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Firebird, a Worm AU/Xover?

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I realize poor Taylor is wiped by this point, but I agree with the others about the feel of this chapter not sitting well with me. Her inability to mind read Piggot is Plot Powered Mind Armor, and I call bullshit.
The others are forgetting that Taylor recently discovered that her precog isn't entirely reliable and that teenagers are dumb when it comes to reasonably cheating in the game of life. To an extent though, I don't think I would be using my precog for anything other than serious situations if I were her either. Knowing everything ahead of time sucks all the chaotic fun out of life.
 
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Wait a minute.....people actually being reasonable, willing to discuss any outstanding issues and whatnot?
What Sorcery is this?

On the other hand, D'aaaaaw the popcorn that I bought for this thing is now gonna have to wait until someone does something stupid now, Mr. T. Calvert and Ms. L. Livesly, I'm looking at you two...
 
notmi said:
Taylor still refuses to use her precog in any intelligent way,
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By intelligent do you mean "SB/SV competence"?
Rentoba said:
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.
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Be honest, you're angry because the story isn't going the way you want it, aren't you? You wouldn't say shit like this if you weren't. It undermines the earlier part of your post, which was a valid critique.
 
SpiralAK said:
Be honest, you're angry because the story isn't going the way you want it, aren't you?
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He explicitly says so in the post, so I don't understand why you need to imply he's being dishonest. I mean, saying that he gets unpleasant emotions that piss him off based on the current path of the story. How much more direct does he need to be?

Edit:
He opens his with, "I find myself rather disappointed with the direction you've taken the story in."
 
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SpiralAK said:
By intelligent do you mean "SB/SV competence"?
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No. I do not think he meant that.

I think he meant not using it to know what she is getting in to. Or giving her a way to get an edge.

Like being singled out and pulled from her class.

That was suspicious and she should have checked what the fuck was going on.

The meeting would have gone 10 times better, and left without that much of a blow up causing her to have a shitty and emotionally draining day.

Basically the same here.

She just uses it for winning the lottery and nothing else.

Basically, Taylor has precog and forgets that she has it.

Or she uses it for useless shit.

-edit-

I am not saying that she should use it all the time though. I am saying that she should at least use it to find out what the hell is going on every now and then. Especially when something seems suspicious.

Which would save her a hell of a lot of trouble.
 
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Dark Lord Bob said:
He explicitly says so in the post, so I don't understand why you need to imply he's being dishonest. I mean, saying that he gets unpleasant emotions that piss him off based on the current path of the story. How much more direct does he need to be?

Edit:
He opens his with, "I find myself rather disappointed with the direction you've taken the story in."
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The point of what I wanted to say is that while he has valid reasons for being angry, saying that he was disappointed veers dangerously close to that entitled "fanfic writers write for me" mindset, which is actively toxic and nauseating.
 
SpiralAK said:
By intelligent do you mean "SB/SV competence"?

Be honest, you're angry because the story isn't going the way you want it, aren't you? You wouldn't say shit like this if you weren't. It undermines the earlier part of your post, which was a valid critique.
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Ignoring the fact that my first post says that I don't like the direction of the story, I'm not angry or anything. The story simply evokes unpleasant emotions in me. It's not something straight forward like anger, more a medley of feelings that are very unpleasant and which I don't want to feel as they leave me feeling agitated for a few hours after. This has happened before in other stories, most notably the early chapters of Ship's Administrator, and it colors the rest of the story for me. I'm simply not willing to read something that leaves me feeling out of sorts.

If Chibipoe wants to take it in this direction then that's fine by me, I just won't read this story and instead wait for whatever project they work on next as I do enjoy their other works.
 
Rentoba said:
Ignoring the fact that my first post says that I don't like the direction of the story, I'm not angry or anything. The story simply evokes unpleasant emotions in me. It's not something straight forward like anger, more a medley of feelings that are very unpleasant and which I don't want to feel as they leave me feeling agitated for a few hours after. This has happened before in other stories, most notably the early chapters of Ship's Administrator, and it colors the rest of the story for me. I'm simply not willing to read something that leaves me feeling out of sorts.

If Chibipoe wants to take it in this direction then that's fine by me, I just won't read this story and instead wait for whatever project they work on next as I do enjoy their other works.
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Alright, I understand. Thanks for explaining. I also apologize for the assumption. It's just that I get angry whenever I hear stuff like "disappointed" in a criticism, as if there's this assumption that chibipoe or whoever else writes for you (speaking generally) and not themselves.
 
This takes place a few weeks after the Locker right?


Also
Blackhole1 said:
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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The better question is, what's the point? She'll only look like a petulant child in the end and there is no point in her leaving the only family she has left.

