- Location
- Upstate NY, USA
- Pronouns
- Fjf
Also, I wanted to say thanks for the "I am what will rise from your ashes" bit of dialog. I sprinkled it as comments in several different pieces of code. Buried treasure for the next poor bastard.
H+ Mayhem (Worm)
- Thread starter Jurric
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm tinker transhumanism mayhem
apeljohn
Non-Player Character
- Location
- Earth Aleph
...Every piece of software I work on from here on in, I will be grepping it for that phrase. You magnificent bastard, you.
Seriously, though. How the FUCK did I actually come to kinda like the E88? I mean, they're LITERAL NAZIS. LITERAL "Hitler did nothing wrong!" NAZIS.
@Jurric, WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME LIKE THEM, YOU BASTARD?! Do you realize this is going to be one of the things that'll be brought up in my afterlife assignment trial? DO YOU?
"And, right here, you're reading and laughing at a story where Nazis are the good guys...."
"Well, you have to understand the CONTEXT...."
"Nope. You're going straight to the 'sodomized with a cactus covered in hot sauce' hell for the rest of eternity."
Because they're people. It also helps that @Jurric is shying away from showing their more repugnant behavior. Which is on purpose, I think. Since we're in the character's head, and he's running a fake personality to fit in...
The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
I don't like them like them, I just find them amusing. You can still find someone disgusting and twisted but accept that they have some good qualities... albeit, they save those qualities ONLY for the special people who fit into their own group, but it's better than nothing.
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
Thought he was already blind.
The "I" isn't needed.
You mean the Little Doctor? Yeah, it sure sounds like it...
- Location
- Australia
Thanks, fixed this over on SB, just didn't remember to fix it over here as well.
2.6
- Location
- Australia
Sveta was surprisingly calm about being held captive by superpowered Nazis. Which was annoying. If I managed to cure her I wanted to be able to turn her against them, ideally against Alabaster, he was the only one I wouldn't be able to take out reliably. If all went according to plan I wouldn't need backup, but things don't always go according to plan, so someone to watch my back would be great.
I sighed as another bald, tattooed annoyance made his way into my office. I'd tried to get them to come into the workshop instead so I could get some work done, but after one of them saw Sveta and started vomiting that idea fell through.
I was going to have to build that girl a body fairly soon. I could probably stick her in it even before I fixed the tendrils, depending on how sturdy I could make it.
"So I was thinking, like, Wolverine claws, but with real badass finger daggers too, and then, like, maybe x-ray eyes. That would be fucking cool." The annoyance said.
"Fine. Whatever. Take one of these a day and see me in a week." I told him, passing him some sugar pills.
"These pills are gunner make Gunner grow claws? Fucking sick!" The man said.
I sighed.
"They're to prepare you for the operation. Increased bone density and blood production. Now get out."
"So I like, have healing factor?"
I rested my head in my hands.
"You know what. Yes. You'll have a weak healing factor. Get out."
"Thanks man. You're not going to regret this. Gunner gut those Chinks."
My eyes fell on the man's file, which I had neglected to actually read before he came in.
Was his name really Gunner? Was that mangling of the English language deliberate? Where was Kaiser finding these people? Obviously he wanted everyone I augmented to be considered expendable. Why? I thought I'd done a good job of pulling the wool over his eyes.
The door opened, and Stacy came in.
"I was listening." She told me.
"So? We're done right, he was the last one?" I said.
"You're in a real mood. I know you didn't get much sleep last night, but you never get much sleep. Why are you like this?" She asked.
I blinked. Right. I was letting my emotions get the better of me. I could turn them off, but I didn't want to. This anger, helplessness, loss, I deserved to be feeling it. I'd managed to find a video online last night, just shaky cell phone footage and it was taken down before I could watch the whole thing, but I saw enough.
I stood up.
"My neural circuitry is having problems. I need to fix it. No interruptions." I told Stacy, brushing one of my sedative covered scalpels along her arm as I pushed past her, leaving a tiny cut. She blinked at me as I walked away, then sat down so she didn't hurt herself when she fell asleep. Smart girl.
I didn't stay in the building. There was something I needed to do if I wanted to stay on the course I had set myself. I put on a hoodie as I left, pulled it over my head to hide the mask, and started jogging. Night had fallen already, and it was easy to stay out of sight, and to make sure no one saw my face.
