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An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)

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pressea said:
He wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for his patients, that's all. All the flies are alive, which is a good sign, and he's as stuck in his job as his patients are stuck with him. For an Other Place vision, that one is practically benign.
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That's an interesting interpretation and seems valid. So, the Other Place is not just about the hidden ugly side of things but also about the worst interpretation of things?
 
Wander said:
I don't know, I wouldn't call that time wasted I don't think. It would certainly be interesting to see both what Taylor thinks is going on through the lens of insanity as well as what is actually going on.
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I can definitely see why someone would call it time wasted if that was the case and the story actually ended there if they weren't in the mood for what amounts to a character study that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.

This is probably not that story, though.
 
Salbazier said:
That's an interesting interpretation and seems valid. So, the Other Place is not just about the hidden ugly side of things but also about the worst interpretation of things?
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If this is in fact an nMage crossover, then there's five sections of the Other Place, and only the one that Taylor has an affinity to is that.
 
Sydonai said:
Technically there would be ten, one for each Arcana, and Taylor would have an affinity for two(Mind/Space).
You can't actually see into the Supernal, the closest you can get is looking at the world through the view of your Arcana or looking over into Twilight or Shadow.

edit: If Taylor is viewing things with Mind then these could just be what spells look like to her, but if she is looking into Twilight then they might be spirits, and that would mean that Taylor has a decent Spirit Arcana(Weird for a starting Mastigos, normal for a Thyrsus).
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Arguably if you managed to get all ten magesight effects active on you at once, then you actually are seeing into the surpernal. Note that this would require significant shenanigans it you want to have any spell tolerance left over. (you can potentially get 4 spells into an item and still have it count as one for tolerance, so with 3 spells counting toward tolerance you can get all ten.)
 
Winged One said:
If this is in fact an nMage crossover, then there's five sections of the Other Place, and only the one that Taylor has an affinity to is that.
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More the other place is Taylor's method of getting into the right mindset for her spells. Effectively she's looking at stuff with magesights of space and mind which let's her discern emotional resonance and sympathetic ties mostly. Also interestingly enough if this is a nMage crossover then she may well be incapable of having her "minions" pick up and move objects around without teleporting since that falls under the domain of forces as opposed to her space and mind plus maybe a dot or two of one other (probably spirit because goetia is fun, the fact that it's a sin against wisdom if you don't have a rote just means more derangements to make demons out of). Also Earthscorpion probably has nMage house ruled out the wazoo along with his "I do what fits the fiction" disclaimer off of AGSITV is probably in full effect here assuming it's a Mage crossover. Although the lack of any noticeable effects of paradox from teleporting the book may mean it's not. Although I could just as easily see the one die being dismissed as negligible to the story for now and paradox will only really start hitting once Taylor gets into her first major fight and wind up accidentally managing a full on manifestation. (Hmm my powers are getting slightly wonky eh I can take it, followed by (extra bits of) mild insanity, then the other place leaking through into the real world some (not actually what happens but what it will probably be interpreted as by Taylor) and then we get good ol fashioned horrors that cannot be).
 
Winged One said:
If this is in fact an nMage crossover, then there's five sections of the Other Place, and only the one that Taylor has an affinity to is that.
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Eh, I also favor the nMage theory but I was saying that under no assumption. Just analyzing how it look so far. Thought if we want to discuss it with nMage perspective, does Mind magesight really distort things to appear in disturbing symbology/metaphor like that?
 
Spectrum said:
I can definitely see why someone would call it time wasted if that was the case and the story actually ended there if they weren't in the mood for what amounts to a character study that goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.

This is probably not that story, though.
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More to the point, her 'sight' thing lets her see things she has no reason to know of in advance (namely, Kirsty); I'd wager Taylor isn't totally hallucinating everything here.

I still want to know what exactly happens when she goes through doors/holes open in the Other Place though. Pseudo-teleportation anyone?

Still can't weigh in on the crossover basis as I'm only familiar with Silent Hill... hopefully she isn't the Alessa in this scenario...
 
The Destroyer said:
I'm actually loving this as its one of the truly unique worm crossovers. That said i really can't wait until Taylor gets out and uses her powers offensively, just immagine the possibilities. That probably won't be for a while though.

I'm also really curious as to if she can pull people into her hellscape or make her creations visible in the real world. The psychological effect of fighting her would be immense, combine that with a sufficiently creepy, worn and frayed costume and you've got a little bottled terror no matter how combat effective her powers actually prove to be. Being able to pull people into Taylorland while she exhales black smoke from under a helm of some sort, forming deformed fear inducing monstrosities...not to many people are going to he walking away from that one. Its delicious keep up the great work earthscorpion.
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Yeah, seconded! I couldn't say it better myself!
 
Stormseed said:
Really tho, it's probably way worse with no warning at all.
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Now there's a villain schtick (though I dunno that these powers work this way..). Drag someone into the hell-perspective without letting them know you did it.. in their sleep or whatever. Come back days later as an "Exorcist". Don't charge anything, but ask for donations. From the rich people you target.
 
Satori said:
Eh, if she did, she'd probably still be better off than bottling it all up inside. I mean, we all saw how well that worked out for her in canon.

Ironically, this version of Taylor is probably already more mentally healthy than canon taylor. She seems much less suicidal.

