diff --git a/script.py b/script.py
index 56bce8af..f8df625a 100755
--- a/script.py
+++ b/script.py
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ def parse_text(text: str) -> str:
         text,
     )
     # '&': newline
-    text = re.sub(r'(?<!`)&\s*', '<br>', text)
+    text = re.sub(r'(?<!`)&amp;\s*', '<br>', text)
     # '%': close message ('%%' to close whole writer)
     text = re.sub(
         r'(?<!`)%',
@@ -230,6 +230,14 @@ def process_line(
     data: Data,
     resolve_references: bool = True,
 ) -> str:
+    # Escape dangerous HTML characters.
+    # This preserves strings like "THE LEGEND OF THIS WORLD.#<DELTARUNE.>"
+    line = re.sub(
+        r'(&|<)',
+        lambda matches: {'&': '&amp;', '<': '&lt;'}[matches[1]],
+        line,
+    )
+
     # Highlight localized strings
     line = re.sub(
         r'([A-Za-z0-9_]+loc\((?:\d+, )?)"((?:[^"\\]|\\.)+)(", "[a-z0-9_-]+")\)',  # noqa: E501
@@ -280,7 +288,7 @@ def process_line(
         flags=re.IGNORECASE,
     )
 
-    line = f"<code class='code-line language-gml'>{line}</code>"
+    line = f'<code>{line}</code>'
 
     return line
 
diff --git a/static/script-highlighter.js b/static/script-highlighter.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c1be26be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/static/script-highlighter.js
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+importScripts(
+    "/static/highlight/highlight.min.js",
+    "/static/highlight/gml.min.js"
+);
+
+// Process the innerHTML of `table.code`. See script.js.
+// This code is brittle. If we overhaul the HTML structure it might break.
+// It's also not very rigorous about matching tag names and classes.
+
+/** @param {MessageEvent<string>} event */
+onmessage = function (event) {
+    let newHTML = '';
+    let insideCode = false;
+    let preHighlightedDepth = 0;
+
+    for (const chunk of event.data.split(/(<[^>]+>)/)) {
+        if (chunk.startsWith("<")) {
+            // We need to highlight text inside <code> elements.
+            // We don't nest <code> elements.
+            if (chunk.startsWith("<code")) {
+                insideCode = true;
+            } else if (chunk === "</code>") {
+                insideCode = false;
+            }
+
+            // We don't want to highlight text inside <span class="skip-highlight">.
+            // We do nest <span> elements so we need to keep a count of how deep we are.
+            if (chunk.startsWith("<span") && chunk.includes("skip-highlight")) {
+                preHighlightedDepth = 1;
+            } else if (preHighlightedDepth !== 0) {
+                if (chunk.startsWith("<span")) {
+                    preHighlightedDepth++;
+                } else if (chunk === "</span>") {
+                    preHighlightedDepth--;
+                }
+            }
+
+            newHTML += chunk;
+            continue;
+        }
+
+        if (!insideCode || preHighlightedDepth !== 0) {
+            newHTML += chunk;
+            continue;
+        }
+
+        if (chunk.trim() === "") {
+            newHTML += chunk;
+            continue;
+        }
+
+        // highlight.js expects text input, not HTML input.
+        const decoded = chunk.replace(
+            /&amp;|&lt;|&gt;/g,
+            (char) => ({"&amp;": "&", "&lt;": "<", "&gt;": ">"})[char]
+        );
+        newHTML += hljs.highlight(decoded, { language: "gml" }).value;
+    }
+
+    postMessage(newHTML);
+}
diff --git a/static/script.css b/static/script.css
index 7dd1e5eb..31df08b5 100644
--- a/static/script.css
+++ b/static/script.css
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ pre:not(.funcCode), code, .hljs {
 	font-family: "JetBrains Mono";
 }
 
-.code .selected {
+.code .selected, .code tr:has(:target) {
 	background-color: var(--selected-line-background-color);
 }
 
diff --git a/static/script.js b/static/script.js
index 6125af81..932139d6 100644
--- a/static/script.js
+++ b/static/script.js
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-(function() {
+window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
     'use strict';
     function highlightHash() {
         const selectedRow = document.querySelector('.code .selected');
@@ -24,48 +24,32 @@
 
     highlightHash();
 
-    const elements = [
-        ...document.getElementsByClassName("code-line"),
-    ];
-
-    // Unfortunately a standard document tree walker doesn't work here - it misses quite a lot of nodes.
-    // ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-
-    /** @param {Node} el */
-    const getTextNodes = (el) => {
-        const nodes = [];
-
-        for (const child of el.childNodes) {
-            if (
-                child.nodeType == Node.ELEMENT_NODE &&
-                child.classList.contains("highlighted")
-            ) continue;
-
-            if (child.nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE) {
-                nodes.push(child);
-            } else {
-                nodes.push(...getTextNodes(child));
-            }
-        }
+    window.addEventListener("hashchange", highlightHash);
 
