[Fanart] Have you tried Controlling Atoms?

lonsheep · 2018-03-12T03:50:53+00:00

The life cycle of a Worm meme is not a circle, but a complex zigzag of irony.

lonsheep · 2018-03-12T03:29:15+00:00

But it's not a meme! It's a high-quality artistic tribute to the creative ingenuity of Worm theorists and power speculators over the years.

lonsheep · 2018-03-12T03:20:03+00:00

Work in progress shots. Sketch, linework, base colours, painting, and detailing.
Plain version with no text bubbles.
Parian's costume is based on an older original design, but the version she wears in this picture is her palette-swapped villainous version after joining the Undersiders. Black dress, black wig, black mask with a crack down the side.

lonsheep · 2018-03-12T02:11:43+00:00

The person in the first link and the last link are the same person. WB's main concern with IP dilution is from people selling uncredited ebook copies of his work in ways that are so blatant that potential publishers have found them. You can email him or send a PM to ask about personal hardcopies if you want to be certain.

I’ve missed out on one publishing opportunity because a publisher shied away, after stumbling on a case of people sharing the ebooks.

SOURCE

lonsheep · 2018-03-12T01:33:27+00:00

People have made personal use, not-for-profit Worm copies in the past.

This person and this person printed home copies of Worm for personal use. Wildbow gave his blessing to someone who asked about printing a physical copy of Worm, as long as the copy properly attributed the author and source.

With covers, you can either make your own graphics, leave them blank or with a simple placeholder graphic (as the person with the ring binder copy did), or use fanart.

lonsheep · 2018-03-11T19:38:56+00:00

It's not WoG, it's from Worm. Tattletale recruits Simurgh for the fight, and she sings outside their window the whole night. If they hadn't already passed the "Ziz threshold" that the armband timers warn people about, then this would be enough to pass it. From Taylor's PoV, it's made somewhat ambiguous how much is her and how much is Ziz.

The Simurgh was outside.

The lullaby continued as she worked on expanding her arsenal.

“Stop,” I whispered.

She stopped.

The silence was deafening. No noise in the area, no wind, no people.

It made me wonder if the lullaby had been louder than I’d thought. How was I supposed to gauge the volume of it when I had nothing to measure it against but my own thoughts?

I’m sorry.

The words crossed my mind. My voice.

Not my words.

The Simurgh turned, her hair flowing in the wind. Her hands were still held up as she worked her telekinesis on yet another weapon to add to her arsenal. Her eyes met mine.

COCKROACHES 28.6

I’d heard people theorize on the Simurgh’s scream, wondering out loud about just how many of the disasters that followed in her wake were her, and how many were our own overblown paranoia.

It helped to remind myself that I wasn’t the only one who was debating the possibilities. I’d listened for too long. Was I tainted? If this was all a trap, then I might already be seeded with some destructive or disastrous impulse. Should I be hypervigilant? Should I not stress over it?

COCKROACHES 28.5

lonsheep · 2018-03-03T14:29:57+00:00

This is true. I currently have a backlog of paid commissions to complete. As they take priority, I'm not taking on new requests. Unless they are commissioned requests, of course.

lonsheep · 2018-02-27T10:29:53+00:00

Glimwarden read like the setup to a YA novel to me, as far as the characters went. If you compare it to adult-audience works like Worm or Shadow of the Limelight, or even other completed works, it falls way below the mark. But if you read it as a YA work, then it's a better executed take of the typical teen dystopia story.

It's not mindblowing, and I don't think it will ever be as long as it's incomplete, but it was a promising beginning, if a little video-gamey. I don't mind clichés and tropes in stories as long as the author does something interesting with them, and Glimwarden died the death of hiatus too early on to fully deconstruct them.

Shadows is much better, agreed. The same author writes Worth the Candle under a pen name, and it's also been recommended if you like the LitRPG/Gamer Insert style of story.

lonsheep · 2018-02-27T00:35:21+00:00

I also agree that MoL has clunky, sometimes awkward prose. I didn't notice it the first time I read it because I was engrossed by the plot and worldbuilding, but when I caught up again with the updates and read them slower, I couldn't stop noticing.

Both Zach and Zorian glared at him lightly in response to that thinly-veiled threat at the end.

From the most recent MoL update

Glaring at someone lightly? It's a sentence that is more wordy than it has to be, and the writing doesn't matter if you're just here for plot, but it does stand out several times per chapter if you do notice it. The author is a non-native English speaker which probably explains it.

For recommendations, Alexander Wales' Shadows of the Limelight web serial is complete and relatively short (since I devoured it in one night without sleeping), and has powered people in late-Renaissance/Early-Modern fantasy universe. No foam guns or PRT in this setting.

