niceys positive anon!! i don't agree with you on everything but you are so clearly like well read and well rounded that you've helped me think through a lot of my own inconsistencies and hypocrises in my own political and social thought, even if i do have slightly different conclusions at times then u (mainly because i believe there's more of a place for idealism and 'mind politics' than u do). anyway this is a preamble to ask if you have recommended reading in the past and if not if you had any recommended reading? there's some obvious like Read Marx but beyond that im always a little lost wading through theory and given you seem well read and i always admire your takes, i wondered about your recs
it's been a while since i've done a big reading list post so--bearing in mind that my specific areas of 'expertise' (i say that in huge quotation marks obvsies i'm just a girlblogger) are imperialism and media studies, here are some books and essays/pamphlets i recommend. the bolded ones are ones that i consider foundational to my politics
BASICS OF MARXISM
friedrich engels, principles of commmunism
friedrich engels, socialism: utopian & scientific
karl marx, the german ideology
karl marx, wage labour & capital
mao zedong, on contradiction
nikolai bukharin, anarchy and scientific communism
rosa luxemburg, reform or revolution?
v.i lenin, left-wing communism: an infantile disorder
v.i. lenin, the state & revolution
v.i. lenin, what is to be done?
IMPERIALISM
aijaz ahmed, iraq, afghanistan, and the imperialism of our time
albert memmi, the colonizer and the colonized
che guevara, on socialism and internationalism (ed. aijaz ahmad)
eduardo galeano, the open veins of latin america
edward said, orientalism
fernando cardoso, dependency and development in latin america
frantz fanon, black skin, white masks
frantz fanon, the wretched of the earth
greg grandin, empire's workshop
kwame nkrumah, neocolonialism, the last stage of imperialism
michael parenti, against empire
naomi klein, the shock doctrine
ruy mauro marini, the dialectics of dependency
v.i. lenin, imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism
vijay prashad, red star over the third world
vincent bevins, the jakarta method
walter rodney, how europe underdeveloped africa
william blum, killing hope
zak cope, divided world divided class
zak cope, the wealth of (some) nations
MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES
antonio gramsci, the prison notebooks
ed. mick gidley, representing others: white views of indigenous peoples
ed. stuart hall, representation: cultural representations and signifying pratices
gilles deleuze & felix guattari, capitalism & schizophrenia
jacques derrida, margins of philosophy
jacques derrida, speech and phenomena
michael parenti, inventing reality
michel foucault, disicipline and punish
michel foucault, the archeology of knowledge
natasha schull, addiction by design
nick snricek, platform capitalism
noam chomsky and edward herman, manufacturing consent
regis tove stella, imagining the other
richard sennett and jonathan cobb, the hidden injuries of class
safiya umoja noble, algoriths of oppression
stuart hall, cultural studies 1983: a theoretical history
theodor adorno and max horkheimer, the culture industry
walter benjamin, the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction
OTHER
angela davis, women, race, and class
anna louise strong, cash and violence in laos and vietnam
anna louise strong, the soviets expected it
anna louise strong, when serfs stood up in tibet
carrie hamilton, sexual revolutions in cuba
chris chitty, sexual hegemony
christian fuchs, theorizing and analysing digital labor
eds. jules joanne gleeson and elle o'rourke, transgender marxism
elaine scarry, the body in pain
jules joanne gleeson, this infamous proposal
michael parenti, blackshirts & reds
paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed
peter drucker, warped: gay normality and queer anticapitalism
rosemary hennessy, profit and pleasure
sophie lewis, abolish the family
suzy kim, everyday life in the north korean revolution
walter rodney, the russian revolution: a view from the third world
Was looking into Breaker triggers (to try and get a better understanding of Wanton and Annex) and came across this comment from Wildbow with perhaps the funniest possible trigger I’ve seen for a cape
Game so spectacularly bad that you trigger from somehow actually managing to pull the person you like 😭. How do you even manage that, how do you even explain that??
