thefluffyone
Big Ego for Something so Small, eh?
- Location
- Earth
So wait, ran away or captured?
Firebird, a Worm AU/Xover?
- Thread starter chibipoe
- Start date
What the hell Danny?! He's got what was coming to him by signing those papers. He decided that taking away Taylors freedom without her consent even as she was blatantly against it was worth it even if she never forgave him and it might make her safer. I know a hell of a lot of people who have been given that choice in the past and they would have chosen to stay free anytime. I'm honestly hoping with everything in me that Taylor doesn't forgive the asshole. After everything else he's done and this I just don't care anymore.
He can go get rich or die in a ditch, I don't care. I'm just hoping that we don't have to deal with him anymore. He made his bed and knew the consequences and went through with it anyway.
At the very least we don't have to see anymore crap and angst about him trying and failing to be a father anymore.
He made his bed now he can lie in it, Taylors the one he's leaving to deal with the fallout after all. Good intentions don't make treating your family like porcelain dolls to be protected and forcing them to give up their rights against their will in any way okay. If someone decided they could make a decision like that for me without my (AGAINST MY) consent, then they'd be out of my life in a heartbeat. There's a reason people fought for freedom and value it so highly after all. Why people are willing to risk their lives to break out of gilded cages. A life with no freedom isn't a life worth living. Especially one where you knew freedom and then had it taken away from you.
What Danny just had to decide was this; force his daughter into a gilded cage against her will where even her identity and look isn't allowed to her, or let her live her own life while trying to keep her safe and happy too. He chose to lock her away. It may look like a nice choice and he's looking out for her, but I have no doubt Taylor (and the majority of people) would rather stay free, free to name themselves in their own choice, free to clothe themselves in their own choice, free to go where they wish, free to fight for what they wish, free to live their own way; rather than be forced into a gilded cage against their will. He choose to destroy his last remaining bond with his daughter and lock her away from the world for what he decided was her own good. Honestly I hope this is the last we see of him.
He can go get rich or die in a ditch, I don't care. I'm just hoping that we don't have to deal with him anymore. He made his bed and knew the consequences and went through with it anyway.
At the very least we don't have to see anymore crap and angst about him trying and failing to be a father anymore.
He made his bed now he can lie in it, Taylors the one he's leaving to deal with the fallout after all. Good intentions don't make treating your family like porcelain dolls to be protected and forcing them to give up their rights against their will in any way okay. If someone decided they could make a decision like that for me without my (AGAINST MY) consent, then they'd be out of my life in a heartbeat. There's a reason people fought for freedom and value it so highly after all. Why people are willing to risk their lives to break out of gilded cages. A life with no freedom isn't a life worth living. Especially one where you knew freedom and then had it taken away from you.
What Danny just had to decide was this; force his daughter into a gilded cage against her will where even her identity and look isn't allowed to her, or let her live her own life while trying to keep her safe and happy too. He chose to lock her away. It may look like a nice choice and he's looking out for her, but I have no doubt Taylor (and the majority of people) would rather stay free, free to name themselves in their own choice, free to clothe themselves in their own choice, free to go where they wish, free to fight for what they wish, free to live their own way; rather than be forced into a gilded cage against their will. He choose to destroy his last remaining bond with his daughter and lock her away from the world for what he decided was her own good. Honestly I hope this is the last we see of him.
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apeljohn
Non-Player Character
- Location
- Earth Aleph
We're hypothesising (with some confirmation from the author) that her precognition kicked in and she got advance warning of the horrible row she was about to have with her dad over him signing her up to the Wards without her consent. (Which, being Firebird!Taylor, she would see as an I-have-no-father level betrayal.) This was a shock to her. Her lasagne suffered for Danny's sins.
Rather than go through all that IRL, she chose to blow the scene before he got there: threw a few clothes into a bag and flew off into the night. What did she do next? Find out in the next exciting instalment!
Endymion
An Operator will be with you shortly.
Hmmm, this is going end with her taking out the entire Protectorate, PRT, Wards, ABB, Coil and the Nazis accidentally making herself sole ruler of of Brockton Bay...."Well fuck, I just handed all the Good Guys their asses, now the Bad Guys are streaming in....guess I'll take them out as well."
You're being too harsh on Danny. Was it stupid? Yes, but it's an understandable stupid, and makes sense from his PoV. He even said in his narration that she didn't elaborate on the issues she brought up, and she did go out to fight crime without telling him. He also hasn't had the system fuck him over like Taylor, so he still has a lot of faith in it.
apeljohn
Non-Player Character
- Location
- Earth Aleph
Legally speaking, she has no such freedom and it's his responsibility to keep her safe. If your kid decides to pull the guns out of your gun cabinet and wave them around, you don't start soliloquying about their freedom to do so; you take the guns away from the little brat as fast as humanly possible and then ground them so hard their grandchildren will be stuck indoors.
