to be someone

[nobredoesart]

Commission for @pseudohqm , of Segment! Go to here to find out more about her, and also because you should READ: https://segment.quest/

[teaboot]

My first time operating CCTV cameras I was handed control over what was essentially 50 independently moving eyes that collectively covered an area about the size of a football field and from that experience I now know that

Suddenly having 50 moving eyes can make you disoriented and barfy and the adjustment period sucks ass

It takes both more and less time than you’d think to figure out what the structure as a whole looks like and where those eyes ARE

After you get used to it the entirety of the structure itself and all of the eyes you can see from feels like an extension of your nervous system in a very bizarre way. Like I have dreams now from the perspective of A Building and I’m not sure how to describe that.

Once you are aware of an unreachable blind spot it nags at you constantly and you can feel it like a hard little lump under your skin you need to poke and scratch at and it’s ardghgguychgghhbhhhbhhh

[teaboot]

And on top of that, having operated CCTV at multiple locations now- my favourite and most comfortable one having excess of 60 cameras- it can be REALLY hard to suddenly jump to a different operating interface and display configuration, because all the muscle memory is wrong

On my COMFORTABLE system, the one I spent the longest time on, I never had to think about what code I needed to punch in. If I needed to watch a specific person, I could follow them all over the site without thinking about it.

Now at a different location, all the manual equipment and codes and lag and resolution are different, and it feels like going from playing the piano to driving stick shift on the left side of the road with my feet

The closest I imagine I can equate it to is like. Getting really really good at painting with a pair of prosthetic hands, and then suddenly having them swapped out with someone else’s

[teaboot]

Not the best depiction, but. Feels like this

[starstruckminnow]

@murderbot-moodboard

[castellankurze]

For the record, the best part of Godzilla: King of the Monsters isn’t the monster battles (which are grand) or the updates to the old designs (which are well executed) or the ridiculous plot (which is wonderfully shameless) or the nods to classic Godzilla flicks (which are all heartwarming).

It’s the fact that the film is willing to go all the way out on that branch and thematically frame King Ghidorah as the LITERAL ANTICHRIST

[starcunning]

where’s the essay op

[canalstreetbaker]

Essay now plz I need something to base a thesis on when I take it to Eden Theological Seminary

Because I for one am 100% behind Nuclear Lizard Jesus.

[castellankurze]

Alright well, people asked.

(WARNING: this post spoils some of the major twists in Godzilla: King of the Monsters)

Let’s begin with this shot from the trailer:

Now, this is already a borderline Renaissance painting in and of itself.  I mean, look at the damn thing.  The Beast rising from the fires of Hell in opposition to the cross?  Are we sure this gif wasn’t unearthed from some abandoned house in Venice?

Anyway, the really amazing part here is that the trailer doesn’t show the context of this shot: namely, that immediately before this, Godzilla and Ghidorah have their second (of three!) tussles in the film and while Ghidorah manages to escape, Godzilla bites off one of this three heads.  Immediately before this shot in the film, Ghidorah lands atop the active volcano and regenerates said injury, growing a brand new head.

Leaving aside the fact that this is a literal death and resurrection. in context. with a literal trinity.  set against a cross.

Let’s crack open the Book of Revelation and take a peek.  Namely, Revelation 13:3:

One of the heads of the Beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the Beast.

But wait, it gets better.  That second line? “The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the Beast.”

What’s the big twist of the Godzilla: KOTM?  That the eco-terrorists waking up the Titans intended to do it one at a time, so that they would destroy the world in a controlled fashion, allowing humanity to find new equilibrium with nature.  But then they woke up King Ghidorah and he promptly flings their plan in the fucking garbage bin by hijacking the will of the other kaiju and sending them on a giant worldwide rampage.

Revelation 13:4:

People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the Beast, and they also worshiped the Beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”

Godzilla: KOTM showcases its giant monsters as not only being giant monsters, but also takes a bit of Pacific Rim-esque flavoring by framing them as walking natural disasters, upsetting (or restoring) the natural balance.  Rodan awakens with a volcanic eruption.  Mothra is born amidst an earthquake. Ghidorah himself takes control of a massive hurricane.

Revelation 13:11-13:

Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.  And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.  

But KOTM doesn’t even stop there.  It goes into the origins of these creatures not only as earth’s defense system, but it names them as Titans, directly explaining them as the literal Titans of Greek mythology who were cast down by the gods, showing how they were worshipped by primitive man, with Godzilla retreating to a very literal temple built to his honor when he needs to regain his strength.  And Ghidorah, and his power over the other kaiju?  As the film states:  “A great dragon, who fell from the stars. A hydra, whose storms swallowed both men and gods alike. He’s not part of our natural order, and he’s not meant to be here. A false king.”

Revelation 12:9:

The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

And it keeps going!  We’re introduced to Ghidorah when it’s revealed that he’s been found in the Antarctic, frozen beneath the ice for centuries or maybe millennia.  We’re shown through ancient pictographs and tablets that he and Godzilla have thrown down before - mabye Godzilla is even the reason he’s been stuck in the ice all this time.

Revelation 20:1-3:

And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.  He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.  He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Of course, who is the ‘he’ who bound the dragon?  If Ghidorah is the false king, the Antichrist in this framing device, it’s ultimately not hard to guess the opposite number.  Someone who goes through a very literal death and resurrection arc, albeit aided by a nuclear device.

All to bring humanity out of an age of chaos into a new balance with the world around us.  All backed by multiple montages of new life springing up in the ruins of the cities destroyed during Ghidorah’s rampage.  And as asked of Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Serizawa; “so you’d want to make Godzilla our pet?”  “No,” comes the reply,  “We would be his.”

Revelation 21:13:

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."  He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.  Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

So, how much of this is deliberate?  Hard to say.  When it comes to the end of the world, with the multitude of religious texts we’ve written as a species over time, combined with the innumerable depictions of the end times in our science fiction and other media, eventually wires start to cross.  It wouldn’t surprise me if someone just decided the framing of Ghidorah against the iconic symbol of Christendom would look cool and the rest is all just coincidence.  But sometimes when the synchronicity is just right sometimes you get a metaphor that couldn’t be much more perfect no matter how unintentional it may be.

[red-velvet-void]

Never get into comics what is this 😭

Poem written by @arrow-ettes x

The caption isn't meant to be self-deprecating more so "never get into comics you'll start making comics yourself", in a fun sillay way

I've been working on this on and off since late may (but only really starting progress during June), working on sporaidically as my motivation for it flucatuated. There was definately a time where I considered dropping the project, but I'm proud of what I was able to do!! Though, since it is a bit old , some aspects vary in quality. At the level I am now I think I could improve upon things but for now I will have to live with it :p

Any other questions about the making of this comic I'll be sure to answer :] feel free to send an ask ^-^

[therealtsk]

oh okay i'll just go hold the brick you threw at me

[frontmansdefender]

Source

[ylkl]

AAGAHAHSHAHHAAHHSAHHSSBAJ WHAGT

[firebirbsstuff]

This is magical

[nobredoesart]

The Girls <3

[nobredoesart]

So, these are for an AU I am currently working on, called the Gargantuan Endbringers!

Essentially, the idea for it is that the Endbringers aren't city destroyers that pop up every three months, nor are they, in any reasonable manner, something you can fight. They are living apocalypses, things that destroy whole states, countries even, and the aftermaths are far starker. Death tolls are uncountable, and whole entire cultures eradicated when they show, though it bears mentioning that it's only once a year.

However, that isn't the most interesting part of them. Their mere existence changes the world, drastically. The Behemoth's movements reshape the tectonic plates, crack mountains, create valleys and leave gaping tunnels through the earth that insane people explore. The Leviathan's movements cause the weather to be utterly unpredictable, storms and tidal waves, calm tides and rainfall, are all messed up, and since he sinks whole countries (Japan is gone, under the waves in totality), the remnants are used for exploration, or floating cities are erected on the wrecks. The Simurgh's wings blot out the sun where she passes, darkening whole swaths of land, her tinkertech is left on purpose to incite greedy capes and explorers to take it, entire cities repurposed into machines that are doing incalculable things for our understanding of the world.

Human culture shifts to utter desperation instead of the slow decline of canon, as there is no rebuilding this, just a quick countdown of utter destruction that is turning the world into a completely different place then what was before. Tinkertech is more readily available, and people are far more prone to risk taking, because, well, it's not like it matters. Cauldron and other capes are wildly more active, trying desperately to just survive. Villains are seen both in a harsher light, because everyone is already fucked, could you please stop- but also in a more comprehensive way - desperation, hopelessness does that - while heroes are far more focused on making things better, on trying to help, on making the world better through the chaos, even if there are the same exact failings as before.

