Confrontation (Worm fanfic)

[Ack]

Unfortunately, the interlude has people over in SB frothing about 'plagiarism', despite me giving full credit to the author, because I neglected (my own fault) to ask permission first. So I'll be taking it down until further notice. Sorry.

 

[Navrin]

*Sighs* Stupid "Intellectual Property" insanity getting in the way of good things for absolutely no reasonable benefit. Hopefully the permission is supplied, but I think it REALLY shouldn't have been necessary, especially since there was no conceivable way that the original snippet writer was losing out on anything. Said writer was GAINING credit, for one thing.

It's very unfortunate you had to deal with that behaviour on SB, Ack, and I hope it hasn't hurt your mood too much.

 

[ArisKatsaris]

because I neglected (my own fault) to ask permission first. So I'll be taking it down until further notice. Sorry

Click to shrink...

Ouch, yes, it is always a good practice to ask permission first from your fellow fic writers before copying their work -- giving credit is usually not considered sufficient.

but I think it REALLY shouldn't have been necessary, especially since there was no conceivable way that the original snippet writer was losing out on anything. Said writer was GAINING credit, for one thing

Click to shrink...

In these case the sentiment about whether someone was 'losing' or 'gaining', it's about the unwritten rules about how fic writers are meant to behave towards one another. Whether said rules are reasonable or not, they are what they are, and they're meant more to protect the sense of "this thing I wrote, it's MINE for me to give you or deny you permission to use, not yours to take and merely give credit". As the 'violation' is purely a matter of subjective emotions, not some physical gain or loss, different authors may react differently towards the issue, and that's why one ought ask first, to make certain they don't have a problem.

 

[Ack]

Further developments as they arise.

 

[minuseven]

Yeah, gotta be honest, if Ack didn't ask... that's like breaking the fanfiction bro-code. Really, it's only polite and otherwise comes off as a huge dick move.

L6 probably won't mind, but still. Seeing as he's regularly SB, it didn't cost much to just ask first.

 

[Navrin]

*Sighs* Culture clash can get very annoying. What benefit, emotional or otherwise, do you think writers gain by from having a right-of-refusal for others to build upon their works, and why is it worth the cost of increased time, decreased chances of being willing to try and incorporate what other people have made, and otherwise holding back the advancement of literature and good storytelling?

In my view, any such benefit is so minor that it's utterly negligible, especially in comparison to the costs of maintaining such a "right".


Now, if it were an issue of attribution that would be a lot more reasonable. Claiming that you wrote something that you didn't, or that somebody wrote something that THEY didn't, would be something I would agree was an extremely poor move.

Still, different cultures are, even if I have yet to see an explanation for this one that's worth much.

 

[Ack]

Okay; I've spoken with Lavanya Six, and with a mod. He was pretty cool about it, but as he's intending to expand on the snip, he's declined permission to allow me to quote his material in my fic, even with attribution. Which is his right.

However, I have plans for something else; we shall see.

 

[m_d]

Hey Ack, sorry this is later than I thought it would be. I made the ill considered decision to try and find an answer to that question of a lesbian reference in TV or film to An Officer and a Gentleman by going to TV Tropes. I'm sure that you know how that goes.

1st day of Bug Girl in the Wards: fight with Shadow Stalker.

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Second day: Shadow Stalker is sent to juvie (I hope) or ostracized by the rest of the Wards - because even if Taylor doesn't tell them immediately, Gallant is totally going to notice how they feel about each other, and I can't see the Wards not finding out what happened after that, even with Dean's difficulty in understanding what his power is telling him (Amy having a crush on her sister isn't something that would occur to most people who don't know what's really going on with her - so how much difficulty he has is debatable).

Click to shrink...

Personal preference: Shadow Stalker is elsewhere (perhaps one of those unauthorized solo patrols) for long enough for Taylor to make a positive first impression with the Wards with her earnest desire to be someone worth something.

Re: Choice of portrayal of Taylor's reactions

As I see it, there are two main questions here.

One is 'what portrayal(s) of Taylor are canon compliant, character-wise?'

The other is, of those portrayals, what best fits the story you're telling? Because given that this is in the setting the stage phase of the story, for a lot of readers, this is where they're trying to get an idea of what kind of story this is, so foreshadowing and establishing the tone and rules has more weight here. True, this can also be where one plays with expectations and fake-outs, but I'm going to set that aside for the moment because that's generally not how you've written in the past.

