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Runaway

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Pale Wolf said:
So before we judge Sophia, we need to do two things. First, we need to take her out of Taylor's perspective.
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That is frankly so difficult that I couldn't bring myself to do more than accept your interpretation as logically valid but personally distasteful. I know that even completely fucking psycho levels of schoolyard bullying aren't as bad as literal Naziism or abuse that is only not sexual because the guy was figurative in getting off on it. But a mere human like me can't hope to have a truly unbiased perspective. God, when I read Worm I thought fascism had died.
Empty Shelf said:
An unrepentant murderer.
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That part, Pale Wolf was able to convince me about. I can only wish I could murder a Nazi if I saw one hatecriming around with the swastika and everything. And also wish I could get away with it better than Sophia did, while I'm wishing.
Empty Shelf said:
That she sometimes demonstrates a twisted and unhelpful empathy to people she's rescued doesn't make her a better hero, much less a better person, than those that have the training and experience to know better.
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Eh... the people with training mostly get trained to spare Nazis and take patrol routes designed to cause only limited skirmishes with them at most. As for experience, basically all of the independent heroes and villains-according-to-rich-people of this fic are OCs. So who's better? Armsmaster, the man who would have enslaved Dragon to his will if circumstances hadn't forced him to take a good long look at himself? Miss Militia, the physical incarnation of the Nuremburg Defense? Battery, who bought a vial specifically to stop Madcap from saving people? Assault, who had to become what he opposed to escape the fate Madcap saved people from? I can believe Sophia sees the same truth of the world that she and Emma accidentally taught to Taylor. I'm just personally incapable of forgiving even Pale Wolf's version of her, out of my own biases.
Pale Wolf said:
It was pretty bad as bullying goes, legitimately severe, and there was a definite carelessness with respect to potential consequences. The locker was absolutely a point where Taylor could have died. The possibility did exist. But that possibility existed out of thoughtlessness, not intent. It wasn't an attempted murder, it was depraved indifference - also very bad, but an entirely different thing. If Sophia ever meant to murder Taylor, as someone who is very good at violence and has in fact killed people, she would not pick such a roundabout means. Murder requires intent. Attempts require intent.
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Stupidity and malice are two sides of the same coin. Lines in laws about unprovable-outside-of-fiction things like intent are just there to let the person in charge of interpreting them rule how they want to.
 
Winged One said:
Stupidity and malice are two sides of the same coin. Lines in laws about unprovable-outside-of-fiction things like intent are just there to let the person in charge of interpreting them rule how they want to.
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This doesn't meant what I think you're trying to say it means here.

The important thing about two sides of a coin is that they can never face the same direction. Stupidity and Malice are mutually exclusive because Malice requires intent. If your misbehaviour is born of stupidity, it cannot be malicious, if it was born of malice, then you cannot claim you didn't know any better out of stupidity.

Admittedly there's an overlap where people are malicious for stupid reasons but that's not so much of an overlap as two different coins thrown at the same time landing on opposite sides.

That said, Sophia is Malicious. She knows what she does and she does it deliberately, possibly even with joy in her heart, or at least some sort of vindictive satisfaction anyways... She's a monster, she has no remorse for her actions, and she deserves nothing more than to be thrown into the deepest darkest hole that can keep her for being such a vile excuse for a human being.

She's not dumb, she can't say she didn't know better, she knows better and doesn't care about the better because she's just bullying scum like that.
 
Spectral Waltz said:
This doesn't meant what I think you're trying to say it means here.

The important thing about two sides of a coin is that they can never face the same direction. Stupidity and Malice are mutually exclusive because Malice requires intent. If your misbehaviour is born of stupidity, it cannot be malicious, if it was born of malice, then you cannot claim you didn't know any better out of stupidity.
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Fine, the coin metaphor makes no sense. What I mean is that stupidity and malice create each other.
 
LostDeviljho said:
Frankly, I think one of the little things of Worm that is a constant, mild strain on SOD is that violent villain groups like that exist and don't just... get fucking shot.
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Good question, though it looks like others have already provided better answers than I think I likely would have.

