#taylorpinions

[archon-maenad]

every time I imagine dropping riley or taylor into somewhere like my hero academia I can't help but giggle because that post about it being essentially the same as introducing an invasive predator to an unprepared ecosystem was 100% correct. every post-gm crossover is the equivalent of putting a feral lion in the rabbit enclosure and I love it. catch me out here cackling as I take notes on how many characters from other fandoms need therapy after exposure to riley's brilliant insanity or tay's unhinged escalation.

[archon-maenad]

wake up babe new thought exercise just dropped! if worm characters became protagonists of slay the princess how would each of them shape said princess with their thought patterns?

this could be done with characters from any fandom really, but I came up with the idea from imagining taylor hebert reacting to being told that "there's a world ending threat in the basement over there can you please kill it thanks!" with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

girlie would be suspicious as hell about everything, from the situation to the narrator to the voice of the hero. but she wouldn't dip from this premise because she's taylor hebert (don't think I need to elaborate on that point).

she'd take the knife because better to have and not need and all, and would come face-to-face in that basement with a cynical manipulative bitch. the narrator's warning about the princess' scheming nature ironically enough ensured she'd be someone tay would never underestimate, since the blend of "pretty primadonna at the top of a hierarchy" and "prone to lying to get her way without a care for who gets hurt" obviously reminds her of emma.

the narrator is very happy that his protagonist refuses to trust the princess. the narrator is very unhappy that his protagonist believes the princess to be the most insidious kind of dangerous.

I think taylor would end up on the adversary route. she fully believes herself able to defeat the princess because tay knows she is ruthless and strong enough, but without her bugs or even armor her mortality is stark in her mind. so when she decides to kill the princess it ends up with both of them dead after an actual fight.

meanwhile lisa, and rachel, and a lot of characters probably, would end up on the stranger route by nopeing right the fuck outta the situation and continuing even after the narrator turns them back around towards the princess. lisa because she can tell it's making the narrator annoyed even as he tries to hide it, and rachel because she's plain stubborn. since you only need to turn around three times they wouldn't give up before going to the next chapter.

since the stranger is a railroaded path (the cheev you get from completing it literally references "the illusion of choice" lol) both of their following actions, while different, would still end up in the same place.

does anyone else have enough context for more interesting explorations of this concept? I'm caught up on the fact that pretty much every character from worm would take the blade, cause they come from a world where not carrying a weapon even if you don't plan to use it is a dumbass decision. and that cuts off half the paths available, admittedly making this less interesting.

[archon-maenad]

a fic I'm reading had taylor being questioned in a mildly interrogating manner and she immediately began preparations to rappel down the skyscraper she was in because she knew she wouldn't be able to kill the hero who was confronting her. the mental monologue breaking down the situation was so quintessentially tay that I lost my goddamn mind. she is so so so so fucked in the head and I can't get enough of it

[archon-maenad]

taylor hebert finding out that the bijuu can be reasoned with and don't attack unprovoked, and that her new world made enemies of their endbringer-equivalents anyways, is the moment she truly learned to hate hashirama senju.

oh taylor had already been angry at him. watching people in konoha take so much for granted, watching child soldiers be glorified by indoctrinated masses, it made taylor incandescent with righteous fury. and hashirama, as the founder of the village, was definitely not spared that wrath.

taylor had also already learned to hate the elemental countries and whole shinobi system. this entire fucking place was one normalized atrocity after another, and she is not the kind of girl who could look upon such a tableau with only dislike.

but hating hashirama senju specifically, with visceral ferocity, didn't come until later.

upon learning that humanity here could have just left the bijuu alone and how hashirama decided to change that... taylor wants to weep and scream all at once at the fact that this world could have left their fucking endbringers alone. she would have done unspeakable things to give earth bet such a luxury. she is far from alone in that conviction.

yes, madara may have enslaved one of the bijuu first, breaking the shaky neutrality between them and humanity in a way out of hashirama's control, but he was defeated. the kyuubi had been freed. konoha could have had the gratitude of a goddamn endbringer! could have maybe even allied with them! at the least could have had an official non-aggression treaty written up!

but hashirama senju instead decided to enslave the kyuubi all over again, before hunting down each of their siblings to do the same. as a jinchuuriki taylor is now a monument to the shodaime's hubris, an embodiment of the fact that he decided to make humanity an enemy that could spell their downfall.

