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journeysintowebcomics · 6 years

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Worm Liveblog #97

UPDATE 97: Conspiracy

Last time Skitter seems to have managed to convince Parian to give her a chance. Does Flechette know? I’m not sure. She’ll find out sooner or later, anyway. So, what will happen now that Parian may actually lend the Undersiders a hand? You won’t find out today! Today it will be an interlude. Let’s get started!

It’s August of 1986, a couple decades before present day. What character may be this one, I wonder? It’s a female character, seems to be quite young at this point so they must be an adult right now. Let’s see...looks like she’s under some sort of treatment.

Somewhere along the line, they had stopped telling her that the chemotherapy would make her better. The smiles had become even more strained. There was more emphasis on making her comfortable. Less explanation of what was going on.

Oooooh that sounds rather...terminal. Death may be coming someday. There aren’t that many diseases that need chemotherapy as a treatment, so chances are it’s cancer. Golly, the interlude just started and it’s already throwing some heavy stuff at me!

This sick girl pretends to be asleep when her mother comes, and although she hates doing that, it’s better than pretending she’s okay enough to endure conversations. The silence gives her mother carta blanche to start talking, though. That can’t be much better than what this girl hoped.

“Becca,” her mother murmured from behind her. “You awake?”

Becca? Hmmmm...doesn’t sound familiar. I can’t remember a character that’s named Becca or Rebecca. If there’s one, I may have forgotten.

“You’ve been so brave,” her mom whispered, so quiet she was barely audible.

I’m not brave. Not at all. I’m terrified. I’m so frustrated I could scream. But she couldn’t. Everyone had painted her as being so courageous, so noble and peaceful in the face of the months of treatment. But it was a facade, and she’d passed the point of no return. It was too late to break composure, too late to stop making bad jokes, faking smiles of her own. She couldn’t complain or use her mother’s shoulder to cry on because everyone would fall apart if she did.

She was their support.

That’s quite the heavy load on a deathly sick child. I can’t imagine what that’s like, having to swallow all your frustration and then realizing you can’t let it show because everyone thinks you’re taking it much better than you actually are. It’s even more harrowing when you’re a child, I guess. You know what? This is a rather fitting situation for a trigger event. The thought of death looming above you, all that pent-up frustration, the physical and mental suffering...there’s plenty of stimuli here. Since this person must have survived until the present day – I guess – then she must have survived this sickness.

“My little superhero,” her mother said.

That’s quite the thing to say in this story.

The mom’s choice of words makes Rebecca realize she’s dying. It brings the expected mix of emotions: anger, relief...especially anger at the situation and at others, for not telling her sooner she’s dying. It affects Rebecca enough for her to cry once her mother leaves. It’s dark, she’s seeing the cityscape from her window, and there’s so much she hasn’t done at her age, and so much she’d like to do again.

It struck her that she would probably never get to eat there again, never get a special kids meal with the dinky plastic toy that was meant for kids ten years younger than her.

Oh. She’s older than I thought she was. From the way she was being treated, I thought she’d be like...eight. From this it sounds like she’s like thirteen or fourteen. Still rather young, but she’s not so young people would think they can hide the truth of her situation from her. No wonder she’s frustrated!

There’s a series of things she wished she could have done. Get fast food, read a book in a series, see a movie adaptation, have a real boyfriend...it’s the tragedy of dying, you always wish you had done more than you did.

While Rebecca is letting her pain and sadness show in a manner I’m sure nobody else has, she hears a voice nearby, offering her morphine. It’s a voice she doesn’t know, and turning around confirms it’s a stranger. Hmmm...

“I’m going to increase the drip just a little, Rebecca Costa-Brown.”

Rebecca Costa-Brown? I’m pretty sure if I had seen that full name somewhere before I’d remember. Costa-Brown is quite a memorable name. So, there are two possibilities: either Rebecca Costa-Brown is a character that’s been around before but whose name hasn’t appeared yet, or she’s a character hasn’t made her first appearance yet.

