Faraday [Worm AU]

[Xilph]

No, I'm pretty sure JMH meant to say that she flows rapidly from one group to another. Except viscous means the opposite. I think we need an antonym here.

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Temperamental? Chaotic? Loose? Really most antonyms of viscous don't really work as it's specifically referring to material properties so most related words are as well, it's just one of the ones that works better otherwise.

 

[Ragnarok]

I'm pretty sure powers are at least tangentially related to how you Triggered in the first place. How do Emma's powers relate to her trigger at all? I can't see it.

But Sophia wasn't a fan. She'd restrained herself enough not to attack me right there in the principal's office, but she'd screamed and cursed and kicked Ms. Blackwell's desk. She'd called me a lying, traitorous bitch, but who was going to believe her? I was the one who came forward about the bullying. I was the one with the broken nose.

So my dad and the principal agreed that Sophia had to be expelled. She was also facing assault charges, though my dad thought that even with her probation, it might take more than that to get her kicked off the Wards. But at the very least, she'd be disciplined and probably barred from patrols until she passed a psychiatric evaluation. And of course, there would also be the restraining orders against approaching either Taylor or me. And since the ice had been growing thinner with every step she took, she wouldn't risk doing anything stupid now.

And if she did, I could lure her to an alleyway and take a more permanent measure. I knew I could do it if I had to. I was strong now.

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Am I the only one who noticed that Emma is planning outright murder?

It pains me to hope Sophia gets off lightly, but she deserves far less punishment than Emma.

 

[alethiophile]

Am I the only one who noticed that Emma is planning outright murder?

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Considering it as an option, not necessarily planning it. And it's not wholly unreasonable that she's considering it as an option, given she thinks Sophia might be going after both her and Taylor, and she knows Sophia's killed people in the past.

Mind, it's still not a sign of a reasonable and healthy psyche. But it's not particularly wrong.

 

[JMHthe3rd]

I'm pretty sure powers are at least tangentially related to how you Triggered in the first place. How do Emma's powers relate to her trigger at all? I can't see it.

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Despite the blaster/striker/brute applications, Emma is a (short range) shaker, with a breaker aspect (she's largely immune to electricity) as well as a very specific trump power (against Sophia's and Taylor's power-set).

Her shard's ''theme' is connected to Sophia and Taylor's 'anomalous smoky' thing. Going by Wildbow's explanation, a shaker power results from 'Environmental danger, ambient danger, often nonhuman or only abstractly human,' which fits with the unseen and unknown nature of Taylor's master attack, of which Emma was only semi-consciously aware (e.g. 'The bathroom seemed to darken somehow, as if my grief had saturated the air.').

A breaker triggers from, 'Abstract physical danger or harm, difficult to define pain or stress (not mental or physical.) Frequently arises from the hardest triggers to label.' A vague explanation, but I think it can reasonably result from Taylor's mind raping.

The trump power is due to Taylor being balls-deep into Emma's brain. The specifics of Emma's power are almost an exact counter to Taylor's or Sophia's. If Emma's purple is up, neither Taylor nor Sophia can touch her.

It hasn't come up yet, but Emma also has a resistance (not an immunity) to master attacks; basically, her shard 'corrects' in her brain what the master power's doing. Once again, this is due to her triggering in the midst of Taylor's meddling.

It's worth noting that right before she triggered, Emma recognized how horrible she's been but lamented that not only could she not fix what she's done, but she was too much of a coward to do anything about it. Her post-trigger brain restructuring essentially turned her into the person she desperately wanted to be.

Hence:

But wherever she was and whatever her powers, she'd clearly been attacking me. Didn't that change everything? She put me through three nights of hell! I could get her in so much trouble. The way the public freaked out over masters, she might even get sent to the Birdcage. I could be there to gloat at the trial. I could already see Sophia and me laughing about it at the Wards headquarters.

"I can't believe Hebert thought that Christmas Carol shit would work on you. You're way too evil for that."

"Yeah, yeah. The dreams weren't even that bad. But at least I got powers out of it. I can't wait to kick ass!"

These thoughts came so readily they frightened me. I stood at a fork in the road, and that path was open. It'd be easy.

But I couldn't do that to Taylor. She'd only held up a mirror to me, and I had no right to be mad if I didn't like what I saw. I'd been a monster. I wasn't going to be a monster anymore.

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That was the shard's first influence.

Am I the only one who noticed that Emma is planning outright murder?

It pains me to hope Sophia gets off lightly, but she deserves far less punishment than Emma.

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Bare in mind, Emma's turned into the person she's wanted to be--but not necessarily a good person. Better, though.

OT: I've posted my first quest: Uncle Grubb's Mysterious Mansion. It's gotten a few replies on SB and SV, but none so far here. I'll write the next chapter in a couple of days or so.

Right now, I'm working on Chapter Nine of 'Tales of a Power Armor Apocalypse.'