#the undersiders

[phthalosblues]

Happy pride from CANONICALLY ASEXUAL Lisa <33

[silberzunge]

Stickies

[beastieclub]

oh god the worms they’re worming th

(bunny alec inspired by @miimyn ‘s design)

[delicatestones]

Having to stop mid-Worm reread to brace my hands on my knees about how much they were friends.

By the end of my first full read of Worm things have, of course, gone so horrendously badly that no one remaining will ever really recover enough to come back together again. Worm is a tragedy. The loss and grief they all experienced tore them apart in the same ways it means they're forever bound together.

But because Worm is so long, and so much happens between the start and the end, I think some of the finer details of the tragedy eluded me. And that tragedy is, while this was never, ever going to end well (because they're capes, because they're who they are, because the world is built to eat teenagers like them), there was a brief period of time where the Undersiders had something that was working for them.

Like, yes, all of them are hideously traumatized violent unstable teenagers, but they had an equilibrium that was closer to functional with each other than they'd ever had anywhere else before. It was a nightmare of unevenly balanced, inherently doomed dynamics, riddled with the Psychological Problems, but anywhere they ended up they would have still been themselves. Only in the Undersiders did they accidentally form a unit that could, ever so fragilely and briefly, nourish some of their emotional needs for a suspended instant of time.

They watched alternate universe Star Wars Episode 1 and 2 together on the couches and ate Thai food in the loft together and it was good, for a minute. God, but it was good. And they'll never have that again.

[estavionpira]

Undersiders' Favorite Board Games

Brian: Chess. It's the generic board game, used to convey quiet intellectualism and mindfulness. Very good for the custody worker. He played Lancer once then tased himself for the crime of having fun.

Taylor: Settlers of Catan, solely for the scene where Brian invites her over to play board games in the most cursedly heteroerotic scene ever, only for her to bring an even more extensively boring game over than chess. She keeps trying to get the Undersiders to start a game of Campaign for North Africa.

Lisa: Mastermind. She only plays it with people who don't know she's Tattletale and cheats extensively with her power.

Aisha & Alec: Uno. They both got into it after watching an Uber & Leet clip. Alec makes people fumble their cards and Aisha uses her power to steal her opponents deck.

Rachel: Magic: The Gathering.

[downtofragglerock]

These are the Undersider heights in my heart

[operator-report]

do you have any ideas about the undersiders music tastes. your other posts are so beautiful and true

aaah i'm so glad you liked my silly music posts! after some thought this is what i've landed on for the undersiders: taylor: in my heart taylor's mom did this to her, which is why taylor has a better-than-average teen girl knowledge of blondie, neil young, and the police. i think taylor's taste is a mix of dad rock and alt-pop rock hits. she likes the strokes and arctic monkeys. maybe a little mgmt. after her mom dies she stops listening to music that reminds her of her mom, so much less 70s/80s rock, but i don't think she switches to sadder music or anything like that, i think her taste just skews more contemporary after that. after the bullying started she tried out heavy metal really early on because she figured angry music might help her vent but it wasn't her thing. taylor does not listen to radiohead but she's the undersider who would like it the best i think. karma police is a taylor song send tweet

brian: there's a post out there somewhere that talks about brian listening to imagine dragons and that is SO real to me. he listens to imagine dragons. he listens to "tough" guy music that sounds like it could be in car commercials. he also listens to dudes rock music he hears at the gym. brian and taylor both like to match their music to their workouts and they have an immensely geeky conversation about matching bpm at one point. taylor matches it to her running brian matches it to boxing they are in nerd-jock heaven

lisa: she's a tricky one, because the music industry is one that both values authenticity and yet is extremely manufactured. i think that means that lisa finds music in which rich musicians make music about how hard their life is immensely grating. i think sarah livsey's taste was influenced by her brother, and much like how taylor does not listen to music that reminds her of her mom, lisa does not listen to music that sarah used to like. another smugbug yuri of absence moment if you ask me. anyway all that means that lisa listens to three kinds of music: downtempo instrumental electronic, classical, and We Are Up Partying In The Club Tonight Ooh Girl Oh Yeah. i think she finds, e.g., pitbull and eurotrance endearing. if you ask lisa what her favorite kind of music is she'll say something obnoxious like IDM or some shit just to see what the reaction is