The description of the person who is currently messing with the IV bag is familiar. I’m like 50% sure this was how the Doctor from Cauldrom was described. If so, then that’d mean Rebecca is involved with Cauldron, possibly as an employee. Or maybe, if this is the Doctor, she’s putting some power serum into the IV bag, meaning Rebecca would be a superhero under Cauldron’s thumb.

Rebecca confirms this person in her room isn’t one of her doctors and barely has much time for more before she feels the effect of the morphine. Guess it really was morphine and not soup of superpower. If I’m taking correctly the way this woman said ‘Not yet’ to when Rebecca said she wasn’t one of her doctors then...yeah, I’m growing increasingly more certain this is the Doctor from Cauldron.

Yup, she is. She’s here to make a deal with Rebecca, and she says she can make superheroes. This interlude is happening during the time superheroes were a rarity – in a relative term –and it was predicted in a couple decades there’d be thousands. Well, she’s not wrong, by now all over the world there must be thousands and thousands of parahumans.

By now it’s very clear the offer she’s going to offer Rebecca is to give her powers. She’s showing her the risks of giving powers. This wouldn’t be happening if Rebecca was going to be an employee and not a hero, I think. Photos are shown, parahumans that’d fit the Case 53s very easily. It’s possible it’s precursors of them, or maybe they were already being called Case 53s.

This here is still the early stages of the power serum. Two out of seven die horribly, four experience physical changes that ensure they won’t be in society anymore as normal people, and one gets powers without further consequences. Pretty low odds, all things considered. The Doctor tries to sweeten the deal by saying she could mix things up so there’d be less change of physical changes and there’d be restorative effects – meaning Rebecca here would be healed. Well doesn’t that sound too good to be true?

“I’m not asking for money. Only that you take this leap of faith with me and help me build something. I know the risks are great, I wouldn’t normally ask someone to face them, but I suspect you don’t have much left to lose.”

So, I don’t doubt Rebecca has been in the hospital for quite some time already. It’s to be expected, what with her very deadly illness and what not. Cauldron may be able to access to her medical records. That said, I do wonder why she was the one they picked. It’s unlikely Rebecca is the only child with a terminal illness in the entire world. Maaaaybe it’s more of a geographical thing, and she was the only viable candidate in this part of the world? Or perhaps something about her psychological and emotional state made her a better candidate than other sick children? I really wonder why Cauldron picked her and not someone else, hmmm...

The Doctor was right, though: she doesn’t have anything left to lose, she’s on the verge of death, and in Rebecca’s opinion she already looks so awful she may as well be one of the monstrous parahumans from the photos. Why not to go out in a blaze of glory or possibly be saved even if in the end she looks like a monster? She accepts.

The interlude changes to the next day. The very first line says things went well. Congratulations, Rebecca! You have powers. And it seems the Doctor was right about heightening the chances of everything going just peachy. I wonder what powers she got!

Rebecca extended one arm. Her skin was a healthy pink, her hand thin but not so emaciated as it had been.

“I’m better?”

“I would guess so. In truth, I’m not sure how the regeneration affected the cancer, it might even have exacerbated the symptoms. For the time being, however, you seem to be well.”

This is going to be one hell of a thing to explain to Rebecca’s parents. One day their daughter is dying of cancer and looking like she’s in slow agony, the next day she’s heaps better and may be cancer-free. I don’t doubt the happiness of having her alive and better would triumph over most emotions, but there’ll be a lot of demands for explanations.

Since it still is relatively early in Cauldron’s projects, they don’t even have yet a way to categorize the results. They’ll have to test the serum a few more times. Well, if they need people with nothing to lose, there’s no shortage of them in the world. They’ll find all the test subjects they want.

Oh, well then! Looks like the way to avoid giving explanations to the parents and the doctors is to not be there at all. The Doctor asks Rebecca to stay with them for two years, and then she’ll be free to decide if she wants to return or not. Hmmm...I wonder if the teenager who is with the Doctor right now joined under similar circumstances to Rachel’s.