"Lethal mode, active." I muttered, lurking in an alley until my target came into sight.
I looked around with my mask, checking everything within eyesight twice before I walked over to Donald. It was about time for him to leave his home, and visit the fighting ring. I knew the route he took, I often jogged to Hookwolf's fighting ring, and the last time I had been there I followed him home.
Donald was six foot and two inches of walking muscle. One of Hookwolf's fighters, and probably one of the best non-parahuman brawlers in this city. I'd sparred with him three times, and even I could tell that he was holding back massively. It had been less of a fight, and more of a training exercise, he was quite good at leading me on, moving just slightly faster than I could, pushing me to excel.
The second time, when I hadn't been able to surprise him with a tazer in my fingers and I hadn't been using the Mayhem Protocol, he'd basically just bounced me around the ring until he decided I'd had enough.
I waved to him, jogging to catch up with his brisk steps as he walked home. I think his choice of house was deliberate. It was on the border of Empire and ABB territory. Donald wasn't afraid of anything.
He was dumb though. Fortunately.
"Donald. How are you doing?" I asked.
"Not bad. Looking forward to a match or two. Are you joining us tonight?" Donald said jovially.
I didn't go to Hookwolf's gathering every night. Most nights I just tinkered, trying to perfect my tech. I rarely went more than one night in four, but it had been three days. Not an unlikely pattern.
"Probably, yeah, but there's something I want to talk to you about first." I told him.
I motioned to a nearby alley, and he followed me in without question.
"Oh, a few things. Mostly just wanted to hang out." I told him, leading him deeper, away from prying eyes. "It's always good to hang out with you Donald, you remind me of what the Empire is really about."
And why, if the Nine didn't destroy them, I would need to do so myself.
"Yeah." He said, perking up. He didn't have a lot of friends. Oh he was respected, which was almost worse in it's way, but not many people actually liked him. He did need to be handled carefully. There was a certain amount of respect for capes in there, beaten into him by Hookwolf, but normals who didn't fit into his world view properly had a tendency to get the snot beaten out of them. It was easier for them to avoid him, and laugh along uncomfortably when he did seek out companionship.
"Yeah. The others, they mention the cause now and again, but it's on the back-burner for them. It's like… they go about their lives, and they're happy, personable people, but it's not something that's… in your face, you know what I mean?"
"Um… no?" He said, confusion struggling not to become anger.
"You remember how a few days ago you were talking about that woman you raped and killed?"
"Which one? The chink or the nigger?"
I paused. There had been more than one? Well that… didn't change things.
"Yes," I continued. I'd rehearsed this, and I wasn't quite ready for the change in script. "Both. Whatever. Anyway, it reminded me of a… potential problem. I've never killed anyone."
I did have to viciously beat a poor man who's only crime was being a black shoplifter in E88 territory during my initiation, but that was very different. I was a bio-tinker, I could beat someone convincingly without going all in. I caused him pain, but only enough to make his cries convincing. I didn't do anything that wouldn't heal, and he was going to have severe back trouble in a few years, which a few well placed blows prevented. Concussive chiropractic care. It should have balanced out as less pain in the long term. I wasn't happy about having to do it, but I also wasn't too torn up about it either.
Only Hookwolf's crew had to actually be 'bloodied' and, among them Donald was the most… enthusiastic. I was allowed at their gatherings, but I had no desire to actually become one of them, and fortunately Hookwolf wasn't pushing for it. I think he planned to, but Kaiser didn't want me scared off just yet.
"It'll happen, don't worry. You can talk with Hookwolf about it, if you want to join the Chosen like that. He can find someone." Donald said, misreading my intentions, as I had expected him to.
"I'm not sure I want to join the Chosen exactly… I mean, it would be cool and all, but I hear that your first time killing someone is always the hardest. The time when you might, you know, throw up or something. I figure I should do that now, when I'm not in public, or when it's not the middle of some life or death crisis. Anyway, I was hoping that you could help me?" I was babbling, the script was breaking down. It was stupid anyway, it sounded cool in my head, but really, why was I trying to sound cool? No one was going to hear, and there was nothing 'cool' about this.
Part of me wished I had just picked someone I didn't know, someone I hadn't fought, but then how could I be sure? I didn't want to kill an undercover cop by mistake or anything. Donald I was sure about.
