Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
There, there, next time I'll let you comment first, deal?
globalwarmth
ruining the weather.
- Location
- Polar ice caps
Well she did get the "taming of the shrew" treatment upfront. They now have to treat both kidnappings residual PTSD though...
<3
- Location
- Earth
Yes, that and Taylor thinks robots are awesome. Everybody should have robots.
Amy isn't exactly forthcoming about her secrets, and there's still some she wants to hide. Best not to assume she'll be all gungho about Lisa providing therapy.
Why do you hate them?
I usually think they're poorly written, but important parts of the story.
Danny is why Taylor can choose to be an independent hero in most stories. He puts food on the table and a roof over her head. I quite dislike how fanfiction usually gives him his five minutes of fame by having him spaz out over Taylor and then gives him the idiot ball to cuddle until the author kills him off. I try to make this version of Danny a reasonably smart adult that is still incapable of predicting all the results of his actions. He's only human of course, and he's already made several mistakes with Taylor. Now, those reprecussions won't have an effect until they couldn't have been predicted with a normal amount of common sense, because again, Danny is sufficiently intelligent that he can manage to reliably hold down a job.
Lisa, exposition girl extrordinaire, gets hurt a bit as a character by her power. Even as a primary side character, there are hours every day in which is power is pretty passive. It's just that when she interacts with the protagonist, then it's infodump time. It's totally appropriate that Lisa has a lot of info to share, but I think it seriously limits her character that the viewpoint then usually shifts to acting on that information, rather than on interacting further with Lisa. The other thing is that Lisa can sprint with her power, but it's normal function is for use over a day long marathon. Lisa has to push to get information rapidly. It's easy to push, but my impression had been that a lot of writers use her headaches as a 'make Lisa shut up and go away' button, instead of just having Lisa not be pushing all the time with her power.
I'm rather curious for your thoughts on the role of those characters in various stories, if you don't mind sharing.
Uh, is this a correction? I don't understand.
Thank you for the corrections elsewhere in your post.
Lisa is much more aware than in canon at this point as to how much she is happier for being around people that like her.
Her home life was abusive after she got powers, then she was homeless and had to fear predation, then Coil threatened to kill her or exploit her for her power, and then she was rescued and treated with understandable but severe distrust.
Lisa has serious problems, and at this point, the best traits she has picked up are talking to her allies so that they don't hurt her accidently and knowledge is power.
I could a reasonable argument being made that Lisa is dependent on her power for positively interacting with people. Even more than meddling and needling others, she likely has severe trust issues. She needs her power to tell her when people have good intentions towards her, as she's too damaged to assumed a baseline of decent human nature. It would explain why she didn't go to the Protectorate to get rescued from her parents. Anyway, this is just a thought experiment, and not directly applicable to the Metastable.
- Location
- Internet, The
It's a "It looks wrong, but I cannot tell if it actually is wrong." Unless someone with a better grasp on grammar looks at it, I cannot suggest one version over the other.
- Location
- Earth
Ah, ok. I'll consider the suggestion then when I go through the corrections.
Thanks
Well, yes?
You may benefit from reading this post from a few months back.
Metastable | Page 3
You certainly didn't need to have read it previously, but check the spoiler in the comment for an explanation, if your interested in understanding what's going on.
It's not a spoiler anymore, so it's open for discussion in general. Though, there's not not much to discuss, I think it was pretty self explanatory.
Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
Oh, dear.
Ok, look. I really, really dont like these characters, I agree that many fics handle them terribly and many of my problems with them come from that. Also, my distaste for them might have seriously colored my interpretation of their canon-selves so I apologize if my interpretations of certain action aren't really on-poin.
With that said,
Well, to be perfectly fair with Danny, he isn't much of a character, he's a contradictory mess that only exists to make Taylor's situation even shitier. Seriously, he has no character! It is mentioned that he's the leader of the Dockworker union, yet he lets himself be trampled over by Winslow. Seriously, he could have crushed them. It is argued that the reason is because Emma's father is a lawyer, but he's a divorce lawyer! Him getting involved with Taylor's bullying makes as much sense as a farmaceutic pretending to make a hearth-transplant! Where is the supposeded leadership that kept the Union afloat? Where is the famous Hebert anger? It would make sense if he was totally apathetic about Taylor and didn't care about what happened to her, but from the narrative that's not true. He's not a character, he's a plot-device and I think the reason why most authors kill him is because they truly have no idea what to do with him. He has no personality.
Now, Lisa.
Where do I start?
First, I truly believe she doesn't care about Taylor as a human being, she sees saving her as her moral duty because she feels guilty about her brother. Fine, she did save her, she did do something good despite doing it for terrible reasons, but after that she has no problems twisting her and using Taylor for her own means. She proceed to spill all this nonesense about the cops and robers game and Taylor believes her. I seriously doubt Lisa believes this bulshit herself, if she does she's an idiot that is fully detached from reality. She uses this just to manipulate Taylor into turning into her attack dog against Coil. She doesn't care about anyone but herself, and doesn't care about how many people she verbally tortures and manipulates as long as she gets her way.