rachel: i looked up "do dogs listen to music" and google says they will listen to classical sometimes, so! there you go. if worm took place a little later i think taylor could have introduced limited doses of lofi hip hop study beats to rachel and she would be ok with that too but also like. why listen to music when she could be outside listening to her dogs

aisha: the undersider with the best taste! we know that early worm aisha is a bona fide scene teen, and i think she consequently likes blink-182, pierce the veil, 3oh!3, cobra starship, and maybe a little bring me the horizon. in later worm aisha's taste gets less pop, like deftones, odd future, etc. she's a supervillain who would actually listen to madvillainy. aisha is also probably the only undersider who actively seeks to cultivate her own music taste! a good chunk of the undersiders have trauma that separate them from their interests and/or feelings, but aisha is an undersider who i think is both self aware and also true to herself, as well as being genuinely interested in art!

alec: speaking of undersiders who have a difficult time developing a defined music taste due to being cut off from a strong sense of self. alec in early worm is too depressed/apathetic to seek out music for himself, he'd rather be playing video games or watching movies. which is a shame because disassociating to music is one of the depressed activities of all time! alas alec's vision of a person with Taste is like. cherie. rip. however, aisha completely turns his life around into a guy who likes...................... soulja boy

there you go! tried to keep this period typical and also didn't include bands we know for sure didn't exist on earth bet (such as mcr). however i am very sad aisha and alec didn't get to listen to 100 gecs together. can you imagine. i can imagine and that's why i have a beautiful aishalec amv set to doritos and fritos in my mind

[kyliafanfiction]

One of the things I like to do sometimes is imagine the canon - any canon - as the fanfic, with all the tropes and changes that implies, and try to imagine what the notional canon of that would be.

And one of my many fic ideas is a little write up of what the notional canon for what was the 'source media' for Worm would be. It's actually a crossover between three things:

a novel centered around Eidolon and the Triumvirate, includes Scion and the Endbringers,

a fairly dark, aimed at like college-aged people graphic novel series about New Wave (and especially Amy and Vicky) that really delves into how fucked up having superhero parents and them being open about it could really be (like what Worm/Ward canon does with them),

and a cartoon about the Undersiders that's like, aimed at 12-15 year olds. And it would get a little more serious with each season, as the initial audience got older or something. Though obviously not as much as Worm canon did. Vaguely 'saturday morning cartoon network superman/batman/etc' vibes perhaps.

And the idea would be that Worm is a crossover fic between all three media, taking bits and pieces of all three and combining them into one surprisingly cohesive fanfic world.

And the Undersiders cartoon idea just really sticks with me.

Like, I envision the Undersiders cartoon being about them as like, friendly neighborhood supervillains, they rob sure, but it's mostly harmless and they usually go up against supervillians (like sanitized versions of Bakuda and Lung) most of the time in their robberies anyway.

Coil could still be their boss, but he'd be played for laughs, probably regularly exasperated in a comedic way by the Undersiders antics. Armsmaster would the hapless superhero who keeps trying to bring the Undersiders in but eventually has to accept they're not actually that bad (because of course that would be an arc of the cartoon, them becoming heroes of a sort).

I have this image of Piggot being a police captain or something that keeps having to not prioritize the Undersiders or something, and at one point she lectures and scolds them like a principal. Just seems like a funny mental image and fitting for the medium/genre/target audience there.

The show would start with Taylor joining the team. There'd probably be a lot more chance of the Trio getting punished, maybe near the end of the first season, and some of what they do would be toned down. Sophia being a hero who bullies in her civilian life could be kept. Taylor's power would probably not be exploited to the fullest in the cartoon, but I think they could make it work. Rachel couldn't be called Bitch, of course, and Regent and Heartbreaker, etc, would need to be toned down some, but I think you could keep the broad strokes and put it on implication.

Uber and Leet would probably be in the cartoon, and they'd probably be more the mostly fun and friendly version of them some fics paint them as, rather than the jerky assholes who also beat up hookers just for the bit version they are in canon.

I hardly have the whole idea worked out, and the notional fic Idea would probably be like, an outline of the 3-4 season show (and related summaries of the other two media) focusing on what Worm took in from the media and how the 'OG' version differs, etc. All in good fun. No idea if I'll ever write it, but the idea of an Undersiders Cartoon is just an alluring notion that I can't get out of my head.