Donald's brow furrowed. The cogs in his head turning.
"Yeah. OK. Chink would be easiest. You got a preference? Girl, guy…"
I raised my hand and shot a kinetic pulse into his head. Normally the blasts are designed to diffuse, not all the kinetic energy disperses directly at the point of impact. A sort of body slam or thrown punch effect, rather than the effect of a bullet.
Of course, that was something I could turn off.
Donald dropped to the ground, a small hole in his face, just under the eye. I'd been aiming for his forehead. Should remember to go for the center of mass, next time.
I stood there for a second trying to feel the revulsion I expected. I hadn't disabled revulsion, or disgust, or the whole plethora of other emotions that made me something other than a sociopath.
Nothing. Guess that the whole 'oh god I killed someone' was mostly about fear. Either that, or I was more of a monster than I thought I was. My power was even giving me a large chunk of energy for this.
Guess I should double tap. I remember reading that people could survive surprisingly well with a bullet in their brain, under exactly the right conditions.
I raised my hand, fired another pulse. Unfortunately my hand was shaking too much, the sidewalk beside Donald's head splintered. I stared at my trembling hand, tried to figure out why it wasn't obeying me. Oh well, I was a bio-tinker, I could see into Donald's skull. In my power enhanced medical opinion, he was dead.
I pulled a pair of thin surgical gloves out of my pocket.
"You know… I'd like to say that I did this for justice. To stop you hurting more people." I told the corpse as I snapped the gloves on, then opened my backpack.
Buying a green beanie and a red scarf without Victor noticing had been tricky. I wasn't monitored twenty four seven, but I didn't have a car, and I was still blind without my mask, so he felt justified in walking me through the shops when I needed to buy things. In the end I bought a gray beanie and scarf, and made the dyes myself. I pulled the beanie over my eyes, covering the mask and most of my face, the mask still worked through the thin wool.
"That would be lying though. What you did made you an acceptable target, but…" I told him, putting my boot on his side and tilting his body until I could pull out the gun I knew he carried under his coat.
"I was telling the truth about needing to learn to kill." I said, eying the gun. If my estimate was right, the kinetic blasts I'd used should have similar penetrative power as a .22 Caliber bullet, which is what this gun carried.
Let's see… dressed like an ABB gangster, gun in hand, corpse ready.
"Mayhem, Objectives: Survival, replicate kinetic attacks with bullets to fool forensics, avoid leaving evidence. Time, ten seconds. Activate."
Ten seconds later I was still standing over a corpse, a smoking gun in my hands.
Heh, in the end, did I really need to figure out Mayhem? It only needed to work a few more times. It didn't feel anything, and I had the technology now to extend the time it could operate. When the Nine came to town, I'd use it against Cherish. Not the anti-Master tech. The only difference would be that Mayhem didn't really have a conscience. You didn't need a conscience to fight the Nine.
Well no, maybe I should put a bit more work into giving Mayhem a moral code. I could do that later though. When I hadn't just killed someone.
This was a rough neighborhood. Gunshots might draw attention, but they also might not. I didn't even know why I was bothering to hide forensic evidence. Skinhead killed near ABB territory. The story wrote itself. The Empire wasn't going to look into it, the Police weren't going to look into it. It happened every few days.
I threw the gun down beside the body, and walked away. I'd already checked a map of the area, there hadn't been anyone near enough to directly intervene… just needed to walk into ABB territory, cut through a few buildings, dissolve the scarf and beanie with a little acid and pour the mess down a drain, and then jog back to Hookwolfs fighting ring. It wasn't far, Hookwolf wanted to be able to deploy to the front lines as quickly as possible, if it became necessary.
I'd have to act normal. I'd have to be calm. I'd have to stay serene about the new blood on my hands. And I'd do it. I'd teach myself the hard way. Train myself. Forge myself into something that could pull the trigger when the time came.
I looked around again, saw no one, heard nothing. I'd gotten away clean. My hands were still shaking. I'd have to identify the emotions causing that, suppress them. Maybe for good. I couldn't afford to be this weak.
Last night I had watched half a video from the latest Slaughterhouse Nine attack. They'd attacked Richmond city. Thousands were dead from Shatterbirds scream, but as was often the case, the most horrifying thing to come out of it was my sisters work.
