Man, it's like y'all refuse to view Rebecca Costa-Brown as a person beyond her goals as part of Cauldron. Perhaps, even though she's a member of a secret organization and illegally running a gov't organization, she can still feel love? And yeah, with her power, sex is probably pretty impossible. But honestly, not all of a relationship is sex. Maybe it is something more sinister, but can we all just allow for the possibility that Alexandria might have feelings and an actual home life? Just sayin'.
I personally have no problem with it, though it does seem like she's the sort of person who would put off any romantic pursuits until after Scion's defeat. Or that she tried a few times, but it never works out because she's too focused on her work.
The idea that she's married, and to someone who potentially has no idea about Cauldron or her secret identity is actually pretty funny to me.
Its a PR thing. People will feel inclined to "trust" someone who lead a stable upstanding family. Leftover from last century norm where a individual truly become member of productive society by having proper job, owns house (or land) and happily married. In case of women, that be good "proper" wife, have child(s) or properly raising one into proper adults. Each country differ slightly but usually marriage and stable family signified a good mannered and upstanding individual.
The tradition in the British Army was that subalterns may not marry, captains may, majors should and colonels must. So Chief Director would be Colonel+? Lots of British traditions carried over into American traditions.
Man, it's like y'all refuse to view Rebecca Costa-Brown as a person beyond her goals as part of Cauldron. Perhaps, even though she's a member of a secret organization and illegally running a gov't organization, she can still feel love? And yeah, with her power, sex is probably pretty impossible. But honestly, not all of a relationship is sex. Maybe it is something more sinister, but can we all just allow for the possibility that Alexandria might have feelings and an actual home life? Just sayin'.
The effect of her powers on her person is often overstated in fan fics. She's not a marble statue or unable to be careful. She's simply invincible unless another power trumps hers (Damsel of Distress, Scrub, Flechette, Siberian).
She's walking around in Washington and shaking hands with people all day long, people would have noticed if her hand wasn't squishy at all.
I have a Fortuna/Rebecca fic in the works and there I've decided that sex is very much on the table. Why wouldn't it be? All you have to make sure is that Becca isn't going to lose control of her strength. If Superman can have sex, so can she.
I have a Fortuna/Rebecca fic in the works and there I've decided that sex is very much on the table. Why wouldn't it be? All you have to make sure is that Becca isn't going to lose control of her strength. If Superman can have sex, so can she.
I live! But Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Sorry, everyone. I got a job and research project and an informal class, and POOF went my time. And my sleep schedule. Anyways! I can't promise super regular updates, to be honest, but I'm on vacation right now, so I'm doing lots of writing. Gonna do my best though. Also, this chapter is written but not super thoroughly edited, sorry. If anyone decides their favorite thing is beta reading, lmk. I'd love to have another pair of eyes on my words before they become public and semipermanent.
Enjoy the extra long update! Interludes and a new arc coming next. Trying out past-tense first person, I think I like it. Seems smoother to read, for all that it's a bit odd to write. Thank y'all for reading, and enjoy.
(Also, yes. Brockton Bay is now a modified high-population metropolis version of New Haven. Fite me.
Winslow.
Frankly, a pillar of the community. Winslow turned around the slow decline of the Bay and provided the education to turn its languishing sailors into the heart of the shipping trade in the northeast United States. Responsible for the economic boom which returned relevance to the Nutmeg State, Winslow was also directly connected to the firm which designed the first shipping container. The patent injected a frankly absurd amount of money into the Bay's infrastructure and the state's coffers, resulting in a flourishing of infrastructure, building, and population. At the time of the container's invention in the mid-fifties, the Bay contained a respectable one-hundred-sixty thousand people, and the suburbs housed another fifty thousand more. With the immense population growth allowed by the burgeoning transportation and mercantile industry, not to mention the shipwright's docks, the bay hit a million inhabitants by 1960 and just kept on growing. It reached peak population at three-point-two million as of the 1995 census, in those heady days when capes were new and the future uncertain. When the Hubble Telescope sent humanity visions of hope amidst the stars, and the Protectorate and PRT showed the world there was hope amongst men too. When Behemoth made its second unwelcome reemergence in New York, establishing his dreaded pattern, and Leviathan was yet an unknowable disaster of the future rather than the death of the world's shipping industry.