So, that in mind, here are my general comments:

I get that shard effects are significant. You do too, evidently, given how Sophia changed after Taylor shut up her shard in Trump Card. That said, I'm inclined to agree more with your and volantredx's interpretations of Taylor's character over DeAnno's. Yes, Taylor changes a lot after triggering in canon, but enough happens to her in the course of those changes (most of which haven't in Confrontation) that it doesn't have to be purely down to shard effects. I'd also say that a "meek girl who was bullied for a year and a half" doesn't have to be unfocused or without a fundamental urge for control if the goals and control are focused more internally on her responses and adaptations. Self control rather than external, about what you let other people change about you, more than what you do. I would also say that this setting isn't a dualistic one. Mental and physical aren't separate, so it's entirely appropriate for her to have a physical component to her mental trauma. So you've got wiggle room as far as how much or how little Taylor reacts physically while staying within character.

So then, what do you want to say with this hospital scene? You've mentioned the Panacea angle, and Armsmaster. Something you haven't referenced yet is the difference in direction. The original is very much a human focused story, notwithstanding the superpowers. Our focus is on Taylor's interactions with people. The revised one, particularly with "The disquiet went through me, then went ... somewhere else." starts to edge into New Weird, where we're less travelling with a person and being invested in their decisions and actions, and more watching something happen to someone as they are warped by the mysterious alien influence. And the Amy interaction is more abstract, adding to the detachment. One's more adventure/drama, the other's more mystery/horror. Both are valid choices, and they have some overlap, but you're the one who gets to decide which one to write.

On the changes themselves: These are the ones I found, so these are the ones I can comment on. Sorry if I missed any.

"I shivered, momentarily. Despite all my preparation…" replacing "I shivered, and all of a sudden, I could not stop shaking. Despite all my preparation"
It fits both the aim of decreasing her physical reactions, as well as reading as a reasonably normal reaction. And you pretty much had to do this in order to do the subsequent scene with Amy and Armsmaster.

"The disquiet went through me, then went ... somewhere else. Somewhere that I could handle it a lot easier.
Giving me time to think about how thoroughly I had screwed it up."
This set, I like. It brings the weird alien disquieting tone into it a bit while preserving Taylor's self-criticism.

"I was still lying in bed … I deliberately took a breath"
This one, not as much. I think I found Taylor's vulnerability and Panacea's competence both drew me in more. Amy still has displayed her expertise, she healed her, but it doesn't have the same immediacy and impact of feeling soothed right at that moment, while conscious, when Amy didn't have to do it. I mean, she still is soothed, but there's less impact because she didn't need it as much. It's a tough balance. It does fit with the aim of a more physically detached Taylor, but it has the side effect of having a more detached audience (or subset thereof).

You also lost the "Plus, her parents must be worried sick about her." I caught something in her tone, but didn't know what it meant." reference to Amy's family, which, again, moves the focus away from the personal, both for Taylor, and for us.

Those are all the ones I found. Other things I wanted to mention:
"I shook my head. "No. I'll probably be giving up superheroing altogether. Because I obviously suck at it."
<><>
Even as I spoke the words, I knew that they were true. I had gone out, I had picked a fight with the biggest, baddest cape in Brockton Bay, and I had been horribly injured."

"There's another option," he suggested. "We do have the Wards program." There was no judgement in his tone, no pressure. Just a statement.

Good. I like this portrayal of Armsmaster for the moment. Reasonable professionalism. And actually, a decent approach to Taylor in her current state. It gets Taylor to where she needs to be, and leaves avenues open for you to do useful
contrasts character-wise when you move forward.

Likewise, I think that the connection with Amy is a good move. You need to have someone for Taylor to work off of early on who aren't in the Wards, and the Undersiders aren't an immediate option. By which I mean from the perspective of being able to show a human connection and personality so that you aren't exclusively in Taylor's head (I want Taylor's headspace in the story too, but there are a lot of readers who get more from interpreting interaction than reading people's thoughts). I'm certainly not talking about it from a tactical perspective - that's far off at this point, I think.

"by sheer accident"
THANK YOU! Sorry. It's just that it's reassuring to see "by accident" instead of "on accident", which always reads wrong to me, and yet I encounter with increasing frequency online. It's possible it's a region specific form, but it's not one that I see in professional publications, so it's at least not a standard one.

On Confrontation 3. Personally, I feel it's odd for fanfiction authors to say that other people should require permission to adapt, be inspired by, remix, or transform their works when that's what fanfiction does with canon. I empathise with the sense of ownership of one's own work, but once you let people read it, it's in their heads, and, story generating organisms that people are, their minds are going to do things with it. Saying they can't share that seems counter to the spirit of the impulses that drive much of fanfiction. Obviously one needs to give credit and attribution, and not claim to have done the work someone else did. But the nature of semi-shared settings is that people are going to write things that speak to each other and overlap, so it seems unrealistic and disingenuous to try to build tall fences around what is one person's idea or concept to work with exclusively.

