“Nobody likes her. Nobody wants her here,” Julia said.
“Such a loser. She didn’t even turn in the major project for art, last Friday,” Sophia responded.
“If she’s not going to try, then why is she even coming to school?”
Despite the way the conversation sounded, they were talking to me. They were just pretending to talk to one another. It was both calculating in how they were managing plausible deniability while at the same time they were acting totally juvenile by pretending I wasn’t there. A blend of immaturity mixed with craftiness in a way only high schoolers could manage. I would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it, if it hadn’t been at my expense.
The moment I had left the classroom, Emma, Madison and Sophia had crowded me into a corner, with another six girls backing them up. I was unable to squeeze past them without getting pushed or elbowed back, so I couldn’t do much more than lean against the window, listening while eight of the girls were rattling off an endless series of taunts and jibes. Before one girl was even finished, another started up. All the while, Emma stayed back and stayed quiet, the slightest of smiles on her face. I couldn’t meet the eyes of any of the other girls without them barking a fresh torrent of insults directly to my face, so I just glared at Emma.
“Ugliest girl in our grade.”
They were barely thinking about what they were saying and a lot of the insults were wildly off the mark or contradictory. One would say I was a slut, for example, then another might say a guy would puke before he touched me. The point wasn’t being witty, being smart or being on target. It was more about delivering the feeling behind the words over and over, hammering it in. If I’d had just a moment to butt in, maybe I could have come up with retorts. If I could just kill their momentum, they probably wouldn’t get back into the easy rhythm again. That said, I couldn’t find the words, and there weren’t any openings in the conversation where I wouldn’t just be talked over.
While this particular tactic was new to me, I’d been putting up with stuff like this for a year and a half, now. At a certain point, I’d come to the conclusion that it was easier to sit back and take it, when it came to most things. They wanted me to fight back, because everything was stacked in their favor. If I stood up for myself and they still ‘won’, then it only served to feed their egos. If I came out ahead in some way, then they got more persistent and mean for the next time. So for much the same reason I hadn’t fought Madison for the homework she had taken from me, I just leaned against the wall next to the window and waited for them to get bored with their game or get hungry enough to leave and go have their lunches.
“What does she use to wash her face? A Brillo pad?”
“She should! She’d look better!”
“Never talks to anybody. Maybe she knows she sounds like a retard and keeps her mouth shut.”
“No, she’s not that smart.”
No more than three feet behind Emma, I could see Mr. Gladly leaving his classroom. The tirade didn’t stop as I watched him tuck a stack of folders under one arm, find his keys and lock the door.
“If I were her, I’d kill myself,” one of the girls announced.
Mr. Gladly turned to look me in the eyes.
“So glad we don’t have gym with her. Can you imagine seeing her in the locker room? Gag me with a spoon.”
I don’t know what expression I had on my face, but I know I didn’t look happy. No less than five minutes ago, Mr. Gladly had been trying to convince me to go with him to the office and tell the principal about the bullying. I watched him as he gave me a sad look, shifted the file folders to his free hand and then walked away.
I was stunned. I just couldn’t wrap my head around how he could just ignore this. When he had been trying to help me, had he just been covering his own ass, doing what was required of him in the face of a situation he couldn’t ignore? Had he just given up on me? After trying to help, in his own completely ineffective way, after I turned his offer for help down twice, he just decided I just wasn’t worth the effort?
“You should have seen her group fail in class just now. It was painful to watch.”
I clenched my fist, then forced myself to relax it. If we were all guys, this scenario would be totally different. I was in the best shape of my life. I could have swung a few punches from the very start, caused a bloody nose or two, maybe. I know I would have lost the fight in the end, getting shoved to the ground by force of numbers and kicked while I was down, but things would have ended there, instead of dragging on like they were here. I’d hurt physically for days afterwards, but I’d at least have had the satisfaction of knowing some of the others were hurting too, and I wouldn’t have to sit through this barrage of insults. If there was enough damage done, the school would have to take notice, and they wouldn’t be able to ignore the circumstances of a one-against-nine fight. Violence gets attention.
But things didn’t work that way here. Girls played dirty. If I decked Emma, she would run to the office with some fabricated story, her friends backing up her version of events. For most, ratting to the faculty was social suicide, but Emma was more or less top dog. If she went to the principal, people would only take things more seriously. By the time I got back to school, they would have spread the story through the grapevine in a way that made me look like a total psycho. Things would get worse. Emma would be seen as the victim and girls who had previously ignored the bullying would join in on Emma’s behalf.
“And she smells,” one girl said, lamely.
“Like expired grape and orange juice,” Madison cut in with a little laugh. Again, bringing up the juice? I suspected that one had been her idea.
It seemed like they were running out of steam. I figured it was just a minute or two before they got bored and walked away.
It seemed Emma got the same impression, because she stepped forward. The group parted to give her room.
“What’s the matter, Taylor?” Emma said, “You look upset.”
Her words didn’t seem to fit the situation. I had maintained my composure for however long they had been at it. What I’d been feeling was more a mixture of frustration and boredom than anything else. I opened my mouth to say something. A graceless “Fuck you” would have sufficed.
“So upset you’re going to cry yourself to sleep for a straight week?” she asked.
My words died in my throat as I processed her words.
Almost a year before we had started high school, I had been at her house, the both of us eating breakfast and playing music way too loud. Emma’s older sister had come downstairs with the phone. We’d turned down the music, and my dad had been on the other end, waiting to tell me in a broken voice that my mom had died in a car accident.
