#Taylor ‘bug freak’ Hebert

[riverkingmarley]

Not talk about how cool Taylor is for the 1000th time but remember that part of gold morning where she figures out her plan to beat scion at the exact moment Doormaker runs out of juice? And then she has to manipulate and recapture all the key people she needs for her plan to work all while barely able to move and despised by every parahuman in the multiverse? And then she still manages to save herself and escape when Ciara leaves her to die in scions death explosion?

Bug freak stays winning 1000%

[got-into-worm-by-mistake]

I had to change things.  I had to be better than them.  Than Armsmaster, Sophia, Coil, and all the others.

You don't think small, do you, Taylor?

But yeah, the Endbringers really do kind of make everything else pointless, or seem like it, and drive into sharp relief how fucked everything is.

Arc 8, I think, may just have won the spot of 'best arc so far', tbh.

[germesthegenie]

Shadow Stalker doodle!

Probably my favorite Shadow Stalker moment was her getting recruited for Gold Morning and is pretty quickly back to her usual self at first, doing the cliche edgy rival lines like “lets see how much you’ve grown Hebert”. And then immediately hard cutting to her freaking out over Taylor deciding to go say hi to the Simurgh like ‘get me off Bug Freak’s wild ride’

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

FINALS!!!

Propaganda:

Taylor Hebert (Worm (webserial by Wildbow))

Human girl who has superpowers that let her control bugs. She shunts all emotions off into her swarm of bugs, leaving her totally blank and stoic. She outsources sensory-input to her bugs, so she never looks or reacts to anything. In a fight, she reacts to opponents there is no possible way she could see, because she sensed them with her bugs. Overall has virtually no facial tells and moves in a way that makes her seem like she isn't a person. very creature <3 she is just a bug girl

shes such a FREAK. shes completely human (tho with an eldritch alien creature extradimensionally attached to her mind) but God does she not act like it sometimes. she has the superpower to control bugs and uses it to become the worlds most terrifying hero slash villain slash warlord slash apocalyptic threat. she has her bugs crawling all over her all the time. she uses a swarm of flies to scout out areas and then leaves flies in everybodys hair so she can keep track of where they are. she practiced having her bugs make noises until she figured out how to combine their noises into human speech so now she can talk through her swarm. she makes decoys of herself out of large pillars of bugs. once she was concussed and in the hospital and subconsciously calling her bugs to her so she was just covered in insects while the doctor tried to help her. then there was ANOTHER time she was hospitalized and got bored so she made a bunch of bugs so a little dance on her chest. whenever she's in costume and talking she has her bugs make noises to distort her voice and make her sound more scary and she doesnt even realize shes doing it anymore. she surrounds herself in a swarm to disorient her enemies. she doesn't even notice when her hair covers her eyes or anything like that because shes scouting out the area using her bugs so she doesnt have to see. she once used a tide of bugs to clean herself off and dust off her dress after having sex.

#she views herself as more of a swarm of bugs with a girl-shaped computer to control them than a girl herself#her body is just an extension of her bugs which is large and inconvenient but ultimately part of the weapon

#taylor “dissociates into bugs” hebert#taylor “keeps bugs in her hair” hebert#taylor “choke them with bugs” hebert#taylor “no one could ever love me” hebert#taylor “violence is always the answer” hebert

#normally i would want a worm character to win#but#bdubs is a strange little man. he's unusual.#Taylor's just got the 'tism.

she literally is a walking superorganism comprised of one human and a lot more bugs to the point where she frequently moves her head as if she can see through walls (with her bugs, she can), talks through her bugs, has been described like a corpse whose ghost is living on in her swarm, keeps functioning thru her bugs even when her human body is out for the count, et cetera. no disrespect intended but genuinely what in the world are you talking about. She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs. And she thinks it's normal. Because the bugs are part of her. Is this thing on. I reiterate that she literally requires an emotional support cloak of bugs. She is so dissociated from being an actual person that she treats her human body like an inconvenience and her bugs like the primary operators. Is This Thing On.

#now i told myself i wouldnt comment anything on the rb... but#“She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs.” CHAT IS THAT FUCKIN REAL??? IS THAT CANON???#cause if thats just a hc thats wild and i dont know if its better or worse if its canon#propaganda

this is indeed canon! there is a scene where, after fucking her boyfriend in an abandoned building, she stands up and cleans dust/etc off her naked ass body by having her bugs run across her and clean her, which presumably translates to "they are eating the dirt/sweat/etc off her." her boyfriend smiles affectionately at this, because he also has something wrong with him. she also does things like use bugs and spider silk to deliver her toothbrush straight to her hand in the morning while monologuing about "checking in on her hive" (her hive is the people in her villain territory.) she is a walking panopticon. her friends sometimes talk to bugs under the assumption it's taylor watching them and they're always right. at one point she confusedly asks someone if he's arachnophobic because he doesn't want her 10k black widow spiders to live in his apartment with him. she is basically like if a cockroach was a girl. I would never lie to you about Taylor Hebert, Unsung Champion of Polls About Weird Characters.

#taylor ofc#wait hey those are my tags as propaganda!! cool!#i stand by it#anyways yeah one of her main character traits when looked at by an outside perspective is just how WEIRD she is#everyone thinks she's a freak#even when you're reading her POV you sometimes have to stop and be like 'hey girl what the fuck'#one time she put bugs on her boyfriend's dick

She also turns into a bug monster at one point. Not all on her own, but she very much turns into a bug monster. Literally And Physically.

And she uses this to survive like a cockroach, she had Just Been Ripped In Fucking Half and thrown in the ocean to die and BOOM. bug monster transformation (with a little help) climb out and keep fighting, against an opponent so vast and powerful a human couldn't even comprehend his true form (not eldritch cognitohazard, just planet-sized + multidimensional), who could kill her in an instant. She's always surviving against the odds she's so cockroach coded (affectionate!) #@ pollrunner if you're still accepting propaganda please take the 'turns into a bug monster' as propaganda#the rest can be ignored or trimmed to 'she's always surviving she's so cockroach coded' but pleamse. the Time she Became A Bug

#she's such a freak!!!#she kills like it's the only thing she was built how to do#she kills people and things like it's chess and she's a grandmaster#as soon as the violence is off she's just a fucked up offputting little one woman panopticon

One of my favourite descriptions of Taylor from someone else's POV, from Interlude 14.

“A figure stood behind Yan. Her costume was barely recognizable—She wore a short cape of tattered black cloth over her body armor, a skintight black suit beneath that, and there were folds of black cloth draped around her legs like a dress or a robe. The entire fabric seemed to ripple and move. It took Sierra a second to realize it was crawling with a carpet of insects.”

