#<- 4 the sake of my beloved scarlingdarling who will read worm soon
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lakesbian Ā· 2 years ago
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i really like how worm commits to making superpowered characters weird. i think in most superhero media, superpowered characters are largely distinct, normal individuals with powers tacked on like tools they can use. but in worm, having a power kind of inherently puts you to the left of being entirely human. in worm, the lines between the power and the person are blurred, both literally in terms of how shards work & in terms of how powers present themselves. you canā€™t have a power without it altering your relationship to your mind and body.
and theĀ ā€œrelationship to your bodyā€ bit applies to almost all capes, not just the ones who have been physically altered by their powers! whenever the experience of having a (not physically altering) power is described, itā€˜s phrased as being some sort of additional sense or sensation in a way that is still inextricably connected to the capeā€™s physical self. impā€™s power isnā€™t just ā€œokay, iā€™m invisible now,ā€ itā€™s ā€œi can physically feel my power rolling over my skin and jabbing out into the air to push memories of me away.ā€Ā 
the other examples i specifically have in mind here are skitter and regent. skitterā€™s power isnā€™t justĀ ā€œmove the bugs and make them bite people,ā€ theyā€™re effectively a part of her. like additional limbs. she keeps functioning in fights when her human body is knocked the fuck out on the ground because the rest of her body--a million other little bodies--is still there to work with. the fact that she has millions of extra eyeballs at any given moment means itā€™s not actually so bad when the two of them that happen to be physically connected to her human body are blinded, which results in my favorite Worm Out Of Context ever:
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and regent has one of my favorite subtle, uncanny examples of a power that seems like it shouldnā€™t alter the power-haverā€™s connection to their own body, but does anyway. in alecā€™s interlude, while heā€™s puppeting sophia, thereā€™s a point where the undersiders get far away enough from her that it makes it more difficult for him to control her. he starts struggling to coordinate her movements.
the uncanny part is that he starts struggling to control his own bodyā€™s movements, as well. he puts his alec-selfā€™s earbuds in so that he doesnā€™t have to talk to anyone, because he knows that if he did speak, heā€™d start stuttering and slurring his words from loss of physical control. sure, his alec-self is the body heā€™ll end up in when heā€™s done using his power, and his sophia-self was taken by force, so thereā€™s obviously a distinction between the two, but that doesnā€™t make his alec-self easier to control. his powerĀ implicitly calls the separation between himself and the people heā€™s puppeting into question. he doesnā€™t get to have aĀ ā€œmainā€ body he can control without effort, he has to divide his attention between each body and put concentration into moving each of them. in that way, his own body is placed in the same category as the bodies heā€™s hijacked. itā€™s Weird!
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