There are so many things to explore in this AU, and I will write about it in flashes seen through the inhabitants of this Earth <3

[silvianorton]

Alright I've been thinking more about Lisa's musical taste and I think I've settled on an answer I'm happy with.

She's the type who wears a Sister's of Mercy shirt alongside her denim skirt, but when you give her the aux cord, she starts up a playlist that's made up of Crane Wives, They Might be Giants, Mountain Goats, and Of Monsters and Men, amongst others. She totally does listen to alt-pop and stuff, but she's totally a sucker for folk music in general.

Also I think she didn't care much about Hozier right up until Taylor joined the Wards, and then Lisa listened to Take me to Church about 100 times in a week. Imp went on her road trip to kill heartbreaker cause she was sick of hearing folk music blasting out of Lisa's room at all hours of the night.

Anyway let me know if u disagree or have funny contributions.

[furiousgoldfish]

How to spot a smear campaign:

Victims’s “crimes” will be enlarged, and even if they’re small missteps, they will be treated as if only the worst person on the planet would do such a thing

Accusations against the victim will always be a reach, aka, they did ‘this little thing’ but it actually means they’re a racist/murderer/genocide supporter/fascist/have blood on their hands, even when the person’s actions never conformed to those crimes

All and any actions of the victims will be misenterpreted in the worst possible way, anything the person does will be taken as an offense and intentions will be read as hostile and manipulative, regardless of how clear they are

All victim’s actions will be taken out of context; ie, victim said something cruel to someone, but they take out the context of the victim being abused, threatened, tortured, forced into defense mode and finally attacking out of desperation to defend themselves and get free

The victim will commonly get provoked into giving a bad reaction, (anyone gets defensive if they’re accused of the crimes they never did, or simply triggering insults until they snap), and the reaction will become the new ‘proof’ that the victim is in fact, evil and guilty

A lot of pressure will be put on you to react 'correctly’ to the smear campaign; if you don’t accept to demonize this person at once, you’re getting scrutinized, shamed for your lack of morality, told that you support all these horrid things and that you are just as despicable

You will notice a trend of people ganging together based on their demonization of the victim; they will set a standard where you’re accepted and welcome if only you also will demonize and hate this person, and if you don’t, you’re blocked, cast out, and accused of causing harm

It will feel very easy to accept to demonize this person, and going against it will feel risky, like going against the grain, doubting the word of the many and risking being demonized yourself.

The smear campaign continues all the way until the victim is chased out of the community and denied a voice, even if the victim commits no further crimes, awful things will be said about them, their past 'misdeeds’ continually brought up, until the victim is commonly believed to be worthless, and becomes completely isolated, scared of society and alone

There will be no limit to what is considered okay to do to the victim of a smear campaign; even if the victim is accused of minor bad behaviour, it will become okay to threaten, insult, shout slurs, trigger, provoke, humiliate, manipulate, and repeat any kind of abusive behaviour to the victim, all because 'they’re bad so they deserve it’.

People leading the smear campaign will switch between being 'extremely grossed out and enraged’ to showing absolute joy and satisfaction when they find a new reason to demonize and smear the victim. People truly horrified of someone’s actions do not get a leap of joy when a new disaster happens, they’re not beside themselves to abuse the perpetrator all over again.

It will never, ever be acceptable to show any mercy to the victim. Forgiveness is out of the question, trying to understand them is out of the question. Even reading or listening to what this person is saying will be banned and forbidden, unless it’s for humiliating purposes. They will be shown as absolutely irredeemable, and associating yourself with them as evil and unforgivable. You will be instructed to block or unfollow or report the person based on what you’re told, without any significant proof.

Do not fall for smear campaigns. If a large amount of people all agree that a person is the worst, but their story is exaggerated, out of context, sounds fictional, and doesn’t show any proof, and the people switch from being enraged to eager, doubt it. Participating in a smear campaign will help the abusers isolate and abuse someone, and you do not want to be a part of it. They will also smear anyone who stands up to their abuse, so you’re helping the abusers to create a place where pointing out abuse gets you cast out of the community.

[silvianorton]

You know. This is gonna be controversial, but I think it needs to be said anyway:

It's okay to ship Lisa with people.

Now before you grab your pitchforks, I'd like to put my cards out on the table: I am ace/aro. I realized this partially as a result of exploring sexuality through writing Lisa Wilbourn. Some of the most touching moments in fan fiction have been people who were exploring Lisa's aromantacism and how that affects her relationships (Good People is an excellent fic for that, as is the Wake series by Stardust&Scotch). Writing Lisa as ace/aro is important and valuable, and I love everyone who does it. Even if they do it badly (everyone has to start somewhere, after all.)

(Worth mentioning that I'll be saying ace/aro, and I'm using that as short hand for ace and/or aro.)

But also.... ace/aro people can and do end up in relationships. Sex as an asexual person isn't something that they automatically hate, it's just... different. Aromantic people don't necessarily need to end up alone, just that a "romantic" relationship looks a lot different when one person doesn't have romantic feelings, so to speak. Exploring that is also valuable, in my opinion, and I adore reading stories about Lisa navigating relationships through her unique lens and perspective. Especially when it relates to my own perspectives.

Additionally, this is fan fiction, and people have different reads on the characters lol. If you got through worm and saw Lisa as demi-sexual, that's a fine reading! If you like Lisa as a repressed lesbian, that's also cool! If you think Lisa being straight might be fun to write, I'm all for that! Bisexual Lisa, pansexual, moronsexual, whatever you want, I think that's fine! Because this is fan fiction and people are allowed to mess around and have fun!

As long as Lisa feels like Lisa, I think it's fine to ship her however you want.

Now with that said, there are way to do it badly, and I've read most of those fics at this point, and I've just got to say that some people shouldn't have been allowed near a keyboard let alone in the worm fandom—

[awebweaver]

I don't know what to tell you, but if you hear about the creator of a thing you like going through talks for said thing to get an adaptation—not even a confirmed thing, just talks— and your immediate response is to start acting like this is the worst thing in the world, I think you just don't like the thing.

[sparrowlucero]

Some of the concepts I did for the lake dredger!

[webbvidd]

Lisa attempting to bond with Rachel

[silvianorton]

How to Write Lisa Wilbourn/Tattletale

So, you want to write a Worm fan fic, and you want it to include Lisa Wilbourn. Except... how the fuck do you do that?

I’ve had a lot of people say that writing Tattletale is intimidating, or that she’s difficult to write. There are a lot of reasons for that, and one of them is that she is, paradoxically, one of the most—if not the most—fleshed out characters in all of Worm and Ward. Taylor and Victoria are her closest competitors, and both of them are the PoV protagonists of their respective stories.

The goal of this work is to give writing advice, and create a broad reference one can use to figure out her place in a fan fic. I’m focused on canon accuracy, with some of my own editorializing mixed in. As this is meant for writing fan fic, feel free to take what you like, and leave what you don’t. Ultimately, I’d rather someone had the info and choose not to use it, than not have it and make something up instead.

Note that this contains Ward spoilers and content; you have been warned.

Now, without further ado:

Who is Lisa Tattletale?

In fanfiction, Lisa wears many hats. She can be anything from the thief with a heart of gold, to a poor little meow meow forced into villainy... To a vicious manipulator who basks in her victim's suffering, or a mastermind who's always one step ahead. Or sometimes she's just an idiot who can't function without her power.

But which of these is the real Lisa? The answer is a little bit of all of the above—except for that last one; Lisa is smart even without her power.

Lisa was, technically, forced into villainy in the sense that she was forced to be a cape. Lisa didn’t want to be a cape. She spent anywhere from six months to a year living on the streets, content to be a homeless pickpocket and con artist. Her parents used her for her power, and as a result she was reluctant to use it for anyone other than herself. Joining a team, being a cape, would just be more people using her for her power.

Enter Tattletale.

Tattletale is Lisa’s cape persona. More than that, it’s who she is. Lisa is, in a lot of ways, the mask for Tattletale. Her power is what people care about, not the girl who wields it, so it stands to reason that she’d put more emphasis on her costumed self than her civilian self. She chose and carefully crafted both of her personas, because it gives her a measure of control over how people see her. Her image is meticulous, and the masks she wears are iron clad. All of this can be traced back to her trigger, and the reasons she ran away from home.

