Taylor Hebert

Character
Name:	Taylor Hebert, Skitter, Weaver, Khepri
Occupation:	villain, hero
Relationships:	The Undersiders (villain team), Chicago Wards (hero team), Brian Laborn (exboyfriend), Danny Hebert (father), Queen Administrator (shard), more
Fandom:	Worm
Other:
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Taylor Hebert is the protagonist and primary viewpoint character of Worm.

Brief Canon

At the beginning of Worm, Taylor is 16 and living with her father, Danny Hebert. She is bullied at school by Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements, also known as "The Terrible Trio" by fans. After the bullying escalates to the point where she requires hospitalization, she gains the power to control bugs.

See fandom.com wiki for more biography.

Fanon and Common Tropes in Fanworks

A common type of Taylor-centered fanfics are altpower fanfics, where Taylor gained a different power than controlling bugs. Often, these stories will follow the stations of canon, with events like fighting Lung, joining the Undersiders, and robbing the bank all happening despite the change in power, and happening in similar ways as well. Some of these fics have been criticized for having Taylor be Taylor in name only; OOC and essentially used as a blank slate for whatever power the author wants to explore.

Taylor is often referred to by the title Queen of Escalation, referring to her tendency to use all-or-nothing strategies against opponents. Additionally, she is extremely good at compartmentalizing, and typically refuses to give up under any circumstances. In fanfics, writers make use of this trope when they have Taylor face multiple threats in a row, escalating in strength, or responding to a threat with what appears to be a disproportionate response...

Being Taylor is Suffering: there is a common tendency in fanfiction to inflict suffering upon Taylor regardless of if it makes sense in the story.

Many fanfics involving Taylor start with the "locker scene", which describes how Taylor got powers while stuffed in a locker full of waste. The scene itself is not shown in canon.

Shippy fanart of Taylor/Rachel Lindt, a moderately popular femslash pairing. Art by teaandspite, originally posted to tumblr.

Shipping fics are less common. Taylor Hebert/Lisa Wilbourn is the most common pairing, with 62 fics on AO3, with the next most common Taylor pairing being Emma Barnes/Taylor Hebert with 17 fics. Note that because a large number of fics are hosted on forums such as SpaceBattles, Sufficient Velocity, and Questionable Questing, which don't have similarly robust search or tagging features as AO3, this isn't necessarily representative of the total magnitude of fics.

Fan Perspectives

As the protagonist, Taylor is one of the most discussed and controversial characters, as fans attempt to interpret her many complicated decisions. In a Reddit thread on /r/WormFanfic, some fans attempted to describe her core traits that should stay constant even in AU fanfiction:

[adashofpepper]

"I think it’s sacrifice that’s the key here. People in this thread have been quick to point out that any character who can be defined by a single character trait is bad and one dimensional, and in sense this is true, all people are multifaceted, all contain multitudes. [...] So if I had to pick the most important aspect of Taylor, maybe not what makes her Taylor but at least what makes her the protagonist of Worm, it would be how much she is willing to sacrifice.

So much of Worm is presenting Taylor with an unsolvable problem and watching her tear pieces off herself to solve it anyway."

[RX-18-67]

"1- Compartmentalization. Taylor ignores problems she can't deal with (the bullying) and focuses on problems she can solve (everything related to supervillainy).

2- Taylor rationalizes the moral and ethical implications of her actions so they align with what she wants. She likes hanging out with the Undersiders, so she tells herself she's going undercover with that or that she needs to rescue Coil from Dinah, even though anyone who looks at the situation will quickly realize that 1) Tattletale would immediately find out she's "undercover" and 2) there's no way Coil would ever let Dinah go.

3- Huge control issues. Taylor needs to be in charge, refuses to obey even reasonable authorities, assumes others should "compromise" by giving her whatever she wants. She breaks the terms of her probation while in prison by using her powers, but she probably would have been given permission to use her powers if she'd just asked."

Example Fanworks

Fanfic

• Copacetic, a post-canon fic centered around Taylor
• Cenotaph, (ao3), a somewhat "serious" longfic (127k words) that adheres to the dark tone of canon and follows a Taylor who made a different decision on her first night out as a parahuman.
• Inheritance by FirstSelector and Pendragoon - Taylor takes on the mantle of Butcher XV after accidentally killing the previous Butcher. (2022)
• Taylor Varga, an altpower crossover longfic (1.7 million words) with the OVA Luna Varga, where Taylor has her brain merged with Princess Luna.
• Implacable (2020-2021) by billymorph. Taylor Hebert has been forced into the Wards, and uses malicious compliance to express her frustration.

Fanart

• Worm Fanart, by Drunkfu/Overshia.
• Skitter, by Ari Ibarra.
• I made a picture of Skitter 😙✌️ by Nadoriel.
• The lights were off., ^{Archived version} by aslovefromlies.

Cosplay

• Cosplay by innominaterifter in 2023: Video 1 (with discussion), video 2

Character Analysis & Nonfiction Writing

• "OK, confession time: The more time passes, the more I think back about Worm, the more I find that my opinions are distinctly less complimentary toward Taylor than those of most of the fandom.", ^{Archived version}, a Sufficient Velocity forum essay by sun tzu

Resources

Canon Resources

• Taylor Hebert on Worm Wiki

Archives

• Skitter (character filter) on fanfiction.net
• Works tagged Taylor Hebert | Skitter | Weaver on AO3