Pragmatically speaking... well, I've already used up my facepalm quota for the evening so I'll forebear. Suffice to say that Danny is overly trusting of the Protectorate's ability to even find his daughter if she doesn't want to be found, let alone keep her under any semblance of control. But that's a failure of forward planning and information gathering, not a moral failing. He's floundering about how to protect his daughter and the Protectorate offered him a lifeline; the fact that he took it doesn't make him evil, just desperate.
Personally I'm predicting a "but you told me you could keep her safe!" rant slash nervous breakdown in a couple chapters, possibly followed by Danny triggering.
PS...
I'm slightly confused by the chronology: didn't this happen before their previous discussion? If so, you can throw a side-order of hilarious (?) misunderstanding into the melting pot of their messed-up relationship. Danny should have checked the time-stamp on his information.
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FinalPyre
Ennui Engine
This is the only real problem I see with his rationalization (other than it being kinda shallow overall). There was a little bit of him that did it just out of spite that she didn't listen to him and he knew she wouldn't like it (perhaps one of the only ways he could still reasonably punish her). Perhaps not a very large part of him, but it was there.
I agree. It's the logical conclusion of the events leading up to this. He already said he would do it, honestly why are people so surprised that he went through with it?
This. What Danny did doesn't make him a monster, it proves that he's desperate. And she never did give him a good reason why she doesn't want to join. Sure she doesn't trust them and she doesn't like their MO, but from Danny's point of view that isn't enough to warrant the danger she's placing herself in.
I don't agree with his actions at all, but I understand them. As a concerned father who was completely and 100% out of his depth, what else could he do? Let her continue to risk her life every night alone and without backup if things go wrong? He tried talking it over with her and it didn't work.
VolantRedX
Official Conscience of Worm Fanfiction!
I think Danny doesn't think Taylor needs to be controlled. He likely thinks that after a few weeks Taylor is going to love being a Ward. He seems to think that she's just being stubborn about not joining. As far as he knows she made her mind up without really thinking it over and if she just gave it a chance she'd be fine with it.
What I find most odd is what Taylor focuses on when thinking about the Wards. Her biggest issue seems to be the lack of control over how she fights and what she wears. It feels really petty.
earthboy
(verified ape)
- Location
- NYC
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Taylor makes unilateral life-changing (usually bad) decisions without consulting her family.
This is because she is related to Danny, who does pretty much exactly the same thing in this story.
Yeah, it's a flaw. The funny thing is, it's a flaw which we seem to forgive when Taylor does it.
This is because she is related to Danny, who does pretty much exactly the same thing in this story.
Yeah, it's a flaw. The funny thing is, it's a flaw which we seem to forgive when Taylor does it.
Those are pretty big actually.
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Eh. So many people are on Danny when Taylor's running on precog, and all but making the argument to go to the wards for him. Even when it seem like there are very blatant hints on things she could try.
I mean am I the only one who keeps hearing 'Hey sign up with us and we'll work on your dad' when catherine talks or 'Ya know New Wave has everything the wards offer plus panacea and the wards without signing on we'd totally back you us and help sell him' when Victoria talks.
She's constantly making judgements and doing or not doing work off her precog and failing to see how it fucks her over.
In her arguments when she takes out all the emotional appeal of I really don't wanna by not explaining how they make her feel in detail, or how she makes 'she just wants more wards' sound petulant by not explaining the weight of necessity and use and thus that they want to use her, or even how she has actually parahuman friends who would back her up.
But what she actually gives is a whole lot of Hebert Anger and shallow arguments. And we already know what Danny feels about that. It's never ever done him any good when it counted and most likely never will.
I mean am I the only one who keeps hearing 'Hey sign up with us and we'll work on your dad' when catherine talks or 'Ya know New Wave has everything the wards offer plus panacea and the wards without signing on we'd totally back you us and help sell him' when Victoria talks.
She's constantly making judgements and doing or not doing work off her precog and failing to see how it fucks her over.
In her arguments when she takes out all the emotional appeal of I really don't wanna by not explaining how they make her feel in detail, or how she makes 'she just wants more wards' sound petulant by not explaining the weight of necessity and use and thus that they want to use her, or even how she has actually parahuman friends who would back her up.
But what she actually gives is a whole lot of Hebert Anger and shallow arguments. And we already know what Danny feels about that. It's never ever done him any good when it counted and most likely never will.
She's a Telekine and Branding has to respect a wards decisions in the limits of good taste and sufficient coverage. The literally only thing wrong with her costume is the shitty too revealing mask.
