quantumripple

[quantumripple]

I have no clue what happened but ur so right bestie

this is why we can't have shit in this fandom

[quantumripple]

Amazing, incredible, I love it, and I adore it.

However in my heart of hearts I know that Taylor is going to just stare Lisa dead on with absolutely no reaction whatsoever.

But like, like that guy from the death note, the scrungly one. Like Lisa walks out the door and Taylor is just perched on the couch like some kind of fucked up kreature staring at her unblinkingly before asking the most insane “only makes sense if you’ve been following Taylor’s train of thought from inside her brain” question

Her only physical reaction is that the tips of her ears are like crimson and actually steaming (yes like a cartoon) (I’m choosing to believe that 6.3 was the first and only time Taylor correctly described her body and it’s the part about her ears steaming like a cartoon)

Smugbug in the morning <3 Taylor proceeds to then shove those absolutely platonic-not-at-all-gay-feelings into her swarm-

[quantumripple]

There’s only one solution for this.

Somebody… add a chilli. Let Taylor sort this one out.

the worm fandom subsists on recycling the same handful of posts every couple years, adding only little bits of variation each time they're reblogged like a perpetual stew.

[quantumripple]

There’s no hoop to high that Amy fans won’t jump through to explain why actually Amy really is just a tortured soul that didn’t mean to rape her sister (and seriously, it’s so telling that outside of mocking quotations you don’t call it that) and should have just been given a break smh

Maybe just pick a less rapey character to project onto?

Skill issue

LOOK I am ALWAYS in defense of Amy Dallon(Worm). Shut up. She's not a "rapist blorbo" she's not a "incest-loving degenerate" or whatever the fuck you assholes are calling her this week. She was a horrifically abused teenager, pushed to her breaking point by an incredible amount of pressure and torture, and when she lost control for ONE instant, at her literal lowest point, her greatest fears came true and she had no ability to cope with her truly abysmal self-image seeming to be completely correct and justified. Like, she literally spent a decade under an absurd about of stress because she was terrified that she was a monster. And then as soon as she did something monstrous, she lost everything she ever loved or cared about and saw no possible way for her to ever be happy again. No fucking shit she kept digging, what else could she do? Was this mentally unstable teenage girl going to take a step back and say "Well, things are bad, but I better do what I can to stop them from getting worse!" No!!! She was avoiding it! She thought she deserved the fucking death penalty! She tried to hold onto what she could for as long as possible, and then as soon as that was done she walked up to the police with a gun and said "If you don't put me in Forever Hell Jail I'm going to start killing!" And then they put her in Forever Hell Jail because Wildbow has weird opinions on crime and justice.

[quantumripple]

My ultimate litmus test when reading a worm fan fic is to ask “how likely is this Taylor to keep Dinah?”

Yes, this does mean that it’s theoretically possible to have a wormfic with a Taylor that’s 150% Taylor. I endeavour to bully the fandom until even more can join me as writers of 150% Taylors

posts i make when i understand a lot

[quantumripple]

Good, firm handshake that puts me at ease. Make that shaker 1 as well

Victoria, meeting with Doctor Yamada: She has a psychology degree and many years of experience. Easily a thinker 4, master 2

[quantumripple]

Taylor's musical taste is that she doesn't recognize or remember a single band Lisa knows or plays (or any band in general)

If you asked her what she likes she'd say classical (she doesn't know a single composer)

And her favorite song is "that one with the really interesting thingo" (it changes depending on which song Lisa last played with a more complex chord progression)

Alright I've been thinking more about Lisa's musical taste and I think I've settled on an answer I'm happy with.

She's the type who wears a Sister's of Mercy shirt alongside her denim skirt, but when you give her the aux cord, she starts up a playlist that's made up of Crane Wives, They Might be Giants, Mountain Goats, and Of Monsters and Men, amongst others. She totally does listen to alt-pop and stuff, but she's totally a sucker for folk music in general.

Also I think she didn't care much about Hozier right up until Taylor joined the Wards, and then Lisa listened to Take me to Church about 100 times in a week. Imp went on her road trip to kill heartbreaker cause she was sick of hearing folk music blasting out of Lisa's room at all hours of the night.

Anyway let me know if u disagree or have funny contributions.

[quantumripple]

Alright I've been thinking more about Lisa's musical taste and I think I've settled on an answer I'm happy with.