earth bet would have sacrificed any space program for the simurgh to never leave orbit, would have evacuated any city if behemoth simply slumbered beneath it, would have done anything to never hear those warning sirens again. the idea of rejecting peace with endbringers and instead wronging them in a way that they'd be right to never forgive is anathema to taylor's core.

and so she hates hashirama senju, hates him with the kind of intensity you only get from the pressure at the deepest depths of the ocean.

years later taylor will manage to hijack the enemy's mass resurrection jutsu, successfully bolstering her side with almost every famous shinobi from history. hashirama, as the first hokage, is one of the handful brought to the war table next to her.

if taylor hebert were not a child of earth bet with respect for the truce in her bones, she would have torn off his undead face then and there with her bare fucking hands. it is still a close damn thing, because hashirama is an insult to the very concept that now shields him. hell, grouping him in with them as "enemies I will work with for the greater good" might be an insult to the nazis and serial killers she once faced endbringers alongside.

taylor does it anyways, because with a goddess on their doorstep they need all the help they can get, and she has never been a girl who would value the means over the end result.

humanity wins, eventually. that's not much of a spoiler for this au, of course taylor hebert defeats another deity. and as soon as kaguya is dust, she informs hashirama that she hopes he will rot in hell for the longest possible eternity and that she will ensure he goes down in history as the man who nearly doomed them all, before releasing the technique keeping him on this place of existence.

[archon-maenad]

Your Taylor Uzumaki AU got me thinking and now I can't get the idea of her interacting with the Aburame clan out of my head. I can just picture her giving unsolicited advice on insect swarm tactics and strategy to her classmate Shino, contributing further to her reputation as being absolutely unhinged. "Why is this literal child telling me the most efficient way to drown an enemy combatant in highly venomous insects. How does she know things that should be Aburame clan secrets. What the fuck."

had this idea awhile ago of girlie offhandedly mentioning to shino that "ofc you're the most powerful kid in our classroom, you can just have your insects eat the uchiha's eyes in a real fight" and if I ever put together a sidestory bundle of alternate povs that's gonna be chapter 1 cause y'all know everyone else is going What The Actual Fuck??????????????

there's also the Emotional^tm potential of tay being so, so damn jealous of shino. if she were born an aburame she would have had the backing of a noble clan, bugs of her own again, and none of the consequences that come with being a jinchuuriki. it's a very pretty fantasy and therefore a very depressing thought.

bonus au of an au where lisa is also reborn as karin, is in the stands of the exams watching shino fight, and when one of her teammates makes a comment about "just bugs? lol tf he is gonna do?" she loses her shit cackling. because not a single mcfucking person from her first life would have ever, EVER used the phrase "just bugs" after seeing the aftermath of skitter's existence.

lisa then proceeds to gleefully terrify everyone around her by listing every single war crime her former teammate did with "just" insect control, because she wouldn't be lisa if she passed up an opportunity to fuck with people. cue shino in the background exploding that dude's arm in perfect accidental timing to make the lesson really stick that underestimating bug users is a one-way ticket to the afterlife.

[archon-maenad]

the bell test with taylor hebert reincarnated as naruto would really be a wholeass circus of insanity. girlie is unhinged enough to make ninja double-take and it shows.

when kakashi says to come at him with deadly intent you know she would ask for it in writing. "it's generally frowned upon to kill superiors," says taylor, who is pretty sure she would have heard by now if promotion could be earned through murder around here. "in case we succeed I'd like a guarantee we won't get in trouble."

homegirl is only preoccupied with the political backlash and completely unphased by the idea of yknow. killing a dude. and since they're literally being trained to be child soldier mercenaries she doesn't think that anyone else would see it as weird. but kakashi obviously does because uh, hello, she is a fresh graduate in peacetime? why is this kid so chill?

tay also spent the entire morning trapping the training grounds to high heavens with poisoned wire. so you know sakura is convinced by now that all those rumors about uzumaki being a dangerous maniac are 110% true. sasuke is just hnn-ing to the side in agreement of taylor's perfectly sensible request of their sensei, because he is also his own brand of fledgeling unhinged.

kakashi would then pull out like an old receipt or something and scrawl messily on the back of it, because trolling is 30% of his personality (the other 70% is trauma). and as soon as taylor grabs the note, confirming she indeed has permission to go all out, she's all *mentally cracks knuckles*

mans said lethal force? aight bitch lets play.

