So these are my developments and final outcome.

 

In crafting the monologue and storyboard, I drew inspiration from similarly themed media.

Inspiration

Song lyrics

Tegan and Sara – I’m Not Your Hero

Standing where I am now, standing up at all
I was used to feeling like I was never gonna see myself at the finish line
Hanging on to parts of me, hanging on at all
I was used to seeing no future in my sight line

(…)

Feeling like I am now, lighting up the hall
I was used to standing in the shadow of a damaged heart
Learning all I know now, losing all I did
I never used to feel like I’d be standing so far ahead

Taylor started out as a bullied, downtrodden teen, with little to live for. She was described by her tormentors as a ‘cowering, cringing scarecrow’, as she never fought back, and everyone in school knew to stay away from her or join in. She was used to feeling helpless and frustrated, had no ambitions beyond getting through each day, and she’d spend weekends trying to muster up enough energy to face the rest of the week. When she triggered with her power, she had something to strive towards: becoming a hero.

Didn’t quite work out that way.

As a villain, though, she gained friendship, love, influence and prestige. It came with drawbacks, loss and moral dilemmas, but it was a sight better than her civilian life.

I’ve never been bullied to the extent that Taylor has, only enduring the usual girl drama that permeates primary to secondary school, and a deep and abiding loneliness that I find myself sinking into every so often. But I can relate to the feeling of despair, of being trapped mentally or socially or emotionally. And I can relate to the feeling of being in a better place. Of being surrounded by friends who care about me and have my back.

Sometimes it feels like the side that I’m on
Plays the toughest hand, holds the longest stand

(…)

I’m not their hero
But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t brave
I never walked the party line
Doesn’t mean that I was never afraid
I’m not your hero
But that doesn’t mean we’re not one and the same

I think Taylor would appreciate this because it’s a defense of paving one’s own way through the world rather than taking what’s deemed to be the ‘righteous’ path. It’s also about how it doesn’t make one lesser in any way, doesn’t diminish the trials

Over her time playacting as a villain, she became disillusioned with the way the hero factions operated, learning of the their corruption and bureaucracy. Not wanting to be hamstrung by what she viewed as pointless regulations, she forged her own path towards her goals and ‘never walked the party line’.  That didn’t mean she didn’t have to make hard decisions and face perilous situations. Contrary to the beliefs of the hero factions and the public, her intentions were mostly honourable and it was her methods that were questionable, yet effective.

 

LORDE – Everybody Wants to Rule the World

I can’t stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision

This encapsulates Taylor’s tendency to clash with most of the people around her. Throughout the story, Taylor expresses her anger at the short-sightedness and lack of cooperation between capes (people with superpowers), on both an interpersonal and institutional level. She’s a control freak. A consequence of the power – she’s an administrator, and she hates how people seem to be blind to greater goals or prioritise their (in her view) selfish motives. Couple that with her deep-seated desire to help the people on the bottom and to rebuild the city into a thriving metropolis, and the line ‘I can’t stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision’ is very apt.

To write the monologue, I reread relevant parts of the book and found excerpts that I felt were most representative of Taylor’s personality and motivations.

I almost laughed, and some of my humor must have translated in a mental direction to my bugs, because they started making a noise that wasn’t speech.  I stopped them.  It wouldn’t have sounded much like laughter anyways.  “All of the above?  None of the above?  Does it matter?  Some of us wear the villain label with pride, because they want to rebel against the norms, because it’s a harder, more rewarding road to travel, or because being a ‘hero’ often means so very little.  But few people really want to see themselves as being bad or evil, whatever label they wear.  I’ve done things I regret, I’ve done things I’m proud of, and I’ve walked the roads in between.  The sliding scale is a fantasy.  There’s no simple answers.“

from Snare 13.7, Worm

The idea that nobody really wants to consider themselves bad or evil, that everyone has their own drivers for their actions, is something that speaks to me. I do my best not to immediately attribute seemingly immoral acts to an evil nature, and try to understand why people do things before I judge them. The monologue should say something about moral ambiguity.

I also took inspiration from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:

You could call it heroic responsibility, maybe,” Harry Potter said. “Not like the usual sort. It means that whatever happens, no matter what, it’s always your fault. Even if you tell Professor McGonagall, she’s not responsible for what happens, you are. Following the school rules isn’t an excuse, someone else being in charge isn’t an excuse, even trying your best isn’t an excuse. There just aren’t any excuses, you’ve got to get the job done no matter what.”

Harry’s face tightened. “That’s why I say you’re not thinking responsibly, Hermione. Thinking that your job is done when you tell Professor McGonagall—that isn’t heroine thinking. Like Hannah being beat up is okay then, because it isn’t your fault anymore. Being a heroine means your job isn’t finished until you’ve done whatever it takes to protect the other girls, permanently. […] You can’t think as if just following the rules means you’ve done your duty.

from Chapter 75, HPMOR

 

This sums up how Taylor would view the responsibility of heroes. Her mistrust of authority and hatred for people who are apathetic towards immoral acts stems from the lack of intervention she received whenever she reached out to authority about the bullying. They would wipe their hands of any and all responsibility. She would see this on a larger scale when she was a villain – heroes and supposedly good people turning a blind eye to horrible things and doing nothing.

