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The Final Book Club - Worm In Review
260 Plays27 days ago
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.
Complete list of potential triggers: here
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Episode Description: It's the final episode of Worm! We read it all! From all of us here at The Brockton Bay Book Club we want to thank you for joining us on this amazing read. We will be continuing on and reading Ward next! We will be going live on YouTube for our Ward book club, so come join us every other Tuesday at 8PM EST and be a part of our live discussion!
Support us and connect with us @brocktonbaybc
A big thank you from all of us here at The Brockton Bay Book Club for all the love and support! We had a great time reading Worm and we are so grateful for those who joined us!
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Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast:
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Transcript
Introduction to Worm and Podcast Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by JC McRae, also known as Wildbow. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans.wordpress.com or donate to Wildbow's Patreon at patreon.com slash wildbow.
00:00:15
Speaker
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.
00:01:08
Speaker
Good morning, Brockton Bay.
00:01:13
Speaker
Did my computer just shut off? No. Oh, there we go. It couldn't take it. free Put full black screen there for a second. It just couldn't handle it. Welcome to the Brockton Bay Book Club. It's the last intro.
00:01:32
Speaker
it It is. And I like. set it, and then all my screens went black. Your computer was like, no, I'm not ready. i'm not ready. It would. It would. Dragon took over. so sorry.
00:01:45
Speaker
was going to say. Dragon shut down. Pandora took over. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. you know saying oh yeah secret to tell She doesn't want us. She's like, she doesn't want us to share them.
00:01:57
Speaker
Is it the end of the world? I'm going to say it anyway, Dragon. I know that you pegged Colin. ha ah well yeah We know. we all Imp's asking the real questions here.
00:02:08
Speaker
ah yeah
00:02:12
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
Completion Celebration and Podcast Statistics
00:02:13
Speaker
Welcome. done and We've done it. Welcome. We're here. We've finished a worm. ahsh Take a breath.
00:02:25
Speaker
A year and change. Yeah. yeah That's crazy. This thing's long as hell. A long ass book.
00:02:36
Speaker
Well done. Yeah. Well done. proud of us. I'm very proud of us. If you, the reader, stuck with it, you should be proud of yourself too. It's an accomplishment. Yeah, at you guys. really ah wow. quite a books.
00:02:51
Speaker
six hundred and fifty thousand words ish long that is quite a few books Speaking of numbers, I was about to ask questions for you guys. Just a couple.
00:03:07
Speaker
I was doing some math before this, which is dangerous. Without looking, how many episodes, including this one, do we have? Are we counting the Brockton Bay Book Club recaps?
00:03:18
Speaker
and yeah Are we counting everything? Yeah, everything. Is this episode 69? um is is episode sixty nine
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh my organ or God. Wait, wait, okay. So wait, there there's, there's 32 arcs. Hold on. How many arcs are there? There's 30 arcs plus and, and the epilogues arcs. Yeah. say this 71. Okay.
00:03:41
Speaker
so that's so that's at least sixty two like c two i'm going to say seventy seventy i'm going to say this is seventy one That's going to be thing. I think might be episode 69. I'm just going to go with it. It sounds like episode 69, I think.
00:03:59
Speaker
I mean, I would love it to be 69. Michael, if I'm wrong, just delete one of our episodes we don't like. yeah Pick one of our intro episode might need to go Yeah, like somewhere in the middle, like arc 18 probably.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, just pluck it out. got We got to record more. Really? okay Because at the beginning, remember at the beginning we were combining book club and the dissecting. Oh, shoot. 54. No, 63. Oh, 56. Wait, no. We did what?
00:04:25
Speaker
First eight? 61. yep if fifty four no sixty three oh fifty they wait know first we did what first eight sixty one
00:04:49
Speaker
Okay. Nice. I'm hearing we need to make a couple more episodes to get us to 69 before we start our next project. Now, Michael, are you counting up the Patreon episodes? ah No, we're not.
00:05:00
Speaker
We're not. We're not counting those. It'd still be it' be too many. It could be episode 69 if you're a Patreon. could be. We've definitely got more than 66 episodes. Yeah. That's amazing.
00:05:12
Speaker
Do we know how many total hours that is? because That was my next... okay Oh, the next question? Oh my gosh. the ink Not including this episode, obviously.
00:05:22
Speaker
have the total time and the average time of each episode. I've already asked Alan and Jacob the average time completely forgot. Can I use a calculator? We have...
00:05:34
Speaker
can i cal yeah we have um We have done more episodes, so that number has changed anyway. ah okay Let's do average first. Total time. may i This is it this is episode, remind me of the number. This is number 66, right? We've done episodes. yeah Hang on. yeah I'm going to do some math I'm doing math. Don't worry.
00:05:59
Speaker
okay my guess is like i think we've hit about a hundred and eighty recording hours Hold on. I'm going to also do... It's locking it in. Ooh. Record... Like, finished, edited, recorded, or actual raw recorded?
00:06:17
Speaker
That Michael has had to edit. Well, in that case, it's like 1,500. Yeah. But... yeah but
00:06:26
Speaker
I'll go see 40. Not including the ones that haven't come out when we've done this. It's edited hours. I'm going lower my guess, actually. going to 160. I'm saying 175. We're doing hours? Total hours. Okay, on. have it broken down minutes, seconds. Okay. Somebody say 165?
00:06:39
Speaker
i'm saying one seventy five like we're doing hours total hours yeah total hours okay hold on i have it broken down hours minutes seconds um ghost okay you somebody say one sixty five I'm saying 175 hours and 30 minutes.
00:06:57
Speaker
I'm going 165. I think I went 160. I was on the low side. Okay. It's 119.
00:07:09
Speaker
Okay. That's less than I thought, but that makes sense. You're always complaining about how long we go. It's not even. 20 minutes and 11 seconds. So there we That's four days, almost five days of content.
00:07:21
Speaker
Four days, 23 hours, 20 minutes, and 11 seconds of content. How many days of content did you say? Four days and 23 hours. Like a work week. Four days and 23 hours. I mean a work week.
00:07:34
Speaker
Non-stop work week. and top Never mind. mostly sleep No sleep. which time Average episode time for both dissecting and and book club? An hour 40. I'm going to say hour and 48 minutes.
00:07:46
Speaker
This one also have an hour and forty eight minutes i this one i also have to the seconds if you want an hour and 69 minutes. I do want to know big One hour, 48 minutes. One hour, 48 minutes and literally 16 seconds.
00:08:03
Speaker
Jacob and I split the difference last time. I know. I don't remember what it was though. So I'm going to go. It's like, is it like an hour and
00:08:20
Speaker
i don't I don't know. Is it like Was it an hour and 39 minutes, maybe? The average time? Or was it... I can't remember what it was.
00:08:32
Speaker
Make your decisions. Hit us, Michael. I'm going go 70. 70 minutes. How much? Nick, an hour, 48 minutes, and 29 seconds. Holy crap. Wow! Congrats! Oh my god. Nailed it. Wow!
00:08:51
Speaker
Wow. You did a wow. Wow. Hot dog. Hot diggity dog. I did do some math on that one. You did good. I did also, and I was was off, but... yeah yeah yeah Very fun. when Wow. there you go Those are my questions.
Format Changes and Future Plans
00:09:06
Speaker
And our listeners listen to almost probably maybe sure kind of all of that. Right? right yeah A percentage of it. this right guys Now, average minutes of the podcast. I actually remember recording. yeah Let's go in the last nine minutes maybe. yeah How long have we been recording right now? yeah Two seconds? All right.
00:09:30
Speaker
yeah and i lost some i was good It's been fun. um It's definitely been something I look forward to on my evenings. Oh, absolutely. Hanging out with you guys and just sharing sharing Worm with anybody who's willing to hang out with us. so ah real Fun story to share. Very exciting.
00:09:47
Speaker
Will you tell them what's next? We should tell them what's next. We've got some fun stuff for you guys. Michael, mean, do you want to make me announce We're not doing it. We're breaking it up. Everybody's going solo.
00:10:03
Speaker
No, we're just changing a little. Word exists. We are going to be reading it. Word does exist. expect us around April 1st. Not a thing. April Fool's joke.
00:10:16
Speaker
Not a joke. Unless we're not ready. and then Then ha ha. Yeah, yeah. We'll see. The dates could change. Things could change. But around April, we'll be doing some live stream content.
00:10:31
Speaker
We're actually going to be switching to our YouTube channel primarily. um But fear not, because we'll still have the full podcast format version available every week.
00:10:43
Speaker
But instead of getting together in this format, like we're doing now, recording everything beforehand, we're going to go live every week, well, every other week, whenever we actually go live.
00:10:56
Speaker
And discuss Ward, just like we've been doing now. And then um I'll take that and put it out in podcast form afterwards. But we just figured we wanted to do something different, something more interactive, something with a little less editing, a little more engagement with the fans those that we have who have made it this far.
00:11:19
Speaker
um So yeah, we're really excited. and One of the big things that you know we keep, we've always kind of come back to and these episodes is like, oh man, we get some really good comments or or feedback or questions like you know two, three weeks after we recorded the episode. yeah And by that point, like we can't go back and its it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't work. So now we can actually discuss it in real time with you all. It's like a worldwide book club now.
00:11:52
Speaker
I'm so excited. It's going to be great. yeah So you can read along with us. copy Pop in. we'll We'll figure out exactly what the format is. It's going to have to change a little bit so we can get you guys' input. But yeah, yeah yeah expect us continue. think for three of us, right, it's going to be a totally first-time read.
00:12:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Is that right? never read Warp before. And Michael, too, if you're reading Michael, but... yeah maybe know yeah maybe i'll i'll be ah I'll be vetting all of the um thousands all the com All the comments. That's probably for the best. I don't know if I need a stream of consciousness of someone talking at me.
00:12:34
Speaker
That might raise my anxiety a lot. yeah we We might have a special Alan fights the commenters um segment. Well, the credits roll. You can pick your fight with me and I'll just yell at the screen. I can then like get off go to bed, brush my teeth, and Alan can stay up late fighting, and I'll just write sleep nice and peacefully.
00:12:56
Speaker
It's just me screaming at the at the chat, and then you just like slowly dragging to mute as like the credits roll, and it's just still me. Oh, gosh. oh gosh But yeah, we're excited for this. um Hopefully you're not too... You're not losing anything, really. It's it's just you have you have ah the ability to come join us. The only thing that'll be different is we'll probably switch it to every other week.
00:13:21
Speaker
um Just so that we can um have time to read. You guys can also have time to read. and um on the off weeks, if you're a patron, you'll be getting other things from us too because we we want to treat our patrons well. so yeah That's the new plan.
00:13:40
Speaker
And I think ah that the release schedule would probably change for the normal podcast. So if you wanted to catch the video afterwards or the podcast, I think that'd probably come out Wednesday, Michael? ah Yeah, go go follow us on our YouTube just to just stay fully informed. um And then we'll we'll decide on actual days later. I think we're...
00:14:05
Speaker
We're just going to make sure we have plenty of time to take the live stream format and put it on Spotify, Apple, all that good stuff. We'll see exactly how it goes. Yeah.
00:14:15
Speaker
It's new. I know a lot of you were asking what is happening to dissecting worm? Is there going to be a dissecting ward? And the answer is probably not. Uh, Jacob, you know, main reason that pod part of podcast exists is, uh, has not read it. So this would be a first time going through.
00:14:34
Speaker
um And it's kind of hard to, I mean, you can adapt without looking forward, but it makes it difficult. However, I would argue, um if you like that kind of content, continue to listen to the Brockton Bay Book Club, because as a book, I think Ward ah needs a lot more editing um and adjustments than Wyrm did.
