RazorSmile
ROB Used To Be A Knife Missile
Brutal and I should have seen the twist coming. Maybe there's a double twist and they are both Taylor 
[AU][Age Swap] The Woman In Apartment 302
- Thread starter YseultNott
- Start date
Huh so that's why I was never answered when I asked who seethe was lmao
The Tides
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Psyche wants to take Colin to the PRT.
"Kid," she says. "Listen. You're in over your head. I'm in over my head. I don't… I can't protect you. Not if she has a motive to go after you specifically. And you're homeless now, you need… I could give you a place to stay for a night or two, maybe, but you need to go to school, and to be able to see a doctor, and I'm fairly sure that would be illegal anyway. And it wouldn't be safe."
She sighs. The fly is still there, in the corner of the ceiling, out of reach.
Maybe it's Taylor. Maybe it's Taylor, listening, watching, following him, maybe it's Taylor, maybe she's…
"I'm sorry, kid," Psyche says. "You need more than I can give you."
"What if they send me back home?" Colin asks.
"They're not dumb," Psyche says. "They're not going to send you back to Seethe. I don't like them, but they're not stupid, or evil."
That isn't what Colin means.
(Maybe he deserves to go back. Maybe he deserves it, the quiet and the trying and the not-enough and the not-there.)
(He thought Taylor cared about him, and what does that say about him, when she's a villain and a murderer?)
All he got by running away was get someone killed.
"Okay," Colin says.
What else can he do?
"Kid," she says. "Listen. You're in over your head. I'm in over my head. I don't… I can't protect you. Not if she has a motive to go after you specifically. And you're homeless now, you need… I could give you a place to stay for a night or two, maybe, but you need to go to school, and to be able to see a doctor, and I'm fairly sure that would be illegal anyway. And it wouldn't be safe."
She sighs. The fly is still there, in the corner of the ceiling, out of reach.
Maybe it's Taylor. Maybe it's Taylor, listening, watching, following him, maybe it's Taylor, maybe she's…
"I'm sorry, kid," Psyche says. "You need more than I can give you."
"What if they send me back home?" Colin asks.
"They're not dumb," Psyche says. "They're not going to send you back to Seethe. I don't like them, but they're not stupid, or evil."
That isn't what Colin means.
(Maybe he deserves to go back. Maybe he deserves it, the quiet and the trying and the not-enough and the not-there.)
(He thought Taylor cared about him, and what does that say about him, when she's a villain and a murderer?)
All he got by running away was get someone killed.
"Okay," Colin says.
What else can he do?
Prodigual Son
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- He/Him
Colin has taken off his armor, and he doesn't like it.
He feels small, without its weight. Exposed. Fragile. No coat or strap over his shoulder, no Knife in his pocket or bag.
The room is grey, and quiet. No mocking tones. No audiobook. No flies. Just silence.
Heavy silence, swelling, dizzying.
Even the PRT employee waiting with him isn't saying anything, focused on something on her phone.
They're talking outside, Colin knows. The adults. The heroes. Calling his parents, deciding his fate. He's powerless again.
(Has he ever stopped being powerless?)
Colin can feel the walls closing in.
"It's going to be okay," Gallant says.
Colin said goodbye to Psyche already. She said they were a good team. She says she will miss him.
He's not sure he believes her.
"I mean it," Gallant says. "Really. I know it might not seem like it right now, but we're going to figure things out. It's going to be alright."
We. There is no we. He's not going with Colin, is he? They're sending him off to be someone else's problem.
At the door, the PRT employee gestures for Colin to come. Outside, the car waits to take him back.
"Kid," Gallant starts. Like Murray, high and mocking and dead. Like Psyche, teasing and joking and gone. Like talking to a helpless, useless, pathetic child.
Gallant doesn't finish his sentence.
Colin leaves.
He feels small, without its weight. Exposed. Fragile. No coat or strap over his shoulder, no Knife in his pocket or bag.
The room is grey, and quiet. No mocking tones. No audiobook. No flies. Just silence.
Heavy silence, swelling, dizzying.
Even the PRT employee waiting with him isn't saying anything, focused on something on her phone.
They're talking outside, Colin knows. The adults. The heroes. Calling his parents, deciding his fate. He's powerless again.
(Has he ever stopped being powerless?)
Colin can feel the walls closing in.
"It's going to be okay," Gallant says.
Colin said goodbye to Psyche already. She said they were a good team. She says she will miss him.
He's not sure he believes her.
"I mean it," Gallant says. "Really. I know it might not seem like it right now, but we're going to figure things out. It's going to be alright."