She's the type who wears a Sister's of Mercy shirt alongside her denim skirt, but when you give her the aux cord, she starts up a playlist that's made up of Crane Wives, They Might be Giants, Mountain Goats, and Of Monsters and Men, amongst others. She totally does listen to alt-pop and stuff, but she's totally a sucker for folk music in general.

Also I think she didn't care much about Hozier right up until Taylor joined the Wards, and then Lisa listened to Take me to Church about 100 times in a week. Imp went on her road trip to kill heartbreaker cause she was sick of hearing folk music blasting out of Lisa's room at all hours of the night.

Anyway let me know if u disagree or have funny contributions.

[quantumripple]

Don’t worry bestie you’re no more unhinged about this than me. Therefore you must be like super normal (just like me)

I really want to get into smugbug, but then I remember that this is basically Lisa’s most vulnerable scene with her

[quantumripple]

As always the solution is to simply write more Lisa

You know. This is gonna be controversial, but I think it needs to be said anyway:

It's okay to ship Lisa with people.

Now before you grab your pitchforks, I'd like to put my cards out on the table: I am ace/aro. I realized this partially as a result of exploring sexuality through writing Lisa Wilbourn. Some of the most touching moments in fan fiction have been people who were exploring Lisa's aromantacism and how that affects her relationships (Good People is an excellent fic for that, as is the Wake series by Stardust&Scotch). Writing Lisa as ace/aro is important and valuable, and I love everyone who does it. Even if they do it badly (everyone has to start somewhere, after all.)

(Worth mentioning that I'll be saying ace/aro, and I'm using that as short hand for ace and/or aro.)

But also.... ace/aro people can and do end up in relationships. Sex as an asexual person isn't something that they automatically hate, it's just... different. Aromantic people don't necessarily need to end up alone, just that a "romantic" relationship looks a lot different when one person doesn't have romantic feelings, so to speak. Exploring that is also valuable, in my opinion, and I adore reading stories about Lisa navigating relationships through her unique lens and perspective. Especially when it relates to my own perspectives.

Additionally, this is fan fiction, and people have different reads on the characters lol. If you got through worm and saw Lisa as demi-sexual, that's a fine reading! If you like Lisa as a repressed lesbian, that's also cool! If you think Lisa being straight might be fun to write, I'm all for that! Bisexual Lisa, pansexual, moronsexual, whatever you want, I think that's fine! Because this is fan fiction and people are allowed to mess around and have fun!

As long as Lisa feels like Lisa, I think it's fine to ship her however you want.

Now with that said, there are way to do it badly, and I've read most of those fics at this point, and I've just got to say that some people shouldn't have been allowed near a keyboard let alone in the worm fandom—

[quantumripple]

Cockroaches 28.3 is brilliantly and perfectly unhinged.

Lung: What is she thinking? I haven't seen her for years, but she's just as I remember her. Cold and inscrutable. Capable of violence at any moment. She wants me on this "team" of hers, but I'll need to stay on my toes just in case she still wants to try anything

Taylor: I wonder if he's still mad at me for rotting his junkular area? Nah he's probably madder that I totes one-upped him in the city domination game. Also wow look at Amy's Dad hubba hubba awoooooga. Looking respectfully, of course

[quantumripple]

I feel like every single time I come into contact with Worm I find a new Taylor (or Lisa or Rachel) word to add to my mental library. And every single time I'm reminded that I don't make her internal narrration dorky enough.

Anyways I pay tribute to this post with another Taylorword/phrase: Junkular area (worm 28.3, yes this is how she refers to rotting off Lung's bits)

arc 7: taylor you are such a little freak. never change

[quantumripple]

Yea this is incredibly misleading. I had a look at the source of this graph and it was classifying anti-isreal (the state) protests themselves as hate speech. As well as classifying calling what Israel is doing as genocide as hate speech as well.

There are definitely lefties that are antisemetic, and they should be called out harshly. But it does a disservice to capitulate to the narrative that "the left" is antisemetic.

Honestly, being unable to separate the state of Israel from judaism as a whole is literally an OG piece of antisemitism.

I get an iteration of this ask like once a month, and it's always some form of "why do you care so much about leftist antisemitism when neo nazis exist"

And there are two main reasons.