“The disconcerting part was the girl’s face, or lack thereof. Her expression was masked behind a shifting mass of bugs that moved in and out of her hairline. Sierra couldn’t even tell where the bugs ended and the scalp began, as the small black bodies crawled into and onto the black curls. There was a hint of something like glass where Skitter’s eyes were, but the bugs ventured far enough over her eyelids and around the frames that nothing was visible in the way of goggles, glasses or skin.”

“Skitter hadn’t made a sound as she entered. She hadn’t spoken, and her footsteps had been quiet.”

#taylor “driving while blind wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be” hebert#taylor “hangs out in superpowered darkness for a long time without being at all worried” hebert#taylor “fools a near-perfect lie detecting hero by offloading her emotions on her bugs” hebert#taylor “figures out how to communicate with the Dog Autism girl like right away” hebert

#taylor hebert kill them with your self-sustained insectoid dehumanity!

Jonny d’Ville (The Mechanisms)

Since we’re not technically human

He’s so feral hes canonically committed every single crime theres a name for i think he deserves to have a tail that flicks around when hes being mischevous. perhaps some horns or fangs as well. as a treat

Idk why but he's a feral creature

Have you seen the man? Especially in that one picture where he is fully on the wall.

absolutely no canon implications that he isn't human, but that man* absolutely has a tail. and sharp teeth. and creature ears. he purrs but he pretends he doesn't and if you bring it up he'll bite you. he's had rabies more times than you can count.

#Just sayin#Johnny eats people and says it's not cannibalism if you aren't human

#DID LYF SING THE PART IN SLEEPING BEAUTY? NO. VOTE JONNY

#Jonny’s a creature#vote Jonny

#sorry for that Hermitfans but my boy Jonny is feral and i think he is a creature

#chat vote jonny#HES LITERALLY JUST A LITTLE CRITTER PLEASE

#look at that face#he’s a creacher

#it's jonny d'ville i don't have any more to say

All crimes but sex crimes, because Jonny isn’t a MONSTER

#JONNY#i'm so sorry pearl you are too well adjusted for this#he's got devil in his name#(that he gave himself because he's a huge fucking nerd)

#LITERALLY LOOK AT HIM THE GREMLIN ENERGY IS OFF THE CHARTS

#voted jonny for the rabies

also. hold up. the pearl propaganda is saying to vote for her because she's an alien and a bloodthirsty fighter? BOY DO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU ABOUT JONNY FUCKING D'VILLE

five am pearl this five am pearl that, jonny's just like that all the time

#please vote jonny. i know we're pitting two bad bitches against each other but jonny has tried to eat a guitar

#CMON GUYS VOTE JONNY D’VILLE HES SUCH A CREATURE#HAVE YOU SEEN HIM??? HAVE YOU HEARD HIM TALK ABOUT THE OCTOKITTENS???#VOTE JONNY

#Jonny is such a creature

#jonny is literally THE creature

#come on vote Jonny that thing is creachur incarnate#and he can sing#his fave food is human flesh and more violence

Jonny man entire existence is teeth claws belts and trauma

#that guy is so feral#just vote jonny#also there was this one time where he found a half dead dude on the moon and brang it home to show to his gay pirate friends#just sayin#and also this harmonica solo over his father's dead body in one eyed jacks#iconic#anyway vote jonny

#literally jonny bites people and eats them regularly

[couldinfinitytrainhavesavedthem]

"Taylor simplifies the world between "bullies" and "victims" due to her trauma, which has disastrous consequences, like her becoming the supervillain warlord of her city. She is impulsive, naïve, surprisingly prone to violence (one of her first fights end with her carving out a guy's eyes, to the horror of a much more experienced villain, without her really thinking about it), a complete control freak, idealistic and ultimately well-meaning. She puts people on positions where they can't help but do what she says, and has absurd expectations of what other should do, which she also applies to herself. She will rationalize and compartmentalize any horrible decision she makes (like joining a supervillain gang as her first job as a superhero, or shooting a toddler in the head) and is very good at convincing others and herself that she is right. She gave herself a lobotomy because she was obsessed with trying to be more helpful at saving the world. Also she is 16 and her superpower us to control bugs"

"Her trauma from being bullied leads to her dividing the world between ""bullies"" and ""victims"", which has disastrous consequences for the whole world"

[lakesbian]

you're mostly right about that whole girlboss thing, girlboss has sort of become a meaningless word because of all the potential conflicting meanings, but I really think you're wrong that one can't abuse/manipulate themself. That's very possible, I think, and I'd say that Taylor did it on basically every level throughout most of worm. It's like her major character flaw.

At the beginning it manifests as the abuse thing, most obviously how she's internalized all the abuse that Winslow gave her. Taylor's a freak, she's not normal, she's unlovable, she's toxic and disgusting. This is like her whole thing at first! It's not just like "oh she's got no self esteem" she's suicidal! and then especially as things get worse and taylor gets more violent and khepri-esque, she uses taylor hebert as a tool, just like she uses everyone else as a tool. Her control freak tendencies extend to her body and very sense of self. Like, look at those times she "centers herself" by reducing her human body that she lives in as just one more pip in her unfathomably massive swarm. I'm not an expert in abuse, not even a little, but what I'm trying to say is that taylor stops thinking of herself as, like, a human being, and more as a large bug in her expendable swarm.

I mean, really look at Khepri. Taylor has so few things left, and becoming Khepri deprives her of even these dregs. She can't read anymore, she can't speak anymore, she's destroyed the only friendships she had remaining, her last bits of morality she hadn't already strangled are finally murdered.

If you took the things that taylor does to herself and move it over so that she's, like, doing it to someone else, there would be no question over whether it was abuse. Like, if for some reason she made Lisa go to panacea and do the khepri thing, that would be without question the most monstrous thing she'd done and it would not even be close.

The definition of abuse is to treat a person or animal with cruelty or violence, especially regularly, and I think that perfectly describes how taylor treats herself throughout worm.

sorry for the rambling inarticulate monologue but I felt this was important

the phrase you are looking for is "self-destructive behaviors"--the google blurb that pops up if you search "definition of abuse" not specifying "can only be done to other people who aren't you" does not mean that the term "abuse" does not most commonly refer to a phenomena of intense power imbalance in a relationship wherein one person repeatedly harms the other person. when i say that someone cannot abuse themselves, i do not mean that the less common usage of the term wherein it refers to general harm cannot ever be applied to someone's treatment of themselves, i mean that one cannot be in an abusive relationship with themselves, which is how the person i was responding to was using the term. you cannot abuse or manipulate yourself because, in their most common usages, these words refer to a dynamic between separate people--saying that an abuse victim is abusing or manipulating themselves by engaging in unhealthy traumatized behaviors is extremely unclear phrasing w/ no use for accurately describing what's actually happening, and in many scenarios it's liable to be misread as an attempt to place blame on the victim for being the primary cause of harm to themselves. you're viewing the definition of a word through one very specific lens here and misunderstanding how it's actually most commonly used in reality

[erysvoleil]

Got annoyed at myself for not elaborating. Long post.

