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Firebird, a Worm AU/Xover?

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chibipoe said:
"You have Doki Doki Revolution?" she asked, looking over the gaming equipment and the platform with an almost predatory gleam in her eyes that turned into an outright sparkle as she honed in on the appropriate gear.

Vista looked confused at the wolfish grin on Lily's face while Clockblocker, feeling a new sense of metaphorical gaming doom, swallowed nervously as he now-shyly replied in a half timid "Yes…?"

"Perfect!" she said gleefully. "Help me get this set up and we'll started."
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I suspect Dennis is about to get schooled. Missy will be delighted, most likely.


chibipoe said:
Blonde hair shifted slightly as her heard shifted and steel-grey eyes regarded me
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Should be "head".

chibipoe said:
Piggot smiled loosely as she nodded, folding her hands in front of her. "Correct. As we have discussed, as soon as your father hands in the paperwork, you are legally bound as a Ward. However, that paperwork is for full membership as a Ward. Taking into account your unique disposition, we are willing to offer a third option that could benefit us both."
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Hmm, I see a possible subtle insult there.

chibipoe said:
"In short, you accept a form of probationary status in the Wards. A trial run as it were. You would not be bound by the standard rules, and may operate independently provided you worked with the Wards when asked, and that you allowed for several provisions on both our part and your own." Her gaze did not leave mine as she spoke and I got the impression she wasn't done, so I didn't interrupt with questions.
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*Raises eyebrow*
I'm intrigued by this angle that Piggot is using.

Interesting update chibipoe.
 
Well once again most people severely underestimated Piggot. Seems to be a common fanon trait honestly.

I like how she was, "We can't make you participate in ward activities and frankly don't want to if we suspect you'll just act out, but we can and will prevent you from acting on your own." A reasonable viewpoint honestly.

That aside, Piggot didn't need to provide a third option, she has Taylor stuck between a rock and a hard place and knew it. But she went further than she needed to, which is a good sign for future cooperation. This way she has Taylor's support without alienating her particularly. Also, if Taylor does act up in the future, this is probably all the pull she would need to bring Taylor into the wards proper. If she felt like she had to later on.
 
Eh, a bit disappointing. Taylor still refuses to use her precog in any intelligent way, the PRT continues to do whatever they want while Taylor just goes along, and she seems to have suddenly gained a mastery of emotional control that she lacked a couple of hours ago.

Honestly, I assumed that Taylor had used her precog at the end of the last chapter to plan out her actions, and that was the reason she agreed to meet with the PRT. Since that seems to be false, I'm struggling to understand why she went at all.

Her characterization seems to be all over the place. She can't control herself enough to even prevent outing herself to Armsmaster at school, or enough to hear her friends out, but is perfectly willing to listen and go along with not just Miss Militia, a person who had previously snubbed her, but also Piggot, who is in charge of, and ultimately responsible for, the whole cluster-fuck she's been involved in.

I don't have any criticism about Piggot, except the arbitrary "can't read her mind because of PLOT".

I am starting to get a bit annoyed about Taylor's characterization, though. In the beginning, I thought too much of Jean was bleeding through, to the point where Taylor was being massively over-shadowed, but now I'm not even sure what she is. Her characterization is not really consistent with anything, Taylor or Jean.


I might be too critical here; it is 3:40 in the morning, so take this with a grain of salt.
 
I... feel deeply dissatisfied with how that played out, and yet cannot find in-character fault with any of it.

I kind of feel like not only has Taylor lost, at this point there is no way she can 'win', like everywhere she can go from here all ends badly and the illusory choice she's been given is how badly she wants to lose. I mean, look at the options she got. "Join the wards, do what you're told and follow our rules." "Join the wards, follow our rules and never use your powers." and "Join the wards, do what you're told, follow most of our rules and we'll let you do your own thing on your free time. For a while. Probably."

There's nothing really wrong with them from the character's point of view it's just... none of them are satisfying ends to this conflict. It might just be due to the nature of reading a story as it's written, but there doesn't seem to be any way in which this ends well for Taylor. At most, she likes being a ward and manages to move past the fact she was never given any choice on whether or not she would be one. Which, personally, doesn't feel like a good ending so much as a "only half-bad" one.

Also the excuses for not using her pre-cog are sounding more and more like excuses. I still agree with the ooc reasoning, but the in-character ones are, frankly, pretty shitty to my way of thinking. To my point of view there is literally no rational reason for her to not be spamming the hell out of it from the second she saw AM and MM coming towards her.

