spydere

[spydere]

I noticed that a lot of people missed a small reference WB made about Jack Slash

So Jack Slash is obviously and purposely a Joker reference, meant to play into the fact that despite just being a homicidal clown, Joker is treated as a big bad player in the cape game (I personally find that incredibly dumb moment of him being so “crazy” that he is immune to Martian Manhunter mind powers to be the most memorable).

In Jack’s case, despite having a generally mid power (can project the edge of his blades as far as he can see), the fact that his Shard can boss other Shards around means that he’s always on top and cannot be defeated by Parahumans in a fight, so they need to use normal humans to defeat him.

The Joker and Jack Slash stuff is all well and good… until you remember there are 2 Jack Slashes.

Some of you might know what I mean, but for those who don’t, Eden’s/Contessa’s Interlude gave us an alternate timeline that shows us a heroic Jack Slash:

- Interlude 29 Worm

The Black Knight is Jack Slash, a member of the Wardens.

Jack Slash is a Dark Knight. A caped crusader with peak human skills that lets him hang with the big leagues.

He’s fucking Batman.

[spydere]

Still too strong.

Coil, if he would stop cosplaying a knock off Bond villain, could be an effective combat Thinker.

Aisha would still be great at espionage, all she has to do is be the fly on the wall.

Of course, neither of them are ever going to do those things, so it's a Skidmark situation. Not bad power, but the user refuses to use it's full potential.

I propose Coil not being allowed to choose which timeline he keeps, so that he can always see which would have been the better choice, but not actually being able to do anything with it.

Honestly, I don't know how to nerf Aisha so that her power couldn't be abused besides making it stop working at random times.

AU where everyone's powers are just kinda shit.

Taylor can control 1 bug at a time

Tattletales power gives her random trivia

Aisha is forgotten until she does anything mildly attention grabbing.

Coils timeline splits last a max of 3 seconds

Victoria has the strength of 1.0001 women, and can fly at the speed of a lethargic blimp.

They still all try be superheroes and supervillains.

People are just kinda humouring them at this point.

At least they help manage the weird water, fire and angel creatures that occasionally ruin the local playgrounds.

[spydere]

since dragon was part of the canadian government and couldn't break the law do you think she had to repeat everything she said in french

"Je suis désolé Bad Canary... Paige... tu vas être envoyé à la cage à oiseaux... ooh la la..."

[spydere]

God damnit have another half-baked cluster fic idea. Taylor gets shoved into the locker and something happens to immediately exact karmic retribution on the trio. Maybe someone from E88 has beef with Sophia and decides to go for her out of costume, maybe some unrelated cape violence trashes the school as collateral damage, I don't know, just something incredibly dangerous and traumatic happens that catches the trio up while Taylor is still in the locker, and you've got a brand new cluster - Taylor, Emma, Madison, but decidedly not Sophia, because she already got her powers. So, so many ways that the existing dynamic between the four of them could be flipped on its head.

[spydere]

Sometimes I wish I didn't introduce the Smash or Pass post to Tumblr. But my morbid fascination won out. On the whole, my sadistic side is actually happy to have caused such suffering.

The webseries Parahumans Online shall live on.

I would have put the "why do fanfics have heroes working w/ villains when they're meant to catch them?" one in quotes but i hit the character limit

i'm not including the pandering is pandering wog because that would just win obviously. No Write-In either because then it's gonna turn into a vicious fandom war about amy or something

one of these things is not like the others

Not included: Vacuum-Sealed Tattletale Fanart

Make sure to tell me what you think and why you think it!

links to each post below:

Yudkowsky Clinton Post (sans his slap fight with the we've got worm guy)

"She started retreatin and breedin every spider in the yard" (reblog of post, original post technically doesn't exist and is a dead link)

"rain is cis" WOG (picture of original post, which technically was a discord message instead of an actual post)

"why do fanfics have heroes working w/ villains when they're meant to catch them?"

Glory Girl Pinup (Only version available is on twitter)

Taylor Hebert From Parahumans Online Smash Or Pass

Vacuum-Sealed Tattletale Fanart (Dishonorable Mention)

WestOrEast AO3 Profile (since I'm not trying to try and figure out what WestOrEast's worst fanfic is)

Where Was Bossman Anyway?

How Would Contessa Cheat In An Arm Wrestling Contest?

Would Taylor Make A Good Mom?

[spydere]

siberian: gender dysphoria villain

cherish: gender dysphoria villain

bonesaw: gender dysphoria villain

murderrat: gender dysphoria villain

crawler: gender dysphoria villain

shatterbird: transgender queen she's living her best life

jack slash: doomed yaoi aftermath

[spydere]

civilian tom: yeah it was kinda weird but on the whole, not that bad.

vicky [gritting her teeth so hard they're cracking]: I see.

vicky, seeing someone at the function wearing a gold morning armband: so, powers?

civilian tom: oh, none. i just kinda got dragged into it as an extra pair of hands

vicky [visibly seething]: that's cool. that's so cool.

[spydere]

rest in piece eden, you would've made a great fujoshi

[spydere]

Maybe it's an influx of new readers because of the Behind the Bastards thing?