Sarah watched her brother die, and then her parents used her. So she ran. She ran, and then she became Lisa and never stopped running. She doesn’t look back, and doesn’t think about her past. She just moves forward, and that means using her power. Because now Coil is using her for her power in much the same way her parents did, and she can’t just slip the noose, otherwise someone else will do the same thing he is.

She has to show them that she can’t be messed with. She can’t be used. All anyone cares about is her power, so she’s going to throw it in their faces.

Before I move on, I’d like to add a bit more about the name “Sarah Livsey.” This was Lisa’s name before she ran away from home and changed it. It doesn’t come up often in Worm, but when it does it’s usually an antagonist using it as a gotcha. From a writing perspective, there’s a few things I think should be made clear: it’s not her “real name”, it’s just her old name. She’s not Sarah pretending to be Lisa, she’s Lisa and her name used to be Sarah. She prefers Lisa, and is ultimately disinterested in doing anything more than move past her old name. It’s a source of discomfort, a reminder of her past that she wants to leave behind.

I suppose, to sum up my advice; don’t linger on it, don’t make a big deal about it, and don’t treat it as her “true self” or what have you. Lisa is Lisa, not Sarah.

As for what motivates her: Lisa thinks that what she needs is freedom, power, and control. She wants to be important. The smartest person in the room. Influential, rich, in control. Not the leader, necessarily, but one of the people that everyone has to listen to. The advisor behind the throne, so to speak. Lisa thinks that if she has this, she’ll be okay; she’ll be safe, and can keep the people she cares about safe.

What she actually needs is a friend that cares about her. Not just cares about Tattletale, but about Lisa. The girl behind the power. Her team, at least at first, cares more about Tattletale than Lisa. I say ‘at first’, because Taylor genuinely liked Lisa, and her joining the Undersiders caused the whole team to get closer. Sure, Taylor never hesitated to use Tattletale’s power, but whenever Lisa was hurt, Taylor would think about her. Taylor would worry. There were at least three separate occasions in Worm where the stakes were high, and Taylor wanted to stay with Lisa over doing anything else. Jack Slash hurt Lisa, and Taylor wanted to prioritize staying with her over warning people. Agnosia plague, and Lisa had to argue with Taylor to get her to leave. Behemoth, and Taylor spends the whole fight thinking about and asking about Lisa. Taylor is Lisa’s best friend.

And arguably her only friend.

Despite this yearning for friendship that she has, Lisa doesn’t expect it to last. She’s never surprised when people leave her, and pretends that because she wasn’t surprised, she’s not hurt by it. She is hurt, of course, but she pretends she isn’t. Lisa is a collection of masks, worn one over the other, hiding the scared, lonely girl underneath.

On that note, she doesn’t like to show her vulnerability. She hides her feelings, her pain, and her struggles, largely by running away from them, or by pretending they didn’t happen. Her face shows the pain when she’s hurt, but she doesn’t process it. She just moves on. Or, tries to, anyway.

Worm 19.7 is one of the moments that is crucial for understanding Lisa. It's the moment she breaks down, and tells Taylor about her trigger. She, for the first time in years, opens up to someone and shows vulnerability. It took all that for her to reach that point, and she never really does that again. Not even during Ward. She’s never as vulnerable with anyone ever again as she was with Taylor in that singular moment.

Speaking of Ward, that's where we get out third moment of vulnerability for her (the second being during Gold Morning). She talks to Victoria in Ward 20.9 and admits that she doesn't care about the world if her friends aren't in it. She's ride or die for those closest to her, and that's basically the core of her morality.

In regards to “forced into villainy”: while I partially addressed it earlier, I think there’s another part that bears focusing on: Lisa likes crime. She likes being a villain, and her intent was always to take over Coil’s organization, not to get free. If freedom was her goal, there were dozens of easier ways to accomplish it. No, she wanted to win, and she wanted to be the best.

She doesn’t have a lot of qualms with selling drugs, running weapons, or keeping most of Coil’s mercenaries on board. Senegal was a piece of work, and she kept him around. She’s not nearly as nice a person as Taylor paints her to be, and she’s definitely not a hero.

In the end she loves being a villain.

How mean is she?

Towards her friends? A few playful barbs, for the most part. Towards anyone she doesn’t like, or anyone she considers an enemy?

To be honest, I’m not really sure what her limits even are. In Ward, she makes frequent jabs at Victoria, even specifically poking at Victoria’s rape trauma;  “...you deserved those years at the asylum”. She’s happy to poke at Armsmaster, and Dauntless, and even antagonizes Eidolon and Alexandria. She pokes at Jack Slash. Lisa likes to needle people, because reactions give her data to work off. They let her use her powers more efficiently.

This doesn’t mean she isn’t nice, of course. When she was manipulating Taylor to join the Undersiders she did go out of her way to befriend her. More than that, she does her best to improve Taylor’s life and self confidence. She’s shown to have a friendly relationship with some of the random people on the streets and around the Lord Street Market. In Ward, she frequently goes above and beyond for the other Undersiders and the Heartbroken. She’s personable, affable, and people she’s close to trust her.

Broadly, Lisa is someone who doesn’t give way for other people. She hides her feelings behind masks and barbs. You either accept her as she is, or you don’t. If you’re willing to meet her on her terms, you’ll find someone who’s not nearly as bad as she seems outwardly. Or at least, you’ll see that she’s capable of genuine kindness.

For her friends, she’s smart and witty, with maybe a few playful barbs that deftly avoid the harsher triggers.

For her enemies, she’s all acid and razor blades.

Relationships

Speaking of friends and family, how does Lisa act around people she cares about or is close to? Disclaimer: there is more conjecture here than in other places, and some of this is extrapolation that I can’t easily source.

We’ll start with her parents: Frank and June Livsey. They were distant at best, and suffocating at worst. Her brother got the worst of the expectations, which is part of what eventually drove him to suicide, but Lisa herself was mostly neglected. Until she got her powers, of course. Her parents flipped on a dime, and went from blaming her for her brother’s death, to pampering her in exchange for her power. This relationship is the source of her transactional mentality that overlays everything else.

I’ve talked a lot about Taylor and Lisa, and will talk more about them, but what about the other Undersdiers?

Lisa and Brian have a friendly, somewhat professional relationship. She likes and trusts him, and he likes her. There’s a tension to it, given how Lisa sees the world through the lens of “I’m only wanted for my power”, and Brian sees the world through his own lens which requires him to be the leader. But, broadly, they like one another.

Alec and Lisa have, in my mind, a distant and casual relationship. They don’t engage emotionally on almost any level, and both of them prefer it that way. Alec snarks when she asks him to do something, she banters back, and the thing gets done.

Lisa and Rachel are antagonistic towards one another initially and that only changes after Taylor puts in the work to understand Rachel. Lisa, despite having a power that gives her the answers, is unable and unwilling  to properly connect with Rachel. Rachel hates being manipulated, and Lisa is... well, Lisa.

Lisa and Aisha have an interesting relationship in that, at first, they don’t really know each other. But, after Taylor leaves for the Wards, Aisha is basically the only friendly and functional member of the Undersiders left for Lisa to bond with. So, they bond, somewhat. This extends into Ward, where Aisha is Lisa’s closest friend for a long while, despite the fact that often, Lisa doesn’t even remember she exists.

Parian and Foil aren’t close to Lisa, and don’t like her. Both of them largely blame Lisa for the fact that they’re villains. There’s more nuance to the relationship in Ward, with Lisa considering them friends, and helping Foil with March, but there’s always a gap with them that doesn’t exist with the others. At least part of this is because Lily and Sabah are heavily involved in kink and BDSM, and Lisa is repulsed by that.

Lisa and Coil’s relationship is, obviously, one of antagonism. Lisa wants to take over his organization, and Coil wants her under his control. She’s scared of him, but not terrified. The fear is more out of respect than anything else, but she genuinely believes that she’s smarter than him. She can and will outthink him. Which, she does, actually. She beats him. She wins.

Underlaying all of this, and any other relationships she might develop, Lisa is lonely. She craves friends in her life that love her for who she is, and not for her power. She wants close connections, and people to spend time with. People she can trust. People like Taylor, like the Undersiders before they basically all died. Lisa is defined by her regrets, and one consistent regret is not holding the people she cares about close enough.

Yet, contrasting that, she can’t interact with people without manipulation or transactions. She befriends Taylor while manipulating her. Befriends the Undersiders via transactions with her power. In Ward, she eventually befriends Victoria through an endless string of transactions, and even then it’s not a close friendship, although it’s primed to become one.

