#worm 2 the rewormening

[facelessoldgargoyle]

I’m once again thinking so hard about Sophia Hess. She says some cruel things to Vista about Dean/Gallant, and nearly comes to blows with her when Vista asks what her damage is and offers to be a listening ear. She leaves on patrol so she can beat someone up and not get in trouble for it, and calls Emma to vent. She says:

“…I can’t believe it’s already been this long, constantly hearing them bitch about dating, or clothes, or allowances, and every time I hear it it’s like, I want to scream in their face, fuck you, you little shit, shut the fuck up. I’ve killed people, and then I washed the blood off my hands and went to school and acted normal the next day!”

And this is just not true! Her teammates are currently grieving their friends. Vista, the girl who set her off, was crying about the boy she had a crush on dying! It’s not kiddy stuff, and Sophia is not being honest with herself about why she’s angry.

It’s not the immaturity in her teammates. It’s specifically being pitied for her lack of emotional maturity that she hates. She desperately needs to be perceived as strong, and any crack in the facade must be immediately shored up by tearing someone else down, emotionally or physically. It’s a strong enough psychological need that she can’t even see weak people be happy without needing to spoil it. EG: beating Taylor up after she kisses Brian on the bus in front of her.

She can’t dominate the Wards the way she dominates school, so she isolates herself from their social fabric and looks down on them (“they’re children”) in order to preserve her superiority. Having Vista, the baby of the group, demonstrate restraint, empathy, and maturity upsets this mental hierarchy.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

“I just don’t get why you want me,” I said, “I control bugs. That’s not going to stop Alexandria, Glory Girl or Aegis.”

Ominous music increases in volume

[facelessoldgargoyle]

My voice sounded so small and feeble, between the recent spell of coughing and the lack of bugs to augment it. I wished I could have conveyed more of a presence.

I forget how often Taylor used her bugs to speak!! Freak girl!!!!

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Lessons that Taylor learns. I’ll update this as I go. One of my favorite things is the way she remembers things that went wrong in fights and fixes them going forward, very cool quality in a protagonist

No bugs. Still too few. We’d been constantly moving, so my bugs hadn’t had a place they could congregate, and this place was lousy for them anyways, in quality and quantity. How could I have been so goddamn stupid? I should always be prepared, and now I wasn’t in a state to help a friend and teammate when he needed it most, because I’d assumed my bugs would be on hand.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

We joined Tattletale at the side door of the bank. I had to admit, I admired the sheer change she was capable of pulling off when donning her costume. Rather, I should say, I admired the effort she’d gone into as Lisa, that made her so different from her Tattletale persona...Her hair was down and loose, damp from the rain, in contrast to how it was always in a ponytail or braided when she was ‘Lisa’.

Masks on masks! Masks on masks!

[facelessoldgargoyle]

I felt a pang of guilt, a swelling lump in my throat. I’d never really gotten to know Regent, not to the extent that I’d gotten to know the others. He hadn’t really revealed much about himself, either. I’d reminisced before about the intimacy of friendships, about the sharing of vulnerabilities, allowing others to be close, exposing oneself to possible harm. I’d done it with Emma, back in the day, and I’d suffered for it. I’d allowed myself to form a kind of intimacy with the Undersiders, and it might well have been a reason we’d survived this far. Regent hadn’t established that kind of intimacy with us.

> regent dies

> I mean idk he wasn’t like my friend friend

[facelessoldgargoyle]

► Reave (Verified PRT Agent) (Brockton Bay Refugee) Replied on July 6th:

My coworker and squad captain. Went to school together, dropped out together, joined the PRT as grunt forces. S9 got him, and as glad as I am he died fast, given what might have happened, doesn’t change the fact that he’s gone. Loved him more than I love my wife, in a way.

