Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

[Requiem_Jeer]

....alright, how the fuck did Taylor know that Glaistig Uaine could take the Butcher ghosts without stealing the powers before ever laying eyes on her with Sorcerer's sight? After this was shown I find it hard to believe that she'd have been ready to accept their permanent residence in her head.

Click to shrink...

She gets quite a bit of insight into the nature of powers. Seeing the Butcher entities as separate beings probably gave her the idea. Further, while the willpower replenishment is unpleasant, it's a manageable solution.

Between these things, it's easy to imagine Taylor would be willing to risk it. She's not exactly known for having good ideas.

In other words, she made a wild ass guess and it worked out.

 

[DigBickBaddy]

....alright, how the fuck did Taylor know that Glaistig Uaine could take the Butcher ghosts without stealing the powers before ever laying eyes on her with Sorcerer's sight? After this was shown I find it hard to believe that she'd have been ready to accept their permanent residence in her head.

Click to shrink...

Hope, luck, a prayer? Or just the knowledge that the Butcher's whining would be irritating to her viewpoint.

 

[Amberion]

....alright, how the fuck did Taylor know that Glaistig Uaine could take the Butcher ghosts without stealing the powers before ever laying eyes on her with Sorcerer's sight? After this was shown I find it hard to believe that she'd have been ready to accept their permanent residence in her head.

Click to shrink...

My guess? She didn't. She hoped.

 

[zapking5]

I bet Taylor breaks Marquis out to fulfill Amy's soul price, which would then fulfill Marquis' soul price.

I am impatient for the eventual reveal that all of Taylor's identities are the same person. Perhaps breaking out of the Birdcage will be the catalyst that lets people piece things together.

Also, if people are listening to Taylor and Ciara's conversation, then wouldn't they have overheard the "We suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery" line? Allowing them to guess that Quicksilver is a power copier?

 

[queermunist]

I am impatient for the eventual reveal that all of Taylor's identities are the same person. Perhaps breaking out of the Birdcage will be the catalyst that let's people piece things together.

Click to shrink...

I think it'll be just before the final conflict.

Something like; Bonesaw clones her and Jack gets the idea to have her study every previous member of the Slaughterhouse so she's powered up for the final conflict, and then uses the final reveal to undermine OG Taylor's ability to work with the heroes.

 

[Dakkah]

Just done a bit of rereading and just noticed how much more humane/emphatic/quick-thinking she's gotten ever since she got Cuffs power.

Guess the trauma and lack of sleep really was doing a number on her.

 

[R.A.G.]

....alright, how the fuck did Taylor know that Glaistig Uaine could take the Butcher ghosts without stealing the powers before ever laying eyes on her with Sorcerer's sight? After this was shown I find it hard to believe that she'd have been ready to accept their permanent residence in her head.

Click to shrink...

Pretty sure that was a lucky guess/deduction, what she was probably planning was leaning GU's power so she could tear them out of herself and under her control.

 

[Ruy]

Why take E when you can just soak in feel-good Master effects?

Click to shrink...

E??

sacred kamalah's inhalation.

Click to shrink...

Spirit-Chaining Doom

Click to shrink...

What do those do??

 

[zapking5]

Something like; Bonesaw clones her and Jack gets the idea to have her study every previous member of the Slaughterhouse so she's powered up for the final conflict, and then uses the final reveal to undermine OG Taylor's ability to work with the heroes.

Click to shrink...

It's already confirmed that Blasto's fate won't be revealed because that would reveal whether or not Clone Taylor's interlude is canon. And Bonesaw doing S9000 style stuff would confirm that Blasto was alive for her to use, meaning that the S9000 arc can't happen in this story.

Unless the author makes an OC cape for Bonesaw to use in place of Blasto or something.

 

[PepeTheFrog]

In the end you choose to be content with 'only' gaining fifteen powers out of this - one of them the greatest in the world, and the other fourteen with no studying time whatsoever. You're not complaining.

Click to shrink...

Out of these 15:

Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance

Click to shrink...

Which of these is the "best in the world"?

 

[ses]

E??




