Well: A Worm Mental Health AU Askblog @wellwormfic - Tumblr Blog

Welcome to the Bet Brockton Center

START HERE!

The Bet Brockton Center for Mental Healthcare is a well-funded, professionally-run place for helping at-risk teenagers and adults suffering from severe mental health issues. Lovingly described as a "shithole" by patient Cherie Vasil and as a "halfway house for crackpots" by self-declared goddess Taylor Hebert, the Bet Brockton Center exists to help meet the needs of its residents. Let's look at some of our current long-term residents and staff:

Who can you, the readers, ask questions to?

We tried.

I want to point out here that it has been an extremely small number of people reacting to this blog who have caused any kind of trouble. Most of my readers have been lovely, interesting people who have given me helpful feedback and helped me to try and make this labor of love - and it really was a labor of love - the best it can possibly be, as well as as sensitive as I can make it.

This was a story about personal pain, about the mundane discomfort and agony of dealing with mental health issues in a world not particularly interested in handling them.

It's sad that a small clique of assholes known for lying, demonizing, harassing, insulting, and acting in a cruel and stupid fashion seemingly just because it gets them off has made it untenable.

I've only been working on this project for what, about a week? And it already feels like I'm sticking my finger in a blender over and over every time I use Tumblr.

Lakesbian is a vicious, cruel, hateful, borderline fascistic bigot who has learned how to use hollow imitations of the language of progressivism to convince people that they are some kind of warrior for Truth instead of what they really are:

A vile piece of shit who's harassed and demeaned every single great wormfic author on this site I know worth the name, who doesn't understand Worm and frankly doesn't seem to understand the notion of basic respect for others.

In seven days of trying to write a fun little AU, I've been called sexist, transphobic, racist, and a possible zoophile. This is from the same person who makes up cock and bull stories about her targets being secret drone strike war criminals, who denounces people for ableism before gleefully engaging in it, who acts like an authority on trans rights while misgendering others, and who has done a great number more awful things.

And for what, Lakesbian? So you could be King Shit of the Wormblr Pile? So you could feel like a big person?

Well, you won. You would be a Nazi if you were a cishet white guy, but you won.

This passion project is no longer something I'm able to do without feeling utterly miserable for no goddamn good reason at all.

For all of Lakesbian's friends and mutuals, who I'm sure really do just see them as someone funny and interesting with good takes, please try to at least respect boundaries in the future.

Oh, and by the way, Lakesbian, I think I know why you're such a fascistic piece of shit hiding behind a cheap paper-mache mask of giving a shit about anyone besides your own spiteful libido. You're an idiot with no real talents and this is the only way you feel like you matter.

I really did try to be polite, friendly, and helpful. I apologized, I edited my posts in hopes of making them less offensive (and yeah, less offensive, because I didn't want to come out and say I didn't think they were offensive anymore for free of that being distorted as something to shit on me with), I even answered that ask that dashingdashing asked me as best as I could in hopes of being helpful, friendly, and aboveboard.

I've never been a perfect author, but even I deserve better than to be a punching bag so some fucking antisemite ("Wtf is with those random Hebrew letters????" "Well, they're the Hebrew letters for "Aleph", "Bet", and "Gimel", which I learned in Hebrew School on account of being a Jew.

To my audience, again, I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve this, but you know what? I didn't either.

I'm dropping this hellsite entirely, message me or not because I sure won't see it.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wildbow #wormblr #ask blog #parahumans #wardblr #worm #ask me anything #ward web serial #rage quit #hellsite #hellsite derogatory

The lack of Lily in this AU is deafening. Is the Bet Brockton Center biased against people suffering from ADHD (Attentive, Dashing, and Heroic Disorder) and SAD (Stubborn Asshole Disorder) and PTSD (Problematic and Troubled, yet Sexy Disorder)? The people demand answers! —Not Lily

(I'm so sorry about this)

REBECCA: Please, not Lily.

BRIAN: Who?

REBECCA: She was a Lance In my platoon when I was a Second Lieutenant. She's mentioned that she was almost run over by a subway train as a kid, and between that and the military she's got issues with depression. The word I use would be "non-functional".

LILY: "The lack of Lily is deafening"? Oh my God, Sabah? You have a Tumblr?