00:14:56
Speaker
And we will definitely discuss that from a regular writing standpoint rather than ah trying to adapt it to television. Yeah. um Absolutely. And we can definitely insert scenes, you know, of like, this is how I turn this. Like, I can imagine this is a scene. Oh, yeah. We've talked about fan casting and stuff like that on the regular podcast. Oh, yeah. You gotta keep fan casting.
00:15:16
Speaker
That's just part of it. And we could always do the podcast. We're gonna put podcasts. Jacob I need that. Always. Have a quick aside, you know. was gonna say, the Brockton Bays live on. It just might not be Brockton Bays. Brockton Bays, buy your merch.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's right. ah merch. We got merch. You know about it. We have merch. Alan is modeling our beautiful sweatshirts. The Brockton Bay is sweatshirt. Just a ah white comfy sweatshirt with the logo on the front.
00:15:45
Speaker
And we also have a t-shirt with the practical bla Brockton Bay Book Club logo on the front. um All the links are where links are. And right below our beautiful faces.
00:15:55
Speaker
You want to show yourself to be real nerd? Get the Book Club book you know t-shirt. You want to show that you're a real culture Cultured individual. Rocket back. Sweatshirt.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah. Perfect. to get get the song I think that's all the announcements. Yeah. think so. Probably. Trying to think if there's anything else. Yeah, this is our episode in review of the entire show, which is We're going look back.
00:16:26
Speaker
All the highlights and lowlights. it And we also have some special questions from our patrons. and They have given us quite a list. So we're going to hit off some of these.
00:16:38
Speaker
Get some good questions. and just So thankful to our patrons. You too could a patron. It's not too late. We've got special episodes. have a bunch of different tiers. If your budget is minimal.
00:16:49
Speaker
If you've got a large budget, we have tiers for that too. Please pay us. yeah It's really just to pay Michael. ah none of us yeah ah None of us are making any money here. Any money made is going straight to Michael goal for his amazing producing skills. Also, I think we just round of applause for Michael because like could not have done this without him.
00:17:09
Speaker
Literally, ah this podcast would never have existed. Nope. Not even little bit. Speaking of when this podcast existed, mayhaps we take a trip down memory lane you like how we formed this podcast in the first place.
Podcast Origins and Creative Discussions
00:17:26
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Might be kind fun. yeah I don't even... I don't remember. This podcast started.
00:17:36
Speaker
i will take credit for this. but it was It was a conversation Alan and I had for this. However, it started... I guess probably a year before we recorded anything.
00:17:48
Speaker
Because i watched a YouTube video with like 20 views at the time, where two guys, I'm pretty sure they were high, drunk, or both, went and did a tier list of every worm character.
00:18:03
Speaker
And it was like a six-hour YouTube video. And I watched the whole thing.
00:18:10
Speaker
It's not good, but it's great. You gotta watch it. and And as I got to the end, I realized that I didn't remember 90% of these characters despite loving Wyrm.
00:18:25
Speaker
And at the same time, i was also watching a video, and I'm not going to say the channel because I forget which channel it is, but it's a film editing channel talking about adapting works.
00:18:37
Speaker
ah Specifically, they were talking about Mass Effect. And so thinking at the same time as I'm watching these two videos, we there's nobody talking about adapting Worm in any capacity.
00:18:50
Speaker
So I go to my good buddy, Alan, who I also know loves adapting works and Wyrm. And we have this conversation about, hey, we should read Wyrm and talk about adapting. It'd be kind of cool to like think about the the pros and the cons and the challenges and what it would look like, yada, yada.
00:19:09
Speaker
And then as we're talking about it, we're like, we should should record it. We could do a podcast. It'd be kind of cool. And then I think at some time in that conversation, we had the realization that was like, well, we'd also need to reread it because and don't remember shit.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah. wonesia Wormnesia hits hard. I've forgotten half of it already and I just read it. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Cue conversations with a few other Wyrm fans that we've known.
00:19:43
Speaker
And Rockton Bay Book Club was born. You tricked all your friends into reading it for years. It's true. Isn't that what it's all about? Isn't that what friendship is for, really? tricking you All that to say, Alan, at some point, we have to do our own tier list of every character in Wyrm. Oh, absolutely.
00:20:04
Speaker
For those... patrons have already gotten Smasher Pass Brockton Bay's Deerless. So that's a little head teaser content you could be getting if you know if you're a patriot patron it was really funny but also i don't remember half of that hopeful boy i mean it's those mean I think i think i would be... You know what we should do is we should review that video and figure out like who who smashed who and who has like the most smashes of all.
00:20:42
Speaker
like I know it's probably Jacob. um but Yeah, Jacob. I think Jacob said no to maybe three people. was going to say, you can come on one hand. I should know too.
00:20:54
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So maybe we we maybe we reverse that, right? We do like, okay, who didn't you go for? the pig now to Now defend yourself. does a hear me out. That was fun though.
00:21:05
Speaker
That was fun. um y was fun Yeah, we all we need to do a worm hear me out cake or whatever.
00:21:16
Speaker
yeah. There you go. Yeah, don we can put that at the end of this at the end of these questions. Yeah, there you go. If we have a bunch of questions, lovely questions submitted by the patrons.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, we do. Should we? yeah but I honestly like for my part with the podcast starting, I don't even remember exactly the conversation, but I just remember. the idea. and i was like, yeah, it sounds like fun.
00:21:41
Speaker
And now suddenly my Tuesday nights have just become monopolized and it's great. Yep. Yep. I was about to say this. I don't mind. I don't mind my Tuesdays being overtaken by this podcast. I don't mind all. It's been fun.
00:21:54
Speaker
I mean, it's great. I, I, I read worm the first time a long time ago, like, um about actually about seven, eight, seven, eight years ago. And it was, it was really, you know, do you need a reason to reread worm?
00:22:10
Speaker
Sometimes. Yes. yeah And this was that reason. Oh, mont tea has I definitely, every time I definitely wouldn't, I definitely wouldn't have if I hadn't been on the podcast, like it was nine, nine years ago for me.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah. And I, and I remembered enjoying it, but I never really thought, no, this is something I'll, you know, go through again considering how long it is. So, yeah, and i I had no plans to reread. It's long. I mean, it takes a while. I mean, you know, yeah, it's like you do it and then you're like, cool, I did it.
00:22:40
Speaker
I wanted to read more of Wildbo's works, but I got distracted and forgot. And so getting back into it has been fun. It's been inspiring for me as well. ah Getting me back into doing some writing too. So ah that's been a pleasure.
00:22:54
Speaker
And yeah, it's been a good time. Mm hmm. Very good time. All right. Should we get into some questions? Yeah. Let me cross out that first question. And I think we can just each pick a random question to read and just go from there so we don't have to have one narrator this time.
00:23:14
Speaker
so Yeah. yeah a Good idea. a Good idea. Bunty, you are. who wants to go first? Pick the first one.
00:23:23
Speaker
Oh, man. there's some We have so many good questions here. There are some fantastic questions. I can throw one down that I thought was
Hypothetical Scenarios and Humor
00:23:31
Speaker
interesting. now This is from our patron, Vic. um The question is simply, did the Brockton Bay Book Club survive all of Wyrm?
00:23:39
Speaker
So the reason I wanted to bring this one up is because I was doing some Googling and trying to figure out some numbers. um So Brockton Bay, I'm trying to figure out averages, right? like What are the odds that we survive Wyrm?
00:23:53
Speaker
right um ah Brockton Bay has a civilian population of around 350,000 once Leviathan attacks. um From there, you know it fluctuates greatly throughout the story.
00:24:07
Speaker
I couldn't find exact numbers, though, for casualties. I think that was the thing that I felt like I was missing. Because I'm like, I can't get the numbers on casualties. But... oh um Assuming...
00:24:20
Speaker
you know We could say, like thinking about the big major events that affect Brockton Bay, we've got ah probably the first big one would be Bakuda. Then Leviathan, of course, is the big one.
00:24:31
Speaker
Slaughterhouse-9 after that. um And then post-Slaughterhouse-9, I really think the only other major crisis we hear about is ah it getting hit by Scion.
00:24:44
Speaker
I mean, um the echidna fight doesn't affect a lot of civilians, right? It's more capes. Correct. Yeah. The echidna fight doesn't affect a whole lot of civilians. It's a big event, results in the portal, which affects a lot of people.
00:24:56
Speaker
But not it's it's not a catastrophic event, right? Like, I wouldn't count it as while while I think inherently you're just more likely to die in the warm universe than in the real world, yeah um yeah I don't know that the Echidna event would count like a Leviathan fight, right? Where it it yeah dramatically increased the casualty count. right Right, right, right. So those would be those would be the big ones, right? Bakuda, Leviathan, Slaughterhouse-9, Scion.
00:25:24
Speaker
And so I was trying to think about think about it, okay? Like, let's say this. I would say maybe like, 3% of the population was affected by Bakuda at most.
00:25:40
Speaker
like Not a very high number. yeah but i think that even probably I'm going to agree with your numbers no matter what. because yeah sure I have not done the math. I'm doing math now.
00:25:51
Speaker
Actually, I think that's that's probably way too high. That seems a lot. Okay. a lot and okay So we'll say half a percent. That's still 1,700 people affected by Bakuda.
00:26:06
Speaker
Okay, we're just going to count out. We're not going to count Bakuda. It's and Okay, Yeah, it's Leviathan and let's say that of the population was killed by Leviathan.
00:26:20
Speaker
that is seventeen thousand five hundred people
00:26:25
Speaker
and i don't i don't know that it was more than that. like That's a lot. a lot of people That's a lot of people. yeah so We'll say 5% were killed by Leviathan.
00:26:39
Speaker
ah That means... and why more math more math Most of them were and most combat was between heroes and Leviathan, like they, you know, were antagonistic towards each other. I'm thinking more of like the shelters that got attacked maybe, or the people who weren't able to evacuate.
00:27:00
Speaker
mean, 17,000 is still a lot of people. That is a lot. But I couldn't, Yeah, I couldn't get a clean number on how many people were affected. So I feel like all that to say, if we are just normal citizens of Brockton Bay, we live in the most average place in Brockton Bay, I feel like we have a pretty good chance of surviving Leviathan.
00:27:21
Speaker
I think so, too. Also, I don't think yeah any of us... Well, Jacob jacob lives in a downtown-type area space. ah The rest of us do not live in downtown-type area spaces.
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, we'd be in the in the hills, right? What's-his-name is like saying, oh, I was there for Leviathan, but all the people are like, no, you weren't. You're not a real Leviathan survivor. No, that's us.
00:27:48
Speaker
So, Jacob, your odds maybe are a bit lower, but I think we all have pretty decent odds just as regular people surviving Leviathan, right? Yeah, I have pretty bad track record with avoiding ah harm arm in general. So i I made this joke when the question was asked on the Discord, but like most likely I decided to go snorkeling that day.
00:28:08
Speaker
you know so it was just it was just a bad day. yeah do you snorkel, Jacob? Oh, not at all, but it would have been the day I tried. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
00:28:18
Speaker
I'm going to do it. You know what? Today's the day. Take me out that boat, see captain. So I think, I think with that too, right. We could probably count in Leviathan's casualties, the aftermath of it, right? Like people dying of disease or starvation or crumbling property damage, stuff like that too. yeah Uh, so 17,000 is still a lot, but maybe, you know, so maybe like 10,000 people died at most, at most.
00:28:47
Speaker
Um, And that still seems a bit high, even for Leviathan. ah Then, because they did have that warning, then we get to the Slaughterhouse Nine, which again, I don't think was a very large number. It's more just, were you happening to be in the wrong place at the right time? Right.
00:29:01
Speaker
So I feel like for this, the most fair way that we should all do it is ah no we should all roll a D1000, which you'll have to Google because... Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Just give me 1 in 1,000 chance.