Taylor Hebert (worm): I feel like it's almost impossible to say anything about Bug Freak Prime here that hasn't been said a thousand times already. Absolute top tier Protagonist Who Has Things Wrong With Her, and it's endlessly engaging to both get a real grasp on how she's fucked up, how that impacts her perspective and how she describes/thinks about things, how she bounces off other characters who are by and large also top tier Freaks With Things Wrong With Them, and how she twists into herself over time and stress. Not to mention she's just. Aesthetically cool, and how she uses her powerset is cool and good and creative. Just an absolute 10/10 of a fictional character.

Jessie Ewesmont (twig): There are a lot of problems twig has in comparison to the other "good" wildbow works. It also, however, has jessie, who almost singlehandedly drags the whole book in my reckoning from a very mixed opinion to an overall positive one. Genuinely one of the best-written transgender characters I've ever seen, strong enough to be worthy of that recognition even though her proper weight class is "mediocre fiction written by cishet white guys." There's a lot of reasons for that-the levels of subtext she's working on, that she's the second-most prevalent and fleshed-out character behind the protagonist in a 1.6 million word long book, that her transition is a Thing That Happens in the story instead of being offscreen, that her gender situation is messy and complicated in a way that isn't painted as a bad thing. But beyond that, she's just Good-her dynamic and evolving relationship with said protag, even disregarding the romantic elements, is interesting and fun, her story has a lot of very good moments, etc. etc. etc.

Binah/Garion (lobcorp/ruina): Binah gets here mostly for her lobcorp appearance-like most of the returning characters in ruina, her arc is over and she's mostly just there for the new boy to bounce off of. It doesn't feel ooc, tbf, but she's a lot less entertaining of a character there when she isn't in scp purgatory. In lobcorp though. Before you even meet her, you've already seen her brutally murder two of the other characters in their own backstory flashbacks. Already seen her gleefully kill and maim and gun-to-head threaten some of the earlier cast you may have gotten attached to. And then you go press her story scenes and she's just. This impenetrable wall of passive malice, stonefacedly recounting absolute horrorshows, a facade only breached to smirk at the occasional morbid joke that's come to her. She's trapped in the Torment Nexus like every other lobcorp character but unlike the majority, she's reveling in it-she's pretty much an explicit sadist and seeing Everyone Else (notably, the people who put her here) in Misery is enough to make it worth it to her-or at least to say and act that way. Plus her formal responsibility in the Torment Nexus is tearing monsters out of people's brains, a procedure she claims would drive anyone else insane and she clearly enjoys, so. y'know.

Cylva/Cyella (ffxiv): Augh. I feel like I was such a lorebrain in my xiv days that it's hard to stop myself from just Retelling Her Entire Story, especially since she is so deeply woven into things in the background, but that'd be too long for this sort of thing. I think a lot of what she speaks to is inherent alienation, setting yourself apart from everyone else with the utter conviction that that gap is unassailable. And then once they're all gone, once you've played your game of cutting yourself off because you told yourself you had to, realizing that Fuck, you'd gotten attached-and they'd gotten attached to you, but they're gone now. Forever. And you've gotta live with both failing your little gambit and losing what you've only now realized you had forever. She's such an important character to shb's background narrative and her quests are some of the best writing in a Generally Well-Written expac. I genuinely love the blend of guilt, self-hatred, love for her former companions and conviction she has. But unfortunately you kind of have to be a bit of an insane completionist to see them-so she can't show up even when things directly relevant to her story start being the focus and this was actually the point where I hardline burned out on xiv's narrative. (wasn't feeling it for a bit, tbf)

Esmerelda Weatherwax (discworld): This one's a bit lighter of an opinion than the others previously, but she's come up recently in talking to friends about yazeba's, so she was on the brain. I haven't actually reread discworlds for a bit, but I was big into them as a teenager and Granny Weatherwax here was unironically a role model of mine. Which probably tells you some things about how I was as a teenager If You Know, but shhh. Inevitably, though, she's just a fun character-crotchety old witch who barely even uses magic, getting away with a strong sense of how people work, medical knowledge and sheer, unbending self-control in almost all situations. Plus her bouncing off the Jolly Old Lady that is her Old Witch counterpart is generally quite fun. I should reread wyrd sisters.

Ema Skye (ace attorney): Ema's an interesting one and a large part of why I like her is that she's imo easily the most developed character in aa. A lot of the bigname standbies can't really progress much due to Brand Recognition-this is quite notable in hobo phoenix being reverted nigh-immediately, for instance, but Ema's one of the only ones that feels like she's actually lived through the decade+ the series is supposed to take place in. I'll accept her first appearance is just maya-lite, but the contrast between bright-haired and bushy tailed "I'm Gonna Do Forensics :)" kid to jaded dropout/failure who hates her job post-timeskip is Good, and her starting to put herself together and work back towards those dreams, reclaim a bit of that excitement in 6 feels like a satisfying next step for her character. Now where the fuck's her sister capcom please stop throwing the cool female characters in forever jail.

Samus Aran (metroid): Like a lot of the ones that come from my teenage years, this is a lighter opinion-I don't have any long dissections of her character, I just think she's Cool and Neat. I played the prime games a lot and frankly the vibe of her just going out and Being Alone, doing her job on dangerous planets without really anyone to talk to or rely on or any of that was like. Nice, and particularly nice for me at that time. I feel like a lot of people just call her blank slate because like, yeah, inevitably she is a silent protagonist, but on the other hand she is supposed to be the same person throughout-and at least in terms of primes/dread, you can read a lot into her body language and decision-making and whatnot. But mostly she's just Cool and Neat.

Kohaku (tsukihime): This is another one I feel like it's difficult to say anything that hasn't been said a thousandfold before, but unlike Our Lady of Escalation, I haven't honestly seen most of it. She's a really really strong tragic character, and the degrees of depersonalization she's running on throughout the story are quite the potent read to slowly realize. Her "blood vanished like vapor" speech bounces around the back of my head quite a bit in that department. Plus she's at the center of two Very Strong routes that I rather like for being in conversation with each other. It's a good use of the vn multiple route standard, I think-the tragedy of Where She's Heading, of being dragged down into becoming a predator herself, into self-destructing in a spectacle of indiscriminate, suicidal destruction answered immediately by "but what if she was actually able to get better" work so well as companion pieces to each other. The "what if she got better" doesn't hit nearly as good without knowing just how bad she was doing, how close she is to being That again, and "but what if it could be averted?" is a key part of a lot of tragedy. Plus, a lot of tsuki's writing around sex is pretty juvenile and while I won't claim it's Super Mature with her, it is worthwhile that her sex scenes are actually both Pretty Plot/Character Relevant. It's also nice that in her good ending, it's not One Night of Magic Protagonist Dick that Fixes Her, in either the literal or facetious sense. The connection helps her, certainly, averts the tragic-route deathspiral she's in, but her actual good ending is moving away from it all and roadtripping alone for a bit, which is Good.