1. Antisemitism is still antisemitism regardless of who does it. The left isn't less harmful in their antisemitism simply because it's coming from the left.

2. I am a leftist myself and care deeply about the left. Ignoring the harm to jews it causes, it is genuinely scary seeing people on the left abandon leftist values for right wing rhetoric wrapped in a thin cover of leftism.

[quantumripple]

It’s so hard out there sometimes

Keep fighting the good fight o7

Okay so I was just gonna ignore it cause like, not my business, but this new worm contest Gaylor is hosting is absolutely killing me. I open Ao3 to look for new Lisa fics (a futile endeavor at the best of times) and I'm bombarded by incest porn, bug-rape trio revenge porn, and fucking nazi porn. Oh, and way too much of it is underage, of course, because nobody has ever heard of the concept of an "aged up AU".

"Oh the worm characters barely act like kids anyway—" THEN NOTHING WILL CHANGE WHEN YOU AGE THEM UP!

Also I'm counting Taylor/Dragon as age gap because I don't care if she's "technically" only eight, she's not human and clearly a similar age as Armsmaster. Also, even if her being eight is the hill you wanna die on, it's still age gap porn just worse now.

Anyway I think I glossed over the nazi fic a bit so let me elaborate, becuase it's Rune/Kid Win. EXCEPT! For some god forsaken reason, the author decided that wasn't problematic enough, so they made Kid Win a trans man. Nazi/Trans man! That's the fucking ship! And the fic has Rune using slurs!

I'm so fucking tired of this.

[quantumripple]

I love that Taylors “first resort” solution to literally every problem is kissing.

Saw your bully on the bus? Kiss hunky friend to make her jealous

Plague? Smooch your besties

Need a way to keep people out of your way while you’re infiltrating the Illuminati? That’s right, kissing again

….. if you think about it her solution for Scion was “make him think he’s getting a smooch from his long lost love then take the rug out.”

[quantumripple]

So true bestie. You tell ‘em 😤

Top Seven Myths About the Locker (Number 4 Will Surprise You)

The Locker Incident, as it’s frequently capitalized, is a staple of worm fan fic for reasons I still don’t understand. In canon Worm, Wildbow didn’t write the locker scene. Taylor gave a brief summary of it while discussing her trigger event, but otherwise it remains in the background of the story.

This has widely been considered a mistake by fans who don’t know what they want.

Harkening back to the first comments on the first chapters of Worm, people have been clamoring for locker scenes. Phrases such as “start at the beginning” and “you have to show their origin story” are bandied about, but at the end of the day, it’s a mystery as to why people want so desperately to read about Taylor being shoved into a locker for the Nth time.

Maybe they just like bullying Taylor? Trio-core if true.

Regardless, this trend has resulted in a variety of fascinating bits of folklore and fanon, and I figured it would be fun to run through a few of them.

DISCLAIMER: the links posted are primarily to medical sites discussing and detailing diseases and wound treatment, and as such some of them have gross pictures of infected wounds. Click with caution.

Also, I’m not a doctor. Don’t take this as medical advice, don’t take this as an expert opinion. This is me reading stuff on the internet from medical journals and blogs.

1. Locked in all day/over the weekend

Taylor was in the locker for one period (about an hour and a half), approximately, maybe less, given that kids left their classrooms to watch her get taken out. Likely no more than an hour tops. This is a long time, and absolutely miserable, but... it’s not all day. It’s not over the weekend.

2. This Attempt On My Life Has Left Me Scarred And Deformed

Frequently, Taylor is described as severely injured due to the locker. Cuts, nerve damage, infections, and so on. Sometimes even death. Now, Taylor doesn’t have an auto-immune disease. She doesn’t have a heart condition. We know this, because it would have come up during one of the many times she was active or exposed to gunk. Also, Panacea literally listed off Taylor’s history of injuries during Leviathan, and not only were the effects of the locker not mentioned, but no major health complications were listed.

The contents of the locker are, as described, used pads and tampons. That’s it. That’s all there was. She also threw up in it. No nails, or needles, or even pencils or the like. Could she have gotten a cut from being shoved in? Sure. Could she have scraped herself enough for an infection? I guess, why not. But like. Those are minor injuries, and as mentioned before, she wasn’t in for that long. The locker wasn’t life-threatening nor was it a murder attempt. The bullies didn’t try to kill her. They just wanted to humiliate her.