That said, it is also true that when works are too close and boundaries are fuzzy, even with the most dutiful attribution, some readers are going to be confused, or mix things up, or just miss that part of it came from somewhere else. I mean, it happened in this thread even. And when another author does something with your work it can colour readers' responses to yours, past or future. There can also be an implication of support or benefit, depending on the context, which means an author may feel that they need to take the time to evaluate the work in which theirs appears, if it's a quote. Perhaps more disturbing to an author, it can also change one's own relation to the idea/character/universe. No guarantee what way, but I can understand an author wanting to avoid making writing more difficult than it already is. So, generally, I think that the more one is using from someone else's work, and the more direct it is, particularly if it's whole paragraphs, or original characters, the more one should consider seeing what the author thinks of the idea.

In a case like Chapter 3, where you want to practically drop in something someone already wrote with some tweaks, in future you could probably just put in a link and say "this is headcanon for this story with the following differences" (original character who might appear in subsequent chapters instead of Glenn directly, for example), and go from there without strongly negatively affecting the reading experience.

I'm not going to speculate further than Navrin about where the Shadow Stalker thread will go because there isn't enough data for me to go on and this is long enough already.

Any rate, hopefully there's something useful in there for you.

Edited to strikeout a brain malfunction where I mixed up two fics.

 

[Ack]

Hey Ack, sorry this is later than I thought it would be. I made the ill considered decision to try and find an answer to that question of a lesbian reference in TV or film to An Officer and a Gentleman by going to TV Tropes. I'm sure that you know how that goes.

Click to shrink...

Into some very strange places, I will imagine.

Personal preference: Shadow Stalker is elsewhere (perhaps one of those unauthorized solo patrols) for long enough for Taylor to make a positive first impression with the Wards with her earnest desire to be someone worth something.

Click to shrink...

The confrontation will not be immediate. But everyone will see it coming. Mwahaha.

Re: Choice of portrayal of Taylor's reactions

As I see it, there are two main questions here.

One is 'what portrayal(s) of Taylor are canon compliant, character-wise?'

The other is, of those portrayals, what best fits the story you're telling? Because given that this is in the setting the stage phase of the story, for a lot of readers, this is where they're trying to get an idea of what kind of story this is, so foreshadowing and establishing the tone and rules has more weight here. True, this can also be where one plays with expectations and fake-outs, but I'm going to set that aside for the moment because that's generally not how you've written in the past.

So, that in mind, here are my general comments:

I get that shard effects are significant. You do too, evidently, given how Sophia changed after Taylor shut up her shard in Trump Card.

Click to shrink...

Shut up her shard?

That said, I'm inclined to agree more with your and volantredx's interpretations of Taylor's character over DeAnno's. Yes, Taylor changes a lot after triggering in canon, but enough happens to her in the course of those changes (most of which haven't in Confrontation) that it doesn't have to be purely down to shard effects. I'd also say that a "meek girl who was bullied for a year and a half" doesn't have to be unfocused or without a fundamental urge for control if the goals and control are focused more internally on her responses and adaptations. Self control rather than external, about what you let other people change about you, more than what you do. I would also say that this setting isn't a dualistic one. Mental and physical aren't separate, so it's entirely appropriate for her to have a physical component to her mental trauma. So you've got wiggle room as far as how much or how little Taylor reacts physically while staying within character.

So then, what do you want to say with this hospital scene? You've mentioned the Panacea angle, and Armsmaster. Something you haven't referenced yet is the difference in direction. The original is very much a human focused story, notwithstanding the superpowers. Our focus is on Taylor's interactions with people. The revised one, particularly with "The disquiet went through me, then went ... somewhere else." starts to edge into New Weird, where we're less travelling with a person and being invested in their decisions and actions, and more watching something happen to someone as they are warped by the mysterious alien influence. And the Amy interaction is more abstract, adding to the detachment. One's more adventure/drama, the other's more mystery/horror. Both are valid choices, and they have some overlap, but you're the one who gets to decide which one to write.

Click to shrink...

Looking over Taylor in general, even after the Lung fight, she's collected enough to turn down AM's offer (which was canon). And then she comes home and makes herself jam on toast after changing out of her costume. That's pretty damn collected for someone who's just escaped severe injury or death.

On the changes themselves: These are the ones I found, so these are the ones I can comment on. Sorry if I missed any.

"I shivered, momentarily. Despite all my preparation…" replacing "I shivered, and all of a sudden, I could not stop shaking. Despite all my preparation"
It fits both the aim of decreasing her physical reactions, as well as reading as a reasonably normal reaction. And you pretty much had to do this in order to do the subsequent scene with Amy and Armsmaster.