Emma’s sister had given me a ride to my place, and I bawled the entire way there. I remember Emma crying too, out of sympathy, maybe. It could have been the fact that she thought my mom was the coolest adult in the world. Or perhaps it was because we really were best friends and she had no idea how to help me.
I didn’t want to think about the month that had followed, but fragments came to mind without my asking. I could remember overhearing my dad berating my mother’s body, because she’d been texting while driving, and she was the only one to blame. At one point, I barely ate for five straight days, because my dad was such a wreck that I wasn’t on his radar. I’d eventually turned to Emma for help, asking to eat at her place for a few days. I think Emma’s mom figured things out, and gave my dad a talking to, because he started pulling things together. We’d established our routine, so we wouldn’t fall apart as a family again.
It was a month after my mom had died that Emma and I had found ourselves sitting on the bridge of a kid’s play structure in the park, our rear ends cold from the damp wood, sipping coffee we’d bought from the Donut Hole. We didn’t have anything to do, so we had just been walking around and talking about whatever. Our wandering had taken us to the playground, and we were resting our heels.
“You know, I admire you,” she had said, abruptly.
“Why?” I had responded, completely mystified about the fact that someone gorgeous and amazing and popular like her could find something to admire in me.
“You’re so resilient. After your mom died, you were totally in pieces, but you’re so together after a month. I couldn’t do that.”
I could remember my admission, “I’m not resilient. I can hold it together during the day, but I’ve cried myself to sleep for a straight week.”
That had been enough to open the floodgates, right there. She gave me her shoulder to cry on, and our coffee was cold before I was done.
Now, as I gaped at Emma, wordless, her smile widened. She remembered what I had said, then. She knew the memories it would evoke. At some point, that recollection had crossed her mind, and she had decided to weaponize it. She’d been waiting to drop it on me.
Fuck me, it worked. I felt the trail of a tear on my cheek. My power roared at the edges of my consciousness, buzzing, pressuring me. I suppressed it.
“She is! She’s crying!” Madison laughed.
Angry at myself, I rubbed my hand over my cheek to brush the tear away. More were already welling up, ready to take its place.
“It’s like you have a superpower, Emma!” one of the girls tittered.
I had taken off my backpack so I could lean against the wall. I reached to pick it up, but before I could, a foot hooked through the strap and dragged it away from me. I looked up and saw the owner of the foot – dark skinned, willowy Sophia – smirking at me.
“Oh em gee! What’s she doing?” one of the girls said.
Sophia was leaning against the wall, one foot casually resting on top of my backpack. I didn’t think it was worth fighting her over, if it gave her an opportunity to continue her game of keep-away. I left the bag where it was and shoved my way through the gathered girls, bumping an onlooker with my shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. I ran into the stairwell and out the doors on the ground floor.
I fled. I didn’t check, but chances were they were watching from the window at the end of the hallway. It didn’t really matter. The fact that I had just promised to pay thirty five bucks of my own money for a World Issues textbook to replace the one that had been soaked with grape juice wasn’t my top concern. Even if it was pretty much all the money I had left after buying the pieces for my costume. My art midterm was in my bag as well, newly repaired. I knew I wouldn’t get any of it back in one piece, if at all.
No, my primary concern was getting out of there. I wasn’t going to break the promise I had made to myself. No using powers on them. That was the line I wasn’t crossing. Even if I did something utterly innocuous, like give them all lice, I didn’t trust myself to stop there. I didn’t trust myself to keep from offering blatant hints that I had powers or spoiling my secret identity just to see the looks on their faces when they realized the girl they had been tormenting was a bona-fide superhero. It was something I couldn’t help but daydream about, but I knew the long term ramifications would spoil that.
Perhaps most important, I rationalized, was keeping the two worlds separate. What use was escapism, if the world I was escaping to was muddled with the people and things I was trying to avoid?
Before the thought of going back to school had even crossed my mind, I found myself wondering what I was going to do to fill my afternoon.
Worm 
Yuck. You keep reminding me of why I hate high school.
This is not and was never the bullying process of a high school. I should know, I am in High School.
This is a compilation of what a person thinks happens in a HIgh School whilst the reality is very different.
This is the reality for many bullied individuals, for myself, and for individuals I’ve volunteered with.
it was for me and that was long before highschool. i remember being cornered and circled by a group of kids. they would shout insults at me and push me, then when I wouldl whip around to that person someone else’d push me and if i tried to leave the circle they cut me off and pushed me back in. if i got angry enough to try to rush someone that person would run and the circle would follow. if i actually ever did anything i’d be the one in trouble. matter of fact after escaping the circle, angry beyond belief and tears streaking down my face i threw a rock on the ground really hard then got called because i was in trouble for supposedly throwing a rock at a girl. i explained what happened but i was still in the wrong and they were never punished for some reason. what you think happens is only light stuff and just being a jerk. bullying gets really bad. try having your entire grade hate you and no one within 3 grades higher or lower than you having any respect for you at all.
When you look back at your time in school you’ll become aware of how this is the reality for some of your classmates and for a wide variety of students around the globe.
Being dismissive doesn’t solve the problem or make it untrue. Of course Worm is work of fiction so some elements are dramatized for effect.
And since you’re in high school, you’re young. I won’t go as far to say that your opinion is dogshit, but it’s close.
That’s completely wrong. As someone who was bullied consistently for years, I can say that school doesn’t do shit against bullies, even over several years and reports.
I’m not one to say other people’s opinions are trash…but this is a matter of fact or not fact. You are straight up wrong, no debate.