What do those do??

Click to shrink...

Ecstacy. Molly. MDMA. Da drugs.


Sacred Kamilla's Inhalation lets you breathe in and any nearby corpses disintegrate, and you get the ability to breathe in space/underwater/ect for a while for each one. At Essence 5 it upgrades to let you kill zombies with it. It's... use-impaired to say the least. Only 8 hours of training time so it can't be that.

Spirit-Chaining Doom makes it so that whenever you kill a spirit, you can leave them at their last hitpoint instead and bind them to serve you for a year and a day. If powers and spirits are the same for the purposes of Fairy Queen eating the Butcher's possession, she might be able to Spirit-Chaining Doom people's fairies. It's not completely permanent and she needs to kill them personally unlike Glaistig, but it'd still be way bonkers amazing if it worked like that. You're not supposed to be able to use that charm on ghosts by RAW, but soul questions are a bit fucky wucky in this fic due to cosmology differences. (Also it's not like Abyssals don't have a million easier ways to enslave people's ghosts than a high level Occult charm. That's just overkill.)

Which of these is the "best in the world"?

Click to shrink...

Best in the world is Fairy Queen's, plus the 14 from Butcher that she didn't need training time. 14 + 1 = 15

 

[TheOverlordOfKittens]

"Oh, she's doing well insofar as one of the greatest capes of a generation has come into her power, and established a demesne where the greatest of heroes fear to tread. Tell me, oh Marquis, does that make one happy?"

I may be dumb, but what is this phrase referring to?

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

This is nice, Two says.

AURGHARHGHGRHGRRRH! One says, but it is distant, muted.

You know what would be really nice? Twelve says. Murdering the helpless. That guy in front of us would never see it coming.

You're next, you tell him dreamily, nodding your head in time to the music. God, this feels so good. You haven't felt this good since you stopped sleeping. Just, letting all your worries drift away. Giving up control. Who even cares if it goes wrong and the Butcher comes out and you start killing bystanders? You're in the Birdcage, it's not as if they'd be missed.

---

Over the next week you fall into a routine of boredom and tea parties, and your need for self-harm diminishes along with the number of voices in your head.

Click to shrink...

Getting drugged always went so badly before the Bridcage. Guess drugs really are best in a controlled environment.

Wonder if any of the butchers will be able to bargain their way out of this one.. or perhaps, be bargained? One of them was with the biggest gang, so a hostage exchange could be arranged to sweeten the retrieval deal.

 

[KyleDaScourge]

"Oh, she's doing well insofar as one of the greatest capes of a generation has come into her power, and established a demesne where the greatest of heroes fear to tread. Tell me, oh Marquis, does that make one happy?"

I may be dumb, but what is this phrase referring to?

Click to shrink...

Amy has started actually using her powers for more than just healing and taken control of... a park if I remember correctly, which she has biomodified into a crazy super-jungle which is suspected to eat anyone aside from her who wanders inside.

 

[Daniel Snuts]

....alright, how the fuck did Taylor know that Glaistig Uaine could take the Butcher ghosts without stealing the powers before ever laying eyes on her with Sorcerer's sight? After this was shown I find it hard to believe that she'd have been ready to accept their permanent residence in her head.

Click to shrink...

In other words, she made a wild ass guess and it worked out.

Click to shrink...

She does know more about how powers function than every other human in the multiverse combined at this point. She made a fairly sedate ass guess, and it worked out. I'd say that it was a considerably better plan than canon Taylor's "I'll have Panacea fingerpaint all over my brain and hope that I randomly become ALL POWERFUL."

Speaking of brilliant plans, if you called that Willpower-Enhancing Spirit would counter the voices I guess you can have half a cookie, since that was ½ of Taylor's plan. It's the half without any chocolate chips on it, though.

Also, if people are listening to Taylor and Ciara's conversation, then wouldn't they have overheard the "We suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery" line? Allowing them to guess that Quicksilver is a power copier?

Click to shrink...

They think the imitation is just the 14 'fairies' Quicksilver 'collected', and is now sharing.

