The World’s Unluckiest Criminal Award Goes To:

So far The Power Fantasy has largely been an excellent execution of exactly what you would have expected from the previews which does mute the effect a little.

Then Issue #4 dropped and it's as at least as heavily telegraphed as anything that came before but this time that doesn't stop it hitting as hard as possible at all.

It's one of the most horrible scenarios imaginable. Your powers go out of control when your emotions get too negative and when that happens millions die.

Nobody can ever be too honest when it would risk that happening. You can't trust anything someone says to you. You can't develop any type of meaningful relationship with someone. Your emotional, artistic and moral development is stunted because nobody can ever confront you with upsetting truths. You can't even blame anyone because it's completely correct for them to instrumentalise you and to turn every interaction they have with you into managing you.

10/10 I've been screaming internally whenever I think about Masumi since her issue dropped.

My WORM trailer storyboards for my class!!!

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Hey all!! Been a while lol, I still exist, and I'm still insane about worm! Enjoy my 16-shot storyboard I made for class! I plan to maybe animate this someday, let me know what you think!

Grue: A little too general as a ward or weaverdice power, especially with the side effects of "blocks other non-visible EM radiation" and "messes with breaker powers". The EM blocking could be made more obvious, and/or rely more on Brian's conscious thought; "i'm blocking radio" "they're not using radio they're using microwave transmission" "fuck". It's also a little easy in terms of control, and this might be fixed by making it un-malleable (so he can't make distracting shadow-duplicates, it's just smoke that expands a little once he's created it).

Tattletale: In terms of weaverdice trigger-gen Lisa would be a master/thinker, so a social thinker fits. Her "super deduction" should be restricted down to people's tells only, and maybe other things that are directly connected to a relationship, or something social. She can still kind of do things like know people's powers, but only by reading what people think those powers are. Some kind of resource mechanic to feed her power might also be necessary, but lets leave it there for now.

Skitter: Mostly fine, but only because she's a double trigger. Maybe she could face down a trump who un-does this, to give her a control system with different "modes" like Aiden/Chicken Little? Alternatively maybe restrict her in terms of which arthropods she can control (only spiders, or only insects), or make her control range be shaped like winslow high school (rectangular, she is at corner point of it and has to swing it around to decide where to control/attack) instead of spherical.

Bitch: Weaverdice character creation says that a Master "creates minions or has a means of compelling others to take certain actions". As Rachel is doing neither of those things (her dogs already exist!) she needs either a real master power to control/influence her dogs, or she needs a different trigger, to make her a "TWOxNINE" trump. Maybe her foster mother was a parahuman?

Imp: Since her trigger was a very "immediate, in-your-face threat", she should be a striker. Maybe she can create weapons like a swords of shadow that create an amnesia effect on hit? This would give Aisha more control over her amnesia effect, but would be more in-keeping with weaverdice power-gen rules.

Regent: He can't actually fully control anyone, and can only jerk one limb at a time, distracting people instead of controlling them, like the younger heartbroken in Ward.

The Power Fantasy (2024) #6 and #2

I have been compiling promotional/cover images and I thought maybe other people would find it useful too, so. Will update it continually.

Kid Ignition had five lines this issue and four of them were disparaging of his life and/or of Heavy.

Once Kid gets a taste of freedom I doubt he'd ever want to be bound again

I'm honestly less interested in, "Is Kid Ignition really as powerful as Heavy thinks?" and more in, "Is Kid Ignition really as loyal and obedient as Heavy thinks?" I guess an exact repeat of The Major would be poetically ironic or something. But from a character standpoint, I really just want to see Kid lashing out at his controlling, high-pressure parents like basically every teenager since the concept of teenagerhood was invented. Except, of course, he's not your average kid.

Everyone involved on this has done such a stellar job and it was such a joy to be a part of. If you care about the Power Fantasy you simply have to read it.

THE POWER CUT OUT NOW!

The Power Cut is a fanzine about The Power Fantasy. The Power Cut is a collection of meta essays, illustrations, and jokes. The Power Cut contains mature content and spoilers for The Power Fantasy #1-5. The Power Cut is available free at the links below. The Power Cut is so excited to meet you!