And so, Rebecca stayed with Cauldron for two years. Before I continue, let’s see what powers she has...so, from what I see here, there’s strength. There may also be some physical immunity, so she doesn’t get hurt. I’m not sure if her mental processes are better now than before, because the reason why they feel sharper and faster now could be that her illness had her so numbed she didn’t notice a decrease in mental processing speed. So far there’s nothing particularly noteworthy or unique, no parahuman character from Worm comes to mind.

So, around one year and half pass.

“Alexandria,” the Doctor called.

It seems Rebecca is Alexandria! Alright, that’s fun! This should be an interesting interlude to read. It also confirms further the ties between the big fishes of the Protectorate and Cauldron go way back.

Alexandria waited patiently as Contessa adjusted her cape, then strode through the door. The Doctor was there, of course. Professor Manton, too. The boy with the math powers was there, standing next to a boy who was staring off into space.

Contessa may be the teenage girl who was with the Doctor. I see the Siberian’s real body is here, from the time he was an investigator in Cauldron’s payroll. There’s also...the Number Man, perhaps? Maybe he was like Rebecca – a teenager or preteen who was brought into Cauldron’s forces.

Turns out Hero™®© is here! He really was with the rest as a Cauldron hero. Legend is also here, and it doesn’t seem like Eidolon is around. Maybe Eidolon will arrive later into the group. So, by now Alexandria has managed to build a reputation of some sort. She also has a nice costume already, possibly provided by Cauldron.

The Doctor spoke, “She’s as strong as any parahuman we’ve recorded. Flies at speeds that match your own, Legend. Near-perfect memory retention, accelerated processing and learning.”

So she does have increased mental processing. Alright!

Oh, Eidolon is here already. Alexandria was the last person to join this group, then. So, the reason why all the powerful capes and also Manton and Possibly-The-Number-Man are here is because there’s a proposal Alexandria wants to make. The newcomer wants to propose something! This should be interesting.

She starts by saying how this room has the most powerful parahumans in the world, and that parahumans would tend to be villains because of the traumatic events they go through. That’s rather true, a trigger event sure would bring all kinds of negative emotions. Taylor wanted to be a hero because she had heroic role models – the Protectorate and others of their kind. I’m sure others were like that too, but yeah, most new parahumans would choose to be villains because of their traumatic experiences.

The Doctor cut in, “And I’m producing more heroes than villains. For now, the proportion favors us, and you’ve been able to keep the criminal element in line. For the most part. But even as I expand my operations, I have come to the realization that I can only produce so much. And the rate of parahuman growth is expanding. The next twenty years are projected to produce a total number of six hundred and fifty thousand people with powers, worldwide.”

Sounds about right. It’s a lot of people. True, compared to the total population of the world it doesn’t seem like a considerable amount, but when you consider the amount of power each one has and what they can do, 6500 parahumans are way too many. Can you imagine how awful things would be if there were 6500 powerful villains all over the world?

Since Alexandria and the Doctor worked on the numbers, I’m sure they’re right. Things like these are easier when you have fast processing speeds in your brain. At the rate parahumans keep happening, the heroes Cauldron makes will be outpaced. I find interesting that what they are focusing is in that Cauldron makes heroes. Perhaps this group isn’t the threat they had seemed at first? It could be rather interesting, really.

So, to avoid the inevitable, Alexandria says they should be what the governments are trying to do: regulate. As expected, the reactions to such suggestion aren’t of joy and immediate cooperation.

Turns out having Legend as the leader was Alexandria’s idea. Either Legend or Hero™®© would have worked. Alexandria didn’t look as kind and positive as the candidates to leader, and Eidolon was too powerful. Alexandria is also the one who thought and planned how to incorporate parahumans into society. From what I have seen in Worm I can see it worked decently well!

Looks like the Protectorate and the Wards were also Alexandria’s idea. It really is like everything in parahumans’ lives was planned by Alexandria. II never thought a single person, superpowered or not, could have so much involvement in society.

“I expect we’ll be able to employ the remainder of the plan, the eight-stage integration of parahumans with the public, because I will be in a position of power in the government. I, my civilian self, can be in charge of the government-sponsored superhero teams within eight years.”

