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[buggirlpresident]

Pact 4.08

[buggirlpresident]

taylor literally does straight up extremely believe in eye for an eye. every time i think about it i remember another instance of her believing in eye for an eye. remember when she responds to gang members causing Problems in her territory by asking them if they want to lose their hand or knee in exchange. i remember. she does literally straight up extremely believe in eye for an eye, it's like her favorite activity, she just doesn't apply it to herself because of how thoroughly she's internalized devaluing of her as a person. she refuses to be a bystander for anyone else, but she has learned to neglect herself. taylor hebert...

[buggirlpresident]

pov of unfortunate brockton bay ward

[buggirlpresident]

[thinks about Marquis’s only set of guiding principles being his Code, which doubles as an evaluative lens through which he measures everyone else] [thinks about his heartache about being separated from Amy and his never-waning longing to have her back] [thinks about how the crime that propelled their reunion was a betrayal of Amy’s code] [thinks about how Marquis was imprisoned for refusing to abandon his life-defining principles and Amy was imprisoned for parting from hers] [thinks about what this does to Marquis’s evaluative lens] [thinks about what this means with regard to the myths of blood and heredity that propel Amy’s character journey]

[buggirlpresident]

not a human, not a machine

[buggirlpresident]

cant let the bitches know we FEEL things

[buggirlpresident]

erm more network effect doodles *u*

[buggirlpresident]

the besties from network effect <3

[buggirlpresident]

@thatneoncrisis 's harrow cosplay 1 & 2 + my nona cosplay linked here

[buggirlpresident]

Sometimes tumblr recommends me post about how actually Cytherea went on a serial killing spree as an act of mercy and defiance against a cruel god and she was actually doing the morally correct thing and she cannot be blamed, et cetera... boring tbh

Every time that happens I'm like, she's an unrepentant mass murderer actually. I'm sorry we have read two completely different versions of these books but the one I read is way sexier. She's grieving and heartbroken and righteous in her anger but also she's an evil murdering bitch just so we're clear. She HAS AGENCY and she chose to FUCK SHIT UP. This is very hot of her.

[buggirlpresident]

This drawing was brought to you by those REAL FUCKIN COOL trees that look like they have eyes on them!!! I wanted to draw Dib surrounded by them!! That’s all, okay goodbye for now

[buggirlpresident]

the problem with trying to put bnha characters in worm is that it's very compelling but it's like putting puppies in a meat grinder

[buggirlpresident]

i need to write like. an actual post about my Pact Is A Horror Comedy manifesto. this thing it keeps doing where it juxtaposes some kind of really formal speech or ominous circumstance with someone just being like. Well Shit. gets me every time. it's sort of the same thing worm does sometimes, actually. it's sort of like if a character got brutally murdered in a horror movie and then someone else just snapped their fingers and went Aw Shucks That's Not Good, but it's even more about the comedy (& meaningful humanizing result) of characters intermittently dropping all their bullshit spiels and courtroom decorum to just go Well Fuck. particularly funny in this circumstance because it's coming from the character who's spent the entire book being a mysterious pomp-filled powerful figure--it effectively communicates how irrelevant & promptly fucked he is in the grand scheme of things, And it does so with a charming moment of levity right before chekhov's nuke goes off. the thing is that people who dislike pact because it's just things getting worse for everyone all of the time aren't technically wrong in that assessment--it is a horror and odds are pretty good a tragedy--but it's a funny horror & tragedy, and as far as horrors and tragedies go, it's really not all that grim. this won't magically stop people who don't like horrors or tragedies from disliking it, but it is a point worth using to pitch it to people who 1. like when bad things happen and 2. like when funny things happen at the same time as bad things happening

[buggirlpresident]

Worm and Costumes, pt. 1

(pt. 2 here!)

I’m really starting to admire how well the costumes in Worm say so much about their characters. You’d obviously want this, since a good superhero/villain costume is always supposed to represent a person well, but this can often get lost due to aesthetic trends or demands for matching outfits or a need to have a level of asthetic cohesion for a group. Worm uses its “no themed teams” rule to let costumes’ symbolic meanings shine, giving us a masterclass in how to use costumes both for blunt metaphor and subtle characterization.

Looking at each of the core Undersiders’ in turn: we have Brian’s motorcyclist outfit, almost unrecognizable as a costume if not for the sculpted skull visor. This makes it feel almost ad-hoc; you could picture Brian starting out his criminal career, not having anything to protect his identity, so just putting on his helmet and calling it a day, modifying it with the skull once he had enough money from jobs. It helps sell how the Undersiders started out as something approaching goons-for-hire, with its leader looking like the souped-up version of the comic book henchman wearing their usual duds plus some clown makeup/animal mask/whatever they need to nominally fit their boss’ theme. At the same time, like Brian, it’s incredibly practical—it protects the head and provides great anonymity while still being intimidating. The way it seeks to intimidate, too: the intense machismo of the outfit, motorcycles and skulls and darkness, all of which is ultimately just hiding him, is really indicative of his specific damage. Grue’s outfit is the most imposing, but it also is the most covering, the most padded, the one that reveals the least of its wearer.