When I was born.
Mr. Winslow, unfortunately, did not make it to that year – he died in 1980, and the shiny new high school built in the Docks to accommodate the children of those same workers whose lives he so improved was given the honor of bearing his name.
Briefly, I should digress about the Nutmeg State. We proud residents of this south-facing coast proudly name ourselves nutmeggers, even though we're officially the Constitution State. Not many of us know the story behind the name (though everyone in Mr. Whistlehoff's seventh grade history class heard the whole business every time he forgot to make the lesson plan for the day, and some of us paid attention back then.) It goes back to the eighteen-thirties (and here he'd push his too-large glasses up his nose) when a Canadian judge decided to develop a writing habit. He published a rather satirical serial in the local paper featuring the snarky adventures of fictional Yankee from Slicksville, appropriately named Sam Slick.
Not content to merely limit himself to Canada where he belonged, Judge Halibut (Halibutton? Been a while.) decided to talk some trash about the good, proud people of New England. Among his many claims is the story of shrewd Connecticut merchants who cut wood into the shape of nutmegs and sold them to unsuspecting suckers. This notion and eventual nickname caught on with just about everyone else, and eventually people forgot why we're nutmeggers and simply became proud of our mysterious heritage.
So here we all are, proclaiming ourselves nutmeggers, when the reality of the matter is a shame and embarrassment. It's a pretty name, and most of us think it's a bit odd but certainly ours, but its interior is just a hive of scum and villainy.
Sound familiar?
Winslow is a pretty place, or was, once. It was built just at the tail end of the brutalist movement, and thankfully avoids it entirely. Instead, it embraces the soul of the new (at the time) deconstructivist movement, and its flowing geometry encases its three floors and basement in a fashion more suitable for a runway than the docks. It's graceful, it's all glass and steel and glancing sunlight and glittering angles, and it does an excellent job of hiding the interior. Granted, it once was as inspiring on the inside as it is from the sidewalk, but those days are long past. Now, it's a nutmeg that's either far past stale or oaken.
I still remember that inspiring moment when it came into view on my first day of freshman year. I'd seen it before, of course – it's fairly close to our house – but now it was real, it was now, and it was going to be mine. And then, of course, I went inside, and got to smell the 'nutmeg' for myself.
I know its interior well, now. Every nook and cranny and crevice, every shortcut and circuitous route and all the popular paths between classes. I know which bathroom is best for hiding, which routes the Trio usually take between classes, where the empire kids smoke, where the ABB kids share out their edibles, where I can go to avoid all that. I know which clubs belong to which gangs, and which students have the Trio's numbers favorited. Every ugly crevice, from the oddly shaped janitor's closet near Principal Evil's office to the pool on the roof.
Just kidding, there's no pool on the roof – what kind of fantasy land do you think this is? Winslow doesn't even spend the money to clean the existing tiny pool in the basement – it's so green and disgusting that I've never once hidden down there, for fear of my personal tormentors deciding I need a dunk and me catching a long-forgotten illness from the previous ice age. Although, having a pool on the roof would be a very Winslow thing to do: money spent ostentatiously in the past on an object of questionable utility, only to be disregarded in the present and leak through all three floors. I could see it.
Most days, my extensive experience of evasive options aids me heavily. Today, though, it went entirely unused. Obviously not through any bravery of my own, hah! Hiding always has been and always will be the smart choice when it comes to Sophia. No, on this regrettable Monday I was very simply unable to reach any of my customary hideouts. Hell, I couldn't reach most of my classes. These past few weeks have been a fairly new experience for me in many ways – for instance, I have gained a new appreciation for the ADA. Winslow, like all government buildings, is ADA compliant. A ramp allows me access to the front doors just fine, and on most days, the elevator would bring me to whichever floor I need to access.
Today, though, when I rolled in the door just prior to homeroom, turned left towards the elevator, and began my circuitous path to Mr. Mirangue's classroom, I came face to face with the Trio+. Sophia was there, ever the lone wolf, an angry sneer on her face. Emma, too, makeup impeccable yet marred by her viciously satisfied grin, and backed up by Julia (the manipulative snake) and the rest. And Madison. Who just… stood there, an unreadable expression on her face. Regret, or embarrassment, or pain, if I was forced to place it, but all of those were impossible on her.