And I also despise how she's used in fanfics, she's the go-to deus-ex-machina to make things happen. We have this powerful Taylor that would need no team? Lisa pops up and convinces her to join the US because 'reasons'. Taylor wants to be a hero? Lisa convinces her being a villain is not so bad, no mater how many people get hurt in the crossfire. Taylor wants to remain incognito? Lisa magicaly finds her. Someone has information important for the plot? Lisa again! I'm seriously tired of her.
Now, Lisa.
Where do I start?
First, I truly believe she doesn't care about Taylor as a human being, she sees saving her as her moral duty because she feels guilty about her brother. Fine, she did save her, she did do something good despite doing it for terrible reasons, but after that she has no problems twisting her and using Taylor for her own means. She proceed to spill all this nonesense about the cops and robers game and Taylor believes her. I seriously doubt Lisa believes this bulshit herself, if she does she's an idiot that is fully detached from reality. She uses this just to manipulate Taylor into turning into her attack dog against Coil. She doesn't care about anyone but herself, and doesn't care about how many people she verbally tortures and manipulates as long as she gets her way.
And I also despise how she's used in fanfics, she's the go-to deus-ex-machina to make things happen. We have this powerful Taylor that would need no team? Lisa pops up and convinces her to join the US because 'reasons'. Taylor wants to be a hero? Lisa convinces her being a villain is not so bad, no mater how many people get hurt in the crossfire. Taylor wants to remain incognito? Lisa magicaly finds her. Someone has information important for the plot? Lisa again! I'm seriously tired of her.
- Location
- Earth
Well, I found your thoughts to be quite interesting and very politely delivered.
Congrats on being an interesting and polite person. Though, in this case, the reward is me trying to get you to talk even more about characters you hate
On Danny:
The Plan
In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinketh."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odour thereof."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertiliser, and none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors then went onto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth and is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company; with powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan, and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
This is How Shit Happens.
(Thus killing Danny off to create tension, despite him having no role in the story up to that point, is considered a good plan)
In the beginning was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, "It is a crock of shit, and it stinketh."
And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said, "It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odour thereof."
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers, saying, "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."
And the Managers went unto their Directors, saying, "It is a vessel of fertiliser, and none may abide its strength."
And the Directors spoke amongst themselves, saying one to another, "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."
And the Directors then went onto the Vice Presidents, saying unto them, "It promotes growth and is very powerful."
And the Vice Presidents went unto the President, saying unto him, "This new plan will actively promote the growth and vigour of the company; with powerful effects."
And the President looked upon the Plan, and saw that it was good.
And the Plan became Policy.
This is How Shit Happens.
(Thus killing Danny off to create tension, despite him having no role in the story up to that point, is considered a good plan)
Danny is in his late 30's, maybe mid 40's. That's assuming Taylor was born while he was in his 20's. Danny has been alive for twice as long as Taylor, and has a correspondingly much greater grasp of reality. Not physics, but life experience. Any moderately successful adult reflexively grasps long term repercussions and consequences far better than a human with ten or so years of memory in which they were entirely supported during their development up to that point (such as a 15 year old).
Every natural parahuman needs to go through therapy or involved introspection after their trigger event to return to being 'well-adjusted'. That is the nature of the triggering.
To tie that back into Danny: he didn't trigger, and is the closest to an unbiased character that has had a viewpoint in this story. Danny is what stops this story from slipping in whatever the superhero subgenre of writing is equivalent to the space opera subgenre of sci fi. Killing off Danny by reason of being unable to fit him into the story is usually accepting that reality will be serving the narrative (There are plenty of wonderful stories that do that, so it's a critique, not a criticism).
Danny and Taylor clearly love each other, and both of them have no idea how to express that in a meaningful fashion. I frequently find romance based subplots to be boring (Except Pride and Prejudice, which is awesome). As such, perhaps I find it easier to conceptualize subplots based around love, but a love that is non-romantic, as methods of character growth. Danny is most useful as a foil to Taylor. Removing him implicitly leaves a gap in Taylor's mental development. There's no parental figure for her to grow past once he's gone. Any story involving children or teenagers over the span of years has aspects of 'a coming of age' story. Danny is the single easiest character to slot into that role.
Goodness, I almost started talking about *spoilers*, so I'll leave that off a bit.
