SMASH OR PASS: The Simurgh, Worm

Anyway here is my magnum opus: skateboard kaladin webcore banner

static version below the cut

hello people who follow me whose interests presumably align with my own, i would like to strongly recommend to you the serial web novel Katalepsis. there's a plot summary on that linked page if you want to take a peek, as well as content warnings, but you can also start blind here (unless you feel like you need to take a glance over the content warnings!)

very nice blend of cosmic horror/urban fantasy with a dash of lesbian romance (there are a lot of lesbians in this), generally a fun story and very worth a read. the pacing is probably the best part, i managed to carve through this one pretty quick despite its volume because it doesn't feel like a lot to read in practice. so very enthralling and with worldbuilding that has me very intrigued

Some things that are great about Pale, if you're unsure about reading it:

A murder mystery in which none of the suspects can lie, and yet half-truths and sneakiness make this absolutely riveting to investigate

A social justice story about working your damndest to make a better world and a serious examination of what it really takes to change the system

Three teenage protagonists who are all incredible people in rich and diverse ways - seriously, I want to be each of them when I grow up

Teens do extremely cool magic stunts

Characters who you come to appreciate on a deeper level than arguably any other work

Number one source for opossum appreciation and memes

A magic system so good it doesn't even feel fair to call it a magic system; this is just what magic is to me now

Arguably the best introduction to that system and universe because it makes it playful and fun (and doesn't spoil anything from other stories in that universe)

So many different kinds of magic!

Robust enough to accommodate any fantasy/horror/urban fantasy plotline

So many well-classified types of guy. Like, you've been through a million groundhog day style loops? That's a type of guy

Feels like a courtroom drama half the time

Maybe the best take on the "is it bad for kids to be protagonists?" question ever

The coolest trans guy in the world

Gay shipping wars (takes a while to get there, but so worth it)

Will probably make you cry

There are podcasts! Pale Reflections, which comments on Pale, and Pale In Comparison, which compares Pale to Pact, the other big work set in this universe. Both are very good and will 100% enhance your understanding of the story's themes

Judicial extrajudicial judicial murder (Is it good? Bad? Discuss)

In a sense that is totally unfair to both parties but nonetheless feels inescapably true, the antagonist is Taylor from Worm

The thing that absolutely kills me about Ianthe being a main character is that nobody fucking invited her. She’s not involved in this shit beyond her forcing herself into it. Harrow is connected to the soul of a murdered goddess who she’s also in love with, and Gideon’s the daughter of the man who murdered a planet to become god, and Ianthe is…? Here? I guess???

Ianthe has no connection to this plot, she’s got nothing to do with any of it, she’s just so FUCKING desperate for the spotlight to finally be on her that she’ll do anything for it.

To this day, one if my favorite parts of Worm is how when Taylor is first going out in costume, she describes balling up tissues in her coin purse(that she keeps in her utility pack(not a backpack))so that the change wouldn't jingle.

And then, during the Echidna arc, she's held briefly by Miss Militia, who says she needs to look at Taylor's backpack. Taylor goes Actually, It's A Utility Pack. And Miss Militia looks through it and takes an inventory of the backpack, and then finds the coin purse. And she's like Oh, A Coin Purse... With Tissue Inside Of It? Oh! So It Doesn't Jingle! and you can hear Taylor going like

Breakthrough, from a work in progress. The faces here are about . . . 60% painted? Stay tuned for full outfits. Eventually.

Also, I have unilaterally decided that Ashley has a wolfcut now.

Ohhh my fucking god. There’s genuinely something wrong with her. There’s something wrong with her and it can’t be fixed. The “Floret wasn’t a fighter, even less than I was” right after she just committed probably fifty fucking murders like it was nothing. The. SHE’S SLICED AN S-CLASS THREAT IN HALF. SHE’S THREATENED TO KILL EIDOLON WITH FULL CONFIDENCE. SHE DID KILL ALEXANDRIA. SHE’S BEEN TO 10+ ENDBRINGER FIGHTS WITHOUT KICKING IT. SHE’S DISPATCHED TEAMS EXPLICITLY DESIGNED TO COUNTER HER WITHOUT ANY PARTICULAR EFFORT. NOT A FIGHTER???

NOT A FIGHTER??????

TAYLOR GIRL WHAT THE FUCK 

alec would be a huuuge soyjak poster. he would say soyjak meme things out loud all the time. sending them in the undersiders group chat. it would be awful. cherish would come to recruit him and he'd be like cringe slaughterhousecels seething over based undersiderchads and cherish would just leave right then and there. to the disappointment of the rest of the team who were all secretly wishing he'd join the nine so they could legally kill him

Zed seems like he’d be part of the shadow wizard money gang and loves casting spells.