They were standing in front of the elevator, blocking my path. Except, they weren't? I rolled my chair closer to the elevator, and they seemed to part, malicious grins belying their newly passive behavior.
It was only once I reached the elevator and turned around to the control panel that I realized why. The floor number was missing from the display, and the buttons didn't work. Just as I realized the sabotage, fucking Emma poked her head around the corner.
"What's the matter, Taylor? You didn't break the elevator, did you? That would be awfully clumsy of you, though I suppose it's to be expected." She swept her gaze up and down my chair and body, as though gesturing broadly to 'all of that'.
Julia put her clearly rehearsed two cents in next. "I tried to be friends with her, once, you know. But she was just so clumsy she broke that, too. Maybe she was doing it on purpose?" and before my seething hatred could boil over, another of the pack spoke – "I bet she did break it on purpose. That's defacing school property, you know. Someone should tell the principal about that." – I went cold.
So that's your game. Before class even started.
So be it. I rolled myself out of the elevator. If I can't even spend the day in school, what's the point in being here at all? Except, I have a mission. More accurately, Sudo has a mission. Holding that in my mind like a cowcatcher, I rolled forward and turned aside their verbal abuse. What's that, Emma? I'll get fat sitting down all day, you're just worried about me? What's that, Julia, something about bulimia? Sophia, did you just 'trip and kick me by accident'? Can't hurt me anymore. Not more than you already did.
They didn't follow me to the library, and I was able to slip into the computer room without notice. Mrs. Knott saw me, of course, but I've hidden out here before. She was never going to stop me from having somewhere safe to decompress. I powered on a computer and logged in without incident.
I was worried, when logging in, that there was a separate server I didn't know about before, disconnected from the student server. Fortunately, the school's administration had no such luck or competence. Blackwell spent an awful lot on physical security, actually – the cameras were high quality and all functional – and I honestly question her budgetary priorities in a school this run-down and dysfunctional. But I suppose digital security was an acceptable corner to cut, since everything – and I mean everything – was stored on the solitary main server. That server, if my power isn't on the fritz, is physically located just a few meters away, in the closet adjoining the computer room. Thankfully, I don't need to physically access it – a digital login is just fine.
First, obviously, I opened up the Library of Congress filesystem, ready for my FERPA-defying copies. Next, I looked for the security camera data from the last two years. That should contain enough damning evidence to put Blackwell and the rest of the staff in serious hot water, all by itself. Oddly, though, there was a deleted section on the first day back from winter break in the camera for the hallway my locker is in.
Oddly my skin-and-bones white ass. That's deliberate deletion of evidence, and not that skillfully either. Does Blackwell not know that the system keeps a double backup? I grabbed both backups as well as the server logs showing it was her account that deleted the primary.
All in all, I copied over all the security camera data, the server logs, everyone's emails, and just for good measure an entire bitwise copy of the whole system. Congress has the space to spare. I was peeking through Blackwell's account data and email history, including the locally deleted emails (does she not understand that deleting an email only deletes your copy, not the server's?) and starting to wonder just how many scandals this literal criminal has swept under the rug in her tenure, when the intercom system blared.
Will Taylor Hebert please report to the Principal's office? Will Taylor Hebert please report to the Principal's office, thank you.
Very well, then. Time to face the dissonant chords.
I rolled my way in. It was already getting taxing on my arms, but I managed the trip in under ten minutes. The secretary took one look at me, then resumed looking at her computer and clicking with focus. A good act, honestly, but I just spent Homeroom invading everyone's computer. Yours has been running minesweeper and nothing else since 7:36 this morning, and you're the one who does intercom announcements. That makes this a power play, and you're not powerful. I'll wait and I don't care, but you don't get an excuse for making me do so.
"Hello, Ms. Blackwell's Secretary, I'm here in response to the summons over the intercom. Would you like me to wait?"
She just glances at me, raises an eyebrow like I'm being loud among a library's bookshelves, and looks back at her computer. Fine, then. I see how it is.
I'd been practicing meditation for something like ten minutes when she coughed like she was trying to imitate Dolores Umbridge and stated, "Hello, Miss Hebert. Glad you could make it. Ms. Blackwell will see you now."