SABAH: I guess you have a fandom.

LILY: Oh, I didn't know people were fans of me!

SABAH: I would like to think that I'm a "fan" of you, in the sense that any loving partner should be a "fan" of their partner.

LILY: Thanks, yeah, but I meant in a Canary kind of way? Or like Taylor and her girlfriend. Wait, maybe I should sell t-shirts.

SABAH: Isn't Taylor straight?

LILY: Taylor Swift is not straight.

SABAH: I thought you meant our Taylor.

LILY: No straight girl describes herself and her "best friend" as "like Achilles and Patroclus".

REBECCA: About Lily, I think we all cope with the violence and boredom of war in different ways. We were in the Anbar Campaign, which was after the fall of Baghdad, and we dealt with insurgency.

LILY: You're talking about it like you usually do, like it was a job we had to do. We're going to Hell, Rebecca.

SABAH: It's very possible.

LILY: You act like we were doing something important, but we never should have been there. We were colonizers. Just another group of Westerners trying to burn and loot the Fertile Crescent. We shouldn't be getting treatment. We should have done ourselves in.

SABAH: You're right about all of that. LILY: Rebecca and I are scum.

SABAH: I'm not going to deny that, but there's a difference between a Lance Corporal Marine cook who deserted ten days into her tour of duty, and Rebecca Costa-Brown.

REBECCA: If you'll notice, I can't walk and she can.

SABAH: I'm sorry for your loss. When you mined houses full of people and tortured people in Abu Ghraib, how many of them got to come home to a cushy mental health treatment center? What about the use of depleted uranium that caused birth defects worse than Hiroshima? Do you think I like that Lily was part of this?

REBECCA: It's a cold calculus, geopolitics. We have to keep the world safe. I don't like the sacrifices either.

SABAH: ...Sacrifices.

LILY: ...You want to talk sacrifices? I went to prison because I wouldn't do half the stuff you did. Twenty months in the hole.

REBECCA: Not everyone can do it.

SABAH: No one should.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wormblr #wildbow #ask blog #parahumans #wardblr #worm #ask me anything #ward web serial #cw: depression #lily worm #sabah worm #parian #flechette #rebecca costa brown

if I can ask the author - why did you decide to change Cherie's canon crimes and make her not be a rapist, different from Alec? Did you like the character archetype but didn't want her to have that specific history? /gen

OOC: Well, I appreciate the good faith question. So, I think something that has happened is that people have kind of read very deeply into bits of the AU's setting (Aisha and Brian, Alec and Cherie) that haven't really been fully explored yet, and may be coming to conclusions based on assumptions.

In the case of Alec and Cherie, for example, I think some people think that I dislike Alec. The truth is that I honestly like him a lot as a character. He's complex, fascinating, and immensely tragic. I didn't write him the way I did out of a desire to blackwash him. In my mind, he harmed two people quite severely in this AU, while Cherie had a much broader area of effect.

I also don't want to act as though Cherie, in canon, is a better person than Alec. Honestly, even in Well, you can argue whether Cherie's seriously damaged a larger number of lives. I don't think there's much worth in trying to measure suffering like that, but Cherie in Well destroyed lives left and right. She really did.

The main reason that Alec maintains his rapist status in this AU and Cherie doesn't isn't out of some kind of want to act like Cherie Did Nothing Wrong. Frankly, Cherie is a fun character because she's not at all a good person.

The first part is that this is a smaller-scale AU, so a lot of characters' crimes were toned down or taken out as part of nature of the AU and the focus on recovery. The second part is that I think rape as a topic is a sensitive and painful thing that many people have to endure in real life, and I don't like to feel like I'm cheapening it by overusing it in a potentially tasteless fashion - especially when the nature of the AU means I don't have to.

I also tried to preserve the essence of Cherie's character as a deeply exploitative and destructive bastard, without feeling as though I was drawing on a pain people I know and care about have gone through simply for shock value.

Like I said, I appreciate this being a genuine question. Honestly, I've gotten some hostility from people who I tend to think are acting in bad faith, people who use a rather shallow mask of caring about the marginalized to try and justify their open bigotry and pointless cruelty.

I'm not going to claim I'm some kind of master writer who has handled everything I've ever written with care and tact, though.

