it's kind of, it's kind of a deep hole to grab him here.
Speaker: and put them kind of front and center for a minute. um I think we could probably find a better reason to get tailored to the school. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a, I think it's a, an easy enough reason that like, and it and it does kind of hint at like, Hey, I figured this out. Other people probably can too. Yeah. We could, we could keep the reason, but maybe just change, ah you know, maybe just change up how it's presented just something. So it's a little bit, a little bit easier for the audience to, to grasp. Yeah. I think literally you just have, you skip introducing Greg and you just have the, Oh my gosh. Like, I mean, you could even have that as a cold open. Um, he's in his room chatting on stuff, sees a bunch of things.
Speaker: puts two and two together, like sees, you know, has a school schedule thing up, you know, going to school again, looks at a picture of the undersiders, you know, looks back at a school yearbook, looks back and goes like, what the fuck? And then, you know, title. Yeah, I mean, I think that works be the only issue is that it's not really a plot point beyond just getting tailored to the school. Because then after that,
Speaker: it doesn't matter anymore. So it's, I, you know, I don't hate it though. I think maybe if you do it, maybe you just, you know, maybe to make it a bit more urgent, you just rope in another, another classmate or two. Maybe it's just a small group of them. Maybe Charlotte catches wind of it. And, and, you know, that's what she's like, Hey, there's a rumor going around.
Speaker: Now, I don't know. I'm kind of talking to myself out of that now. I don't want it to be too, yeah too broad. Um, I don't know. I feel like it would just be, it'd just be a little odd to, to bring Greg back for this. Yeah. I mean, okay. So let's, let's talk, let's talk alternative. Cause the big thing is like Taylor's basically like, why the hell would I go back to school? yeah Um, you know, as opposed to,
Speaker: for some reason, her being like, I know I've got to stick it out. We'll just, we'll come up with the reasoning behind it. But she goes to the school like everybody else, maybe more so to just check things out, kind of. um And while she's there, maybe Dennis puts it together. You have to remind me who Dennis is? Clock blocker. Oh, clock blocker. He already bumps into her in the hallway.
Speaker: So like, what's, what's to say that he isn't the one that kinda is there when Emma and, uh, Emma and her have their fight. He's kind of witness to it. He goes and gets the security guard who like, you know, everything goes down the same, but he's in there and he's like, I saw her, you know, do the thing. But he is just like dogging Taylor the whole time.
Speaker: And you can tell like, he he isn't a hundred percent sure, but there's like, he can just tell the vibe, you know, he's been up close, especially because she's so much more cocky. Yeah, and not cocky, but you know, confident and and and menacing almost like when as she comes out of the principal's office, he like says something and she's she basically denies it. And it's like, hey, like you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: Like, yeah and and she doesn't know who he is. So she's like, i you don't know what to talk about. Why the hell would you, yada, yada, yada. And maybe that's the tip off. Like she goes, she goes to the room and a clockblockers like this motherfucking bitch. And he calls, like he calls into like, I'm pretty sure skitters here at the school. He doesn't out her, but he doesn't need to. Cause what's her, you know, dragon knows who it is.
Speaker: i I like that, but i i think I think it'd be, I actually like that a lot, but um maybe just have him not and like not reach out to anybody. like he's he He gets his suspicion for whatever. you know He just sort of has like a little moment where he's like, okay, this seems familiar. He's putting two and two together. And then when he's convinced, maybe he starts to reach out. Maybe he you know calls a weld or something like that.
Speaker: and well it's like ah Yeah, it's something to the effect of, you know, we already know we're on our way, yada, yada. And at that moment is when shit goes down. Yeah. um Something like that. I would, it would be interesting to have a ah humanizing moment between the two of them where like he stopped, he sees her, you know, essentially get attacked by this bully and you know, he, he reports it. And then in the middle of her, like him kind of seeing this, like he does realize like,
Speaker: think that's skitter, just the hair and everything fits. And then he waits for her outside the principal's office. She leaves and he like kind of corners are in the hallway and we have very much her, you know, having her like fuck off. Like, you don't know who I am. I don't know if you are, you can fuck off. And he's like, look, I could figure it out. Other people can too. And she goes, look, I don't tell everybody your secret identity, you know,
Speaker: So don't go blabbing mine and he's like, Oh, uh, uh, what do you mean? She's like, yeah, shut the fuck up clock boy. Like you, you little pocket watch. That's funny. I don't, I don't know if I love them figuring out each other's identities. I mean, it, it, it would be, I would think that she'd figure it out just because like Lisa maybe told her Or, I mean, she yeah doesn't know exactly who it is, but she she very quickly identifies them in, as soon as they the stuffed shits goes down and they go to get their costumes. She's like, Oh, there they are. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I i just think it's it's one of those things where it's sort of undermines that sort of the key principle and worm, which is a little suspension of disbelief for sure. But it's the, ah how important your identity is.