00:29:16
Speaker
A 1 in 1,000. And here's what here's what it is, because it's a Slaughterhouse Nine. If you get a 999, you die. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, wait. Roll D1,000. Here we go.
00:29:32
Speaker
I'm safe. roll ah one thousand here we go um safe
00:29:40
Speaker
Oh, safe. Okay. I got 904. You got to roll at your disadvantage, though. It's okay. Jacob, you don't have to roll if you don't want to since you're dead from Leviathan. I'm already dead. I'll die again.
00:29:54
Speaker
I'm safe. All right. Cool. Yeah. So again, important I feel like that's like random chance, right? Right. Okay. Now here's the big one. And of course, our patrons would all make How much of the population? We protect them.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Of course. Now, the biggest question, of course, with this would then be, how much of the population did Scion kill? Because I feel like that could be as much as 50%, if not more.
00:30:22
Speaker
i'd go I'd honestly go 30% at most. 30%? Okay. okay Depending on how he how he did his thing, whether was... I mean if you live in the UK...
00:30:37
Speaker
like the Okay, so the UK, he just bombs that. like He shoots a spirit bomb over there and blows that up. yeah um But then, much like the purity like laser runs, like he starts doing different things to different areas.
00:30:55
Speaker
And from the sound of it, like Brockton Bay is in shambles.
00:31:02
Speaker
But like stuff's still going on there. So um I'm going to go 30%, which is still a wild number. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's still, you know, 100,000 people.
00:31:21
Speaker
It is. So yeah, 30% is about 105,000 people. I was trying to look up um how many people died in the gold morning in Brockton Bay specifically. Not Apparently, something like one million capes fought against Scion is what one source was saying. And ah quite a few of them died.
00:31:40
Speaker
ah That sounds high, though. I don't know. It does sound really high. Yeah. So, let's see. ah Portal.
00:31:51
Speaker
There's really not much regarding... there's really not much regarding... ah how much ah how much it would have done. But, um yeah, I would say that, yeah, like a 30% chance you get just annihilated by Scion.
00:32:11
Speaker
i would add maybe another 10% to that just for, like, again, those side casualties. Like, you weren't directly killed by Scion. Yeah. But you, you know, you got trampled by people trying to get to the portal. You got...
00:32:25
Speaker
you know You were left in Brockton Bay without supplies, whatever, you know however you want to say it. yeah So if that is the case, then and we have a 40% chance of survival.
00:32:37
Speaker
I think let's just roll a 1d4. If you roll a 1, you're dead. That's only 25%. Don't get mad at me, math people. Wait, hold on. Actually, no. We can do a There's a Reddit breakdown of numbers, by the way.
00:32:53
Speaker
Really? I couldn't find that. It says here, Scion was able to kill about 50% of all humans and capes on Earth-Bet. And the quote is from Tattletail, we lost just about half of everyone, Tattletail said. Maybe more, but communicating is hard right now. Don't exactly have the infrastructure.
00:33:09
Speaker
Meaning Scion killed about 75,000 parahumans and half the global human population by then. Wow. Okay, so it's a yeah a coin.
00:33:21
Speaker
and then it says yeah And then it says here, the final result, Scion killed 99% of all parahumens in existence within roughly one week. Wow. Okay, so flip a coin. If you get heads, you live. If you get tails, you're dead. Wait, do I have a coin? used to have a pirate coin on my desk. and i don't You could never take me.
00:33:42
Speaker
Okay, hold on. I have died. okay so wait what is what is it to put I'm not looking at the screen yeah is it head Flip a coin, heads you live, tails you die Alive!
00:33:55
Speaker
I've died again is it you and me? It's just you and me me and Alan and the cats and the patrons all serve survive Obviously the cats are included The cats are included Oh yeah, fair not fair enough Cats are with us yeah Do deaths cancel each other out?
00:34:16
Speaker
That's not if I just died up twice. No, here's what happened, Jacob. ah You triggered and then Leviathan killed you. Glistick Wenye got your shard yeah and then sacrificed it fighting Sion.
00:34:30
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. that's yu letter That's it. No, no, no. here Even better. ah But your body survived after the trigger of when you got killed.
00:34:41
Speaker
ah So Pretender takes it over. Yeah, exactly. There you go. You live on in a new form. yeah And then it gets killed again. And then Absorboid Classic when he for a third death.
00:34:54
Speaker
yeah There you go. ah That was my pick for a question. I thought that was a fun little thought experiment. yeah um But obviously we would survive. i mean We have protagonist main character plot armor. like We're good.
00:35:08
Speaker
got ra war Us? Yeah. oh Plot armor. You got that plot armor, baby. r marvel Somebody tell reality that, please.
00:35:19
Speaker
yeah so Somebody tell the narrator, the DM of reality, my plot armor is not working. It's a change class. Is it just God?
00:35:32
Speaker
Is it just God? Hey, and look. ah Praying to God, but starting it every time with, hey, DM. Hey, DM.
00:35:44
Speaker
Can I get advantage on this next roll? Yeah, I get advantage on it. that's That's exclusively how I'm going to perform. From now on. RDM that aren't above.
00:35:56
Speaker
Oh my gosh. No, I swear. No. Someone's going to end up asking, would you say the blessing over Thanksgiving dinner in front of like your family and my family and all the extended family? And he's going to go, daddy DM. Daddy DM.
00:36:10
Speaker
Daddy DM. And they're all going to look at me and I'm going to have to explain. You know what? It's fine. I'm already getting nightmares. I'm already getting nightmares. It's funny you say that.
00:36:26
Speaker
my wife My wife does the same thing. She's like, listen, you do weird stuff and everybody comes to me. That's exactly how it works. No one wants to go to Alan to ask because they're afraid of the answer. So they come to me because they know I'll say it nicely. I'll be like, well, you know how Alan is. He's just very picky about his friends and and he doesn't like any of you. So, you know, he can say whatever he wants.
00:36:51
Speaker
All right, that was my question. ah I'll throw it over to who wants it. Fantastic question. ah Here, I got... This is another quick kind of funny one, but I like it a lot.
00:37:04
Speaker
ah Do you think there's cryptocurrency in EarthBet? And which worm characters do you think invest in cryptocurrency? In parentheses, most definitely Cody.
00:37:15
Speaker
Absolutely Cody. Which is correct, but obviously we just have to put it out there. obviously yeah it's Uber and Leet. Oh, they They have a qr QR code and all the bottom of their videos.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. wow You can invest in what would it be called? Like Uber coin? Yeah. Probably. Yeah. lately know way you know There's not Leet coin. no. Uber definitely made the name. You can only make one token.
00:37:48
Speaker
And then the rest just deteriorate. That's right. So it's just like NFTs normally. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's fair. That's fair. ah i I honestly, with all of the tinkers, it's tin yeah it's always tinkers, right? As Taylor would say, man, fucking tinkers.
00:38:05
Speaker
um yeah Here's the thing, right? I feel like cryptocurrency with tinkers would be even more difficult to regulate and secure than it is now. Like it's already kind of problematic.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah. Just imagine you've got like a thousand super hackers all across the world who are eager to make money as easily as they can. And if it does exist, the number man controls it anyway. So, yeah. Okay.
00:38:30
Speaker
So the real question, we're going to narrow this down. Do you think that Colin is into or against a cryptocurrency? Yeah.
00:38:44
Speaker
I feel like he's hard against it. Yeah. Actually, for some reason, that's my feeling. I think he's a cold, hard American dollar purist. It just yes strikes me as a guy who probably... the kind of guy, like despite all the tech that he has on him, he pulls cash out of his wallet when he's buying groceries.
00:39:05
Speaker
you know I feel like it's the opposite, right? like He's the... He's like little coin curve. You know, everybody was getting conspiratorial about people putting, you know, like barcodes, like credit cards their hand. God. Yeah. like that's Colin, right? He's like Apple Pay. like Yeah. just you know what That's how he does it at every gas station.
00:39:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. i agree I think he would be against cryptocurrency. Yeah. hardcurr It's one of those where like he comes out the other end where like he's smart enough that he's not into cryptocurrency at all because he knows too much about it.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. yeah yeah um But at the same time, he's like... and All of his electronics, he built. And he doesn't share except with Dragon.
00:39:52
Speaker
Right. Exactly. like yeah He's very... Yeah. yeah and like that li chain He does not like that sharing nonsense. Yeah, good point. ye yeah None of that.
00:40:04
Speaker
I was looking it up. Bitcoin was invented in 2009, which is our first big cryptocurrency. Which actually does kind of line up perfectly with Worm's that timeline because Worm takes place in like 2011, 2012. When could order with when could you order pizza with Bitcoin. With Bitcoin?
00:40:21
Speaker
yeah was That was the first big sale. I want say 11 and 12. yeah You know what I would say too? You know who would be into it as well? I bet if it did exist would be Tattletail or Regent.
00:40:33
Speaker
Tattletail would be pumping and dumping. Tattletail would be like doing pump and dump schemes. um Regent would just have a bunch of lackeys under his control. just like Just doing it for him. Okay.
00:40:48
Speaker
Tattletail, this is actually a great point. Tattletail the reason that the Watchdog group exists. Because... Who are they again? That's the independent organization making sure that people don't... Not independent, I don't know how to say that. It's the part of the PRT, I believe, that monitors financial and political... The number man was part of it for a while. Oh, Accord was part of it. Accord was part of it for a while, yes. To make sure that parahumans aren't like Messing with the stock market. Yeah, yeah. Otherwise, tattletales on Robin Hood all day. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:41:25
Speaker
ah Just eating Cheetos and running scams. Oh, yeah. Oh, we're going to drop those real quick. I know that's about to oh yeah bite it. Oh, yeah. Gosh. She just like waits then is like,
00:41:36
Speaker
now but You know, I do, as a side note, I do appreciate that Wildbo definitely asked himself the question, if I have this many precogs and tinkers, how has the world economy not collapsed yet? yeah And he's like, okay, I got to address that at some point. Somebody's going ask me. Oh, God. Yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
I like to think there's just one tinker in some corner of the world whose trigger was just like financial security and is just working overtime, making sure the world doesn't fall apart.
00:42:08
Speaker
Just in the back, just stressed out of his mind. It's like the equivalent financial doorbanks. Oh, yeah, no, I guess it is the number man. I guess it is the number man, isn't it? Yeah. We assume that his trigger event involved King, but we also know that Jax doesn't.
00:42:22
Speaker
So, like, maybe his was, he just watched the house and made housing crisis. King threw a bunch of receipts at him and said, balance my checkbook, and he just panicked. Balance, bitch. And he was like...
00:42:35
Speaker
You just couldn't do it. Yeah, balance my checkbook or die. And he's like, oh, God. ah He did his taxes wrong and owed money and triggered. No! It's literally taxing right now. Don't. I like your, it's, it's, uh, the jack slash, uh, triggering, um,
00:42:54
Speaker
Riley all over again. He's like, oh no, I balanced my checkbook. He's like, oh no, I've spent money over here. He has to run over and make sure that there's money in that account to pay for that. Oh no, I've done some online shopping over here. Gotta go over there, cancel those orders. We've got to stay in budget. I didn't tell you about my fourth credit card.
00:43:18
Speaker
but No! ah His credit score's dropping. If that credit score gets below, you know, but gets below a 600, I'll murder everyone in your family.
00:43:34
Speaker
ah Now, excuse me, I've got to go to Kohl's. ah No, not Kohl's. That's they get you. Do you know you can get in-store cards? The Kohl's cards, no.
00:43:47
Speaker
That's how they get you. ah yeah right All right. What else have we got on this list? We got a lot of questions on here.
00:43:57
Speaker
I'll get on here. What are your top three favorite things about Worm?