Aigis (persona 3): I don't necessarily know if I regret marathoning all three of p3p p4g and p5r in early pandemic years. These games in retrospect piss me off more than anything even if the gameplay loops active my neurons oh-so-well. But on the other hand, this Fucking Robit that's a boring nothing character for 90% of the game's runtime is the most direct personal attack I've ever fucking received. She's genuinely the most resonant depiction of dysphoria that I've seen in anything and that counts for a Lot. And then you get into the whole "views herself as a soulless Executor of the Task she's good at instead of any kind of a Person for Most of Her Life until that's shattered and she has to desperately try to figure out how to put together Being A Person while coming to terms with just how badly she hates herself" thing and hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Another Common Thing I have Commentary on is her internalized homophobia if you romance her as femc-it's funny, especially given atlus's Homophobic Past, Present, and Future, but I feel like I usually see it framed as being ooc, which it isn't. She's having a selfhatred breakdown in that scene and is reaching for any club she can think of bash herself with, that's just one of them.

Airy (bravely default): For some reason I can't get this stupid fucking Cryst-Fairy :) out of my head. She's so good. Not only is Her Being Evil Actually a fun way to play with the jrpg trope she's responding to (marketably scrunklie companion character who knows So Much about the plot,) the way it's revealed is rather nice. She's suspectable for quite a bit before the actual reveal, and the hints get more and more and more blatant as you go on-the game menu's subtitle dropping the FF in Fairy Flies/Flying Fairy is a legendary one, but I don't think I'm ever going to forget the realization that her wings were counting down as I went through the game's back-half loops. That being said, bravely 1 remains my favorite game that I never actually finished so I've never seen her Actual Heel Turn but she's stuck in my head forever so. Plus she's got a really strong and recognizable leitmotiff, which counts for A Lot

Name ten female characters you like, you get zapped if it's jsut a male character you call a babygirl or other feminine nicknames because I can't see people calling Lestat coquette again

[wormbraind]

every time YOU see a bug you freak out. every time I see a bug i say hi to taylor hebert. we are not the same.

[despite]

Taylor Hebert for the ask gaem

my meow meow my everything my little tumblypoo my creepy little freak my favoritest character in the whole wide world who did nothing wrong ever. i could go on for a really long time about her but i just love her So much. i think her power is so so cool especially the swarm clones and how the bugs react to her being stressed or upset or how she uses them to project her voice or make silly little images and spell out words. she tries SO hard!! she keeps trying and trying and completely disregards her own wellbeing for the sake of other people and gave up literally everything in order to save the world. shes also a loser and makes bad jokes and i love her relationships with lisa and rachel and the undersiders and dragon and defiant and idk i just think shes a really well written character. my only complaint is that wildbow shouldve pandered to the sjws and made her bi and trans

[half-man-half-lime]

On why being dark makes Worm a good power fantasy

Okay I have a tendency to pointlessly and circuitously ramble so I’m just gonna leave a TL;DR up here: Worm shows that the most powerless people in the most hopeless situations can still make a difference through perseverance.

So here and there I’ve seen posts going around (not gonna search and link the various posts I’m referencing in this post, it’s 2 AM and I’m lazy) about why everyone should shut up about people liking lighter works, and how Steven Universe is a great work of escapism because it lets people experience a world where compassion can win wars and make the world a better place. I’m not gonna argue about whether lighter or darker stuff is better, the point of those posts is people can like what they want (also see that one comic I’m not gonna link where stories are balloons and someone makes a heavy iron balloon and drops it into a pit and someone stuck in the muck grabs a hold of it; you know the one).

But that stuff HAS been making me think about why Worm is a good escapist fantasy in a number of ways. My analysis of the Parahumans stories has been kind of sidetracked by the amazing analysis by the We’ve Got Worm/Ward podcast, all that stuff about characterization and themes and shit, it’s great, but all that stuff plus the YBUTTing (You’re Being Unfair To Taylor, basically dismantling her moral justifications and pointing out the negative effect her moral choices have on her and those around her) kind of make you forget the childish, sadistic appeal of a story about a girl who cuts people’s eyes out and is Completely Justified in doing so and also Extremely Clever like a seasoned D&D player. And that stuff is fun, even if it gets less so after too many rereads. (Seriously, I’ve listened to the audiobooks so many times now, I’ve lost count.)

But one thing Matt and Scott and the reddit commenters have discussed is the usefulness of horror story elements as a way of establishing stakes, which brings me to my point: It’s really fucking empowering to see a nerdy teenage girl take down invincible serial killers and bully god to death when she seems like she should have absolutely no way or right to do so.

Like, one of the reasons One Piece was always so appealing to me, something that sort of faded with the power creep and repetition of the same story beats over and over again, is how satisfying it is to see Luffy and pals take down warlords and tyrants a thousand times stronger than them through sheer force of will. What right does this punk-ass kid from the East Blue with stretchy powers have to take down a powerful Fish-Man, or a lightning-slinging self-proclaimed god, or a seasoned undercover assassin with a thirst for blood? But he does it anyway! He works out and trains and shit, and basically wrecks his body sometimes, and in the end, after a lot of screaming and punching, those guys are gone, and he’s still here! Because they had the audacity to hurt his friends, and he and his pals will fucking bully reality into doing what they want if it means stopping people who do those sort of things.

Now the thing about Taylor Hebert is she isn’t strong, not physically. This bullied kid never got super-strength or web-slingers to swing around on, nor the charisma to make quips and piss off the local mad scientists. She’s clever, but not enough to build a laser gun or a giant robot. She controls bugs. Wowee. Like the Stretchy Man, she should by all rights be underwhelming to deal with, but somehow she always seems to make it out alive, her enemies leaving without the eyeballs or prosthetic foreheads they came in with. (Don’t worry, they both got new ones, it just took a while. Well. Not Valefor.)

