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An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)

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Samarkand said:
Taylor is going to end up being the "uber-creepy androgynous cape who teleports victims null-spaces between reality and mentally tortures them in their own private Harrowings", isn't she?
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Well, anything would sound bad if you say it like that.
Let's just call it Happy Fun Fun Therapy Time.
....but yes, pretty sure she is totally gonna do that.
 
mastigos2 said:
So who else thinks ES is going to punish her for picking a name that is hard to say fast?
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Well, if she isn't usually called Pan, I'll be surprised. Panopticon is a long drawn out word that almost sounds like two and a half words when spoken "Pan Opti-Con." It's not just hard to say fast, it's also just a mouthful for regular use. It's like using someone full name rather then just their given name.
 
Renu said:
Still rooting for Slammer, if only for all the Barkley jokes...

I think I know why ES didn't choose that, now.
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Yeah, it would be like naming herself Superman. She just doesn't have to power to support that kind of name.

*Purposefully missing the joke.*
 
abernathy said:
Thanks for the tip on this book.
I'm really digging the atmosphere in Imago of Rust and Crimson. The detail and backstory of the city is very rich, and I how that has been influenced by the storytelling techniques discussed in Damnation City. This is an excellent sourcebook that I wasn't aware of before your suggestion.
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I know, right? Damnation City is made of love.

Admittedly urban horror love, but that's basically paranormal romance and that seems popular enough, right?

TheLastOne said:
Don't worry about being too dark Taylor! It's what all the hip anti-heroes are doing these days!
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Well, in that case, she's so hip she's having problems seeing over her pelvis.

Winged One said:
So, the principal needed to be mind-controlled into caring enough to separate Taylor from those three? Seems legit.
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If you trust Taylor, yes.

You probably shouldn't trust Taylor. Just as a basic principle.

Anasurimbor said:
"Even if I had to implant unnatural empathy in everyone's heads..."
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Ah, point of order. It was sympathy, not empathy. She didn't send "understand what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it" crawling into the principal's brain; she sent "feel sorry for meeeeeee".

Andrew5073 said:
The comment on Heartbreaker is quite interesting for what it implies for Taylor. Her abilities may not (at present) produces reactions as intense as his, but she has much greater scope. Most disturbingly, the very lack of said intensity makes her powers much more threatening; what's more dangerous, the guy who can make someone fall obviously, visibly in love with him, or the girl who can manipulate your emotions and personality in any number of different ways without any obvious signs that she's doing so. What changes could she make, how thoroughly could she reprogram someone over time without anyone realising it?

This isn't Heartbreaker. This is the Simurgh. If her capabilities become publically known, she's looking at a drone missile of her own. If certain parties discover it privately, she's more likely to receive a recruitment offer of the Al Capone variety, perhaps in order to "rehabilitate certain dangerous elements of our society?" Cauldron would certainly love to have her; if they don't exist here (it's been a while since I read this thread) I'm pretty sure there's an analogue or five running around who'd happily do the same.
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Grue: "Wait. So let me get this straight. She has a power which lets her a) see things about the world no one else can, and b) make constructs which have their own powers? And then she can make them obey her? And she can also absorb them to steal their powers for herself? I'm calling bullshit."

Regent: "Her emotion power isn't all that strong. I can just shrug it off pretty casually. You're overplaying things."

Grue: "I am not overplaying things! 'My power is to make things with their own powers' is a fucking bullshit power!"

Regent: "Like Tinkers? Have to say, 'she can make be feel a bit sad' doesn't really register when there are people out there who can make mind control bombs."

Grue: "Tinkers are bullshit too."

Bitch: "I'll have my dogs attack her."

Grue: "Even if she gets bitten in half, that doesn't make the power not bullshit! Am I the only sane man around here?"

Guessmyname said:
Jesus fucking Christ
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In that sense, the US of Imago is just like the real world.
 
Could Taylor use the trick she used to get the flute to kill her tormentors? If her power doesn't respect the Manton Effect she could put something inside of them from across town. If it does she could stab them in their sleep through a portal.
 
TheAnt said:
This is something I thought was stupid in a world of Trigger Events. I'm not sure how often Triggers happen but torture and 23 hours of solitary is a BIG security risk because you can't be sure they won't trigger into a parahuman and do some serious damage. It has to happen at least some of the time, and the public has to be sick of another headline of "Prisoner in solitary triggers and kills 40". Things like ethnic cleansing or genocide could cause a huge numbers of triggers and create powerful enemies so indiscriminate warfare against civilians should at least be, hopefully, less likely as well. Taylor can't be the only person who triggered from bullying, and there has to have been at least once instance of someone pulling a carrie. So I'm surprised that schools, prisons, and those that use "Advanced interrogation Techniques" don't try to limit abuse as much as possible.
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I think canon has something about trigger events (or rather, what causes them) not being common knowledge among non-capes, which seems kind of bullshit to me, even if Contessa has some reason to want that to be the case and PtVs it.

Things ought to be different in this timeline, but the question is, in what way? Maybe ES will tell us, maybe he'll just hint at it, or maybe it's not important enough for him to bother, but I am curious.
 
