Don't Read Worm. But Also: Read Worm

Worm Sideblog of @kyliafanfiction. Title is a reference to the fact that I only started reading Worm after an errant comment led me down a rabbit hole which would proceed to consume my brain. Hence 'mistake'. Currently on Extinction 27.2

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

The Live Read of Pact Is Here

This is a sideblog of @kyliafanfiction when I reply to replies on this blog, they sometimes come from that blog because tumblr is annoyingly designed.

This was my blog for my worm live-read, which is now done, and can be found under the tag '#Kylia Reads Worm', as well as my Worm Retrospective and various thoughts I had not while reading Worm, but while thinking about what I'd read, under the '#Kylia Reflects On Worm' tag.

As I noted during my live-read, and since, here and elsewhere, I went into Worm knowing it was not 'for me' (and came out really knowing that). Cape stuff is not really my main interest, I never really consumed comic books or much superhero media, so a lot of the meta-references and commentary on the genre that was baked into Worm went over my head, and a lot of the capeshit in general was just very 'shrug' to me.

And of course, during my live-read, I wrangled with the fact that I had spoiled myself for a lot, and had in the years before reading Worm, picked up errant bits and pieces of stuff about Worm from cultural osmosis. And also, I really took issue with a lot of Wildbow's choices, not just in Worm itself, but the Sequel that I don't want to (and won't) read.

But as anyone who read the liveblog knows, I do like Wildbow's overall writing. there are some amazing parts about Worm - Wildbow's character work tends to be very good, he writes compelling fiction, and in Worm, crafted an interesting world. He's a talented writer, whatever else is also true about him. So I have wanted to try reading more of his stuff. But there's also certain author habits of his that, by all accounts, persist in his other works, that I don't like.

So it's a mixed bag. But I wanted to try it, and so, I'm gonna try Pact. I have almost no spoilers beyond that the MC (apparently?) dies at the end, which is... well, it's WB, so I could have guessed that.

And unlike my lack of familiarity with the genre at work in Worm, I have read a lot of and know a good amount about the broader genre stuff that should presumably be informing Pact. Though given what I have heard (secondhand) is Wildbow's wildly off-base opinion on Vampires, we may be coming at this from very, very different directions, so I suppose we'll see.

[kyliafanfiction]

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

“I’m not… being good or bad was never a thing for me.  Not really.  It was all about the actions I was taking and why, instead.  I became a warlord and I took care of people.  I helped seize the city from Coil and we started implementing changes.  Again and again, I’ve escalated in terms of the kind of power I wield.”

You know, there's a lot of people who hate various fanon details that make it into fics, like the idea that Coil/Calvert is the CEO of 'Fortress Construction' but it is established in 8.x that "He owned the company that had built the underground shelters in Brockton Bay and neighboring cities." (Direct quote)

Maybe he isn't CEO that company, and it's canon name is never given, but the idea of it being called Fortress Construction is hardly unreasonable, for one, and for another, that name is a common touchstone now - if a reader who has read a lot of wormfic sees the name 'Fortress Construction', even if Calvert's name doesn't come in context, the reader probably knows to expect to start looking for everyone's least favorite snakey bastard.

And here, we have Taylor specifically calling herself out for Escalating over and over again, and then the hardline jackass purists get pissy when people call Taylor 'the Queen of Escalation'

The hardline jackass purists who act like they're the Church of Wildbow and so above everyone else love to toss around the 'so many fic writers and readers don't read Worm ever' argument but like...

Sometimes I don't think they read Worm either. They're so allergic to their abstract notion of 'fanon' that they will start dismissing and ignoring the actual canon details those things are often rooted in.

[severebananapuppy]

I'm not one of those people, but I do think calling her the Queen of Escalation is a little overblown. It's more like she's the Queen of Adaptation. She doesn't start the fights, but she does everything she can to finish them.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

  Again and again, I’ve escalated in terms of the kind of power I wield.”

<will Simpson presenting something meme>

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

“Golem,” the last one said, his voice muffled by his helmet. I frowned behind my mask, perplexed.  “You named yourself after the little bastard from The Lord-”

Okay, so did D&D just not have as much influence on fantasy fiction on Earth-Bet? I don't.... I don't buy this, but it's shrug overall.

[severebananapuppy]

---

“Cuff,” said the girl in blue-black armor.

“Annex,” the cowled one told me.

“Golem,” the last one said, his voice muffled by his helmet.

I frowned behind my mask, perplexed. “You named yourself after the little bastard from The Lord-”

“No,” he said. I could hear him sigh from behind his helmet. “I’m thinking of changing it.”