Succinctly, I think I fully agree with your criticism, but rather than hating Danny as a character, I see the wasted potential as a negative for the story, not Danny. To make a corollary to what you said, I say that a boring or dead Danny is a strong negative, not because he's a bad character, but because Taylor then lacks the only canon authority figure that she loves. In many ways it's better if Taylor doesn't respect Danny, as only Danny can be an authority figure in Taylor's life that she has to disagree with as she becomes an independent person, while still wanting him to love her.
On Lisa:
Lisa is the Anti-Taylor.
I never recognized that aspect of her narrative role. Again, I am pleased by this conversation.
Taylor does the wrong thing for the best of reasons (from her perspective)
Lisa does the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Also, no wonder people ship Taylor/Lisa. It's the whole opposites attract.
I see Lisa as defined by three characteristics.
- Needing to get revenge on the world for not saving her brother. Lisa fears that she is to blame for her brother's death, but I personally think she also internalized the shock of others at his suicide as evidence of their indifference. She blames society for not being there for him.
- Needing to stop suicide (for obvious reasons)
- Needing to prove to everybody that she is paying attention to them, and that she understands what threatens them
I would disagree that Lisa doesn't care about anybody, or that she doesn't care about Taylor. I think Lisa strives to avoid distributing any information that has repercussions she can't understand for somebody's mental health. Lisa manipulated Taylor (and I do agree it was manipulation) because Lisa understood that Taylor and Coil were functionally incompatible as a team. Taylor would be incapable of working with Coil over the long term. Coil simply goes too far. Lisa has no future with Coil either. Letting Taylor and Coil continue interacting is letting Taylor get herself killed. Lisa can't let herself let somebody get themselves killed (sorry about how awkward that sentence is).
In canon, I think Lisa likes Taylor because Taylor is a very socially simple young woman. Lisa can reflexively ensure that Taylor is moving away from suicide (which makes Lisa feel better about herself, by means of 'As I, Lisa, hang out with people, they are less likely to commit suicide, and therefore I must have not been a factor in my brother's suicide.'), and it's not taxing on Lisa's power. Lisa gets to make Taylor better, and Taylor appreciates that. Lisa likes Taylor a lot. Lisa doesn't respect Taylor, but Lisa likes Taylor a lot.
Well, at least early in their friendship. After Taylor masters the ability to go horror movie villain on Taylor's enemies (who are the college or high school idiots in this analogy), Lisa respects Taylor, but that's beyond the scope of this topic.
So, I agree with this statement but only to a limited extent.
I wholeheartedly sympathize with being "seriously tired of her" though.
Lisa is a very useful writer's crutch for a novice writer. Most fanfiction involves novice writers, and so most Worm fanfiction uses her as a crutch to keep the story moving. I tried to handle my use of Lisa as a part of the plot as well as I could, by spacing out how Lisa interacted with Taylor and trying keep in mind the limits on Lisa that I defined before starting to write her. Relying on crutches makes it easier to achieve whatever drives a person to write. Even if the goal of writing is 'use less crutches', that still implies a focus on Lisa by her absence or how she's handled.
Well, thanks for sharing you thoughts. I found them both interesting and quite useful for refining my own.
BTW I never really understood, why Heberts are usually written as poor and unsocial. Especially if it is combined with Danny somehow tied into local politics. I guess, canon is to blame, but even then it does not make much sense.
Of course, this strongly depends on Danny's position and how big DWU is. It is one situation if DWU unites, say, a quarter of working males of the city, and another if it involves no more than quarter of a percent of them. But I think it should be closer to the former. And this is a huge weight to throw around and a meaningful income.
Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
Oh, believe me, when I talk about Worm outside the forum I use far more colorful words and graphical descriptions.
That's the thing, when you frame him like that, it works. Taylor... I don't want to say she's stupid (canon one), but she's a teenager, so she's short-sighted, doesn't grasp how reality works, believes she knows best than everyone else, and listens to nobody. Now, Worm canon breaks on it's back to justify Taylor's actions, actions that in any other setting would fail miserably, but let's not go there.
Danny, as a mature and intelligent person that had to deal with a ton of shit, works perfectly to help Taylor and keep her grounded. The problem is that almost never happens.
Most Dannys die to justify Taylor's fall into violent vigilantism, or goes 'Oh, no, my poor daughter, I'll lock her away in a tiny box so the world can't hurt her' and tries to force her into the Wards against her desires to accomplish the same goal. Again, Danny's only purpose is to push Taylor to do something.
Or, you know, he's just a background character that could be written-off and the story wouldn't change.
That's something I like about your Danny, he acts like the 'Old Mentor Figure' (hope he doesn't die) and tries to guide Taylor, but ultimately Taylor's choices are her own, she still has agency.
That... I honestly hadn't thought about it like that.
I'd say that the main reason is that Lisa is the only person she interacts with on a daily basis, forms a friendship with, and has a personality. Brian is as interesting as a boiled potato.