Ought to make her ask again – pretend I didn't hear her. My, aren't those motivational posters nice? "Those who try may fail, but those who succeed always tried" overlaid on a cat playing with a ball of yarn. An odd mismatch between serious and stupid, but then, the paint scheme matches the person, as they say. "–Hebert? Did you hear me?" Ah, time to go, then.
I raised an eyebrow and give my wheels a push. Not fast enough to hit her, but she stumbles as she moves out of my way. That's a thing the chair has going for it. Everyone moves out of the way when I move. In a collision between a standing person and my chair, I'd not come out the better, but though everyone seemed to want to 'oops didn't see you' bounce me off their shoulder onto the ground – well, it's a bad look to knock over a cripple. So people get out of the way, now, almost allergic to my presence. Suits me fine.
Into the doorway, and steel in my jaw, and iron in my spine. Funny saying, that – my jaw has more carbon than my spine, or something? Odd, but I'm distracting myself. I rolled in, and immediately the bitch – Blackwell, I mean – began her borrowed lies. "Miss Hebert, you know that sabotaging school property is a very serious offense? I'm afraid I will have to suspend you again."
I played the skeptic. This is never going to go my way, but everyone who's ever been on the internet knows there's nothing more annoying than arguing with a skeptic, especially when you can't quite prove it. The least I could do is annoy my personal archnemesis in return for the extra helping of administrative assholery I'd have to endure. So, "Pardon, but which school property are you referring to? I'd like to know what precisely I'm being suspended for, this time. On the record, of course."
Not that she'd keep any record of this, but those words ought to make anyone in power uncomfortable. It worked, a little. She seemed taken aback, as she replied just a little too stiffly, "The sabotage of the elevator this morning. The buttons and control circuitry are damaged beyond repair. They'll have to be replaced."
"And why would I have done that? Actually, how would I have done that? I've got no tools, no leverage, and no strength. Have you seen me lately? I could not physically damage that panel if I'd tried." It was never going to work, but it was worth saying. See if I can ping whatever conscience she has left.
"I am quite reliably informed that you are at fault for the sabotage." And that's an error: lost connection to host, that is. I was pretty sure before, but proof she doesn't have one is so easy to collect.
Fine, then. I can play games too. I want something too. I changed tack.
"It's a shame, then, that I'll have to be transferred to Arcadia, since with the elevator in disrepair, this school isn't exactly ADA compliant, now is it?"
I could see confusion mix with the schadenfreude that lined her features, and knew I was getting somewhere. "What do you mean, Miss Hebert? I'm sure by the time you've returned from your suspension, the repair man will be done with the –" I interrupted her. I knew it would piss her right off, so I did it intentionally. I wanted her mad, so I could lead her in – "There are many elevator repair men in the city, aren't there?"
"Don't interrupt me, Hebert, and yes, there are. All the more likely we can have this fixed quickly."
"Gosh," I mused aloud. "And with so many, they must surely be unionized."
She clearly had no idea where I could possibly be heading with this.
"In fact, pretty much all of the repair workers here are unionized, aren't they? Probably under the biggest one in town, the DWA, 'less I miss my guess." My tone turned into a drawl. If Emma can use her father's influence for herself, well then, so can I. "Be awful hard to get repairs done here if the DWA decided to blacklist Winslow, now wouldn't it? Probably have to close down, there'd be a big investigation into the financials" – that drew a flinch, interesting – "and a lot of mud on people's faces. All a hypothetical, of course."
She could not help herself. She knew I wanted her to ask, but she needed to know. It was all in her grimace as she asked, "And why, pray tell, would the DWA do such a thing?"
"Well, that's unknowable," I said, as the corners of my mouth quirked up. It wasn't a smile. "But it could be that their head of hiring, who's pretty much the de facto head of the whole thing, got tired of his poor crippled daughter being abused by an uncaring Winslow administration, and decided to pull some strings. Hypothetically, of course."
She blanched. It was a good look on her. I decided to let her stew for a bit, let her reach my conclusion on her own. In the meantime, I contemplated the best way to leave the room. See, when you're wheelchair-bound, being in a room with a closed door is a considerable amount more confining than one with an open door. A walking person with muscle mass finds nothing particularly difficult about a door, but while I could probably get one open it would be by no means graceful. And yet, I needed a graceful exit to cap off my – frankly – blackmail. So, do I ask Blackwell to "open the door, if you'd be so kind?", using politeness as a blade? Or do I wait until she dismisses me, then raise my eyebrow and stare pointedly at the door, forcing her to bite back a response to rudeness? I still hadn't decided, when she opened her mouth with an equal mix of hesitance and shrewd cunning in her eyes, and asked, "And if, hypothetically, his daughter wasn't attending Winslow?"
