Wildbow's Ward (Thar be Spoilers)

[Alkaloid]

So Wildbow's new project is a sequel to Worm, starring Victoria Dallon, who we all remember better as Glory Girl, aka Jesus Christ Amy what are you doing!?

I'm not sure that I like it as much as Worm, it's a different type of story but it has the classic WB flavour and I'm enjoying the new perspective on some familiar old faces.

https://www.parahumans.net/table-of-contents/

Link to the contents so you can start without spoilers.


I also highly recommend reading Glow Worm first, it's a brief interquel that explains some of how the world has changed and serves as an introduction to some of the characters, told as a series of interactions on Parahumans online.

[LadyTevar]

I'll check it out. By the last few chapters, Worm had gotten far too dank and dark. I only finished because I wanted to see if there was a way for the 'heroes' to 'win'.
I would not call that 'winning'.

[madd0ct0r]

Pact remains my favourite.

Ward so far has been interesting. Vicky is moderately more socially aware, working through her own emotions and is a much less of an unreliable narrator then Taylor was.

The more vocal peeps of the comments section seem less enamoured of this. Vicki is a confident fashionable jock, and they find it harder to connect to that.

Ironically, given how much the setting has moved away from the present world, Ward, so far, has kept a tight zoom in on very human frailty and abuses. The Godzilla threshold here is and remains very human monsters.

[Alkaloid]

Yeah, Vicky is the most likeable of his protagonists to date, largely because she acknowledges she's got problems and is trying to fix them.

That goes for most of the characters, they're pretty broken people, significantly more so than a lot of characters in Worm, but they're generally actively trying to be better.

[Raw Shark]

Pact is still my #1 pick, but I'm still a general fan. Now that my living situation is stable again I plan to finish Twig and start this. I always thought there was a little more to Glory Girl than Taylor readily depicts. She has a whole family full of superbeings and is the easiest one to put "be perfect" pressure on; there's going to be mad teenage drama. I can credibly see her thinking, "Why the fuck are these villain punks just fucking with my already-not-comfortable life for no reason and why can't I just punch them through a wall if I see them buying a coffee instead of committing a crime without joining their ranks in public opinion?"

[LadyTevar]

One bitch I have about Rain's backstory.

1. He wasn't the one who put the chain there and padlocked the door.
2. As far as I can tell, Rain also was NOT given a KEY to unlock the padlock and remove the chains.
3. Seir, who was the one who chained and padlocked the door, needed to use his powers to break the door open... but blamed Rain for leaving it locked.

So... unless I missed something where Rain was told to do more than "Guard this chained, padlocked door that I trapped a innocent girl by the hair in" -- Rain couldn't have opened the door. He couldn't have stopped this, anymore than anyone inside could have gotten out.
The hate on Rain seems really unfounded.

[Alkaloid]

From who? The general public or his cluster?

His cluster doesn't think rationally about him. Even if he wasn't involved in a terrorist attack against them, the kiss/kill effect pretty much means they will love him or hate him due to shard fuckery.

As for the general public, the Fallen are at best as likable as the WBC and at worst terrorists living in rape communes. He's admitted to being involved in a terrorist attack where children were literally trampled to death. Sure Seir set him up to fail, but most people 100% will not care about that.

Also bear in mind the Rain you know now is post therapy Rain. Fallen Rain was a pretty different beast.

[LadyTevar]

Also bear in mind the Rain you know now is post therapy Rain. Fallen Rain was a pretty different beast.

I get that now.
Now... I've seen what nasty shit was in Ashley and Kenzie's pasts. I knew shit was fucked up with Kenzie's parents, but SERIOUSLY that was messed up!
I'm afraid now of what Wildbow has in Chris' past to make him like he is.

Oh. And Teacher is back. One of the ones who really needed killing, imho.

[madd0ct0r]

A valkyeri interlude: also known as "this is why she is not the pov".

So ridiculously overpowered she (and her team) beats an exponential s-class threat *between paragraphs*.

I think we'll see more of Cleo - the girl with acid tears and rampant neurotoxin spit, jumpers and body issues. Bulimic trigger?
. I feel sorry for Mushroom. He's got worse collateral damage issues then Sundancer.

More wildbow layered snark. Big things made about data storage and cape image overwriting dull personalities - the oldest and dullest coming back with costume merged into body. Clearly ties in with Ashley's shard based memories, the beautiful pool of the broken trigger, teachers gestalt and theme of identity that drives ward.

But also snark. Sitting at valk's table is a young black man with a skull on his face- in the skin.
Wildbow considers Grue resurrected and also to be very dull.

[madd0ct0r]

I just joined a discord server game. liteerally rolled Cape ally, shard magnet, monstrous and notorious serial killer for my perks and flaws. was aiming to be a simple indian heirtage cape, not jack slash!

[Imperial528]

So, it's been a while since anyone has posted in this thread, but I'm wondering something.

Is anyone else getting anxiety from Ward? Because I never had this level of outright fear for what may happen even when reading the more intense parts of Worm.

[LadyTevar]

Wildbow seems to like torturing his characters. They can't get a victory without it being Pyrrhic. Ward is going the same way as Wurm, which I read all the way through hoping to see once, JUST ONCE, where Skitter would come out on top.
To do so, she had to become a Class S threat on Golden Morning, then get shot twice in the head.

In Ward, you have Cradle's new toy that leaves people in still living, feeling, quantumly entangled pieces. "You can have some of your group back." OUCH.

[Imperial528]

I don't think he's torturing them.

With all the horrible, awful things in both Worm and Ward, I think if he was a sadist things would be much worse for the protagonists.

[madd0ct0r]

Vicki's undercurrent of unacknowledged depression and displacement activities are cutting me to the bone.

Too close to avoid being hooked.

[LadyTevar]

I don't think he's torturing them.

With all the horrible, awful things in both Worm and Ward, I think if he was a sadist things would be much worse for the protagonists.

Really? He could have made this a story about making things better, about Vicky and her team slowly winning the game, one block at a time.
They could have beat the Fallen and ended them, and prevented more of the Huge Bombs that blew holes between worlds. They could have stopped Love Lost once and for all. They could have kept Cradle locked up.

[Imperial528]

We don't know enough about the bomb situation to say whether more could have been stopped. As it is, that any of the bombs were stopped at all is thanks to Vicky and the team.

The Fallen are effectively crippled organizationally; arguably two of their worst factions have been broken up completely and absorbed by other power players after the destruction of the prison. This is not the best outcome, but it's not like the Fallen got away unscathed.

We don't know the exact circumstances of Cradle's escape from custody, but the prison was utterly destroyed and I imagine there'd be no place a tinker could be safely kept, if they could have recaptured him at all in that mess. Frankly in the aftermath of Goddess' death it was practically a miracle that the villains who had been controlled by her didn't immediately start trying to take down the heroes who were present. Attempting to recapture even a few villains could have very well turned the area into a bloodbath.

I don't believe there has been any point where Breakthrough has had Love Lost in a position where they could have stopped her, not without making decisions that would be morally unacceptable and/or hurt their chances of actually stopping the villains.