It's the same reason why so many people in the Familiar of Zero fandom ships Louise with some of the other females, because there are no worthwhile male characters and the most interesting interactions are with other females.
And that's my problem with her. With her backstory of feeling responsible for her brother's death, her reaction to that is to borderline torture other people as a way to cope with it. She goes 'see? I torture people, I don't kill them'. In her eyes that exuses her and makes what she does perfectly fine.
That makes her a massive hypocrite and a borderline dangerous psychopath.
I understand what you mean, but Lisa is still the main motor behind Taylor's recruitment. She is the one that convinces her to join them, effectively putting her closer to Coil, closer to danger. Lisa knew Taylor's original plan was to betray them, and knew that Coil had this nasty tendensy of finding out things Lisa didn't want him to know. Yeah, maybe her justification was that it would be dangerous for Taylor to remain solo, but she ended up putting Tailor in greater and more direct threat only to make herself feel better.
If such is the case, Lisa is degrading Taylor into an object, a drug she can take every time she feels down.
Again, the results were good, but her reasons were horrible. This friendship wouldn't have lasted, Taylor would have moved on or Lisa would have kept her in the brink of depression so she can keep 'helping' Taylor. Thinking about it, this might explain some of her actions. She helps Taylor, but not too much, and then lightly hurts her so she can help her once again.
Nothing to add here, I completely agree with you.
You know? I think one of my favorite Lisas is the one from Amelia. And that's because she looked into the mirror and used her powers with her reflection, and that way she discovered there were a lot of things she didn't like with herself and aimed to change.
Unlike Danny, I think Lisa is a great character, with an interesting backstory and a clear personality, but that doesn't make her a character I like to read about. More reason to thank you for a Lisa I actually enjoy.
*facepalm*
I dunno why it needs to be stated.
In Worm powers do not help people, but make things worse* (with rare exception of some Cauldron projects) and are almost exclusively given to broken people (I would argue that even people who went to Cauldron usually are not of sound mind or are in a very bad place). Lisa is a natural trigger, so she is broken by definition and is nudged towards conflict by her powers. Her powers let her learn about dark side of other people, making it hard for her to like anyone. Add her general bad experience with people, and in all honestly, her being a massive bitch feels natural. She doesn't have much reasons to like people in general and she is nudged by her shard to "win" over them. Given that her powers are not combat-related, her only way to personally "win" is to break people with words, i.e. to be a total smug bitch.
Basically, she sees everyone as generally bad people (even if she can guess good things too, bad things usually have higher psychological impact) and hate it in them. Even if she want people to be better and more adjusted, she doesn't have much reasons to be gentle about that. Played right, she could make an excellent Dark Sheperd figure (btw, didn't Wildow went exactly this route in Ward? I didn't read it far enough).
I probably could argue that the only somewhat sane capes in Worm are some case 53s, like Gregor, Weld and Newter. Yes, they have a lot of problems with self-identity and everyday life, but they don't have that INSANE emotional luggage every other cape has and their powers do not nudge them to fight everyone.
added:
Actually, let's look at Undersiders
Alec, repeatedly mind-raped by his Daddy. Hardly feels anything, and has an ironclad Freudian excuse to be a bad person.
Brian the tin soldier, raised by his dad, who genuinely believes he shouldn't raise children.
Rachel, who is more dog than human where it counts.
Taylor, who also is completely broken and essentially is an unperson until Lisa started to work with her.
Aisha... well, it is hard to think about Aisha, isn't it?
Lisa is surrounded by people making it easy to not think that they actually chosen to be bad. Dunno if it was intentional, but it is brilliant.
* BTW, Taylor in this fic looks surprisingly well-adjusted by Worm cape standards.
Last edited:
- Location
- US
The Fallen actually successfully kidnapped an entire Wards team and got away with it.
- Location
- Earth
I think the Heberts used to be better off, but the collapse of the shipping industry likely cut the financing for the union, and from there, it bled members and funds. As Danny is paid by the union, he's likely taken several pay cuts to keep the organization going.
That's usually how I think about it. Also, with Annette dying, the Heberts lost about half their income, but only a third of their expenses.
Taylor's social skills are entirely from Annette. Danny is some kind of blue collar Union centered idiot savant and just can't figure out how to relate to Taylor. After triggering, Danny crushes Winslow by cutting the school off from HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and all other maintenance and repair services. Taylor is eventually transferred to Arcadia, and then suddenly Winslow gets repairs. Furthermore, when Taylor goes out on patrol there's always 15 or 20 union toughs that "happen" to be out drinking in the area. Her first night out? Lung "accidentally" gets run over with a cement truck. Every new night out on patrol, the beatings continue. Eventually, the gangs start operating only during the day, and Taylor is very confused about the lack of crime and embarrassed by continuing running into Kurt, Lacey, and other Dockworkers that she's known since she was a toddler and she desperately tries to avoid outing herself to them. They of course know who she is, and treat it as a fun game since it turns out that running villain capes over in cars is doing great things for city's economy. Taylor is the unofficial and unaware mascot for the city's revival.