"Why then, she'd have to be attending Arcadia – it would seem to be fair recompense for the slights, of course – and it would need to be quite prompt. Strings would have to get pulled one way or another."
She gave me a long look in the eyes, then nodded. "I'm still suspending you, until next Monday. Hopefully you won't return here then, if you take my meaning." Well screw you too, Blackwell, you unfair sociopath. Not that I'll complain – it was the parting shot, meant to reestablish a power dynamic, so I'll allow it, bend with the bluster. Besides, not like I want to be here. I decide: "Very well. I have a hard time with doors nowadays – if you'll see me out?"
She did, and I took pleasure in watching the secretary's face as she recognized the complete lack of victory in Blackwell's eyes. Choke on it, Umbridge.
I was home alone. Wasn't stupid enough to roll home alone, and the secretary couldn't be bothered to call Dad and get him to pick me up (or probably let him know at all – I'd have some explaining to do before tomorrow). Fortunately, the busses of Brockton Bay are still one of the best-functioning and safest parts of our dear city, and completely safe, to boot. It was one of the best effects the Marquis had on this city, along with stability and relative peace during the inevitable economic decline. He'd been practical, effective, and above all, ruthless – all in the pursuit of peace and protection of innocents. Oh, he'd been a murdering SOB, but hell, I've grown up here fifteen years now, and there's never been one without at least one murdering bastard in control of local crime. It's just that the Marquis was a gentleman about it, and these days there's Nazis and sex slavers lurking around street corners. But somehow, his influence stretches all that way forward in time, his bus truce still holds, and I got home safe.
And then, of course, came the waiting. Boredom has long been the worst enemy of the teenaged, more hated even than the alarm clock, and I have never been an exception. I tried to sit quietly, read further ahead in my history textbook, anything. But I itched, somewhere in the back of my mind. It took me a while, but I identified it eventually. I pulled up the Library of Congress archives, and Sudo set to reading.
It was a disgrace. Winslow was a disgrace and a cesspit. Not even just the students, no – something like half the teachers would be incarcerated felons if even one clean cop could read their emails! I felt surprised, yet unsurprised – cold in my head, yet cold in my stomach as well. This level of depravity – I was by turns upset and relieved that what Winslow and Blackwell did to me was by no means limited only to me.
Blackwell herself was owed enough jail time that her corpse would have to be buried in her cell.
Holy shit.
I wrote it up. I wrote it all up, in a scathing letter for PHO, in informative diagrams for the news agencies, in carefully labeled detail for the police. I wrote the emails, I prepared clarifying PHO information, I reorganized the evidence in a new LibCon partition. I did everything, met every expectation my first appearance had established and exceeded them. And then, mouse hovering over the 'send' button – I found myself unable. It was – it was too close to me.
It was an awfully quick way to be outed as Sudo, is what it was. Because, reading that exposé, most people will shudder in horror – but a clever few, and certainly someone on the taskforce dedicated to finding me, will ask 'qui bono' and then, well. Taylor Hebert isn't far and away the worst victim of Blackwell or the other evil psychopaths running that pile of garbage and textbooks – I digress. But I'm the most disgusting and terrible case in recent years, and it's a bit of a smoking gun. Who might be Sudo? Why, this girl who just triggered and has a bone to pick, of course?
Not like I won't be helping the authorities plenty, of course. I have nothing against them. They keep order, and are mostly full of good people who want to help. I'll be proud to be a Ward, and then a Protectorate cape. But. But can't they see I'm doing my civil duty to the world? Revealing scum masquerading as protectors, helping clean house for everyone! But all they can see is my effect on those all-important first two letters of PRT. All they can see is I damage their image. Didn't everyone learn as a child that tidying your room isn't just sticking everything in the closet and sweeping the rest under the carpet? Being actually clean is better than seeming that way, even if you have to do more work to get there, and people get to see your garbage on the way to the trash.
So I don't plan to be arrested anytime soon, and therefore I can't post this. I can't.
