Just a Phase [Worm]

The good thing I can say about Emma at least in this story is that she on some level realized she had a problem after Taylor's freak out after seeing her in the wards, so she is less likely to take the same actions against does this absolve her of guilt absolutely not and it is a good thing that she is currently getting YG mandated therapy, unfortunetly it came about two years to late which does lead in to the other problem with the Brockton Bay wards department namely their lack of psychological support for the wards because if Emma was in anyother department she would not have gone as far as she did with Taylor because she would have gotten the help she needed following her trigger event.

It can also be said to be a good thing that Taylor was sent to Boston rather than stay in Brockton Bay because at least in Boston while she isn't happy to be there she is receiving therapy to help over come her issues and trama, which she would not have received if she had stayed in Brockton Bay wards program or not.

 

As I understand it, even minor misdemeanors can get you sent to jail if you are on probation. Anything more serious than a minor traffic violation like a speeding or parking ticket and you go to jail.
Probation means you are on thin ice, but are being given a second chance because you screwed up.

Something like what Sophia did? That should be more than enough to get her probation revoked if they can convict her.

That said, the fact is that it was Sophia Hess, not Shadow Stalker who did it, and Taylor didn't find out the connection until she was thinking about joining the Wards. The PRT never has to take the PR hit if they allow Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, and Madison Clements to be prosecuted like normal. They don't have to reveal to Taylor or the public that Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker to the public, and the records of that can be sealed. By the time Sophia gets out a lot of it will have died down as it was yesterday's news and thus if the connection is made, they can point to the fact that Sophia was sent to jail for her crimes.


Now finally, I again ask what happens if Taylor tells her story to the press or spams the internet posting it on boards like PHO? Explain about how she was bulled that escalated into attempted murder, gets powers, and how the PRT quashed the investigation and drafter her, taking her away from her home to cover it up.
She didn't sign the contract with the gag orders, Danny did and she never agreed to it.

 

Well there is the chance that nobody believes her because remember she is posting it on the internet and she isn't some famous celebrity will millions of followers. While she could post it on an official wards account if she ever gets one but the PRT would probably have a good amount of control over said account and would put a stop to her if she ever tried. While she could theoretically set up an account for her heroic persona to spread the info doing so would be essentially the same as outing herself and confirming to the PRT that Phase and Ghost are the same person thus letting them come down on her for her vigilante activities. So unless Taylor can get some iron clad evidence to release besides her statement it is very likely no one on the internet would actually believe her due to the PRT/Protectorate constantly running PR campaigns to make sure they are seen as having a good reputation.

 

She can talk to the Press directly if she want, and she can just make a third identity for posting her grievances on the internet, she don't need to post under Phase or Ghost, she could call herself Wraith or some other third cape name, and post her story under that identity.

 

That doesn't stop the PRT from squashing the story from the get go, because the PRT has a lot of links to the media so the second they get wind of it they can simply step in and stop the story from going viral. If she goes in with only her word for it then the story probably won't go anywhere with only some people online believing her in the anti-PRT conspiracy groups, so if she does want to go public with her story she would need to get some irrefutable evidence about what happened or else she is just someone spouting nonsense.

 

I think we are going a bit to far out of the scope of the story with what is discussed.The only real way Taylor could actually strike hard would be by pretending to accept Ward Membership and then to go on record in her offical Ward persona. Preferably live or in a setting where the PRT can't controll distribution. Problem with that scenario she would be in deep legal problems.

The other options discussed are all moot. A random internet account spewing accusations would drown in the oceans of conspireacy theorists out there. Such a persona would essentially be just another VoidCowboy tinfoil hat. She could use privileged information to gain reputation, but then her anyoymity would be shot and she would be in legal trouble again. Talking to the press directly. Yea not happening. No reporter is going to touch a story against a federal agency that touches protected identities of what are essentially federal agents without proof that they are very sure can hold up in court (and even then they need to agree that the topic is important enough to go that far). And even if a reporter touches it their editor or legal of their publication is going to shut down any such story hard! Also lets not forget Taylors people and social skills. Both not really helpful in either approach.