Still, I find it hard to imagine that the passive-aggressive asks, the frequent demeaning of my own lived experiences, and the supposedly well-intentioned ableism, bigotry, and bad-faith eagerness to find someone to hurt come out of a place of genuine concern for representation.

Of course, one can certainly find faults in my writing, and I think that's reasonable. I'm far from perfect, and more to the point I do have real flaws sometimes in how I can depict certain topics.

But this hostily isn't just directed at me. It's directed at some of the finest and most skilled and progressive authors I know, pretty much everyone who seems like a target. I've been sent passive-aggressive asks, been vagueposted and demeaned, been accused of every bigotry under the sun (which I would take a lot more seriously if the person doing it seemed to care about bigotry), and generally have been subject to a circlejerk.

That circlejerk has been extremely, extremely mild compared to what other authors I know have gone through.

It isn't actually about me, I don't think, it's about vulnerability. Some people like to hurt people, and will find ways to make it seem legitimate or acceptable.

I'll be honest, it can be distressing to be under that hostility, a hostility that exists not actually to help anyone or to create a more just society but simply to hurt people for fun.

The truth is that I was institutionalized, and unlike Bet Brockton it was not an appropriate therapeutic environment. It was immensely traumatizing.

So having someone who I'm told has a long history of misgendering despite endlessly positioning himself as the ultimate arbiter of the marginalized and gender-diverse try to find a moral high ground while describing the askblog in terms like "TikTok" and an "Insane Asylum (TM) AU" (the latter being quite stigmatizing) is frustrating.

So, to answer your question, yeah, I liked the character, but inevitably in a wide-ranging AU like this some character details do get changed. I really hope this does help, and thank you so much for the question.

EDIT: Also, IIRC, Alec's crimes are shown in canon in a way that Cherie's aren't, so they ended up more prominent in the AU?

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wildbow #wormblr #ask blog #parahumans #wardblr #worm #ask me anything #ward web serial #cherie vasil

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—

Doctor mother never had a phd, I would not let her perform medicine on me

DOCTOR MOTHER: I actually very much do have a degree: specifically a PsyD, and frankly I'm insulted and frustrated at the implication that-

RILEY: You know, they really do hand out PsyDs and PHDs to just anyone.

DOCTOR MOTHER: ...The amateur psychotherapist returns.

CHERIE: More like Riley puts the "psycho" in "therapist".

DOCTOR MOTHER: "Psychopathy" is more of a criminal justice term than a mental health one.

RILEY: Also, Cherie, L + didn't ask + cry about it + you're a literal psychopath.

DOCTOR MOTHER: Amateur diagnoses are almost entirely useless, especially when they consist of using labels to stigmatize others like you both are doing now. It's unhelpful.

CHERIE: You know everyone calls you "Doctor Mother" because you remind people of their shitty moms, right?

DOCTOR MOTHER: Let's keep things respectful, please.

CHERIE: Like, I had a lot of shitty moms, and you're like a full 20% of them.

RILEY: How's Alec doing?

CHERIE: Probably in fucking prison where he belongs.

RILEY: I'm sure you'll see him someday. Everyone thinks you're funny, but I know your type. I'm sure you've damaged a lot of people's souls. I don't say that because that affects me much, but I think someone should at least say it on principle.

CHERIE: ...Are you trying to say you think I'd do what he did?

RILEY: Not necessarily, but there's a lot of ways to ruin lives. I know Alec's criminal history started long after he left the cult. He was a perfect victim until then. You, though? It's more lower-level stuff, roommate situations gone wrong, systems of control, finanical exploitation, trying to start your own religion... a dead dog. In some ways, you've probably spread out the harm farther than he did, but you kept it way lower-key and here you are.

CHERIE: You listen to way too much true crime.

RILEY: There are podcast episodes about you.

CHERIE: Everyone likes me. Everyone likes me and thinks I'm great, and you're just a dumb fucking kid.

RILEY: Behind the Bastards did two full episodes on you, after their Church of the Backwoods Christ episodes. "Cherie Vasil: How to Get Away With Using Everyone".

DOCTOR MOTHER: Oh, that's a good series of theirs.

RILEY: I'm not saying mental illness makes you a worse person. We're all mentally ill here, and acting like some disorders are "scarier" than others is just... Well, it's stigmatizing, yeah. But Cherie, you're not a piece of crap because of how your head works. You're a piece of shit because you're Cherie Vasil.

