Wormsday Worm: Arc 1: Gestation + Interlude 1

[rachelmanija]

In which Taylor has a fun day at school, works on an art project with her classmates, and meets some people in the neighborhood.

This is the discussion post for Arc 1 of Worm, by Wildbow. Any and all comments welcome! Spoilers for events later than this arc must be encoded via rot13.com. Spoilers for this arc should not be encoded.

Want to jump in?

1. Read it online. If this makes your eyes bleed...

2. Email me at Rphoenix2 @ gmail and I'll send you an epub. If you do this, please pay Wildbow something via his PayPal or Patreon. This is not an offer with an expiration date - I'll send it along any time.

Spoilers!

For me Taylor's bullying is one of the darkest and most disturbing parts of the entire book, because it's so painfully realistic. I didn't ever eat lunch on the toilet, but the general bullying and refusal of the school to do anything about it is all too familiar. If I'd gotten Taylor's power I'd have been unable to resist immediately using bugs to torment my bullies. They'd have never had a bedbug-free night for the rest of their lives. Honestly Taylor shows an immense amount of restraint.

The cranberry juice getting dumped over her has got to be a deliberate nod to Carrie, given that Taylor actually references it.

Taylor opening her eyes to see bugs covering the bathroom is so cinematic and spooky. It reminds me of the crows on the jungle gym in The Birds.

I love how organized and efficient Taylor is at getting the spiders to weave her costume. She rotates the spiders on a weekly basis!

Taylor trying to block out the feedback from her bugs on the exact shape and size of Lung's junk as they bite it cracks me up. So does her exchange with Armsmaster where he says she doesn't look like a good guy (mean!) and she defensively replies that her costume came out edgier than intended.

The interludes are some of my favorite parts of the book. This one is a bit info-dumpy, but it's intriguing info. Also, ouch at Danny thinking Emma stopped spending time with Taylor because she was afraid of the bullies.

Comments

[mific]

Yes, the bullying was very hard to read and I really wanted Taylor to set a horde of biting insects on the bullies! Her power is such a difficult one for good PR though - almost everyone's a bit freaked out by bugs except the occasional entomologist, so the public are inevitably going to see her as one of the villains, I'm afraid, despite her good intentions. I was a bit baffled as to why Emma suddenly turned and became one of the worst bullies. I wonder if I'll find out why later in the book? Or maybe I'm just naive about the fickleness of teenage social hierarchies!
I loved the cosplay and the illustration on the ebook cover as I'd had difficulty envisioning her spider-woven costume until then. The cosplay goggles are super cool!

[rachelmanija]

We do find out what's up with Emma later, but teenage social hierarchies can be horribly fickle.

I LOVE the cosplay. That is exactly how Taylor must look in costume. Now imagine that accompanied by a swarm of bugs, and yeah, definitely a PR problem.

catching up

[yhlee]

1.3 quick note

lol i hit the bit about her armor "the most essential area - my face, chest, spine, stomach and major joints" and shrieked -but your neck- and -back of your head- oh well. i mean completely believable for a diy teen job, just.

sorry for typing bad rsi day

Re: catching up

[rachelmanija]

Maybe Taylor is secretly vain about her hair.

[afuna]

I'm pretty sure it was when she got the spiders to weave her costume that I knew I was hooked -- so specific, so clever, and also so *practical*. I wanted to know more about how she'd use her powers.

[rachelmanija]

Me too. She's so clever and organized. She not only gets the spiders to weave for her, but she figures out how to feed them!

[yhlee]

This is terrible and I know that superhero (or superhero deconstructions) WELL predate this but I kept thinking as I read this, This is like if someone wanted to write a deconstruction City of Heroes (defunct-ish [1] superhero MMORPG). Also now I want to rewatch Invincible S1 (animated superhero deconstruction - the protagonist is nominally a teenage boy, but it has FABULOUS treatment of female characters, including a female teen superhero, and in some sense one of the MOST important and excellent characters is the boy's middle-aged human-normal mom - anyway, shutting up about that now).

[1] IIRC there's some technically-illegal server (?) for the thing still running somewhere because some dev snuck out the codebase when they shut the game down. Great game though.

Honestly Taylor is doing pretty well for a teen - I mean I have quibbles about her preparation (I would have wanted WAY more initial intel going up against Lung, for starters, and the LACK OF NECK/BACK OF HEAD PROTECTION) but also I was a paranoid bastard as a teen so. Also, I don't know enough about power parameters so it could well be that back of head protection is actually irrelevant vs. whatever the heck is out their for assault powers, especially distance striking.

Tbh if she can get more DATA from bugs, and she can sneak on some fleas or lice or whatever, I would set up as a POWER BROKER selling intel rather than going toe-to-toe vs. people, but then I am also a giant coward so what do I know.

