- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm a little confused why she's suddenly talking about trigger events, here.
Eden's Edge (Worm/Sonnie's Edge [Love, Death, and Robots])
Functionality
The Scholar
- Location
- At the Library
- Pronouns
- He
"That was-just me adding some myelin and unfucking the Alzheimer's genes. It wasnt the brain!"
- Location
- Massachussetts
So allowing her to direct the violence outward instead of inward helps to bleed off the pressure buildup before total melt down occurs.
On the one (serious) hand, that's an important message about the appropriate and necessary role of anger to displace self blame in cases of sexual assault. I'm glad the story got to this point and delivered that idea so well.
On the other (entertaining) hand, BEASTIE FIGHT! Not that she did a bad job with just her human body this time, but yeah. I think we all are looking forward to seeing some additional sharp bits brought to bear.
On the one (serious) hand, that's an important message about the appropriate and necessary role of anger to displace self blame in cases of sexual assault. I'm glad the story got to this point and delivered that idea so well.
On the other (entertaining) hand, BEASTIE FIGHT! Not that she did a bad job with just her human body this time, but yeah. I think we all are looking forward to seeing some additional sharp bits brought to bear.
- Location
- Zambia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well damn
Seamless mix of trauma and badassery
Nicely done.
Also, I noticed she killed a couple of guys and only notes injuries? Like is that her blanking our her actions or a changed way of thinking, or denial...?
That said, excellent chapter. Looking forward to the fallout, because there will be fallout
Seamless mix of trauma and badassery
Nicely done.
Also, I noticed she killed a couple of guys and only notes injuries? Like is that her blanking our her actions or a changed way of thinking, or denial...?
That said, excellent chapter. Looking forward to the fallout, because there will be fallout
Aeselon
Runs With Sentences
- Location
- UK
Did... Did she just stab a dude in the neck with his own compound fracture? Jesus christ.
Also, that was an amazing chapter. I keep finding myself vacillating between 'omg fuck Annette' and 'omg, poor Annette'. So if you're going for complex, conflicting feelings? You've succeeded masterfully.
Others have already addressed the trauma aspect and the flashbacks, but I love what you did with that here.
Also, that was an amazing chapter. I keep finding myself vacillating between 'omg fuck Annette' and 'omg, poor Annette'. So if you're going for complex, conflicting feelings? You've succeeded masterfully.
Others have already addressed the trauma aspect and the flashbacks, but I love what you did with that here.
Taliserian
(Unverified Verifiable)
- Location
- ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You can do a lot of damage to someone else if you've got enough adrenaline in your system and absolutely no sense of self-preservation holding you back.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I read it as more of a leverage thing, pushing the wounded limb toward the man's head to throw him off balance and drive him in the direction she wanted him to go.
Whether or not she was trying for the neck stab, though...
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
Yeah, this. I read it as more a choke hold turned into a suplex but that probably broke the guys neck
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
No, that was a different part of the fight. He is referring to this moment.
Which pretty clearly indicates that "stabbing him with his own broken bone", and "Throwing him" were distinct and separate actions. Probably one of the more 'oh shit' moments of the update, that and breaking that dudes neck.
Aeselon
Runs With Sentences
- Location
- UK
@serra2 yeah, that's the bit. I stand by my original reaction and add an additional 'fucking hell'. Because as horrifically traumatic as that whole thing is for Taylor, she, a skinny teenage girl, just flat out shanked a dude with his own compound fracture. In the neck. That's hardcore. And super messed up. Go Taylor!
The human body is capable of way more than most people think it can. The whole 'mothers lifting cars off of their children' is a thing that really happens. The reason that sort of thing doesn't happen more often is the body has built-in limiters to prevent you from doing damage to yourself. But in the right circumstances your mind can override those limiters. That's pretty clearly what Taylor was doing here, probably aided by that fact that her connection to this body is a bit removed and imperfect.