"Oh, she's doing well insofar as one of the greatest capes of a generation has come into her power, and established a demesne where the greatest of heroes fear to tread. Tell me, oh Marquis, does that make one happy?"

I may be dumb, but what is this phrase referring to?

Click to shrink...

The Grove of Flesh:
Formerly Captain's Park, the area was transformed into its current state by the biokinetic Panacea

Click to shrink...

Panacea claimed some territory. People are shitting their pants at her true power. That was not her soul price.

 

[zharshoul]

No Cauldron Member interlude figuring out that she can copy variants of powers from her talk with FQ? Or did that happen earlier, I been skimming lately.

 

[zapking5]

No Cauldron Member interlude figuring out that she can copy variants of powers from her talk with FQ? Or did that happen earlier, I been skimming lately.

Click to shrink...

Contessa seems to know, but doesn't want Alexandria to figure it out. Maybe she told Doctor Mother, maybe not.

Unless Taylor is actually a thinker blind spot or something and Contessa's communication skills are so bad that she actually meant to convey that with her shrug.

 

[Daniel Snuts]

"We wonder, what you tribute shall you present Us with now?" Glaistig Uaine says conversationally. In addition to the ever-grinning tea provider, today's guests are an orange-clad faerie who has a burning, double-bladed axe for a head, and one whose entire torso is a heart, pumping grayish-pink fluid through translucent artery-limbs.

That's the rub, isn't it? You only had fourteen faeries to spare, but her power is (unsurprisingly) one of the tricky ones. You'll need another week at least, perhaps two - the Faerie Queen does tend to savor her tea all afternoon, but enjoys her privacy otherwise. And while you didn't have a contract as such, the terms of the deal were quite clear.

"There is a wonder I could offer you, unique in all the world. I must admit I am loath to give it up, but perhaps if a permanent invitation was offered..?"

She frowns. "Permanence is no small thing, for beings such as us. If We agree, will We find you still availing yourself of Our hospitality three millennia hence?"

"I would not stay longer than a year and a day." You won't stay for a month and a day, but some instinct prompts you to bargain for 366 days exactly. Oh, you'd love nothing more than to stay all year and extract a power from each of her faeries in turn... but the Endbringers won't sit around and wait for that.

"We would find that acceptable."

"Would you shield us from the sight of the Dragon, fair queen? I fear to bring forth treasure beneath its avaricious eyes."

"Treasure? You believe that a mere trinket could equal the value of not one, but of several hundred faeries? Be careful how you answer, Quill of Heaven."

"Certainly, you could argue that a hundred faeries are a hundred times more valuable than a single faerie. But is a throng not faceless by its very nature? Could you honestly say you love each of your charges equally and for their own sake, without regard given to their usefulness?"

She is quiet for several seconds, pursing her lips as if tasting your words. "We have chosen to find your impertinence refreshing. We hope this wonder of yours will not disappoint." The axe-head faerie is replaced by a pale woman whose cape and fingers are fluttering moth wings, and the world around you fades into featureless gray. "There are no eyes upon us."

A weapon appears from nowhere (actually, from Elsewhere) and falls into your hand. You spin it around on your palm and offer it to her, hilt first.

She examines the golden dagger. "A poisoned gift, like the one you gave the Dragon? Is that why you would shield yourself from its gaze?"

So she knows everyone you are, no use pretending you took the knife from Taylor's body. "A gift given in friendship, later betrayed. Do you name it poison, that the blade refuses to turn on its smith?"

"Well spoken. Since it is offered in friendship, We shall accept it in the same spirit, and may it turn in Our hand as well should we betray the sentiment." She takes the knife from you. "Although," she adds, "We would be quite displeased to find Our trinket no longer unique. We are well aware that you could gather the resources to produce more, should you wish it so."

"All the resources," you agree, "except time, the most precious one of all."

A faint frown, barely visible, crosses her face as she tries to work out how you caused it to appear from nothing. But your brand of tinkertech interfaces directly with an attuned soul. You're not sure how much of this her equivalent of sorcerer's sight lets her understand, because after a moment she decides to brute-force the problem with an extra-dimensional storage faerie, rather than attempt to usurp the attunement itself.