Could she still be holding that job, I wonder...does that mean Alexandria may have a job in the PRT in a national level, perhaps?

To give everyone else some time to think about her proposals, she prepared booklets and is willing to give them time to think about the plans. It’s a foregone conclusion there was enough support for it to happen, but I’m intrigued about if someone in the Protectorate objected! Eidolon did, of course. Did he change his mind at some point? What do Legend and Hero™®© think? So many questions and most likely there won’t be any answers!

Ah, the parahuman who can make portals is called the Doormaker. For a moment I thought I had read ‘Doormaster’. That would have been kind of cool, haha. This interlude is taking in an era when the building in Côte d'Ivoire still hadn’t been built – or at least I imagine that’s that place, because the Doctor says that will be her base of operations in the future.

“Where is it?”

“Another Earth.”

“Like Earth Aleph? The one Haywire opened the portal to?”

I’m not sure I like the thought of getting other Earths involved in this story, honestly...I mean, it’s okay for worldbuilding and stuff, but I hope it won’t have a big role in the story or anything. I just feel there’s too much already involved in this story to need something like alternate Earths. It would kind of...bloat the story?

Once everyone leaves, the Doctor and Alexandria talk. Turns out Alexandria and the Doctor kept a few things to herself about the long-term goals. Oho, keeping secrets, Alexandria? How devious! She’s turning out to be more calculating and with a bit of a devious streak, I like her.

“You have your end of the project. I feel they’ll come around. Focus on that. I’ll handle the projected issues on my side of things. Just need to find the right individual. Someone I can groom, perhaps. Between you and I, one of us is bound to succeed.”

There’s something very sinister about the Doctor saying anything about having someone to groom. I’m sure by the time things reach the present she already has someone, but can you imagine if she didn’t? Who in the present would she choose? Not Skitter, I think, because Skitter already has a million people going after her, but yeah.

Almost two years have passed, and Alexandria doesn’t feel particularly compelled about returning home. I still am curious how exactly they covered up Rebecca being gone all of a sudden. I feel bad for Rebecca’s parents – or at least for her mother, since she was the one that appeared in the story. Her daughter was dying of cancer and then she was gone or went away, and now she won’t return. That must hurt a lot.

December 13th of 1992. Something huge is coming out of the ground. It’s a bizarre, terrifying creature I’m pretty sure is an Endbringer, because the description reminds me a lot of Leviathan. Leviathan was aquatic, this one clearly is related to ground. The descriptions mention obsidian and magma.

His skin was crusted with black stone that might have been obsidian, layers of what might have been cooled magma sloughing off of him as he planted his feet on the ground and stood straight.

‘Straight’ might have been too generous. He was built like a caricature of a bodybuilder, or a bear-human hybrid. He rippled with muscle, his skin gray, thick and leathery like the hide of a rhinoceros or elephant. His black obsidian horns were so heavy his head hung down. They weren’t rooted in his forehead, but in the middle of his face, a half-dozen curved shafts of black crystal twisting their way out of his face and back over the top of his head, some ten feet long. A single red eye glowed from between the gap in two horns, positioned too low. His mouth was a jagged gap in his lower face, twisting up to a point near his temple, lined by jagged horn-like growths that were too irregular to be called teeth.

His claws were the same, not hands in the conventional sense, but mangled growths of the same material that made up his horns, many of the growths as large as Alexandria herself. He could flex them, move them, but they were clearly weapons and nothing else.

Can someone send me an image of this beast, please? I’m curious to see how the fans depicted this thing.

The Protectorate is here, and so is the team of local heroes. The exact place they’re at is unspecified. The maybe-Endbringer roars, already injuring one of the heroes, and then points at that person with a claw. That’s a death sentence immediately:

The man ignited from the inside out, flame and smoke pouring from every orifice as he was turned into a burned-out husk in a matter of seconds. His skeleton disintegrated into fine dust and ash as it crashed to the ground.

...okay, I’m sure at least one person must have ended traumatized by this sudden death. Goodness, that’s horrible!