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also human-taylor-body is actually fairly strong even without adrenaline cheating, as we've seen before - maybe sneaky preventative measures added by Annette? I don't remember any other plausible reason for her to be as strong as she is.
That said, seems like Taylor's mental-blocked ABB trauma has flipped from suicidal self-hate to homicidal berserk. Probably healthier in terms of "not going to try and kill herself whenever the memory suppression breaks" but still some spicy mental issues. Hopefully Annette recognizes this and figures out what the hell happened here, because it's definitely some Weird Brain Shit.
That said, seems like Taylor's mental-blocked ABB trauma has flipped from suicidal self-hate to homicidal berserk. Probably healthier in terms of "not going to try and kill herself whenever the memory suppression breaks" but still some spicy mental issues. Hopefully Annette recognizes this and figures out what the hell happened here, because it's definitely some Weird Brain Shit.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- Male
I... don't actually understand the rationale here about healing these guys? Like, I'm not really sure why Taylor didn't just go sickomode and paste them, given her trauma, and the very clear threat they were.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You can't spell rationale without rational, which Amy is emphatically not.
Gaia
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mothers of Monsters.
Special thanks to my lovely co-author and wife, @hellgodsrus, without whom I would never would have been able to take part in creating half my fics, and our girlfriend @SolarFlare for being awesome and also betaing! Also special thanks Prime Betas @Tamahori and @32nd_freeze and @Ganurath for being betas and feeding me validation and feedback between updates! Excitement!
Gaia
-.-.-
She was in that hazy state somewhere between tired and wired, where her brain felt like fuzzy mush and her eyes stung, but there was a weird clarity to the thoughts that did exist, to her vision, the sour taste of her own saliva. A shitty kind of high, but lack of sleep is a shitty kind of drug.
Annie - and oh how she hated getting called that - was doing her matriarchal domme shit somewhere in the middle distance, in the midst of all the people who treated her like a freaking suburban mom. Which left Sherrel some time to herself to look like she was working but to mostly be (literally) spinning her wheels, thinking about this whole thing.
It was better than the streets. A lot better. A lot better than living with Wayne, Garrick, or that slob Lilah. Working with another weirdo like her - even if their tech barely worked together - was a simple, warm kind of rush, the kind she'd almost forgotten could exist. And Annie talked a very big game, the kind of game that brought back memories of classes she was trying to pretend didn't exist in her memory. History book stuff on revolutions, and social movements, and charismatic, terrible leaders.
But ultimately, she was still squatting in a warehouse on an abandoned mattress next to the sea. Annette clearly had less than a clue about how parahuman matters worked and was only interested in so far as she knew which rules to break with malicious compliance. And there was everything with her daughter, which was both a massive distraction and the kind of loose end that invariably would blow up in all of their faces.
Penny - no, she was Sherrel now, wasn't she? Hard to keep track - let her head rest on the wooden workbench, and idly spun a gear around a hex key. Still. Better than the streets.
"You doing alright?" Lacy Lacey sat down next to her. "Need help with anything?"
"Just slacking off is all." Lacey was easy on the eyes, and nice to a girl down on her luck. Her husband was a fucking dickhead though. Then again, wasn't that always the way of it?
"I hear ya." Lacey leaned back and crossed her arms over her head - Sherrel didn't let her eyes be drawn to the tantalising sliver of muscle that got shown just under the hem of her shirt. "Good gig, but hardly any time to just sit down."
"We're still winding up towards tomorrow night, I guess."
"Do you know anything about the Protectorate visit that's supposed to be happening tonight?"
Only that Annie says they couldn't stop us legally if they tried. "Not much more than Annabobanna said. We stand around and look menacing, leave the talking to her, don't do anything to provoke them, whatever the hell that means when they're cops."
Lacey chuffed a laugh. "Protectorate and PRT aren't as bad as cops. They're just kind of ineffectual. Which is better than actively malevolent."