"The disquiet went through me, then went ... somewhere else. Somewhere that I could handle it a lot easier.
Giving me time to think about how thoroughly I had screwed it up."
This set, I like. It brings the weird alien disquieting tone into it a bit while preserving Taylor's self-criticism.

"I was still lying in bed … I deliberately took a breath"
This one, not as much. I think I found Taylor's vulnerability and Panacea's competence both drew me in more. Amy still has displayed her expertise, she healed her, but it doesn't have the same immediacy and impact of feeling soothed right at that moment, while conscious, when Amy didn't have to do it. I mean, she still is soothed, but there's less impact because she didn't need it as much. It's a tough balance. It does fit with the aim of a more physically detached Taylor, but it has the side effect of having a more detached audience (or subset thereof).

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I had to do a balancing act there. Maybe I should have had Panacea put her hand on Taylor's forehead? (The shoulder was because in the altered scene, Taylor was curled up in a ball, and the shoulder was easier to reach). Hand on forehead is more personal, more immediate, more soothing.

You also lost the "Plus, her parents must be worried sick about her." I caught something in her tone, but didn't know what it meant." reference to Amy's family, which, again, moves the focus away from the personal, both for Taylor, and for us.

Click to shrink...

I can always bring that in a bit later.

Those are all the ones I found. Other things I wanted to mention:
"I shook my head. "No. I'll probably be giving up superheroing altogether. Because I obviously suck at it."
<><>
Even as I spoke the words, I knew that they were true. I had gone out, I had picked a fight with the biggest, baddest cape in Brockton Bay, and I had been horribly injured."

"There's another option," he suggested. "We do have the Wards program." There was no judgement in his tone, no pressure. Just a statement.

Good. I like this portrayal of Armsmaster for the moment. Reasonable professionalism. And actually, a decent approach to Taylor in her current state. It gets Taylor to where she needs to be, and leaves avenues open for you to do useful
contrasts character-wise when you move forward.

Click to shrink...

Those are basically the exact words he uses in canon. It makes sense that he would use them here.

Likewise, I think that the connection with Amy is a good move. You need to have someone for Taylor to work off of early on who aren't in the Wards, and the Undersiders aren't an immediate option. By which I mean from the perspective of being able to show a human connection and personality so that you aren't exclusively in Taylor's head (I want Taylor's headspace in the story too, but there are a lot of readers who get more from interpreting interaction than reading people's thoughts). I'm certainly not talking about it from a tactical perspective - that's far off at this point, I think.

Click to shrink...

Amy and Taylor are going to become friends.

"by sheer accident"
THANK YOU! Sorry. It's just that it's reassuring to see "by accident" instead of "on accident", which always reads wrong to me, and yet I encounter with increasing frequency online. It's possible it's a region specific form, but it's not one that I see in professional publications, so it's at least not a standard one.

Click to shrink...

I think it's one of those verbal mistakes (based off 'on purpose') which people keep perpetuating, like "he would of done that" and "this is you're fault" and "irregardless". Things that make me shudder when I read them.

While 'accident' and 'purpose' are both nouns, they have different applications. 'Accident' is an immediate thing. You have an accident, it happens, it's done. 'Purpose' is an ongoing thing. If you have a purpose, you intend to do something, to get it done, but it's not the thing that gets done. It's more abstract. You don't use the word the same way. Except by accident. Never on purpose.

On Confrontation 3. Personally, I feel it's a odd for fanfiction authors to say that other people should require permission to adapt, be inspired by, remix, or transform their works when that's what fanfiction does with canon. I empathise with the sense of ownership of one's own work, but once you let people read it, it's in their heads, and, story generating organisms that people are, their minds are going to do things with it. Saying they can't share that seems counter to the spirit of the impulses that drive much of fanfiction. Obviously one needs to give credit and attribution, and not claim to have done the work someone else did. But the nature of semi-shared settings is that people are going to write things that speak to each other and overlap, so it seems unrealistic and disingenuous to try to build tall fences around what is one person's idea or concept to work with exclusively.

Click to shrink...

I was lazy and I really should have asked for permission (before I used it). Had I done so, none of this would have happened. So. Lesson learned.

That said, it is also true that when works are too close and boundaries are fuzzy, even with the most dutiful attribution, some readers are going to be confused, or mix things up, or just miss that part of it came from somewhere else. I mean, it happened in this thread even. And when another author does something with your work it can colour readers' responses to yours, past or future. There can also be an implication of support or benefit, depending on the context, which means an author may feel that they need to take the time to evaluate the work in which theirs appears, if it's a quote. Perhaps more disturbing to an author, it can also change one's own relation to the idea/character/universe. No guarantee what way, but I can understand an author wanting to avoid making writing more difficult than it already is. So, generally, I think that the more one is using from someone else's work, and the more direct it is, particularly if it's whole paragraphs, or original characters, the more one should consider seeing what the author thinks of the idea.

