I think Face and Pact would lend themselves well to a novel-length story.
Peer and Boil are better suited to be epic length. At least that is my impression of what we've seen so far.

The people reading these samples are the ones who stuck with Worm and therefore self-selected for liking this kind of story. That means Boil, which resembles Worm the most, has very good chances.

 

I got caught up on all of Face, the second part of Boil, and the first bit of Pact. I'm going to revise what I said earlier: Boil isn't my number one pick. Right now Face is probably my number one, with Pact coming in close as number two provided its second segment delivers.

Some people have mentioned that the whole Battle Royal type thing has been done to death. This is true, but it's usually in an arena format. It looks like Face is going to operate just as much gladiatorially (at night) as it would in an open-ish world type situation (during the day). This, imo, is awesome. The fact that the organizers can give contestants additional skills/ abilities is also super interesting. The three interferences thing is also pretty intriguing, as is the ineptness Wes' handlers are showing. Lots of layers to this one.

Pact meanwhile grabbed my interest pretty much immediately. Oz is right, keeping everyone straight in the first chapter is a pain. But I think that Wildbow drew attention to all the most important people (Blake, Molly, Paige, Callen). The idea that his grandmother aligned their family with some sort of magical entity (hence the Pact) in order to make their fortune is an interesting implication. Blake getting forced into the role of patriarch was expected, but delayed enough that it didn't bug me too much. What was slightly aggravating was the series of visions in the latter half of the chapter. It was cool to see a shattered mirror type approach to introducing us to various players. Again though, confusing. We have a lot of characters introduce in not a lot of time. Wildbow might have done this just to present a fuller picture to people. I could see it being stripped down in the final version if he chose to go with Pact.

I don't have a whole lot to say about Boil. Ayeron hit the nail on the head there. Boil seems to be more of an epic length type deal, which comes across in how it opens. So far the only goal out there is some form of revolution. Nebulous enough to be interesting, but not concrete enough to make me choose it over Face or Pact.

 

Pact and Face play to Wildbow's strength in characterization. Peer and Boil moreso in worldbuilding. The thing is, although I absolutely adore great worldbuilding, it's the characters that keep me reading and I think that's what Wildbow is best at. Characterization is the way you prepare a dish; a great chef can make a gourmets meal out of anything and I feel that giving Wildbow the kitchen in which to work with the more character based piece is more important than an exotic piece of meat (the setting in this case). Face and Peer definitely have weaker settings, but I'm already connecting with the internal monologues of the protagonists, while I simply haven't been able to care about our PoV in the other two cases.

 

First off, I have a bit of trouble honestly evaluating these potential stories based off of a couple thousand words. I mean, looking back on how Worm started out you would have gotten the impression that it was going to be about Taylor dealing with high-school problems the entire story while moonlighting as a hero.

That being said, wow, Pact looks like the way to go.
Blake/ Rose OTP . Gonna go ahead and put that out there.

 

So looks like Pact has won it, for those who are still interested.

The new site, plus new chapter, will be up this Saturday.

 

Haven't read Pact yet, but it sounds like it was the right choice.

I'm just sad Face and Boil will never be written.

 

Thanks

Thanks for the recommendation. I was looking for a new story to read for the break- instead you've directed me to one of the best multi-novel length series that I've ever read. Skitter is a fascinating character, and in general character and setting development is where this story excels. It's one of the more original stories I've read recently, and the plot is nuanced enough I can't reliably predict where it will go. I'll definitely be recommending this to others, and I'm frankly astonished this author hasn't either monetized herself beyond donations, or been picked up by a publisher.

 

On a nickname basis with him eh Oz? You scamp you.

 

Alright, so I finally finished Worm on Thursday. I wasn't sure what to post in here, but since I was one of the first people to read it and get other people into the story, I figured I might as well. I have a hard time keeping up with perpetual updates, so I would always wait a few months for new chapters to build up before reading. So, the first time I read, I think everything up through the first S9 arc was done. The second time I read, everything up through the Echdina arc was done. So the third time I read, everything was done. That means I've read some parts 3 or 4 times. Also, I haven't been following this thread and there's like 2000 more posts since the last time I was in here.

It's a great fucking story. And it's long, but I never felt like it was really dragging. I guess this is where I start spoiler tags, although I doubt someone who hasn't read the story will be reading this post.

