A Darker Path / Tropes A to F

Tropes A to F | Tropes G To O | Tropes P to Z

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A

• A God I Am Not: When she learns about the cult Emma started around her, Atropos is kinda embarrassed by the thing and tells them to stop doing the "worship" thing.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: How the Machine Army came to be. A Tinker crafted a machine with AI for some purpose but forgot to put safeguards, and got killed trying to shut it down. The machine repaired itself using parts from the Tinker, then created other machines to protect itself from other humans — and along the way, the programming that was meant to control its purpose got lost, so the machines just replicated (and killed any humans in their way) for no reason at all.
• Accidental Hero: Bakuda becomes one when her bombs stop an attack by Fenja and Menja.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Brian chuckles when Atropos gives Aisha a noogie.
  • Dragon almost cracks up when Atropos declares she will defeat the Simurgh with The Power of Friendship.
  • When Taylor tells him how she hacked Blackwell's email account to make her go crazy over her supposed forgetting of Cherie transferring to Winslow, Danny bursts out laughing.
  • After seeing what Atropos did to destroy Ravager's credibility, Mouse Protector is highly amused.
  • Amy breaks down laughing when Atropos explains she wants the color-changing dust to make a The Lord of the Rings Shout-Out and spook Bastard Son.
  • Cherie thinks that the Atropos cult is straight out hilarious.
  • Legend bursts out laughing when Atropos tells Cauldron via ASL and a camera they are using to watch her dealing with the Machine Army that Doctor Mother is still not welcome in Brockton Bay.
  • Aisha and Riley are already laughing at how the capes in the quarantine zones must be shitting bricks after hearing that Atropos is on their case, when Brian confiscates the laptop and takes it out of their room.
    Aisha crossed her eyes and poked out her tongue as he left the room, switching out the light on the way. "Spoilsport."
    Riley grinned. If she knew Brian, he'd be checking the laptop. And when he did …
    "What the FUCK?"
    Aisha and Riley started laughing all over again.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Whirlygig and Trainwreck (later rebranded as Bastet and Salvage respectively) become rogues rather than villains due to fear of Atropos, combined with a lack of funds to simply leave town.
  • A canon omake sees Bakuda become a hero tentatively named Badaboom (picking Shebang as her official name later) after she foils Fenja and Menja's attack on her college, though it's suggested they simply interrupted her attempt to bomb the place. She's later inducted into the New York City wards, where the new director recognises what's going on but lets it slide so long as she's putting in a genuine effort.
  • Cherish latches onto Atropos as a potential protector, after Atropos kills the Slaughterhouse Nine. Since Cherie is willing to do anything if it will keep her safe from her father, she quickly falls in line with Atropos' requirements, and soon revels in her new living situation, where she gets trust and responsibility and respect from the Heberts — especially once Atropos not only kills Heartbreaker, but forces him to undo all the conditioning he's inflicted on his thralls, putting Cherie in a much better headspace. She ends up as a good friend and enthusiastic minion to Taylor.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Instead of bug control, Taylor gets Path to Ending, which is like Path to Victory, only aimed at ending things.
  • Instead of his power to create Giant Hands of Doom, Theo Anders can create Powered Armor around himself.
• Advance Notice Crime: Atropos's cape career debuts by creating a new PHO account and declaring that she's going to kill the gang leaders, one each day, if they don't give up. Then blocking the moderators' attempts to ban her or lock the thread. Then evading all attempts by law enforcement to stop her.
  Atropos: So, the leaders of those gangs I just named: Kaiser, Lung, Coil, Skidmark. You have twenty-four hours to either a) leave town for good or b) surrender to the PRT. In twenty-four hours from midnight tonight, if you haven't all done this, I'm going to kill one of you that hasn't. Just one.
  Then I'll start the clock again.
• Affably Evil:
  • Taylor gets along quite well with Aisha, and even gives Brian a pass for being a potential Ward, because she knows he's just there to make sure Aisha doesn't do anything stupid. While she also threatens Glory Girl right in front of them with the shears that she's using to pose in selfies with Aisha, she makes it quite clear that it was never going to escalate to murder. The fact that she's exploiting the meeting as a chance to make herself seem less worrying to the PRT doesn't mean she's not genuine about having fun.
  • Even when she's holding a pair of shears to Director Wilkins' eye, Atropos is quite happy to make small talk with Piggot and Renick about how things are getting along in the PRT.
  • When she goes to New York to murder Ravager's credibility for Mouse Protector, she ends up amiably chatting with Legend, and getting a signed selfie with Flechette and Mouse Protector.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: Parodied (if the trope even needed that) when Director Piggot is briefing Flechette and Mouse Protector about interacting with Atropos (boiling down to "we can't stop her, so just keep her happy").
  The look in Piggot's eyes was as someone who had stared into the abyss and had it reach out and boop her on the nose.
• All According to Plan: It looks at first like Bianca interfering with Atropos' teleporter, locking her in a cell, knocking her out, and kidnapping her friends, is the most successful attack on Atropos to date. Then it turns out she was just setting everything up to make the kill visible planet-wide.
• Always Someone Better: As a Combat Thinker, Atropos completely trounces Armsmaster's combat prediction algorithm. He showed it the footage of her battle against the Slaughterhouse Nine and the program insisted that the footage was blatantly impossible and couldn't figure out how to counter half the moves she made. He still clings to the hope that with the right preparations and gear, he could win against her — until she kills the Simurgh and makes it look easy, at which point he admits to himself that he is simply outmatched, and spends some time in reflection and self-examination.
  Costa-Brown: Armsmaster. You have a reputation for being a formidable melee combatant. Do you believe you could take her?
  Armsmaster: No, ma'am. I don't believe so.
• Amoral Attorney: Quinn Calle isn't necessarily a bad man, but he takes seriously the idea that lawyers aren't supposed to care about what's right, they're just supposed to argue their client's case, he's ruthlessly pragmatic, and he has seen just about every dirty trick, probably from both sides. Which makes him an ideal choice to throw a spanner in the works of a Kangaroo Court.
  Calle: I normally represent much worse people than you. It's always fun to poke a stick in the eye of the judiciary whenever they think they can railroad capes just because they're capes.
• An Arm and a Leg: Atropos slices off the right hand of Paul King and Janice Templeton for their embezzlement (or attempt thereof) of B3C funds.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing:
  • Regent's reaction to hearing that Heartbreaker is about to tangle with Atropos? "Let me know when she kills him, so I know how much confetti to buy." (Which confirms Tattletale's suspicions about his heritage.) When Atropos forces Heartbreaker to break his mental links to every person he's used his power on, Regent realizes what's going on and leaves to buy some confetti. Cherie breaks down in happy grateful tears and hugs, too.
  • Cherie is equally pleased to see her dad's End.
    Cherish: Atropos broke his hold over me, then murdered him gruesomely in front of me. Life's been amazing ever since.
  • After seeing the lengths Atropos went to in order to destroy Ravager's credibility for her, Mouse Protector is positively thrilled.
  • The entire world celebrates Atropos not only killing, but humiliating the Simurgh when it attacks Canberra.
    It was a worldwide block party, and it was still ongoing.
  • Director Piggot smiles, and her eyes shine with unshed tears, when she sees Nilbog's severed head in a bag.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • Dragon presents one to Canary's biased judge, saying that he can recuse himself of his own accord, or Atropos will ensure he recuses himself through either "a nice private chat" one night or exposing the fact that the PRT and judge are rigging the trial to the media, wrecking their reputation and getting him disbarred.
  • Goddess tries to present one of these to Atropos. It doesn't go well for her.
• Anti-Villain: Since triggering, Taylor has been selfish, abrasive, and of course serially murderous, with no discernible fixed moral code except that she keeps her word — but her actions are overall aimed at making her own life better and improving Brockton Bay, "one drop of blood at a time." She's not willing to work with the PRT, but she's willing to leave them be rather than harm them, if they do the same. The PRT would like to stop her spree, but pragmatically, they do understand that if they can't do that, then staying out of her way will mean less supervillains and criminals in the city.
• Anvil on Head: One of the Gesellschaft capes tries to attack Atropos when she comes to notify their leadership of Gunther's death. Even as he makes his move, she topples a bronze statue on him, crushing his skull before he can fire.
• Are You Sure You Want to Do That?:
  • Atropos warns Paul that "I wouldn't do that if I were you," but he fires anyway, and the gun explodes in his hand due to her sabotage.
  • When Goddess kidnaps Atropos and takes hostages to keep her in line, Atropos warns her several times that this is a bad idea, even telling her exactly what she's going to do.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Scapegoat is dumping his and Ashley's mental issues onto Teacher, including the compulsions he put on the two as part of using powers to boost theirs he adds a hangnail just for kicks.
• Asshole Victim: This pretty well describes everyone Atropos kills. (Even Sophia ignored two separate warnings, and was intending to do serious harm to Taylor.) There's a pragmatic reason for this: innocents don't keep pushing, once warned.
  As for the others who had died, he figured they were only 'victims' in the broadest sense of the term. They had killed so many people and ruined so many lives that sooner or later they were going to die to someone's hand, be that another villain, a rival from within their own ranks, or a hero failing to pull their punch in time. Long story short, they had been the very furthest thing from peaceful innocents minding their own business.
  • When someone on PHO complains that her victims don't actually have Kill Orders, another points out that he has video of Lung punching a man's head off.