She’d let the world burn for her friends, even if they’d sooner leave her to save it.

Power/Negotiator:

Her power is, put simply, a way to analyze data. Go from A to C to G. She can skip steps, but the better the data she’s working with, the better her conclusions. In Ward, Victoria describes Lisa’s power as pinpointing weaknesses, both physical and psychological. The more she knows, the more she has to work with, and the more reliable she is.

Hence Lisa being smart even without her power. Her uses are limited, and as such a lot of her work is done with minimal power usage. Letting it go off the rails is a surefire way to get bad info, so she’s typically working with flashes of inspiration.

When using her powers to cold read someone, she tends to talk aloud, and work off their reactions. This can be seen at the bank job, and then later interrogating Cherish.

Crucially: This changes somewhat in Ward when she knows more about passengers, but until then, Lisa doesn’t refer to her power in the third person. It’s not “My power told me”. It’s “I figured it out.” Her power is, for all intents and purposes, her thoughts. Her conclusions. Her insights. So she tends not to think in terms of “my power slipped it’s leash” and more “I let my walls down by accident.” It’s not about restraining her power, it’s about restraining herself.

Because Lisa needs to know everything.

Lisa is someone who is never satisfied not knowing. She’s incapable of holding her tongue, and she can’t stop poking. She thrives on learning every secret she can.

She also blames herself when she doesn’t know something. The bank goes bad? It’s because she didn’t know enough. She should have pushed herself harder to figure things out. Coil gets the jump on them? Her fault for not seeing it coming. One of her friends gets hurt? Her fault her fault her fault.

Because a core piece of Lisa’s character is that she blames herself for Rex’s death. It’s obviously not her fault, but she triggers because she “should have known.” So her power lets her know things. But it never lets her know enough. It’s never enough for her. It can’t be.

Linked to this, there’s a common misconception that Lisa cares a lot about people who are suicidal. This is overblown. Yes, part of the reason she decided to pull Taylor onto the team was because she saw some of her brother’s depression in Taylor, but that on it’s own wasn’t enough to do anything more than get the ball rolling. She cares deeply for the people in her circle, but not so much about people beyond that. Sure, if she can do something that ultimately helps other people, then why not? Her shelter post-Levi was a legitimate shelter, even if she was also using it for gathering information and spreading her influence. But if you were to give her a choice between one of her friends and a group of people she doesn’t know? She’d pick her friend.

Of course, she also repeatedly drops everything to help with S-class threats, because she’s not a monster. She’s not heartless.

She just reserves most of her heart for the people closest to her.

Cops and Robbers:

Cops and Robbers; AKA, the conversation that gaslit the entire fandom. The version of Cops and Robbers that Lisa sells to Taylor has been largely taken as gospel by the fandom, down to there being fics where the Unwritten Rules are literally a pamphlet that gets handed out. And while yes, the Unwritten Rules do function to some extent, they’re not nearly as codified or as well known as Lisa says.

Yes, there is a “truce”. Yes, identities are taken seriously (although more so for heroes than for villains). And yes, there is a degree of caution when it comes to escalating force. The heroes come down harder on people who kill, and the villains will sometimes band together against someone who’s bad for business, or represents an indiscriminate threat to all of them. All of these things exist and are observable, but in a far more fluid and informal way than Lisa implies they are. Also, that conversation takes place mere days after Lung tried to kill them for opperating in his territory, and minutes before the bank, where Kid Win nearly killed Taylor, and Taylor held a knife to Panacea’s throat.

Because she was lying to Taylor. She was painting a picture of the scene to help convince Taylor that staying a villain wouldn’t be that bad, actually. She was overstating how the “truces” between heroes and villains tended to work, because that helped soften the blow of committing crimes for Taylor. Lisa wanted to convince Taylor that being a villain “wasn’t actually that bad or risky” because it served her interests to do so.

But also, she was being idealistic. See, that Cops and Robbers conversation wasn’t just Lisa manipulating Taylor, it was also her lying to herself. That world? Unwritten rules, one great game of capes, the “real monsters” being smacked down, that’s the world Lisa wishes she lived in. She wants to be a small-time, street level thief who taunts the heroes, and then goes home to relax with her friends.

She doesn’t want to fight monsters. She doesn’t want to fear for her life and safety. She doesn’t want to be a villain. She wants it to be a game.

But she can’t have that, so instead she becomes a Warlord.

Sexuality and Romance:

Right, this one is... controversial, as all things relating to sexuality in fandoms tend to be. Lisa is, canonically, ace/aro. It’s easy enough to read her as some form of Demisexual, based on the text of Worm, or asexual and some sort of romantically inclined. There’s also that fact that the definitions for aro/ace can be hazy, and you can easily get different answers on what it means from different people. 

When writing fan fiction, sexuality is mostly a guideline, and one people are ready to ignore. My default assumption is that it’s fine to change character’s sexualities to fit your story, with the caveat that there are good and bad ways to do it. Honestly, this becomes an entire essay of its own, and I’m not sure this is really the place to get into the weeds with it.

So, assuming that you’re wanting to approach your shipping concept with some respect towards canon, what does this mean for writing Lisa’s character?

Lisa is mostly uninterested in pursuing people for sex or romance. She claims this is because of her power “taking all the mystery out of it,” but even without it she’s the sort of person who would end up in her mid twenties and abruptly realize she’s never seriously considered dating anyone, and then have a small crisis about it.

She cares deeply for people, and isn’t shy about displaying that affection for them. And by people I mean Taylor, because she was never as close to anyone else as she was to Taylor. Hugs, kisses on the cheek, and just general closeness are all in her comfort zone, provided she likes and trusts the person in question.

Also, even during the time when she’s blaming her power for her asexuality, she’d rather have her power than have sex or romance. I’ve read a lot of fics where a power blocker is what finally “lets her be in a relationship”, but if Lisa lost her power, she’d be frustrated. Upset. Her entire sense of self is built around knowing everything, and getting rid of that isn’t going to relax her, or magically “fix” her.

On that note, there’s not really anything to be fixed in regards to how Lisa views relationships. That’s just how she is, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Now, let’s say that you want to write Lisa dating someone anyway. How do you do that? Well, first of all is writing attraction: Lisa isn’t attracted to people. She can tell when people are attractive, but it’s more detached. She notes how they look, mentions what parts look good, and moves on. She doesn’t get blushy, or stammering, or embarrassed, or anything like that. She’s more likely to scowl and rant honestly. Even if you’re not writing her as ace/aro, this is still the mask she wears, and the way she controls other people’s image of her.

She values trust and friendship over grand romantic gestures. Any romance between her and another character wouldn’t look too different from a very close friendship. Maybe some extra kissing, but she broadly isn’t going to be invested in the physical intimacy outside of the casual stuff listed above, and isn’t going to get all that worked up by anything.

Additionally, Lisa doesn’t pine for romance. She’s not going to obsess over not having a partner, or think about not dating, or anything like that. Not outside of the occasional “yeah that’s not a thing I do”. She might obsess over someone she likes, but that’s not necessarily a romance thing. She just cares deeply for her friends.

The most important thing, I think, is to look at what she gets out of the relationship. I’ve seen this often in a couple different dynamics where Lisa dates someone to “fix them”. They’re depressed, so she dates them to make them happy. They have struggles, she dates them to distract them. They have an unhealthy fixation, she dates them to fix that. This is never good. For any ship, really, but I see it a lot with Lisa in particular. What does Lisa get out of doing a bunch of emotional labor for someone? She gets... to date them? Which she wasn’t that interested in to begin with. Maybe companionship? Sure, if it’s someone she likes and is close to. Mainly, if Lisa wanted to have a partner, she could find one who doesn’t require a ton of upfront work.

The closest comparison I can make here to canon is that Lisa helped Taylor come out of her shell a bit when she joined the Undersiders. Took her shopping, encouraged her to go after Brian, and so on. But, she wasn’t the sole source of encouragement for Taylor, and most of that was in service of getting something she wanted: Taylor on the team in a more permanent capacity.

As mentioned earlier, Lisa isn’t the easiest person to get close to. She pokes, prods, and pries, and it’s hard to tell how much she knows about one’s secrets and thoughts at any given time. At the same time, since she knows so much, she’s going to struggle to spend a lot of time around someone who’s generally unpleasant to be around. Lisa’s also someone who blusters a lot, hides her feelings behind a mask. What she says isn’t always what she means.