Most legal challange options would need her to be an adult or her gurdian signing of on them. The other option would be to use systems set up to protect minors in conflict of interests with their gurdian. She already started to with Youth Guard and she might seek other help. But that is not without risk since what she really wants is not on the agenda of these organisations / systems. Her being an indipendent parahuman as a minor is not a result any court will sign of on in any way! So she can only use these systems to shut down certain avenues for the PRT but she can'T use them to get what she wants.

On the topic whether Sophia and/or Emma should have gone to jail. Well that can depend on so many details.

• First question: Can Taylor use that they were not punished harder? Not without consequences. Because again protected identities of essentially federal agents that she only knows due to recieving privilieged information. Even without her signing an NDA (and who knows if her gurdian hasn't even signed on in her name ...) useing that one means deep legal trouble. Without violateing this knowledge she has no case. Since without revealing identies Sophia and Emma are at worst first time offenders (since all the other bullying stuff never went offical) and even that hinges on proof! So even, if we could say yes Sophia and/or Emma should have gone to Jail no matter other circumstances Taylor can't really use that without very solid proof of not just what they did but also the cover up (because only with such proof any reporter will touch it).
• But can we even be sure that is the legal conclusion? We know next to nothing about Emma's sittuation. For all we know she was a Ward in good standing. So with full proof first time offence and as it seems not even one that went into the system (charged). Sophia we assume is a Ward on probation in this AU as well. But we know nothing about the probation terms. With people who go into service in leui of a sentence internal dicipline can cover a lot what would not fly outside of the service. Heck we don't even know whether it is a court mandated probation or an agreement in lieu of prosecution. In which case all there needs to be is agreement between the office of the district attorney and the PRT that the deal is not broken by what happened.

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Overall I think some of this discussion also needs to keep in mind that some of this is at the heart of a malicious compliance premise. There needs to be an unfair sittuation in which all kind of avenues to fight back are closed of to the protagonist for this premise to work. To me that means some points need to be taken as a given

• Taylor is restrained in her options. Be that options that have a chance to work (random internet accounts) or she can take without getting into trouble (useing priviliged information, posting with an offical account, etc.)
• Taylor has reasons / motivations not to go for a full break. Mostly because her powerset would allow her to do so. Important because if she was ready to go that far, she could ignore the trouble she might get into in the point above.
• The other side has some legal constraitns as well which they will stick to for various reasons. Example they can't process Taylor correctly without power testing which she refuses (and can refuse) to go to.

One point some also ignore is that the Boston PRT, Protectorate and Wards are mostly sympathetic towards Taylor (to a varring degree but not all know the sittuation fully). I think Armstrong in particular would have no problem with giving Taylor a lot of time had her anti Thinker power not started addin pressure to get her into power testing. And while we had instances of the PRT side starting the game of anyoing Taylor by forceing her to participate in events (like the tour or the attempt to get her to eat pizza with the other Wards) they did not pounce on the open secret of her going out as vigilante (Lily did not rat her out, no-one tried to catch her when she returned and so on).

So maybe we should not see this as an black (evil PRT) and white (good Taylor) sittuation. But rather a sittuation of conflicting interests with no easy soloution open to either side. Now they have it the PRT Boston can't just ignore the gurdianship of Taylor and all tha comes with it. But that is kind of what Taylor wants them to do in a nutshell. With Taylor shutting down communication as she does (see people and social skills above) and PRT / Protectorate to see her refusal as a temper tarantrum that will run out of steam both side will drwa wrong conclusions and thus make mistakes and mistake motivations behing actions by the other side. Personally I find this a more interesting premise than the typical I hate parahumans BB Piggot PRT ark (aka evil PRT).

 

One of the main problems the PRT/Protectorate/Wards have is that they are fixating on a single aspect of Taylor's psychological issues, her social isolation, and in the process they are hitting other traumas.