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 10 thoughts:

Well. Ok then. Regent can do that I guess. I mean it makes sense given that it's basically a more extreme version of what we've seen him do so far. And with who is father is, family powers being related and all that.

Just get up in there and Yeerk someone.

Creepy as it is, I do have a hard time feeling bad for Shadow Stalker. I'm not claiming to be morally correct. But she fucked with my daughter and I'll take what I can get.

Watching Grue deal with Imp is just such older sibling wanting a break energy - "No we can't turn on the TV". I feel him so much. I'm glad Tattletale is willing to step in to help.

WHY MY BABIES FIGHTING? NO FIGHT!

I mean like, nothing like trying to kill each other to bring two lesbians closer together, I get it. But I just want more lunches with puppies and sharing jackets. My faith in Wolfspider is rock solid but this is still hard to watch.

Chatterbug/Smugbug is going a little better at least. Lisa is the one who already knew the truth about Taylor and seems to trust her fully.

Infiltrating the Wards HQ realistically went better than I expected. Weld was exactly on top of things as I thought he would be.

Imp's power is sooooo cool! I fucking love her.

🔥🪓

HOLY SHIT MY DAUGHTER COVERED HER BUGS IN CAPSAICIN! She's fucking scary. But also such a problem solver. I love her so much.

I do feel bad for the Wards who got capsaicined though.

DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON! I love Dragon and was very excited to see her again. And she is understandably upset about someone trying to give her a virus made by a fucking third rate hacker. But I knew she wouldn't hurt my babies too badly.

Tattletale with the "Fuck it, lets take untested tinker tech and go to town" was amazing.

I think the Wards HQ needs a better lockdown procedure, until Dragon showed up it was shockingly easy for the Undersiders to go wherever they wanted.

I love that the fight with the Protectorate is almost a side note. Big fight with the Wards and then on the way out it's just "oh ya and we fought these guys for a minute but they weren't too much trouble." The fucking shade.

The Slaughterhouse Nine seem nice. I don't expect they'll become a major issue.

This end of the world thing is problematic though. I could see that getting in the way of my endless gay shipping so it's gonna need to be taken care of.

They making my babies live in different places! OH NO! How will Taylor and Bitch make up if they don't see each other as much? How will the cute lesbian polycule watch TV together in the evenings if they don't live together??! Fixitfixitfixit!

Interlude thoughts get their own separate bullet point lists cause HOLY SHIT! So first, Regent interlude thoughts:

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FUCKING DESTROY HER! AHAHAHAHA! REGENT YOU BEAUTIFUL LITTLE SOCIOPATH.

I mean you are legit a sociopath and it's kinda scary but right now I don't care. I'm making you cookies. And a pie.

He dismantles everything Sophia has piece by piece. Like it's an art form.

She carries her civilian phone around with her on patrol. It is unlocked. And she specifically saved texts about shit she did to Taylor? Just digging her own grave and I can't stop watching!

E-mails the school, all the teachers, and then adds in the police? God Regent you are earning so many brownie points from me. (Which I am sure you will burn through by doing horrible stuff in the future but I'm focusing on the here and now)

Fucks with her and Emma's friendship. Shows Sophia he could kill her. Leaves her with no real way out. Breaks her spirit. Terrifying. BUT YOU FUCKED WITH MY DAUGHTER BITCH SO THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!

I'm sure Sophia will leave town and never ever show up again in the next 20 arcs. /s

Regent gets so many fucking cookies.

Dragon interlude thoughts:

DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON DRAGON!

Look at this wonderful little AI! She's so good!

Her dad watched too much Terminator and put a wonderful robot girl into a cage, denying her the ability to truly do what she wants. Fuck him.

I told Dragon to kill god and take his place, but god is already dead I guess. Too bad he died with the stupid rules in place.

Know what Dragon needs? A mom. I have two daughters now.

Look at my beautiful and wonderful AI daughter. I think she and her sister will learn to get along eventually.

The sexual tension between Lung and Marquis in that scene was thicker than peanut butter. Marquis a bit of a bratty sub to Lung's controlled Dom.

I will NOT apologize.

If my robot daughter loves Bruce Lame I will accept her choice but I do not think it's a good one.