Speaker: Um, yeah, well, I think, I think that's, you know, could make a case for why that is, uh, interesting here because we are talking about a cases of identity and exploring like, yeah, no, they're really fragile and it is kind of a facade. Like, um, you know, we knew from earlier, whether we showed that or not, that like, it takes dragging all of five seconds to find out who skitter is.
Speaker: yeah She doesn't say anything. And truthfully, anybody with a good enough... ah you know Anybody who takes two glances at Taylor goes, wow, she's got you know big curly hair, you know ah is probably in high school. Let's just open one of our two high school yearbooks that we have around here. right Because there's only two schools. yeah So like this is going to be real easy to figure out unless she's like weirdly homeschooled for some reason. so i did Yeah. At the same time, it has to be like something fairly um like this, this would have to be a fairly important moment that we somehow touched on again later. I think I feel like this is a big deal. Someone not finding out your identity. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker: Yeah. And I mean, the next couple of episodes would, would essentially be like, Hey, what happens when your identity gets out? And what, you know, what are the ramifications and why, like why it's super important? Why, you know, what are you protecting with your identity? Cause it's not always just yourself. You're not, you're not protecting you necessarily. I mean, that's the stereotype for a lot of like, I don't wear this to protect me. I wear these to protect the ones I love. Like.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, Taylor's, yeah, Taylor's very upfront about that where, you know, she, be the only thing she really has to protect is her father is Danny. Like that's about it. She doesn't have anything else worth protecting with her identity. Um, so you know, that's, it means but obviously it's a, it's a good thing to protect, but that's all that she really has.
Speaker: I like the idea, I do like the idea of Clock Blocker being more involved in the episode early on. I like him being witness. I wouldn't want to have of him maybe intervene in the fight because I don't want to take away from Taylor and Emma, but maybe have him be one of the witnesses that gets called in, you know, who was present there. And he defends Taylor. I really like that. And I like him They may be putting enough together where he's like, okay, this seems very likely. I need to let my captain know. And then lo and behold, they already know. and Yeah, they're they're already on their way. yeah like yeah And that's where she the principal like comes down the hall as he's like rounding the corner to make the call. They're already on their way. The principal rounds the corner and like gives Taylor the nod and is like, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: Yeah, I do like that. I do like that a lot.
Speaker: um So the one other, because I do think it'd probably be worth cutting to a couple other scenes in the first episode. And I'll save some room in case we want to come back to anything. Because to be totally honest, the next probably five or six arcs, I'm pretty shaky on. So mix edit to reread them. um But i would it would probably be prudent to introduce tag at this point, if we do want to keep tag. yes um I think having more having him be introduced and maybe having the argument with ah a -argued argument as opposed to our post -issue argument with Dragon and Defiant.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think it'd be good to show that. Wanted to really help just set his character up a bit. He's such a different director from to go. so I think it'd be helpful on that front. I mean, you could even do like the the him having his lovely suburban family you know moved in and you know his daughters and yada, yada, yada. And then he goes to work and is an absolute bastard.
Speaker: Yeah. Honestly, that'd be a fun way to open the episode. Talking about cold opens, that'd be a fun way to open it. ah Start on him and do the whole, do that whole thing. Do like just the the fake American dream lifestyle, the facade that he puts on. Let's have him going about his day, getting into the office and then just like this complete change of expression. And he's just brutal. Yeah.