Soon Alexandria is targeted directly, and although she’s invincible, it seems she still needs to breathe. She actually was in danger for a moment while Behemoth – it is Behemoth! – drove her into the ground with fire. Interesting weakness...to think one of the most powerful heroes could die by, say, drowning.

There’s major oil fields near the huge monster that clearly has fire powers to some extent. I’m already marking those oil fields as a total loss, I’m sure those will explode.

Behemoth doesn’t control fire or rocks or earth or lightning. There’s a better way of having all those abilities under the same name.

Her eyes widened. Not individual powers. Those were all the same power. She pressed one hand to her ear, opening communications to the rest of her team. “He’s a dynakinetic! He manipulates energy! No Manton limitation!”

I didn’t even know that word existed. Clearly they managed to make Behemoth surrender. No idea how, but they did! Too bad I don’t get to see how, because the moment ends there. Oh well. Maybe it was like it happened with Leviathan – they hit the Endbringer enough and with enough force to convince it to turn around and leave after it caused widespread destruction.

They’d been right after all. Dumb luck had created a parahuman as dangerous as what the Doctor could create by design.

It’s not like I ever thought Cauldron had created the Endbringers, but it’s somewhat of a relief it’s confirmed they didn’t. Also, what kind of traumatic event would create something like an endbringer? Was this the moment it emerged for the first time? Was the person who turned into Behemoth under the ground? Maybe it was a worker from the oil fields or something.

Next scene. Alexandria swears on the constitution to defend the United States. This must be a public event of some sort, and since it’s her cape identity swearing, I imagine this is the end result of her plan to bend to the government’s regulations – regulations she would impose through her civilian identity. Things went according to plan, I guess!

Her mother is here. Doesn’t seem to me like she returned home, but at least she did see her mother again. That’s the least she could have done, so I’m glad about it. So, this was the moment they founded the Protectorate in front of everyone. Judging by the way everyone is cheering, they did manage to way the public’s feelings about parahumans towards supporting the heroes.

That was a short scene, it changes to seven years later. It takes me a couple lines to realize what this moment may be: the Siberian when it killed Hero™®© because the setting is what I kind of remember it was. Alexandria feels sick because they’re leaving a victim be with whatever’s there. Despite Alexandria’s gray alignment – as far as I’m concerned – she really wants to save lives. Nice to know she has the right purpose despite everything.

Until recently they didn’t know Manton was the Siberian’s real body, but it seems Alexandria thought she was familiar. She may have seen Manton’s daughter before. It was just a feeling of familiarity. I also notice Manton didn’t hesitate to brutally murder someone he had worked before in Cauldron. Did Cauldron care one of their best creations was killed by Manton?

As anyone may have imagined, Hero™®© dying was shocking to everyone. Panic ensued on the bystanders, it was a frantic moment. It’s the kind of situation that would cause more victims, I’m ready to scroll down and see something along the lines of ‘the Siberian lunged through the crowd, tearing apart several unfortunate bystanders’.

Alexandria moved in close, hoping to stop Siberian, to catch her and slow her down, saw Siberian swing, pulled back out of the way.

Her visor fell free, clattering to the ground. Then she felt the blood.

Saw, in her one remaining good eye, the chunks of her own face that were falling to the ground around her, bouncing off her right breast, the spray of blood.

...okay, it’s more or less what I expected, but it happened on someone I didn’t think it would. Alexandria has gotten mangled! Thank goodness Eidolon has some healing powers, but still! That must hurt!

The next day, it is said Eidolon’s healing couldn’t do much. She has lost her eyesight in one eye, it will be replaced with a glass eye. Can glass eyes see? I don’t think they do, from what little I know. Anyway, the glass eye isn’t what’s important here. What’s important is that the Doctor told Alexandria who exactly the Siberian’s real body is. Alexandria knew all along, yet Manton was left to go around and join the Slaughterhouse Nine, and killing who knows how many people. Trying to save people, huh, Alexandria? By letting a mass murderer go around freely? Well, I imagine Cauldron insisted Manton should be free to do whatever he wants, I guess.