Favorite Elements of Worm
00:44:03
Speaker
Describe your answers using up to three sentences, but preferably less. Also, are we saying who these questions are from specific patrons? I feel like they should get call out.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's Waldo. Thanks, Waldo. Yeah. Heck yeah. If you were wondering where Waldo was, he's in our Patreon. We found him.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yes. um You know what? i'll I'll do you one better, Waldo. I'm going to give you three words. ah Three favorite things about Worm. Might be a little vague, but here we go. ah Character.
00:44:40
Speaker
Powers.
00:44:44
Speaker
Development. It feels like character. Yeah, character and development. Characters meaning like individual people I find fascinating. Development just means... and Development just means broadly how they change over the course of the story. Fair enough.
00:45:00
Speaker
um it's It's a haiku. Let them figure it out. It's funny. I literally said the... Worm is very good. Yeah. i enjoy the powers. Shit.
00:45:16
Speaker
I couldn't give it to seven. Got it. Yeah. yeah Length.
00:45:24
Speaker
Systems.
00:45:29
Speaker
Gers. Powers. sure Sorry. you said what do you mean by What do you mean by systems? You just mean like the way the world's set up and everything? The the way the world's set up. the The thought put into how everything operates.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. And you know relatively like cohesively. mean, we just talked about How do you keep the world financial situation from collapsing? There's an organization that looks out for that precogs bounce off of each other. So they're like kind of negate each other.
00:45:59
Speaker
Like, and then when you ultimately get to how powers work, period, it's an all explaining system for literally every universe ever.
00:46:12
Speaker
Yeah, we've talked about this before. Yeah, I mean, I would just say world building in general would be on my list. But like, Wildbow does this thing where he takes the easy cop out that everyone reading the story would be like, oh, that's fine. This is a superhero story.
00:46:32
Speaker
They had a power to the did the thing. It's cruel. It's superheroes. And said, no, here's an actual answer. And like gave an actual, well-thought-out, viable solution to a lot of really common tropes and and issues with superhero stories.
00:46:54
Speaker
like yeah It just feels good to read it. it's the It's the perfect explanation between hard fantasy and soft fantasy, right? where heart This is the ultimate of hard fantasy, where it is, no, we've explained the system, and here's how it works.
00:47:07
Speaker
yeah ah Stuff like Mistborn kind of does that too, in a sense, where it's like, here's the system, here's how they work, here's the chemicals and exact measurements you need to make them work. Versus like soft fantasy, like Lord of the Rings or Narnia, where it's just like,
00:47:21
Speaker
magic and Then there was... don't Think about it. The vibes were there. The vibes. Yeah. And so I think, yeah, it's it's a really cool way. And superhero stories tend to be more on the soft side of like,
00:47:35
Speaker
How do you get powers? A nuclear. yeah Spider. Oh, God. It was a spider. Lightning. I'm sure there's probably some Marvel and DC people out there who could tell me more on the specifics about No, no, no. Because I think you're right.
00:47:50
Speaker
No, no. i But it does seem towards. Yeah. um I think that most superhero stories are hard fantasy or sci-fi or whatever you want to call it, because they have an established set of rules and powers and dynamics for their character that they constantly break to the point that it's it's soft fantasy. yeah That's fair. Yeah.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um They make rules and then they decide they don't matter anymore. So then we end up with Wyrm, which is like, no, here are the rules. Here's how it works. Boom. There you go Yeah. i I like... It's cool.
00:48:26
Speaker
I like how it's one of those things where if you could... You feel like if you zoomed in on any part of the story or any character, they have a whole story within themselves. Like, if we were like, you know, you pass this one guy on the street who happened to have... Or, you you know, you interact with some cape who happened to have this power. Like, okay.
00:48:45
Speaker
But if you, like, zoomed in on them... I feel like there's a whole story there in and of itself. Like, um I can't remember who it is who talks about this, but we were talking about like within animation, like animated films or animated shows, how you have like, if you look at the crowd in the background, oftentimes it's like very boring or it's like whatever.
00:49:06
Speaker
But is it Hayao Miyazaki's crowds are just so intricate. Like everyone is doing something so unique to their own little life that they're living. And they're only on screen for like maybe five seconds and then that's it That's how a worm feels to me. Worm feels like you could zoom in on any detail, any building, any city, any cape, any person, and they're living their whole unique life right there.
00:49:31
Speaker
And we're only catching like a sliver glimpse edge of it, which is just like, it makes it makes it feel very vast. Like worm is already long, but the world feels just yeah Yeah. I think that's part of what I mean by characters too, right? Is that I just really like the people in the story, not necessarily how they change or grow, but just that's a cool character.
00:49:54
Speaker
You have them in one scene, right? Like a blast. So is a random character who I'm like, that's a, he's a great, like little side character. He's in one arc, one interlude. And then he just kind of gets zombified by, you know, bone saw, but Hey, it was a cool, it was a cool arc and he felt like a real person, even though that was all we got of him.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah. um yeah so some cool stuff like that for sure I feel like the interludes do a really good job in doing that because you get to see the life of different people and whatever like even the dog like even the dog interlude is so fun and it's like Brutus yeah Brutus yeah Brutus interlude is one of the best ones it's so good it's so good like it feels so lived in and that's that's pretty great oh
00:50:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah you said characters also on top of that, just real quick, Alan, sorry. The character or characters that you just love to hate or hate to love, like it's, you can't help but enjoy the characters, even the ones that you truly despise. Like, I love that. Like, that's great. Like, every we're all drawn in It doesn't matter if they're good characters or bad characters or whatever, like,
00:51:04
Speaker
You can't help but like be invested in them and their story, even if you want them to die a horrible, horrible death. It's great. That's the thing, right? About like good characters that you hate, yeah are they're fun to hate, right? like yeah ah The example everybody goes to is Dolores Umbridge, where it's like, oh, such a great character. I hate her so much.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah. you know yeah sadius from the Stormlight Arcade where like, oh, what a great character. I want to kill him right now. ah He's well-written to the point where you you hate him you're like, yeah, I want to kill that guy.
00:51:39
Speaker
And that's that is how it kind of feels with all the characters here where it's like, you love him, you hate him, you feel whatever about him, but they're all great in their own unique little way.
00:51:50
Speaker
yeah What were you wanting to say before, Alan? ah Michael, did I just cut you off? Nope. You're good. I was just going to move on unless Alan has a link. Nope, same. I was going to move
Character and Arc Analysis
00:52:00
Speaker
on to an adjacent. We have a lot of questions.
00:52:02
Speaker
We do. Which was favorite interlude. From Rachel? That's tough. Favorite interlude. Oh, man. Golly. There's a heckin' lot of interludes, Rachel. There's heckin' a lot of interludes. Can we just also say favorite arc? Let's just lump them both in there. Favorite arc or lu and favorite interlude. Favorite interlude.
00:52:21
Speaker
I feel like my issue here is just going to be I don't remember what's part of one arc versus two arcs or three arcs even. Right. Yeah. Sections. Go off of vibes.
00:52:33
Speaker
Story. i Vibe it out. I think generally
00:52:39
Speaker
one of my favorite parts of the story is probably the Slaughterhouse Nine. i i like a good villain troop. I think that's a fun kind of story trope.
00:52:52
Speaker
And so having... you know You have Leviathan, which is one kind of threat, but then you have the Slaughterhouse Nine, which is a very different kind of threat. And so having that whole story arc, not like literal arc and worm, but the whole story arc of the Slaughterhouse Nine, it's probably one of my favorite parts.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah. Arc-wise, it's hard for me... to pick anything other than 8, the Leviathan fight, just because I'll never forget the first time I read it, being like, oh, this is the type of story we're getting.
00:53:29
Speaker
And then like not being able to put it down for two weeks and just yeah that kind of launching everything. Even though I think when I like think about it, think there's other arcs in terms of the story that I appreciate more.
00:53:42
Speaker
But like just for pure enjoyment, Arc 8 was such a ride. was so good. For sure. i really enjoy it Arc 24 maybe?
00:54:00
Speaker
Sure. um The Taylor turns herself in Arc. Oh, yeah. the Specifically the whole sequence of her ah yeah like under arrest.
00:54:12
Speaker
conversation she has with Clockblocker. The... um The... Yeah, them just... or You know, her killing Alexandria and Tag. Her her lawyer.
00:54:28
Speaker
Like, her and her lawyer. Love her. Mr. Kaye. Yeah. um And then, you know, it ending up with her turning... ah You know, coming... On the good guy side.
00:54:40
Speaker
Like... I loved that ride. i you know, it's, it's who the moment she kills Alexandria and, and tag, I, I was like, Oh Lord. Yeah, that was, that is a good one.
00:54:57
Speaker
Um, I remember, I like kind of vaguely remember having a, like not a hard time breathing, but one of those times where you realize that you're like, breathing really weird. You're just like... Release the breath you didn't realize you were holding, perhaps?
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah. I think generally one thing Wildbo's pretty good at is getting tension going, right? Like with... Like thinking about the three we've mentioned so far, ah we've got the fight with Leviathan, which has a great tension building.
00:55:27
Speaker
Probably, you know, with the end of the Slaughterhouse-Nine arc, that tension building of the pursuit and the school and trying to, you know, the mist and everything was really cool. And then, yeah, her ending killing Alexandria in that arc. All all like that tension building is so good there.
00:55:42
Speaker
That's really, really well written. That's funny. ah what am i I think probably one of my favorite arcs or series of chapters that go together is actually one where the tension is the lowest.
00:55:53
Speaker
I love any time, like what it's specifically ah with the Undersiders or the beginning with the Wards where it's like, you're getting into the groove of just like living life with your team.
00:56:03
Speaker
Like, like when understatters are like, they're all in in their places and Taylor is like setting up her lair and getting her underlings all figured out. Like, I love that kind of day to day aspect of villainy.
00:56:16
Speaker
And then when she's with the wards, um, like I, loved I loved, I love them like going to be on TV and like kind of the awkwardness of like, Oh my gosh, these people were not made for TV. Like,
00:56:27
Speaker
They're trying to save people. Don't put them on a talk show. Like all of this kind of like, okay, well, you're, you're, you're hero or you're a villain. Now what? Like, I love that those, those like little sections and, and arcs and chapters were always like such a good, like downtime but between all of those crazy high tension that I just, I really, really enjoyed. Very nice. Favorite interludes for you guys.
00:56:53
Speaker
Any particular standout ones? It's always between the dog interlude with Brutus. Oh yeah. so I think it's just a great example of how, despite like all of the other very human, but like different, how different each interlude is in its point of view that he can even do in human.
00:57:15
Speaker
And it just, it's a tap. It's one of the things I always brag about is like, he has a dog chapter early on and it, and it absolutely slays. Yeah. um My other one that I always go to, though, is the Assault and Battery app interlude. Oh my gosh. yeah think I always think it's super cute. Yeah.
00:57:35
Speaker
yeah I, kind of keeping with what I said before, i really like the Theo and Jack interlude. First time Theo meets Jack Slash. That's a good one, is Speaking of like good tension scenes, like that's such a good example of...
00:57:53
Speaker
that tension where he's literally on the edge of a knife like yeah we might watch this young kid and his little baby sister die. ah And it also ends up paying off a lot later, right, with Theo and Aster and everything, of course, with the Slaughterhouse Nine and Jack later, but ah even just on its own, that scene I think is just so illustrative of Wild Bo's ability to build tension, maintain tension, which can be hard and then of give you that sigh of relief at the end with still keeping it in the back of your mind when Jack's like, all right, I'll give you some time to figure yourself out, and I'll come back for you. you know
00:58:35
Speaker
it's It's really, really cool.
00:58:39
Speaker
It was a baller. I got to give a shout Chevalier's Interlude. It's a good one. It's a good one. I i love it. i think I love the little flashbacks that we get to like early days of the Protectorate, and and his whole battle through like his perseverance and then fighting Behemoth and the sort of just like sheer desperation that they have is ah a lot of fun.