Speaker: That'd be sick. All right. Time to kill the kid. like just Just goes for it. Yeah. Yeah. Just why haven't we killed them yet? Yeah. I like it. That's good. Yeah. ah You do a lot here. ah Conversation with Charlotte. You got the big moment.
Speaker: um yeah I mean, there's great moments. there's the I mean, her and Danny in the beginning is great. Very nice. um Yeah, conversation with Charlotte. ah The confrontation with Emma will be a nice highlight. Yeah. But I think there's enough to really stretch this. I think there's a lot here, especially you can draw out the the heroes arriving and and and ends the end. You could switch between fight scenes, even though it's just Taylor, each one of her little bug clones slash bugs.
Speaker: Swarms are fighting a different hero yeah and she whoops their ass. Yeah, exactly. you know So clock blocker goes downstairs to get his suit on or whatever and instant instantly just gets you know rolled up and shoved in a closet or something.
Speaker: I like, I love the idea of clock blocker, exactly like you're saying, just running down the stairs. He does the whole Superman reveal, right? Where he pulls off his like school uniform, clock blocker you uniform underneath. Looks like it's about to be Epic. And then just gets just tripped up and demolished and covered. Literally trips on the floor web. Did he's like, not again, not again. yeah
Speaker: Nothing knows. Just like four million slugs just come out of his locker. Just can't stand up. We got bugs on books. Yeah. That's honestly it about what I have for the episode itself truly, which I'm not going to cut the episode this short. So perhaps we - No, let's just talk about the future of the season. That's kind of what I was thinking.
Speaker: Identity, obviously a big theme that we'll be going with. yeah um And the actual identity is being the ah motif used. um i So the the process here is season four is going to be the transfer from Taylor being a bad guy to Taylor working with the good guys leading up for the ultimate season, you know, five. yeah ah I think this this ends with, what, 25, I guess? i was Yeah, I think 25 would be a good ending. Again, I'm pretty shaky on the full contents of each of these arcs, so I wouldn't be surprised if we rearranged that a bit. But just kind of in in the brief skimming, I feel like it makes sense to go through 25.
Speaker: You get a really nice climactic fight there with behemoth, um, kind of a ah big moment there. And then it ends kind of on a downturn right before the slaughterhouse 9 ,000. Yeah. So a lot of this isn't even a big fight. It's more of the building, uh,
Speaker: building connections and yeah. Yeah, ah building connections, losing connections, change of job, proving yourself again. Yeah, I just think we'll have, ah you know I know that we have the time skip, but I don't actually think, I think if we play our cards right here, I think we just roll into, there's no time skip, we just roll to the next thing.
Speaker: Uh, a hundred percent. Yeah. And I think we'll, we'll probably get there, but I have a feeling that I don't know if that's going to be a controversial take or not. I know a lot of fans don't like the time skip. I'm one of them. I don't, I don't care for it. I well ah i don't know why. Good. Would you mind? like like when you Okay. Cause I feel like part of this is when you say the time skip or talking about the device of the time skipping, or are we talking about like the actual,
Speaker: the I don't know, yes the the arc. Oh no, the arc, I mean, the arc is fine. it I actually really like the so ah contents of the the chapters. i don't think I think time skipping is really hard to pull off well without just interrupting the plot of the story. like If you're going to skip forward in time, my question is why?
Speaker: like what what are you what What needs to be skipped? Why skip over that stuff? Why are you trying to jump ahead? Is that just not an interesting story? Are you trying to just get to the action? That kind of thing. And obviously, in this case, we have a prophecy we're trying to get to, but there's no need for there to be a a jump in time there. there's It just doesn't benefit the story. It doesn't add anything. yeah just kind of when when you When you introduce time skips, you're introducing like your character obviously has to be different two years in the future than they are now, because it's got to feel like time has passed. But if your character changes,
Speaker: the audience doesn't wait for two years to watch a character develop. They just see an instantaneous transformation. So the character also can't really change because you don't want to throw your audience off. It just gets really, it's it's really hard to write. i I can't think of a time skip that I have liked in any show, story, anything like that. um Just not a fan of them in general. I can't think of one that's done well.