You do realize that there are over 26,000 public high schools in America? And you do realize that your high school, which represents ONE of the 26,000, 0.000004% of high schools, is not representative of all high schools in America?
Look, I came from a high school that was not at all the one portrayed in this story. It was a good high school with equally good people, save the occasional douchebag. Bullying, as far as I’m concerned, was not an active thing (it was likely a passive-aggressive type of social exclusion rather than bullying). But I, too, am from ONE of the 26,000 high schools in America. Read the news. Bullying is not fake. People commit suicide over bullying. If you think the validity of the bullying depicted in this chapter is negated by the fact that this is a work of fiction, then God help the fragile bubble you live in.
Of course, you might see this as just a disembodied voice on the Internet. Fine by me.
>>I hauled on my backpack again, trying to free it from beneath Sophia’s foot. When it didn’t budge, I left it where it was.
I don’t like this scene. How can she be that impotent? And I think the leverage is wrong.
All right, fair enough. Tweaked the scene some.
I think I like Taylor’s casual acceptance of her impotence better than the futile struggles she apparently originally engaged in. It…I don’t know, it seems to fit better with her past characterization, and it definitely fits better with what happens later.
…If that last bit is spoilery to you, please delete it. I don’t think it is, but my judgement’s been wrong before.
I would just hook the strap underneath my elbow, so I can take my time resting and thinking, like how if I tugged the backpack harder, that’d tighten parts of it and damage its contents more, and if the one stepping on it noticed I was trying to free it, she’d just step on it harder to increase the friction. Maybe I’ll exert upward force on her leg so she can’t step on it as hard, and pull it out when it’s loose.
I don’t know exactly what project she made, but if it were made of anything but an amorphous material like clay, the effort it took would be preserved ex: level of detail even if it broke.
Also, I thought she already used insects to access a hiding spot that would be hard to get into otherwise, so it should be okay to use the powers as long as no one found out, such as manufacturing some padding that can protect fragile stuff as well as being waterproof on the outside but absorbent on the inside, and hiding it in the backpack.
i wish there were more of a description of the art project
Man I really want her to fight back. I really really really want her to fight back.
Not meant as a dig on your characterization but that I’m really invested in her character. She has more discipline than I do I would say to heck with lice and given them crabs, or fleas, or bedbugs.
And people wonder how some powered people can go on kill/splatter sprees, this would be one reason why. Nice of the teacher to be the coward and just walk away when he could have helped out.
It doesn’t matter when the person been bulled can not state for her own. The teacher make his part, now it is all up to her. You shouldnt interced in a fight in which the person you’re trying to step up for doesn’t want you to do exactly that (because, perhaps, she’s just waiting for you to make it all the better and then blame you when it doesnt. It’s not wrong, but stil…). The teacher, i think, it’s more in touch with the school scenario that she gaves him credit for.
Taylor’s main reason for refusing Mr. Gladly’s offer to go to the office is that it would do very little good and a lot of harm in the long run. The trio would be punished lightly if at all and Taylor would get labelled as a rat in addition to the usual harassment. Had Mr. Gladly stepped in during the incident in the hallway, then it would have been a teacher interceding in some taunting/verbal abuse that he happened to notice as opposed to Taylor ratting out the trio.
IMO, it’s a very different scenario and Mr. Gladly definitely could have helped without causing any harm. If he had walked by the group, they might have switched topics to avoid heat from the staff which would have broken their rhythm and given Taylor a chance to get a word in or escape.
I agree that Mr. Gladly is definitely more aware of high school bullshit than Taylor thinks.
Really liking the story so far, but the way she’s being treated…Are american high schools really that bad? I’m finnish, not american, but in my high school equivalent, the teachers would have come down on those bullies like the wrath of Thor.
A good number of these events have been based on things that happened to me or people I’ve talked to in the course of doing volunteer work.
As a current highschool student, I can imagine it being this bad in some places, but any individual incident of the many she has suffered would be completely outside of what happens at my school. There’s a great deal of fighting, but little of this impotent “toleration.” If someone’s bullying you, you either tell someone or fight back, and the traits of being the sort of person to get bullied, not being the kind of person who’ll fight back, and also not being the sort who’ll just set Administration on them rarely mix.
Speaking as someone who went through things a lot like Taylor, this is how high school is pretty often. I knew a girl who went through things like this in grade school. A lot of times teachers just don’t know what to do to help, and so they just let it slide. Mr. Gladly, of course, knows better and should be made to face down Lung while tied up and naked.
I think it’s about the same in all countries – teenagers being teenagers, and those who stand out for whatever reason are the ones getting bullied. I experienced similar stuff (nothing as physical, no stupid pranks like the juice thing, but the verbal abuse was unpleasant enough).
Also, in my experience, gender didn’t make any difference: While the majority of those doing the bullying shared my gender, enough were female – and while you can make the conflict physical with other boys without looking bad, doing the same if girls are involved would be social suicide.
and not just teenagers too, in my experience even grade-school students can be bullies, as I was bullied in second year, mostly thanks to being a transfer student with obvious family problems
teachers are relative too, it’s great to have teachers cracking down on bullies, but my experience shows that the teachers themselves could be involved in the bullying, mostly by obviously holding back on scoring and being picky with the harder assignments
Sorry to say, but I doubt this would happen in any country as often as it does in America. At least in Denmark, being bullied is incredibly rare, we stand up for each other. I would never just stand by and watch someone get bullied, even if the victim was unwilling to act, I sure as hell would punch that jerk in the face( probably not, I’d most likely tear down the person vocally instead, but you get the idea). America breeds all these stereotypes like there’s no tomorrow, especially compared to other similar countries, a lot of it is the glorification of pop-culture media(at least in the cases I’m aware of).