God damn it.
But maybe – maybe if I untangle a few scandals elsewhere, maybe specifically focus on Boston for a bit. Maybe if people get used to the idea that I'm from Boston, build a profile of me in their heads that doesn't match the real me. Like Armsmaster said – the best way to get someone not to see something is to give them something else to look at. That's why I plan to get publicly announced as a surveillance focused tinker – close enough to my actual skills that I can fake it with his help, and if I get outed by a villain, shucks but not the end of the world. Who's going to look close at a tinker 2? Forget kidnapping, extortion, all that. Hell, forget trying to actually kill me during a patrol – not worth the chance of the Triumvirate making a personal visit. As long as I'm not worth the effort, except to those who already have me, then nobody will bother finding out how much effort I'm worth. And Director Piggot and her bosses? Well, what kind of idiot kills and cooks the goose that lays the golden eggs?
No, that illusion will keep me safe, and this one will too. So who is Sudo? Best to make as full a picture as I can, even if I'm leaking barely any of it to seem like I'm trying to leak none. First of all, Sudo lives in Boston. Sudo's female, since I probably shouldn't pretend to be a guy – too hard to write like one. There's all sorts of little things… the instinct that it's dangerous to be out after dark, the understanding of female issues and lack of understanding of male ones, all those little idiosyncrasies would add up, and one wrong note can spoil the symphony. No, best to make Sudo be like me, but elsewhere and in a different situation.
So. Sudo's a white woman, from Boston for consistency, and she's… mmm, 23? Old enough to justify an eventual move to Brockton, because there's no way I'm keeping the focus away from my beloved broken bay for long, and young enough that I can seem that old in my writing style. Kids? …yes. One, his name is Steven, hers is Valorie. Valorie Carmichael, she was a teen mom, now single parent. Triggered when… a government official denied her food stamps and she couldn't feed Steven or herself on her meagre salary as a waitress. Went to school at… Harvard, investigative journalism, bright future until her parents died and there was nobody else to take care of Steven, so she had to drop out. Applied for food stamps when she ran out of money, but the government official was… her ex's sister Melody, blamed her for his suicide. Triggered due to that desperation and corruption, but can't bring herself to report it, Melody's hurting too. Wishes she could forgive Melody, wishes Melody could forgive her, and they could both be a part of Steven's life.
A familiar amount of tragedy, these days, in the Bay. A distracting amount, too. Not much of Valorie will make it into Sudo, but a little will. She'll probably move to Brockton, start looking at schools for Steven, and that'll be how Sudo finds out about Winslow.
For now? Taylor has escaped it. I'm finally free. The rest can wait.
So. Sudo's a white woman, from Boston for consistency, and she's… mmm, 23? Old enough to justify an eventual move to Brockton, because there's no way I'm keeping the focus away from my beloved broken bay for long, and young enough that I can seem that old in my writing style. Kids? …yes. One, his name is Steven, hers is Valorie. Valorie Carmichael, she was a teen mom, now single parent. Triggered when… a government official denied her food stamps and she couldn't feed Steven or herself on her meagre salary as a waitress. Went to school at… Harvard, investigative journalism, bright future until her parents died and there was nobody else to take care of Steven, so she had to drop out. Applied for food stamps when she ran out of money, but the government official was… her ex's sister Melody, blamed her for his suicide. Triggered due to that desperation and corruption, but can't bring herself to report it, Melody's hurting too. Wishes she could forgive Melody, wishes Melody could forgive her, and they could both be a part of Steven's life.
What is a life story but another System in motion? Inventing a profile for investigators to focus on is terrifying from a law enforcement perspective. Even worse when it is backed up by a power, because it will be more rock solid than it has any right to be.
That kind of life is going to lead to some interesting priorities when it comes to investigation targets.
Ultimately, she made the right call - twice, in fact. She's free of Winslow, and that's the important thing. Once she gets a few more scandalous exposés under her belt (preferably from all around the country), then she can do Winslow. Maybe hit up another school or two first.
Amusingly, she is putting WAY more effort into it than she needs to without exposing herself. She does need to wait until the transfer is complete to not jeopardize it, but really that's about it.
The secret would be creating a strawman account that posts from a remote "burner" bot account and expose more than her time at Winslow. You see a remarkable amount of this in today's news cycle, but it is hardly modern or unique.