A wall of living flesh, three meters long, nothing but skin, organs, arms and the heads of her victims, pleading for help for days before the PRT deemed it impossible, and put the men, women and children on that wall out of their misery.
I didn't turn down my emotions. I turned them up, feeling everything about what I'd just done. What my sister had just done. Punishment for waiting. For thinking that I could make things OK.
Even without eyes, I still had tear ducts. Jack Slash hadn't taken that from me.
I should burn them shut, my mask doesn't cope that well with water.
Slowly I decided that wallowing in self recrimination would get me nowhere. The sooner I got into Hookwolf's fighting ring, the less likely they were to notice the lag between when I left the clinic, and when I got here, and connect it to a dead murderer.
I started readjusting my emotions, lowering what I couldn't deal with, raising my anger and determination back up so I could feed on the energy they provided.
"I'm sorry Riley. I'll be ready soon." I promised.
Then I played the file that would control my body language and micro-expressions, and walked into the warehouse.
I sighed as another bald, tattooed annoyance made his way into my office. I'd tried to get them to come into the workshop instead so I could get some work done, but after one of them saw Sveta and started vomiting that idea fell through.
I was going to have to build that girl a body fairly soon. I could probably stick her in it even before I fixed the tendrils, depending on how sturdy I could make it.
"So I was thinking, like, Wolverine claws, but with real badass finger daggers too, and then, like, maybe x-ray eyes. That would be fucking cool." The annoyance said.
"Fine. Whatever. Take one of these a day and see me in a week." I told him, passing him some sugar pills.
"These pills are gunner make Gunner grow claws? Fucking sick!" The man said.
I sighed.
"They're to prepare you for the operation. Increased bone density and blood production. Now get out."
"So I like, have healing factor?"
I rested my head in my hands.
"You know what. Yes. You'll have a weak healing factor. Get out."
"Thanks man. You're not going to regret this. Gunner gut those Chinks."
My eyes fell on the man's file, which I had neglected to actually read before he came in.
Was his name really Gunner? Was that mangling of the English language deliberate? Where was Kaiser finding these people? Obviously he wanted everyone I augmented to be considered expendable. Why? I thought I'd done a good job of pulling the wool over his eyes.
The door opened, and Stacy came in.
"I was listening." She told me.
"So? We're done right, he was the last one?" I said.
"You're in a real mood. I know you didn't get much sleep last night, but you never get much sleep. Why are you like this?" She asked.
I blinked. Right. I was letting my emotions get the better of me. I could turn them off, but I didn't want to. This anger, helplessness, loss, I deserved to be feeling it. I'd managed to find a video online last night, just shaky cell phone footage and it was taken down before I could watch the whole thing, but I saw enough.
I stood up.
"My neural circuitry is having problems. I need to fix it. No interruptions." I told Stacy, brushing one of my sedative covered scalpels along her arm as I pushed past her, leaving a tiny cut. She blinked at me as I walked away, then sat down so she didn't hurt herself when she fell asleep. Smart girl.
I didn't stay in the building. There was something I needed to do if I wanted to stay on the course I had set myself. I put on a hoodie as I left, pulled it over my head to hide the mask, and started jogging. Night had fallen already, and it was easy to stay out of sight, and to make sure no one saw my face.
"Lethal mode, active." I muttered, lurking in an alley until my target came into sight.
I looked around with my mask, checking everything within eyesight twice before I walked over to Donald. It was about time for him to leave his home, and visit the fighting ring. I knew the route he took, I often jogged to Hookwolf's fighting ring, and the last time I had been there I followed him home.
Donald was six foot and two inches of walking muscle. One of Hookwolf's fighters, and probably one of the best non-parahuman brawlers in this city. I'd sparred with him three times, and even I could tell that he was holding back massively. It had been less of a fight, and more of a training exercise, he was quite good at leading me on, moving just slightly faster than I could, pushing me to excel.
The second time, when I hadn't been able to surprise him with a tazer in my fingers and I hadn't been using the Mayhem Protocol, he'd basically just bounced me around the ring until he decided I'd had enough.
I waved to him, jogging to catch up with his brisk steps as he walked home. I think his choice of house was deliberate. It was on the border of Empire and ABB territory. Donald wasn't afraid of anything.
He was dumb though. Fortunately.
"Donald. How are you doing?" I asked.
"Not bad. Looking forward to a match or two. Are you joining us tonight?" Donald said jovially.
