#and then i was like but what if she’s Victoria Dallon

[noctilia]

[il3x]

the interaction of my current Character Rotation with my actual life has resulted in the take: "shadow stalker would accept lower efficiency on a semi-collaborative project if it meant everyone could just split up and handle their own parts earlier. glory girl would wrangle the group into collaboration if it killed her"

[kyliafanfiction]

Having only read the wiki and some reddit posts and some fics (and not Worm or Ward themselves) - this was the conclusion I came to as well, like... how could it not have an impact?

What also seems weird to me is like - from what I can tell, just about every power in Worm, especially the ones of the major heroic capes, seems to always have some dark side, or some sort of horrifying element if the powers are taken to their logical extension, but Glory Girl's is just... fine? There's no long term effects of her aura? At all?

Like, it would make sense for *Victoria* to insist there aren't any, especially to Amy, which I gather she did in Ward, but like... don't Worm and Ward run on unreliable narrators? Or are they just unreliable when convenient. Of course, then the author actually took a side on a fan theory outside of the story itself, which is honestly often bad form

ik wildbow said aura-theory wasn't real, and while I do enjoy stories that handle the concept well I agree that it probably isn't to blame for amy's crush. (my belief is that she was adopted late enough that her brain didn't unconsciously mark victoria as familial so ofc her lesbian ass was attracted to a gorgeous girl.)

but consider: there ain't no damn way having your brain chemistry regularly played like a banjo during puberty doesn't affect your neurological development.

maybe it took a normal crush and heightened it with a feedback loop of chemical reinforcement, leaving amy unable to get over victoria and move on. maybe amy's brain literally got addicted to the aura from being in it's range while her brain was going through crucial neurological development. maybe it did both, maybe it did neither. but it sure as fuck did something.

hell, mark dallon's depression was probably affected by the aura in some way. even if maybe only on a temporary basis, because he wasn't subjected to it very often and his brain is fully developed. but amy's is not and she spent the majority of her time around her adopted sister.

yes amy dallon is a hot mess for a trillion other reasons but john c. mcrae is wildin if he thinks victoria's aura didn't affect that girl in some way.

[megamuscle885-blog]

Alright so, Ward, except it's a Hbomberguy video about Gold Morning, and it balloons up into a 32 hour long video about Skitter, the path she took towards becoming Khepri, her time as Weaver and it spirals into a comprehensive treatise on trigger events/crisis points, Cauldron, cluster triggers/mosaic power expression, massive amounts of unknown parahuman science, the murder of Alexandria, Case 53s, etc. He does his usual thing of setting up a few short stories about similar parahuman cases before he gets to Taylor herself, setting up the main thematic points he wants to cover once he finally gets to Skitter, Weaver and Khepri. He ends up citing dozens of parahumans and their testimonies, including short comments from Victoria, a massive help from Tattletale who saw his genuine motive for clarity and understanding and basically wants to finally get the story out on Taylor so she isn't misunderstood, and comments from Weld and a few of the Irregulars concerning the secret Cauldron base assault and both sides that emerged because of it.

It ends with a plea for the world to be kinder to one another because of how parahumans are made and a strong message for unity in the wake of Gold Morning. It fundamentally changes how the public see parahumans since it blows trigger events wide open. It spreads like wildfire over the reconstructed internet, and he has to release it in two parts over six months because of the sheer effort of editing, and then has to release a third part that is another seventeen hours long because the events of Ward all happened and he needs to catch everyone up on Victoria Dallon and what she's doing.

I don't know if he lives in Britain but it would be funny if he never really explains how he survived Scion's initial attack, or he keeps interrupting himself when he tries to get to it.

[artbyblastweave]

ask game; Victoria Dallon, aka Glory Girl aka Antares

I've always thought that Victoria's first appearance is quite the bit of deft needle-threading.

The thing about Interlude 2 is that Vicky is our first example of one of this setting's established heroes actively fighting crime- not just swooping in to vulture up the accomplishments of an up-and-comer- and a therefore a major goal of the sequence is to ensure that the audience comes away structurally unnerved by what counts as business as usual for the heroes, set the stage for the hurricane of ass-covering to come. So we have a sequence where she lords her power over a baseline criminal who has no realistic chance to fight back or get away, where she cripples and nearly kills him in a display of excessive force, where she uses her connections to other capes to duck out on the consequences of her excess once she realizes that she's crossed certain moral and optical Rubicons. All of this is gross, all of this speaks to an alarmingly cavalier attitude amongst even the most ostensibly accountable heroes. And from a protagonistic perspective, all of this serves to soften the blow of Taylor's actions at the bank in act three, because we're predisposed to see Vicky as an arrogant, overprivileged loose cannon who'd actually have a significantly higher body count than all of the Undersiders put together if not for the cushion afforded to her by her status as a superhero. A golden child up against the already put-upon underdog.

But. She also does all of that to a Neo-Nazi, who was fresh off committing a hate crime. I mean, if this was violence against a purse-snatcher, a drug-dealer- It would be very, very easy to block this sequence in a way that would set her up as a villain and nothing else for the rest of the work. In The Boys, for example, Homelander debuts by incinerating one bank robber's hand and throwing another a thousand feet into the air to land hard on a parked car, and the dissonance between that casual brutality and his chumminess with the onlookers is the thematic backbone for... basically the entire show, because he was in such total control of the situation that the only reason to do it that way is that he fundamentally doesn't care. In Super Crooks, it's made abundantly clear that the superheroes trying to arrest the titular supervillains are significantly more destructive to the city than the villains are, because their institutional backing removes any incentive to do anything but pursue the flashiest arrests possible for the sake of ratings. But Glory Girl? She's a sixteen year old putting her money where her mouth is on the unconsidered-dilettante suburban-left-ish tumblrite rallying cry of punching a Nazi. She's living out a near-boilerplate superheroic fantasy of righteous violence against an uncomplicatedly righteous target- likely a fantasy entertained at least once by the median cape fan, if we're being honest- and then, in the aftermath, blood on her hands and on the pavement, staring down the full weight of the prospect of actually having killed a person in an unconsidered spate of rage, is very much a panicked teenager about it, scrambling for a way to walk it back.