Optionally, try to convince "known criminals" Uber & Leet to try to repair some of their reputation by exposing a crime that disgusts even them...
For an example of the strawman account game, have you read Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card? Focus on the mention of how Ender's brother Peter got the political clout to be selected as Terran Hegemon.
Edit: 2nd optional method: Have known conspiracy theorist Void Cowboy somehow get anonymously given the link to the evidence and relay it in one of his posts between "bans."
Winslow is a pretty place, or was, once. It was built just at the tail end of the brutalist movement, and thankfully avoids it entirely. Instead, it embraces the soul of the new (at the time) deconstructivist movement, and its flowing geometry encases its three floors and basement in a fashion more suitable for a runway than the docks. It's graceful, it's all glass and steel and glancing sunlight and glittering angles, and it does an excellent job of hiding the interior. Granted, it once was as inspiring on the inside as it is from the sidewalk, but those days are long past. Now, it's a nutmeg that's either far past stale or oaken.
This is a cool amount of detail - too many stories have just action and dialog. Or just dialog and nothing else. Descriptions give the story flavor, so many stories are just sugar on top of sugar, with just a tad of unsalted boiled meat.
She gave me a long look in the eyes, then nodded. "I'm still suspending you, until next Monday. Hopefully you won't return here then, if you take my meaning." Well screw you too, Blackwell, you unfair sociopath. Not that I'll complain – it was the parting shot, meant to reestablish a power dynamic, so I'll allow it, bend with the bluster. Besides, not like I want to be here. I decide: "Very well. I have a hard time with doors nowadays – if you'll see me out?"
Went to school at… Harvard, investigative journalism, bright future until her parents died and there was nobody else to take care of Steven, so she had to drop out.
I think Taylor should read up on investigative journalism before putting her plan into action. I don't think she is following the various rules of journalism very closely. If nothing else, I suspect there are some rules of prose and writing style that should be followed, even if unconsciously. Taylor may want to read some classic pieces of investigative journalism (perhaps with a dash of gonzo?) and see what sort of lessons and stylistic choices she can learn from them.
Besides everything else, Taylor may want to study and copy some writing by somebody from Boston, since many innocuous word choices can be extremely telling. There are even websites online that can pinpoint a person to a certain neighborhood in the US just by the terms they use to describe certain things. They "tracked" my coworker to a small place in Michigan, across half the country.
Is this alt!power a double trigger, or does Taylor have room for a second trigger?
The issue with this power is that Taylor is going to step all over Path to Victory's current paths, either invalidate them or add so many steps as to make them worthless. So what's stopping Cauldron from having Contessa start a Path to finding Sudo? This will either very quickly become a Cauldron!Taylor fic, or cause Cauldron to kidnap and Master her into compliance for her extremely useful power., which would kill the fic.
So how do we fix this, what would give Contessa a very good reason to let Taylor run rampant for a while longer? What would happen if Taylor stood in front of Eden's corpse? What sort of secrets about the Entities could she extract for the mission to kill Zion? Could [QUEEN ADMINISTRATOR] and [BEST_HOST] be convinced to become the new network hub, subvert the network to be symbiotic with humanity, and, among other things, control the Endbringers and fix the bad triggers that will cause the Titan problem in Ward?
Even making a fake persona in Boston would not be enough since now Taylor has to go back to Winslow a second time or else the last of her info on Winslow will be from before she left when there should be new info for Sudo to find by the timenshe is ready to post.
Even making a fake persona in Boston would not be enough since now Taylor has to go back to Winslow a second time or else the last of her info on Winslow will be from before she left when there should be new info for Sudo to find by the timenshe is ready to post.
Is this alt!power a double trigger, or does Taylor have room for a second trigger?
The issue with this power is that Taylor is going to step all over Path to Victory's current paths, either invalidate them or add so many steps as to make them worthless. So what's stopping Cauldron from having Contessa start a Path to finding Sudo?
For a bit there, I thought she was gonna set up Emma as a red-herring for everyone. Would have been ironic justice, especially if she feeds the belief and rumors herself when it starts. Heh, even draw it out some by having her arrested/pulled into protective custody and lost in the system for a few weeks when it becomes more dangerous. She's released when the heat is down, and fewer believe she isn't the one they are looking for.