And that’s cool in a vacuum, but in the Parahumans universe? That’s an accomplishment. The Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine, the horror as stakes, they’re like an uphill battle against a bigger, steeper uphill battle. And Taylor has bugs. She can’t chop Leviathan in half, and if she tries (which she does, to a degree), she risks drowning, being crushed and paralyzed, and being thrown headfirst into a concrete floor all at the same time. So she slinks around the Endbringers, too far away to be stepped on, giving CPR to the fighters wounded in battle; she plots against the Nine and probes for weaknesses, even if it means risking herself and her teammates. She beats the shit out of the genius killer mannequin man, not with fireballs or hundred-ton punches, but with spiderwebs and glue, and in the end, after being wounded and exhausted, tens of people are alive because of what she did.

To compare this to Steven Universe, or the opposite side of Skitter’s coin, the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (though sadly SU is a better comparison because on top of the positivity it handles things like abuse and trauma) (woe is me that I’m too lazy to write crossover or toneswap fanfic, between Worm and USG by the way, if you want to do that for me, be my guest (Also a Freaks and Geeks mashup, Worms and Germs)), it’s enormously encouraging that Steven is ultimately able to stop the onslaught of genocidal space empresses, not by punching them, but by appealing to their humanity, a task that his upbringing and challenges completely prepared him for. Doreen Green, in a world of angsty heroes and villains and murder and trauma, can befriend her enemies and stop them by suggesting more fulfilling career goals, or end centuries of interstellar war with a chalk board and a day or two of diplomatic negotiations.

And that’s appealing especially today because a lot of people feel tired of fighting and knowing that no amount of talking or empathy will stop transphobes and Trump supporters from making the world a waking nightmare. And plenty of people are tired of stories of Hopeless Bleak Despair, and want a little compassion in their lives. I get that, I truly do. I enjoy those stories for the same reasons.

BUT, Worm means a lot to me right now too. And it wouldn’t be the same without the pain and suffering. Scaring the Slaughterhouse Nine out of Brockton Bay wouldn’t seem like such an achievement if we didn’t see Brian cut to pieces, doomed to permanent PTSD, while the Undersiders lie paralyzed on the floor, subject to Bonesaw’s torturous whims. The defeat of Behemoth would seem a little more predictable and boring if the Avengers pulled it off in an hour, without hundreds of dead heroes (and thousands more who died in past fights), infighting, and the threat of an ally destroying all of India in a misguided attempt to stop the beast. Mannequin running away from a super-puncher or a fireball-shooter wouldn’t feel like the accomplishment it does coming from the scared teenage girl whose only weapons are some squishy bugs, a knife and baton, and some craft supplies.

Worm presents a world where suffering is everywhere, where the where traumatized, hopeless people can fight and fight and endure endless pain, lose loved ones and body parts, be given just little enough power by those that seek to exploit and hurt them that they shouldn’t be able to fight back, to leverage nothing but pepperspray and spiders against dragons, and, after all that struggling and fighting and pain, actually make the bad guys stop hurting people. (it’s like that Chesterton quote in Coraline that people misattribute to Neil Gaiman, about how fantasy shows us how dragons can be beaten.)

And it’s an upsetting and exhausting story to read, especially binge reading or listening, and it ends in genuine heartbreaking tragedy, yet somehow the victory seems like one of the most earned wins in all of fiction. Nobody should be able to defeat Grieving Golden Jesus or Superdense Hurricane Godzilla, and that’s why it’s so empowering when Taylor Hebert fucking does.

Isn’t that just as reassuring, in a world that seems so hopeless right now, when we all feel so powerless, so tired of struggling? I think so.

[lakesbian]

skitter kill this clown. wormblr we can do this. @ op i'm submitting my propagandapost the public Must be informed of skitter's many villainous actions such as

rotting a guy's dick off with brown recluses. on accident.

realizing due to her accident that it's actually pretty effective to put bugs on genitals and starting to threaten people with putting tapeworms up their asses on purpose. and also putting bugs up asses and peeholes on purpose. really if theres an orifice she puts bugs up there on purpose

dips her bugs in capsaicin before putting bugs up orifices on purpose so it hurts more. [skitter voice]i just dipped every tarantula hawk wasp in my villainous lair in liquid pepper spray so nows not the time to get stupid with my ass

using spider silk to create rube-goldberg machines of suffering i.e hauling a dude 3 stories up into the air and then dropping him, shattering all of his limbs on impact. all while casually holding a conversation w/ someone else

using centipedes to hollow another villain's eyes out and then putting maggots inside and just Leaving Them There with the intent of the heroes she hands the villain over to finding the maggots later and being scared of her

killed parahumans' wonder woman equivalent by putting bugs in her lungs and then using those bugs to make silk in her lungs to block out airflow

only time she has ever successfully been jailed is when she turned herself in on purpose

made a phone call using bugs once. not villainous but very funny and iconic

used bugs to swang around a disintegration knife on a massive length of silk, killing like 50 people instantly, because she wanted one (1) person in the room dead and was willing to just shotgun that shit until it worked out for her. and then immediately after proceeded to think of herself as "not much of a fighter." because she has psychological issues.

mind-control kidnapped several thousand people once

literally made fun of god's dead girlfriend until he got suicidal and died about it

drove a car. blind. using bugs. no one realized she was blind for like 12 hours because she's a bug freak superorganism of a girl who walked around using bugs to triangulate perfectly w/o vision. also not villainous but still iconic

wanted to put 10000 black widow spiders in a shared villainous base to make costumes out of spider silk w/ and when the other dude who lived there was like "wtf can we not??" she was like "huh that's surprising. you don't want 10000 black widow spiders in your home? why? are you arachnophobic or something?" because she's a freak.

fucked, got up, and immediately made several hundred bugs crawl across her naked ass body to clean her off. because she's a freak.

her boyfriend has had spiders on his dick he's just going to have to live with this

literally psychologically cannot refrain from putting bugs in the hair and clothing of everyone within a several block radius to keep track of them at all times because she's a panopticonic freak. like i'm talking "her friends occasionally talk to bugs they see under the assumption that it's her spying on them, and they're Right" level panopticonic freak. she rocks.

did i mention she's 15. world's most autistic freak 15yo dissociates hard enough to kill god more at 7

every day of my life i suffer from the knowledge that taylor skitter hebert is one of the most characters of all time ever. and no body knows her name...