---

From then on you spend all your tea parties beneath the gray shroud, so that you may converse freely about your non-Quicksilver exploits, and so that you may amuse her by letting her study your powers in turn.

You benefit as well, because during one of your demonstrations you accidentally figure out how to activate Siberian's power: One of your Butcher powers, that you previously though did nothing except make you punch better, also incidentally changes the nature of your essence(?) into something that allows you the become one with the void(?).

What you're saying is that a bunch of soul-magic bullshit that you don't fully understand happened, a flash of un-light darkened the room as you struck the conjured training dummy, and your hand passed right through it without resistance. Further testing reveals that A) it does indeed make you invulnerable as well, B) rather than giving you stripes it makes your body so perfectly black you can't even make out its contours, appearing as a silhouette in the air, and C) this transformation respects clothing, so you don't even end up naked afterwards!

How ironic for Siberian's power.

Even better, the un-light it produces is exactly like that of Evil Taylor's pact-sealing power, and you don't mean that it rots and corrodes your surroundings. Okay, it does that too, but the point is that since it's has the same effect on your essence(?) as pact-sealing, you can now trigger Lung's power without shaking hands with anyone!

This whole trip was already worth it, and you don't even have the Faerie Queen's power yet.

---

You have the Faerie Queen's power. A version of it, anyway. You just need to figure out what went wrong (because something usually goes wrong) and what dumb limitations you're stuck with this time. Still, you first take a moment to admire the beauty of it, an intricate filigree of gold in the constellation of your soul. Think only of the beauty, and not all the grief it's going to cause you momentarily.

Your attention returns to the real world to find the Faire Queen smiling at you sardonically. "Are Our victuals so unsatisfying to you, that you must seek headier fare?" she asks.

"You know what's wrong with it," you say, resigned.

"We watched it form over these past weeks, did we not?" She dismisses the privacy field and calls for a minion. "Bring us Overconfidante," she tells them.

A while later the minion returns, trailing a healthy distance behind a fairly nondescript Caucasian man - presumably Overconfidante. The minion stays behind in the doorway, and the man approaches. The Faerie Queen raises the grey barrier around the three of you the moment he gets close.

"Esper is probably a Simurgh bomb," you say. "I know this because I'm Esper." Wait, what?

"My real name is Ciara O'Rourke," Glaistig Uaine responds.

"I killed Shadow Stalker. It was an accident, but the kidnapping, torture and rape was on purpose?" you ask, your brow furrowing.

A faerie appears, pale blue and with a small cloud hovering above it, snowing on its head and shoulders. It leans forward, and the cloud pivots along with it to touch Glaistig's - Ciara's - brow. "Vexing, is it not?" she says. "His mere presence makes people reveal their secrets."

"Jews control the media," you agree before the cloud touches you as well, and the compulsion fades. You shrug at her raised eyebrow. "One does not spend months in Empire 88 without picking up on certain facts that, while not strictly speaking secret, must be held as such in polite company."

"Out of all Our subjects, this one's passing will be mourned the least." At her words, Overconfidante falls to his knees and starts begging for his life. Sensible. It won't work, but it wastes less energy than trying to run. "Now, what do your instincts tell you to do?"

You consider the crying mess in front of you, trying to feel something. "Nothing..?"

"Of course, how silly of Us," the Faerie Queen says, and kills him. Not with her death touch, but by shooting a laser beam through his forehead. She is saving his faerie for you, after all. "And now?"

You stare at his corpse, and- oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. Why!? What is wrong with you?

"They tell me to feast on his raw flesh," you say. With some difficulty, because you're already gagging.

"Just so," the Faerie Queen says. And then she says nothing more. Waiting.

You already know you're going to do it. It's what you came here for, after all. You screw your eyes shut, and with a burst of un-light give yourself a dragon's teeth. Then you kneel down by the body, and... feast?