 

 

Emotions

Taylor is not herself a very emotional person, and her dominant ones are negative.

Favourite: Satisfaction – she cares about doing a job to the best of her ability and achieving the best possible outcome for her, her team and her city as a whole.

Fear

Excitement

Melancholy

Nervousness

Depression

Relief

Anger

Frustration

Least favourite: Helplessness – she’s a control freak, has to always have the upper hand. The sense of helplessness reminds her of being bullied.

 

Sentence starters:

I want to help people and ease their suffering.

Why do the people who call themselves heroes do the most damage?

I remember where who was there when I needed them.

I wish everyone would cooperate.

I fear that the world is beyond saving, but I’ll try anyway.

 

 

And now, onto

THE MAKING OF…

Videos

I wanted to do the film in the style of the comic sequence in the film Kick-Ass.

 

Although Worm is a book, the superhero genre was popularised by comics. I decided to employ this familiar medium to recreate that atmosphere of suspense.

I looked into how the comic sequence was made: http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/kick-ass-animated-3d-comic-book-sequence-breakdown/

Comics

I knew I’d have to illustrate the whole thing. But how to make it interesting? How to achieve those dynamic angles? I turned to my favourite webcomic Subnormality.

 

Story

I’m waiting at the bus stop when I notice that on the bench across me, a woman is receiving unwanted touches from the man sitting with her. She’s clearly uncomfortable but unwilling to confront him. This really burns my biscuits.

Inconspicuously seated next to me is Skitter in full costume. Without turning around, she stands up. The man jerks his hand away from the woman with a cry of pain. In shock, he sees that a wasp has stung him. He looks up, and Skitter rains the wrath of insects down on him. Swarms of stinging bugs fly into the bus stop. He runs away.

Then Skitter is gone, and so is the daydream. I sit and see the woman still being touched by the man, and I know that I have done nothing. I get on the bus, go home, use the computer and fire up a Facebook status. Skitter appears briefly to regard me with disappointment, before leaving.

 

 

Based on a true story, except I didn’t flay anyone alive with the bites of a thousand insects.

 

Monologue

 

TAYLOR: No one really wants to see themselves as a villain.

Everyone has motives, impulses they consider worthwhile. And they act accordingly.

It’s how you react that reveals the kind of person you are, more than any label. Sometimes, you have to do some less-than-heroic things for heroic reasons.

No one wants to see themselves as a villain. But the truth is there are two kinds: the people who do evil things – and the people who do nothing to stop them.

 

Characters

I sketched a reference pic of myself first – smallish, homely me in hobo attire as usual.

Then, for maximum contrast, I decided to portray Taylor as her supervillain identity, Skitter. I based her design on the descriptions of her physical appearance in the book.

From the wiki,

“Taylor is a tall, rail-thin, pale, young woman with long, curly black hair and glasses. […] She was approximately 5’6” at the story’s outset.

“Skitter’s costume consists of a black-and-grey bodysuit made out of spider silk with armor panels made out of shells and exoskeletons augmented with more silk. Her mask has sections of armor imitating mandibles covering her jaw and dull yellow lenses (taken from a pair of goggles) that incorporate lenses from a spare pair of glasses. […]”

I’d have to simplify it, of course, for the comic.

To be completely honest, I designed the two other characters on the fly. No pun intended. I initially drew the guy as your average bulky dude with a propriety hand around his girl as she trails behind him, but I thought that was a little cliche. So I gave the man a young daughter and plopped him in the background instead. He serves no purpose in the story.

Then I went about drawing the touch scene. That was uncomfortable in many ways. I decided there would have to be no mismatch in size, because not all predators are bigger or stronger than their victims.

 

I also decided they were strangers, because I couldn’t portray complex relationship dynamics in such a short time frame.

 

Execution

I usually draw everything by hand painstakingly, but due to time constraints I tried out the lineart tool for the first time. To my amazement, when I managed to get the hang of it, it was much faster and smoother than I could have imagined. Still drawing by hand, except the curves kind of correct themselves.

I chose to do the whole thing in grayscale, reserving a yellow only for Skitter’s eyes.

 

Backgrounds would be given softer focus without the harsh outline, as would the secondary characters in each panel.

 

Challenges

There were scenes I had in my head that were cut because I couldn’t bring myself to draw them. Mostly because they would require way more time and energy than I could afford. There were a few others that I just didn’t want to draw, so I condensed and reused parts or drew them from an angle that was more fun for me.

From the beginning to near the end, I had no idea of how I was going to make a film out of a comic. Having almost no experience with animation and none at all with 3D modelling, as well as very little time to learn, I couldn’t do the same thing as Kick-Ass. Celine suggested a Ken Burns-style slideshow, but I wanted it to be clear that this was a comic existing on comic pages so there had to be panning to show a visible whole. In the end I printed it out and filmed like that.

Film

The password is ‘regret’. Enjoy.