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Transposition, or: Ship Happens [Worm/Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio | Arpeggio of Blue Steel]

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Hazard said:
Actually, I'm happy with this chapter because Emma was knocked from her idiotic mindset and is now left with, well, nothing. Because after that alleyway and Sophia's influence? That idiotic mindset was everything she was. Yes, now she can try and pull herself back together, rebuild herself into a person worth knowing.

But I don't know if she can.

It's certainly not going to be easy.
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Either that, or to being knocked from that idiotic Mindset, and the final awareness of WHAT she did to Taylor, its the last push in her case to cause a Trigger Event. . .one LINKED to Taylor. . .
 
ensou said:
It was intentional. Annette was an English professor, and even when teachers aren't teaching they still have that latent teacher-aura of respect to a young child (even if a good number of my college professors weren't anything like that). So to a young Emma, calling Annette "Annette" would just be weird (because she's a teacher, duh), but she's not "Mrs. Hebert" 'cause she's Taylor's mom and that would also be weird.
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I SEE A VISTA INTERLUDE NEXT!


SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GIMMIE GIMMIE!

I need my dose of cute for this month and it looks like you are set to deliver! Yay!

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holyknight said:
Either that, or to being knocked from that idiotic Mindset, and the final awareness of WHAT she did to Taylor, its the last push in her case to cause a Trigger Event. . .one LINKED to Taylor. . .
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Oh lovely.

Anime!Maya anyone? Anime!Kongou? *Starts packing a suitcase* I'ma just gonna go hide under this non-euclidean rock over here. Tell me when the fallout stops. :V
 
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I like it. It really gets across just how fucked in the head Emma is, and sets her on a believable path to redemption.
 
ensou said:
Emma had thought that escalating would fix it. That a something big enough would break through whatever Taylor thought she was doing and provoke a reaction.
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Poor Emma trying exactly what Alexandria tried in Cannon where she only had bug powers, Taylor is the Queen of Escalation and now that she is of the FOG she is Relentless.
 
ensou said:
After recently seeing a couple ships on the scale Taylor is thinking about (USS Montana and Bowfin, Iowa-class battleship and Balao-class sub) I have an entirely new respect for how terrifying the Fog have to be. Because now I understand how seeing three or four Iowa-scale ships rise out of the water with laser-guns pointing at you would be enough to make anybody's day go from good to "oh fuck no".
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I think you mean Missouri, not Montana.
 
ensou said:
That a something big enough would break through whatever Taylor thought she was doing and provoke a reaction.
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underlined a is unnecessary
ensou said:
It was intentional. Annette was an English professor, and even when teachers aren't teaching they still have that latent teacher-aura of respect to a young child (even if a good number of my college professors weren't anything like that). So to a young Emma, calling Annette "Annette" would just be weird (because she's a teacher, duh), but she's not "Mrs. Hebert" 'cause she's Taylor's mom and that would also be weird.
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Then you probably want to fix this inconsistency:
ensou said:
She hit the points: Mrs. Annette's death,
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ensou said:
Something in Taylor had died when Mrs. Hebert had.
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yttam50 said:
Poor Emma trying exactly what Alexandria tried in Cannon where she only had bug powers, Taylor is the Queen of Escalation and now that she is of the FOG she is Relentless.
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And we know how that ended. "Ding Dong the Bitch is dead! Hurray!"


I still think that entire interaction was stupid. At the very least a Brute like Alex with 30ish years of experience and acute awareness of her one weakness should have had the fore-thought and experience to not incite the seemingly unstable bug controller known for tactical skill and cleverness into literally shoving said bugs into her trachea. Through the obvious route of her mouth while dear Alex is talking. But that is not for this thread.
 
Yes good update.

Also dat moment when you spot a typo when looking back throguh the stuff for Omake material. :V
ensou said:
Zoe sighed, but nodded. "She wasn't talking to anyone, didn't say anything for weeks. She's never really been the same, and I think Anne being off at college hasn't helped any. I'd hoped you would help her, but it didn't happen that way, did it? I would've tried to get you two together if I'd known you were slipping apart. But before I knew it, you'd disappeared, and she refused to talk about you."
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I'm fine with stories where Emma either gets redeemed or nuked to oblivion, because depending on your view she can deserve either one (or both maybe). What's more important than the end result is how the author goes about to get there. And this? This looks like it's gonna be a painful ride, and one we'll be able to savor. Really liking the direction you're taking this. Nice work.
 
Personally my favorite kind of worm story is one where Emma is left behind in the dust completely ignored. Because that's what she deserves, to be a non entity a nothing a no one to Taylor.
 
Excellent interlude Ensou, loving what you're doing with Emma. Its rare to see someone manage this situation believably.
 
And what remained of Emma's brain and self-image has gone twag-snap-pop!

Whether she rebuilds form this is anybody's guess. But at the moment Taylor/Relentless doesn't really care that much. She has bigger hulls to build right now.
 
Kitsunedarkfire said:
Personally my favorite kind of worm story is one where Emma is left behind in the dust completely ignored. Because that's what she deserves, to be a non entity a nothing a no one to Taylor.
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Emma is a tricky subject to handle, especially since the bullying situation resonates so strongly with so much of the fandom.

If the author can do it justice (and @ensou has so far), I'm perfectly happy to see Emma getting help. It's a long, long road from canon Emma to anyone sane, but it is possible.

For scenarios where the ABB attack never happened or the bullying otherwise never started, I'm perfectly happy to accept OC!Emma in place of canon.

Barring those, I'd prefer Emma as a footnote to an ongoing story than many of the alternatives.

Magic insta-bff Emma return? No, I'll pass. Thousands of words dedicated to counter-torture and making Emma miserable? Pass as well. Painful step by grueling step through the resolution of that plotline? Again, pass; I skimmed it in canon, I've no interest in dedicating time and effort into reading it in fanfic.

But I think @ensou has done a great job of creating an understandable Emma, an interesting character with potential for growth, and that's an achievement worth noting.
 
I was all set to drop in and point out that Montana and Iowa were two historically different ship classes, based on the perceived need for a super-battleship that decisively outclassed the IJN Yamato hulls, only for that need to be totally obviated by all three of those hulls getting humiliatingly shreckt without any meaningful surface engagement, and also how there is no existing Montana hull to witness, but I was beaten to the punch.

Oh well. At least I can be reasonably certain that Relentless won't be arming her hull with quad turrets. That's just tacky. :V
 
jwolfe_beta said:
Which the Fog ships of Heavy Cruiser class and up (Iona got her cannon from a battleship) do have. Though it's less super laser and more 'I am using Clark-tech applied gravity technology to twist space-time into a pretzel in order to really ruin your day'.
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Yes, but "I'ma firing my Clarketech applied gravity manipulator to twist space-time into a pretzel in order to turn you into scattered atoms" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
 
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