I didn't go to Hookwolf's gathering every night. Most nights I just tinkered, trying to perfect my tech. I rarely went more than one night in four, but it had been three days. Not an unlikely pattern.
"Probably, yeah, but there's something I want to talk to you about first." I told him.
I motioned to a nearby alley, and he followed me in without question.
"Oh, a few things. Mostly just wanted to hang out." I told him, leading him deeper, away from prying eyes. "It's always good to hang out with you Donald, you remind me of what the Empire is really about."
And why, if the Nine didn't destroy them, I would need to do so myself.
"Yeah." He said, perking up. He didn't have a lot of friends. Oh he was respected, which was almost worse in it's way, but not many people actually liked him. He did need to be handled carefully. There was a certain amount of respect for capes in there, beaten into him by Hookwolf, but normals who didn't fit into his world view properly had a tendency to get the snot beaten out of them. It was easier for them to avoid him, and laugh along uncomfortably when he did seek out companionship.
"Yeah. The others, they mention the cause now and again, but it's on the back-burner for them. It's like… they go about their lives, and they're happy, personable people, but it's not something that's… in your face, you know what I mean?"
"Um… no?" He said, confusion struggling not to become anger.
"You remember how a few days ago you were talking about that woman you raped and killed?"
"Which one? The chink or the nigger?"
I paused. There had been more than one? Well that… didn't change things.
"Yes," I continued. I'd rehearsed this, and I wasn't quite ready for the change in script. "Both. Whatever. Anyway, it reminded me of a… potential problem. I've never killed anyone."
I did have to viciously beat a poor man who's only crime was being a black shoplifter in E88 territory during my initiation, but that was very different. I was a bio-tinker, I could beat someone convincingly without going all in. I caused him pain, but only enough to make his cries convincing. I didn't do anything that wouldn't heal, and he was going to have severe back trouble in a few years, which a few well placed blows prevented. Concussive chiropractic care. It should have balanced out as less pain in the long term. I wasn't happy about having to do it, but I also wasn't too torn up about it either.
Only Hookwolf's crew had to actually be 'bloodied' and, among them Donald was the most… enthusiastic. I was allowed at their gatherings, but I had no desire to actually become one of them, and fortunately Hookwolf wasn't pushing for it. I think he planned to, but Kaiser didn't want me scared off just yet.
"It'll happen, don't worry. You can talk with Hookwolf about it, if you want to join the Chosen like that. He can find someone." Donald said, misreading my intentions, as I had expected him to.
"I'm not sure I want to join the Chosen exactly… I mean, it would be cool and all, but I hear that your first time killing someone is always the hardest. The time when you might, you know, throw up or something. I figure I should do that now, when I'm not in public, or when it's not the middle of some life or death crisis. Anyway, I was hoping that you could help me?" I was babbling, the script was breaking down. It was stupid anyway, it sounded cool in my head, but really, why was I trying to sound cool? No one was going to hear, and there was nothing 'cool' about this.
Part of me wished I had just picked someone I didn't know, someone I hadn't fought, but then how could I be sure? I didn't want to kill an undercover cop by mistake or anything. Donald I was sure about.
Donald's brow furrowed. The cogs in his head turning.
"Yeah. OK. Chink would be easiest. You got a preference? Girl, guy…"
I raised my hand and shot a kinetic pulse into his head. Normally the blasts are designed to diffuse, not all the kinetic energy disperses directly at the point of impact. A sort of body slam or thrown punch effect, rather than the effect of a bullet.
Of course, that was something I could turn off.
Donald dropped to the ground, a small hole in his face, just under the eye. I'd been aiming for his forehead. Should remember to go for the center of mass, next time.
I stood there for a second trying to feel the revulsion I expected. I hadn't disabled revulsion, or disgust, or the whole plethora of other emotions that made me something other than a sociopath.
Nothing. Guess that the whole 'oh god I killed someone' was mostly about fear. Either that, or I was more of a monster than I thought I was. My power was even giving me a large chunk of energy for this.
Guess I should double tap. I remember reading that people could survive surprisingly well with a bullet in their brain, under exactly the right conditions.
I raised my hand, fired another pulse. Unfortunately my hand was shaking too much, the sidewalk beside Donald's head splintered. I stared at my trembling hand, tried to figure out why it wasn't obeying me. Oh well, I was a bio-tinker, I could see into Donald's skull. In my power enhanced medical opinion, he was dead.