CHERIE: I don't regret it for a second, and I never will. Fucking little creep with her weirdo homeless da-da.

RILEY: I figured. Don't swear.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wormblr #wildbow #ask blog #wardblr #parahumans #worm #ask me anything #ward web serial #cherie vasil #bonesaw #riley grace davis

Taylor, did you know Lisa was giving you LSD? Are you still friends with her if not?

NARRATION (TAYLOR): There's a blessed storm in your fingers as you rise up high above the swirling chaos, the arcane decadence, the torturous failure of this broken world, and you realize it's all a Lie. That's a capital-L, a marker for the malevolent Gnostic horror of these swirling clouds you see through.

It's all just cloud-stuff in the end, all just knives and needles, pencils and Penroses, Faulkers and fallacies. This world is false, it was never real, it's a dream. You can still hear the song of that dream pierce through your mind, still see through the universe so hollow.

You stared in the mirror, you had the biggest smile on your face, you saw flesh but you knew you were a painted black mannequin made of insectoid carapace parts. Just the ultimate friendly little skittering mascot for an unending torture session soon to slam against the wall with vaporizing force. You saw the face of the first escapee from Hell, the goddess, the future rising like a bullet through space and time.

You ascended, you escaped, something cut into your knife like a blade in a revelation that bordered on the Biblical, and you chased ascendant bliss in the cosmic nucleus made up of eight billion minds-as-protons that you became.

Even now, in this room, in this little house of this little complex in this little cardboard world, you know.

All of the pain and suffering was just an illusion. You have no need for sorrows, no need for sadness, no need for acceptance of the Hell that is the arrangement of the molecules.

It's all fake. It's all the Lie.

You discovered it.

Good for you.

You return back to your book, to the politics and silliness of life in a Myanmar military dictatorship, of course.

You didn't know she drugged you, but now? Now, you plan to thank her, quietly, only once, in a respectful voice.

Per aspera, ad astra. Cognito ergo intellego. Through hardship, to the stars. You think, therefore you understand.

There's liberation in revelation. You're a lucid dreamer.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wormblr #wildbow #ask blog #parahumans #wardblr #worm #ask me anything #ward web serial #ward #taylor hebert #mental health #psychosis #tw delusion

Meet the Patients, Part 2

Riley Grace Davis/"The Map Pin Killer": 16, severely traumatized, diagnosed with a conduct disorder. May be diagnosed with PTSD. The chance of the conduct disorder being upgraded to antisocial personality disorder is still being discussed. "Possible sociopath, definitely not a psychopath", according to herself, but then again she has no qualifications. Well-read for her age, a psychological hobbyist, and convinced that ASPD and conduct disorders "medicalize criminality". Created an elaborate serial killer hoax across four different states. This was preceded by a disastrous home invasion in which she survived by playing dead. Bubbly persona with antisocial tendencies and an extreme fondness for the macabre. In reality, scared, so very scared.

Butchered three separate squirrels in theatrical fashion, seemingly directly inspired by cheap crime-horror media, before being found out, which got her institutionalized by her Aunt Abigail. Had an idyllic childhood with her aunt other than the home invasion trauma, until Abigail Rowan-Sato's Hollywood life imploded in a sea of horrific scandal. People pleaser, favorite holiday is Halloween and always goes all out. Claims to have actually killed people as the Map Pin Killer, probably lying. Wild stories about cannibalism. Idolizes Jack.

"With the shoulder bone connected to the, hip bone, and the hip bone connected to the… back bone, and the back bone connected to the… knee bone. And the knee bone connected to the… hand bone. And the neck bone connected to the… head bone…"

אבג

Theo Anders, LCSW: 24. Born to Maximilian and Heith Anders of Struggle 88, a white power neo-Nazi organization, Theo's childhood was a nearly feudal mess of hierarchy and obligation. Raised to hate, he instead found himself drifting away from his family. The death of his mother and his father's remarriage gave him the opportunity to cut ties, and he pursued an education with the support of his aunt.