"Your statement?" Velocity asked.
"I didn't see him." The Dockworker replied, his face completely stoic.
"You want to try that again? It's Alabaster, and it was night, there's nobody with naturally better contrast in the city."
"I was momentarily blinded by his ignorance."
"And you left the car parked on top of him?"
"He's a dangerous villain, I didn't feel safe operating a vehicle near him. I mean, after I realized I had accidentally run him over repeatedly until he stopped respawning beside my truck and instead got stuck in the undercarriage. At that point, I considered it best to let the Protectorate handle it."
"Your statement?" Velocity asked.
"I didn't see him." The Dockworker replied, his face completely stoic.
"You want to try that again? It's Alabaster, and it was night, there's nobody with naturally better contrast in the city."
"I was momentarily blinded by his ignorance."
"And you left the car parked on top of him?"
"He's a dangerous villain, I didn't feel safe operating a vehicle near him. I mean, after I realized I had accidentally run him over repeatedly until he stopped respawning beside my truck and instead got stuck in the undercarriage. At that point, I considered it best to let the Protectorate handle it."
Thank you
(No promises on Danny's safety)
A massive hypocrite, certainly, but I'm not sure how dangerous she is. For the most part she doesn't seem to want to hang out with people that hate her which limits her abuse to mostly rare events per individual. She doesn't actively pursue people to harass them, she just can't help but need to demonstrate that she doesn't make people suicidal when she hurts them (Well, and be a jerk or hurt people because it's fun or prove that's smart. Lisa can certainly have multiple reasons for the harassment she dishes out).
Also, I do discriminate between what she does as a cape from her more civilian behavior. She's very much trying to hurt, unsettle, and scare off when she's Tattletale. Outside of that, she's mostly just a jerk.
So, here's the reasons I could come up with about Taylor's recruitment by the Undersiders
- Taylor was passively suicidal
- Taylor could identify Coil's base simply by walking past it (it's pretty unusual to find bugs in vast open spaces underground) and Coil would never let her live uncontrolled after realizing that
- The Undersiders needed a heavy hitter
- Taylor is a highly effective counter to the Undersiders. Almost more so than any other cape in the city, Skitter can shut down the Undersiders without risk to herself. Maybe Fog would be the next most dangerous to them.
- Taylor wants to make the city better, and that goal with be intrinsically limited until Coil is gone. Lisa may not care about this, but in the early part of the story, Lisa facilitates Taylor's goals far more effectively than Taylor herself does.
Of course, arguably, the apparent safest option for Taylor would be if Lisa convinced her to join the Wards. Except for Coil being willing to assassinate people. This isn't even touching on the Unwritten Rules in general. Regardless of what Lisa really believes about that, she has to know that Coil would kill a Ward. Coil would prioritize getting Taylor killed once he learned that she could easily find his underground lair not that is not more than a mile or two from where the Wards are housed in the PRT.
I don't think Lisa thought through Taylor's recruitment in this detail, but I also think that simplifying Lisa's motivations to 'using Taylor as a weapon' and 'not wanting to feel bad about ignoring Taylor's suicidal tendencies' makes Lisa too flat as a character.
Also, Lisa's safety was on the line, as Coil might hurt her if she didn't make a real effort at recruitment. That would certainly make recruiting Taylor easier to rationalize, even without any malicious thoughts.
A small spoiler on the future of Metastable
Well, most of this story is from Taylor's perspective. What teenager doesn't think they have a good grip on their own personality or how the world works?
That statement leaves a lot unsaid, and I think it's at least partially wrong.
I'm pretty sure that info is from Ward, not Worm, and here's the citation I found
I'm not saying that your wrong, but unless Weld is leaving stuff out, that means that, to quote you, when the Fallen "kidnapped an entire Wards team and got away with it", that was a group of three Wards, and in every other attempt mentioned by Weld, they failed.
Maybe I've got the wrong citation, if so, I'd welcome other citations. However, there's something like a 2+ year gap between now in Metastable, in which the Fallen might have never messed with a Ward, and the end of Worm and everything that's been posted so far in Ward. As Earth Bet gets worse, I could believe that it happened, but I'm comfortable with that dialogue in Metastable as it is at present.
- Location
- US
I think this is the WOG that I was thinking of, along with the other Wildbow quotes in that thread. It doesn't seem to actually say that they got away with it though.
In a declining city worker union is unlikely to bleed much members because it is a better than average chance for better employment. Sure, it lost members that left the city, but...
DWU survived decline of the actual docks, meaning it moved from its traditional employment targets. This means, that instead of local worker union, it became an employment service. As such it is more likely to expand than shrink.