The first one is her paranoia, this is not simply being mistrustful,but an actual serious psychological issue borne from her experiences. Taylor has been the victim for more than a year of a serious harrassment and gaslightning campaign in which her best friend, a large percentage of the student body and faculty were either participants, part of the cover-up or at the very least silent witnesses, then she discovers that her tormentors were part of law enforcement and as soon as their actions came to light they did everything in their power to keep it under wraps, including exiling Taylor out of town, all while her negligent father didn't made a token effort to stop it. That as you can think makes plenty of confidence issues, not to mention that Taylor is still traumatized enough that in the narrative seeing a locker almost made her had a traumatic flashback.

In this case what the PRT should have done was to indeed gave Taylor far more time before even trying to get her into a new school, and even after she was willing to go back to the saddle she should have been introduced to the principal and the staff while describing her the school's (and Wards) bullying protocols. Knowing a direct way of reporting disciplinary issues that she can be certain will be taken seriously is how the YG rep managed to get on her good side and psychologically tells her that she can expect someone to do something even if only due to burocratic inertia. Also the Protectorate should take the time to explain her anything and everything in detail, from her rights to the Wards disciplinary options, including things like which internal and external punishments Sophia and Emma had and the reasons why they didn't get worse, using the actual investigators notes and DA recomendations to do so. Even knowing that the PRT/Protectorate is incompetent and couldn't get better legally accesible evidence or was outmaneuvered by a shitty divorce lawyer is a step-up from her current perception that the entire goverment parahuman structure is corrupt.

The second problem is a desperate need of control. The last few years have been a nightmare in which nothing Taylor did had any effect, culminating in the legal authorities quite literally kicking her out of the state while her tormentors got off with only discrete punishments she doesn't even know that will be applied other than in paper (and the fact that Emma was able to contact her through her Ward's phone gives even more credit to the no-punishment theory). Not even her father gave even the slightless consideration to her opinions before her forced exile and since then the authorities have likewise not given her any choice in anything unless she makes use of her legal rights to force the issue to the point that basically every action she has taken since her arrival to Boston has been to either prevent her limited amount of control to decrease even more (which is why she won't allow the Protectorate to get her into power testing) or to do something specifically because the PRT can't control her even if it risks her legal protections, such as becoming a underground heroine.

What the adults should be doing is to give her at the very least the illusion of choice, not to mention allow her to take as many real decisions about her life as they can legally allow. If she had been allowed to choose between let's say three different schools in Boston despite logistical concerns (which are not that onerous since SS and Ampere were allowed to stay in Winslow) she would have been far less agressive with the principal. The same if she had been given the choice between being fostered with one of the PRT legal guardians vs being forced to live in Wards quarters would do wonders to reduce the stress of everyone involved.

That plus some time for things to cool down and Taylor would be in a far better mental space even if not in a mood to fully cooperate.

Of course the ideal answer would be to give Taylor a day in court. Get her legal deposition in front of the DA, get her to see Sophia and Emma with parole ankle bracelets and allow her to hear a judge put both girls under strict parole and forced community service even if the sentence is the bare minimum allowed punishment for what they did that can be proved through limited psysical evidence. A shame that internal politics make this outcome extremely unlikely unless something changes in a very radical and explosive way

 

The main problem is that the PRT wants whats best for them at least on the national level and Taylor's issues are not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, and while the local office does care about Taylor's well being they are still beholden to the larger organization who is currently yelling at them to get Taylor on board with the program with increasing volume ever since they learned about her thinker immunity.

 

I think we can't know whether this is a problem caused by the PRT alone. To know and adress a lot of this they need either Taylor's paticipation or they have to instutionalise her and force her to participate. The later is out of question and the former is activley avoided by Taylor by shutting down all communication attempts. You can't communicate one sided unless you get really forcefull which for a long time will intensefy the issue rather than solve it. Not only does Taylor's sittuation not merit such an extreme approach her power set also makes it kind of impossible (if she wants to leave a conversation desperatly enough she will do so).

I think you give the PRT Boston not enough credit here. They try to give her choices and freedom. They just can't give her the option she wants to because frankly no organisation responsible for a minor could. They only started to try to force her into stuff like a party or a PR homework session when they realised that leaving her to her own devices did not work. Who wasn'T forced to go to an event / party by their parents in their moody teenager days? To make nice with someone they did not want to? I don't see the PRT being out of line here sorry..

