#Dinah Alcott

[rebel-sqrrl]

“Coil?” “What is it, pet?” “Forty-four point two zero three eight three percent chance I die in the next half-hour.”

— Interlude 11f

[meowmeow1meow]

buzz 7.11/dinahs introduction was prob my fav in the story

[germesthegenie]

She knew she’d regret it, but she used her power. She had to know. It would be one more use, to hold her over, and she would stop using her power for the next few days, at least. Weeks, if Coil let her.

- Arc 11 Interlude F

Dinah and Skitter’s relationship is fascinating in how they have such few interactions throughout the story but each one is so impactful on both characters, and their influence on one another is clear even after the Coil arc.

[estavionpira]

dinah doesnt even. sge doesnt even have a fucking. middle school education. shes just information brokering around. like girl. go back to school. finish memorizing your times tables. read the great gatsby. im begging you.

[felonytaxevasion]

@protectoratenova07 Dinah!!!! A very normal 11 year old whose ability to predict your chance of dying on any individual day is not unnerving or creepy at all!!!

[spindle-girl]

All time interaction here. They've met three times. This is their last contact before Taylor gives Dinah the notes back two years later and they're 100% on board to kill for each other.

[trans-queen-administrator]

Taylor turning herself in was such a fun twist and character moment, and idk I see some people disliked it and hate Dinah for orchestrating it and I get that but it fits her. Taylor is someone who will throw herself away for the greater good, and if she thinks she has a way to help she has to do it. "Cut Ties / I'm Sorry" was practically a guarantee that she'd leave, because it's Dinah appealing to her compulsive need to help, and Dinah's appeal to this was born out of a very similar need to do something to stop the end of the world. There's an interesting parallel there, where Taylor hurts her friends that she cares about by leaving them all behind when she defects, and Dinah hurts Taylor who saved her and she definitely cared about Taylor on some level. Neither of them want to do what they feel they have to do, but there's no other way that they can see to help.

Also important to remember that Dinah played a part in setting Taylor down the path to being Khepri, she just completely fucks up the girl who saved her time and time again, and what's ironic is that I think Taylor would do the same if it was the only way she saw. They're both incredibly result-focused people, which is what makes the entire mess with the notes so fun to me. Dinah wouldn't fuck over Taylor like that if she wasn't so focused on saving everyone, and her method of doing it wouldn't have worked if Taylor wasn't just as determined to do that good and stop the apocalypse. And it aches for both of them, when Khepri gives that slip of paper back to Dinah she finally gets hit with the full realization of the fact that she played a part in breaking Taylor. Idk where I'm going with this, I just think "The girl who you constantly threw away your morals and feelings and hurt others to save throws away her own morals and feelings and hurts you to save even more people" is such a wonderful little dynamic.

[megamuscle885-blog]

Skitter: If I stay the course and follow Tattletale's plan, I can either become Coil's trusted lieutenant or we can supplant him. Either way, Dinah will go free.

Coil in a vivid hallucination of biblical ecstasy watching Dinah's playtime fun dungeon through his security monitors: Hellfire, / Darkfire! / Now Skitter, it's your turn! / Choose me or your pyre! / Be mine or you will burn!

[lemurlord]

My favorite uncommon wormfic trope is untraumatized Dinah being an absolute menace to society. Just an utter gremlin. Armed with one of the most potent powers in the setting.

[phthalosblues]

boss bitch Dinah Alcott moments

[canoziro]

dinah alcott (day 18 of drawing every day)

[vivaciousarcanist]

damn you taylor, i know you know what's on the papers dinah wrote

i've been waiting for 2 arcs for you to read them and you won't share? quit being selfish

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

dinah i love you. if you didnt get powers you might have gotten an oppositional dediant disorder diagnosis instead. dinah youre everything to me

[yugonostalgia2019]

One of the things that makes Coil kind of unique among worm’s antagonists and cultural villains in general is his kind of ideal balance of kindness and cruelty. It’s hard to pin down so -

Thomas Calvert is pretty explicitly a sadist of some kind, whether it’s torture or sexual violence or just serial killing isn’t specified, so you can imagine before Cauldron he has done at least some terrible things, and is totally inured against any kind of evil - he also explicitly doesn’t have a problem in hiring pedophiles, only in that their loyalty can be insured. 