[germesthegenie]

Watching MHA Vigilantes (anime only no spoilers pls) and wanted to do a doodle featuring Taylor’s MHA-verse equivalent from that show

Was thinking of doing a who would win poll but don’t really have much yet to go off of in the anime to place Hachisuka’s strength in a direct fight (might do a follow up post once there’s more to work with, for now imo Skitter stomps in most categories), so instead

Bonus (Mild Spoilers for MHA Vigilantes Episode 10):

In a world where Alec and/or Aisha convinced Taylor to watch anime

iykyk

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

Semifinal 1

Propaganda:

Taylor Hebert (Worm (webserial by Wildbow))

Human girl who has superpowers that let her control bugs. She shunts all emotions off into her swarm of bugs, leaving her totally blank and stoic. She outsources sensory-input to her bugs, so she never looks or reacts to anything. In a fight, she reacts to opponents there is no possible way she could see, because she sensed them with her bugs. Overall has virtually no facial tells and moves in a way that makes her seem like she isn't a person. very creature <3 she is just a bug girl

shes such a FREAK. shes completely human (tho with an eldritch alien creature extradimensionally attached to her mind) but God does she not act like it sometimes. she has the superpower to control bugs and uses it to become the worlds most terrifying hero slash villain slash warlord slash apocalyptic threat. she has her bugs crawling all over her all the time. she uses a swarm of flies to scout out areas and then leaves flies in everybodys hair so she can keep track of where they are. she practiced having her bugs make noises until she figured out how to combine their noises into human speech so now she can talk through her swarm. she makes decoys of herself out of large pillars of bugs. once she was concussed and in the hospital and subconsciously calling her bugs to her so she was just covered in insects while the doctor tried to help her. then there was ANOTHER time she was hospitalized and got bored so she made a bunch of bugs so a little dance on her chest. whenever she's in costume and talking she has her bugs make noises to distort her voice and make her sound more scary and she doesnt even realize shes doing it anymore. she surrounds herself in a swarm to disorient her enemies. she doesn't even notice when her hair covers her eyes or anything like that because shes scouting out the area using her bugs so she doesnt have to see. she once used a tide of bugs to clean herself off and dust off her dress after having sex.

#she views herself as more of a swarm of bugs with a girl-shaped computer to control them than a girl herself#her body is just an extension of her bugs which is large and inconvenient but ultimately part of the weapon

#taylor “dissociates into bugs” hebert#taylor “keeps bugs in her hair” hebert#taylor “choke them with bugs” hebert#taylor “no one could ever love me” hebert#taylor “violence is always the answer” hebert

#normally i would want a worm character to win#but#bdubs is a strange little man. he's unusual.#Taylor's just got the 'tism.

she literally is a walking superorganism comprised of one human and a lot more bugs to the point where she frequently moves her head as if she can see through walls (with her bugs, she can), talks through her bugs, has been described like a corpse whose ghost is living on in her swarm, keeps functioning thru her bugs even when her human body is out for the count, et cetera. no disrespect intended but genuinely what in the world are you talking about. She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs. And she thinks it's normal. Because the bugs are part of her. Is this thing on. I reiterate that she literally requires an emotional support cloak of bugs. She is so dissociated from being an actual person that she treats her human body like an inconvenience and her bugs like the primary operators. Is This Thing On.

#now i told myself i wouldnt comment anything on the rb... but#“She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs.” CHAT IS THAT FUCKIN REAL??? IS THAT CANON???#cause if thats just a hc thats wild and i dont know if its better or worse if its canon#propaganda

this is indeed canon! there is a scene where, after fucking her boyfriend in an abandoned building, she stands up and cleans dust/etc off her naked ass body by having her bugs run across her and clean her, which presumably translates to "they are eating the dirt/sweat/etc off her." her boyfriend smiles affectionately at this, because he also has something wrong with him. she also does things like use bugs and spider silk to deliver her toothbrush straight to her hand in the morning while monologuing about "checking in on her hive" (her hive is the people in her villain territory.) she is a walking panopticon. her friends sometimes talk to bugs under the assumption it's taylor watching them and they're always right. at one point she confusedly asks someone if he's arachnophobic because he doesn't want her 10k black widow spiders to live in his apartment with him. she is basically like if a cockroach was a girl. I would never lie to you about Taylor Hebert, Unsung Champion of Polls About Weird Characters.

#taylor ofc#wait hey those are my tags as propaganda!! cool!#i stand by it#anyways yeah one of her main character traits when looked at by an outside perspective is just how WEIRD she is#everyone thinks she's a freak#even when you're reading her POV you sometimes have to stop and be like 'hey girl what the fuck'#one time she put bugs on her boyfriend's dick

She also turns into a bug monster at one point. Not all on her own, but she very much turns into a bug monster. Literally And Physically.

• And she uses this to survive like a cockroach, she had Just Been Ripped In Fucking Half and thrown in the ocean to die and BOOM. bug monster transformation (with a little help) climb out and keep fighting, against an opponent so vast and powerful a human couldn't even comprehend his true form (not eldritch cognitohazard, just planet-sized + multidimensional), who could kill her in an instant. She's always surviving against the odds she's so cockroach coded (affectionate!) #@ pollrunner if you're still accepting propaganda please take the 'turns into a bug monster' as propaganda#the rest can be ignored or trimmed to 'she's always surviving she's so cockroach coded' but pleamse. the Time she Became A Bug • #she's such a freak!!!#she kills like it's the only thing she was built how to do#she kills people and things like it's chess and she's a grandmaster#as soon as the violence is off she's just a fucked up offputting little one woman panopticon • One of my favourite descriptions of Taylor from someone else's POV, from Interlude 14.

“A figure stood behind Yan. Her costume was barely recognizable—She wore a short cape of tattered black cloth over her body armor, a skintight black suit beneath that, and there were folds of black cloth draped around her legs like a dress or a robe. The entire fabric seemed to ripple and move. It took Sierra a second to realize it was crawling with a carpet of insects.” “The disconcerting part was the girl’s face, or lack thereof. Her expression was masked behind a shifting mass of bugs that moved in and out of her hairline. Sierra couldn’t even tell where the bugs ended and the scalp began, as the small black bodies crawled into and onto the black curls. There was a hint of something like glass where Skitter’s eyes were, but the bugs ventured far enough over her eyelids and around the frames that nothing was visible in the way of goggles, glasses or skin.” “Skitter hadn’t made a sound as she entered. She hadn’t spoken, and her footsteps had been quiet.”

Goodtimeswithscar (Hermitcraft / life series)

Scared for life

I must say that scar, who is a vex and an elf, wins this one.

He was also a witch, but was so busy building an airplane he didn't even notice it. Probably because he is so used to shape changing, having also been a pirate, wizard, trader, superhero, and imagineer.

There were also some rumors about him being a mattress store but those have been debunked.