If not from the trilogy, then… I fixed the pronunciation, compensating for how his muffled voice had modified it. Right. Golem, from the myth.

“I get it, nevermind. Listen, we’re going to move out, and you’re going to explain your powers en route. You know who I am?”

---

I'm pretty sure it's a joke about how Theo fucked up the pronunciation so badly it came out as Gollum. Cropped out a lot of the context there, didn't you?

And the average person might have thought of Dungeons and Dragons, but since this is meant to be a quick joke, Wildbow had Taylor instantly think of the Jewish myth so readers can google "Golem myth" and instantly understand the narrative significance between Theo picking a Jewish name to oppose his Neo-Nazi family.

It's also possible nobody in this scene has played Dungeons and Dragons because A) it's 2013 and the internet ain't great and B) they have better things to do with their lives, like survive the motherfuckers that keep trying to kill them, and practice in their spare time to survive the motherfuckers that keep trying to kill them.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

It's also possible nobody in this scene has played Dungeons and Dragons because A) it's 2013 and the internet ain't great and B) they have better things to do with their lives, like survive the motherfuckers that keep trying to kill them, and practice in their spare time to survive the motherfuckers that keep trying to kill them.

D&D had a cultural footprint well before 2013.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

I gotta admit, the people who bend over backwards to defend Sophia or like... cut her slack they don't give Emma or Madison (and they do exist, most notably Pendragoon, my god does she love giving Sophia a pass) baffle the fuck out of me, and having read all of Sophia and Taylor's convo in 27.3, I don't see how anyone can look at her as anything other than delusional.

Racism in fandom is a thing, major problem, but sometimes I feel like some people (who pride themselves as being super pro-queer and super progressive and stuff) will just bend over backwards to defend a character just because they're black or just because their queer or whatever and that's... not as bad as the racism directed at a character for just being black, etc, but it sure ain't good.

[severebananapuppy]

I just like her. I don't really give a shit about Emma or Madison. I do find the amount of Sophia-specific bashfics mildly concerning, but I can't deny she kinda deserves them.

I just wish Sophia got, like, 1% of the woobieness Amy gets.

Sophia's not my favourite character, mind, but I'd struggle to say any of them are my favourite.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

*gestures to Amy, who has a shitty life situation shown directly on screen, spends most of her time healing, and even when she hurts people it's after being put through a horrible psychogical wringer and is far from unrepentant about it and willingly goes to superprison for her crimes. She's also pretty passive in most of her life.*

*gestures to Sophia, who is never repentant, has no shitty life situation shown on screen (very relevant to audience response), actively and repeatedly makes the MC's life worse - and Main Characters tend to attract over attachment from readers - and doesn't really get much onscreen comeuppance for her crimes*

If you don't understand why Amy is the platonic ideal of woobifiable and Sophia isn't, I don't know what to tell you.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

“I have two boys, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t… however old you are.  So you weren’t switched at birth.” The teenager took in a deep breath.  “I’m from Earth Bet.  My name is Taylor Hebert, and my mother was Annette Rose Hebert.  Anne-Rose.” Taylor watched with bated breath as Annette took that in.  The realization and connecting of the dots was quick enough.  Annette’s hand moved, and she lost her page. “Oh,” Annette said.  “Wow.  Wow.”

This is just fucking stupid. What the fuck are you expecting from this Taylor?

This is just stupid. But chucking Taylor into Earth-Aleph was just dumb. Wanting to leave Taylor's fate ambiguous was just dumb. I kind of wish he'd done it because then the internet lynch mob would have scared Wildbow off from Wormverse so hard he'd never have written Ward.

[severebananapuppy]

"Taylor smiled just a little.  “I think it’s allowed, to feel weird about this.  I just, um, forgive me for being selfish, but I kind of wanted to see your face.  Or her face.”"

Oh, I don't know, some closure? Annette's death was a major turning point in Taylor's life and one she never really got to deal with properly.

And, like, if you could talk to your deceased mother after a lifetime of shit, wouldn't you?

Lynch mobs? Jesus. That's fucking rabid. I take it back, you don't have a "possibly" parasocial relationship with Wildbow... or you have no idea how viscous the internet can get. I wouldn't wish that on a man who's worst crime is writing an occasionally disappointing webnovel.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

This can't provide closure, becuase this isn't her dead mother

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

so should i read worm then

Yes.

No.

That's a question only you can answer. Sadly, the only way to get an answer is to start reading and see how it goes.