There is a such thing as familial bonds and love, you know. And she actually has friends that she can trust in Winslow that will do their part in keeping her from being ganged up on by any remaining bullies.

And Piggot is actively trying to turn this into a situation where everyone will be satisfied at the very least. So tell me why she should run away and risk herself like that, when she doesn't have a real reason to besides being fed up that things are not going her way.

And honestly, I'm really getting tired of seeing people shit on Danny in this. What is he supposed to do? He doesn't know a thing about his daughter, nor does he know how to protect her. He's confused and terrified that he'll lose Taylor when she goes out doing Cape things. And he feels that he still has to make up for being distant when Taylor needed him.

Danny is making mistakes and being human. He's trying his best keep his daughter safe, despite it definitely not being the best way for him to manage this whole situation. Danny being unreasonable is completely understandable. And even though I would agree that he's going about this the wrong way, I can also see that I would probably react in this way if I heard that my child was off gallivanting in a costume fighting dangerous criminals.

He's being a stupid parent. That's all this is.
 
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I understand there is meant to be the subtext that the Phoenix is causing Taylor's emotional variability, with her getting overly angry or calm with little provocation.
And I can recognize that you are attempting to further highlight that with some of the introspection and internal monologue in the most recent chapter, possibly even because of the criticism it got with the chapter before last.
However it still doesn't feel like enough. I still feel like Taylor's emotions are changing mostly because of plot necessity, rather than actual characterization.
I really, legitimately feel like you need to increase the ways her overcharged emotions are shown outside of internal and external dialog. Make reference to her clenching her fists, or feeling her heart rate slow and other things like that.
 
shade argost said:
I think the reason Piggot gave Taylor that third option was because Taylor broke the mold that Piggot had given to parahumans.
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That's what an optimist would say.

A cynic would say that she decided beforehand what she was willing to offer and then deliberately created a false binary choice, presented both options as extremely negative and then offered a 'third choice' which, on the face of it, is significantly better than either of the binary options but is, in actuality, what she had already decided to give. Present a problem, sell the solution. And if you're part of the solution, people tend to believe you're not part of the problem, however erroneous that assumption might be. In one stroke she presents herself as a voice of reason, 'solves' the 'problem' the other person has and appears helpful and willing to cooperate.

That she walks out with everything she wanted and nothing she hadn't planned to give up anyway is pure coincidence, of course.
 
I agree, Piggot wants the problems which forced conscription would cause to go away and slowly reel Taylor in. Problem is that in the end her deal doesn't look so good, she just doesn't notice it.

Not only is Taylor going to find, that going out independently with Vicky or Catherine & Minako is more fulfilling for her hero mentality because it's not restricted. PRT need to watch after wards so holding them back from serious situations is probably norm so watchdogs stay away.

Second is the eventual meeting with Browbeat aka Madison Clemenents, which will lead to spectacular explosion.

About the pre-cog and TP. For pre-cog, while useful, in this situation would have just given out what Piggot was offering and not give that much help with the situation. Sure she could have checked what full out rebellion at her office would have given but she was tired of all the shit.

For TP. Piggot holding TP back, well, seems forced true. Do remember though while Taylor is in level of marvel universe TP's, she doesn't have all the experience to use it fully. Do notice that she doesn't seem to be able to read someone without lowering the walls from all thoughts going in. She can't yet make direct line on someone while keeping shields up. All of this is lack of training.
 
I agree on most of the points regarding her apparent refusal to use her precognition powers for anything more than avoiding petty bullies. It just doesn't make sense, even for the convoluted teenage mind. I can gather why, as an author, you wouldn't want her to use it all the time, as that would drain the conflict out of the narrative. But at the same time, there must be a middle ground. My mind turns to that Nicholas Cage movie, Next.

For example, the scene at school with Danny and Armsy... she could have used her power up until she learned that Danny intended to force her into the Wards (with the scene written out as is), and been so angry that she canceled her vision, is revealed to still be walking down the hall towards the meeting, only to storm to the room and have words with the both of them, still outing herself, and still saying mean things to Danny. Same with the scene with her friends.

With that being said, I still love your story, just as I loved Acceleration. There are a few typos here and there, words out of place, and a touch of clunky dialogue sprinkled throughout, but they don't really detract from the story. You are in my top ten worm fanfic writers, easy.
 
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I feel a lot of the criticism of this chapter is driven by a desire to see Taylor flip the bird to Piggot and reject her offer. And I agree that's what Taylor should do. But I have meta-knowledge Taylor lacks. I know Piggot only see her as a resource, and does not have Taylor's best interests in mind. I mean, she was contemplating furthering the wedge between Taylor and Danny just to make the Wards more attractive.