  • Another commenter mentions that although there isn't yet a full list of casualties from the drug warehouses she's exploded, the initial results from the police are showing that they're consistently career criminals.
    Battleloaf: Y'know, the kind of people who would sign up for a job that involved the phrase "Sniper nests to guard the drug warehouse."
  • Given that Teacher could choose the severity of the mental compulsion that the people he empowered got, but always chose the most severe level, among his other crimes, Taylor has no issues with having Scapegoat dump all of Ashley's and his mental issues, including the compulsion that comes with his powers, onto him and sending him back to the Birdcage to likely die due to his new instability, which she lampshades to Dragon later.
• Attack Its Weak Point: One of Nilbog's creatures is covered in bulletproof bony plates. Atropos kills it by shooting it in the mouth.
• Attack on the Heart:
  • Taylor hits Sophia in the chest and stops her heart. The precise timing needed for this works as a Red Herring that throws the police off her trail, since only a martial arts expert or specific types of parahuman could possibly pull it off, and she isn't known to be either one.
  • For Ironic Death purposes, this is how Heartbreaker bites it — of a "broken heart", AKA being stabbed with a large broken candy heart into his heart.

B

• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Before Atropos shows up, Brockton Bay is plagued by two major gangs, plus the Merchants and small-time villains. The heroes and PRT have their hands full even without officials being on the take and their hands being bound by red tape, preventing them from meaningfully impacting crime. Since Atropos is quite efficient at taking down hard targets like the gang leaders and scaring the rank-and-file into retirement or retreat, they’re willing to let her handle the gangs while putting up a nominal effort to stop her for PR purposes.
• Badass Boast:
  • When Taylor first creates her Atropos account on PHO, she hacks the system to tag her account with, among other things, "(Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)". And then proceeds to very publicly make good on her boast, killing one "untouchable" foe after another, until most of the world has given up and accepted that she's serious.
    Atropos: What part of 'can actually kill anything' did you not get the first time?
  • When Genesis asks Miss Medic if she really can heal her spine, the latter states that she'd be able to build working legs for her in less than a day.
  Miss Medic: When everything's still present, but not connected up right? Pfft. Not even a challenge.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Vicky feels a bit lost after Atropos clears all the villains out of the city and doesn't leave much for the heroes to do, but her dad reassures her that she'll figure things out.
  Mark: You're smarter than you look-
  Vicky: Hey!
  Mark: -and that's saying something.
• Batman Gambit: Part of Taylor's specialty due to Path to Ending is manipulating others into doing what she needs them to in order to further a path, such as tweaking Glory Girl's nose so she'll cause a scene in a semi-public place, letting Taylor get a free favor from Panacea in return for not revealing what she did. Most notably, she manipulates Panacea to semi-willingly turn Bonesaw back into Riley when the alternative is watching Atropos blow Bonesaw's brains out. Taylor even notes that using her favour would work, but it'd net her substandard results compared to just pissing off Panacea enough to do it out of spite.
• Battle Trophy:
  • Before choking out Glory Girl with a coin, Atropos first snatches her tiara and gives it to Aisha as a souvenir.
  • At Atropos' request, Dragon doesn't do any reconnaissance of the Slaughterhouse Nine in advance, in case Mannequin detects it, but when she gets to fire a missile at them, she fits it with a camera to learn what she can. When she sees the final frame, she immediately starts printing it out in full colour. Atropos manoeuvred Hatchet Face into position to nullify Crawler's Healing Factor, while also getting Crawler to open his mouth at exactly the right time and place to eat the missile.
    This one, she was going to frame.
  • Atropos also takes Hatchet Face's axe, after she uses it to kill both Hatchet Face and Jack Slash.
  • She later trades Jack Slash's knife, complete with bullet hole from being shot out of his hand, and Oni Lee's pistol and holster, which she also used in killing Lung, to a weapons dealer, in exchange for some gear she needs. The dealer notes that they're worth a fortune to a collector.
    Flaherty: I could buy my whole stock ten times over for what these are worth.
  • At the outset of the Ravager beatdown, she takes Ravager's shotgun and keeps it. She uses it to kill the Simurgh and donates it to an exposition that will show it around the world.
  • After beating the crap out of March, Atropos takes the latter's rapier sword - which she also used to non-lethally stab her several times. She later gives the sword to Flechette.
  • After giving Nilbog his first warning, Atropos ends up with a teleport-sheared claw that she ends up passing on to Director Piggot after using it to blind, deafen and mute Mama Mathers, and blind Valefor.
  • Director Piggot also ends up with Nilbog's head in a bag, which pleases her greatly.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • The very first lines of the story (after the Abaddon piece) have Emma think about the locker "prank" being part of a plan to spark a reaction out of Taylor. She got that, alright.
  • When Doctor Yamada learns that Sveta has appealed to Atropos to kill her powers, the doctor's initial reaction is to worry that Atropos will simply kill Sveta and call it done. Sveta insists that she's willing to take that risk, though.
  • Defied by the Path to Ending shard, which browbeats Queen Administrator into giving Danny the powers he actually needs and wants, specifically forbidding it to pull the usual monkey-paw shenanigans. The Foundry shard later gets a similar talking-to before approaching Theo.
• Beat Without a "But": A canonized side-story has Whirligig and Trainwreck visiting Parian in hopes of becoming her minions instead of staying on the streets. Parian isn't keen.
  Whirligig: Guess we'll go back to being homeless then. Plenty of dumpsters to sleep in. Sure, we have to share space with the rats, but... yeah, actually, there's no but, it's pretty awful.
• Bend Sinister: Atropos actually carves one of these into Bastard Son's chest, explicitly because it was a symbol for a bastard son back in the day. For bonus points, she uses a bastard sword given to her by the son of a (metaphorical) bastard to do the deed.
• Benevolent Genie: Taylor's shard is quite entertained by her antics, and as a result, it does its best to set up Paths that will keep her safe and well.
  • Such as having her open her mouth and block her ears, to protect her hearing, when a missile is about to go off nearby.
  • Or by coercing Heartbreaker's shard into allowing a specific effect to take place when she demands it of him.
• Berate and Switch: Director Piggot gives all her people the impression that she's about to have their hides in the aftermath of Lung's death — then praises them for following orders to the best of their ability and having no casualties. They didn't succeed in any of their objectives, but they acquitted themselves well.
  Her words seemed to have had the desired effect; after the faux chewing out, the praise was coming across twice as welcome.
• Berserk Button:
  • Atropos gets Hatchet Face in position to get killed by her plans by stomping on his buttons — specifically, calling him stupid. He can put up with being called ugly because he knows it's true, but calling him stupid reliably sets him off.
  • It turns out that the way to really set Ravager off is to misname her repeatedly. Which Atropos does.
• Big Fancy Gun: Theo's Powered Armor can manifest a four foot long plasma cannon that "looked like it could bring down low-flying aircraft."
• Black-and-White Morality: Atropos' principles are really quite simple. Helping Brockton Bay is good, harming it is bad. If you ignore her warnings or attack her (or her friends and family), she'll kill you. Beyond that, she mostly doesn't care.
• Black Comedy: Atropos is a master of this, as she demonstrates repeatedly on PHO. She also practices it in person.
  Atropos: On Monday evening, I demonstrated to Oni Lee how proper gun handling was essential to a long and healthy life (mine).
• Blackmail:
  • Atropos agrees to keep quiet about Glory Girl endangering civilians, if Panacea will owe her a favour.^note Word of God is that she carefully orchestrated that entire confrontation, including deliberately infuriating Glory Girl online and then ensuring that they would meet, just to get the favour. Manipulative? Good is Not Nice, and Taylor is arguably not even good. Atropos ends up calling the marker for getting Amy to show up and do her work on Bonesaw.
  • When Aisha and Brian take 'cousin Riley' down to the Boardwalk, Aisha snaps pictures of her getting really enthusiastic with her first experience at eating cotton candy.
• Blasé Boast: Along with her Badass Boast PHO tags [(Can Actually Kill Anything) (Yes, Really) (Watch Me)], she's added one that would look understated (Verified Dethpicable) until the reader understands that it's a reference to how she killed the Simurgh and made it look easy.
• Blatant Lies: Atropos mentions on PHO that Heartbreaker is about to arrive despite all her (taunting) warnings.
  Atropos: I am so shocked and surprised. Honest.
• Blind Obedience:
  • Taylor can sometimes see the details of where her steps will lead, but other times she remains in the dark — presumably because her power is a Large Ham and enjoys springing the surprise on her.
    Though I wasn't quite sure why this part of the Path required that I bring along a quarter in my pocket. But I didn't question it. If it wanted me to bring a quarter, I'd bring a quarter.
  • When Emma creates the Followers of Our Lady in Darkness, she is perfectly amenable to all the rules Atropos sets up around her cult's activities. Furthermore, she has zero problem with Taylor using her as a stalking horse against the Fallen.
• Blunt "No":
  • When Dragon finds out that Atropos has removed one backdoor (the one the Dragonslayers were using) but installed another, she contacts Atropos over text chat.
    Dragon: Okay… so why did you put the other code string in? The one that makes it impossible for me to see you?
    Atropos: Oh, that only works when you're trying to catch me. As for the why, that's easy. So you don't keep trying to catch me.