00:59:10
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I do want to give a quick shout out to Coil and Piggott as well. Yes. Literally just thinking that. Getting to see Coil's perspective, the two you know two universes collapsing the when he doesn't want.
00:59:22
Speaker
wow Super cool way to illustrate his power. And I think it's really the only way to illustrate his power is just it like making him the focal point character, which was great. And then Piggott's origin story getting attacked by Milbog and all of that.
00:59:37
Speaker
ah yeah super yeah I love having, you know obviously we have the perspective most of the time of a powered individual. So having the perspective from an unpowered individual is was really cool.
00:59:51
Speaker
yeah In the same vein, the Travelers interludes ah before they power up was like really cool seeing them yeah in during an Endbringer fight just as regular humans. love those.
01:00:04
Speaker
It's an arc, isn't it? It's not interlude. It's an interlude arc. That such inner moodar good arc. Yeah. Yeah. yeah No, i I absolutely agree. those That arc with the Travelers is so fun. And i'm like i'm i I have a you know personal hard-on for the Simmer for myself.
01:00:22
Speaker
But like I just i i love her and how she just kind of like takes over a city and destroys it. And they're all just trying to figure shit out and like the group dynamics of them. and like ah Yeah, no, huge fan.
01:00:35
Speaker
Huge fan. Nice. Good stuff. Good question. Okay, I have another one. Oh, go ahead.
01:00:46
Speaker
No, go ahead, Michael, please.
01:00:50
Speaker
um Just a very interesting one, another one from Rachel. um The PRT operates in the 65 biggest cities in the US, which I've looked up for everyone, which those are.
01:01:03
Speaker
um The question is, which city, besides the ones we already know about in the story, would you want to know more about? like what are you What do you imagine is happening there? The lore, etc.
01:01:16
Speaker
We don't really have yeah but Yeah, it's pretty open-ended, and I have a list of the 65, so I'll tell you if it counts. I'm pulling them up now. I looked at some earlier also because I was curious.
01:01:29
Speaker
um i Looking at this, one of the ones that stood out to me just out of curiosity is ah Phoenix, Arizona. What are them desert capes up to?
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah. you know probably I was to say probably some pretty evil scorpion themed villains out there. Right. Some scorpion themed villains. I'm imagining, listen, I'm imagining like sand benders. Like ah that was a thing in Avatar as well. Sand bending. Yeah. um As a form of earth bending. Right. Brutal.
01:02:00
Speaker
I think at some point there is sand glass. Shatterbird basically does that. yeah With the glass and the small part. o last I've got to ask though. I've got to ask.
01:02:12
Speaker
Because out in Arizona, you know that there's a cape named Tumbleweed. What is their power? ah Oh gosh. You know what i want them to be? Here's what I think they should be.
01:02:23
Speaker
Tumbleweed would be a cape who basically turns into Katamari Damashi. if you know the video game, which is basically they turn into a ball.
01:02:34
Speaker
ah In the game, you are rolling a ball that sticks to things, and you're trying to make the ball bigger by rolling up more and more stuff. That's like one of those weird mobile game things. yeah is It's is's older than that, but yeah, it's a great game.
01:02:47
Speaker
but um But the whole idea, right, is you're like, basically he's a guy who like rolls around. He collects energy, but he collects like debris and people and anything he runs into. So he's just like a rolling ball rolling down the road. That's perfect. Collecting bits of things. i think That's perfect. If I was going with an actual tumbleweed, like closer to what a tumbleweed does, i would think that he has enough a power kind of like spree where He just can start. ro You know what? We'll even add the rolling feature. Like he can start rolling.
01:03:24
Speaker
and as he does, like just a bazillion more of him appear and just crowds in area. Like they're really light. They're really easy to like push out of the way, but there's so many of them.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:42
Speaker
I'm looking at this list of of cities. You said operates in the top 65. Speaking of big cities, though, we don't hear much about in Worm proper. Atlanta is a pretty major city. I was about to say Atlanta. It's 37 in terms of population, but socially, it's a bit bigger than that.
01:04:01
Speaker
yeah Also, Atlanta is probably one of the bigger cities on that list that's closest to me. ah so like I, I would love to know ah Atlanta's. Yeah. Like just to kind of see what's going, what's, what's up with the the Southerners? what what they have to I mean, we get a peek of them, right? We get some Texas words and they're all like, Texas is its own space.
01:04:32
Speaker
Atlanta is a bit different, right? Oh yeah. different Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, alongside the like near Texas side, because we've seen Texas teams, uh, I would actually go Wichita, Kansas.
01:04:43
Speaker
yeah Any of those like Midwestern states. Yeah. Like what are they doing out there? Wichita, Kansas. Number 51 in terms of population. Okay. Wichita, Kansas.
01:04:55
Speaker
I think that would be an interesting one because you've got a lot of the cowboy stuff going on out in Kansas and also a lot of room to do a lot of destruction. Plus, Kansas gets hit with like A ton of different natural disasters as well. I was about to say, would be like the natural disaster. true And they get a lot of, like, rescue. A lot of trains are a big thing out there. So maybe some train-themed powers. There you go. Who's the train, the ghost train conductor from Rick and Morty, right? I think it's ghost train. Isn't it ghost train? It's just ghost train.
01:05:35
Speaker
And then my second one would be at 55 Honolulu because why not go? That's what was going to say. Is there any in Alaska?
01:05:46
Speaker
Is Alaska on there at all? hah I imagine the entire population of Alaska would not make it into the top 65 populated states. so But you know that there are some tapes out there. there's Here's what it is, right?
01:06:00
Speaker
It's this, ah it's going to be the single native Inuit chief who just protects all of Alaska. I love it. I love it.
01:06:13
Speaker
Gosh, now that, I'd read a whole book on that. I have to say, looking at this list, assuming it's correct, if they're in the 65 largest cities, 66 is Newark, so get fucked, New Jersey.
01:06:25
Speaker
Uh... No case for you.
01:06:30
Speaker
ah No from the PRT. I just imagine the PRT is like, do we need one in Jersey? They're like, no, we got one in New York. It's right there. It's basically the same place, right? there is right yeah yeah um I would love to see now but for this to work in my mind, the entire story of of worm has to take place in the 1920s.
01:06:53
Speaker
But if that were to happen, then New Orleans would be ah really cool Cape City. 1920s New Orleans. yeah Prohibition New Orleans.
01:07:04
Speaker
Gosh. Ah, come here, see? I see you've got some of that alcohol on you, see? but Don't you know you're in other side of territory, old sport? yeah Old sport?
01:07:16
Speaker
Now coil me, old boy. Don't think you can go splitting worlds on me again. my god. Coil me, old boy, is what I say to my... know I mean, when it's deflated, you gotta do something with it.
01:07:31
Speaker
Stop! Stop!
01:07:35
Speaker
Miami would be hilarious too. Miami would be Miami would be like the Las Vegas capes except there's nothing subtle about them. It's just ripping cocaine and and wearing sunglasses. so if Miami would definitely have a villain called Florida Man, right?
01:07:51
Speaker
And Florida Man's ability is like a duplicator ah so but he can like duplicate himself anywhere within like a 500 mile radius so he's all over Florida.
01:08:02
Speaker
You know?
01:08:05
Speaker
and like So all the articles about Fordham. It's just guy. It's an One Lee situation where every time he does it, he gets a little bit stupider. yeah ah just had the thought because, okay, Messi plays in Miami, right?
01:08:24
Speaker
For the soccer Miami, you know, whatever, professional team there. yeah Is there a different league in soccer for para-humans? No.
01:08:35
Speaker
I don't think you're allowed to play. Oh my gosh. oh What's the... what's like shall I'm imagining like shallin stripe like Shaolin soccer. like There's a movie like that, right?
01:08:45
Speaker
Shaolin soccer. That'd be great. There's got to be a parahuman sports league. There's got to be an Olympics. The Paralympics.
01:08:56
Speaker
The Paralympics.
01:09:03
Speaker
They come in afterwards. There's got to be a parahuman sport. like Maybe it's made just for them, right? like it yeah yeah It's like a super aggressive version of rugby or something. I think it's just called crime fighting.
01:09:17
Speaker
It's any Endbringer fight. There's a series that I read the manga for briefly called Tiger and Bunny. you know that is there's a ah so there's a series that i read the manga for briefly called tiger and bunny um And part of the premise of that is like you're a superhero, but it's like you're a professional athlete, right? you have You're trying to get sponsors and you're trying to be like you get points in the game system if you're the one who catches the villain or if you assist or rescue people on the side, right?
01:09:48
Speaker
So you're like there's different tiers of heroes. Some of them are just supports and they're like, I'm just here to rescue people who happen to get in the way and I'll get my points that way. But the whole premise right is like you wear suits and you have like sponsorships on your body, like NASCAR and stuff.
01:10:02
Speaker
So I imagine there's got to be a city that's monetized the PRT like that, right? Yeah. Where like Uber and Elite live streaming, except they're rescuing people instead of you know robbing right gas stations.
01:10:14
Speaker
um And so know it's like, hey, this crime stopping sponsored by Raycon. Yeah. Yeah. yeah got The only way I was able to catch up with you is because of these vessies I was wearing.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah. All right.
01:10:31
Speaker
Any question though? Very fun. Yeah. Fun question. Hannah, do you have a question? Oh, I was just going to ask. and yeah i was going to ask. um Hold on. I had it right here.
01:10:42
Speaker
um Oh, ah which... ah This was a Rachel question again from um Rachel.
Superpower Discussions and Comparisons
01:10:49
Speaker
ah Out of all the powers in Wyrm, which would you like to have for your... Are we excluding the god powers?
01:10:57
Speaker
No Eidolon? like Sure, whatever. I mean, a golden path. Path to victory. Yeah, do we want to... yeah I was going to say, like do we want to exclude like Scion, Eidolon... None of the obvious choices. my like My twist on Rachel's question is more of like, okay, so when when you know you sit around with your friends as you do and you're like, oh, if you're superpower, what would be? And then what would you say? And then which one of those closest matches to so a cape with an worm?
01:11:25
Speaker
Because my favorite, I don't feel like I've found... i I actually might need help. What would you want, Hannah? So my power that I would love to have is... Tell us your deepest desires. I want wings.
01:11:39
Speaker
Like big, feathery, black angel wings. You know? So I want to fly, but I want to have to work for it. You know? I want to have to flap for it, basically.
01:11:50
Speaker
Is there a winged, feathered, winged person? I mean, the closest analog would be the Simmer, I think, right? Yeah. well She doesn't use her wings to fly Technically she doesn't Canary has wings Canary has feathers She sings, she doesn't fly I do want to imagine The Simmer flying It's like a still image JPEG Being dragged across the screen That's part of why it's so disturbing You're just like, no, no
01:12:21
Speaker
like when you take the image and you make it bigger and it's like her just coming closer to you. just Well, she does kind of like flippy flap her wings a little bit. She does. but not They're not actually.
01:12:32
Speaker
They're decadent. More as an attack. More as an attack than like functionally flying. I don't think there's a winged. I'm trying to think. I mean, and There's like 200 capes, but I don't think any of them. I feel like if there were, it would be a cauldron cape because it's like such a huge, it's such a like an yeah actual deformity. Not, i don't say deformity, but like it is your body is now has these giant dish and wings attached to it.
01:12:55
Speaker
You have an addition to yourself. The only people that even have non ah like, like wings on things, I believe is dragons max.
01:13:07
Speaker
And yeah, um, ah the glass person, Shatterbird, with her glass wings. Yeah, Shatterbird has glass wings. That's it. Does Lung grow kind Lung grows wings. so Oh, he does. That's true. He grows wings eventually. You're right. yeah right That's true. Marquis has bony wings as well that he can fly with. Which was really weird. Yeah, that was a little whatever.