Which, independent of the specifics of whether this particular asshole had it coming, is the problematic element of this that generalizes- that superheroism in this world is a system that puts the social license to use concrete-shattering power in the hands of a kid with the judgement and attitude of someone scheming up ways to dodge curfew. She's done this before, she's gonna keep doing this, she's gonna keep being two-faced about it with her public-facing golden-girl image. But she wasn't wrong to be angry. And the fact that this is the kind of thing she gets angry about is hard to separate from later beats where she tries to do right by people, hard to separate from her willingness to put herself on the line against Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse 9. It's a bad situation, a horrible system that's guaranteed to incentivize bad behavior, they shouldn't be assigning any of this shit to a 17-year-old. But later on, when things go south for her, the seeds are planted so that she can retain audience sympathy in a way that she likely wouldn't be able to if this story was a banal hatswap, with unfairly maligned "villains" who do no real wrong against supervillains who happen to call themselves superheroes.

[victoriadallonfan]

I'm never going to starbucks again I go there and ask for my decafmochocaraspicelatte and when they ask my name I tell them to just draw a little picture of victoria dallon so I can post on my tumblr and the barista is like "what" and I say again to draw a picture of victoria dallon and she keeps saying "i don't know who that is" and I'm like are from under a rock its victoria dallon, and then the manager finally arrives and asks me what the issue is, i say again victoria dallon I need a victoria dallon drawn on the cup, he smiles and nods, "sorry she doesn't keep up with the trends" and whips my order up super quick. I get my order and it's fucking Starlight from the Boys drawn on the cup smh i cant how

[germesthegenie]

Can a “😍😙😁” gal and a “💀👿🩸” gal really be besties? Sure seems like it so far.

Based on a scene from Ward 3.3

Recently finished Ward Arc 3! Thoughts below:

Been a while since my first post on Ward, a couple of thoughts:

Arc 2

I like the slower pace so far (we’ll see how long that lasts i suppose). Nice to get little moments like Victoria going to interviews and visiting the kids at the hospital.

Zion really gave one last middle finger to humanity and said “You know what? Automated random horrific death triggers.” Jokes aside, the broken trigger scene was haunting, might draw something based on it in the future.

The therapy group superhero team premise is interesting. Nice to have a band of characters who have mental or emotional weaknesses but have each other’s backs! Now let’s see who they’re up agaisnt- oh, Tattletale? Oh no.

Not too many thoughts on the arc’s interlude, a lot of nice worldbuilding which is always welcome.

Arc 3

Capture the Flag was a fun premise for a friendly fight, and it delivered pretty well in showing off everyone’s powers, strengths and weaknesses. Also nice to see Victoria filling a more mentor/coach role and getting to flex the experience she’s gained with her power in a more positive light. Have some drawing ideas once I figure out how exactly I want to depict stuff like her aura.

Liking the new team so far, though still need to wrap my head around some of the finer details of the powers. Definitely gives me Jojo vibes in how the powers are more complex in the sequel/s.

I realized quickly that Kenzie’s powerset is a lot like my character from my friend’s Worm campaign (which I might write more about later on). Also a surveillance/drone Tinker, though with more focus on multiple drones and material efficiency than Kenzie’s big boxes of large scale holograms and photo-distortion.

Seems the group all have their own little secrets and/or problems they need to work through. Please Vic don’t let any of them near Tattletale they would practically be a freebie for her to take down.

Ok, no Birdcage as I learned from last post. But is there, like, a dead Earth with a one way portal to toss Carol into? Is Sleeper still occupying Earth Zayin? Maybe we should send Carol there on a free vacation I hear it’s a lovely time in… whatever the effect of his power is.

Evil Robot Grocery… ok how do you even fight that. I guess it’s an S-class Threat for a reason but like what option is there other than quarantining and bombarding the entire area they’ve spread to? Do EMPs work? Put Ghost Bakuda to good use and make that Arc 6 Bomb to knock them all out?

Silly rodent themed hero. Close enough, welcome back Mouse Protector Ratcatcher. Also gonna toss her on the list of “characters I should draw some time.”

Amy Dallon finally speaks, and looks like she’s making friends! Friends that are all (at least former) supervillains! That are encouraging her down a darker path! I can only see good things happening here. A little surprised we get her this early from an Interlude rather than from a main chapter, though I suppose it does make sense to flesh her out more now rather than waiting until Victoria directly sees her again in whatever state she’s in by that point (probably a bad one).

That’s all the Ward thoughts I could think of at the moment. Will be reading more, next update hopefully won’t take 2 months again (but probably will)

[ewingstan]

any strong opinions on amy dallon

Feel like answering this is the equivalent of inviting a vampire into my home.

If this is just asking how I personally feel about Amy Dallon the character: I'd say she's among the strongest characters wildbow has written. She was used exceptionally well throughout Worm; in her initial interactions with Taylor, her smugness and petty insults help convince the reader to doubt the use of hero/villain as absolute markers of moral standing. As it goes on, and we see more of Amy's home situation, it becomes more clear how much Amy's haughtiness towards the villains comes from her insecurity; a desperate attempt to differentiate herself from them so that she can feel more like she belongs with the Dallons. It humanizes the heroes—stopping Ward from becoming a simple palette swap story where all the heroes are ontologically evil and the villains are brave noble freedom fighters—while making the hero/villain conceptual framework seem all the more ridiculous and destructive.

Later, around the same time Taylor is talking to Sabah and Lily about how "hero" and "villain" are just labels that don't determine one's morality, Amy is having the same realization—and panicking about it, because it means that being a hero doesn't mean she can't be the horrible person she fears she is. Because while she's figure out that hero/villain doesn't necessarily have any metaphysical weight, she's still sure that good person/bad person are clear ontological categories. And if being a hero doesn't just mean you're a good person, then she might really be the person her parent's treatment of her implies she is. She might actually be in danger of acting on those troubling thoughts that surely no good person would have.

In terms of her Ward stuff, I haven't gotten to the big things people had problems with so I can't comment too much. I think Ward Amy is effective as a villain in Victoria's story, but all the plot points of her allying with Goddess and taking command of the prisoners make sense only for a character whose the villain of Victoria's story, and don't make sense for Amy as we saw her in Worm. These plot points are working off the "person who thinks in terms of good and evil and is convinced she's evil" thing without addressing how by the end stage of worm, we'd seen her attitude had changed and that she'd started to move towards seeing people as not being inherently anything. Moreover, the writing kind of reaffirms the belief that some people are just bad people. I might not have that critique if there was more framing like "Amy is behaving this way because she's been told by everyone that she's villainous and so is falling into the expected role," but that's not really a thing in Ward. Hell, its less of a thing than it was in Worm.

