Just a Phase [Worm]

Another thought occurs, there is probably a high chance that those working with the wards in the ENE department already knew about Taylor's relationship with Emma and Sophia even before the disastrous first meeting because in the Emma interlude it said that Miss Militia took Taylor's statement in the hospital so Taylor probably named Sophia and Emma as the ones behind the locker. So Miss Militia probably knew about the issue and probably told Piggot about it but they both decided to try and induct Taylor into the Brockton Bay wards department anyways knowing that it would most likely end badly. It really makes me think what they thought was going to happen when they tried to introduce Taylor to the team doesn't it.

 

When exactly was Bakuda's trigger event because from what I understand it was after Taylor's so there is a chance that Taylor has to deal with her original bombing run down in Boston at some point, which could further drive her conflict with the PRT depending on how it goes.

 

If you believe Lisa, it was her overdeveloped ego, caused by being academically perfect during school, shattering after failing a test in college.

 

That doesn't really answer my question though, I was asking when it was not what it was and would it happen in a time frame that would effect Taylor in anyway in Boston be it as a wards member or as a vigilante.

 

If it happens during normal hours it would be an ethical challenge for Taylor since her powers are ideal for S&R and her limited precog and omniscience is extremely useful as a way of avoiding any unexploided ordinance, no matter the trigger.

As a vigilante it would be an struggle for the local Protectorate and Wards to keep the charade of the Unwritten Laws in the face of an obvious Taylor acting as if she wasn't (technically) part of the team. It is very possible that at least one Ward or Protectorate cape won't be able to do so and unmask her to the local teams.

 

Huh. Could've sworn that said "what" instead "when". Sorry for that.

 

Honestly I can see that being the next big conflict for Taylor either in the story proper or in an omake because based on Taylor's disposition she will feel obligated to go out and do something during the disaster plus her omniscience would also allow her to find people trapped in the rubble, and that is not even going into the possibility that her main power could potentially protect her from the esoteric effects of Bakuda's bombs.

If she decides to do it as a vigilante it solves the problem of her wanting to do something but not the problem with the PRT, and I can see someone such as Nebula who is displeased with the newest ward kick up a fuss about her actions even more so if she performs well during the crisis. Whether he does it in public and essentially outs the new vigilante as Boston's most frustrating ward or in private to Armstrong there will be consequences for Taylor's very visible actions.

 

The other possible big conflict is that Taylor tries for an Endbringer fight, I think the next one is Canberra against the Simurg, and she manages to -somehow- get into one of the teleporting groups.

That said I don't see any realistic way she can go, unlike other Endbringer fights for the Simurg the capes need to be vetted for vulnerability to her Master effect and even as a Protectorate cape (instead of a renegade Ward playing vigilante) her current psychological profile is bad enough she wouldn't be allowed to go at all. The last thing the PRT/Protectorate needs is a paranoid cape with reasons to hate the government to fall for one of Simurg's tricks and reveal the skeletons in her personal locker before deserting.

 

Yeah they certainly wont let Taylor fight the Simurgh for those reasons, at the same time they let Emma go and Emma gets Zized and her target is Taylor.

Also on an unrelated note what would happen if Taylor killed the Butcher but due to her power she didn't inherit the voices in her head but still somehow inherited the powers, how would that help or hinder her situation in Boston.

 

Would Taylor even want to fight an Endbringer? Or would her take on Heroics be more like Green Arrow in the animated Justice League Unlimited when they tried to recruit him?

GA: "I just help the little guy. And a big club like this, you tend to forget all about him."

4:20 since this board doesn't seem to accept URLs for specific mid clip time stamps.


(Of course by the end of the episode, he is fighting a mecha-kaiju)

Taylor, tailoring her heroics to the "people too unimportant for you to bother with" would fit her Triggering. She was too unimportant to bother with, till she got powers. So now she is going to use them to look out for people the Wards and Protectorate consider too "unimportant" to bother with more than incidentally.

 

Which adds even more irony to everything that has happened due to Emma's complaint about the wards being more about selling plushies than saving young girls being attacked in alley ways. It would be real funny if Taylor becomes the type of hero to save said girls from said hypothetical alley way.