Pale Wolf said:
She's trying to be Batman - a dark hero in the night that makes all the nasty things out there too scared to put their heads out. She doesn't have the things Batman has that let him do it - an actual good cop to hand people off to so he doesn't need to dispense frontier justice, billions of dollars of inherited wealth, and writers willing to let it work.
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Well, I'm not sure she is, actually. Because the thing about Batman is that, as I recall someone else pointing out somewhat at some point, don't recall who, where, or when, sorry, his heroic code has blind trust in the authorities as a fundamental pillar. After all, Batman can beat the Joker; he's done it over and over again. But he's done it over and over again; the Joker keeps coming back, no matter how many time Batman captures him, hands him over to the authorities, and tells himself he has to believe that this time they'll actually take care of it. The alternative would be usurping the proper roles of judge, jury, and executioner. And I'd guess Sophia's response would be something along the lines of "Well, yeah, but for all you know one good cop, your judges, juries, and executioners are clearly at least as bad as mine, and if you had taken on those roles even after just the second time the Joker broke out, how many of his victims wouldn't have been, and how many other super-crimes wouldn't have happened because the villains knew the worst case for being beaten by you wasn't basically just a fine and a short stay in a revolving-door prison?"

I'm not gonna say my reading of Sophia is the only valid one.
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It was interesting, though, and I don't recall seeing its like before; thanks for sharing it.

MaimakteriAnn said:
Multiple attempted murders and attempted murder with a biological agent isn't "just a teen idea of nastiness".
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I mean. There are some teens who decide that anyone at their school they can hit with an automatic weapon is a valid target for same. Sophia's actions might be more extreme than can-already-be-pretty-bad normal bullying, but they don't go that far -- and as far as I know, in text, the Locker may or may not have been her idea, and either way she was far from the only student to actively or passively support it happening.

Winged One said:
Armsmaster, the man who would have enslaved Dragon to his will if circumstances hadn't forced him to take a good long look at himself?
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...Oooookay, is this another case of "Reese's gestalt impressions from fanfic have given them a very distorted impression of the canon version of This Particular Thing", or... what?
 
Winged One said:
That part, Pale Wolf was able to convince me about. I can only wish I could murder a Nazi if I saw one hatecriming around with the swastika and everything. And also wish I could get away with it better than Sophia did, while I'm wishing.
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You're assuming it's only Nazis. She's canonically killed a number of people, both on purpose and on "accident" (notably in Interlude 19 where she accidentally drops a guy she didn't mean to kill off a roof), by the time canon starts, and she doesn't exclusively target the E88. And that's not including her attempts to hunt down and straight-up murder Grue and Skitter as, if you accept Pale Wolf's interpretation, a kind of coping mechanism. Which yes, she has trauma, but there's a word for people who pathologically murder people who trigger them, and it isn't "hero".

It's serial killer.
Winged One said:
Eh... the people with training mostly get trained to spare Nazis and take patrol routes designed to cause only limited skirmishes with them at most.
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The people with training mostly get trained to save lives and not accidentally spread harmful ideologies to vulnerable people. The most charitable interpretation of Sophia is that she's imply too arrogant and immature to know better.

And on the subject of glorifying Nazi murder, it's worth noting that throughout her three year career, Shadow Stalker seemingly never attempted to kill, or even combat, any E88 capes. We do know, however, that she prioritized hunting down and killing Grue. Her priorities seem pretty obvious, and seem to have very little to do with opposing fascism.
 
Alert: Sophia Is Not The Topic
  • Staff Post
    • sophia is not the topic Pretty sure I said I don't want the thread for this story - which is not about Sophia and doesn't even feature Sophia in a prominent role - to become a Sophia debate. I, and many others, would like to engage with things germane to the story in the thread for the story.

    I'm not opposed to people posting their reactions to my thoughts, even if they disagree, are wrongheaded, uncharitable, actively mocking, or even violating site rules. The use of the Funny rating to mock the post is a direct violation of the Terms of Service, @Empty Shelf. I quote here:
    The Rules said:
    The ToS also prohibits you from using technical measures that circumvent any system on SV, use SV in a way it was not intended to be used, or access it in any way that might be abusive.
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    The Funny rating was intended to laugh at peoples' jokes, not to mock their opinions. Using it to take shots at people is explicitly against the rules of SV. We have acted on this before, it's just usually hard to prove. I was suspicious the moment you Funny-ed the post but thought I had scattered in a bit of humour, maybe you were laughing at that. Then you posted to disagree with me and confirmed the reason you had used the rating was not to laugh at the jokes I sprinkled in, but to mock me.
    The reason I didn't report it was because the only person wronged was me and I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, not because it's okay. I didn't want moderator action to disrupt a thread I was already worried about going off the rails. Had you done this to anyone else I would have reported it. I'm telling you this because, as site staff, I have a duty to make sure you know what the rules are, and can refrain from doing it again to someone who cares.