ten minutes later kakashi has a newfound hatred of tay's specialized stinkbombs and a healthy respect for flashbang tags. girlie did her research the night before and brought an arsenal to target sensitive noses and magic eyes, alongside the usual oodles of poison because her reaction to learning she was immune to most kinds had even the endbringer-equivalent in her stomach feeling wary.

ofc taylor wasn't able to actually kill kakashi. but because she is a totally sensible and sane girl her reaction to not being able to defeat a former black ops captain at twelve years of age is to be disappointed. the fact she couldn't even lightly maim him has tay wondering if she's destined for failure and death, because that is of course a very normal thing to think after you put a jounin on the back foot in battle. I love her.

kakashi is now wondering how on earth he's going to wrangle this feral child and jokes on you mfer the answer is you won't.

[archon-maenad]

taylor is the type of girl who thinks "wow I'm really the only reasonable person here huh. the last bastion of common sense. it's so hard being normal." and in the background the torture and interrogation department are desperately trying to poach her.

[archon-maenad]

you know that just like with the undersiders tay would look at team seven and think she is the normal one. her, with the endbringer-equivalent locked in her stomach and deadpan questions about if the fireball jutsu runs hot enough for cremation. the girl who remembers her past life as a walking biblical plague that killed god. is the normal one.

taylor you are not the token sane member of the party and you never will be. your brain has to be wired wrong what the FUCK kind of mental gymnastics is going on up there!!!

[archon-maenad]

I cackle every time an authority figure from the other side of a worm cross starts wondering how they're going to corral tay. oh, you poor deluded fools. soon you will realize that taylor hebert cannot be stopped, only directed, and right now she's pointed at you.

[archon-maenad]

ok so I lied in that other post "taylor hebert & ebisu (naruto)" is actually going to be the second relationship tag if I manage to wrangle this au into a fic. the first is "taylor hebert & kyuubi | ninetails | kurama" bc it was either learn to coexist with her involuntary roomie or spend decades with an endbringer who hates her locked in her stomach. tay is not stupid enough to do anything but aim for the first option.

the thing is, taylor is all too aware of the power imbalance between them. and so she doesn't expect the kyuubi to be forgiving or kind or the better person or anything but filled with hate and anger, because he's been locked in a prison to be used as a battery for 50-something fucking years.

the lack of judgement means... a lot, to kurama. more than he wants to admit. they're not friends, not while one is (involuntarily, but still) enslaving the other. but taylor and the kyuubi quickly settle into verbal sniping over a foundation of mutual respect.

kurama still wants to burn the world to the ground, but he'll settle right now for just helping taylor destroy hashirama's legacy. and on the way there he gets plenty of everyday free entertainment watching people react to how fucking unhinged his host is.

[archon-maenad]

the taylor hebert I'm writing that got reincarnated as naruto (don't @ me ik it's cringe but I love the genre anyways) has gotten Attached to a minor character that somehow stumbled into the plot without my permission.

girlie he doesn't even have a canon last name! yes yes ik he's catnip to you because he's an authority figure who treats you with respect and focuses on the deconstruction of basics and actively helps in your weaponization of benign techniques, and ik it's the first time you've ever had a mentor who not only put effort into teaching you without hesitance but did so exactly in your style, but seriously I am having to build up this mfer from scratch it is SO MUCH effort why couldn't you have picked someone who had more than like ten minutes of screentime!!!

if this au ever becomes a publishable fic the first and possibly only relationship tag is gonna be "taylor hebert & ebisu (naruto)" bc this is just my life now.

[archon-maenad]

taylor hebert reincarnated as naruto learns how she's a candidate for Child of Prophecy who must Save the World, and she's just soul-deep Tired^tm. she's been there done that and got the t-shirt in the form of a double-tap retirement, and now the world is throwing another precog in her path predicting an apocalypse? again???

then after her assigned moment of wallowing tay rolls up her sleeves and pivots the entirety of her life towards preventing a mysterious end of the world, tossing aside all of her personal wants and compromising morals, as you do.

in parallel to her first life she finds herself once again taking an organization she was formerly at odds with and turning it into her power base in the name of the greater good. taylor even has an eclectic group of s-class threats to specifically train herself to defeat! it's all a very weird kind of nostalgic.

honestly she can't even muster shock when the true threat is revealed to be a god-like being who was the source of the supernatural abilities on the planet. at least this one doesn't have to be bullied to death and can be dealt with through straightforward application of powered bullshit.