LINKS Google Drive Dropbox

CONTRIBUTORS @artbyblastweave @idonttakethislightly @jkjones21 @khepris-worst-soldier @meserach @rei-ismyname @tazmuth @the-joju-experience

Cover art by @tazmuth

Actually maybe Wildbow’s tendency to issue poorly thought out proclamations about his stories to win arguments with his fans is a good thing, as it forcibly introduces otherwise naive readers to the idea of the death of the author

attention everyone we have reached my personal favorite Line in worm

I stepped toward Sundancer and offered a hand to help her up.  She flinched away. Oh.  My hands were bloody.  I dropped the offered hand to my side. “Let’s go,” I suggested.

there are a lot of good Lines in worm, and while i will acknowledge that many of them are sort of objectively more powerful culminating moments than this one, this one is still My Personal Favorite. Oh. My hands were bloody.

it's been obvious through the early arcs that taylor has a lot of repressed anger: she beats the shit out of rachel, even after being bitten. she outright admits to the other undersiders that she hasn't taken subtle revenge on the trio at school because she's afraid she would take it too far/it would obviously be her. she is, initially, unnerved by violence: she's a bit scared by the gun present in the loft, it creeps her out that brian knows every way to break a person's body, she feels guilt about the idea of any civilians being hurt during the bank robbery. but she still beat up rachel, and she still shoves bugs up the wards' noses during the robbery, and she still gleefully rides rachel's dog and laughs and hollers from the joy and the adrenaline rush of victory afterwards.

the expression of this repressed anger thru violence escalates further when her concussion leads her to slapping emma in the mall. in the principal's office, when it's clear that nothing she or her dad says will garner help with the bullying, she shouts and slaps papers off the table and asks what would happen if she brought a knife to school. after she and her dad leave the meeting, she calls lisa:

“Hey.  How did it go?” I couldn’t find the words for a reply. “That bad?” “Yeah.” “What do you need?” “I want to hit someone.”

lisa invites her to a raid on the ABB so she can do that, and it's soo. Sooo Very. to watch how she cuts loose on it. she's so angry rachel notices it in how she's standing, and she's still confused about how rachel noticed. she's a confident leader when the fight goes crisis mode, she responds to rachel bucking against her orders by consistently shouting at rachel to "NOT fuck with me right now," she acts nigh-suicidally aggressive during her fight with lung, and she snarls "don't fucking underestimate me" when she takes him out using a caterpillar dipped in newter's blood.

all of this happens in relatively subtle increments. she doesn't notice how she progressively becomes comfortable expressing herself and taking charge instead of withdrawing or acting insecurely during the course of the mission. she doesn't notice that she's not horrified by dealing with newter's wound or seeing the sniper's broken leg. back in unmasked society, she was forced to consider how many of her aggressive actions were the result of the concussion loosening her impulse control--here, she repeatedly yells at bitch without a second thought. it's a place where her violence and anger isn't only acceptable but necessary. the circumstances normalize her outbursts and comfort with violence to her, leaving her blind to how alienated and dissociated and repressed and traumatized and furious and just Fucked Up she has to be to face down lung and then dig his eyes out.

when she says that she "doesn't believe in eye for an eye," in arc 4 alec asks her why the fuck she's a supervillain. his implicit assertion is clear: being a villain is, for him, about taking your revenge for being hurt out on whoever you can manage or justify, even if they're not the person who originally hurt you. and taylor thinks she's not doing that. but hey: she goes beyond just "hitting someone" and into literally taking lung's eyes as a culmination of the cathartic violence she's been engaging in as recompense for how she was mistreated earlier.

and the person who serves as a more "normal" reference point for how far taylor just escalated is sundancer: horrified by the idea of having to use her sun to hurt people, shocked by how casually violent taylor has been, flinching away from taylor when she turns to sundancer after committing that violence & tries to offer sundancer help.

because, oh. her hands are bloody. she hadn't even noticed how bloody they were getting, but they are.

deeply evocative one-line reminder of how taylor has changed in these first five arcs, without even noticing. and the best part is that, while the imagery of "oh. my hands were bloody" does convey that change in an incredibly brief and powerful way, the fact that taylor is saying it still means even she hasn't really realized. she thinks it's mainly just about the superficial, literal blood on her hands, and not the metaphorical blood on her hands that sundancer is disturbed by. it's good.

The Power Cut previews: The Superpowers

Essay and art previews for some of the essays from The Power Cut, an upcoming The Power Fantasy fanzine!

Credits:

Masumi: essay @jkjones21, art @tazmuth

Heavy: essay @idonttakethislightly, art @jkjones21

Etienne: essay @meserach, art @artbyblastweave

Magus: essay @rei-ismyname, art @jkjones21

Valentina: essay @khepris-worst-soldier, art @idonttakethislightly

Eliza: essay and art @idonttakethislightly