"Barely." Sherrel grumbled, huffing. Then she snorted too."They were right about getting press-ganged if you're a Tinker, though. Least Banana was politer about it than they were."
"Yeah?"
"I mean, she threatened to kill me for the bus thing, but that's just business. The Protectorate had to be all smarmy about - "
Bang bang bang.
... aren't they meant to be a few hours away? Sherrel looked up at the big doors to the central lab room - moments before they opened and she stalked in.
It was weird. She was walking with a certain level of confidence but she was also hunched over. Even from here, Sherrel could see her hands were clenched into tight fists at first but they seemed to loosen, her hands splaying out of those long, too big sleeves. The whole costume was at huge odds with her demeanour. But, what did one really expect from the cape medic? Well, more like her behaviour and demeanour last time I saw her, that whole mess at Annie's house.
"I want to speak to Lilith." Panacea's voice was low, steady. Not what Sherrel had expected, or remembered.
Lacey sent Sherrel a look and got to her feet. Almost everyone had stopped work, was looking over at this. "Sure, come with me." An easy smile that wasn't returned. "Are you here for the Protectorate or…?"
Panacea's face - it was so fucking weird seeing someone in full cape gear without a mask, even if she herself was a cape and Annie had done that shit a bunch too - twisted. "I'm here for me." Her voice had risen to a sharp cutting edge. "Where is Lilith?"
"I'm here." Annie's mouth was tense, downturned under the mask. "What are you - "
"It's not too hard to find your laboratory, you know." Panacea did something that might have seemed like a disaffected turn to face Lilith. Might have, if she weren't a damn kid - Sherrel ignored the fact that at most a year separated the two of them - which made it just look kinda pretentious and edgy. "Even without looking through the notes the Protectorate forwarded my family on tonight."
Annette's eyes narrowed. "Panacea. Is there a reason why you're here."
"We didn't really talk properly before. You monologued, Victoria responded. You stabbed her." Panacea's face was still, but one hand reached for Annette. "I wonder if I could make you feel what that's like. You used to be an English professor, didn't you? You know the myth of the Fisher King."
Lilith stepped backwards. "I'd rather not have any permanently rotting wounds, thank you. Why are you here."
"You said we'd made you play a villain. I thought I'd see what a villain looked like."
"Right now we're rogues though, technically. Or, she is. We're just the hired help." Mike shrugged. "Thanks for fixing that knee your sister busted, by the way."
"Say another word and I break both permanently."
Lilith's eyes narrowed. "Don't threaten my employees and friends." A longer, tenser pause, then she pulled herself onto one of the nearby tables, sitting with legs crossed. "Oh. I think I see now."
"No you don't."
"I think I do." Good fucking god in heaven don't let this turn into a back and forth yes no yes no. Thankfully, Annie just smirked and added, "You didn't mean see a villain. You meant be a villain."
"... it would be so easy to kill you right now." Panacea's voice was still flat, even. "All of you. It wouldn't even be very hard. But no. I don't want to kill you."
Wow. Sherrel hoped the cameras were still running because a mass murder threat from Panacea of all people was the motherlode of blackmail material.
"I don't want to kill you because it'd be more fun to just paralyse you. I'd have more to work with. I normally kill most bacteria that touch me but I've not been doing that on the walk down here. It wouldn't be hard to make something that reiterates a paralysing neurotoxin as it reproduces."
"Stop." Lilith's voice was firm.
Panacea spoke faster. "Then with all that flesh to work with - she's got good musculature, but a bit too much of it, but enough to give firm hugs, those arms over and over again, the curve of a neck twisted round mine - "
"Stop."
" - could make an organic piston from bone and meat and sinew, and honestly there's enough of you to make a whole room, I could bury it and you fathoms deep with myself inside forever, never alone, never unhappy - "
Lilith stepped into Panacea's face and slapped her with one gloved hand. "Stop."