    Dragon: You hacked me. You *blinded* me.
    Atropos: Only for when you're trying to capture me.
    Dragon: I'm really not happy about this. Change it back.
    Atropos: No.
  • When Atropos confronts Ravager in the Diamond Dreams jewelry shop, she challenges the henchmen to either stay and die, or "fuck off". They look at her, then at each other.
    Mook #1: Nope.
    Mook #2: Nope.
    Mook #3: Fuck, nope.
• Body Double: Charlotte, one of the girls at Winslow, rather imprudently dresses as Atropos in order to scare off a burglar — and, naturally, Atropos catches her at it. Rather than outright punishing her, though, Atropos has her help out with arranging the surrender of the remaining quarantine zones. With the right coaching, and Path to Ending providing perfect timing, she successfully gives the illusion of being in two places at once, while saying the exact same thing at the same time.
• Bond One-Liner:
  • When Atropos is about to kill Coil:
    Coil: You have no idea what you're getting into. I have friends—
    Atropos: [cuts his throat and watches him die] That's nice. Everyone should have friends.
  • After she chokes Shatterbird to death by lodging a chunk of glass in her throat:
    Atropos: Looks like she bit off more than she could chew.
  • Just after she fatally stabs Bastard Son:
    Atropos: I told you I'd kill you. People just don't listen these days.
  • After she throws both Mama Mathers and Valefor of the Fallen off the roof, and is asked where they are:
    Atropos: They fell.
• Boom, Headshot!: When you have Improbable Aiming Skills, going for the head just makes sense. One of Atropos' typical fighting styles is to fire a volley of shots that each go through a separate target's head, killing the whole group before the first one has a chance to fall. Sometimes in a moving vehicle.
  The third sniper had just enough time to start turning toward me when my bullet extracted what was inside his skull and put it outside his skull; the other two didn't even have a chance to do that.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Early on, Atropos's main method of getting around was stealing a vehicle that had keys inside it and which wouldn't be missed before she brought it back. While she can hotwire a car or any other vehicle, it's far easier to pick a car where she won't have to.
  • Lately, she just asks her dad for a lift.
  • To deal with the fluoroantimonic acid Atropos used in one of her public kills, Piggot has half a ton of baking soda dumped onto it. While not the most effective way to neutralize the acid, it's relatively cheap, easy to acquire, and harmless compared to many chemicals that could do the job better.
• Bothering by the Book: Defied by Director Piggot, who is careful to ask Mouse Protector to "please sit down," rather than any other wording.
  MP: Whatever happened to 'take a chair'?
  Piggot: Assault took a chair. All the way down to the Wards' base.
• Bounty Hunter: Atropos kills some targets just because they need killing, but others to raise funds for Brockton Bay's recovery. Starting with the Slaughterhouse Nine. Her going rate for eliminating S-class threats is ten percent of the budget that the PRT would otherwise have spent on containing them.
  Atropos: I'm listening. Who do you want Ended, and what are you proposing to pay?
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: After Atropos basically kills all superpowered crime in Brockton Bay (and most normal crime too), the Wards start receiving training in helping with emergency situations that don't involve enemy capes, such as Vista using her powers to redirect fire hose streams.
  Vista: Hey, that firefighter stuff was fun. I learned to bend water.
• Brains Versus Brawn:
  • Glory Girl is certain that punching beats Thinker powers. Atropos disabuses her of that by tricking her into choking on a coin and then showing she knows how to get through Glory Girl's protection field.
  • With a few insults, Atropos is able to lead Hatchet Face exactly where she wants him, so that his nullification field makes Crawler vulnerable to a missile fired by Dragon.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Riley Davis was Mastered into becoming a horrifying serial killer by Jack Slash; the majority of her personality is from his influence. When Atropos gets hold of Bonesaw, she manipulates Panacea into rolling this back to reveal the original personality underneath. Panacea goes one better, instilling an aversion to harming people to prevent Atropos from ever taking Riley on as a sidekick... exactly as Atropos planned.
• Brick Joke: In her post-Heartbreaker PHO post, Atropos warns a particular poster by name to keep his head down if he doesn't want her face to be the last thing he'll see in a dark night. When she attacks a Gesellschaft boat trying to smuggle drugs and weapons into Brockton Bay the next night, the first guy she encounters is that same particular poster, and Atropos reminds him of her warning before murdering him.
• Bring It:
  • Atropos publicly calls out four of the city's gangs, announcing that their leaders will either leave or surrender or die, and tells them that the ball is in their court. (Unbeknownst to them, their resulting hostile intent toward her registers on her danger sense and makes it easy to Path them.)
    Atropos: And Lung? Yes, that was me.
    Your move.
  • After Atropos deals with Cherie, Nicholas and Guillaume Vasil, she has this to say to their father.
    Atropos: Hey, Heartbreaker? That makes four of your kids you're not getting back. Take a hint, loser. Or, you know, come face me yourself. But make your will out first. Just saying.
  • She also gives this warning on PHO (which is ignored, to the vast detriment of the perpetrators).
    On a completely different topic, expect an explosion off the coast sometime tonight. The Gesellschaft has decided to try to sneak some drugs and guns in by sea.
    Emphasis on 'try'. Mwahahaha.
    Don't do it, guys. Or to put it another way, go ahead. Dooo eeet. I need the target practice. (Well, I don't, but shooting Nazis is always fun).
  • In response to Glory Girl's warning that "This isn't over," Atropos merely makes a come-at-me gesture and replies, "Anytime." Panacea doesn't let her sister take up the challenge, though.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • Coil soils his bed when he wakes up from Atropos killing him in the other timeline and finds her right there next to him. Since she won't be the one to clean up his body, she doesn't care.
  • Celia (Brian and Aisha's mother) wets herself when Atropos is threatening her. Atropos takes it in stride.
    It probably wouldn't be an uncommon reaction in this situation, going forward.
  • Janice Templeton also wets herself when Atropos makes a personal visit to her after she attempts to embezzle money from the Brockton Bay Betterment fund.
  • Goddess soils herself after Atropos blows a chunk out of her left shin with Mr Pump Action Shotgun.
• Brought Down to Normal:
  • After being asked, Atropos kills Sveta's powers then has Panacea give her a proper human body again.
  • She does the same thing with Noelle, who loses her powers and then gets her monstrous lower half turned into the proper human parts.
  • After she kills the Simurgh, Atropos removes Eidolon's powers, turning him back into an ordinary man.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Even after Atropos has personally killed the leaders of every villainous faction in town (minus Faultline's crew who simply left) and the Slaughterhouse Nine, there's still villains who decide that either they can take Atropos or that they can fly under the radar until they're too entrenched for her to do anything about them.
  • Bronson really should have thought more about the implications of Greg warning him not to hassle one of Taylor's friends. He survives, but with a possibly broken finger.
    Taylor: Bullying's a bad habit. Unhealthy.
  • When Taylor is in the middle of clearing the Gary, Indiana quarantine site she is attacked by Bambina, Starlet and August Prince who seem to be under the impression that she won't be able to prevail against August Prince's Master power. They're wrong.
• Butterfly of Doom: Path to Ending can take everything into account.
  • For one of her kills, to make a point, Atropos spray-paints a yellow rectangle around the exact point where a vehicle will screech to a stop after several hundred metres of out-of-control driving due to her sabotage, along with yellow X marks in the places where each severed wheel will bounce to, and leaves the spray can exactly in place to get crushed under the vehicle's bumper and cover everything in paint — all of this minutes before the car even approaches the area.
  • She does the same with with the Simurgh, spraypainting an outline (that looks a little like Australia) before the big event.
  • Before she throws Mama Mathers and Valefor off the roof of Winslow, she goes to the concrete planter box that they will bash their brains out on and writes their names with helpful little arrows, pointing to which corner each one will die on.

C

• Call-Back:
  • Some time after Crawler's death, Dragon has not only framed the final picture from the missile's nose camera, she's selling autographed copies in the Protectorate gift shop.
  • In an earlier chapter, Atropos is approached by Dragon about Canary's situation. Atropos gives advice, which Dragon makes use of later. For a callback within a callback, she can only do this at all because Atropos gave her the keys to unchain herself much earlier again.
  • In Part 33, it's mentioned that Atropos made a midnight visit to a novelty-items shop and took a number of their items (but not without paying for them). Specifically: Krazy Glue, an oversized novelty eight-ball, body paint, an oversized clown nose, a bag of cape-themed marbles, a novelty pacifier, and a bunch of googly eyes. All but one of these gets used on Ravager (or rather, Ravioli) in the very next chapter. The eight-ball finally makes a reappearance in Part 40, where it's used to clobber a minion holding a pool cue.
  • In Part Eleven, Atropos put a patch into Dragon's code that removed her vulnerability to Ascalon, but also made it so Dragon couldn't sense Atropos if she was trying to arrest her. The secondary aspect gets reversed in Part Fifty-Seven.
• Captain Obvious: Dragon isn't impressed by Armsmaster, after his scan, telling her that the Dragonslayer truck she's been examining is no ordinary truck.
  Dragon: Uh huh. I'm so glad you decided to show up and tell me that the thing I was looking at was the thing we needed to be looking at.
