Worm

---Under heavy revision----
Created by John C. McCrea AKA Wildbow worked on for several years, can be found here.

The story is beloved by many^{[citation needed]}

It topped out

History

First posted chapter on.... with the final chapter on...

received a flood new readers with the recommendation by elizer yudawsky

as of 2016 it is being edited and prepared for submission to publishing houses

Major Events

See more at the events category page or on the tab above.

Publication

Worm was first published as an online serial with three chapters released every week. Beginning online publishing in June 2011 and continuing until November 2013,<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/><ref name="Toolsandtoys"/> it maintains a very high level of readership which peaked at over 80,000 unique visitors in June 2015<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>, nearly two years after it had been completed.

The story was written remarkably quickly,<ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="MT Critic"/><ref name="T4anky"/><ref name="The Odyssey">Template:Cite web</ref> at a rate comparable to a traditional book being published every month.<ref name="Toolsandtoys"/><ref name="The Star"/><ref name="Patreon"/> McCrae would sometimes write up to 11,000 words per day.<ref name="The Star"/><ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/> It followed a strict publication schedule,<ref name="The Star"/><ref name="T4anky"/> with new chapters released every Tuesday and Saturday, and bonus chapters on Thursdays as rewards for donations.<ref name="Patreon"/> Unusually, the site's reader base grew entirely by word of mouth; McCrae originally assumed it would attract only a small readership, and never advertised.<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/>

Worm is currently being edited, and the author hopes to produce both an eBook version and a physical book via traditional publishing.<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/><ref name="Toolsandtoys"/><ref name="MT Critic"/><ref name="The Star"/>

Following Worm, McCrae published a shorter web serial, Pact, and is currently writing another, titled Twig. He plans to release a sequel to Worm when Twig is completed.<ref name="T4anky"/><ref name="MT Critic"/>

Plot

The story follows a teenage girl, Taylor. She is a "parahuman" (a person with superhuman powers) who has the ability to control arthropods, spiders, and worms. Taylor is bullied at school, but plans to become a hero in a spider-silk costume.

However, on her first night out as a hero she is mistaken for a villain, and a group of villains offers to recruit her. She accepts, planning to gather information and turn them in, and becomes a minor villain nicknamed "Skitter". However, the heroes are unreceptive to her plan and, eventually, attempt to arrest her along with the Undersiders. She grows increasingly disillusioned with the heroes, and increasingly fond of the Undersiders.

It is revealed that superpowers come from moments of extreme emotional or physical trauma known as "trigger events".

A terrifying monster known as an Endbringer attacks the city, and the heroes and villains team up to battle it. Her increasing dislike of the heroes culminates in the revelation that one of the heroes is one of the girls who bullied her in her secret identity, and another betrays her and allows several villains to be killed. When he is exposed, he reveals her plan to betray the Undersiders to them.

Taylor becomes a committed member of the Undersiders, planning to improve the world as a villain instead. The group uses increasingly brutal tactics, and it is revealed that their earlier escapades had been a cover for their shadowy leader to kidnap a young girl with the power to see the future, and his ultimate goal is to seize control of the city. Taylor agrees to help him if he promises to release the girl. However, once they are in control of the city, he betrays her. With the other members of the Undersiders behind her, she manages to defeat and kill him and rescue the child. Unfortunately, it is revealed another group of his minions had been aiding him because he had promised to help one of their number, a hideously mutated monster with little control over her powers. Enraged, the monster attacks the city. During the battle, it is revealed that a number of the heroes are traitors and their organization is shattered.

Now the rulers of the city but facing increasing pressure from the heroes, the Undersiders solidify their control. However, Taylor is persuaded by several of the girl's prophecies to turn herself in, offering to help hunt down a villain who is prophecied to end the world in exchange for them replacing their incompetent leader and helping to restore trust in the heroes. They refuse, and reveal one of the traitor heroes is present, who promises to kill the Undersiders. Thinking them dead, Taylor kills the heroine and the corrupt leader. The other heroes resolve to recruit her and present a united front to the world, claiming those she murdered had been under villainous mind-control.

Now known as "Weaver". Taylor chafes under the restrictions of the heroes, and is unable to find the villain prophecied to end the world, but is reasonably successful. She participates in a battle where one of the most powerful heroes destroys a powerful monster known as an Endbringer. A few months later, however, an even more powerful monster appears to replace it. The organization the traitors had worked for - Cauldron - helps to unite heroes and villains from across the world to combat it, agreeing to terrible prices to recruit some of the villains.

A timeskip of two years then follows.

Taylor is now a respected hero. The deadline for the end of the world has arrived, and the villain (known as Jack Slash) reappears on schedule, leading an army of clones of powerful villains. Taylor leads the Undersiders and teams of heroes to fight them together. Unfortunately, they are unable to stop them in time, and the world ends - Jack persuades one of the most powerful heroes in the world to turn evil.

The heroes of the world battle this new villain, but are unable to defeat them. Entire countries are destroyed, as people attempt to evacuate into new worlds. The heroes allow all the most powerful villains in the world out of jail to battle the entity, but every time they battle countless heroes and villains are killed. The entity destroys settlements on other worlds, even travelling to several parallel Earths to wipe out the humans there. Even the Endbringers side with humanity, but are defeated and several of them are killed. It is revealed that the reason the entity was so powerful is that it was responsible for all other powers in the first place; Cauldron was formed in order to attempt to create parahumans powerful enough to stop it through human experimentation. Taylor deduces a way to traumatize the entity, which it has no experience with causing it to become less logical.

