The Interesting Thing About Masumi Is That For All That Her Condition Is Tragic, The Story Doesn't Pull

i wiah we saw grue operating solo at some point bc itd be so funny to see him blanket a building in darkness, walk in, steal stuff and walk out with no one able to do a thing about it

controversial opinion: i really like when worm characters have crisies about the whole "alien supercomputer is in my brain and subconsciously influencing me, i can't trust my own mind" thing BUT i think that it takes away from worm's theme of how trauma affects people on a deep level if shards are ACTUALLY seriously interfering with how people act.

The following tinkers are all given 2 months to create a basketball team of 5-9 players. These teams have to be entirely made of their creations.

The only limitations are everything has to be bipedal and have a vaguely humanoid shape, cannot have more than 8 limbs (tails count), and cannot be above 7 foot tall.

They then do a tournament. Assume that those that can't explicitly create drones (i.e mannequin) can turn existing stuff into drones. So mannequin could create a drone version of his current weird body as a 'player'.

Directly attacking other players is not allowed but indirectly is. Any damage is repaired between matches. Distorting the field by doing things such as creating acid pools is allowed, so long as the hoop itself is still accessible. Blocking the hoop in any way is not permitted. The ball must be accessible at all times - no teleporting it to alternate dimensions. No teleporting in general, and ball modification is not permitted. Flight or wall climbing is not permitted.

Anything else goes.

ok Taylor there's about a billion other ways you could have disseminated that cure to her. you could have had a bug coat itself in your sweat and then fly into her mouth when she was talking or something and you wouldn't have had to risk getting close enough for her to seriously injure or murder you. you just wanted an excuse to kiss the hot feral doggirl you've been engaging in toxic yuri with for the last 20 chapters

So far The Power Fantasy has largely been an excellent execution of exactly what you would have expected from the previews which does mute the effect a little.

Then Issue #4 dropped and it's as at least as heavily telegraphed as anything that came before but this time that doesn't stop it hitting as hard as possible at all.

It's one of the most horrible scenarios imaginable. Your powers go out of control when your emotions get too negative and when that happens millions die.

Nobody can ever be too honest when it would risk that happening. You can't trust anything someone says to you. You can't develop any type of meaningful relationship with someone. Your emotional, artistic and moral development is stunted because nobody can ever confront you with upsetting truths. You can't even blame anyone because it's completely correct for them to instrumentalise you and to turn every interaction they have with you into managing you.

10/10 I've been screaming internally whenever I think about Masumi since her issue dropped.

heavy power fantasy is so cool i wish i could crush my enemies into meat orbs

Bug Porn

Regent *exasperated*: Will Taylor please stop with the bug porn!

Taylor *from behind a bug filled aquarium*: It's not bug porn! They're mating because I need more!

Regent: That's exactly what a bug porn lover would say!

Aisha: Hey, we don't kinkshame in this house

Taylor: Not a kink

Lisa: Yeah, leave TayTay alone. Autistic have hobbies too.

Taylor: Not a Hobby

Regent: She needs to be stopped

Taylor: This energy isn't good for them! It took me forever to convince this many to mate!

Brian: Convince them?

Regent: Are you saying you respectfully asked the spiders to have sex?

Aisha: I too love consent

Taylor *groaning and hissing, too frustrated to properly communicate*

Rachel *aggressively body tackling everyone away*: She wants to be left alone!

I'm not actually sure he made her those eggs, I think maybe he had a cult member do it, but this sure was fun to draw.

behold! low effort comic recreation of one of my fav parts of the gala fight! didn't feel like coloring, shading ect, but i still like it.

I really love how Taylor can either hold a grudge forever or have it disappear alarmingly fast, and it all depends on if she acts on her anger at first. Like she forgives and is willing to work with Sophia after the bullying, Lung after he tried to kill her, Rachel after she tried to fuck her over, Defiant after the everything. Like most people wouldn't forgive all those acts and trust those people afterwards, but she hardly even considers otherwise because she believes that people should work together against unbeatable foes despite their differences and when she fights alongside someone she kind of just forgets the things they've done.

When she acts on something though, when she acts immediately in an irreversible way the people she lashes out against are immediately marked as 100% irredeemable evil bastards in her mind. Alexandria, she doesn't regret the murder in the slightest despite the fact that it had consequences and Alexandria isn't a being of pure evil. Since she killed her she has to convince herself that it was right and just and that she doesn't regret it, which erases any nuance Alexandria had in her mind that would lead to her forgiving her. She does this again a buncha times throughout the book. Against the C53s in the Cauldron raid she thinks about how everyone in the crowd could be innocent, forced to go along with the mob out of fear that they'll be next and with no chance or choice of getting away and being peaceful. But then she dangles a disintegration knife into all their faces to kill Mantellum and suddenly they're all monsters who delighted in torturing innocents and all voluntary members of the mob and none of them deserved any mercy because they're Evil Bad People, so she'll never lose sleep or forgive them.

Aisha points something like this out in 29.5 actually, she says her and Alec had an argument over it because Alec was annoyed at how quickly and easily Taylor stopped being mad at her bullies and didn't want revenge. I think Alec equated Sophia to Heartbreaker in his mind because they caused both their respective triggers, and he can't fathom the idea of someone not wanting to slowly torture and kill their Heartbreaker to make them feel an ounce of the pain he felt, and honestly Alec is the normal one here I think? I think most parahumans would get revenge on the people who caused their triggers in a heartbeat if given an opportunity, and honestly poor Alec imagine trying to understand and make sense of your dulled emotions and Taylor Hebert is there as the worst example ever with her weirdo decisions. Aisha defended Taylor and her choice to not get revenge but she still got revenge for Alec because she hold grudges for herself and other people.

Letting go of hatred to someone isn't something other people can really do like Taylor. Going back to Aisha, she fucking despised Bonesaw during Gold Morning and hated how she got a redemption, but Taylor was fully willing to work with someone who sawed her skull open for the greater good when it would be completely fair for her to never want to get help from her. Idk what my point is here I just think it's really neat that unless someone is her enemy right then and there or unless she already killed that person and sorted them into the Bad Person Category, Taylor is willing to forgive anything and everything to make sure everyone works together.