Truly, EarthScorpion is a Healing-type writer. :p
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Quite apart from any differences in mental state coming from her trigger or lack thereof, she also has the notable divergence that as far as everyone is treating her, rather than being incoherent when she got out of the locker she was instead unconscious, having apparently tried to kill herself. She is being treated with kid gloves by everyone. And she hasn't returned to school yet, so hasn't faced the three months more of bullying the locker incident is now "in the system" complete with accusations and the names of the alleged perpetrators known to the police - even if it's a she-said-she-said thing with no actual evidence. As far as she's concerned, she certainly didn't try to kill herself.

Which means from a certain point of view, she's getting the "benefits" of "suicide attempt as a cry for help" without actually going into the mental state to actually try it. And in fact is kind of annoyed about how people claim she tried when she doesn't think she did, even if all the evidence just happens to suggest that she did.

Of course, this is still around three months before canon began. And she hasn't gone back to school yet.

Salbazier said:
That's an interesting interpretation and seems valid. So, the Other Place is not just about the hidden ugly side of things but also about the worst interpretation of things?
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Possibly almost a little bit like the Heart from Dishonoured, hmm?
 
Noliar said:
Wouldn't a world with public parahumans have a much more forgiving shared paradigm as far as mages and paradox go?
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No more than all the vampires, werewolves, sin-eaters, changelings, prometheans, mummies and such reduce the Disbelief of any Sleepers who know of them. If it were Ascension then maybe but not in Awakening. Effectively Disbelief runs off of "that ain't humanly possible" as opposed to "yeah that's not achievable with what supernatural stuff I know of" and Vulgarity of spells is based off of the Abyss noticing you're trying to sneak stuff past it.
 
EarthScorpion said:
I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd made a monster from my own fear of my powers. Which meant that it would make people scared of my powers. Hmm. Or possibly scared of their own powers. I would need to-

No. I wouldn't check that. That would be a stupid thing to check. I'd find something much less alarming and traumatic to test that sort of thing.
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Huh, I guess I was wrong. This can't be a nWoD crossover.

It's a joke.
 
TheLastOne said:
Huh, I guess I was wrong. This can't be a nWoD crossover.

It's a joke.
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Heh. The Mage replacement for Morality is called Wisdom, you know.

Stormseed said:
Yeah, the problem in nMage is that the universe is broken, not that people don't believe in magic.
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If I recall correctly, there's a superficial resemblance to it being because people don't believe in magic, in that the breakage in the universe is more severe in places being observed by ordinary people.
 
As much as this is entertaining me, I think we're approaching the limit of off-topicness that ES will tolerate without insulting us.
 
Dilaculo said:
Inefficient. You could just make a single, new spell incorporating all ten spheres at one dot. It's merely a wide-ranging Conjunctional Spell. Mechanically simple, but fluffwise...
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Perhaps, but doing that requires that you have learned all 10 spheres to rank 2. This has it's own set of inherent inefficiencies. Doing it with Items means that a cabal can work together to get all 10 sights into a single item.
 
illhousen said:
Anyway, glad to see this story updated. Taylor's power continues becoming curiouser and curiouser with each step.
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Clearly, her real power is that she can do absolutely anything she puts her mind to, as long as she does it in a manner that would creep the fuck out of any normal sane human being, and more powerful effects require more creepifying aesthetics and methodologies.

If this is so, we'll find it out when she discovers that she can appear to fly, as long as she's actually being born aloft by mutilated blinded angels wrapped in barbed wire who scream from the iron nails hammered into their eyes.

Glen: "..."

Glen: "Look, as long as she keeps them invisible, we'll get along just fine. At least she has the decency to keep her onlooker-traumatising powers hidden in a twisted hell-dimension. That's more than I can say for some capes I've dealt with."
 
Interregnum said:
Of course, we're all operating under the assumption that Taylor is at least functionally sane. I don't think any of us are operating under the dillusion that any believable itteration of Taylor is completely stable, but I wouldn't put it pas ES to make Imago!Taylor certifiable.

It would hilariously morbid if Taylor has convinced herself (and the reader) that she is parahuman when she really just insane.
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I've seen a couple stories do that. They all pretty much sucked.
 
EarthScorpion said:
Clearly, her real power is that she can do absolutely anything she puts her mind to, as long as she does it in a manner that would creep the fuck out of any normal sane human being, and more powerful effects require more creepifying aesthetics and methodologies.

If this is so, we'll find it out when she discovers that she can appear to fly, as long as she's actually being born aloft by mutilated blinded angels wrapped in barbed wire who scream from the iron nails hammered into their eyes.

Glen: "..."

Glen: "Look, as long as she keeps them invisible, we'll get along just fine. At least she has the decency to keep her onlooker-traumatising powers hidden in a twisted hell-dimension. That's more than I can say for some capes I've dealt with."
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She wouldn't be Taylor if her powers weren't terribly creepy, would she? :D
 
So, speculation, but, just how certain are we that we can trust Taylor's hellscape character assessment?

I mean, most of it seems rather... negative.

Other than the butterflies, who might just be a bit strange in their own way, her power doesn't seem to be portraying much that's positive.

It might be that her powers have the ability to give her additional information, but in a symbolic fashion and tinged in the worst possible light.

Like, spider therapist might genuinely enjoy helping people with their problems, and he's happier than he would be without doing that, but the Other Place portrays that as a parasitic relationship.

So far I'm getting the feeling that she might not get much of anything out of a genuinely happy place full of well adjusted people, as her powers did seem more dull during the attempted meditation.

Of course, I don't think we'll know for certain until she actually leaves the asylum.
 
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