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Firebird, a Worm AU/Xover?

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I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I read from Taylor's PoV I feel the frustration that she's feeling. I don't know if it's because that frustration is relatable to something or if Taylor's empathy is just that strong (XD).

Either way, another good chapter chibi.
 
Note that Miss Militia, who seems to genuinely want to help her, gets a significantly less hostile reaction from Taylor than Armsmaster. On the other hand, I can see Piggot sparking off a severe reaction from her due to her (admittedly understandable) prejudices against capes.

Tattletale might be an interesting conversation though. Her shard will be able to see that her carefully targeted words are irritating Taylor more and more the longer the conversation goes on for and it won't have a clue why, because telepathy is impossible right? :p. Throw in the stupidity of poking the phoenix....
 
I would point out that Taylor is not known in universe to be particularly powerful (even though she is) so any arguments involving the prt poking the super powerful parahuman is based off info they can't reasonably have.

steamrick said:
and she keeps making her own day worse by actively alienating just about everyone that wants to help her.
I know that it's in character for Taylor but it's still fucking stupid.

Example: Taylor is upset that Armsmaster is more concerned about the big flaming chicken than about her.
Yep, she's definitely being extremely self-centered here. As bad as the bullying she's getting is, that's not Armsmaster's job. The huge flaming bird that caused a worldwide thinker blackout most definitely is.
And if it wasn't, Brockton Bay is still better served by patrolling the streets and preventing the Merchants from drugging schoolgirls into sexual slavery rather than preventing mere bullying. Maybe Piggot will shove that little fact in Taylor's face in the next chapter?

Yeah we know that Taylor is super-powerful and important and all that, but we're sitting behind the fourth wall.
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You aren't wrong here, Taylor is being fairly self-centered but it's not as if she hasn't been given reasons. She has had a substantial number of people poking her the last couple of days, she has definitely noticed that even the kids that suddenly wanted to be her friends at a point when she knew from experience that nobody wanted to be her friend coincided rather conveniently with her sudden gaining of powers i.e. becoming someone important, while expecting the PRT to care about her situation while they have other things to do is arrogant Miss Militia is claiming to do exactly that (for her personally it may be true), maybe Taylor's calling them out for caring more about her as a superhuman then her as a person (which is self-centered) but she's also calling them out for pretending otherwise when that isn't necessarily true which is much more reasonable. Keep in mind the average human is self-centered but Taylor isn't at too huge of an extreme here.
 
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*ahem*

Let it burn~

Let it burn~

The screams are music to my ears~

Let it burn~

Let it burn~

The raging inferno deep inside~


This is pretty much what I am expecting to happen at this point in time.
 
thesevenwielder said:
She refuses to speak with him. That is why he tried to sign her up to the Wards.
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She shut him down pretty brutally earlier... when he decided to have a full and frank family discussion in front of a potentially hostile law enforcement official. And she took some time to (try to) cool down before returning home, rather than going straight back there. Other than that, I'm not really seeing any attempts Danny has made to speak with Taylor that she's nixed. Hell, the main reason she headed back home was to have a discussion with him.

Basically, it seems like Danny was uncomfortable trying to open communications with his daughter, and rather than manning up he instead decided to outsource to the Protectorate.

This is one of the harsher interpretations that's consistent with the facts, but it is consistent with the facts, which suggests that Taylor isn't just being a bitchy teenager here. She has, if not a genuine grudge, then at least a good excuse for thinking she has one.

Edit: None of this should be taken as commentary on her reaction to Lightshow and Hanabi, which was pretty much pure paranoia (with a side-order of bitchiness thrown in).
 
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Huh. Interesting that Taylor's able to sense MM's empathy, but I'm curious on, unless she's using Piggot as an excuse to 'not' get into the Wards, why she'd be smiling, even if her predictions about the Wards/Protectorate are being proven to her.
 