Then we have Tattletale’s domino mask and purple/black skintight bodysuit. Its probably the most stereotypically “comic book”-looking costumes of anyone, just loud and colorful and completely impractical for crime, which works with how much she commits to the cops-and-robbers theory of capedom. The out has very little obvious utility—it doesn’t even seem like it would do a good job at hiding her identity!—but that itself is a statement of confidence. It says “I know you’re not gonna do any lasting damage, and you know I don’t need to get physical to hurt you.” And the seeming failure to protect her civilian identity is misleading: yeah, she only has a domino mask, but its specifically designed to highlight parts of her face to suggest a whole different structure (not to mention her being meticulous about keeping different hair styles for her cape and civilian identity). It’s much like how Lisa’s seeming openness is a steel trap: she’ll delight in giving you all the details, and then you’ll end up blindsided learning “oh she’s only been letting us think she’s a psychic” or “oh Lisa Wilbourn isn’t actually her real name” or “oh she knew about my plan to betray her from the beginning.”

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Rachel’s incredibly minimal costume: just a cheap dog mask from the dollar store bin, worn with her civilian heavy coat and boots. Its brash, its crude, the effect worn together is more a slasher villain look than a supervillain ensemble. Its a nominal costume, less a nod to the rules than a thumbing of the nose towards it, which is appropriate: Rachel has no cape/civilian identity split, what with her identity and background being public knowledge, and she has the least patience for the cops-and-robbers game than any of the Undersiders. If she wasn’t reigned in by Brian and the others, she probably would have been in the birdcage or on a kill list by the story’s start. Its no wonder she doesn’t bother with the mask half the time; she has little understanding and no patience for the unwritten rules of the game they’re all playing. For her, its not a game at all.

In contrast, its clear from Regent’s costume that its all a game to him. He wears the carefree dress of some young prince out of a story book, what with his loose white shirt and silver diadem. His Venetian mask makes it seem like every caper may as well be a trip to the masquerade. It suggests a spoiled demeanor, undue confidence built from a privileged upbringing, while also hinting at a cruel and hedonistic streak often seen in the wealthy and aimless. At the same time, we find out quickly that his costume has a purposefully misleading exterior: his mask is padded, his loose shirt hides a bulletproof vest and his scepter doubles as a taser against the unsuspecting. Jean-Paul himself narrates for us how his tuned-out, playful demeanor lets him hide the more horrifying things he gets up to, and his costume similarly is used to paint over a man with more skin in the game than he lets on, ready and eager to strike out against the unsuspecting.

Most tantalizing for analysis, we have Taylor’s costumes. The way its initially presented (ooh, its grey because I haven’t gotten better dyes yet, I mostly just worked on it in the garage during my free time, I haven’t actually worn it out on patrol or anything) makes it seem slightly dinky and novice-level, and it is—as a hero costume. As a villain costume, it ends up working perfectly. It’s shortcomings as a hero costume just create more opportunities for it to work as a statement for the Warlord of the Boardwalks; just like Taylor’s shortcomings do the same. Her costume is too dour to be light or inspiring, so she uses it to seem inhuman and frightening.  Her powers don’t lend themselves to easy takedowns of her opponents, so she opts instead for ruthless takedowns. Her costume can’t let her mimic the beautiful, statuesque features of heroes, so she leans in the other direction and becomes as unsettling as possible, covering her gangly body in an always-writhing mass. She’s not a great public speaker, so she speaks through her minions, or through a jittering mass of bugs in her vague silhouette, or she gives patient, logical-sounding explanations that make you hate her even as her arguments sit in your head like a tick, growing larger as you feed it your doubt.

The match between appearance and methods only grows once she adopts the Weaver persona. The grey-and-electric blue color palate is supposed to signal her adoption of heroism, and while the color scheme is certainly more approachable and familiar, it also lacks the warmer colors of the old costume’s yellow goggles. And one of the aspects of Weaver that make people want more time devoted to this portion of the story is how despite now working for the “good,” Taylor is at her coldest, holding her new teammates at arms length while working them to the bone. At the same time, she has her fingers in more pies than ever: she is taking on dozens of criminal operations and wearing them down with attrition, confronting new and terrifying endbringers on a much more frequent basis, and trying to line up as many pieces as she can for the prophesied doomsday. What better way to symbolize how much she’s juggling than literally giving her more arms?

And then there are the parts that just scream their meaning at you. How she finds the initial version of the weaver costume ill-fitting and generic. How she now has a beetle emblem facing towards the sky, but it’s actually turned upside-down from its old orientation. How she goes back to the Skitter costume whenever she has something personal to fight for, when the undersiders are with her in the fray. Its great. It’s loud, it has no trace of subtlety, it is yelling what it want’s you to take away. Just like the best costumes do.

(pt. 2 here!)

[buggirlpresident]

even while it was happening, you knew it wasn't going to last

[buggirlpresident]

oh my god worm is so fucking funny, just dropping that there is an alternate dimension that's just completely common knowledge nbd and the only thing the protagonist finds interesting about this is that she still doesn't like star wars that much, even after seeing two different versions. she's so funny

[buggirlpresident]

who let taylor have a reddit account