Wait a Minute... (Guy in Worm with Trouble in Terrorist Town powers)

[Phili]

I'm not actually sick anymore. I'm putting this up because I will be busy today and I want to re-expand my backlog of chapters, and I already had this written, so I'm afraid you only get this instead of a normal chapter. On the bright side, this does mean everyone gets an extra day to put in a guess if they want the full amount of points for the bounty before Chapter 28 goes up.

Behind The Scenes – 1



Well, here we go, a little thing I thought I'd do and see if there was any interest. If there isn't, I'll stop doing it, if there is, then I'll do more. I decided to do this one, because I am sick at the moment and it is throwing off my fingers and dexterity a little (which was something I didn't even know could happen, though I suppose it sort of makes sense). So this is something where it is less frustrating to constantly correct typos from my fingers not hitting the right keys.

These will be just a look behind the scenes so I can tell you all about things like what the original plans were, how things have changed, and any information that is unlikely to be answered in the story itself (at least anytime soon).

Anyways, to start off, I thought I'd say some things about how the story originally was going to go. Originally, Dave was going to actually be a Self-Insert instead of an Original Character, and Daf straight-up didn't exist in the original plan. I'm not actually certain when my plans derailed, but it was before I actually started writing, it was back when it was just an idea in my head.

Originally, I wasn't going to randomly decide what roles he got each day either, and he wasn't going to be able to respawn. Then, I was like "what if I started out as an Old Man in Brockton Bay?" and quickly deduced I would die before the day was out and I got a new role. As a Self-Insert, I wouldn't have had any ID, or an apartment, or any food, or water. If I went to a homeless shelter, I might get into a fight and die from being punched once; if I stayed on the streets I might get into a fight and die from being punched once (because Brockton Bay), or get too exposed to the weather and die because I took the equivalent of one damage from the cold and wind; if I went to the Protectorate, I might die if Shadow Stalker is an asshole and trips me and makes me fall, or if literally anyone doesn't believe me if I tell them I will die really easily and they try to prove me wrong by poking me with a tack or something.

The only thing I could think of that might have allowed me to live, was if I went to the Protectorate, showed I was a 'Parahuman', and claimed to be exhausted and that I would like a room and food and to be able to sleep the rest of the day and that I would do power testing the next day… since the next day I would no longer be limited to the Old Man and wouldn't be stuck on one health. The problem with that, was that it would trap me into a narrow set of things I could do, and it would probably register as extremely suspicious, and give me no answer to things like Armsmaster's lie detector. If I was stuck in the Brockton Bay Protectorate with no resources or connections, I wouldn't really be able to actually influence anything, because they are, by design, crippled by Cauldron to guarantee that they can't actually do anything. It might be another story for someone like Weld or Flechette, who has connections to people from their previous city, but I would be new and not even have any civilian connections within Brockton.

I couldn't find a way out… until I decided to make the main character an OC instead. But I still wanted a way for them to have at least some meta knowledge and an outside perspective, so they could look at Earth Bet, and say 'yo that's fucked up'. Thus, came Dave, who decided on his own name with no input from me. Thus arose the questions of, 'how did he get there? What does he know? What is the source of his power?'. And thus, came Daf, who has been saving souls with the power of glitter glue since last week.

I'm glad I did, because Dave is just so much better as a character than a Self Insert ever could be without drastic alterations. He doesn't care about Earth Bet's weird rules, he doesn't know how much the locals care about them. No thinker would be able to look at him and say 'he knows about Cauldron!' And he is just so easy for everyone to underestimate, because of his personality, which will make it all the sweeter when he starts going into action.

So, someone asked about this in the NSFW thread, but Dave's personality is actually caused by a mix of things. His base personality is actually his own as an original character, from before things ™ happened to him that resulted in Daf finding him, but a disproportional amount of his personality is now based on the Yogscast, because that is a significant portion of what he can actually remember, and he sort of built parts of his new personality around it. Because they are most of what he remembers, it is kind-of like he grew up watching them as his main role models of how someone is supposed to behave and think and speak. You might actually notice bits of personality from quite a few members of the Yogscast if you look closely enough.