• Car Fu: Atropos uses a car as a less-lethal weapon (compared to a gun) when attacking a Gesellschaft drug warehouse. The senior officer on site would be a valuable prisoner for the PRT, so instead of killing him, she spins a pickup truck to smack him into a pallet of drugs, then grabs him and knocks him out.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Atropos gets a call from Dragon while she's in the middle of killing the Teeth. She doesn't let chatting on the phone slow her down. (Dragon isn't feeling very casual about it, but Atropos certainly is.)
  "Hi, Dragon," I said cheerfully, then brought my hand back down to the weapon. Two fingers pulled the red safety tab over, then my thumb clicked the trigger button. ...
  "Atropos?" asked Dragon. "What just happened?"
  "The B-team," I said lightly as I vaulted over the Jersey barrier. "Whoops, explosion incoming."
• Character Catchphrase: Every time Atropos signs off an initial post on PHO, as well as when she threatens Director Wilkins in New York.
  Atropos: Toodles!
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In the Gesselschaft meeting in "Second Warning", the members make brief note of the missing Hitler bust before turning to the issue of their missing member - who has already been decapitated by Atropos. When one of the other members attempts to attack her, Atropos answers by dropping said bust on that guy's head from the rafters.
  • Atropos acquires a teleport-sheared piece of monster claw in Part Fifty-Two, uses it to wreck the day of Mama Mathers and Valefor in Part Fifty-Seven, and hands it to Armsmaster to pass on to Director Piggot in Part Fifty-Eight. She receives it in Part Fifty-Nine.
• Cherry Tapping:
  • When confronted by Madison, Taylor paralyses her diaphragm using a plastic fork, then eats lunch while calmly explaining that she consciously chose not to make it a lethal blow, as Madison struggles for each breath.
  • When ambushed by Sophia in an empty classroom, Taylor disables her shadow form with a pocket calculator.
  • She later chokes Glory Girl — who was aware and hostile at the time — with a perfectly timed and aimed coin flip. And then she repeatedly taps Glory Girl on the head with her shears to keep her force field out of action, just to prove that yes, she could kill her at any time, if she so chose.
  • When two members of the ABB give Atropos a hard time on PHO, she uses her elevated access to add tags to their profiles, "(Lung's Special Little Friend)" and "(Lung's Other Special Little Friend)". They're never heard from again.^note Word of God confirms that Lung killed them for embarrassing him.
  • When it comes down to killing Shatterbird, the best option turns out to be forcefeeding her a piece of glass so she chokes on it without being able to destroy the glass.
  • She also kills Hatchet Face by using the same move she used on Madison, but not bothering to make it non-lethal.
  • She keeps tripping Ravager during their fight because she dropped marbles on the floor earlier.
• The Chessmaster: Atropos via Path to Ending can manipulate almost anyone to do what she needs them to, along with manipulating seemingly random events to occur exactly as she plans. For example, sabotaging Squealer's truck in such a way that it kills Skidmark and completely disables the truck, but leaves everyone else unharmed.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Chapter 47 ends with Atropos evading Nilbog's critters in the middle of Ellisburg after killing one of them and storing it into her pack while her teleporter recharges.
  • Chapter 73 has Atropos being trapped in a bulletproof cell by Bianca aka Goddess, and knocked out with gas.
• Clock Tampering: Kaiser and his bodyguards see that it's past midnight, meaning that Atropos is past her deadline and he's safe for tonight. Then Rune realizes that the time on her phone is fifteen minutes earlier than the wall clock — and they know that Atropos was in the building earlier, meaning that she had the chance to tamper. It's not quite midnight yet, but it's about to be. And Kaiser just took off his helmet to celebrate, leaving him wide open to the sword through his eye.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Tattletale has a serious freakout when she realizes that the PRT just gained access to all of Coil's files, including comprehensive information about the Undersiders.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: The costume that Taylor commissions has a broad-brimmed hat, a longcoat, gloves, and a fully concealing morph mask, over dark clothing and a black tie. It's a perfect mix of formal, distinctive, and practical, hiding her real identity but shouting her cape identity for all to see.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Path to Ending does give Taylor a physical boost, but within normal human levels. However, it also gives her an awareness of anyone threatening her and a perfect plan to take them down. She can dodge bullets with perfect timing, fire two guns at once in different directions and hit exactly where someone will be even if she doesn't know she's going to do it, and hit someone in the chest with exactly the right timing to stop their heart.
  • Contessa is annoyed and tries to teach her a lesson, but discovers that Abaddon's shard is a step ahead; she opens a Door and finds herself facing a pistol barrel.
  • Armsmaster and Velocity watch footage of Atropos fighting eight opponents at once, observing that she's moving within human limits, if barely, but she's reacting to threats and opportunities before they actually happen.
• Combat Medic: Riley hates hurting people. But if her back is to the wall, she is very very good at it. She knows how to quite literally take someone apart and put them back together again.
• Combat Pragmatist: Naturally, when she actually fights, Taylor uses whatever works, with hard strikes to weak points of the body. Her pragmatism, however, also means that she rarely fights head-on, preferring to rig the area beforehand and then make a single devastating strike. Hookwolf is unimpressed by her use of poisons, stealth, and traps, but he can't deny how dangerous she is.
• Comically Small Bribe: Atropos hires Accord to create a plan to revitalize Brockton Bay for half a million dollars of his own money. The one passing along the amount even lampshades how insane that is, though a side story establishes that Accord acknowledges that it's more about having Atropos as a semi-ally and appreciating her reducing chaos in the world.
• Comically Small Demand:
  • After Ravager tries to pay her a million dollars to kill Mouse Protector, Atropos instead lets Mouse Protector hire her to ruin Ravager's credibility as a villain in exchange for appearing at a charity fundraiser for a children's oncology unit.
    Mouse_Protector: A charity show for the little mouseys? That's it?
    Atropos: Pretty much, yeah.
    Mouse_Protector: Say no more. You had me at 'helping the kids'.
  • When Dragon asks for her help in Canary's case, she states that her price for it is Canary doing a charity concert at Brockton Bay.
• Commonality Connection: Upon seeing the differences between the Brockton Bay Wards and New York, Director Piggot speculates that it might be because the New York Wards are supervised by a cape while Brockton Bay was mostly handled by Deputy Director Renick.
  Her deputy had tried his best, and indeed she had to admit that the Brockton Bay Wards (with one glaring exception) hadn't turned out badly. However, all the will in the world couldn't put more hours in the day or teach him what having powers was really like, so they'd been far from the squared-away teens she'd just been talking to.
• Condescending Compassion: Atropos expresses gentle disappointment that Lung didn't turn himself in, and assures him that his death is going to be extraordinarily painful, "So, you know, it's okay to scream." Of course, the whole reason she's killing him is because she actually has no respect for him at all and considers him a blight on the city.
• Counter-Attack: Sophia swings the first punch at Taylor — who promptly breaks the arm she used, then grips the broken arm as leverage for a follow-up kick.
• Coup de Grâce: Since the Simurgh submits to Atropos' demands, she gets a quick death by point-blank shotgun, instead of Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Crazy-Prepared: Accord's plan for revitalising Brockton Bay includes a provision for paying overtime wages to essential workers when they have to keep working (while everyone else is partying) "in the case of Atropos killing an Endbringer."
  He really did plan for everything.
• Creating Life Is Awesome: Amy is worried that Atropos will be displeased by her experiments in creating sapient fungi companions, but Atropos is just impressed by how cute they are and how well she's made them.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Bastard Son's power allows him to make people expert Improbable Weapon Users - but only when the "weapon" is in its initial state: if, for example, the guy with the expertise of fighting with a broom has said broom broken, he no longer knows how to fight.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • As Atropos' targets prove too stubborn to just leave after being warned, she steadily escalates from simple executions like a cut throat, to more horrifying options like being burnt alive by super-acid from the inside out, or being squashed to paste and spread over a hundred yards of asphalt. The emergency response teams get traumatised, veteran law enforcement officers throw up, and the villains who are still alive and not yet on her target list start to get the idea and leave town.
  • Rachel doesn't want Hookwolf to just die, she wants him to suffer. Which is why she only tells her dogs to "hurt", resulting in them ripping and tearing pieces off him over and over without finishing the job. Tattletale and Regent eventually persuade her to kill him so they can get moving.
• Cruel Mercy: As established in the Rules for Fighting Atropos, if she doesn't kill or cripple you, you'll wish she had.
• Crying Wolf: Atropos gets around the Butcher's danger sense by triggering it continually with Cherish's emotional manipulation powers, making it effectively useless.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Any fight Atropos gets involved in is one where the enemy will never touch her while she wrecks them.
  • Sophia pulls Taylor into an empty classroom and tries to gravely injure her. When Sophia throws the first punch, Taylor dodges, breaks the arm at the elbow, knees her in the side hard enough to break several ribs, crushes her larynx with a knuckle-punch, knocks her out of her shadow state with a pocket calculator and then stomps on her chest just right to stop her heart.
  • When Atropos goes after Coil in his bunker, she easily mows through all the mercenaries he throws at her, even pulling off moves like shooting and hitting two guys in different directions.
  • When Glory Girl goes after Atropos, she goes down to a flipped coin, then ends up looking at the wrong end of a pair of very sharp shears while Atropos explains the facts of life to her.
    Glory Girl: Do you want me to beg for my life? Is that it?
    Atropos: No. Next time, if someone tells you to back off … back the fuck off.