Said aunt, Kimberly Anders, was a member of Struggle 88 and the founder of www.ironrain.com, a virulently bloodthirsty Nazi newsletter and forum. Kim Anders had later turned www.ironrain.com into a site for deradicalization and antifascism. This was along with devoting the rest of her life to highly risky and comprehensive antifascist action. Her personal motto, that she'd "never be a good person but could live for good", would heavily affect Theo, with her being the only member of his family other than his sister Aster who he'd keep in touch with. Nonetheless, the moral consequences of her fascist activism and his fascist upbringing were things that could not be undone with a redemptive narrative: a fact he's very aware of.

Theo is a competent social worker and therapist, with a profound sensitivity and a personal interest in comparative religions. A convert to Judaism and knowledgeable about Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, Theo Anders provides a thoughtful and sensitive perspective in a mental health institution often full of some...dynamic personalities.

"It's okay. You might not be able to see it, but you're a good person, and that's not something you just are. Being a good person is something you do, every day, and I can see how hard you're doing it. I know it isn't easy, and I'm so amazed at your hard work."

#worm parahumans #wormblr #worm web serial #worm #wildbow #ward web serial #wardblr #riley grace davis #bonesaw #theo anders #parahumans #ask blog #ask me anything

soooooooo. colin. my guy. my pal. who’s ur gf? is she real? is she from canada?

COLIN: Her name's Tess. We met online. She is real, and she's from British Columbia, which is Canada. She's got a really severe immune issue where she pretty much can't leave her bedroom, so what we have is going to stay long-distance, which isn't really a problem.

I wish people would stop acting like it was. This "Fake girlfriend in Canada" thing that Cherie and the others talk about is nonsense. We used to video call every night.

I miss her.

I think she did a lot to help me grow. She's the reason I'm here, in this... this mental ward. She convinced me to check myself in after it all fell apart.

I want to... Well, recovery is a lie. Theo says that recovery isn't a linear process, that no one really loses what's wrong with their brains. He says that you just kind of learn to work with it, and do what you can to continue achieving your goals despite your head's garbage.

But when I'm better at doing that enough to get out of here, I don't think I'll be able to go five seconds without her for at least a week or two. I think I'll need her to be there.

I want her to see that I'm improving. I've always tried to improve. That's my ethos. It's why I'm me.

She'll see. She'll see how much better I've become.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wormblr #parahumans #wildbow #ask blog #wardblr #worm #colin wallis #armsmaster #ask me anything

Taylor: I think I know you from somewhere. Did you go to Winslow? Any fond memories of the place?

TAYLOR: I went there. The teachers were bad and the kids were dumb. There isn't anything else to say.

VICTORIA: I heard stories.

TAYLOR: There weren't "stories". It was the same as every other school in the country.

VICTORIA: I heard about kids there being really into the alt-right?

TAYLOR: They were dumb in a lot of ways. It doesn't really matter.

VICTORIA: You know, I went to Arcadia.

TAYLOR: That's great.

VICTORIA: I wasn't really happy there, just saying. I think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

TAYLOR: Can I please get back to this book?

VICTORIA: What're you reading?

TAYLOR: I finished The Wild, so now I'm reading Burma Chronicles, which is a graphic novel travelogue by Guy Delisle.

VICTORIA: What's it about?

TAYLOR: It's about a man who lives in Myanmar with his family for a while. Anyway, that's Winslow. A completely inconsequential place where nothing important happened.

VICTORIA: Okay.

TAYLOR: Mmh.

#worm parahumans #worm web serial #wormblr #parahumans #wildbow #ask blog #wardblr #worm #taylor hebert #victoria dallon #ask me anything #ward web serial #ward

Hey Rachel, i know as an autistic person myself that stuff can get pretty overwhelming, How do you cope? Do you find a quiet place for yourself to chill out?

RACHEL: You're talking to me like I'm fucked in the head, but whatever. They gave me my headphones and my phone back for music. I listen to that. I guess I walk, like anyone else.

Does anyone actually like loud noises or whatever? Why is this an autism thing?

It's bullshit. Everyone hates that.

OOC: Great to see another autistic person on here!

#worm web serial #worm parahumans #wormblr #parahumans #wildbow #ask blog #rachel lindt #worm #wardblr #ask me anything #ward web serial

General question for anyone who’d like to answer; what exactly do you spend your time doing? Outside of therapy.