Additionally, Lisa isn’t someone who likes to take the lead. She prefers to work from the shadows, or alongside someone else who’s willing to take the reins. You can see this in how she defers to Brian, even when she could easily get him to agree with her, and how she defers to Taylor later, despite their relationship having started with Lisa manipulating her. In Ward, we all see her warming to Victoria over time, in part because Victoria was decisive and kept coming back to interact with her. Lisa wants someone more assertive, generally speaking.

Really, the best way to write a ship between Lisa and someone else is just to write them as friends, and the rest will follow.

Character Voice:

A common question I get is “How do I get Lisa’s voice right?”

It’s a complicated question to answer, actually.

Lisa is often written as snarky, but that's not quite right. She’s witty, not snarky. She’s a brat, but it’s usually calculated. She’s petty and annoying, intentionally so, and that’s the undoing of Coil. She never stops being annoying, to be clear, and needles Accord, the heroes, Cauldron, Victoria and Breakthrough, the various villains of Ward, the Wardens, and probably everyone in-between. I can’t source them all, because I’d be linking most of Worm and Ward. She’s truly wonderful.

In combat. Tattletale is someone who banters, but her banter always has a purpose. She wants to distract. To needle. To unsettle. To create openings and pull out information. More than that? She’s trying to prove that she’s smarter than everyone. She needs to get the last word, she needs to one up everyone, and she needs to succeed. Part of this is her own “people only want me for my power” insecurity, and part of it is this burning, driving need to not be used.

One thing that's easy enough to forget is that Lisa is a seventeen year old girl in Worm. She's mature beyond her years due to a heavy dose of trauma (like most capes), but she's still a teenager. A lot of her non-cape conversations with Taylor at the beginning of Worm were pretty normal. Shopping, joking about putting on weight because of her half of the burger, talking about boys, talking about their teammates, and so on. Lisa isn't a jokester, despite frequent enough quips. She's mostly normal, if smarter than average, and just a bit mean.

Lisa, when with friends especially, is more subdued. She comes off as charming, intelligent, and confident. She dresses well, but specifically to blend in; her goal is to look normal and forgettable. Lisa is good at poking and pushing her friends to open up, and generally does so right up until the point where it’s unwelcome, and then backs off. But, she does this out of care and affection. Also, related to loyalty, she literally only says  ‘bye’ once in Worm, and I’m half convinced that was a mistake, because she goes to insane lengths to avoid saying it otherwise; if nothing else, she never says ‘goodbye’.

Also manipulation, but that manipulation can easily be seen as “for their own good.”

Crucially, Lisa sees everything as manipulation. She heard the phrase “communication is manipulation” and took it to heart. She can’t help but interpret social interactions as battles to be won, as games to win, and as things she can cheat at. She tones this down with people she cares about (Taylor), but she never really stops trying to stack the odds. And if it’s not a competition, it’s a transaction. She’s trading something she can do, usually using her power, for whatever it is they have to offer. Some degree of friendship and companionship, usually.

There’s a moment in Ward, in her interlude, where Lisa thinks of Lily as a friend. And at the same time, it’s abundantly clear that Lily doesn’t see Lisa that way. But Lisa goes through the motions anyway. She performs the transactions, and uses her power for the team and her friends; even when she gets nothing back. Because that’s the only way she knows how to interact with people. It’s the only way she knows how to show affection.

By being useful.

Additionally, she’s fairly unflappable. In addition to mouthing off to practically everyone, her reactions to being attacked by Cody during the Behemoth fight are fairly subdued. She panics more when he turns his attention to her specifically, but even then she’s good at keeping her composure, and her mask stays up.

In addition to all that: Lisa is corny. A little bit silly. She uses a combination of strange words, odd slang, and crass language. “Copacetic” is a word she uses almost as much as Taylor. She uses pet names like “hon”, “pal”, and “sweetie” constantly, to name but a few. She’s literally used the word “Dastardly” to refer to her crimes. She swears more than you’d expect, and not always at appropriate times. During the Behemoth fight, she spent a long time dramatically writing the word “fuck” and underlining it several times. She’s crude at times as well; in an iconic Ward moment, her only reaction to bad news was to say “oh, balls.” That’s seared into my brain, because it’s just so emblematic of how she speaks. It’s like she learned every fancy word she could, and intentionally used them all as crassly as possible.

When Lisa speaks, you get the impression that she loves words. Not just fancy words, but all words. She likes using them creatively, and pulling together the perfect sentence. She’s the type to take metaphors and similes, and smash them together in odd ways. Lisa likes to play with her words, and play with the people hearing them. It’s not just about being right, it’s about showing off and being right.

All the world’s a stage, and she’s the star actor.

Conclusion:

In the end, there’s more information on Tattletale than not. I’ve had to leave out a lot, and even now I’m not confident in how I’ve explained her as a character. I consider myself one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Lisa fan, and I still feel like I’m learning more about her character all the time. If you disagree with any of what I’ve written, feel free to reach out or leave a comment. I’m always looking to expand my understanding of Lisa’s character. If you have a question about her that I didn’t answer, likewise reach out, and I’ll do my best to answer it in some way.

I may return to this later once I’ve reread Ward, as there is a lot there I have either forgotten, or don’t have in my easy access memory banks like the majority of Worm. Although, most people are likely to write about Worm Lisa anyway, lol.

Thanks for reading!

Sources and good Lisa references:

Undersiders recruit Taylor; Lisa says “dastardly”: Insinuation 2.6

Undersiders bring Taylor to the loft for the first time: Insinuation 2.7

Lisa’s cops and robbers theory: Agitation 3.6

Lisa and Taylor vs Glory Girl and Panacea at the bank: Agitation 3.11/Agitation 3.12

Lisa tells Taylor about Rachel’s power influenced thought process: Hive 5.10

Brians brings Lisa and Taylor coffee; Lisa explains she’s not interested in romance: Tangle 6.2

Lisa needling Armsmaster and Dauntless post-gala: Tangle 6.7

Lisa tells Taylor about Coil: Extermination 8.8

Lisa’s interlude in Worm: 8.x (Bonus Interlude) | Worm

Lisa and Taylor going to merchants part; Lisa’s shelter; Senegal sucks: Infestation 11.4

Lisa vs Jack Slash: Plague 12.4

Lisa interrogates Cherish: Snare 13.7

Agnosia plague, making Taylor leave her: Prey 14.8

Lisa and Taylor kiss: Prey 14.11

The one time Lisa says ‘bye’: Colony 15.10

Piggot vs the Undersiders and Travelers: Monarch 16.3

The Undersiders beat Coil: Monarch 16.13

Lisa’s breakdown post Echidna: Scourge 19.7 | Worm

Taylor visits Lisa before turning herself in: Imago 21.7

Parian’s interlude right after Taylor turns herself in; Lisa stressed dialogue: Interlude 21

Lisa vs Cody during Behemoth: Interlude 23

Lisa in the hospital during Behemoth; “FUCK”: Crushed 24.3

Lisa tears into Taylor during Khepri, and then helps her anyway: Speck 30.1

-Ward sources-

Victoria meets with Tattletale: Glare 3.6

Tattletale’s interlude in Ward: Interlude 10.x

Aiden’s interlude, second half is him interacting with Tattletale: Interlude 10.z

Tattletale takes Victoria and Sveta to a meeting; bickers with both of them; admits she thinks that Parian is weird for liking kink: Black 13.10

Victoria sees Tattletale finding her brother’s corpse: From Within - 16.8

Tattletale tells Victoria she deserved the rape; Heartbroken say nice things about Tattletale: From Within - 16.10

Tattletale and Victoria talk at the end of the world: Last - 20.9

[silvianorton]

Top Seven Myths About the Locker (Number 4 Will Surprise You)

The Locker Incident, as it’s frequently capitalized, is a staple of worm fan fic for reasons I still don’t understand. In canon Worm, Wildbow didn’t write the locker scene. Taylor gave a brief summary of it while discussing her trigger event, but otherwise it remains in the background of the story.

This has widely been considered a mistake by fans who don’t know what they want.

Harkening back to the first comments on the first chapters of Worm, people have been clamoring for locker scenes. Phrases such as “start at the beginning” and “you have to show their origin story” are bandied about, but at the end of the day, it’s a mystery as to why people want so desperately to read about Taylor being shoved into a locker for the Nth time.

Maybe they just like bullying Taylor? Trio-core if true.

