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EEEEEEE oh my god. Thank you so much I'm overjoyed to share my thoughts on this. I've come up with a few more that I'll hide under the cut. Spoilers for Severed.

You know what's really compelling about Severed Taylor and Bonesaw/Riley in a general sense? I'm drawing from a few other Bonesaw fics when I mention this, The Artist Formerly Known as Bonesaw by Octobre, Revision by keighthundred, and Self Implant, also by Chartic. (Check them out, very good if you like Riley.)

They're both absolutely committed to doing better. As Bonesaw fades and Riley takes center stage, she becomes obsessed with fixing the mistakes of Bonesaw. She's never allowed to operate on her victims in Ward, iirc, which is what I meant above by pointing out some tinker related panic; if the simultaneous situation of not being allowed to tinker and therefore not being allowed to fix or repair someone, which is a callback to her trigger, is combined with the fear that if she ever does get her hands on someone to fix, she might go to far again. Riley knows all too well how tinker fugues work, what Passengers are, why they do what they do. Her introduction in canon is the exploitation of that knowledge against Panacea, who hasn't entertained her passenger at all since she triggered. It's a very real threat that Bonesaw might pop up while Riley is trying to tinker. I think she'll have to make that distinction in the future. "Okay, Riley is tinkering now, not Bonesaw. How does Riley tinker?"

Taylor is being blocked off from improvement. Though nobody wants Bonesaw to operate again, Riley is encouraged to talk in therapy and engage with herself so she might rediscover her identity.

Taylor on the other hand; her friends won't forgive her, not that she's asking their permission. She's trying to force it. If she kills Jack Slash, or twists their arms perfectly, they'll have to forgive her. She was only sixteen after all.

She's lost everything else she could tether herself to; no more dad, no more warlord, no more Coil (and I suspect Dinah was killed too if the S9 could get Coil). Without her father, Taylor Hebert has ceased to exist, sacrificed to Jack Slash and Mannequin, the unconsciously intended effect of putting on her mask in canon is now a fact that has welded Skitter's face over Taylor's. The last couple chapters really cast the Charlotte chapter in a brand new light too. That favor that Charlotte owes Skitter? It was extremely literal that she owed Taylor her life, and maybe more considering Taylor's dual sacrifice of Taylor and her father. Only Skitter remained. Imagine trading in your dad's death debt for someone to temporarily fuck with your ankle monitor. Absolutely something Skitter would do though. And no Coil. I can only imagine Dinah's fate in this. Probably not good. So Skitter couldn't even save her.

She lies or downplays anything that's wrong with her during her therapy sessions. Masking her problems rather than talking through them, because even real improvement is secondary compared to her initial goal of getting out of imprisonment as soon as possible so that she can go hunt Jack Slash. Maybe not even secondary, Taylor's mental and physical health are extremely low on her priority list, no matter what writers have done with her or what situations they've put her in. Trust me, if you've tried to write Taylor calming down and working through her feelings to find some peace, she's actually playing you, the writer, until you stop paying attention and she gets away with another war crime. It's part of her enrichment.

All of this is just so I can contrast Skitter with Taylor, her clone. From this point on I'll be using their names that way, our original Taylor Hebert as Skitter, the monster she eventually became, and 'The Spare' who became Taylor Hebert. Or is it something different? Taylor Ritcher? Taylor Wallis?

Right from the get go, Taylor gets things Skitter never got. A great parental situation with a mother and father who love her very much, a much better starting relationship with Defiant (apologies for the tangent, but I have to wonder about his namechange here. He becomes Defiant in defiance of Mannequin's assertions that he'd fit right in with the S9 here, maybe he becomes defiant to Skitter here? Their antagonistic relationship culminating in him hunting her to atone for his interpersonal failures? In a twisted way, he made her who she was by driving her towards villainy, and therefore, towards the Slaughterhouse.)

Taylor also nets Skitter's friends who find their relationship with her a lot less antagonistic and complicated than their relationship with Skitter, though as the clone notes, it's a bland and stunted relationship. It exists only in comparison to Skitter, the 'real deal', who they've turned their backs on, yet remain obsessed with, especially Tattletale.

Taylor gets to keep being Taylor, with a face and a human body that doesn't have to eat raw meat, doesn't have to feel her organs shifting to make way for the phantom bugs that Skitter once had crawling around inside her. Taylor gets to have a much safer issue with her body, learning how to use her prosthesis, which is of course built by the two best tinkers in the world.

Taylor gets to be the innocent kid that Skitter threw away when she killed her father. Or when she became a warlord. Or when she cut out Lung's eyes. Or when she met him in the first place, putting on her mask to escape her life into cape fantasy only to slam face first into cape reality. It's ironic here too, because you know Skitter also feels bitter about Taylor saving the world during Gold Morning with her Bonesaw Khepri, but compared to Skitter, I think the vast majority of capes probably think of Khepri as the bigger threat, the more monstrous violation. But I think that matters very little to Skitter. Where Taylor saved the world and forced everyone to work together, Skitter was cornered and attacked pretty much immediately after GM, violating the second chances everyone else, including Taylor, got, landing her in prison for defending herself from literal nobodies, meaningless to Skitter and the text itself (unless Chartic kicks me in the spine and we find out part of the group who wanted her dead was Rachel or something and she kills her :(

Every single time Skitter thinks about her, I could taste the bitterness coming towards me in waves. How dare she have living and loving parents? Doesn't she know what the real Taylor sacrificed? How dare she steal her friends from her. If they really loved Skitter then why are they playing pretend with Taylor? It comes right back around to Defiant too. Oh, so he's going to advocate for her and protect her, when he hunted her ruthlessly before, but only now that her power is collared and she's on an extremely harsh probation? Does he see his daughter in Skitter or does he see his parolee in Taylor? Ditto for Dragon. Tattletale told her to kill herself, and then spends every moment we see her in the text obsessing over Skitter's movements and actions, staying one step ahead of her at every moment, sending Imp because even if Taylor found out that Tattletale didn't trust her, Imp could simply activate her power and Taylor would forget that Tattletale ever betrayed her. It's not a breach of trust if they don't remember it, and it's for her own good (sarcasm).

