copperrose98:
Reading through your live blog so far made me decide to go ahead and reread Worm, and now I’ve go imaginary commentary from you running through my head while reading, trying to predict how you will react to surprises and developments when you get there in your live blog. It’s involuntary but I’m enjoying it. Can’t wait to see how off base or spot on my imaginary you is lol
Ahaha, that’s awesome. Best of luck with that, and I hope imaginary me doesn’t get too annoying! 😉
I don’t think we were explicitly told whether Aegis feels pain, but it is obvious that he either doesn’t feel it at all or feels it to a much lower degree than normal. Hm, I actually wonder, what of the two possibilities is more interesting. In what situations inability to feel pain may be a downside?…
Ah yeah, you’re right – “no pain” was my interpretation of “his body just takes it” back in 3.3, followed immediately by “he has no reason to hold back”, which I said is exactly what pain is.
And that last thing is exactly why no pain can be a downside – in some situations it may be best to hold back, and pain is a reminder to do that. Not to mention the fact that even with an eldritch biology like Aegis’, there’s got to be a limit to how much even he can take. If he can’t feel pain, even scaled down, it’ll be much harder for him to recognize when he’s about to hit that limit.
So, Aegis’ main power is perfect for someone who feels no pain because he can actually deal with not avoiding damage, and conversely having no pain means his body won’t involuntarily hold him back, but even he must have a limit and he can’t tell when he’s reaching it.
stranger–12:
So glad you are enjoying it, and are maintaining a non-taylor-rationalizations viewpoint. The inertia of her inner justifications conflicting with your view as a reader are appreciated. What do you think of her thought processes? Across the board, her fighting style and how she thinks it through, her ways of dealing with people, how she sees herself and others, what impressions do you have?
Taylor is a brilliantly rational and resourceful girl, but she uses both things in very questionable ways.
For the most part, I like her rationality and the way she uses it in the heat of battle, but she’s got an enormous flaw in that she trusts others too little and herself too much.
She tries to be moral (by standards set by herself), but she’s big on rationalizing away her shadier choices as things she “had to” do, and even then she sometimes takes that flimsy rationalization a bit further.
Take what she did to Clockblocker as an example. She “had to” fill his outfit with bugs because he was freezing all the other ones. She “had to” fill his nostrils with bugs to stop him from going after Bitch and the dogs. But did she really have to fill his mouth? His ears? His eyelids? No.
She thinks that the gruesome treatment she gave Clockblocker was something she “had to” do so that she doesn’t go to jail for the robbery she “had to” do to find out who the Undersiders’ boss is so she can turn him and the other Undersiders in. Another thing she “has to” do.
And ultimately, it seems to come back to not a desire to do good, but to be accepted and praised by the big time supers, the Protectorate – whom she fangirls over, with the exception of Armsmaster after he called her out on her bullshit.
She assumes that others are only looking out for themselves (Mr. Gladly, Armsmaster… hey, sudden crack theory, what if Mr. Gladly is Armsmaster), rarely stops to think about whether her preconceived notions (about that or other things) are correct, and doesn’t allow anyone to help her.
She sees a world where she stands alone as the sensible and rational mind who knows what needs to be done, and that is her biggest flaw.
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