“I suppose he thought he was qualified to oversee all that. Despite my strict instructions that staff weren’t to partake. Or he had other motivations. It could have been a gift from a father trying to buy his daughter’s affections.”

So what happened to his daughter was his own fault. He’s taking out his grief over whatever happened to her, and it was his own fault. It’s rather tragic, but I can’t really feel any sympathy over this because I don’t know Manton at all. The Siberian’s role in the story has been to be a mass murderer and no more. It’s a shame, really, because Manton has all the traits of the kind of villain you would feel pity at.

Eidolon maybe knew. I suppose Legend was the only one who didn’t know. Eidolon also knows about the plans and projects Alexandria and the Doctor are concealing. Whatever they are sure didn’t please him. Mr. Wildbow sure is beating around the bush when it’s about those plans! They must be quite a shocking swerve, then.

As I thought, the Doctor says they should let Manton do whatever he wants.

“So long as he’s active, people will be flocking to join the Protectorate-”

Alexandria slammed her hand on the stainless steel table beside her cot.

I’m just glad Alexandria didn’t accept that right away. I’m very glad about it. Unfortunately her objections will be ignored because Manton was left to do whatever he wanted until present day, but it means a lot that she didn’t approve at all.

“You’re right,” the Doctor said. “I… must be more shaken by Manton’s betrayal than I’d thought. Forget I said anything.”

As if!

It seems that by the time they saw the Siberian for the first time the Doctor still didn’t have the individual she wanted to turn into...whatever she’s trying to do. Instead she’s now thinking about making the right individual. Perhaps through giving that person powers? In that case, if someone in the present is this individual, then their powers were given by Cauldron, perhaps?

It’s present day, and bombs are raining down. I think it’s the present because this brings to mind the bombing against the Slaughterhouse Nine.

I was wrong, it isn’t. Alexandria is somewhere else that isn’t Brockton Bay, and she’s bringing people into Cauldron the same way she was brought in: find someone who is on the brink of death and offer them life. In the case that’s written right here in the text she doesn’t tell exactly what will happen, but that’s because the guy he rescued was almost dead. In Cauldron’s cells, there are many who are Case 53s, or at least that’s my guess because they’re monstrous. They all have alterations to their memories and fabricated weaknesses, too. The guy Alexandria rescued is given the dose of serum, and he starts undergoing changes. It’s not pleasant, although any powers he gets aren’t shown.

The irony of placing others in the same situation she used to be in isn’t lost on Alexandria. I bet she never thought she’d ever do this too.

Ah, now it is the present day! They’re talking about Manton and about Jack’s role in the end of the world. They just finished their talk, and were ready to stop.

The Doctor turned to Eidolon, “You want another booster shot?”

“Probably another Endbringer attack coming up, it’s best if I’m in top form.”

“A month or two, either Simurgh or Behemoth if they stick to pattern,” Alexandria said. She watched as Legend strode out of the room. Eidolon paused, then gave the hand signal. No bugs, and Legend wasn’t listening in.

So the other Endbringers are bound to attack someday? Goodness, one big problem more for the already filled future of Worm. Maybe the problem of knowing the number of arcs ahead is that I keep wondering when there’ll be enough time to cram all the plotlines that are being opened. My guess is that the arcs will get even longer and longer!

That aside, they’re all actively hiding stuff from Legend. He already suspects it, that’s obvious thanks to the lie detector he had been using, but I’m sure they’re hiding a lot of huge stuff. He’s not going to take it well once he realizes the extent of what they’re hiding. Heck, I’m the reader and I’m sure the secrets I have seen so far are just a small part of their bunch of secrets.

“We’ll manage,” the Doctor replied. “In the worst case scenario, we’ll explain the circumstances, explain our plan.”

“He won’t like it,” Eidolon spoke.

“But he’ll understand,” the Doctor said. “If the Terminus project is a success, the end of the world isn’t a concern. And I believe we will succeed.”

I’m pretty sure that the Doctor’s plans of grooming someone and the Terminus project are the same thing. I suppose this means she got someone – possibly the guy Alexandria saved -- and now the project is underway. There’s a chance they’re different projects, but yeah, I’m reasonable sure it’s the same.