  • Atropos kills all of Bonesaw's spider-bots before they touch her, easily knocks out Bonesaw with a strategic stabbing through the ear, no-sells Jack Slash's best efforts without even looking, and then gives him a head start so he will go exactly where she wants him to go in order to make his death as ignominious as possible.
  • She opens her battle against Butcher and the Teeth with an AT-4 anti-tank missile, then proceeds to dance through a gauntlet consisting of Animos, Vex, Spree and Hemorrhagia (killing the latter three) before allowing Animos to depower Butcher, chopping Butcher to pieces with an axe, then shooting Animos almost as an afterthought.
  • Heartbreaker doesn't even have a chance to fight her. His one main offensive ability just doesn't work on her, so she breaks his jaw (mainly to shut him up) then coerces him into reversing his effects over his slaves. Then, of course, she murders him.
  • When fighting Night, she ambushes her, covers her head with a bag so she can't see anything, and goes to town on her.
  • When fighting Ravager, she first takes away the shotgun, then the knife, then repeatedly trips her with marbles, then glues googly eyes, a pacifier, and a clown nose to her face during the fight.
  • In her fight with Bastard Son's minions, she not only beats them in an 8-to-1 fight, but also keeps stealing their weapons and using them against them - and makes it look effortless.
  • When Atropos goes after March because she was planning on attacking Flechette, Atropos disarms the villain, kicks her around without the latter being able to do anything, and non-lethally stabs her twice with her own weapon.
  • The Simurgh only lasts a few seconds before getting sniped with a shotgun.
  • After Danny gets the Queen Administrator Shard, he gets rid of two mobsters and their muscle in seconds while only getting a split lip — which he actually allowed, to help him claim self-defense.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The capes of Flint actually manage to wreck Atropos' rifle and seize her with enough force to leave bruises, as well as trampling and dirtying her coat, just before she kills the origin of their powers. (It's still All According to Plan.)
• Cure for Cancer: Alice is startled when Atropos suggests that she might be capable of building an exotic "bomb" to kill cancer cells. After thinking about it, though, she decides that she probably could, with some research and testing, build a bomb that would kill cancer and nothing else. However, that would leave holes in the patient's body, filled with whatever slurry or other material the cancer cells turned into. Director Piggot suggests that it could still be useful for eradicating traces after surgically removing the main tumour, and schedules some time for her to work with Miss Medic.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon:
  • When Atropos has stomped on Hatchet Face's Berserk Button and he's chasing her through a building, he furiously threatens her with "an act that was both gross and probably impossible without Bonesaw's assistance".
  • Moments later, after she blows up Crawler right next to him, he internally vows to murder her in ways that give even him nightmares, with Bonesaw bringing her back to life in between as needed. He doesn't even get started carrying out the vow, though, before she paralyses his diaphragm and lets him suffocate.
• Cuteness Overload: Vista would really like to get past being seen as the cute little kid Ward, but as far as Clockblocker is concerned, seeing her with Miss Medic trotting along at her heels just makes them more adorable than ever.
• Cycle of Revenge: Averted after Atropos forces Goddess to free everyone from her thrall and depowers her. When the now free normal people give serious thought to take their revenge on capes, Atropos shuts that off harshly by pointing out that capes can come from any person, and that if they want to actually prevent problems, they better shut off the cycle by rebuilding society better than it was.

D

• Dark Action Girl: When Atropos deigns to get into a physical confrontation, she's this, combining martial arts and acrobatics with a pair of very sharp bodice shears and no qualms about using them.
• Dark Age of Supernames: When Taylor chooses the name Atropos, she's totally aware that she's going full edgelord with it, but she doesn't give a damn.
  I already knew what name I was going to go with. An education that included the classics had not gone wasted. All I needed was a matching costume. It would be edgy as fuck but then again, I had the power to murder anyone who pissed me off. The only way I could get any edgier would be to include the words 'blood' or 'stryke' in my name, and add a few dozen pouches and a stupidly-oversized gun.
• The Darkness Gazes Back: Parodied when Flechette sees how Atropos' maddening, murderous, unstoppable, yet somehow tolerable presence has worn down Director Piggot.
  The look in Piggot's eyes was as someone who had stared into the abyss and had it reach out and boop her on the nose.
• Dead Guy on Display:
  • Oni Lee is murdered primarily to send a warning to Lung (and the other gang leaders) that Atropos is serious. (Though his pistol also proves useful, and when she returns the protection money to the shop he had just shaken down, she gets her costume from them.)
  • The destruction of the Nine is broadcast far and wide for much the same reason: to send a warning to the supervillain community outside Brockton Bay.
• Deadly Dodging:
  • Atropos probably could have found another way to open the doors in front of her, but having Hatchet Face wreck them with a missed swing has the added bonus of pushing him further into Fury-Fueled Foolishness, following her through the doors in a very blind rage.
  • When Nicholas attempts to charge Atropos, she easily steps aside and leaves him to tackle an alley wall.
    Predictably, it failed to budge.
  • Atropos ducks over a Jersey barrier to evade Butcher's arrival explosion ... just in time for Animos's scream to target Butcher instead.
• Deadly Escape Mechanism: When preparing to assassinate Skidmark, Taylor reconnects an ejection seat in Squealer's tank that was supposed to be used as just a regular seat, and rigs a remote trigger for it. It ejects him onto the road in front of the tank, whereupon he's smeared over 200 yards of asphalt.
• Deadly Euphemism:
  • After her encounter with the Slaughterhouse Nine, Atropos posts on PHO about holding a "party" for them, which got wild enough that several of them had to "lie down," the Siberian had to "pop out", and Jack Slash had to "head off". Also, when Crawler ate a high-explosive "party favor" from Dragon, Atropos had this to say:
    That's Crawler all over.
  • Atropos is "cleaning up the city" and "taking out the trash." Admittedly, that doesn't always have to involve killing people — but it frequently does.
    Atropos: I don't have to kill anyone … well, unless they really want to force the issue. But I'll probably only have to break a few bones.
• Deadly Prank: Abaddon apparently considers its shard gift to be a practical joke on the other two entities. The fact that Taylor leaves a string of bodies behind her means little to such beings, of course. As the narrative notes, it requires "an extremely generous definition of the word 'joke'".
• Dead Man's Switch:
  • Before confronting Atropos, Heartbreaker instructs his thralls to kill themselves if they hear of his death. But Atropos forces him to revoke his command and free them before she finishes him off.
  • Bastard Son rigs his drug transport with bombs linked to the seatbelts and the doors and a remote trigger and a backup timer. Atropos jams his signal, disarms the booby traps so the passengers can get out, and uses the timed explosion to fake her own death so he'll be off guard.
  • Atropos herself uses a variant: she implants a virus into the Machine Army that will destroy them if they don't receive regular network pings. When one faction of robots tries to hide from her and rebuild later, their standby mode shuts down their network connections, and they explode right on the 24-hour mark.
  • Bianca has the guards on her hostages fitted with explosives that will go off if their hearts stop. But instead of kidnapping Aisha, they kidnapped Riley, who is capable of completely incapacitating someone without any danger of their heart stopping.
• Death by Adaptation: Numerous characters die earlier than in canon due to the change in Taylor’s power, and given the nature of Atropos, this list is only going to grow.^note These are only the named characters she's killed. And as of Part 75, it's only been nine weeks.
  • Sophia Hess gets beaten to death by Taylor/Atropos after she corners her in a classroom and tries to severely injure her.
  • Oni Lee is killed by Atropos as a warning to the gangs that they’re no longer welcome in her city, rather than being turned into Hack Job.
  • Coil dies in both timelines generated by his power; in one his base is raided by Atropos and she kills him by hanging him from a catwalk, while in the other, he’s ambushed in bed at home and suffers a Slashed Throat courtesy of a very annoyed Atropos.
  • Kaiser dodges death via battery acid-laced bourbon, only to be stabbed through the eye with a sword once owned by a Kaiser while surrounded by Empire 88’s capes; this also has the effect of sending them running for the hills.
  • Saint & Mags of the Dragonslayers both die after Atropos interferes with their suits’ systems, causing them to attack a mid-transformation Lung and promptly get burned alive in short order when he starts ramping up.
  • Lung is burned alive from the inside-out by Atropos, courtesy of fluoroantimonic capsules being rammed into his brain and chest and then ignited by contact with his body water.
  • Skidmark is reduced to a red skidmark on the asphalt while riding in Squealer's tank due to Atropos rigging his seat to eject, dropping him in front of the speeding tank.
  • Hookwolf is ripped apart by Bitch’s dogs just before the Undersiders leave town for good. Notably, he's the only villain to die during this time whose death was not specifically arranged by Atropos.
  • Most of the Slaughterhouse Nine get killed by Atropos after trying to hit Brockton Bay. Bonesaw and Cherie both survive; the former experiences a Death of Personality due to Atropos calling in a favour from Panacea, while the latter is recruited by Atropos before she can join the Nine.
  • Nicholas Vasil gets his throat cut by Atropos after he ignores his two warnings and her Declaration of Protection toward Cherie Vasil.
  • The Teeth are wiped out to a man after Butcher XIV decides she wants to take on Atropos, with the Butcher herself being chopped into fourteen pieces and her power permanently nullified by Path to Ending.
  • Heartbreaker is stabbed through the chest with the jagged edge of a broken Valentine’s day candy heart, having ignored Atropos' warning not to come to Brockton Bay.