Speaker: i i'm I'll be honest, I'm trying to think of time skips period. The only thing I can think of is fire emblem three houses. And and I'll be honest, the writing's already kind of ah bad there. so um this actually Let's do a quick Google search. Popular time skips in movies. I'm i'm almost certain there's a couple books where the time skipping happens like at the beginning. Yeah. and And it is easier to do in book form. Okay. Uh, actually perfect example for a recent film, really good movie, but end game, right? End game has like a five year time skip from the beginning of end game to when they to go, when they go decide to do something. Um, I mean, I'm, I'm very okay with it. I just wish. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I like that. So here's the thing. The time skip in Endgame only exists so that Tony Stark can get five years of happiness before he dies. Spoilers for Endgame. That is why it exists. That's the only reason it exists. You take that away and you can completely remove the time skip. I don't mind the bit of happiness because I like that Tony gets to be happy for a bit. I'll be honest, I forgot Tony Stark existed.
Speaker: Yeah. It's pretty popular. I like, well, I mean, Tony Stark, not Iron Man, like, like him living his, you know, do nothing life. Um, I just, yeah, for me, time skips aren't, they they are a time to explore what has happened in the meantime. So I do agree with you there. Like it's almost like setting up a mystery or,
Speaker: trying to find what has changed, like you as the viewer. Um, and I'll use three houses at the, as the example. Um, so, uh, fire emblem, three houses, uh, we'll ignore how bad the writing is, but essentially you are, you know, at war, you have all these students, uh, and then the time skip happens, you're gone for five years. You come back, they're all five years older. or You haven't aged. Um, in that time,
Speaker: A lot of them have had and issues that they were, when they were younger, were things that you kind of helped them work through. So now that they're older, they have overcome a lot of those or have you know grown into themselves, if you will. ah So it's very fun to be like, oh, now that I've done, and I've had all the conversations with them there, I see how they turned out when they're older and what problems they're dealing with now that they're older.
Speaker: Some of that is also literally aesthetic, like, Oh man, I can't wait to see how so -and -so has grown up and what their haircut looks like. Like, how are they going to be an edgy older person now? Or are they going to be like more domestic because they've mellowed out? Like what is, what are they going to be like? And playing that like guessing game as you're waiting to find out what, you know, what has happened in these five years to the person. Um,
Speaker: I think is a fun and interesting device to use. um and And part of that, you know that's why I like ah what they did for Endgame. It's like, oh, ah we're going to see what all these characters essentially look like with new haircuts outfits, yada, yada, yada. That's very shallow. I get that. and I find it entertaining. It is fun for me to see that.
Speaker: um and I'll be honest because of how like, I don't know how little the time skip affects the rest of the plot. I also think that that could be, yeah, like it barely affects it, but also isn't that an easy way to justify it that it barely does anything. So like if it's barely doing anything other than aesthetic, like, I don't know.
Speaker: i could I could make a case that like, I barely need to make a case for something that barely matters. Yeah, I mean, you can just argue that both ways. you know If it barely matters, then why include it? I mean, it's ah it's a device, it's a storytelling device. and And if you're going to use it like any storytelling device, I think you've got to justify using it. I think a cross dissolve screen wipe transition is a little final cut pro. If I saw that in a professional film, I'd be like, why? What the heck? But if you're directing a Star Wars film and you use it, I go, ah, that feels nostalgic. I love that. Right. yeah So there's like every tool has a purpose. I'll give one example of a really good time skip that I loved.
Speaker: Because I did think of one. And that's with Lost. So spoilers for Lost. There's a brilliant time skip in season four or five, I can't remember. um It's where the whole the famous Lost line, we have to go back. right Because you're the entire show, you've been watching flashbacks of their lives beforehand. And you've been watching flashbacks this whole season.
Speaker: ah and you think they're flashbacks. And then at the very end, he says, we have to go back and you realize that this has been time skipped to the future. And you've been watching future events after they got off the island and you go, Oh my God, what the fuck? And it's brilliantly done. And that's in my mind, like that's a good use of a time skip in my opinion, yeah where you're showing, you know, afterwards.
Speaker: yeah Season 3 finale. Season 3, thank you. i think I think two things. One, time skips are only upsetting probably if they aren't used, if they're weighted to like the beginning. like You have your your like moment, something tragic happens and then we cut to 20 years in the future.