Also, she wasn’t eaten alive by bugs. That’s insane. Very few bugs eat people, and even less eat people alive. In fact, Taylor never once mentions bugs during her description of the locker. Is it reasonable to assume that there were bugs in there? Yeah, sure, that makes sense. But Taylor didn’t mention them, because they don’t matter.

Also, before anyone brings up this quote:

> Madison opened the locker, and the rancid smell of it wafted around me. I would have gagged if I could breathe. 

Sophia shoved me inside, planting one foot between my shoulder blades as she hauled back on the rope. My unbroken fingers scrabbled for purchase, found only trash and cotton that tore when I tried to grab it. Bugs bit at my flesh and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

This is from Scourge 19.1, and it’s literally an Echidna induced fever dream, and that scene also includes Taylor being brutally beaten by Madison and Emma, which isn’t canon, otherwise we would have heard about it at some point when the bullying was story relevant.

Further... 

3. Psych Ward not Emergency Room

She was taken to the hospital after she was released, due to a mental breakdown caused by her new bug senses. She attacked the janitor in a panic, because she was feeling all the bug senses and had no idea what they were. The ambulance came, and took her to the psych ward. Not the emergency room, the psych ward. Because any injuries she had were minor. Additionally, she spent about a week in the psych ward under observation. If she had a more serious injury or illness, they would have seen it in time to stop it.

Because...

4. Sepsis/Toxic Shock Syndrome, Because Tampons Are Icky and Gross.

One of the more common bits of fanon is that Taylor got life threatening illnesses from the locker. Sepsis and Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), specifically. Why? Because there were gross tampons in the locker, and if you leave a tampon in for a long time, it can cause an infection that can lead to sepsis. Now, let’s talk about how infections work, because clearly nobody understands this.

Let’s start with TSS. It’s true that if you leave a tampon in for too long, you’re at risk of TSS. But also, if you leave anything in the vagina too long, you’re at risk of TSS. The specific cause in this case is the bacteria entering the uterus via the cervix. I can already hear the screams of “it can enter the bloodstream through open wounds!” Yes this is true, one of the three bacteria known to cause TSS could do that.

As an aside, TSS only affects about 1 in 100,000 people. It is rare. The majority of people fight off the infection long before it reaches the point of TSS, and typically the ones who don’t are people who are already at risk in some way. (Elderly, young children, immunocompromised individuals, and so on.)

Now, let’s talk about infections and incubation periods. Staphylococcus aureus (staph) is the bacteria most likely to cause sepsis, and it’s the one I’ll be using for this example because it’s specifically noted to grow on used tampons, which is the thing everyone is obsessed with regarding the locker. Anyway, the incubation period is how long it takes for the infection to set in properly, which for this particular bacteria, is 4-10 days. 4-10 days, not less than an hour. Even the quicker bacterial infections take about 4 hours on the low end, and as established, she was in the locker for less than an hour, and picked up by an ambulance right away.

For those unaware, if you clean the wounds right away, the chance of infection goes down by a lot. In this case, within an hour or two counts as “right away”, given the incubation periods.

Regardless, we’re looking at 4 days on the low end for the infection to set in... and from there, septic shock can set in as little as 12 to 24 hours from that point. 

Four and a half days. Not one whole hour.

Additionally, the treatment for sepsis—and infections in general? Antibiotics. Once more, she’s in the hospital for a week. If she has an infection, they’ll just give her antibiotics.

So please stop going on about septic shock already.

5. Taylor Triggered Because of the Gross Bugs

Taylor triggered not because of the contents of her locker, nor because the experience was That Bad, but rather because nobody helped her.

"All I could think was that someone had been willing to get their hands that dirty to fuck with me, but of all the students that had seen me get shoved in the locker, nobody was getting a janitor or teacher to let me out."

This is from Shell 4.3 when she’s discussing her trigger event. A bunch of people saw, and none of them told a teacher or tried to help. According to a reddit post from WB, enough time passed before her trigger for her to realize that the people who saw her didn’t get help. That is what caused her trigger. Not the bugs, not the tampons, not the enclosed space.

6. Bioterrorism

It wasn’t bioterrorism.

... do I really have to elaborate on this?