There are shitty things Ward Amy does that I can get behind and say "yeah Worm Amy would do that," like going along with Carol's reconciliation plan and then running after Victoria when she leaves. Sure, she wants to resolve that, that's consistent with the original motivation of the wretchening incident. But most of the Amy writing after that, nah. I'm sympathetic to the "That's a different character" claims for everything past arc nine or so. That's her Noelle clone or something palling around with Goddess. Have Amy step out of the plot after the Dot interlude and ride off into the sunset, and let WB do a compelling pathetic-yet-very hatable villain with some other character.

If this is about recent intra-fandom stuff:

You can point out how a character is described in kinda racist language, both to criticize the text and to analyze what the story is doing with that character. Don't see how that's controversial, not sure how that got turned into "you're saying she's black". Authors making a white character read as bad or degenerate by describing them as sharing traits with black/brown stereotypes is a pretty common trope historically, its worth noting it when it happens.

And while I can see why people could get inspired by some aspect of how Amy is made to feel like a degenerate, and run with it by depicting her as literally dirty/pest-ridden or writing her with more taboo kinks, I don't think such depictions are beyond criticism. I might defend some of them on the basis of alternate readings of the character. If you're doing something with it, using Amy to explore something you're really interested in—there's at least a discussion to be had, and maybe something interesting would come if it. But you can't meet an honest critique of the ideas in your work, or a claim that they make already bad parts of her original depiction worse, by saying "its just a joke." Its art about Amy, there's gonna be ideas and messaging that goes along with it, even without you meaning to put them in. Don't fight that, embrace it! We'll all be better shitposters if we consider our shitposts worthy of critique.

[hugintheraven]

How to fix Amy Dallon

This is mostly me getting my thoughts in order. I doubt I will ever write Amy fix-it fic, but I want to have this just in case.

So the thing is, I don't think wretching Victoria was inevitable, far from it. That took a very specific set of circumstances. HOWEVER, "Amy does something selfish and harmful with her power that she can't fix, spirals and blames herself, does worse stuff in response"? I think that was fairly likely.

The problem is...a problem is...the various problems are...well I'll simplify. First, she has no support structure. Mark is useless, Carol is actively exacerbating her issues, and the rest of the family is their own kettle of fish. Victoria is the only person looking out for Amy, which quite aside from how that affects Amy, means that when Amy is in trouble, she turns to Victoria for help. If Victoria isn't around, then Amy has literally no one. Any friends she has are friends through Victoria, and I doubt the teenage superhuman is on friendly terms with her coworkers at the hospital(though seriously the professionals there should have noticed her issues LONG AGO).

Then we have Amy's power. Which is pushing her to use it in aggressive, selfish, and harmful ways. She's holding that off through sheer force of will, but that's not sustainable.

There's also her physical and mental limits. She's working her power to the limit normally, not sleeping, and straining herself to do more. Which isn't good at the best of times, let alone long-term.

All of which is tied up with the psychological issues package, her self-hate, feelings of inadequacy, severe dichotomous view of the world, etc.

Her crush on Victoria is a problem for her, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's at all the main source, or even a significant chunk, of what was needed for Amy to screw up SOMETHING.

Here's what I see as needed for Amy to end up going villain(in her eyes and possibly the eyes of the law): A significant crisis that strains her control further, and Amy not being able to talk to Victoria about it. That's it. That leads to Amy losing control of her power and not having anyone around to keep her from doubling down. The specific circumstances in canon(she screws up Victoria, after a month of fighting with her family, post-Endbringer, and then her downfall is pushed along by Jack Slash) is what led to the Victoria flesh-coffin etc, but "Amy breaks someone she can't fix, freaks out, makes things worse" was a pretty logical place for her to end up given...everything.

So how can this be avoided? We can't stop constant crises from occurring, this is Brockton Bay. And the longer things go, the more tired she gets, thus the smaller the needed crisis would be. And fixing her mental issues probably takes a team of professionals a few years.

Step one, therefor, is bulking up her support structure. Doesn't matter if it's Taylor, Lisa, a SI char, having Amy join the Wards/Travellers/Uber and Leet/a book club, whatever. Just have her talking about her life on a regular basis to SOMEONE who she isn't related to. Preferably more than one person, otherwise there's still a risk of her turning a child into a Nilbog creation while her new friend and Victoria are both busy.

Next, we remove her from some of her sources of stress(meaning Carol). Anything you try to do while Carol is still around will just be undone by Carol's pressures.

THEN we introduce the team of professional head-shrinkers. This could happen earlier, since a therapist is one more person Amy can call with "I just screwed up", but I distrust Carol's reaction to her disliked daughter seeking professional help. (and it doesn't have to be a professional TBH, just someone to help work through her issues, but a professional is both trained in not making things worse and also is disconnected from the broader cape community, which lets them be objective in a way that, say, Lisa isn't).

Now I don't think this stops Amy from eventually losing control of her power and hurting someone. And she probably still can't fix it, her shard is canonically a dick. There's enough crises in the Bay to both make her overwork and to make her break her rules at some point, even if it's not specifically the S9 who does it. But if she screws up when she has multiple people she can call for advice, when she's been away from Carol's additional stress, and when someone's been unpacking her list of issues, I think further damage could be prevented and Amy could keep helping people despite the bumps.

[allwormdiet]

Sentinel 9.3

Y'know, the irony here is that as I'm writing this post I've just started an online course with video lectures.

Solid bit of establishing characterization, an easy display of people's emotional ties and states.

Parahuman science must be so fucking hard to work with, honestly. Your subject matter is made up of a bunch of people with trauma-activated abilities that actively defy physics or other laws of reality, combination of psychology and whatever the hell you call studying outliers in how the fucking universe works.

Also glad people aren't just content to let the matter of parahuman origins end at "they just started happening." I know they haven't cracked the how or why of it in thirty years but I also know they crack it some time in the next two-ish years of canon, which should be interesting.