your belief that there is a certain class of entities that are inherently wicked and will always seek to break the law for their own benefits was not entirely wrongheaded, you just had the bad luck to be born before the advent of Fortune 500 companies
I just think that a man who could chase one minor felon across twenty plus years and multiple cities would be perfectly suited to chasing a trail of money through multiple shell companies as a board tries to duck criminal prosecution through bankruptcies while retaining the assets within the parent zaibatsu
#I do get VHs point wrt to who javert considers to be *criminal* but I think it’s funny if god says nope buddy you got to try this one again#he jumps off the bridge and gets isekai-ed sopping wet onto Madison Avenue clutching a Juris Doctor mysteriously earned in 1985 - via @mephist0phallus
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
Hey bro, I was wondering if you could give me some key points where the theory of Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill) and Rawls' social contract differ or are similar, and why is one of them (Rawls, because that's what I'm trying to conclude) more plausible. Thanks
Thanks for writing in! I exist to serve at the pleasure of lazy undergrads. And — oh good! — I can see you’ve already decided on a conclusion before you’ve taken the time to understand the relevant positions. That’s good news — nothing says “I’m not part of the problem” like having pre-settled conclusions. That makes my job easier.
We’ll start with brief definitions.
Utilitarianism:
The theory that the right actions depends on how many “utils” an action produces. Some actions, like doing your own fucking homework, create lots of utils, while others, like wasting my valuable fucking time, actually destroy utils. Utils, according to utilitarianism, are also all that keep the dimensional rift closed.
Rawlsian Social Contract:
The “Social Contract,” according to Rawls, is a contract we all enter into when we take part in society. Rather than being a literal contract, the social contract is more of an abstract principle that helps us understand how order was wrought from the chaos of the Before Times.
Key Similiarities:
Both are theories
Both are theories by dead white dudes. Fuck, has John Rawls been dead for ten years already? Man. Holy shit.
Both theories focus persons’ moral worth on a single aspect of their existence, though only one is even a little bit sorry
In a general sense, If either theory is broken enough, humanity will be punished for its hubris by some greater being (differences discussed below)
Both theories hate you for asking me this
Key Differences:
While Utilitarianism is about a thing, the social contract is primarily about a different thing
While we know now that “utils” are technically a kind of elementary particle (like a quark), the social contract is likely a kind of field emanated by the Five Great Charters.
Only utilitarianism can prevent the Rift from opening
The social contract is probably more demanding. While Utilitarianism would permit me to simply take your first born and nurture a festering hatred of his shitty father in his bosom, the social contract stipulates that I must also help him seek you out and kill you when he comes of age.
Why is The Social Contract More Plausible?
From an epistemic standpoint, we have much more evidence of the existence of Free Magic than we do of The Old Gods. Utilitarians would say that’s precisely because utils have done their job in keeping the Rift closed, but it’s an awfully convenient argument in the face of Free Magic’s, especially of the necromantic sort, growing influence
While it seems intuitive that enough suffering would free the Old Gods and only pleasure holds them at bay, it’s unclear why we shouldn’t distinguish between different kinds of pleasure; if I’m experiencing a sort of murderous glee as I do terrible things to your loved ones a syou watch helplessly, shouldn’t that also hasten our end?
Orannis the Destroyer has walked free before, he will walk free of the Charter again
Shortly after her marriage into the Byrsburg family in 1439, Friede Herdan zu Wolfswälder is said to have spontaneously insisted on wearing only black for exactly a year¹, after which she seemed to return to her normal humour. Although not confirmed by any official records, it is thought this was a reaction to the death of her sister which may have happened around this time. Unfortunately any mentions of her sister's name or the specifics of her death have been lost to history. Historians in the modern era consider Friede an otherwise unremarkable anomaly, as while little details are certain surrounding her life and death, she is recorded as the sole survivor of both the extinction of her birth family as well as the family she would marry into [See: Disappearance of Graf Byrsburg and his sons]
The Void – Darkness. Silence. For once in your miserable, pathetic life, there is nothing. No noise. No feeling. You float in a sea of semi-consciousness. Unaware. Unexistence. You are submerged in it and in return, it swallows you whole. You sink deeper and deeper to drown beneath its waters. It whispers to you a single word.
You – Sleep.
The Void – Yes, sleep. A sleep that is all consuming and endless. A sleep that goes on for a millenia. A sleep that sees the rise and fall of civilizations. A sleep to see the towering peaks of civilization crumble away into sand and dust.
You – I don’t care about any of that. I just want to rest.
The Void – Then rest you shall. Let everything else slip away. Ignore it all, the world around you. Sleep. Let yourself sleep.
You – What am I supposed to be ignoring?
