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The core cast in Ward is sooooo good, and they all bounce off of each other well but with a different dynamic than Undersiders. However, where Ward shines for me is the cast. The ending also fell pretty flat for me, as there's also some storytelling decisions that seem to weigh on artificial drama by holding back information from the reader in weirdly obtuse ways, which I think could have been handled better, and without the overarching story thrust, the final conflicts don't have as much weight as they should.There's a much greater disconnect between arcs because there's not the same overarching plot as 'Taylor is trying to be a hero > Taylor is trying to protect the city > Taylor is trying to stop the end of the world' in Worm. There is not a clear story thrust or throughline in Ward basically.The problems with everyone being incompetent outside of the protagonists also carries through, but there's no the same catharsis to it without Taylor being an overconfident teenager who takes over it all and does it better because she's so great.How the antagonists are handled and written in Ward are very lackluster, and I think suffer for trying to live up to the scale and sensation of the inhuman threats of Worm like the Endbringers and Slaughterhouse Nine but while still just being normal parahumans, so they're written with absurd capabilities or resources but then are unclimactically written off because there's not reasonable ways to defeat them.Ward (the sequel to Worm) is finishing up now, and I will say that story has a lot more problems structurally than Worm, even though I think Wildbow's writing has generally improved a lot. However, I recognize that Worm was a story built on being a slightly more ostensibly 'grounded' superhero power fantasy, about teenagers rebelling against authority, and it works for what it's trying to accomplish for the most part, even if the execution could be improved. At the same time, Taylor just became an unlikable character to me at a certain point because of her constant downward trajectory of morals combined with her stubbornness and a story that kept creating scenarios to justify it rather than pushing back against it at all. It's such a teenager 'I'm the only one right, everyone else is getting in my way, and I'm gonna make it happen my way no matter what' mindset that is then continuously reinforced by the story to the point of other characters being frustratingly stupid or incompetent. Looking back on it through a myriad of discussions I've had over the years, there are serious problems with the worldbuilding and setting around the story, and I've grown more and more disenfranchised with Taylor's perspective as I get older.

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As others have said, it does suffer by nature of being a serial novel, meaning the pacing is screwed up in a lot of places, but the huge cast of characters and interesting+inventive powers keep it powering through even when it can drag on. The ending was and still is incredibly hype, and there's a lot of great moments in the story.

Worm was something I really enjoyed while reading in a giant binge, getting on to it towards the last few arcs. I made a thread for Ward back when it first began, but it did not take off at all. I've followed John McCrae/Wildbow's works for a while, and I've read all of them with the sole exception of Twig, so it's funny to see it pop up here. The main character is also really well done and goes through one helluva crazy arc. That and of course a lot of the heroes and the powers in general are great as well as they all get very well developed and have a lot of nuance. Oh and its got like a dozen amazing villains from The Slaughter House 5 who are a fucking incredible villain group to the apocalyptic End Bringers.

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Not too mention I also think its quite possibly one of the most well realized super hero universes and once you finally understand the full breadth of what's going on in the universe its amazing to see how all the pieces fall together. I'd compare it to Game of Thrones in the scale, the thoughtfulness to both the character development and world building and not being afraid to go some dark places while pulling no punches. Its not perfect as I think the pacing can drag at times and the author maybe focuses on some side characters a little more than he needs to but its just an incredible read. I honestly think its the best piece of super hero fiction of the last decade.

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