Regardless, this trend has resulted in a variety of fascinating bits of folklore and fanon, and I figured it would be fun to run through a few of them.

DISCLAIMER: the links posted are primarily to medical sites discussing and detailing diseases and wound treatment, and as such some of them have gross pictures of infected wounds. Click with caution.

Also, I’m not a doctor. Don’t take this as medical advice, don’t take this as an expert opinion. This is me reading stuff on the internet from medical journals and blogs.

1. Locked in all day/over the weekend

Taylor was in the locker for one period (about an hour and a half), approximately, maybe less, given that kids left their classrooms to watch her get taken out. Likely no more than an hour tops. This is a long time, and absolutely miserable, but... it’s not all day. It’s not over the weekend.

2. This Attempt On My Life Has Left Me Scarred And Deformed

Frequently, Taylor is described as severely injured due to the locker. Cuts, nerve damage, infections, and so on. Sometimes even death. Now, Taylor doesn’t have an auto-immune disease. She doesn’t have a heart condition. We know this, because it would have come up during one of the many times she was active or exposed to gunk. Also, Panacea literally listed off Taylor’s history of injuries during Leviathan, and not only were the effects of the locker not mentioned, but no major health complications were listed.

The contents of the locker are, as described, used pads and tampons. That’s it. That’s all there was. She also threw up in it. No nails, or needles, or even pencils or the like. Could she have gotten a cut from being shoved in? Sure. Could she have scraped herself enough for an infection? I guess, why not. But like. Those are minor injuries, and as mentioned before, she wasn’t in for that long. The locker wasn’t life-threatening nor was it a murder attempt. The bullies didn’t try to kill her. They just wanted to humiliate her.

Also, she wasn’t eaten alive by bugs. That’s insane. Very few bugs eat people, and even less eat people alive. In fact, Taylor never once mentions bugs during her description of the locker. Is it reasonable to assume that there were bugs in there? Yeah, sure, that makes sense. But Taylor didn’t mention them, because they don’t matter.

Also, before anyone brings up this quote:

> Madison opened the locker, and the rancid smell of it wafted around me. I would have gagged if I could breathe. 

Sophia shoved me inside, planting one foot between my shoulder blades as she hauled back on the rope. My unbroken fingers scrabbled for purchase, found only trash and cotton that tore when I tried to grab it. Bugs bit at my flesh and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

This is from Scourge 19.1, and it’s literally an Echidna induced fever dream, and that scene also includes Taylor being brutally beaten by Madison and Emma, which isn’t canon, otherwise we would have heard about it at some point when the bullying was story relevant.

Further... 

3. Psych Ward not Emergency Room

She was taken to the hospital after she was released, due to a mental breakdown caused by her new bug senses. She attacked the janitor in a panic, because she was feeling all the bug senses and had no idea what they were. The ambulance came, and took her to the psych ward. Not the emergency room, the psych ward. Because any injuries she had were minor. Additionally, she spent about a week in the psych ward under observation. If she had a more serious injury or illness, they would have seen it in time to stop it.

Because...

4. Sepsis/Toxic Shock Syndrome, Because Tampons Are Icky and Gross.

One of the more common bits of fanon is that Taylor got life threatening illnesses from the locker. Sepsis and Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), specifically. Why? Because there were gross tampons in the locker, and if you leave a tampon in for a long time, it can cause an infection that can lead to sepsis. Now, let’s talk about how infections work, because clearly nobody understands this.

Let’s start with TSS. It’s true that if you leave a tampon in for too long, you’re at risk of TSS. But also, if you leave anything in the vagina too long, you’re at risk of TSS. The specific cause in this case is the bacteria entering the uterus via the cervix. I can already hear the screams of “it can enter the bloodstream through open wounds!” Yes this is true, one of the three bacteria known to cause TSS could do that.

As an aside, TSS only affects about 1 in 100,000 people. It is rare. The majority of people fight off the infection long before it reaches the point of TSS, and typically the ones who don’t are people who are already at risk in some way. (Elderly, young children, immunocompromised individuals, and so on.)

Now, let’s talk about infections and incubation periods. Staphylococcus aureus (staph) is the bacteria most likely to cause sepsis, and it’s the one I’ll be using for this example because it’s specifically noted to grow on used tampons, which is the thing everyone is obsessed with regarding the locker. Anyway, the incubation period is how long it takes for the infection to set in properly, which for this particular bacteria, is 4-10 days. 4-10 days, not less than an hour. Even the quicker bacterial infections take about 4 hours on the low end, and as established, she was in the locker for less than an hour, and picked up by an ambulance right away.

For those unaware, if you clean the wounds right away, the chance of infection goes down by a lot. In this case, within an hour or two counts as “right away”, given the incubation periods.

Regardless, we’re looking at 4 days on the low end for the infection to set in... and from there, septic shock can set in as little as 12 to 24 hours from that point. 

Four and a half days. Not one whole hour.

Additionally, the treatment for sepsis—and infections in general? Antibiotics. Once more, she’s in the hospital for a week. If she has an infection, they’ll just give her antibiotics.

So please stop going on about septic shock already.

5. Taylor Triggered Because of the Gross Bugs

Taylor triggered not because of the contents of her locker, nor because the experience was That Bad, but rather because nobody helped her.

"All I could think was that someone had been willing to get their hands that dirty to fuck with me, but of all the students that had seen me get shoved in the locker, nobody was getting a janitor or teacher to let me out."

This is from Shell 4.3 when she’s discussing her trigger event. A bunch of people saw, and none of them told a teacher or tried to help. According to a reddit post from WB, enough time passed before her trigger for her to realize that the people who saw her didn’t get help. That is what caused her trigger. Not the bugs, not the tampons, not the enclosed space.

6. Bioterrorism

It wasn’t bioterrorism.

... do I really have to elaborate on this?

I’m going to start with a definition, because the fact that people even call the locker bioterrorism means that we need one. “Bioterrorism involves the deliberate release of bioweapons to cause death or disease in humans, animals, or plants. Biological weapons may be developed or used as part of a government policy in biological warfare or by terrorist groups or criminals. Biological weapons can initiate large-scale epidemics with an unparalleled lethality, and nation-states and terrorist groups have used dangerous and destructive Biological weapons in the past.” - from an article on the National Library of Medicine website.

Do you want me to define “bioweapon” too? I’ll give you a hint, used tampons don’t count. Bullying isn’t terrorism either, you wanna know why? Because it’s not politically or ideologically motivated. Bakuda threatening to blow up her school isn’t even an act of terrorism, because there was no grand agenda, no political message, and no reason for the terror. Although, Bakuda bombing the city would count as terrorism, so I’m comfortable using that as a benchmark. Or we could use a school shooting as a benchmark, because a lot of those are politically motivated and could reasonably be counted as acts of terrorism.

So, is one (1) student being shoved in a locker an act of terrorism?

It’s a rhetorical question, you don’t have to answer.

Now, with that insanity aside, let’s talk about biohazards, because the contents of the locker being a biohazard are the reason it gets called bioterrorism. I’m not going to give a formal definition for this, but basically, a biohazard is biological material that could be hazardous to someone’s health. The US classifies biohazards across four levels, with differing safety precautions needed depending on the severity. Class 4 biohazards are typically fatal, while Class 1 biohazards are basically just normal illnesses. Note that biohazards are defined by the illnesses, not by the type of substance.

Human blood and waste products are a biohazard. This is a fact, and I have no interest in debating it. The risks involved with contacting human blood are contracting blood-borne illnesses, specifically by getting the blood in an open wound, nasal cavity, or swallowing it. The precautions for dealing with blood are gloves and face masks, and then you have to wash your hands afterward. At worst, blood could be classified as a Class 2 biohazard, mainly because there’s a risk of HIV or the like... if the blood already has HIV. 

And only if it gets into the bloodstream.

Is it gross? Yes. Could Taylor get sick? Yes, and the hospital probably ran a blood panel while they had her there, because they always run blood panels, so if she picked something up they would see it.

Does that make this bioterrorism? Fuck no.

Also, a biohazard isn’t actually a thing to panic over; not inherently. You wanna know what else is a biohazard? Spit. Urine. Mucus. Stinging insects. Decomposing plant matter. Basically anything biological that could carry a disease. Additional link on biohazards and safety precautions.

7. The Locker is Unrealistic

The locker is literally based on a true story.

