i think if he was given space to comfortably express his intelligence anybody would be impressed! but he just never is because he's so emotionally distraught ALL the time...
i think squirm is genuinely extremely intelligent, he reads SO many books & he is the fastest extractor ("built in instructions"), it's just he cracks under the slightest pressure & lacks people smarts.
Coping with the ao3 shutdown by telling myself that tons of ppl will have fics to post when it comes back. After the drought there shall be a flood. After the famine there shall be a feast.