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Transposition, or: Ship Happens [Worm/Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio | Arpeggio of Blue Steel]

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wtdtd said:
Isn't she only labled a shaker for pr reasons?
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Not really.
The inverse case might be so - if she were a villain, it's possible she'd be labeled as a Master instead of a Shaker for PR reasons.
But as it is, Worm power classifications are based on their combat role and threat.
'Master' is for when a power grants the user additional bodies to throw at their enemies, in whatever form. Crusader is a Master with his ghost clones, Skitter is a Master because she brings bugs to the fight, Satryical is a Master because he makes clones of himself, Bitch is a Master because you'll be fighting her dogs (even if her control is actually mundane, and the power is just what makes them relevant). And so on.
Glory Girl is not a Master, because you aren't assuming she'll be bringing extras to the fight. Yes, Panacea (and the rest of her family) will often be nearby, but that's true of almost any group. Grue is not a Master just because he's often with the rest of the Undersiders. Tattletale is not a Master, because what she does is talk at people with an unusual amount of information.If she wrote it down and handed it to someone else, they could use the same blackmail/argument. If it was found out via other means, it would work just as well, although without the realtime updates.
Her aura thingy doesn't grant her minions, because it's nowhere near precise or versatile enough to do so. It says "I am impressive", with varying strength. For friendly people it's "Wow! Look at her!" for enemies its "Oh shit!".
Could it be used to intimidate someone into doing what she wants? Sure! ... But not much more so than Purity threatening to laser you in the face, or Bonesaw informing you that she needs someone to either punch that PRT trooper in the face or test her new blood extractor.
Shaker powers influence the area of the fight to make it easier or harder for each side. It's a Shaker power because all enemies in the area are unusually fearful and distracted by it, even if her actually threat doesn't warrant such a reaction.

Now in comparison, Gallant is actually classified as a Master (Master/Blaster) because he can both sense emotions and can inflict a variety of them. As such, like Cherish, he could potentially use that to steer people towards or away from specific actions on a longer time scale. Not as easily as say, Valefor, and Gallant would be unstable and brute-forcing itbut he could potentially get people to do things they wouldn't do even if asked by, I dunno, Legend.
But Glory Girl is stuck on FEAR and AWE, and can't really attach it to anything.
As a analogy, let's imagine instead of emotion magic, it's sound based. Cherish gets subliminal messages. Glory Girl gets the ability have constant, awe inspiring theme music in the background, or a continuous airhorn PAAARRRRPPP aimed at her foes. Yes, distracting. Yes, dangerous in the wrong circumstances. If given months of daily exposure on someone already inclined a certain way, it could exaggerate that trait, sure. More than a charismatic person good at manipulating people, given the circumstances? Probably not.
 
Nicholai said:
Masters are anyone who can create minions, right? And if long-term exposure to Glory Girl turned people into minions she would be given a Master rating.
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There are two problems with that. First, and foremost, it's not really her power creating the "minion", it's just a normal facet of how human psychology works and could be replicated, probably more efficiently, without using powers. Second, it requires extremely long term exposure under relatively specific conditions.

Franklymydear said:
"She doesn't Master people, she just influences how they act, how they respond, and their opinions. That's completely different, and don't think about Cherish."
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It is completely different. Literally every power can be used to influence how people act. GG's aura does it in the same way a brutes super strength does it: e.g. it's non-specific in targeting and effect. Conversely, Cherish's ability is incredibly specific, both in who it targets and what effect it has, and allows her to easily manipulate people into doing precisely what she wants or loving her. GG's aura does neither of those things. No, Amy does not count because it was not a facet of the aura that caused her problems and most people would not have been so heavily effected by it.
 