I pulled a pair of thin surgical gloves out of my pocket.
"You know… I'd like to say that I did this for justice. To stop you hurting more people." I told the corpse as I snapped the gloves on, then opened my backpack.
Buying a green beanie and a red scarf without Victor noticing had been tricky. I wasn't monitored twenty four seven, but I didn't have a car, and I was still blind without my mask, so he felt justified in walking me through the shops when I needed to buy things. In the end I bought a gray beanie and scarf, and made the dyes myself. I pulled the beanie over my eyes, covering the mask and most of my face, the mask still worked through the thin wool.
"That would be lying though. What you did made you an acceptable target, but…" I told him, putting my boot on his side and tilting his body until I could pull out the gun I knew he carried under his coat.
"I was telling the truth about needing to learn to kill." I said, eying the gun. If my estimate was right, the kinetic blasts I'd used should have similar penetrative power as a .22 Caliber bullet, which is what this gun carried.
Let's see… dressed like an ABB gangster, gun in hand, corpse ready.
"Mayhem, Objectives: Survival, replicate kinetic attacks with bullets to fool forensics, avoid leaving evidence. Time, ten seconds. Activate."
Ten seconds later I was still standing over a corpse, a smoking gun in my hands.
Heh, in the end, did I really need to figure out Mayhem? It only needed to work a few more times. It didn't feel anything, and I had the technology now to extend the time it could operate. When the Nine came to town, I'd use it against Cherish. Not the anti-Master tech. The only difference would be that Mayhem didn't really have a conscience. You didn't need a conscience to fight the Nine.
Well no, maybe I should put a bit more work into giving Mayhem a moral code. I could do that later though. When I hadn't just killed someone.
This was a rough neighborhood. Gunshots might draw attention, but they also might not. I didn't even know why I was bothering to hide forensic evidence. Skinhead killed near ABB territory. The story wrote itself. The Empire wasn't going to look into it, the Police weren't going to look into it. It happened every few days.
I threw the gun down beside the body, and walked away. I'd already checked a map of the area, there hadn't been anyone near enough to directly intervene… just needed to walk into ABB territory, cut through a few buildings, dissolve the scarf and beanie with a little acid and pour the mess down a drain, and then jog back to Hookwolfs fighting ring. It wasn't far, Hookwolf wanted to be able to deploy to the front lines as quickly as possible, if it became necessary.
I'd have to act normal. I'd have to be calm. I'd have to stay serene about the new blood on my hands. And I'd do it. I'd teach myself the hard way. Train myself. Forge myself into something that could pull the trigger when the time came.
I looked around again, saw no one, heard nothing. I'd gotten away clean. My hands were still shaking. I'd have to identify the emotions causing that, suppress them. Maybe for good. I couldn't afford to be this weak.
Last night I had watched half a video from the latest Slaughterhouse Nine attack. They'd attacked Richmond city. Thousands were dead from Shatterbirds scream, but as was often the case, the most horrifying thing to come out of it was my sisters work.
A wall of living flesh, three meters long, nothing but skin, organs, arms and the heads of her victims, pleading for help for days before the PRT deemed it impossible, and put the men, women and children on that wall out of their misery.
I didn't turn down my emotions. I turned them up, feeling everything about what I'd just done. What my sister had just done. Punishment for waiting. For thinking that I could make things OK.
Even without eyes, I still had tear ducts. Jack Slash hadn't taken that from me.
I should burn them shut, my mask doesn't cope that well with water.
Slowly I decided that wallowing in self recrimination would get me nowhere. The sooner I got into Hookwolf's fighting ring, the less likely they were to notice the lag between when I left the clinic, and when I got here, and connect it to a dead murderer.
I started readjusting my emotions, lowering what I couldn't deal with, raising my anger and determination back up so I could feed on the energy they provided.
"I'm sorry Riley. I'll be ready soon." I promised.
Then I played the file that would control my body language and micro-expressions, and walked into the warehouse.
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Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
You know, I gotta ask. Why is he acting like the Nine is coming soon? Does he know something we don't? And it's going to be just really awesome or sad when he ends up having to kill Riley. Bonesaw is all she is now, and even if there's a sliver left of Riley somehow, it'd take Contessa's PTV social-fu to make her come back after everything.
