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Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

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Crake said:
Imagine Joe meets Contessa and she's running an incomplete model of him which presupposes he will be caught off guard by something she does, and he greets her by name, with familiarity in his eyes, and so utterly composed despite giving the impression he's aware of the Bogeyman and finds it completely harmless in person.
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I can only imagine the feelings of terror and helplessness that would arise from the assurance that you can defeat anyone that it's physically possible for you to defeat

and then coming face-to-face with someone

and knowing with absolute certainty that there are zero potential futures in which you defeat them.
 
LordRoustabout said:
Her parents had tried to trap her in the house, bound through imposed guilt and obligation. Coil had built a web of fear, constructed out of a command of the situation that could not be challenged. In his own way, Joe was worse than either of them. He handed you the chains and let you put them on yourself. He furnished your cell and left the door unlocked, waiting for you to walk in. It was a prison you could leave at any time, because it wasn't force that was keeping you there. It was something much harder to struggle against. It was kindness.
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It really says something about Lisa that the closest comparison she has for someone being honestly nice to her that she has zero leverage over is someone trying to enslave her.

It says she needs therapy.
 
Xedornox said:
With how the Celestial Forge responds to dangers though I think he would need to actually ask if Scion is a danger otherwise he might just go like- "Huh Scion is a Pre-Cog, and he's still late to Endbringer fights" without giving it a second of consideration.
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"Those cats stuck in trees must have been REALLY important to the future of humanity!"
 
You know reading the perk, it's interesting how Joe knew that it was talking about Scion when it says Zion... neat!


That aside, the reaction of Lisa's passenger concerning the Glove was... Interesting. Very relatable, much screaming in mortal terror.
 
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readerdreamer said:
The biggest is actually not Coil, not the Simurgh, even not Contessa. It's the fact that Joe is aware that OCP is protecting him from Scion. As in, he is now aware that Scion is seen as a threat by his power.
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There's that bombshell in the text, yes. But it also appears to outright confirm his alternate universe theory:
LordRoustabout said:
Your peculiar inter-dimensional nature just messes up their ability to predict you.
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UncleSadBedroom said:
Tbh I'm amazed that Joe didn't flip the fuck out once he had his attention drawn to Scion's name, because he sure as hell couldn't stay calm with March's.
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It's because the Passenger is basically the Worm Fandom in abridged format, and it doesn't fear Scion because no fic will ever come close to an arc focused on him, and if it does he will be solved by a sometimes literal deus ex machina.

It will freak out about Leviathan when he comes on the other hand because ostensibly that SHOULD kill this fic. :p
 
Is Joes shard in the workshop? If not, there may be a very big problem in the near future. I doubt Scion would miss something like that, after all it doesn't have any of Joes protections. Worse, it had a connection to his head!
 
So now that I have best boi tinker power out of my system, one thing I did want to focus on was that massive info dump that we got into Tattletale, her actual knowledge of the situation at large, and her reasoning/motivations for her past and future actions. And this is definitely a time where I wish I was smarter or better at pointing specific things and explaining why I have certain emotions because of them but was I the only one that was getting more and more pissed off at Lisa? I understand she's coming at Joe completely cold and is now having to second guess a lot of assumptions, not to mention her own history and baggage at play, but I was just getting so mad reading how she was describing certain actions of Joe and how terrible they/he is. I'm sure this is my own personal bias at play, but I'm curious to know if other people also had this reaction as well?
 
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Aw how sweet! The glove met a new delicious friend! One wonders how the relationship will grow between it and Lisa's Shard. Might it share some interesting stories?

Also if she told Joe about the Travelers and Noelle and her fear of Evil Joe, he probably could remotely inspect her with a drone first instead of coming in himself. Lack of communication as always being the issue in Worm.
 
LordRoustabout said:
Aisha glanced at the Matrix. "Is that true, or are you still just sore about the state of this place?"

'I could make a better bar than this.' They looked around at the dingy atmosphere. 'I could BE a better bar than this! Three-micron -thick nanobot shells would be able to emulate this entire establishment. With better drinks. And service!'

I noted the waitress circling towards us with her pad and pen. Apparently the drop in activity from shifting to direct transmissions had convinced her we were ready to order. 'It's impolite to make statements like that about our hosts before you've given them a chance.' I transmitted back. The Matrix replied with grumbling acceptance, coupled with the implication that an exhaustive report would forthcoming, a stance that was agreed upon by Survey while Fleet nodded in amusement.
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Matrix just rules here, and love how even the little bits so far outside the workshop have given some more exploration into these characters.
 
readerdreamer said:
It's the fact that Joe is aware that OCP is protecting him from Scion. As in, he is now aware that Scion is seen as a threat by his power.
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Would he make that logic leap, though? For us it seems obvious, but for someone from Worm wouldn't it be more of a case of "Of course Scion has a precognition power, duh, he's the most powerful parahuman out there"? Especially since his passenger reacted to Contessa, but not to Scion.
 
"well-intentioned idiot with the power of a god" should be the tagline of the whole fic. What a great line!

Also, it may be too obvious to happen, but I really hope the plan isn't to get Noelle to clone some evil Joe's. Yes, it would actually give Joe some credible threats, but it's just so overdone it might as well be a cliche.
 
ImperatorV said:
This chapter in a nutshell:

Lisa: Everything's fucked, but as long as Joe doesn't go off on Coil I think I can do this.
Joe: It's time to go off on Coil.
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Exactly what I was going to say but funnier, so you get to be shiny.

readerdreamer said:
The biggest is actually not Coil, not the Simurgh, even not Contessa. It's the fact that Joe is aware that OCP is protecting him from Scion. As in, he is now aware that Scion is seen as a threat by his power.
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Realistically, this can't be the first time Joe has had a passing thought about Scion that his power should have jumped on going "AAAAAAAAAAHH bad thing scary we all die!"
 
Paloswag said:
"well-intentioned idiot with the power of a god" should be the tagline of the whole fic. What a great line!

Also, it may be too obvious to happen, but I really hope the plan isn't to get Noelle to clone some evil Joe's. Yes, it would actually give Joe some credible threats, but it's just so overdone it might as well be a cliche.
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Pretty sure it's already been confirmed by WoG that Evil Clones wouldn't get Forge powers. They might get his original Tinker specialization though.
 
readerdreamer said:
The biggest is actually not Coil, not the Simurgh, even not Contessa. It's the fact that Joe is aware that OCP is protecting him from Scion. As in, he is now aware that Scion is seen as a threat by his power.
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You are 100% correct. I completely breezed right by this fact as I was reading this chapter and got tunnel vision on the Contessa/Coil implications. And to be fair, I am definitely more interested at the moment in seeing how future events shake out because of that, Coil more so than Contessa, but I do think there will be a point where Joe takes stock for a second is like "Wait, why is power worried about protecting me from Scion? He's the numero uno hero, right?" Where he goes from there, especially if he has interacted with Cauldron yet by that point, will be so incredibly interesting. At least, that's my hope.
 
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