"Clearly, the Queen Administrator is too powerful. What if Taylor got a different shard, one accidentally broken when Eden collided with Abbadon and received the Path shard? What happens when, for the first time in the history of the universe, there's a shard that is actually trying to help?"
— frommerman, opening summary
Therapy
is a Worm fanfic by frommerman.
It's an alternate power fic where Taylor triggers with the power to detect mental conditions and cure them with a touch. This leads her down a very different path as she sets out to heal the strife facing Brockton Bay.
The fic is complete as of October 16th, 2016.
This work of fanfiction contains the following tropes:
- Angst? What Angst?: Invoked. One effect of Taylor's power is resolving and processing any traumatic event in a person's past that affects them, including her own. One of the first signs that she's gained powers is when she notices she's surprisingly un-traumatized by the locker incident.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: One of the users from the PHO interludes, BlatantBaphomet, is constantly derailing threads with his conspiracy theories asserting Cauldron was behind various events. Of course, Cauldron turns out to be real.
- Death by Adaptation: Taylor's dad dies early in the story.
- First Time Feeling: After Sophia is cured of sociopathy by Taylor, she experiences empathy for the first time.Sophia: Why does everything hurt? What is this.. burning? Every memory, every time I think about the people I've— WHAT IS THIS?
- Get into Jail Free: In order to get in contact with Scion. Taylor pleads guilty at her court case so she's sent to the Birdcage to get his attention.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power:
- Taylor's power is that she can remove the psychological issues of anyone who she touches. It's the only power in the world that has zero combat potential, yet has as many if not more people flocking towards her than Panacea, begging to be cured of everything from PTSD to depression and at one point even pedophilia.
- Her secondary power is that she herself cannot develop psychological issues. Which means she can have Amy alter her body in increasingly inhuman ways without issue.
- My God, What Have I Done?: A lot of people after being cured by Sanity. Including Shadow Stalker who she cures of sociopathy, and one man who was until the meeting a pedophile. Both collapse to the ground crying seconds later.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Every viewpoint character has a reaction like this in some form or other when they realize the Simurgh has come to Brockton Bay. And then again when she leaves only to be replaced by Behemoth.
- Butcher Six's first thought when he realizes the strange woman he's talking to is actually a shard in A Form You Are Comfortable With:Oh. Oh fuck.
- The Paranoiac: Carol "Brandish" Dallon, who believes that Taylor's ability makes her evil because she cannot conceive anyone with Master powers can be good. So much that she nearly kills Taylor when Mark and Amy bring her to stay at their home after the attack on her presentation.
- That Came Out Wrong: Taylor chooses her words a bit poorly when meeting up with Panacea and Parian to try some tests of their powers. She immediately blushes when she realizes what she just said.Taylor: Alright girls, are you ready for some experimentation?
- Warrior Therapist: Taylor's power is essentially to function as an instant version of this.
- World-Healing Wave: Scion unleashes one of these once Taylor's shard convinces him to be a true hero. Solving all parahuman issues around the word. Either by fixing faults (i.e like turning all case 53's fully human again) or removing powers altogether (depowering s-class treats or those that hate their powers like Fortuna).
- Yank the Dog's Chain: After years of battling depression, struggles at work and suddenly his daughter falling in a coma because of heavy bullying, Danny Hebert suddenly gets healed of his mental issues and his daughter start to get better... and then he dies because of the bomb the Merchants plant on Taylor's presentation as part of the Wards.
