Neither does Glaistig Uaine worm is strictly materialistic with metaphysical souls not being a thing and all mind manipulation being direct physical brain manipulation. In Worm substance dualism is very much not a thing.
Oh, I was joking, this is why I left the 'winky face' at the end of this sentence, as I wasn't serious about this part. But again, it's hard to convey jokes in writing at times, when it's far easier in face-to-face talk.
But in the multiverse there are soul-stealing powers, and who knows what the full list of settings looks like here?
I know how it works in Worm, and Wildbow pretty much leaves it 'open to interpretation' in that WoG about souls if I remember right, but more leaning into 'no'.
Bah, balance. Important in a video game or table top RPG, but doesn't make any sense as an idea in quests. Becoming more powerful just means that Taylor takes on more responsibility we could become omnipotent and we would still have to make meaningful choices and trade offs.
Also, this is a multiverse story. If the author feels like the quest gets out of hand (but so far it looks pretty well in the balance department), there are always worlds that operate on very high levels of power like Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, or Devil May Cry to name a few.
Frankly speaking the power upgrades for Luffy, Zoro and Sanji is really damn fast. There is of course the 2 year time skip but still. Also here I'm assuming that Taylor will help them get stronger faster.
Not that I mind OP characters.
While I'm wary of OP characters, as in fanfiction they start to get repetitive (too many of them if you ask me), this quest deals with it so far just fine. Yes, we know that writing well-overpowered protagonists is more than possible (One Punch Man), sometimes variety wouldn't hurt for something more balanced.
Anyway, pretty much how I see it. Taylor's Teacher skill will also help other Straw Hats gets stronger IMO. Also, this may mean the stronger, and more notorious Straw Hats become, the faster 'plot may speed up', which means stronger opponents. This also means that the risk of Taylor becoming unstoppable is lower. Getting the attention of stronger pirates/marines/etc. earlier. In the end, the world reacts to events people cause, although with how massive One Piece world is, this process may be slower.
This conflates the 'make bugs' and 'spy on Merchants' projects a bit too much for my liking and I'm making assumptions about some project length, but suspect that after a week of stake-outs the actual villain hunt for the Merchants won't be as long because we'll already know where their supply routes, safe houses, bosses and habits are. I expect moving from 'spy' to 'hunt' would look like a few attacks to rile up the Merchants and then leading them onto prepared ground where a 4v1 fight is really no fight at all. (Either that or she finds Skidmark walking alone down a dark alley during the spy mission and bushwhacks him on day 3, which kinda throws my initial plans out the window.)
I also mentioned that it may be possible to set up bait, with trapping, so we bait them in with some louder provocation for example. Bait and switch.
@Kejmur I'm going to change my vote and would ask you to as well. I don't think we want to start the Villain Hunt yet and Ompa60's plan has more support than mine.
I've changed it.
We already have kung fu seals, mail gulls, compass parrots, desert adapted chocobo ducks and snailphones, I think you're sticking to an established theme here.
Pretty much. Also, Kung Fu Seals may be our way to get access to supernatural Kung Fu progression. Although seeing Shaolin Kung Fu doing well in settings with powers as well, like inspired by its Fire Bending in Avatar series, I think it may progress or unlock some sort of supernatural progression for it, if we keep training it.
Presumably by the time we meet Aokiji (assuming that happens) we will have at least rudimentary Observation Haki from Skypiea and will have taught the same to most if not the rest of the crew.
If we'll end up in Skypeia, and defeat Enel, it mentions that his specific Logia type makes learning Observation Haki easier by its own nature.
That's a good question. I can add 'Dexterity' to the list of general skills, since I don't see anything it could neatly or justifiably slot under. It'll likely be a pretty easy skill to catch up on to 6, since Taylor's pretty physically capable already with plenty of skills that overlap nicely with that capability, but anything beyond that might be a bit challenging.
Dexterity works as a skill here, although I agree that in 'Sleight of Hand' mind games are at least as important. Unless it's something abnormal in any way to count as a separate skill. Like Kaito Kid in Detective Conan. His tricks (when does his thief work), inspired by magician tricks we know from real life, are so elaborate at times, that they feel borderline supernatural, so if it would end up as a separate skill, it wouldn't surprise me.
I don't really see Taylor being enthusiastic about the idea of meeting Uber and Leet on their terms - video games. I think she'd prefer to just ambush them and be done with it.
I don't think we need anything fancy here. The simple ambush would suffice IMO, and the only thing that may disrupt is an unexpected tinker-tech surprise.