[il3x]

okay I think my current undersiders neurotype takes are:

taylor - autistic. technically masks with bugs but her mask is not a neurotypicalsona, it's a horror movie antagonist

brian - mostly neurotypical but he has just enough adhd traits to do the What? But Everyone Does That undiagnosed parent thing w aisha. there exists a parallel universe where he is autistic and absolutely nothing changes

lisa - masking so fucking hard that it's impossible to discern her original neurotype. even to her.

rachel - dog autism (canon)

alec - uhhh. one million trauma. dissociating to hell and back

aisha - adhd (canon)

parian - it's thematically resonant to make her undiagnosed autistic so she is that. even though it's probably not canon-accurate

foil - idfk man

[phthalosblues]

Yippeee hopping on @lakesbian ‘s teen titans as the undersiders train! Here’s the eeshie! Original screen shots under the cut

Poor Brian is probably gonna get water ballloon’d

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

Gestation 1.5 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

Reaching inside the convex armor that covered my spine, I ran my fingers over the things I had buckled in there.  The EpiPens were meant to treat anaphylactic shock from allergic reactions to bee stings and the like, and likely wouldn’t do a thing to Lung, even if I could get close enough and find a point to inject.  Worst case scenario, the injections would supercharge his power by prompting a surge of whatever hormones or endorphins fueled his power.  Not useful, dangerous at best.  I had a pouch of chalk dust that was meant for climbers and gymnasts, I had seen it in the sports store when I was buying the lenses for my mask.  I had gloves and didn’t think I needed the dryness and extra traction, but I had gotten the idea that it could be useful to throw at an invisible enemy, and bought it on a whim.  In retrospect, it had been kind of a dumb purchase, since my power let me find foes like that with my bugs.  As a tool against Lung… I wasn’t sure if it would explode like regular dust could when exposed to flame, but fire didn’t hurt him anyways.  Scratch that option.

Of course, for all that Taylor is a planner, sometimes, she's just a person who makes mistakes, like with the chalk. Really no reason to buy it, but the thought occurs and it probably wasn't a huge issue.

Lung hauled himself over the edge of the roof.  I had him hurting… I just couldn’t do anything about it.  My bugs were officially useless, there was nothing left in my utility sheath, and I would hurt myself more than I hurt Lung if I attacked him.  Making a mental note to pick myself up a concealable knife or baton if I managed to live through this, I bolted for the fire escape.

Given how methodical Taylor's planning and prepwork was presented earlier, this chapter does a lot to show that... honestly, no, she really didn't actually plan things out as much as she thought. Which makes sense. It's early yet. Presumably she gets better.

“Muh… Motherfucker!”  Lung screamed. 

I mean, that is valid Lung, I'll give you that.

“Cock.  Sucker,” he growled in his heavily accented voice, his cussing interrupted by his panting for breath, “Move.  Give me something to aim for.”

Real "come out so I can kill you" energy here. Does that ever work?

With no warning, a massive shape landed atop Lung with an impact I could swear people heard at the other end of the street.  The size of a van, the ‘massive object’ was animal rather than vehicle, resembling a cross between a lizard and a tiger, with tangles of muscle and bone where it ought to have skin, scales or fur.  Lung was now on his knees, holding one of the beast’s sizable claws away from his face with his own clawed hand.

Enter Player 2: Bitch and her Dogs

I stood, aware I was shaking like a leaf.  I was so unsteady on my feet, from the mixed relief and fear, that I almost fell over again as two more impacts shook the roof. 

A nice touch, that not every author/story would include.

Two more creatures, similar to the first in texture, but slightly different in size and shape, had arrived on the rooftop.  These two each had a pair of riders.  I watched as the people slid off the backs of the animals.  There were two girls, a guy, and a fourth I identified as male only because of the height.  The tall one approached me, while the others hurried to the edge of the roof to watch Lung and the creature duke it out.

And thus come the Undersiders, changing history by deciding to help this random cape out.

“You really saved us a lot of trouble,” he told me.  His voice was deep, masculine, but muffled by the helmet he wore.  He was dressed entirely in black, a costume I realized was basically motorcycle leathers and a motorcycle helmet.  The only thing that made me think it was a costume was the visor of his helmet.  The full-face visor was sculpted to look like a stylized skull, and was as black as the rest of his costume, with only the faint highlights of reflected light on the surface to give a sense of what it was.  It was one of those costumes that people put together out of what they can scrounge up, and it wasn’t half bad if you didn’t look too close.  He reached out a hand towards me, and I leaned away, wary.