And now even her precious memories, her lived experiences, are being bled into Taylor. Stolen, to quote Skitter. It's horrifying for Skitter. It brings those final lines of chapter 11 into clarity; if Taylor thinks she's still a good person, deep down, but Skitter doesn't believe that, when they both now share those experiences, then who's right? The real or the Spare?

Edit: Oh shit I almost forgot about Chitter. Isn't it wild that even the echidna clone/bonesaw clone of Skitter has friends and a life? People value her life and don't see her as disposable fodder? Skitter meanwhile has probation officers who are very mad she didn't call for help when the vengeful murder squad rolled in. Bet you that stings too.

Severed - Worm Fanfiction Review

CW: Suicide and canon typical gore.

I don't think I've so eagerly anticipated an imaginary and, likely unwritten at the time of this post, scene in fanfiction than @heyitschartic's Severed. I've been following this series since it was posted three years ago. I'll avoid spoilers and the scene I'm imagining in question will be under the cut, but the basic premise is that Jack Slash chooses Skitter as his nominee during the Slaughterhouse 9 arc, rather than Oni Lee, who was disappointing, and Golem, who he later contrived the entire S9k arc for.

I will say that this work is a beautiful plunge into What Ifs which look all the more horrifying if you compare them against canon. You get flashback snippets of the S9 arc retold from a few perspectives before being thrust into post-GM, maybe pre-Ward? era with modern Skitter. I can certainly say that Severed blows all other S9!Taylors out of the water, Taylor is authentic in ways I haven't seen with anyone else. 10/10, each chapter is at it's absolute peak and it has 11 chapters as of this post. Each gut-punch has me anticipating the next chapter, only for the next chapter to explain why Taylor's friends and enemies hate her so much. I gasped when Tattletale said that to her. I strongly recommend Severed to anyone and everyone who hasn't already read it yet. Here's the link:

Oh wait does this count as the first of my Worm fanfic reviews--

So, I've read chapter 11 and I've been having Taylor and her clone rotating in my head endlessly, but the scene I'm anticipating is the one hinted at in Chapter where Defiant wants Taylor to go under the knife with Bonesaw again so Riley can fix all of Taylor's everything that is physically wrong with her, because her body is practically bio-tinkertech, even after they ripped almost everything else out.

I can only imagine Taylor reiterating that she refuses to be put under for the procedure, and using every moment to vent her anger and frustration on a Riley that is likely seeing marked improvement in her therapy (maybe). But Taylor keeps hitting her with blow after blow. "They'll never let you work on anyone else ever again, so you had better not kill me." and "Nobody will ever let you willingly touch them, I'm the only one who you can use your tinker abilities on, and that can change if I don't need you anymore." "If you ever find someone you can trick into letting you touch them, hold them, or even work on them, I'll kill them. It'd be better than the fate worse than death that letting you touch someone inflicts, and I should know, I'm living through it."

Maybe Chartic has something else planned, but I would like to see this Bonesaw cry. An unshakable, unmoved Taylor just heaps on the abuse through her own tears of pain, holding Riley hostage even as she roots through her guts to put her back together. It's very Taylor to fight through pain to force people to help her. The last time they saw each-other, Riley was doing well. I don't think she'll be doing very well after they meet again.

Maybe an overseeing team of surgeons and Capes become increasingly uncomfortable as Riley is tormented. They find themselves defending Bonesaw of all people, from one of her former victims too.

I'm sorry if this is unsolicited Chartic, but I can't wait to see their reunion, whatever form it takes. Severed's way of making Taylor suffer the consequences of her own actions, while invoking sympathy simultaneously with disgust at Taylor's betrayals; the depths she's sunken to, and then to finally wrap it up with shame and admonishment of her friends, turned victims, is masterful. How dare either they or I judge her for what she had to do to survive. Each chapter reveals that it got worse and worse. At some point, I suspect that (one of) the reasons that Taylor is being given such little leeway by the rest of the cast and remains constantly under the threat of harsh re-imprisonment or execution by vengeful kill-teams is because she somehow became the worst member of the Slaughterhouse Nine or even surpassed them in notoriety.

Tattletale telling Skitter to kill herself was such an insane scene that I stood up and covered my mouth. I was in disbelief. But knowing now that Skitter had betrayed the Undersiders to a slaughter by Mannequin (after having sacrificed her own father and, essentially, her own pre-cape life and innocence with him. The Taylor that she did not want to be, embracing the Skitter she chose to become) and then at some point caused the remainder of the Livsey family to kill themselves the same way Reggie did, with gunshot wounds, really clarifies that Taylor did something unforgivable. She exploited her friendship with Lisa to injure her in a way that can never be repaired. Lisa in canon never really had much to do with her parents ever again, but she probably didn't want them dead for neglecting Reggie.

I may edit this later, or reblog it, as new thoughts on the work come to me.

Felix Swoop (Fire)

Ligeia (Water)

Fog (Air)

Crystal Clear (Earth)

Chastity (Heart)

Pick 5 canon capes for your villain team. What's your theme

I need to know what the general public would think about the guy who was pregnant with his dead teammates.

this isn't asking if you would watch the show, just if you'd still engage with the wider fandom