Metroidvania said:
Huh. Interesting that Taylor's able to sense MM's empathy, but I'm curious on, unless she's using Piggot as an excuse to 'not' get into the Wards, why she'd be smiling, even if her predictions about the Wards/Protectorate are being proven to her.
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While he has gotten better at reading social cues, he still isn't perfect and it was more of a forced/brittle smile, Armsy simply lacked the appropriate descriptors.
 
Am I the only one who finds Taylor is totally understandable here and practically justified? I hope not.

Metroidvania said:
Huh. Interesting that Taylor's able to sense MM's empathy, but I'm curious on, unless she's using Piggot as an excuse to 'not' get into the Wards, why she'd be smiling, even if her predictions about the Wards/Protectorate are being proven to her.
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Probably because they cant do shit to her and if the meeting blows up it will be the PRT's fault so if they try to come after her again she would have something to tell the media on the PRT's recruitment policies.
 
I'm not expecting this conversation to go well, because Piggot is Piggot, but if Taylor caves here and actually joins the wards, I'm going to be incredibly annoyed. Anyone with half a brain can tell that forcing someone into the wards who is not already a criminal is something that could not happen if the wards want to maintain any credibility with the public, and there has yet to be a single person involved in the whole situation who was not an asshole to Taylor.

The fact that they completely ignored the unwritten rules several times only compounds the issue. Honestly, I'm struggling to think of a way the PRT could have handled this worse. They alienated a parahuman of unknown power, destroyed her main connection to her civilian life, made themselves look like assholes who have no respect for her at all, and are now trying to force her into a position that she does not want where she will have a chance to regularly interact with the public and show her displeasure.

They basically went through a step by step process on how to turn a heroic, newly triggered parahuman into a villain.
 
I'm kind of surprised that Taylor isn't considering this, but the kids at Winslow are assholes, not dumb. If Danny was seen, the jig is up. The Wards come and present, with Armsmaster known to be with them but not present (folks would notice his motorcycle and comment on the break in pattern)? Taylor's father was called in to that same meeting? Suddenly there's a new Ward? As far as Taylor's concerned, the PRT and Protectorate just fucked her coming and going. Because would she seriously believe that the Director of the PRT wouldn't be in on what her Protectorate leader is doing with regards to a new Ward?

Granted, this isn't what they intended. Would it matter?
 
cyberswordsmen said:
I'm surprised Danny has no problems forcing Taylor to join up with the organization that just handed a get out of free card to the person that tried to MURDER Taylor in broad daylight.
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Armsy & Danny had a nice long chat about how much Taylor hasn't told him. Among which was some of the details of that(not, obviously, that Sophia was a parahuman and got shipped off to New York).
 
Wakka said:
I'm kind of surprised that Taylor isn't considering this, but the kids at Winslow are assholes, not dumb. If Danny was seen, the jig is up. The Wards come and present, with Armsmaster known to be with them but not present (folks would notice his motorcycle and comment on the break in pattern)? Taylor's father was called in to that same meeting? Suddenly there's a new Ward? As far as Taylor's concerned, the PRT and Protectorate just fucked her coming and going. Because would she seriously believe that the Director of the PRT wouldn't be in on what her Protectorate leader is doing with regards to a new Ward?

Granted, this isn't what they intended. Would it matter?
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Honestly, the fact that Armsmaster showed up at school and demanded to meet with Taylor is already enough of a give-away to anyone who noticed. Also, that Armsmaster apparently just showed up at their house and had a conversation with Danny. Like I said, they are just completely ignoring the unwritten rules anytime they feel like it in regards to Taylor.
 
Taylor isn't a saint, but in her defense she's under a lot of pressure. She's not really acting worse than the average over-stressed teenager and she's facing a lot more issues than most.

There were mistakes all around. Taylor could have handled this better. The PRT and Protectorate could definitely have handled this better. Danny should have handled this better. Even Minako and Sam could have picked a better time for their talk, though in their defense they didn't know that it was such a bad moment for Taylor.
 
Impstar said:
Taylor isn't a saint, but in her defense she's under a lot of pressure. She's not really acting worse than the average over-stressed teenager and she's facing a lot more issues than most.