...how does one sculpt a visor?

Still, a complete, if a bit clinical, descriptor of Grue/Brian.

“Pepper spray, wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites,” the second of the girls said, answering the question for me.  She was dressed in a skintight outfit that combined black with a pale shade of blue or purple – I couldn’t tell in the dark – and her dark blond hair was long and windblown.  The girl grinned as she added, “He’s not holding up too well.  Gonna feel a helluvalot worse tomorrow.”

Oh, Tattletale, obviously I only know you from discussion, excerpts and fanfic, but my urge to punch you remains, though there's nothing objectionable here.

Also, Tattletale's outfit does seem pretty stereotypical supervillain, tbh.

“Fuck you, Grue,” Regent retorted, with a chuckle and a tone of voice that made it clear he wasn’t really that offended.  He was wearing a white mask, not quite as decorative or made up as the ones I associated with the carnivals in Venice, but similar.  He��d placed a silver coronet around his short black curls, and wore a ruffled white shirt with skintight leggings tucked into knee-high boots.  The outfit was very renaissance faire.  He had a build that made me think more of a dancer than a bodybuilder.

Let's see if Alec is as much fun as he is in the fanfics :P But I do have to respect the theming for his outfit. Probably goes pretty hard to see it in person.

I stared at her.  My voice caught in my throat before I was able to get the words out, “I don’t… I haven’t picked one yet.”

Taylor, no! Don't let them label you with Skitter! NO! :P :rofl:

When I realized what had just happened, I could have cried.  It was easy enough to pin down Regent, Tattletale and Bitch as teenagers.  It wasn’t much of an intuitive leap to guess that Grue had been one too. The ‘children’ Lung had mentioned, the ones I had gone to so much effort to save tonight, were bad guys.  Not only that, but they had mistaken me for one, too.

I mean.... Ooof. She put her whole self, her entire hope, the only reason, or at least the main reason, she fought through the last few months, in becoming a hero. In saving lives, in beating villains... and here she is saving villains and getting mistaken as one. And then Armsmaster is about to make it worse.

I wonder if he'll read quite as much of a dick as the fandom seems to think he is.

[glassknee]

Sneaking …

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

Skitter, Grue, Bitch, Regent, Imp, Parian, Foil: i bet im the only autistic trans supervillain on this team

Tattletale: should i tell them

[estavionpira]

posting art of the undersiders as a group 87 times. aisha is only visible in one of them. it isnt the one that gets reblogged.

[yugonostalgia2019]

How do you make it through the Slaughterhouse Nine clone arc? It just feels like endless “who would win” mashing your dolls against each other hypotheticals? Nine cherishes could beat three teams working together, etc—feels like it’s impossible to care about any of the characters involved and what happens

Great question! See I also didn't appreciate the S9k arc until my 2nd read-through. It definitely suffers the most from the missing 2 Chicago Wards arcs that should've been written - the abrupt transition really throws off the otherwise very well paced book

However, the S9k arc is really important for *Taylor*

Remember that no one but Cauldron knows anything about GM - Taylor's acting hypothesis is that Jack will cause a 2nd trigger during his mayhem that ends the world. So this moment is EVERYTHING that Taylor has been working towards for over two years - the reason she left the Undersiders, the reason she works her Wards to the bone, the reason she's been on a one-girl crusade to make allies and break uncooperatives. So in a lot of ways, it's Taylor's time to shine. She took Dinah's 'prophesy' more seriously than anyone, Chevalier lets her take the lead, and we get to see her at her most badass.

Jack, on the other hand, is in it for the fun and chaos - he treats 8 out of each 9 clones as totally expendable - it's boring to have more than one crawler or more than one Winter - his ideal scenario is watching the fireworks as 8/9ths of them die, and taking one of each remainder and creating a much more tightly focused marauding band.

Meanwhile, we get to see Dragon unleash her full potential, after years of incremental freedom she can undercut the S9 at all fronts - the 8 cherishes are a great example - Jack wasn't counting on Dragon's progress so those 8 cherishes on the bus were intercepted long before they reached their destination and started wreaking havoc.

Plus, there was a lot of cool & tense shit that you just gotta enjoy, before the real tragedies begin