That is actually part of why his intelligence might seem to shift so much, because sometimes he is really in the mindset of 'I am part of a group of idiots', but sometimes he will pull out Rythian or Nilesy's big-brain-logic moments (which, to be fair, they don't show as much in TTT, they show that more in Blood on The Clocktower). Other times, he will show aspects of Ravs's ADHD, or Zoey's catlike 'Okay, I'm bored now, bye' leaving halfway through an explanation that she asked for. Similarly, he might show Briony's blind trust in a random person (hi Bella), or he might show Lewis or Duncan's suspicious side gained from years of playing TTT.

 

[Phili]

Behind The Scenes – 2: Slice of Life, Endbringers, Pacing, PAP Trickiness, Changes From Worm Canon.



I'm rather fond of how I've designed Dave's powers to work. Namely, in how he gets more powers by growing his soul. It's pretty rare to have a character that will grow stronger from having fun, traveling, trying new things and socializing, and I like that Dave grows from those things, in addition to the 'standard shonen package' of getting stronger from getting in fights.

It's nice, partially because, it makes Slice of Life scenes and chapters, and 'filler' scenes become actually relevant, because those are actually helping him grow his soul. I generally enjoy Slice of Life scenes, but one of the problems I have with a lot of long-running shows, is when episodes are filler, in the sense of the episode could never happen and nothing would change. When all the characters met in an episode never show up again, no recurring characters or main characters get any new items or abilities or character growth, etc. I end up rather unhappy.

I recently wrote a slice-of-life-oriented chapter (Chapter 46), which is why I'm thinking about all this. It makes me quite happy to have scenes that are just 'a day in the life' type things occasionally, because they show some of what is going on in the background normally, and show why Dave grows as much as he does each day.



On another note, I've found that I'm quite looking forward to the Endbringer fights. Don't get me wrong, I expect they will be rather difficult, especially given the sheer variety of stuff Dave will have at his disposal at that point, but I don't quite understand the whole 'Leviathan Fight Curse' thing, where Worm fics tend to stop right before the canon Brockton Leviathan Fight. I've put quite a bit of thought into exactly how Dave's various powers and items will interact with Endbringers, and I think I've managed to strike a decent balance in my head in terms of what each thing will do.

Someone recently asked if the Good Boy role would blind the Simurgh, and I said 'no because she is already blind' and linked the part of the Simurgh's wiki page that says that. However… the other two see fine…



Something I have struggled a little bit with is pacing. I don't want to show all the Slice-of-life moments, because eventually that would just get repetitive and boring, even to people that like it. So, I try to have a light touch for things that don't involve THINGS HAPPENING or important conversations. They do still show a little bit of characters' dynamics with each other, but I do try to keep things moving along a little. That is actually something I rather like about how I mixed the Soul Growth aspect of Dave's power and the New Role Each Day aspect, I need to make sure stuff happens each day for the soul growth stuff, but a new day needs to pass for him to get a new role, so that has actually helped me a fair bit with pacing.

Do let me know how the pacing feels though, I haven't gotten any comments so far (as of when I write this) on the pacing being good or bad (or bad in a particular direction) which I think is probably either a good sign, or a sign that the people that don't like the pacing dislike it so much they just left.

An example of a pacing change I recently did was in Chapter 45, where I spotted an opportunity and decided to make something happen much sooner than I originally had planned. I always planned for Dave to go to New York eventually, but I didn't think it was going to be for another month or so (in-universe), probably after Valentine's Day in-universe. Then I spotted the opportunity, and couldn't resist it, so now Dave is visiting New York much sooner than I expected.



Some roles and items are trickier to write about than others. Mainly, this is ones that don't appear much in the TTT episodes, or are on the older side, because it can be difficult to find all the information I want.

Now, an unexpectedly difficult item in that regard, is the Pack-A-Punch. This is simply because, the PAP (Pack-A-Punch) can be used on literally everything, and I don't like making mistakes out of avoidable ignorance. So, as I watch through TTT episodes, I write down every PAP item shown on-screen and what the on-screen effect describes word-for-word. Unfortunately, the episodes don't always show the PAP happening, so I don't necessarily get the in-game description of what the PAP of a particular item does.