“I did volunteer work with someone I'll call S. One of the most horrific incidents of bullying I've come across happened to her. A trash can was emptied into her locker before the Christmas break. Janitors cleaned the school but even with the (I have to assume) smell they didn't go into the lockers themselves. She came back to school and got forced into the locker. She threw up on herself, gouged her head on the hook built into the locker, came out, got sent home, her parents tried to kick up a fuss, nothing happened, she stopped telling them about incidents because all it was doing was making them unhappy and 'multiplying the misery'.” - Wildbow on Reddit

Is it bad? Yes. Is it unrealistic? No. If your experiences in school don’t reflect this level of bullying, then I’m very happy for you. That doesn’t mean your experiences are universal.

In conclusion

The locker was a horrific act of bullying, and it caused Taylor to trigger. It was her lowest point, because she felt isolated, alone, and like nobody cared about her. The contents are a biohazard, but that’s not nearly as serious as it sounds. She ended up in the hospital’s psych ward due to her power’s extra-sensory components, but wasn’t injured enough to need a stay in the ER—and certainly wasn’t in serious enough condition to pull Panacea out of school to heal her. She may have gotten a minor illness, but was never at serious risk of sepsis. Taylor was in the locker for about an hour, give or take fifteen minutes.

It was not bioterrorism. It was not a murder attempt. She wasn’t in there for the whole school day, or a weekend, or all of winter break.

Oh also, you don’t actually have to write a trigger event. You can skip it like canon did. You can just start later when things start happening. It’s okay. Nobody will be mad.

[silvianorton]

The Popular Fanon of the Unwritten Rules, and the Nazi Apologia it Perpetuates

I. Introduction

Fanon. Love it or hate it, there’s a lot of it. This isn’t something exclusive to the Worm fandom, either. Fanon has existed since the moment people started thinking about what they were reading, and spreading their own versions of it. Off the top of my head, The Divine Comedy incorporated some of the author’s “fanon” views on the Catholic Church.

In a more contemporary sense, a lot of fanon exists to either fill gaps in the original source, or to “fix” things that were deemed wrong. These two categories of fanon are more likely to be accepted by default, either due to a lack of canon to contradict it, or due to a general agreement that the way the source portrayed X was bad. There is a third type of fanon, however, which is the type I personally find rather distasteful: the fanon where something from the source is taken, and then misinterpreted so often that people start to assume it's canon. It’s worth mentioning that these three broad categories are not mutually exclusive, and in fact there’s often a degree of overlap between them.

This third category is what I’ll be focusing on, as a lot of misunderstandings of Worm’s setting come from things like this. Some of these fanons can be harmless, at least in isolation, while others erode the core themes that Worm set out to explore. And then, of course, there’s the fanon that ties directly into the spread of harmful ideas and ideology, subjective as that is.

I am, of course, talking about the Unwritten Rules and the fanon surrounding them.

Now, I should clarify that using the Unwritten Rules fanon in your fic doesn’t make you a Nazi apologist. Most fanon isn’t used with intent like that, and is instead just fic writers playing a game of telephone with stuff they saw in other fics, because they find it fun or convenient. The problem is that some of the things being telephoned down the fanon pipeline are steeped in racism and apologia, or can be used to facilitate them, and repetition of these fanons dulls the response to what, in other contexts, would (hopefully) be met with horror, or at least discomfort.

II. The Unwritten Rules

In brief, the Unwritten Rules are the idea that there’s a harsh divide between capes and their civilian identities, and that preserving that divide is important for maintaining the status quo. Assault gets home from a long day of work, takes off his mask, and then can go out to eat without worrying about a villain attacking him while he’s going through a drive through. Lung can take off his mask and put on a button-up shirt, and go shopping at the local grocer.

The Nazis can come home from a long day of lynching minorities, and go to the local pub for a pint without worrying about their crimes coming back to bite them.

If you haven’t already seen the ways this is fucked up, don’t worry, I’m not done yet.

In canon, as presented by Tattletale, the Unwritten Rules are something of a gentleman’s agreement to not cause too much trouble. Don’t kill, don’t rape, and don’t go on a bombing spree, and the heroes will go easier on you. “A game of cops and robbers.” There is some truth to what she’s saying, in that it’s easier for the PRT to keep the status quo stable if they can take people in without every fight leaving a trail of bodies in the streets. Villains also want to limit their destruction, because otherwise they can’t make as much money. It’s a mutual, unspoken agreement that society is good for both sides, and neither wants to see it torn down around them; don’t escalate and others won’t escalate in response. Hence Bakuda being attacked from all sides. Hence the Nine getting attacked by everyone every time they show up.

Hence the government unmasking Taylor in an attempt to capture her.

It’s not black and white, however, as immediately after Tattletale’s speech about how the unwritten rules work, the Undersiders and Wards fight. A no holds barred all out fight where Kid Win uses a gun rated for S-Class fights against the Undersiders. A fight where Taylor attempts to drown Clockblocker in bugs. A fight where Grue hits Vista so hard she falls unconscious. A fight where Amy attempts to kill Skitter, and threatens her with fates worse than death while captive.

Anyone who’s read superhero comics is familiar with the “face blindness” tropes, where heroes and villains alike can hang up their coats and relax between issues. The Unwritten Rules are a pretty direct implementation of this trope, and a way for the story to comment on and deconstruct it.

Anyway, now that I’ve done a bunch of discussion on something a lot of people broadly understand, let’s focus on how the exaggerated fanon surrounding the Unwritten Rules acts as a breeding ground for the normalization of Nazism as an ideology.

III. The Apologia

First, let’s consider how severe the problem is. Heroes playing along, refusing to arrest villains in their civilian identities, is much more common in fanwork than it is in canon, just to start. (In canon, Armsmaster was eager to learn the Undersiders’ civilian identities so as to better arrest them. In Pick A Card, Mouse Protector stops trying to arrest Taylor after she accidentally sees Taylor without her mask on.) In fanfic, The Rules also manifest with villains being unwilling to cross certain lines, even giving up their own teammates for breaking the rules in more extreme cases. At their silliest, the Unwritten Rules are treated as something all capes know and respect, like commandments carved on a pair of stones handed down to them by god (Cauldron).

Interestingly, it’s far more common in fanfic for the Nazis to “respect the Unwritten Rules” than it is for the ABB or the Merchants.

Frequently, I’ll see people and fics talking about how working with the Nazis is reasonable if it’s to protect the sanctity of Unwritten Rules. Kaiser and his lot are “civilized” for respecting the rules. The heroes are forced to play along and ignore the Nazis, because otherwise they’re breaking The Rules. Any hate crimes committed in costume don’t count, actually, and it’s not unreasonable for Assault and Victor to drink at the same bar. If you see Stormtiger washing his tights at the laundromat, you just look away because The Rules are more important.

First of all, this is insane, and not how law enforcement works. Second of all, this is insane, and not how the PRT operates even in canon. Third of all, the idea that the status quo the Unwritten Rules represent is more important than the ideology of Nazism is insidious and horrifying, as is the idea that following The Rules could be more important (to the fandom, or to the characters in the story,) than saving minorities from literal hate crimes.

Because that’s what it means when someone says the government should team up with the Nazis. They’re saying that the lives of minorities, people terrorized and killed by The Empire, are less important than the game of cops and robbers.

You might feel reminded, at this point, that the Unwritten Rules do serve a supposed purpose in canon, but fanon frequently treats them  like a game, like cops and robbers, and not as a necessary evil. The juxtaposition between people dressing up in spandex and fighting/committing crime is lost when you treat the crimes themselves as a game you can put down and walk away from, when stealing money from a bank, selling drugs, and lynching minorities are all seen as (equally valid) parts of an elaborate performance.

IV. A Doylist Perspective

Who’s the performance for, anyway? Who benefits from the Unwritten Rules? Not the heroes, who have their ability to serve and protect stymied if they actually follow these rules. Small-time villains benefit, in theory, but they can’t actually stop other people from breaking the rules against them. Small-time independents, similarly, don’t have the benefit of friends and allies to go on the warpath for them in the event that they get smothered in their sleep. Uber and Leet, for a canon example, were minor villains who needed to fold in under Coil for protection after they crossed too many lines.

The obvious answer to “who is this for” is that this is fiction, and the performance is for the readers’ benefit. The primary purpose of the Unwritten Rules as fanon is to give characters who might otherwise not get along a reason to interact and potentially get along. The Undersiders hanging out with the Wards out of costume, with nothing more than a few winks and nudges about cape life. Taylor going to Arcadia and hanging out with New Wave and the Wards, before going back to the Undersiders for crime. Heroes taking off the costumes to spend an evening at the Palanquin. This isn’t a problem, even if it’s not to my personal tastes. The problem comes when this is applied to the Nazis as well.