"I'm not being a villain. The way you put it, like it's a game. It's not a fucking game. I'm being a monster. You make them, don't you? Am I good inspiration?"
Several of the other ex-Dockworkers had started backing off when Panacea had started talking about murder. It was like there'd been this tension holding everyone still as she spoke and now it was gone we were free to move again. Like we were all struck dumb by how crazy she was, that she was threatening to - Sherrel wanted to vomit, so badly, at the thought of what she'd said. What she wanted from them. She settled for glaring at her, standing in Annette's shadow.
It should have been the other way around. Panacea should have been threatening after that - after all that fucking whatever the fuck she'd been spewing. But she was small and hunched and pale, her eyes very wide, Annie towering over her, like a tower at night, a lighthouse. Imperious before the cowering wretch.
"Are you a threat to my daughter?"
"I could be."
"Are you."
Panacea's head dropped. "... no. No, I'm not."
"Then I won't let your histrionics bother me. Now. Get the fuck out of my lab, and the fuck away from my employees."
"But -"
"Out." Annie pointed to the door. "One."
Panacea flinched.
"Two."
"I want to help."
"Three."
"I - my dad's a villain. A monster, he has to have been they were the only ones around back then. I know it's inside me I - the Protectorate, when they're coming here, they'll bring up Taylor's safety. They're hoping to provoke you into doing something. I'll go. I'll just - "
And with that, she fled. Robes flapping around her ankles.
Silence.
"Are we really going to just let her go?"
"For now." Annie slumped backwards. "She's a desperately unwell young woman who needs psychiatric care. She's not our enemy."
"She threatened to - she said she would - "
"She was barking at cars. She's very afraid, and very unhappy. Which does make her dangerous, but not immediately, not in the way she was trying to say." Annie sat up, raised her voice. "Don't go after her. Don't provoke her. Let her be. Worst comes to worst, we release the recording of what she just said and let them tear themselves apart."
Sherrel dropped her head in her hands. Why did I have to come to Brockton Bay?
-.-.-
Special thanks to my lovely co-author and wife, @hellgodsrus, without whom I would never would have been able to take part in creating half my fics, and our girlfriend @SolarFlare for being awesome and also betaing! Also special thanks Prime Betas @Tamahori and @32nd_freeze and @Ganurath for being betas and feeding me validation and feedback between updates! Excitement!
Gaia
-.-.-
She was in that hazy state somewhere between tired and wired, where her brain felt like fuzzy mush and her eyes stung, but there was a weird clarity to the thoughts that did exist, to her vision, the sour taste of her own saliva. A shitty kind of high, but lack of sleep is a shitty kind of drug.
Annie - and oh how she hated getting called that - was doing her matriarchal domme shit somewhere in the middle distance, in the midst of all the people who treated her like a freaking suburban mom. Which left Sherrel some time to herself to look like she was working but to mostly be (literally) spinning her wheels, thinking about this whole thing.
It was better than the streets. A lot better. A lot better than living with Wayne, Garrick, or that slob Lilah. Working with another weirdo like her - even if their tech barely worked together - was a simple, warm kind of rush, the kind she'd almost forgotten could exist. And Annie talked a very big game, the kind of game that brought back memories of classes she was trying to pretend didn't exist in her memory. History book stuff on revolutions, and social movements, and charismatic, terrible leaders.
But ultimately, she was still squatting in a warehouse on an abandoned mattress next to the sea. Annette clearly had less than a clue about how parahuman matters worked and was only interested in so far as she knew which rules to break with malicious compliance. And there was everything with her daughter, which was both a massive distraction and the kind of loose end that invariably would blow up in all of their faces.
Penny - no, she was Sherrel now, wasn't she? Hard to keep track - let her head rest on the wooden workbench, and idly spun a gear around a hex key. Still. Better than the streets.
"You doing alright?" Lacy Lacey sat down next to her. "Need help with anything?"