Also also, the inclination towards combat and conflict is... I know it's not going to be a long time until we talk about the "why" of that one either, but when we do I have notes for the designer(s) on these things

Oh, okay, so trigger events are talked about in a 100-level course, and Taylor straight up didn't know about them. Interesting? She really didn't give that much of a shit about cape stuff before stumbling into the life of a supervillain, huh.

Correlation between physical trauma -> physical powers and psychological trauma -> mental powers is interesting as well, although that leaves plenty of room for the edge cases. Glory Girl is actually the prime example there, too, brute and mover seem like the obvious tags but that doesn't cover the aura, which is I guess master? I'm less and less convinced that it was really just a foul in basketball that made her trigger tbh.

Also: I cannot even fucking imagine what the studies must be like about the New Wave families. Imagine writing your fucking thesis on the Dallon-Pelham Torment Nexus. Imagine being Victoria, Amy, Crystal, or Eric, and your family is being taught about in classes because of how "good" it is at inflicting superpowers on you. No I will not entertain the idea that either family is normal, parahuman psychology has so far shown zero signs of being healthy for anybody and it's not going to start holding back when it comes to child-rearing.

I'm not unsympathetic to what Clockblocker is stewing over, but the PRT can't let these kids dedicate every waking hour to crisis management; there will be a day where they're not dealing with a drowned city, and they might as well get ready for it now, and take time off from trudging through muck and mayhem as they do it.

Narrowing my eyes at the witch burning thing but I'm not going to harp on whatever the hell's going on there.

I think the gender divide makes sense but I don't know if it holds totally consistent in-story; the pre-Leviathan Wards and Protectorate ENE definitely leaned more male than female in its numbers, Merchants and ABB are two men to one woman, Empire is... eight men to seven women I think? I think as of right now the only teams we have that even have more women than men are Undersiders, Travelers, Faultline, and New Wave.

This is probably more math than I should be doing but whatever, don't use math in your story if you don't want someone checking it.

That's the same thing as Circus, right? Interesting that it's a known phenomenon.

He's doing his best, be nice.

Bunch of people are gonna be really annoyed when it turns out where powers come from because there's no way they could predict it from where they're standing.

Hwoof.

Oh, so that's Clockblocker's trigger event and power explained all at once, isn't it? I don't know if it's stated explicitly but "buying time in every way except for the one that matters the most to you" sounds like the kind of monkey's paw shit that powers love to do.

Now see, there's an interesting dilemma, isn't it. Family teams are all well and good (allegedly, given how parahumans work) but the moment one or more members die all of a sudden it's that much more fucked up for everybody. Even if the team persists past losing Manpower and Shielder there's no way they're gonna hold together after Amy & Vicky's Nightmare Extravaganza. One of the most notable independent teams in the setting with over a decade of experience, and in the span of a few months they're going from apex to nonexistence. I don't really have it in me to weep for the adults, see above suspicions about Torment Nexus, but I feel awful for the kids. Crystal is gonna be the last one standing until, what, Ward? That's gotta fuck you up good. Poor fucking girl.

And then the portraits. Hoo boy.

The portraits thing feels. I dunno. Do you have to put them right next to the other members? That feels like a really good way to get your underage parahumans even more fucked up about mortality if I'm being honest.

This is touching. Also fuck cancer.

Exactly what the Wards need, less open communication.

This is a hard conversation to have in a lot of ways. Weld is fumbling but he's trying, and the rest of the team needs to meet him in the middle for things to work out.

And. Ugh. I see an unfortunate side of myself in Clockblocker here. I've got an awful habit of going for low blows in an argument if I'm feeling low enough. I get mean, I say things just to make it hurt. I haven't done it in a long time, but it's still a thing I have done and can do if I don't watch it. With this at least it's an accident, or at least the extent of harm Clockblocker is doing is way beyond what he intended.

Clockblocker has the sense to fear Glory Girl in this moment, and she has the grace to forgive him.

And that's proof of who Clockblocker is when he's not at his worst. When he's not lashing out because of the active fucking wringer he's being shoved through, he's obviously thoughtful and kind; the lashing out is, uhh, understandable, but still a problem.

She's just a kid...

I talked about this with some folks on Discord, it's kind of remarkable to me that a guy with literal empathy powers couldn't hold a steady relationship with a single girl. I'm sure parahuman romance is its own special kind of fraught, but that's a little silly.

That said, it sounds like Gallant was good people.

This is very funny though

Oh hey, we have anger and futility coming back together again, haven't seen that for a minute.

Honestly I feel like the ones who try to be funny are usually the ones who've got so much shit going on in the background, anger is the least surprising thing to come from the team's designated funny one.

Good on Dennis for realizing how easy it is to use anger and how hard it can be to let go of it. Shit sucks.

Wuh oh.

This is gruesome, and a harbinger of things to come. Oh boy.

Fuck were the Travelers even doing here, anyhow?

Also crazy bold of the Wards to try and pick this fight. The Travelers have such outrageous firepower, I don't think there'd be much sense in picking this fight.

Skimming back through the fight, not a whole lot for me to say? I'm not super invested in it, I guess, it feels like there's exceptionally little actually riding on this fight. The Travelers want to fuck off and the Wards want to stop them from fucking off, the gallery fight had more meat than this.

"Oh thank god, a conflict I can throw myself into to feel useful and offset all the negative feelings that not fighting has left me stricken with."

That's not a criticism of Clockblocker by the way, if anything I'm just staring at the thing brought up earlier this chapter where most parahumans are driven into fighting each other and suspecting something of a connection.

Current Thoughts

I see some of my younger self in Clockblocker, which is ironic bc I actually had a superhero OC back in high school named Clockblock (his powers were a lot broader and his thing was more about struggling with overwhelming ennui in the face of his own significance in the grand scale of Time Itself). I hope he manages to get over that anger and hurt, but he's a parahuman, so I kinda doubt it.

Kid Win next, plus further plot developments.

[heyitschartic]

I'm not someone who usually attacks people's head canons cause a lot of the time, who cares? I have a bunch of my own after all. But I've started seeing people going around touting this as absolute fact, acting like you should obviously realize it is true, and attacking others for not believing in it. So I'm kinda like, fuck it, lemme give my thoughts on it.

Any time I see people talk about Amy's relationship to the Dallons as "an invader to the perfect white nuclear family," it's immediately obvious they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Not even Carol thought about her own family like that. What book did you read where the Dallons are EVER portrayed as the perfect nuclear family. It feels like the biggest cope to stick Amy into this role she blatantly isn't to fit some weird standard that exists only in the posters head.