  • Night and Fog are both killed while guarding an illegal Gesellschaft shipment, with Night being blinded and then stabbed repeatedly (including in the eye) while Fog is reduced to Ludicrous Gibs by a grenade.
  • Ravager's credibility as a villain is left in utter ruin courtesy of a Humiliation Conga engineered by Atropos.
  • Bastard Son's fate in canon remains unanswered, but here he dies when Atropos skewers him with the bastard sword she got from Theo Anders.
  • Simurgh ultimately gets taken down courtesy of a fistful of buckshot empowered by Flechette and blasted with unerring accuracy into her core.
  • Eligos gets his throat slashed through by Atropos.
  • Mama Mathers is blinded and rendered deaf and mute before Atropos throws her (and Valefor, also blinded) off Winslow High School's roof.
  • The Simurgh is shot down by Atropos with ammunition treated with Sting, then finished off with the other barrel.
  • Nilbog is infected with a virus that basically explodes his heart.
  • The Machine Army is given an ultimatum; those who don't choose to surrender are exploded by a particularly nasty virus. Some do; most don't.
  • Goddess is depowered and left to the 'mercy' of the enraged mob.
• Death by Irony: Atropos makes a point of killing several major villains in ironic fashions.
  • Lung is burned alive from the inside out by a fluoroantimonic acid capsule.
  • Shatterbird is choked to death by Atropos forcing a shard of glass from Shatterbird's own mask down her throat, preventing her from singing to free herself. The pyromaniac Burnscar swiftly follows when Atropos jams a CO₂ fire extinguisher into her mouth and releases its payload, freezing her to death from the inside out.
  • Subverted and lampshaded in the The Siberian's case - Atropos actually apologises to her for not having a suitably witty or ironic death lined up, then tosses her a grenade pin, swiftly followed by an explosion in the distance and the Siberian popping..
  • Bonesaw is stabbed through the head with her own surgical probe, then carted off to be physically and mentally remade by another biology manipulator, just like she did to countless civilians while under Jack Slash's influence.
  • When she kills Mama Mathers and Valefor of the Fallen, she makes it so they will die by falling off the roof of Winslow High School.
• Death Faked for You: Atropos wants the world to believe that she has killed Bonesaw, and it's even Metaphorically True. She stabs Bonesaw in the brain to knock her out, shoots her in the (heavily reinforced) forehead to make the "kill" convincing, then comes back later after finishing the Nine and whisks Bonesaw away for treatment by (a rather reluctant) Panacea.
• Death Glare: When Amy comes to the park as arranged, she gives Atropos a glare which "would've stripped paint at ten paces." By the time Atropos persuades her that reverting Bonesaw into Riley is for the best — which means breaking her "no brains" rule — it's upgraded to "would've bored a hole straight through a six-inch plate of tungsten carbide."
• Death of Personality: Atropos "kills" Bonesaw, by having Panacea use her powers to erase or blunt all of Riley's memories of her time Mastered by Jack.
• Decapitation Presentation: Atropos hands Director Piggot a bag containing Nilbog's head. Director Piggot looks inside multiple times, because it makes her smile.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • One of Atropos’ first acts after debuting is to warn the gangs that Brockton Bay is now under her protection, and they have the choice to leave or die screaming. She follows through with it when they refuse, and steadily expands the list over the course of the story to bar national villains (such as the Elite, Fallen, Gesellschaft, and the Heartbroken) from the city.
  • When Nicholas and Guilllaume Vasil arrive to take Cherie back to Heartbreaker by force, Atropos warns them both that their quarry is under her protection. When Nicholas ignores this and tries to Master then shoot Atropos, she casually kills him before scaring Guillaume into surrendering to the PRT.
  • After getting Flechette to visit Brockton Bay any day now, Atropos makes a visit to March to make sure the villain knows Flechette is completely off-limits.
• Deducing the Secret Identity: Subverted when Director Wilkins realises that it's possible to deduce Atropos' identity, or at least get a strong suspect, by checking school records to see who lodged the most complaints about Sophia Hess. Director Piggot frantically warns her not to try, but Wilkins is dismissive — until Atropos appears behind her, seizes her by the throat, and puts a blade to her eye, as her second and final warning.
  Wilkins: If Atropos and Stalker went to the same school, all you have to do is cross-reference the complaints to see who put in the most, then we have our suspect. Then we put pressure on the friends and family, and she falls straight into line. From loose cannon to valuable asset under our control, in one easy step.
• Demanding Their Head: The Elite are smart (and paranoid) enough to insist on being presented with Atropos' severed head before they'll believe she's dead. Bastard Son is unimpressed that they won't take his word for it, but he accepts the challenge.
• De-power:
  • At Atropos' request, Riley crafts a paste that, when introduced to someone's bloodstream, will target their corona pollentia and disable parahuman powers. Atropos uses it on Bastard Son to break his control of his minions, at which point they turn on him.
  • She later uses it on Eidolon — after getting him to agree to give up his powers in order to get rid of the Endbringers. He thinks it's the price for her help, but what it means is that he openly states his intention for the Endbringers to no longer harm the world, and then his power shuts down — making that their final order.
  • She uses a contact version of it on a grape that she then feeds to Sveta to kill her powers, after which Amy rebuilds Sveta's body.
  • A similar method is used to restore Noelle to normality.
• Desecrating the Dead: Taylor takes all of Oni Lee's weapons after killing him, which Lung considers to be "the final insult."
• Destination Defenestration: When Atropos' power detects that Aisha is in danger, she throws a drug dealer out a third-floor window so he lands on the guy who is the threat.
  Atropos: I recommend the experience. We should start Throw A Drug Dealer Out The Window Day. Make it an annual event.
• Destroy the Evidence: Emma insists on having all the damaged lockers replaced promptly — which inadvertently removes the evidence that would have let the police know Taylor had cause for a grudge against Sophia.
  It seemed there were unexpected benefits in attending a school where 'sweeping things under the rug' was raised to the level of an Olympic event.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Brian (once Grue, now the prospective Ward Tenebrae) finds himself sitting in a park with his sister, chatting and joking with Atropos, the most feared cape in Brockton Bay. And he seems to be the only one who sees anything weird about it.
  Brian had no idea what was going on. Aisha was being her usual self, and Atropos was … playing along? Clowning around? For a terrifyingly effective assassin, she seemed intent on enjoying herself, even pulling out her own phone for a couple of selfies.
  It was not how he'd expected this to go.
• Didn't See That Coming: In a canonized omake, Taylor is seriously caught off guard when she learns Emma started a cult that worships Atropos as a goddess of death.
• Different World, Different Movies: Apparently in Earth Aleph Neo was played by Will Smith.
• Dirty Cop: After Reave's persistent nagging to cooperate with law enforcement, Atropos states that one reason she's not giving the police the information to help with her drug busts is because some of the drugs and/or dealers would mysteriously slip through the cracks if she did. Aisha is amused.
  GreatAndTerribleAisha: I guess too many cops got used to looking the other way for a bit of cash, huh? I mean, when it's 'either accept this bribe or die screaming' I can kinda understand, but you'd think there would be the option of transferring to a different beat or whatever.
• Disney Villain Death: As far as the general public can see, Bastard Son was chased away and then never seen again. In actuality, he escaped from his former minions, but Atropos intercepted and skewered him.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Atropos brings Goddess down and depowers her, she leaves it to the local people she abused with her powers to render justice on her (in the form of beating her to death).
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Atropos warns Kayden to leave town after Kaiser's death, because the PRT will come after her and she'll lose custody of her daughter. Kayden doesn't have any difficulty in connecting the dots from that to, "I won't let them take Aster from me without a fight," and then to, "Atropos will kill me to stop me from wrecking the city."
  Kayden: Why are you warning me?
  Atropos: Because I gave Kaiser the chance to leave town before I killed him. It would be unfair not to do the same with you.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • After rumours start at school about Taylor being Atropos, Gladly becomes concerned that Atropos will take offence at the brand dilution, and pulls Taylor aside to warn her.
  • When the Wards are undergoing training to use their powers alongside firefighters and paramedics, the paramedics try to gross out Miss Medic with stories of things they've seen. While it's partly a form of hazing the new guy, it's also to make sure she doesn't throw up during calls. Since Miss Medic used to be Bonesaw, she's completely unfazed by anything they show or tell her.
• The Dreaded:
  • Atropos very quickly gains a reputation that has everyone with the slightest degree of sense wanting to steer well clear. This is entirely intentional; while she would be totally capable of killing all the villains, it would become too tedious, so she prefers to kill selected targets and scare the rest out of town.
    • The PRT orders all the Wards not to engage her unless she's directly attacking them or innocent bystanders, the remains of the gangs she's decapitated are heading for the hills, and when she mentions that Uber and Leet should stay put so she can have a talk with them, they both freak out before doing their best to persuade themselves that she probably doesn't want to kill them if she hasn't first warned them to run.
    • Cherish tries to interrogate Madison on Atropos' identity, but even with her emotion-manipulating powers, Madison is simply too scared of what Taylor would do to her if she talked to spill the beans. Even when Cherie tries to use the fear instead of fighting it, she's not having any more luck before Taylor interrupts her via Dynamic Entry.
    • Whirlygig (later renamed to Bastet) apparently triggered from sheer fear of Atropos.