01:13:35
Speaker
Filigree wings, I guess you might call them. Yeah. um um yeah Yeah, I don't know. You want to just be Angel from the X-Men. yeah yeah That's correct. That is true. and That is what I Hollow bird bones.
01:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. So there's always two ways to answer this question, which is, if you're in Wyrm, whose power would you want? And if you're living your regular life, and you just get a power...
01:14:00
Speaker
Which power do you want? Those are very different answers. true Yeah, absolutely. i think I think if I'm living in Wyrm and I would get a power, I would still want something not too attention-grabbing, maybe.
01:14:15
Speaker
Like, honestly, one um one um whenever that question comes up, like, what superpower would you have? One that comes up for me is teleportation. And I think the closest analog we have to that is probably Trickster. o But genuinely, think the one of the best like underrated powers is probably coils.
01:14:31
Speaker
I've said it a lot. If I could have a worm power, coils power is probably the one I'd pick. yeah so Just because the the idea of... like Even just a simple example, right? like Let's say tonight, ah you know we're recording the podcast, but i'm maybe I'm not feeling it that much. I can be like, you know what?
01:14:48
Speaker
One universe, I'll record the podcast and that'll be the one I save. In the other other universe, I'm going to tell them I'm sick and I'm just going to dick around for three hours. Nobody needs to know. yeah you know but it's just It's just great have your cake and eat it too power. like In Wyrm and Out of Wyrm, I wouldn't use it for fighting crime or doing crime. I would literally just use it to like watch two TV shows at the same time. Man, dang.
01:15:14
Speaker
like man like dang you know i just it's such a such a cool power. i think that'd be That is almost always my pick such a good one. yeah Otherwise, Tricksters does sound... no Actually, otherwise, I'd say probably Tricksters for fun, just because it sounds fun, or Tattletales.
01:15:34
Speaker
like Again, another power that's like... Tattletales, super practical. Do you want to know a little too much? It could be very useful. you know In the same vein, I love Othello's power.
01:15:45
Speaker
It's so simple. like was Super practical. And just sort of having like just a shadow self to... yeah he's got ah He's got a shadow version of himself that can walk around and interact with things.
01:15:57
Speaker
And then he can swap places with it. So it's like not really teleportation. but It's like the ah the invisible butler spell in D&D. Yeah, literally. that yeah yeah Unseen servant, I think. seen yeah yeah servant yeah but And then being able to switch places with your unseen servant.
01:16:14
Speaker
ah yeah I think that would be a fun thing to do at some point, is trying to figure out how many of Wild Bow's superpowers are actually just analogs for D&D spells. Yeah. Probably more than we think. all of it, actually. It's just all of them? Art gets art. Yeah. Love it.
01:16:33
Speaker
um From a child bouncing around on a trampoline, my favorite power that I used to play in Champions was a character named Conduit. And the whole thing was just energy transference.
01:16:46
Speaker
Which, we have that in Wyrm. It's Madcap. Oh, yeah. You can literally hit him and he can just transfer it into the concrete. Like, as long as he's touching something.
01:17:00
Speaker
Battery? Assault. yeah Assault. that's assault. Yeah. no it's It becomes assault. Yeah. Yeah. um yeah yeah But yeah, you can you can be put energy into him. So, like, the idea of, like, you shoot a bullet at him. Like, if he's touching something, he can just transfer the energy of, like, the bullet hitting him into something.
01:17:15
Speaker
Or keep it temporarily stored just a little bit in order to, like, boost himself. Hence, like, punching him and then he can like kick off a wall and jump super high. Right. Because he can take that stored energy and put it into stuff.
01:17:28
Speaker
Is that like when you double bounce people on the trampoline? Is that yeah where that's coming from? Exactly. yeah Yeah. you see You see the line of thinking. I got such terrible whiplash from people who used to do that.
01:17:40
Speaker
I hated people like you on the trampoline. and Well, we were going for it. um Yeah.
01:17:49
Speaker
trying The other one, when I grew older, was just like, yeah, I just wanted to know the best thing to do, obviously. Like, i don't want it to be flashy. I just want to know what the correct answer is, like, in a situation.
01:18:02
Speaker
And it's like, oh, yeah, you know, because it's what King Solomon asked for. Oh, my gosh. For wisdom? Oh, my gosh. He didn't ask enough.
01:18:14
Speaker
He didn't get enough wisdom. Yeah, he didn't get enough wisdom. And I was just like, more wisdom, please. Yeah. Chump just didn't have the right wisdom. And that really was like, I'd be sitting there like, I want the superpower. That's like, what is it when you do the, like, you know what to do, like the exact right thing to do in a situation. I was like, wisdom. That's what it is. Yeah.
01:18:34
Speaker
I just, yeah. So Contessa. Yeah. but tessa Yeah. ah Yeah. yeah yeah Also, Hannah, don't want to miss it. I did understand that reference. Thank you. Thank you.
01:18:46
Speaker
that's I would probably say the number man just so I can be rich all the time. That would be really nice. Also not a bad option. You guys can all be rich with me. It'll be fun. This is when we get the giant mansion together, right? Yeah. All living in the mansion.
01:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. And also, like being rich was like what he did when he was bored. But the dude was also one of the strongest fighters in the world. So like pretty good path.
01:19:12
Speaker
That's a good one. sure we yeah He does base um the being rich so that he has money to play around with yeah the same way other people get a gym in their home. right Yeah, that'd be sweet. I think and think the question, the more meta question would be, wait, Jacob, did you choose a power? I'm sorry. I don't know if I...
01:19:34
Speaker
i I like Othello's power. I like legitimately. said a or i Or a heartbreaker, I'll be honest. So easy. That's a spooky. but yeah Well, actually, that's perfect, though because what I was going to ask is, what are the odds that having the power we chose turns us into an asshole?
01:19:56
Speaker
Because I feel like there are some powers, like coils, I'll say, or like heartbreaker, where it's like you start to realize i can kind of do whatever I want without consequences. yeah yeah And at what point does that just turn you into a terrible person? yeah Mine's just flying. I would...
01:20:17
Speaker
Hannah, you're fine. Okay. You're flying up in love with the birds. You're like, man, I could shit on that dude's car. I wouldn't even know. That's not what I would want.
01:20:29
Speaker
You see a cyber truck, you're like, oh, yeah. The sky shitter strikes Brockton Bay again. Just straight pull trowel. Let's go. the sky. just like ah I have shotgunned some Taco Bell burritos. I'm locked and loaded.
01:20:46
Speaker
no we'll go and step down. Del Taco. Del Taco. Imagining some local... got some burgers from Del Taco. That is dangerous. Like local TV news journalists trying to make it big. Trying to solve the mystery of the like ah birds with human shits. Just like...
01:21:07
Speaker
because That's the other thing. It's like, they'll never find out. They'll just think it was a big bird. And it's just like a white blurred splatter. And it's just a big brown.
01:21:19
Speaker
Oh, okay. I actually know how I could use my powers for semi-evil. I would just find out who the biggest ah fans of Mothman were and try and do like sightings.
01:21:34
Speaker
and like and convince them Mothman is real absolutely come up become then would you want butterfly wings instead of ah um that of angel wings oh no okay no no because it doesn't matter what you see your brain is going to assume that it's what you think it is anyways and that being said I have seen the Mothman but we can move on yeah i say i too he's a um character alllan and I both late one night on a very quiet road in west virginia was terrifying nice Right before we found out what the Mothman was too. We didn't know who the Mothman was at the time. that's We had that and then like 30 minutes later saw like Mothman Museum.
01:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, and we were like, what? To hear the full full story. Yeah, full
Worm's Character Dynamics
01:22:16
Speaker
story on Patreon. There you go. All right. Another question. Let's remember to actually do that, by the way.
01:22:23
Speaker
is yeah just promised. ah No, I'll remember because I want to tell that story. Okay. Write it down. i've got I've got a question if we want to. Yeah. yeah I want to yeah go give Tree their question.
01:22:34
Speaker
Yes. What would you want to see more of? Interaction, backstories, power exploration. And in parentheses, they added, I would have liked more downtime of characters just hanging out like a certain Arkham Ward.
01:22:45
Speaker
I haven't read Wards, so I'm not going to comment on that. But I do think for me personally, the thing that I feel like was that missing the most was the time skip. Taylor's time with the Wards.
01:22:57
Speaker
yeah I just need more of them hanging out and getting to know each other. Absolutely. I feel like there's some great characters in there there that we just don't get to see enough of. And and I think that's something... like To me, it felt like Wild Bo had a point A and a point C.
01:23:14
Speaker
And he just wanted to get through point B as quickly as possible. Like he had to do it for plot reasons, but just get through it as quick as possible. Hit the highlights, move on. So I think something like that, a bit more of that. I like the words too. I mean, Theo's great. um Who else? ah Tecton is great. um You know, those characters. do love them.
01:23:34
Speaker
Vista? Yeah. Well, Vista's not with them, but like Grace and whoever's with those Chicago wards. I'm just thinking wards in general.
International Aspects and Author Speculations
01:23:42
Speaker
I would have... Wards in general, yeah. The words in general were great.
01:23:45
Speaker
You know, solving the mystery of the Slaughterhouse Nine when they first rolled into town. They were like, hey, ah we saw these bodies. And immediately, Victoria wasn't there, but she was hanging out with them. Like, Slaughterhouse Nine.
01:23:57
Speaker
Like seeing them do that, seeing them hang out, you know, one of them was coming out of the shower like, whoa, what's going on? Just got done with the workout. You ready to go on patrol? Yada, yada. Yeah. Love all that. Them going to class.
01:24:09
Speaker
Oh my God. That was fun. talking after class. Love that. Love them being in therapy with the best character, Jessica Yamada. Yeah. More therapy. Fugly, fugly bobs.
01:24:21
Speaker
Fugly bobs. You know? Oh, yeah. but Yeah. And by the way, Ward, we're excited because, you know, that's, that's, that's yeah yeah, all the things yeah I love.
01:24:36
Speaker
I think that's the biggest thing. Really, I feel like everything else was explained very well in universe and we had yeah pretty much enough of. um I can't, I can't think of anything else that I felt was missing except for that.
01:24:51
Speaker
that did It almost feels like part of the story got deleted. on accident. Like someone, some dog stepped on the keyboard and was like, well... yeah In that vein, I would have liked to have seen more of just some of the stuff that we know happened, but we didn't we weren't told really about it because it's Taylor's POV and she just wasn't looking at it.
01:25:10
Speaker
um So like ah ah Defiant and Dragon hunting down the Slaughterhouse Nine. like yeah they They kill Siberian off page.
01:25:21
Speaker
I've got to imagine that was a cool fight. I would have loved to have seen that. you know Maybe. They might have just airstruck. They might have sent in a drone strike to hit Manton. Maybe it just wasn't that interesting.
01:25:33
Speaker
Maybe they just caught ah Manton walking out of Fugly Bob's. They got Coil Sniper on the job and he took care of it. More of Coil Sniper, please. More of Coil Sniper. More Coil Sniper. More of Coil Sniper.
01:25:47
Speaker
Speaking of which, too, I do feel like generally, obviously, the story is very America-centric because of the location of all of the main characters. But the few capes that we do meet from other countries are super interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The...
01:26:01
Speaker
e ah The capes in India. I can't remember their names. um And then Mordnag and Ash Beast. yeah There are some super interesting capes in other parts of the world. Heck yeah. um And we don't get to see enough of them, I feel like. And that's fair. like The story is American-centric. It's an American... I assume American author. Maybe he's Canadian. I can't remember.
01:26:22
Speaker
assumed he was American. For some reason, Canada came to mind. No, I think he's Canadian. John, are you Canadian? Let us know. Maybe. Feels Canadian.