Taylor accepts dangerous modifications allowing her to control humans. She mind-controls everyone across a dozen worlds to battle the entity. Many heroes and villains are killed in combat. She discovers that the entity is vulnerable to a particular power, but it's superhuman reactions always allow it to dodge it. As her mind and body degenerate, she slowly loses her sense of self and ability to communicate with others. The heroes and villains escape her control.

They manage to bully the entity into giving up caring about the fight. Without the motivation to dodge, they are able to wound it using the weakness Taylor discovered, then destroy it using the combination of a dozen super-science weapons.

In the aftermath, Taylor is seemingly killed, too much of a threat to allowed to live. A series of epilogues reveal the fates of other characters. However, the final epilogue shows Taylor seemingly alive and de-powered.

Themes

G.S Williams suggested that the story contains an "undercurrent" of the idea that "sometimes you have to go outside the rules to do the right thing".<ref name="GS Williams"/> Several authors have compared the story to Alan Moore's Watchmen,<ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="T4anky"/> as well as the character of Spiderman an his themes of responsibility,<ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/> although McCrae has stated that no one author has heavily influenced him.<ref name="T4anky"/>

The title Worm has multiple potential meanings. It has been connected to the protagonist's character development, as a "lowly, overlooked" person who is nonetheless useful and dangerous; drawing a parallel with the the protagonists power to control worms and other bugs.<ref name="GS Williams"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/>

A number of reviewers have noted the characters' ingenuity, and the original and creative use of superpowers in the narrative.<ref name="T4anky"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="Genre Reader"/><ref name="GS Williams"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/> Author Adam Sherman described one of the recurring themes of the story as "that powers don’t really make the person, its the person who makes the power". McCrae has described how he would regularly write himself into corners, so that "the desperate gambits we see are echoed by my writerly desperation to figure out a way to keep things going."<ref name="T4anky"/> G.S Williams drew a parallel between the protagonist's power being seemingly underwhelming, and her being overlooked in her civilian life, and the broader theme of things being overlooked.<ref name="GS Williams"/>

Several reviewers have described the serial as an exercise in repeatedly escalating the stakes of the story.<ref name="T4anky"/><ref name="GS Williams"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/>

Reception

Worm has received generally favorable reviews. It received substantial attention following a favourable review by author Gavin Williams roughly six months into publication, which praised the story's themes and originality.<ref name="GS Williams">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/> Readership doubled when it was recommended by author Eliezer Yudkowsky on his website while the story was in it's final months.<ref name="T4anky"/>

News site Monotonecritic.com compared it favorably to the similar-length book series A Song of Ice and Fire.<ref name="MT Critic">Template:Cite web</ref> Matt Freeman of Daly Planet Films praised the story's originally, noting that it works as a science-fiction story to a degree not found in most works of superhero fiction.<ref name="Daly Planet Films">Template:Cite web</ref> Media site toolsandtoys.net published a review by Chris Gonzales, who described it as "one of my favorite stories ever written". However, he also noted that it was "dark", warning "definitely don’t hand this to a kid to read".<ref name="Toolsandtoys">Template:Cite web</ref> Several reviews praised the story for being difficult to stop once you began reading.<ref name="MT Critic"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/><ref name="Genre Reader"/>

Reviewers have praised the story's realism use of consequences, contrasting it favorably with the tendency for characters to return from the dead in superhero comic books and films.<ref name="Genre Reader"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="MT Critic"/> Many praised the story's originality and creative use of superpowers.<ref name="T4anky"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="Genre Reader"/><ref name="GS Williams"/><ref name="The Odyssey"/>

The story also possesses a sizable online fanbase. It receives 40-60 visitors a day from TV Tropes alone.<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/> Fan art relating to the novel has been published on DeviantArt, and a large amount of fan fiction of the work has been produced, particularly on the SpaceBattles forums.<ref name="MT Critic"/><ref name="The Star"/><ref name="T4anky"/> There is an IRC chatroom established for reader to comment and discuss the story, which is constantly active, as well as communities of fans on a number of online forums.<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/> Worm, along with McCrae's other works Pact and Twig, are consistently among the highest-rated works on ratings site TopWebFiction,<ref name="MT Critic"/> and Worm is the highest-rated work on several websites that collect serial fiction.<ref name="The Star"/><ref name="Patreon">Template:Cite web</ref> Worm has an average rating of 4.69 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, with over 2000 user rankings.<ref name="Goodreads">Template:Cite web</ref> Of these users, 99% liked the book.<ref name="Goodreads"/>

Several publications have discussed Worm within the context of the increasing popularity of web serials,<ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/><ref name="Litreactor">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="T4anky">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Beacon-Villager"/><ref name="Daly Planet Films"/> and compared to the work of authors such as Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, who also wrote in the serial format.<ref name="Daly Planet Films"/><ref name="Creative Writing Guild"/><ref name="Litreactor"/> Authors Olivia Rising and Adam Sherman have credited it as a decisive influence on their work.<ref name="Genre Reader">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Beacon-Villager"/>

References

Template:AFC submission

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Trivia

Topped out at roughly 1.74 million words.

References

History

Major Events

See also

Publication

Plot

Themes

Reception

References

References

Trivia

References