No. It's not feasting, what you do. You force yourself to rip and tear, but it is no feast. It's horrible. There is no part of it that is not horrible. The metallic taste. The rubbery texture. The feeling of tearing flesh, the feeling of strands getting stuck in your teeth. Every moment is torture, that no one is inflicting on you but yourself. Every swallow is a battle not to throw up, that you fight over and over again. Because the alternative is not getting his power.

You finally know the answer to the question you asked so long ago: There is nothing you will not do for power. You don't even particularly want this one. You're doing this to prove to yourself that you can, so that you can do it again in the future. Oh yes, you'll do this again and again, you have no illusions about that. You have no idea how many people you will murder and eat because you won't take the time to study them, except that it is not zero.

This is exactly what you wanted. You did not approach the Faerie Queen in order to not murder people for their powers, to not rip away their very souls. And indeed, with every bite you feel something more than meat entering your being. You should hate yourself for that. You don't. What you really hate yourself for, is that you're not enough of a monster. The Faerie Queen kills with a touch, but not you. No, some subconscious part of you still held that stealing a soul was a monstrous act, and twisted the expression of her power to reflect that. You hate that the barest shreds of a conscience has made murder not easy.

Are you happy now? Now that you've forced yourself to so viscerally experience the horror of your actions? Because you must have known that it would not stop you. It never has. It never will.

Finally, finally you feel his power slotting into place, enough of his soul consumed to form a facsimile within yours. You turn your head away from your feast and puke. You puke and puke and puke, and it's even worse coming up than it was going down.

"Will you be leaving Our court, now that your desires are fulfilled?" the Faerie Queen asks, entirely unperturbed by your actions.

"Y-yeah," you say, standing up and wiping at your mouth. When you turn towards her she's holding out, of all things, a packet of prison-brand dental floss. You accept it. You floss the corpse-meat from your dragon fangs. With disgust, sure, but without horror. That part is done, over with. You've accepted that this is something you'll be doing from now on. That this is who you are. Will you puke the next time too? Probably. It matters not. It won't stop you.

You never thought you'd miss Five and the cravings he induced.

Your fellow monster cleans up the rest of the evidence while you floss.

"I'm going to need food and water," you say. "Five days' worth."

---

Spoiler: Faerie-Queen-o-vision

A power to rival that of my Lord, but quiescent? Truly, even the tiny glimpse of this 'Silver Desert' as she left is enough to repay any favors given. Never let it be said that she did not show me a wonder unique in all the world, regardless of what golden trinkets she offered.

Perhaps I shall explore it further, anon.

Spoiler: Director Olsen-o-vision

"It appears that the point is moot," the Chief Director says. "The Faerie Queen killed Quicksilver and disposed of her body."

I feel a stab of regret, if not grief - I did not know her except by her actions. "She did a great service to the world," I say, because it needs to be said. Even if the public will never know.

"What set her off this time?" Jameson asks.

"Presumably some secret Overconfidante made Quicksilver reveal," the Chief Director says. "By the time the cameras came back online, they were both gone."

===

Spoiler: Updated status

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
Ballistic: Crack the Sky
Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt
Murder Rat: Unstoppable Lunar Wound
Siberian: Void Avatar Prana
Animos: Soul-cleaving Wound
Cuff: Willpower-Enhancing Spirit
Shatterbird: Death of Obsidian Butterflies
Lizardtail: Halting the Scarlet Flow
Butcher: Agony of Unwise Adversity, Watchful Spider Stance, Surprise Anticipation Method, Twisting Spiteful Shaft, Scar-Writ Saga Shield, Loom Stride, Iron Kettle Body, Generalized Ammunition Technique, Terrifying Lust Infliction, Dark Messiah Form, Yeddim's-Back Method, Steadfast Yeddim Meditation, Increasing Strength Exercise, Accuracy Without Distance
Glaistig Uaine: Soul-Consuming Transcendence

Spoiler: A/N

Technically a status addendum:

Overconfidante: Analytical Modeling Intuition

But this charm will never be used. This is not the second plot-relevant OC, because it could have been anyone. That's the point.

