An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
Ah, but that's where we run into the whole Ring of Gyges issue.
It's easy to be moral on this matter when your power is obvious, liable to cause suspicions, and has a good chance of getting you caught and punished - and your "unpremeditated revenge" if you snap involves "bug swarms", forcing you to keep control of yourself.
It's rather harder when you figuratively have a button labelled "Make Them Miserable" and by pressing it exactly that happens, with almost no risk to you. She has been handed a tool which lets her do all sorts of things without any suspicion... and if she snaps and does actually hit them with something [1] - well, they have a bad day. Without anything linking it to her.
(And oh look, her power does let her make herself invisible/ignored, and that's the thing she uses the most. It's not a coincidence, the fact that I can bring out the Ring of Gyges as a thematic device I'm using - it's quite appropriate as a counter-position to the standard view of superhero morality (and the GRITTY ANTIHERO VIEW too).
I suspect the parallel won't be taken far enough that she murders the king of the US and marries the queen, though.)
[1] Rather than just fantasising about it, which I would point out that it's as far as she's got so far.
Last edited:
Best way to deal with them is likely to try to get the proper authority to deal with them fairly. In this case its the PRT, but Taylor doesn't know that. Still she doesn't need to know who the person above the principal is, she just needs the principle to feel shitty and responsible enough to do her job of passing the buck to the appropriate legal authority. It isn't like the school has no legal protection from lawsuit over this.
" If he asked where I'd been, I'd just needed to talk to some teacher after school about my first day back. Hah! If the school had been not-shit, they'd have done that anyway."
Taylor you twit. You walked out of school cloaked in Isolation so strong that you could pass a yard in front of someone specifically waiting for you without them noticing. How could a teacher have asked you about your day? And it was your own decision to not look for one yourself and plan to lie about it.
Blaming other people for what you do is a quick route to being a loser villain. Indulge in cruelty and spite by using the thinner snake and your journey to the dark side will be complete. Which is not to say that you won't continue to get worse.
Taylor you twit. You walked out of school cloaked in Isolation so strong that you could pass a yard in front of someone specifically waiting for you without them noticing. How could a teacher have asked you about your day? And it was your own decision to not look for one yourself and plan to lie about it.
Blaming other people for what you do is a quick route to being a loser villain. Indulge in cruelty and spite by using the thinner snake and your journey to the dark side will be complete. Which is not to say that you won't continue to get worse.
I will tentatively say that Madison might feel somewhat bad about what she did, simply because I can only assume that the locker prank fucked Taylor up more than it did in canon. (I don't read Worm.)
I also managed to pick up on why Emma turned into such a horrible cunt . . . So fucking stupid. I don't particularly mind if Taylor ruins her.
However, the only information I could find on Sophia is her costume as Shadow Stalker and her abilities . . . What the fuck is Sophia's problem? (Oh, and all I found for Madison was that she hangs out with Emma and Sophia.)
I also managed to pick up on why Emma turned into such a horrible cunt . . . So fucking stupid. I don't particularly mind if Taylor ruins her.
However, the only information I could find on Sophia is her costume as Shadow Stalker and her abilities . . . What the fuck is Sophia's problem? (Oh, and all I found for Madison was that she hangs out with Emma and Sophia.)
Yes it did.
- I think Taylor would mind. Afterwards.
- Emma is 16 and stupidity is not an actual crime.
She overcompensates with tough-girl act because she flew rather that fought when she triggered at a gang attack.
That is why she likes Emma. Because Emma fought back when she was attacked.
That is pretty much all there is to know in canon.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Unless there's been a Word of God that I missed, either in canon or specific to this thread, we don't know why Sophia triggered.
One of Worm's themes is how 'one bad day' can leave permanent mental scars, with both Emma and Sophia being examples of this.
We don't know the exact circumstances of how she triggered, but we know that Shadow Stalker triggered fairly young (shortly after turning 12), it's implied that her mother's boyfriend was involved, she has a power that seems designed for running away and hiding, and after her trigger, she began espousing a personal philosophy that's essentially "You're either Strong or Weak, and I'm one of the Strong".
The obvious inference is that she used to consider herself weak and prey, and her trigger event caused her to have a "I'm never going to be Weak again!" moment, similar to how canon Taylor was shaped in part by a "No one is ever going to bully me again!" mindset after her trigger event.
When Emma was 14, a group of gang members dragged her and her father out of their car, and in a rather mindfuckery fashion, held her down while discussing the details of how they were going to rape and/or mutiliate her. Sophia rescued her. For a couple of reasons (not necessarily good reasons, but reasons), Emma mentally associates that attack with Taylor, and while she can't get revenge on the gang members, Taylor's right there...
Emma also embraces Sophia's "You're either a Predator or Prey" mindset with the zeal of a convert, apparently wholeheartedly believing it to a degree beyond Sophia (who appears to use it more as a rationalization than a religion).
It's hinted that, in canon, after Taylor was revealed to be Skitter and joined the Wards, Emma committed suicide.