Click to shrink...

Exactly and precisely.

In a case like Chapter 3, where you want to practically drop in something someone already wrote with some tweaks, in future you could probably just put in a link and say "this is headcanon for this story with the following differences" (original character who might appear in subsequent chapters instead of Glenn directly, for example), and go from there without strongly negatively affecting the reading experience.

Click to shrink...

More or less my intention.

I'm not going to speculate further than Navrin about where the Shadow Stalker thread will go because there isn't enough data for me to go on and this is long enough already.

Any rate, hopefully there's something useful in there for you.

Click to shrink...

Definitely something to think about, thanks.

 

[Ack]

I have decided to do that little change. It now reads:

Panacea put a cool hand on my forehead. "Are you all right?"

Her touch was unexpectedly soothing; it felt nice, and brought back memories from long ago, when I had been ill in bed, and my mother had cared for me. Tears prickled my eyes.

"I nearly died," I told her. My voice wasn't as level as I would have liked it, but I wasn't falling apart. "He nearly killed me. It's really hard to get my head around that."

Armsmaster peered at me. "Do you think we should call a doctor?"

Click to shrink...

 

[Ack]

Confrontation

Part Three: Costume Discussions

[Author's Note: With thanks to @FeliD and to @Lavanya Six , without whom this chapter would not have been written.]


Richardson lowered his glasses and looked over them at the teenage girl. "So, Taylor," he began. "Can I call you Taylor?"

She didn't answer verbally, but he saw how she was avoiding his gaze, fixing on the ashtray on his desk rather than look at him directly. He cleared his throat and started again. "Taylor. Why do you want to be a Ward?"

She looked up at him, then. Her eyes were large and dark behind round-lensed glasses. Several strands of hair were hanging over her face; she didn't bother to brush them away. "So I can be a superhero." There was the faintest edge of scorn in her voice. He couldn't blame her; it had been a fairly obvious answer to the question.

I think I deserved that. At least she's engaging me, now.

"Why do you want to be a superhero?" he prompted.

That brought her up short. Twice, he watched her open her mouth to make a reply, then close it again, words unspoken. Her gaze darted around his office, alighting on a dozen different points, not one of them being his face.

He waited patiently, schooling his features toward mild interest. His hands itched to do something to pass the time, to pick up a pen or drum his fingers on the desk, but he did neither. He merely watched her, and waited until she was ready to say what was on her mind.

When she spoke, the words came suddenly, almost violently. "I want to do the right thing. I want to help the people who can't help themselves." She drew a deep, shuddering breath. "I want to do something with my life that doesn't turn to shit!"

Silence fell again. Brockton Bay's newest Ward blinked a couple of times, then muttered, "Sorry for swearing."

Richardson shook his head, hiding a smile as he did so. "I've heard worse." He observed her; she had a sheepish expression on her face. He was almost certain that she had not intended to say what she had, or at that level of vehemence.

No matter; that little outburst was exactly what he'd been looking for. It was the most honest thing she'd said since she walked into his office.

"You want to be a superhero," he went on. "Not a villain, or a rogue?"

She shook her head, her expression wary. "No," she replied. "Definitely a hero." Again, she glanced away from his face.

Before she could withdraw into herself again, he spoke up. "Well, you definitely did a lot of work on that costume." A tilt of the head, inviting her to express herself. "How long did it take you to make it?"

She cleared her throat. "A-about three months, more or less. I couldn't work on it all the time, of course, going to school and stuff, and I had to start fresh a couple of times, but … yeah, I started it back in mid-January. Once I learned I had powers, and what I could do with them."

He nodded judiciously. "And a very nice piece of work it is, too. You told Armsmaster that it's made from black widow spider silk?"

Her head came up; her expression became more animated. "Yes. I use a specific type called dragline silk. It's the second strongest spider silk in the world."

He opened a folder on his desk, and pulled out a glossy eight by six photo; it showed Taylor wearing the costume after Panacea had grown her hair back. The only signs that it had even been in a fight were the scorch marks, and the shattered lens on the mask. This gave the image in the photo a strangely lopsided gaze; on one side was a staring yellow insectoid eye, while on the other was a quite human brown eye. The human eye was the one that appeared out of place.