But Danny mentioned someone who left the DWU to work for Uber and Leet, and wasn't he always worried about finding jobs for all of the union members? I think that it was an employment service but not a very successful one.
There is also Lisa's view of the Wards to consider, which, to the best of my knowledge, we didn't get. So, given what we know, would a thinker of Lisa's caliber consider joining the Wards a good thing? (Despite the fact that the story focused mostly on Taylor a number of things were shown that indicate becoming a Ward could be bad.)
5.5 Solutions Aren’t Easy, Unless it’s Chemistry
- Location
- Earth
5.5 Solutions Aren't Easy, Unless it's Chemistry
Amy wasn't pleased that Lisa could ferret out her secrets. She was not pleased at all. However, she was a lot more forgiving because I had warned her so she could manage it. I had very briefly described what Lisa claimed were my issues, which got me some pity points. She had also tried not to be relieved to my face that the problem was with how I related to her, and not a problem due to her.
Some days later, Lisa said she talked to Amy online occasionally, but Amy was pretty uncomfortable with Lisa, and didn't want to interact with her in person, and we didn't push.
She would still come over maybe once a week, and I went over to her place rarely. Carol, her mom, was like a lantern of anti-happiness. She didn't seem to be opposed to people being happy, but happiness in her presence tended to wither and die. It might have been just me though, Carol had seemed kind of displeased last time I was over there that I wasn't buddies with Vicky. Well, excuse me for not wanting to be near the terrifying girl. Maybe Carol had been on of those parents that had dressed her kids identically while they were toddlers and hadn't yet figured out her kids were actually different people. Amy the healer, and her sister, Axe Murderer Barbie.
Then again, there was dad's much darker interpretation of things for the Dallons. Amy didn't seem to be getting worse, and well, how was I supposed ask 'hey Amy, you seem to be suffering from being abused as a superhero by your superhero parents. Would that be a fair guess and do you need help?' Yeah, would go over real well. Amy didn't like talking about Panacea, or her home life, and since she had been real decent to me, well, even if dad's guess was completely accurate, I didn't believe Amy would ever confirm it, and she'd stop talking to me. I could ask Vicky, but then Vicky would kill me because she was in on it, or kill me in offense at my suggestion that she or her parents weren't protecting her sister, and either way, would then tell Amy anyway.
Although, if I wanted to die, that would be a good way get the job done and to let Amy know I had been concerned, and with a minimal amount of fuss on my part.
I should just talk to her, but dad wasn't pushing it either, and it was his idea, so that thought never went anywhere.
Still, in the weeks since Christmas, my upgraded house lair was slowly but surely being turned into sample storage with only a small workspace leftover, and dad had been helping and helping me understand my power. For some reason, my power wanted to make everything tinker tech, even when it didn't make sense over the long term. If I did the calculations on the lifespan of my tinker tech as compared to the inefficiency and space costs of mundane, it nearly always made sense to limit my use of tinker tech. Since I could just dig out more space and such any time I wanted. I could be faster by using my power, but I'd have more time in the long term if I avoided it as much as possible in the setup phase. It still gave me a headache, but I had the math to prove it, and was shaping out the pieces and pipes for my chemical storage systems out of various plastics from my engineering books. I wanted to make some glass too, but that was going to be tinkertech in application, even if regular materials. I couldn't blow glass, or otherwise shape it. I made a slug thing that would lay down a paste of silicon and metal dust on a surface, caking it on. I could then use electromagnetic induction from the house mains to melt and bake the paste into a glass-ceramic composite. I felt I was very clever, and it resulting surface was very non-reactive, so I could store my acids and bases, and a few other volatile compounds over the long term. Some of my particularly complex catalysts would always need to be stored under actively restrictive conditions, but they were quite small in volume compared to most of my monomer base stocks. I was slowly building up pipes and barrels and pumps to build my ingredient feeder system in my lair storage room. I would be using nitrogen as a non-reactive pumping gas to move the liquid stocks around. I guess it wasn't a real lair at this point, and was in the process of being turned into a resource room.
Everything tinkering related had been so much easier with my interface system in my left hand. The relay chains were breaking down though, and once they fully did so without issue, dad would let me redo it with both my hands and maintain it. I expect that would be nearly as much information as I could reasonably process. My programming of smart materials had also significantly increased, and I was thinking of making a new squiggle version. Currently they would do single objectives, and while it could be a fairly complex objective, it was still a single goal, followed by a return to base. If I could figure out a way to refuel them, and set a hierarchy of goals, then they could all work together to carry messages between home and the library, get updates from the jellies monitoring Coil, and deliver notes to Lisa, as well as maybe even pass commands down to the ants and other units. I needed a tiny matrix processor that could go in each squiggle, rather than relying on a rote command list.