Psuedo-edit for post while typing:
notmi said:
Her characterization seems to be all over the place. She can't control herself enough to even prevent outing herself to Armsmaster at school, or enough to hear her friends out, but is perfectly willing to listen and go along with not just Miss Militia, a person who had previously snubbed her, but also Piggot, who is in charge of, and ultimately responsible for, the whole cluster-fuck she's been involved in.
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^ I agree with this.

I don't have any criticism about Piggot, except the arbitrary "can't read her mind because of PLOT".
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Yeah. Artificial limitations are necessary when dealing with very powerful characters, but rule #1 is to never make an artificial limitation feel like an artificial limitation. It should (seem to) come naturally from the story and so far it's really not feeling that way.
 
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That went better than most of us expected. That said, I'm on board with the with while it's right, it don't feel right, right? Yeah, and if you can understand that, well... ok, it's past 1:00 AM and I need sleep obviously.
 
I will agree with some of the above, I'm beginning to wonder what's the point of her having precognition if she'll never remember to use it.

And you never did follow up on her having a shield mentioned in early chapters, but noticeably absent in later conflicts.
 
The fourth option would be to burning the papers before they get turned in and flip the PRT off continuing as an independent.

Honestly, I agree with some of the reviews so far. Taylor is all over the place, and she doesn't have the excuse of being a pink bubble gum monster.

Her not being able to read Piggot's mind falls flat. Her excuses for not using precog suck.

Taylor just seems really submissive now from her previous characterization.

I know she is what, emotionally drained from her day but still.

She is allowing the people who spied on her illegally, outed her, snubbed her, and everything else within these days walk all over her.

That being said, I will expect that once she has a good night rest she would be able to think of better options and get a fucking lawyer to put the PRT's bullshit down and get better terms.

Otherwise nice chapter.

-edit-

Also, what is the point of her having precog if she does not use it for anything important?

-edit again-

Btw, thank you for pointing me towards some interesting music I can listen to.
 
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Piggot is fine, IMO. Much more 'cautious' than in canon, but she's been briefed by Armsmaster, knows that Taylor's a heroic-minded independent who's got a potential for being useful, and that she's able to sense out some level of manipulation.

Taylor, though, feels a bit.....scattered.

The bleed-over with Jean only goes so far until it feels like it's either subsuming Taylor's 'normal' (granted, of which we don't see a whole lot pre-conflict-inducing, my-way-or-the-highway shard influence, though to how much extent of that is Taylor vs the shard nudge is up for debate) personality, or just creating someone else entirely.

I don't even think the inconsistency (such as it is) lies in in Taylor 'accepting' Piggot's explanation at face value for the time being, given her state of mind, but while I can't quite place it at the moment (I'll re-read and see if I can point something out), Taylor's narrative voice this chapter seems to cause a not-insignificant level of dissociation from her previous characterization, in addition to the oddities surrounding her, her power usage, and her changed situation that have been building up.

I'll go back, see if I can spot anything specific that stood out.
 
chibipoe said:
The best kind!

I expect raging that the PRT HQ wasn't erased in cosmic fire and Taylor not throwing a tantrum and running off to the press and all crying 'Slavery or something'
.... Hm. I may be too tired. i should probably go to bed.
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Imagination said:
I... feel deeply dissatisfied with how that played out, and yet cannot find in-character fault with any of it.

I kind of feel like not only has Taylor lost, at this point there is no way she can 'win', like everywhere she can go from here all ends badly and the illusory choice she's been given is how badly she wants to lose. I mean, look at the options she got. "Join the wards, do what you're told and follow our rules." "Join the wards, follow our rules and never use your powers." and "Join the wards, do what you're told, follow most of our rules and we'll let you do your own thing on your free time. For a while. Probably."

There's nothing really wrong with them from the character's point of view it's just... none of them are satisfying ends to this conflict. It might just be due to the nature of reading a story as it's written, but there doesn't seem to be any way in which this ends well for Taylor. At most, she likes being a ward and manages to move past the fact she was never given any choice on whether or not she would be one. Which, personally, doesn't feel like a good ending so much as a "only half-bad" one.

Also the excuses for not using her pre-cog are sounding more and more like excuses. I still agree with the ooc reasoning, but the in-character ones are, frankly, pretty shitty to my way of thinking. To my point of view there is literally no rational reason for her to not be spamming the hell out of it from the second she saw AM and MM coming towards her.