- Location
- Australia
Jack made a promise. If news goes public enough, he'll basically be forced to keep it, or lose face.
TheLurker
Random Omnipotent Lazy-As-Fuck Being
- Location
- The space beyond the stars
Pretty sure if the nine DONT show up soon, he's planning on hunting them down himself.
Khepri14
Thus kindly I scatter...
- Location
- Following the wind
No, I know that. I meant that he seems to think the Nine will show up within the next few weeks or something with the way he's acting.
Jackercracks
In a British accent
- Location
- England
Man, you really aren't pulling your punches. Just walk up and murder a guy for practice.
- Location
- Upstate NY, USA
- Pronouns
- Fjf
It's Worm. The Nine *ALWAYS* show up.
Gotta be honest, I think it's more akin to putting down a rabid dog. Something slightly distasteful but has to be done.
Jackercracks
In a British accent
- Location
- England
I'm not opposed to the idea. I'm more noting the very objective-based way it was carried out. Generally most writers shrink back from doing things like that, I like that this one does not.
- Location
- Poland
I like that people haven't reacted negatively. I noted when I was beta'ing for this chapter that Adam is descending into a monologuing serial killer a'la Dexter (which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I liked Dexter a lot, watched every episode).
It's a coin toss really. Sometimes people will complain massively if the protag isn't a shining beacon of moral righteousness, and sometimes they let it slide. It's mainly what's keeping me back from making the aforementioned serial killing vigilante in worm type of story.
Jackercracks
In a British accent
- Location
- England
I think one of the most important considerations about how angry people get is whether the character claims the moral high ground or not. Mayhem makes no claims in this chapter that he's doing the right thing because it's right. Instead he makes the much smaller claim that it is expedient. That the person being killed is despicable also lessens any potential backlash.
Legion1771
The God
And there's not much of a reader base at the moment. Or there is and they're just not here at the moment *cough*
Lordhighalnder
Student, smarter than some.
- Location
- Long Beach, CA
Eh. my morals are a little screwed, so I don't see much wrong with it. Executing those who rape, especially without remorse? 100% in favor.
apeljohn
Non-Player Character
- Location
- Earth Aleph
I think a lot of it is about signalling. If people know up-front precisely what kind of story they're about to read, that's one thing. If the story starts out all cheery optimism that's apparently being played straight and then descends into horror and homicide, that's hard on the reader's brain.
I'd agree but with two caveats:
1) The government can't do it. A civic system that casually executes people is scarier than any individual rapist or murderer*.
2) If the government catches the person who did it, they can't go easy on him. Otherwise they're essentially outsourcing murder, which brings us back to point #1.
If you're OK with an ethical system where doing the right thing may still end up with you in jail, I'm not gonna disagree if you consider killing serial rapists to be morally correct.
* The rules change slightly in Harry Potter-esque situations where no reliable prison system is available. That doesn't apply to any first-world country of which I'm aware, though. The major pressure on the US system is their predilection for locking up marijuana users, not murderers and rapists being broken out by gangs.
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The Stormbringer
Worm Fanfic & Crack Connoisseur
- Location
- Spaaaaace~!
One less shameless piece of scum off the streets, one more boost to the power. I really wonder how far he'll get before he has to face them, or decides he should.
I'm always a sucker for villain protagonists.
Y HALO THAR, Shard.
- Location
- Poland
Something is screwy here Jurric
- Location
- PR
Not a Worm (canon material) reader but more of a few fanfics reader so I got a questions that needs answering.
Jack Slash. I know he is sort of the boogeyman and all but after checking the wiki his power doesnt protect him at all from anything. His main ability is, besides cutting or slashing stuff, talking to people like the Main character from shonen mangas.
Why has nobody ever put a bullet in his head? Sniper or other long range weapon. Is everyone in the Worm world going into a stupid mode when it comes to him or is he always using something to protect him from long range attacks?
Jack Slash. I know he is sort of the boogeyman and all but after checking the wiki his power doesnt protect him at all from anything. His main ability is, besides cutting or slashing stuff, talking to people like the Main character from shonen mangas.
Why has nobody ever put a bullet in his head? Sniper or other long range weapon. Is everyone in the Worm world going into a stupid mode when it comes to him or is he always using something to protect him from long range attacks?