"I have to admit, Taylor, that I've seen many costumes come through that door in my time here, with people who want to join the Protectorate or the Wards, and your costume has every single one of them beat for design and execution." He glanced up at her, over his glasses. "I'm assuming that it's all your own design, from start to finish."

She nodded firmly. "Once I figured out that my powers were bug related, I decided to go with a bug theme."

"Bug theme, indeed." He chuckled warmly. "You certainly did that." He tapped the photo with a fingernail. "I particularly like the mandibles around the jawline. It's detail, it's useful, and it makes you striking. Memorable."

She began to smile, then the expression fell off of her face again. "Armsmaster said I looked like a villain."

"Armsmaster," Richardson told her firmly, "would not know what tact was if the definition were uploaded into his helmet heads-up display." She smiled uncertainly. "However, he's not entirely unwarranted in his comment."

The smile vanished once more. "What do you mean?" she asked sharply.

He drew a deep breath. "When looking at you, and your costume, I am faced with some questions that I would really rather have answered, before we go any farther."

He tapped the photo again with his fingernail; she watched the movement, her expression unsure. "What questions?"

With the tip of his finger, Richardson circled the head of the masked figure in the photo. "You never intended to become a public figure, did you? You were always going to be in the shadows, never interacting with the public. Am I right?"

Taylor blinked, looking at the photo, then back up at Richardson. "I … uh … what makes you say that?"

For an answer, Richardson took off his glasses and tapped his eyesocket. "Eyes. People like to see them. It lets them connect with others. Your costume hides your eyes. This intimidates people, more than they are willing to let on, even to themselves."

He opened his desk drawer, rummaged around for a moment, then produced a pair of sunglasses. Putting them on made things dark as well as blurry, but it wasn't an issue.

Then he tapped his nose, and the corner of his mouth. "Nose. Mouth. People expect to see a face when they look at someone. Not seeing it makes people uneasy. It's why our troops wear full-face visors. Keeps people at a distance." Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, he held it in front of his face, concealing his mouth and nose. "Do I look friendlier and more approachable like this … " He removed the handkerchief and changed out the sunglasses with his regular spectacles, " … or like this?"

Taylor nodded slowly. "Yeah, I get it. If I can't see your eyes, your face, I do feel a little threatened, a little intimidated." She indicated the photo. "That's what my mask does, huh?"

"By George, I think the young lady has it." He smiled, in answer to her tentative grin. "So, did you intend to come across as intimidating and impersonal? Or was that just the design you came up with?"

She frowned. "I think … maybe a little of the intimidation. But mainly because I didn't want anyone seeing my face, any part of it, and maybe identifying me."

The emphasis on words had been odd; the first part of the last sentence had been firm, unquestioned. But the last bit had come across as being tacked-on, an afterthought.

I didn't want anyone seeing my face.

That was another truth; very likely, one that Taylor Hebert had not intended to let slip. Why she even felt that way was not something he was prepared to answer right at that moment, but it was clear that she had some sort of self-esteem issues.

Her hair was another matter; the mask was designed to let the hair flow out. Which would not normally have been a problem, except for Lung and his fire.

Richardson was not an expert on hair, but Taylor's dark-brown curls were well cared for. She wore it long, and she had designed the mask to show it off, while hiding the rest of her body. It was obvious to him that she liked her hair – and it was probably about the only thing that she liked about herself.

He decided to shelve that matter, and to carry on with a more pressing one.

"Now, you say you spent two and a half to three months making this costume."

She nodded, readily enough. "Yeah. It was a real bear, sometimes. Dragline silk shrinks a bit when it gets wet, and I couldn't count on staying dry all the time, so I had to make it a bit oversized and then wet it down. Sometimes I got the sizes wrong. Can you imagine trying to cut Kevlar with ordinary scissors?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I imagine that you can't."

Her smile was wry. "No. I had to use metal cutting shears, and even then it took all my time. Why?"

He rubbed his chin. "It's just that … another thing I have noticed about those people who have come in with pre-made costumes, they always picked the name before even starting to put together a costume. In fact, in a lot of the cases, the name informed many choices about the costume. After all, costumes come and go, but names are what stick in the mind." He nodded to her. "In those three months, why is it that you didn't come up with a single name that you like?"

She paused; her expression became hunted once more, her gaze sliding off of his face, to seek refuge somewhere else in his office. He leaned back, folding his hands before him, seeking to project an air of harmlessness, of mild curiosity. The last thing I want to do is push her into a corner.

The silence wore on; despite the rather excellent air conditioning, it suddenly felt to Richardson as though the very atmosphere in his office was becoming stuffy and humid. A fly buzzed across the room, turned in a complete circle, then buzzed back. He wasn't sure if she was showing off, expressing her nervousness, or wasn't even controlling it.