Psuedo-edit for post while typing:

^ I agree with this.


Yeah. Artificial limitations are necessary when dealing with very powerful characters, but rule #1 is to never make an artificial limitation feel like an artificial limitation. It should (seem to) come naturally from the story and so far it's really not feeling that way.
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I'm with Imagination. It was all reasonably IC, but there's something that leaves you vaguely dissatisfied. I think that's more due to Chibipoe's good writing than anything else though; we're feeling what Taylor was feeling. Not pissed off. Not happy. Just, sort of, dissatisfied.

Other than that, the lack of precog is a bit meh. Maybe nerf it a bit (show it making a mistake), or have Taylor come to some realization that sometimes you just need to beat the odds and precog can interfere with that, or have it be more tiring. I don't really remember it being one of the major Pheonix powers, but it's been a while. Or, have her use it more. Whatever method, the whole "willfully not making full use of powers" is a bit... uncharacteristic.
 
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So, Piggot rolled a nat 20 on her Diplomacy check - good for her. I'm sure at some point there'll be a blow-up and a thirty-storey bird of fire in the sky and all that good stuff, and she'll be thanking her lucky stars she didn't go for the hard sell, whether Taylor takes this deal, or takes the hint about it not being final until the paperwork is filed and talks Danny out of it/just incinerates them/accidentally mind whammies him, hopefully not so thoroughly as Gladly, or decides that no, fuck it, they aren't the boss of her and she's done with being pushed around, they can sit on their papers and liability and spin, and just keep doing what she feels is right, with the crush of events as the external actors of Worm (the gangs, Levi, Coil, etc.) push forward at an insane pace over the next few months drive her to discover that she is, in fact, a top-tier parahuman and capable of being an international actor in her own person if she feels like it.

As things are currently laid out, the semi-Wards path doesn't actually look all that bad, on the reasonable assumption that Danny's mind is pretty made up and she's not going to start running down the mind control hill by hitting him with the woo-woo brain mojo, even if she did suddenly figure out that (and how) she can do that. What kind of restrictions would she actually face?

No killing or excessive force, she wouldn't want to do that anyway since she intends to be a hero.

No going out solo, that would be stupid anyway. She might (eventually) have the power to burn entire solar systems to ashes, but she doesn't know that yet and even if she did the Earth is where she keeps all her stuff, it would be really embarrassing and inconvenient to accidentally it while lashing out reflexively because some punk threw a bat at her head from behind while she was distracted.

Needing to make public appearances, annoying and probably more intimidating than facing criminals given that it's Taylor, but having people scream and run away from you because they don't know you're one of the good guys is as likely to send them straight into danger so some degree of image promotion really is in her best interests as a hero.

The big one would probably be not pursuing the gangs too hard and breaking the stalemate, but Piggot just laid out the reasoning behind that and a precog/telepath who can probably manage clairvoyance with a little work should be downright excellent at compiling intel on the gangs' bases and membership to bring the day they have enough of a tactical advantage and enough motivation to deal with them into the present... though Bakuda will do the latter well enough on her own if things go anywhere near canon as far as someone knocking Lung out of play so she can slip her leash.

... Mental image: full-power Phoenix vs. Behemoth.
 
I find myself rather disappointed with the direction you've taken the story in. Why is it that in every story where Taylor gets pressured into the wards, be it by Armsmaster, Piggot or even her Dad like in this story, she responds with anger initially and then folds completely? I've never seen Taylor as someone who would give up in this situation and as such she feels fake to me. I'll read the next chapter in the hope that you take a different path and regain my interest, otherwise I'll have to stop reading lest the unpleasant emotions I feel when reading this sort of story piss me off completely.
 
What I really want to know is why Taylor doesn't just leave. Leave Brockton Bay, leave Winslow, and leave her idiot father. She's being conscripted into a paramilitary organization, pure and simple, one that has little ability to contain her even with her current powerset. Sooner or later, she'll realize this and what then? Keep trudging along, hoping for things to get better? Try to mend her relationship with a father who caused this entire mess to begin with?

Yes, Taylor is just a child, but she isn't stupid. Neither she nor Jean is the kind of person to just mindlessly accept orders from an authority that is intent on screwing them out of their freedom which begs the question: what's to stop her from running away?
 
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