Even the complete nonentities in Worm are out here being gay as fuck then “no homo”ing

[facelessoldgargoyle]

[facelessoldgargoyle]

“You’re his nemesis, Weaver. I’m the reason he’s here, the reason these people died like this. But you’re his counterpart, his mirror. You’ve got that same excitement Jack has, you think along the same lines, in strategy and counter-strategy. You thrive on conflict, just like he does. And I… I’m not like that.”

Theo, most boring protagonist in the world

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Fascinating racial politics going on here

The psychiatrist had been a young-looking white man, the doctor a heavyset Greek.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Wildbow and Taylor by extension hates women so much

Aisha, when left to her own devices, was a pretty girl who dressed trashy. Squealer, I felt, was more of a trashy woman who dressed trashy.

I’m never gonna get over the “defaced Ferrari” monologue and he keeps reminding me of it

[facelessoldgargoyle]

“Keep your wondering to yourself,” she snapped. When she turned her attention back to the TV, her channel surfing was cranked up a notch.

“I’ll pay you to answer me,” I tried.

She looked at me.

“That money we grabbed. You can keep all of it.”

Her eyes narrowed, “We’re supposed to split our take five ways.”

“We earned that, right? The both of us? I won’t tell the others if you don’t. And I’m saying you can have it all. Not sure how much it is, but it’d be yours.”

“Is this a trick?”

“No trick. Just answer my question. You can even tell me to get lost after, I’ll go to my room and grab a nap or something.”

She leaned back, and put the hand with the remote in her lap, glaring at me. I took that for consent.

“So, what I was asking before, when I said thanks, did you think I was sarcastic, did you think I was genuine, what?”

“Dunno.”

“You mean you didn’t know, or you can’t remember, or-”

“I said dunno.”

“Fine,” I sighed, “Whatever. Money’s yours.”

“That easy?”

I shrugged.

“You said you’d get lost if I asked,” she pointed out.

I nodded, gathered the covers and retreated to my room.

Fascinating things are happening in the realm of autism to autism communication. Obviously money doesn’t mean anything to Taylor rn, but “can I pay you to answer my question about whether I made a social misstep” is a bizarre instinct. The curiosity into what makes Rachel tick is the reason they become friends, but everyone else on the team would have shrugged it off.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

Top Ten Terrifying Taylor Moments

A drone that had crept around behind the building detonated in a flare of pale sparks, and every portal in the vicinity distorted, taking on weird shapes, more three-dimensional than two-dimensional. They winked out of existence.

Leaving me in the midst of an army I no longer controlled.

Fucking tinkers, I thought. But I was strangely overjoyed. I was fucked over six ways from Sunday, but I was happy. I hadn’t murdered one of my favorite people.

The capes at the edge of the rooftop were looking around in a daze.

The drones were moving, assuming a perimeter. The capes at the edge of the rooftop looked lost and shell-shocked.

And I was still laughing, clutching the clairvoyant’s hand as if it was one of the few things keeping me grounded.

Capes at the edges retreated, bumping into one another.

The laughter stopped as I abruptly let out a sound, half-roar, half-scream, incoherent, channeling every last iota of the lingering rage and despair into the noise.

I commanded the people in my range to attack the drones, and I continued screaming even as my throat began to hurt and I felt like I might pass out from oxygen.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

I used my flight pack, lifting myself into the air. My legs dangled, and I lacked the strength to keep my head fully raised. My hair hung in front of my face.

Whatever. Right now, at least, my body was an inconvenient puppet, a vehicle for my power and my brain, nothing else.

Taylor goes swarm mode

[facelessoldgargoyle]

“Bigger things,” Charlotte said. “I- the rest of us feel a little betrayed too, but we’re little more than specks, with the sheer scale of the stuff she’s focused on.”

[facelessoldgargoyle]

I looked at Charlotte, and she shrank back, as if I could hurt her by looking at her.

Which was dumb. It was fairly obvious to anyone who considered my power that I didn’t need to look at people to hurt them. Not that I’d hurt her, anyways. She’d done nothing to deserve any such thing, beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lmaooo