[coolest-girl-around]

INITIATE, 1.1 (Worm/TSW)

A/N: Hi there! This is my first time writing something meant for other people to see, as well as, well, posting it. I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to this forum so apologies in advance is anything is off. Maybe signing up specifically to post this wasn't a great idea! Oh well. If you don't know what The Secret World is, I recommend you look it up! It's pretty spectacular. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all started in Canberra, when the Simurgh attacked. Well, no, that's innaccurate. It actually started a few days before that, when a certain group bought a bomb from a certain Tinker. Still in Canberra, mind - they wanted to hit a corporate tower or something. I'm honestly not sure, to be honest - all I know is what the bomb did. It released something ancient onto the world, a metamemetic virus of truly world-ending proportions. Suddenly, the Simurgh wasn't the scariest thing in the world. Actually, though, this is just the prelude to the real story. That starts a couple of days after all this, when I discovered a new type of bee. And compared to all this, all of the new world ending things that occurred, a new type of bee was somehow the one that really spelt our doom. Be not afraid, dear reader. Be terrified. The dark days are here. My name is Taylor Hebert. We are called the Buzzing. Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see. -------- There's many terms that can be used to describe me. Many of them are unkind. Freak, loser, weirdo, ugly, rancid, ect ect. And on that particular day sometime in early April, Most of those words were being used to describe me, actually. "She's just standing there! What is she, brain-dead or something?" It was a standard tactic. Push me into a corner, surround me, and hurl insult after insult until I break down. I just stood there and tried not to give them the satisfaction. There's one word in particular that described me, though, one they didn't use. Observant. "I hear she was dropped on her head as a baby." Observant described me rather well, I think. Even then, my eyes scanned the room- looking for exits, or for any of the girls that might take things a tad further. Sophia, in particular. But in my search, I found something a tad strange. A bee. This wasn't just any old bee, of course. I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of bugs, but even I could tell that this wasn't a regular bee. A bee's wings didn't have that particular shade of green, they didn't fly up to you despite the constant buzz of activity that should scare them away, and they certainly shouldn't be in Winslow, where your lucky enough to find a flower that's made of plastic. But yet, there it was. Flying in the air just by my face. I would have pulled away from it, if I wasn't boxed in on all sides. Perhaps that was the intention. Have you ever felt an arthropod force it's way down your throat, sweetling? Of course you have. You wouldn't be hearing this if you didn't. It's not a pleasant experience, I'm sure you know. I doubled over in a coughing fit as my body desperately tried to evict it's new resident. My throat burned. I had trouble breathing. And, worst of all, the girls surrounding me where now yelling and laughing. "Oh my god, Taylor ate a bug!" The disturbance did allow me some room to move, thankfully- which I took opportunity of as I ran down the hallway as fast as I could. I could here them laughing and screeching behind me- slowly fading out. I didn't particular care. I needed to get to the nurses office. I was faintly aware of the bell ringing as I twisted through the halls. Soon enough, I no longer had to shove my way past people as I ran. I was alone, when I finally reached the nurses office. Which was a pretty good thing, seeing as when I reached for the handle, it suddenly caught on fire. The flame wasn't a normal fire, no. It flickered and waved and pulsated with a strange energy, and it was a bright blue, instead of the standard oranges. It flickered and burned for but a few moments, before it faded out of existence. The handle wasn't even hot. ------ Breath in. I clutched the doll to my chest. It was an old one- a hand-me-down from mom, actually. It's why I kept it all this time, even though I got rid of most of my dolls ages ago. Focusing on a humanoid shape helps control my power, somehow. I couldn't begin to understand why. Breath out. I was in an alley. Near the boardwalk, but somewhat into the dangerous area. I didn't expect there to be much of an issue- not after what happened the other day. I haven't been going to school lately. It was a struggle as it is not to destroy my bedroom, there's no way I'd risk setting Sophia on fire. As satisfying as that'd be. Breath in. My powers were weird. It's not really like anything else I found online. Well, that's not quite true. Other capes seemed to have powers that are like bits of mine. You had people that could control fire, control ice, control electricity, create duplicates of themselves, teleport, and a bunch of other stuff. But all of them, all at once? That's crazy. Breath out. A dumpster to my right explodes. Maybe that's why it was so hard to control. I ran away from the scene of the crime, dodging shrapnel and burning trash. My powers seemed to include better reflexes, too. And an increase durability. That much is obvious when I pull a shard of metal out of my leg a few blocks away and watch as the hole closes up. The worst if it was probably the buzzing. All the goddamn buzzing. My head was a constant swarm of angry bees. It drained away whenever I thought about it, but whenever there was a quiet moment they'd all surge back, desperate for my attention. It didn't help that they actually talked, too. It was some sort of thinker power, I decided, as the buzzing voices explained to me in detail the history of the ABB after I looked at some of their graffiti long enough. It was weird, though. "TRANSMIT - Initiate the Kyushu signal - RECEIVE- Initiate the escalation protocols - CALL YOUR DOCTOR IF IT PERSISTS FOR OVER FOUR HOURS - Initiate gang assimilation procedures - WITNESS - The Azn Bad Boys." An unholy cross between random radio signals and bees. A terrifying combination, truly. They told me many things, all in a weird way. They expressed confusion at human biology at times, strangely. There was the occasional comment about not wanting to break me when I asked why they didn't make sense. Being crazy wasn't out of the picture. I was talking to myself, after all. Nothing about my powers made sense. At least I was finally able to get control over them. I avoided blowing anything up on my way back home, which was easier said than done. I carefully snuck up back to the front door, being extra careful to not make a sound as I shut the door behind me. I crept my way to the stairs. The light stopped me, though. For a few seconds I thought my dad was awake. I had no idea how I was going to explain this to him. The light was coming from the basement, though. I couldn't think of a reason why he'd be down there. As it turns out, my basement was now overgrown and home to a bunch of tree roots on crack and a goddamn portal. It wobbled and the view through it distorted and bent. The old shoe I threw sailed right on into it, not even making a noise. I was worried about explaining things to dad before. This was much, MUCH worse.

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

Round 2 poll 2

Propaganda:

Bdubs (Hermitcraft / life series)

Horse

I'm not even mad that Glares didn't win the mob vote because BDubs is basically just a Glare in human form.