"I – like I told Armsmaster, I couldn't think of one," she confessed suddenly. "They were all taken, or sounded like villain names, or were just plain dorky."

"Ladybug," he suggested.

"Sounds too kiddish, and I'd have to change the colour scheme."

He nodded, conceding the point. "Swarm."

"Villain."

"Stinger."

"Taken. Missile tinker, on the west coast."

"Hm." He hadn't known that. "Hive Queen."

"Way pretentious."

"Weaver."

She hesitated. "Uh … it makes it sound like I'm more into making cloth than fighting crime."

He pushed down his glasses to give her a dry look. "Weak excuse. Buzz."

"Huh?"

"Buzz. As a name."

"Uh, sounds more like a guy's name?"

He smiled. "What, like Dragon? Shadow Stalker? Battery? Narwhal? Brandish?"

She sighed. "Okay, I get the point. Weaver's a fine name, and so is Buzz."

He nodded. "A name isn't supposed to outline everything about you. It's supposed to be a verbal shorthand that people can recognise you by. But if you're not comfortable with it, that's when it's an unsuitable name. Now, you had three months to think of names. Why is it that you think that you couldn't come up with one that you actually wanted to use?"

She shook her head, looked off to the side. "I don't know."

A warm smile, to break up the gathering tension. "Well, it doesn't really matter now. We're going to have to spend a few days kicking around costume ideas -"

She half-raised her hand. "I – kind of like my costume the way it is."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "Understood. And it's your right to keep it that way, if you so wish. I was just thinking we could take a bit of the edge off of it, make it a little more public-friendly. Add a little colour, a little light to it." A burst of inspiration suddenly struck him. "Maybe metallic shades, like some of the what do you call 'em, iridescent beetles. Looks cooler, and less scary."

She blinked. "I … we could talk about it, I guess."

He grinned broadly. "Excellent. We'll run computer simulations to see what it looks like before you have to make any decisions. All right?"

A nod. "Okay. We can do that."

He drew a breath. "And one more thing. We can't really have someone running around calling themselves 'the Ward with no name', so in the next few days, if you could figure out a name that fits your idea of the hero you'd like to be, I'll be glad to hear it." He skimmed a card across the desk. "My personal number. Any time of night or day. If you want to talk costume, name, or just, well, talk. I'm available twenty-four-seven."

She took the card and looked carefully at it, then tucked it into a pocket. "Thank you, Mr Richardson."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "You're welcome, Taylor. And you're a Ward, so feel free to call me Gerard." A wry grin. "Everyone else does."

A faint answering grin. "Okay." She stood. "Was that it?"

"Oh, there's more we're going to be talking about," Richardson assured her. "But that's it for today. I don't want to throw everything at you in one day."

She ducked her head. "Thanks," she murmured. "I appreciate it."

"You have a nice day now, Taylor," Richardson told her.

"I'll try. Thanks."

As the door closed behind her, Richardson stretched out in his chair and sighed; a vast release of tension. Talking to Taylor Hebert had been like walking through a minefield, not being entirely certain which step was going to lead to a blowup.

That there was a blowup ready to happen was something he was sure of; he just didn't know what the trigger was going to be. Although he had an idea as to the answer of the question of why she hadn't picked a name.

She took on Lung on her first night out. If Armsmaster hadn't rescued her, she would have died.

Maybe, on some subconscious level, she wanted to.

You don't need a cape name if you're dead.

In neat, careful handwriting, he made a note of this, to be passed along to whoever handled Taylor's therapy. That she would need therapy, he was equally certain. The girl was hurting.

Picking up the phone, he speed-dialled a number.

"Gerard, dear boy. How did it go?"

"About as well as can be expected. We talked about her costume and her name."

"Did you cover the issue of scary bugs?"

He sighed. "No. Not yet. I can't see her being happy to discard the majority of her arsenal."

Glenn chuckled complacently. "Present her with the problem, and let her figure out a work-around. The girl built herself a state of the art costume using spiders. She's a problem solver."

Richardson nodded. "You're right, of course."

"Of course I am, dear boy. I have to go now; someone just caught one of our little darlings using unsuitable language on live TV. Best of luck with the bug girl."

"Thanks. You too." Richardson hung up the phone, and leaned back in the chair, eyes closed.

I think I'm going to need it.


End of Part Three

Part Four

 

[pheonix89]

Her solution to the scary bug problem is gonna boil down to the fact that since its a PR problem, it doesn't matter if she actually IS using them, only if she's perceived as using them, isn't it. So hiding them behind a wall of butterflies and moths works just fine.