I give you that they operate on a way to narrow time frame and should have given her more time before concluding that they have to try to nudge her. But if I remember correctly the sometime we had a week or two between the PRT trying to activley intervene. We also have to take into account that once Taylors anti Thinker aspect became known there was pressure from above.

Boston can't deliver this due to juristiction.

But even then we can't know whether this is an option. Do we know for sure there is enough evidence to convict Emma and Sophia for anything? Esspecially now that they are forewarned. I'm happy to agree had the police taken an interest in any severe bullying incident (i.e. the locker or a different trigger event) it is unlikley a bunch of teenage girls who by now are used to not getting caught covered all their angles. But with the accusation out there they will start getting stories straight evidence removed (i.e. messages deleted) and so forth. Emma'S father may not be a criminal lawyer but he is bound to know some and with the PRT BB seemingly haveing an active interest that this investigation does not happen and certainly never goes to court I just don't see how evidence now weeks after the fact will be easier to find. Not to mention convincing a DA to go after their local branch of federal super hero agents. Also even a succsesfull investigation might not find enough evidence to get a conviction in court or to make it likley enough for a DA to go to court. The bar for evidence in criminal cases is very high and any DA will dislike cases with red tape like this one is bound to have simply due to the protected idenity issue.

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But overall I come back to the premise on all of these points. If any of these avenues would be a workable soloution malicious compliance won't happen. And thus we have to assume they won't happen for one reason or another. Either the PRT activley does not want them to happen (or certain branches of the PRT who happen to have juristriction where it counts) or there is simply not the evidence needed. Similar for several of the questions of how to deal with Taylor. If the PRT would hit the correct buttons, had the correct tools and / or a lot of expirence to deal with cases like this one the story kind of wouldn't happen.

 

You're right, what they did wasn't out of line for a parent, it was however way out of line, for an organisation that Taylor actively hate and is only part of against her will, and who know that Taylor hate the organisation.

When I was a teenager, if my parents made me attend something I didn't want to I would be annoyed, but I would ultimately accept that they were doing it because they believed it would be good for me, however if I somehow came into the custody of an organisation I hated for very real slights, them using their authority to make me do anything at all, would be slights I would remember and hate them for for years.

The PRT has the legal authority to make her attend such things, but they have none of the moral authority, that make it a maybe misguided attempt, to do something positive for their Ward instead of a slight.

 

To play devil's advocate and explain my experience 25 years ago...
The problem is that Taylor is 15, and thus a non-person to Authorities. Children should do as they are told, much like recruits at boot camp.
Authorities NEVER let a bullying victim know that their tormentors are being punished. It's none of their business, they only need to worry about their own behavior, not other people's behavior and whether or not their tormentors are punished is none of their business. That was drilled into me repeatedly back when I was in 8th grade and high school.
Also Taylor is an UNDERAGE MINOR, and thus she is not in charge, the Adults are in charge, and she needs to learn to accept that. Her need for control and making these "power struggles" is viewed by the adults as a psychological problem to be corrected. The more she vies for control, the more the adults feel the need to push back and add restrictions to "Assert their Authority" and "Impress upon her that she's still a minor and they are in charge".

I don't understand why it's policy to make sure the victim is kept in the dark about their tormentor's punishments, but it often seems that the tormentors have more rights than the Target, as everybody seems to know the Target gets punished (usually for self-defense), but the Target never gets told if the tormentors get punished.

Sorry, this is kinda hitting some old issues of my own I've had from the mid'90s in 8th grade and high school.

 

I think this is putting in a lot assumptions in what information level the PRT Boston has. And for the particular incidenses what information level the acting persons have. Also one has to see the devils advocate position what can the PRT Boston actually do. A lot of the stuff people think about even if we accept that they could work (though often there are questionmarks like the little thing called evidence) are way out of the scope of what the people actually responsible for Taylor can decide or do or even know about (and to some degree that is on Taylor for not talking to them. While her distrust is understandable from a 3rd person perspective it is also counter productive).