Yet, Piggot was reasonable with Taylor, laying out what she wanted and why. Giving Taylor options when Taylor is feeling out of control. She made a good sales pitch. On top of that Taylor was in a mood to listen. She was emotionally exhausted from her day which is allowing her to think clearly. I wouldn't be surprised if she did accept Piggot's offer. Not that I'm saying she will. She still has the option of saying "Fuck you, I'ma do what I want!" and there is very little that Piggot can do about it without it escalating beyond her control.

Even without knowing her full power, Piggot knows that forcing Taylor to be compliant would end in a disaster. Taylor's TK alone will no sell most of the Protectorate and Wards. It would most likely requirer a large amount of force to bring her in, and then Piggot has to deal with a pissed off Ward who would resent her for simply breathing.

Cxjenious said:
I agree on most of the points regarding her apparent refusal to use her precognition powers for anything more than avoiding petty bullies. It just doesn't make sense, even for the convoluted teenage mind.
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It makes sense to me. The main thing Taylor is lacking right now is a sense of agency. Weird as it may sound, using her precog can be seen as giving up her agency. With her precog running, she's not making a decision, she's just reacting to what her power tells her. Simply not knowing the future means she can honestly say to herself that she made a choice. Which I feel that is what she is craving most at the moment.
 
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I actually liked the chapter, even if I got the same dissatisfied feeling on behalf of Taylor that everyone else got.

You showed that Taylor had burned the candle at both ends, as well as in the middle too. And that she was mentally 2 steps away from dropping.

Regarding the Precog, I kinda do get where she is coming from. Because what does it give her that she won't get anyway? If she precogs the meeting she won't have any more information then she got now. Maybe she would be less surprised but even that is questionable. If she wants any more information then she needs to do something with effort to aquire them and precog getting them. But she is exhaust and goes pretty much: "don't wanna".

Hopefully in the morning Taylor will wake up and consider why she couldn't read Piggot's game plan. From what I gather her TP is less able to help her the less the actuall steps comes from the concious mind. We don't need to think about every part of walking, we just do it. This is pretty much what I read here. Executing a plan of attack is pretty much like walking for Piggot. And it should greatly concern Taylor that Piggot can do that with such a rather out there situation that Piggot feels the need for a third option.

Right now all the PRT got is Taylors word that her father filled these Forms out. Piggot made it a point that to pretend as if there is no wiggle room there and that technically Taylor might already be under her command. Piggot threw out the obligatory throw away line about how likely it is for Danny to send the paperwork, which was much much more and less important for her then she let on. Piggy plays the concerned Bureaucrat card magnificantly.
Because nothing is decided yet.

And even if Danny sends the Paperwork of, Taylor only needs to convince him to witdraw her and she is homefree. Honestly speaking and with her Precog running, how long do you think Taylor would take to convince him? A few day's or a week maybe?
"Daddy they want me to go out there and use less powers then I normaly use." "Instead of practical and protective my costume is supposed to be flashy and nice looking" Etc.
 
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First of all, I come bearing edits:

I was done with today all it's moments.
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There should be an 'and' between the red words.

The blue word should be replaced with 'its' because you are using it to indicate possession, not a contraction.

"I will stay and hear them out, and end this here one way or another." I said after a long moment of warring with myself over the issue.
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The period after the word 'another' should be replaced with a comma.

Everyone who it would mattered with at the moment knew who I was anyways.
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I'm not entirely sure what the problem in the highlighted text is classified as (I think it might be verb-tense agreement), but I know how to correct the issue. There are a couple ways you could do it, but I would go with, "Everyone it mattered with at the moment knew who I was anyways."

"Taylor Hebert, I assume?"
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This is a rather minor problem, but I think you meant to use presume instead of assume. Assume is to consider something as fact without proof, whereas presume is to take something for granted based on probabily. I suppose both work in this case, but presume is more suited to the situation. Then again, this is dialogue, so maybe the Director doesn't know the difference. There are a number of other errors in her dialogue, but I'll leave those out under the assumption (see what I did there?) that they were intentional, for some reason. If this was not the case, I suggest you look over her dialogue.

Now, on the matter of precognition: I would like to hear from @chibipoe on this. IIRC, the reason you gave for Taylor not using her precog more often was that, from both an IC POV and a narrative POV, it would be boring. These reasons both hold up, the latter more so than the former, but they do not explain Taylor's inability to make intelligent use of this ability. The current excuse of, "I forgot," or, "I don't want life to be boring," can only go so far.