-        return nodes;
+    // We want to apply syntax highlighting. We have two problems.
+    //
+    // First, we have annotations that we want to preserve and not highlight.
+    // So we can't just let highlight.js go to town, we have to be careful.
+    //
+    // Second, the natural approach of calling replaceWith() on text nodes
+    // is extremely slow for large pages like gml_GlobalScript_scr_text,
+    // locking up the browser for ten seconds or more. Firefox spends >80%
+    // of its runtime just calling replaceWith().
+    //
+    // So we process the HTML manually, as text, and set innerHTML a single
+    // time at the end. This also lets us use a web worker to highlight
+    // in the background without blocking the main thread. (You can't send
+    // DOM nodes to web workers.)
+    //
+    // See script-highlighter.js for the gory details.
+
+    const table = document.querySelector("table.code");
+    const worker = new Worker("/static/script-highlighter.js");
+    /** @param {MessageEvent<string>} event */
+    worker.onmessage = function (event) {
+        table.innerHTML = event.data;
+        highlightHash();
+        worker.terminate();
     };
-
-    for (const el of elements) {
-        // Highlighting has to be done super carefully and manually like this, otherwise
-        // the annotations won't show up and get overwritten by highlight.js.
-
-        for (const node of getTextNodes(el)) {
-            if (node.textContent.trim() == "") continue;
-
-            const replacement = document.createElement("code");
-
-            replacement.classList.add("highlighted");
-            replacement.innerHTML = hljs.highlight(node.textContent, { language: "gml" }).value;
-
-            node.replaceWith(replacement);
-        }
-    }
-
-    window.addEventListener("hashchange", highlightHash);
-})();
+    worker.postMessage(table.innerHTML);
+});
diff --git a/templates/highlight/alarm.html b/templates/highlight/alarm.html
index 35b09370..74e808b6 100644
--- a/templates/highlight/alarm.html
+++ b/templates/highlight/alarm.html
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
-<span class="alarmC"><span class="alarmU">{{ before_alarm }}<a href="{{ script_name }}.html" class="alarm">{{ alarm_content }}</a><pre class="code-line inline-code">{{ content_rest }}</pre></span><!--
+<span class="alarmC"><span class="alarmU">{{ before_alarm }}<a href="{{ script_name }}.html" class="alarm">{{ alarm_content }}</a><pre class="inline-code">{{ content_rest }}</pre></span><!--
 -->{% if script_content %}<!--
     --><span class="alarmA"></span><!--
-    --><pre class="alarmT language-gml"><!--
+    --><pre class="alarmT"><!--
         --><strong><a href="{{ script_name }}.html">{{ script_name }}.gml</a></strong><!--
         --><br><br><!--
         -->{{ script_content | safe }}<!--
diff --git a/templates/highlight/function.html b/templates/highlight/function.html
index cdfddf92..6a325f9f 100644
--- a/templates/highlight/function.html
+++ b/templates/highlight/function.html
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-<pre class="inline-code code-line">{{ before_function }}</pre><!--
+<pre class="inline-code">{{ before_function }}</pre><!--
 --><span class="funcC"><!--
     --><a class="func {% if script_name == 'gml_GlobalScript_scr_debug' %}debug{% endif %}" href="{{ script_name }}.html">{{ function_name }}</a><!--
     -->{% if script_content %}<!--
-        --><pre class='funcCode language-gml'><!--
+        --><pre class='funcCode'><!--
             --><strong><a href='{{ script_name }}.html'>{{ function_name }}</a></strong><!--
             --><br><br><!--
             -->{{ script_content | safe }}<!--
diff --git a/templates/highlight/text.html b/templates/highlight/text.html
index bf6d77aa..c61dfd78 100644
--- a/templates/highlight/text.html
+++ b/templates/highlight/text.html
@@ -1 +1 @@
-<div class="langtext"><span class="highlighted">{{ parsed_text | safe }}</span><div class="langvar">{{ before_var }}{{ variable }}{{ after_var }}</div></div>
+<div class="langtext"><span class="skip-highlight">{{ parsed_text | safe }}</span><div class="langvar">{{ before_var }}{{ variable | safe }}{{ after_var }}</div></div>
diff --git a/templates/index.html b/templates/index.html
index bc63a9d3..daa37809 100644
--- a/templates/index.html
+++ b/templates/index.html
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@
         <title>{{ game }} script viewer</title>
         {% include 'partials/head.html' %}
         <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/index.css" />
+        <script src="/static/highlight/highlight.min.js"></script>
+        <script src="/static/highlight/gml.min.js"></script>
         <script src="/static/search.js"></script>
     </head>
     <body>
diff --git a/templates/partials/head.html b/templates/partials/head.html
index b8df119f..26b56f5c 100644
--- a/templates/partials/head.html
+++ b/templates/partials/head.html
@@ -2,7 +2,5 @@
 <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
 <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/highlight/github-dark.min.css" />
-<script src="/static/highlight/highlight.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
-<script src="/static/highlight/gml.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/fonts.css" />
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="/static/main.css" />
diff --git a/templates/script_page.html b/templates/script_page.html
index e534cc22..d33efeaa 100644
--- a/templates/script_page.html
+++ b/templates/script_page.html
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ <h2>{{ script_name }}</h2>
                         </td>
 
                         <td>
-                            <pre class="code-line language-gml">{{ line | safe }}</pre>
+                            <pre>{{ line | safe }}</pre>
                         </td>
                     </tr>
                 {% endfor %}
@@ -37,7 +37,5 @@ <h2>{{ script_name }}</h2>
                 <p>{{ footer }}</p>
             {% endif %}
         </footer>
-        
-        <script src="/static/script.js"></script>
     </body>
 </html>