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VolantRedX
Official Conscience of Worm Fanfiction!
Fighting style maybe, but I doubt they'll veto things unless the ideas are themselves dangerous or excessive, but who gives a shit about the costume? That's like the most petty thing she could get caught up on. As long as she's not out there in the nude why would her costume matter at all?
apeljohn
Non-Player Character
- Location
- Earth Aleph
The "what else could he do" mostly relates to gathering information. It's noticeable that Taylor has read and analysed the Wards legal contract in considerable depth, whilst Danny seems mostly fixated on the crispness of the paper. This is just one example of his abject failure to do his homework.
Even in the context of their discussions-slash-arguments, half the problem was that Taylor was genuinely terrified he was going to unilaterally sign her up for the Wards. (Legitimately as it turned out.) So she wasn't so much trying to explain herself as she was throwing arguments and rhetoric at the wall to see what would stick. (@VolantRedX: I suspect this is where the sense of pettiness was coming from.)
If he had actually reassured her that she was under no immediate threat of conscription, I think there's an excellent chance that she would have chilled the fuck out long enough to get her point across.
As far as I can tell, her actual reason for avoiding the Wards boils down to:
1) The authorities have been screwing her over for years at school;
2) After all that loss and trauma, she has finally found something that gives her a sense of self-worth;
3) ...and Danny wants to give control over that thing to the aforementioned authorities? Hell no.
Danny could then argue against this by, for example, pointing out that the PRT is a completely different branch of government to Winslow, so there's no particular reason to expect the same behaviour. Taylor, on the other hand, can point out that both are chronically underfunded and show a disturbing willingness to ignore her best interests in the pursuit of their own goals.
Edit:
The two situations are not symmetric since Taylor is making decisions about her own life. If she tried to sign Danny up to work as an Uber&Leet henchman, then the situations would be symmetric.
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VolantRedX
Official Conscience of Worm Fanfiction!
I ask you then what, from Taylor's point of view, is her best interest? And if view objectively is it truly what is best for her?
Because this is Taylor coming off a year and a half of bullying that essentially cut off her development as a young woman, and she's just finally digging back into things like being able to freely dress herself without having to preplan how Emma might exploit her fashion choices. Basically, it's about her being able to express her individuality, multiplied by the confidence of her Jean-steroids. The idea of a committee judging her looks probably cuts too close for comfort.
The looting better be Taylor paraphrasing the bounty system.
Danny, you foolish fool of a father, you made the wrong call. Can't really blame you because you're flawed, you truly believed in your under-researched reasons, and Taylor get 50% of the credit for this fine clusterfuck, but you still Dun Goofed.
Regardless of my Villainy, non-government agents don't have the right to take my dead grandpa's gold watch because loot. That is what we call theft. The police can't even do that; they have to prove that my possession of that watch is illegal in order to seize it.
Danny, you foolish fool of a father, you made the wrong call. Can't really blame you because you're flawed, you truly believed in your under-researched reasons, and Taylor get 50% of the credit for this fine clusterfuck, but you still Dun Goofed.
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
This is a none starter. You're essentially using thematic resonance to argue he didn't read the contract when he's an old school union member head of hiring and was going over the papers and reading the contract when she came in.
When she laid out no argument but statements due to using her precog.
That's a strong word for legitimizing what she's already doing.
He could also say there are advocate groups for that.
VolantRedX
Official Conscience of Worm Fanfiction!
OK, that's still very petty.
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Eh it's the petty of agent interjection.
FinalPyre
Ennui Engine
There's also the fact that with capes, they normally only wear one costume. The vast majority of people are going to make assumptions about her really quickly based on what she wears. Heck, for a huge portion of the populace, they will probably judge her more solely based on her name, costume, and powers, than they will anything she actually does in them, unless she does something big (and we'll assume she doesn't realize she's a protagonist
).This is why having control is really important for the Protectorate, since they have experience making costumes that will give good impressions. This is why Taylor is wary of them, because she's worried that their interests will conflict with hers, and not give the impression she wants to give.
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Wrong. Taylor doesn't have a Shard based power, remember?
Yeah, she's got something worse.
- Location
- The U.P.
I disagree. Its giving control of what you can say in public, how you have to dress, and what actions you can take. Not to mention giving up rights to her image and how it is portrayed. This is basically Danny enlisting her in the army with out her consent.
Dose Danny have valid reasons for what he dose, sure. But he also shouldn't fool himself in what he is doing. He is singing his daughter up for a paramilitary with out her consent and basically saying "you take care of her cause I can't". It never was going to end well for the same reason the army likes volunteers and not draftees. Draftees tend to bolt and even when they don't they cause problems cause they don't want to be there.