TAYLOR: They let me get my glasses back a while ago, once it was clear I wasn't going to do anything stupid with them. So I mostly read, honestly. I'm really enjoying Wild: Tales from Early Medieval Britain by Amy Jeffs, which is an anthology of adaptations of Anglo-Saxon folk tales. Beyond reading, I like to jog around the center. Victoria comes with me to make sure I stay here. I also do push-ups, sit-ups, a lot of body weight exercises. I also do creative writing by hand, too, since we don't really get much computer access.

BRIAN: I do a lot of working out, I watch sports with everyone on the shared TV, and I call my sister a lot. She's really grown into herself, even if it's tough for her.

RACHEL: I guess I play PS2 a lot? I wish this place would upgrade to a PS3 or PS5 or something, though. I think the PS2 was donated or something. Other than that, canine therapy's nice. The trainer lets the dogs get away with too much, though.

BAKUDA: I'm working on scripting out plans for a webcomic by hand, since they won't let me use the desktops, which is bullshit. I also try to sneak Coke into my room from the soda fountain, which used to go better until Victoria found out.

DOCTOR MOTHER: Paperwork. Endless paperwork.

REBECCA: Wanting to re-enlist. Considering seeing if I can swing a CIA job even with this on my record. Arguing with Jack. Browsing combat footage on my phone. Watching war dramas on TV with Brian and Bakuda and wanting to scream when they fuck up the details. Losing my mind.

CHERIE: Trying to drive everyone else in this henhouse absolutely insane. Putting my plans into action. Dividing the patients and the staff. Conquering all I survey. Owning the minds and souls of my many victims. Playing Stratego.

COLIN: Nothing. That's just it. There's nothing to do. It's the one point in my life where I'm totally, completely, medically mandated to be useless. I do absolutely nothing.

JACK: Spreading the secular gospel of complete human insignificance. What else?

THEO: Work. I guess when I go home I like playing guitar. I've been trying to learn "Seven Nation Army". I'm pretty new at it, though.

RILEY: I read. I read so much that I know more about psychology than anyone else here, including the staff.

VICTORIA: At work, I spend my time doing things like checking on residents and working a computer at the desk. Also therapy, but you said besides that. I also volunteer with sick kids at the local hospital on the weekends, and I got another tattoo a few days ago. It's of a sunburst between my shoulder blades, and above and below it is the phrase "The Fragile One", which has always meant a lot to me.

Hey Taylor! This might be prying, but if you really don't feel like you need any sort of help... Why did you put yourself here?

TAYLOR: ...I had a bad moment in my life, a while ago. The LSD kind of messed me up, caused a breakdown, and here I am. I just... I didn't think they'd make me stay here. I thought I'd spend a week here, clear my head, and get back to life on the street with Lisa.

It's ridiculous. I was God. I am God. And I don't mean that in a grandiose, silly way, the way Bakuda puts it. I don't mean that I'm special, or that I'm superior, or anything like that. I mean that I saw through reality.

My creative soul penetrated through the minds of every human being on Earth, I awakened the scarab-deity's soul, I became Khepri, and in one perfect moment I saw through the eyes of over eight billion people.

I became the unity of the human species. Sociology itself became mine to play with. I ascended.

This was all very real. This wasn't related to the LSD: the LSD just made me, I don't know, kind of sad, and fucked up. I thought a lot about this kid I knew in school who I used to be friends with. Insignificant shit like that.

LSD doesn't let you see the comprehensive arc of the human race. It doesn't give you a thousand eyes with which to watch history. It just makes you hallucinate things and freak out.

The LSD made me hallucinate things and freak out, and I developed mild psychosis relating to rainstorms that's since settled itself out. That's all it did.

I came here for that. We've solved that problem. I'm so much more than that, now.

#wormblr #worm web serial #worm parahumans #worm #taylor hebert #parahumans #wardblr #ward web serial #wildbow #ask blog #ask me anything

Welcome to the Learning Process

Honestly, sometimes you fuck up, and you contribute in some small but meaningful way to a world that's hostile for people, and you have to learn.

Thanks to @kommunistkaitou for making it clear. Honestly, I didn't want or mean to double down on racism, but in the end sometimes we do damage in ways we don't intend to, and the important part is trying to do better rather than making excuses for ourselves and our own egos.

