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allwormdiet · 8 months ago

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Worm Cast Impressions (Arcs 1 to 7)

Easy money says some of these characters are about to fucking die so I'm pausing now to jot down my impressions of everybody who's managed to make an impact (and one or two characters whose lack of impact is kind of impressive)

Undersiders

Taylor Hebert: Character of all time. Simultaneously sanest and least sane person in the entire universe. Deeply concerned about keeping hold of her moral core, constantly innovating in ways to inflict violence on her enemies real and imagined. Has never fully finished thinking her actions through once in her entire life, people keep thinking she's the most cautious girl they know. Her first kiss was partly because she liked the boy and partly because she wanted to piss off her bully. I am cheering for her more often than not and I am so scared of what this story is going to do to her.

Brian Laborn: I want to study him in a lab. Team leader entirely by default, as near as I can tell. Hates using violence as a means of control, really good at using violence as a means of control, seems to default to using violence as a means of control when he's upset. I don't think he's normal about women. Desperately trying to be so so so boring, thinks he's perfectly rational even though he is just as unhinged as his teammates, I suspect that he has built a mental prison with twenty layers of protection around all thoughts that would suggest he is anything other than Normal and Strong and Reliable. Maybe turned on by efficient displays of violence?

Lisa Wilbourn: She is so charming and I am so scared of what's actually going on in her head. I think Taylor's best friend but definitely her biggest enabler. Stop lying and let me know what is going on in your head, I know more about Alec and Rachel than I know about you. Concerned that she's only nominally concerned about Coil being a heinous fucker. Desperately hoping the air can be cleared so I stop worrying about whether she's going to destroy Taylor or something. She has to know Taylor is a wannabe hero.

Alec: The fact that he's really only done one thing that I consider morally in the wrong is kind of incredible when looking at the fact that he's a recovering sex cult enforcer who started living something approaching a normal human life as a homeless preteen. He's had three years to jury rig a sense of humanity and morality mostly on his own and the end result is a selfish lazy jerk, and yet the fact that this is what he's managed to come up with on his own is, without sarcasm, worthy of a fucking prize. He's actually really good at this all things considered. Actually a little bummed that he didn't oppose Coil for the whole Dinah creepfest.

Rachel Lindt: Rachel Lindt is maybe the best character so far. Autistic dog girl who only tolerates human society so she can better feed and care for her animals. I'd say something like "I'd kill for her" but there's no way I could do that any better than her dogs and she'd call me stupid. Only thing against her at this point is the slur usage, which is rough to deal with, but I suspect part of that is just being written in 2011.

Loved Ones

Danny Hebert: You sad bastard. Please survive long enough to reconcile with your daughter. I know he can't provide any material support for the problems his daughter has been dealing with, that the bullies are too well-protected and there's basically nothing that he can do about parahuman shit, but I wish she would allow him to be there for her. Maybe he'd be uncool about it, sure, but maybe not. Makes me sad to think about.

Aisha Laborn: This girl is in dire need of someone to have her back and also, like, pay attention to her; Brian is the closest one to actually doing it but I don't think his best efforts are enough. I know she's gonna be an Undersider in the future so hopefully I get to have a more thorough impression of her, and one that's not marred by the fucking Mercedes metaphor, Jesus Christ that was a rough passage to get through.

Protectorate

Armsmaster: I'd probably like him more if he wasn't so up his own ass about being in charge and earning glory. My suspicion is that he's basically a good guy with some bad habits that nobody can check him on, which has spiraled out of control. Might unironically consider a teenage criminal his nemesis, which is funny but not a great sign of his priorities.

Miss Militia: My prior complaints about her possibly inappropriate response to holding Regent hostage are entirely subsumed by the fact that the last twenty-six years of her life have been lived on terms set by the Protectorate. She was nearly devoured by the machinery of empire and now she's become a component of empire that feeds upon others, and she hasn't even realized it. She never had a goddamn chance.

Velocity: Nothing to really say about him, except there has to have been a way to design his costume so that a teenager with unaugmented strength couldn't take him out with a single blow to the testicles.

Assault and Battery: The name theming feels a bit weird (what, if they got a third would their name be Coercion?) but whatever. I like the idea of a duo with complementary powers, I guess, but there's not really much else here.

Dragon: On the one hand she's in charge of the Birdcage and is friends with Armsmaster, but on the other hand she clearly hates the Birdcage for what it's made her complicit in, and maybe Armsmaster is good to have as a friend. Jury's out, unlike on Canary.

Wards

Gallant: The best way I can think to describe this guy is "blandly nice." It's like if "inoffensive" could be a personality trait. Glory Girl could do better than him, probably, but to be fair she could also do a lot worse.

Clockblocker: I think he's the funny one? Or at least the deliberately unserious one, which is the same thing. The first character confirmed to have developed entomophobia as a result of Skitter, probably not the last. Stopped a bomb from destroying the East Coast which feels like it should get more attention.

Vista: World's most powerful thirteen-year-old. Who deployed her to stop that bomb and fight those Nazis. I want names.

Kid Win: No sense of proportion on this kid, my god. Shooting a laser cannon meant to deal with threats that are theoretically rated higher than Lung into a bank filled with hostages? He's lucky nobody died.

Shadow Stalker: What the actual fuck is going on with her. Who hunts other human beings with broadhead arrows? That's for making someone bleed to death. If she was doing it to the fucking Nazis then that'd be fine, but no, it's Grue and Taylor we've either seen or heard about her getting rough with. Either the Protectorate knows she's a maniac and is letting it rock until she gets herself caught, or else they don't realize what she's doing in which case someone is not doing their job.