Speaker: Like you have that, I mean, Batman, almost every Batman thing has like, oh, there's a kid at the beginning and his parents go, oh, Batman. And then we skip 30 years in the future and now he's you know angry and alone.
Speaker: um But i and I think that's where most of the time we see time skips. But I think if I had to put a finger on it, I'd be willing to bet that most people would not be upset with the time skip later on, if it was shorter and happened a little more frequently before this, because the timeline for worm as we've discussed is absurd. We are in what, month three maybe of this book? So when you have something that skips
Speaker: So much, even though so much has happened so, you know, so little of a time to now skip two years, which is, you know, multiple times that feels odd. But at the same time, I don't think we need to sit here and like, sure, he could have written an entire two years of them prepping. But oh given that we took that long to get through three months,
Speaker: Like, I don't think it's worth it. Now, if we had done, oh, a month and then two months, you know, an arc, oh, and then two months passed, nobody would have paid attention to that. You do that 12 times in a row or something, you know, or you just do between our seasons, essentially, you know, oh, between the slaughterhouse nine and this arc. Oh yeah, a couple of months passed. Oh, wow. You know, the story so far has taken place over a year and a half. How interesting.
Speaker: Then you get to, you know, not only is Taylor older by the time this happens, but then you get to the time skip. You only have to skip like, Oh, we just have to skip six months. It's like, well, you know, easier ja ah yeah, it's easier to swallow. You just jump two months between every arc. And I don't think anybody but would have been that upset about having like, ah Oh, we've skipped two months here, two months there. And this is a longer six month time skip. And you just explain it with literally the characters come in, like,
Speaker: Man, it's been two months since this, that's wild. Oh yeah, cool. And you go right back into your thing, nothing's changed because the time skip wasn't so great. It was an acceptable period of time. like I'll say maybe any more than six months and people probably feel weird about it.
Speaker: But to say like six months later, I don't think most people would have batted an eyelash at any of these starting, like ah you end Leviathan and then season two is six months later and it's still a shithole kinda that's getting worked on. Nobody would have batted an eyelash. Instead we're like, and the next day, like, yeah.
Speaker: No, that's a good point. I like that. I also think hiding any sort of jumps between seasons is obviously a lot easier um because, you know, ah Stranger Things kind of does that where they have to deal with their cast literally aging up. So they got to be like, Oh, it's a year later because our cast is a year older. You know, yeah obviously that kind of stuff you got to have to, you have to work with.
Speaker: Also, as much as I love you know doing a ah yearly season to season, who's to say that it wouldn't take two in time like two actual years, real time, for it to go from season three to season four? like and And I get a lot of people would watch this in retrospect and be like, ah, yes, I've watched seasons one through three and then ah you know and four, and now I'm you know skipping over to five.
Speaker: And, you know, there's a weird two year gap and it's like, yeah, but you forgot that there were two year gaps between every one of those seasons. Like, yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'll be a fun, it'll be a fun challenge once we get there. I mean, how long is between arcane seasons are right now? Yeah. What? Four years. Close to it. Yeah. So actually arcane, I did, I did like the time skip in arcane that did work too.
Speaker: That was a good one. Yeah. Forgot about that. And that's one with that wall at the beginning, you know, it's not bad at the beginning. You spend, all of you know, a full third of the thing going there. And honestly, you, you probably, you know, I like it the way it is, but you could have done a whole, you know, two thirds and then skip. And then the last third is them hashing it out as adults.
Speaker: um That could have been very workable, given how well they, ah you know, good they are at writing stuff. Yeah. so that's Yeah, that's a good example. um and And that's another part of like why time skips are fun. Like, yeah what do they look like? Literally, what do they look like what they when they are older? Oh, she's got tattoos now? That's cool. What does Echo look like when he's older? Oh, that's cool. Like, oh, who's who? Where are they? What are they doing now?
Speaker: Oh, the shitty guy's a sheriff. Like, wow. As long as there's a purpose to it, then. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's maybe more of my issue. Yeah. My issue with with worm and particularly the time jumping worm is I don't really feel like there is much of a purpose beyond getting to the like, you see Taylor in a new new place. Sure. Fair enough.