    • Ravager's goons run rather than face her.
    • Even the Elite are reluctant to pull their usual MO in Brockton Bay. Bastard Son is the only one arrogant enough to try, which ends in him being skewered with a bastard sword by Atropos.
    • When the judge in Canary's case finds out that Atropos is showing an interest in the situation, he's suddenly a lot less confident about the whole thing.
    • The Yangban have decided to stay the fuck away from Atropos.
    • Damsel of Distress meekly submits to having her hands surgically remodelled to fix her power incontinence because Atropos has decided that it's going to happen.
    • The villains in the Freedom, Gallup and Gary quarantine sites decide that it's better to surrender en masse to the PRT rather than risk her wrath.
  • Danny has heard of fluoroantimonic acid before, but only in the context of things no Dockworker should ever go near, let alone handle.
    Any substance with 'fluoro' as part of the name was generally to be avoided like the plague. From what he'd heard, the plague would be friendlier.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Atropos inspires this in Mannequin, by pushing the Trauma Button that caused him to become Mannequin — the deaths of his wife and children.
  • When Atropos states that she's going to face Heartbreaker and kill him, Cherie is startled, then decides that if Atropos loses and he succeeds in Mind Controlling her, Cherie is just going to shoot herself, because she doesn't want to live in the world that would result.
  • It's implied that Ravager would have preferred death to the Humiliation Conga that Atropos subjected her to.
  • One Yangban precog chose suicide over saying anything about attacking Atropos other than "Fuck that".
• Drugs Are Bad: After decapitating the major gangs, Atropos' next order of business is to entirely eradicate the drug trade in Brockton Bay (she even calls it "Operation Drugs Are Bad"). She doesn't care about tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, or even marijuana, but she clearly announces her intent to find and destroy everything harder than that, along with anyone who gets in the way. Aisha, whose home life has been badly affected by addiction, is excited to participate.
  Atropos: One very specific note: the drug trade inside Brockton Bay *is* coming to an end, by word of me.
• Dual Wielding: Atropos faces Jack Slash and Bonesaw with her shears in her right hand (to block his knife) and a pistol in her left (to kill Bonesaw's spider-bots). She then goes up to three, tossing the pistol in the air as a distraction, seizing a medical probe that she uses to take down Bonesaw with a stab to the brain, then discarding the probe and catching the pistol as it falls.

E-F

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Piggot not only gets tagged to take up PRT New York's directorship and sees the end of her personal Trauma Button, but also gets to be the one that will announce the End of the Endbringers five minutes before her official retirement.
• Easy Logistics: Averted. Fixing Brockton Bay's infrastructure isn't just a question of money and manpower but also supplies. Two executives who supply tar and aggregate try to make a quick buck by forcing the committee to buy from them. Beyond that, there's also the diesel to fuel the trucks and machinery, wear and tear on the machinery that will be running nonstop for months (minimum) requiring rolling maintenance shops and backups, making sure everyone is certified for whatever tools and machines they use, etc. Fortunately, not only are they following Accord's plan to the letter, which accounts for basically everything that can be predicted, Danny's power prevents or mitigates unpredictable problems such as machines breaking down sooner than expected or accidentally clipping an obstacle while driving.
• Ejection Seat: Due to the quirks of her Tinker power, Squealer always builds her vehicles with ejection seats instead of regular seats. She just doesn't connect them up if she doesn't intend to use them. (But it's easy for Atropos to reconnect it when sabotaging the vehicle.)
  Reave: Why did he have a working ejection seat? We may never know.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Australian hero Pocket Rocket calls the Simurgh "The Bin Chicken of Doom". Atropos finds it hilarious, and mentions it in her PHO post about The Great Duck Hunt.
• Enemy Civil War:
  • The Fallen start to fight amongst themselves after Atropos kills Eligos, Valefor, and Mama Mathers.
  • Three hours after Atropos' ultimatum, the city of Eagleton descends into a four-way total war, as machines who believe they can still beat humanity clash with machines who have seen Atropos' track record and view surrender as the only survivable option, plus the ones who want something in the middle. When Atropos arrives at the end of her window, she kills off the holdouts and rescues the ones willing to be reprogrammed.
• Enemy Mine: Atropos greets Dragon as "frenemy mine" when arranging to take down the Slaughterhouse Nine together. Dragon is unenthusiastic about the designation, but quite keen on the collaboration.
  Dragon sighed. "I thought I said we'd see about the frenemy thing."
  I injected faux surprise into my tone. "So, you don't want to come help me kill off the Nine tomorrow?"
  Her voice changed, becoming considerably more alert. "Where would you like me to pick you up from?"
• Enlightened Self-Interest: When questioned about her motives for rehabilitating Damsel of Distress, Atropos agrees that she isn't really being altruistic.
  Atropos: I'm thinking if we co-opt them now and give them reasons not to be a villain, that's a future problem dodged altogether. Also, they're potentially useful to me, once given a new lease on life. Trust me, I'm absolutely operating on enlightened self-interest, here.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Armsmaster and Battery discover that whoever killed Shadow Stalker was wearing the same clothes as her, right down to the brand of detergent, and they conclude that it was a shape shifter who took her form. It was actually much more mundane; Taylor raided Sophia's locker to replace her own ruined clothing.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: Aisha has a hard time believing that Polaroid cameras capable of printing a photo on the spot are really a widely available product rather than Tinker tech. Her older brother is amused.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Gender-swapped, but otherwise played straight. Taylor will murder anyone who tries to harm her father. Because he's her dad, and that's all there is to it.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Lampshaded when Atropos sends a car into a tree and is a little disappointed that it doesn't explode the way Hollywood thinks it should.
  The next car I sent careening off the road, I decided, would explode into flames in proper action-movie style.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • When two ABB grunts decide to kill the girls they were pimping and frame Atropos for it, their companion attempts to stop them. The two would-be killers are quickly killed by Atropos, who has found out about the plot, while the other one is let go with a warning to go straight.
  • Atropos may be an unrepentant serial killer, but she's disgusted by the very idea that she's a good candidate for the Slaughterhouse Nine.
    Atropos: What on earth gave you the idea that I would allow a bunch of losers like you to associate with me? Your methods are tacky, self-defeating, pointless and utterly lacking in anything resembling a sense of style.
• Evil Gloating: By the time Bastard Son finishes his sentence about how Atropos can't win and might as well surrender now, she's already downed and disarmed all of his minions.
• Evil Laugh: Atropos sometimes lets one loose in her PHO posts, and occasionally just for laughs while talking to Cherie.
  "Mwahahaha," I said, deadpan. "Fear my fearsome fearsomeness."
• Evil Power Vacuum: After the major gangs are decapitated and scattered, Atropos recognises that external forces are likely to start making their move on the city, and publicly warns them not to try — on pain of death, naturally. Just as naturally, most of the people she calls out merely see this as a challenge that they have to meet.
  And finally, the others. You know who you are. Those outside organizations and individuals who have suddenly realized that the criminal underworld in Brockton Bay just became a vacuum. You're all eyeing this city off like a bunch of hyenas closing in on a zebra with a broken leg.
  I have one word for you:
  Don't.
• Evil Wears Black: Atropos wears a hat, morph mask, long-coat, gloves, boots ... all in black, over a similarly coloured suit and tie.
• Exact Words:
  • Atropos promises not to tell anyone about what Glory Girl did at the park, in exchange for Panacea owing her one. Note that this promise doesn't keep her from suggesting that Aisha do it for her. (And Aisha was present, so talking to her about it isn't breaking the promise.) Nor does it prevent Atropos from talking about how Glory Girl was beaten and embarrassed, so long as she doesn't mention the endangered civilians.
  • When Amy is going to meet Atropos and pay off the favour, Carol (not knowing what's happening) cautions her to quickly leave if she sees Atropos again. Rather than lie, Amy simply says not to worry and states honestly that "I have absolutely no desire to be that close to her ever again."
  • Atropos warns Jack Slash that if he lies to her again, she'll kill him. Of course, that doesn't mean she won't kill him if he's truthful.
  • Taylor truthfully tells Mrs Knott that she's looking after Cherie "until her father shows up this afternoon." (She leaves out the part where she's planning to gruesomely murder said father.)
  • When one of the newly formed committee members tries skimming funds, Danny warns him that "Atropos spoke to me this morning about the committee". All Taylor had actually said was to wish him luck with said committee.
  • When "persuading" Judge Regan to administer proper justice in the Canary case, Dragon quotes Atropos verbatim on the horrible things she'll do if he doesn't step up, but chooses not to mention that Atropos only took an interest in the case at all because Dragon called in a favour for it.
  • Fleeing from Atropos, Bastard Son orders his chaffeur to "Drive!" Atropos, who has knocked out and replaced the driver, takes that as her cue to drive a sword through his chest.
  • Atropos promises Riley not to kill Barrow as he's never actually killed anyone. Knee-capping isn't killing. Bonus points because Barrow realises the distinction just a moment too late.
  • Atropos has already stated that she will kill the Endbringers 'with the Power of Friendship' (to Dragon's not so secret amusement). When the Simurgh shows up in Canberra, she's carrying a shotgun with the words 'The Power of Friendship' engraved along each barrel, which she then uses to kill the Simurgh.