We. There is no we. He's not going with Colin, is he? They're sending him off to be someone else's problem.
At the door, the PRT employee gestures for Colin to come. Outside, the car waits to take him back.
"Kid," Gallant starts. Like Murray, high and mocking and dead. Like Psyche, teasing and joking and gone. Like talking to a helpless, useless, pathetic child.
Gallant doesn't finish his sentence.
Colin leaves.
Colin noooooooo! Don't flee the love and support you need >x<
Loving the fic, wanting to give many hugs.
Loving the fic, wanting to give many hugs.
punster lv1
Killjoy - cheerful shitposter - ignorant pedant
Ha can find love and support somewhere else. He might need to learn to open up first but on the upside it won't come from someone he'd want to bring to justice.
Not Every Story Gets a Happy Ending
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Colin sits in the car and pretends to sleep with his head against the window. If he opens his eyes, he will see the road and the roadside, the grey asphalt and the dull trees, the same landscape and scenery he saw from the bus a few months ago, the road signs and their countdown.
He's going back.
He's… He's really going back.
His father will be there, at the police station. His father will take him home. He will go back to school.
The same school, the same students, the same missing spots where people should have been. The same echo of failure in the classrooms and hallways.
Business as usual. Nothing changed.
Colin did all of this for nothing.
He's going back.
He's… He's really going back.
His father will be there, at the police station. His father will take him home. He will go back to school.
The same school, the same students, the same missing spots where people should have been. The same echo of failure in the classrooms and hallways.
Business as usual. Nothing changed.
Colin did all of this for nothing.
And that's it! I'm going to post something about Psyche's power in a bit, and a retrospective on the fic a bit after that, but the story is complete. I hope you had fun!
Extra Material: Psyche's power
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Psyche, of her real name Amanda Day, is a thirty-three years old woman, born and raised in Brockton Bay.
She transforms into a mirror image of a person, including their memories and personality, and truly believes that she is that person for the whole duration of her transformation, with no memories of her own existence and identity (beyond, of course, what the person she's copying would know). When the transformation wears off (after a duration she has to determine prior to it) she remembers the experience, which allows her to obtain information, although she can only access conscious thoughts she-as-someone-else had and not their entire backstory.
Her modus operandi is to lock herself into a closed room with a prerecorded set of questions before transforming, forcing herself-as-someone-else to think about the answers.
To transform into someone, she needs knowledge of that person - name and face, but also some of their mannerisms, tastes, habits and hobbies, as well as elements of their backstories.
She transforms into a mirror image of a person, including their memories and personality, and truly believes that she is that person for the whole duration of her transformation, with no memories of her own existence and identity (beyond, of course, what the person she's copying would know). When the transformation wears off (after a duration she has to determine prior to it) she remembers the experience, which allows her to obtain information, although she can only access conscious thoughts she-as-someone-else had and not their entire backstory.
Her modus operandi is to lock herself into a closed room with a prerecorded set of questions before transforming, forcing herself-as-someone-else to think about the answers.
To transform into someone, she needs knowledge of that person - name and face, but also some of their mannerisms, tastes, habits and hobbies, as well as elements of their backstories.
punster lv1
Killjoy - cheerful shitposter - ignorant pedant
Fun is not exactly the word I'd use (not for the latest part anyway) but still, thank you for sharing this story.
Also it was rather cheeky of you to taunt us with the unhappy ending.
Extra Material: Retrospective
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So! The Woman In Apartment 302 is now completely posted, and it has been a little over a month since I put the final touch and editing, so you get to read my thoughts about it now that it had time to decant a bit in my head.
1) Taylor and Colin
I feel like I didn't get enough space for their relationship to mature. There were a few hints at it, but ultimately, I feel like I didn't let them just... Hang out and live together. I haven't really gotten feedback on it, but I can't help but feel that it weighted negatively on the story, making moments like Colin leaving the knife in his room feel a bit unearned. Which is somewhat problematic, since their relationship is (or at least was supposed to be) the core of the story.
I should also have made more explicit Taylor's motivations to take Colin in. I was initially planning to have her have a subtly corrupting influence on Colin, trying to slowly push him to a point where he would have been willing to join Seethe, but as it turns out, I'm not good at writing subtly corrupting influence and didn't actually include much, if any, of that.
2) Psyche and Seethe
I should have developed them more, plain and simple. Psyche in her relationship with Colin (which would have made the ending better by allowing Colin to feel betrayed or let down when she doesn't take her in at the end), Seethe in her role as an antagonist and as a threatening figure. My main obstacle is that it would have been complicated to do that without completely giving the game away regarding Taylor's cape identity, or resorting to heavy-handed contrivances to hide the exact nature of their respective powers.