Lisa had gone out a couple of times in the v4 and I had gone out for the first time as well. As a civilian, in the late afternoon, in complete safety, to do the utterly boring job of taking some pictures of 'Sandra the Seawoman', a serpent fish looking Case 53. Lisa was not thrilled at her alter ego, but since I built and maintained her armor, well, I got to call dibs. I didn't think Lisa actually cared much, as the v4 and safehouse raiding was more of a stress relieving hobby, and she considered her vendetta against Coil to be her actual work. I didn't post the pics myself though, I was particularly clever, and instead created a new account on PHO, and used it to send the pictures to Specific_Protagonist. She had been super happy to post them and take credit for the pictures.
I was pretty sure she thought I was Sandra, since she offered to meet with me and buy me dinner as a thanks for the pictures. Apparently Case 53s lost all their memories when they triggered. That sucked a lot on top of having their bodies changed. The resulting confusion, frustration, and lack of food or safety was apparently what drove the majority of them to crime in the first few days after triggering. Anyway, I had explained that I wasn't Sandra the Seawoman, but that I had seen her save somebody, and while she hurried off before I could talk to her, the person she saved had told me that what she called herself. I also tried to be polite and thank her for the information about Case 53s and I would keep in mind that any new Case 53s would likely be in need of food and shelter.
I really wanted to attack Coil, or any other villain really. After having Lisa point it out, it was harder to ignore. I had been getting restless, and wanted to do something that mattered, I wanted to make a difference. I knew that it was just my power, but it didn't feel like it. I was really tempted to fix up the remnants of the v3 power suit, change the shape, and generally make it a sort of v3.5 so that I could go with Lisa on raids.
Aside from Coil, I suppose I suppose I had a few overall goals. Find and harvest Squealer's tinker lab for rare metals. Figure out a way to weaken the E88 without violating the unwritten rules, to prevent them from taking over more of the Bay after Coil is defeated. Lastly, I want a mech suit. I don't care if they're impractical, I want one. I really should have been writing all this down, I'll likely forget half this stuff.
Amy wasn't pleased that Lisa could ferret out her secrets. She was not pleased at all. However, she was a lot more forgiving because I had warned her so she could manage it. I had very briefly described what Lisa claimed were my issues, which got me some pity points. She had also tried not to be relieved to my face that the problem was with how I related to her, and not a problem due to her.
Some days later, Lisa said she talked to Amy online occasionally, but Amy was pretty uncomfortable with Lisa, and didn't want to interact with her in person, and we didn't push.
She would still come over maybe once a week, and I went over to her place rarely. Carol, her mom, was like a lantern of anti-happiness. She didn't seem to be opposed to people being happy, but happiness in her presence tended to wither and die. It might have been just me though, Carol had seemed kind of displeased last time I was over there that I wasn't buddies with Vicky. Well, excuse me for not wanting to be near the terrifying girl. Maybe Carol had been on of those parents that had dressed her kids identically while they were toddlers and hadn't yet figured out her kids were actually different people. Amy the healer, and her sister, Axe Murderer Barbie.
Then again, there was dad's much darker interpretation of things for the Dallons. Amy didn't seem to be getting worse, and well, how was I supposed ask 'hey Amy, you seem to be suffering from being abused as a superhero by your superhero parents. Would that be a fair guess and do you need help?' Yeah, would go over real well. Amy didn't like talking about Panacea, or her home life, and since she had been real decent to me, well, even if dad's guess was completely accurate, I didn't believe Amy would ever confirm it, and she'd stop talking to me. I could ask Vicky, but then Vicky would kill me because she was in on it, or kill me in offense at my suggestion that she or her parents weren't protecting her sister, and either way, would then tell Amy anyway.
Although, if I wanted to die, that would be a good way get the job done and to let Amy know I had been concerned, and with a minimal amount of fuss on my part.
I should just talk to her, but dad wasn't pushing it either, and it was his idea, so that thought never went anywhere.
Still, in the weeks since Christmas, my upgraded house lair was slowly but surely being turned into sample storage with only a small workspace leftover, and dad had been helping and helping me understand my power. For some reason, my power wanted to make everything tinker tech, even when it didn't make sense over the long term. If I did the calculations on the lifespan of my tinker tech as compared to the inefficiency and space costs of mundane, it nearly always made sense to limit my use of tinker tech. Since I could just dig out more space and such any time I wanted. I could be faster by using my power, but I'd have more time in the long term if I avoided it as much as possible in the setup phase. It still gave me a headache, but I had the math to prove it, and was shaping out the pieces and pipes for my chemical storage systems out of various plastics from my engineering books. I wanted to make some glass too, but that was going to be tinkertech in application, even if regular materials. I couldn't blow glass, or otherwise shape it. I made a slug thing that would lay down a paste of silicon and metal dust on a surface, caking it on. I could then use electromagnetic induction from the house mains to melt and bake the paste into a glass-ceramic composite. I felt I was very clever, and it resulting surface was very non-reactive, so I could store my acids and bases, and a few other volatile compounds over the long term. Some of my particularly complex catalysts would always need to be stored under actively restrictive conditions, but they were quite small in volume compared to most of my monomer base stocks. I was slowly building up pipes and barrels and pumps to build my ingredient feeder system in my lair storage room. I would be using nitrogen as a non-reactive pumping gas to move the liquid stocks around. I guess it wasn't a real lair at this point, and was in the process of being turned into a resource room.