    But you don't get to respond to each others' reactions. You don't get to debate Sophia until and unless the finer details of her characterization become relevant to the thread. Sophia is not relevant to the thread.

    I'm willing to wander afield, we can have fun in here, we don't have to stay strictly on-topic. But arguments, while not necessarily acrimonious, often are on the Internet. The first posts in response proved that case - the first came from a fantasy realm and the second dripped with mockery (thank you, @Winged One, @Spectral Waltz, and @Reese for responding politely even if you disagreed with me, as well as Maimakteri Ann if you haven't left yet).

    It's not fun to be treated like that. And while there's a degree of it I have to expose myself to to present any creative work, I have no obligation to when it's a controversial position barely relevant at best to the story. I was asked to elaborate on my view of Sophia, and I did, but that's where it ends. I knew this would happen, I specifically requested it not, and that request has been ignored.

    Please don't continue to ignore it.


    To clarify: Sophia's deep inner heart is not topical to the thread. I presented a position, and I'm not against people responding to that position or presenting to their own, but we are not debating it. We're not arguing it. There are places to have that discussion and they are not this place, I don't have the time or energy to engage with them, I'm still trying to muster up the time and energy to engage with my own thread and making it less pleasant isn't helping.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Oh, right, you're staff. Well, glad I managed to not piss you off.
     
    @Pale Wolf:
    Ah, I appear to have misunderstood or somehow entirely missed that request; sorry about that.

    So, on a different and hopefully better/more closely story-related topic, Spiral has her rotor pack and Kid Win has his hoverboard, but Armsmaster has a purely ground (as far as I know) motorcycle. Anyone have any thoughts on when, or if, Ripple will get airborne? I'd guess gravity manipulation is within her tinker abilities, and flight is really useful.
     
    Nah nah, you didn't do anything wrong. You asked questions about points that confused you, you didn't argue.

    I will respond to that question and various other older commentary I still didn't get to, but I had real life fuckery going on that kept me from getting done on that or getting any writing done (we are now at three months of ongoing fuckery that've kept me from getting much writing done, it's ridiculous, it's not even a network of fuckeries it's all one damn thing that just won't ever seem to end), and I have more going on right now, so I'll be a bit before I really can.
     
    Pale Wolf said:
    […]I had real life fuckery going on that kept me from getting done on that or getting any writing done (we are now at three months of ongoing fuckery that've kept me from getting much writing done, it's ridiculous, it's not even a network of fuckeries it's all one damn thing that just won't ever seem to end), and I have more going on right now, so I'll be a bit before I really can.
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    Sorry things are rough. But remember it's not the shit you wade through, just how you wade through the shit. Also know that we can't wait for you to get back to writing!
     
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    Pale Wolf said:
    Nah nah, you didn't do anything wrong. You asked questions about points that confused you, you didn't argue.
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    Oh, good! Thanks. :)

    I will respond to that question and various other older commentary I still didn't get to
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    No worries, but also thanks.
    (That most recent question may have been the result of trying to think of something else to change the topic to, but I am actually interested in it.)

    I had real life fuckery going on that kept me from getting done on that or getting any writing done (we are now at three months of ongoing fuckery that've kept me from getting much writing done, it's ridiculous, it's not even a network of fuckeries it's all one damn thing that just won't ever seem to end), and I have more going on right now, so I'll be a bit before I really can.
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    Oof. Sorry about that, and good luck.
     
    Pale Wolf said:
    I mean, he is in pretty good shape. Boy takes a combat career, and is pretty serious about it. He's gonna be in great shape.

    Alex would like to stop thinking about that shape now please.
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    My dark secret is that I used Shirtless Zac Effron as a reference. Did you know that High School Musical 2 came out (in earth Aleph, I suppose)in 2007? Just two years before a Certain Incident.
     
    By the way, I recently happened to learn a bit more about the Kingdom of Kush in general and the ruling queen, both qore and kandake, Amanirenas who halted the Roman Empire's advance south in particular. I'm now rather annoyed the Meroitic language is apparently almost entirely undeciphered, though I suspect that's not the only reason I hadn't already heard more about them.
     
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