Is this alt!power a double trigger, or does Taylor have room for a second trigger?
The issue with this power is that Taylor is going to step all over Path to Victory's current paths, either invalidate them or add so many steps as to make them worthless.
More like in the way of Cauldron. At the very least, Taylor will have caused a massive recalculation of the existing Paths, for the more expensive. The Sudo persona is absolutely going to scrap a lot of existing plots Cauldron has up in the air right now unless they take Taylor off the board, subvert, or recruit her. If they don't directly intervene, a lot of the corruption that Cauldron relies on will get exposed, and Paths still require steps, so enemy action can still render paths unusable by massively increasing the step count, and Contessa only has so many hours in a day, and isn't even a Noctis cape. Putting the Canary genie back in the bottle is impossible now, even for Contessa, and I imagine that could happen for a variety of other Cauldron plots.
Taylor's power is extremely valuable, but Taylor will have to downgrade from Hero to hero when the boogeyman shows up, or else be turned into a Master slave or something. Taylor's current convictions make her an enemy of Cauldron right now, and her power makes her one that Cauldron can't ignore because of how disruptive Sudo will be. I don't see any room for a story between a fic-killing bad end for Taylor, or this turning into a Cauldron!Taylor fic. I'm hoping I'll be surprised.
More like in the way of Cauldron. At the very least, Taylor will have caused a massive recalculation of the existing Paths, for the more expensive. The Sudo persona is absolutely going to scrap a lot of existing plots Cauldron has up in the air right now unless they take Taylor off the board, subvert, or recruit her. If they don't directly intervene, a lot of the corruption that Cauldron relies on will get exposed, and Paths still require steps, so enemy action can still render paths unusable by massively increasing the step count, and Contessa only has so many hours in a day, and isn't even a Noctis cape. Putting the Canary genie back in the bottle is impossible now, even for Contessa, and I imagine that could happen for a variety of other Cauldron plots.
Taylor's power is extremely valuable, but Taylor will have to downgrade from Hero to hero when the boogeyman shows up, or else be turned into a Master slave or something. Taylor's current convictions make her an enemy of Cauldron right now, and her power makes her one that Cauldron can't ignore because of how disruptive Sudo will be. I don't see any room for a story between a fic-killing bad end for Taylor, or this turning into a Cauldron!Taylor fic. I'm hoping I'll be surprised.
A very delicate System, a house of cards just waiting to get blown over. Taylor's power makes her very good at breaking Systems.
Exposing that RCB is Alexandria, that Eidolon is the C&C node for the Endbringers, that the S9 is a Cauldron asset. Any or all of these, in addition to others, would put Cauldon on the defensive, if not outright shatter them. They'd be too busy putting out fires to find her, as you said Contessa only has so many hours in the day. Only one of those requires data that isn't recorded on Cauldron's own servers, ready to be looted by our very own pseudo-Netrunner.
And not to forget, QA is of equal network priority to High Priest. The Shard network is a System, one that is also delicate at the moment. The instant Taylor learns of Cauldron's existence, that Agent Theory is spot-on, she'll become aware of a whole new System to fuck with.
from what I remember, NOBODY knows that Eidolon subconsciously commands Endbringers.
And S9 is a rougue asset. It's existence works for Caudron goals, but they don't have control over them.
No, Taylor's power makes her very good at recognizing systems and identifying their components. She also has a weird secondary power with computers. If Taylor was at the Cauldron hq she would be able to figure out how it works, who has what job, etc. But that would not tell her how to fight PtV. And right now she doesn't even know Cauldron exists, let alone have a way to get to their Earth to analyze them. PtV has the drop on her if nothing else.
For example if Coil became aware of Taylor analyzing him at the PRT, she would have no way to evern know he was coming for her, let alone plan for defeating or evading him.
Ultimately, she made the right call - twice, in fact. She's free of Winslow, and that's the important thing. Once she gets a few more scandalous exposés under her belt (preferably from all around the country), then she can do Winslow. Maybe hit up another school or two first.
Taylor's only defense right now is anonymity, which Contessa can deal with but only once something makes her aware of Taylor. PtV ensures she can always accomplish her objective, but she has to phrase that objective carefully which is why Cauldron currently has the terrible plan of trying to fight Scion by using powers explicitly made to always lose to Scion.