Fact is the premise of the story demands that PRT Boston is responsible for Taylor. They can't hand that responsibility back to Danny or anywhere else (directly stated by Armstrong in the story). We have to accept that premise to even discuss anything within the scope of the story. So what can PRT Boston do now that they have to solve this problem? Ignore Taylor? Yea that worked for the time they did. She dug deeper into her shell and started useing Youth Guard to being able to isolate herself even more. Of course they will try to get Taylor exposed to positive interactions with Wards and Protectorate members. That is basically their deal with reluctant moody teenage Wards 101. To assume that everyone involved is moraly cupable for something out of their control is just plain wrong. They have been dealed a bad hand several cocks in the mashine are likley not given full information and they try their best. And as said from an objective outsider perspective Taylor isn't helping. As much as one can understand her view and actions they kind of force the PRT'S actions to some degree.

Imagine the whole Taylor's thinker power aspect wasn't there and the PRT had no pressure. But now Taylor does her "running" hobby and get seriously injured or even kidnaped by a villian or something like that. Well as the ones responsible for Taylor's well being PRT Boston would have big problems. So no ignoreing Talyor and letting her do her own thing is very much not an option. And while it is unfair it is a reality Taylor has to accept unless she wants to actually bail out and run away. If she does not want to run away then her accepting that she has to give something to gain something would actually be good for Taylor. As example choices were mentioned. They can give her choices but only once she accepts the boundaries withing which she can choose.

 

I was talking about this story a while ago with someone online and he was of the opinion that Taylor should at least take advantage of the training opportunities the PRT/Wards program provides and then go solo once she turns 18 as a kinda screw you to the whole organization. Ultimately I am against that idea because it means that Taylor would have to go through power testing at least which would also mean becoming a full ward but it is and interesting idea even more so if Taylor could take advantage of such training without needing to give ground to the PRT.

 

Accept that they wont get Taylor to actually be an active cape in their service, allow her to do absolutely nothing Ward related, and just wait until she's 18 and can legally leave.

And they absolutely know what was done to Taylor, and they're absolutely culpable, as they're part of the organisation who did it, and organizational guilt is a thing that's the proper way of things, at least when the guilty branch isn't punished, and the ENE hasn't been punished, which make their guilt the guilt of all branches, since by not punishing ENE, they're sanctioned ENEs misdeeds, and sanctioning those misdeeds mean you share in the guilt for them.

Now the Boston Wards are a different branch not the higher-ups, but the higher-ups carry the guilt by not sanctioning ENE, and when the higher-ups carry the guilt, their subordinates carry it in turn, unless there's a coverup involved, which there isn't here.

 

She should at least think about the fact that it will be long years, if she stays antagonistic. She could at least attempt to find a middle ground. For example she could stay firm on not becomeing a Ward but offer to accept their gurdianship otherwise (school, medical etc.). Though with her anti Thinker power the story introduced a conflict that will escalate the longer she refuses power testing. And power testing is basically her biggest concern on Ward membership.

To assume Boston PRT is informed fully is already an assumption. To assume people who deal with Taylor are fully briefed is a heroic assumption. With her anti Thinker power just accepting her doing nothing is not an option. But even without that is not what Taylor is going for is it? She is going out as an indipendent cape. And sorry but that is something her gurdian has say about. If her gurdian was still a parent (or parents) they could shut down such activities as well (and frankly given how dangerous it is they should even). Since Boston PRT are now her gurdians they are responsible and they have to follow the line of the Wards are the responsible way for minor parahumans to be heroic by default.

 

One important thing to remember, both by us and by the local authorities, is that Taylor is not simply a moody teenager who wants to brood alone, she is a victim of a prolonged terror campaign that let her with multiple psychological scars. They gave her less than a week (from January 13 to January 17) to put her in a new school in a different state of which at least one day had to be dedicated to buying new clothes since she didn't have enough warm clothes to wear, her previous social interactions of any kind with her peers were at the very least hostile against her and in many cases openly abusive to the point her literal survival strategy in high school was to find somewhere to hide and hope they didn't find her until she could get back to her house where she could at least be reasonably sure they would not physically bother her (even if they filled her mail with hate letters and probably prank calls). Now she gets to life with two other teens her age who have access to her 24/7, plus a bunch of other teens who have access to the building all day and a large percentage of the nights. Oh, and as a reminder of how vulnerable she is Emma Barnes, aka Ampere called her two days after arrival despite being promised safety from her tormentors.

