Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

That's not Taylor's fault. She still has no idea how things got when her original suicided.

Amelia and Lisa never ever wanted to talk about it as Taylor just went along with as she saw just how bad they reacted to the mere mention of it.
her. She would've talked to Lisa about it if Lisa had approached her but Lisa given her guilt, second trigger, and her power telling her that this isn't her best friend would never open to this Taylor voluntarily.

And Taylor was the only person she was close to in Panthenon.

Again there's a reason pretty much everyone agrees Lisa is a bitch in-universe. I love the girl but she does act like a total bitch pretty much all the time. Sometime it's necessary like with Riley. Often times it's not like this bullshit she just pulled off.

If Lisa was a nicer person then people would give her less of a hard time.

Lisa is punishing herself by acting this way. She still feels guilty about not noticing her brother was suicidal and acts the way she does to not get close to people and punish herself.

also Lisa is feeling lost because Taylor no longer needs her. Let's be real here, part if the reason she disliked Taylia was because it made her jealous. Taylor her best friend was now closer to someone who had been her enemy and tried to harm then her own best friend.

That was the reason she had that talk with Alexandria about family.


In fact now that I think about she never did tell Amelia why she was so jealous of Taylia did she?

TLDR This entire situation has been building up since the Butcher arc. Lisa should've had this discussion then but a combination of Lisa and Amy's unspoken agreement to never talk about what happened; Taylor not knowing the exact detail and not trying to get those details led to these emotions fostering up inside Lisa with no way to get out as the only person she might've talked to just suicides partially because of her actions and her powers constantly tell her the other Taylor is a clone.

 

I feel part of the issue is that Lisa isn't shifting her position at all. We've known she feels like this for a while, and it doesn't appear to have changed despite evidence to the contrary. Yeah, reasonable enough to be a big messy ball of emotion and have issues sorting through it, but I would have thought she'd have developed some more nuances than 'Taylor's deaaaaaaaaad', partly because she is actually quite smart without her power - not as smart as with it, but not bad.

In fact, here's the philosophical argument I've been rabbiting on about:

Spoiler: Spoiler for really lengthy philosophical discussion not everyone will be interested in and I've explained badly

Right. So the basic premise of Hofstader's theory of consciousness is that it is based both on past experience (shaded by current intent) and feedback from your surroundings (again, shaded by current intent) that thus further changes one's intent and adds to experiences, thus changing the consciousness and one's input that therefore changes the surroundings, etc. In essence this creates a fractal loop, like pointing a camera at a screen displaying the image it's about to take, or an Escher drawing, constantly updating and shifting with each rotation and interaction with surroundings. Further complicating this, everyone's individual loop contains elements of other people's loops - when you interact with someone, you build up an image of what you think their loop is like that then acts in your mind. When you find a character in a book sympathetic or know someone really well you have a very clear (maybe even accurate in comparison to their own iteration) version of their loop! If you don't know someone well, or haven't interacted with them in a while then their loop will naturally veer away from being akin to their iteration of the loop. Because this loop is essentially composed entirely of memories, a clone with all your original memories is you, and has equal primacy to you. The only time the clone would become not you is when its experiences would become different from yours - i.e., if someone cloned you, then let your clone live in a shed for a year then the clone would be a different person. If we ever develop cloning technology, a fun experiment might be to try locking you in a shed for a year afterwards, to see if your self loops end up similar (can we isolate the 'locked in a shed' effect on someone's personality?).

In essence, Lisa is saying that Taylor isn't herself because she had an interruption of consciousness and doesn't have all the memories Taylor had when she died. A relatively valid argument - she certainly isn't the Taylor who died, even ignoring her extra few months of memories. The issue is that's implying that somehow later iterations of Taylor should have primacy over the earlier copy of Taylor which is stupid. It'd be like me saying that somehow a first draft of a story is a less valid version of it than a final draft - sure, it's not the one I'm keeping, but in essence it still occurred, is still itself a story and an iteration of the overall theme of the narrative in question. The earlier copy is still a Taylor, no more valid or not valid than any other, just as Lisa would still be Lisa if you shot her full of drugs or locked her in a shed (or hit her on the head and gave her retrograde amnesia).