Spoiler

Back when the S9 arc was finishing up, I had an idea for a fanfic, and I came up with a few hundred cape names. I'm surprised at how many I made ended up in the story later on. Weaver, Satyr, Triumph, King, Golem, Butcher, Fortuna, Valykrie, were a few I came up with, though they are fairly obvious ones. That being said, I'm wondering how Theo managed to get the name Golem, since it seems like a very obvious cape name, and it seems like someone would have thought of it in the thirty years that capes have been around.

I've heard several complaints on IRC that the story really takes a nosedive after the timeskip, and that Wildbow was being too influenced by his fans to write what should have been written. I'm sort of on the fence, though I don't know what specific parts they are referencing. Some things I think could have been done without, like having Shadow Stalker be on Skitter's team against Scion, and Canary as well. Lung has always been a badass in my mind, and I liked his interlude, so I was alright with him working along.

I don't think Scion being the endboss was really a surprise to anyone, but the way it happens is a bit weird, with just a whisper from Jack triggering him. Also, does Jack actually die? It says his intestines were being pulled out, but that's it. Surely he would survive something like that with Bonesaw's augmentation. Scions interlude was pretty awesome though.

I wasn't really surprised by how Scion is defeated either. Well, let me restate that. I'm still not really sure what happened, other than some attack hitting inside his power well or whatever when he looked into the mirrorcape. I'm more referring to what Skitter did to herself, getting her 'filter' removed so she can control capes. That was heavily hinted at in pretty much every chapter since Tattletale started getting interested in powers, and then once the name 'administrator' popped up, it was obvious.

Endbringers. There's one line saying that they were created by Eidolon, and that's it. It doesn't really say why (or how) unless it's something with needing a worthy opponent to fight, and him being the only cape who got lucky enough to get ridiculous powers from Cauldron. Tattletale says that their body is some crystalline structure, so I thought (before the eidolon revelation) that they were parts of the second entity that fell to the earth (before it was revealed that the fallen entity was what Cauldron was using). Also, how many of them are still left at the end? It states that the only one that survived the fight was Simurgh, and that the others were destroyed, but there's a line in the epilogue that suggests others have emerged? I think it was a sentence that used the phrase 'remaining embringers' with emphasis on the plural. The Behemoth Arc might be my favorite though (with Leviathan being my favorite before that). Seeing an endbringer get killed was awesome, though I wouldn't have complained if Chevelier was the one to do it.

Also, how fucking powerful is Glastig Uaine? She apparently revived Bakuda after Lung killed her, and then she revives Clockstopper at the end. And she has access to eidolon, greyboy and a hundred others apparantly.

And the ending... honestly, they were fine except for number 6. I was perfectly okay with Taylor and her dad being dead, and with Grue being alive, then suddenly a twist shows that the opposite is true. I don't care about Grue, honestly, but I was fine with Taylor making the ultimate sacrifice (what was up with the retardation though in the whole last arc... didn't seem necessary). Though I suppose that if anyone deserved a peaceful life as a reward, it was her. You could have at least put in a passing reference to her trying to control a swarm of bugs, and none of them move, but suddenly, one twitched under her command.

I'll probably have more to say later, but this was just what I had on the top of my head.

 

Jack got stuck in a Grey Boy loop, so he's good as dead

With Scion: The shapeshifters made him so depressed he didn't care about living anymore, so he would stop dodging. Foil shot him; where her bolts landed, it made holes into the dimension where his real body was. Defiant then took the BFG and fired at Scion, and the blast went through the holes and eliminated the real body.

 

See, I'm kind of confused on that part. Wasn't Foil stuck in a time loop as well? How did she get out exactly?

 

Foil wasn't stuck in a time loop. Grey Boy trapped the air in front of her, and she pretended to be trapped, mimicking her screams perfectly. Then when she saw an opportunity, she simply stepped out from behind the frozen air and attacked.

 

She should have took an extra second and shot Jack in the face as well. Her power is so OP.

 

Really? We've got infinite time loops, adaptive regeneration, freezing time and stealing the powers of dead capes, and you label Foil's power as OP? Being able to kill pretty much anything (Endbringers excluded, I think. I seem to recall Leviathan getting a crossbow bolt through the skull) is tame compared to some powers.

 

Foil can kill the Endbringers, IIRC. It's just that the skull isn't vulnerable on them. The only vital organ the Endbringers have is their core. Simurgh's in her smallest wing, Leviathan's was in his tail, etc.

 

I was looking to read the final epilogue chapters again, butepisode 2 is missing, do any of you have a link or download to it?

Edit - Doesn't matter. You can get to it from the previous episode. Just a faulty link.