01:26:33
Speaker
The way he says Mark T. You feel Canadian. Either way, just definitely more worldwide interactions. I did enjoy those a lot. um But that feels more like a spinoff story, which yeah you know maybe which I can only imagine not being from there would make it difficult to really make it feel as deep and real as Worm did.
01:26:55
Speaker
so Or at least from ah from a similar culture and place. Yeah. But yeah, that'd be cool. yeah Maybe there's some good fan fiction out there. Oh, I'm sure there are probably, yeah. Foreign fans of Worms, so I'd be interested in reading that. Please make your recommendations in the comments below. Can you imagine how cool the heroes from Australia would be and the villains?
01:27:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah like yeah. People are constantly triggering you know because of and the everything trying to kill them. All the everything.
01:27:25
Speaker
They trigger in the womb there in Australia. I think I'm pre-triggered. pre-t triggerggered got to come out fighting. Yeah, actually send them there triggered because, you know.
01:27:34
Speaker
um it wasn't ah Correct me if I'm wrong, if my knowledge of Australia's history is faulty, but wasn't it a prison? is like That's how Australia started. There were other people who lived there too, but also that.
01:27:51
Speaker
Look, the British make choices. That's why the the colony part of that penal colony. in Wyrm, it's the same. so in worm It's they were just it's the same it's just a prison for capes It's what Australia became. It's it's basically the birdcage.
01:28:07
Speaker
It's the birdcage. to leave the venomous the venomous bird in the air is going to get you. you know You try to swim. The the poisonous sharks will eat you. yeah you know There's no escape. Maybe that's where the birdcage is. You know the big rock in the middle of Australia? Oh my gosh.
01:28:25
Speaker
Some conspiracy theorists have theorized it's actually a tree trunk fossilized. A giant tree trunk. Wait, really? Apparently. yes so I heard that one time and I was like, it kind of looks like it. I can see where they're coming from. You got to look at it.
01:28:40
Speaker
the The idea, anyway, this is a really big side tangent, but the idea is like, um anytime you see any of those structures that are like, slightly raised, flat, it's like, there's a theory, there's like it's called like the giant tree theory that at one time, Earth was covered in massive trees that all, you know, got cut down. or It's called Eluru, or Ayer's Rock.
01:29:02
Speaker
Eluru. Yeah. It's really like a fair bit of trees that harden trees. a significant amount when they petrify. um So, yeah you know.
01:29:16
Speaker
Anyways. um never know That was really random. He is Canadian, by the way. know He is Canadian. armed canadian okay we Always new. It's the way he wrote about Chicago. alllan That's very telling.
01:29:30
Speaker
but
01:29:32
Speaker
Having never been to Chicago, I have no legs to stand on.
Character Highlights and Preferences
01:29:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Michael, you were saying something about a bricky brick? Yeah. Yeah, if we're done. If we're good. Yeah.
01:29:43
Speaker
Beyond that question.
01:29:49
Speaker
All right. A quick lightning round for us. What was your favorite Slaughterhouse Nine member? Bonesaw.
01:30:01
Speaker
Oof. Shhh. ah How many bonus calls? um miss I'll say Jack, but between those two. Great boy. i and I really kind of like Shatterbird.
01:30:14
Speaker
Yeah. Conceptually, Crawler, I think. Yeah. Crawler is a good one. Just the idea of being unkillable, wanting to see what can finally do you in.
01:30:26
Speaker
Just looking up towards the sky as the bomb comes down. As the bombs come down. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My answer is Alan. alllan Wow. Isn't that his real name? Mannequin. Mannequin's real name? yeah i love Mannequin.
01:30:41
Speaker
I love the bio. Yeah. Mannequin. I think I forgot about Mannequin. They even talk about Crawler when he's in human form from the clones and his name's something stupid like Edgar or something. Yeah. Yeah, he's got.
01:30:53
Speaker
I'll look it up. I apologize to all our Edgars out there. I was just kidding. Edgar and Alan are very. was just thinking about Edgar Allan Poe. i Thank you.
01:31:04
Speaker
most underrated character in your opinion? Oh my gosh. answer ned The is Genesis, by the way. genesis ah genesis ah Genesis is so cool.
01:31:18
Speaker
Crawler's real name is Ned. Ned. Ned. Underrated is hard. I...
01:31:27
Speaker
yeah and unrated as hard
01:31:32
Speaker
i Oh, that is hard. I feel like we get so much time with a lot of people. Maybe Canary. I do like Canary a lot. I was thinking Canary, yeah. Canary is very, very powerful.
01:31:46
Speaker
For some reason, Aegis comes to mind.
01:31:53
Speaker
That's a good one. yeah like I would say just... Well, we will get to that in second. ah But Canary is the straight man in ah the my favorite Thundergun episode of Always Sunny.
01:32:09
Speaker
um Just... Fuck, guys! Come on! You're gonna murder someone? Yeah. yeah yeah um I also really like Forrest.
01:32:21
Speaker
The non non-powered dad. Yeah. Forrest is a great character. Camp counselor uncle. yeah Charlotte, yeah. Charlotte, Forrest, Sierra. Just those three. All the all the all of Skitter's underlings.
01:32:36
Speaker
Yeah. yeah and I know Jake's favorite, though. Skidmark. Hey, Skidmark. Underrated.
01:32:46
Speaker
great guy. Big Oh, I got it. fan um man oh i got it the dryer at their house.
01:33:01
Speaker
I'm heating up the blankets. Oh, the warm blankets. Yep. Yep. Okay. Real answer. I didn't know where you were going with that, to be honest. i was like, yep. That was great.
01:33:13
Speaker
I loved it. Yeah. Look, made sense in my head. That's all that matters. Okay. oh big yeah You know, fair enough. Favorite. ah This is antagonist.
01:33:24
Speaker
Oh, antagonist.
01:33:28
Speaker
Coil. Yeah, Coil and Lung are the two good answers. For sure. i want more Lung. Yeah, Lung. More Lung would be great. Yeah, Lung.
01:33:40
Speaker
um yeah huh yeah Honestly, it's Lung or Bonesaw. you know More Lung. yeah Do you know Amy's favorite antagonist is herself?
01:33:52
Speaker
Yes. Oh, maybe more... awesome um what's her dad's name? Oh my gosh. Marquis? Marquis. Yeah, more Marquis.
01:34:02
Speaker
Marquis is... More Marquis at work. Not his smart politicking, but like him doing stuff, power stuff.
01:34:15
Speaker
one more Well, that's what I'm saying. Antagonist, he's like in the Glastig case where they're like, Not quite an antagonist. Not quite. They were villains. They just. Yeah. It counts.
01:34:27
Speaker
I think it counts. Yeah. He was the birth cage. Okay. I thought was our antagonist. Kayla is a villain and is our protagonist. Like. Yeah. We got to go with the literary definition here. of I'm going the literary definition. like Like, like most of the heroes are the antagonists.
01:34:44
Speaker
I was going to say, to be fair, to be fair, arms master before he becomes defiant is a great antagonist. And defiant sometimes too. And defiant. it yeah Yeah. Yeah. But for me, it's still coil. I just think the cool, calm, collected, I always know what I'm doing and I'm going to make it work. Villain is just a great trope and he plays it really well.
01:35:04
Speaker
Yeah. Also, back up to the Slaughterhouse Nine. How did I forget about Siberian? It's Siberian.
01:35:13
Speaker
Okay, yeah. It's a fun fun villain with a good mystery. Anyway. on that one The mystery. yeah yeah ah Favorite character arc?
01:35:27
Speaker
I think the there's two that I would say are probably my favorites. One is Theo. I think as a side character arc, his arc going from that interlude with Jack, which is one of my favorites too.
01:35:43
Speaker
becoming who he becomes, right? Which is sort of a, he's the reverse of Taylor where he, he's willing to do what it takes, but he's not going to feel good about it. Whereas Taylor, not that she feels good about it, but in the sense of, doesn't feel bad. Well, in the sense of like, he feels bad about it. So maybe he won't be willing to do what it takes, right? He's still, he hasn't totally lost his humanity to the, whatever it takes mindset that Taylor have yeah has. And I like that foil to her.
01:36:06
Speaker
um I also really like their name. Oh, Imp.
01:36:14
Speaker
Oh my gosh. and a yeah That's a good one. Imp is a winner. i mean Winner winner chicken dinner. Like when you first meet Aisha. Uh-huh. And we talked about like some of the weird weirdness problematic stuff with that. But just like we're like I don't like this character. Like.
01:36:31
Speaker
to becoming the character we know as Imp at the very end, who we all love. It's like yeah it's a great great redemption, so to speak, of a side character that could have been easily just a side character and dismissed, right?
01:36:45
Speaker
Right. yeah That's good. Yeah, i think outside of Taylor, which is the obvious choice for character arcs, but ah ah Rachel's arc is fantastic. Oh, Rachel. Yeah.
01:37:01
Speaker
or Her, it's such a simple but very visual change that she has between beginning and end. um And it's just just great. It works so well. She becomes trusting and her her transition from rejecting everybody to like being very loyal and caring for her friends is it's great.
01:37:25
Speaker
Yeah. yeah That's true. She has a great arc.
01:37:31
Speaker
Go
01:37:35
Speaker
go for it. ah The Samar. from From hero. I mean, from from villain. Just wiping out towns and everyone gets really paranoid to being like there at the end of the world at Gold Morning.
01:37:52
Speaker
Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Nice. Look how far she came. Yeah. Yeah. Imp would probably be my my real enemy. Gosh, I love her so much.
01:38:06
Speaker
Cody. Really, it's between Emperor and Rachel. Cody? yeah Yeah. If not Taylor, then Emperor Rachel probably are the best ones. yeah Yeah.
01:38:20
Speaker
um I'm surprised I didn't hear any love for Dragon Defiant. I love their character arcs. I love their character arcs. Just not top. Yeah, just not top, but I do really want to ask. And they have to go together, too.
01:38:33
Speaker
Yeah, they're they're definitely... If we're putting like character arcs right, like S tier would be, of course, Taylor, then Imp, and Rachel. a would like High A tier would be Golem, Defiant Dragon.
01:38:45
Speaker
um Even I would put like Legend and Eidolon up there, maybe. um as like some really interesting arcs just in terms of especially Eidolon being the you know the constantly struggling hero finally cracking it and then failing at the end.
01:39:00
Speaker
yeah I also think a lot of those like Defiant and the Amy, a lot of their arcs are very dependent on Taylor. They play off of her arc, whereas which is fine. that's It's great. It's fantastic. But I think Imp and Rachel, they're their own characters in the story. They really feel like They're having their own arcs, their own stories.
Character Evolution and Emotional Impact
01:39:22
Speaker
yeah um As we wrap up and do a few of our last questions, actually have we've talked about our underrated characters. What's just your favorite character? Chevalier.
01:39:35
Speaker
Chevalier is a good one. you see
01:39:39
Speaker
No, actually, it's Armsmaster Defiant for me. Just in general, my favorite character. Dang.
01:39:49
Speaker
Not Saint, Jacob? Listen, Saint probably looks pretty cool. He probably has a cool haircut. And ah probably want to take fashion advice from him.
01:40:01
Speaker
Listen, don't interrupt my cannon.
01:40:08
Speaker
In my head, he's got a really cool haircut. He's got some cool glasses. Yeah. He's got a cool aesthetic. Nice. I imagine he has like thunderbolts shaved into the side of his head.
01:40:19
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. His name's Saint, right? He's got side like sideways crosses that swoosh into the back. Oh my gosh. You know he does. That's rough. you know you know it's ah It's definitely a goatee in the shape of a cross. like comes um yeah yeah ah Fantastic.
