Alternate Beginnings is a short Worm fanfiction by ack1308, where Taylor gets Madison alone after the Trio's latest prank, and beats her up, leading to a mutual detention where they learn more about each other.
It is published on FanFiction.Net (here
), SpaceBattles.com (here), Sufficient Velocity.com (here), and Questionable Questing (here), and is complete.
This story contains examples of:
- Acquired Error at the Printer: Taylor gains access to Mr Gladly's laptop, which turns out to contain the manuscript for the school newsletter, and she does some tampering. Mr Gladly then doesn't happen to double check it before printing. His porn stash, including of Emma and Sophia, is thus exposed to the school.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Aisha Laborn is present in Taylor and Madison's detention, and promptly takes the lead in making their supervising teacher have a bad time. Taylor also meets Brian, who's dropping her off, and is impressed.
- Almighty Janitor: Carl the janitor helps the kids out, letting them into the cafeteria to get some snacks and later takes Mr Gladly up to the roof to get stoned when he's angry.Carl: You kids might not know me, but I know you. I know more about you than you might think I do. And I bet that not one in ten of you even knows my name. I go everywhere. I see everything. I hear your conversations. I know who's talking about whom behind their backs. [pause for effect] Everything.
- Berserk Button: Emma does not appreciate being laughed at when the school newspaper has her maliciously Photoshopped in, but her reaction is nothing compared to Sophia's. By the time the PRT is called in, Sophia has assaulted 27 students and three teachers, including several serious injuries and at least one hospitalisation.
- Booby Trap: Mr Gladly's brief absence is enough for the five students to loosen both his coffee cup lid and the screws holding his chair onto its base. He's okay for the first sip, holding his cup basically upright, but as soon as he leans back, the coffee spills all over him and makes him flinch backward...
- Bothering by the Book: Aisha uses a combination of malicious compliance and sleight-of-hand to give Mr Gladly a very bad morning. He tells her to spit out her gum and put her feet on the floor? She puts the gum on her shoe first. He tells her to stop and remove it, so she does — then palms it and starts chewing the other gum that she surreptitiously pulled out, making him think she's chewing the gum that was on her shoe a moment ago. He tells her to give him the gum immediately? She throws it right between his eyes.Absolute, dead silence fell.
Silence broken only by the sounds of five teenagers trying desperately not to burst out laughing. And by the sounds, or so I presumed, of blood vessels popping in Mr Gladly's temples. - Crime Of Self Defence: Danny is thoroughly unimpressed that after Taylor finally catches one of the bullies, which the school failed to do for 18 months, Taylor is the one they're throwing the book at.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Madison is much more subdued after Taylor covers her in bruises, and when the other two conspirators then throw her to the wolves, she cuts ties with them and reconciles with Taylor.
- Disappointed in You: When the gang starts talking, Jason shares the story of how his father caught him Stealing from the Till to support his Gold Digger girlfriend. He admits his father's disappointment was far worse than any shouting and was the reason he stopped buying things for his girlfriend.
- Driven to Villainy:
- Eddie's family is extremely poor and his father lost his job, resulting in their power being cut until it was restored for reasons he didn't understand. While he initially refused to join the Empire 88, he found out one night that the bills were being paid by his sister working as a Streetwalker. Afterwards, he joined the Empire to protect his sister from that life.
- Jason dated a Gold Digger who wanted more expensive stuff than he could afford working for his father's shop, causing him to end up finding work for the ABB.
- Failed a Spot Check: Mr. Gladly not taking a glance at the school newspaper before printing and handing it out means he doesn't realize every picture has been replaced with one from his porn collection, specifically pictures with Emma's and Sophia's faces photoshopped onto them.
- Gold Digger: Jason's ex-girlfriend was only with him for as long as he bought her things. Once he stopped, she broke up with him and he found out that she had several other boyfriends she kept for the same purpose.
- Homage: This fic was intended from the start to call back the feel of The Breakfast Club.
- Inner City School: Winslow has many indications of being one of these, from the students who don't even pretend to care about their all-day detention, to the janitor helping a teacher get stoned on the rooftop.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Thanks to Taylor seizing Madison and locking the door, Madison is caught in the bathroom where the juice and soda were poured on Taylor, and gets a detention as a result. However, Emma and Sophia, who weren't in the room, insist that they had nothing to do with it, that that was all Madison. She later goes to Principal Blackwell and confesses everything in full.Madison: I'm done with it. Done with them. They threw me to the wolves.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Eddie himself isn't racist, but has to act like it even in casual conversation because his fellow Empire members will start "questioning his loyalty to the cause" if he doesn't throw out random slurs.
- Shout-Out: It's subtle, but when Taylor is fighting Madison, there's a reference to the original story in this line. Skitter, of course, is Taylor's cape name in canon.My glasses came loose, skittering away into one of the cubicles.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Two gangers, Eddie from the Empire and Jason from the ABB, are in Taylor's detention, and both help to prank Mr Gladly — but only communicating via a third party, even when they're sabotaging the same chair.