I think this is quite enough of this. It is becoming bothersome and distracting.
The only thing I would like to mention is that Glory Girl most likely pushed the awe side of her aura, because fear would have been counterproductive to stopping someone from jumping, because they would chose death over the scary thing.
 
wtdtd said:
Isn't she only labled a shaker for pr reasons?
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No. She can not use it control minions(no more than any other sufficiently scary Cape, like Lung).
GG uses it as AoE crowd control, hence Shaker. Actually Gallant is way more shaky case than her, but since he never uses his powers to actually manipulate people, he did not manged to get Master rating.

Remember it is a threat rating, not a power metric. Neither of them fight like a Master type threat, so they do not get the rating.

And thait why Rachel has Master rating. While her power does not allow to directly control dogs, they can still pose the same level threat as a Master made minion.
 
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I'm honestly impressed that the whole "Vicky's aura" horse still had enough corpse to left to beat coming into this thread.

I think we're all in agreement, here: Vicky does dumb things. She constantly whammies everyone around her indiscriminately, and that's rude. She has the best intentions, sure, but that's not especially relevant. That her response to "unknown cape is unaffected by aura" is "HARDER!" doesn't really reflect well on her; it's not smart and may cause a different kind of collateral damage in situations with crowds. She needs training something fierce. That her first response to "unknown cape exists near me at all" is "you're a villain and I'mma restrain you" is... sad. Also dumb and a good way to make enemies of people for no good reason for soon she has zero knowledge of their capabilities. Again, girl needs training and discipline.

She's lucky Taylor is so socially stunted that she just sort of shakes it off.
 
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Skeletickles said:
And that somehow makes it better? She still used her power on somebody who did nothing but free themselves from being forcefully held down.
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Which any villain also would have done? It's not like much time passed between Relentless breaking it and it hitting max and GG noticing it did nothing.
Skeletickles said:
Relentless defeated Lung, the arguably strongest cape in the bay, and Squealer. The second time the fight happened publicly. So yes, it is inexcusable for Glory Girl to not be able to recognize her. I would also like to point out that, even if GG didn't recognize her, Relentless asked (multiple times) to be let up. GG did not let her up.
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Skeletickles said:
GG not recognizing her is a huge mistake on her part. I would like to remind you that she defeated Lung (And GG said she heard about that) AND Squealer. There is no excuse to not even recognize the name.
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Danny didn't even know there was any new capes in the bay. Literally any of them. GG'd heard about Lung, but clearly knew nothing about who'd done it, and for all that Squealer was 'public' so far that's 2 for 2 on people not knowing about it/who did it. Not really that great evidence when I have another person who hasn't even heard of Relentless eh?
Skeletickles said:
GG's aura can be used to terrify somebody into suicide or make somebody adore GG enough to jump off a cliff. So yes, it does have lethal applications.
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Exceedingly iffy, since I don't think her aura's half as powerful as Cherish's, even at full blast.
 
Selonianth said:
Which any villain also would have done? It's not like much time passed between Relentless breaking it and it hitting max and GG noticing it did nothing.


Danny didn't even know there was any new capes in the bay. Literally any of them. GG'd heard about Lung, but clearly knew nothing about who'd done it, and for all that Squealer was 'public' so far that's 2 for 2 on people not knowing about it/who did it. Not really that great evidence when I have another person who hasn't even heard of Relentless eh?

Exceedingly iffy, since I don't think her aura's half as powerful as Cherish's, even at full blast.
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Greg knew about Relentless and her "Combat Glyphs" from PHO. And PHO knew about it because of the security cameras who's fotage of the Squealer fight has to at minimum been partially made public if not entirely.

So the info is publically available with nothing more than a short search. Danny not keeping up on cape news? Sure. GG? Well that's her problem really. The info is there if she can be bothered to look. Her not looking and then going "Well I haven't heard of you!" is stupid(and a bit arrogant but, well, teenager) considering the high odds for running into a new cape(evidence A, this chapter) but fully believable as Teenage Idiocy.
 