Everything tinkering related had been so much easier with my interface system in my left hand. The relay chains were breaking down though, and once they fully did so without issue, dad would let me redo it with both my hands and maintain it. I expect that would be nearly as much information as I could reasonably process. My programming of smart materials had also significantly increased, and I was thinking of making a new squiggle version. Currently they would do single objectives, and while it could be a fairly complex objective, it was still a single goal, followed by a return to base. If I could figure out a way to refuel them, and set a hierarchy of goals, then they could all work together to carry messages between home and the library, get updates from the jellies monitoring Coil, and deliver notes to Lisa, as well as maybe even pass commands down to the ants and other units. I needed a tiny matrix processor that could go in each squiggle, rather than relying on a rote command list.
Lisa had gone out a couple of times in the v4 and I had gone out for the first time as well. As a civilian, in the late afternoon, in complete safety, to do the utterly boring job of taking some pictures of 'Sandra the Seawoman', a serpent fish looking Case 53. Lisa was not thrilled at her alter ego, but since I built and maintained her armor, well, I got to call dibs. I didn't think Lisa actually cared much, as the v4 and safehouse raiding was more of a stress relieving hobby, and she considered her vendetta against Coil to be her actual work. I didn't post the pics myself though, I was particularly clever, and instead created a new account on PHO, and used it to send the pictures to Specific_Protagonist. She had been super happy to post them and take credit for the pictures.
I was pretty sure she thought I was Sandra, since she offered to meet with me and buy me dinner as a thanks for the pictures. Apparently Case 53s lost all their memories when they triggered. That sucked a lot on top of having their bodies changed. The resulting confusion, frustration, and lack of food or safety was apparently what drove the majority of them to crime in the first few days after triggering. Anyway, I had explained that I wasn't Sandra the Seawoman, but that I had seen her save somebody, and while she hurried off before I could talk to her, the person she saved had told me that what she called herself. I also tried to be polite and thank her for the information about Case 53s and I would keep in mind that any new Case 53s would likely be in need of food and shelter.
I really wanted to attack Coil, or any other villain really. After having Lisa point it out, it was harder to ignore. I had been getting restless, and wanted to do something that mattered, I wanted to make a difference. I knew that it was just my power, but it didn't feel like it. I was really tempted to fix up the remnants of the v3 power suit, change the shape, and generally make it a sort of v3.5 so that I could go with Lisa on raids.
Aside from Coil, I suppose I suppose I had a few overall goals. Find and harvest Squealer's tinker lab for rare metals. Figure out a way to weaken the E88 without violating the unwritten rules, to prevent them from taking over more of the Bay after Coil is defeated. Lastly, I want a mech suit. I don't care if they're impractical, I want one. I really should have been writing all this down, I'll likely forget half this stuff.
Last edited:
This line delighted me.
- Location
- Earth
I'm quite fond of it as well
I don't see it as a binary option. That either the DWU successfully transitioned to being a employment service or it's bad writing on how it survived. I think the DWU tried to do that, but mostly sucks at being an employment service.
It can't find enough jobs for its members, and so maybe its members have better odds than the city at large, but they're unable to recruit and still bleeding people slowly. I'd also assume there are companies that won't hire union people.
I think at this point, the discussion of Worm canon has drifted to being off topic for the thread. I didn't want to leave you hanging, but can't think of a good way to really tie this back to Metastable. If you want to talk about it further, maybe message me with your answer to your question and we can talk about in a conversation?
Poliamida
(Verified Heavy Molecule)
- Location
- Beyond the Stars
Well, good to see Taylor is still the suicidal-self we all know and love.
A fairly short chapter so I don't have much to say, I'm waiting to see what Taylor doea about the E88 and the other gangs.
Taylor/Coil's Lair is the great romance of this fic. She wants what she cannot obtain.
She'll probably switch to fixating on the Birdcage or something after she takes down Coil.
- Location
- United states
OR! She'll go straight for competition with the birdcage and start making her own basement super prison via Tinker!plastic?
- Location
- Madison, AL
Or when she takes Coil's lair she will create a subway system under the city with automatic manufacturing trains for fast response!