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Contractual Villainy

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Pillowsperky said:
She can collect Lisa and give her a home away from Bet without it being a 'conversion' thing, or even a sexuality thing at all, lol.
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Not that dislike Lisa, but I honestly like that she hasn't appeared in the story yet. She's a very common character to meet fairly early on in fanfiction, it's nice to have a story that's shaking that up a bit. I'd rather put off her introduction a while longer yet before bringing her on.

Additionally, what with the timeline being wack compared to canon, there's not really any good point for her to interact with Taylor as things stand. No Lung fight or anything to get her interest peaked, beyond "hey new cape" which allegedly is fairly common, the more interesting thing is when they survive as an independent for a bit, without either dying or getting swallowed by a bigger fish.
 
Knightowl 4183 said:
I agree about Wildbow being a hack. I mean he created Amelia Dallon as a pastiche of himself that everyone was supposed to hate, Victoria Dallon as the one everyone was supposed to sympathize with based off his old crush, and in arguing about it he pretty much admitted to taking advantage of this woman sexually. Then when everyone wasn't screaming to burn Amelia at the stake, he just kept adding explanations that were paper thin to excuse the character he built based on the woman he was obsessed over, and character assassinating Panacea to ensure that everyone could hate her.

Ward was basically a shit show from the word go, that and he had a habit of building story foundations off a watery bog, and kept going ignore this as pieces of the story sank into the depths...
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Ok, that is the most out there take I've heard on why Amy Dallon is what she is in canon. Where did you hear this, and how do you know it's real? It makes sense, but I like fact checking my info.
 
Arzte said:
Not that dislike Lisa, but I honestly like that she hasn't appeared in the story yet. She's a very common character to meet fairly early on in fanfiction, it's nice to have a story that's shaking that up a bit. I'd rather put off her introduction a while longer yet before bringing her on.
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IIRC, there was a brief run-in where Tattletale went full GI:GO and decided Taylor was a loony to be avoided. No paradise beach for her.

(This is ironic because Taylor is the one person most capable of saving Lisa from Coil.)
 
Sandy River DL said:
Annette, having more character than just 'ex-Lustrumite' and 'English Literature Professor', shares the religion she adopted while in the movement with her daughter, along with her ideology of gender equality. Because people do that and Wildbow didn't actually mesh any character backgrounds when characters weren't actively appearing in the story. Anyway. Taylor goes along with it because she's a serious mama's girl, and doesn't let go after Annette's death for that reason. Her faith gives her comfort through the bullying mainly as a link to her mother, right up until she starts embracing it for its own worth in Neolithic VI. At which point she's a standard 'passive-turned-active' believer. Just in a faith that has no RL baggage.
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I mean I have a personal distaste for people changing the religion of a main character if it's not inherently required for the plot (IE: Their power source is a blessing from a divinity)

I personally don't get the point. this is a strange hill to die on and I see the logic but I'm also left asking why? In worm religion took a back seat, but its still going strong. look at haven and there are even cults that worship scion hell even the fallen are proof of this. We don't dive into more groups cause as you said wildbow doesn't flesh out the setting unless it's happening in front of us and he also likes to write from a first-person point of view that leaves us with an unreliable narrator effect going on.

I'm of the belief that if you change the core values of a character too much you are better off starting over with an OC instead of warping said character in the first place. As it currently stands I cant even view this taylor as taylor instead its an oc that has her name. too much has changed from her original characterization for that to be workable IMO. In effect what I'm saying is I'm not against religious characters if handled well that can work, im against the changing of said characters from their original religion. of which for all intents and purposes was atheism with a small hint of scion worship in this case.
Also i hate that i have to ask this but does Annette even need to be fleshed out? usually, that's reserved for stories that make use of her as a character. Also a thing about ideologies like feminism and groups that are spiraling towards violence like lustrums group, the ideology pushes away religion. Yes people can hold both but in extremist groups religion is almost targeted actually it factually is targeted due to the otherisms involved and how those groups put traditionalists into the enemy camp and you cant get much more traditionalist than a religion.


Also as a person that was turned away from religion by being treated poorly by adherents while going through adversity myself i hate the "adversity breeds faith" argument when the faith part is literally blind belief. When you are seemingly abandoned by family, friends turn on you and such you are faced with a choice you can blindly believe things will get better or you can accept facts and believe in the only thing you can trust, yourself. this is reflected throughout worm as the choice she took. She has major trust issues and has no faith in authority, a religion is an authority. What im really trying to get at here is you have completely changed the characterization of Taylor into another person entirely. I see where you came from with the changes but the changes feel pointless and editorial for the sake of it.
 
rdmcmains said:
She had a fugue during her testing, so I don't know what you two are talking about.
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Remember that Tinker fugues are fanon.
We see Tinkers in fugue states, but only from people with neurodivergences that are known to cause fugue states.
For specific examples?
Kid Win is confirmed to have ADHD. ADHD in real life involves periods of hyperfocus where the individual tunes out the world and is engrossed entirely in a specific task.
Armsmaster is very strongly implied to be well into the autism spectrum. That in turn can result in hyperfixation.

I should probably also note that it's actually extremely common for completely neurotypical humans to fall into what would be called Thinker fugues if a Thinker happened to spend a prolonged period quietly mulling things over.