There were mistakes all around. Taylor could have handled this better. The PRT and Protectorate could definitely have handled this better. Danny should have handled this better. Even Minako and Sam could have picked a better time for their talk, though in their defense they didn't know that it was such a bad moment for Taylor.
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Also, to be fair for Minako and Sam, they were trying to be as up front and honest with Taylor as they could. They were also trying to come clean immediately.

Call me crazy, but that tells me those young ladies really did want to "do right" by their friend.
 
Impstar said:
No you're right, out of everyone in this mess they probably have the least blame.
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I honestly wonder how much of Taylor's blow up at them was simply "circular stress."
  1. Taylor is stressed when they start explaining.
  2. The girls pick up on this and get stressed themselves.
  3. Taylor's empathy picks up on their stress, making Taylor more stressed.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad nauseum.
 
Danny signing her up for the Wards... yeesh. That really grinds my gears -- that actually pushes quite a few of my buttons really hard. That would be the kind of thing that would get me running mental calculations on the cost vs benefit of, say, blowing up the house before leaving forever. That's the kind of thing that like... sure, you can try to force me to join, and I might even play along to some extent, but I will also devote reasonable effort to make sure everything goes to hell as promptly and explosively as possible.

Nicholai said:
I honestly wonder how much of Taylor's blow up at them was simply "circular stress."
  1. Taylor is stressed when they start explaining.
  2. The girls pick up on this and get stressed themselves.
  3. Taylor's empathy picks up on their stress, making Taylor more stressed.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 ad nauseum.
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I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it was. If the rest of her day was just dandy, she probably would have still been worried and defensive, but I doubt she would have blown up and run off. It could probably have turned out quite well, even, if she stayed long enough to hear them out and bond with them some more.
 
steamrick said:
and she keeps making her own day worse by actively alienating just about everyone that wants to help her.
I know that it's in character for Taylor but it's still fucking stupid.

Example: Taylor is upset that Armsmaster is more concerned about the big flaming chicken than about her.
Yep, she's definitely being extremely self-centered here. As bad as the bullying she's getting is, that's not Armsmaster's job. The huge flaming bird that caused a worldwide thinker blackout most definitely is.
And if it wasn't, Brockton Bay is still better served by patrolling the streets and preventing the Merchants from drugging schoolgirls into sexual slavery rather than preventing mere bullying. Maybe Piggot will shove that little fact in Taylor's face in the next chapter?

Yeah we know that Taylor is super-powerful and important and all that, but we're sitting behind the fourth wall.
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Um, this is Worm if you recall, stopping bullied teenagers that have a slight chance to go Nilbog on your ass, or joining said Merchants is loads better. Especially if they have a grudge against you and have a good reason to hate your ass. Sure they perform that PR shit with the Wards but even a first year psychology student will tell you that is about as effective as wet tissue paper on an exploding nuclear bomb.
 
You know, being an alienated, unwilling, and not-cooperative Ward might actually be a good deal for Taylor.

Think about what being an involuntary Ward means:
- Free phone.
- Cops always answer when you call from that phone.
- Some pocket money, plus a trust fund for college, which is very relevant to a poor family like hers.
- Training facilities.
- Image consultation and costume budget.

By being unwilling to participate she loses out on:
- Scheduled patrols.
- Hanging out with the Wards.
- Answering to Piggot in any meaningful way.
 
jerkface said:
You know, being an alienated, unwilling, and not-cooperative Ward might actually be a good deal for Taylor.
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It carries risks. The Protectorate (or PRT?) is presumably acting in loco parentis, so they have the legal authority to get rather creative in making her miserable if they feel like it. Which they're just self-absorbed enough to do. And, if they do decide to ground her, they probably have anti-TK tinkertech that'll make it literal.

Anyway, spending your entire life in a permanent state of white mutiny sounds pretty horrible to me. Not least because she'll also presumably be trying to hide her pyrokinesis and telepathy from Armsmaster. And this is all before Commander Calvert sticks his oar in.
 
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