Feelin Impish!

Glow-Worm P.4

I really digging the epistolary format of these. A surprising amount of characterisation can be crammed into a search term or a couple of comments. Rain's desperation jumps off the page.

Also of interest is the tidbit about cluster mechanics that wasn't picked up by the fandom; I don't think I've ever seen any fic ever have clustermates with a primary and secondary power of similar strength. This might be because Ward never expands on this idea elsewhere.

Also, we have the first mention of what will likely be a recurring bugbear for me; the classification system. In Worm, power classifications are a useless bureaucratic post-hoc kludge. There is one fight where Taylor is only given ratings instead of power descriptions and it leaves her entirely unprepared. And here we have a hero referring to a cape having a "mover power with the ability to run on walls". What does "mover power" add to "the ability to run on walls"?!?! Its fine here, because its possibly a hero, like Weaver, inflected by the PRT's bureaucratic ticks, but from what I know of Ward and of Weaverdice, it seems that Wildbow forgot that the classifications aren't useful and aren't an intrinsic part of the power system.

Internal Inconsistency Counter: 6 (nc)

Inconsistency with Worm Counter: 1 (nc)

Number of times I've complained about power classifications: 1 (+1)

I should be excited to read Ward. There’s so much potential in a sequel to Worm. I care about the returning characters and I really, really, really liked what the epilogue of Worm set up. I’m maybe one of a handful of people that like Teacher (as of his epilogue). I love the idea of a work set in the portal ridden ruins of New York. The tension created by the amnesty and of the Wardens attempting to police this new world. And fundamentally, it’s incredibly interesting to move from a work where the world was slowly ending, to one where the world has ended, but which is no longer on the path to ending.

And yet, I’m aware that this potential is, at least partially, squandered. The evocative picture of New York replaced by the amorphous, placeless City. The problems of resource distribution mentioned and yet never fully integrated into the narrative. The apocalypse cult going through the apocalypse mostly unchanged.

Still I’ll read it. Who knows, maybe I’ll love it

Taylor and her eldritch buddy

Taylor the Survivor

This is a key moment for Taylor's character arc, helping her dad salvage what they can in the aftermath of the endbringer attack. The high school insecurities are just a memory and stepped fully into her role as a masked parahuman. She's growing into her potential, even as the line between Taylor and Skitter begin to merge in dangerous ways. Physically at ease and confident; I wanted to include the knife she wore but it didn't work with this pose.

That being said, I don't know why it struck such a visual chord with me. Emma seeing her old victim from the car was just a vivid scene to me, I knew I had to draw her.

As we head into issue 6, wherein “Magnus and Heavy’s 18-years-in-the-making plans for world-domination are revealed” I think it’s worthwhile to remember that some of the most dangerous times in the Cold War was when one side erroneously believed that nuclear war was something they could win, or would soon be able to win (see, eg the Star Wars Defence system). Nuclear peace was enforced by MAD, and so too is the continuing peace between the Superpowers, but MAD breaks down the instant one side thinks they can win, that action stops being lose-lose.

Heavy thought conflict between him and The Major would be lose-lose; an instant after he learned otherwise The Major was a ball of meat.

In issue 6 Heavy and Magnus will think they can win. How many will die proving them wrong?

My wild prediction for issue 6, is that Heavy’s son, possibly due to growing up constantly psychically shielded, is not immune to Lux’s powers, resulting in him instantly becoming psychically subverted by Lux, in a way that can only deescalate the situation

it is rlly funny that wildbow thinks so little about legend that he forgot he never gave him a name in worm so ward accidentally canonizes that his son’s name is also his name

i wiah we saw grue operating solo at some point bc itd be so funny to see him blanket a building in darkness, walk in, steal stuff and walk out with no one able to do a thing about it

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.

Not gonna lie, really looking forward to next issue when we get to see Heavy and the Major square up for a continent destroying battle, only for Heavy to effortlessly yeets him into the sun.