Spoiler: Mechanics corner

Three millennia is roughly how long Glaistig Uaine will live, because that's how long it will take for Scion's batteries to run down - and roughly how long Taylor will live, because it also happens to be the life expectancy of a solar exalt.

Barring any unfortunate events, of course.

 

[Fernando]

Well then, about time she took a good look in the mirror.

At least we know now that she won't ever repent or regret what she does, as long as it's for more power and maybe possibly Fenrir.

 

[queermunist]

I almost forgot Taylor is a Nazi lol

No, some subconscious part of you still held that stealing a soul was a monstrous act, and twisted the expression of her power to reflect that. You hate that the barest shreds of a conscience has made murder not easy

Click to shrink...

I have a different interpretation.

Taylor is perpetually guilty for all the things she has done and knows she will do, so she hates herself and wants to suffer. The power to generate infinite willpower via self mutilation was the same thing.

 

[Seidr]

quick qn :doesn't adorjan give a charm that allows you to turn bodied into wind and consume them ,would that combo with soul consuming transandance or not ?

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

Technically a status addendum:

Overconfidante: Analytical Modeling Intuition

But this charm will never be used. This is not the second plot-relevant OC, because it could have been anyone. That's the point.

Click to shrink...

Never never? But it would be such a perfect addition to Taylor's Simurgh cosplay.

I almost forgot Taylor is a Nazi lol

I have a different interpretation.

Taylor is perpetually guilty for all the things she has done and knows she will do, so she hates herself and wants to suffer. The power to generate infinite willpower via self mutilation was the same thing.

Click to shrink...

I like that interpretation, but my money is on random chance or possibly a particularly aggressive form of shard-induced behavior modification. Taylor comes up with the worst reasons for charm translations after the fact because she's unhappy and deeply disturbed.

 

[ses]

Well. That was horrifying. Genuinely felt sick to my stomach and almost wanted to cry. I wanted to give Taylor a hug and tell her that she doesn't have to do this. There have been enough interactions with the sleeping Cecelyne at this point that I hope you go full fusion and have her become plot relevant now. I would have been fine ignoring it and not deepening the crossover beyond just an alt-power before but that's a lot of guns hanging over the fireplace at this point.

Three millennia is roughly how long Glaistig Uaine will live, because that's how long it will take for Scion's batteries to run down - and roughly how long Taylor will live, because it also happens to be the life expectancy of a solar exalt.

Click to shrink...

That's a very interesting way to word that considering people were asking questions about if Taylor might have a genuine Exaltation or not.

Technically a status addendum:

Overconfidante: Analytical Modeling Intuition

But this charm will never be used. This is not the second plot-relevant OC, because it could have been anyone. That's the point.

Click to shrink...

That's honestly a weird choice, I don't understand why you'd do that on a writing level. I don't think anyone would have counted it against you and it'd be OOC for her to never use a very useful thinker power when she literally ate a corpse while saying on screen she was doing it for the sake of power. I know the justifications for the choice, but idk it seems wrong to me.



Also, I'm not sure if this was an intentional joke?

What you're saying is that a bunch of soul-magic bullshit that you don't fully understand happened, a flash of un-light darkened the room as you struck the conjured training dummy, and your hand passed right through it without resistance. Further testing reveals that A) it does indeed make you invulnerable as well, B) rather than giving you stripes it makes your body so perfectly black you can't even make out its contours, appearing as a silhouette in the air, and C) this transformation respects clothing, so you don't even end up naked afterwards!

How ironic for Siberian's power.

Even better, the un-light it produces is exactly like that of Evil Taylor's pact-sealing power, and you don't mean that it rots and corrodes your surroundings. Okay, it does that too, but the point is that since it's has the same effect on your essence(?) as pact-sealing, you can now trigger Lung's power without shaking hands with anyone!

Click to shrink...

So you're saying she's now... an Ebon Dragon?

 

[tronax]

Probably someone already answered this, but... is there a comprehensive list of all the charms somewhere on the web? I repeatedly failed to google it.

 

[DigBickBaddy]

Soul-Consuming Transcendence
Consume a corpse that died in the past hour and gain his power. This stolen power lasts for (his Essence) days unless the user internalises it.