But as for fighting Endbringers I can still see Taylor doing it at least from a search and rescue perspective because I don't see Taylor knowingly leaving people to their deaths when she has the ability to step in and do something which also fits her trigger event of people just leaving her to her fate in the locker.

 

Bakuda, the Cornell Bomber, made her debut at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She was captured there, presumably by New York-based PRT/Protectorate forces, then broken out and taken to Brockton Bay by Lung. Boston should never enter into it.

 

Really I was under the impression she was from Boston originally. I guess that's off the table then, so I guess the next big thing will either be the Simurgh or whatever Lisa's purpose for being in Boston is.

 

She - as evidences by her accent - is pretty definitely from Boston. She went away to college in upstate New York - the part near Pennsyltucky, where you get your good ol' upstate redneck racists - and triggered due to what the abrasive blonde girl with no firsthand knowledge of things tried to play down as a bad grade on a test.


(This doesn't line up at all with canon theorycrafting re: first-gen triggers or tinker triggers, but it's not like Tt would ever be anything but scrupulously honest...)

 

Probably triggered due to the stress of college and the pressure put on her by her family to succeed and getting that bad grade and having all her hard work be for nothing probably caused the psychotic break that lead to her trigger event.

As for her showing up maybe she escapes and decides to go back to her home town to stir things up.

 

Had an idea for an omake but I doubt my ability to write it so I am gonna just put it out here in case someone else wants it.

Basically when Taylor is out doing her vigilante thing she comes across a fight between the Protectorate and the Butcher with Lily also being in attendance. Seeing Lily about to be offed by the Butcher Taylor reacts and accidentally kills the Butcher trying to save Lily, but instead of getting the voices in her head and being able to control them like most Butcher!Taylor fics Taylor doesn't get the voices at all but still somehow gets the powers. Now the Protectorate/PRT has to deal with the fact that their most frustrating Ward now has 14 new powers to play with and even more pressure to get her to comply, but on the bright side at least one of their Wards didn't die and the other is very unlikely to go insane due to the regular Butcher insanity.

 

...Remove the 'protect Lily' part and that is literally the plot of Butcher of the Wards.

 

The main difference being the lack of voices and the fact that the Protectorate is aware of Taylor being 'the Butcher'.

 

Point.

 

In that scenario I can't decide whether or not Taylor is more screwed or less screwed, because on one hand once it is known she has all the powers of the Butcher without the drawbacks like voices in her head and insanity the PRT/Protectorate will push even harder to get her on board which means bringing in people from higher up like Costa-Brown and Legend, but on the other she can't really be pushed around anymore due to her sudden increase in power.

 

The thing is that no one is using physical force to push her around to begin with, all of the authorities harassment comes in the form of legal or administrative regulations which Taylor is reasonably capable of turning against them by using some legal loopholes that are based on either her constitutional rights or poorly written YG regulations. The pressure that Legend and Costa-Brown would bring is the threat of erasing those loopholes through greater legal Kung-Fu (CB got direct access to the lawyers that write the laws) or by enormous bribes since she can give Taylor some rather handsome benefits if she puts her mind to it.

That said the basic equation of Just a Phase is still there. At which point Taylor gets tired of the stick and decides to run away from the Wards, who are physically incapable of holding her against her will? At which point the authorities bend themselves backwards by giving Taylor all reasonable and unreasonable demands on her wish list?

And if negotiations reach the point of no return and the Protectorate goes against Taylor, can anyone hold her in one place if she doesn’t want to stop to obey the authorities?

 

True, but mostly I would be more interested in the reactions of the people involved if that scenario came to pass. Like what would Armstrong, Lily, Gauss, and Emma think in that scenario not to mention how Taylor would react to the sudden increase in power.

 

Most important reaction would be absolute disbelief. None of the authorities will believe Taylor is not hearing the voices, they can't. Not for a parahuman whose power hasn't been properly tested against long term Master effects (or any kind of Master effect for that matter) and shows definitive signs that at least part of the Butcher's inheritance was passed along. They will have to put her into mandatory long term Master/Stranger protocols for at least a few days, probably a few weeks to be sure. And regarding the Triumvirate, they won't send either Alexandria or Legend (although they might visit anyway), for a Ward with her specific powerset (plus the new powers) they need to send Eidolon just to ensure she stays contained during the tests, because anyone less powerful and versatile is uncapable of holding back a ghost that just happens to be a midlevel Brute and Blaster, a destructive Mover and with multiple Thinker powers to make things even harder.