Like, who is the one pushing against Amy in this hypothetical? Mark? Vicky? Well, no that doesn't track. Mark's issues are with his depression and Vicky just treats her like a sister. So, then is it supposed to be Carol holding her at arms length due to her inherent otherness? I mean, I guess kind of? A far cry from the nuclear family, but I guess saying "her mom doesn't like her" won't live up to those high-minded ideals you're trying to hit

But even that isn't really true, is it? Carol doesn't treat Amy as some Other invading her family. She treats Amy poorly because of her own underlying traumas about Marquis and the men who made her trigger. Plus, the second she figures Amy out after she wretches Victoria, she welcomes her in with open arms. So like, what's the family Amy is disrupting here?

I think the issue is obvious; it was subtext someone thought sounded fun so they twisted canon to make it fit. It all reminds me so much of the wooby Amy stuff people on SB love to do, just with a different take to it. Amy is a pretty vile person and so to make what she does more acceptable her backstory has to be more tragic. It's this entire rewriting of her adoption and relationship with the Dallons drenched in the language of social justice to make it more appealing to readers, all with this vague allusion to canon to try and hide the fact it's pretty much bullshit.

[kyliafanfiction]

One thing that annoys me about some people who like to denigrate fix fics in Worm fandom is their insistent belief that like, Amy is unfixable. There's just no stopping her destruction, and like...

That's just not true. I mean, it's true that a long term, permanent solution to the basket of issues that is Amy Dallon is hard. And it's probably the work of years. But if all you're trying to do is prevent her complete breakdown or even more specifically, what she does to Victoria that's... that's easy. (Not by killing her or imprisoning her before even the bank, which a disturbing number of fics seem to endorse and by god those people suck)

Like, you can't actually argue coherently that mind-altering Amy and then Wretching (or even raping, if you want to go with Ward's version of events) was some long-term plan of hers, or something she'd been hoping to do for ages. If she was that level of messed up, she would have done it sooner, and frankly, her power could have let her get away with it pretty easily.

So clearly, pretty intense shit had to happen to make her break in that specific way, from Mark getting the brain damage to Bonesaw showing up, to Bonesaw making her do that specific combination of things, to learning about Marquis to Victoria finding Amy when she ran away to Victoria hugging her - and that's just the mind control!

If you interrupt the days of spiraling while on her own and running, Siberian chasing her and biting off two fingers, Vicky getting Crawler'ed, Amy making a poor decision about how to heal Vicky, Amy spending any prolonged time with Jack Slash ([Broadcast] didn't directly cause Amy's final, horrible actions, *fine*, but Jack is mundanely supposed to be a skilled manipulator and spending time with him is hardly good for someone's mental health) -

All of that happened, all of that had to happen. That's all very doable.

Fixing all of Amy's problems is not simple, yes, definitely a project of years. But arresting her fall? Preventing the specific, horrible act that destroyed the only support she had? Preventing the thing that meant she really could never turn back to anything like what was? All doable. And if you can simply stop the downward spiral, you can set her on a better path too. Again, long-term, not easy, backsliding and regression is possible, but like -

The tragedy of what Amy did to Vicky, and What Amy Went through to get to the point where she was broken enough to do it is that it didn't have to get that way. if it really is unpreventable, if Amy's fall in some form is inevitable, then there's not really any tragedy. The fact that "this could have been prevented, in theory" is at the core of any tragic narrative. Yes, it's often because of the specific natures of the people involved, but the whole point of a fix fic is to change something of the natures, or the people, or something. It's changing one of the elements that ensures the tragedy is a tragedy.

If 'fix-fics' aren't someone's speed, that's fine, though pretty much any fic where events go better than canon is a fix fic, and it's not hard for things to go better than canon, but Amy's fall is not unpreventable. And it annoys me how many in the Worm fandom really think that.

And hell, I'm pretty sure that even in his own antisocial misanthropic nihilistic sort of way, Wildbow probably doesn't think that either. People can't hate her if it was all inevitable, and he's got a lot invested in making sure people hate her at this point. (/s, mostly, to this last paragraph)

[lakesbian]

okay, as i have been encouraged by the public (like 2 people) to go forward with this research, i present the very scientific Tier List of Blonde Wildbow Characters Ranked From Most to Least Likely to Have A Piss Kink. virtually no one wanted this post. i did not want this post. it is 2.1k words long. i wanted to inform you of that before you clicked read more in case you were just expecting a tier list image and did not actually want to read 2.1k words about piss kinks.

wherein:

the tier list exists because of this ask, which was written in jesting response to the subject of victoria dallon's canon piss kink (more on that below) and somewhat intentionally misrepresented by me as being contextless because i thought it was funny to crop it and reply with 'ok.' which led to a massive containment breach and several thousand people not realizing anon was trying to make a joke. sorry. my bad, anon.

here, "likelihood of having a piss kink" is defined as "likelihood of having a kink that involves primarily or significantly urine," and genre of piss kink shall be clarified for the characters where it's a possibility.

no pictures are included for the characters because not all of them have fanart and also there's a lot of them and the tier list is only so big and i'm lazy

characters i do not know well enough to vibe check are not included

rationally speaking it would make most sense to presume that unless a character has a canon or heavily implied piss kink it is heavily implausible for them to have one but this post would be boring and pointless if i went that route so i'm going to include some somewhat baseless vibe-checking/discussion of hypotheticals where it's not explicitly disproven or improbable. with my bestest attempts to remain reasonable levels of character accurate given the post circumstances.

our ranks here are:

canon: this character canonically has a piss kink

highly plausible: there is strong contextual evidence that could be used to argue for the presence of a piss kink

plausible: based on more vibes/less solid evidence than "highly plausible," but a piss kink is still possible

could go either way: there is a lack of evidence in either direction, there's no way to make a clear argument on the matter

not very plausible: there is decent contextual evidence or simply Character Vibes that could be used to argue against the presence of a piss kink

strong evidence against: it can be deemed nigh-certain that this character does not have a piss kink

The Chart:

the characters who were not included because i do not know them personally (opinions welcomed):

all three ashleys

bianca

The Analysis:

Canon:

victoria: stated by wildbow to have some kind of "preferred fluid" you shouldn't drink, knows what urine tastes like. canon watersports kink. i hate her. i hope she stands within 20 feet of fentanyl and overdoses and dies. i hope she goes down a slide too hard.