I'm not going to say much more about the issue itself, as people have already said pretty much everything there is to say on the topic, but I will offer some possible solutions/explanations:
  • Taylor's precog is difficult for her to control, explaining why she uses it in some situations but not others.
  • Taylor's precog is geared mainly towards combat applications, and the social-fu aspect she rarely, if ever, uses is more due to her telepathic abilities that she clamps often clamps down on because they 1) get too loud, and 2) blatantly violate other people's privacy.
  • The ability causes her some sort of harm if she uses it too often or looks too far ahead (I vaguely recall her getting headaches if she uses it too much and, at one point, a nosebleed).
It's evident that any of these explanations would require some serious re-writing to make sense, except the last one, which I think you could get away with if you emphasized it from here on out.

As I come to the end of this post and read the comments that were posted as I was typing, I would like to say that I agree with @Serran above. Precog isn't very useful when someone is just laying out the facts. People seem to want Taylor's precog to function similarly to Coil's split timelines, giving her the ability to see how several of her options will play out. While you have shown or mentioned that her power can be used this way, she does it rarely enough that people notice and wonder why she doesn't do it more. As I said earlier, this is something you need to fix, and of the three options I gave above, the third one probably works best at this (not that I'm saying these are the only/best options available).

In any case, I continue to enjoy this story despite any misgivings I may have with the handling of this issue. You are a talented writer and I am confident that you will come up with a satisfying resolution to this situation.
 
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Not quite awake yet, so let's see...

*blinks* Well. That's.. I'll address that in bulk when I am more awake/after work.

Taylor came into this meeting emotionally exhausted and just plain tired. I didn't belabor that once the meeting was underway but i thought I had made that clear earlier. She was listening to what Piggot had to offer from a mostly neutral stance because the woman before her hadn't gone out of her way(that Taylor is aware) to harass her. She's aware the Protectorate and PRT are separate entities even if they work together.

Regarding precognition, @Sasha (and thank you for the edits. Will update once able)

Sasha said:
I'm not going to say much more about the issue itself, as people have already said pretty much everything there is to say on the topic, but I will offer some possible solutions/explanations:
  • Taylor's precog is difficult for her to control, explaining why she uses it in some situations but not others.
  • Taylor's precog is geared mainly towards combat applications, and the social-fu aspect she rarely, if ever, uses is more due to her telepathic abilities that she clamps often clamps down on because they 1) get too loud, and 2) blatantly violate other people's privacy.
  • The ability causes her some sort of harm if she uses it too often or looks too far ahead (I vaguely recall her getting headaches if she uses it too much and, at one point, a nosebleed).
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It's a combination of things. Short-range viewing is straightforward. The further out she goes, the more effort it takes and produces negative effects. The nosebleeds have stopped, but she still can get headaches from looking too far ahead. She can use it to see multiple options, yes. But it takes time to do so. The things are playing out in her head and she has her focus on that. Sitting in a place where she's alone and undisturbed, sure that works. Not exactly something she can do while in a meeting with the Director, to blankly stare off into space and ignore her.

Add to the fact that if she approaches it from an unsettled frame of mind, she can go off on tangents. And other people's actions affect things as well. During the meeting? Using it would have shown her exactly what she was told. Piggot had already made up her mind on what she was going to do. Her window to look at the possible variations of the meeting was when Piggot was on dialysis deciding what she was going to do. It isn't omniscience. It lets her see the future and if she tries, possible futures(which is the more taxing aspect). Yes, she could have looked at variations of the meeting where she did something different, like raged or such but she was tired of that. She'd been on an emotional rollercoaster for hours.
 
chibipoe said:
It's a combination of things. Short-range viewing is straightforward. The further out she goes, the more effort it takes and produces negative effects. The nosebleeds have stopped, but she still can get headaches from looking too far ahead. She can use it to see multiple options, yes. But it takes time to do so. The things are playing out in her head and she has her focus on that. Sitting in a place where she's alone and undisturbed, sure that works. Not exactly something she can do while in a meeting with the Director, to blankly stare off into space and ignore her.

Add to the fact that if she approaches it from an unsettled frame of mind, she can go off on tangents. And other people's actions affect things as well. During the meeting? Using it would have shown her exactly what she was told. Piggot had already made up her mind on what she was going to do. Her window to look at the possible variations of the meeting was when Piggot was on dialysis deciding what she was going to do. It isn't omniscience. It lets her see the future and if she tries, possible futures(which is the more taxing aspect). Yes, she could have looked at variations of the meeting where she did something different, like raged or such but she was tired of that. She'd been on an emotional rollercoaster for hours.
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Thanks for the explanation about how her precog works. I figured it was something like that, but given how many people were expressing confusion/frustration with her use (or lack there of) of the ability, I felt it was worth offering suggestions. The one you give here explains the situation pretty much perfectly.

And you're welcome for the edits! :)
 
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