Also at this point the Protectorate can fill a motion with a judge for Taylor to take mandatory power testing for her own good and that of the general's population, she was affected by a long, term Master power which is well known for causing permanent insanity, and which in a worse case acts as a one-shot contagious disease. Both for public safety and to avoid being forced to put her in an induced coma and ship her to an isolated facility in the middle of nowhere they need to have definitive evidence she only got the new powers and that she is not using her impressive willpower to hide the insanity.

 

The whole immunity bit would most likely be QA doing her own form of malicious compliance against the Butcher Shard by taking what she wants and removing the unneeded data (the other Butchers). As for the disbelief I agree that most people wouldn't believe her at first but Taylor does have several things working in her favor, such as the fact that she will probably come in willingly, a lack of any twitchiness, the fact that she doesn't talk to herself, the knowledge that her power normally disrupts other powers, and the fact that besides an initial bout of panic she doesn't have any noticeable alterations to her personality. She will still be in master/stranger containment nut if she sits quietly the whole time it becomes rather obvious she isn't effected by the negative aspects of the Butcher. As for the Triumvirate involve ment I believe that there would be a motion once it is confirmed that Taylor just got the powers to move her to one of the departments under their direct command be it Legend, Alexandria, or Eidolon, but for the most part it will be Eidolon watching her at first with maybe some visits from Alexandria who tries to social fu Taylor into complying, and Legend with the softer more friendly pitch.

For the power testing she would definitely need to under go it just to prove.she isn't going crazy and that she can have a normal life. But there will also be another issue that could be brought up regarding Taylor's new power set, and that being if the inheriting stopped with Taylor or if Taylor merely started a new dynasty so to speak. Because once it gets out that Taylor's power removes the negative aspects to inheriting she will have a lot of people after her jsut for the potential of a power boost so the PRT might just say work for us and we will make sure you won't have to deal with all the crazies that will inevitably come after you.

 

That said all depends on an angry, traumatized and vocal teen girl with at least a moderate case of claustrophobia, severe distrust of authorities and a large amount of (somewhat justified) paranoia to stay quiet, calm and compliant in solitary confinement inside a padded room for at least a month (no less than one week for testing normal Master effects, which by the way is described as a stress test with limited sleep designed to confuse a potential Master or the preprogramed orders, at least one week after initial protocols for a psychologist to get a baseline of her personality, and let's say two more to ensure there is neither a progressive mental degeneration nor a shift in her personality), all while already suffering nightmares from before the incident and having a personality post-trigger that can't be described as calm and accepting.

All in all its going to be damn difficult for her to prove she is sane before the tests make her mad in every sense of the word.

 

True but at the same time Taylor has been going to therapy so they will be at least aware of her already pre-existing issues to be able to write off a good amount of Taylor's reactions to being confined, and honestly just the fact that she actually entered the Master/Stranger cell would go a ways to prove that she is in control. Also add in the fact that all her reactions are hers and she isn't showing any of the inherited traits or verbal ticks that most newly inherited Butcher's gain. Even if Taylor doesn't go to a Master/Stranger cell the Boston PRT/Protectorate would probably notice several things that show that Taylor isn't on the down slide to madness since she wouldn't go back to the Teeth like other Butchers, doesn't engage in extreme violence, remains a vigilante, can talk in complete sentences, and doesn't have any moments where she appears to be having a conversation with someone who isn't there.

So yeah there will be a lot of ways to prove that Taylor isn't crazy, and that isn't even getting into things like thinker powers that aren't targeted at her that could potentially prove that she wont go mad anytime soon.

 

I take it from the spoilers, about Butcher forex, that the thread marks stop too soon?

 

Not really, there are omake threadmarks missing but the story links are intact. What you're seeing is speculation of the fic in general going to some unusual tangents as well as some talk about ideas which take things in a different direction from time to time.

 

Speaking of tangents I am suprised that the topic of Taylor x Lily hasn't popped up yet.