Prince Charon said:
I think canon has something about trigger events (or rather, what causes them) not being common knowledge among non-capes, which seems kind of bullshit to me, even if Contessa has some reason to want that to be the case and PtVs it.
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In my universe we have several cases of bullying => school shootings, and we seem to rather dislike school shootings, yet for some reason we have not seen a massive reduction of bullying.

Even if trigger events are not any kind of secret, they might not be avoided very strenuously if doing so would tend to conflict with our human instincts for being an ass to other humans.
 
zergloli said:
In my universe we have several cases of bullying => school shootings, and we seem to rather dislike school shootings, yet for some reason we have not seen a massive reduction of bullying.

Even if trigger events are not any kind of secret, they might not be avoided very strenuously if doing so would tend to conflict with our human instincts for being an ass to other humans.
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Good point. Also very sad.

Still want to see if ES wants to say anything about it for this fic.
 
TheAnt said:
It has to happen at least some of the time, and the public has to be sick of another headline of "Prisoner in solitary triggers and kills 40".
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"But of course they're a villain. After all, solitary confinement is just for the worst of the worst. Do you think a person who gets powers in prison is going to be a nice person? At least this way they're isolated from the rest of the prison population when it happens."
 
Hmm... Given that Principal Doggie stuck to her guns when it came to not punishing the Trio, I suspect all Taylor did was make her feel bad about not being able to do any more. Possible that Taylor also got herself transferred out of all the classes she shared with the Trio instead of just the ones where it was easy to shuffle her around, but I'm fairly certain that's about it.
 
Lunatic350 said:
Hmm... Given that Principal Doggie stuck to her guns when it came to not punishing the Trio, I suspect all Taylor did was make her feel bad about not being able to do any more. Possible that Taylor also got herself transferred out of all the classes she shared with the Trio instead of just the ones where it was easy to shuffle her around, but I'm fairly certain that's about it.
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Concidering the amount of work they put in, in their bullying, I suspect that will amount to jack and s*** for actually improving Taylor's situation.
 
Vanigo said:
Well, of course, but that's not the point. The point is, given that these guys are certain to go villain if they trigger, wouldn't it be sensible to imprison them in a way less likely to cause triggers?
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What are you, some kind of criminal-coddling liberal who is soft on crime?

Your womanly weakness has no place in this room full of hard men making hard decisions about the hard time done by hardened criminals.
 
Guessmyname said:
We at least know now that the Otherplace isn't just Taylor's own reflections on places. There's been a number of hints but the school just being bland instead of the hellhole prison Taylor was expecting pretty much cinched it.

If I'm reading it correctly, you're positing that the Otherplace is making things/people appear in ways that will lead Taylor to the conclusions it wants to show? It's certainly possible; metaphor and symbolism is tied to culture after all. Unless its displaying things using the metaphors and symbols of the displayed object's culture which... we won't know until we meet someone who isn't Brockton Bay Americana, probably. Basically, given the Otherplace is using symbolism, it needs a frame of reference to work in. Since it's clearly not using Taylors (as evidenced by the school being normal-ish), it begs the question of by whose standards is it judging, and by whose culture is it displaying traits?

...A-And now I've confused myself. This is going to be one of those big philosophical tangles isn't it.
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Or the symbolism is just Taylor's subjective filter over something objective she's seeing, like the psychic residue/spirit world of wherever she happens to be. The school isn't some horrible abattoir because that's merely Taylor's personal feelings about the place, rather than the reality of yet another depressing shithole where bad things happen to good people, just like everywhere else. The Other World isn't actually trying to send her the message that she's just another statistic in a nation-wide problem of bullying; that's merely a consequence of seeing the Truth behind the Lie.
 
The Nomad said:
Unlikely - if her powers are modeled after nWoD mages then she'll need to become stronger before she can inflict direct damage (whether lethal migraine or spatial rending).

Also, emotional urging, sleep inducement and incognito presence. I don't recall, does it put her at two or three dots of Mind?
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That just requires a work around, she can track them, and move small objects to them, Poison is a easy way to kill them with those two powers alone.
 
Marsdome_Valkyrie said:
True. I was more getting at the fact that it isn't a straight Mage crossover or fusion, which seems to be everyone's assumption.


That's what you need the fucking Tinkers for.
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More then that, they're trying to find out her sphere ratings. It pretty much always happens when you use an RPG as inspiration, but it's a bit depressing.
 
TheLastOne said:
More then that, they're trying to find out her sphere ratings. It pretty much always happens when you use an RPG as inspiration, but it's a bit depressing.
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Which is one of the many reasons I'm being wilfully obtuse on that topic, and am outright refusing to confirm a damn thing about her "character sheet" (which she doesn't have anyway, beyond things like she's totally Justice/Pride from observed behaviour).

She doesn't know everything she can do, so why the hell should the readers get to know? Especially when they're just going to use it to immersion break.

There's a surprising lack of speculation on what her "constructs" really are and where they're coming from. Some might say it's possible to get some surprising conclusions if you think of what they could be, looking at things from both setting perspectives.
 
EarthScorpion said:
There's a surprising lack of speculation on what her "constructs" really are and where they're coming from. Some might say it's possible to get some surprising conclusions if you think of what they could be, looking at things from both setting perspectives.
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You've explicitly made it impossible to build a mechanical foundation for this story, so what would be the point of speculating on that particular mechanical detail?
 
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