The Void – Nothing you need to worry about. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
Shimmer [Medium: Success] – Red crystal towers loom over jagged obsidian wastelands, barely visible behind walls of fog. Something gargantuan moves in it. Massive beings to defy all scale. Disjointed creatures of which you could not possibly imagine.These sights were not meant for you.
You – What’s going on?
The Void – It’s nothing you should concern yourself with. Let yourself lull back to sleep. Unexistence is happy to suck you back.
You – Okay, whatever. Rest sounds nice.
The Void – It is love, it really is. All that stuff is for someone else to deal with. For you? There’s nothing. Nothing but darkness.
But wait…
Something pierces through your broken brain meat: a sensation. Lapping, the rhythmic motion licking at your innards. The only pieces of the original you left. And with it comes more. Feeling. Pain. A pain that slips its sharp reminder deep into you. You wanted this hurt. You wanted this moment. You wanted to live.
You – Does this mean it’s over? I don’t want to go back.
Shimmer – All cycles must come to an end. Your time in this one grows short.
The Void – And there’s no stopping it now dear. The feelings flow over each other like a thousand voices vying for your attention. You enter the waking world the same way you first did. Kicking and screaming, with at least twice as much blood. There’s only one thing left for you to do.
Stacy asks her teacher to come over after school in the way little kids always want anyone they like to come to their house, and excitedly announces that they have a pool. Teacher has a vivid mental image of Stacy's mom in a bathing suit while gently declining the offer, explaining that it's up to her mom to invite people over.
... Speaking of Stacy's mom, is she back from her business trip? Or is it going to be grandma picking her up after school again? Teacher is desperately hoping she's actually away and not avoiding her.
Teacher and Stacy were playing with a plastic lawnmower one day, and she only realised Stacy's mom was watching them when she heard a teasing "You missed a spot over there". And sure, maybe she was just watching her daughter, but teacher could swear she was staring at her, like she liked her.
Teacher and Stacy's mom used to know each other when they were young, and Stacy's mom was the cool older girl teacher had a hopeless crush on. But the age gap that seemed massive in childhood is nothing between adults, they're peers now. She's not the little girl that she used to be - she's all grown up now (baby can't you see?!) and Stacy's mom has got it going on
Sometimes reading Arthuriana feels like reading Alice in Wonderland.
“Well,” said Alice, “these are a dreadfully strange assortment of objects!”
“They all symbolize different aspects of Our Lord’s martyrdom,” said the Fisher King, casting a line into his teacup.
“Indeed. I am sure everything symbolizes something else, for if everything was only itself I should be very confused. Might I ask what the point of the bleeding lance is?”
Alice regretted asking the question as soon as she had done so, for she saw the pun that would likely be made about the word point. Instead, however, the room erupted in applause and shouts of “The Grail! She has achieved the Grail!”
The next castle she visited, Alice resolved to herself as the inhabitants of this one danced for joy, would be more sensible.
“If you cut my head off,” said the Green Knight, “then in a year and a day, I shall cut off yours.”
“Certainly not!” said Alice. “For if you can survive such a blow, it would be quite unfair to me, and if you cannot, then I will have killed a man over a silly game!”
“Silly games are the most important thing in the world,” said the Green Knight, “for it is after them that we judge honor.”
Alice thought to herself that if this was honor, adults could keep it.
In honor of a thing that keeps popping up in Arthurian novels I read…
“You have nothing to fear,” said the robber knight, “for you are traveling alone. Everyone knows a knight may not attack a maiden alone, but only a maiden traveling with a knightly protector!”
“That can’t possibly be a law,” said Alice. “Camelot is absurd, but not that absurd.”
“It is not a law, but a custom.” The robber knight sounded as if he were lecturing a fool, which Alice felt was very unfair of him. “Customs are far more important than laws, for laws may change, but customs never do.”
Alice didn’t think that was true, but she would not argue the point.
“What about attacking a knight?” she asked. “Can someone attack a lone knight, or only a knight traveling with a maiden?”
“One may attack a knight any time and under any circumstance. That is the meaning of the word ‘knight’- he can be attacked by day or by knight!”
With the understanding that, as a maiden traveling alone, she might attack the knight and he could not return the attack, Alice picked up a handful of rocks from the ground and began to throw them at him. She was not generally an unruly child, but everyone has their limits.
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