The very fact that Lisa stubbornly seems not to have considered arguments for her position (and there are arguments - none I find convincing, but there are arguments) and is just saying 'nuh-uh, that's what my power says' when she knows her power can be wrong is what I think we're mostly irritated about.

 

I've actually read GEB, and with this recommendation i might go find that other book :3

 

Oh well, I guess the prophicied Pantheon breakup is happening. Only totally different than expected.

I'd guess Lisa will leave to Cauldron, the non-essential members might also pull a Crystal and the core crew will likely stay. I'm curious how they'll replace Lisa though. With Worm Shard drama fuckery I don't think this has a chance in hell to end without a blowup. Maybe Lisa will even get Taylor to third trigger when she gets Taylor to kill her.

Hm... how else could drama be maximised. Ah yes... this would be the perfect time for Eidolons secret to come out. Maybe Dragon decides to go killbot on him, obeying one of Avalon's laws that Accord fucked up thanks to power interaction.

 

Holy crap. Holy CRAP. Am I the only one who saw what TanaNari was doing here? Nelson has the ability to perceive other cape's subconscious impulses and how they interact with their shards. Put this guy in front of Eidolon, and game over for the 'Endmakers.' I'm kinda appalled that everyone was so caught up in Taylia relationship angst that they seemed to miss this bit of foreshadowing.

Great fic, by the way. Absurdly long, but very well written and well worth the effort of reading. My tastes run to the "fix it" part, though not the "darkest" part, but this is definitely among my favorite fanfics. Thanks for writing.

 

It's not that we missed it, it's that it seems too easy (well, to me anyway).

 

Assuming that Eidolon's shard doesn't look like some dadaist painting, the guy has been to Endbringer battles before. If it were as easy as seeing a connection between Eidolon's shard and the Endbringers, Chevalier probably would have noticed it.

 

Thanks. And... yeah... this DID get away from me. I thought I'd be done with it a loooong time ago. Kinda glad I'm not, in a way, there's a LOT of growth I've achieved as a writer during this story, and I'm glad for it. This fic always was meant to be a "practice run" to improve my skills, and learn how to write for an online audience (very different animal than other types of publishing).

 

Hmm. Did GU accidentally kill GL with her Hatchet Face ghost? That would suck, he was just getting fleshed out as a character. Or maybe he got sucked into the power interaction Garden of Eden thing and that's why this one was alive.

 

He is not dead...he's just upgraded to God.lol

 

skitter fucks Existential Angst right in the ass

 

Hurray! I think.

Me thinks this line was the terrible victim of in-line editing.

 

...Okay, that's pretty smooth. Assuming Lisa isn't faking it like she apparently has been for the last few months, and is still callously planning to betray them the moment they're no longer necessary- I'm sorry, turning information over to Cauldron through Alexandria to design contingency plans to truly eliminate them post-Scion, in case they go too far.

 

Then she shoots it in the head to save the world.

(I regret nothing)

 

... I doubt very much this is anywhere near over. I just no idea how the heck this is gonna be resolved. Says a heck-of-a-lot (of good things,) about TanaNari as an author that he could come up with something as insanely complex and mind-bending as the situations that Pantheon are in, the moral dilemmas and existential crises are pretty darn rare, if not entirely unique to the best of my knowledge. Also the kind of stuff that would almost certainly break most people, but of course Pantheon just picks themselves back up and, after some navel-gazing, heated debates, and plain 'ol fighting, they just keep on chugging along. Really makes you winder what the endgame is gonna look like, who's gonna be left standing and sh will fall by the wayside when everything is said and done.

 

The fact that this line of patter seems to be working for Taylor is further evidence for me that it doesn't fucking matter who's right here.

 

Lisa didn't want to be right or wrong. Lisa didn't know what Lisa wanted.

What Lisa needed was for someone to finally show that they gave a fuck about her as a person and wanted her around not just for her powers. Regarding Talexandria (or whatever the hell we're calling it), it still depends largely upon her powers and brings back the memories of when her best friend told her that,

So, sort of a problem finding meaningful comfort/closure for her issues there.