Azzaciel said:
Except Trump powers by definition trump other powers like say
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No, that's not the definition. The definition is
Can manipulate powers in some capacity, altering, granting, strengthening, weakening or removing them entirely, or has powers that interact solely with the powers of others.
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Unless you have a better source than the PRT quest?

Epsilon Rose said:
Master powers are defined as things that give the master extra bodies in a fight or control of autonomous things outside of themselves.
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Cite please. AFAIK the only definition we got about powers is from the PRT quest and the definition there for Master is
Has the ability to control others. Can include degrees of control (swaying attitudes or emotions) and a wealth of controlled entities (individuals, animals, objects, created beings).
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(emphasis added)
And Victoria definitely meets that definition.

Assembler said:
Complete fanon on both counts. Her aura is shaker for the same reason Rachel was listed as a Master even after the PRT found out she doesn't telepathically control her dogs: the Master classification is about making minions.
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This. GG in canon doesn't use her power (as far as anyone including her knows) to Master people, therefore, in canon she isn't a master. Weather or not she COULD use her power that way is irrelevant.

Selonianth said:
Also pretty sure Wildbow came down directly and said she's not a Master at some point.
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Not quite. He was asked if she's a Master or changer and he corrected that she has no Changer powers, but is classified as as a Shaker. No comment on what her powers are so you can interpret that either way.
 
Selonianth said:
Which any villain also would have done? It's not like much time passed between Relentless breaking it and it hitting max and GG noticing it did nothing.
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Again, Glory Girl should have recognized Relentless; or at the very least recognized they were not hostile when Relentless politely asked to be let up.

Selonianth said:
Danny didn't even know there was any new capes in the bay. Literally any of them. GG'd heard about Lung, but clearly knew nothing about who'd done it, and for all that Squealer was 'public' so far that's 2 for 2 on people not knowing about it/who did it. Not really that great evidence when I have another person who hasn't even heard of Relentless eh?
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How is Danny a fair comparison? He is a man out of touch with cape news, whereas Glory Girl's job is to fight capes. It's her business to know new capes.

Selonianth said:
Exceedingly iffy, since I don't think her aura's half as powerful as Cherish's, even at full blast.
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I admit that was probably a bit extreme on my part, but my point still stands.
 
Skeletickles said:
How is Danny a fair comparison? He is a man out of touch with cape news, whereas Glory Girl's job is to fight capes. It's her business to know new capes.
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Technically Glory Girl's job isn't to fight capes. She's a high school student who is a righteous face puncher as a hobby / after school activity ..

.. wait, that would make Glory Girl the cape equivalent of an intern ..

.. Glory Girl is an incompetent, teenage intern because she can't be bothered to pay attention or learn anything ..

That makes too much sense.
 
Warning: Spaghetti Posting is Disruptive
  • Staff Post
    • spaghetti posting is disruptive Just a reminder that chopping up your debate opponent's arguments into chunks and responding to them line by line is spaghetti posting, which violates Rule 4. @Nixeu and @Skeletickles, you have been given a Warning for Marginal Behavior for this and a 3-day threadban.

    Everyone else, please consider this when you are making your posts in this thread or any thread here. If you are doing commentary on the writing, please spoiler after four quotes.
     
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    • Nicholai said:
    Wow, the fanon is strong with you, Assembler. Masters are anyone who can create minions, right? And if long-term exposure to Glory Girl turned people into minions she would be given a Master rating. The fact that her power doesn't grant total control is irrelevant given how Teacher's power works. Specifically he can implant drives into people but he doesn't absolutely control them forever. Even with that limitation he was given a Master rating.

    Hell, Lisa could do something similar with her power if she wanted to spend time at it. Her ability to discover someone's innermost secrets and manipulate them could make her an impossibly good con artist, for example. And that's before you think about what she could do given a few months if she was working as, just for example, an extremely unethical psychologist or therapist.