Especially if they keep up the streaming regular schedule, but with them being villains, I doubt this is the case. You don't need to make it easier for enemies to capture you. But once they show up, they are pretty eye-catching, so Taylor quickly getting there shouldn't be hard if needed.
Slight of hand is often more about the mind games and distraction then actual dexterity. Dexterity helps, but it isn't the most important part. The important part is being able to focus people's attention where you want it.
True.
Incidentally if anyone wants to write an omake for this quest but isn't good at writing (much like me) send me a PM. I to am not that great at writing, but I find that doing a collaboration with someone where you both roleplay dialogue in a Google doc is actually fairly easy.
I dabble in fanfiction writing myself, but in my case, it's either I'm too busy, or I feel too lazy when I have free time. The vicious cycle continues.
But maybe I will call up for this. Trying to deal with my own current writing block sounds like a pain.
I'm not familiar with this world, but by context I'm assuming...cooking manga?
Oh, it's not just a 'cooking manga'. Yes, meals are important part of it, but power scaling here can be pretty bonkers. Like
Gourmet Gods being pretty much cosmic level beings. Yes, this is the most extreme example, but it's a setting where you can find
country sized monsters and people that can fight those.
Vs Battles Wiki describes the power scaling here reasonably well.
So to keep it simple - this manga is pretty much a shounen extreme version of superpowers cooking, on conceptual levels at times, mixed up with very powerful weird One Piece like fauna, and power scaling that later stages of Dragon Ball or Saint Seiya would nod and respect for what it represents. This is absolutely late game stage setting for this quest.
Unless you want it to be a master skill like Fitness or Exercise I'd say hold off on that. A "legerdemain" skill, covering things like pickpocketing, slight of hand tricks, juggling and other finesse-and-misdirection tasks...that I can see. Good for kid's birthday parties, reverse-pickpocketing a burner phone into someone's pocket or cheating at poker.
Legerdemain skill is an interesting way to represent it. It also makes sense. I guess 'Stage Illusions' would fall under it as well.
Dedicated coastal relief ship/base, probably a collaboration with some Protectorate capes that do large scale Tinkering well, intended to quickly and easily provide humanitarian support and jumpstart infrastructure rebuilding after disasters (ie Endbringers) and totally not be a dogwhistle for a certain kind of Fallen to try and sabotage.
Big Rig from Toybox could also work for this I would say taking into account his specialty. But again, with me talking that relationship may be taken by Taylor in both directions, this cooperation may not become a thing.
Incidentally, I can see a Tinker identity getting added if we get a few Tinker skills under our belt. "I exist, I want to contribute and no you may not meet me" is basically Dragon after all. I just want to get to a point where we're able to make stuff that doesn't look like "this is obviously Squealer/Chariot/Bakuda/Magmalord's work" and suspicious sounds about us potentially being a power thief starts getting made.
A fun way to do it would be to create VI/AI and make it pretend to be a real human or some Case53, with Taylor uploading her tinkering Headway database, so it can do some tinkering on it's own. I'm also curious if it could follow us to other worlds, counting as a 'creation' of Taylor instead of being a companion locked to some worlds like Straw Hats. Unless it would count as an Earth-Bet 'citizen' or Mahon one, depending on where it is created.
I can see that, but unless villains hold territory like Merchants, E88 or ABB I'm not sure how we can go on the attack against them without violating the Rules and attacking them at their residence. Goading them into doing a Frogger episode where they're messing around at the trainyard or something at least lets us set the theme and location. Doing it as part of the show makes it easier to approach and probably disguise her appearance and abilities. But if there's an ambush option that lets her avoid that hassle I'd be interested.
The way I see it would be interrupting the show at the most inconvenient time for both of them trying to counter Taylor. Pretty much to keep it as simple as possible.
But yes, trying to do something 'interesting' to bait them into it (like cosplay some sort of 'gaming' scene) in let's say a Trainyard may be one way to do it.
...admittedly one of the things I was worried about regarding public exposure was the Golden Snitch and now I'm wondering how difficult it would be to use Marksmanship (Primitive) to hit a small, elusive object 50 meters or more in the air with a paint round to obscure the camera so it has difficulties recording. Marksmanship 6, perhaps?
With how good Usopp can be with hitting long-range targets, I don't think it should be an issue, but yes, I'm not sure the exact rank needed to replicate the guy exactly.
. This explanation makes sense, as it is true.
