OwO

RedNoise - Yesterday at 9:48 PM
Alright, on my laptop now. If Taylor, who pre canon had a bit of a roleswap with Emma and was slowly swayed to Sophia's POV via a slow drip of going from "Justifying hurting criminals" to full "Justifying hurting your former friend to get her to sink or swim", but retained most of her personality through the same magic that makes it so characters are relatively similar outside of the divergence point in AU's, what would her type of bullying be likely to be? What I thought of was pretty similar to her caping style, IE a heavy focus on causing fear and, as a means to cause more fear via not overusing empty threats, pain.
profDEADPOOL - Yesterday at 9:54 PM
So like
She was in the alley instead?
RedNoise - Yesterday at 9:55 PM
Trying to think of a good substitute, but a similar "Ingratiate her to Shadow" event, yeah.
profDEADPOOL - Yesterday at 9:57 PM
hm... it's hard to  picture but fear is prolly her favored tool rather than embarrassment or w/e(edited)
RedNoise - Yesterday at 10:00 PM
Considering making it something filth related, like Merchants trying to drug her so I can thematically swap the Triggers/SS Social Link events.
profDEADPOOL - Yesterday at 10:01 PM
Don't think the Merchants did that before Levi
They were mucho smol until post Levi
And forcibly drugging teens would bring heat they can't deal with until a post Levi world
Now: Could it be a random crazy? Absolutely.
But it won't be a Merchants thing in the way the alley was an ABB thing
RedNoise - Yesterday at 10:08 PM
Thank you!
🔔BeaconHill🔔 - Yesterday at 10:46 PM
RedNoise: :bulba~1: link this when u done, sounds like a nifty AU
RedNoise - Yesterday at 11:37 PM
Was AFK, but it occurs to me that kind of flipping past traumatic event could keep a similar dynamic, IE Anette survives because of Shadowstalker, while Alan dies in the alley because instead of SS, there's a late police arrival. Thus keeping the bully having both parents alive, while the Protag has only the one parent who wasn't the one making more of the money. Could also lead to Emma missing an eye, which is very bullyable on account of being a disability while disrupting the bullying defence of "she's attractive."
🔔BeaconHill🔔 - Yesterday at 11:43 PM
I do think it's a pretty natural thing to do
Taylor's mind, post-trigger, seems to trend in much the same directions Sophia's did, probably because they both have bits of alien in their heads that like conflict(edited)
It might be harder for a pre-trigger Taylor, but of course, it doesn't have to be pre-trigger – this would be a sensible thing to break symmetry for
RedNoise - Yesterday at 11:49 PM
Yeah, I did consider letting Taylor trigger, either with her canon power via getting lost and ending up in a beehive at nature camp, or a less canon power via a failed vigilantism attempt that SS interrupts from ending in a dead Taylor, with them both ending up in the Wards either way.
If only because of her power being fairly important for her personality.
🔔BeaconHill🔔 - Yesterday at 11:50 PM
what are you having, trigger-wise?
RedNoise - Yesterday at 11:52 PM
Trying to think of things that fit what's been established as Taylor's "Style", while being enough to trigger. Some kind of fake kidnapping/hurting her at home when she thinks she's safe seems likely.
🔔BeaconHill🔔 - Yesterday at 11:55 PM
oh, are you triggering Emma without Taylor? :open_mouth: :thonk~1:
One thing I am curious about is, I don't know why Taylor would want to go after Emma in particular here
Emma did it because she feared Taylor was stronger than her and so wanted to grind her down to prove otherwise
this sounds decidedly unTaylory to me, even post-trigger
(My recollection is the sink or swim was fanon, but I might be wrong...)
(so I don't imagine Sophia would super care)
RedNoise - Today at 12:04 AM
Because she didn't do anything in the alley, so she got her eye cut out, so at first the attempts to scare/hurt her are to get her to react in the way she "should" as opposed to having breakdowns, and as it goes on she just gets more frustrated, and at some point it's running on Shards and Sunk Cost Fallacy where the justification falls apart if she stops.
Also the first source I can find for that philosophy is basically "Anyone who isn't vicious enough should stay in their place, which is very much "Beneath Sophia." Not sure how accurate that is though.
🔔BeaconHill🔔 - Today at 12:06 AM
I mean
My read of Sophia (again, could be wrong) is she wouldn't care about Taylor particularly
and Emma would be terrified and broken were Taylor to swim, she really didn't want that(edited)
(speaking about canon)
Taylor has no particular reason to have a yen for Emma – if anything, I think she'd react like Sophia and stop caring
unless Emma did something specific to trigger that treatment
... though actually, losing an eye but surviving might not be the sort of thing that would render Sophia ill disposed toward you
RedNoise - Today at 12:14 AM
Taylor probably tried to keep being her friend, but every time Emma reacted badly to whatever stimuli, it got a bit more annoying as she got closer to Sophia, until she started pushing her to deal with it more and more aggressively, with her possibly just giving up after the Trigger event, where instead of ceding that she was wrong for trying to scare her into action, she just decided that Emma was hopeless.