Yeah they can be in public schools but private schools are a little different since parents pay a lot more to have there kids go there but bulling like that happens all over America
I’m American, graduated HS in 2008. I had a graduating class of about 400, and we were one of the schools of choice (you can choose to go to a public school outside your district, but they won’t bus you in) for students in Flint, MI, which was about 15-20 minutes away. My school had a “zero tolerance” policy on bullying and fighting, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that people were afraid to stick up for themselves physically because the victim would be punished as much as the bully. As for the more psychological stuff, no proof, no punishment, and Taylor’s predictions for what would happen if she lashed out or went to the authorities are pretty much spot on. American public schools are, for the most part, underfunded, understaffed, and overpopulated. My school didn’t actually have the resources to enforce its policies on the more “minor” bullying, and we were one of the better ones. Not really good, but midrange. The inner city schools were much worse. They were much more concerned about kids beating on each other during lunch or on the bus.
It really depends on the area… I go to school in a very well off, small town in a very liberal, relatively wealthy state so needless to say the school is well funded and most of the students have relatively decent home lives, so theres really no fighting (the only fight I’ve heard of was when the juniors won spirit week and a senior punched one) and most of the girls are friendly to each others faces. The closest we have to bullying is like ignoring people and talking about them behind their back, and if a teacher catches you doing even just that you’ll get a detention or worse. That being said, I know that in some other towns this is definitely not the case and Taylor’s situation is possible.
Possible? try probable. If kids can get away with smoking joints in the bathroom(and they definitely can) or (and this actually happened to me but I’m not giving out personal info on the internet) taunting a classmate about being a druggie(i.e. “are you high? Look, his/her eyes are all red” or “hey, were you smoking pot?”(I WASN’T)) just because they decided to do a presentation on how marijuana affects lives, then more direct actions are completely within the realm of possibility. There are reasons I have no friends.
As far as I know, this doesn’t happen at my high school, but as far as I know isn’t very far.
Your protagonist is really annoying
I’m not sure I’m OK with the gender stereotyping here. But then, the main character is…what, 15 or 16? I suppose that gets her a pass. Also, when did this take place? I know with the zero tolerance policies in modern high schools, even guys will almost never punch one another anymore. At least not on school property. In Canada, all that results in is suspension for both parties, no matter who was at fault. The days of schoolyard fights are long over.
It must be nice to have only ever visited a suburban high school.
I coach policy debate at a poor urban high school. I’m only there ~3 days/week after school. Despite that, there’s a fist fight at least once per week *while I’m there*. Several times the principal has cancelled all extracurriculars and closed the school after school hours because there was sufficient problems with fighting that day that they didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
Contrary to the attitude of the chapter, its not just boys. AFAICT, the girls fight at least as much, if not more so, than the boys. Sometimes students attack teachers. And that’s just the stuff that happens *in the school*.
And I thought the one time a student threatened another student with a chair during choir practice was extreme. Benefit of growing up in a small town; that’s the worst I remember hearing about while I was in high school.
I like the story so far. With the rationalist perspective, there’s one thing I don’t get. She seems to think pretty far in advance when it comes to her Super Hero career, but she’s not been nearly up to that standard in high school. My following comments are heavily influenced by me not having gone to an American high school, but a Danish one (besides a lot of obvious and subtle cultural difference there’s a 1 year age difference, making the Danes older when they attend).
That being said, I’m happy you made the correction about the leverage, but I still dislike like:
“I know I would have lost the fight in the end, getting shoved to the ground by force of numbers and kicked while I was down, but things would have ended there, instead of dragging on like they were here. ”
– no. Speaking as a guy who was a class A nerd, but also (proven) to be the best fighter in his grade (lots of siblings and kids my age and older in my courtyard), this is not what happens. Or it does, but when it does, it happens when the bullies are already organized (a gang, a football team, etc.). The standard group of bullies (across playgrounds, high schools, secondary schools, the army, primary schools and all kinds of after school institutions (shit, even happened to me once someone tried to rob me)) would react this way:
Bullies gang up on dude. Dude takes out leader (perhaps right-hand man as well). Nobody wants to be the next in line. Bullies back off. Dude suffers social exclusion (and rumour spreading etc.), but no physical confrontations (at least for a while).
Now, her imagining this is of course entirely plausible. I suppose she has never actually witnessed a trained fighter being bullied and/or attacked before. I have been on the receiving end (through 3 different schools) until around the age of 15. A new high school meant a fresh start. It also meant I got to see this scenario from outside. I have seen it play out (and stopped it; not a hero – quite a bit of personal satisfaction) quite a few times since then, and I have heard both teachers and kindergarten instructors discuss it. I have asked them about this exact kind of situation, ’cause I was considering pros and cons for teaching my future kids martial arts. Note: if the lone wolf fails in taking down the leader, there’s hell to pay.
This brings me to the second part. The part I didn’t get. I, and I hope a lot of other geeks and nerds, found other ways to do pay back. Ratting isn’t an option, but letting fools make an ass of themselves, certainly is. Some of these strategies require being an A-student (directing teacher questions to unprepared bullies; esp. useful after group presentations), some of them require both being an A-student and getting your sneaky fox on (my fav. in this is the case we just seen: bully prone to copying other people’s work: have wrong answers on paper memorize/decode the right ones) and others still require a combination of other skills. It can be anything from fucking with someone’s chemistry experiment (chemistry also has a lot of other uses; esp. the use of anything that reacts with water) to getting good rapport with a teacher to abusing rights gained from extracurricular activities to disseminating information to the bullies’ parents about (non-existent) homework (and Taylor is more of a tech than I am: virus?)… Basically a bright mind steaming for revenge, should be able to get a few good ones back.