And the PR tour was in February 8, less than a month after her arrival to Boston, in which she has barely being able to acclimate to the most basic interactions at school (she considers not having panic attacks while looking at a locker a victory).

The schedule in which the authorities are forcing minimally regulated and supervised interactions with her peers is far too rushed, in particular since are done without input from anyone trained in teen psychology or at least practical experience with teens with serious trauma.

 

She doesn't have to be antagonistic she can say show up for combat training have a conversation with Connie and then leave when training is over while still refusing to do things like power testing and power training along with other public wards activities. And if they get on her case about socialization she can point out that she is socializing she just doesn't want to go through power testing.

 

She hasn't refused those parts of the guardianship to start with, she's not skipping school, nor is she refusing medical care provided by the PRT, so the compromise you're proposing, is something she's already doing, and the PRT sure isn't compromising back.

Maybe not fully informed, but we know from the story itself that they're informed, and if they're informed, then they're either helping ENE cover things up, or the head office is informed, and has decided to let the ENE get away with it, so they're clearly informed, and so carry the guilt.

And the PRT can fuck off with the whole her power being too valuable to accept her doing nothing, Taylor has absolutely no reason to do anything that move her towards working for them, she hates them, and with good reason, she don't owe them a single bit of cooperation.

 

Maybe if they were unaware of the situation Taylor would be more forgiving to them but unfortunetly they are aware and chose to do nothing so they are just as bad as the ENE department and the staff at Winslow in Taylor's eyes.

Well they may claim that they are providing her a place to stay free food, a good education, along with a paycheck so Taylor would feel obligated to do something in return but Taylor never asked for those things so its not something they can guilt her with.

Also a potential way to possibly get on Taylor's good side that doesn't invovle punishing Emma or Sophia would be to press charges against Winslow for ignoring the obvious bullying occurring because the school itself is just as guilt as the trio in this and outside of losing a third wards stipend because Taylor isn't attending there anymore there has been no word to what has happened to the institution since Taylor left.

 

It is stated flat out that Taylor registered exactly why she was against her forced induction into the Wards by her father to both Gauss and Director Armstrong. She is not shy describing her Trigger event as Ampere and Shadow Stalker trying to kill her to both the Boston Wards and Protectorate.

AND
THEY
WILL
NOT
LISTEN!

How many times and ways does she have to tell them exactly why she sees the PRT, Protectorate, and Wards as both enemy and threat to her life, Brian? All she gets from nearly anyone in Boston is a pat on the head and a dismissive "there, there girly. I'm sure it couldn't have been nearly that bad." There is a damn good reason Taylor breaks down crying when her YG Rep not only listens, but believes and acts when she reports Emma's latest harassment. And also the same reason she goes straight to the YG for any complaint, she has experience the PRT will do Jack and Shit if she speaks up.

Like Weld, Gauss, Nebula, and Armstrong you don't get it Brian. By accepting the transfer it was no long the PRT/Wards/Protectorate ENE that was the sole "bad apple", with pushing that induction attempt through? Armstrong and Gauss made the Boston department complicit in the crimes against Taylor, by acting to cover them up after the fact. And using the authority of two Directors to do this stains the entire organization from top to bottom for Taylor.

There was an article I read years back. About how for much of the world, the face of America and US Foreign Policy were the acts of some 19 year old Private with a rifle and far from home. A lesson on how the acts of low level personnel could make or break both your organization's reputation and mission in those countries. Both by their fuck ups, and how higher command was seen responding to said fuck ups.

Well Piggot and Armstrong confirmed to Taylor that the acts of Emma and Sophia were the true face of their organization, and thus that Taylor is right to offer them as little trust and vulnerability as she can till she can get out.