I was also caught completely flat-footed by the dual cape-identity theory, which I absolutely didn't see coming, and as such, I didn't include explicit proof that Taylor wasn't Psyche after the reveal that she was Seethe. Finally, people have expressed disappointment that there wasn't an identity reveal for Psyche - I didn't think it would be of particular interest as she was an OC and, frankly, there to be a Red-Herring for Taylor-as-Seethe, but it doesn't excuse not fleshing her out properly, especially since her identity was a part of the mystery. I dropped the ball on that one.
3) Colin/Armsmaster
I should have spent more time on Colin's cape career. Notably, I should have had him oppose Seethe more, even in indirect ways, and let him have a few victories before Tamara's death to let him build self-confidence before cutting it at the knee so that it would have more impact. Again, I was impeded by the necessity to hide Seethe's powers, to the detriment of the story.
4) The ending
I don't think I quite stuck the landing on that one. It would have been better if I had explored Colin's feelings about Taylor being Seethe more - caring about her and seeing but knowing she's not a good person, being uncertain as to her motivations, and how the belief that the only person who cares about him is a villain would affect his self-image and worth. This would also have allowed me to develop more the idea of Colin believing that he deserved the neglect and possibly misrepresenting (accidentally or on purpose) the situation to the PRT, making him being sent back feel less out of nowhere, although this would obviously have needed to be handled with a lot of care.
5) Overall
I am not, overall, very happy with this story. I frankly don't think it's my best, either regarding the mystery side of things or the emotional and interpersonal relationships aspect of it, and I am a bot disappointed in myself.
I hope you enjoyed it anyway.
Happy New Year everyone!
1) Taylor and Colin
I feel like I didn't get enough space for their relationship to mature. There were a few hints at it, but ultimately, I feel like I didn't let them just... Hang out and live together. I haven't really gotten feedback on it, but I can't help but feel that it weighted negatively on the story, making moments like Colin leaving the knife in his room feel a bit unearned. Which is somewhat problematic, since their relationship is (or at least was supposed to be) the core of the story.
I should also have made more explicit Taylor's motivations to take Colin in. I was initially planning to have her have a subtly corrupting influence on Colin, trying to slowly push him to a point where he would have been willing to join Seethe, but as it turns out, I'm not good at writing subtly corrupting influence and didn't actually include much, if any, of that.
2) Psyche and Seethe
I should have developed them more, plain and simple. Psyche in her relationship with Colin (which would have made the ending better by allowing Colin to feel betrayed or let down when she doesn't take her in at the end), Seethe in her role as an antagonist and as a threatening figure. My main obstacle is that it would have been complicated to do that without completely giving the game away regarding Taylor's cape identity, or resorting to heavy-handed contrivances to hide the exact nature of their respective powers.
I was also caught completely flat-footed by the dual cape-identity theory, which I absolutely didn't see coming, and as such, I didn't include explicit proof that Taylor wasn't Psyche after the reveal that she was Seethe. Finally, people have expressed disappointment that there wasn't an identity reveal for Psyche - I didn't think it would be of particular interest as she was an OC and, frankly, there to be a Red-Herring for Taylor-as-Seethe, but it doesn't excuse not fleshing her out properly, especially since her identity was a part of the mystery. I dropped the ball on that one.
3) Colin/Armsmaster
I should have spent more time on Colin's cape career. Notably, I should have had him oppose Seethe more, even in indirect ways, and let him have a few victories before Tamara's death to let him build self-confidence before cutting it at the knee so that it would have more impact. Again, I was impeded by the necessity to hide Seethe's powers, to the detriment of the story.
4) The ending
I don't think I quite stuck the landing on that one. It would have been better if I had explored Colin's feelings about Taylor being Seethe more - caring about her and seeing but knowing she's not a good person, being uncertain as to her motivations, and how the belief that the only person who cares about him is a villain would affect his self-image and worth. This would also have allowed me to develop more the idea of Colin believing that he deserved the neglect and possibly misrepresenting (accidentally or on purpose) the situation to the PRT, making him being sent back feel less out of nowhere, although this would obviously have needed to be handled with a lot of care.
5) Overall
I am not, overall, very happy with this story. I frankly don't think it's my best, either regarding the mystery side of things or the emotional and interpersonal relationships aspect of it, and I am a bot disappointed in myself.
I hope you enjoyed it anyway.
Happy New Year everyone!
My previous thoughts on Seethe:
- I don't remember her trying to corrupt Colin, and she seemed to be acting parental with him if anything.
