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Horologist (Worm AU/Altpower)

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What If... (revamped)
  • Sidestory
    • A/N: So, the same Discord friend who did the dialog for Carol Dallon decided to take a crack at redoing the "Victor gets himself a very bad time" Omake. Here you go.
    Victor rather enjoyed coffee. True, it was a product that`s been traditionally produced by untermensch, and some of his fellows would refuse to touch something so obviously "sullied". But he did not share this opinion. Was it not the natural order for subhumans to toil in labor for the benefit of their betters? And benefit he did. Taking another sniff of the cup, he paused to let the aroma unfold fully. Ah, the bitter and nuanced fragrance... He shook his head bemusedly, and took a cautious sip. It was still hot, of course. Only a barbarian would let a cup of coffee cool.

    He was not planning on anything in particular this day, but as befits a good businessman, he was always on the lookout for new opportunities. And one just seemed to have passed by. Not a lot of people knew that Victor`s powers came with an innate sense for those with abilities worth the effort. Talents stood out to him in the crowd, like fireflies among the gnats. Well, normally, that is. The one that passed him by right now had the intensity of searchlight. Casting aside his pensive mood, he drained the cup in one go and stood up abruptly, dropping the banknote on the table. He would be back to enjoy a cup of coffee properly afterwards, of course, but right now? The opportunity beckons.

    Slipping out of the cafe, he called upon his considerable hoard of talents, bringing forth the competency in sneaking and tailing. The girl in front of him... Hm. He did not recognise her. Someone insignificant then, but how does one without reknown develop that kind of talent? Obsessed hobbyist? Here undercover? Natural genius? Victor chuckled. Whichever it was, the skill of that magnitude had to be his. Even if it was a skill at babysitting. He simply couldn`t bear to pass a competence this bright. Catching up to the girl, he passed by, "accidentally" brushing her hand with his. That would be sufficient to... to.. tooooo.... OOH GOD WHY!?

    He clenched his teeth, forcing the yelp of pain down as the world swirled before his eyes. 'I had no idea my power could be overloaded.' would the be coherent sum of the emotions he was experiencing at the moment. That, and 'I`m about to collapse on the street!' That simply couldn`t happen - should the police pick him and put him to hospital while he looks like he`s suffering a stroke, his civilian identity would be known. So, in spite of pain lancing through his skull, he continued on as if merely hurrying somewhere, turning sharply into the nearest alley. He only had enough time to hit the "emergency alarm" shortcut on his phone before his conscience gave way to the swirling chaos of incomprehending the time that wasn`t.

    Taylor wrinkled her nose as some blonde guy brushed past her. Goodness, it`s like he couldn`t take extra half a step to the side. Self-important jackass. Probably from Empire, come to think of it, useless poseurs the lot of them. She snorted at that thought and tossed the encounter out of her head.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Lisa makes a friend
  • Sidestory
    • A/N: More from that same Discord friend
    Lisa stared. She knew that looks extremely conspicuous, but damn...!

    Taylor Hebert.

    Locally famous for making handcrafted watches.

    Seven of them purchased by Accord via assorted proxies.

    Accord considers her watches to be works of art, carries the last update as his personal watch.

    Not a parahuman.

    Temporal anomaly.

    It was that last one that made her stop and stare. Her powers helpfully pointed out minuscule inconsistencies in position. Three... no, four separate "pauses". What is she doing?

    Covertly assesses local chronological situation.

    Is annoyed.

    Could use a hand.

    Can hard-counter Coil`s powers.

    Mind made up, Lisa sauntered onwards. "Hello there?" - she offered with a smile - "My name is Lisa, and I have a hunch we could help each other."
     
  • Sidestory
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    Fic Discontinued
  • Informational
    • So. I've decided to make a decision that people probably aren't going to like. Basically, I've had an idea for an original magical girl-ish story on the brain for about six months now that I've wanted to write. My current crop of wormfics are in the way. As such I am making the following announcement: Effective immediately, Post-Mortem Activities, Will of Terra, and Horologist are all being indefinitely discontinued.
     
  • Informational
    • I've been there for some of the discussion on your magical girl-ish story so I have reasons to be excited for that as well, but honestly, I'll miss those three. They were massively entertaining, and I dropped nearly everything whenever a chapter of one of them appeared.

    Either way, take care. I'll see you in the next story.
     
    I just write said:
    So. I've decided to make a decision that people probably aren't going to like. Basically, I've had an idea for an original magical girl-ish story on the brain for about six months now that I've wanted to write. My current crop of wormfics are in the way. As such I am making the following announcement: Effective immediately, Post-Mortem Activities, Will of Terra, and Horologist are all being indefinitely discontinued.
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    There is no story better than the one an author wants to write
     
    I just write said:
    So. I've decided to make a decision that people probably aren't going to like. Basically, I've had an idea for an original magical girl-ish story on the brain for about six months now that I've wanted to write. My current crop of wormfics are in the way. As such I am making the following announcement: Effective immediately, Post-Mortem Activities, Will of Terra, and Horologist are all being indefinitely discontinued.
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    Thank you for letting us know that you are discontinuing your stories. I followed several of your fics over the last week, and I want to read more of your writing, so please let us know when your new project is published.
     
    oh

    that's fine then, will you be putting it here?

    because I wanna see it either way haha

    good luck
     
    Nodding, I swallowed my current bite of food and answered "So, unlike a simple time stop which is effectively an extreme time dilation gradient, the house is not being subjected to such effects. What I actually did is define an additional timelike axis; the stopped house is still moving through time, just at a ninety degree angle from the rest of the universe. Let's call this perpendicular time, and what people normally experience as prograde time. As for the version of the house in prograde time, from the perspective of prograde time there was no point at which the house was actually absent, so it was duplicated for each time axis. Anyway, we're conscious observers and therefore inherently quantum systems, which renders us exempt to that particular mode of temporal duplication thanks to the no-cloning theorem; since we were expecting to end up in the stopped house, here we are."
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    Literally the only Reason I Know what she is talking about is because this is the exact same thing Gypsy Aris did in the Recipe For Disaster Quest in RuneScape to prevent the Culinaromancer from killing the Lumbridge banquet. She put a spot of moving time in a Time Stop separated from the Timeline it was still in. No one remembers what happened because they were Time Stopped when you saved them.

