#Kylia Talks Worm Fanfiction

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

The first idea for a Worm fanfic that I had, before I even started reading Worm (remember, my entry into Worm was reading about Worm and the controversy about Amy in Ward and yada yada), but while I was reading Worm Fanfic, was an Amy Dallon Peggy Sue fic, but one a bit different from the small handful that I'd found and that hadn't lasted long.

Namely, I wanted one where after the end of Worm (i.e. after restoring Vicky's body and mind, or at least as much as she could, unwretching her, etc) Amy actually does leave Vicky alone, apart from a handful of times where they might accidentally end up in the same space during hero crises in the years after Gold Morning, etc. Eventually Amy moves extra far away from Vicky to reduce those chances.

The actual story opens with Amy on the eve of her 30th birthday. She's had a metric ton of Therapy, though she's hardly some perfectly functional person. She heals for a living, but to satisfy Shaper she has a whole greenhouse of modified plants and she only heals like 2-3 hours a day, barring emergencies. (Also, it's easier to do a task you hate - like healing - if you're getting paid a substantive wage for it, lbr). Anyway, Amy knows Vicky has ever right to not forgive her, given the mind influence and the rape (remember, hadn't read Worm at this point when the idea formed in my mind) and the wretching and stuff, but she can't help but want for her and Vicky to be able to be sisters again. She just doesn't act on that.

And then like, she opens an envelope as she walks into her home and it's an old picture from an old newspaper of Vicky and Amy as Glory Girl and Panacea from some publicity thing and she expresses some wish about if she could do it all again...

And then the next day, wakes up in her younger body, in her room at the Dallon house, back in 2011... the day after the Bank (i.e. the day the Undersiders face Bakuda at the storage place). Obviously at first it's a dream or a nightmare to her, etc etc, she's conflicted when she realizes it's real because now she can be sisters with Vicky again and make sure she never hurts her like she did but she still carries around all the guilt about what she did and feels like she believes she doesn't deserve to have that relationship with past Vicky (I have this whole vision of an early scene from Vicky's POV where she hears Amy going 'no, no, no, no' in her room - which is Amy realizing this isn't a dream and she's freaking out - and then Vicky, worried for Amy bursts in, breaking the door, Aura going wild and Amy feels fear (because the few times she and Vicky interacted after she dewretched her had Amy feeling fear from Vicky's aura) and Vicky realizes Amy is afraid of her, which of course makes Vicky wonder wtf is going on.

Anyway, cue Amy having to try and help save the world and prevent some of the shit that happens to Brockton Bay while only knowing some of what happened, so her ability to make things go better is limited. And wanting to maybe not have as many people die when they beat Scion this time and also maybe Taylor doesn't die, etc. Of course once she starts changing stuff unintended consequences, etc, etc.

And like, key to this fic would be all the guilt Amy carries around about raping Vicky.

And while I knew that the 'Amy raped Vicky' reading of the story was controversial and seen as a retcon by some, I wanted to work with it for this specific fic because it seemed like it would allow some really cool pathos and angst and dramatic reveals and stuff.

But having read 15.x now, I sit here and like - I cannot for the life of me see how to construct a chronicle of events using what we know of what happened where Amy's rape of Vicky actually works and makes sense and feels like something the character actually does.

15.x just... no. There's nothing there to work with.

Which kind of kills the entire idea as I conceived of it, since a key scene I had in mind did involve Amy trying to explain what happened to past Vicky - not giving excuses at all, just laying out what happened to get from point A (OG Amy as of the start of Worm) to point B (The girl who raped her sister)

(I have this vision in mind where Vicky is interrogating Amy trying to figure out what is going on with her [including an accusation of Amy being a stranger], eventually Amy mentions the 'I'm from the future' but Vicky's like 'why are you afraid of me and won't let me hug you and stuff' and Amy's like 'future you hates me for good reason' Vicky demands to know why, Amy, in a fit of high emotion and guilt and so forth screams 'I RAPED YOU!' and after bluescreening for a moment Vicky goes 'wait, so future me hates you because some sick, twisted Master controlled you and forced you to-' because of course Vicky of that point in time can't conceive of Amy ever doing that to her of her own free will and Amy is like 'No, no, you don't get to do that, I did that to myself too much in the past, but it's not true, as much as I might wish it was' or something)

But like, having read 15.x I try to imagine that scene now, Amy explaining the train of events from Bonesaw to Wretching and... I just can't quite figure out how it works.

I mean, if I ever write this and get that far, I can probably try to construct something (if I do write this, it won't be the first Wormfic I write) but like, when the idea first came to me, I knew that there was enough ambiguity in the text that large swaths of the readership genuinely didn't walk away from Worm thinking an actual physical sexual rape happened, but I figured there was something to work with, and there just really isn't.