Editing Damsel of Distress (section)

==Personality==
As a result of childhood trauma and the early activation of her [[Shard|passenger]], Ashley is significantly mentally unbalanced, being excessively ambitious, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, and paranoid. She is driven by her passenger to establish her superiority; her Shard punishes her when she does not succeed, even actively sabotaging her efforts to push her to strive harder.<ref name="R2"/><ref name="SB4">Depends on the shard. Bonesaw elaborates on the idea by noting 'breadth and depth' in her interlude. If the shard gets you while you're young, it can shape your personality across the board, on a deeper level. The more conflict you're involved in, the more toeholds it gets to rewrite your consciousness and your subconscious. To alter your thinking, it needs to do it as a part of the trigger event, or as part of the brain's development.<br /><br />In the extreme cases, the shard can leave you with an impulse (Must fight when a fight presents itself), help set up an obsession ("Wall myself in!"), steer a neurosis in one particular direction (specific hallucinations rather than random ones, of you hurting people, pushing someone down the stairs, etc), create a link between A and B (Being around fire makes subject lose empathy and inhibitions. With lower empathy and inhibitions, subject uses power to make more fire.), or steer a personality trait to an extreme (Must be on top, I answer to no one!), or they just overwrite stuff (Can't understand humans, only dogs).<br /><br />In the lesser cases, it can be a nudge, hard to distinguish from one's own psychology. You might be on the fence about something, trying to make a call, and the passenger pushes you one way over the other, based on your own feelings of doubt or fear. It might tap into emotions, and dampen X emotion while promoting Y, just dampen them across the board, or take the joy out of day to day living while adding excitement to the cape life. A vague sort of depression that only goes away when one's out and fighting. Sometimes, as mentioned before, it's set up as a trap, a flood of emotion or a set of mental switches that get thrown when a prerequisite is met - such as a cape just steering clear of all confrontations, except the shard set it up so they can't, and they have a sort of limit break/command cutting in that mandates them to fight in one way or another. Or it plays off a limit or a berserk button that already exists - Damsel can't spend too long being anything less than top dog or she gets restless, and if she goes too long despite that, then she has to act, she's acting without thinking about it. This takes time and effort for the passenger, and a host that doesn't demand that time and effort (by circumstance or intent) is going to develop a better connection with the power. This in turn is a reward of sorts. If Damsel did kill the local capes and assume control over the area, fighting off all comers, she'd find her facility and control with her power just ramped up like crazy.<br /><br />It varies from cape to cape and shard to shard, and it varies depending on the host, the host's background and the host's personality.<br /><br />Beyond that, other influences include the passenger playing fast and loose with the power itself, as it controls the metadata, which may be more visible if the subject breaks from their norm in terms of consciousness (gets a concussion, tranquilized), working off base instincts and impulses like 'stay camouflaged' (be a little more creepy and unsettling), intimidate/dominate (passenger works behind the scenes to make you look a little more dangerous as you mutate/grow/surround yourself in the aura of your power), etc, etc. In more pronounced cases, the power is just plain controlled by the passenger, not the host, and the passenger makes the seemingly random or uncontrolled aspects generate more conflict... pushing a power to kill rather than leave someone alive, or a thinker power turns up a vision of something the subject didn't want to see.<br /><br />On the macro level, too, don't discount the fact that some shards (particularly powerful ones that warranted attention) are just sent to specific people, with the idea that it's a combination that's going to promote more conflict just by the sheer dynamic of it (Powerful person with a destructive power, a desperate person with a power with negative implications). - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15026557/ Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref> She is fond of delivering dramatic monologues partly for the euphoric effect of becoming less pressured by her passenger, and overall her persona borders on that of a stereotypical 'camp' supervillain.<ref name="SB1"/><ref name="4.6 e2">“Married is the wrong word,” Ashley said.<br /><br />“How would you put it?” Sveta asked.<br /><br />“A long time ago, when I was still finding my way, I didn’t even have the clothes on my back, not intact ones.  I had no friends, no family, and law enforcement was after me.  I had ''nothing''.  I spent a lot of time thinking about who and what I wanted to be.  Characters I liked, clothes I liked, people I’d thought were elegant and imposing.  I found this.  I ''built'' this,” Ashley said.<br /><br />What had her role models been, for aesthetics?  Cartoon movie villains?  Evil sorceresses and witches?<br /><br />“When you had nothing, you found this, and you want to hold onto that,” Sveta said.  “I can understand that.  I hold onto things that were important to me once.”<br />[...]<br />“I don’t want to hold onto anything,” Ashley said.  “I am that.  People spend their entire lives trying to find the right image for themselves and I found it when I was Kenzie’s age.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/02/17/shade-4-6/ Excerpt] from [[Shade 4.6]]</ref><ref name="R1">Damsel of Distress produced uncontrolled blasts of gravity, space and matter alteration, roughly on par with scrub's power in terms of sheer 'whatever you're using, it's not going to stop this' penetrative power (though it would fall short of Foil's power in this sense). However, the blasts were short ranged (six to ten feet) and could easily fail to hit a target that was in range. She could use the recoil of the attacks to move herself, and was fond of situations where she could use hostages or stalk a target through a cluttered area (blasting through cover and potentially her target). Her power was somewhat uncontrolled, spiking or 'fritzing' as she got stressed or anxious, and her obsessive personality meant she would get caught in loops where she might accidentally destroy her meal as she was preparing it, then the resulting frustration and anxiety would pop up every time she ate for the next few days. In stubbornness and pride, she would consequently go a week, easily, without really eating, so the issue wouldn't come up. The same applies to sleep, shelter, company etc. Narcissistic, megalomaniac, paranoid, she's a borderline 'camp' villain, but the sheer destructive potential she could bring to bear, and the reality of a 'camp' villain willing to murder hostages or blame others for her problems, combined with her drawbacks, made both her scary and pitiable. She became something else entirely when Bonesaw's alterations simultaneously broke her pride and gave her control. A cold, ruthless, detached source of obliteration, deserving and giving no pity. - [https://redd.it/1sxv91 Comment by Wildbow on Reddit]</ref> The combination of her violent psychopathy and the weaknesses inflicted by her powers cause many to regard her as both scary and pitiable. As a result of her reputation, everyone in North-West Boston was careful to kept an eye out for her, including capes like [[Colin Wallis|Defiant]].<ref name="16.y e1">“Three. Nothing notable. Edict and Licit, a low-rated master and a low-rated striker. We also have one villainess who occasionally tries to make it in one of the big cities and then retreats back home when she can’t cut it. Calls herself Damsel of Distress.”<br /><br />He reconnected his spear as they passed through the door. “I know her. Mover and shaker. Storms of unevenly altered gravity, time and space. Edict and Licit keep her in check?”<br /><br />“They manage with our help. Why do you ask?”<br /><br />“The Slaughterhouse Nine are recruiting. Their numbers are down, and they’ll be looking for a quantity of new members more than they’re looking for quality. At least until they’re stable enough that they can afford to be picky. Once they can, they’ll replace the weakest recruits with better ones. I don’t want them to get that far.”<br /><br />“I understand. But would they want her? Damsel of Distress? Her lack of control over her power holds her back. I won’t say she isn’t a problem, but she’s never been a priority threat to anyone.”<br /><br />“She’s a heavy hitter. They can give her control, or they can use that lack of control. Let’s not forget that they might be looking at Edict and Licit. I’ll need you to send me their files as well, please.” - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2012/12/13 Excerpt] from [[Interlude 16.y]]</ref>