“So that leaves only my end of things,” the Doctor said.

“Coil,” Eidolon said. “And if he fails?”

Ah, there it is. The Cauldron plotline is starting to be tied with Skitter’s plotlines. I was looking forward to finding out how it would be. Perhaps something Coil is doing in Brockton Bay is very important for Cauldron? He does have a huge money debt towards them. Maybe he would do a favor or two for them, even if money isn’t really something he cares a lot about – I imagine. He always can make more.

The end of the world is a troublesome matter because it gives no more time for projects. That should mean the Terminus project will end in the span of the next two years...interesting.

“If we assist him-”

“No,” the Doctor spoke. “If we assist him, there’s no point.”

“In short?” Alexandria leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “He doesn’t even know it, but everything rests on his shoulders.”

You know what this means? Skitter is going to inadvertently ruin the Protectorate and Cauldron’s plans at once. Whatever Coil has to do or they’re relying on surely needs his resources and everything he has, so if he loses it, he won’t be able to do anything. It’s possible that simply being alive is enough for him to be of use to Cauldron, but I don’t think so. I really can’t wait to see how Skitter ruins everything and possibly dooms the world when she defeats Coil. This is going to be fun.

That was the interlude. It was pretty interesting! I was glad to see more of Cauldron, honestly they’re starting to be the most interesting force in this story. Even more interesting than the Undersiders, I’d dare to say. I hope they and their plans appear more often in the story.

Next time I suppose the next arc will start? Last chapter had a nice ending for an arc, I would be kind of surprised if the arc continued further.

Next time: next update

#worm #worm liveblog #webserial #webserial liveblog #liveblog

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star-going-supernova · 7 years

Note

For that question thingy: 4, 7, 11, 17, 23, 43, 55, 56, 57

This is way longer than I meant for it to be, but it was lots of fun, so thanks, friend! :D

4. what are you looking forward to?I’m looking forward to finishing up The Art of Being Alive (i’m also dreading it, but who’s counting?) and getting to all the other wonderful ideas that are just waiting to be writing, and I’m very excited for some of the classes that I’ll be taking this coming semester.

7. what was your life like last year?Last year, I was going through my first year of college and I made the decision to declare my major as Creative Writing, and I’m so happy I did. This time last year, while not horrible, can’t hold a candle to what my life is like now.

11. are you listening to music right now?Yeppers! I’ve got I’m So Sorry by Imagine Dragons on repeat. Listen. Listen, I love Imagine Dragons, okay. They have such good songs with such good lyrics and a lot of those songs have nothing to do with love or breakups or butts or whatever else all the popular songs are about these days. Nothing wrong with those sorts of things, of course, but songs like that just aren’t my cup of tea.

17. opinion on insecurities.Like, in general? They suck and I think we’ve all got ‘em. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if the events that developed my insecurities hadn’t happened. What sort of person would I be, y’know? The thing about insecurities though, is that sometimes, you can fight back against them.

 Let me tell how I fought mine.

After discovering fandoms and fanfiction, I wanted to be a part of them. I wanted to contribute. But I had this certainty inside me, this belief that I couldn’t ever write for preexisting characters. When they were mine, no one could tell me that I was writing them wrong, but from movies or TV shows or video games? That thought, combined with things at home, resulted in me thinking that I could never produce any good fanfiction. And once I got that in my head, I didn’t want to try, to the point that the first few times I did, I had to stop, because I felt ashamed of myself. I felt like I was doing something wrong just by wanting to write fanfiction.

I don’t know what exactly changed. I don’t know if I had an epiphany, if there was a moment where I said “Screw this,” I just don’t know.

One day, I started writing, forcing myself to do it even with all the negative thoughts in my head. I started, and over the course of about three years, I never really stopped. For Bendy and the Ink Machine, since I began writing in October, I’ve written somewhere around 133,000 words, and that’s just what’s made it onto my Ao3 at the moment I’m typing this.

But how did I get there? How did I get from being ashamed of myself for so much as wanting to try, to having over 133,000 published words in a single fandom?