Then along comes Taylor 3.0 giving her exactly what she secretly wants and needs. Great Victory had by all, now to break out the champagne and the new Endbringer.

 

You don't understand. Lisa's power says that clones really AREN'T their originators. And considering the way it feeds into her mind, that's going to continuously get shoved into her thoughts as plain and simple truth. It wasn't just her lashing out to distract people, but also her honest feelings about the situation. As in, she's grieving after repressing for months.

 

Kind of curious what would happen if two Taylors were up and running at the same time. Would the shared swarm connection allow for what amounts to telepathy? As long as any two or more Taylors are alive, Taylor cannot be ended.

Would the same thing happen if you have two Amelia's that are both touching Yggdrasil? And what happens to the Taylia bond when there are a bunch of different Taylors sharing emotions with a bunch of different Amelias? Does Taylia just piddle itself with joy at the additional input?

Anywho~ the stuff in the chapter was wrapped up far too easily. No way it's over. Also, good for Defiant and Dragon. They can get their freak on, now.

 

Only one of them would have powers, I should think.

I trust that someone will come along and correct me based on evidence from 200 chapters ago presently.

 

... Why on Earth would you think that you can't have multiple clones (with powers) running at the same time? Blah blah, Slaughterhouse 9000, etc.

 

Plus Noelle.

 

I forgot about that again. I forget about that every time.

I guess I'm still hung up on Victoria triggering with different powers after being [verbed].

 

ran the chapter through spell check in word. may have missed a few and they're probably out of order but here's a few corrections.

the comma in the middle feels slightly off... like it wants to actually close the sentence. also, you missed the end quotes

being a question, a question mark would be appropriate here

interruption
also, 'pedantics' feels slightly wrong (though that might just be because spellcheck is saying it is)

monster

 

I was hoping for a better argument from Lisa than "don't pull the whole 'interruption of consciousness...'", because I'm genuinely interested in philosophical crap, especially issues with identity. Lisa mentioned that they had already agreed that the revived people wouldn't be the same as the ones who died; does anyone remember where that was?

Anyway, I'll google identity and see what I can find. The second result (http://www.iep.utm.edu/person-i/#SH2a) is promising. It even asks, "what does a supernatural being have to do in order to resurrect you after you die?" Should be interesting.

Some of the explanations for identity are:
-Some fundamental quality such as a soul (Not touching this one)
-Continuity of consciousness (What Taylor tries to argue originally)
-Sameness of body (Maybe Lisa's take on things)
-Connected links of psychological traits such as personality and memory. I like this theory because it allows for the intuition that individuals don't become different people even after forgetting a lot. According to this, indirect links to past experiences are sufficient.
-And finally, there's the "You guys are way too worked up about this" theory, which claims that things such as survival are more important than the idea of identity. Maybe Pantheon could use some of this.

Anyway, the philosophical debate wasn't really solved in a satisfactory manner, but at least Taylor and Lisa are friends again/for the first time. So, yay, but we'll see how long it lasts. And if anyone has any other ideas on identity, I'd love to hear them.

 

That may have something to do with the adorifying Trump Biotinker going out of her way to make sure Vicky couldn't get her powers back... and miscalculating...

See the conclusion of the Butcher arc, and Taylor right before and right after her death.

 

I like it. Instead of arguing that she really is the original Taylor, and instead of (as I half expected her to) snapping back and saying "Well, you're blaming me for my predecessor's mistakes, which makes you just as big a hypocrite", Taylor took it and ran with it, and turned it around.

Kudos, Taylor. Kudos. "I was literally made to love you."

And maybe this time round they can get the "I'm actually attracted to you" fix put in without anyone going bat-shit crazy over it. Because the sexual tension has got to be fairly impressive by now (I don't care HOW much Amelia is willing to let her relationship with Taylor be platonic, when you're a teenager cuddling up to the person you're most attracted to in all the world, you WILL get sexually aroused. Hormones. They are a thing).

Also, typos:

my

whose arms?

 

since your in the mood to reveal tidbits of your story,heres a question for the class.

welcome to the classroom of the mind.
Snake/Eater:did Riley program Vicky to be nice to her or was Vicky genuinely forgiving of her past.