(I’m going to assume you came from EY’s recommendation on ‘Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality’ ;))
I did a post on this on reddit, a while back, where I got into depth on this subject.
The core to this is that, yes, you can theoretically apply rationalist thinking to everything, but people aren’t rationalists by default. A preteen loses her mother and finds themselves on unsteady emotional footing, then has her best friend turn on her. Again and again, she goes into a situation where she’s emotionally and mentally drained. By the time she’s finished reeling from the betrayal, she’s partially adapted to the situation.
An individual can take two paths in dealing with bullying. You can confront it, try to deal with it, make it a problem solving exercise, plot revenge, whatever. The problem with this is that it tends to pull you into a skewed mindset. Teenagers already have trouble framing high school in context with the rest of the world, blowing up minor problems to be earth-shattering. For someone who’s bullied, who takes this tack and obsesses on the subject, it gets even worse.
Sometimes going this route works out, and maybe you fix the problem if the bullies aren’t particularly persistent or if you find the right opportunity. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, and the obsession becomes something scary, and no matter how intelligent you are, your view on reality gets skewed and the situation escalates. Or you start seeing things in stark black and white or good and bad, or you spiral down into a ‘the whole world goes blind’ situation. Tragedy happens, and very often it’s the bullied victim.
There’s another route that isn’t explored much, because it’s generally not dramatic enough for TV and Movies. This is the route Taylor walks; she turns her mind from the subject, very deliberately drawing lines in the sand for herself. She’s trying to hold on to the perspective that might get skewed if she dwelled on school more than she already was, and we see her teetering on that very brink at the story’s outset. She compartmentalizes, and we see this in how she deals with her dad, how she won’t talk to him about the subject. School life is school life and she’s just trying to weather it and get past it, keeping her eye on a distant goal. Out-of-school life is completely and totally separate, and she won’t spend that time buying supplies or coding viruses.
Thank you for a couple of things: first of all taking the time to write a story which I am highly enjoying so far. Secondly so quickly and completely. Thirdly for applying some well-timed deductions leading to a sounds conclusion 🙂
I like your answer. It does provide a lot of depth to my understanding of her actions (I have yet to use reddit and I have no idea about how to find your post there). Having been in a similar situation I am probably even more prone to empathic short-cuts when characters react in a way I deem suboptimal. That having been said I recognized the strategy of compartmentalizing; I just don’t find it entirely satisfying. I’ve found that most people have a tipping point – then again, Taylor may be approaching hers (please don’t tell – I’ll probably now in a few hours time; yes, I swallow books). Besides making her costume (which she cannot do all the time due to lack of materials) I also lack an obsession/hobby that could keep Taylor’s mind sufficiently busy outside of school (or inside for day-dreaming). I have yet to meet a single bullied person who didn’t have a thing they spend an awful lot of time on. (this would also provide Taylor with something rather cool: a non-hero skill). The story already mentions books and capes, but I never got the impression that she did this enough to fill out the gap of not having a social life or other hobbies.
I buy into your not spending outside of school time on school time issues (as you can see, I’m more prone to thinking she’d spend more school time on non-school issues). Perhaps what I am missing is this: Taylor is quiet and keeps to herself. She doesn’t seem to be struggling with any subject. She is on her own most of the time, not chatting to anybody in class, ever. This ought to leave her with a LOT of time in class to think about other stuff and observe. If you go through daily humiliation and spend a lot of time observing/thinking… a way should present itself. Not that it usually helps. Even if the bullies eventually back down, associations to the school and anything related are usually so deteriorated that changing schools is probably a better choice regardless.
A last thank you: I’m working on a short story involving a character who likes to stay out of the way. Reading Taylor’s story has been a great help trying to get inside this person’s mind and how that mind came to be.
I have no idea how she keeps from using the bugs. One could simply not ask for a better ability when taking revenge on high school bullies. The possibilities are endless…lice, bees- even bites from black widows hardly ever kill people, and many don’t even get antivenom. And they’d have a hard time taking out their misery on her when in the hospital with excruciating pain. Plus, none of these plans would give away her involvement at all…
On second thought though, I bet Tattletale could easily get rid of bullies. If Taylor just asked Lisa to take a look at Emma and the gang, I bet she could pass along ideas for really devastating insults.
I think that, like was discussed above in the comments, it’s about drawing lines. Taylor has a temper, we’ve already seen that much; if she did something, she’d already have crossed her own line, and at that point there would be a lot less to stop her from doing more when her temper flares. If she doesn’t do anything, she doesn’t do anything, but if she does SOMETHING, she might do ANYTHING.
I wouldn’t have that kind of willpower, is all.
you’d be surprised how much willpower you grow when faced with a bleak situation. at this point in life i can question myself with complete legitimacy “how have i not killed someone yet?” or “with the way i am why haven’t i made this physical yet?” i never took revenge for the stuff i went through which is remarkbly similar and equally bad as what taylor went through in school. to cry in school was a social death sentence for me so yeah, willpower is your greatest friend in a situation like hers.
Your ability to make me ‘live’ and ‘feel’ Bug’s pain is both amazing and horrifying.
It’s so palpable, and I’m so sensitive to negative feelings, I almost want to skip those parts or stop reading altogether.
But I don’t.