- Psyche and Seethe are on opposite sides, and as such I took Psyche's words about seeing Seethe eat a man alive with a grain of salt.
- I don't recall Colin looking up Seethe or anything like that.
- The only murders shown are against people who either betrayed her or were planning on harming those she thought were hers.
- We don't know if the reason she killed the betrayer was due to being betrayed or to stop information from being given.
- The second shown kill revealed her identity to Colin, which she had been hiding previously, so she must have cared about him at last a little. If she thought he was only an asset she would've done it without revealing herself.
- Her words about not wanting to hurt Colin could be construed as her not wanting to have to hurt him because he betrayed her, and letting him go after a short period of time made it sound like a warning.
- The fly showing up when Colin talked to Psyche made it seem like she was listening, but didn't interfere.
- Seethe is never shown or mentioned committing any crimes beyond Murder.
punster lv1
Killjoy - cheerful shitposter - ignorant pedant
I feel like some of those points, at least those pertaining to Colin's relationship with Psyche and Taylor/Seethe, could be worked in through a couple of bonus ending. I'm thinking a Taylor and a Psyche POV on their respective last scene with Colin. Admittedly, even with the contrast it would offer it might be a bit hard to justify Psyche's and even with your usual information density it might be hard to cram enough of either relationship in your preferred chapter lenght to make it worthwhile. So make of that what you will.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I feel like the biggest issue with this story is that it just wasn't a good one for your style. You created an amazing... Foundation, for lack of a better term, but neglected to build anything substantial on top of it. Colin was only barely reaching a point where you could reasonably start to drop hints to the reader without it being dismissed as a traumatized kid projecting abuse onto his new "family" and jumping at shadows. As it stands, the ending feels like a bit of a "rocks fall everybody dies" moment. Even with your dense writing style, I'd be surprised if you could finish this satisfactorily without adding at least another 5 to even 10k words.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Huh. It's interesting reading your retrospective, because reading your intent for how the story would go makes it so much more clear that you set out to write one story and ended up writing a completely different one.
This quote is a great example: Instead of having Taylor trying to corrupt Colin to villainy, we see her seemingly doing her best to give Colin a home, not pressuring him, and even unmasking to save him in the end. If written a bit differently (like you intended), these certainly could've been the actions of a manipulator, then a misplay at the end, thinking her previous actions and her unmasking to save him would've been enough to bring him over to her side, but it doesn't come off that way.
I think part of everything is that we borrow part of her personality from canon without realizing it, since we don't really see things from her perspective at any point in the fic, and in canon she wants to make things better for the city but ended up a villain through circumstances, questionable decisions, and clashes with the Protectorate and PRT. It leaves us in a position to have charitable interpretations toward Taylor's actions rather than believing her to be malicious.
The interesting thing is that I think I like this better than the story you were intending to write. It ends up as a complicated grey story where Taylor, our villain, is doing her best to do right by this kid, even eventually unmasking to save him from her own gang. It makes Colin's decision to leave that much... messier. Obviously he couldn't just keep living with a villain, but it stings because everyone was making reasonable decisions that were going well and Taylor and Colin were both slowly becoming a family, albeit an awkward one, before Taylor being a villain and Colin being a hero broke that apart, when they were both trying to keep their activities away from the home and just be good for each other as a family.
This quote is a great example: Instead of having Taylor trying to corrupt Colin to villainy, we see her seemingly doing her best to give Colin a home, not pressuring him, and even unmasking to save him in the end. If written a bit differently (like you intended), these certainly could've been the actions of a manipulator, then a misplay at the end, thinking her previous actions and her unmasking to save him would've been enough to bring him over to her side, but it doesn't come off that way.
I think part of everything is that we borrow part of her personality from canon without realizing it, since we don't really see things from her perspective at any point in the fic, and in canon she wants to make things better for the city but ended up a villain through circumstances, questionable decisions, and clashes with the Protectorate and PRT. It leaves us in a position to have charitable interpretations toward Taylor's actions rather than believing her to be malicious.
The interesting thing is that I think I like this better than the story you were intending to write. It ends up as a complicated grey story where Taylor, our villain, is doing her best to do right by this kid, even eventually unmasking to save him from her own gang. It makes Colin's decision to leave that much... messier. Obviously he couldn't just keep living with a villain, but it stings because everyone was making reasonable decisions that were going well and Taylor and Colin were both slowly becoming a family, albeit an awkward one, before Taylor being a villain and Colin being a hero broke that apart, when they were both trying to keep their activities away from the home and just be good for each other as a family.
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