Lol, personally I would have tried to figure out if I could get a bug to infect Lung with LYME DISEASE or whatever, but again, lack of intel on his immune system whatsits. Among other things, her "but epi-pens so no one dies" is MUCH nicer than I would have been, but I don't believe in nonlethal damage if you're going to be fighting. Honestly you could do SO MUCH with bug powers if it extends to ANY bug.

It's terrible but the teen bullying felt very real, ditto the heel-face-turn of the former friend turned bully, but didn't bother me particularly.

I think Taylor is probably more-or-less reliable as a narrator for now, but the sensation/mentation feedback loop with the bugs suggests to me that we may see BUG MIND taking over in cranium rat (D&D) fashion lol. Which could be interesting!

I do not for one second trust either Lung (who seems like an asshole anyway), the "villain teenager kids" Taylor ran into (although IMO they suck at threat assessment too), OR Armsmaster (who is probably up to nothing good although I could be wrong). That said, this isn't a "pure" assessment based on the text because uh Worm does have a certain reputation.

Taylor's dad Daniel is totally useless and I think he sucks - "Oh my daughter is being bullied I'm just going to wait MONTHS for her to open up oh woe I am so powerless"?! Fuck you, buddy. He pisses me off.

[yhlee]

Also, Joe has heard of Worm but honestly this kind of thinky superhero deconstruction is the kind of thing he would enjoy; I may try to get him to read this with me so we can discuss it at home!

[rachelmanija]

Yes, that would be so fun!

[rachelmanija]

You're on to something really interesting regarding Taylor's potential as a power broker as opposed to direct fighting. I feel like after the extent to which she's been kicked around she really wants to bust some heads, but her power is equally or more suited to more indirect action.

Whether it's even possible to infect Lung with Lyme disease or some such is an interesting question. I think the real problem with that is if it worked, he'd get sick days or weeks later, not when you need him to.

I get that Taylor loves her father, but I do not, and for exactly the reasons you say.

[yhlee]

Oh yeah, I totally get wanting to bust heads and the visceral satisfaction thereof! But her power really seems to me like GOD MODE for recon/intelligence! I mean. Bugs are already EVERYWHERE. I realize she's limited to how fast they are or whatever, but if she can use them to get into places, check whether Rando #23 is wearing a bomb under their vest, check out what's in that crawlspace, map topography, etc?!

I can totally see why Taylor loves her father. He seems to care about her but he is completely ineffectual and, I mean. He's the grown-up/parent, it's on HIM to step up. So yeah.

[rachelmanija]

And nobody notices a stray bug or two!

[yhlee]

Right! And even once knowledge of her power DOES get out, she now has PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE mode where every time someone sees a flea or cockroach, they have to wonder...is it a SPY BUG or is it just a rando bug that isn't currently connected to her? Sort of like the thing in tournament chess (I am told) where even if you're NOT cheating during the bathroom breaks (by sneaking in a chess computer/consulting Stockfish somehow/etc.), by e.g. taking extra-long bathroom breaks you can PSYCH OUT your opponent into wondering if you ARE. The cheating is against regs but the psyching-out is NOT.

[mikeda]

And even if you don't see any insects there's always going to be some of them around somewhere in your vicinity.

[yhlee]

For yucks, she should go into pest control. Perfect cover story!!

[yhlee]

Also, one of the reasons I bounced from My Hero Academia was that the protagonist had this setup as "dude with NO superpowers but he diligently studies strengths/weaknesses/intel/tactics" and I was REALLY hoping for dude-with-no-"superpower" to shine as a coordinator or tactician or leader in that capacity and instead...he was given a superpower.

(The other reason was the extremely annoying levels of fanservice, including one character who IIRC seemed to EXIST to perv on the girl characters AUGH.)

[cahn]

I'm running late on reading this (catching up now) but THIS COMMENT YES

Tbh if she can get more DATA from bugs, and she can sneak on some fleas or lice or whatever, I would set up as a POWER BROKER selling intel rather than going toe-to-toe vs. people

This sounds awesome! Same with your Lyme disease idea. Really, there are so many possibilities with diseases... bubonic plague?

Taylor's dad Daniel is totally useless and I think he sucks

The part that jumped out at me was where he was all "sometimes I have a temper that's SO BAD that the outcome is like, people threatening lawsuits. Like that time that I totally lost it with my wife and then she was GONE," which, good for you! (Annette, that is, not Daniel. I suppose it would have been nice if she'd taken Taylor but I can imagine if she was afraid for her life that maybe she felt like she couldn't!)

[rachelmanija]

Oh right! I totally forgot about that thing with his temper. Seems like he's doing that all or nothing thing where he feels like if he's not being a ragemonster, the only other alternative is to be totally passive and ineffectual. DUDE. THERE IS AN IN BETWEEN.