Browbeat: Absolute nonentity, to the point it's almost distracting. The description of the bank fight suggests he lost to Regent, which I think means that Regent got close enough to a guy with super strength to knock him out with a taser and didn't get his block knocked off. No wonder the Protectorate wants to trade him out, dude's got nothing going on.

PRT

Director Piggot: I don't like the organization she works for, because the vibes beyond the city level feel rancid, but for Piggot I mostly just sympathize with her. She's trying to corral a bunch of teenagers and adults, who all have some kind of horrific trauma shaping them and also giving them powers that are baseline as dangerous as a fucking gun, into something resembling a fully effective government agency, with no signs of support from the other cities or the higher-ups despite the fact that the literal fucking Nazis have her heroes outnumbered and have apparently had it that way for decades. Let this woman take a vacation or something.

New Wave

Glory Girl: Absolute nerd who seems to love being a superhero, and also making Nazis ragdoll in her spare time. I'd love to end it there, but unfortunately she's got some bad habits; girl desperately needs to kill the cop in her brain and get her impulsiveness under control, the fact that she ragdolled the Nazi on accident and threatened to pull favors in the judicial system to send a first-time offender (and Tattletale) into the Birdcage don't reflect great on her ability to keep a lock on things in high-stress situations.

Panacea: Pathetic girl who is clearly sitting on a pressure cooker of issues. I know what those all are but I'm not going to comment on any of it until we're actually there. For now it's mostly just a pity thing.

Azn Bad Boys

Lung: I was harsh on his characterization at first but I'll admit with time and context I'm not nearly as quick about that. He definitely still sucks, the guy literally murders his lieutenant as a matter of bruised pride and making his life more convenient. Also still cannot shake the feeling that he was basically idling in Brockton Bay for most of his career with the kind of power he has on tap.

Bakuda: She's a monster, but that also kind of oversimplifies things. She's clever, arrogant, grandstanding, and gleefully violent, even as she has the capacity to admire the architecture that another Tinker has crafted and to treat Lung as something resembling a friend. I don't think there's a world where she triggers and is, like, a good person, but I think this was one of the worse lives she could have wound up living. Also, y'know, she's dead.

Empire Eighty-Eight

Kaiser: Rancid smug piece of Nazi shit. Stupid too btw, why are you bothering with street-level robberies and extortion when you own a fucking pharmaceutical corporation? Why are you fighting out in the streets and meeting with other Nazi capes when you could be acting through proxies and bankrolling far-right parahuman cells across the country? Like I'm glad he isn't smart enough to think like that but fuck me.

Purity: Like, actually for real dumb as a bag of hammers. Kaiser barely has to try to wrap her back around his finger and she divorced him; Tattletale barely has to try to get her to back down and she thinks Tattletale exposed her identity to the public. Truly nothing in that skull of hers.

Hookwolf: Nazi capes fuck off

Stormtiger: Nazi capes fuck off

Cricket: Nazi capes fuck off

Rune: Nazi capes fuck off

Night: Nazi capes fuck off

Fog: Nazi capes fuck off

Wait does Coil's gang genuinely not have a name

Coil: Everything about this guy just pisses me the fuck off honestly. He presents himself as some kind of lesser evil, a firm but gentle hand that can guide all facets of the city to a brighter future, but he doesn't have the intelligence or vision to back any of it up; he displays nothing but brute force manipulation tactics involving bribery and blackmail, he's tunnel-visioned and cruel to the point that it ruins his own long-term plans, and before I forget everything about his thing with Dinah gives me fucking hives and I want to beat his skull in with my bare hands. I hope Taylor gets to kill him. Oh, or maybe Dinah.

Nameless sniper: Actively cooler and more competent than Coil.

Travelers

Trickster: genuinely cannot trust a man wearing a top hat in the year 2011, not even as a bit

Sundancer: what the fuck went so wrong with your life that your power is The Fucking Sun

Faultline and Co.

Faultline: Ironically not a super strong read off of her in terms of personality. Seems generally pretty cool going off of how she interacts with and leads her team. Very funny that she has a rivalry with Tattletale.

Newter: Little worried that he's selling his body secretions as a drug to other teenagers but if a parahuman only has one red flag that's pretty good actually

Gregor the Snail: This dude rocks, actually, love the vibes he gives off. Shame that people hate him for being fat and a mutant.

Labyrinth: Would like to see more of her when she's back in reality, otherwise not much to go off of. Cool power.

Other Parahumans

Scion: Fucking creepy

Marquis: probably Panacea's dad, calling that shot.

Paige McAbee: Justice For Paige McAbee.

Dinah Alcott: not really a character yet so much as a particularly horrifying MacGuffin but Jesus Christ what an awful fate

Uber and Leet: Gamers should be more oppressed. Also they beat the shit out of sex workers on a livestream and aren't considered serious enough threats to be consigned to the Birdcage, which feels pretty bad.

Heartbreaker: Haven't even met this guy and he sounds fucking awful. Please god somebody take him down.

Normal Humans

Emma Barnes: I need to understand what's wrong with her. Something happened that gave her the temperament and skillset of a CIA torture technician before freshman year of high school and she turned that onto her best friend for reasons totally unbeknownst to us.

Sophia Hess: I don't know I feel that the one bully who does the most physical harm and acts the most aggressive is the black one. Pretty bad I think. She's also clearly got something going on in her head but tbh that feels like it's going to be more straightforward than whatever is wrong with Emma.

Madison Clements: I feel like she's just here so that Taylor could be bullied without overusing the other two. What's your stake in this? Why do you give a shit? Does it matter? Probably not.

Mr. Gladly: I hated every teacher I ever knew who acted like this and I hate him even more for being utterly useless in protecting a student from blatant harassment. Fuck off.

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