 

[powerofvoid]

Her solution to the scary bug problem is gonna boil down to the fact that since its a PR problem, it doesn't matter if she actually IS using them, only if she's perceived as using them, isn't it. So hiding them behind a wall of butterflies and moths works just fine.

Click to shrink...

Bugs in power armor.

 

[tEN]

She might also take "iridescent like a beetle would work better for your costume because it's friendlier" and run with it to the conclusion of "people like beetles."

She'd be "that beetle master."

 

[Chojomeka]

You know what Ack? I like this ch. 3 better then the previous one, it feels much more personable and engaging......also she can go with either Damselfly or Shimmershell as names that sound not villainous.

 

[Navrin]

As long as Taylor's working as a team and she has a large enough supply of "suitable" insects, it isn't that much of a handicap. Can still be C&C of Doom, can still harass everybody they're fighting, can still break line-of-sight basically at-will, can still be one of the most dangerous scouts around... in short, she's still ludicrously powerful. And she has several extra layers of escalation and surprise that others won't see coming.

Thanks for the chapter, Ack, it was a very nice replacement.

 

[preier]

well, i liked what you did with lavanya's work but i must say i enjoyed this version more, simply because of the dialogs and taylor's reactions.

the "dead people don't need hero names" was very nicely set up. Her costume would then have been both her shroud and a way to put off the final step
for a time?

taylor's problem(s) would need malevolent action to be ignored by the PRT/protectorate at this point.


thanks for sharing,once more, Ack.

 

[Sheaman3773]

Damselfly

Click to shrink...

"Damselfly? What, like I'm some useless damsel in distress and need to be rescued all the time? Ugh, no thank you."

 

[Prince Charon]

Madame Butterfly. Possibly uses the 'bug voice' effect to play music when she arrives.

 

[kylone]

In something of a homage to Harper Lee, how about Scout?

 

[m_d]

Into some very strange places, I will imagine.

Click to shrink...

Actually, not that strange. Still time consuming. And I didn't actually find what I was looking for.

The confrontation will not be immediate. But everyone will see it coming. Mwahaha.

Click to shrink...

*small smile* Looking forward to it.

Shut up her shard?

Click to shrink...

*facepalm* Oops. Sorry, that was a brain malfunction. I'd read Schwep's Subduction recently, and mixed up the two Trump!Taylor powersets. Which makes no sense since I remembered other plot points that relate to this story just fine that don't work with that Subduction!Taylor's power. *sigh* It's not like you don't have other examples in your writing. Recoil just had one. I'm just going to strikeout that bit.

Yeah, I had to do a balancing act there. Maybe I should have had Panacea put her hand on Taylor's forehead?

Click to shrink...

Her touch was unexpectedly soothing; it felt nice, and brought back memories from long ago, when I had been ill in bed, and my mother had cared for me. Tears prickled my eyes.

Click to shrink...

Oh lovely. That brings it back nicely.

Things that make me shudder when I read them.

Click to shrink...

Oh there are so many of those. "A person that" instead of "a person who" - She's not an 'it'! "Too many clothes" instead of "too much clothing" (though this may be both region and generation specific). Incorrect use, or failure to use when appropriate, of "-ful" and "-ly". …and I'm going off topic. Thanks for empathising.

Except by accident. Never on purpose.

Click to shrink...

And you're explaining it in Aftermath too.

Definitely something to think about, thanks.

Click to shrink...

You're welcome.

 

[DeAnno]

You know, Skitter isn't that villainous of a name if you don't associate it with the warlord who cut out people's eyes and stuff.

 

[Divabot]

You know, Skitter isn't that villainous of a name if you don't associate it with the warlord who cut out people's eyes and stuff.

Click to shrink...

See A Tale of Transmigration, where she's Skitter the unbelievably fucking scary independent hero who works closely with the Protectorate.

 

[Ack]

The problem with Skitter as a name is that she didn't choose it herself.

 

[DeAnno]

The problem with Skitter as a name is that she didn't choose it herself.

Click to shrink...

The 4th wall is no match for Taylor Hebert.

 

[Beyogi]

Also... while seriously creepy it probably won't hurt the Wards much and might prevent less PR friendly capes to become villains by default.

It's certainly better than a don't ask don't tell policy for creepy superpowers.

 

[pepperjack]

For a name... Monarch?

Yeah, I know, she doesn't like the butterflies. Or she won't, rather, once she's asked to use them.

 

[powerofvoid]

Interesting fact: the character of Hank Pym (Ant-Man) predates Worm's point of divergence. (1962 vs 1980-ish)

 

[Snake/Eater]

HARVESTMAN or HARVESTwoMAN for a name.

 

[The Shadowmind]

INSECTMAN!girl.