Her power is somewhat uncontrolled, spiking or going on the fritz when she is stressed or anxious.<ref name="SB2"/> Coupled with her obsessive personality, this meant that she will get caught in vicious cycles where she became frustrated and anxious at eating or similar activities after destroying a meal, losing sleep or shelter, embarrassing herself in front of others, or similar situations.<ref name="SB1"/> In her stubbornness and pride, she would consequently go long stretches of time without eating or sleeping.<ref name="R1"/><ref name="SB3">Damsel blowing up her food? honestly, not that often, but it's sort of a stress reaction so it'll happen maybe once a month, but then it happens because she's annoyed/worried/embarrassed/remembers from last time, and so it happens again, and this exacerbates the cycle and pride + stubbornness means she just doesn't eat so it breaks the cycle.<br /><br />Damsel: No. The issue is that her hands radiate a disintegrating space-warping power. Tears living things to pieces, warps/distorts inorganic material.<br />As it stands, it radiates in every direction except directly at herself. And it has shortish range. Gauntlets with the right openings would let her focus it at specific targets. (ie, like bike gloves with only fingers exposed, or fingertips exposed, would serve) Bonesaw's enhancements also extended range by extending her hands, stretching flesh thin over several feet of 'finger'.<br /><br />It's also worth mentioning she has a weakish mover power, because she can use the recoil of her power when it's totally uncontrolled. Shoving herself around, basically. Her gaunt appearance is partially a result of shaky control over her power. Making eating difficult. Not always on, intermittently active.<br /><br />As Bonesaw's interlude suggests, she's arrogant, power hungry and somewhat paranoid. If rather less than Damsel the Kid.<br /><br />Range of ~4-5 feet. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/36615182/ Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref> She was fond of situations where she could use hostages or stalk a target through a cluttered area, where she could blast through cover and potentially her victim.<ref name="R1"/>

Bonesaw's surgical alterations simultaneously broke her pride and gave her control. This was a cold, ruthless, detached source of obliteration, "deserving and giving no pity".<ref name="R1" /><ref name="SB1"/>