Probably someone already answered this, but... is there a comprehensive list of all the charms somewhere on the web? I repeatedly failed to google it.

Click to shrink...

There isn't a completely comprehensive one but http://ninjasensei.wikidot.com/ has some of them, but you'd need to reference it with this document https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1399162871711.pdf for what header it fits under.

 

[Dakkah]

That's honestly a weird choice, I don't understand why you'd do that on a writing level. I don't think anyone would have counted it against you and it'd be OOC for her to never use a very useful thinker power when she literally ate a corpse while saying on screen she was doing it for the sake of power. I know the justifications for the choice, but idk it seems wrong to me.

Click to shrink...

Guessing it's because she's missing the Prerequisite Charm: Factual Determination Analysis

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

Guessing it's because she's missing the Prerequisite Charm: Factual Determination Analysis

Click to shrink...

Taylor hasn't been held to charm prerequisites before, though.

That's honestly a weird choice, I don't understand why you'd do that on a writing level. I don't think anyone would have counted it against you and it'd be OOC for her to never use a very useful thinker power when she literally ate a corpse while saying on screen she was doing it for the sake of power. I know the justifications for the choice, but idk it seems wrong to me.

Click to shrink...

You consider the crying mess in front of you, trying to feel something. "Nothing..?"

Click to shrink...

You finally know the answer to the question you asked so long ago: There is nothing you will not do for power. You don't even particularly want this one. You're doing this to prove to yourself that you can, so that you can do it again in the future. Oh yes, you'll do this again and again, you have no illusions about that. You have no idea how many people you will murder and eat because you won't take the time to study them, except that it is not zero.

Click to shrink...

Part of it was presumably to make a specific point about Taylor's moral character.

Taylor might choose never to use that charm because she remembers it as a particularly degrading and horrific milestone in her life. I don't know if that's why it's off the list or if it's something mechanical. But, push come to shove, while Taylor is willing to refuse to use power for emotional reasons (i.e. Spirit-tied Pet), for emotional reasons she is unwilling to not take power.

Literally doesn't matter who it's from. It's not "I'll take it because they don't deserve it" or "I'll use it better" or "they abuse it" or "it's for the greater good", the only thing that truly matters in Taylor's heart is "I'll take it".

 

[Kennethil]

Perhaps I shall explore it further, anon

Click to shrink...

"Presumably some secret Overconfidante made Quicksilver reveal," the Chief Director says. "By the time the cameras came back online, they were both gone."

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For a moment I thought Glaistig Uaine went into the desert right after Taylor. I guess she has her own way out of the Birdcage and would visit Brockton Bay to take another look at the desert.

 

[Dakkah]

Taylor hasn't been held to charm prerequisites before, though.

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Honestly not a clue* Just figured it was for the same reason she couldn't use Sibby's charm or Newters vision plug. (AKA Missing a piece of the puzzel.)

*I've never played Exalted

 

[ses]

Part of it was presumably to make a specific point about Taylor's moral character.

Taylor might choose never to use that charm because she remembers it as a particularly degrading and horrific milestone in her life. I don't know if that's why it's off the list or if it's something mechanical. But, push come to shove, while Taylor is willing to refuse to use power for emotional reasons (i.e. Spirit-tied Pet), for emotional reasons she is unwilling to not take power.

Literally doesn't matter who it's from. It's not "I'll take it because they don't deserve it" or "I'll use it better" or "they abuse it" or "it's for the greater good", the only thing that truly matters in Taylor's heart is "I'll take it".

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She's not going to use it because Snuts has a rule about canon parahumans, but there were no canon characters from Glaistig's cellblock except Bakuda, who had obviously been butterflied away. Like, I get the arguments for how it can be in-character, but the fact that it's all but explicitly stated that if it had been a canon parahuman available there wouldn't have been an issue using it makes it not really work for me.

That said, good job I didn't notice the "Nothing...?" line being a dig at her looking at the guy begging for his life and feeling nothing. That totally wooshed over my head.