    As for Pretender, Masters aren't always considered evil. How they use their powers is rather important. Canary discovered she had a Master power by accident and someone got maimed. They made an example out of her for that reason. By contrast pretty much everyone hated Heartbreaker because he was known to Master any-and-everyone he could. Meanwhile Taylor controlled bugs but until she proved herself to be a threat the Master classification was a joke. Once she proved she was a threat her Master rating was a serious problem. (And caused some trust issues when she switched to the heroic side of things.)
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    OK, first, LOL. The fanon is strong with me? If anything, I am the one least attuned to fanon here, else I wouldn't have been accepted into a fact-checking group.
    Second, yes, if long-term exposure to Glory Girl inevitably created minions, she would be a Master, but it doesn't, so she's not. Amy was the perfect storm of mental issues, the aura didn't need to do much.
    Third, Teacher has far more control over what his subjects do than Glory Girl does. Victoria couldn't even get a man to back down an inch in her interlude, while Teacher directly strips away individuality. Witness how Saint, who thoroughly regretted ever meeting Teacher in 28.2, fell right back into the fold in the Epilogues.
    Fourth, as was previously addressed, Tattletale is no more a Master than someone who can just read emotions without being able to influence them, i.e. not at all.
    Fifth, Canary's Master power was known, as said before.
    Sixth, Taylor's issues with being trusted as Weaver were not at all due to her Master classification and entirely due to her previous villainous reputation.
    In conclusion: none of your points are justified, and the overall thrust of your argument was broken in my second point.
     
    What does any of this has to do with Transposition? Vicky acted like a rude teenager and could use a couple of lessons on when it's appropriate to use a fear aura on someone.

    The discussion going on now is just about if Vicky is a Master or not. It really doesn't belong here.
     
    Ok, serious question here. What evidence do we have that Vicky had set her aura to "Fear" instead of "reassurance"? Because my read on the whole thing is that she thought she was preventing a suicide.
     
    Terrace said:
    Ok, serious question here. What evidence do we have that Vicky had set her aura to "Fear" instead of "reassurance"? Because my read on the whole thing is that she thought she was preventing a suicide.
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    While I don't think she set her aura to fear, she can't set her aura to reassurance. It only has two modes, awe and fear, I suspect she was using awe to distract Taylor, whereas fear could cause Taylor to panic and jump or do something similarly drastic
     
    Terrace said:
    Ok, serious question here. What evidence do we have that Vicky had set her aura to "Fear" instead of "reassurance"? Because my read on the whole thing is that she thought she was preventing a suicide.
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    She can't "set" her aura so that people feel specific ways about her, especially not reassurance. For people who don't have a reason to or little reason to fear her (i.e. allies and random folks), it causes feeling of awe and admiration. For those who have a reason to fear her (i.e. criminals), the aura causes fear. So when she was blasting Taylor with her aura, she had no idea really what sort of feeling it would have caused in her. Assuming Taylor wasn't a criminal, I guess she might have thought Taylor would be so in awe of her that there wasn't any danger of her jumping. If she was a criminal, I guess since GG can fly, she could catch her before she went splat even if she jumped due to fear.

    At that point though, I think she wasn't really thinking at all and was just surprised to run into someone else who wasn't affected by her aura and she just started blasting away to see if a higher setting does anything without really thinking of what might happen due to her aura if Taylor was affected at higher settings. This on top of being surprised already that Taylor got rid of her force field and pushed her off with little difficulty.
     
    Oh! This updated! I could have sworn I was already watching this thread...

    Anyway, great chapter as always! :) This is the first time I've seen Victoria in a fanfic since Ward started. It's...surreal...
     
    just thought id pop in here and say that I loved the chapter! I love the dialogue and I especially love it when characters get to meet with new and unusual powers because it can result in such unique interactions, which is honestly why I love alt powers and crossovers so much.

    anyway, I didn't get to see the other chapters before they were removed, but I'd say that this last chapter was really fun to read!

    keep it up, and thanks for the chapter!
     