[kyliafanfiction]

I don't think I'm saying anything new, though I haven't actually seen it anywhere

Saint, of the Dragonslayers, in Worm, is kind of fascinating. Because, his interlude really does make you see his perspective, and almost agree with him. We've seen enough of Dragon to know (or maybe hope) he's wrong, but my god, his perspective makes sense in his interlude.

And to be fair, concern about an AI is... valid. I'm rather terrified of the idea of AI even a tenth as capable of Dragon ever getting made. We have the advantage of knowing Dragon is Good People™ but...

On the other hand, the way Saint justifies it all to himself is fascinating, and at it's core, at his core, I think what's really interesting about him is that... I think he's pissed he's not a normal cape. I think he's so goddamn furious he never triggered.

I think Geoffrey Pellick wants more than anything else, to be special. to be capital I important. And so when he happened upon Ascalon by accident, he found the chance to make his dreams true. I don't think he realizes it, but...

I think he 100% is in this, at the end of the day, because he's found a way to be special, and he's taking it.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

My problem with Siberian is that the concept almost works for me. I think it’s cool that she ends up being a tulpa, but I know so little about Manton that it doesn’t end up adding anything to the character. It just undermines her, because it gives the lie to her agency/distinct personhood. I think it would be cool if she was distinct from Manton but was dependent on him, or if we knew more about him and it turns out it’s his secret desire to be a tall strong naked lady, or if she wasn’t a tulpa at all and was just a weirdly powerful cape. I don’t know, there’s just almost something there.

[hottakehoulihan]

I actually think that's intentional; Siberian was this super edgy raw übermensch character and wow I can picture us thinking "can we have a story where she's the main character forever?" ...and then we find out it's merely this old pathetic loser's online-griefer fursona IN character and Manton's an evil creep roleplaying being Riley's big sister AND jaunting about being naked-shadow-the-hedgehog-without-pubes AND being frustrated borderline incestuous yearnings personified. If she'd been everything Manton was portraying her as, instead of the spoonbending-show fraud that was revealed, the themes and foci of the story would be an interesting and awful trainwreck with morals unpleasant to contemplate.

/hot take

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

An interesting point, and I don't even disagree, but I do feel like this seems to be a running problem with Worm generally, and S9 in particular, that so many things turn out to be like... deliberate letdowns?

How many times can you play that card? Like, it's genuinely subversive to have something be a bit of a pathetic letdown but when you do that enough times, you're left with... well, what the fuck man?

[spydere]

Isn't that literally every single Worm character in some way, shape or form? Genuinely struggling to think of someone who's not pathetic. (Using a broad application of pathetic here)

"Nobody's perfect" is a pretty strong theme running through Worm.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

There's nobody's perfect and 'this character's central premise is that they're a letdown from the tropes they're hyped as'

Jack Slash is incredibly boring and pathetic but he's this big deal serial killer who is supposed to end the world.

S9 in general is scary and consumes a lot of story real estate but in the end they're largely uncompelling and bland as characters.

'Nobody's perfect' has nothing to do with this conversation. Nobody is expecting perfect, the point is that as the OP and HHH note, the Siberian's reveal as Manton's projection renders the whole character (and manton) as pathetic. Which is probably intentional, yes, but Worm plays that card in some way for a lot of big deals and after a while you start to wonder how often that card can be played. Once is bold, twice is interesting, but more than that and does it start to just be making excuses for poor follow through?

Genuinely, I'm not sure how your comment has anything to do with the discussion at hand?

[entangled-fandoms]

Wasn't there someone who poisted that the S9 are intentionally lame because they're not supposed to be interesting, they're just the logical endpoint of "some jackass but with too much power?"

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

I'm pretty sure Wildbow has even said as much, but I also don't care. I can acknowledge it was (or probably was) deliberate and still say I think it was a poor choice. A story often lives and dies on it's compelling antagonists. Worm does have compelling antagonists... but they're the heroes, not other villains. A lot of things in Worm are deliberately letdowns, and Wildbow plays that card a lot - villains and otherwise.

It's overplayed and overdone, IMO.

[kyliafanfiction]

The Worst Amy Take of the Year Competition is off to a good start. Coming in hot, on Spacebattles is TenguPhule, speaking in reference to Amy's conduct Re: Taylor in Extinction 8.6, we have this absolute cesspit of an opinion:

Which makes Panacea a worse character then the E88 participants. Because they actually followed the letter and spirit of the Truce.

(X)

[kyliafanfiction]

It's interesting but in a universe where I had never heard of either Worm or Ward, and I got an elevator pitch for both books one after the other and was asked which I'd rather read, I'd almost certainly have picked Ward.

Like, on a purely surface generalities level, without any specific details, Ward sounds like it should be up my alley in so many ways and Worm very much should not.

