HQM

she/they

[nobredoesart]

Commission for @pseudohqm , of Poppy Playtime's Lily Lovebraids! Totes didn't forget to post this earlier <3

[nobredoesart]

Comission for @pseudohqm 's upcoming fic, Control/Worm! Really fun commission to work on!

[pseudohqm]

10 posts! After... how many years???

[tpwrtrmnky]

One of the most useful things I've learned from how Bluesky block lists are public information (and this is damning with faint praise) is that I'm on both "proship" and "antis" lists, and was on those before saying a single word about fanfiction shipping wars.

This because whatever this discourse even is at this point, the factions have dug themselves layers deep in responses-to-responses-to-responses to each other, and have assigned such a broad space of opinions as belonging either to "proshippers" or "antis" that now, basically any statement posted on the internet can be placed into this dyad, in contradictory ways depending on who the one doing the assignment is.

And that's the point that's too deep in the discourse: Where you're projecting avowed alignment with a faction of niche online arguments onto people who have no idea what the fuck you're talking about, with no reference to the core ideas of the discourse to ground that alignment in.

[nobredoesart]

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

[silvianorton]

Sweetest Day Worm Fic Challenge

A friend of mine, @pseudohqm, threw together a small writing challenge for next month, and I think it's really sweet! All are welcome, provided the limited rules within are met. I'm helping moderate for the challenge, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/WormSweetestDay2025/profile

What is Sweetest Day? Sweetest Day is the holiday (celebrated the third Saturday in October) where we share romantic deeds and expressions, or acts of charity and kindness. Participants give gifts of candy or other sweets alongside personalized messages. In the Midwestern United States, Sweetest Day is traditionally seen as a reverse Valentine's Day, with women treating the men in their lives to sweets (similar to how White Day is celebrated in Japan). This year, Sweetest Day is October 18th. What does this mean for my fan work?  Your work doesn't literally have to be about Sweetest Day to be accepted here. The spirit of the holiday is what matters! Even clever inversions would fit, so long as it's not too far outside the theme. Use your brain and read the room and it should be fine. Does this mean only M/F ships are allowed? All ships are allowed so long as the rules (stated below) are followed, and there's no hard requirement for romantic relationships of any kind. You could keep the focus on friendship, or even general kindness towards strangers. Are there any deadlines? The collection will be revealed on October 18th, but we'll keep it open for submissions through the end of the month. Is there a minimum word count? There is no stated minimum (or maximum). All works that respect the rules (stated below) will be allowed. If you can do that in 100 words and want to submit it, then that's fine! Most people would probably appreciate a longer fic, though. That's no different from anything outside the challenge.

[al3xand3r245]

Guys you don’t understand. We’ve finally found the trans girls its acceptable to bully. No legit this one is finally the one where its cool and okay to harrass and abuse! She’s a Bad Person! Guys’s We Found Her! What do you mean she blocked us? Well let’s just stalk her anyway! She’s A Bad Person, don’t you get it???

[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.

[trans-queen-administrator]

I don’t really post much these days, but with recent events I feel like I should speak up. The way people are treating @wellwormfic is really shitty, ranging from vagueposts to direct callout posts to flat out harassment. Y’all can be better than this.

The blog is askblog for a no-powers AU focusing on mental healthcare, for context. Full post under the cut.

I fail to see how it’s funny or even odd to have an AU focused on mental health for the story where every character is inherently traumatized and unable to escape from that trauma, but that’s just me so I’ll move on to actual complaints. Putting aside how it’s really weird to call the inclusion of hebrew letters something to unpack, the author is Jewish. The letters are aleph bet gimel, the three prominent worlds of worm. This is what I mean when I say people are looking for reasons to hate, even the most innocuous stuff is scrutinized and attacked without any thought or further research. It leads to a lot of false assumptions taken as fact and that leads to harmful misinformation being spread.

Every character is rewritten in some way, this is an alternate universe. Lisa didn’t slip Taylor LSD until she developed delusions of apotheosis in canon, Rebecca Costa-Brown ran Cauldron and ruined countless lives, all these people have superpowers in canon. Things are different because that’s inherent to an alternate universe. Accusing a trans woman of gender essentialism for AU changes that never once brings up gender in the slightest is absolutely absurd. I presume the assumed gender essentialism is men being rapists and women being incapable of that, but that’s such an uncharitable assumption with no actual evidence behind it that I think it’s incredibly irresponsible to just throw out as the first and only possibility. People have also claimed this is woobifying Cherie, but she’s still very much a terrible person in this.

Calling an idealized mental healthcare center written by someone who has been institutionalized and hurt by the real life mental healthcare system an “Insane Asylum AU (TM)” is not only dismissing her real experiences and showing how little people actually engaged with the premise before writing it off as evil and worthy of mockery, it’s ableist. It perpetuates the stigmatized view of mental health, and it implies that it’s ridiculous to even want to write about people’s mental health struggles. I know the people mocking this AU for being a mental healthcare AU probably don’t see themselves as ableist, but that is how it comes across. 

An excerpt from the post, since it’s too long to send all of. I highly recommend checking out the blog and reading it in full! The first thing OP did in the response was thank the asker for the good faith question.

The response from the original sender. It was a detailed, thoughtful, and personal post, that explained the thought process and also what OP has gone through. But if one dismisses it as ‘nothing words’, they can mock it without acknowledging the very real truth that maybe the person being targeted isn’t actually pure evil, and that these actions are hurting someone.

This isn’t even getting into the Bakuda stuff, where OP is accused of being racist for something that she had Bakuda say to depict that character as in the wrong and deeply flawed. I will put aside how Bakuda has no explicit canon nationality, and her cape name is not actual proof of her being Japanese. Because what matters is that OP then formally and thoroughly apologized for this and edited the post when people complained, and that was also dismissed as ‘nothing words’. If OP says something that can be twisted and mocked then every letter is analyzed to fuel the hatred, but any attempt to clear things up is immediately written off as nothing. There is no chance given to get better, the moment someone fails the purity test they’re evil forever. Hostile campaigns like this have driven a lot of people off of wormblr, and it’s easy to get caught up in one because it’s nice to feel righteous and morally superior. But in the end it hurts people and just fosters more and more of an echo chamber. 

If you’re going to shittalk someone and be mean, I don’t care, do it in a group chat or something though. At least have the decency to not send baiting asks or harass people.

[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—

[horrorgems]

The Doctor from Placeholder by HQM.

[horrorgems]

Tattletale Squared - Lisa and her doppelganger, inspired by Chapter 25 of Placeholder, an amazing metafictional Worm fanfic by @psudohqm

[pseudohqm]

Love this so much. Thank you!

[pseudohqm]

Just purged all of my old posts lmao