"Just slacking off is all." Lacey was easy on the eyes, and nice to a girl down on her luck. Her husband was a fucking dickhead though. Then again, wasn't that always the way of it?
"I hear ya." Lacey leaned back and crossed her arms over her head - Sherrel didn't let her eyes be drawn to the tantalising sliver of muscle that got shown just under the hem of her shirt. "Good gig, but hardly any time to just sit down."
"We're still winding up towards tomorrow night, I guess."
"Do you know anything about the Protectorate visit that's supposed to be happening tonight?"
Only that Annie says they couldn't stop us legally if they tried. "Not much more than Annabobanna said. We stand around and look menacing, leave the talking to her, don't do anything to provoke them, whatever the hell that means when they're cops."
Lacey chuffed a laugh. "Protectorate and PRT aren't as bad as cops. They're just kind of ineffectual. Which is better than actively malevolent."
"Barely." Sherrel grumbled, huffing. Then she snorted too."They were right about getting press-ganged if you're a Tinker, though. Least Banana was politer about it than they were."
"Yeah?"
"I mean, she threatened to kill me for the bus thing, but that's just business. The Protectorate had to be all smarmy about - "
Bang bang bang.
... aren't they meant to be a few hours away? Sherrel looked up at the big doors to the central lab room - moments before they opened and she stalked in.
It was weird. She was walking with a certain level of confidence but she was also hunched over. Even from here, Sherrel could see her hands were clenched into tight fists at first but they seemed to loosen, her hands splaying out of those long, too big sleeves. The whole costume was at huge odds with her demeanour. But, what did one really expect from the cape medic? Well, more like her behaviour and demeanour last time I saw her, that whole mess at Annie's house.
"I want to speak to Lilith." Panacea's voice was low, steady. Not what Sherrel had expected, or remembered.
Lacey sent Sherrel a look and got to her feet. Almost everyone had stopped work, was looking over at this. "Sure, come with me." An easy smile that wasn't returned. "Are you here for the Protectorate or…?"
Panacea's face - it was so fucking weird seeing someone in full cape gear without a mask, even if she herself was a cape and Annie had done that shit a bunch too - twisted. "I'm here for me." Her voice had risen to a sharp cutting edge. "Where is Lilith?"
"I'm here." Annie's mouth was tense, downturned under the mask. "What are you - "
"It's not too hard to find your laboratory, you know." Panacea did something that might have seemed like a disaffected turn to face Lilith. Might have, if she weren't a damn kid - Sherrel ignored the fact that at most a year separated the two of them - which made it just look kinda pretentious and edgy. "Even without looking through the notes the Protectorate forwarded my family on tonight."
Annette's eyes narrowed. "Panacea. Is there a reason why you're here."
"We didn't really talk properly before. You monologued, Victoria responded. You stabbed her." Panacea's face was still, but one hand reached for Annette. "I wonder if I could make you feel what that's like. You used to be an English professor, didn't you? You know the myth of the Fisher King."
Lilith stepped backwards. "I'd rather not have any permanently rotting wounds, thank you. Why are you here."
"You said we'd made you play a villain. I thought I'd see what a villain looked like."
"Right now we're rogues though, technically. Or, she is. We're just the hired help." Mike shrugged. "Thanks for fixing that knee your sister busted, by the way."
"Say another word and I break both permanently."
Lilith's eyes narrowed. "Don't threaten my employees and friends." A longer, tenser pause, then she pulled herself onto one of the nearby tables, sitting with legs crossed. "Oh. I think I see now."
"No you don't."
"I think I do." Good fucking god in heaven don't let this turn into a back and forth yes no yes no. Thankfully, Annie just smirked and added, "You didn't mean see a villain. You meant be a villain."
"... it would be so easy to kill you right now." Panacea's voice was still flat, even. "All of you. It wouldn't even be very hard. But no. I don't want to kill you."