WB is a total hack; he gets points for presenting reasonably competent depictions of neurodivergences, but society gets zero points for seeing reasonably competent depictions of neurodivergences and thinking it's because of magic space parasites.
(Sorry, this is just something that kinda bugs me.)
 
rdmcmains said:
She had a fugue during her testing, so I don't know what you two are talking about.
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Pseudonymous said:
Remember that Tinker fugues are fanon.
We see Tinkers in fugue states, but only from people with neurodivergences that are known to cause fugue states.
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In this case, Taylor's fuguing has little connection to the fanon fugues. To the point that a tinker from a fic that uses the idea would probably be rather confused. What she does is basically a Shard enhanced version of doing a simple task while thinking about other things. Thanks to massive parallel multitasking, she can accomplish complex tasks, like build her recall anchors or a shelter, while her conscious focus is in on planning or memories. It results in the tasks not being properly integrated into her memory, but allows for necessary work do be done without it getting in the way of proper Administration.
 
Pseudonymous said:
So she's going to be absolutely fantastic at wrangling her polycule no matter how many people join.
This is wonderful news!
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Poor Flechette will be so jealous of how easily Tay handles being with three, while she has to manage thirty without cheating Thinker powers.

And yes, that is planned. In response to a comment on the SB thread, but planned none the less.
 
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Skierus said:
I'm of the belief that if you change the core values of a character too much you are better off starting over with an OC instead of warping said character in the first place.
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Okay, so, genuinely, knowing that this is a deliberate choice the authors made and that there's no chance of changing any minds, if you hate the concept this much, why are you still here talking about this instead of either accepting that this is a thing that you don't like about the story and moving on to the parts you do like, or reading some other story instead that's more to your tastes? It's an AU and things are allowed to be different at author discretion, but you're also entitled to your preferences in fiction, so nobody's really in the wrong here. But like... if this is so much of a problem trope for you that you're going to persist in criticizing it after the authors basically said "this is a deliberate choice and it's not changing", we're honestly not sure what you're even getting out of being in this situation.
 
Knightowl 4183 said:
He talked about how he was going to do a Panacea and Glory Girl series, he talked about how he based Panacea on himself, and talked about this woman who he described as radiant, the best person, and stuff like that. Then admitted he did something when she was vulnerable that he wasn't proud of, at his lowest moment, and while she forgave him they never really got beyond it. She eventually went far away or something.
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Do you have a link to where you got this information? Because it sounds like a bunch bull you made up.
 
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Knightowl 4183 said:
He talked about how he was going to do a Panacea and Glory Girl series, he talked about how he based Panacea on himself, and talked about this woman who he described as radiant, the best person, and stuff like that. Then admitted he did something when she was vulnerable that he wasn't proud of, at his lowest moment, and while she forgave him they never really got beyond it. She eventually went far away or something.

It was actually kind of sad that in a number of his WOG on Amy and Vicky that it seemed that he was bleeding the real life thing between himself and who he had based Vicky on into the characters situation.

God it was so long ago, I read some of it in his WOG posts, and some in the Worm Recs thread... Some of it was also in Worm or at least on his website, and the pieces are there if you want to look underneath the underneath or at least the context.
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Could you link to any of these WoG posts, or point to any evidence at all that's less vague than "look underneath the underneath," maybe? Because otherwise it sounds like you're just accusing someone of being a rapist/abuser with absolutely nothing to back it up other than your gut feelings and interpretations nobody else seems to have seen.

Seriously, I know that people like to bash WB for retcons and being grimdark and being a hack and hating humanity or whatever, but this is just going above and beyond to drag someone's name through the mud. If "the pieces are there if you want to look" is the best you have, then maybe you should just keep it to yourself instead of making wildly inappropriate allegations on a fanfiction thread.

Edit: Or, since the author wants us to stop talking about this, maybe edit your post to actually include these links instead of just vague libel?
 
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...This destroyer leader is fairly sure this is a topic the the Worm General thread. And quite possibly has be addressed there, even.
 
Hopefully some solar power, cuz fuck living without electricity. If she's sneaky enough to hit a army supply base, they have those look like train trailers that set up bases for troops. Nice to have a secure BASE before planning the schematics of her new world. Can she take things bigger than herself when she transitions to Tǩóymos?

I'm gonna channel the lil country I have in me and tell you Tay you're gonna need to hit a John Deerre dealership for one of those small land tillers.

Would be nice if you lived near some gold deposits like Sutters Mill so you can throw gold at the clerks.
And yeah you're going to have to ask Amy without telling Victoria, who I'm sure would spill to Dean.
 
Shadowcub said:
Hopefully some solar power, cuz fuck living without electricity. If she's sneaky enough to hit a army supply base, they have those look like train trailers that set up bases for troops. Nice to have a secure BASE before planning the schematics of her new world. Can she take things bigger than herself when she transitions to Tǩóymos?
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Given her access to a river, for household scale use with flowing hydro is a better option by orders of magnitude. Aside from hydro being technologically trivial compared to solar, it has the benefit of more or less constant output 24/7 (Barring regional hydrological variation).
 
There's a catch when it comes to powering everything via renewable energy: She needs a way to store the excess energy generated. Otherwise you wind up with 2 situations occurring: periodically being unable to generate energy (nighttime & rain for solar, droughts for hydro), or generating too much and blowing out her local grid. It's easy to forget that managing an electrical grid is a zero-sum game. The former issue could be solved via a gas/coal generator, while the latter could be handled by using something to bleed off the excess. Batteries are nifty because they solve both issues.

Since I feel like throwing the word "tinker-tech" at everything too often could get boring, one way to handle this is for her to build a water reservoir: the oldest meaningful battery known to man. This can be done by either building a hydroelectric dam that manages water flow or building a separate sluice gate upriver from a waterwheel and can power a water pump. So long as there's an overflow outlet that bypassed the waterwheel, you're golden.
 
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