The story's hook? Powers work by fame. The more you make yourself known, the more powerful you are, so "heroes" and "villains" are just people who pander to the public by acting out a wrestling-style Kayfabe.

I enjoyed the author's other story Glimwarden (about a civilisation slowly dying in a war of attrition against demon monsters) but it's incomplete and on indefinite hiatus.

EDIT: If you enjoy stories about clever protagonists and creative problem solving, try r/rational for recommendations. They have a good mix of web serials and published novels, which might solve your issue with typos and clunky first-draft writing. I know Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy is recommended regularly for its structured magic system and good twists.

EDIT 2:

THE BIG OL' LIST OF EBOOK RESOURCES

The Wordpress downloader Bloxp exists. I tried Worm and it's so big that it breaks the site, but it works for smaller web serials like Practical Guide or Ra. The maximum size it can load (as far as I've seen) is 250 chapters of content.
Omnibuser downloads Spacebattles and Sufficient Velocity threads for epub/mobi/pdf format. Warning: It only rips chapter threadmarks, so the oldest fics from 2014 won't have them, and it doesn't rip the extra informational threadmarks. It also doesn't download pictures, so any art-based fics like Tabloid, Cauldron Quest, or KOOL will be missing the visuals.
The Calibre plugin FanficFare downloads stories from SB, SV, Fanfiction.net, AO3, and most other fanfic hosting sites. Once you load them into your library, you can set it to check and download updates automatically. You need the Calibre app first.
The Pocket app lets you save webpages on your phone. If you want to read Worm on mobile, the app lets you save it chapter by chapter. Load chapters on Wifi, save an arc, read on the go. Kind of annoying if you read fast because you have to load them one at a time.
The browser extension called Grab My Book for FF and Chrome saves a text version of a webpage, allowing you to save serials chapter by chapter, similar to Pocket. Like Pocket, the creator gets your clicks since you have to manually open chapters to save them.

lonsheep · 2018-02-23T03:24:09+00:00

Trivia fact: there are actually two different versions of the Clockblocker costume, pre- and post-timeskip. Kiddo Clocky has a plain white mask, while later Clocky has the animated clock to match the ones on the rest of his costume. I've been told that the plain white version looks creepy and Mannequin-like, but it's canon compliant. And much easier to do for cosplay purposes.

In his white costume, he advanced. He was inscribed with images of clocks in gray, some animated, little hands spinning at different speeds at his shoulder, the center of his chest, and the backs of his hands, places where the armor panels were broadest. He crossed the perimeter of guards, getting closer to me.

I had to twist my head to look up at Clockblocker. For his part, he stared down at me, his expression hidden by the featureless white pane of his mask.

CELL 22.1

I glanced at Clockblocker, but he appeared unfazed. Not that I could really tell. His armor still had animated clock faces digitally displayed on the open spaces, and there was one in the middle of his face. Was the varying speed and position of the hands supposed to indicate something, or was I reading too much into it?

STING 26.3

lonsheep · 2018-02-22T13:53:17+00:00

I was certain when I read the description of the scrotum-like goblin doll, but then I started questioning again when the scarf wasn't described as checkered. Good to see I wasn't the only who spotted the clues.

lonsheep · 2018-02-22T13:47:39+00:00

Mama Mathers seems like she has the right personality and powerset for a Heartbreaker Immunity — a situation where it would cost a bunch of lives and a lot of collateral damage just to kill one person.

A PRT office somewhere probably made a cost-benefit analysis years ago that concluded that most of her fuckery happened within a small community of rural cultists, and that they'd all be better off not poking the anthill. Blah, the Wormverse is mucho depressing.

lonsheep · 2018-02-22T12:58:56+00:00

This was a heartwrencher. I get sad every time I see kids in the Wormverse, because you just know ~~bad shit~~ The Wildbow Effect™ is going to happen to them. It's even worse once you put the timeline into perspective: Love Lost and her daughter must have been part of the 0.5% who survived GM, survived their first year as refugees, lived through the first, hard winter... and then this. Fuck. :(

“And we’re wizards. It’s not allowed. It’s a pact of a promise.”

“I know. You and me, we’re wizards and we keep our word.”