Highly Plausible:

citrine: we know that accord is certainly and without doubt enough of a control freak (<- said w/ deep affection) that he insists that his ambassadors refrain from Wanton and Unprofessional Bathroom Breaks, but also insists that they never indicate they have to pee (or engage in any other basic bodily function) ever because that's Icky and if they do he will want to Rube Goldberg Machine But The Machine Is A Saw Trap them about it. and we know that citrine gets off on him being a control freak. it can thus be reasonably extrapolated that she's constantly doing accidental omorashi w/ accord and is just as into that as she is all the other aspects of control. the piss is incidental--the main point is still whatever appeals to her about the control in general--but, like, The Piss Is There. extremely does not want to experience what would happen if she ever even remotely fucked up holding, but presumably enjoys the mortifying ordeal of attempting to politely excuse herself to the restroom and/or stoically holding so she doesn't have to excuse herself in the first place.

paige (pact): she textually, literally, canonically, For Fucking Real, is a lesbian who enters into the world of pactverse magic because she's tempted by a hypothetical dom/sub dynamic with a hot professor who is actually a sphinx. (if any of you who haven't read pact yet are reading this post. Please go read pact.) this extrapolation is less blatant than citrine, but it's by no means unreasonable to assume that there could be some bladder control going on here. she can go to the bathroom when she's a good girl and finishes answering all of isadora's questions. etc. hey do you think pactverse would have really hardcore RACK omorashi where you make a statement that you are NOT going to go until [x amount of time] and it's your karma on the line if you fuck it up. i bet people with executive dysfunction in pact do this type of shit a lot. they're like i am going to start my homework RIGHT NOW!!! and then they Have to. i digress.

Plausible:

peter: we have no information about his love life beyond him flirting with ainsley amidst a Serious Disaster involving Demons, so this is just vibes-based, but he's mean and manipulative and unpleasant in a specific way that could theoretically insinuate that he would enjoy accidentally-on-purpose preventing a girl from getting to the bathroom & watching her squirm. you'll have to trust me on this.

Could Go Either Way:

ellie: my consultant re the pelhams vibes-based ranked her higher than peter, but i don't see it. i could see her having one, but it'd be in a different and grosser direction than peter. i feel like blake's comparison of her to a weak, groveling dog in a pack may be relevant here.

rose (old): i don't strongly see it, but based on what we know about her sex life i wouldn't be surprised if she participated in any heat-of-the-moment watersports.

rose (young): somehow coming in with the exact right bizarre psychosexual complexes to score higher than both blake and pre-meiosis thorburn. i don't think it's likely, but i somehow don't see a reason to mark her down as entirely implausible. her theoretical psychosexual complex about blake is marked by a few facts: she says that he has a "hate-on" for her, she does that weird thing where she hugs him for comfort & lets him give her his jacket (what if the lamb you were leading to slaughter was the man you could've been, and for just a moment, you wanted to take kindness from The Man You Could've Been despite the fact that, because you are not him, you will betray him regardless), when he sacrifices himself to fuse with/bolster her the fusing is described in ostensibly sexual language (being Inside her, the two halves grinding, etc), and she does that whole noticeable twice-over to his almost-naked body. she would absolutely never admit to wanting to fuck her "clone," but were she to envision it, the scenario she would mentally craft would involve blake wanting to fuck her (he never would & she knows this) and, like, eating her out like he wants to kill her or doing some boot frotting with splinters. oh and she would give him the most awkward dry unpleasant handjob on the planet where she's very clearly treating him like a program to experiment with, press button A and find out if it gets result B. I digress. one could also imagine a theoretical rose thorburn piss kink which remains an entirely subconscious psychosexual fixation that she freudian-slips into conversation at least once a la "hate-on," wherein the ideal scenario for her earlier into the book would be wetting herself for reasons entirely against her control despite being so very brave and stalwart and stoic, and imaginary blake is like "wow you were so brave and stoic about that...it's ok everyone has gotten into an awkward spot once or twice in their lives. in fact, [personal recounting of relevant horrible memory]. here have my jacket i will tie it around your waist for you with a lingering amount of physical contact." and later into the book that would switch to just Making The Fuck Up that he'd be really mean and humiliating about it and then getting mad about her imaginary vision of him doing that even though he literally would not do that ever. (the hypothetical of him being mean about it would be a kink thing for her also obviously. Hate On, she says.) okay sorry for talking so much about rose thorburn's psychosexual fixation with blake thorburn i think it's really funny for her to be extremely abnormal about the clonefucking quandary.

fell: i don't actually know him well enough to postulate what genre it would be if he hypothetically had one but despite not Expecting that he has one i wouldn't find it wholly implausible if wildbow got up tomorrow and made an announcement declaring that he does. i think this could be utilized primarily for the humor purposes of, like. blake being like "hey i know we can't really pull over right now BUT could you pull over? i need to take a leak. should i say want to? is it technically lying if i say need but it's not an emergency yet?" and fell being like No. Do Not Say Another Word On This Subject And Also I Hate You. which is because he is desperately and fervently and furiously and with great and genuine anger and rage attempting to Not think about Blake Thorburn, A Conventionally Attractive And Very Annoying Man, having to pee. but blake interprets it as fell being an asshole for no reason and is like ohhh ok fuck you i guess should i just pee on your seat then. you want me to ruin your car seat? [accusatory, fully bluffing, would rather kill himself than piss in fell's car] you're a car guy who doesn't even care about your fancy white upholstery? and fell is like [desperately doing mental math on if blake thorburn, whomst is already covered in fleas and bloods and mysterious liquids, would be petty enough to intentionally piss himself to ruin fell's car] . I will make you walk. like you can see my vision right.