Speaker: And again, the memories of these arcs are a bit fuzzy to me, so I'm happy to really excited to reread them. um But I don't really remember feeling like any of these characters grew at all over two years. Yeah, I mean, yeah. The only reason to speed it up was because you got to get to the ah end of the world. yeah And honestly,
Speaker: I think I stand by this again. I think the time skip would have been fine if the rest of the arcs just took longer. took in the world Like if they just took a month at a time. Yeah. I don't think a, you know, a year time skip would have been that odd. Um,
Speaker: just to get us to the end of the world or, you know, just say, ah, but I'm going to end the world. You got one year kid or something like that. Right. Right. You know, and then we zoom it there. And obviously he was writing, you know, while that was writing this.
Speaker: uh, you know, we'll just try, you know, move into the next thing. You're moving very fast. And while he didn't plan out very well, um, you know, you get to a point where you're like, I am about to move to the next section that I kind of have in my head. I'm not about to spend two years bullshitting till then. Like we need to get there and we need to get there now. Um, you're right yeah so like for me, once again, because I was separate from all of the,
Speaker: the the fan base, I was just you know reading alone in the mountains of West Virginia with no internet ah and everything on a Kindle that I got from town. Like, i'm I'm just alone in the dark reading. I'm like, oh yeah. And then they skipped them like just taking it at face value. Like, yeah, obviously you just need to go to the, ah you need to hurry up and get to the end. I mean, I can, so I can tell how far we are in the book. We don't have time bullshit for two years. Yeah.
Speaker: So it it like, it really never bothered me. And then, you know, when I come off the mountain top and I'm like, Hey guys, you seeing this? And they're like, the time skip fucking sucks. I was like, oh Oh, there's a lot of dislike for this. Yeah. Yeah. It's always, everything's subjective. I know there's, like I said, it's, I i know it's, it's a, it's one of those points of contention with the fan base in general. I think a lot of fans,
Speaker: probably like you just aren't bothered by it or liked it or, you know, uh, didn't carry their way. And then obviously others that didn't, um, I'll tell, I'll tell you what, what has turned off a couple of my, uh, big reader friends from finishing worm. Their complaint was after, after Leviathan, nobody really dies. And I Like I get what they mean. They got to like, they got to the behemoth region dies and he, he was just like, eh, like it's been so long. They really should have done like any of the undersiders should have died a long time ago. It's surprising that they've last, they've all lasted this long. Yeah. And so I was like, it was like, yeah. And you know what? I don't see it. Granted, you know, once again, I'm not,
Speaker: looking all that hard, but I don't see people complain about that aspect all that much. Like a lot of people that stay alive for way longer than they probably should have. Yeah. I think, uh, I think contrary to what, what popular belief would have you think most people don't really enjoy for most shows like the Game of Thrones, keep everyone on their toes. Your favorite character could be dead in the next episode because like at the end of the day, we don't want our favorite character to die. They're our favorite. Yeah. They're our favorite for a reason. Um, which in my personal opinion, we'll see if George R .R. Martin ever decides to finish the books, but I'm pretty sure that's why the show was like, we got to bring John Snow back.
Speaker: because we've killed off too many favorite characters. So he's gonna come back to life. I don't know, just my um theory there. But it's funny because I think people that read worm get to the sense that that's gonna be the case. So you start to sort of expect that and prepare your mind for that. um And then when it doesn't happen, then yes, it is disappointing because now you feel like you're not being rewarded for the effort you're putting into the story.
Speaker: but it's not really that kind of story. And obviously characters do die, but yeah it's different. It comes in waves in my opinion, because you've got it at the beginning and you've kind of got it at the very end. And that's in the middle. There's a lot of stuff that happens in which more people that are, I'll just say the undersiders, you know a more immediate cast of characters should be dying, especially when the promise is kind of a very gritty, uh, universe and feels like a lot of people that you get away with a lot of shit. Yeah. Um, and so when people complain about like, Oh, you know, this is a realistic universe. I'm like, ah, but is it like, and and especially when adapting, like,
Speaker: Uh, we are trying to, ah we are trying to rhyme things and do poetry out of, uh, out of a doctor's note. Kind of like, you know, we are narrativizing more stuff that's already narrativized enough that like, like I said, the undersiders, wait all of them last way too long. Like yeah that is a narrative choice that is made that is not realistic.