 

One of the schools of thought prevalent with adults halping bullied children is that they lack social skills and friends, and helping them to develop social skills along with vetting some peers to try to be their friend or at least be friendly will help them develop the social skills to be able to deflect bullies in the future.
Of course, it goes hand-in-hand with the idea that the Target can actually make the bullying stop if they just figure out why they are being bullied and change whatever it is that is annoying the bullies to make them target them. The fact that the bullies might be doing it because they are sadistic assholes who are never consequenced for going after that person never enters into that equation.

The point is that they think they are doing what is best for Taylor by trying to get her to socialize. After all, she's been removed from Winslow, none of these people are out to get her, she just needs to realize that and stop isolating herself.

 

Ah yes, the victim blaming by adults trying to halp a bully's victim. "What did you do to provoke him?" Been there, done that. Sister Rita Jean, the principle of my Catholic grade and Jr. High school tried that on my parents. After one of my classmates decided it would be fun to lob a piece of broken concrete at me.

Which I didn't see coming, and it hit me in the ankle. I was home with a hairline fracture in my ankle. I didn't find out till well after I was and adult about the confrontation my parents had to have with her to even get my attacker to serve an in school suspension for that.

Understand my parents were both Catholics and raised in Catholic schools in the 1950s, and the first half of the 60s. So you might get an idea how furious what the Sister said about me when it got my Dad to throw away an entire childhood of automatic respect for the Sisters to get up in her face and say there was no damn excuse for what happened to me.

Fortunately for me I could get something minimal done since my parents were heavily involved and might have been on the Parish Council when this happened for the parish that school was part of. Legal advice had been sought about lawsuits or just filing a criminal complaint against me attacker (the lawyer was doubtful about how far either could go) And even then her talk with my class after school about it was very damn grudging on her part.

 

They mostly know (apart from a few naive idiots) that the bullies are just assholes, but blaming the victim lets them cover their asses without having to do as much work, and is a habit that American schools have been in for generations.

 

That is even the case in this story as well because based on Emma's own dialogue Taylor could have made the bullying stop if she had fought back ignoring the fact that if Taylor fought back in anyway the school would have come down on her for being the aggressor and when Taylor did try and solve the bullying the way we are always told to do by informing a teacher/the principle she was shot down and branded as a attention seeking trouble maker. So no matter what Emma tells herself Taylor had no means of fighting back against her without making her situation worse, and that is not even touching on the fact that Sophia or Emma would not have actually accepted Taylor fighting back and would have most likely begun escalating the bullying far sooner than they actually did.

 

In my experience adults trying to "solve" bullying just want the problem to go away rather than be fixed. Which generally means getting the victim to knuckle under, or otherwise half-ass the issue just to claim it is 'solved'.

Which circling back to the fic in question is what the PRT is trying with Taylor. They want the problem to go away. So they literally did that, by defining Taylor as "the problem" and shipping her to another city.

Piggot and Armstrong had a choice between a messy scandal in the Wards, and punishing the victim for reporting the crime. They chose to punish the victim, and now will have a messy scandal in the Wards.

 

Churchill said something like that once: "You had a choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war."

 

Where do you think I stole it from?

 

They could have avoided the messy scandal in the wards as well by simply punishing Sophia and Emma in their civilian identities and making up a story about Shadow Stalker and Ampere taking a break from heroism to save face, but instead they chose to take the worst option and protect the two sociopaths from their deserved punishment.

 

That assumes that neither girl would go down fighting. If things reach the trial phase things would almost certainly leak, particularly if both the DA and the defense start calling witnesses from Winslow. Plus that approach wouldn’t protect Piggot and Armsmaster from a serious internal investigation, having active Wards being convicted from any crime is probably cause for an automatic Internal Affairs audit and maybe overturning some convictions (defense lawyers love when a cop is guilty of a violence related felony).

From the ENE PRT perspective a cover-up is a logical solution short term, particularly in this case in which they were able to relocate the victim to a different state AND get legal custody.

 

The main problem with that is it is a short term solution not a long term one and once the short term passes the consequences will be far worse. While they might have been able to get away with it if Taylor complied with the program and moved on she is clearly not doing that so she is definitly gonna push the issue if given the chance and now it looks even worse since they tried to cover it up.