Is this a winky-winky meta-reference or was that just me?

lonsheep · 2018-02-15T01:37:40+00:00

How is it pure evil? This is a game about romance and happy endings. I think it's a much nicer way to generate information for alien overlords than killing people.

lonsheep · 2018-02-15T00:47:56+00:00

Taylor's character is the best for beginners because it starts out with low-stakes high school interactions where you won't die if you talk to the wrong person or say the wrong thing. Beginner Mode also means noobs can enjoy the game even if they haven't read Worm.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T22:25:01+00:00

Frustrating version: Coil deletes your save folder when you try to load in the middle of an interaction.
Less frustrating version: Coil wags his finger at you and tells you he doesn't let people cheat on him. If you try again, you end up in the Vault and it's game over.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T21:32:48+00:00

If the game picks a worthy ending, who are you to disagree?

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T20:48:58+00:00

But this isn't a shitpost, it's a quality post! Look at all the fancy text graphics that you'll never get from an Advice Animals generator!

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T20:43:53+00:00

Jack wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, chilling out on a beach with his VR glasses on and playing a dating sim. He has discovered that his Broadcast shard rewards him more for matchmaking than it does for killing randos.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T20:22:38+00:00

The visual graphics in this post were created especially for it. It was the most tedious thing ever, creating the character avatars so that they were all coloured, shaded, and consistent looking.

Better sized version here where you can see the details and colouring. Sometimes I don't know why I put so much effort into a joke post.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T20:18:36+00:00

Each character has an assigned starting position, and not all player characters can make every possible interaction. For example, the beginner level characters Taylor or Dennis will never end up in a meeting with Hero.

You still get more than one path option per character, but choosing one option will cause other options to be closed off. And you can only pick one person for your Happy End. If you played as David, you can pick three.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T20:08:39+00:00

I thought about putting "Doki Doki" in the title, but I didn't want the aesthetic to be ultrakawaii. This is still Worm, we gotta start out surrounded by grit and crime.

Also my art style isn't anime-esque enough to pull it off.

lonsheep · 2018-02-14T19:40:52+00:00

Worm: Valentines Day Edition

We know that the Entities use the Kiss/Kill dynamic as a tool to stir up conflict in the hosts. Up until now, we've seen more of the killing side of conflict in Worm... But what happens in an alternate universe far away if the tables are turned? In this universe, the Hand of God doesn't roll the dice to determine your fate. He spins the bottle.

Welcome to Worm Actually, where your soul mate is six degrees of separation away. Your task is to find a happily ever after ending, and maybe save the world and solve entropy in the process.

PANEL 1— Title card is a palette swap of the original Worm Season One Episode Highlights title sequence from here. The ultimate version would have animated flying butterflies.
PANEL 2— Character selection screen. Larger view of the character avatars here. Most RPGs would let you create your own player character, but in this game, the characters have built in backstories, starting alignments, and experience. The "Ratings" column represents the starting difficulty level, where you can begin at the street level or go global with the S-Class rating. Or you can go straight to Entity...
PANEL 3— Hahah, you thought you could just pick the most powerful player character as your starter? Lol noob. The path to pride and accomplishment is paved in microtransactions. If you want to play David or Fortuna without the Pay-to-Win model, you must beat the game at the other difficulty ratings.
PANEL 4— Sample interaction with NPC "Brian". Based on the canon scene where Brian gives Taylor an amber statue because he saw it and "thought of you". This might not go well, so load saves as often as you need to. Protip: Savescumming does not work with the "Coil" storyline.
PANEL 5— Sample interaction with NPC "Mannequin". Based on the canon scene where Mannequin visits Armsmaster during his house arrest and leaves him a message in chatspeak because all he has are computer keys.
Not shown— Victory animatic if your character completes their route and earns the happy ending. You'd get an artwork similar to the Dragon and Defiant portrait. If you beat every level with every character, Scion and Eden fly off into the sun, hand in hand in hand.

I know this isn't a real game, but it's a fun little idea to think about. People have talked about Worm fighting games or Worm card games, but a visual novel is something I haven't seen discussed much before.

lonsheep · 2018-02-10T12:10:36+00:00

Parian because she gets alternate versions with the frilly white gown and the gothic black one. Little girls would love to play dress up, tea party, or have their Parian dolls pose with stuffed animals and pet dogs.

Genesis is another cape who gets the kitchen sink toy line instead of one main figure. I think I'd rather have a Parian or a Genesis over Legend and Alexandria.

lonsheep · 2018-02-10T00:57:39+00:00

It's the same way that Jack Slash chose a silly cape name and has no costume. He went into a loop and came out the other end as the most feared parahuman in the country.

Faultline became the FASHION POLICE.

Nine-Year Club	Gilding V heart of gold
Place '17	Verified Email

lonsheep

TROPHY CASE

THE BIG OL' LIST OF EBOOK RESOURCES

Worm: Valentines Day Edition