Honestly, I think Emma is pure distilled irredeemable evil, but I still have some sympathy for what she went through to become that.
(All of this, of course, is from canon, which may be slightly or completely different from how things happened in this fic.)
Wait, WHAT!
There is no hint of that. When Taylor sees the Barneses during Golden Morning it's implied that Emma is a victim of the rampage.
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Everything about the scene, what with the way the Barnes look at her, seems to imply that Emma killed herself because of the whole Arcadia incident. Taylor just seems to think that Emma must have died in the rampage.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Eh, while Sophia's power is perfectly good at running away, it isn't actually a running away power; it's actually called out as a notably aggressive Shard. We actually have three point of confirmation on this, from Taylor, Satyr, and Tattletale. Admittedly both Taylor and Satyr are working off the same data points.
Still, this is wandering over to close to canon discussion.
No human is that.
Sure she is twisted and draws assurance from seeing herself as a predator.
Does that make her irredeemably evil?
Or does that make her a troubled girl who could learn healthier ways to cope?
"I wanted to break off our friendship a long while back, even before your mom kicked the bucket, but I couldn't find the chance. Then you got that call, and you were so down in the dumps that I thought you'd hurt yourself if I told you the truth, and I didn't want to get saddled with that kind of guilt."
It was surprising how easily the words came. Half truths.
"So you lied to me, strung me along."
"You lied to yourself more than I lied to you."
"Fuck you," Taylor snapped back. She turned to leave, and Sophia stuck one foot out. Taylor didn't fall, but she stumbled, had to catch the gate for balance.
Taylor turned around, eyes wide, as if she could barely comprehend that Sophia had done what she'd done, that Emma had stood by and watched it.
Then she was gone, running.
"Feel better?" Sophia asked.
Better? No. Emma couldn't bring herself to feel guilty or ashamed, but… it didn't feel good.
It was surprising how easily the words came. Half truths.
"So you lied to me, strung me along."
"You lied to yourself more than I lied to you."
"Fuck you," Taylor snapped back. She turned to leave, and Sophia stuck one foot out. Taylor didn't fall, but she stumbled, had to catch the gate for balance.
Taylor turned around, eyes wide, as if she could barely comprehend that Sophia had done what she'd done, that Emma had stood by and watched it.
Then she was gone, running.
"Feel better?" Sophia asked.
Better? No. Emma couldn't bring herself to feel guilty or ashamed, but… it didn't feel good.
FlatlineAskari
*feline scrutiny*
- Location
- Elsewhere
- Pronouns
- Any
"Telekinetic rampage? Nah. All Burn? Uh, save it for Plan B. Hijack a nuclear-powered airliner and- okay, maybe not. Freudian spree shooting? God no. Gypsy curse? Heeey~ might be onto something here! Thanks, Stephen King!"
I think it'd be quite fitting for Sophia&Co to fall foul of their own twisty-twisty little philosophy, to be honest. Wind blows, rain falls, and there's usually a better predator out there.
I've not read it for a long time, but - wasn't the sheriff the one who started turning into an alligator?
I think it'd be quite fitting for Sophia&Co to fall foul of their own twisty-twisty little philosophy, to be honest. Wind blows, rain falls, and there's usually a better predator out there.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is that you, Sheriff Lung?
Anyway, yeah: Taylor's power is basically a moral toboggan, which enables really efficient traversal of that slippery slope.
No, that was the judge who was turning into an alligator.
Quick! We need a moral raised up tree root right away! Can Danny be that obstacle? She seems bent on steering around him.
Or a moral large, enthusiastic dog that tries to join in and pushes the whole thing over. I'm not sure where I'm going with this.
Lets hope he doesn't suffer the fate Cujo did, that'd really mess her up.
FinalPyre
Ennui Engine
Her powers seem to have a theme of making her less, rather than more. She's just found ways of making her less that work to her advantage. I think she could make herself dumber, and she might be able to manipulate things so that she could learn easier (eliminate distractions, maybe?), but I don't think she can straight up become smarter.
It always seems to be her taking a part of herself and temporarily shunting it away (and then sometimes manipulating it to do something for her).
Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
She could always make a Mind-Mosquito, and drain away the intelligence from everyone around her. Then, when she takes it back in, she get the added brain power.
Nothing can go wrong with this plan. Everyone knows that Victor is an excellent Hero.
SETIFAN
Burning the midnight oil
- Location
- Germany
Maybe she could just make herself less stupid or somesuch...
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
This isn't Nobilis, and even in Nobilis there would be a distinction between doing something smart, and not doing something dumb (at least there would in any game where you had access to a destruction of stupidity).
I don't think Taylor deals in abstracts quite that abstract.
Slight retcon just propagated through all the SV story posts - the OC from the hospital called "Amelia" has just had her name changed to "Leah". This is literally a copy-paste thing, changing nothing else about the character, but a) please note if I missed any and b) please note if slip up in future.
This change is simply to make it easier for readers who might have got or get confused about the difference between her and Panacea.
This change is simply to make it easier for readers who might have got or get confused about the difference between her and Panacea.