Why is 2/3rds of the wormblr tag one liveread

[spydere]

The thing to understand about Amy Dallon is that she's an incel. You'll make so many mistakes in trying to understand her character unless you start from this lens.

She has:

An abusive home life which encouraged emotional repression and resentment

An inability to change for the better, despite being socially and economically suited to do so (by virtue of being a parahuman)

Most importantly, a strong belief in the just-world hypthesis; in her mind, bad things only happen to unjust being, good things happen to good people, and doing good things regardless of intent/sincerity entitles you to a reward

These are all traits she has common with incels based on how they describe themselves and what they believe. There's this belief in the fandom that her sexually violent behavior came out of nowhere, but I posit that these character flaws, combined with Amy's knowledge that Victoria would never willingly reciprocate her feelings, provide the perfect setup for her to do what she did.

I don't think was an accidental writing decision either, like Taylor's attraction towards women. It really feels like Wildbow purposefully wrote Amy's downfall to parallel stories about "nice guys" who fly into meltdowns or become crazed stalkers after finding out that no, basic decency doesn't entitle the object of your affections to fuck you. Men who, despite real challenges, have the resources to become well-adjusted but refuse because they completely lack an internal locus of control. Just like them, Amy had resources outside of her abusive family in the form of the PRT, who despite their own issues would have moved heaven and Earth to make sure they didn't lose a valuable cape like her. Instead, she continued to hide her deteriorating mental health and continued to harbor feelings she knew wouldn't be reciprocated until she finally messed up like she'd always been meaning to:

"Do you know how many hours I’ve spent awake at night, wishing my powers would just go away, or that some circumstance would come up where I’d make some excusable mistake where they would eventually forgive me, but where I couldn’t visit the hospitals anymore?”

Another commonality with incels and "nice guys"; not wanting to actually get better, but waiting for a reason to let their worst impulses loose.

I also think this was the reason Amy's character drive Wildbow so crazy. Imagine, you write a character whose mental illness and entitlement cause her to rape and mutilate her sister, who has clear parallels to an incel's violent reaction to being rejected. The response by a not insignificant part of the fandom is accusations of bigotry, because they have invented a version of your character in their heads that has all of her identity markers but none of the characterization you wrote. Coincidentally, most of this part of the fandom hasn't read your work to completion, if at all. Some of them even blame the sister for being raped! This isn't helped by the fact that you are a bit homophobic, that you wrote your protagonist to be bisexual but didn't realize it, that you described the sexuality of one of your bisexual characters as "hedonist", that you inexplicably wrote a character who canonically looks butch, is obsessed with your female protagonist, but is somehow straight. Maybe you could have done some of that better, but the fact that your biggest detractors are fans of your incel rapist is confounding to say the least. Combine all this with the inkling suspicion that this discourse wouldn't exist if you had written Amy as a man...yeah, I kinda get why Wildbow went insane about her.

Now, I'm not writing this as some sort of callout for a fictional character. I love evil women and seeing Amy actually lean in to being an incel crashout would have been fun as hell. But I really hate this idea that Amy was a poor little meow meow whose character was assassinated by the author. The pieces are all there, you just understand this character less than Wildbow which is really saying something.

[spydere]

worm 2 isnt out yet

[spydere]

My favorite description of the events.

[spydere]

[spydere]

i do not care about the 80th fucking intratrans argument or america critique or a donation link SHOW ME WORM POSTS

[spydere]

uh oh!!

[spydere]

Probably not at the start of canon, but she did let it grow in the timeskip.

"Rachel was taller, I noted, browned by sun, the jacket I’d given her tied around her waist, a t-shirt and jeans, with calloused feet instead of shoes or boots. Her auburn hair, it seemed, hadn’t been cut in the two years since I’d seen her. Here and there, hair twisted up and out of the veritable mane of hair, no doubt where tangled bits had been cut away. Only a sliver of her face and one eye were really visible through the hair, a heavy brow, an eye that seemed lighter in contrast to the darkened skin."

-Scarab 25.6

Am I the only one who believes in long hair Rachel? Did I miss part of one of Wildbow's classic character descriptions? She's messy doggy, she should have a huge matted fuck of hair dude. I don't even like wolfspider like that, but imagine her and Taylor get literally tangled together when they kiss. That's amazing. You're all missing out.

[spydere]

i've been thinking about cauldron starbucks. legend ordering a pumpkin spice latte. alexandria wanting a medium black coffee and going into social engineering mind games to figure out whether to bend the knee and call it tall or to stand her ground and call it medium. eidolon ordering a plain black coffee and getting his order confused and recieving a pumpkin spice latte (he is allergic to all pumpkins, all spices, and every latte ever made). contessa seeing that the Path To A Caramel Mocha Frappucino was 453 steps long and noping the fuck out before the rest had the idea to visit. number man threatening to execute the barista because he asked for 4 chunks of ice and they gave him 7. doctor mother drinking a light roast and reminiscing on how it tastes like the placebo cauldron vials she had to taste test before she could start feeding them to eidolon