I’m going to start with a definition, because the fact that people even call the locker bioterrorism means that we need one. “Bioterrorism involves the deliberate release of bioweapons to cause death or disease in humans, animals, or plants. Biological weapons may be developed or used as part of a government policy in biological warfare or by terrorist groups or criminals. Biological weapons can initiate large-scale epidemics with an unparalleled lethality, and nation-states and terrorist groups have used dangerous and destructive Biological weapons in the past.” - from an article on the National Library of Medicine website.

Do you want me to define “bioweapon” too? I’ll give you a hint, used tampons don’t count. Bullying isn’t terrorism either, you wanna know why? Because it’s not politically or ideologically motivated. Bakuda threatening to blow up her school isn’t even an act of terrorism, because there was no grand agenda, no political message, and no reason for the terror. Although, Bakuda bombing the city would count as terrorism, so I’m comfortable using that as a benchmark. Or we could use a school shooting as a benchmark, because a lot of those are politically motivated and could reasonably be counted as acts of terrorism.

So, is one (1) student being shoved in a locker an act of terrorism?

It’s a rhetorical question, you don’t have to answer.

Now, with that insanity aside, let’s talk about biohazards, because the contents of the locker being a biohazard are the reason it gets called bioterrorism. I’m not going to give a formal definition for this, but basically, a biohazard is biological material that could be hazardous to someone’s health. The US classifies biohazards across four levels, with differing safety precautions needed depending on the severity. Class 4 biohazards are typically fatal, while Class 1 biohazards are basically just normal illnesses. Note that biohazards are defined by the illnesses, not by the type of substance.

Human blood and waste products are a biohazard. This is a fact, and I have no interest in debating it. The risks involved with contacting human blood are contracting blood-borne illnesses, specifically by getting the blood in an open wound, nasal cavity, or swallowing it. The precautions for dealing with blood are gloves and face masks, and then you have to wash your hands afterward. At worst, blood could be classified as a Class 2 biohazard, mainly because there’s a risk of HIV or the like... if the blood already has HIV. 

And only if it gets into the bloodstream.

Is it gross? Yes. Could Taylor get sick? Yes, and the hospital probably ran a blood panel while they had her there, because they always run blood panels, so if she picked something up they would see it.

Does that make this bioterrorism? Fuck no.

Also, a biohazard isn’t actually a thing to panic over; not inherently. You wanna know what else is a biohazard? Spit. Urine. Mucus. Stinging insects. Decomposing plant matter. Basically anything biological that could carry a disease. Additional link on biohazards and safety precautions.

7. The Locker is Unrealistic

The locker is literally based on a true story.

“I did volunteer work with someone I'll call S. One of the most horrific incidents of bullying I've come across happened to her. A trash can was emptied into her locker before the Christmas break. Janitors cleaned the school but even with the (I have to assume) smell they didn't go into the lockers themselves. She came back to school and got forced into the locker. She threw up on herself, gouged her head on the hook built into the locker, came out, got sent home, her parents tried to kick up a fuss, nothing happened, she stopped telling them about incidents because all it was doing was making them unhappy and 'multiplying the misery'.” - Wildbow on Reddit

Is it bad? Yes. Is it unrealistic? No. If your experiences in school don’t reflect this level of bullying, then I’m very happy for you. That doesn’t mean your experiences are universal.

In conclusion

The locker was a horrific act of bullying, and it caused Taylor to trigger. It was her lowest point, because she felt isolated, alone, and like nobody cared about her. The contents are a biohazard, but that’s not nearly as serious as it sounds. She ended up in the hospital’s psych ward due to her power’s extra-sensory components, but wasn’t injured enough to need a stay in the ER—and certainly wasn’t in serious enough condition to pull Panacea out of school to heal her. She may have gotten a minor illness, but was never at serious risk of sepsis. Taylor was in the locker for about an hour, give or take fifteen minutes.

It was not bioterrorism. It was not a murder attempt. She wasn’t in there for the whole school day, or a weekend, or all of winter break.

Oh also, you don’t actually have to write a trigger event. You can skip it like canon did. You can just start later when things start happening. It’s okay. Nobody will be mad.

[quantumripple]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63674848/chapters/163225021

Pack Bond: The Undersiders biker AU that no one asked for but which, frankly, I'm astonished nobody has made yet.

Apparently Tumblr is the vanguard of Wolfspider or something? On this one (1) day I will feed y'all some good dog food