Giving the Nazis a pass, and having the protagonists casually hang out with them out of costume (it’s usually Rune or Purity for these scenes) is often used as a way to apologize for the Nazis. “She’s a relatable single mom,” people say about Purity, who never stopped being a Nazi. “She’s just a kid,” people say about Rune, ignoring the fact that she’s still a racist asshole. By having the protagonists interact favorably with the Nazis “out of costume”, authors are (often unintentionally) signaling that being a Nazi isn’t a big deal.

Or worse, that being a Nazi isn’t as bad as being Asian (when compared to the ABB), or being black (comparing Sophia’s actions as a high school bully to an organization who regularly lynches minorities).

There is actually an easy fix to this, if you as an author want to write using Unwritten Rules fanon: simply exclude the Nazis. People don’t want to hang out with them in civilian identities, because they’re still hateful bigots. The Nazis don’t get the same benefit of the doubt as someone like the Undersiders, because every single one of them has a list of hate crimes attached to them. You don’t need any justification beyond “they’re Naizs, and that’s a bad thing.”

The idea that you need to justify hating Nazis, an ideology foundationally built around hate, is in itself Nazi apologia. One cannot tolerate intolerance, otherwise the intolerance will obliterate the tolerance.

V. Why the Watsonian Matters Too

Within the fiction of Worm and its fanfics, the people who benefit most from the Unwritten Rules are the well-established crime organizations who can threaten people into respecting them. The Nazis, however, benefit ideologically from the Unwritten Rules just as much as they benefit logistically, for the same reason it’s a problem to have the heroes hang out with them out-of-costume. Saying “we can’t arrest them because they’re not in costume” legitimizes the crimes committed while in costume, and plays defense for the perpetrators, by creating a context in which those crimes are “fair play” that can’t be punished. It’s one line short of endorsing what the villains do.

The polite fiction of the Unwritten Rules is exactly that: fiction. The entire point of The Rules in canon is that everyone who can break them, does break them. Everyone. Heroes, villains, protagonists, antagonists... The Rules are worth less than the nonexistent paper they’re written on.

The fanon takes these rules literally, and as a result, tacitly endorses the Nazis.

If you’re not allowed to break The Rules, even in service of fighting literal neo-Nazis, then that’s legitimizing Nazism. There is no fence sitting with this. Either Nazis are bad and can’t exist in polite society, or the Nazis are socially accepted. If a bar doesn’t kick Nazis out, one way or another, that’s a Nazi Bar.

“What about Somer’s Rock and the villain truce?” you may ask. To which I can only respond:

I said polite society, and I don’t think a crime lord moot counts. In a room with Nazis, Coil (drugged a preteen to use as a magic eight-ball), Faultline (mercenary who attacked a mental health facility), the newly-formed Merchants (drug dealers), and the Undersiders (teenage bank robbers), nobody there counts as polite society. All of them are threats to the status quo by nature, even as they exist within the status quo, to varying degrees.

Obviously, even Coil isn’t as bad as the Nazis, and the Merchants’ drug dealing pales in comparison to even just the drug dealing the Nazis would be involved in; especially if you count Medhall. They all, regardless, are a threat to the status quo in their own way.

The Merchants ignore the status quo in favor of chasing highs. Coil wants to bend the status quo over his knee, snap it in two, and set up his own. Faultline wants money, and is willing to side with just about anyone for it. The Undersiders, Taylor especially, buck against authority and eventually attempt to take over the city in Coil’s absence; they don’t get the moral high ground here, much as I adore them.

The Nazis, meanwhile, are pushing a fascist ideology that seeks the destruction of all they deem lesser, which includes (but is not limited to) Jews, people of color, the disabled, fat people, queer people, white people who disagree with them, and women who aren’t feminine in the right ways.

Fleur was killed in her home by an unpowered white supremacist who wanted to join the Empire. After he got out of jail, the Empire welcomed him with open arms. They didn’t explicitly break the Unwritten Rules, but they didn’t take any issue with the rules being broken.

The Unwritten Rules are the status quo, and if your status quo bends to accept Nazis, you have a broken status quo. If a bar doesn’t kick Nazis out, one way or another, that’s a Nazi Bar.

VI. The Endbringer Truce

The other place people might point to with the Unwritten Rules is the Endbringer Truce. In canon, the Endbringer Truce is basically the heroes not arresting villains who show up to help. It’s an emergency situation, closer to a natural disaster than anything else. Even the Nine weren’t treated as seriously as an Endbringer. Any villains who show up are allowed to assist, provided they don’t take advantage of things to benefit themselves.

In fanon, people take this to mean that everyone shows up to the Endbringer fights, including having villains fly out to foreign fights, despite not even all the villains of Brockton Bay showing up to fight Leviathan. Oni Lee wasn’t present. The Merchants weren’t. Faultline and co. skipped town. Coil and the Travelers hunkered down and waited it out. Interestingly, the Empire showed up, likely due to the many losses of face they experienced leading up to it; they needed to boost their reputation to remain relevant and continue recruiting even with recent setbacks.

Bambina also showed up for the fight, but she was very explicitly doing it to bolster her own reputation. Overall, the average villain is more likely to use the truce to avoid the fighst, rather than risk their lives. Behemoth was another exception, with the Undersiders and Ambassadors being the odd ones out when it came to villains participating. The CUI sending some of their capes was also seen as incredibly unusual.

In fanon, it’s very common for the Protectorate to help Nazis get to international endbringer attacks. Interestingly, it’s only ever the Nazis who help. Lung stays home, Coil doesn’t care, the Undersiders wouldn’t volunteer for anything more than their home city being attacked (prior to Taylor, anyway), the Merchants (who are usually a gang much earlier in fanon) don’t do anything... so the Nazis are the only villains who tend to help. The Nazis are the ones that the heroes have to give “grudging respect” to. The Nazis are fighting the good fight, unlike the ABB (Asians) or the Merchants (drug dealers led by a black man).

I shouldn’t need to specify how this too is Nazi apologia.

Canon has a radically different take on where the Nazis fit into things - nobody works with them without qualms. During the villain truce against Bakuda, nobody was comfortable with the Nazis. Armsmaster lined up a bunch of Nazis to die against Leviathan, violating the Endbringer Truce, and the only reason anyone considers that a problem is because Taylor happened to be in the line of fire, and Tattletale threatened to make that clear. (Not that it was part of Armsmaster’s plan for Taylor to be there, of course.) Even when fighting the Nine, the heroes were unwilling to work with Hookwolf and his gang. They were willing to temporarily ignore him, but not work openly with him.

VII. Final Thoughts

The idea that the Unwritten Rules are important enough to justify working with Nazis is Nazi apologia. Stating that the Nazis exist because they follow the Unwritten Rules is also Nazi apologia. “At least they’re civilized” is a blatant pro-Nazi phrase, a tacit denial of the inherently uncivil nature of racist violence, and is often used in the context of the Unwritten Rules.

The Unwritten Rules, as a piece of fanon, are entwined with just about all other fanon. They’re a cornerstone of Worm’s fanfic community, and they’re used to justify and normalize Nazi apologia at every turn, which is a key part of the fascist playbook. They need to convince people that it’s okay that they exist. If it’s okay that they exist, then maybe some of what they’re saying is also okay. If siding with Kaiser to enforce the Unwritten Rules is worth it, then maybe Kaiser and the Nazis aren’t that bad. Maybe the real villains were the minorities selling drugs and wearing red and green. Maybe the government should work more closely with the Nazis, because they have the numbers the government lacks...

Unrelated, but OBLIEQUE is a pretty good fic.

The Unwritten Rules as presented in fanon and viewed by the fandom are, to be frank, silly. Treating a Magic Circle like a set of hard and fast rules, sometimes going as far as to treat them with more sanctity than actual laws, is so ridiculous that it should defy suspension of disbelief, even without considering their treatment in canon. Bad actors, furthermore, can use (and have used) this exaggeration of a canon concept to enforce racist and pro-Nazi fanon, and now it’s ingrained. It’s automatic. “Why not side with the Nazis? It’s logical, because the people killing them are breaking the Unwritten Rules.” As if anyone needs any justification to not side with literal Nazis.

Finally, and most importantly: capitalizing “Unwritten Rules” is so fucking stupid, and the only reason I did that here was to highlight how ridiculous it is. If there’s one thing you take from this essay, please make it that.