So Calvert himself we would just hate, straight up... but Coil’s power he bought is almost perfectly suited for him - all his personal sadism and cruelty can be done in what is basically a simulated world - if Lisa pisses him off he can just have her shot, feel a little catharsis, and close down the other world, appearing completely unruffled in the real one. He only loses his cool about 3 times in the novel, at all other times he’s more or less completely at ease - just as someone would be if they had a perfectly safe backup always ready. (the times are Crawler, Dragonsuits, and the Market)

The morality of all that is beyond me, but we can see from the text that Coil very rarely does horrible things in canon - pretty much just two - kidnapping Dinah and coercing Lisa. Pretty much the rest of his actions are about the same level as Skitter’s - whatever you make of that - because anything selfish he does only happened in his simulations.

Now, what does this all mean? I’ve seen some takes on Coil that see him as a control freak, someone who wants to constantly control everything - but that’s pretty clearly untrue - Coil lets the undersiders and travelers run themselves, owns but doesn’t puppet the mayoral candidates, and in general takes a more hands off role. Rather, Coil’s defining trait, more than anything, his fatal flaw, is Possessiveness. 

Coil doesn’t want to control everything - rather, he wants to *own* everything. The factions within his organization, politicians, business are allowed to run themselves, but they all have to have him at the top - he talks about “his” undersiders, “his” travelers, “his” pet. He collects people who are both useful and loyal - and he always ensures this by having a carrot and stick, and always leads with the carrot. It’s not that he wants to make people’s lives worse - he can do that in his simulations as he pleases - he wants to own every faction in the city, and see them prosper under his ownership - he likes people who want something, something he can provide

What makes this his fatal flaw is where this conflicts with the two Thinkers. Their powers are far too valuable to give up or work against him, so of course he compels them to work for him. What ends up killing him is that he had to have them leashed or chained - there are easily futures where Tattletale is an ally or independent lieutenant, where Dinah is negotiated with for 20 questions per day, or where he gives her to skitter after his goals are completed - but he’s unable to let go of anything he owns

It’s not sadism or cruelty or stupidity or evil that led to his downfall - it’s his need to own everything he posseses

stay tuned for more coil analysis - next time are his good qualities lmao

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

I’d decided, in the course of talking to my mom, that I’d have to cross a line if I was going to follow Dinah’s instructions, if I was going to achieve everything I needed and wanted to achieve.  To do it, I’d told her, I’d have to be heartless, and this was the most heartless, inhuman thing I could do.  Leaving my people.  Leaving Rachel.  Leaving Brian. I thought of the paper, of the words from Dinah.  ‘Cut ties’.  I hope you know what you’re doing, Dinah. because this is as cut as I can get them.

It would be totally, hilariously and tragically funny, in the most awful sort of way, if this was the opposite of what Dinah had intended and she's left scrambling trying to make the numbers work now because Taylor totally got it wrong.

Because like, even if the numbers told Dinah that her pointlessly vague note was the 'best chance' for her intended outcome, Dinah doesn't have many 100% chance predictions, so there's always the chance something goes not according to plan (honestly, not enough fanfics where Coil gets taken down post-Dinah's kidnapping really stop to account for the fact that if Dinah says say... 79% chance of nothing going wrong today, that's still 21% chance of something does go wrong. Dinah can get it wrong. Instead you usually see people trying to game things or w/e, but like... she can just be wrong)

But really, what if Dinah meant something wildly different and when she finds out about this she's just flipping out at home going 'GODDAMNIT SKITTER!'

[artbyblastweave]

The Worm Arcana: X. Wheel Of Fortune- Dinah Alcott

“The oracle of Worm, who guided the hand of destiny, her crisis is entirely out of her hands, entirely out of her control- she has no blame in it, and relies on others to save her.”

This is the last of the ten I have lined up and ready to go. More to follow