And yet.

And yet.

Every specific detail I hear about Ward, from haters and lovers and neutrals alike makes it clear to me that I would almost certainly have hated Ward, even if I didn't come pre-loaded with opinions about Amy from Worm.

[kyliafanfiction]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 17/? Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Parahumans Series - Wildbow Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Amy Dallon/Original Female Character Characters: Amy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen, Cassandra Pentaghast, Leliana (Dragon Age), Solas (Dragon Age), Original Female Character(s), Varric Tethras, Josephine Montilyet Additional Tags: Crossover, Canon Divergence, Teenage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Knowledge of Dragon Age Is Intended To Not Be Necessary To Follow The Story, Isekai, Amy Dallon and Her Hudson News Worth of Issues, Self-Loathing, guilt complex, Mommy Issues, Limerence, What Would Vicky Do?, Is a Question She’ll be Asking Herself A Lot, Amy Dallon is the Herald of Andraste, Amy Dallon is the Inquisitor, Because putting a traumatized self-loathing teenager with superpowers in charge of a quasi-religious military organization is a great plan!, Spoiler Alert: It ends up actually working out, But It’s Going To Take Time To Get There, Because Amy Dallon Is A Mess, The Amy Romance will be very slow burn, Amy Dallon Needs A Hug, Amy Dallon Will Need To Experiment With Her Powers, But Only To An Extent Because She’s Still Terrified Of Them, Amy’s Powers Will Play A Key Role At Various Points In The Story, Additional Character Tags to be Added Series: Part 1 of Amy Dallon, Hero of Thedas Summary:

Amy Dallon. Panacea. A self-loathing, damaged, troubled young woman who’s sanity teeters on the edge of a knife. In love with her sister, feeling like an alien intruder in her own family, desperate for the approval of a mother seemingly unable to give it, and overwhelmed by the monstrous potential of a power she never wanted.

In theory, the last person you would want to rest the entire fate of the world on.

But when a Bakuda bomb plucks her from Earth-Bet and drops her in Thedas, leaving her with a glowing green mark on her hand, and a hole in the sky that only she can close, Amy will have no choice to rise to the occassion - or die trying.

I’m probably going to die trying - Amy Dallon, 9:41 Dragon.

————- I don’t share this to Tumblr enough, but chapter 15 is up. In which:  Amy goes to a bookstore, gets recommended a book and then sets out to meet two people who want to join the Inquisition and think asking her is the way to do it for some reason. Of course, that’s about the only thing Sera and Vivienne de Fer have in common.

[kyliafanfiction]

One of the things that I find most remarkable about the Worm Fandom is like, how many people who are both pro and anti Wildbow really seem to think that Worm is like, intended to be seen as a 'realistic' take on superheroes in real life.

Or that it's 'more realistic' than DC or Marvel or whatever.

And like, maybe he's said that, I've hardly read every WoG, but that feels unlikely based on what I have seen, and just... reading Worm itself. Worm is a take on superheroes, and it's more cohesive than DC or Marvel tends to be because it's one guy writing one story and controlling the whole world of the story, but like, Worm isn't more realistic, and Wildbow didn't set that out as an expectation, as far as I can tell.

Worm has a lot going on, but I feel like some of is was just the equivalent of Ron Pearlman coming in at the end of the twilight zone episode and saying 'hey, wasn't that fucked up?'

But even more so, you run into a lot of people on the Anti-Wildbow side of the fandom who feel like they're 'owning' Wildbow when they make big statements about how much more 'effective' optimism or kindness or hope are than despair/cynicism. Or the people who treat Worm as like, a puzzle they've solved with just the right altpower. Or like, they act like when they find some 'horrible' inconsistency in Worm that they've 'proven' it's unrealistic. And thus they've 'beaten' Wildbow by proving that, which... again, I don't think was ever his goal?

Like, I'm happy to say I find the CUI to be nonsensical, and the Geselleschaft doesn't feel very realistic, and a lot of Wildbow's worldbuilding wears thin and shallow the further he gets from the Bay and from the subjects the story focused on most, but like... that's just how anything works? No worldbuilding can actually stand up to the scrutiny of hundreds or thousands of pedantic nerds staring at it long enough. Even Tolkein's can't. And I don't feel like I've 'owned' Wildbow when I make those point in a discusson.

The pro-Wildbow side of the fandom can have some really noxious people, but the anti-Wildbow side of the fandom has people who really want to tilt at windmills that just aren't there.