Taking your reader to a dark place is an art, and you’re nailing it.
Also the way this highlights the difference between masculine overt violence and feminine stealthy emotional abuse is really eye-opening.
I really like the story but wont be able to keep reading if she doesnt grow a back bone soon.
A bit of a nitpick with the paragraph below:
“Despite the way the conversation sounded, ‘they were’ talking to me. ‘They were’ just pretending to talk to one another. It was both calculating in how ‘they were’ managing plausible deniability while at the same time ‘they were’ acting totally juvenile by pretending I wasn’t there. ”
The use of 4 consecutive ‘they were’s reads awkwardly, especially the last two. I think it could be easily revised?
She’s destroying herself. It would be healthier at this point to go Carrie on them. It’s a pity really how often this happens IRL, though with the level you describe it… personal experience? You or someone close to you.
Hell, if it was me going on a hellhole of a school like that, at least one of those girls would already be dead by now and I myself in juvenile detention.
“Wow”, I said, a breathless whisper. I stared at her with wide eyes and an open-mouthed grin, growing wider. I couldn’t help it.
“I think you broke her brain”, came one of the voices from somewhere far away to the side, outside of my field of vision that had room only for Emma. A giggle of agreement. A greasy look of satisfaction on her face.
“No, no”, I said, in a slow deliberate voice, struggling to form the words with numb lips. “I’m just speechless. I don’t have the words to express how pathetic you are, Emma. I really don’t. You want to punish me for whatever the fuck reason, you want me to hurt, and the absolute worst you can do is bring up the fact that my mom died. The most painful thing that happened to me in my life, and you know all about it because you were there, I mean, you helped me through it, I wouldn’t have made it without you, I never thanked you enough for that, and now, what, you think you can do anything worse to me than I’ve already been through? Or not worse, actually, you’re just bringing up the exact thing that happened. You’re not even trying. You’re not doing anything creative. It’s embarrassing to be bullied by you. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you’re trying to accomplish here, and then we can discuss ways for you to do that like reasonable people.”
Oh no, Tattletale has a Master power!
…it’s a good thing that I already have two half-baked Worm fanfics on the front burner, or I’d be tempted to write that.
I know this is specifically written to make you angry, but I REALLY need to break something right now.
Complement, insult, take that how you will. I’m going to go find something fragile…
Wow. I wonder what happened to make Emma do a total one-eighty from saying “I admire you” to making fun of and basically ruining the life of her ex-best friend. These girls are brutal. My days in HS are calm and peaceful in comparison. I hope Taylor eventually grows a backbone and does something to those bitches.
You made me sad 😦
Damn, Taylor’s willpower is beyond my comprehension. Those bullies would have been crippled for life if a had those powers.
Either that, or she was beaten to the point that her first response is “fighting back will just make it worse”…with her second response presumably being “I’d go to jail if I actually attacked them, and there’s no way this is worse than that.”
I can’t understand how a person can be so cruel as to use something like the death of a person’s mother and such a personal, vulnerable moment like that shared with such absolute trust to hurt someone like that. Such an absolute betrayal of trust like this goes beyond cruel. If this is how Emma treats all her former best friends, Sophia had better watch out.
Unless she’s confident Emma won’t turn on her. You don’t turn on your best friend for literally no reason; either being Sophia’s friend comes with some great perks, or not being Sophia’s friend comes at a steep cost…
As it turns out, you’re right! Being her friend came with the great perk of SPOILERS, as well as a drastic shift in perspective that Emma’s dad, unfortunately, encouraged by defending her behavior. And if Emma were to turn on Sophia… well, SPOILERS.
And those spoilers greatly changed my perspective on these characters, and on this story! I love when a story sets up a perspective, and then breaks that perspective by adding information. And Worm does that incredibly well in so many instances, not just here!
Spoilers: I’ve already finished the story a couple of times. I just like leaving enigmatic responses that would probably qualify as spoilers if I didn’t obfuscate them behind a veil of half-truths and plausible alternatives.
Glad you like the story, too.
Ye, I figured you had, based on the responses you were leaving. I wrote “SPOILERS” for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t read that far in case they decide to check out the comments.
Worm is an excellent story! I’m glad you enjoyed it, too!
In the future, I’d suggest using ROT13. It’s a habit some in the fandom picked up early in Wildbow’s second story, so they could talk spoilers without the risk of anything catching a passing reader’s eye. I’ve been doing that when I can’t think of a sufficiently ambiguous or misleading way to phrase stuff.
I know how she feels, it might have been easier for me because I’m a guy arvo could just smash one of their faces through a window, and gouge out the eye of one of the others. But as she, said she can’t do that because they would simply say that she was bullying one of them. Dealing with guy bullies is a lot easier as with them they at least (most of the time) respect strength.
I’m going to be honest, she’s a much stronger person then me. I wouldn’t be able to control myself, I’ve been in a similar situation before. However, it ended when I lost my temper and more or less beat three of the individuals so bad they had to go to the hospital. After which, I was suspended from the school for several weeks and then forced into Detention and observation for the rest of that school year. Yet she’s able to just take the mental abuse without retaliation, I’m going to be honest if I had Super Powers such as she I wouldn’t of been able to stop myself from perhaps doing something I would regret. As that’s an insane power, to have to keep in check when you’re being pushed so much so often.