Wow. Sherrel hoped the cameras were still running because a mass murder threat from Panacea of all people was the motherlode of blackmail material.
"I don't want to kill you because it'd be more fun to just paralyse you. I'd have more to work with. I normally kill most bacteria that touch me but I've not been doing that on the walk down here. It wouldn't be hard to make something that reiterates a paralysing neurotoxin as it reproduces."
"Stop." Lilith's voice was firm.
Panacea spoke faster. "Then with all that flesh to work with - she's got good musculature, but a bit too much of it, but enough to give firm hugs, those arms over and over again, the curve of a neck twisted round mine - "
"Stop."
" - could make an organic piston from bone and meat and sinew, and honestly there's enough of you to make a whole room, I could bury it and you fathoms deep with myself inside forever, never alone, never unhappy - "
Lilith stepped into Panacea's face and slapped her with one gloved hand. "Stop."
"I'm not being a villain. The way you put it, like it's a game. It's not a fucking game. I'm being a monster. You make them, don't you? Am I good inspiration?"
Several of the other ex-Dockworkers had started backing off when Panacea had started talking about murder. It was like there'd been this tension holding everyone still as she spoke and now it was gone we were free to move again. Like we were all struck dumb by how crazy she was, that she was threatening to - Sherrel wanted to vomit, so badly, at the thought of what she'd said. What she wanted from them. She settled for glaring at her, standing in Annette's shadow.
It should have been the other way around. Panacea should have been threatening after that - after all that fucking whatever the fuck she'd been spewing. But she was small and hunched and pale, her eyes very wide, Annie towering over her, like a tower at night, a lighthouse. Imperious before the cowering wretch.
"Are you a threat to my daughter?"
"I could be."
"Are you."
Panacea's head dropped. "... no. No, I'm not."
"Then I won't let your histrionics bother me. Now. Get the fuck out of my lab, and the fuck away from my employees."
"But -"
"Out." Annie pointed to the door. "One."
Panacea flinched.
"Two."
"I want to help."
"Three."
"I - my dad's a villain. A monster, he has to have been they were the only ones around back then. I know it's inside me I - the Protectorate, when they're coming here, they'll bring up Taylor's safety. They're hoping to provoke you into doing something. I'll go. I'll just - "
And with that, she fled. Robes flapping around her ankles.
Silence.
"Are we really going to just let her go?"
"For now." Annie slumped backwards. "She's a desperately unwell young woman who needs psychiatric care. She's not our enemy."
"She threatened to - she said she would - "
"She was barking at cars. She's very afraid, and very unhappy. Which does make her dangerous, but not immediately, not in the way she was trying to say." Annie sat up, raised her voice. "Don't go after her. Don't provoke her. Let her be. Worst comes to worst, we release the recording of what she just said and let them tear themselves apart."
Sherrel dropped her head in her hands. Why did I have to come to Brockton Bay?
-.-.-
SolarFlare
(Verified Cape)
- Location
- Brockton Bay, USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I love that Annette's response to angry S class biostriker is to go into mom mode and start counting. And even better, it works. ...Shit, is Annette a better mom than Carol?
Siberian for Most Supportive Mom 2011
WhoAmEye
Bunker-Dwelling Cryptid
- Location
- Vault Birb
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Arguments could be made that the fucking Siberian, Manton's Imaginary Friend, is a better mom than Carol.
Examples include:
*being supportive of her daughter's hobbies
*involving herself in her daughter's life to keep her safe from those that would hurt her
*providing for her daughter
*providing for her daughter's hobbies
*actually trying to keep her daughter happy
And all this while being a mute murderhobo! FOR SHAME, CAROL
- Location
- England
Still way better for you than canon.
Functionality
The Scholar
- Location
- At the Library
- Pronouns
- He
The problem? This is partially true.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Location
- Germany
Am I the only one getting tired of Annette's "nothing can touch me" bullshit? Someone should slap her the fuck down to remind her that she ain't untouchable.