So this is, 100%, a self-own on my part.

I think, in the spirit of a story about therapy, recovery, and personal growth, it's good that we allow for these kinds of exchanges and discussions so we all - myself included - can strive for being kinder, less shitty people.

To be honest, I think that the edited version is genuinely funnier.

Check it out here: https://www.tumblr.com/wellwormfic/791714002796445696/hi-bakuda-why-do-you-have-a-chinese-surname-when?source=share

#wardblr #wormblr #worm web serial #worm #worm parahumans #bakuda #cherie vasil #parahumans #wildbow

hi bakuda. why do you have a chinese surname when you’re japanese

OOC Content Warning and Preface: This post was previously more explicitly racist, and has since been edited to tone that aspect down. While the racist character was intended to be in the wrong and depicted as a deeply flawed person (in harmony with the previous ask featuring her), it has since come to my attention that nonetheless the depiction was unnecessary and contributed to a climate of bigotry that our world could very much do without.

That's what's important, not my fanfic.

As such, this response has been edited, and I as the main author of the blog would like to apologize for bungling this one. The important thing here is not that I present myself as "morally in the right" (which in this case, I am not), but that I as a person seek to learn from the marginalized and grow to avoid these kinds of harmful actions in the future.

As for why Bakuda is Chinese, I was under the understanding that the only real hint we have to her being specifically of partial Japanese descent is the fact that she chooses a name that's a play on a Japanese word.

While her being Japanese is certainly the most logical headcanon, I do not think it is necessarily the only headcanon, and if I do end up finding her being explicitly of Japanese descent in canon, I'll happily edit the blog entries to change that in hopes of not altering Wildbow's representation.

Thank you all so much for bearing with me.

אבג

BAKUDA: Japanese? I mean, look, I've watched all the Evangelions and One Pieces and, uh... Avatar the Last Airbenders like the rest of you nerds, and obviously I've read Book of the Five Rings while fucked up on Adderall, but...

Wait, you don't think I'm a weeaboo? You think I'm...

Oh. Oh! My screen name is "Bakuda" just because barracudas are cool. I was like twelve and I just kinda fucked with the letters.

It's just a reference to God's favorite ray-finned saltwater fish. Wait, is it?

CHERIE: That actually is Japanese, yeah, and I know that 'cause I had Victoria look it up. "Bakudan" means bomb, so "Bakuda" sounds like that, but as a girl's name. Which is probably where... Wait. Barracudas? Why barracudas? It's because you're dumb as one, right?

BAKUDA: Ha, ha, ha. I definitely didn't hear that joke a billion times on Club Penguin? What... What are you talking about? This is... Look, even if I did know this random-ass Japanese word, I'd...

CHERIE: You'd still be a dumb fish woman, nerd.

BAKUDA: I am not a nerd! I am rubber and you are glue, whatever you say gets shoved up your French asshole! Dick.

#wormblr #worm web serial #worm parahumans #cherie vasil #bakuda #ward web serial #ward #wardblr #wildbow #ask me anything #ask blog

Hey, Kate Wu, I read about you in the papers. I used to go to Cornell so I totally get why you made your threats, fuck 'em. But I guess that said, my question is why are you a communist? Doesn't seem to fit your whole...thing.

KATE "BAKUDA" WU: Okay, buddy, listen. The first thing you need to understand is that I'm basically God. I might be... a little delusional, apparently, which I'm working on, but I am by far the smartest person in the room at all times. I'm the smartest person in the goddamn country, Stephen Hawking can suck my dick.

So when you ask a dumb, idiotic, stupid question like "Oh, wow, Kate, how come you follow a belief system about making it so you don't have to do any work for a bunch of jackasses who are literally stealing money from you, the genius, the perfect human being, and said jackasses are also racists who hate Asian people, it just makes you look dumb.

You see, I read books. I read a shit-ton of books, because I am a civilized motherfucking princess who doesn't sit around watching goddamn Marvel movies like a slop-fed shitpig cretin. And you know what I learned from those books?

I learned that jobs are for nerds who like being hit on by their creepy gamer bosses, and that the only solution is to murder all of the rich fucks who think I should be sucking Palo Alto cock like Wallis instead of revolutionizing chemical engineering a la Doctor Fucking Doom.