In between the moment I started and the moment I published the first chapter of The Art of Being Alive, I wrote over 210,000 words of fanfiction that I will never show anybody. 110,000 of that is for one fandom, 75,000 is for another, and 25,000 is for a third. And I’ll never share them. It took over 210,000 words of practice and nonsense and playing around with words and characters and plots and dialogue for me to get to a point where I felt even the slightest bit of confidence in my fanfiction.

But in the middle of all 210,000 words, long before BatIM, I got my Ao3 account and posted something for the simple act of proving to myself that I could. I could and I did and then I honestly didn’t do much else. I kept practicing, kept waiting for a fandom that didn’t just make me want to write, but one that made me want to share what I’d written.

So by the time BatIM came around, while my insecurities weren’t gone, I already had proof that I could beat them. Chapter One of The Art of Being Alive went up, and now, when my insecurities get me down, all I have to do is go back and read through the wonderful comments people have left me. I don’t know if I’ll ever lose my insecurities, even ones that I’ve proven I can beat. Does my heart still race when I post something new? Of course. Do I still hold my breath when I open a new comment, bracing myself in case it’s harsh? Yeah.

But by golly, no matter how much my insecurities may screw me over in their myriad of ways, they can’t touch my writing. Not completely. My writing belongs to me now.

And once you beat one insecurity, well… I don’t know about other people, but when my terrible horrible inner voice is trying to psych me out, I can tell it to hush up, because it once told me that my writing sucked, and now I’ve got a whole bunch of people who tell me they love my writing.

“You think I can’t do this thing?” I ask my insecurities. They nod, sneering. They still believe that I belong to them. I lean in and whisper, “Watch me.”

23. fear(s)I don’t know how this happened, but at some point in my life, my mind decided, Hey! We should suddenly be afraid of needles poking us! and my body shrugged and said, Whatever you say, boss. And so now getting shots and having my blood drawn makes me hyperventilate. And spiders. Sometimes, seeing spiders sends me into really terrible panic attacks. Only under certain circumstances though, and not always. Like I literally looked down once and found a spider on the front of my shoulder and I was fine, but put a spider above my head and I’m praying for laser vision as I tremble and hyperventilate.

43. favourite song everHow dare you make me choose. I can’t, although my Most Played Song in iTunes is Forbidden Friendship from How to Train Your Dragon. Other than that, I love instrumental music— like Lindsey Stirling (saw her in concert and it was amazing)— songs with a good beat (like the aforementioned I’m So Sorry, and also many other Imagine Dragons songs), BatIM fan songs (that playlist is pretty much all I listen to when I’m walking anywhere), and I often become attached to songs that are used as background music in various videos. I love songs with interesting music and lyrics.

55. tumblr friends@liliflower137, @guess-my-country, @snippyschnapps, @insanityallegra / @ifellintoaninkwellhelplz, @lepetiteinkmango, and hopefully this list will expand as time passes!

56. favourite food(s)Spaghetti, cheeseburgers, Oreo shakes, mac’n’cheese (when done right), BBQ wings, Wendy’s #5 sandwich only, chicken alfredo, chicken-bacon-cheddar-waffle sandwiches, green apple mentos, mini M&Ms, dark chocolate, goldfish (the snack that smiles back), those little cheese wheels wrapped in red wax, Reese’s Pieces but not the peanut butter cups, slices of a baguette with butter, Pain au chocolat, sprinkles, cookies and cream ice cream, cherries, cantaloup, and calamari but only from that one place on that one river that I may have fever dreamed twice

57. favourite animal(s)Velociraptors, dragons, the star whale from Doctor Who, platypuses, teacup pigs, lil lizards, ostriches but not in real life, dolphins are pretty cool, the jabberwocky, does K-9 from Doctor Who count?, still velociraptors, the purple pygmy puff that won’t stop staring at me, Cerberus, the sheep and alligator in a tornado that a friend drew for me, Not Swans, always velociraptors

#i answered a thing #imagination tier #classified information: proceed with caution #just star being star #life and times of star

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