[archon-maenad]

thank you for this insight it has been living in my head rent free lol. taylor's just decided to own being the bitch who bullied a god to death, and evil talk no jutsu is how it shows in this au

taylor hebert: oh we need to stall for time against these s-class shinobi? don't worry I know exactly how to deal with this

taylor hebert: *channels tattletale by relentlessly mocking someone who could kill her instantly* lmao you really thought that pitiful psychopath impression would hide the fact you're just the front-man to a government sanctioned genocide? I can't tell if I'm more impressed by the sheer depths of how pathetic you are or how bad that fashion sense is.

itachi uchiha: *takes 10d12 of psychic damage*

taylor hebert: *nostalgic sigh* I miss lisa... she probably could have pushed him into a full meltdown.

[archon-maenad]

thank you for the compliment 💖 knowing you've been thinkin bout the core idea here has me very !!!!! :D

honestly I'm pretty sure tay is channeling all the exhausted resigned disgust she feels towards the elemental countries into anger and hate. she can't afford to be depressed about the hubris and cruelty of humanity, just like she can't afford to be depressed about losing her whole world in the gold morning.

she does not have time to be sad she is being pressured into becoming a child soldier! she is the host of an endbringer! she is surrounded by indoctrinated citizens! deadass the closest thing she has to an ally in konoha is the military dictator who holds her leash!

if she stops to actually feel all the world weary cynicism and depression this place induces girlie might just fuckin break and give up or some shit. but giving up is not in taylor hebert's vocabulary, so she uses all those more crippling emotions as fuel for moving forwards.

taylor hebert finding out that the bijuu can be reasoned with and don't attack unprovoked, and that her new world made enemies of their endbringer-equivalents anyways, is the moment she truly learned to hate hashirama senju.

oh taylor had already been angry at him. watching people in konoha take so much for granted, watching child soldiers be glorified by indoctrinated masses, it made taylor incandescent with righteous fury. and hashirama, as the founder of the village, was definitely not spared that wrath.

taylor had also already learned to hate the elemental countries and whole shinobi system. this entire fucking place was one normalized atrocity after another, and she is not the kind of girl who could look upon such a tableau with only dislike.

but hating hashirama senju specifically, with visceral ferocity, didn't come until later.

upon learning that humanity here could have just left the bijuu alone and how hashirama decided to change that... taylor wants to weep and scream all at once at the fact that this world could have left their fucking endbringers alone. she would have done unspeakable things to give earth bet such a luxury. she is far from alone in that conviction.

yes, madara may have enslaved one of the bijuu first, breaking the shaky neutrality between them and humanity in a way out of hashirama's control, but he was defeated. the kyuubi had been freed. konoha could have had the gratitude of a goddamn endbringer! could have maybe even allied with them! at the least could have had an official non-aggression treaty written up!

but hashirama senju instead decided to enslave the kyuubi all over again, before hunting down each of their siblings to do the same. as a jinchuuriki taylor is now a monument to the shodaime's hubris, an embodiment of the fact that he decided to make humanity an enemy that could spell their downfall.

earth bet would have sacrificed any space program for the simurgh to never leave orbit, would have evacuated any city if behemoth simply slumbered beneath it, would have done anything to never hear those warning sirens again. the idea of rejecting peace with endbringers and instead wronging them in a way that they'd be right to never forgive is anathema to taylor's core.

and so she hates hashirama senju, hates him with the kind of intensity you only get from the pressure at the deepest depths of the ocean.

years later taylor will manage to hijack the enemy's mass resurrection jutsu, successfully bolstering her side with almost every famous shinobi from history. hashirama, as the first hokage, is one of the handful brought to the war table next to her.

if taylor hebert were not a child of earth bet with respect for the truce in her bones, she would have torn off his undead face then and there with her bare fucking hands. it is still a close damn thing, because hashirama is an insult to the very concept that now shields him. hell, grouping him in with them as "enemies I will work with for the greater good" might be an insult to the nazis and serial killers she once faced endbringers alongside.

taylor does it anyways, because with a goddess on their doorstep they need all the help they can get, and she has never been a girl who would value the means over the end result.

humanity wins, eventually. that's not much of a spoiler for this au, of course taylor hebert defeats another deity. and as soon as kaguya is dust, she informs hashirama that she hopes he will rot in hell for the longest possible eternity and that she will ensure he goes down in history as the man who nearly doomed them all, before releasing the technique keeping him on this place of existence.