Though, a little bit of me does want to see her at least stand up for herself not exactly in a speaking way but maybe just saying ‘Fuck it’. And punching one of the girls or a few of them, because in all honesty I’d rather have the individuals be afraid to do anything more then make fun of me. Sure, it might not work at first. But after four or five times of fighting with them, and at least injuring one or two of them they’d stop they wouldn’t want to get hurt anymore no matter how much they hate you. Not to mention, hey, maybe she’d get forced to switch to another school which would make everything go away.
God, I hope she does something I’m just sitting here stewing and not wanting to continue due to my unquenchable blood lust.
To be honest, I don’t feel sorry for this girl. She has the power for revenge. She should use it to get these girls to stop. The world isn’t made out of marshmallows and candy canes. I know the story will eventually give those girls what’s coming to them due to tropes, but also due to tropes, i bet the mc isn’t the one to do it. No matter what happens now, I’ll always see her as someone too weak to defend themselves. The whole I’m morally in the right so won’t do anything is one of the world’s biggest jokes.
I really can’t fully comprehend what you even mean by the end of your comment. Nobody is telling her she’s on the moral high ground, she hasn’t even spoken about such a thing herself. Even if she was and indeed she is, she’s not getting any satisfaction out of it, not even a reprieve and some gratification from her willpower allowing her to hold on so long, nothing positive. She has her morals and her personal rules, and she’s abiding herself to them because that’s her, and that’s how her attitude has been shaped by her situation likewise. I can say, if you really think the protagonist isn’t taking any last step due to being a “weak person”, I can tell you with full honesty you couldn’t be more wrong.
This to me is the weakest chapter in early Worm. Not weak in a literary criticism sense, I don’t understand that stuff, but its unpleasant to read and since I’m rereading I just decided to skip it without any regrets.
It’s got to be there probably, you’re the great writer and you know what you’re doing, but man. It’s so easy to just skip from “taylor discussing her powerlessness with gladly” to “taylor skipping class” without going through this long painful step, when I already know what’s in it.
Yeah re-reading I’ve been skipping all of the chapters that focus solely on the bullying. They’re essential for establishing Taylor’s character and to a lesser extender the setting, but on a reread I already know all that, and they’re incredibly depressing to read.
If I were in this situation those girls would be dead
I feel like this but from Interlude 1 is too misleading:
The other bits about knowing she wouldn’t answer the phone, etc. are probably fine for making us assume it’s a divorce and not a death, but the above chunk I think takes it too far. “The last time he has seen her” strongly implies (in my mind) the last time he saw her *alive*. It also feels odd that he considers it breaking his oath to yell at a corpse.
I think overall the misdirection is fine, though.
Great work, this the third time i ‘m reading your book.
Man she has the pateicne of an angel. I’ve would be sicked a hundred mosquitoes on all of then in addition to the lice and fleas. At least Emma.
I can’t see a reason for her turning from best friend to worst enemy except that she knows about Taylor’s powers and is jealous.
I have to say that it isn’t hard to feel sympathy for you over some of these comments. Despite your reply to Martin’s comment briefly explaining why Taylor just takes it instead of fighting back, there’s all these comments about how she totally should and that it’s unrealistic, coming from people who’ve probably never experienced anything even remotely similar to a situation like hers. I don’t know, it’s just really really pathetic when people completely refuse to even try to see things from another person’s perspective and instead default to just reflexively asserting what they think the world is like in what’s probably just a weak attempt to tell themselves that they’re right.
This hit me kinda hard. I went through a harsh year in grade school and another in high schol (after moving to a different country).
I am a guy, and I realize the rules for these kinds of things might be different from Taylor’s situation, but I would have done something already. I am not proud to admit this, but if I had the powers she had, I would have tortured these girls. Or at the very least filled their lockers and bags with roaches for several weeks straight. That might also be a good way to take revenge on the faculty (I realize that the school is in a bad situation to act anyway, but in Taylor’s position, I would probably blame them too, no matter how rational).
This is really hard to read, but not because it is written poorly.
“The moment I had left the classroom, Emma, Madison and Sophia had crowded me into a corner, with another six girls backing them up. I was unable to squeeze past them without getting pushed or elbowed back, so I couldn’t do much more than lean against the window, listening while eight of the girls were rattling off an endless series of taunts and jibes. Before one girl was even finished, another started up. All the while, Emma stayed back and stayed quiet, the slightest of smiles on her face. I couldn’t meet the eyes of any of the other girls without them barking a fresh torrent of insults directly to my face, so I just glared at Emma.”
Okay. I can believe this happening, without a teacher’s intervention, if the bullying was less severe than it is. But here? Taylor’s been put in the hospital. The locker incident was a health hazard AND could be considered damage to school property. All bets should be off at this point, and the Bitch Brigade should have been expelled at the beginning of the year.
I’m not saying schools are good at countering bullying, because they’re not. They’re notoriously terrible at it. But if a student is hospitalized because of an incident that created a health hazard on school grounds, the school would be forced to take decisive action just to save face. And if they did not, the media would smear them into oblivion.
Furthermore, a teacher would NOT stand there and watch. After what Taylor’s gone through, he would be breaking it up–or he would lose his job.
For fuck’s sake, wildbow, there’s commentary on bullying, and then there’s this. And this is so fucking over the top I can’t take it seriously. And this is coming from a girl who was guilted into not talking to administration because her bully’s mom died of cancer three years prior.