[kyliafanfiction]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 10/? Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Parahumans Series - Wildbow Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Amy Dallon/Original Female Character Characters: Amy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen, Cassandra Pentaghast, Leliana (Dragon Age), Solas (Dragon Age), Original Female Character(s), Varric Tethras, Josephine Montilyet Additional Tags: Crossover, Canon Divergence, Teenage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Knowledge of Dragon Age Is Intended To Not Be Necessary To Follow The Story, Isekai, Amy Dallon and Her Hudson News Worth of Issues, Self-Loathing, guilt complex, Mommy Issues, Limerence, What Would Vicky Do?, Is a Question She’ll be Asking Herself A Lot, Amy Dallon is the Herald of Andraste, Amy Dallon is the Inquisitor, Because putting a traumatized self-loathing teenager with superpowers in charge of a quasi-religious military organization is a great plan!, Spoiler Alert: It ends up actually working out, But It’s Going To Take Time To Get There, Because Amy Dallon Is A Mess, The Amy Romance will be very slow burn, Amy Dallon Needs A Hug, Amy Dallon Will Need To Experiment With Her Powers, But Only To An Extent Because She’s Still Terrified Of Them, Amy’s Powers Will Play A Key Role At Various Points In The Story, Additional Character Tags to be Added Series: Part 1 of Amy Dallon, Hero of Thedas Summary:

Amy Dallon. Panacea. A self-loathing, damaged, troubled young woman who’s sanity teeters on the edge of a knife. In love with her sister, feeling like an alien intruder in her own family, desperate for the approval of a mother seemingly unable to give it, and overwhelmed by the monstrous potential of a power she never wanted.

In theory, the last person you would want to rest the entire fate of the world on.

But when a Bakuda bomb plucks her from Earth-Bet and drops her in Thedas, leaving her with a glowing green mark on her hand, and a hole in the sky that only she can close, Amy will have no choice to rise to the occassion - or die trying.

I’m probably going to die trying - Amy Dallon, 9:41 Dragon.

————

In the latest chapter,  Amy learns an unwelcome truth about Katerina, gets hit in the face with the complicated moral realities about Thedas (and tries to ignore them) and comes to a conclusion about the whys of elven biology. Then someone starts chucking Fireballs at the village.

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

I do actually intend to return to reading Pact, I promise, I'm just... very busy with a lot of other stuff rn.

[kyliafanfiction]

Chapters: 9/? Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Parahumans Series - Wildbow Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Amy Dallon/Original Female Character Characters: Amy Dallon | Panacea | Red Queen, Cassandra Pentaghast, Leliana (Dragon Age), Solas (Dragon Age), Original Female Character(s), Varric Tethras Additional Tags: Crossover, Canon Divergence, Teenage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Knowledge of Dragon Age Is Intended To Not Be Necessary To Follow The Story, Isekai, Amy Dallon and Her Hudson News Worth of Issues, Self-Loathing, guilt complex, Mommy Issues, Limerence, What Would Vicky Do?, Is a Question She’ll be Asking Herself A Lot, Amy Dallon is the Herald of Andraste, Amy Dallon is the Inquisitor, Because putting a traumatized self-loathing teenager with superpowers in charge of a quasi-religious military organization is a great plan!, Spoiler Alert: It ends up actually working out, But It’s Going To Take Time To Get There, Because Amy Dallon Is A Mess, The Amy Romance will be very slow burn, Amy Dallon Needs A Hug, Amy Dallon Will Need To Experiment With Her Powers, But Only To An Extent Because She’s Still Terrified Of Them, Amy’s Powers Will Play A Key Role At Various Points In The Story, Additional Character Tags to be Added Series: Part 1 of Amy Dallon, Hero of Thedas Summary:

Amy Dallon. Panacea. A self-loathing, damaged, troubled young woman who’s sanity teeters on the edge of a knife. In love with her sister, feeling like an alien intruder in her own family, desperate for the approval of a mother seemingly unable to give it, and overwhelmed by the monstrous potential of a power she never wanted.

In theory, the last person you would want to rest the entire fate of the world on.

But when a Bakuda bomb plucks her from Earth-Bet and drops her in Thedas, leaving her with a glowing green mark on her hand, and a hole in the sky that only she can close, Amy will have no choice to rise to the occassion - or die trying.

I’m probably going to die trying - Amy Dallon, 9:41 Dragon.

———- Chapter 9, and Amy finally gets a look at dwarven biology (which is somehow nowhere near as nuts as elven biology) and finally reaches the Hinterlands. Of course, since everyone thinks Amy is a mage, not everyone is so delighted to have her heal them or their loved ones.

[haiezd]

Reblog if you want anonymous questions.