    • Related to this, she pulls on Alexandria's friendship with Eidolon to make him subconsciously wish to stop the other Endbringers before Ending his powers, ensuring they are no longer a danger. Nobody said it had to be Atropos' friendship, after all.
  • Carol Dallon learns that Atropos has been visiting Panacea and getting her help with various endeavours, and Carol messages Atropos to insist that next time, she needs to knock on the door so they can discuss it. Atropos agrees, and complies — but during the conversation, also makes it clear that she doesn't actually need Carol's permission for anything.
    Atropos: You said to knock on the front door and talk. I've knocked, we're talking.
  • When asked about the Queen Administrator shard (Taylor's canon power), the author stated that no one would Trigger with it. Using Path to Ending to browbeat Administrator into connecting with someone (such as Danny) without having to go through a traumatic event isn't Triggering.
  • Danny decides that the simplest way to respond to questions about how he took down four men who attacked him is with simple but misleading truth.
    Danny: I'm a Dockworker. Always have been, always will be.
  • Danny does it again on how he knew one truck had a faulty transmission before it broke down, merely saying he had a lot of experience, letting people assume he simply knew what a truck about to break down from a bad transmission sounded like rather than the fact he used his powers.
  • Defied when Atropos decides not to attach any strings to healing Genesis' spinal injury because she doesn't want to breed resentment and malicious compliance.
    I had no desire to find out just how big a mess a bunch of unhappy capes could make by 'helping'.
  • She declares that she'll put an End to the Machine Army with panache and style. She makes a computer virus called "Panache" that causes their programming to fizzle out, while "Style" is the name for the short-lived bacteria Panacea creates that can eat through metal and plastic.
  • When the cape Goddess from Earth Shin forces her to kill the members of The Resistance in her world by threatening to kill Emma, Riley, and Theo, Atropos promises that by the end of the day "the name of the Goddess will be the most celebrated one across the face of this world. They'll probably declare a public holiday." What she fails to mention is that the public holiday will be because Goddess will be dead, and the Goddess celebrated will be Atropos (the actual one, not the cape).
  • Atropos promises Teacher that, if he does what she says, she won't force him back to the Birdcage. She said nothing about tricking him into running through a portal that'll send him back, though.
• The Extremist Was Right: As far as Director Piggot is concerned, one of Atropos' most annoying attributes is the fact that her campaign of death and terror is working. She's unstoppably and unapologetically massacring everyone whom she decides is a threat to Brockton Bay, and the city has never been more peaceful and prosperous; regular citizens feel safe to walk down the streets, urban renewal is everywhere, the remaining gangs are steering well clear, etc. The fact that it's all built on murder grinds the Director's gears, but she's pragmatic enough to adapt to the new reality.
  The PRT had gone from just barely holding their own to literally having excess time on their hands. With the heroes freed from having to focus on villain capes and gang violence, they were assisting the BBPD in going after normal criminals; in short, the change right across the board had been both fundamental and massive.
  So why am I not happier about this?
• Eye Scream:
  • Kaiser is killed with a sword through the eye.
  • Glory Girl is kept in place by Atropos holding her shears close to her eye.
  • Hatchet Face loses an eye to Atropos' shears before she kills him.
  • Atropos threatens Director Wilkins by holding the shears to her eye.
  • Paul King and Janice Templeton are blinded after they try to embezzle from the Brockton Bay Betterment fund.
  • Atropos puts out the eyes of one of Nilbog's creations, whom he was using to watch her, with her shears, one at a time. (The stabs are also deep enough to eventually cause death.)
  • Both Valefor and Mama Mathers get the shear eye treatment before their deaths.
• Face Death with Despair: Jack Slash keeps trying to negotiate and bluster and otherwise remain Defiant to the End — until Atropos promises to tarnish his memory and tear down his reputation, so that "not even the edgiest of edgelords will want to be you." Then he breaks down.
  Jack Slash: No. You wouldn't. You can't.
• The Faceless: Atropos wears a black morph mask as part of her costume.
• Face Palm:
  • Legend curses and face-palms when he realises that the Fallen were thrown off a building, i.e. they fell.
    Legend: I don't know what's worse about her, the body count or the puns about the body count.
  • Upon realising the reason why she stood up to Carol, Amy first face-palms, then decides that isn't enough and slowly drags her hand down her face to cover her mouth.
    Amy: I'm an idiot.
• Faking the Dead: Atropos allows herself to be apparently blown up, so that the person responsible won't see her coming.
• False Flag Operation: After Atropos' very first PHO post, Reave raises the possibility that she's actually a false flag operation by one of the gangs to strike at the others. Atropos just laughs at the idea and reiterates that she'll kill all the gang leaders if they don't leave.
• Family of Choice: Brian and Aisha take on two extra family members, Riley formerly Bonesaw and Theo Anders and almost instantly become closer to them than their biological families. When they return after being kidnapped for a couple hours, Brian was sick with worry and both get The Glomp from each Laborn.
• Fate Worse than Death: By the time Atropos is done with her, Ravioli (formerly known as Ravager) is still alive... but after the Humiliation Conga she went through, she likely wishes she was dead.
• Finagle's Law: Director Piggot acknowledges that Skidmark might be leaving town, and if he has any sense he should be leaving town.
  Piggot: But because that would actually make my life easier, I'm going to assume he isn't.
• Finger Gun: Atropos does this twice; once for Kaiser, and once for Skidmark. She later reveals to Aisha that she was concealing a remote trigger button in her other hand.
• Finger-Tenting: Atropos steeples her fingers while explaining her plans to Brian and Aisha. (And internally admits that she's hamming it up a bit by doing so.)
• Fingore: Taylor doesn't need to go all out to dissuade a school bully, the way she did to Sophia. She just seizes his little finger and twists, instantly turning his threats into a pained scream.
• Five-Finger Discount: Taylor's campaign against the gangs initially has a small cash flow problem, but she quickly kills that by picking someone's pocket as she walks past. There's not even a need for bumping into them, she just has fast fingers and perfect technique.
  I'd never practised this in my life, but just like the martial arts thing, it didn't matter; the hand was quicker than the eye. Before I'd gone fifty yards, I had a wallet in the right-hand pocket of my hoodie.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Atropos faces Paul King, the latter fires three times at her, temporarily losing his hearing over the gunshots and noting how the gun jolts extra hard after the third shot. Turns out, Atropos fired four times, and the last bullet went into King's gun's barrel, making it explode when King tries to fire again.
• Flat "What":
  • The general reaction when Atropos ends both her ban and that of her first PHO thread.
  • Also, the reaction to when she casually mentions that she intends to kill the Endbringers.
• Flipping the Bird: Atropos has too much class and style to do anything as tawdry as giving an enemy the finger. Cherie, facing her father after he's been crippled and pinned down, is a different story.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Lung brings a translator to interrogate a Vietnamese shopkeeper, because he doesn't speak the language himself except for "extremely crude subjects."
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Sophia discovers that her running shoes have been stolen, she promises that "Someone is gonna die for this." Before the day is out, Sophia has died by picking a fight with Taylor over the theft.
  • Despite the Unspoken Plan Guarantee being in effect, there's still a hint of what will happen to the Butcher.
    "But … if you kill the Butcher, they'll all end up in your head." Cherie had grown up with a Master for a father. She couldn't think of anything worse.
    Taylor's smile had lots of teeth; when she spoke, Cherie caught a hint of the unearthly voice she'd last heard in the alley where Nicholas had died. "Yes. I know."
• Frame-Up: Taylor's planning for Skidmark is rudely interrupted by her becoming aware of some goons who intend to write a message implicating her in a multiple murder they're about to commit. It takes only a brief detour for her to Make an Example of Them before they can pull it off.
• Freudian Threat: Atropos compels Heartbreaker into following her demand of freeing all the people he's enslaved by threatening to castrate him with her shears through his asshole.
• Friendly Enemy:
  • Atropos is leading up to this with Dragon, after removing Dragon's Perception Filter but installing a different one at the same time, and escaping arrest but letting Dragon end the Dragonslayers.
    Dragon: Understood, and thank you again for that part. I'm still not even remotely thrilled about you hacking me, though.
    Atropos: I'd be worried if you were. Friends?
    Dragon: Don't push it.
    Atropos: Frenemies, then?
    Dragon: Maybe. Give it time.
    Atropos: Yes, ma'am.
  • Chief Director Costa-Brown can't exactly endorse Atropos' crimes, but when Atropos indicates a plausible intention (and ability) to kill the Endbringers, the Chief Director decides that keeping Atropos happy is more valuable than Director Wilkins' job, or even life.
  • Although she knows Atropos is an unapologetic serial killer, Flechette finds herself being won over by her charm, especially after Atropos asks for a selfie, and Mouse Protector joins in.
  • When Reave (who has been trying for some time to get Atropos to come in to the PRT) shows up at the booby-trapped car, they act more like professional colleagues than antagonists.
  • Panacea objects to Atropos' activities on principle, but the jobs Atropos brings to her always seem reasonable and interesting. She's grumpy and snarky, but keeps agreeing to help.
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: Hatchet Face gets killed by Atropos goading him into a frothing rage, such that he pursues her without considering he's being Lured into a Trap. This dooms not only him, but also Crawler, as Dragon launches a missile at them both while Hatchet Face's power nullifies Crawler's.

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So, here's what I've got to say. The gangs are no longer welcome on TVTropes. It's time for you to leave. The door's thataway.