I can really empathize with her. I am introvertic and phlegmatic with low self-esteem. I was bullied for year and a half in the middle school. Quite mildly, looking back at it, with only insults and occasional push. No stealing, because it was really looked down upon by everyone bullies included. What I cannot understand is her fatalistic tendency. I am really, really patient and can laugh at myself, but I lost my nerve when few guys tried to pull my hair. I started slugging everyone near me. They knocked me down sure, but after I gave them a look they have left me alone. After that few days later, another guy tried to do the same. He was socially awkward and a nerd, but one of those “I wanna be cool, so I’m gonna parrot what “cool” guys do”. It wasnt his first time bullying me too. Remember that I said that I was phlegmatic? Well, people with this type of personality have very slowly rising but almost permanent emotional states. In the other words when they pissed me off, I was still pissed at them and on the verge of exploding when thinking about them those few days later. Additionaly this time others were smarter than him, and only he alone tried to pull my hair again. Soooo, I was still pissed, had only one target, and self-satisfaction from what I did earlier… Is it sufficient to say, that he regretted his decision later? After teachers called my mother to the school, she actually praised me for stooding up to them and told the teachers that if things escalated so much that I actually lost my patience and defended myself, without them really noticing bullying and ostracizing, then they have no reason to complain about my actions. By the way, in my country things like suspension barely exist in very few schools. In most cases its calling parents through multiple incidents, and if that doesnt help then they call law supervisor from the court and later police and minor’s prison. So if this entire situation with Taylor happened in my country, then instead of a few days of suspension, the trio would have ended up with few years sentence and the rest of associates would have been supervised by police for few years. Besides, I actually won the respect of bullies and they stopped bothering me. Even more by the end of the middle school we werent friends but we have good relations. So, even though I know why she does that, for me, Taylor not resisting her bullies is a mistake. Still, I’m a guy so maybe that had to do with something.
On the other hand, I really know what Taylor mean by not crossing the line. There was an ex-man of my mother who was an alcoholic. Everything started good, but after few years he started once again drinking. He was aggresive type. You know insults and threats, followed by apologizing, followed by more threats and screaming. He never went physical until one day 2 years later, when he threw something metallic at my sister face and it barely missed her eye. My mother, of course, went to him and asked WTF he was doing and he punched her… Lightly but still. It got my blood boiling so much, that I charged him, threw him on the floor in the next room, and pinned him to the ground, asking them to call a police. Still, I did not punched or kicked him. I knew that if I did that I wasnt sure if I would be able to stop, instead of beating that fu..er to death. So, yeah I perfectly know what Taylor means by not crossing the line…
Ah, yeah if anyone thinks I went a liitle overboard, keep in mind that this was after 2 years of drinking, insulting, and demands, while at the same leeching off us, because his drinking habits made him lose jobs constantly. Besides, recently we learned from his old family that he was regularly beating his old wife and little kids, and once after the argument after his father he set up ignited gasoline canister under his car. Its just that at first he wasnt assured enough to start it with us and later he was too afraid of us, especially after my mother on her own beat him few times when he tried something funny, and, well… She wasnt holding back, as I was :).
Sorry, for this wall of text 😀
Well, at this point she is not “nice” not using her powers, but merely weak. There are so many ways to use her powers to creep them out without doing aqny actual harm.
Whether “realistic” or not, a viewpoint character this impotent and weak is annoying. If this continues for too much longer I’ll simply lose interest in the story. I’m not going to waste my time reading about a wimp who never gets any better.
Oh you are in for a ride, my simian friend. You are in for a ride.
Yeah, this character is always complaining about stuff she has the power to easily change. I like the world building and creativity of this story, but the MC is awful.
At least let some ants bite their skin as revenge. These girls are annoying nd mc is not doing anything -.-
Years later and I am reading this for the first time, but bullying really doesn’t match with her characterization. If she keeps complaining about the bullies to higher ups, she knows she’ll be better off than this. Even if it didn’t end, they’d think twice before doing anything. They keep doing it because currently she doesn’t do anything, so there is no consequences. Ultimately, it’s about what they gain and what they risk loosing. If they are risking complaints, they’ll be less likely to do it.
She could also fight back. She would face consequences herself for it, but not many highschoolers will bully another if they think they might get punched in the face for it.
If she did anything at all, to make them some form of price for the bullying, she’d face a lot less of it.
I’ve seen a lot of bullying growing up in tough schools. Nothing actually this severe because teachers would get involved if it was this obvious, and I don’t how they are not involved in her case anyways but that’s another issue. But I’ve seen lots of it. And only people whit severe social issues and/or disabilities could have it this bad because they are simply not capable of defending themselves in any form.
From her characterization, that’s not her. Sure she has problems but she’s logical and capable. She should be able to realize complaining to the teachers about it would only improve her situation
I don’t think you’ve quite understood what makes Taylor Taylor.
You’re basing your characterization of her on what she comes to be later in the story.
In the beginning, Taylor was not this strong, capable and dead-cold-logical person. She was a kid being bullied, who knows/thinks she has no way out of it if she fights and rationalizes every single decision she makes as being the most logical one, even if it isn’t, because that’s where she finds her safety.
” No using powers on them” What the fuck is wrong with you?!
Just use them and kill at least Emma, what the fuck is wrong with you.
A stubborn belief that even Emma would contribute more to the world alive than dead. I don’t know, maybe it’s more the idea she has of herself as a good person who doesn’t murder that stops her from considering the utility function of letting irredeemable dickbags live vis-a-vis the alternative.
Hey, before 2016 I would have said the same myself.
And now I’m imagining this entire sequence as being an inverse of the final boss argument from Black Closet. Sophia would probably be Thaïs, Madison is definitely an evil Mallory, and it’s a good thing they depleted Taylor’s Intimidation and not her Charm.
…I need to either write this fanfic or stop alternating between replaying Black Closet and rereading Worm.