Speaker: but ah it works really good for the story because you want those characters to last and you like them and that's what draws you in. um And on top of that, like you gotta make more changes if you're gonna adapt it for other things because like, it you know it works well. You can work things even better and more like, I keep saying the word poetic and rhythmic because that's how I think when writing. um But get things to work more like,
Speaker: coincidentally kind of, you know, the people's paths crossing conversations happening. If you can plan that out ahead of time, you can plan for those to cross or not cross way in advance, um which Wild Bo had some time to do, but, you know, now with retrospect, we have a lot of time to do. Yeah. um One of those is having moments where like clock blocker and Taylor bumped back and forth into each other over the years. And now we hear we are at the school.
Speaker: potentially talking about, you know, ah secret identities and stuff. Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, the story is not realistic. No story is that realism is blown out of proportion. ah it's such a It's such a buzzword. real in real In realism, if worm was realistic, skitter goes and fights along in the very first episode and gets fried immediately, just fried to death. You blast her with fire and she dies.
Speaker: It's just so happens that, you know, wow, ah the undersiders are there. Like, yeah what a coincidence. hear yeah Yeah, exactly. What a and then story propelling coincidence. And then lung kills all of them.
Speaker: That's why. It's a story not, you know. Exactly. Just a documentary of sadness. We don't really want realism. We don't really want, well, actually, I'm going to stop here because Alan does want that slice of life. You know, we're all, they're just chilling on the bus. Just a YouTuber going throughout its day, but it's a cartoon.
Speaker: Just, uh, just imagining a whole series of shorts of the undersiders, just like walking to and from all their different stops. That's all it is. They got to like, just trip over potholes and stuff. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the new reality show. It's produced by leet. Like you actually finally did something, right? Yeah. and she yeah <unk> Hi, my name is skitter and welcome to my crib. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, it'll be a very interesting season to figure out. Yeah. Yeah. well um As we read more, it'll become more clear probably. We'll be some fun challenges for sure. Yeah. Uh, I really think the big, you know, big thing here will be like building up a relationship with Theo. Uh, I think that needs to get, I mean, ah this, I mean, this is another two part season. First part, you know, dealing with, uh, essentially,
Speaker: the PRT and being captured and the second part. And maybe we make that not even that long, but the second part being Taylor working for the good guys. Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. There could be some fun ways to do it. I think that about does it, unless you have any other final thoughts, but - Man, this was a short chapter. Next, you know,
Speaker: I got no real thoughts here other than the end of the episode is um not. um The end of the episode is the one interlude with the guy trying to get all the interviews, except it's a very quick. It's very much like the.
Speaker: montage at the end of the, you know, first episode to show where all of our characters are to set up for the season. So, you know, the S nine looks at the TV, right? You know, shadow stalker looks at the TV, you know, and smashes it. We're literally cutting for like three seconds at a time, you know, as everybody stares. And then we cut back to, uh, Taylor and then title. I do like that. Yeah. Hmm.
Speaker: Well, on that note, I think we'll go ahead and wrap this episode up. Good conversations. I really want to read the next chapter. or the next Ready to get into it. A lot of fun stuff. Didn't have too much to really talk about in this episode, but as always, of course, if you have any thoughts or comments, please leave them at any of our social media platforms, YouTube comments, Reddit, Instagram, et cetera, or pretty much anywhere.
Speaker: And I'll just throw this out there. and quick ah quick quick like Is there a time skip that you enjoy or one that you don't enjoy? Let us know. I'm sure there's plenty I didn't even think about. um House of the Dragon came to mind as well as we were thinking about them there. Forgot about the ones House of the Dragon, which again, I don't really care for, but that's another tangent. Let me know your thoughts. ah Yeah. Give us ah give us a give some good and bad time skips. It'd be fun to read.
Speaker: And with that, stay tuned for Arc 21, both Brockton Bay Book Club coming out next, and then Dissecting Worm, of course, after that. It's going to be a fun few arcs for sure. And I think that's all the announcements. So ah take that, take that, you worms.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans dot .wordpress dot .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on