Not Very Plausible:

kathryn: i simply do not see it. she could have something weird going on but it's not a piss kink. the vibes are not being served.

sandra: also a simple matter of the vibes not being there. has probably been exposed to it at one time or another but sees it as undignified and so on

callan: not sensing it

lisa: bathroom shit is surely beyond mundane to her just like everyone elses private bodily workings thoughts feelings etc. i dont even think she has any kinks or interest in sex in general

crystal: this is the only interesting one in this section! she was described to me as "very laid back, but also kind of passive. she's a slob in her private life. sort of goes with the flow to the point that it led her joining a paramilitary force with no oversight." i think being in the dallon-pelham torment nexus sort of intrinsically adds +20 Not Likely points unless youre victoria but i can only assume from this description of her personality that if someone she was fucking was into it she would just roll with it.

neil: was described to me as "neil barely gets anything. he's kind of reckless? he trained victoria a lot. he cheated on his wife with her sister. he liked knocking toddler-aged victoria over as a form of 'training.'" probably not very likely at all but who knows. maybe "declines to fuck sarah and watches panty pissing porn instead" is on his list of secrets next to "cheated on his wife with her sister."

Strong Evidence Against:

carol, paige (worm) (this is canary in case you forgot like i did), cuff, theo, sarah: the club of generic respectable milquetoast cishets who would not do any of that shit and would probably judge someone at least a little for any amount of kink (or in some cases even vanilla sex <3), with paige coming on on the less-judgemental end of the scale and carol coming in at the high end of the judgement scale.

ciara: not generic milquetoast or respectable but the idea of her being into it is just like. silly to me. faerie queens aren't into piss that would be ridiculous. unless they're pactverse faerie queens, then it's a "got bored of it 31 centuries ago" situation, but ciara is not a pactverse faerie.

elle: already struggles with keeping up with hygiene and like...general Existence. surely would not associate any bodily function w/ anything but a task to complete or a mess to clean (<- other task). also presumably might need help going to the bathroom/being reminded that she needs to go sometimes so that certainly would not b anywhere near sexual to her

scion: uh. well. I don't think he knows what any of that shit is to be real with you. Does he even fucking count as blonde?

blake: is textually extremely triggered and distressed and disgusted by being dirty/unclean & losing control over his physical body, to the point where not being able to regularly shave is actively seriously detrimental to his mental health. his tragic character arc of having his identity degraded to the point where "is that still blake" becomes debatable a la ship-of-theseus question is viscerally represented by the fact that bogeyman-blake is just constantly filthy, to the point of turning snow into gray, stained slush when he walks thru it. struggling to deal with basic bodily functions & cleanliness while homeless absolutely severely traumatized him. he would react to someone else wetting themselves with, like, appropriately blake-like levels of kindness & concern, but he would still 100% find the actual piss disgusting. he would try to avoid showing it, but he would find it disgusting. we see him reacting with immense horror to conquest threatening to make him soil himself. if he were ever actually forced into a circumstance where he was genuinely worried about the possibility of pissing himself--let alone if he actually did so--he would have a Category 5 DEFCON 1 Mental Health Moment. all of which is a great reason he should have pissed himself at least once during pact! (<- i just elaborated on this point at such great length i had to force myself to backspace it all and move onto the next bulletpoint)

PMT: exact same trauma as blake. because you know. They were Blake before they got got. unlike blake, still capable of wanting to fuck people, but, like, We Know They're Not Doing Anything With Piss. leatherdyke piss kinkster pmt is a beautiful beautiful vision but its not true.

there you go. thats it. thats the tierlist.

[garnetsandroses]

my vic and amy powerswap au concepts! they make guest appearances in a fic of mine that's still in the plotting stage. power/design/alt-trigger details below :>

(warning for talk about canon-typical violence and the dallon-pelham torment nexus)

amy/fusillade: flight, forcefield, projectile mini bombs that look like sparks (bud from mark). when her forcefield blocks hits, it lights up, emulating carol's breaker state. she isn't immune to her own bombs; they can disrupt her forcefield if she's not careful.

-i wanted her to have a kinda boring costume that fit new wave's aesthetics without going outside of the box too much -she triggered pretty young at ~12, so her style hadn't developed and she's not confident enough to ask for a redesign now -white; accent color is a muted red -cape is asymmetrical to reference glory girl's -name starts with f to match w/ flashbang

she triggered when she was hiding in the other room while her parents had an argument. both were worried about the future of new wave, and carol in particular said some nasty things about amy not belonging in the family. mark got angry enough to use his power unconsciously, the blast from the grenade scaring amy on the other side of the wall. it knocked over a photo of the dallons (taken before they had adopted amy), and seeing that last image of the perfect family she was never going to fit into finally pushed her over the edge.

straightforwardly, this contributes to her powers being a mash of her parents with flight thrown in bc i love me a good mover aspect to a trigger. just wants to belong -> emulates the best and brightest aspects of her family. additionally, i think that mark was most parental and present when amy and vic were at this preteen age (based on what he's mentioned doing for them like cooking breakfast), so that contributes to his larger influence on amy's powers.

---

victoria/salva: touch-based biokinetic powers w/ focus on enhancing people’s abilities and creating augments for self (aegis+hookwolf ping). minor brute abilities like enhanced strength, stamina but not notably above that of a very fit, trained young adult.

-cute nurse's outfit that allows for lots of movement. someone said it looks magical girlesque and i think that's just bc i've designed magical girls since 6th grade

-simple white and bright red w/ same half-circles on coat (as seen on my panacea design) to mimic the coils of a caduceus

-utility details: hat has elastic band to stay on head, satchel is insulated so she can theoretically keep biomass in there, jacket is easily removable so her sleeves won't get nasty

-really hard to see but her bag has keychains: a pom-pom, official prt merch of gallant, new wave merch of fusillade's red star emblem

-salva is my attempt to be punny by combining "salve" + "salvo" (the rapid attack/round of applause meanings) + a feminine ending to mimic the "girl" in "glory girl"

triggered around a year after amy (reversing the canon situation) when the latter went on a patrol with the wards, vic tagging along just to see what crimefighting was like. vic had been stewing over being left behind due to not getting powers, but that subliminal jealousy was resolved in the worst way. hookwolf tore into the wards patrol, aegis and amy being the worst off. vic ran forward into the fray to try and save amy while the others retreated, asking herself questions like "why can't i do anything to help," "why can't i be strong enough to do something," etc. it was finally when she laid her hands on amy, red connecting the two of them, that she asked the real question "why can't i have powers too?" and triggered.

active-combat aspect with self-buffing brutes wandering around -> power has limited effect on herself. not only could she heal amy and pump her full of enhancements like adrenaline and natural-brewed steroids, but vic could take the biomass strewn around and graft it to herself, augmenting her abilities slightly. just like in canon where both sisters have yet to realize full control of their powers, salva hasn't started walking around in a biomecha meatsuit yet, but that could theoretically work for her. if she didn't care about not getting put on a watchlist, ofc

[kaftan]

ok, these are my thoughts on interlude 11h, aka “the amy interlude,” aka “this is where things start to suck forever, right”

Abolish the nuclear family

Amy reiterating over and over that she’s not good at being a sister… god god goddddd

Up to this point, I can’t fathom feeling anything other than profound sympathy for Amy — a damaged, scared girl caving in under the weight of the unspeakable

Abolish the nuclear family

“The unspeakable” is the note dominating the story here: it’s the foundation for trauma, for abuse, for secrets that fester and explode and deal unimaginable collateral.

