Guts and Glory

Guts & Glory was a recurring title that was taken up and dropped several times in the drafting of what would become Worm.<ref name="3.11c1">Comment by Wildbow on Agitation 3.11</ref> Its rotating protagonists and point-of-view characters were Panacea and Glory Girl.<ref>Post by Wildbow on his blog</ref><ref name="Draft">Partial text of Guts & Glory</ref>

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Early versions of Glory Girl and Panacea were introduced here.Art by aerryi on deviantart

Synopsis

The first draft of Guts & Glory extends from the Brockton Bay Brigade's adoption of Amy Dallon to her trigger event. The second draft of Guts & Glory starts when Amy discovers the identity of her father and begins to break down. The third draft was an attempt to tie these first two drafts together, while Wildbow also attempted a fourth and final draft.<ref name="Draft"/><ref name="14.8 c1">The first draft extended from the day that The Brockton Bay Brigade found Amy to the day she got her powers. Kind of unique among those early stories because it remained relatively unscathed through multiple drafts & the worldbuilding that followed. Almost to the point that I could point to it and call it all canon. This was where I first introduced the Nine. Jack (Jack Knife), Crawler (‘Skitter’) and Shatterbird (‘Breaker’) and Mannequin were all in the group, more or less as they are here, along with others that included Nice Guy and Murder Rat. Glory Girl got sliced up by Jack, Amy had her trigger event, healed her sister and the tide was turned enough that the Nine retreated for another day.

The second draft took place much later. Amy discovers who her dad is, and much as she does in Worm, she begins breaking down, the facade she had up begins to crack. Marquis was introduced here, and the family was fleshed out.

The third draft was pretty much an attempt to join the previous drafts together, with material to flesh them out and fill in the gap. Victoria’s relationship with Gallant was built here, but he was different. He had a friend who had the emotion reading ability (who was set up with Amy) while his own abilities were a little more offensive, and he played up the gentleman angle more. I tried my hand at the ending, decided it was too dark, and basically gave up on Guts and Glory at that point. - Comment by Wildbow on Prey 14.8</ref>

Characters

Appearing in available draft

• Guts: An early version of Panacea named Annie here. She shares many traits with Taylor like black curly hair, insecurities about her figure, and social anxiety.
• Glory: An early version of Glory Girl, still named Victoria. Gregarious, she makes Annie feel welcome when she is adopted.
• Brett: An early version of Gallant, implied to have his aura vision. Had the story been pursued, a stronger relationship between him and Annie would have been the focus.
• Cole: Like Triumph, the mayor's son.

Not appearing in Available Draft<ref name="I13.5c1"/>

The Nine

• Jack Knife<ref name="14.8 c1" />
• Troll<ref name="13.5 c1">Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 13.5 (Donation Bonus)</ref> & Skitter<ref name="14.8 c1" />
• Breaker<ref name="13.5 c1" /><ref name="14.8 c1" />
• The Maiden<ref name="13.5 c1" />
• Nice Guy

Trivia

• Guts & Glory was the draft in which the Slaughterhouse Nine and Bonesaw were first conceptualized.<ref name="comment">wildbow comment on Interlude 10.5</ref> <ref name="I13.5c1">Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 13.5 (Donation Bonus)</ref> They would gain their final names later.
• Many characters' civilian and cape names differ between Guts & Glory and the final draft of Worm.
  • Panacea is named Annie rather than Amy, Triumph is named Cole rather than Rory, Gallant is named Brett rather than Dean, and Flashbang is named Nick rather than Mark, while Brandish's cape name is Arc, and Manpower's cape name is Mantower.<ref name="Draft"/>

References

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