    Assembler said:
    Second, yes, if long-term exposure to Glory Girl inevitably created minions, she would be a Master, but it doesn't, so she's not. Amy was the perfect storm of mental issues, the aura didn't need to do much.
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    NOBODY knows Amy got brainwashed by exposure to Victoria's power. If people knew I'd expect Victoria would be the one most insistent she needs to be arrested and thrown in the birdcage as an evil mind controlling master. Although I'm sure Piggot would be able to talk her down.
    GG isn't a master in canon because she doesn't use her powers like that, and no one knows she could. If people knew she could accidentally brainwash someone(over the course of years) she'd probably get labeled a Master 1.
     
    TheUnicorn said:
    NOBODY knows Amy got brainwashed by exposure to Victoria's power. If people knew I'd expect Victoria would be the one most insistent she needs to be arrested and thrown in the birdcage as an evil mind controlling master. Although I'm sure Piggot would be able to talk her down.
    GG isn't a master in canon because she doesn't use her powers like that, and no one knows she could. If people knew she could accidentally brainwash someone(over the course of years) she'd probably get labeled a Master 1.
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    WOG on the subject is that Vicky's aura wasn't the cause of Amy's crush on Vicky, but it certainly wasn't helping matters any. Amy started crushing on Vicky because Amy thought Vicky was pretty and Vicky was genuinely interested in spending time with Amy. These reasons, by the by, are the same reasons Taylor started crushing on Brian, just with more homosexuality. Taylor was a depressed young woman with low self esteem, and Brian was a good looking young man who was genuinely interested in getting to know her better. Amy was a depressed young woman with low self esteem (because Carol's a bitch and Mark's ability to function as a human being is random at best), and Vicky was a good looking young woman who was ecstatic at the idea of spending time with her.

    Boom. Crush time.
     
    If that is really WoG, then it's contradicting Wildbow's own post in the comments of one of the Worms chapters where someone remarked that maybe GG's aura contributed to or was the cause of Amy's crush on Vicky and Wildbow quoted the person who said that and then went on to say that he wondered if someone would pick up on that.

    You have a teen, going through puberty (a time where hormones are all wonky) and she's constantly exposed to an aura that causes the feeling of awe towards the one person that teen spends the most time with who (from her perspective) treats her well. That aura might not be the sole factor in causing that crush, but it played a role.

    Also, was there any direct evidence that Carol was a bitch to Amy? I got the impression that she was a woman who, because of her own trauma, which Amy reminded her of, was distant, but she still tried her best with Amy. This was the woman, who after Amy had her temporary insanity thing happen and turned Vicky (her natural born daughter) into a pile of flesh, raised her hands to hit Amy in anger immediately after hearing what happened, but stopped herself because she saw that Amy didn't mean to do what she did and needed support, so instead hugged her. When Amy got out of the Birdcage, the first thing Carol did was to go up to Amy and hug her.

    Maybe it's just me, but none of that strikes me as Carol being normally bitchy or abusive towards Amy when raising her. If Carol turns up in this story, I hope she doesn't get portrayed as a rabid Amy hater/abuser as she often is in fanfics.
     
    Skeletickles said:
    Again, Glory Girl should have recognized Relentless; or at the very least recognized they were not hostile when Relentless politely asked to be let up.
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    You know what? Yes. You are, in fact, absolutely right, and she should have.

    What is your point? What conclusion are you trying to derive from here? Because "Glory Girl should have ______" is a pretty common theme in canon and in fanon, on account of as has been repeatedly mentioned, she is deliberately characterized as one of those people who "should have ______".

    Are you objecting to the fact that this fic is characterizing her according to the precedent set by her canon self, by characterizing her as a person who acted without thinking, attempted to make an enemy of a random bystander, and generally behaved like a loudmouth teenager with absolutely no self-control, common sense or introspection? Because if so, then by all means continue beating this dead horse.
     
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