01:40:41
Speaker
um I don't know that I could pick yeah pick a favorite character. Sheesh.
01:40:50
Speaker
It might still be long for me. Yeah. Looks pretty good. That's a good character. so cool He's very cool. Also triggered in a pile of cocaine. Like, come on. Yeah. I mean, from this origin to like him fighting like the Endbringer. Just crushing it all the way through. Yeah. It's great.
01:41:09
Speaker
He's freaking awesome. Triggered in a pile of cocaine and been riding that high ever since. He's never come down. He just wants to eat food and... And if the world ends, I can't do that, so...
01:41:22
Speaker
good but Honestly, the most human response to powers. The real name character. i mean, um until his death, Coyle is definitely one of my favorite characters.
01:41:35
Speaker
um And beyond that, probably... oh man. Probably... um It's kind of an amalgamation of people. I like...
01:41:50
Speaker
Taylor's hero friends. And by that, I mean specifically Weld and Tekton and Gollum. Like those three, they i don't feel like they're, I could call them my favorite, but those three and the brief roles that they play with Taylor, I really, like every time Weld was on, I was like, yeah, I like this guy. And same with Tekton, same with Gollum. I was like, ah yeah, I like these guys. Like they're cool.
01:42:14
Speaker
So. Yeah. Yeah. I really love Clockblocker. i know how could I forget? He's so funny and he's so fun to be around. and like Him in the bank heist is just such such a barrel laughs. and The echidna fight, him and Taylor working together, him not even necessarily. not like i just I love that. I love it so much.
01:42:37
Speaker
Clockblocker is such a great fun character just like to be around to interact with and to have in a fight is just so much fun. um For sure.
01:42:49
Speaker
I really love Dragon. i think Dragon's a really fun character in general and like her changing and growing and trying to push her limits. I think I mean, I've said this for a while, but, like, Glasteguenier is probably one of my favorite birdcage capes. I just... I love her power. I love kind of the way she... Back when she's... she You know, before Gold Morning, she's still very, like, that high priestess, like, the fairy queen. And I i love that, like, fantastical kind of mentality in space and the way that she, like, commands all her little ghosties. Like, ugh.
01:43:27
Speaker
Yeah. Gosh, so many good characters. Damn. I'll say that for now. It's like the easy, I feel like the easy out for me is like number man. it's like, these are all powers that I've come up, like played with as a kid.
01:43:41
Speaker
And then like, I see, I saw them written down and I was like, Oh, you know, that's it. You know, Leviathan's water shadow is like ah ah so a concept that I used to goof around with in my head in the pool and couldn't explain it.
01:43:56
Speaker
And then he wrote it down on paper. I was like, that's it Oh my gosh. Somebody put it in. Yeah. Yeah. You know, number man is easy. Good one. Contessa, obviously who doesn't love Carmen Sandiego with guns. Yeah.
01:44:10
Speaker
Um, and ah would, you know, yeah and that's the, that's the tough part is you got to separate the woods from the, just being cool.
01:44:21
Speaker
Um, yeah. And sometimes it's a blurry line. Cause like, I mean, our main people tattletale. Um, I think she's got a really fun and arc.
01:44:34
Speaker
I think I would really enjoy hanging out with Lisa and, um, but I also really like the power and, yeah and, um, and what she does with it.
01:44:46
Speaker
Uh, if we were going like a little bit less popular, uh, narwhal, Oh, it's first off narwhal. Um, it's true. Second, cutting people with, uh, with like force fields.
01:45:03
Speaker
It's something we've all thought about before. Yeah. And she could do so many cool things with them, including the bookmark. and i Love the bookmark. Oh, my God. It's great. It's for real. Narwhals Book Club.
01:45:16
Speaker
Would. so Yeah. If we ever need a if we ever need a rebranding like to appeal to a wider audience, I feel like Narwhals Book Club. Narwhals Book Club. That would be so fun.
01:45:26
Speaker
It'd be like such a deep cut. And the artwork we could do for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um We could make that a Patreon tier. Narwhal's book club. I love that so much.
01:45:39
Speaker
Maybe that's what happens when we grow beyond worm. you know yeah Exactly, right? Absolutely, yeah. When Brockton Bay is no more, what happens? Yeah, exactly. Narwhal eternal.
01:45:51
Speaker
Yeah. Alright, cool. And lastly, What was your favorite memory from reading worm? All right. Before you answer this, I'm just going to plug real quick. There's a lot more questions from our patrons. So if you want to hear more, um we have questions like, is Taylor a good person, which we'll cover and, so and others.
01:46:17
Speaker
So come join us for more before we hit this last question. Favorite memory from reading worm. Hmm.
01:46:29
Speaker
I've mentioned it a few times, but I think just the intensity of reading Worm for the first time for me when I got to Gold Morning is something I'm just... I i don't do that very often with books.
01:46:45
Speaker
um I like books a lot. I read a lot, but i I rarely find too many books that keep me up that late at night. ah And literally, as i as I've mentioned before, my favorite memory probably is just this.
01:46:58
Speaker
It's like 11 o'clock at night. I start reading it. I hit gold morning. i think I hit the ah ah platform, you know the oil rig scene. And I'm just like, well, crap, I just got to find out what happens now.
01:47:12
Speaker
And then the rest of the night is a blur and it gets to like, I've got like class the next day. I've got stuff to do. And it's like 4.30 in the morning as I'm finishing the epilogues. And I'm like, oh my God, I did it.
01:47:26
Speaker
And just that feeling was just incredible. Totally a terrible decision. Do not recommend. But that feeling of needing to know the next thing really, ah really something that I'll remember for a long time.
01:47:41
Speaker
Yeah. I like that. Yeah. To build off of that, for for me, it's a lot of... um I'm just... With who I am now and busy life and things like that, audiobooks are just how I consume literature these days.
01:47:59
Speaker
And including Wyrm, this re read reread, I listened to most of it. But there were still a couple moments where I was like, i got I gotta sit down. I gotta read this. i just like Either remembering what was coming up or forgetting what was that that was. a lot of Wyrmnesia.
01:48:17
Speaker
And just being like, Regardless of how busy I felt, it was like, I need to sit down and read this again, which is a really special feeling.
Engagement and Future Reading Plans
01:48:26
Speaker
I haven't really done that with a lot of stories in the last probably four or five years.
01:48:32
Speaker
So Wyrm is special. Yeah, it says a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I think I also a lot of this listened to with the audio book and like literally sitting right here and working and just getting to sections where like,
01:48:51
Speaker
you know, that were amnesia hits. And I, and I know that what's about to happen is insanely important. And like, I'm crying and I'm just like the, the, the amount of times where you, I just had to stop whatever I was doing. And I had just like sit here. Or if I was, you know, in another room, just like sit down on the floor and just like,
01:49:10
Speaker
and just listen because I couldn't do anything else but just listen to it and that like just tears just streaming and not knowing like I can't remember which fight it was but it's one of the Endbringer fights and it's right around the time when like everything is starting to go to shit it's right around the time we're gonna lose Regents And i i was just falling my eyes out. And I knew we were about to lose somebody, but I couldn't remember who it was. And that like, that like trying to reach for a memory and not being able to grab it and the the like the impact of all these characters.
01:49:43
Speaker
Loving them so much. um Loving them so much and loving this book so much and like, not wanting to lose them and knowing that you're about to anyways. And like, ah like even like the shock factor on the first time around reading it, but the second time around still, you know, feeling like I know what's going to happen, but I don't. And like yeah all all of those moments reading, read rereading this again, it's just like,
01:50:10
Speaker
It hits me and it's just as powerful. even if Even if I do know what's going to happen, even if I remember the exact details, like the impact is still there. and Gosh, that's just been and such a blast.
01:50:22
Speaker
Golly. Oh, nothing like like walking out of my office and being like, wow, that was a great chapter, passing a mirror and having just mascara in streaks just down my neck because I was sobbing my eyes out so hard yeah and being like, oh my God.
01:50:40
Speaker
ah I i sent you guys a picture of that, right? With the mascara. Yeah, you sent the patrons. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The patrons got to see it, too. was great. ah Before Alan goes, ah since I didn't really read the whole thing, I've...
01:50:57
Speaker
just thoroughly enjoyed my generally Sundays when I'm doing the editing the day before it's supposed to come out. the Just tackling and laughter and in my office, listening back to all the crazy stuff we've, we've said and done. And it's been such a blast.
01:51:15
Speaker
It's always a highlight of my week recording it and then getting to re-listen to whatever it was. It's so fun. Yeah, I think I'm with Nick. Like,
01:51:27
Speaker
early memories of rereading or of like reading this for the first time was just like, I was at camp working and, you know, just, I had my Kindle in my pocket and I was reading it on that just constantly. Like anytime I had a free moment, just pulling it out, reading the next section and, you know, going to bed and reading that, you know, and, and staying up late. Cause I just had to know. And,
01:51:53
Speaker
you know It wasn't even just the end. It was the whole thing. like Every time I got to the end of an arc, I was like, who but maybe I could peek at the next thing and see what comes up next. you know um and By nature of the design of being like a web serial, everything's a cliffhanger. so Constantly driving me to this hunger. um My favorite memory this time is just how many cool characters there were.
01:52:18
Speaker
like and knew there were before, but this time they're just really stuck in my head. honestly how cool they are. yeah How many? um it Such good characters. it's so fun.
01:52:28
Speaker
We could reread it like five times and still be like, oh, wow, I didn't realize. Something new every time. Gosh. Yeah. Yeah. ah All right. Well, this has been an absolute blast.
01:52:41
Speaker
So much fun. ah Wouldn't have asked for a better group to reread this book with. Oh, my gosh. This has been fun. ah And we're not done. I can't wait. Gosh, I can't wait to read Worm with you guys.
01:52:56
Speaker
You already know my opinion. I love Ward more. I like Ward more than I love Worm. It's interesting because you said it needs more editing than Worm. It does.
01:53:06
Speaker
it's It just has more of the stuff that I like. Ah, I see. We've talked about this before. I think that the Avatar is versus...
01:53:17
Speaker
like versus um ah Korra comparison where like there are so many things I love about the Korra series that work for me.
01:53:31
Speaker
and um Which is why I enjoy re-watching those episodes more. But ah yeah same for Ward. There's just so many things in Ward that tickle my fancy.
01:53:45
Speaker
And I love those so much more. And Worm doesn't have it. Worm doesn't have enough ugly bobs. They do one Fugly Bobs and that's it. Is there more Fugly Bobs in Ward?
01:53:56
Speaker
I'm no spoilies. but you know This is your call to come read with us. Join us. Please do. ah It would be so lovely. It's time to reread or read for the first time Ward. and Always time to read for Ward. Stay tuned. Especially YouTube. and then If not, would be so lovely well ah you can still listen to us afterwards. But Please come join the lives. It'll be really fun.
01:54:21
Speaker
And um this has been a blast.
01:54:27
Speaker
What else do we say? Stay tuned. It's going to be fun year, 2025. It's going to be rocking. Yeah. More books.
01:54:39
Speaker
More stuff. Thanks for all the support, guys. Thank you for everything. All of you lovely, lovely listeners and viewers. Especially our patrons. Oh my gosh, our patrons.
01:54:50
Speaker
at What and fantastic lovely peaches you are. Gosh. You see how you can see these lights? How you can see us? That's because you keep the lights on. That's true. It's true.
01:55:03
Speaker
More stuff to come. Stay tuned. Michael, play us out.
01:55:15
Speaker
We finished reading Worm and it's on to reading Ward. We're going to be live streaming every other week. Subscribe to our YouTube so you can get notified exactly when we go live so you can come join the new book club format.
01:55:28
Speaker
We're really excited for the next part of our journey and we hope you come along with us. So come join us as we read through Ward and become part of our book club. Thanks so much.