Fork found in kitchen, incestuous feelings found in the adopted girl deprived of any consistent, reliable definition of family

Maybe because you were safe, because you were always there.

God.

GOD!!!!!!

Abolish adoption also

Copying this from my friend who read worm: “Amy sees Victoria as an idealistic paragon and the only source of any of her happiness (this becoming very much an obsession/favorite person), and Vicky sees her as "her sister" who will absolutely never hurt her and always help her without really considering the impact on Amy herself. Tragedy for the ages.”

^ this partially in response to how Victoria was told twice (in no uncertain terms!) not to touch Amy, and ignored her — because Amy doesn’t really mean it, right? What she really needs right now is a hug from her sister, right?

There is probably a whole essay to be written on What’s In A Name, the Amy/Ames/Panacea and Victoria/Vicky/Glory Girl distinction, the way they use nicknames and aliases as a reflection of the interiority they refuse to afford each other — it all comes down to coercively assigned roles, doesn’t it

Fuck Wildbow for writing the confrontation/confession scene so homophobically it was giving me deja vu about hays code era films. FUCK OFFF!!! Just have Victoria call her a dyke and drop the farce!

I can’t stop imagining alternate realities where it didn’t happen like this. A world where Amy never became a Dallon. A world where she was never adopted at all. A world where her feelings for Victoria never morphed beyond the familial. A world where Bonesaw never showed up at her door. A world where Amy left for good and never saw Victoria again. A world where Victoria didn’t touch her after that warning.

But that’s not how the story goes.

Abolish the nuclear family.

[v1leblood]

I’m looking for someone who can crack Amy Dallon open for me, and lakesbian thought you might have ideas! Everything about her is so interesting: being a body manipulator who brands herself as a healer, being a kid with the weight of the world on her shoulders, being raised by a woman who resents her, falling in love with her sister because she’s never felt like she belonged to the family. But when I think about the mindrape and the fleshpuddle, I bounce right off. They’re so over-the-top evil actions that I can’t conceive of a theory of mind for a her. So…thoughts about Amy?

to start with thoughts: i like amy. i like her a lot even! probably top 5 characters in worm to me. i think she's probably one of the most homophobic characters ever written and i also think she's incredibly tragic and compelling

to begin with, the first bit of mind control was, for all intents and purposes, an accident. victoria hugs her, amy's overwhelmed, and in the heat of the moment essentially literalizes her desires by making victoria like her. she's instantly remorseful and offers to fix it, but victoria's horrified and runs away. there's a lot of discourse surrounding the degree to which it was or wasn't accidental, but to me, the fact that she Immediately regrets it and that the text describes it as a semi-conscious reaction puts it pretty thoroughly in the camp of 'didn't mean to do this'. imo, if you were to Remove powers from the situation, it would be the equivalent of amy going in for a kiss -- she's overwhelmed and her guard's down from how emotionally bruised and battered she is and she does something rash, only powers make everything worse and more extreme and it turns into that whole clusterfuck instead. so, like, is amy accidentally or mostly accidentally making victoria like her back okay? obviously not, but i do think its an understandable Mistake to make

with the second bout of mindcontrol, its obviously dicier. not accidental, to start with, but while fucked up and wrong, there Is a rationale. amy wants victoria to be okay. victoria might die or be permanently disfigured because of her injuries by crawler. victoria won't let amy heal her because of how disgusted and angry she is at amy. obviously its better that victoria's healed, so amy decides to do what's best for victoria against victoria's wishes. (worth noting that taking it upon yourself to Do What's Best for someone else against their express desire is exactly what victoria did when she hugged amy despite amy's warnings) so amy mind controls her again, harder this time, and convinces herself that she's going to fix victoria's body And Then turn off the love effect. it's fucked up, unjustifiable, and wrong, but i think you can See how amy comes to make that decision, through a combination of a genuine humanitarian argument (victoria needs to be healed or she might be disfigured forever) and self-delusion (i'll not only be able to do this in the state the city's in, but i'll fix victoria's mind when i'm done)

and then there's the time when she turns victoria into a car. years down the line metatextual information and ward confirm it to be an instance of literal, rather than metaphorical, rape on amy's part, but i don't think that was the intention in worm and it's not my preferred interpretation (i think it's an insane idea that wildbow, who with his own words said he wouldn't depict rape in worm more explicitly than what the implications of heartbreaker's power portray, would write it as rape and then spend an insane amount of screen time focusing on amy and her story after that point while continuing to portray her broadly sympathetically). whatever the case though, it's an instance of amy going through with a gross violation of victoria's mental and bodily autonomy. the facts of the in-universe power mechanics remain the same whichever the interpretation -- amy, frazzled and traumatized, couldn't fix victoria anymore, her power not making the correct adjustments to her form.

amy convinced herself that she would spend some time with victoria while she licked her wounds and then remove the mind control and let her go, but she couldn't even fix her back into her old shape. it is an evil act. it's fucked up. but it's not... out of nowhere, you know? it's a culmination of amy's obsession and self-delusion and the lingering mental health crisis that's been hovering over her all book finally coming to a head, making her fall down a rabbit hole of self-justification that says that it's alright that she does this and that because it means she can fix victoria only to end up being wholly unable to fix her At All, and in fact only making victoria Worse

so like. i think amy does fucked up things to varying degrees of culpability and "forgivability", but there's definitely Reasons for why she did them, even if they're fucked up or not very good

by the time we get to ward there's no qualia whatsoever though lol she's just an evil devilspawn