Do you know what "anarchism" is?

It's something that the plebeian Marvel movies wouldn't tell you. It's something that doesn't come with a lightsaber, or a TERF magic wand, or a Raytheon missile, or free drinks.

Anarchism is the belief that everyone, which includes me personally, should be able to handle their own shit and do what they want. And anarcho-communism, which is correct about everything, because I've done the literal math, states that we shouldn't have Juliette "Uber" Brooks, Lane "Leet" Thomas, and their garbage Youtube channel I had to do editing for.

There is footage of me in a skintight Bomberman cosplay, and at least if I'd bombed my school people would be too freaked out to laugh about it.

In fact, Kropotkin, who was smart, almost as smart as me because he was like an anthropologist or some soft science shit instead of an engineer, he said we should just optimize the fuckin' economy like normal-ass adults, which makes sense, because any economic system where Uber and Leet are making fucking money is bullshit, and I care about people. I care about the downtrodden. I'm a good person. I'm a great person.

Maybe if it were possible for someone like me, a true innovator, to become even richer than that, Mr. Beast rich, we could talk about capitalism as an effective economic system.

But that's bullshit, because it isn't, because I have no fucking money and my parents hate me, and now I have a criminal record.

And Theo's always going all "Oh, Kate, you should be kinder to yourself, you're trying your best and using your coping skills" but guess what?

I'm fucking crazy! I'm a goddamn crazy failgirl genius goddess manic pixie dream terrorist in a glorified psych ward while Juliette "The world's worst Penny Parker" Uber and Lane "Literally still an unreconstructed incel" Leet get mad paper!

And you can't see how fucked this is? You can't see that we need to create a society where everyone will be equal so I'll be able to be worshipped and loved for all of my actual talent?

When everyone's socially equal, the only thing that'll matter is what people can actually do. And me? I'll be on top, baby, the social idol where I belong!

You can't see that people like me, and also mostly other people, shouldn't have to pay rent or get harassed on the job?

You can't see that? I'm just... I'm tired, okay? I'm tired of being fucked over left and right, and apparently being literally crazy.

And I had this girlfriend, this freak girlfriend, who was totally nuts but great in the sack in college, and she told me about this shit.

And I was like "hell yeah, I like the idea of not having to pay for groceries, that's cool".

And here I am.

Tired, fucked up, still thinking about goddamn Uber and Leet and their garbage fucking Sonic the Hedgehog-ass YouTube channel.

Maybe a little delusional? Still smarter and better than everyone.

Still a SHINING GODDESS OF PURE OBLITERATION.

I narrowly escaped prison.

I hate this. I hate everything. I hate you.

I hate that this is capitalism's fault. I hate that Cornell, and Uber and Leet, and my parents, and Silicon Valley, and my internships, and SpaceX, I hate that they all FUCKED ME PERSONALLY OVER. So I think they should be dirty bombed.

So I think the revolution is right.

Fucking sue me, okay? Blame me for being a victim of an oppressive world-system that's shat on me my entire goddamn life.

Fuck me for wanting to stick a bomb in Uber's house.

I guess that's the my fucking problem. You, you're a goddamn worm talking to a lioness.

...This lioness needs a Coke and a long nap.

Fuck everything.

#wormblr #worm web serial #worm parahumans #worm #bakuda #parahumans #ask blog #ask me anything #wildbow

I think Theo might be a good shout for one an entry, what you think?

VICTORIA: Theo's one of our therapists. He's a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, so he doesn't have a doctorate, but he's good at what he does. Honestly, he's gone through a lot. He was raised in a hate group, you know? He's pretty happy to talk about it himself.

He's definitely a nicer therapist than "Doc Mom" was, a lot better at just listening and being supportive instead of trying to tell people what's wrong with them.

Maybe we'll post a profile or something of him here.

He does monopolize the Mello Yello soda fountain nozzle in the cafeteria, though, which is honestly really annoying. It's not like I drink soda, but Doc Mom does, and I have to put up with the emails she sends about it.

Doc Mom isn't from here, and she has weird traditions.

...No, I don't mean that she's from the Ivory Coast, I mean that she's from Utah! She mixes ketchup and mayo together and dunks fries in it. It's weird! That's my professional opinion, take it or leave it. Previous Post

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