This is part of why, early on, when I first introduced the PAP, I explained it in such a way that it is fairly obvious it takes up a lot of soul room. So that I can introduce one PAP-ed item at a time after Dave actually unlocks the PAP, and it won't be overwhelming for readers or force me to make stuff up that might be demonstratably incorrect in TTT episodes I just haven't gotten to yet in my rewatching.



Oh yes, something I've put some thought into, is how much I want to take canon into account. Generally, I try to stick to it pretty thoroughly, for both the Worm side and the TTT side. I try to make sure that whenever I don't stick to canon, it is deliberate, such as with Dave's extra powers he gets that are related to TTT things, but aren't actually in the original thing, like the Old Man combat Thinker power, or improving various items over time compared to their original versions.

There are a couple of things I have deliberately changed though, some are of course: Dean/Gallant's exact situation, due partially to how strange his situation in canon was, with how his costume was power armor created by Kid Win, but Kid Win didn't join the Wards until January 2010, but Dean had powers and was nearby when Victoria triggered sometime between April and June in 2009 according to this: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline#2009 . So, I had to square that circle and figure out how the heck Kid Win made Dean's costume when Dean had had his powers for at least 6 months by the time Kid Win joined the Wards. In the process of reconciling this of course, Dean and Victoria have yet to meet each other in their hero identities now, as opposed to canon where they were apparently already dating when she gained her powers. He was of course still present when she did so, since it was at a school basketball game and they both go to Arcadia, so she still got her emotional powers because his power refused to turn off when it was supposed to, making Vicky's power add that emotional component to itself.

Another thing I've changed, is that Lisa (and Taylor, both according to Lisa's wiki page) have inexplicable talent and skill with guns in canon. On this page: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Lisa_Wilbourn#Abilities_and_Powers right before the 'Shard' section of her powers, it mentions "Like Taylor she has inexplicable finesse with a gun.[222][223]​ At a much later point she was even able to accurately read lips.[224]​". So, in this, I'm making her (and Taylor if it ever comes up) quite talented with guns, but she ain't getting away with not needing to practice or anything. She, like anyone with functioning fingers, is dangerous with a gun, but she isn't going to become skilled without practice and training.

One final change I've consciously made so far, is regarding Crystal. In canon, as stated here: https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Laserdream#Appearance Crystal is blind in one eye. It is described as: "She was blind in one eye;[35]​ Crystal preferred to cover this eye with her hair.[36][37]​ Wildbow speculated that this condition was present at birth and that she preferred to cover her bad eye as it sat askew, like a lazy eye.[38]​ He also speculated that both eyes shared the same color, and appeared to be fine with a WIP illustration by somnolentSlumber that depicted Crystal with blue eyes.[37]​".

Now, that's fine and all… except that she is adoptive cousins with Panacea. Why would Panacea have not fixed that? The logical explanation would of course be that the problem making her blind is something related to the brain, which makes some sense given how connected eyes are to the brain. But… surely Panacea could at least fix the lazy eye part without touching Crystal's brain? It obviously bothers Crystal somewhat since she covers the eye with her hair in canon, so it's not like she would refuse to have it healed or anything, so the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me.

Leaving aside that Panacea could heal it, it also would have simply been healed the first time Crystal ate one of Dave's burritos or hotpockets, and if Crystal didn't comment on it, nobody would know. Bella and Crystal's family would notice eventually of course, but I don't think most people are aware that Crystal is blind in one eye, either readers in the community or people in-universe of canon worm. So ultimately, I suppose I'm leaving it up to you readers as individuals to decide if Panacea just healed her eye, her eye got healed from her first burrito and she didn't comment on it because no pretty girl wants to talk about her lazy eye, or if it simply never was blind/lazy in Wait a Minute.



That's all for this Behind The Scenes. I'll probably put this up on a day with a particularly short chapter, though it may be before some of the chapters mentioned (Chapters 45 and 46). If so, just consider that a sneak peak that Dave will have a trip to New York planned by then.