    She could take advantage of this by making it a Paradox if certain Outcomes do not occur while ensuring a lack of temporal splits. She effectively would be Contessa.
     
    Last edited:
    I just write said:
    "In addition, I also really like your idea of making automatic safety watches that reverse or stop time if you're about to be seriously injured, immobilized, or Mastered.
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    This strikes me as requiring a second pwer. How's she going to get the watch to detect that she's injured. Immobilized, or Mastered? (And could she make a watch that does some trivial thing like ring an alarm when it detects a Mastered person and use it for its Master-detecting function?)
     
    arromdee said:
    This strikes me as requiring a second pwer. How's she going to get the watch to detect that she's injured. Immobilized, or Mastered? (And could she make a watch that does some trivial thing like ring an alarm when it detects a Mastered person and use it for its Master-detecting function?)
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    She's a goddess of clockmaking, not time, so it still fits.
     
    DestinyPlayer said:
    She's a goddess of clockmaking, not time, so it still fits.
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    Yes, but clocks are associated with time, not detection. It seems strange that she could make anything at all as long it has a clock attached.

    Consider what it would be like to make a device that just detects when she's been injured or Mastered *without* then going back in time. That would be insanely complicated to make and would basically require a power to do. Making the same thing but also with a clock may not be much harder, but certainly wouldn't be any easier either.
     
    arromdee said:
    Yes, but clocks are associated with time, not detection. It seems strange that she could make anything at all as long it has a clock attached.

    Consider what it would be like to make a device that just detects when she's been injured or Mastered *without* then going back in time. That would be insanely complicated to make and would basically require a power to do. Making the same thing but also with a clock may not be much harder, but certainly wouldn't be any easier either.
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    Counterpoint: Bakuda
     
    Loki-L said:
    There are billions of people out there. Any sort of explanation that relies on the idea that the protagonist is more dedicated than billions of others needs some work.
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    On the other hand, BECAUSE there are billions of people out there, then there must always be the person or people who ARE that dedicated. The *entire idea* behind this story is that this version of Taylor IS one of those people. And, you know, gained powers from it. I would also point out that the powers gained from time mechanisms would naturally be significantly more obvious in scope than, say, someone who dedicated their life to making the best food ever. So any others might never even notice their powers consciously, especially since dedicating their lives to mastering a skill so deeply naturally wouldn't leave much time or attention for any relationships with people who might take a close enough look to realize the oddities.
     
    WolfSongGirl said:
    On the other hand, BECAUSE there are billions of people out there, then there must always be the person or people who ARE that dedicated. The *entire idea* behind this story is that this version of Taylor IS one of those people. And, you know, gained powers from it. I would also point out that the powers gained from time mechanisms would naturally be significantly more obvious in scope than, say, someone who dedicated their life to making the best food ever. So any others might never even notice their powers consciously, especially since dedicating their lives to mastering a skill so deeply naturally wouldn't leave much time or attention for any relationships with people who might take a close enough look to realize the oddities.
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    I'd expect some really dedicated programmers, artists, athletes, scientists, historians, and authors to discover powers in this case.

    It would lend credence to Cauldron's misinformative 'powers come from dedication'. Up until they scan the brain.
     
    UnderlingMaster said:
    I'd expect some really dedicated programmers, artists, athletes, scientists, historians, and authors to discover powers in this case.

    It would lend credence to Cauldron's misinformative 'powers come from dedication'. Up until they scan the brain.
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    Assuming such empowered savants are sufficiently rare, any that ARE noticed would just be lumped in with "parahumans" in general, and/or as "mere rumors and legends" before it became widely accepted that superpowers are real.

    One of the things that Worm fanfic often does wrong, in my opinion, is treat "your power isn't a parahuman power!" like it's even a thing in the zeitgeist of the setting. The moment that the main character's lack of a corona is discovered, it's treated like this ground-shattering revelation. In particularly bad examples, this is what makes Cauldron take notice.

    In canon, though, it was noted that the Coronas were hard to find, and not always present, with Case 53s that lack discernable brains being used as an example. Nobody knows where or what Weld's Coronas Pollentia and Gemma are, or if he even has them. But he's treated like any other Case 53, and assumed to be a parahuman.

    If Taylor is brain scanned and no Corona is found in this fic, then it will just be assumed they didn't find/recognize it. There is absolutely no reason for Taylor to assume she's not a parahuman. She has powers. That makes her a parahuman. "I'm not a Tinker!" reads more as denial and frustration at being lumped in with people she views as not having EARNED their skills at making cool stuff, combined up 'til now with a denial that her clocks did anything other than be really well-made timepieces.

    The fact that she can sense and manipulate "time itself" as an element of them should have her acknowledging that she's a parahuman and that her method of using her power makes her a Tinker. There's no reason why she'd know enough about how Entity-granted powers worked to know that's even a category of powers that exists enough for her to not be a part of, let alone recognize that her power doesn't come from that source. Earth Bet just sees powers as a thing that happens. Those who have them are parahumans. Even trigger events are more theorized by enthusiasts than definitely well-understood, with the PRT deliberately putting out misinformation about "good trigger events" leading to "good powers" (unless that last bit - about the PRT's misinformation - is fanon I've accidentally assimilated).
     
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