#but bdubs is 100% more creature coded#it’s because he leans into it#Jon is obsessed with staying human#while bdubs said ‘people call me a weird little thing so I made my eyes bigger and grew moss all over’#and I love that for him

Taylor Hebert (Worm (webserial by Wildbow))

Human girl who has superpowers that let her control bugs. She shunts all emotions off into her swarm of bugs, leaving her totally blank and stoic. She outsources sensory-input to her bugs, so she never looks or reacts to anything. In a fight, she reacts to opponents there is no possible way she could see, because she sensed them with her bugs. Overall has virtually no facial tells and moves in a way that makes her seem like she isn't a person. very creature <3 she is just a bug girl

shes such a FREAK. shes completely human (tho with an eldritch alien creature extradimensionally attached to her mind) but God does she not act like it sometimes. she has the superpower to control bugs and uses it to become the worlds most terrifying hero slash villain slash warlord slash apocalyptic threat. she has her bugs crawling all over her all the time. she uses a swarm of flies to scout out areas and then leaves flies in everybodys hair so she can keep track of where they are. she practiced having her bugs make noises until she figured out how to combine their noises into human speech so now she can talk through her swarm. she makes decoys of herself out of large pillars of bugs. once she was concussed and in the hospital and subconsciously calling her bugs to her so she was just covered in insects while the doctor tried to help her. then there was ANOTHER time she was hospitalized and got bored so she made a bunch of bugs so a little dance on her chest. whenever she's in costume and talking she has her bugs make noises to distort her voice and make her sound more scary and she doesnt even realize shes doing it anymore. she surrounds herself in a swarm to disorient her enemies. she doesn't even notice when her hair covers her eyes or anything like that because shes scouting out the area using her bugs so she doesnt have to see. she once used a tide of bugs to clean herself off and dust off her dress after having sex.

#she views herself as more of a swarm of bugs with a girl-shaped computer to control them than a girl herself#her body is just an extension of her bugs which is large and inconvenient but ultimately part of the weapon

#taylor “dissociates into bugs” hebert#taylor “keeps bugs in her hair” hebert#taylor “choke them with bugs” hebert#taylor “no one could ever love me” hebert#taylor “violence is always the answer” hebert

[most-creature-vibe-tournament]

Round 3 poll 1

Propaganda:

Michael Afton (FNAF)

Urple

Michael is literally a rotting zombie that doesn’t feast on brains, and was filled with wires at some point 💀

Taylor Hebert (Worm (webserial by Wildbow))

Human girl who has superpowers that let her control bugs. She shunts all emotions off into her swarm of bugs, leaving her totally blank and stoic. She outsources sensory-input to her bugs, so she never looks or reacts to anything. In a fight, she reacts to opponents there is no possible way she could see, because she sensed them with her bugs. Overall has virtually no facial tells and moves in a way that makes her seem like she isn't a person. very creature <3 she is just a bug girl

shes such a FREAK. shes completely human (tho with an eldritch alien creature extradimensionally attached to her mind) but God does she not act like it sometimes. she has the superpower to control bugs and uses it to become the worlds most terrifying hero slash villain slash warlord slash apocalyptic threat. she has her bugs crawling all over her all the time. she uses a swarm of flies to scout out areas and then leaves flies in everybodys hair so she can keep track of where they are. she practiced having her bugs make noises until she figured out how to combine their noises into human speech so now she can talk through her swarm. she makes decoys of herself out of large pillars of bugs. once she was concussed and in the hospital and subconsciously calling her bugs to her so she was just covered in insects while the doctor tried to help her. then there was ANOTHER time she was hospitalized and got bored so she made a bunch of bugs so a little dance on her chest. whenever she's in costume and talking she has her bugs make noises to distort her voice and make her sound more scary and she doesnt even realize shes doing it anymore. she surrounds herself in a swarm to disorient her enemies. she doesn't even notice when her hair covers her eyes or anything like that because shes scouting out the area using her bugs so she doesnt have to see. she once used a tide of bugs to clean herself off and dust off her dress after having sex.

#she views herself as more of a swarm of bugs with a girl-shaped computer to control them than a girl herself#her body is just an extension of her bugs which is large and inconvenient but ultimately part of the weapon

#taylor “dissociates into bugs” hebert#taylor “keeps bugs in her hair” hebert#taylor “choke them with bugs” hebert#taylor “no one could ever love me” hebert#taylor “violence is always the answer” hebert

#normally i would want a worm character to win#but#bdubs is a strange little man. he's unusual.#Taylor's just got the 'tism.

she literally is a walking superorganism comprised of one human and a lot more bugs to the point where she frequently moves her head as if she can see through walls (with her bugs, she can), talks through her bugs, has been described like a corpse whose ghost is living on in her swarm, keeps functioning thru her bugs even when her human body is out for the count, et cetera. no disrespect intended but genuinely what in the world are you talking about. She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs. And she thinks it's normal. Because the bugs are part of her. Is this thing on. I reiterate that she literally requires an emotional support cloak of bugs. She is so dissociated from being an actual person that she treats her human body like an inconvenience and her bugs like the primary operators. Is This Thing On.

#now i told myself i wouldnt comment anything on the rb... but#“She cleans her pussy off with bugs after fucking. Her pussy. With bugs.” CHAT IS THAT FUCKIN REAL??? IS THAT CANON???#cause if thats just a hc thats wild and i dont know if its better or worse if its canon#propaganda

this is indeed canon! there is a scene where, after fucking her boyfriend in an abandoned building, she stands up and cleans dust/etc off her naked ass body by having her bugs run across her and clean her, which presumably translates to "they are eating the dirt/sweat/etc off her." her boyfriend smiles affectionately at this, because he also has something wrong with him. she also does things like use bugs and spider silk to deliver her toothbrush straight to her hand in the morning while monologuing about "checking in on her hive" (her hive is the people in her villain territory.) she is a walking panopticon. her friends sometimes talk to bugs under the assumption it's taylor watching them and they're always right. at one point she confusedly asks someone if he's arachnophobic because he doesn't want her 10k black widow spiders to live in his apartment with him. she is basically like if a cockroach was a girl. I would never lie to you about Taylor Hebert, Unsung Champion of Polls About Weird Characters.

#taylor ofc#wait hey those are my tags as propaganda!! cool!#i stand by it#anyways yeah one of her main character traits when looked at by an outside perspective is just how WEIRD she is#everyone thinks she's a freak#even when you're reading her POV you sometimes have to stop and be like 'hey girl what the fuck'#one time she put bugs on her boyfriend's dick

She also turns into a bug monster at one point. Not all on her own, but she very much turns into a bug monster. Literally And Physically.

And she uses this to survive like a cockroach, she had Just Been Ripped In Fucking Half and thrown in the ocean to die and BOOM. bug monster transformation (with a little help) climb out and keep fighting, against an opponent so vast and powerful a human couldn't even comprehend his true form (not eldritch cognitohazard, just planet-sized + multidimensional), who could kill her in an instant. She's always surviving against the odds she's so cockroach coded (affectionate!) #@ pollrunner if you're still accepting propaganda please take the 'turns into a bug monster' as propaganda#the rest can be ignored or trimmed to 'she's always surviving she's so cockroach coded' but pleamse. the Time she Became A Bug

#she's such a freak!!!#she kills like it's the only thing she was built how to do#she kills people and things like it's chess and she's a grandmaster#as soon as the violence is off she's just a fucked up offputting little one woman panopticon